A small child has an imaginary
friend. The friend is a purple dragon. Curious, you begin talking to
the child about the purple dragon. For instance, you might ask, "How
many scales does the purple dragon have?" To this, the child answers,
"It doesn't have scales." Now this is just ridiculous to you. Maybe
you're something of an expert on dragons, having read Dungeons and
Dragons manuals about them, whole novel series based on them, seen many
films about them, and so on. So you tell the child, "No, all dragons
have scales. That's one of the things that makes it a dragon to begin
with." Annoyed, the child answers, "Well, my purple dragon doesn't have
scales. Not only that, he breathes cotton candy, burrows instead of
flying, and poops diamonds." None of this is like anything you've ever
heard or read about dragons, but, whether you like it or not, the child
is right. His purple dragon is precisely that. While it is unlikely that
Dungeons and Dragons will feature a scaleless, cotton candy-breathing,
burrowing dragon anytime soon, Bilbo will be terrified of Smaug
breathing cotton candy at him, or novel series will be written about
kingdoms of dwarves whose riches come from dragon diamond dung, this
purple dragon is this child's and this child's alone to define. One is
always right in any situation where agreement or even cohesion with the
beliefs of others is irrelevant. Of course, any situation that meets
that kind of criteria is quite unlikely to have any affect on or
relevance to the world at large. Nobody would be much bothered by a
small child's definition of purple dragons because, after all, not only
is the child's purple dragon not real, dragons in and of themselves are
not real. Only about the same number of people who believe in vampires
or werewolves believe dragons are real, so there's very little to worry
about regarding dragons, including worrying about the people worrying
about them. Real world religions in which great numbers of people
express faith, however, are another matter. When it comes to religion
though, a great number of people believe, not in an actual world
religion practiced by many across the world, but in a purple dragon all
their own.
Most purple dragons I encounter in religion have to do with bias or wishful thinking. That typically goes one of two ways. 1) "I have this particular hatred/love of something, so I'm going to say that my version of the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent creator of the universe also hates/loves that thing. 2) "While I am aware that the holy scripture I otherwise profess to be in the infallible word of the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent creator of the universe is explicitly against/for something I am for/against I choose to interpret/flat-out ignore such scripture in such a way that it squares with my own preexisting beliefs." An example of type 1 would be, "Even though Jesus never mentions it one way or the other, I assume he wants me to do everything I can to make life difficult for homosexuals because he hates them like I do." A type 2 example would be, "Even though Jesus was against moneychangers in the temple to a degree of Hulk-like rage, my version of him thinks a three-story gift shop in the Sistine Chapel is in no way hypocritical/begging for a lightning bolt enema." Obviously, these are broad examples that I've not really dealt with in my own life. My experiences mainly have to do with me, naturally, making the atheist case and the believer arguing with me denying the God they believe in has anything to do with whatever morally objectionable or improbable things I've pointed out. By the time they're done compromising and saying they don't believe in, "That God," the deity they've got left is pretty much one they just invented that is, in all likelihood, only worshiped by themselves. One of the most basic examples of this is that when I object to the human sacrifice and vicarious redemption represented by Jesus dying on the cross for all mankind, I am sometimes told that that's not what happened. If the Jesus you believe in didn't die on the cross for everyone's sin, well, you might want to run that by all the churches with a cross somewhere prominently displayed. Although I'm just guessing, I'm pretty sure you'll have a lot of churches to go through.
The whole reason I came up with this purple dragon thing is that I believe that religion actually matters. Like most new atheists, I reject the popular notion that it doesn't matter what other people believe. On the extreme end of the spectrum, religious belief results in planes flown into buildings, murdered doctors, and mass suicide and on the mild end, you get people putting together a personal morality based primarily upon humanism and modernity and slapping terms like, "Christian," and, "Jesus," on top of that because it sounds good and is popular. Really though, the purple dragon is about dealing with the problems on the minor end of the spectrum. Basically, we've got to tighten up the meaning of the words we use when engaging in theological debate. If Christianity can really legitimately be used in the fashion I've described, by which I mean people saying things like, "That's not the Bible, Jesus, God, etc. I believe in," then Christianity can mean anything, which would be the same as it meaning nothing. If your only defense of your religion is to invoke the purple dragon, then you've rendered your religion untouchable at the price of making yourself its only adherent. As someone who was a Christian until he was 26, I'd prefer it mean something beyond, "I'm a good person by my own lights." At that point, it's a dorm debate. Both sides get to feel smart, correct, and massage their raging tumescent egos while generating discourse with all the intellectual value of spit. The oldest and best of my friends used to tell me that every day you must tear your faith down and build it back up, just to see if it deserves to be rebuilt and can stand. Faith that is strong and real can withstand that and mine did until it couldn't anymore. Having a faith that isn't falsifiable, even in its own expressed terms, is cowardly. As rude as I may seem, and often probably am, all I'm asking here is that those who profess belief actually commit and stick to their guns when I object to some part of what they believe in. Changing what you believe in past a certain point means that you, in fact, have a philosophy, not a religion, and that you are working out enough things for yourself that, however flawed you may be, you don't require a deity to do that for you.
-Frank
Most purple dragons I encounter in religion have to do with bias or wishful thinking. That typically goes one of two ways. 1) "I have this particular hatred/love of something, so I'm going to say that my version of the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent creator of the universe also hates/loves that thing. 2) "While I am aware that the holy scripture I otherwise profess to be in the infallible word of the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent creator of the universe is explicitly against/for something I am for/against I choose to interpret/flat-out ignore such scripture in such a way that it squares with my own preexisting beliefs." An example of type 1 would be, "Even though Jesus never mentions it one way or the other, I assume he wants me to do everything I can to make life difficult for homosexuals because he hates them like I do." A type 2 example would be, "Even though Jesus was against moneychangers in the temple to a degree of Hulk-like rage, my version of him thinks a three-story gift shop in the Sistine Chapel is in no way hypocritical/begging for a lightning bolt enema." Obviously, these are broad examples that I've not really dealt with in my own life. My experiences mainly have to do with me, naturally, making the atheist case and the believer arguing with me denying the God they believe in has anything to do with whatever morally objectionable or improbable things I've pointed out. By the time they're done compromising and saying they don't believe in, "That God," the deity they've got left is pretty much one they just invented that is, in all likelihood, only worshiped by themselves. One of the most basic examples of this is that when I object to the human sacrifice and vicarious redemption represented by Jesus dying on the cross for all mankind, I am sometimes told that that's not what happened. If the Jesus you believe in didn't die on the cross for everyone's sin, well, you might want to run that by all the churches with a cross somewhere prominently displayed. Although I'm just guessing, I'm pretty sure you'll have a lot of churches to go through.
The whole reason I came up with this purple dragon thing is that I believe that religion actually matters. Like most new atheists, I reject the popular notion that it doesn't matter what other people believe. On the extreme end of the spectrum, religious belief results in planes flown into buildings, murdered doctors, and mass suicide and on the mild end, you get people putting together a personal morality based primarily upon humanism and modernity and slapping terms like, "Christian," and, "Jesus," on top of that because it sounds good and is popular. Really though, the purple dragon is about dealing with the problems on the minor end of the spectrum. Basically, we've got to tighten up the meaning of the words we use when engaging in theological debate. If Christianity can really legitimately be used in the fashion I've described, by which I mean people saying things like, "That's not the Bible, Jesus, God, etc. I believe in," then Christianity can mean anything, which would be the same as it meaning nothing. If your only defense of your religion is to invoke the purple dragon, then you've rendered your religion untouchable at the price of making yourself its only adherent. As someone who was a Christian until he was 26, I'd prefer it mean something beyond, "I'm a good person by my own lights." At that point, it's a dorm debate. Both sides get to feel smart, correct, and massage their raging tumescent egos while generating discourse with all the intellectual value of spit. The oldest and best of my friends used to tell me that every day you must tear your faith down and build it back up, just to see if it deserves to be rebuilt and can stand. Faith that is strong and real can withstand that and mine did until it couldn't anymore. Having a faith that isn't falsifiable, even in its own expressed terms, is cowardly. As rude as I may seem, and often probably am, all I'm asking here is that those who profess belief actually commit and stick to their guns when I object to some part of what they believe in. Changing what you believe in past a certain point means that you, in fact, have a philosophy, not a religion, and that you are working out enough things for yourself that, however flawed you may be, you don't require a deity to do that for you.
-Frank
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