Deacon Doubtmonger

Holy sh-- (oops) ... oh, my G-- (oops) ... Jesus Chr-- (oops) ... Doubtmonger's actually starting a thread! Does this constitute the IIDB equivalent of confirmation/bar mitzvah?

I've been doing a lot of thinking (actually, "thinking" is too dignified; "obsessive brooding" is more like it) about the subject of prayer, ritual and ceremony in general, and its pointlessness in particular. All the hand-clasping and knee- dropping and sign of the cross-making and "nam myoho renge kyo"-ing in the world won't fix the hole in my roof, or complete the pile of work in my "YEA, VERILY, SHALT THOU COMPLETE THIS BY YESTERDAY OR THY BOSS SHALL SURELY SMITE THEE" bin, or ever accomplish anything practical.

So why are people so fervent about such activity, even going to "holy" war over whose is "holier"?

(1) My first guess is that it's easier to get people to swallow intellectual malarkey if they can be convinced to perform ludicrous body positions and movements; I had hoped that we humans would have evolved past such primitivism by now, but no such luck. Here's how C.S. Lewis put it in The Screwtape Letters (for those unfamiliar, it's a collection of letters from a senior devil to a junior on how to tempt humans to sin):

At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.

And from "The Skeptic's Prayer" by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli:

"God, I don't know whether you even exist. I'm a skeptic. I doubt. I think you may be only a myth. But I'm not certain (at least when I'm completely honest with myself)...." Such a prayer constitutes a scientifically fair test of the Christian hypothesis -- that is, if you do not put unfair restrictions on God ... The demand that God act like your servant is hardly a scientifically fair test of the hypothesis that there is a God who is your King.

Sorry, guys, but the minute the experiment assumes the form of a prayer, we're panhandling the question. And nice double use of Ericksonian presupposition, assholes! Seeds planted in the subconscious that (1) certainty constitutes dishonesty, and (2) once God's "proven" to exist thereby, it immediately and automatically follows, with no further testing needed, that he's your capital-K king and therefore has an instant claim on your mind, heart, body, soul and money! (Full text of this article is here ...

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode.../skeprayr.html

... and more on Ericksonian presupposition below.)

(2) Ritual can also be a means to make atrocious post-ritual conduct acceptable, and deaden the cognitive dissonance that might prevent it. All those who perpetrated the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch hunts, et al. humbly prayed to God and did all the sacraments and ceremonies to further the notion that they were doing His Holy Will. Or, from a report on a "men's movement" weekend where the leader coaxed people to imagine themselves to be rams and other "masculine" animals (and many actually grrr'ed, woofed, butted each other's heads and sniffed each other's butts!):

The older businessman [costumed as a red-tailed hawk] paused at one point, his red tail replaced by a red face. "This is ridiculous," he said. "Sure it's ridiculous," said the hawk leader. "That's the point of the whole weekend: to be ridiculous -- you have to let yourself get beyond the logical world. You have to be spontaneous." (Jon Tevlin, "Of Hawks and Men: A Weekend in the Male Wilderness," Utne Reader, Nov/Dec 1989: 50-59)

It's a lot easier to go home and dominate your wife if you've willingly put yourself through such indignity under the guise of "mythopoetics" and "seeking the deep masculine."

(3) Finally, ritual can create a border between the holy and the non-holy, or the holy and the holier -- even in the same church service! Here's an Episcopal Church scene from John Cheever's Bullet Park:

... on this winter morning he noticed that Mrs. Trencham was carrying on her particular brand of competitive churchmanship. Mrs. Trencham was a recent convert -- she had been a Unitarian -- and she was more than proud of her grasp of the responses and courtesies in the service; she was bellicose. At the first sound of the priest's voice in the vestarium she was on her feet and she fired out her amens and her mercies in a stern and resonant voice, timed well ahead of the rest of the congregation as if she were involved in a sort of ecclesiastical footrace. Her genuflections were profound and graceful, her credo and confession were letter-perfect, her Lamb of God was soulful, and if she was given any competition, as she sometimes was, she would throw in a few signs of the cross as a proof of the superiority of her devotions. Mrs. Trencham was a winner.

Are we atheists the only ones who see this whole prayer/ritual/ceremony business for the gross psychological trickery it is? Or am I talking through my miter?

Any input and insight, as always, are most appreciated. Thanks--

Deacon Doubtmonger

"In 1965, the Catholic Church stopped insisting that the mass be said in Latin. Many to this day feel that this was a big mistake, since churchgoers could now actually understand what was going on, and so found themselves saying things like "Mary was a what when she gave birth to Jesus?"

--Bill Maher

P.S. A couple side notes:

(1) Ericksonian presupposition is a technique first used by hypnotherapist Milton Erickson as a sly, indirect means of eliciting a certain behavior. For example, it might take the form of "You will get up after a deep, refreshing sleep and feel very peaceful and relaxed, and later, when you've taken your bath, you will curl up with a pleasant book and feel fully at peace with yourself and the world." The hypnotist appears to be trying to help the subject relax, but is actually trying to get him to take a bath; the presupposition is made by the use of "when," and the hiding of it within a bunch of relaxation phrases is called an "interspersal." This isn't confined to hypnosis, of course; salesmen use it all the time ... and so do fundies! Here's an example from an antiabortion campaign running here in Colorado:

When you're pregnant ... and scared ... no organization can tell you what's right. But the instant you look into your baby's eyes, you'll know ... You'll know.

Of course, by the time some poor woman can look into her baby's eyes, it's too late to get an abortion, and her life now stands in danger of hardship and ruin, and of course Daddy gets to skip out, but what do you god-botherers care? It's perfectly OK to use verbal deception if it accomplishes your heavenly purpose, ain't it, thou hemorrhoid-eating fucks?!?

(2) The C.S. Lewis quote above seems to imply that all animals have souls; it follows that their souls can be as much in mortal danger from sin as humans'. So why aren't my cats praying??? If I ever dared suggest to my Siamese that they kneel and give thanks unto Me for their daily food ("IAMS THAT IAMS," SAYETH THE LORD!") they would simply yawn in My face and go back to sleep.