Religious Without Believing?

In the book God, Reason, and Religion Steven M. Cahn argues that "one can be religious without believing in God." This is definitely a concept that's not brought up very often. Many people, especially Christians, believe that these two aspects (God and Religion) fit hand-and-hand and without one you can't have the other. When I began to write this paper, I found myself running into this problem.

I found that answering this question as presented would almost be impossible to do; so I decided to approach this similar to how the discussion is presented in the book. To first talk about Life Without God and then how this fits with a Religious Life. What Cahn is proposing here is that the different things that one does in their life, which may be considered religious, does not necessarily involve God. I will go through a couple of the arguments presented.

He first looks at the issue where people say ask, "Would life without God lack meaning?" He responds to this very surely asking right back what makes a life meaningful? Cahn then uses the following to prove this point:

"Suppose I wish to devote my life to teaching philosophy, you wish to devote your life to providing medical care to the sick, and others wish to devote their lives to composing music, cultivating a garden or raising a family. Why aren't these activities meaningful? None of them depends on the existence of God. They nevertheless provide life with significance." (pg. 70)

His main point of this is, like bolded above, all those choices that one chooses to make in his/her life can make someone happy and fulfilling without having God in it. The existence of God would make no difference whether these individuals are happy and find meaning in their life.

Another example Cahn makes is in reference to the Golden Rule. First he looks at the argument in the positive formulation. "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you." He claims with this view, however, that one is required to live up this. One is put in a situation of obligation "to do unto others"...no where does it say that when the individual is making a choice, but to constantly do. As it's stated by Walter Kaufman, in the book, 'anyone who tried to live up to Jesus's rule would become an insufferable nuisance' because one would not have the time to do all that is necessarywould be impossible because we wish so many others to do so much for us..."( Chapter 15 pg. 71). On the other hand, when the Golden Rule is looked at in the negative formulation, 'What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbor' this obligation is taken away and we are released of the innumerable duties towards everyone else. However, with both formulations of the Golden Rule, God's existence does not make one make the moral choice to follow either of these; one can choose or not to do something without God and each of these rules, do not by [themselves] serve as the ultimate moral touchstone.

In the next chapter, Steven Cahn attempts to define what a religious life actually is saying that "...a religious life...involves believing in God, doing what is right in order to serve God's will, and hoping thereby to attain the bliss supposedly found in heaven." (Chapter 16-pg 77). He claims that one can live their life "religiously" but still not believe in God. He claims they can do this "...by doing what is right in response to the needs of others, thereby potentially achieving the joys that can be found on earth." He then uses the story "If Not Higher" to justify his theory of what a religious life is. Claiming that religious lives have rituals and prayers, but these are only valuable only insofar as they lead to noble deeds; the existence of God has no impact on these. He believes that "...rituals do not have to be superstitious; they are observable in all human endeavors, and have the effect of confirming groups of people in their social practices..." and "prayers do not have to be prayers of petition, asking a supernatural god to intervene. They can be prayers of meditation, allowing people to concentrate on larger issues of life, and get their affairs into perspective." (http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~rarthur/Phil1E03/Lect.notes.wk1.htm). Again, in both of these cases, neither are affected if God exists or not, but Cahn claims are still religious acts by the doer.

Although Cahn makes some interesting points in trying to convince us that it is possible to live a religious life or one can be religious without believing in God, I do not agree with this idea. In fact, in the entire God, Reason and Religion book, I believe that this was one of his weakest arguments, making some of his points very far-fetched. For instance, when he's talking about a life without God, he speaks of, as I did above, the Golden Rule. At one point, when referring to the positive formulation of the rule, states,

"Consider masochists, who derive pleasure from being hurt. Were they to act according to the principle in question, their duty would be to inflict pain, thereby doing to others as they wish done to themselves."

To me, making such an argument is digging for something to respond back to the argument. It's true but also a weak. This actually made me laugh a bit just because of the ridiculousness of it. However, some of the arguments made about the commandments were decent ones, they were not, in my opinion, a great argument for this one. For example, the situation when individuals are told to honor their mother and father, but what happens if the mother and father are engaging in other activities where they're breaking other commandments and how "...situations can develop in which fulfilling one commandment would amount to breaking another." This does show some situations in reference to the commandments but does not necessarily show there is no God or that there is the ability to have religion without God.

I believe that yes, one can live a happy and fulfilling life without believing that there is a God. But in order to actually consider their life "religious" one needs to believe in God. In order to believe in God, one must have faith to believe that there is a God. This belief that there is a God is what makes their life religious. To me, something cannot be considered religious if God is not referred to; good yes, but not religious. Therefore, one cannot live a religious life without God, but can live a good life without knowing God. I just feel that by knowing God, there is the support and comfort that one will not feel if they do not believe. The realization that you're never alone is a relief in certain situations. Also knowing that what you're doing in your life is essentially helping you to not only be a better person, but leading you to be back with those that at one time you had missed so much (in heaven). By not knowing God and/or living a "good life", one misses out on all of this and in essence is not living the best life they could- in my opinion. Not to say that one who doesn't believe thinks the same thing jus opposite, but this is strictly my opinion.

Sources:
Cahn, Steven. "God, Reason,and Religion" 2006.Belmont, CA:Thomas Wadworth.