In the pre-Substack days I registered my complaints with Jonathan Haidt’s belief-in-belief and the concept of the “God-shaped hole.” At the time, I wrote this. belief in belief is belief in delusion - worse, in other people's delusion. It is one thing to argue that religion is true or is not true. It is another to say “it isn't, incidentally, but go on pretending, it's good for you.” In the inherent condescension of that attitude I see something worse than Christopher Hitchens ever unleashed against the faithful. Whatever Christianity is, it is not worship of the God-shaped hole. Whatever Judaism is, it is not the worship of the God-shaped hole. Whatever Islam is, it is not the worship of the God-shaped hole. And in fact if you take the precepts of those religions at all seriously, you can see praying to the God-shaped hole for what it is: idolatry.
This is the first I’m hearing of this kind of postmodern belief. Do people really believe that no one actually believes in Jesus Christ? Have they met any Americans? You can certainly argue that they’re full of hypocrisy and inconsistencies, but if you’ve ever spoken to an evangelical there’s no question that they genuinely believe in the reality of the Christian God.
Self-delusion is endemic in a world where ‘brand loyalty’ is the ultimate expression of ‘lived faith’. When the possibility of being a sell-out has been co-opted by everyone being on the make all the time the only logical course is to shop till you drop.
My father, from what I could gather as a youngster, was not a true believer but did support the church. I think, just like something like our constitution, he knew these things like religion and law are just human constructions. But he also knew that they brought us things we desired. I'm kind of in the same boat on this question, I'm not a believer in belief, as much as a believer in the good things that come from religion. So I'm agreeing with your take mostly, I don't like or think belief in belief is a good thing. But I'm carving out a different sort of approach, where you don't believe in belief so much as believe in the human construction of a God as a good. And I suspect there is more of this type of "belief" than people think. I also know that when death was approaching his mind went to the spiritual, which is a whole different thing, I think. And I'm pretty sure he wasn't imagining Jesus, or God, but something more natural, all while trying to face the fear.
This is beautifully written, and you make some good points, but I feel like I can only half agree with you here. I do the Christianity stuff because I believe it to be true, and the Apostle Paul’s on your side (“If there is no resurrection of the dead, we are of all men the most to be pitied,” etc.)…but at the same time, it seems like there’s something entirely reasonable about saying, “I don’t believe God is real, but I *do* believe evolution has left me with a need for supernatural belief, and I have to satisfy that need however I can.” In that sense, practicing religion is no different from eating Splenda or whatever (“Evolution gave me a sugar craving, but the modern world has made sugar more dangerous than helpful, so I’m fulfilling the craving the safest way I know”).
It’s true that, if there’s nothing beyond the grave, religion is ultimately pointless, but then…so is everything. We’re all just here playing a game that everyone, eventually, loses.
I don't know much about this specific movement, but I will say that I am a former believer (Protestant, for whatever that may be worth to someone reading this), who has become more agnostic but still seeks out church. This is to say that I think I (and likely many others) fall into a category between those truly bought into the complete tenets of an organized religion and those still believing in *some* of it but still very inclined towards seeking a structure like church that provides community, moral guidance, and a place to engage the religious elements that still exist for someone in a setting that is very familiar and comfortable for them.
This isn't disputing anything in this piece, but I write it to say that there's a gray area occupied by some population going to church without full-fledged commitment but whose alternative to *not* go to church is much worse.
I quit church after a lifetime of devotion when the true belief went away. There was no point. To me, the "God-shaped hole" is something experienced by former believers (or perhaps the children of believers who themselves do not believe), and it's more a mourning and a missing than an existential state.
Our weird, magnificent brains do well with experiences of wonder and awe; that in itself is not "God-shaped." But for people who have experienced those feelings in a religious setting, or who have been raised to believe you'll attain those experiences in a religious setting, they form the need (or at least benefit) of wonder and awe into a God-shape.
But like you said, anything other than true belief is just playacting.
i never could get an answer as to what exactly those recent weirdos are doing, like on a scale from "went through rcia" to "showing up at a church sometimes at any random time based on vibes" to "just kinda saying that they 'are catholic' on social media".
I think the truth here is somewhere between what you believe and those "postmodernists" believe regarding the past. That is to say, I think the tendency we have towards skepticism/belief is (like most human traits) to a large degree hardwired into our neural circuitry by genetics. Some people will be predisposed to believe, others to doubt. In pre-modern societies there might have been universal public belief in deities, but there were probably lots of people who privately doubted the existence of the gods, looked at them as being metaphorical constructs, didn't really care much either way but liked the social aspect of religion, etc. Of course there were others who were staunch true believers, but I don't think as a general proportion of the population the amount of people who were really into religion was higher. Many of the people in the "middle" might take a religious dogma as fact, but in the same way that we take the earth being about 5.5 billion years old as fact - they just accept it because experts have told them it's true, and don't really understand the proof behind it, care about it, or think that the fact gives them any comfort at all.
Ultimately though, religion is not a matter of individual belief in a higher power, religion is a social thing. It's something you do as part of a community. Things like "weird Catholic" are trying to grope for this, but it will simply never feel the same when you're part of a highly individualistic multicultural society. The way it's "supposed" to work is you're in a rooted community you have lived in your entire life, and you attend the house of worship with your immediate/extended family and the other townfolk. For obvious reasons, this will never happen in the U.S., so it will always taste a bit stale.
I do think you're wrong however in the idea that people can't get comfort out of something that to some extent they believe is "a lie" however. I've read enough about cognitive science to know that the idea of a central unchanging self is a myth we tell ourselves. And I've seen as I get older how new personas are constructed (an "adult" persona when you enter the work world, and in my case, the "father" persona) where you act in almost entirely different modes than you are used to. The first few years you feel like a fraud pretending to be someone else, and then lo and behold, the mask becomes you, and you partially forget you were any other way!
I can't remember where I saw it, but I think one of the young trad Catholics copped to a "fake it till you make it approach." I can see there being something to that, it works with many things.
The "weird catholic" thing is annoying to me, because of all the things you said, but also I do happen to know there are some true believers in their midst and they seem stricken with anxiety over being thought of as cool. I get it, I'm sympathetic, I grew up in the 90s evangelical world where the number one priority was "relevance", which too often took the form of empty stylistic conformity. If the kids thought you were lame, they'd never convert, but also, *they would think you were lame*.
I also have a big issue with your point that "You've got to believe, the alternative is to understand at the moment of death you'll cease to exist."
First, not all religious or spiritual beliefs even involve the afterlife. Early Judaism, for example, seems to have believed that humans ceased to exist upon death. The idea of a soul was a later Hellenistic invention. This may also be part of why Judaism is still a religion focused much more on what we do while we live than what happens after we die.
Second, I don't really think existential fear regarding death is what drives all religious belief. Lots of people care a lot more about "ultimate meaning" existing or somesuch than their own personal continuance. Personally I think that's insane - I'd much rather be immortal in a purposeless universe than finite in one with meaning, but that's just me.
Thirdly, although out there, there are scientific hypotheses which allow for the possibility of consciousness after death. One such is "quantum immortality." Basically if materialism is correct, and we are nothing but matter and energy, and if the universe/multiverse is infinite, than somewhere, at some point, a collection of matter and energy which is close enough to identical will come into being that it will be an effective copy of us. Since we know there's no difference between the hydrogen atoms in our body and those anywhere else, and there's no such thing as absolute position in the universe, under what logic would my own personal experience of selfhood not just "jump" into this new body/mind? I cannot think of any way to deny this unless you add something like a soul back into the mix.
Perhaps it depends on the religion, because Jews do this all the time. My family of atheists and agnostics just sat in synagogue and fasted for 24 hours because that's how we reflect and atone and close the chapter of the last year. While I enjoy incense and wine and book clubs, I don't think they can really substitute 5,000 years of accumulated tradition, philosophy, language, literature, music, etc., that tie you to a hundred generations of forebears. Of course, there are plenty of people who find all this unsatisfying, but it works for a lot of people. Jonathan Haidt is Jewish and I expect is speaking from this perspective.
Religion(s) are man's attempt to paint God into their corner. As a contrary Christian I marvel at the CIC, Christian Industrial Complex and its hold on so many "believers". If Christianity is a complicated as they try to make it, the thief on the cross would have never been able to join Jesus in Paradise that very day.
However, if I say a Jewish prayer, celebrate a Jewish holiday, or study the Torah, or encourage my children to have a Jewish identity, it's all about respect for my Jewish identity and respect for those who came before me and not denying my kids and grandkids at least the opportunity to have authentic belief.
Moreover, I do not agree that people cannot choose authentic belief. There are many examples of people finding comfort in an authentic belief in a god or in an afterlife after a tragedy.
My 85 year-old father lost his wife of 63 years a few years ago. He believes with all his heart that he will meet her in heaven and she is sending him signals. Why is that not authentic belief?
Man, Silence is a great movie.
This is the first I’m hearing of this kind of postmodern belief. Do people really believe that no one actually believes in Jesus Christ? Have they met any Americans? You can certainly argue that they’re full of hypocrisy and inconsistencies, but if you’ve ever spoken to an evangelical there’s no question that they genuinely believe in the reality of the Christian God.
Self-delusion is endemic in a world where ‘brand loyalty’ is the ultimate expression of ‘lived faith’. When the possibility of being a sell-out has been co-opted by everyone being on the make all the time the only logical course is to shop till you drop.
My father, from what I could gather as a youngster, was not a true believer but did support the church. I think, just like something like our constitution, he knew these things like religion and law are just human constructions. But he also knew that they brought us things we desired. I'm kind of in the same boat on this question, I'm not a believer in belief, as much as a believer in the good things that come from religion. So I'm agreeing with your take mostly, I don't like or think belief in belief is a good thing. But I'm carving out a different sort of approach, where you don't believe in belief so much as believe in the human construction of a God as a good. And I suspect there is more of this type of "belief" than people think. I also know that when death was approaching his mind went to the spiritual, which is a whole different thing, I think. And I'm pretty sure he wasn't imagining Jesus, or God, but something more natural, all while trying to face the fear.
This is beautifully written, and you make some good points, but I feel like I can only half agree with you here. I do the Christianity stuff because I believe it to be true, and the Apostle Paul’s on your side (“If there is no resurrection of the dead, we are of all men the most to be pitied,” etc.)…but at the same time, it seems like there’s something entirely reasonable about saying, “I don’t believe God is real, but I *do* believe evolution has left me with a need for supernatural belief, and I have to satisfy that need however I can.” In that sense, practicing religion is no different from eating Splenda or whatever (“Evolution gave me a sugar craving, but the modern world has made sugar more dangerous than helpful, so I’m fulfilling the craving the safest way I know”).
It’s true that, if there’s nothing beyond the grave, religion is ultimately pointless, but then…so is everything. We’re all just here playing a game that everyone, eventually, loses.
I don't know much about this specific movement, but I will say that I am a former believer (Protestant, for whatever that may be worth to someone reading this), who has become more agnostic but still seeks out church. This is to say that I think I (and likely many others) fall into a category between those truly bought into the complete tenets of an organized religion and those still believing in *some* of it but still very inclined towards seeking a structure like church that provides community, moral guidance, and a place to engage the religious elements that still exist for someone in a setting that is very familiar and comfortable for them.
This isn't disputing anything in this piece, but I write it to say that there's a gray area occupied by some population going to church without full-fledged commitment but whose alternative to *not* go to church is much worse.
I quit church after a lifetime of devotion when the true belief went away. There was no point. To me, the "God-shaped hole" is something experienced by former believers (or perhaps the children of believers who themselves do not believe), and it's more a mourning and a missing than an existential state.
Our weird, magnificent brains do well with experiences of wonder and awe; that in itself is not "God-shaped." But for people who have experienced those feelings in a religious setting, or who have been raised to believe you'll attain those experiences in a religious setting, they form the need (or at least benefit) of wonder and awe into a God-shape.
But like you said, anything other than true belief is just playacting.
i never could get an answer as to what exactly those recent weirdos are doing, like on a scale from "went through rcia" to "showing up at a church sometimes at any random time based on vibes" to "just kinda saying that they 'are catholic' on social media".
I think the truth here is somewhere between what you believe and those "postmodernists" believe regarding the past. That is to say, I think the tendency we have towards skepticism/belief is (like most human traits) to a large degree hardwired into our neural circuitry by genetics. Some people will be predisposed to believe, others to doubt. In pre-modern societies there might have been universal public belief in deities, but there were probably lots of people who privately doubted the existence of the gods, looked at them as being metaphorical constructs, didn't really care much either way but liked the social aspect of religion, etc. Of course there were others who were staunch true believers, but I don't think as a general proportion of the population the amount of people who were really into religion was higher. Many of the people in the "middle" might take a religious dogma as fact, but in the same way that we take the earth being about 5.5 billion years old as fact - they just accept it because experts have told them it's true, and don't really understand the proof behind it, care about it, or think that the fact gives them any comfort at all.
Ultimately though, religion is not a matter of individual belief in a higher power, religion is a social thing. It's something you do as part of a community. Things like "weird Catholic" are trying to grope for this, but it will simply never feel the same when you're part of a highly individualistic multicultural society. The way it's "supposed" to work is you're in a rooted community you have lived in your entire life, and you attend the house of worship with your immediate/extended family and the other townfolk. For obvious reasons, this will never happen in the U.S., so it will always taste a bit stale.
I do think you're wrong however in the idea that people can't get comfort out of something that to some extent they believe is "a lie" however. I've read enough about cognitive science to know that the idea of a central unchanging self is a myth we tell ourselves. And I've seen as I get older how new personas are constructed (an "adult" persona when you enter the work world, and in my case, the "father" persona) where you act in almost entirely different modes than you are used to. The first few years you feel like a fraud pretending to be someone else, and then lo and behold, the mask becomes you, and you partially forget you were any other way!
I can't remember where I saw it, but I think one of the young trad Catholics copped to a "fake it till you make it approach." I can see there being something to that, it works with many things.
The "weird catholic" thing is annoying to me, because of all the things you said, but also I do happen to know there are some true believers in their midst and they seem stricken with anxiety over being thought of as cool. I get it, I'm sympathetic, I grew up in the 90s evangelical world where the number one priority was "relevance", which too often took the form of empty stylistic conformity. If the kids thought you were lame, they'd never convert, but also, *they would think you were lame*.
I also have a big issue with your point that "You've got to believe, the alternative is to understand at the moment of death you'll cease to exist."
First, not all religious or spiritual beliefs even involve the afterlife. Early Judaism, for example, seems to have believed that humans ceased to exist upon death. The idea of a soul was a later Hellenistic invention. This may also be part of why Judaism is still a religion focused much more on what we do while we live than what happens after we die.
Second, I don't really think existential fear regarding death is what drives all religious belief. Lots of people care a lot more about "ultimate meaning" existing or somesuch than their own personal continuance. Personally I think that's insane - I'd much rather be immortal in a purposeless universe than finite in one with meaning, but that's just me.
Thirdly, although out there, there are scientific hypotheses which allow for the possibility of consciousness after death. One such is "quantum immortality." Basically if materialism is correct, and we are nothing but matter and energy, and if the universe/multiverse is infinite, than somewhere, at some point, a collection of matter and energy which is close enough to identical will come into being that it will be an effective copy of us. Since we know there's no difference between the hydrogen atoms in our body and those anywhere else, and there's no such thing as absolute position in the universe, under what logic would my own personal experience of selfhood not just "jump" into this new body/mind? I cannot think of any way to deny this unless you add something like a soul back into the mix.
Perhaps it depends on the religion, because Jews do this all the time. My family of atheists and agnostics just sat in synagogue and fasted for 24 hours because that's how we reflect and atone and close the chapter of the last year. While I enjoy incense and wine and book clubs, I don't think they can really substitute 5,000 years of accumulated tradition, philosophy, language, literature, music, etc., that tie you to a hundred generations of forebears. Of course, there are plenty of people who find all this unsatisfying, but it works for a lot of people. Jonathan Haidt is Jewish and I expect is speaking from this perspective.
(We call it observance, not playacting.)
Religion(s) are man's attempt to paint God into their corner. As a contrary Christian I marvel at the CIC, Christian Industrial Complex and its hold on so many "believers". If Christianity is a complicated as they try to make it, the thief on the cross would have never been able to join Jesus in Paradise that very day.
I'm among those who cannot "choose" to believe.
However, if I say a Jewish prayer, celebrate a Jewish holiday, or study the Torah, or encourage my children to have a Jewish identity, it's all about respect for my Jewish identity and respect for those who came before me and not denying my kids and grandkids at least the opportunity to have authentic belief.
Moreover, I do not agree that people cannot choose authentic belief. There are many examples of people finding comfort in an authentic belief in a god or in an afterlife after a tragedy.
My 85 year-old father lost his wife of 63 years a few years ago. He believes with all his heart that he will meet her in heaven and she is sending him signals. Why is that not authentic belief?