Pandeism Fish
2010-03-09 20:15:23 UTC
"Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" is a sham and a scam. The phrase seems
to be the new rallying cry of that small but loud and socially tone
deaf segment of the Christian right that desperately cries out for
hatred of fellow Christians (or humans, generally) whose beliefs
deviate from some dogmatic interpretation of The Bible. Let's get
straight to the point -- this is really something of a scam, because
it slaps the label, "Deism," on something that has nothing to do with
true Deism, and is only connected to it by a contortion of language
that requires a combination of mind-numbing ignorance and flat-out
intellectual dishonesty.
The phrase has been popping up spammily, like many a fumbling effort
at social engineering, in papers, blogs, and forums; but it was
conjured up in an absurdly self-important "I'm right and everyone else
is wrong" study by a guy named -- get this -- Christian Smith, at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. So Smith's claim is that
he's just trying to describe the common religious beliefs among
American youth, and the full title of his paper is "On "Moralistic
Therapeutic Deism" as U.S. Teenagers' Actual, Tacit, De Facto
Religious Faith" (never mind that "Actual" and "De Facto" is
redundant, and "Tacit" is bullshit since no one is hiding their
beliefs, or their supposed adherence to this made-up set of beliefs).
Smith surveys a few thousand teenagers who are too young to have any
practical life experience to draw from, to "discover" to his obvious
shock and dismay that what Americans basically believe can be boiled
down to five things:
1. A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over
human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as
taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about
oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except
when God is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
All of these seem to click with the message that religious
congregations has been putting out like so much bait on a hook, to
reel people into services -- "hey folks, take a pew, it's just this
simple" -- but it is immediately obvious why the type of Christians
who have bandied Christian Smith's invented phrase about see this is a
false and contemptible set of values, since they don't require anyone
to give any cash money to churches, and they even seem to go against
hardcore (but non-Biblical) directives like fostering hate for gays
and contempt for other cultures], and constantly beating oneself up
with guilt for having been born a horrible sinner who will burn in
Hell for not giving enough cash money to Churches (or for possibly
once getting aroused by a member of the opposite sex -- let alone the
same sex).
So lets get to the component parts, not of the religious beliefs
identified above, but of the name coined to describe it. First,
"Moralistic." Originally some forum posts were calling it "Moral
Therapeutic Deism," (or "MTD" for short, as though it were some kind
of disease too horrid to speak by name) but someone in one of their
focus groups must have pointed out that, hey, these people want to be
moral, so they changed it to "Moralistic" -- here's a sly PR gambit
engineered to foster the impression that morality is not "moral"
unless it's their morality. This is 1984. War is peace, love is hate,
greed and intolerance and willful ignorance are moral. So, this is
"Moralistic" to drive home the point that apparently being good and
nice and fair is immoral. Fair enough, let's go on.
Christian Smith's made-up cobbled together religion is "Therapeutic"
because it's "also about providing therapeutic benefits to its
adherents." Smith firmly intones that, as a contrast, it is not about
"repentance from sin, of keeping the Sabbath, of living as a servant
of a sovereign divine, of steadfastly saying one's prayers, of
faithfully observing high holy days, of building character through
suffering, of basking in God's love and grace, of spending oneself in
gratitude and love for the cause of social justice, etc." Naturally,
some of this right away contradicts the part of Smith's made-up
religion where he says people believe they should be good and fair to
each other (which drives the desire for "social justice") and that God
is watching over us, wants us to be happy, and is there for us when we
have problems (which sounds a lot like folks are basking in God's love
to me). But the odd thing is that most religions are positively sold
on their therapeutic basis, since why would you adhere to a religion
that made you feel like a worse person for doing it (except out of
even stronger feelings of fear or guilt), or even one that made you
feel indifferent? Why do churches and synagogues and mosques have
singing and mantra-like prayer, and individual counseling from the
cleric? Because modern organized religion incorporates therapy, as a
selling point -- as much as they use the stick to get you in the door,
there's the carrot of feeling better about yourself through theology.
So, so far, "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" is pretty much applicable
to all faiths.
Finally, and surely most importantly, it's "Deism" -- except that it's
not. At all. This is the one that really gets me, this is why I'm here
writing about it. If they had called it "Moralistic Therapeutic
Theism" it wouldn't even have clicked onto my radar. Now, Christian
Smith says "In this sense, the Deism here is revised from its
classical eighteenth century version by the Therapeutic qualifier,
making the distant God selectively available for taking care of
needs," which is kind of like saying that a living room is really a
public swimming pool, revised just a teensy bit from its normal
definition of being below ground level, outdoors, full of water, and
able for people to swim in. A lay person may be excused for making
such an error; for someone claiming to be a theologian of any stripe,
it exposes them as a charlatan. The very definition of Deism is in the
non-interfering nature of God, for the Deistic Creator did things
right the first time out, and has no need for constant tinkering
around with the defects of an incompetent Creation; and a God need not
interfere all the time (as, indeed, the God of Bible is supposed not
to) to fall into being a theistic God. It just has to interfere at
all, that is by definition the difference between Deism and theism
(and of all subsets of Deism like Pandeism, and subsets of theism like
panentheism and polytheism). So why not call this theory what it is,
"Moral Theism"? Well, duh, because that makes is sound like a good and
defensible thing. Well what it's not is Deism, and it's a lie, a
contrived, propaganda-driven lie, to say that it is any such thing.
Indeed, this seems as much intended to demonize a growing revival of
Deism as to mischaracterise the theism on display in this theory. But
it's not like Christian Smith has any reason to swear off, I dunno,
bearing false witness against his neighbors, so there he goes again.
Having built up this contrived construct, Christian Smith proceeds to
huff and puff and blow his straw man down, lamenting how this "is a
parasitic faith. It cannot sustain its own integral, independent life.
Rather it must attach itself like an incubus to established historical
religious traditions, feeding on their doctrines and sensibilities,
and expanding by mutating their theological substance to resemble its
own distinctive image." An incubus!! Holy shit, it's the motherfucking
incubus!! And a parasitic, mutating one at that, like it's involved in
some unholy process of evolution by natural selection. In the end,
Christian Smith lets it all hang out, concluding "It is not so much
that Christianity in the United States is being secularized. Rather
more subtly, either Christianity is at least degenerating into a
pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is
actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious
faith." So, in the end, the problem here is that "Christians" are
hanging up the political dogma and getting back to a great degree to
what Jesus was actually talking about. And to anyone that's bought
into the materialism and hate-mongering of the modern church, well
that must just be a terror to behold.
Oddly enough, Christian Smith doesn't identify or even hint at a
single consequence of this supposed shift outside of the degradation
of religious dogma. No antisocial conduct is tied to it, no occasions
of intolerance or violence are tied to it. Just from the description
of the belief set, it seems like it would be a wholly good thing for
society to come together under the sort of non-dogmatic, non-
schismatic ideology that this phrase describes. As one of the kids who
Christian Smith and his ilk scoff at is quoted, "Just don't be an
asshole, that's all." Christian Smith, take notice, for that is more
sage religious advice than you have ever heard.
to be the new rallying cry of that small but loud and socially tone
deaf segment of the Christian right that desperately cries out for
hatred of fellow Christians (or humans, generally) whose beliefs
deviate from some dogmatic interpretation of The Bible. Let's get
straight to the point -- this is really something of a scam, because
it slaps the label, "Deism," on something that has nothing to do with
true Deism, and is only connected to it by a contortion of language
that requires a combination of mind-numbing ignorance and flat-out
intellectual dishonesty.
The phrase has been popping up spammily, like many a fumbling effort
at social engineering, in papers, blogs, and forums; but it was
conjured up in an absurdly self-important "I'm right and everyone else
is wrong" study by a guy named -- get this -- Christian Smith, at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. So Smith's claim is that
he's just trying to describe the common religious beliefs among
American youth, and the full title of his paper is "On "Moralistic
Therapeutic Deism" as U.S. Teenagers' Actual, Tacit, De Facto
Religious Faith" (never mind that "Actual" and "De Facto" is
redundant, and "Tacit" is bullshit since no one is hiding their
beliefs, or their supposed adherence to this made-up set of beliefs).
Smith surveys a few thousand teenagers who are too young to have any
practical life experience to draw from, to "discover" to his obvious
shock and dismay that what Americans basically believe can be boiled
down to five things:
1. A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over
human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as
taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about
oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except
when God is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
All of these seem to click with the message that religious
congregations has been putting out like so much bait on a hook, to
reel people into services -- "hey folks, take a pew, it's just this
simple" -- but it is immediately obvious why the type of Christians
who have bandied Christian Smith's invented phrase about see this is a
false and contemptible set of values, since they don't require anyone
to give any cash money to churches, and they even seem to go against
hardcore (but non-Biblical) directives like fostering hate for gays
and contempt for other cultures], and constantly beating oneself up
with guilt for having been born a horrible sinner who will burn in
Hell for not giving enough cash money to Churches (or for possibly
once getting aroused by a member of the opposite sex -- let alone the
same sex).
So lets get to the component parts, not of the religious beliefs
identified above, but of the name coined to describe it. First,
"Moralistic." Originally some forum posts were calling it "Moral
Therapeutic Deism," (or "MTD" for short, as though it were some kind
of disease too horrid to speak by name) but someone in one of their
focus groups must have pointed out that, hey, these people want to be
moral, so they changed it to "Moralistic" -- here's a sly PR gambit
engineered to foster the impression that morality is not "moral"
unless it's their morality. This is 1984. War is peace, love is hate,
greed and intolerance and willful ignorance are moral. So, this is
"Moralistic" to drive home the point that apparently being good and
nice and fair is immoral. Fair enough, let's go on.
Christian Smith's made-up cobbled together religion is "Therapeutic"
because it's "also about providing therapeutic benefits to its
adherents." Smith firmly intones that, as a contrast, it is not about
"repentance from sin, of keeping the Sabbath, of living as a servant
of a sovereign divine, of steadfastly saying one's prayers, of
faithfully observing high holy days, of building character through
suffering, of basking in God's love and grace, of spending oneself in
gratitude and love for the cause of social justice, etc." Naturally,
some of this right away contradicts the part of Smith's made-up
religion where he says people believe they should be good and fair to
each other (which drives the desire for "social justice") and that God
is watching over us, wants us to be happy, and is there for us when we
have problems (which sounds a lot like folks are basking in God's love
to me). But the odd thing is that most religions are positively sold
on their therapeutic basis, since why would you adhere to a religion
that made you feel like a worse person for doing it (except out of
even stronger feelings of fear or guilt), or even one that made you
feel indifferent? Why do churches and synagogues and mosques have
singing and mantra-like prayer, and individual counseling from the
cleric? Because modern organized religion incorporates therapy, as a
selling point -- as much as they use the stick to get you in the door,
there's the carrot of feeling better about yourself through theology.
So, so far, "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" is pretty much applicable
to all faiths.
Finally, and surely most importantly, it's "Deism" -- except that it's
not. At all. This is the one that really gets me, this is why I'm here
writing about it. If they had called it "Moralistic Therapeutic
Theism" it wouldn't even have clicked onto my radar. Now, Christian
Smith says "In this sense, the Deism here is revised from its
classical eighteenth century version by the Therapeutic qualifier,
making the distant God selectively available for taking care of
needs," which is kind of like saying that a living room is really a
public swimming pool, revised just a teensy bit from its normal
definition of being below ground level, outdoors, full of water, and
able for people to swim in. A lay person may be excused for making
such an error; for someone claiming to be a theologian of any stripe,
it exposes them as a charlatan. The very definition of Deism is in the
non-interfering nature of God, for the Deistic Creator did things
right the first time out, and has no need for constant tinkering
around with the defects of an incompetent Creation; and a God need not
interfere all the time (as, indeed, the God of Bible is supposed not
to) to fall into being a theistic God. It just has to interfere at
all, that is by definition the difference between Deism and theism
(and of all subsets of Deism like Pandeism, and subsets of theism like
panentheism and polytheism). So why not call this theory what it is,
"Moral Theism"? Well, duh, because that makes is sound like a good and
defensible thing. Well what it's not is Deism, and it's a lie, a
contrived, propaganda-driven lie, to say that it is any such thing.
Indeed, this seems as much intended to demonize a growing revival of
Deism as to mischaracterise the theism on display in this theory. But
it's not like Christian Smith has any reason to swear off, I dunno,
bearing false witness against his neighbors, so there he goes again.
Having built up this contrived construct, Christian Smith proceeds to
huff and puff and blow his straw man down, lamenting how this "is a
parasitic faith. It cannot sustain its own integral, independent life.
Rather it must attach itself like an incubus to established historical
religious traditions, feeding on their doctrines and sensibilities,
and expanding by mutating their theological substance to resemble its
own distinctive image." An incubus!! Holy shit, it's the motherfucking
incubus!! And a parasitic, mutating one at that, like it's involved in
some unholy process of evolution by natural selection. In the end,
Christian Smith lets it all hang out, concluding "It is not so much
that Christianity in the United States is being secularized. Rather
more subtly, either Christianity is at least degenerating into a
pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is
actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious
faith." So, in the end, the problem here is that "Christians" are
hanging up the political dogma and getting back to a great degree to
what Jesus was actually talking about. And to anyone that's bought
into the materialism and hate-mongering of the modern church, well
that must just be a terror to behold.
Oddly enough, Christian Smith doesn't identify or even hint at a
single consequence of this supposed shift outside of the degradation
of religious dogma. No antisocial conduct is tied to it, no occasions
of intolerance or violence are tied to it. Just from the description
of the belief set, it seems like it would be a wholly good thing for
society to come together under the sort of non-dogmatic, non-
schismatic ideology that this phrase describes. As one of the kids who
Christian Smith and his ilk scoff at is quoted, "Just don't be an
asshole, that's all." Christian Smith, take notice, for that is more
sage religious advice than you have ever heard.