RELIGION MYTH LIST

This is a growing list, with the most recent additions headlined in blue and revised items in red.
Click a particular myth on the list for a reality check, or scroll down to explore them all!

• Everyone believes in the same God.
• My God is the One True God, and my religion is the One True Religion.
• My God and my religion are constant and eternal.
• My religion is the religion of the majority.
• Religion is a force for unity and peace.
• Religion has advanced human knowledge.
• My religion is the ultimate source of morality and values.
• My religion is the basis of what is good in life.
• There is no harm in reading scripture.
• You can't prove that God doesn't exist.
• Science is a religion, because it requires faith in its theories.
• Americans must return to the Christian roots of their nation's founding fathers.

Myth:  Everyone believes in the same God.

Fact:  Even superficial study of mankind's various religions—not to mention the various sects of the each religion—reveals stark and mutually exclusive differences among their assorted deities.  If, in the interest of brevity, we concern ourselves only with the religions of the modern-day, and if we may be permitted a few liberal generalities regarding those, we observe the following:

Among Christians in particular . . .

• Some believe in a God who is merciful and protective, while others believe in one consumed by vengefulness and wrath.
• Some believe in a God who disapproves of idols and listens to prayer directly, while others may reach their God only by devotion to icons and prayer to Mary or Jesus.
• Many believe in a divine Trinity:  a heavenly father, an earthly son, and an other-worldly spirit.  But some, particularly Unitarians, believe in only a single entity.  Still others aren't quite sure what to believe in this peculiar game of numbers, but feel obliged to say they believe it anyway.
• Most believe in a God who judges souls, admitting the righteous into Heaven and condemning the wicked to Hell.  Some believe in a God who has predetermined a limited number of Heaven-bound souls.  Universalists believe in a God who welcomes everyone into Heaven.

(Some of these differences might seem trivial, but people have been imprisoned, tortured, and executed for expressing the "wrong" viewpoint.)

Among the religions of the world in general . . .

• Jews believe in a god (Yahweh—except that they are forbidden to use that name) who has no material form.  Yahweh commands his people to celebrate the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week, and not to eat pork.
• Christians believe in a god (Jehovah) who had a material manifestation (Jesus).  Jehovah wants Christians (except Seventh-Day Adventists) to celebrate the Sabbath on the first day of the week, and approves of the consumption of pork.
• Muslims believe in a god (Allah) who concurs with the Jewish god's choice of Sabbath day and dietary restrictions, but who condemns all infidels (those who reject Islam) to Hell.
• Hindus believe in several gods (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, and countless others) and their material manifestations.  The Hindu gods declare all animal life sacred and forbid their people to eat meat of any sort. They further decree that each soul must live several lifetimes before becoming worthy of unification with Brahman, the universal consciousness.
• Buddhists believe in no gods (at least as such beings are commonly defined by other religions), but believe, as Hindus do, in reincarnation.  Instead of achieving universal consciousness, however, the worthy Buddhist soul is finally released into a state of oblivion called Nirvana.
• Wiccans believe in an immortal goddess and a cyclically mortal god, whose life phases correspond to the seasons of the year; however, many hold that these deities are not actual beings, but simply personifications of natural and/or mystical forces.
• Deists believe in an impersonal god that created the universe but has not interfered with it since.
• Pantheists believe in a god which is the natural universe.

     Now, if all of those deities in which everyone believes are indeed one-and-the-same entity, that leads to two possibilities:  Either (1) He/She/It/They must be too hopelessly confused to accomplish anything as complex as tying their own shoelaces, let alone creating a self-consistent physical universe; or (2) virtually everything that everyone believes about Him/Her/It/Them is false, and we are forced to admit that everything we think we "know" about God—beginning with whether such a being exists—is sheer speculation.

Myth:  My God is the One True God, and my religion is the One True Religion.

Fact:  In today's world there are more than a dozen major religions, not to mention countless factions and sects, each of whose body of worshipers is quite convinced that theirs is the One True Religion.  Yet so far, there has been no evidence discovered which would indicate to any impartial observer that any particular deity or religion is any more real and true (or any less imaginary and false) than any of the others.  The primary reason for holding a particular belief has always been, and continues to be, the rather dubious one of having been born into a family which holds that belief.  Although this "feels" to most people like a comfortable enough basis for belief (regardless of what that belief might be), there is really no more evidence or logic to support it in one's own religion than in anyone else's.  Indeed, that is precisely why religion is referred to as faith.

Myth:  My God and my religion are constant and eternal.

Fact:  Without exception, all religions of today are the products of a continuing evolution from ancient superstition.  Even the oldest of today's religions—Hinduism and Judaism—inherited much of their belief structures from still more ancient traditions.

     Christianity, for example, is a product of Judaism under Persian influence.  Judaism, in turn, had been previously shaped by the beliefs and traditions of Greece, Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt, and its roots were in the ancient polytheism of Sumer.  Indeed, even the oldest Hebrew scriptures have been in their present form for only the past 2,500 years or so.  While this might seem "eternal" to some, it is still 1,200 years shy of the time of the legendary Moses, less than half the time from the present back to the biblical creation date, about one fourth the age of known human civilization, and less than one tenth the age of some fossils of species Homo sapiens.  Civilizations, along with their gods and religions, have grown, changed, and faded over the ages, and there is no reason to suppose that the current crop will do otherwise.

Myth:  My religion is the religion of the majority.

Fact:  It often seems that way, because most people live in communities in which their own religion is dominant, or at least influential.  Even the tiny Parsee (Zoroastrian) sect, once the dominant religion of the Persian Empire, still dominates a few Asian communities.  However, while each religion may assert a local majority here and there, no religion comes close to holding a majority worldwide.  Christians are the largest single group, but even these represent only about a third of the world population, according to figures compiled by Encyclopaedia Brittanica.  While they are a majority in the Americas and Europe, Christians are outnumbered in Africa and Asia, where the bulk of the world's human population resides.  Even Christianity itself is heavily factionalized; the largest single faction, Roman Catholicism, represents barely half of Christians worldwide (that is, one half of one third—one sixth—of the world's population).

Myth:  Religion is a force for unity and peace.

Fact:  While religion has aptly demonstrated its effectiveness at coercing conformity, compliance, and cooperation within individual sects, its historical results outside those limited spheres has been disappointing.  From the ancient wars of Israel and Judah, the Christian Crusades, the Islamic Jihads, the Holy Inquisition, and the constant Muslim-Hindu strife in Asia, down to the witch-hunts in Europe and New England and the Christian-versus-Christian bombings of Northern Ireland, religion has shown itself to be a force, not for world unity, but only for uniting various factions against each other.  Even in wars over matters of territory, trade, or politics, religion is employed as a tool to unite the common civilians and foot soldiers on each side, in their "righteous" cause against the "evil" of their enemies—enemies who are just as firmly convinced that God is on their side.

Fact:  While this may be true in a sense, it must also be acknowledged that the bulk of human "knowledge" acquired through the ages is utter nonsense—from the geocentric views of Plato and Aristotle to the utopian ideas of Marx and Engels.  Obviously, this is not solely the fault of religion; responsibility for the errancy of most human knowledge lies as much with the innocent storytelling of the ignorant hunter-gatherer as with the powerful propaganda machines of government and religion.  But perhaps as much as with the originators of misinformation, the responsibility lies with those millions of others, who passively and unquestioningly accept it as true.

     To be sure, religion has, along with politics and philosophy, been a powerful force in maintaining the social order necessary to allow institutions of learning to flower.  This was true in the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome, and it was true in post-Renaissance Europe.  And it must be conceded that, were it not for religion, literacy probably would have died out altogether in Europe following the collapse of the Roman Empire.  However, religion was also responsible for events which caused human knowledge and culture to regress for centuries.  Though religion supported the establishment of universities in post-Renaissance Europe, it had also been responsible for the destruction of vast accumulations of knowledge, in the burning of books and the demolition of great ancient libraries.  Moreover, since the time of Copernicus, religion has repeatedly attempted, through intimidation and coercion if not outright warfare, to suppress new scientific knowledge whenever it happened to reveal errors in scriptural dogma and established belief.  And although mainstream religions have long since given up that battle as futile, numerous fundamentalist factions stubbornly continue their crusades of righteous ignorance against scientific evidence and reason.

Fact:  While religion has indeed been a traditional vehicle for the propagation of moral values among the public, its claim as the author of those values is extremely doubtful.

     Consider that, in order for early civilization to have been able to support a priest class, it must already have been organized and specialized enough to enable individuals to produce substantial surpluses in addition to providing for their own needs.  For such organization to occur, generally accepted behavioral standards, based on practical necessity, must already have been in place well before anyone concocted the idea of organized religion.  As evidence of this, we need only observe that most successful cultures, regardless of religion or lack thereof, and disparate though they may be in other respects, have shared similar standards of practical behavior—work hard, be loyal, don't steal, don't murder, and so forth.  These values exist, not because everyone's gods got together and proclaimed them to be divine law, but because hard experience showed that civilization simply works better when such standards are generally accepted and observed.  Certainly that is as true now as it was in the biblical era, but it was just as certainly true in those centuries of antiquity—long before any of today's religions were even dreamed of.

Fact:  For thousands of years, what religion offered humanity was tribalism and tyranny.  The benefits we enjoy in our modern age—science, liberty, health, egalitarian justice, and general prosperity—were advanced, not by religious tradition, but by the secular thinking that challenged it.

     In the early days of civilization, human society was characterized by large numbers of people in grinding poverty, endlessly toiling for the pleasure of a few kings and priests, who busied themselves with the extraction of wealth from the labors of their subjects.  The system operated on tyranny, slavery, and the interaction of tribal loyalty and rivalry.
     The emergence of the first modern religions—Hinduism and Judaism—did not substantially alter this system, but rather reinforced it.  The subsequent effects of Christianity and Islam, too, were simply to perpetuate and broaden the established patterns, using different mythologies with greater popular appeal.  Consequently, tyranny became ever more abusive, slavery became ever more brutal, and tribal disputes escalated to national and global proportions.  And few objected, for this was the established way of life, the way—most believed—that God had intended.  Except for long forgotten experiments in popular representative rule in ancient Greece and Rome (whose religions had little in common with those of today), nothing better had yet been conceived.  And religious leaders were clearly not motivated to propose change to a system that worked to their own advantage.
     It was not until the late Middle Ages that real change began to brew, for it was then that the growth of general literacy (as a consequence of Gutenberg's printing press) led to demand for secular education by an increasingly influential merchant class.  Among the new notions arising from this development was that the most effective way to learn the truth about something is not to ask a priest about it, but to observe and test it directly.  This produced an intellectual explosion in man's understanding of the natural universe, and led to the unprecedented flourishing of technology, art, exploration, and trade.  It also prompted questioning of established authority, which precipitated the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, and the rise of science in the 17th and beyond.  In addition, it eventually led to new concepts of human value, dignity, and individualism, which challenged the ancient traditions of monarchy and slavery.  Those traditions were replaced by new ones, based on humanistic principles introduced by the Enlightenment in the 18th century.
     Religion had been in control for thousands of years, yet in that time it had made almost no progress to speak of, except to devise more effective ways for kings to control their subjects, generals their armies, and masters their slaves.  The radical concept of government of, by, and for a free people was advanced, not by religion, but by secular thinkers.  The astounding progress and prosperity of the most recent few centuries have been wrought, not by religion, but by the challenges of science and humanism to the tyranny and tribalism that religion had long perpetuated.

     To be sure, today there are still tyrants and slaves and tribal disputes, but in the overall picture such things are clearly in decline.  In the developed world they are the exception rather than the rule, no longer an accepted way of life, and conspicuous now only because of their increasing rarity and contrast with what has become the new norm.  Yet the process of humanizing humanity is not finished.  Indeed, though here or there it can be temporarily blocked or even forced into retreat, it can never be truly finished; and so in the main it continues.  But though religion has grudgingly adapted itself to many of the changes so far, and though it has belatedly sought to identify itself with changes that have worked to its own benefit, it resolutely continues to oppose additional progress.  Since the awakening of European secular thought during the Renaissance, the expanding benefits of modern science, liberty, and justice have gradually accrued to humanity, not because of religion, but in spite of it.

Fact:  For a majority of people, who read scripture as a source of solace, as a personal guide to living, or even as a form of entertainment, this is generally true.  However, the ambiguity of scripture, coupled with the habit of many to read it without regard for the context of the times in which it was written, leads to a variety of gross distortions.  Using these to shape our attitudes and actions can cause very real harm, both to others and to ourselves.

     As to harming others, the effects of religious myopia are numerous and obvious.  There are many who read the Vedas, Torah, Bible, or Koran as absolute justification for bigotry, discrimination, coercion, exploitation, injustice, persecution, censorship, slander, murder, oppression, genocide, torture, slavery, and war, as well as for the denial of human worth, responsibility, intelligence, and liberty.  (In fairness, we should note that such destructive attitudes are not confined to religion; political dogma has often been abused in the same way.)  History has shown that people with great conviction, a little knowledge, and no understanding can produce horrendous damage, misery, and injustice.
     On the other hand, there are some who, without malice, simply believe that the scripture of their own religion provides all necessary Truth.  They therefore assume that there is no need to study anything else, and that any discrepancy between secular and scriptural views can only be due to secular error.  Such an assumption may seem harmless, and may even produce a shallow spiritual gratification and smug self-righteousness.  However, it also breeds a dangerously debilitating ignorance of the increasingly complex natural, technological, cultural, political, and historical world of today, in which we must live, function, and interact.  Confronted by modern situations, those armed with only ancient tribal perspective as a guide are overwhelmed.  Some are merely intimidated, and retreat from making tough decisions.  Others are prompted to make uninformed and unwise choices based primarily on ancient taboos, without due consideration for the very different realities and necessities of the present.  And when such ignorance becomes widespread, especially in a democracy, the ill-considered decisions made as a result can lead to the deterioration and eventual ruin of civilization—beginning with the loss of democracy itself.

     As we have repeatedly been reminded, modern technology in the hands of people with medieval minds—whether they plot in distant mountain caves or preach from our own pulpits and offices of state—can have devastating consequences for civilization.  If we continue to ignore the core problem, we will continue to be reminded.  That is the harm.

Myth:  You can't prove that God doesn't exist.

Fact:  As this statement stands, it is technically correct—but also quite useless.  For just as it cannot be proven that there are no gods, neither can it be proven that there are no invisible flying unicorns.  (So, what?)  However, the existence of entities which are more specifically defined and described can, in some instances, be disproved.  For example, suppose we encounter someone who believes in TIFUTAC, The Invisible Flying Unicorn That Ate Chicago.  Although we cannot disprove the existence of invisible flying unicorns in general, we can easily disprove the existence of this particular unicorn, by observing that Chicago has not disappeared.

     The word "God" is an extremely vague term; it can (and does) apply to any of a bewildering variety of entities, some more plausible than others.  Ironically, the most credible deities are often the least well defined.  The "higher power" of deists, for example, is so vague that one never knows precisely what is being alluded to by the term "God;" yet skeptical scrutiny is defied by this very lack of definition.  In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it is conceivable that some such entity might exist, and even that our universe might have been created by it.  While the proposed existence of such a nondescript being does not truly explain anything, neither does it contradict what we know of the universe.

     If we direct our attention specifically to the less nebulous gods of conventional religion, however, examination of their many ascribed characteristics, sayings, and activities (accepted as genuine on scriptural authority) often reveals awkward, embarrassing, and perhaps even fatal incongruities.  If we find that scripture describes a deity with several mutually exclusive traits, then (employing our presumably God-given power of reason) we are assured that the scribes got it wrong:  Such an entity cannot exist—at least in its described form.

     But before examining the attributes of supernatural beings, let us first consider a fundamental and well established attribute of nature.  Several centuries of critical and methodical observation of the physical universe have revealed an unwavering adherence to a certain natural order, which scientists have attempted to identify and express, however imperfectly, as "the laws of nature."  Despite extreme variations in conditions (from the super-hot and super-dense cores of stars, to the near absolute-zero vacuum of intergalactic space) in different parts of the universe, those conditions nevertheless adhere without detectable exception to the universally consistent natural order.  Granted, human understanding of that order is as yet very incomplete and error-ridden.  Yet the observable behavior of matter and energy exhibits an underlying and unvarying self-consistency throughout the universe.

     Now consider how the scriptures of the world's most popular religions portray God:

• as all-knowing, yet deceived by his own creatures;
• as all-seeing, yet designing the instincts of his creatures in conflict with divine law;
• as all-powerful, yet unable to express his will with uniform clarity even to the faithful;
• as eternally constant, yet evidently capricious in both will and deed;
• as caring, yet allowing misfortune and injustice to afflict the innocent;
• as merciful, yet perpetrating vicious acts upon the helpless;
• as universally just, yet arbitrarily favoring one group over others;
• as virtuous, yet ordering the defiling of women and the slaughter of children;
• as loving, yet wrathfully consigning all but a few to horrible damnation;
• as perfect, yet expressing both regret for his own acts and conflict within himself;
• as the word of truth, yet creator of a world whose reality is at odds with his own word.

     Such chaotic inconsistency was understandably commonplace among the gods of ancient polytheistic mythology.  Yet remnants of those old traditions are given prominence even in modern scriptures—the Torah, the Koran, and the Bible, to cite a few familiar examples.  Is it possible that such a fantastically inconsistent God might actually exist?  After all, humans exist, despite their often fantastically inconsistent behavior.  Obviously, we cannot disprove an entity's existence solely on the basis of its own inconsistencies.

     However, the concept of a thoroughly consistent universe created by such a thoroughly inconsistent God understandably strikes many thoughtful people as thoroughly absurd.  A fumbling deity who cannot get his own act straight is simply not a credible candidate for creator of a fundamentally ordered universe.  While the possible existence of a God in some form cannot be completely discounted, the probability that such a being resembles the inane, insane, and grotesquely obscene characterizations advanced by conventional religion is virtually zero.  Clearly, to assert otherwise would be the ultimate blasphemy.

Myth:  Science is a religion, because it requires faith in its theories.

Fact:  Classifying science as religion stretches the definitions of both terms to the point of meaninglessness.  The two disciplines differ profoundly in many respects, not only in their requirements of theory and faith, but in their methods, their objectives, and indeed their very natures.

Theory:  Religious tradition has been to accept as "theory" almost any idea, as long as it seems to support the tenets of the faith.  But even the most impressive of such subjective theories often amount to little more than circular conjecture, based upon the very authority and tradition they seek to support (Anselm's Ontological Argument or Pascal's Wager, for example).  It is therefore easy for people with little scientific background to assume that the same criterion of arbitrarily based speculation applies likewise to scientific theory.
     However, the way the term "theory" is employed by science is fundamentally different from the way it is typically used in religion.  For ideas to be classified as scientific theory, they must be repeatedly, independently, and objectively tested, to verify whether or not they consistently reflect what is observed in nature.*  Sometimes they are found not to, in which case science revises or rejects the theories in question.  Science reserves the term "theory" strictly for those ideas which consistently stand up to objective scrutiny in light of natural evidence; ideas which have not passed such testing are forthrightly categorized rather as hypothesis and speculation.  Scientific theories are not idle conjecture or unsupported argument, but logical projections founded on substantial and compelling physical evidence.

Nature:  The nature of science is nature itself.  Science examines the natural world, explaining observed phenomena in terms of natural causes and effects, which can be tested, measured, and verified by natural means.  Science continually reexamines its ideas in light of new evidence, and refines or rejects them whenever they are found not to comply with what is actually observed.
     In contrast, religion attempts to explain the functioning of the natural world in terms of supernatural or mystical influence, which cannot be tested, measured, or verified by any known method.  While such ideas may furnish fuel for endless philosophical debate, they are beyond the reach of empirical scrutiny, and thus outside the scope of natural scientific inquiry.  Religion simply holds its ideas to be absolutely True and beyond question, on the basis of its own authority and regardless of any contradictory evidence, defending them by the simple expedient of denouncing as fools, heretics, and blasphemers those who remain unconvinced.

Objective:  The sole business of science is to figure out how the natural universe works, by carefully observing nature, and by developing objectively verifiable hypotheses based on its observations.  Science is neutral on questions of values; scientific knowledge can be used for either good or evil.  Science has no set agenda or policy, except to seek out whatever truth can be found about the physical reality of matter, energy, space, time, and that curious phenomenon called "life."
     The primary business of religion is to promote and defend belief in a prescribed set of supernatural or mystical tenets, and to use that belief as a tool in advocating standards of morality, promoting a sense of community, and uniting against adversaries.  But while the fundamental objectives of science and religion are entirely different, they are not necessarily in conflict.

Faith:  While science requires a kind of faith in things that we cannot experience directly—radio waves, for example—it is a faith solidly based on the testable, measurable, and verifiable causes and effects of the phenomenon in question.  Moreover, our reliance upon natural processes—such as the annual cycle of seasons, and water seeking its own level—need no longer be based purely on faith that past patterns will continue, but is confirmed by scientific investigation of how and why such things occur.  Science offers something far more reliable than faith:  understanding.
     Religion, on the other hand, requires a contrived faith in mysterious, unseen beings, forces, and realms:  things about which much is written, but little (if anything) is truly understood; things which no living person has ever experienced, save in the imagination; things which often make little or no logical sense in a natural context; things which may even contradict natural evidence.  Belief in such things is indeed faith of the purest and blindest order.

Method:  Both science and religion attempt to answer questions, but they differ profoundly in both approach and effectiveness.  Science demands answers which can be tested and verified, and is prepared to leave a question unanswered if reliable testing is infeasible.  In contrast, religion contrives supernatural or mystical "explanations," which may be emotionally gratifying but in fact explain nothing.  Science invites independent evaluation of ideas on their own merits in light of natural evidence; religion demands unquestioning acceptance of its ideas on the basis of its own authority.  Science adjusts its views to bring them into accord with evidence.  Religion tries to do the opposite.

*Including artificial natural processes, such as those which take place in automobile engines, kitchen ranges, and scientific laboratories.

Myth:  Americans must return to the Christian roots of their nation's founding fathers.

Fact:  Many among the nation's founders were not Christian at all.  Most notable among these were Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the primary authors of the American Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, respectively.  While expressing belief in an impersonal "Creator," "natural God," or higher power, both of these men regarded the beliefs and practices of the Christian religion with utmost contempt, and vehemently ridiculed and disparaged that institution in several of their writings.

     John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, both deists, disputed the divinity of Jesus.  Alexander Hamilton was no champion of "Christian virtue."  Even George Washington, though nominally an Episcopalian during his presidency, routinely refused the sacrament of communion, and forbade the presence of a minister at his death bed.

     If we are to return to the principles which truly united and guided the founders of the United States of America, then it is evidently not Christianity, but the humanistic principles of the Enlightenment, to which we should turn.  What greater monument to these ideals than "government of the people, by the people, and for the people"?

Considering the bewildering variety of human belief and tradition, I do not doubt that readers can point out many exceptions to the foregoing general observations.  Nevertheless, the overall tendencies and trends hold true in the majority of cases, and therefore serve as valid examples of the mythology in which virtually all religion, both ancient and modern, is immersed.

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