Does religion really have a monopoly on humility?

[Bohm_Bawerk]

It is commonly said, or at least implied, that to be a religious person is to have humility, and to disbelieve in God’s existence is to have pride.

But does religion really have a monopoly on humility? Let’s focus on Catholicism, as this is a Catholic forum, although I may extend it a bit outwards to Christianity in general. Catholicism asserts that every person has a soul. This soul is “God-breathed”, and this soul is indicative of being made in the image of God. They are innately different from the rest of the Animal Kingdom by this simple fact. Catholicism asserts that every human life has a purpose instituted by a divine order, namely God. They were specially created. Catholicism asserts that once human life has finished, if he/she has died in a state of grace, they will ultimately be in Heaven enjoying the Beatific Vision for all eternity.

Let us contrast this with the position the nonebeliever will generally hold. The nonbeliever generally holds that he/she is merely a combination of cells, that through the process of spontaneous organization, becomes more than the sum of its parts (e.g. rationality, emotions, etc). Being made up of cells, the nonbeliever believes he/she is subject to nature in the grand scheme of things. They do not believe they were made “specially”, but rather, were made in the same way as another 7 billion humans across the world.

The nonbeliever generally holds that humans make their own purpose in life. Drinking, smoking and being a vagabond is not a product of nonbelief. It is a product of careless youth. The nonbeliever puts his/her trust in human ingenuity that together, we can solve the world’s problems. We do not resort to prayer. We resort to tried and effective means of solving problems, which is what brought the aeroplane, the computer, the vaccine - it is what is leading the fight against cancer and HIV today. It is what made a woman who has never heard in her life finally hear…bringing tears of joy to her eyes.

The nonbeliever believes they have a limited time on this planet. They are grateful for winning the cosmic lottery, not only by virtue of being born, but being born in a developed nation. They agree that their time on this Earth is ultimately finite. If they are lucky, and if their contribution to society has elevated a great portion of humanity to increased living standards, they will go down in history to inspire future scientists, artists, doctors, lawyers, physicians, economists, and so on and so forth, to give back to society, and to ensure that the whole of Humanity can continue to progress through what is virtually eternity in this temporal universe.

Does religion really have a monopoly on humility?

 

[You]

I notice in your examples of people that they are all very privileged people. People of education, resources, opportunity and intelligence. However, this only describes a tiny minority of people in this world. What happen to a believer in nothing when he finds he has nothing and never will have anything. If his only value to himself is the material things he can achieve, what value or purpose does he serve when he can never achieve anything.
If you are talking about Christianity, it gives the poor and the terminally poor a truth worth more than all the achievements they might ever make in the world and it gives a dignity, a purpose, a joy, and humility too I suppose.
And what does a nonbeliever think of himself when he is cut off from every advantage and will never achieve anything. He must think he is “just a collection of cells” going nowhere, ever. It does not sound like it makes for a peaceful existence, to me anyway.

 

[PiousTemplar]

I would think so, but I may be wrong. I am surrounded by atheism all the time at my secular school, and the impression it gives is that humility exists only when someone will gain something for it. It’s not really true humility that penetrates the inner person but really just an appearance that will gain them profit. I could just be judging but that’s what it seems to me.

 

[Bearontherun]

I do believe that religion (christianity at least) does have a monopoly on humility.

God created us in his likeness not because of anything we did to deserve it. All that we have is a gift. We cannot attribute any achievements to ouselves but to the gifts and divine assistance that we have been given. Any glory that we have and will ever have is really God’s glory which he freely shares. His mysteries are beyond our understanding.

In christianity, we are called to be humble. That same call is not present (at least in the same way) in a godless society. If we are living as we should, we are striving to be humble as christians.

Without God, we would say our achievements are our own. We would believe ourselves to be what we make of ourselves.

 

[JRKH]

An interesting idea to explore but I must say that, at present, it seems to be it seems to be ill defined. By this I mean that “humility” is a personal trait, it is not something to be possessed or monopolized by any institution.
So in this sense no institution can claim, or be accused of, having a monopoly on humility.

Now - from an institutional standpoint, we might wish to ask the question differently.
Does religion have a monopoly on teaching humility as a tenet and virtue of life?"

Then I would say that, as a rule, the answer is yes it does. But it is an “open monopoly”. Religion does not prevent other institutions from such teaching, rather other institutions choose not to.
Certainly Secular institutions such as public education can embrace humility through the teaching of good citizenship, kindness to others, neighborliness, honesty etc…all of which are signs of humility.

But again, it must be stressed that this does not effect any individual’s right or ability to be humble in themselves, or to reject humility in favor of prideful selfishness.

Peace
James

 

[danserr]

I…
…

The nonbeliever believes they have a limited time on this planet. They are grateful for winning the cosmic lottery, not only by virtue of being born, but being born in a developed nation. They agree that their time on this Earth is ultimately finite. If they are lucky, and if their contribution to society has elevated a great portion of humanity to increased living standards, they will go down in history to inspire future scientists, artists, doctors, lawyers, physicians, economists, and so on and so forth, to give back to society, and to ensure that the whole of Humanity can continue to progress through what is virtually eternity in this temporal universe.

Does religion really have a monopoly on humility?

If I could boil your views down into something briefer, it would be something like:
-Christians think they are special because God made them and will go to heaven.

• Unbelievers think they are a random collection of cells, but they believe in creating their own purpose in life,and so work really hard to try to make advances to better human life like curing cancer because they know their time is limited.

You question is not really about humility but about which belief system leads people to act better in this world. You seem to defend 2 contentions, first, that Christianity does not lead people to act to better the world, and second, that atheism does. Unfortunately, I think there is good reason for thinking both of these are untrue.

Christianity does lead people to work to better the world.

Christianity asserts that every person was made in the image and likeness of a morally perfect God who loves them, suffered and died for them, and made them for eternity with himself. Because Christianity asserts this, it holds that every soul, being precious to God and made for eternity, should be precious to us and be treated like it. This Christian theism provides important grounds for treating every human being with a high dignity. The Resurrection and destiny of heaven only increases this obligation, because if humans are made for eternity, then there is all the more reason to try to help every soul grow towards this goal. Protestants have sometimes taken too much an individualistic view of salvation, but Catholics (and especially this pope, Saved in Hope have rejected this view to stress a more communal view of salvation.

Second, you seem to be holding the mistaken notion that since Christians belive they will go to heaven when they die, they have no incentive to better this world. But this is not Christian belief. See NT Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven adn the Resurrection. The Christian belief in the Resurrection of the body and new creation says that God will renew the world, that this new creation and resurrection was not a one time event or even only a future event, but something that is happening now and to which Christians are called to contribute. The Christian, therefore, can work to better this world, knowing that his work will not be in vain.

The historical proofs:

• See Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity for a few. The Roman empire in the 3rd century AD, underwent plague and famine. Romans fled to the countryside. Everyone abandoned the sick, including physicians. Only one group did not. The pagan physician Galen commented when everyone else, including him, was fleeing and abandoning the plague victims, the Christians were staying behind to care for them.
• generally non-theistic Romans and Greeks practiced infanticide and abortion in large numbers (as happens today). Some cemetery evidence suggests that in some places as many as 50% of infant girls were killed. The same is not true of Christian cemetaries.
• The pagan world practiced adultery in high numbers (as it does today), the same was untrue of early Christians.
• The English evangelicals (who believed in heaven and the resurrection) abolished the slave trade. It was the “enlightened” deists who supported it.
• Arthur C Brooks, Who Really Cares has found that even today, religious people donate more to charity, and not only money. They also give more time and more blood than non- religious people.

So i think your hypothesis that religion doesn’t motivate people substantially to work to better the world is very probably mistaken.

Second, your contention, atheism does motivate people to better the world, is very implausible and contradicted by evidence from that most atheist of centuries, the 20th.

• Where Christianity gives people a basis to love each other as loved by God and destined for eternity, atheism tells people that they are a random accident in a chance universe, mere collections of particles. Which to you seems more likely to provide a better motivation to treat people well? If my neighbor is only a random collection of particles, why should I care about curing his cancer? Why should I feel my life has any significance or meaning. You cannot create meaning in a world without it. You could pretend the world has meaning, but this amounts to self delusion. You could pretend that curing cancer will matter, but humans will cease to exist in a relatively short amount of time (not near eternity as you claim). And really, as one writer said (satre i think), 5 or 50 years makes no difference when you have lost eternity.

The 20th century with it genocides, world wars, other violence, increase in abortion has shown what happens in a world where man believes he is matter. He begins to act like it and treat others like it. And the 20th century shows what that looks like. I don’t think this is a world we should be proud of.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Bohm

**Does religion really have a monopoly on humility? **

Yes, it does, It has a monopoly on the only kind of humility that really counts … obedience to God’s word. Disobedience to God’s word is the only kind of pride that can do us in. That’s why the atheist’s pride …* Non serviam!* … is the worst kind of pride … self damning in the extreme.

Don’t confuse what you call atheist humility with what it really is … sick resignation to eternal nothingness … or what Jean Paul Sartre called existential nausea!

 

[ivory]

Time to throw in my two cents with the heavy hitters.

In my view, the concept of humility isn’t exclusive to Christianity, nor is it exclusive to religion. However, humility is one of the core ideas of Christianity. We are completely humbled before the Lord’s majesty and the vast scale of His creation. We are unworthy - so, so unworthy - of His mercy and the chance to experience His presence for all eternity.

Any Christian (Protestant, Catholic, or otherwise) should know that before God, they are nothing by comparison. We are mortal beings, and God is eternal, with no beginning or end. So really, the only thing we can do is be humble before Him. We must acknowledge that God has a plan for everyone and submit ourselves to His will, for He is all good.

That’s my perspective, anyway.

 

[kildare]

Of course not!!
However I do think 2000 years of Christian civilization has left its mark on many of what we might imagine are natural or personal traits. These “national” characteristics really do exist as people often unknowingly submit to social norms.
Also I think there was planty of humility before even Abraham, although really how do you, as an unbeliever know that it is the right track to take? Why not be egotiscal and enjoy your precious time here to the utmost? Some wise atheists might well work out that humility is really a great thing, however your uninformed atheist will most likely not! Christians on the other hand, take it as an article of faith - and that is good!

 

[Al_Moritz]

Excellent posts, danserr and Charlemagne II.

 

[Al_Moritz]

The nonbeliever generally holds that humans make their own purpose in life. Drinking, smoking and being a vagabond is not a product of nonbelief. It is a product of careless youth. The nonbeliever puts his/her trust in human ingenuity that together, we can solve the world’s problems. We do not resort to prayer. We resort to tried and effective means of solving problems, which is what brought the aeroplane, the computer, the vaccine - it is what is leading the fight against cancer and HIV today. It is what made a woman who has never heard in her life finally hear…bringing tears of joy to her eyes.

False dichtomy. Do you really think that it is just atheists who made all those inventions, or that science, which makes them possible, is an invention of non-believers? Actual history, rather than distorted atheist myth, tells otherwise. All the great scientists who ushered in the scientific revolution, were active believers and not ‘closet atheists’ – Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo,Newton etc.So were Mendel, the father of modern genetics, Maxwell (electromagnetism) and so on. And so was Father George Lemaitre, the Belgian Catholic priest who first postulated the Big Bang.

Chrisitans do not sit back, pray and otherwise do nothing. This is feel-good caricature that has nothing to do with a rational analysis of reality.

 

[Al_Moritz]

The nonbeliever generally holds that humans make their own purpose in life. Drinking, smoking and being a vagabond is not a product of nonbelief. It is a product of careless youth. The nonbeliever puts his/her trust in human ingenuity that together, we can solve the world’s problems. We do not resort to prayer. We resort to tried and effective means of solving problems, which is what brought the aeroplane, the computer, the vaccine - it is what is leading the fight against cancer and HIV today. It is what made a woman who has never heard in her life finally hear…bringing tears of joy to her eyes.

False dichtomy. Do you really think that it is just atheists who made all those inventions, or that science, which makes them possible, is an invention of non-believers? Actual history, rather than distorted atheist myth, tells otherwise. All the great scientists who ushered in the scientific revolution, were active believers and not ‘closet atheists’ – Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo,Newton etc.So were Mendel, the father of modern genetics, Maxwell (electromagnetism) and so on. And so was Father George Lemaitre, the Belgian Catholic priest who first postulated the Big Bang.

Christians do not sit back, pray and otherwise do nothing. This is feel-good caricature that has nothing to do with a rational analysis of reality.

 

[Al_Moritz]

The nonbeliever generally holds that humans make their own purpose in life. Drinking, smoking and being a vagabond is not a product of nonbelief. It is a product of careless youth. The nonbeliever puts his/her trust in human ingenuity that together, we can solve the world’s problems. We do not resort to prayer. We resort to tried and effective means of solving problems, which is what brought the aeroplane, the computer, the vaccine - it is what is leading the fight against cancer and HIV today. It is what made a woman who has never heard in her life finally hear…bringing tears of joy to her eyes.

False dichotomy. Do you really think that it is just atheists who made all those inventions, or that science, which makes them possible, is an invention of non-believers? Actual history, rather than distorted atheist myth, tells otherwise. All the great scientists who ushered in the scientific revolution were active, though not all necessarily orthodox *), believers and not ‘closet atheists’ – Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo,Newton etc. So were Mendel, the father of modern genetics, Maxwell (electromagnetism) and so on. And so was Father George Lemaitre, the Belgian Catholic priest and cosmologist who first postulated the Big Bang.

Christians do not sit back, pray and otherwise do nothing. This is cheap feel-good caricature that has nothing to do with a rational analysis of reality. As a scientist, I work, and I did and do make some humble contributions to technology that can better mankind. I also pray, but I do not neglect work for the sake of prayer.

*) no, I don’t mean heliocentrism vs. geocentrism here

 

[cho_pilo]

An interesting idea to explore but I must say that, at present, it seems to be it seems to be ill defined. By this I mean that “humility” is a personal trait, it is not something to be possessed or monopolized by any institution.
So in this sense no institution can claim, or be accused of, having a monopoly on humility.

Now - from an institutional standpoint, we might wish to ask the question differently.
Does religion have a monopoly on teaching humility as a tenet and virtue of life?"

Then I would say that, as a rule, the answer is yes it does. But it is an “open monopoly”. Religion does not prevent other institutions from such teaching, rather other institutions choose not to.
Certainly Secular institutions such as public education can embrace humility through the teaching of good citizenship, kindness to others, neighborliness, honesty etc…all of which are signs of humility.

But again, it must be stressed that this does not effect any individual’s right or ability to be humble in themselves, or to reject humility in favor of prideful selfishness.

Peace
James

I would argue that religion(ie service to God) is the forum for the highest expression of humility … which of course doesn’t mean its a monopoly … btw I expect that sooner this discussion will lead to a precise definition of what one is meaning to by humility

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Without God, we would say our achievements are our own. We would believe ourselves to be what we make of ourselves.

In general people don’t give credit to the entities that they don’t know or don’t believe to exists or don’t know or believe have interacted with the achievement of some goal. This is independent of whether that that entity exists or contributed towards the achievement. It would be rather paradoxical to find some one that didn’t believe that some god exists (I’m not limiting consideration to Yahweh) and find that the person gives credit to that god.

 

[Rahn]

I think it actually can be the opposite. Religion, by providing structure around access to God, can actually lead man down a path of self-righteousness. I know people who break commandments on a regular basis during the week but feel they’re “all right with God” because they go to Mass on Sunday.

What makes Christianity different is that it is founded on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus provided the way to God by His death and resurrection (God made that very clear by the veil being torn in two from top to bottom when Jesus died). What Chrisitianity offers is a relationship to God. The closer you get to God, the humbler you get, because you realise how great He is and how small and sinful you are.

 

[JRKH]

I think it actually can be the opposite. Religion, by providing structure around access to God, can actually lead man down a path of self-righteousness. I know people who break commandments on a regular basis during the week but feel they’re “all right with God” because they go to Mass on Sunday.

Good point. There is a real danger in people viewing “religion” as a safety net or some sort of “get out of hell free” card. As Jesus said of people in his day (quoting OT prophesy), “They pay me lip service but their hearts are far from me”

What makes Christianity different is that it is founded on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus provided the way to God by His death and resurrection (God made that very clear by the veil being torn in two from top to bottom when Jesus died). What Chrisitianity offers is a relationship to God. The closer you get to God, the humbler you get, because you realise how great He is and how small and sinful you are.

Precisely…and this is why we need to look at the teachings of a faith and not simply at the performance of it’s members.

Peace
James

 

[PRmerger]

I think Believers must be more humble than non-Believers because Believers know they’re under God. That tends to make someone more humble.