Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read

I think my favorite anecdote about the importance of translation comes from Jack Miles and is about the Book of Job. Translated the King James way, at the end of Job God reveals himself and Job says something like, "I know that you can do all things, and that I am an ignorant muddler before you. Now that I can see you truly, I despise myself and repent." So the story ends, basically, with Job saying that God is too big and awesome for him to comprehend, and that he is not worthy, he is not worthy!

But Miles argues that the original passage is cleverer and more word-play-y than the popular translation gives it credit for. He puts forth a far more fascinating translation, which paraphrased is something like: "You know you can do anything. Nobody can stop you. You think I'm ignorant, and scold me for talking of things beyond my comprehension. But now that I have seen you for myself, I shudder in sorrow for mortal clay." He judges God and finds him wanting. And God restores his money and good health, and then for the rest of the Old Testament, he falls silent. Nobody else speaks with God throughout that chronological narrative.

When God does show up again, it's as Jesus – a vessel through which God can experience human suffering for himself and try to redeem it, rather than merely judging it. And as Christ he allows himself to undergo even worse pain than he inflicted upon Job, in the hopes that mankind might one day rise above that suffering.

The Bible is a much smarter and better book than it's given credit for, both by atheists and Christians alike. In the hands of somebody insightful and informed, it is wise as fuck, and thought-provoking as anything. (It's no Bhagavad Gita, but then nothing's as wonderful as the Bhagavad Gita.) In the hands of somebody either trying to read it as a narrative that will somehow explain the existence of God, or, worse, as a series of rules for living that God gave us, it's dull and ponderous, but don't let the yahoos ruin a good thing. The day we respect the Bible as the slippery and subtle book that it is is the day religious fundamentalism will no longer have an excuse for being.

> So at least give them some credit if they lack "empathy" with those that have relentlessly been purchasing them.

For me, lack of empathy stems always from ignorance and a lack of understanding: it is literally when we look at somebody else and remain unaware that their life, their choices, their feelings, are exactly equally human to our own. For a long, long time, it was assumed that God was the only way to reach empathy or grace, and that atheists were directly rejecting humanity's only means of salvation. That was a gross failure on the part of the religious. Most religions teach humility and doubt as the fundamental values of humanity (and damn are those good values), so it's always funny when religious people seem incapable of doubting their own virtue.

So yeah. Atheistic criticisms of religious people come from a logical place. But I think what critics of the anti-theist movements point out is that to deny religion any value, to reduce it to something as simple as "invisible sky people" and "an excuse not to think for yourself" and then to assume that all religious people are brainwashed morons, is itself a gross misunderstanding of the origins of faith, of how deep a religion's teachings can go, of the purpose of theology in the first place.

It's well-known that many brilliant scientists and mathematicians in history were religious. Coincidence? Accident of religion being dominant at the times? Well, no; there have always been atheists, and a surprising number of them too if you've only heard modern rhetoric. Rather, religion (and theology) is the practice of understanding our place within something vast and enormous and, yes, uncaring. We are specks of dust within specks of dust – does this mean our lives have no value? Does this mean there is no such thing as morality, as kindness, as working at something greater? Every religion values an individual as important, tells you that yes, you do matter, even if only to yourself and your extended community, and then it tries to help you understand what it means that you're so small in such a large, chaotic world.

In researching the project I've been working on for the past two years, I found that at some point simply studying the subject matter directly wasn't yielding me very good results. I turned to a number of other fields to help me understand my material, but theological books were, surprisingly to me, among the most helpful. They spoke directly of the ways in which we relate to each other, and the reasons why our connecting to one another is more important when the world is so vast and enormous. It was a way of looking at the world that not even philosophers address quite so directly. So for that, I am incredibly grateful.

Plenty of religious people are hells of confused about what they believe. There's a lot of shit out there masquerading as holy. But the good parts of religion still remain, and people who find they need religion in their lives, or that they do believe in some kind of God, are not weak, are not fools. Some of the smartest people I know are religious, and their religion makes them more insightful. And seeing as you can hate religious ignorance or bigotry without hating religion as an institution, there's no reason to conflate the one with the other. Most of the atheists I know who truly think religion has no purpose whatsoever simply don't understand religion, and know they don't understand it, and are proud of not understanding it. That's a stupid way to be, and no amount of "atheists are persecuted" excuses such a lack of empathy.