Q&A: Religiosity Index
Religiosity Index
Question
There is a fairly common view in the public not to assign grades according to religious level, because you can’t really decide who is more religious than whom, and there is always the common question: “Who counts as religious?” And what are the criteria? Added to that is always the issue of “not excluding people from the community and distancing them just for the sake of the definition itself.”
As for the first question — ostensibly one could invoke the heap paradox, and say that this whole story is an attempt by people to make an inference of “either way,” when that’s not really the case, but rather there is more and less. Meaning, for example, a bald person is measured on a scale of more bald and less bald.
Does the Rabbi agree with this way of looking at the first question, and does the Rabbi see value in defining people’s level of religiosity?
Answer
Why is that interesting? What business is it of yours what someone’s level is, or to rank people’s levels?
Discussion on Answer
You could ask that about every definition in the world — why do you care what degree of baldness he has? Or why do you care what degree of heap-ness it has?
In the end, definition is a basic need in reality in order to live and act. There is value in defining things according to the truth.
There is no need at all for a religiosity-meter. If you see someone you need to be careful around, then be careful around him. Why do you need to rank him relative to others?
In my opinion there isn’t the slightest value in it, and I don’t understand the point of dealing with it.
Chaim, how is this basic need supposed to come to expression in reality? Suppose you determine that a person is more or less religious — how would that determination affect you?
The more religious a person is, the worse his situation is from God’s perspective.
Religion comes to answer certain psychological needs. And if all a person does is satisfy his psychological needs, that has an element of idolatry, and from the Holy One, blessed be He’s perspective there is nothing of interest in it.
The Last Decisor,
Indeed. That’s what my economics lecturer at the university also argued. Religion is a kind of handicap principle effect (search “Why Does the Peacock Have a Long Tail?” by Amotz Zahavi) that enables people to gain stronger social advantages. Therefore secular people do things more for their own sake, since they do not live under the social constraint of fear of desecrating God’s name and “what will people say.”
Y.D., you extended my words to things I didn’t say.
God also doesn’t care whether you do things for their own sake or not for their own sake, since that too is a psychological matter, and we’re back to the same point that psychological considerations are not of interest.
It is always preferable to do good not for its own sake than to do evil for its own sake.
The claim about God was yours. In the Torah He gave, He says explicitly that He is interested in things being done for their own sake. I definitely agree that it is preferable to do good not for its own sake than evil for its own sake.
Which verse are you talking about?
The Last Decisor, how did you arrive at the conclusion that religion came only to answer psychological needs, and nothing more?
There are two questions:
Why is religion (the collection of rules and laws) as it is? That is a question that belongs to the creation of religion in the past. “Religion came.”
Why is the religious person religious? That is a question that belongs to the religious person living in religion in the present. “Religion comes.”
You asked about the first question.
I wrote about the second question.
The answer to the first question differs greatly from one religion to another, and many factors participate in the formation of a particular religion.
The answer to the second question is what I said. It is shared by all religions: to satisfy psychological needs.
Simple: the need for ranking stems from a duty of caution; the higher someone scores on the religiosity-meter, the more it is a sign that one should beware of his harmful impact…