Would the World Be Better Without Religion?
By Mary Theroux • Thursday December 31, 2009 5:23 PM PDT • 44 Comments
A Facebook friend of mine posted his response to a poll: “Would the world be better without religion?” two days ago, generating, to date, 3,627 comments—by far the most I’ve ever seen for any single Facebook posting, and remarkable for one with 481 “Friends.”
While I haven’t read all of the comments, the general flavor seems to be a confusion between “religion” and “theocracy.” “Religion,” after all, is simply a set of beliefs, and as C.S. Lewis shows in his brilliant book, The Abolition of Man, nearly every civilization in the history of the world has shared a belief in Natural Law, or what Lewis calls the Tao, from “Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you,” (Confucius), and “I have not slain men” (ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead), to “Thou Shalt Not Kill” (Judaism), and “Do unto others as you would have done unto you” (Christ).
All in all, not bad bases from which to conduct one’s life.
Indeed, I’ve yet to have anyone successfully explain to me how a world without “religion” would operate by anything other than purely situational ethics—from whence would one derive a concept of “Right,” much less “Rights”?
So why this hostility to “religion”? A much-repeated phrase is something along the lines of “religion is responsible for all wars.” Yet even a cursory review of a list of wars exposes this as patently false:
- Hundred Years War: No
- Revolutionary War: No
- Civil War: No
- Boer War: No
- World War I: No
- World War II: No
- Vietnam War: No
And despite the much-ballyhooed framing of the current “War on Terror” as a “clash of civilizations,” “jihad,” or any other such, even the vast majority of Americans who support its prosecution do so under the mistaken belief that it protects Americans’ security rather than on religious grounds.
It thus seems more likely to me that the multiple comments were excited by confusing “religion” with “theocracy”: the intermingling of Church with State. As C. S. Lewis put it in his essay, “Is Progress Possible?: Willing Slaves of the Welfare State”
I believe in God, but I detest theocracy. For every Government consists of mere men and is, strictly viewed, a makeshift; if it adds to its commands ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ it lies, and lies dangerously.
(He continues to presciently add: “On just the same ground I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in.”)
Rodney Stark’s For the Glory of God provides a fascinating take on the change that occurred when Constantine made Christianity the official State religion, setting off a continuing struggle between the “Church of Power,” vs. the “Church of Piety.” The American Founders’ “Separation of Church and State” was thus as rooted in an understanding of the corrupting influence of the State on the Church, as any fear of a Church corrupting the State—and both are well worth guarding against.
Face it: the State does not itself function well as a protector of the poor, suffering, downtrodden; and most States have been primarily a deliverer of death, privation, famine, destruction. The most effective killing machines have been those that banned religion: China, the Soviet Union, Cambodia. Meanwhile, the individuals who have stood up to challenge the evils being perpetuated, champion the oppressed, and deliver relief to the suffering, have overwhelmingly been motivated by and drawn their courage from their belief in God and the need to fight for their fellow man—in short, religious beliefs. From William Wilberforce’s successful campaign against the British slave trade, to the Salvation Army’s fight against sexual trafficking since the 19th century and extensive social services and disaster relief provided worldwide, to John Paul II’s consistent attacks against oppressive regimes everywhere, to the much-admired Mahatma Ghandi, Mother Theresa, the Dalai Lama, and Desmond Tutu.
Yes, there are plenty of examples of evil-doers invoking the name of God to justify their actions. But are these isolated individuals the source of “religion” as the root of all evils in the world? Or are the truly large-scale horrors primarily rooted in divorcing ethics (what is right to do) from science and society: Darwinism’s “survival of the fittest” evolving through eugenics and Hitler’s Aryan supremacy and “final solution,” to China’s one-child policy’s forced abortions and infanticide; to regimes killing millions of their own citizens while heralded as great leaps forward; to acceptance of the argument that the end justifies the means to perpetuate mass bombings; to a relentless quest to wrest autonomy from the individual and invest it in the State.
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn so eloquently summed it up:
Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”
It seems to me the world rather needs more religion: more declarations that every individual is a beloved child of God not to be indentured, bombed, tortured, enslaved, or generally interfered with. And if indeed “God is Love,” then even John Lennon might have thought better of “and no religion too” as the answer to a hurting world.
Tags: American History, Charity, Civil Liberties, Civil Society, Fascism, Global Warming, Middle East, Morality, Natural Law, Personal Liberty, Philosophy, Propaganda, Property Rights, Science, The State, Torture, Utilitarianism, War 
If you are speaking of Deism, then you are correct.
If you are speaking of the revealed religions, then you are mistaken. Many people use force and violence to do what they wish in the name of Jesus, God or Allah. Sadly, they do not see the error of their ways and believe they will get to Heaven.
JB | Jan 1, 2010 | Reply
JB,
You are correct that many individuals excuse their use of force and violence to do as they wish by invoking Jesus, God, Allah, the New Man, Utopia, the Revolution, and many other concepts—but the teachings of Jesus and many other religious traditions do not themselves “reveal” such means as proper.
Man’s interpretation is frequently faulty, as we see in the tremendous misinterpretation and implementation of concepts of justice, economics, political theory, science—and, yes, theory of war and the use of force.
But as developed by Christian Scholastics especially, Natural Law theory is determinedly against such ends-justified means. An excellent book on this is Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State.
Best wishes,
Mary
Mary Theroux | Jan 1, 2010 | Reply
Mary, I want to be very careful here not to get into a whole back and forth, as I’ve been down this road on this blog with your husband and it because a large distraction from the more important anti-state message of the II. I’ll just address one thing.
You said “Indeed, I’ve yet to have anyone successfully explain to me how a world without “religion” would operate by anything other than purely situational ethics—from whence would one derive a concept of “Right,” much less “Rights”?”
I can’t speak to whether this “explains to *you*” the answer – only you can speak for what works inside your head – for me and many others, the answer is straightforward and natural, and in fact completely consistent with the many economic viewpoints of the II: it’s simple nonzero-sum mutual self interest, best seen as a “contract”: “I won’t aggress against you if you won’t aggress against me.” “Rights” do not need to have a divine “giver” to be derived; they can be derived from purely secular/humanistic contracts. The above contract is one I’d gladly sign with you and every other relatively civil person, and it results in my not aggressing against you or your property (properly worded of course).
Since nonzero sum mutual self-interest is the basis to the understanding of all Austrian/libertarian economics, I don’t think it’s that controversial to bring it up here.
You basically make mention of this when you quote Jesus et all with things like ““Do unto others as you would have done unto you”. You just interpret this as “religion” and think that that is the only possible source for that kind of thinking; again, feel free to think however you want, but if you’d like to understand those that don’t agree with you, understand that we just see it as a simple form of “contract”, one that is mutually advantageous and thus requires only commonsense to enter into.
Andy Cleary | Jan 1, 2010 | Reply
Thank you, Andy, and I’ll try to meet your spirit in kind—direct and in an attitude of common ground. While the concept of mutual self-interest, contracts, etc., certainly takes one a long way, to me it falls short of being able to determine what is “Right” as well as providing a wholly-developed concept of “Rights.”
Can “Right” be determined solely by what is “right” for me, so long as it doesn’t interfere with another? Or do we not each (or at least most of us) at least implicitly recognize or “know” that we have an interior, transcendent knowledge of “Right”? How do we know what we “ought” to do, if the clear self-interest isn’t evident one way or the other—or when they appear to conflict? What if our clear self-interest would seem to indicate that one course of action is better, but we still choose the course that will help another?
While Lewis cites the near-universal existence of a concept of something akin to the Golden Rule in every civilization, this alone has not and does not in and of itself result in a fully realized theory of Natural law and Rights. These sophisticated concepts have been developed by scholars such as the Scholastics, who, building upon the whole teachings of Jesus, established the foundations of the economics and rights theories we agree on. Lew Rockwell has a nice summary here: “Free Market Economists: 400 Years Ago.”
I have no objection to anyone not acknowledging that principles, not just utility, underlie our very concepts of Rights and Right. I just get tired of the old saw that religion is anti-Reason and anti-science, when in historical fact, it is has been the cradle for such.
Best wishes,
Mary
Mary Theroux | Jan 1, 2010 | Reply
Sorry, Andy, I know I promised not to ramble on, but if I may just add—back on the war and peace issue—that I do not see how a non-absolute concept of Rights can effectively argue against the idea of preemptive war or so-called “just war.” If a “leader” argues that our society will only survive if we preemptively attack another, or that the “just” use of deadly force will unavoidedly result in “collateral” damage, by what argument other than that every human being has an absolute right to life, regardless of their having a contract with you, regardless of the death of an innocent resulting in your security, do you say “No”?
Best wishes,
Mary
Mary Theroux | Jan 1, 2010 | Reply
Thanks for this article; somehow I missed that essay by C.S.Lewis. I have been a Christian anarchist for many years now and, while I agree with Andy that it is theoretically possible to derive rights from a non-religious basis (Ayn Rand comes to mind), in reality you are correct that non-religious societies have surpassed religious ones in causing death and misery.
Marcel Doru Popescu | Jan 2, 2010 | Reply
We must be careful when separating religion from the deeds and beliefs of its followers. Who is to say what a religion’s true nature is and who speaks for it? Why is a peaceful interpretation of the Koran more plausible than a warlike one? Who is to say who is using religion as an “excuse” or justification, and who is being “true” to the religion?
Missionary monotheisms are _structurally_ prone to conflict: They purport to explain everything, including an eschatology involving everybody, demand loyalty and offer extreme punishments and rewards based on that loyalty, and are formulated to apply to groups as well as individuals. Regardless of content, those structural attributes will create conflict. If the content is also violent – and the holy books are violent – we can certainly expect violence.
Of course that does not mean that religions are to blame for everything or that they do no good. But crediting religion with the good while blaming the bad on other factors is just as questionable as thanking God for saving a house from a tornado without blaming god for the destruction of the rest of the neighborhood.
Mark Hatlie | Jan 2, 2010 | Reply
“...nearly every civilization in the history of the world has shared a belief in Natural Law...”
I think it a huge mistake to believe that natural law comes from a creator. I’d suggest Part I of Rothbard’s “The Ethics of Liberty” as a start in understanding why natural law/rights are emergent.
Bill | Jan 2, 2010 | Reply
To pick just one war you mentioned, the Civil War, religion played a major role in causing it. The southerners presented Biblical passages showing that God approves of slavery. The abolitionists presented passages showing he despises it. Frankly, the slave holders were on better ground.
You say that in the absence of religion, only “situational” ethics are possible. Since you don’t define this term, it’s difficult to argue for or against it. But how does the existence of a deity form the basis of an ethical system? Is it that the deity is so powerful he can punish any behavior he doesn’t like? “I’m bigger than you are” isn’t much of an ethical argument? Or is it that whatever the creator of the universe wants must be right? In that case, we have the difficulty of figuring out what he wants. Does any holy book really have knowledge of this creator’s desires?
Ethics grows out of the need of people to live; this means long-term, consistent action, and it includes getting along with other people. Perhaps that’s what you mean by “situational”? Claims of divine authority allow people to get away with anything, no matter how damaging it may be to themselves and others. It’s no basis for forming an ethical system.
GaryM | Jan 2, 2010 | Reply
Thank you, GaryM:
The Civil War was fought over States rights, Southerners’ self-determination, protectionism, and nationalism, and Lincoln cared precious little about ending slavery. Read his first inaugural address. The excellent book, Emancipating Salves, Enslaving Free Men is the best examination of the Civil War, but if you skim through the transcript of an event we held, “The Civil War: Liberty and American Leviathan,” you will get a great overview of the causes and effects of the Civil War, tragic in its refutation of the principles of the American Revolution, and setting the U.S. on the course of centralized leviathan. No other nation in the Western Hemisphere needed a war to end slavery, and the U.S. Civil War was unnecessary for this purpose.
But the further issue is that you again repeat the error I (and Lewis) challenge: that natural law principles (God’s word and Rights) are whatever man chooses to say it they are. As I argue, such principles are objective, immutable and discoverable, just as gravity or any other physical constant or law. As such, they are not subject to the interpretation of men: they are immaterial realities, transcendent and unalienable.
Marcel and Bill:
Rothbard’s book, The Ethics of Liberty, does not provide a defense of natural law at all. Instead, he begins the book by arguing that a naturalist explanation is fully adequate, in keeping with the standard post-Enlightenment claim. Incidentally, in the process, he also errs in discussing the Augustinian position on reason, claiming that Augustine was “fideist.” Instead, as Augustine stated:
Rothbard’s view at the time was that man’s discovery of natural law does not require religion (or God), and he further claimed that it was Aquinas, Suarez, and other Scholastics in the Middle Ages who made such a claim. Interestingly enough, Rothbard is partially correct and agrees with C.S. Lewis that natural law is a universal knowledge discoverable by mankind. But Rothbard’s errs in eliminating the theism (“substance dualism”: the reality of the material and immaterial) of Aquinas and asserts that a strictly metaphysical materialism is adequate both for natural law to exist and for humans to have free will and the capacity to reason and make discoveries. Rothbard agrees with Aquinas that individuals act purposefully, but skips over how this could be possible if all that exists are material forces at work. It is here that Rothbard fails. For an excellent discussion of this problem and why theism is an essential bridge, please see “Economic Science and the Poverty of Naturalism: C. S. Lewis’s ‘Argument from Reason’” and “The Argument from Reason.” And some of the seminal books on the subject are Alvin Plantinga’s Warrant and Proper Function, God and Other Minds, and Warranted Christian Belief.
As for Rand’s argument for natural rights, she uses the standard, reciprocal-rights approach and tries to derive natural rights based on subjective, self-interest. But again, this is inadequate as it is just the same utilitarian view that “the end justifies the means.” If only self-interest is the basis for morality, then reciprocity will only comport with natural law when self-interest benefits. But what if self-interest says that the probability of benefiting from mass murder or simply stealing a book and not getting caught is extremely high? With self-interest the only basis for morality, committing such crimes would have to be “moral.” (And in fact, such a claim is exactly the basis for every tyranny in history as rulers warred, enslaved and pillaged because they believed it benefited them and such a “right” was theirs.) Yet, we still know that such acts are not moral and such an assessment is made by our awareness of a ground (objective standard) that we have discovered. As a result, we find that objective morality means that the end never justifies the means because every means is an end in itself and that whatever ground we use to judge an end must also exist at the point of any means.
Best wishes,
Mary
Mary Theroux | Jan 2, 2010 | Reply
GaryM, continued:
Sorry, I had to jump on a plane before I finished. My further point was that if Laws are objective, it is possible to discover them, and and we are tasked with discovering them: the laws of ethics no less than the laws of math, physics, economics, etc. If one accepts that there are “right” and “wrong” answers in math, that not all theories of economics are equally valid or explain equally correctly the way the world truly works, then one can equally accept that not all theories of ethics are equally valid: that there are, in fact, “True” ethics, as there are “True” economics. This is what I meant by not “subjective.” Natural law is not “subjective” or “emergent,” as our innate ability to infer through a discovery process enables us to unpack truths that exist objectively. We have and may well make errors, but such errors are only knowable because they fall short of understanding the completeness of objective reality that we are mindful of.
I hope this is helpful.
Thank you again,
Mary
Mary Theroux | Jan 2, 2010 | Reply
Regarding the Civil War: Perhaps under God’s will, states have rights. Under the principles which you disdain, only individuals have actual existence as acting beings, and only individuals have rights. A state is a geographic area under a government. A government cannot have the right to do that — for instance, maintain the institution of slavery — which is unconditionally wrong for individuals to do.
You say it’s objectively possible to know God’s will. But the only way that is claimed to do this is revelation. If a revelation came to me, it might be so overwhelming I knew it was true; but why would anyone else believe me? And when I see the various and mutually contradictory claims that people make about what God has decreed, which one should I pick as correct, if any?
Let’s take a specific example: the massacres of Jericho and Ai. (For purposes of this discussion, let’s assume they actually happened.) What you call a “situtational” interpretation would say that these are human beings with rights, and should not be killed simply for being in the way of a migrating tribe.
Religious ethics says that mere man cannot know what is right and wrong; Deus vult! So the entire populations of both cities were massacred, and by the standard that God’s will trumps human reason, this was perfectly right.
If only revelation can give us moral guidance, it’s vitally important to know which revelation is “objectively” correct. Is it a moral breach to eat pork? Does not believing in God’s Only Son bring condemnation? Is drawing a picture of Muhammad a violation of fundamental morality?
If people could find some objective way to measure the validity of these different assertions, then we would have an objective measure of divine will. But even so, what reason is there for equating “Deus vult” with moral right? Did God have the right to order the massacre of innocent people in Jericho, simply because he created them?
You understand self-interest only as “not getting caught.” Thus, we need a God who always catches us. But the view of “self” that consists only of getting away with things isn’t really about the self; it’s about one’s perception by others. True *self*-interest is a matter of having one’s own existence as a value, one which acts as is necessary for a rational human being, not doing whatever one can get away with.
These two points go together. If a human being is merely a furtive pursuer of immediate gratification, then he has no reason to respect others who are just like him, and it’s necessary to invent an authority over him. If human beings are people capable of recognizing their own worth, then they’re also capable of recognizing the worth of others, and arbitrary commands from an allegedly holy book have no claim to override that.
GaryM | Jan 3, 2010 | Reply
Gary:
I didn’t say slavery was justified, or that States’ rights trump individual rights. I said the Civil War was prosecuted by Lincoln as an issue of the federal government trumping States’ rights: among other issues, tariffs that hurt Southerners that Lincoln claimed as the federal government’s right to collect and use. Of course Individuals’ Rights are preeminent, but the Civil War did not break out over that issue, and, the historians I cited above (and others) argue, I believe convincingly, that the war was wholly unnecessary for asserting the sovereignty of the individual—bringing the institution of slavery to an end (the history of Brazil’s abolition of slavery is a good example of peacefully ending the institution); and the war rather resulted in (means and) ends antipodal to the rights of individuals.
The stories you cite are again man’s account of and interpretation of events and God’s word. The discovery of the laws of ethics involves the same process as the discovery of any other of God’s laws: e.g., the discovery of the laws of economics, physics, math, etc. Indeed, until the turn of the 20th century, when the decision was made that economics is a “positive” science, ethics and economics were considered one intertwined discipline. (See, for example, “An Introduction to Economics as a Moral Science.”) While revelation can certainly play a part in scientific or other discovery (“Eureka!”), knowing what is true or not requires testing against objective criteria. “If each individual has a right to life, is killing justified?” tests the premise of massacres in the name of God or any other cause pretty effectively, would you agree? (See also “Just War? Moral Soldiers?“)
Finally, I did not define self-interest as “not getting caught,” and would refer you to the above for why reasoning from self-interest alone cannot get us all the way to a full understanding of Rights.
Best wishes,
Mary
Mary Theroux | Jan 3, 2010 | Reply
Read all Lewis’ books; then read Beversluis’ ” C.S. Lewis...” both editions. I also liked reading Bertrand Russell on gods and religion.
richard smith | Jan 3, 2010 | Reply
Debra Knight | Jan 4, 2010 | Reply
Dear Mary,
Congratulations on a very fine article. After reading some of the comments, I’m reminded of what C.S. Lewis once said: “What Naturalism cannot accept is the idea of a God who stands outside Nature and made it.”
All good wishes,
Jake
Jake Rodriguez | Jan 4, 2010 | Reply
Richard,
Beversluis’s book has been refuted numerous times now. Please see for example the book, C.S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason, by Victor Reppert. For an analysis of Lewis’s critique of naturalism, also see the article by Reppert, “The Argument from Reason,” and Alvin Plantinga’s books, including Warrant and Proper Function, are among the various, excellent and definitive works on the fallacy and incoherence of metaphysical naturalism.
David Theroux | Jan 4, 2010 | Reply
My comment from yesterday did not get posted. Is there a problem?
Debra Knight | Jan 5, 2010 | Reply
Okay, that last one posted so I’ll try again.
While, strictly speaking, you did not define self-interest as “not getting caught” you used that definition to argue that self-interest is an inadequate basis for deciding between right and wrong. You cannot have it both ways.
My personal experience with religion (Southern Baptist) is that it can be very harmful when taught to children. In fact, it can be terrorizing. The bible has a lot more in it than “god is love” and the golden rule.
Debra Knight | Jan 5, 2010 | Reply
Ethics had to exist prior to the religions that promote them. Different religions developed independently in different parts of the world but, as you point out, but all share a similar set of ethics (natural law). It seems most likely that those ethics are innate to human nature & predated religion. Religion isn’t necessary for the existence of morality & ethics.
Stew | Jan 5, 2010 | Reply
Thank you, Debra.
Again, you are confusing the teachings of man with the discovery of God’s laws, the underlying principles of religion. In the case of Christian teachings, C.S. Lewis does an excellent job distilling them in his Mere Christianity. The analyses I link to above provide the more complete exposition on how these principles underlie a fully developed theory of Rights. Take a look if you have a moment and see what you think.
Best wishes,
Mary
Mary Theroux | Jan 5, 2010 | Reply
I’ve read “Mere Christianity” but that has nothing to do with the fact that you denied defining self-interest as “not getting caught” even though that definition is what you used to argue the inadequacy of self-interest as a basis for judging right and wrong.
As far as I can tell, your response to me did not address my point. As I offered no opinion about self-interest as an adequate guiding principle, I am not clear what you believe my confusion to be. I appreciate you taking the time to respond. Thanks.
Debra Knight | Jan 5, 2010 | Reply
As far as I can understand your argument, it seems to be based on simultaneously making two claims that directly contradict each other. On the one hand, you say that man cannot understand ethical principles without the aid of religion. But then, when several commentators have pointed out the actual destructive moral effect that religion has historically had, you dismiss these bad moral effects as “the teachings of man”, and claim that human reason can discover true ethical principles, analogously to discovering the principles of physics. As far as I can find you haven’t said anything yet about how to reconcile these two claims.
To clarify your views, let me ask you: what do you think is the proper relation between religion and physics?
I think most scientifically informed people today, including those who are religious, will agree that physics needs to be separate from religion. We can discover and understand the principles of physics through human reason and experimentation, with no role for religion. And historically, the influence of religion on physics – the church’s treatment of Galileo being the most famous case – was a major obstacles to progress in physics, since it led to putting the authority of the bible above the conclusions of reason and experiment.
My question to you is, then: do you agree that physics needs to be separate from religion? Or is your position rather that physics requires religion? Would you apply to physics a view analogous to your view on ethics, and argue that
>Indeed, I’ve yet to have anyone successfully explain to me how a world without “religion” would operate by anything other than purely situational physics – from whence would one derive a concept of “laws of motion,” much less “quantum mechanics”?
If the latter is your view, than that is really the center of your argument on the role of religion, and you need to state it explicitly.
If not, if you do agree that human progress in understanding physics required separating it from the influence of religion, than logically you have two options: either apply the same to ethics, and concede that human progress in ethics also requires separating it from the influence of religion (the view of, for example, Ayn Rand); or drop the analogy to physics and state that you regard physics and ethics as essentially different and that principles in ethics, unlike in physics, cannot be discovered and understood by human reason, creating a need for religion (the common modern pro-religion position).
Whichever you choose, if you can accept that there are people who really do regard the principles of ethics as rationally discoverable and understandable, just like the principles of physics, and who take the analogy seriously, then you can understand why some people are hostile to religion.
Eyal Mozes | Jan 5, 2010 | Reply
Mary: For starters, you say, ‘Religion, after all, is simply a set of beliefs.’ That defines ‘paradigm’, but I say a religion must have deities, one or more gods, supreme beings, etc. One of my many conflicts with ‘religion’ is that all those I know of demand complete and mindless acceptance of its dogma, including Christianity. This is called ‘faith’, and the stronger (as in ‘true believer’) the better in the eyes of church authorities and peers. It is pathetic when these believers claim other religions (equally mythical) are wrong (or non-believers like me), and engage in missionary work to convert these sinners and lost souls. How arrogant! The miracles and dogmas get laughable when fairy tales like virgin births, resurrections, gods hearing millions of simultaneous prayers (and answering some!),heaven, hell & Satan (invented to account for why there is so much trouble when a loving god is in charge) are part of the required beliefs. It’s a long list. It amazes me how many intelligent people believe this stuff. I guess it makes them feel normal, ‘good’, secure, correct, whatever. Of course, over 90% of ‘religious’ people are the same sect as their parents, which shows how much ‘social pressure’ and ‘being accepted’ and ‘normal’ has to do with it. One of the reasons I like Ind. Inst. is that it is has been free from religion. I forgive you for inserting it this once, but please don’t do it again. And yes, because religions require obedience to dogma and various secular and mythical authorities (priests, Popes, etc.), I think it damages one’s mind and thus society. Ethics, love, honesty, and other virtues don’t require religion.
Regards, Dave (please fwd to Dave T.)
David Redick | Jan 5, 2010 | Reply
A necessary qualification of being “God” is over all rule of all things. This frustrates us as we don’t always know what “God is up to” [and if we did wouldn't we then be God?] God rules in the affairs of men and nations.
On the human side of the spectrum I’m not into mixing religion [systemic forms, types, denominations, etc.] with civil government. However, I do believe that everyone functions from a myriad of presuppositions. It’s how they think and consequently act. In that scenario I find it not inappropriate for someone to act out in their faith...which in fact is what each one does, unless a hypocrite or worse being untrue to oneself.
John Simpson | Jan 5, 2010 | Reply
A few scattered points:
I agree that a self-interest-based approach isn’t sufficient to defend natural “Rights” (at least in a very narrow sense; it seems to me that the golden rule is as much based on self-interest as anything else), but I don’t see how religion solves this problem. I wouldn’t expect “because God said so” to be especially convincing to a non-believer.
Also, you write, “Natural law is not ‘subjective’ or ‘emergent,’ as our innate ability to infer through a discovery process enables us to unpack truths that exist objectively.” I don’t see how calling something emergent automatically makes it subjective. I see ‘emergent’ as being synonymous with the ‘discovery process’ you describe here.
Finally, I have to dispute your statement that the most effective killing machines were those states that banned religion. The United States never banned religion, yet it was certainly one of the most effective killing machines of the 20th century, and it’s pretty much without competition now. Yeah, the U.S. hasn’t killed as many of its own citizens, but it’s killed plenty of other people.
Joe | Jan 5, 2010 | Reply
Thank you, commentators. I have been away for a few days and apologize for the lag in responding.
I may miss a few points in trying to catch all, so feel free to come back.
Debra: I’m not sure where you saw me defining self-interest as “not getting caught.” I see trying to develop a full ethical system on self-interest as inadequate because of the reasons I stated to Andy (see my second comment of Jan. 1, above).
Eyal: Religion is akin to physics in that each adheres to metaphysical laws: laws that are outside of the natural system itself. The university itself was originally a product of the church, and science a product of those universities, developed by religious scholars who postulated that, since the universe had a legislator, it must follow laws, and then set out to discover what those laws might be. Galileo himself was a religious scholar, and he continued to regard himself a good Catholic for his entire life, writing “the book of nature is a book written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.” His problems mostly resulted from his arrogance in defying the pope who had urged him to make it clear that his work was based in science, not theology. There’s a good account of the affair in Rodney Stark’s For the Glory of God. Thus were the disciplines of math, science, ethics and economics first developed. To the extent that science requires a continued belief (“faith”) that nature follows laws, I suppose one could say it is religious, but that is not what I was saying. Since its launching from its religious roots, science has been perfectly able to stand on its own. I was simply saying that both adhere to laws and that those laws can be discovered.
David: Mindlessness doesn’t get one very far in a relationship with God, and we have religious scholars to thank for the very existence of economics and ethics as disciplines. (Again, for a quick introduction to this history, see “Free Market Economists: 400 Years Ago.”) The sanctity of universal human rights is also a direct Christian teaching and is responsible for the historical eradication of slavery in Europe, expanding to the fight for its banishment globally historically, and continues to drive the fight against it today. There is an excellent and rich literature on the historicity of the Christian “fairy tales” you cite, including the extensive research and writings of N. T. Wright and Richard Swinburne’s The Resurrection of God Incarnate (Oxford University Press). As for missionaries working to “save” people, from my direct involvement with The Salvation Army, I see that they do a very effective job in “saving” them from poverty, disease, addiction, homelessness, and hopelessness in general. As the founder of The Salvation Army, William Booth, said in response from criticism from Thomas Huxley: “They believe in the survival of the fit. The Salvation Army believes in the salvation of the unfit.” (See also, “As an Atheist, I Truly Believe Africa Needs God.”)
Joe: While I would dispute that the U.S. has killed as many millions as Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc., I do not think that killing can be judged by degree, and thus agree that the U.S.’ record in killing is indefensible. It is also contrary to Natural Law, and directly conflicts with Christ’s teachings. I would refer you also to Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State.
And just as a general comment, there are lots and lots of individuals who call themselves religious, Christian, whatever, whose actions do not reflect the actual tenets or principles of religion, Christianity, etc.—just as there are lots and lots of individuals calling themselves “free market economists” proposing policies directly opposing the free market (see Robert Higgs’s post, “Fair Weather Friends of the Market“), and lots and lots of people calling themselves “libertarians” who have loudly called for war and other crimes against individual rights. It is the principles to which I point. We could trade anecdotes about people and interpretations ad naseum, and for every “good” atheist find a “bad” one; for every “good” person of religion cite a “bad” one. My fundamental motive in writing on religion is to acknowledge the debt we owe its principles as underlying our high regard for life, Rights, liberty, truth, justice, and good. My fear is that in discounting the value of these underlying principles we fall prey to relativistic and utilitarian arguments justifying war, infringements on our liberties, and the runaway acceptance of ends-justify-the-means we suffer today.
Mary Theroux | Jan 7, 2010 | Reply
Going back to the original article . . . Wars are waged for a variety of reasons. I know of no war that had a single cause. That said, however, religion is a factor many wars . . . in Vietnam there was a violent conflict between the Roman Catholics and the Buddhists and it was that conflict that led Cardinal Spellman to support the war in Vietnam. In the case of the Civil War, there was a dispute over how the Bible was to be interpreted on the issue of slavery—the southerners said yes and the northerners said no.
The list of wars in the article said nothing about the Crusades which on the surface were all about religion (something that would make the wars popular with the uneducated unsophisticated men who had to fight them) but, underneath, there was the real motivation, that of opening up the trade routes so that the nobles of Europe could, once again, have sugar and spices on their tables and fine fabrics to wear.
Today humankind is faced with serious problems and needs to deal with them seriously and with reason. If we could simply ditch organized religion our chances of survival would be much higher.
To me, the only god that can be said to exist (if, by ‘god’ we mean the ultimate creative force) is a “vast non-anthropomorphic creative force of unknown origin.” Too bad folks won’t leave the definition at that but, instead, give the creative force a personality (and not a pleasant one, at that) and a family life (and not a pleasant one, at that) and mandate perks for those who promote all the ensuing nonsense.
Fred Glynn | Jan 7, 2010 | Reply
Obviously, given how totally dominant religion has been throughout human history, up to about 250 years ago, that means that every human institution or idea that’s more than 250 years old was originated by religious people. So science, the hatred of science, war, peace, tyranny, rights, racism, the opposition to racism, slavery, the movement to abolish slavery, all were originated by religious people and in that sense you can say that all of them are “products of religion” or “launched from religious roots”. This isn’t evidence for whether any of these ideas or institutions are essentially compatible with or opposed to religion.
In the case of science, specifically, the reason it has “been perfectly able to stand on its own” is that it is essentially incompatible with religion. Religion requires that you accept certain truths on faith, with no backing in evidence and logic or in contradiction to the evidence and logic; science requires that you make evidence and logic your only criterion for the truth. That is why progress in science required that it be separated from the influence of religion.
So the contradiction between your two claims remains. Either you believe ethical principles can be discovered and understood by reason, just like principles of physics and other sciences, in which case religion should be regarded as harmful to ethics and ethics must be separated from the influence of religion; or you believe religion is essential to ethics because ethical principles, unlike scientific principles, are not discoverable or understandable by human reason. I still don’t see that you have said anything to show any way to reconcile the two.
Eyal Mozes | Jan 8, 2010 | Reply
One more point: in an earlier post you wrote:
>As for Rand’s argument for natural rights, she uses the standard, reciprocal-rights approach and tries to derive natural rights based on subjective, self-interest.
Now, frankly that has so little connection to anything Rand actually wrote, that it is evident you have taken your idea of Rand’s argument from second-hand sources rather than reading her for yourself; always an unreliable way to understand a thinker’s argument, but even more so when dealing with a thinker as original, and as widely misunderstood and misrepresented, as Rand.
To form an informed idea of what a non-religious ethics, and a non-religions defense of individual rights, is like, I would suggest that it is really important that you read Rand first-hand. I would especially suggest you read her essays “The Objectivist Ethics” and “Man’s Rights”.
Eyal Mozes | Jan 8, 2010 | Reply
Whilst all you big thinking folks discuss. The “devil” laughs. And the worlde continues to die.
Pat O'doul | Jan 8, 2010 | Reply
O’Doul excuse me.
Pat O'doul | Jan 8, 2010 | Reply
Thank you, Eyal.
The rise of science is actually quite directly related to the view held of God: science did not arise in societies dominated by a religious belief system that saw the world as chaotic, or ruled by irrational, arbitrary or capricious gods, or as a kind of cosmic cycle. It was a direct product of Christian philosophy, as Rodney Stark explains in The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success:
Stark adds:
Thus, religion is not only compatible with science, but, in the case of Christianity, was a necessary prerequisite.
As one example of a culture in which this prerequisite was lacking, the atheist Betrand Russell, sharing your misconception that science and religion are antithetical, was baffled by China’s failure to develop science:
But as the Oxford historian Joseph Needham observed, Chinese philosophy views the universe as simply the way it is and always has been, and thus never led its adherents to suppose that it functions according to rational laws that can be discovered. Needham concluded that the failure of the Chinese to develop science was due precisely to their religion, to the inability of Chinese intellectuals to believe in the existence of laws of nature because “the conception of a divine celestial lawgiver imposing ordinances on non-human Nature never developed.”
Stark in the same book similarly traces the rise of a highly-developed view of individualism and rights to Christianity, especially its doctrine of free will as a fundamental principle. I would refer you also to the introductory essay by Lew Rockwell on the roots of science and economics in the Christian tradition, “Free Market Economists: 400 Years Ago.”
I have read Ayn Rand, and did not find her arguments sufficiently compelling to become a disciple. I find her understanding and analysis of actual human action to be particularly deficient. And her logic leaves one with unanswered questions: if the material world is all there is, are reason and free will determined by the material, or are they independently real (i.e., transcendent and objective)? How can there be an “ought” if reality simply “is”?
Mary Theroux | Jan 8, 2010 | Reply
Isn’t it rewriting history to suggest that Christianity was a driving force to rid the world of slavery? I have several Bibles. God talks about slaves, but never suggests it is wrong to have one. The Bible, for some reason, seems to reflect the biases and beliefs of the men who actually wrote it.
Debra Knight | Jan 9, 2010 | Reply
Debra:
That’s exactly what Augustine said: if the Bible seems to contradict knowledge it is because of a lack of understanding on the part of the “servant” who recorded God’s words—i.e., God’s revelations are always limited to the capacity of humans to understand.
But it is in no way “rewriting history” to say that Christianity was the driving force behind the abolition of slavery: in Europe, in the Americas, and globally. Early Christian doctrine, in direct contrast to Greek and Roman, held that slaves were human and had a soul. This belief became so accepted that slavery—once prevalent throughout Europe—was eventually eradicated in Europe. The universal European acceptance of the doctrine that all men are free is evidenced by the fact the Conquistadors had to argue that the American natives were non-human in order to justify enslaving them, with the church arguing that they were human and could not be enslaved. Later, the African slave trade was also justified on the basis of their being “non-human,” which slavery was subsequently fought by the extremely devout William Wilberforce bringing an end to the British slave trade, and the Christian-led American abolitionist movement.
Mary Theroux | Jan 9, 2010 | Reply
The scriptural references to slaves I am thinking of are not revelatory. The ones in Leviticus, for example. Augustine has quite a clever catch-all answer for any and all criticism!
The driving force behind the abolition of slavery was a triumph of good over greed. It happened because of the overwhelming evidence, born from our experience, that it is wrong to own people as if they are property. And this change happened in spite of what our holy writings say on the subject.
Debra Knight | Jan 9, 2010 | Reply
One more thing, I don’t deny individual Christians do very good things in the world. My mom and her actions throughout her life is but one example of such. I also know that Christians get together in groups and do even more good things.
Debra Knight | Jan 9, 2010 | Reply
Hi, Debra:
I actually thought Augustine showed pretty good insight into the progress of human civilization and knowledge. As mankind has moved from observing the movement of the stars and planets and believing that the earth was at the center, formulating succeeding theories of the movement of the planets, etc., to developing the science of astrophysics, so too have we moved from the unique to its time insight that slaves ought to be treated well (which I assume is your reference to Leviticus) to a full understanding that every individual is a unique child of God, endowed with inalienable rights and therefore cannot be enslaved by another. In either case, the truth itself has remained immutable; our capacity to understand the truth—discover the laws more fully—has become more well developed.
As “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” I think it very important to be familiar with and learn from the actual history of the discoveries, dissemination, and eventual acceptance of the ethics that resulted in the abolition of slavery, and other foundations of liberty and rights, to be able to respond well and fully to challenges to these principles.
And I’m not trying to claim a monopoly on good works by Christians. I am, again, trying only to point to the foundational ethics from which we lovers of liberty benefit today.
Best wishes,
Mary
Mary Theroux | Jan 10, 2010 | Reply
I didn’t think you were trying to claim any monopoly on good works. I think that if Christians, either individually or collectively opposed slavery throughout history, it was in spite of what the Bible said on the subject.
My point is that although many Christians are very good people, some of the Christian doctrine, as revealed in scripture, is not so good.
As there are two sides to a coin, there are two sides to Christian doctrine. You see only the good side. There is history on both sides. I agree with you that it is important to learn all history has to teach us.
Debra Knight | Jan 10, 2010 | Reply
This essay saddens me. I would have thought that by now the tactic of co-opting the concept of morality as exclusively religious would be too transparent.
For the record, neither the Dali Lama or Mother Theresa are religious leaders. That’s right, in Buddhism there is no omnipotent being in the sky. Rather, the teaching is that all of us have the potential for enlightenment. Similarly, Mother Theresa’s motivation was not religion, although it was a vehicle through which she achieved her goals.
The worst aspect of religion is that it masks the true motivation of the religious leader and facilitates the recruitment of the ignorant to ignoble causes. For example, it is much easier to justify interfering with the liberty of others by appealing to the “will of god” than by justifying the true motivation of a religious leader.
This is why separation of church and state is a part of U.S. Constitution — albeit an often ignored part.
Religion is the overt cause of most wars throughout recorded history, and lest you forget, figured very prominently in World War II, in the persecution of the Jews.
Science and law would be much further advanced, if not hampered by the ignorance of theists. Witness the current attempts to deny schoolchildren exposure to the concept of evolution.
Chris Carpentieri | Jan 12, 2010 | Reply
The problem (or one problem) with the contract approach is that it depends on someone else entering into the contract with me. If the other person opts for “might makes right,” then I’m forced to absent myself from his/her presence, or respond in kind (or willing take whatever evil is dished out). And, if there is no God behind it all, behind the demand, say, for justice, then all my own desires for good can be quenched by that which is “red in tooth and claw” and justice will forever be unfulfilled.
On another note, I was really surprised by the comment, “most States have been primarily a deliverer of death, privation, famine, destruction.” “Most”? And, “primarily”?
Rick Wade | Feb 24, 2010 | Reply
“All you need is love” and the whole “do unto others...” is all that’s needed in this world. But then again do we have to start questioning what everyone considers to be love? Large scale war happens because of influence and insanity!
kim | Feb 28, 2010 | Reply
We shouldn’t need to dilude ourselves, our conciousness and our powers of perception by excepting what is essentially a fairy tale as fact. Believe it or not, moral values exist outside of religion. I don’t need the threat of hell or promise of heaven to dissuade me from doing something “bad”.
I understand WHY religion exists; it explains things that we don’t yet have an answer for (but may in the future). It solves the problem of the unknown and the fear that it creates by giving us an “answer”; it also solves the problem of a reasonless world out of our control, by giving us prayer, by which we can persuade God, who controls everything, giving us control of everything. It makes more than perfect sense, but at the cost of rationality.
All I’m going to say at this point is that I, for one, am tired of diluting myself and would rather see the world for what it is.
Ben | Apr 27, 2010 | Reply