Religion, a Debate

Slate has a brief article describing a formal debate in New York City between atheists and believers about whether religion does more good than harm in the world.  I find this an interesting conversation because it sidesteps the question of whether the religions are true or not, and concentrates on the effect religious belief actually has in the world:

   Chapman and Grayling argued that anything good religion does—encouraging ethical behavior, providing comfort and community, promoting charity—nonreligious groups do, too. But along with the good stuff, religion also consigns women to a second-class status, foments division and conflict, oppresses gay people, encourages credulity, and stunts scientific progress. Of course, not all religious people share the same insular perspectives, but most extremists do, Grayling argued. “The extremists are the most honest of the people who have a religious view because they commit themselves to what their tradition tells them, and they stay closest to the text,” he said, explaining that moderate believers often “cherry-pick” the best parts of their religion, ignoring the rest. “Now, if that’s real religion, that’s honest religion, the world is very much better off without it.”

    Wolpe and D’Souza maintained that religion does a vast amount of unrecognized good in the world—unrecognized because media outlets won’t run an article with the headline “Religious Man Feeds Hungry Man.” Religious wrongdoings, on the other hand, are exaggerated and overhyped in the news. Wolpe rattled off study after study showing that religious people are more likely to volunteer and participate in civic life, and less likely to do drugs or get divorced. Apparently, believers are even healthier and live longer. Oh, and if you think religious fundamentalists are evil, they’re nothing compared to the atheists. “The crimes of religion, even of Bin Laden, are infinitesimal compared to the nightmare of atheist regimes,” said D’Souza, naming Khrushchev and Brezhnev, Chernenko, Ceaușescu, Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, and Pol Pot as a few examples. “[They] have killed far more people, in far shorter of a time, and are still doing it right now.”  The world without religion, the men said, would be a bleak and impoverished place.

It seems to me that both sides are, at least, partially right. This is a complex question and impossible to deal with in depth here. But I think that religion is inherent in what it means to be human, that we can't really escape some manifestation of it, and that it can be a force for good, as least in individual lives. However, organized religion on the large scale lends itself to the establishment and enforcement of power - religious, governmental, social, etc. - and has much to answer for. I think one can be "spiritual" without being religious - which means we can take what we want from religion and leave the rest. It's when it becomes an organized entity that religion has the most potential for evil.

If Awakening is the goal, we must use any tools available. But we must also avoid the very tools that kept us asleep in the nightmare - and it seems to me that religion is too often one, if not the main, tool which works to keep us asleep.