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Religion: force for good or not?

Posted: October 16, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized |Comments Off on Religion: force for good or not?

I thought I’d front page this since I posted it on an earlier thread and it’s generated some interesting discussion. The Economist has weekly debate sessions where there are two sides asked to give arguments pro and con for a statement. Then, the readers are asked to weigh in. It’s always fun to read the comments from “the floor”. This week’s motion was:

Throughout history and across the globe religion has been a cause of peace and violence, tolerance and inflexibility, charity and selfishness. Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa all found inspiration in their religious beliefs—as did Osama bin Laden, Baruch Goldstein and Jim Jones. This mixed history invites the question of whether religion, on the whole, is a cause of good or ill. Is faith dangerous, inspiring the fierce defence of dogmatic views, often leading to conflict, intolerance and regression? Or is it beneficial, compelling people to pursue moral, virtuous and productive lives? It can be both, of course, but at the end of this debate we must decide whether a world without religion would be a better place to live.

Sam Harris of Project Reason argued against the motion. Mark Oppenheimer, Beliefs’ columnist for the New York Times, author of “Wisenheimer” and a lecturer at Yale, supported the motion that that religion is a force for good in the world. Seventy Five per cent (including me) agreed with Sam Harris. Here is his major argument.

The important question is whether religion is ever the best force for good at our disposal. And I think the answer to this question is clearly “no”—because religion gives people bad reasons for being good where good reasons are available.

This is Oppenheimer’s major point.

Religion responds to a deep, satisfying human need for ritual. And it often organises the human quests for ethics and meaning. To think about the common good, the purpose of life and how to live, it has proven useful to use religious stories or theology.

My current favorite (albeit against our constitution) comment from the peanut gallery is this one.

Dear Sir,

Now that it has been clearly established by a majority vote that religion is not a force for good, the question naturally arises whether its most extreme organized forms and practices, along with their propaganda material (religious literature), should be banned be law, much like the Church of Scientology is already banned in Germany on grounds of being anti-constitutional (ferfassungsfeindlich) and much like some political organizations are not allow to establish themselves there, like the Nazi party.

If an organized religion is found to be fundamentally at odds with certain universal values such as democracy, freedom of speech and human rights, should it not be declared unlawful?

I wonder if The Economist is willing to organize a debate on that. It should be interesting.

This is obviously a magazine that wouldn’t have much appeal to most Americans. But it was an interesting debate all the same. I’ve been watching “God in America” which is one of those PBS mini-series that’s considered a must see. It’s been difficult for me to watch the banishment of Ann Hutchings, the speeches of William Jennings Bryant, and some of the seriously warped messages of Billy Graham which are the sources of all those “In God We Trust” messages on our currency and such.. On the other hand, I’ve learned about the reform movement in Judaism and Issac Mayer Weiss and that was not a difficult watch for me at all. It was intriguing.

I always hate to bring these things up because the minute I say I don’t believe in any god, I’m immediately seen as attacking some one’s self esteem or belief system. Oppenheimer’s closing statement is typical of what most folks say when defending beliefs.

Religion is not just a set of truth claims; most religious people are not literalists—they recognise that much of what their scriptures teach is metaphorical. Many people are in fact atheistic; they love and practise religion, despite not believing in God.

Indeed, much of the point/count point discussion in dealt with the love of rituals rather than a complete buy in for the detail of the religious law and stories. Granted, that doesn’t included fundamentalists like Reverend Pat Robertson, Mullah Omar, or Rabi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron. Even within religions, there are sects that are nearly or literally at war.

An equally interesting observation comes from debate moderator, Roger McShane.

Mark Oppenheimer says that he and his opponent are talking past each other. He claims that Sam Harris concentrates solely on the worst aspects of religion without acknowledging its positive attributes—the traditions, the rituals, the joy it has created. Yet he concedes Mr Harris’s arguments “about the crimes of religion, the dubiousness of their truth claims, etc”, and then makes the counter-intuitive claim that many religious people “are in fact totally atheistic; they love religion, and practise religion, despite not believing in God”. Mr Oppenheimer, for example, celebrates the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah despite not believing in the literal truth of the Hanukkah story.

What to make of this case for the fun of tradition without the burden of faith? In his earlier statement, Mr Harris wrote, “Yes, we need (or, at least, want) ritual. But do we need to lie to ourselves about the nature of reality to have it?” Mr Oppenheimer’s answer is an adamant “no”. But what is religion without belief? Is it really possible to distil what is “fun” about religion without all the extra baggage? When we look to religion for meaningful diversions instead of divine guidance, are we not admitting that secularism is the superior force for good?

The moral superiority of secularism gains support from Mr Harris. He concedes that there are plenty of peaceful and reasonable religious people, but this is only because they “don’t take the divisive nonsense in their holy books very seriously”. Indeed, the forces of reason and moderation within religion tend to come from outside it. He observes, “When the Catholic Church finally recognises the unconscionable stupidity of its teachings about contraception, as it one day must,” all credit will go to “tidal forces created by a larger, secular concern for human well-being.” So too have moderate Muslims learned to ignore much of what the Koran teaches. “To say that such adherents are now the ‘true’ Muslims is to blindly hope that a faith can be best exemplified by people who are in the process of losing it.”

So, I thought I’d give this a front page so every one could discuss it. So, as you know, I’m a student of Buddha, and as such I do not believe in a ‘creator god’ or whatever you choose to name it. I adhere to the practices and tenets of Vajrayana Buddhism (nyingma lineage) but as such, I believe clinging to anything, including my own practices and rituals, to be a deterrence to a better me and a better humanity. That’s the best I can do in terms of a disclaimer. It seems the more I try to say, yes, I’m an atheist and I do not believe in invisible beings, the more some people find offense.

Please be nice.

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