One of my atheist Friends on Facebook likes to post questions and links that stir the pot between believers and non-believers (full disclosure: I don't actually know him in real life, but a mutual friend connected us, and I do enjoy reading his posts and the conversation they provoke).
Last night, he raised the question "Has religion done more harm or good for humanity?" I put some serious thought into this question a little over six years ago, and haven't really touched it since, but now seems like as good a time as any to do so. I have often argued the "more harm" side, but perhaps that's just because so many believers seem so reluctant to acknowledge the dark side of religion. But the more I think about the question as a whole, the more ambivalent I become.
Let's start with a back-of-an-envelope argument that religion has done more harm than good. The crusades, the inquisition, the persecution of the Jews, modern
Islamic terrorism the world over, religious persecution of gays or those
seeking (or providing) abortions, to say nothing of electing and re-electing George W. Bush: All
of these things could reasonably be attributed to religion, along with all kinds of more personal atrocities.
Believers could point to
such things as the end of slavery in America or the progress of civil
rights as progress inspired by religion. Or, conversely, they could make
the analogy that overtly-secular forces such as Soviet Communism are
responsible for massacres as horrendous as anything religion has set up;
atheists would respond that
those atheists aren't
representative of all atheists, to which believers might respond:
"precisely, and the believers who committed the other acts you cite
don't represent all believers, either."
A book--or, perhaps, an encyclopedia--could be written on this argument (from the "harm" side, at least one has been--
God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens). But ultimately, that's simply a catalog of atrocities committed in the name of religion. It should give pause to those who consider religion to be an unalloyed good, but it doesn't answer the question.
What can religion take blame and credit for?When
we talk about such things as the Crusades or the conflict in Palestine,
or the conquest of the Americas (which were frequently seen in
religious terms), it could reasonably be argued that such events were in
reality political conflicts of one sort or another which were simply
justified
by religion and that, absent religion, they would still have been
"justified" by other rationales (racial inferiority, simple hatred of
"the other," whatever). Many of these things can also be seen as
reactions to population pressure, to economic forces, or simple avarice
on the part of leaders, with religion simply the icing on the cake that
made it palatable to the people. This function of religion can't be
neglected, because it's still a negative that religion can be used this
way, but--to use a metaphor--religion might simply be chocolate icing
which could have been replaced with vanilla or cream cheese or what have
you (much as Maxism or racism was used elsewhere and otherwhen).
By the same token,
however, the positives of religion could reasonably be taken away from
religion. If it helped end slavery in the US, we can also remember that
religion helped
justify that same slavery in the south and
historically. And we could argue that secular forces (industrialization
making slavery less necessary, a higher standard of living raising the
consciousness of the suffering of others) also played into such
movements and that secular forces might have done the job just as well
(for instance, if the Enlightenment project hadn't been set back by religious
forces).
Thus it seems like the arguments that help absolve
religion of blame can also be turned around to absolve it of virtue.
Call it a push?
When it comes down to it, the two positives that religion might legitimately be said to offer are hope and morality.
The Case for Hope
Religion
offers at least two kinds of hope. One, of course, is the hope of life
after death (which helps enforce morality, whether that morality includes being nice to
children and puppies or slaughtering infidels) which for some people
seems to make life seem more meaningful, even though its effect is
actually frequently to de-value this life. More, though, it offers hope
that life is inherently meaningful, that there's a reason to go on
living. Likewise, though, the belief in religion allows people to believe in
ultimate justice of all sorts: that bad people are punished and that
our good actions will be justified. It gives us hope that our
small contributions to larger movements will be successful: either God
will help us or God will ensure that our contribution to a cause is
justified in the long run. Consider, for example, people struggling
against oppression. An unbeliever might not participate in resistance
because of a belief that they can't make a difference, whereas a
believer might find courage in their belief that God will support them
or, at the very least, make their suffering and/or death not be in vain.
Now,
of course, there are some arguments against these points. Religion
isn't needed to make life meaningful. Or, on the other side. people may
rely on God to solve their problems rather than acting themselves. And,
likewise, a person following secular beliefs could realize that
seemingly impossible things
have been accomplished by collective action, justifying their risk to contribute. Nonetheless, believing that God
will help a just cause is far different than believing that people
could
succeed against the odds. Flip that around though: history shows us that people
also can die based on religious beliefs in the service of losing causes
and unjust causes, and in these cases religion gave them the strength
and confidence to do things which might have been better off
not being done!
How about morality?
In the first place, it's certainly
possible
to be moral without believing in religion--or to be immoral while believing in religion. Perhaps religion
does do a better job of enforcing moral codes--the beliefs so engendered tend to stick better and be more deeply held.
None
of this is particularly surprising, when we considered how religion
developed alongside more complicated social structures. The rise of
"civilization" over tribal living is deeply tied to the rise of
religion. In tribal life (small communities with close ties among its
members), morality is relatively easy to enforce. Shaming is very
effective in such groups and, if worse comes to worse, the community at
large can physically force adherence to rules.
In larger social
grouping such as cities and states, this sort of community no longer
exists. People no longer necessarily know their neighbors and they come
in contact with all sorts of people. In this case, the enforcers of
morality become two-fold: laws which are backed up by the state and
morals which are backed up by religion. Laws suffer from the limitation
that no government can effectively police all of its citizens; plus, the
state is essentially reactive in enforcing its laws, and imperfect at
that. Thus, the importance of religion. If people believe that something
is
wrong, if they believe that breaking a rule will not just be punished by their community or state
if they're caught but instead
will be punished by their god(s), they are somewhat more likely (though not assured) of following these rules.
Now,
this is all historical, of course. I've already asserted that atheists
can be moral, and I have no reason to go back on that statement. But
it's equally clear that they may very well
not be. The common
"If there's no God, then anything is allowed" is too easy to accept by
those who have not particularly thought on the matter. Here's where our
beliefs about human beings will ultimately come into play. A pessimistic
view would suggest that, in fact, the majority of human beings (or, at
least, a significant number)
can't (or won't) be moral without
the fear of God hanging over them. Thus, for society, religion might be a
good thing. This isn't to say that it is good for all members of
society, just for society as a whole, to keep people good and to unify a
large, diverse population. A more optimistic view would hold that the
reason that it
seems like people can't all (or mostly) be good
have to do with their education and beliefs, and so can be corrected.
This is a pretty big question--bigger, in fact, than I want to try to
dig into today, even though it's essential to the question. If people
are basically bad, then religion (or something like it?) might be necessary for social order; if
people are basically good, then religion might not be necessary and
therefore not necessarily good.
Less good or bad than inevitable?
In response to a similar post some six years ago, my friend Matt wrote:
By asking whether religion is good or bad for humanity, you're
essentially asking whether humanity is good or bad for humanity. (My
answer: on the whole, it's a slight negative.)
I'm not saying religion is genetically hard-wired into us, but I am
saying that every single conceivable consequence of it, from holy wars
to those little tiny envelopes they make for Sunday School donations,
would come about in roughly the same way for other reasons in its
absence. It's here, it may or may not be queer, get used to it. Human
beings have a limited number of responses to stimuli, and they're always
going off, all over the place, all the time. We could as easily get rid
of (or more deeply ingrain) legal codes, fungi, left-handedness, or
ennui.
Perhaps that's true--in a way, it anticipated
Alain de Botton's Atheism 2.0, which has the basic premise that, because of human nature being what it is, atheists can learn a thing or two from religion, which after co-evolved socially with human beings. We might be able to imagine other ways of dealing with the problems that religion deals with, but in a way it's difficult to see what the
options were because, in a sense, the weight of history is saying that
they weren't--for one reason or another--viable options, which is
particularly true because "organized religion" wasn't chosen by King
So-and-So in 10,000 BCE or whatever: it was "chosen" on a cultural level
over and over.
That said, it's still an open question whether organized religion
should
continue to be an important force in the world, and it may very well be
a question which our culture is answering in the negative--look at all
of the "spiritual-but-not-religious" folks out there. The relevance of
the question, really, is whether the good of religion outweighs to evil of
religion such that it should continue in the present and future. Or
could other belief systems do as well or better?
Religions don't kill people; people (with religions) kill people
A virtual friend who's long since disappeared made
an analogy that clarified my thinking a bit, likening religion to a
loaded gun, she suggested that it's not religion which is at fault so
much as it is what people do with religion that raises difficulties. To her conclusion that "religion is
unquestionably good, in the hands of GOOD PEOPLE," I feel compelled to
add that religion is unquestionably bad in the hands of bad people.
That's the thing:
religion is incredibly powerful. Likening religion to a gun may have been an understatement--try a missile or even a nuke!
What
gives religion so much power is its absolute nature: when a priest or
pope or imam says "this is the right thing to do," it is theoretically
God
saying that it's the right thing to do. Rules are backed up with
infinite punishment or infinite reward, and thus can trump everything,
including--or especially!--common sense. Thus do people fly airplanes
into buildings or strap bombs on as they head to the subway; thus do
people Crusade to take back "holy lands" or torture those who disagree
and get away with it. They get away with it because they're seen as fundamentally and
absolutely right. This is religion's great power for good and evil. Not its only power, but probably its greatest.
That doesn't happen just in religion, of course, but it seems to me that religion is a more powerful force as
a justifying motivation. In Soviet Russia or
Communist China, there was significant resistance--overt, covert, and
silent--because the secular regimes couldn't justify their abuses beyond
the naked use of power to do what they wanted. Religion seems to be a
more believable uniting fiction, in the sense that it more easily turns off critical thinking and resistance.
De-fanging religion?
In
more recent times, we have seen religions which acknowledge human
fallibility and limitations, religions based on democratic and
individualistic premises, even--liberal Christianity and the UUs come to mind. The effect of this is to curb religion's
capability for evil without much injuring its capacity for doing good.
Believers who can accept that--whoops!--their beliefs might be wrong,
that a book might not be the ultimate Truth, that they might be
misinterpreting "God's will"--such people aren't too likely to make the
grand acts that harm others and can't be taken back. They're more likely
to act with more consideration and tolerance. And that's all to the
good.
Hierarchy
There's another characteristic of religion (if we're defining religion
as "organized religion") that's worth looking at for its goodness and
badness--also, for that matter, as an additional source of that power of
religion that I referred to earlier. I'm speaking now of hierarchical
organization. Throughout most of history it's been a feature of religion
and to some extent continues in anything that can be called organized
religion. Churches work primarily in top-down ways. The Pope says "this
is so" and his bishops make sure that everyone on down the line through
priests and the Catholic laity get in line, at least to the extent that they can and
are willing to do so. Even churches without the rigid hierarchy still
have echoes of it if they have a minister/pastor/priest, because almost
by default they become an authority figure.
This hierarchical
structure, of course, isn't limited to churches. It is, however, both
pernicious and powerful wherever it exists. Just as nations wiped out
tribes with the power of their more rigid organization, Christianity
wiped out less structured pagans too, often in conjunction with the
hierarchical power of the State. I think it's a fair characterization to
say that non-hierarchical organizations are better for the individuals
in them, while hierarchical organizations are better for the stability
of the organization itself and the power structures that exist within
them--that is, it helps the people on top and it perpetuates itself.
That
said, some churches in the modern day have moved
closer to a balance between the organization and the autonomy of the
individual. This started, of course, with protestantism itself back in
the 16th century, as it brought "the word of God" into the vernacular
and gradually lessened the importance of a mediator between God and the
individual. The church in which I grew up, the United Church of Christ
(UCC) is something of the
par excellence as far as this goes, and outside Christianity, the Unitarian Universalists similarly embrace democratic governance. Both are governed at their highest levels not by a leader but by democratic gathering of representatives from congregations. It acts
democratically to express the majority will, but even this expression is
not binding in terms of belief or behavior (though, of course, certain
things like spending money are binding by the fact of being
actions
taken rather than things said)--local churches have complete control
over their own finances, hiring and firing, and even theological and
political stands.
Contrast this to, say, Catholicism. Or
fundamentalist religions. These are far more dangerous than something so
liberal (or Liberal, actually) as the UCC. While a
less-hierarchical denomination like the UCC may have less power to do
evil, it arguably also has less strength to do good, but that's okay because it
actually still has a lot of strength which is mostly
only good for good.
Hasty, tacked-on conclusion
Despite what optimistic atheists have thought at various times in
history, it seems that religion isn't going away any time soon
(and, in fairness, maybe there are good reasons for that, which we
atheists ignore at our own peril). This being the case, it's less
important to wonder whether "religion has done more harm than good" than to ask "what aspects of
religion are most dangerous and which ones are most beneficial? The fact
is that religion is not one stable, monolithic thing throughout
eternity or even throughout the lifespan of one religion, and that being
the case, it might be worthwhile to think about the question in this
dissecting way. And when I say "useful," I mean for both believer and
non-believer: useful for the former to choose her religion thoughtfully
and--in this democratic age--to influence it; useful for the
non-believer to know which religions really are enemies to you and which
ones are, in many ways, allies, not to mention learning a bit more
about how we work and what we need.
