You should quit being grateful when you’re “non-religious”.
(If you already understand this, you can stop reading now.)
“Religion” is a bad word in America these days.
Dictionary definitions differ.
For the sake of this article, I’m defining “religion” as:
A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny.
That’s it.
No specifics about Catholics or Baptists or Methodists or Calvinists or Mormons or Atheists…
…or Bitter De-Converted Christian Fundamentalists.
It’s easy to write “I’m non-religious” on your blog.
It’s hard to stay consistent with that bold proclamation.
If you don’t limit your writing to hard facts…
… like the distance to the moon, the Periodic Table or fluid dynamics…
…you’re going to say crazy stuff.
By that, I mean religious stuff.
For example:
I’m all about feeling gratitude. It’s a wonderful emotion and should be shared …I now replace every temptation to use the phrase thank God, with a simple thankfully. It works quite well.
Forgive me, but that comment oozes religion.
There is no science that says, “gratitude is a wonderful emotion”.
No law of physics declares, “gratefulness should be shared”.
As a non-religious person, you shouldn’t express gratitude at all.
You don’t believe there is anyone deserving of thanks.
Supernatural forces don’t exist, remember?
That leaves nothing but nature.
And nature doesn’t exist for you.
Nature doesn’t know you’re alive.
Your “wonderful feeling of gratitude” is silly outside of a religious context.
You gonna write a thank-you note to the Sun for being warm?
You gonna tell gravity you appreciate all it does for you?
No?
Then why utter “thankfully” at all?
For other people?!!
Hilarious!
Other people are soulless sacks of chemicals.
They’re less worthy of thanks than the Sun and gravity.
Didn’t you think about this stuff before you chucked religion?
No?
Well, let me help you out.
(You can thank me later.)
Leaving religion isn’t easy.
Believing in supernatural forces has many benefits.
Religion gives mankind a way to express ourselves when our hearts are full.
Thank God for religion!
21 Responses
Very well put, MrsmcMommy and JB. A kind ending to an engaging conversation. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me, guys! 🙂
Lol! Handled like a champ. I am very grateful for the laugh, Danica.
Wait ’til Madame McMommy tries to give you similar ”advice” regarding ethics and morality and why they too cannot possibly ”derive from nothing”
I am sure you recognise in the Branyan Tag-Team for Jesus exactly the type of individual you are very grateful to have left behind.
My thoughts exactly, Arkenaten!
I guess I’ll just go on being happy and grateful and writing about that, while you guys spend your valuable time and energy writing about why I can’t be, and I’ll just be joyful that it’s not the other way around. 🙂
Nobody said you couldn’t be thankful.
We’re just giving you a target for that gratitude.
Yes, I agree with JB. Definitely keep being happy and grateful! Those feelings are either lucky chemical reactions given to you by chance–which you can choose to give more meaning/significance, as a sort of gift to yourself.
Or emotions are gifts from Someone who hoped they would lead you to ask more questions about who the Giver is. Either way, feel whatever you want! 🙂
LOL – I know some people who are best descibed as soulless sacks of chemicals. Thanks for the funny image; better than imagining ones audience in their underwear!
Point being, though, that it is possible to be grateful “to” an imaginary entity as illustrated by Santa. Being grateful “for” gifts and being grateful “to” an imaginary entity, in this case Santa, are different things. You are kinda makin’ it sound like I shouldn’t be grateful “for” my gifts, because I no longer believe in Santa. I’m still grateful and I will be, every day of my life, for this opportunity to connect with amazing people here on Earth. I’m glad to have come across your blog and had the opportunity to meet you virtually today. Thanks for your insights and for allowing me to share mine. I’ll definitely be checking out more of your stuff!
“I’m still grateful and I will be, every day of my life, for this opportunity to connect with amazing people here on Earth.”
Grateful to who?
To my parents for giving it a go for a few years.
No, you’re not talking about two different things at all. In every example you can imagine, humans are grateful “to” someone “for” various gifts, with no way to separate “to” and “for”… at least, no way to separate them without sounding crazy.
If you stop being grateful TO Santa for the new bike, but you don’t figure out TO WHOM you should be grateful instead, you’re a little confused. Any “gift” that appears with no giver isn’t a gift at all. (You might go ahead and take a bike that wasn’t even meant FOR you in the first place. But to be “thankful” for it doesn’t make sense. Basically, you stole a bike…and then you figured out a way to feel good about it.)
So to treat things as gifts when no one gave them to you is to deceive yourself with a lie even worse than Santa. At least parents who lie about St. Nick are ONLY lying about where the kid’s gift came from. At least the bike really was FOR the kid! But, when you lie to yourself about the gift of the sun’s warmth or the gift of chemical reactions in the brain, you actually know (or claim to know) that those things weren’t wrapped FOR you at all. By anyone.
Self-deception is even more damaging than parent-deception. :/
I can think of plenty of examples of being grateful for something without being grateful to a being, human or otherwise for it: opportunities that have presented themselves by sheer chance in my life, moments that I have experienced, something I remembered in the nick of time, etc. Something doesn’t have to be a gift for one to be thankful for it. I used the Santa analogy because it proves that sometimes we can be deceived by the source of our so-called “gifts.” Someone who believes in voodoo might attribute a new job to a spell they cast to a particular god. That doesn’t mean that Chango gave them the job. If you believe “your god” gave them the job, it begs the question why he would answer a prayer to an “idol” when he makes very clear his disapproval of such things. So by this reasoning, either god answers prayers to idols (by the Christian definition, gods of every culture outside of Christianity) to four-plus billion people across the globe, or good things that happen to humans everywhere can be attributed to scientific chance, and can inspire a feeling that is scientifically documented to exist across cultures. Am I thankful that the sun exists? Absolutely. Do I think god made it? Nope.
Yes–I know YOU are trying to be grateful for the things you just listed. But, as I said, it demonstrates confusion and trying to steal the gift without thanking the giver.
I don’t care WHO you choose to thank for it. I don’t care what name you call him. But it has to be Someone, or it’s nuts.
When you choose words like “stealing the gift” and “trying to be grateful” and “nuts” I begin to feel like I’m being personally attacked. My goodness! I’m so sorry the fact that I feel gratitude without being religious has caused such an uproar. I will attempt to choose my words more carefully when in religious circles. Maybe I’ll choose the phrase “I’m joyful that…” However, as a quick reminder, my words about being grateful originated on my own blog, and a select few people have decided to step in and tell me what I can feel, and what I am feeling within my own heart. I’ll leave it at this, since I’m quite sure I’m not (in your words) “nuts.” From the Standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
In the last 40 years, philosophers have begun paying attention to a fundamental distinction in how we use gratitude terms (Walker 1980–1981; Card 1988; McAleer 2012). On one hand, such terms can be used just before the preposition “to”, as in
Y is grateful to R for φ-ing,
where Y is some beneficiary, R is some benefactor, and φ is (at least paradigmatically) something R has done that was beneficial for Y. Locutions with this structure describe what we might call prepositional gratitude. On the other hand, gratitude terms are sometimes followed by the word “that” and a proposition, as in
Y is grateful that p,
where p represents some state of affairs Y finds beneficial. Locutions of this structure describe propositional gratitude (McAleer 2012). Prepositional gratitude is essentially a “triadic” or three-place relation between Y, R, and φ. Propositional gratitude, by contrast, is a “dyadic” or two-place relation between Y and some good state of affairs p. Propositional gratitude might be described as the proper response to a good state of affairs. Prepositional gratitude, on the other hand, is the proper response to something more specific: a benefactor’s doing or having done something beneficial for the beneficiary. Unlike propositional gratitude, prepositional gratitude is an essentially interpersonal phenomenon.
Sounds like those philosophers are ALSO trying to find a way to be thankful for the bike, without doing the hard work of figuring out who sent it. 🙂
And, no, I’m not trying to attack you “personally.” I’m trying to attack your really flimsy opinion. (If you’re the type of person who can’t separate your opinions from your identity, then this probably won’t the last time you feel attacked.)
Luckily (which is a better word than “thankfully”), the feeling of being attacked is a lot like the feeling of being grateful–to no one. 😉 Ultimately, it’s a bunch of chemicals that we choose to interpret one way or another and attach inconsistent meaning to. If you find a way to feel “grateful” for the feeling of being attacked, you’ll be just fine.
I figured I left myself wide open on that Instagram one. Good shot. But what about kids who are grateful to Santa? Anyway, I just watched your Shakespearean pigs bit, and my hat is off to you, sir. You are welcome to pluck from my blogs and insult my reasoning at any time! 😉
I welcome opposing views on my own page, too. Just enjoy engaging in thoughtful and respectful conversation. Have a wonderful weekend.
Kids who are grateful to Santa are expressing gratitude to a specific person as well. They understand that gifts don’t magically appear under the tree. Santa gets credited with the generosity until the kids figure out the true source of Christmas presents. When children abandon the religion of “Santa Claus” they become believers in “Christmas Parentism”. It’s very hard to eliminate religious thinking…
You have a great weekend yourself. You’re welcome to comment here anytime!
Hi! Thanks for sharing your thoughts regarding one of my posts. Actually, there IS scientific research that proves the benefit of feeling grateful. Suggesting that one has to commit to a religion to feel every positive emotion would not just preclude atheists from feeling joy, love and gratitude. It would prevent animals and babies from feeling the same. There is no scientific proof that gratitude must be related to a creator. I am thankful when a human shows me kindness, or when the warmth of the sun is on my skin, and the origin of that sun or that human does not play a direct role in my emotion, any more than knowing who created Instagram affects my ability to appreciate it’s usefulness. Just some thoughts. Thanks for stopping by! Here’s a link to a scientific study on gratitude, sans mention of “God.” https://www.today.com/health/be-thankful-science-says-gratitude-good-your-health-t58256
Hiya!
I didn’t suggest that commitment to a religion was necessary to feel every positive emotion. I suggested that gratitude makes sense only in a religious context.
Atheists are capable of feeling gratitude. Your Instagram analogy actually proves the point. You acknowledged that “somebody” created Instagram. There exists a power greater than Instagram that built it. A super-instagram reality.
Gratitude needs to be directed toward someone. You can’t be grateful to impersonal objects or forces.
There’s a growing trend against “religion” even among people who claim belief in God and allegiance to Jesus. (“Oh, but I’m not one of THOSE Christians! I’m a cool Christian!”)
Forgive me, but if you’re squeamish about the word “religion” that’s all I need to know… 😉
The issue, I think, is the word “religion” has too many specific implications. It isn’t meant to describe individual points of doctrine.
I’m not crazy about the definition I used in the article. I chose it because it had the least amount of attached baggage. I think everyone is religious regardless of belief in supernatural existence. Atheism is religion.