This Month in God

Beinhart's Body Politic

by Larry Beinhart, November 26, 2007

Being as this is the “Christmas issue,” and being as how we seem to be in the midst of an extended acid flashback to the 12th century, with jihads, crusades, and leaders who chat with supernatural entities, it seems appropriate to talk about God.

It’s a bizarre topic to address seriously. It’s done facetiously all the time. Just watch any Republican presidential debate as each candidate rushes to out-pander the others with piety. Or a Democratic debate, for that matter. John Edwards has had “a personal faith journey.” He drifted, but his “faith came roaring back.” Hillary says, “At those moments when you are tested”—you know, when Bill did that thing with Monica—“it is absolutely essential that you be grounded in your faith.” Joe Biden speaks of possessing a “deep and abiding faith.”

(For full coverage of the faith status of the candidates, go to Beliefnet.com’s God-O-Meter, presented in cooperation with Time magazine, which promises a “scientific measure of God-talk”—this month’s top oxymoron—“in elections.”)

You would never guess that Article VI, Section 3, of the US Constitution states, “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Whatever the rule is in law, we have de facto religious tests for public office, and they are goddamned stringent ones.

A very political entity is our God. And their gods too, all of them.

There are three basic positions when it comes to God: belief (the “missionary” position), atheist (also called “downward-facing dog”), and agnostic (Hamlet’s pose). Each necessarily implies a different set of questions.

If we presume God exists, then we must ask why He has not revealed Himself in a manner that is sufficiently clear that everyone can agree on His existence, His nature, and His relationship to us. Conversely, why are there so many different holy books, and why does even the Bible itself change over time? Speaking as a writer, I would think that one of the joys of being God was that I could get it right the first time and never have to do a rewrite.

If God doesn’t exist, then we must ask: Why do so many people believe? Indeed, why do a fair portion of them believe so fiercely that they are willing to kill and die over those beliefs, even though, to a nonbeliever, the anonymous quip “A religious war is like children having a fight over who has the better imaginary friend” rings all too true.

But there’s a more interesting question. If God doesn’t exist, then belief is delusional. Delusion is, by definition—and in virtually any other context—dysfunctional. Yet there is no evidence that atheists, so free of this particular disability, are happier, healthier, and wealthier than believers. According to most surveys, they don’t even have more sex. There have been officially atheist states—the Communist countries—and they have not outperformed “believing” societies. Though to complicate the issue, theocratic states do even less well.

The agnostic stance—we can’t know, therefore everyone should be free to believe what they want, and no belief may be imposed—is the official position of liberal Western democracies. It’s enshrined in the American Constitution, the UN Charter, the constitutions of the European Union, and of countless countries around the world. It was a very pragmatic solution from a European culture that had endured endless centuries of religious wars.