Why I've started to believe that religion is actively dangerous

[LaCroix]

The problem arises when justifications for important policies are grounded in narrow religious beliefs that have no scientific merit.

i think it's grounded more in cultural reasons than "religion." i think culture drives religion, not the other way around. that's why a "religious person" depends so much on who that person is rather than anything else. you've got weirdos who have a lot of hate in them that sit around abortion clinics, then you have people that do good work in third world countries. then there's the majority, who simply live their lives in all sorts of different ways. blaming religion for anything is an easy out.

[Razgovory]

And here's why I have astrong antipathy towards counter-religion

It's an extraordinary publishing phenomenon - atheism sells. Any philosopher, professional polemicist or scientist with worries about their pension plan must now be feverishly working on a book proposal. Richard Dawkins has been in the bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic since The God Delusion came out last autumn following Daniel Dennett's success with Breaking the Spell. Sam Harris, a previously unknown neuroscience graduate, has now clocked up two bestsellers, The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. Last week, Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything was published in the US. The science writer, Matt Ridley, recently commented that on one day at Princeton he met no fewer than three intellectual luminaries hard at work on their God books.

This rising stack of books has prompted screeds of debate, flushing out all manner of belief and unbelief in blogs, reviews, essays and internet exchanges in the US. The Catholic columnist Andrew Sullivan has just concluded his exchange with Sam Harris on the net, while the philosopher Michael Novak recently took on the whole genre of New Atheism, or neo-atheism. Surely not since Victorian times has there been such a passionate, sustained debate about religious belief.

And it's a very ill-tempered debate. The books live up to their provocative titles: their purpose is to pour scorn on religious belief - they want it eradicated (although they differ as to the chances of achieving that). The newcomer on the block, Hitchens , sums up monotheism as "a plagiarism of a plagiarism of a hearsay of a hearsay, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a fabrication of a few non-events". He takes the verbal equivalent of an AK47 to shoot down hallowed religious figures, questioning whether Muhammad was an epileptic, declaring Mahatma Gandhi an "obscurantist" who distorted and retarded Indian independence, and Martin Luther King a "plagiarist and an orgiast" and in no real sense a Christian, while the Dalai Lama is a "medieval princeling" who is the continuation of a "parasitic monastic elite".

This kind of vituperative polemic sounds a tad odd this side of the Atlantic. Apart from an ongoing anxiety about Islam, the British are pretty phlegmatic about religion. Church attendance continues its steady decline and the Christian evangelical boom has never taken off. The whole New Atheist publishing phenomenon is like eavesdropping on a blistering row in the flat next door: one's response alternates between fascination and irritation, but is it really anything to do with us?

What's clear is that this wave of New Atheism is deeply political - and against some of its targets even a devout churchgoer might cheer them on. What they all have in common is a loathing of an increasing religiosity in US politics, which has contributed to a disastrous presidency and undermined scientific understanding. Dennett excoriates the madness of a faith that looks forward to the end of the world and the return of the messiah. What Dawkins hates is that most Americans still haven't accepted evolution and support the teaching of intelligent design; according to one poll, 50% of the US electorate believe the story of Noah. He argues that "there is nothing to choose between the Afghan Taliban and the American Christian equivalent ... The genie of religious fanaticism is rampant in present-day America."

This is popular stuff - a plague on both your houses - on both sides of the Atlantic after a war on terror in which both sides have used their gods as justification for appalling brutality. But it tips over into something much more sinister in Harris's latest book. He suggests that Islamic states may be politically unreformable because so many Muslims are "utterly deranged by their religious faith". In a another passage Harris goes even further, and reaches a disturbing conclusion that "some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them". This sounds like exactly the kind of argument put forward by those who ran the Inquisition. As one New York commentator put it, we're familiar with religious intolerance, now we have to recognise irreligious intolerance.

The danger is that the aggression and hostility to religion in all its forms (moderates are castigated as giving the fundamentalists cover for their extremism) deters engagement with the really interesting questions that have emerged recently in the science/faith debate. The durability and near universality of religion is one of the most enduring conundrums of evolutionary thinking, one of Britain's most eminent evolutionary psychologists acknowledged to me recently. Scientists have argued that faith was a byproduct of our development of the imagination or a way of increasing the social bonding mechanisms. Does that make religion an important evolutionary step but now no longer needed - the equivalent of the appendix? Or a crucial part of the explanation for successful human evolution to date? Does religion still have an important role in human wellbeing? In recent years, research has thrown up some remarkable benefits - the faithful live longer, recover from surgery quicker, are happier, less prone to mental illness and so the list goes on. If religion declines, what gaps does it leave in the functioning of individuals and social groups?

his isn't the kind of debate that the New Atheists are interested in (with the possible exception of Dennett, who in an interview last year was far more open to discussion than his book would indicate); theirs is a political battle, not an attempt to advance human understanding. But even on the political front, one has to question whether all the aggression isn't counterproductive. Robert Winston voiced increasing concern among scientists when he argued in a recent lecture in Dundee that Dawkins's insulting and patronising approach did science a disservice. Meanwhile, critics in America argue that the polarisation of the debate in the US is setting the cause of non-deism back rather than advancing it.

Dawkins is an unashamed proselytiser. He says in his preface that he intends his book for religious readers and his aim is that they will be atheists by the time they finish reading it. Yet The God Delusion is not a book of persuasion, but of provocation - it may have sold in the thousands but has it won any souls? Anyone who has experienced such a conversion, please email me (with proof). I suspect the New Atheists are in danger of a spectacular failure. With little understanding and even less sympathy of why people increasingly use religious identity in political contexts, they've missed the proverbial elephant in the room. These increasingly hysterical books may boost the pension, they may be morale boosters for a particular kind of American atheism that feels victimised - the latest candidate in a flourishing American tradition - but one suspects that they are going to do very little to challenge the appeal of a phenomenon they loathe too much to understand.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/may/07/comment.religion

[Berkut]

people say a lot of things. i'm not convinced peoples' actions, at their core, are truly driven by religion as opposed to some other combination of factors.

What is special about religion that it causes you to believe that people are lying when they say they do something because of religion?

[LaCroix]

What is special about religion that it causes you to believe that people are lying when they say they do something because of religion?

people lie to themselves all the time. it's a very, very basic human feature. we justify anything based on anything we can. religion is one thing people hold onto. if religion didn't exist, there would be something else to take its place. that's what i mean - i've said this before on languish: i don't think religion plays nearly as important a role in peoples' lives as some think.

[crazy canuck]

The problem arises when justifications for important policies are grounded in narrow religious beliefs that have no scientific merit.

i think it's grounded more in cultural reasons than "religion." i think culture drives religion, not the other way around. that's why a "religious person" depends so much on who that person is rather than anything else. you've got weirdos who have a lot of hate in them that sit around abortion clinics, then you have people that do good work in third world countries. then there's the majority, who simply live their lives in all sorts of different ways. blaming religion for anything is an easy out.

Fair point.  Whatever the reason though, I agree with Berkut that it is dangerous for people to justify bad public policy decisions on interpretations of religious texts rather than science.  Of course not all religious people do such a thing and so the Berkut's OP is overly broad.  But the basic point he makes is valid.

[Berkut]

The problem arises when justifications for important policies are grounded in narrow religious beliefs that have no scientific merit.

i think it's grounded more in cultural reasons than "religion." i think culture drives religion, not the other way around. that's why a "religious person" depends so much on who that person is rather than anything else. you've got weirdos who have a lot of hate in them that sit around abortion clinics, then you have people that do good work in third world countries. then there's the majority, who simply live their lives in all sorts of different ways. blaming religion for anything is an easy out.

You are confusing complexity with "blame".

Culture drives religion, and religion drives culture, of course. Religion is one of many factors.

But there are people who make decisions based on their genuinely held religious views. To pretend like they are not is a bit silly.

I know Catholics who go to church on Sunday not because their family expects it, but because they truly and honestly believe that their faith demands that they do so. Some people go because it just what they do, even if they don't really believe.

The existence of the latter does not refute the existence of the former however.

[Berkut]

What is special about religion that it causes you to believe that people are lying when they say they do something because of religion?

people lie to themselves all the time. it's a very, very basic human feature. we justify anything based on anything we can. religion is one thing people hold onto. if religion didn't exist, there would be something else to take its place. that's what i mean - i've said this before on languish: i don't think religion plays nearly as important a role in peoples' lives as some think.

So since people lie to themselves all the time about some things, we can conclude that some special case is always lying?

I don't see how that follows.

[Berkut]

Well now you get a bit of my way of thinking. Most religions are full of dangerous or regressive crackpottery. Yet many people seem drawn to religion and spirituality (myself included). So my theory is to find the few religions which contain neither dangerous nor regressive crackpottery and support those. Hence why I decided to make my family religious, basically to inoculate us.

I do think the social (and maybe even biological) utility of religious belief is a fascinating topic of inquiry.

[Valmy]

Strange, yet bizarre.

And young people raised in the West do go off to fight for ISIS. Strange, yet bizarre yet it happened over ten thousand times. And many thousand more people convert to weird religions over here every year.

So I think religion should be embraced, since clearly it fulfills some need that people often go seeking for and leading them to dangerous places otherwise.

[Barrister]

The problem arises when justifications for important policies are grounded in narrow religious beliefs that have no scientific merit.

i think it's grounded more in cultural reasons than "religion." i think culture drives religion, not the other way around. that's why a "religious person" depends so much on who that person is rather than anything else. you've got weirdos who have a lot of hate in them that sit around abortion clinics, then you have people that do good work in third world countries. then there's the majority, who simply live their lives in all sorts of different ways. blaming religion for anything is an easy out.

Fair point.  Whatever the reason though, I agree with Berkut that it is dangerous for people to justify bad public policy decisions on interpretations of religious texts rather than science.  Of course not all religious people do such a thing and so the Berkut's OP is overly broad.  But the basic point he makes is valid.

But some of our very best public policy decisions have been based on interpretations of religious texts.  Take the Civil Rights movement, led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.  The anti-slavery movements were quite religious in its motivation.

This isn't a question of religion being bad - it's simply a matter of bad policy.  And for that matter, bad theology.  There are plenty of bible verses about how God has given man stewardship over the earth, and that we must care fot it.

[Berkut]

The problem arises when justifications for important policies are grounded in narrow religious beliefs that have no scientific merit.

i think it's grounded more in cultural reasons than "religion." i think culture drives religion, not the other way around. that's why a "religious person" depends so much on who that person is rather than anything else. you've got weirdos who have a lot of hate in them that sit around abortion clinics, then you have people that do good work in third world countries. then there's the majority, who simply live their lives in all sorts of different ways. blaming religion for anything is an easy out.

Fair point.  Whatever the reason though, I agree with Berkut that it is dangerous for people to justify bad public policy decisions on interpretations of religious texts rather than science.  Of course not all religious people do such a thing and so the Berkut's OP is overly broad.  But the basic point he makes is valid.

But some of our very best public policy decisions have been based on interpretations of religious texts.  Take the Civil Rights movement, led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. 

The Civil Rights movement had plenty of religious people pushing it, and plenty of religious people using religion to justify teir opposition to it. It hardly seems clear to me at all that one can conclude that the civil rights movement was at all religious in nature, or that in balance civil rights was something that was helped, rather than hindered, by religion.

Given that throughout history, the track of advancing human rights in general tracks with advancing secular human rights, it is a tough sell to convince me that religion overall has been a champion for civil rights, or any human rights for that matter.

The anti-slavery movements were quite religious in its motivation.

As was the pro-slavery movements - and indeed, throughout human history religion in general is used to justify slavery over and over and over again - and in fact it is still happening today, with ISIS being a prime example.

Again, there were certainly very morally good, deeply religious people in the anti-slavery movement. It is less clear that overall the fight against slavery was about religion, or that religions was necessary to the anti-slavery movement.

This isn't a question of religion being bad - it's simply a matter of bad policy.

No argument that it is bad policy.

But it is obviously the case that it is bad policy supported by religious beliefs, and seemingly sincerely held religious belief. Indeed, I can even understand the logic behind it - if you accept that there is an active god who has a plan and is willing to intercede, then it is not unreasonable to conclude that he won't let humans mess up his plan too much.

  And for that matter, bad theology.

That is a debate for the religious to have.

As someone who is not religious, I do not agree that you have the inside scoop on what is "bad" theology. In any case, it doesn't even matter to me - Inhofe believes that his theology is better than yours.

Certianly from where I sit, you can all argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin all you want. From my perspective, there isn't anything that clearly states that his views trump yours, or vice versa.

Rather, I would conclude that you both sincerely believe in what you profess to believe. His beliefs are actively dangerous to me, while yours are not. Hence I am not particularly concerned about yours, and am very concerned about his.

[Berkut]

Beebs, fundamentally I would say that my OP is not really aimed at you. You are religious, and I know that there is no possible set of arguments that can be made that can convince the religious that religion is bad - that would require you to accept something the denies your own faith. Short of you becoming an atheist, there is no chance that you can accept the premise.

This is more about those who are not religious, yet feel that religion is not really such a bad thing. I used to feel that way, but more and more I am becoming convinced that in fact religion is actively dangerous, and should be actively opposed.

To the extent that said active opposition actually backfires and causes the uncommitted to become MORE religious, then obviously that opposition is tactically unsound and should be modified.

[Razgovory]

And there were plenty of secular scientific arguments for slavery.  I don't think I've ever heard of a religious reason for eugenics or forced sterilization of the disabled.

[crazy canuck]

The problem arises when justifications for important policies are grounded in narrow religious beliefs that have no scientific merit.

i think it's grounded more in cultural reasons than "religion." i think culture drives religion, not the other way around. that's why a "religious person" depends so much on who that person is rather than anything else. you've got weirdos who have a lot of hate in them that sit around abortion clinics, then you have people that do good work in third world countries. then there's the majority, who simply live their lives in all sorts of different ways. blaming religion for anything is an easy out.

Fair point.  Whatever the reason though, I agree with Berkut that it is dangerous for people to justify bad public policy decisions on interpretations of religious texts rather than science.  Of course not all religious people do such a thing and so the Berkut's OP is overly broad.  But the basic point he makes is valid.

But some of our very best public policy decisions have been based on interpretations of religious texts.  Take the Civil Rights movement, led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.  The anti-slavery movements were quite religious in its motivation.

This isn't a question of religion being bad - it's simply a matter of bad policy.  And for that matter, bad theology.  There are plenty of bible verses about how God has given man stewardship over the earth, and that we must care fot it.

I think you are conflating public policy that is based on a religious interpretation of whatever holy text is applicable to religious people being involved in wider movements.

For good or ill, we are never going to be able to avoid public policy being influenced by religious views.  But that does not address Berkut's basic point that when public policy is based on religious interpretation rather than science we go down a very dangerous road.

[Razgovory]

Public policy drawn solely from science has already proven to be a dangerous road.