Why Religion? Does Anyone Really Need It?

[John317]

Why do we need religion?

What a researcher found: Survivors of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz were the ones who found meaning in their lives, but the meaning wasn't necessarily religious, according to Viktor Frankl.

In our ever-shrinking world, the tentacles of religion touch everything from governmental policy to individual morality to our basic social constructs. It affects the lives of people of great faith — or no faith at all.

This series of weekly columns — launched in 2005 — seeks to illuminate the national conversation.

By Oliver Thomas

Why religion? In the face of pogroms and pedophiles, crusades and coverups, why indeed?

Religious Americans have answered the question variously. Worship is one answer. Millions gather each week to acknowledge their higher power. The chance to experience community is another. Healthy congregations are more than civic clubs. They are surrogate families. The opportunity to serve others also comes to mind. Americans feed the hungry, clothe the naked and house the homeless largely through religious organizations. Yet as important as community, worship and service are, I am convinced that religion's greatest contribution to society is even greater.

Religion makes us want to live.

Viktor Frankl's revealing research in the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz led him to a startling conclusion. It was not the youngest, strongest or even smartest inmates who tended to survive. It was those who had found meaning in their lives. People, it turns out, need a reason to live.

For Frankl, that meaning wasn't necessarily religious — although one could argue that anything that deals with a person's deepest concerns is in a sense "spiritual." What Frankl was talking about could be found in deeds — in the handful of individuals who shared their meager rations with others and went about encouraging their fellow prisoners. But meaning could also be found in attitudes — particularly in the ability to face suffering with dignity and grace. As Frankl expressed it: "Man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips."

A building block

Man's search for meaning — whether in a Broadway penthouse or the darkest corner of hell — is the most basic building block of a successful life. Without a sense of purpose, many people will simply shrivel up and die, whether figuratively or, in some cases, literally.

I suspect that in postmodern America, the need for meaning is as great as ever. While our ancestors were too busy fighting off starvation to worry about such things as self-actualization, today's Americans live lives of relative ease. Higher education, a shorter work week and regular vacations have enriched our lives but have also provided abundant opportunity to consider whether our lives have meaning and purpose. The result isn't all that encouraging. Millions suffer from depression. Millions more escape their lives through drugs and alcohol. Far too many give up the struggle altogether and commit suicide.

Alas, many of us have discovered purpose for our lives through religion. Inside America's churches, synagogues, temples, mosques and ashrams, we wrestle with the great questions of life. And with due respect to my atheist and left-leaning friends, most of those questions are not amenable to the scientific method.

Why are we here?

What does it all mean?

How should we then live?

These are the things that matter most. Not whether Pluto is a real planet or the atomic weight of carbon is 12 or 13. Even Nietzsche recognized that if one can answer the why of life, he can cope with most any how.

Frankl came away from Auschwitz convinced that there are two basic types of people: decent ones and indecent ones. Some are stronger in their disposition than others, of course, but basically we are decent or indecent. Here's the interesting thing. Decency and indecency do not fall along national or political lines. There were decent Nazi guards just as there were indecent inmates.

Living decent lives

The same is true of our congregations. While we teach justice, forgiveness and love of neighbor, no doubt, there are indecent souls among us. Even indecent congregations. Not all religion is good, and no person is sicker than a person who is sick on religion. Don't just think of Osama bin Laden here. I'm also talking about the fearful, guilt-racked, shell of a human being that can result from a fundamentalist Christian upbringing. Good religion, as the great humanitarian and Nobel Prize winner Albert Schweitzer put it, is always "life-affirming."

Here's the point: I think religion makes it easier to be decent. The positive core values, mutual accountability and constant striving for self-improvement help one to be a better person. And I want to be a better person. Not because I'm afraid of God. Because I'm grateful for another trip around the sun and, like a good house guest, want to leave this place in better shape than I found it.

There is a lesson here for America's clergy: Keep your eye on the ball. It's not so much about this doctrine or that, Mass or the Lord's Supper or even Ramadan or Yom Kippur. It's about purpose, meaning and whether I ought to get out of bed in the morning.

Oliver Thomas is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and author of 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't Because He Needs the Job).

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-08-09-column09_ST_N.htm

[Bravus]

Interesting synchronicity: having heard of Frankl only sporadically over the years, a few days before this post a new student joined one of my graduate classes who has a strong research interest in Frankl and the 'will to meaning'.

I think the point is a well made one, that meaning is key, but fairness compels us to say that religion is one possible source of meaning in people's lives, but not the only possible one: altruism in itself, as Frankl noted, can be meaning enough.

The humility to say 'I have found meaning through my faith' and 'I'm telling you about it because it's possible that you may too', without then stepping on further to say 'there is no possible source of meaning in the world other than the one I've found'... that's what it takes, IMO.

[phkrause]

Excellent and very interesting article John, thanks for sharing.

[John317]

For anyone who has an interest in this topic, here's a must read that complements Victor Frankl's book:

Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure [Paperback]

Langdon Gilkey (Author)

http://www.ttf.org/pdf/SHC_Discussion.pdf

Background:

Langdon Brown Gilkey (1919–2004) was an American Protestant theologian and author

of such books as Reaping the Whirlwind: A Christian Interpretation of History. For much

of his career he was professor of theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Born in Chicago, he did undergraduate studies at Harvard and then went to China and

taught English at Yenching University. Caught there during World War II, the invading

Japanese put him in an internment camp with other foreign nationals, where they

were forced to create a miniature society and face moral and political quandaries

intensified by camp life. Shantung Compound (1966) is based on the journal he kept. On

returning to the U.S., Gilkey earned his Ph.D. at Columbia and embarked on a career

of teaching and writing.

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Basically what he discovered during his experience in the internment camp is that.... no, I better let you discover his findings for yourself. It is a great book and very well written-- one of the assigned readings at Loma Linda University in a class taught by Richard Rice.

[phkrause]

It would be very interesting to know if my father Viktor ever met? I'd have to look at the papers of my fathers travels, but one of those camps seems to have the same name as one my father was at.

[John317]

Yes, that would definitely be interesting to know.

What camp or camps was your father at?

[phkrause]

Actually its in pdf format. One of my neice's wrote to the Holocaust Museum group, or whatever there called. And they sent he info on my father. I'll have to search for it and see what the names were. I'll let you know.

[John317]

That's great.

There's something similar to that for people who are searching archives about family who were in the Civil War. I think they have most of the names listed of American soldiers on either side of the battles who were killed.

We can sure be thankful for the computers!

[phkrause]

Buchenwald, That's one of them, still looking for the others.