I'm sick and cranky, so no opinions today.
I like learning about religion.
I like learning about it in academic frameworks, whether that means theology, religious studies, history, sociology, or anthropology. I also like talking with people who are deeply committed to their faith, who can explain how it shapes their daily life and worldview. When someone brings up their religion, I’m usually interested. I want to understand what they believe, why, and how that shapes their reality or relationships.
But there’s an experience I keep having, and no matter how many times it happens, it still surprises me.
I keep meeting people who are emotionally and politically attached to a religious identity while seeming to know almost nothing about their religion.
I don't mean they're unfamiliar with obscure texts. I mean they're genuinely unaware of the most basic facts or core ideas.
And this cuts across traditions.
• Self-identifying Christians who don’t know what the Sermon on the Mount is. Who haven’t read any part of the Christian Bible. Who couldn’t tell you where or when Jesus lived, let alone what he actually preached.
• Self-identifying Muslims who believe that Abraham and Moses were Muslims. Who seem shocked or angry to learn that Islam came centuries later, and that their prophets were Jews. Who can’t define the Five Pillars or distinguish between Sunni and Shia.
• Self-identifying Jews who think Tikkun Olam is the main idea of Judaism. Who have never read any of the Tanakh, couldn’t describe what the Talmud is, and don’t know where the word "Jew" comes from.
This is common, arguably even normal...and still it confuses me whenever I encounter it.
I can't seem to wrap my head around building your identity, your politics, or your sense of right and wrong on a belief system you've never studied. I don’t understand forming metaphysical convictions about the nature of the universe or ethical convictions about how people should live without ever seriously engaging with the ideas from which those convictions originated.
Because the consequences of this show up everywhere.
They show up when Christian nationalists demand a theocracy based on a version of the Bible they've never read.
They show up when liberal American Jews (which also describes me, BTW) use "Tikkun Olam" as a foreign policy slogan but have never studied Jewish law, history, or ethics.
They show up when progressives claim solidarity with Islamists while supporting movements whose theology they've never investigated and whose social norms would horrify them in any other context.
They show up when policy, protest, or war is justified using religious terms that no one involved can define.
This raises, for me, a related question:
What drives people to kill and die for religious beliefs they don’t understand?
Or worse, beliefs they've never even attempted to understand?
Is this just tribalism? Is it about defining the self through opposition? Who you’re not, who you’re against? Ingroups and Outgroups? "Identity politics"?
I'm not being rhetorical. I'm asking.
If you've studied psychology, sociology, anthropology (looking at you, @emotionalsupportgolem), or religion and have some thoughts, I'd enjoy reading them.
How do people get so invested in world-changing beliefs without even sufficient curiousity to sincerely investigate those beliefs?
