There has been much heated discussion among aspiring Martians about religion and its place in Martian society. Most of those who have expressed an opinion in the discussion have tended to fall into the group which I shall call "Keep it to yourself". There may have been a person here or there among the theistic religions who has said that they will spread the word of their religion, but if so I haven't seen it. I have seen a few of those following Atheism who have been rather insistent about forbidding from Mars all religion - except for theirs.
Full disclosure: I do believe that Atheism is as much a religion as Christianity, Islam, or any other. Atheists tend to very loudly proclaim that there is no God - a statement which they can prove no more than a Christian can prove that there is a God. If you're going to be intellectually honest about it then you can't really be anything but agnostic, in my opinion. Naturally I am not that brand of intellectually honest. I am honest enough to say that I can't prove it to anyone else but I believe that there is a God anyway.
Fuller disclosure: I self-identify as a syncretist who practices Christianity. Religious people tend to emphasize their differences and thereby have splintered the world into many warring factions. To misquote a RUSH lyric (I swear that this is how I heard the song for three years - until I finally looked at a lyric sheet for Armor and Sword) "Battle flags are flown at the feet of a god of love." The actual lyric is "god unknown" but my misquote makes the point better, and the point is this: I looked around at all of these people making WAR in the name of God, and claiming that theirs is a God of Love and Peace and I realized that it was completely absurd on the face of it. I also realized that while they emphasized their differences, most of them had quite a few similarities. After hearing and thinking about the Buddhist version of the old parable of the elephant I began to believe that if one could study all of the world's religions and find the points where they coincide one might come up with a more clear picture of God. I've studied some on other religions, but I claim to practice Christianity because I still haven't gotten it all figured out yet.
That said, tonight there was a debate held at the Creation Museum between Bill Nye - on the side of science (and Atheism) and Ken Ham - on the side of creationism (and fundamentalist Christianity). I had no interest in this debate - I've been involved in it more times than I can count, I know all of the arguments that will be brought to bear, and I don't want to hear it any more. My personal point-of-view on debate/argument/discussion has always been that the audience doesn't matter. I'm in a discussion to hear someone else's views, have mine heard, and come to a consensus, even if the only consensus can be to agree to disagree. Because of this viewpoint, I find debates like tonight's quite pointless - not only are the debaters not going to listen to each other, but in this case the audience won't even really listen. My twitter feed was full of commentary on the debate and the only tweet that I found the least interesting was when @MZHemingway said "While I'm enjoying #creationdebate, neither Ham nor Nye's debate strategy seems terribly persuasive to those not already in their camps."
The question that I have never had answered satisfactorily is why there was ever a debate on this subject at all. Don't get me wrong, I know exactly why, I just don't know how people didn't see their mistake and quit arguing. The trouble is that the group of Christians who believe that scripture should be interpreted "literally" (I use quotes around that because they only want people to use THEIR "literal" interpretation) are trying to make The Bible answer a question that it was never designed to answer. Science is concerned with how things work, in this case how the universe came to be. Those stories in The Bible about how the universe was created (yes, there are two creation stories in Genesis - with different details) are not meant to answer the question how, they are meant to answer the question who did it all - a question that science couldn't care any less about. Scientists got suckered into an argument that the other side had set the boundaries of and fundamentalist Christians have steadfastly refused to use observation and reason. It's a no win situation.
I tend to have double standards about most things in life. Usually I have a standard of behavior for myself and one for everyone else. I can get away with this because my standards for myself are almost always higher than my standards for other people. Religion on Mars is yet another issue where I adhere to a glaring double standard. I will practice my own religion as I wish to without intruding on anyone else. I won't bring it up for discussion, I won't perform any prayers or rituals in front of other people, I will be firmly in the "Keep it to yourself" group. On the other hand, if someone else wants to talk about their religion it doesn't bother me. I will gladly enter the discussion. I actually hope that there are people on Mars with different views and experiences than I have who are willing to share with me. If it should become obvious that such discussions are becoming useless then I can always stop participating.
Thanks for listening
