What Kurtz meant by "Religion"

As a philosopher, Kurtz understood the need to establish clear premises and define terms before embarking on a discussion. There were then, as there still are, four main clusters of theory regarding religion. Religious believers from monotheistic traditions are prone to seeing religion as a revelation from God. The contradiction of this theory, of course, is that it begs the question it apparently sets out to explain, so is now widely rejected outside of confessionally driven seminaries. For those looking for a more thorough explanation, there are three main theories. There is the notion, championed most famously by Sigmund Freud, that religion is a form of wish fulfillment. Then there is the account, favoured by many sociologists, that sees religion in terms of the social functions it performs. And finally, there is the intellectualist account, which sees religion as an attempt to interpret and influence the world. Functionalists and wish-fulfillment theorists don’t deny that belief is an important feature of religion, but claim it is secondary to the personal and social functions of belonging to a group.

In Paul Kurtz’s most sustained discussion on the nature of religion, he expressed clear support for the intellectualist account. This happened in the third chapter of Eupraxophy: Living Without Religion: "I submit that the distinctive force of the term religion involves some belief in a divine or sacred reality and some binding relationship of worship or devotion to it" (Kurtz, 1989, p 54). He then went on to give a standard six-point account of the prime elements of a religion: 1) belief in a supernatural realm that is sacred and holds the key to human purpose; 2) the belief that human beings have obligations to the sacred realm; 3) the ability of the sacred realm and the religion that honors it to offer solace; 4) the necessity for institutions to act as intermediary between the two realms; 5) the central role for holy figures who originally revealed the sacred realm and our obligations to it; and 6) the existence of Holy Scriptures that outline the features noted above (Kurtz, 1989, pp 58-62).

Two points need to be noticed here. The first is that Kurtz acknowledged he was thinking mainly of the three Western monotheist faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam when defining religion this way. He conceded that this understanding gets “ragged around the edges” when applied to Asian traditions (Kurtz, 1989, p 66). The second point is no less important. Throughout his public career, Kurtz had tactical as well as philosophical considerations to take into account. Presenting this many-sided picture of religion had the advantage of making it easier to distinguish secular humanism from religion. This separation mattered, because evangelical apologists at the time were doing all they could to muddy that clear distinction. Many spoke constantly of the “religion of secular humanism.” If they could make the link stick, it would have been easier to mount a legal challenge to undermine secular education, which many evangelicals saw as little more than a form of indoctrination of the “religion of secular humanism.”

Kurtz’s clear distinction of secular humanism from religion did not come without a cost. First was the distance he had to put between himself and mentor John Dewey who, in A Common Faith, extolled the virtues of a religious attitude while distancing it from religion. Dewey observed that there is no such thing as “religion” in particular; there is only a range of religions (Dewey, 1934, p 7). He concluded that one could have a religious attitude without subscribing to any particular religion. Dewey’s religious attitude alluded to classical Greek notions of Paideia, which refers to “education for responsible citizenship” (Cooke, 2006, p 384). The religious attitude, Dewey wrote, “signifies something that is bound through imagination to a general attitude. This comprehensive attitude, moreover, is much broader than anything indicated by “’moral’ in its usual sense” and can be displayed in “art, science and good citizenship” (Dewey, 1934, p 23).

Kurtz was deeply committed to this idea, and it was what drove him to have the humanist movement adopt his notion of eupraxsophy. But, unlike Dewey, he couldn’t afford to pitch humanism as a “me-too” religion. Partly as a result of these contrasting views on the nature and purpose of religion, relations within the American humanist movement have not always been as collegial as they needed to be. American humanism is divided into an avowedly secular strand, which Kurtz did so much to articulate and outline, and a strand more willing to see itself as “religious” in the sense that Dewey wrote about. At different times in his career Kurtz deprecated this split, and at other times he helped to deepen it.

So, for philosophical and tactical reasons, Kurtz was committed to an intellectualist view of religion. He appreciated entirely that religions have important social functions, but argued that it put the cart before the horse to see the social functions of religion as its prime determinant: “I submit that the content of a belief cannot be ignored; its claim to truth is essential in evaluating its functional value” (Kurtz, 1989, p 86).

The intellectualist approach has the major advantage of exposing religion to the full force of a probing question.“Theistic religions project our existential needs; they concoct fantasies to cope with finitude and death. But a crucial question is: Are they true?” (Kurtz, 1989, p 90). It’s important to note the creative tension between these sentences which convey the two principal sources of Kurtz’s view on religion. On the one hand he acknowledges an existential need that religion caters to, something largely beyond the range of critical scrutiny. But, on the other hand, he is asking the rationalist’s question of whether something is true. Until the early part of the twentieth century, most Christian theologians were happy to stand before the bar of reason, confident that their faith could pass any rational test. But, after the First World War, that confidence eroded. Led by Karl Barth, theology retreated to a realm where truth was held to be beyond the scrutiny of reason and evidence. It became more important to “proclaim” Jesus rather than worry about whether the theology was founded on sound historical evidence.

Mirroring this Christian retreat were the advances made by American philosophical naturalism and pragmatism. The philosophical ebb and flow of these two theories is beyond the range of this article, but Kurtz was one of many scholars indebted to both traditions. Kurtz’s naturalism was strongly influenced by Corliss Lamont (1902-1995), while his variation of pragmatism reflected those of his closest mentor, Sidney Hook (1902-1989). Their combined influence came together in the sentence quoted above. Like Hook, Kurtz acknowledged that religious belief is a private matter and was not his main point of concern. But, like Lamont, Kurtz saw all religion as a product of the natural realm which made claims about what lay beyond, claims one could legitimately question.

It’s one of the many ironies of this field of study that, in taking seriously religious truth-claims in the way most believers want them to be taken, Kurtz showed more “respect” than the defenders of slippery functionalist accounts which devalue the relevance of truth-claims. When ideas are in conflict, respect means challenging one’s opponents on terms they understand, referring to their works, and avoiding the temptation of disingenuous arguments. It does not mean shrinking from making criticisms for fear of looking disrespectful (a common response among those who cry “Islamophobia," for instance). Contrived conformity is not the same as respect. Paul Kurtz understood that and conducted himself civilly, often in the face of shameful behavior from opponents, and always took seriously the opposition's claims. His view of religion was neither strident nor simplistic. With the pragmatists he understood the consolatory functions of religion, but as a naturalist he thought it appropriate to question the basis upon which those consolations rested.

Did Jesus Exist?

Kurtz lived in the United States at a time of resurgent fundamentalism, and thus devoted most of his critical attention to the Christian religion. Before 9/11, it was the most visible threat to humanism on the horizon. The new, assertive evangelicalism focused on Christ as a figure of devotion. Running against the grain of a century and a half of scholarship, most of it by committed Christians, the new wave of Christian fundamentalism insisted on a biblically present, highly personal, and highly Protestant salvation figure who was, in the minds of many, an indisputable reality.

Kurtz’s response was intellectual and tactical. He helped set up the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER) as a vehicle to meet the challenges posed by the resurgent Christ-centric fundamentalism. One of CSER’s first gatherings was in April 1985 at the University at Buffalo, when a range of scholars met to discuss Jesus and the Gospels. Among the notable speakers was John Hick (1922-2012), one of England’s most significant theologians of the twentieth century. Over his long career, Hick had moved from a conservative evangelicalism to embrace a more progressive Christian outlook. He gave the gathering's mainly secular humanist audience two sage pieces of advice. One was not to insist on a fundamentalist view of Christianity simply because it is easier to deconstruct. Humanists must allow Christians “the right to go on thinking, developing their tradition in the light of modern knowledge and in relation to the contemporary world” (Hoffmann & Larue, 1986, p 216). And, more specifically, Hick advised secular humanists not to persist with the mythical Jesus view. Such a view, he said, was eccentric and far from the cutting edge of research about Christian origins (Hoffmann & Larue, 1986, p 212).

Kurtz listened to both bits of advice, but took neither of them up entirely. Hick’s first bit of advice is something humanist scholars need always to be mindful of. The clarity of the intellectualist approach to religion can mask a weakness: not allowing religions the freedom to move and change their notions of truth as all other human-created institutions do. But it’s important to note here that the underlying supposition is that we are assuming religion is a human-created institution, a point most of Kurtz’s Christian opponents vehemently denied. Once again, secular critics of religion, like Kurtz, are actually showing the religion they criticise much more “respect” by taking seriously the truth-claims made on its behalf. This is even more relevant considering that the most pressing of Kurtz’s religious rivals were high-octane evangelicals who took the truth-claims of their religion seriously indeed.

As to Hick’s second piece of advice, Kurtz was not able to dissociate himself entirely from the mythical Jesus position. Why did Kurtz give lip service to the myth theory? As the leader of a movement he wanted to see grow, Kurtz relied on allies, especially in areas where he was not an authority. After a long period of quiescence, the myth theory flared up once again in the United Kingdom. G. A. Wells, an English scholar, advanced an intelligent version of the myth theory, some of which was published by Prometheus Books, Kurtz’s publishing house. Wells’ work prompted the creation of numerous similar works in the United States. Interestingly, the myth theory has found a greater level of support in the United States than in the United Kingdom, likely as a reaction to the highly charged Christ-centred fundamentalism that was so much more prominent in the States than in England.

Given that Prometheus books had published various works advocating the myth theory, Kurtz was under some pressure to at least acknowledge it in his own writings. In The Transcendental Temptation, his account is lukewarm:

Although it may be difficult to assert with any degree of certainty that Jesus existed, it seems likely to me that some such man lived, most likely in the Palestine in the first half of the first century, that he was crucified or hanged (though he may not have died), and that a sect of Christians developed proclaiming his divinity. (Kurtz, 1986, p 114)

"We know," he concluded, "very few authentic facts, however, about Jesus beyond this bare outline" (Kurtz, 1986, p 115). The statement was factually based, and no academically sound Christian Jesus scholar would disagree. Most Jesus scholarship has gone on to fill this void with knowledge of the Jewish milieu that Yeshua ben Yosef would have grown up in. The consequences of this return to Jewish roots for all the later Christian embellishments of dogma have yet to be fully appreciated, but they fatally undermine the traditional Christian account.

Sadly, many humanist Jesus scholars have remained embedded in the increasingly irrelevant idea of Jesus never having existed. CSER announced a major new initiative in 2007 called the Jesus Project. Intending to carry on where the Jesus Seminar left off, the project aimed at putting the myth theory on sound, scholarly footing. However, nothing came of it, and when the mercurial R. Joseph Hoffmann departed soon after, the initiative foundered.

Acknowledging that very little reliable information about Jesus exists is not the same as asserting he never existed. Kurtz understood this weakness without ever quite freeing himself from it. Much humanist Jesus scholarship remains stuck in the backwater that John Hick warned against three decades ago.

By way of contrast, Kurtz’s record with respect to critical study of Islam was pioneering. Six years before 9/11, Prometheus Books published Ibn Warraq’s now-classic study Why I Am Not a Muslim. And Free Inquiry became an important vehicle for scholarly criticism of Islam, with articles by Taner Edis, Pervez Hoodbhoy, as well as Ibn Warraq. Kurtz championed the need for the critical study of Islam long before it became fashionable.

It wasn’t just the stillborn Jesus Project that died when Hoffmann walked out; the CSER died with him. Much good work came to a standstill, and the newly laid groundwork for the systematic production of scholarly criticism of religion was abandoned. Blame for this lost opportunity can be evenly spread. The CSER's failure was not entirely Paul Kurtz’s fault; when important allies left, and with any number of priorities pressing for attention, nobody was left to fly the flag for this branch of the Center for Inquiry’s program.

The Transcendental Temptation

Another of Kurtz's underdeveloped insights was his identification of the transcendental temptation. Also the title of his longest book, the transcendental temptation refers to the temptation of seeking consolation in magic and religion rather than taking responsibility for one’s reality. It is a "kind of psychoexistential device that we resort to in order to cope with our unresolved ambiguities and unfulfilled projects, and to give vent to our deepest longings and tragic despairs" (Kurtz, 1986, p 461). In the same manner as Kurtz handled the intellectual account of religion, he creatively fused some of the key insights of the pragmatists with those of the philosophical naturalists. The transcendental temptation is the clearest form of anthropocentric conceit. The ability to resist the transcendental temptation is an essential step in forging an autonomous, responsible eupraxsophy. Submitting to the transcendental temptation traps one in the command moralities of the past and prevents any serious exploration of life and nature.

Kurtz’s articulation of the transcendental temptation was an important contribution to an underappreciated feature of naturalist thought. Religious apologists often accuse atheists and humanists of dethroning God in favor of man, but the transcendental temptation runs in the opposite direction. The real anthropocentric presumption lies in the belief that, as a mere human being, one deserves to have the ear of something sufficiently powerful—an entity which created the entire universe. Why such a powerful entity should care whether one is having a bad day, can’t win the lottery or find true love, is unexplained by monotheistic ideology.

This strand of naturalistic thought which Kurtz explored was not new. Two hundred years before Kurtz, Baron d’Holbach, another atheist who has repeatedly been accused of hubris, wrote: “Obstinately refusing to see anything but himself, [humankind] never became acquainted with that universal nature of which he constitutes such a very feeble part” (D’Holbach, 1770, p 173). D’Holbach’s atheism was predicated on naturalistic humility. He did not build his ideology around what he thought he could prove; rather, he composed a moral argument to answer how suffering could be alleviated, and how to live in proper relations with nature. In the twentieth century, Bertrand Russell was the greatest exponent of naturalistic humility. Russell wrote that the Copernican revolution would not have done its work “until it has taught men more modesty than is to be found among those who think man sufficient evidence of Cosmic Purpose” (Russell, 1935, p 222). The most recent exploration of this point comes from the American philosopher, Erik J. Wielenberg, who coined the phrase “naturalistic humility,” or the ability to accept being entirely irrelevant to the cosmos while retaining a healthy love of life. This involves rejecting the transcendental temptation and all other forms of anthropocentric conceit (Wielenberg, 2005, pp 112-6). Naturalistic humility is the logical conclusion to fully accepting the Copernican revolution.

Paul Kurtz’s views on religion were evidence-based, while also being grounded in modern conditions. He was critical of religion without being flippant or disrespectful. His views on Jesus were rational, though at times heavily reliant on the unhelpful theory that Jesus never existed. His articulation of the transcendental temptation was a significant milestone in naturalistic worldview; it was part of a long tradition, one that began with the Greeks, reappeared with Spinoza and has been given expression since then by thinkers of naturalistic inclination. As we in the twenty-first century face unprecedented challenge from nature in the form of climate change, our ability to work with our planet, demand less from it, and generally accept our more modest place in the scheme of things is going to be the difference between survival and disaster. The work of Paul Kurtz stands as an important guide for us to negotiate these challenges successfully.

References

Cooke, Bill, A Dictionary of Atheism, Skepticism and Humanism, Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2006.

Cooke, Bill, A Wealth of Insights: Humanism Since the Enlightenment, Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2011.

Dewey, John, A Common Faith, New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1947 [1934].

Guthrie, Stewart, Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion, New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Hoffmann, R Joseph and Larue, Gerald (eds), Jesus in History and Myth, Buffalo: Prometheus, 1986.

Holbach, Baron Paul, The System of Nature, New York: G W & A J Matsell, 1836 [1770].

Hook, Sidney, ‘Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life’ in Kurtz, Paul (ed), American Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, New York: Macmillan, 1967 [1966].

Kurtz, Paul, _The Transcendental Temptation: A Critique of Religion and the Paranormal, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1986.

Kurtz, Paul, Eupraxsophy: Living Without Religion, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1989.

Russell, Bertrand, Religion and Science, London: Oxford University Press, 1960 [1935].

Wielenberg, Erik, Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.