#1 Reason Religion Is Harmful (Greta Christina)

Started by stromboli, January 18, 2016, 02:45:53 PM

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stromboli

http://www.alternet.org/story/143912/the_top_one_reason_religion_is_harmful

QuoteSo what is it about religion that's so harmful?

I've argued many times that religion is not only mistaken, but does more harm than good. But why do I think that is?

Sure, I can make a list of specific harms religion has done, from here to Texas. I've done exactly that. But that's not enough to make my case. I could make long lists of harms done by plenty of human institutions: medicine, education, democracy. That doesn't make them inherently malevolent.

Why is religion special -- and specially troubling? What makes religion different from any other ideology, community, system of morality, hypothesis about how the world works? And why does that difference makes it uniquely prone to cause damage?

The debates about religion usually come in two types: "is religion accurate or mistaken," and "is religion helpful or harmful." And ever since I put together my best "mistaken" arguments, my Top Ten Reasons I Don't Believe in God, I've been trying to wrap up my "harmful" arguments in a similar nutshell.

But I'm realizing that I don't have ten arguments for why religion is harmful. I don't even have 57,842 arguments.

I have one.

I'm realizing that everything I've ever written about religion's harm boils down to one thing.

It's this: Religion is ultimately dependent on belief in invisible beings, inaudible voices, intangible entities, undetectable forces, and events and judgments that happen after we die.

It therefore has no reality check.

And it is therefore uniquely armored against criticism, questioning, and self-correction. It is uniquely armored against anything that might stop it from spinning into extreme absurdity, extreme denial of reality ... and extreme, grotesque immorality.

(I can hear the chorus already. "But not all religion is like that! Not all believers are crazy extremists! Some religions adapt to new evidence and changing social mores! It's not fair to criticize all religion just because some believers do bad things!" I hear you. I'll get to that at the end, after I make my case.)

The Proof Is Not in the Pudding

The thing that uniquely defines religion, the thing that sets it apart from every other ideology or hypothesis or social network, is the belief in unverifiable supernatural entities. Of course it has other elements -- community, charity, philosophy, inspiration for art, etc. But those things exist in the secular world, too. They're not specific to religion. The thing that uniquely defines religion is belief in supernatural entities. Without that belief, it's not religion.

And with that belief, the capacity for religion to do harm gets cranked up to an alarmingly high level -- because there's no reality check.

Any other ideology or philosophy or hypothesis about the world is eventually expected to pony up. It's expected to prove itself true and/or useful, or else correct itself, or else fall by the wayside. With religion, that is emphatically not the case. Because religion is a belief in the invisible and unknowable -- and it's therefore never expected to prove that it's right, or even show good evidence for why it's right -- its capacity to do harm can spin into the stratosphere.

Let me make a comparison to show my point. Let's compare religious belief with political ideology. After all, religion isn't the only belief that's armored against criticism, questioning, and self- correction. Religion isn't the only belief that leads people to ignore evidence in favor of their settled opinion. And contrary to the popular atheist saying, religion is not the only belief that inspires good people to do evil things. Political ideology can do all that quite nicely. People have committed horrors to perpetuate Communism: an ideology many of those people sincerely believed was best. And horrors were committed by Americans in the last Bush administration ... in the name of democracy and freedom.

But even the most stubborn political ideology will eventually crumble in the face of it, you know, not working. People can only be told for so long that under Communism everyone will eat strawberries and cream, or that in an unrestricted free market the rising tide will lift all boats. A political ideology makes promises about this life, this world. If the strawberries and cream and rising boats aren't forthcoming, eventually people notice. (The 2008 election was evidence of that.) People can excuse and rationalize a political ideology for a long time ... but ultimately, the proof is in the pudding.

Religion is different.

With religion, the proof is emphatically not in the pudding. With religion, the proof comes from invisible beings, inaudible voices. The proof comes from prophets and religious leaders, who supposedly hear these voices and are happy to tell the rest of us what they say. It comes from religious texts, written ages ago by prophets and religious leaders. It comes from feelings in people's hearts that, conveniently, tell them what they already believe or want to believe. And the proof comes in the afterlife, after people die and can't come back to tell us about it. Every single claim made by religion comes from people: not from sources out in the world that other people can verify, but from the insides of people's heads.

So with religion, even if God's rules and promises aren't working out, followers still follow them ... because the ultimate judge and judgment are invisible. There is no pudding, no proof -- and no expectation that there should be any. And there is therefore no reality check, no self-correction, when religion starts to go to the bad place.

In fact, with many religions, that idea that you should expect to eat the pudding is blasphemy. A major part of many religious doctrines is that trusting the tenets of your faith without evidence is not only acceptable, but a positive virtue. ("Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe." -- John 20:29)

In other words: The belief in invisible beings, undetectable forces, and events that happen after we die, provides a uniquely effective armor against the valid criticism, questioning, and deflation of ideas and institutions that do serious harm.

And religion builds on this armor with layer after layer. Among these insulating layers: The idea that letting go of religious doubts is a liberating act of love. The idea that skepticism and questioning are the same as cynicism, nihilism, and despair. The idea that religion operates in a different realm from the everyday world, and it's unfair to hold it to normal standards of evidence. The idea that criticizing religion is inherently rude and intolerant. The "Shut up, that's why" arguments so commonly marshaled against atheists: arguments meant not to address questions about religion, but to silence them. When coupled with the fact that the core belief is by definition unverifiable, these layers armor religion even more effectively against valid questions ... thus undermining our ability to see when it's become comically absurd, or wildly implausible, or grotesquely immoral. Or all three.

I want to give some specific examples of how this armor works. I want to talk about some of the most common -- and most harmful -- ways that religion causes harm. And I want to show how the invisible, unprovable, "don't show me the money" nature of religion either causes that harm or makes it worse.

The Armor of God

Religious extremist, whether the Taliban in the Islamic world or the Christian Right here in the States, don't care about separation of church and state. They don't care about democracy. They don't care about respecting other people's right to live differently from them. In very extreme cases, they don't care about law, or basic principles of morality, or even human life.

None of this matters to them. What matters is making God's will happen. In their mind, God created everything that exists... and therefore, God's will trumps everything.

And since God's will is invisible, inaudible, and entirely unverifiable, there's no reality check on this dreadful path. There's no reality check saying that their actions are having a terrible effect in the world around them. The world around them is, quite literally, irrelevant. The next world is what matters. And since there's no way to conclusively demonstrate what will and won't get you a good place in that world, or whether that world even exists... the sky's the limit. There's no way to test the assertion that God wants women to wear burqas and have clitoridectomies... or that God wants us to ban same-sex marriage and teach children dangerous lies about sex. The reality check is absent. The brake lines of morality have been cut.

Perpetuating political oppression.

The unverifiability of religion leads to political oppression in another way. It makes religious leaders and organizations uniquely powerful in the political arena -- because their followers are typically taught from a young age to implicitly believe whatever their religious leaders say. They are taught that their religious leaders have superior virtue, with a hotline to God and his all-perfect morality. Indeed, they've been taught that trusting their religious leaders is a great virtue, and that asking them to support their claims with evidence is a grave insult: not only to the leaders, but to the entire faith, and even to God himself.

Here's a specific example. "In the United States, when same-sex marriage has been up for popular vote, it has, as of this writing, never, ever won. It has been consistently defeated at the ballot box, even when a well-organized, well-funded campaign has been behind it. It has been consistently defeated at the ballot box largely because the full force of several organized religions, especially the Catholic and Mormon churches, have been marshaled against it. It has been defeated because these churches have been willing to tell grotesque, shameless lies about the effects of same-sex marriage -- from "churches will be forced to perform weddings they oppose" to "kids will be taught explicit gay sex in public school."

And it has been defeated because the followers of these churches implicitly trust their leaders. When faced with a newspaper editorial saying, "Same-sex marriage won't affect public education" -- and their beloved priest saying, "Same-sex marriage means your children will be taught about gay oral sex in third grade" -- they believe their priest.

Even though their priest is lying through his teeth.

And because religion has no reality check, it is extraordinarily difficult to counter its flat-out lies... because ultimately, its claims rest on an unverifiable belief in an invisible God, who has yet to appear on CNN stating his political views. And when you combine this lack of reality check with the unquestioning trust in religious leaders, you have a recipe for religion to have grossly disproportionate power in the political arena. A power that is uniquely armored against questions about what really works to improve life and alleviate suffering and create justice in this world -- the questions that politics are supposed to be about.

Succumbing to political oppression.

In the same way that religion's unverifiability means there's no check on oppressing other people, it means there's no check on people accepting their oppression. At the hands of religion, or anything else.

If people believe they'll be rewarded with infinite bliss in the afterlife -- and there's no way to prove whether or not that's true -- people will let themselves be martyrs to their faith, to an appalling degree. More commonly, if people believe in infinite bliss in the afterlife, they'll be more willing to accept an appalling degree of oppression and injustice in this life. From anybody. Oddly, this is often framed as a plus -- "Religion gives people hope in hardship" -- but I fail to see how encouraging oppressed people to suck it up until they get pie in the sky is a good thing. For the oppressed, anyway. Why it's good for the oppressors is crystal clear.

Again: Because it's a belief in invisible beings and events and judgments that happen after people die, religion short-circuits our reality checks. Including the reality check that looks at how we're being treated and says, "This is bullshit."

Justification for violence and war.

In the same way religion drowns out the reality check saying that oppression and injustice is wrong, it drowns out the reality check saying that hurting and killing people is wrong.

And the untestable belief in the afterlife is the biggest obstacle to this reality check. If you believe in a perfect eternal afterlife... then who cares about pain and death in this world? Compared with the eternal bliss/ torture of Heaven or Hell, pain and death in this world is a stubbed toe. Isn't carrying out God's will more important than a stubbed toe?

Kill them all. Let God sort it out.

Vulnerability to fraud.

When people are taught that believing things without proof or evidence makes you a good person, they become far more vulnerable to fraud, manipulation, and deception.

Not just from religious figures. Not just from phony faith healers and prosperity gospel preachers and authors of bestselling psychic self-help books. (Although them, too.)

From everybody. From every Ponzi schemer and Nigerian email scammer and shady purveyor of Florida real estate.

When people are taught to let go of difficult questions and trust whatever religious authorities tell them; that it's better to trust their feelings than their critical thinking skills; that evidence and reason are less important than faith; that "doubter" is a synonym for "sinner"... they become vulnerable to every cheater, chiseler, swindler, con artist, and late night infomercial huckster who's lucky enough to cross their gullible paths. The idea that belief without evidence is a virtue doesn't just inspire people to trust their religious leaders blindly. It inspires people to trust <i>anybody</i> blindly. Including people who are trying to rob them blind.

Quashing science and education.

Do I even need to explain this one? Do I need to explain how the untestability of religion -- and the idea that untestability is a positive virtue -- undercuts science and education?

Not just in a general, "making people value science and education less" way -- but in specific, practical, harmful ways? Hamstringing stem cell research? Forcing abstinence-only sex education on kids? Teaching creationism in public schools?

When religion teaches that believing in the invisible is more important than understanding the perceivable... that personal faith is more important than critical thinking... that letting go of questions is a liberating act of love and trust... that believing things with no evidence is not only okay but a positive virtue... that unfalsifiable hypotheses are just ducky... that what God supposedly says about the world is more real than what's in the world itself...

Do I need to explain this any further? Do I need to explain how the "Facts take a back seat to faith" trope hammers science and education into the ground?

Terrorizing children.

And again, we come to the matter of priorities.

If we prioritized this life, we would never terrorize children by telling them they'll be tortured in fire forever if they don't obey our rules. We would never tell them to imagine putting their hands in a fire, to imagine the crackling and burning and screaming pain... and then to imagine doing that for a minute. An hour. A day. A lifetime. Eternity.

Not unless we were horribly abusive.

But when people think the next life is more important than this one -- when people think the infinite burning and torture is really going to happen if their children don't obey God's word -- they'll gladly give their children nightmarish visions of pain and torture, dispensed by the Fatherly God who supposedly created them and loves them. They'll do it without a second thought. When people prioritize their belief in an afterlife that, by definition, is impossible to prove or disprove, they effectively cut the reality check begging them to not terrorize and emotionally abuse their own children.

Teaching children about hell is child abuse. Nothing but the unverifiable promise of permanent bliss or torture in the afterlife would make loving, decent, non-abusive parents inflict it on their children.

I could go on, and on, and on. I could talk about justification for bigotry. The quashing of medicine and public health. Individual abuses by religious leaders: financial, and sexual, and otherwise. But I think you get the idea.


And we'd be better off without it.

gentle_dissident

This is why I'm not only an atheist, I'm anti-religion. I'm only anti-religious if someone who should know better is spouting the BS.

Baruch

I don't have the Utilitarian calculus that lets me calculate that the net cost/benefit ratio of religion is 0.45 etc.  I can't tell, and I doubt anyone can quantify it beyond their own prejudice.  Most if not all things are good/bad or bad/good.  Don't believe that?  Then grow up.  Don't like that?  Then grow up.

On the other hand, I don't think that a materialist is "complete" idiot ... but I will just have to grin and bear it if a materialist considers my "mixed" position to be idiocy.  I just don't care to go around telling folks what a genius I am, or telling others they are not.  Egomania is not a good position.  Rudeness wins nothing but lemons.

People's political positions do ping my "idiocy" meter, but religion does not ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

stromboli

#3
I haven't made an absolutely dedicated study of the harm vs benefit ratio of religion, but between what I have studied and what I have personally experienced, religion is in the "problem" column and not the "solution" column.

If someone can present a scenario in any specific religion that is an overall benefit to mankind, is testable in any scientific way or doesn't contradict known scientific truths (in other words, non religious information that IS testable) then it might belong in the "solution" column. Haven't seen it and I'm not expecting to.

I have studied Mormonism extensively, Christianity somewhat less so, and other religions (mostly Hindusim) to some extent. If there is a religion or ideological dogma that is an overall benefit to mankind, I haven't seen it. Buddhism has some positive aspects. Taoism and Confucianism have some useful viewpoints. Universal Unitarianism is growing in locations where people are leaving Mormonism and Jehovah's Witness and still wanting a spiritual or a peer group experience; as far as I know it isn't harmful, but it doesn't to me present anything like a scientifically provable context.

Secular humanism has been given the same status as a religion

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/11/03/3587801/district-court-declares-secular-humanism-a-religion/

Consider it a religion or not, it doesn't put an imaginary grandpa in the sky and it doesn't espouse a reward/punishment scenario after death. Works for me. Haven't got the Tshirt yet but I'll get it eventually.

josephpalazzo

As I've said before and will repeat: religion is evil.

stromboli

Quote from: josephpalazzo on January 18, 2016, 07:36:15 PM
As I've said before and will repeat: religion is evil.

Can I get a witness from the congregation?   :wink:

Baruch

Spiritual vs peer group experience for me.  My spirituality is too individual to be a group experience.  But I do miss the community.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

stromboli

Quote from: Baruch on January 18, 2016, 09:06:00 PM
Spiritual vs peer group experience for me.  My spirituality is too individual to be a group experience.  But I do miss the community.

As I've said before, my spirituality is found camping by a mountain lake or stream and seeing the day pass from dawn to dusk, feeling the pulse of a wilderness not yet plowed under by "progress". Spirituality is a personal thing anyway, regardless of how it is derived. And I don't miss the community.

GSOgymrat


SGOS

QuotePeople can excuse and rationalize a political ideology for a long time ... but ultimately, the proof is in the pudding.

Religion is different.

I have a hard time seeing much difference between politics and religion, except that as implied in the article, bad ideas in religion seem to be more durable.  Other than that, they are both ideologies. 

If you're a creepy bigot like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, society has a place for you to operate, a place of comfort, where brain farts are treated with glorified respect by deluded minds of the gullible and political opportunists who pander to your most disrespectful manipulations for political gain.

Hydra009

Quote from: SGOS on January 19, 2016, 08:26:11 AM
I have a hard time seeing much difference between politics and religion, except that as implied in the article, bad ideas in religion seem to be more durable.  Other than that, they are both ideologies. 

If you're a creepy bigot like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, society has a place for you to operate, a place of comfort, where brain farts are treated with glorified respect by deluded minds of the gullible and political opportunists who pander to your most disrespectful manipulations for political gain.
Yep.  Essentially, it's the only con artist scheme in town with tax breaks and political influence.  And criticism is either taboo or illegal.

stromboli

Certainly a good business plan. It has worked for centuries.


doorknob

sorry I couldn't read the entire article because I have the attention span of a pea. But I agree that religion is harmful. I've always held that stand point.

facebook164


Quote from: Baruch on January 18, 2016, 05:03:52 PM
I don't have the Utilitarian calculus that lets me calculate that the net cost/benefit ratio of religion is 0.45 etc.  I can't tell, and I doubt anyone can quantify it beyond their own prejudice.  Most if not all things are good/bad or bad/good.  Don't believe that?  Then grow up.  Don't like that?  Then grow up.

On the other hand, I don't think that a materialist is "complete" idiot ... but I will just have to grin and bear it if a materialist considers my "mixed" position to be idiocy.  I just don't care to go around telling folks what a genius I am, or telling others they are not.  Egomania is not a good position.  Rudeness wins nothing but lemons.

People's political positions do ping my "idiocy" meter, but religion does not ;-)

You have obviously a sweet spot for religion.

The problem is that religion has taken the space for thinking about what it is to be human. Priest has stolen an important role of being supportive in moments of hardship.

There is no reason for why this part of priesthood, supportive human being, should have any religious ties. History makes it "natural" to go to church when catastrophies happen. I think this has to change. We are part of society, and that society should free itself from gods.