Signs and Absurdity

My wife and I were recently driving back to Illinois from Florida. Along the way, we passed through the heart of the Bible Belt, and during that time, we encountered a few things that got me thinking.

Here's the scene. We're driving through Alabama. Both sides of the interstate are dotted with billboards of various types, usually advertising truck stops, restaurants, local attractions, and the like. We come over a hill and are confronted with a completely new sort of billboard. This is what it said:

Go to church...
or the Devil will get you

My wife and I discussed this at some length. Why didn't it say something like "Go to church because it is the right thing to do"? Personally, I don't think it is the right thing to do, but a person is welcome to make that argument. Or, better yet, why not something like "Do something nice for someone today," or "Donate to your favorite charity"? No, no, can't do that. Instead, let's make a ridiculous threat. This, in microcasm, illustrates the absurdity of religion as a whole.

This is, in its own way, very reminiscent of techniques employed by high-pressure sales people. Consider the situations where you frequently encounter high-pressure sales. Almost without question, this is in situations where the object being peddled requires significant convincing of the potential customer by the person doing the selling. In my experience, the moment this becomes apparent, I excuse myself from the conversation. If the object in question were as stupendous and valuable (insert the positive descriptive term of your choice), then the reasons for acquiring it would be self-evident. In theory, all the sales person would have to do is present the object, explain its features, describe any limitations, and then present the terms for purchase. The old "it isn't a question of how you can afford this, but how can you not afford it" is, in virtually every case, used in situations where the object (or service or whatever) in question is superfluous and/or provides little or no significant value and/or fails to live up to its intended purpose. The key point here is that high-pressure sales wouldn't be necessary if there wasn't some catch. The catch might be that it costs more than it appears at first glance, or it might be that in the fine print you are agreeing to something beyond the scope of what the buyer might otherwise expect.

A favorite response of mine, when presented with someone making a gross generalization or unfounded claim is simply "cite your source." People are basically pack animals. If an individual presents himself or herself as a person of authority, the natural tendency is to treat them as a person of authority, at least until such time as evidence to the contrary becomes available. As such, if a person presents a claim with conviction and with an air of authority or finality, there is a natural tendency to accept it, or at least treat it with greater value than would otherwise be warranted. This is a cognitive bias known as the "authority bias." You see this sort of thing all the time in advertising. How many times have we encountered unsupported phrases like "voted the best..." or "studies have shown..." The best response to these claims is "cite your source." Or, if you prefer to be a little more situation specific, in these two examples we could simply ask "voted by whom?" or "what studies, who conducted them, and under what conditions?" In either case, the onus now falls back on the person making the claim, as it should be.

Go to church, or the Devil will get you. Really? Cite your source. I'm sure in this case the response would ultimately boil down to "well, the Bible says so." I am certainly no Biblical scholar (though interestingly I, as is the case with many of my fellow secular humanists, seem to have a deeper knowledge of the actual contents of the Bible than many of my religious friends), but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I doubt the Bible contains the phrase "go to church or the devil will get you" anywhere in its pages.

There was another religious sign, this one in front of a church, which I think sums up the entire argument. I went back to take a photo of the sign, but unfortunately, they changed it before I returned. "Reason is the enemy of religion." Groundless, unsupported claims are made, preying (pun intended) upon uncertainty, groupo behavior, cognitive biases, guilt, and fear. Reason is the enemy of religion? Yes. Yes it is.