Is god at the Olympics in Rio? I don’t mean this in the sense of proclaiming “OMG!” after seeing something amazing. (Guilty!) And I don’t mean it in the vague and evasive god-is-all-things-to-all-people-all-the-time-and-everywhere sense. I mean this in the literal sense of micromanaging the outcomes of the events. I mean it in the sense that god is not just attending the games, but personally adjudicating.
Many of the athletes seem to think that answer is yes. In interview after interview, winners of diverse contests have attributed their feats to intercession by god. And not just any, all-things-to-all-people, god. Rather, the attribution has consistently been to their very specific god, draped in the very specific names and trappings of their particular faith.
I find this disquieting. Concerning, even. Well, I’ll just say it: I find it a bit horrifying.
Before going further, I hasten to state the obvious: this topic is fraught. Very, very fraught. I am at grave risk of offending, even though I mean no offense. The topic, however, has important ramifications, so I will take the risk.
If offense is really the concern, then consider this scenario. You are devoutly faithful to the religion you and your family call your own. You are watching the Olympics with your spouse, your 12-year-old daughter, and your 9-year-old son. Their hero competes in a signature event, and wins in stunning fashion. An interview ensues.
“Congratulations, Rachel! You just won the ________________ in world record time! What’s the secret of that incredible success?”
“Well, Jim- I attribute it all to my staunch atheism. My devotion to training is undiluted by faith in outside influences and supernatural forces, and it makes me stronger.”
I am guessing that hearing such an interview, you would be horrified. Raising your children to share you beliefs, you would likely object, and fiercely, to their athletic hero exploiting an interview about a foot race to preach atheism to them. You might very well be running yourself, to cover your children’s impressionable ears, but for the fact that you would trip over your chin on the floor.
Yet we blithely abide the tread of just such a shoe, provided it is on the other foot, don’t we?
And, of course, this is not just about faith versus atheism. I rather doubt the parents of Muslim children want prime time exhortations about faith in Jesus deciding the outcome of the decathlon, any more than the parents of Christian kids want soliloquies about Allah picking the winner of the marathon.
The athletes’ faith is their own business, as is any ritualistic expression of it as part of their pre-contest centering. But the attribution of their athletic feats to that faith on worldwide media is everybody’s business, something of a presumption, and another leap of faith in its own right.
For purposes of this column, I tried to find out the distribution of religions among the litany of Olympic gold medalists. I’m sure that information exists somewhere, but I couldn’t track it down. In the process, though, I did find websites advocating for various religions- by highlighting gold medalists among its own. I also stumbled on this heartening suggestion that despite the apparent faith-based-favoritism applied to other sports, and for whatever reason, god is agnostic when it comes to gymnastics.
The simple fact is, gold medals have been won by every imaginable denomination, and lack of denomination, too. But in the barrage of interviews, in turn reflecting the tunnels through which the vision of our culture runs, our kids and grandkids are being told no such thing. They are being told that a particular faith is the basis for triumph. They are, stunningly, not being told a trip to the podium is about 50 painful hours a week of intensive training; they are hearing more often that it’s about intensive praying.
At best, that’s misleading. While atheists have won medals, too, nobody has ever won one without intensive training. Training is mandatory; praying is clearly optional
Why should I care? There are many reasons, related both to my vocation, and the humanity I share with all of you. Let’s start with the latter.
It’s bad enough to lose at the Olympics because someone is better at running, or jumping, or swimming. But isn’t it downright devastating to lose because god prefers your opponent? We must allow that with every attribution of victory and its thrills to god, we are attributing to god as well the agony of defeat by divine decree.
Much the same reasoning extends to us, the spectators. If a member of some religion other than our own attributes their victory to god, and cites prayer as the explanation for their success, does it mean our prayers matter less? If god is listening so attentively to the ‘competition,’ does that mean s/he is not listening to us? If their team wins, and ours loses, does it mean we are rooting for the wrong team?
Conversely, if a member of our faith wins, are we comfortable that it’s because athletes of other faiths have all made the wrong religious choice? Does it mean that the winner is the one who prays the best, or prays to the right deity?
We will leave my concerns as a member of the human family there. Let’s turn now to matters of science, public health, and the fate of the planet.
If special devotion to specific faith can be invoked to account for the greatest human achievements, it is clearly a slippery slope. A devout member of any cult could attribute their athletic prowess to cult membership- potentially urging young viewers not to work out routinely, but to join that cult. The attribution might be to anything: being vegan; never using deodorant; wearing purple; being Paleo; avoiding gluten; using a particular toothpaste. Whatever the affiliation invoked, we are propagating the enormous distortion that any time A and B both happen, we may conclude that A caused B. I prayed, and won, therefore I won because I prayed. Well, maybe; but if you also happened to tie your left shoe before your right, ate endive, or used a particular brand of toilet paper last Wednesday, maybe that’s the real explanation. Comparable leaps of faith, all.
Such egregious misrepresentations of cause and effect have the potential to make gullible dupes of us all. There is always some entity selling something- oil and gas; tobacco; Coca Cola- coaxing us to ignore the weight of evidence regarding a particular cause and its likely effects. If we propagate the view that leaps of faith in any given direction are valid alternatives to what we strive to learn, work to understand, and think to know- our best defense against opportunistic duplicity is undone. The merchants of doubt who profit from climate change, human trafficking, and pandemic obesity must rub their hands together in avaricious glee every time we reassert our disrespect for causal reasoning.
For whatever it’s worth, the world’s major religions and those in their seats of rarefied influence generally understand and respect science, including the causal reasoning on which it depends. Faith does not obviate the value of science, logic, reasoning, and understanding. Even if it did, it seems clear enough that all scripture is silent on the topic of god’s preferences in the 100-meter hurdles.
The practice of any given faith by any given athlete is business of his or her own. The attribution of human kind’s greatest feats before a global audience to the specific predilections of a particular version of the almighty becomes the business of us all.
There is calamitous civil strife in Syria; ISIS is slaughtering innocents haphazardly around the globe; Louisiana is inundated; and California is burning. And even all this is on a tiny planet arguably inconsequential in the vast, cosmic sweep. If god is really micromanaging outcomes at the Olympics for the sake of whatever contingent, I can’t help but wonder: is that really the best use of his time?
-fin
Director, Yale University Prevention Research Center; Griffin Hospital
President, American College of Lifestyle Medicine
Senior Medical Advisor, Verywell.com
Founder, The True Health Initiative
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