Does religion do more harm than good?

So, earlier I wrote a response to an article called "Myth 2: Religion Does More Harm Than Good," sparked by an exchange on Facebook. In that response, I simply went through the article and pointed out the good and bad parts. I didn't actually address the question "Does religion do more harm than good?" That's what I aim to do now. Of course, there have been entire books written on this subject ("God is Not Great," by Christopher Hitchens, for example), so it's unlikely that I would be able to properly address this question in a single blog post. It should also be noted that it's unlikely I can do this without treading ground already walked by others, but I'll do what I can in giving a (relatively) brief answer.

Before I begin, it would be helpful if I define how I'm using religion. This may seem an obvious thing, but the definition has been debated before. So, the definition I'm using is as follows: religion is  a belief in supernatural forces and/or entities that have an effect on the natural world. It's a belief in entities or forces that are undetectable by any natural means (invisible, inaudible, etc). And yes, I'm blatantly stealing that definition from the one Greta Christina uses in her talk "Why Are You Atheists So Angry?" It's useful, and tends to be how we see religion playing out in the real world, rather than in sociological circles (not that sociological definitions are necessarily bad, but the ones I've seen are so broad you could toss in love of a sports team and have it match).

So let's start with a look back at a few things in the "Myth 2" article. Father Williams had this to say:

Hitchens and company claim to follow the Gospel principle of judging a tree by its fruits, but as for the tree of religion, they consider only the rotten fruits, never the good ones. The innumerable saints, geniuses and benefactors nourished by the Christian faith simply count for nothing. 

In making their case, Hitchens and company refrain from considering the almost countless ways that Christianity has benefited the world as we know it today. 

What of the hospitals? What of the orders of nuns established to care for the dying or educate young girls? What of the soup kitchens and orphanages? What of the preservation of classical culture? What of the artistic and literary treasures?

Let's start with hospitals. I really don't need to enumerate the good that hospitals have done, but I'll list a few points anyway: setting broken bones, treating cancer, helping heart attack victims, and oh yea, saving lives. Lots and lots of lives. This is the case for secular as well as religious hospitals. This is unequivocally a good thing. However, in December of 2010, Bishop Thomas Olmsted of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix stripped a hospital, St. Joseph's, of it's Catholic affiliation because the hospital performed an abortion for the purpose of saving a woman's life. From the letter the Bishop sent to the hospital administration:

I now ask that CHW agree to the following requirements by Friday, December 17, 2010. Only if all of these items are agreed to, will I postpone any action against CHW and St. Joseph’s Hospital. Specifically, I require the following in order for me to postpone any further canonical action directed against St. Joseph’s Hospital: 

1. CHW must acknowledge in writing that the medical procedure that resulted in the abortion at St. Josephs’ hospital was a violation of ERD 47, and so will never occur again at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

The abortion in question was performed to save a woman's life when she developed severe symptoms of pulmonary hypertension. She was dying, and without the abortion, she would die. Plain, and simple. There was no saving both. Yet, the "good" Bishop is requiring a promise that it would never happen again, even if it was the only way to save the woman's life. (I recall seeing an article written by a woman who went through a circumstance that sounded just like this, including the five kids, Catholic hospital, life threatening pregnancy, and reluctance on the hospital's part to have the abortion performed, but have been unable to find it. It might have been the same woman, but have been unable to find it. Anyone have a link to it?)

That Bishop uses his religious views to claim authority to let a woman die. He apparently wants all the Catholic hospitals to follow his authority in this matter (his letter is full of his claims to authority). That's a whole lot of harm, right there.

But there are other goods that religion does. For example, orders of nuns who take care of the dying and educate young girls. Mother Teresa is perhaps the most famous for taking care of the dying. She founded the Missionaries of Charity to care for the poor and sick, believing that she was following a calling placed on her by God. Here's a quote from Mother Teresa, which was given in response to a question at a 1981 press conference:

"I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."

That passion for suffering was on display in her 'hospices.' She did not provide painkiller, even in the worst cases. She felt that suffering was a way to be closer to Jesus. In other words, her religious views provided a very direct harm to people.

Moving on. In 2004, The Salvation Army threatened to close all of their soup kitchens in New York City if the city enacted legislation that would've required them and other businesses that deal with the government to provide benefits to the partners of gay employees. That's thousands of homeless who would've been affected. According to one Army official, "You cannot change theological views. Those are so deeply embedded, they form the root of the faith itself." The Salvation Army thinks gay sex is wrong, and was willing to cause harm to the homeless as a result.

I have very little to say about the preservation of classical treasures, or of the artistic value of religiously inspired pieces. Those things are important, although it's an open question if they're more important than the other, very real harms I've mentioned. I would however note that for the longest time, the patrons of artists were religious (and truthfully, probably the artists themselves), so it's hardly surprising.
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But all I've really done so far is list some examples of harm caused by religion, using Father Thomas Williams's questions as a jumping off point. I have not yet shown clear reason to think religion does more harm than good, on balance. So, let me do that now. For this next part, I'm indebted to Greta Christina and JT Eberhard, as well as William K. Clifford's "The Ethics of Belief" (1877), specifically for making arguments that inform my views on this.

There is one thing that religions everywhere have in common: Faith. Now, before I go further, let me define how I'm using that word in this argument:

the belief in something without sufficient evidence to warrant belief, or the belief in something when the evidence contradicts the belief

Keep that definition in mind when you read my argument. "Faith" is often used in normal discourse to refer to things unrelated to religious belief, spiritual beliefs, or anything else that definition might refer to. For example, a husband might say to his wife "I have faith in your abilities" when she's worried about a job interview, or a college test, or some such. His "faith" in such a case could be better described as confidence, a confidence based on past experience with her, in which he's seen that she's talented, skilled, and good at what she does. Or, in another case, he might say "I have faith you haven't cheated on me," and in such a case "trust" is what he's actually talking about, based on the evidence of his experience with her, in which she's demonstrated integrity, and that she loves him enough to maintain the monogamy they've agreed to. I'm sure you can think of other examples. The point is that to avoid confusion and the fallacy of equivocation, I need to define how I'm using the word.

Anyway. Religion of all sorts have as a base faith. This faith underpins not just the factual claims of a religion ("God created the Universe, and us," "There's an afterlife," "We are judged upon death to determine if we belong in heaven or hell"), but also the moral claims that are supposed to follow from the factual claims. When you believe that God exists, and believe that God has moral authority, and dictates how we spend eternity, then you have good reason to follow the rules that you believe God has laid down, no matter if they conflict with your own thinking and reason.

Faith inspires people to do many things. It inspires people to be honest, to give to charity, to be generous, avoid violence, and to have hope. It also inspires people to engage in bigotry, oppression of women (see "Does God Hate Women?" by Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom for an excellent showing of exactly how religion oppresses women, even today), oppression of homosexuals, child abuse ("spare the rod, spoil the child"), and ignorance of science:

When asked what they would do if scientists were to disprove a particular religious belief, nearly two-thirds (64%) of people say they would continue to hold to what their religion teaches rather than accept the contrary scientific finding, according to the results of an October 2006 Time magazine poll. Indeed, in a May 2007 Gallup poll, only 14% of those who say they do not believe in evolution cite lack of evidence as the main reason underpinning their views; more people cite their belief in Jesus (19%), God (16%) or religion generally (16%) as their reason for rejecting Darwin's theory.

It may seem that the balance is coming out in favor of calling it equal in the question "Does religion do more harm than good," but I don't think it is. Faith provides a cop-out of any question. It let's you claim "It just feels right," "It makes me happy," or "I had a dream" as valid reasons for believing basically anything. Even when this leads to a positive, agreeable conclusion, such as "Don't rape women," it's still dangerous. If the reason that you agree with "Don't rape women" is because you think women are, in all but name, the property of their fathers first, and then husbands after marriage, rape becomes a matter of property vandalism, rather than a violation of a woman's right to control her body and sexuality. And if your reason for believing that is "God declared it so" and your reason for believing in God is faith, then faith has become a serious problem. Arguing against the premise that women are property is going to be very difficult, maybe impossible, if your faith tells you that God is the dictator of morality.

It's not just the extreme views in which faith can become a problem. If you have faith in karma, and that everything will work out all right in the end, then there's a strong chance that you won't do everything you need to do to help everything work out in the end. You're more likely to do all that's necessary if you consider that not everyone has a happy ending, and good people do have bad things happen to them, and that bad things sometimes never go away before death.

Of course, it's possible that if religion didn't so very often treat faith as a virtue, and advocate for it, that the dangers of faith could be minimized. I don't know, but I would certainly like to see a world where we tried that out for once, a world in which this quote by William Lane Craig didn't make sense to apparently 64% of the American public:

Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter, not vice versa.

 Yet, that is the world we're in. A world in which faith, and therefore religion, harms far more than it helps.

Marriage isn't about kids.

So, a Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio wrote an opinion piece at nydailynews.com. He's not happy about the passage of same-sex marriage rights in New York. His argument is summed up with this:

It is destructive because we fail to view marriage in the context of a vocation: a calling to participate in the great enterprise of forming the next generation.


Marriage is reduced to an empty honor.

Actually, no. Marriage is not just for "forming the next generation." If a man and woman get married who are incapable of having children, their marriage is NOT an empty honor. It will still (ideally) be a relationship built on love, trust, and respect. It will still be a visible commitment to the world of that relationship. It will be an opportunity to deepen their love, trust and respect for each other. It will be many things, but it will not be empty. Children are not the be-all and end-all of marriage, they aren't even the most important part of it. Marriage is not a job, it is not a calling, it's a relationship.

If marriage is just a job for creating kids, then who cares if you commit adultery? Just make sure you don't have kids doing it. If marriage is just a job for creating kids, then why not arrange marriages with an eye toward breeding kids with the traits we want? You know, like horse breeding. Indeed, if marriage is just a job for creating kids, let's start having interviews, and deny you marriage if you don't pass. You can put forth your qualifications in a resume: "good at child discipline, and believe in strict bedtimes." Don't forget periodic reviews! "Your child disobeyed an average of 2 times per week last quarter. What do you plan on doing to correct this trend?"

Marriage is a relationship. Whether it is good or bad has nothing to do with the gender of those involved. So how about we start showing a little fairness?

Free will and God

Early in June I noticed that another blogger had quoted my first post on this site. "Learning to Live Free" is a site for those who have left the Apostolic Lutheran Church and its cousins, and discussion of that. I actually rather like what I see there for the most part. From what I can gather, most people are still Christian on that site, but at least they are no longer stuck in one of the most conservative and limiting traditions in the Lutheran landscape. I was pleased to see someone mentioning me, because I'm not immune to feelings of pride, however small.

Some of the commenters on that site decided to address me directly, and for the most part were very polite about it. There's at least one glaring exception who posted a copy-paste of some stuff from a Ray Comfort site, but you won't see that if you go there, as the site admin deleted all but the link to that site, saying that those who wanted to read it could go there themselves. Well, I've been pondering a few of the things that were said to me, and decided to respond here, as that site doesn't seem the place to comment on my atheism or why the arguments presented are convincing.

First up, we've got Hibernatus:

What Nathan-Lucien really is discussing is why God created free will if giving free will made it possible to choose evil instead of good. Wouldn't it have been better to create only restricted will so it would have been possible to choose only good and not evil? 

In the Orthodox church, we say God didn't want to create slaves but sons who cooperate with him out of their free will and not as machines that have been programmed to always cooperate with God. Man was created as God's image. Would it be possible to call a pre-programmed machine an image of God? 

If you haven't followed the links above, he's responding to my story about first questioning religion through the story of Adam and Eve eating that fruit that gave them knowledge of good and evil, which went against the only "thou shalt not" commandment they had been given. I said that there were various ways that God could have prevented that result, and gave some examples. In other words, omniscient, all-loving, omnipotent God set them up.

Well, I agree that I don't want my children (when I have some) being automatons. I'd like them to know their options and make their choices. I'd like them to be people, in other words. The problem with arguments that God is simply letting us follow our free will is that if we are going to make good choices, we need good information, and the ability to understand that information. Most parents know that you don't just tell a child "don't drink the bleach, it'll kill you." That's good information, but you also make sure they can't get at it until they're old enough to understand the danger.

In the story of Adam and Eve, God said that they would die if they ate the fruit. Funny thing, they didn't die right away, but they did suddenly have a sense of shame, a conscience, if you will. And that brings me to how God could allow free will, or choice, but make it a heck of a lot more effective than it is, and all without turning me into an automaton. He could persuade me.

When I debate with my wife, my friends, or random people on the internet, each person is trying to persuade the other of their point of view. As humans, we have a limited ability and access to information, which means that sometimes we aren't able to put forth the best points or rebuttals. But God . . . if God saw that I was going to do something that he considers unethical, he could step in and actually explain why it would be wrong, perhaps accelerating my perception of time so we could hash it out without interfering with the progression of events. He could use his omniscience to anticipate each and every rebuttal I might make, and demonstrate why those rebuttals fail. He could do this without threats or promises of reward. And then, he could let me choose. He could do this for everyone.

Some might say that this is what the conscience is: the "still small voice" of God. Except that while the conscience might get me to feel guilt or shame, it doesn't tell me why I should feel guilt or shame for a particular instance. God could do that, if he'd actually bother, if he actually cared (and if he was real). As it stands, everyone's conscience seems to disagree with everyone else's at some point. One cop feels guilty for shooting a man in the line of duty, another has no issue with it. This world contains liars, thieves, and abusers, and not all of them feel shame or guilt.

I mean that literally. There are people in this world who have no sense of right and wrong, no conscience, and never have, even as a child. They're called psychopaths. They lack empathy and compassion, key components of any human attempt to be good to one another. They lie with ease, because unlike most of us, it doesn't bother them. The very presence of such individuals in the world says that this whole idea of "God speaks to us through our conscience" is a bust.

I've got one more commenter to respond to, and I promise it won't take as long. Anonymous said:

[Lucien's] statements are immature, showing a huge lack of biblical understanding, and he has made the error of calling God a liar. Yes God created us with free will; yes God allowed sin to enter the world; yes people suffer, but there is a reason for it all. God has an amazing plan that has not been fully revealed to humanity. Who are we to tell God how things should have been done?

We are the ones who are suffering, and thus, we are the ones who have a right to know why. If God is real, and this is all part of his plan, we deserve an explanation, and I for one, demand an explanation.

Response to "Baby, You're a Firework!--Humanism and the Hereafter"

Temple of the Future has a new post entitled "Baby, You're a Firework!--Humanism and the Hereafter." I responded in the comments with a comment of such length, I had to apologize, as it should have been a blog post that I referenced instead. So, I'm going to copy & paste it here, after you follow that link and read James's post.

Ready? Good.

Beautifully written, with wonderful, evocative imagery. When you say “We promote science and skepticism – though more poetically than most,” you clearly mean it, and I quite enjoy it.

Unfortunately, I disagree entirely.

I find meaning in life, yes. I find love and wonder and hope, yes. But the brevity of life I find to be an annoyance sticking in the back of mind, like an itch in the center of your back that you can’t . . . quite . . . reach. It’s an annoyance that if I ponder it too much will turn to frustration. To paraphrase Hitchens, it’s like knowing that I will have to leave the party, well before the party is over.

What I want is immortality, physical immortality. I am not satisfied or comforted by the idea that people may remember me, whether through fame or children. Though fireworks are beautiful, I prefer to stare into a longer lasting campfire, perhaps contemplating, perhaps just… relaxing. I want to be alive when the sun expands to into a red giant, engulfing the earth as I watch from a safe distance. I want to watch my great-great-great-great-etc grandchildren grow and laugh and cry and love and do all that people do.

I consider the shortness of my life, of the lives of loved ones, of the lives of hated ones, and colors become duller, the purple majesty of the mountains loses the power to stun, and the significance of any one action, or life, seems as a spark in the wind, rather than a blaze.

Having said all that, perhaps you will not believe me when I say the following: I love life. I LOVE life. I have known a despair and depression so great that I had the note written and the knife at my wrist. Another time I swallowed pills and chased them with alcohol. And another time before that I admitted myself to a psych ward for a day, because I knew what I would do if I didn’t. I did not love life for those years.

But I survived. Because I survived, I have loved and laughed and danced and sang and had sex and had more pain and then loved and laughed some more. And I’ve learned. Oh, the wonders I have learned! About life’s ever changing, ever evolving diversity! About the strange, strange behavior of particles so small I cannot comprehend it! About stars and galaxies crashing together, releasing energies so vast and immense that not even the sun compares!

And the wonders I’ve yet to learn! What will life be in a million years? How can the descriptions of stellar movements and the tiniest of particles be reconciled? I want to know! I want to be here when I find out! I want to call my friends and family, saying “hey, did you hear about…?” I want science to get off it’s ass and make that dream a reality (oh, how I hope for that)!

Until that day, life’s brevity shall annoy me. But, if you will allow me but another moment, I’d like to quote Tim Minchin: “But here’s what give me a hard on: I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant bit of carbon. I have one life, and it is short and unimportant, But thanks to recent scientific advances… I get to live twice as long as my great-great-great-great uncleses and auntseses. Twice as long! to live this life of mine; twice as long to love this wife of mine. Twice as many years of friends, and wine, of sharing curries and getting shitty at good looking hippies with fairies on their spine and butterflies on their titties.”

 Addendum: One thing I didn't address, but should have, is James's final paragraph, wherein he says:

You could do great things in service to others, as Adams did, and as many others have. So come on – show ‘em what you’re worth! Let your colors burst! Make ‘em go “Ah, ah, AH!” as you shoot across the sky! Leave them all in awe! And when, inevitably, those colors begin to fade, and your trajectory tilts downward back toward earth, do not despair. Do not seek solace in another life for which we have no evidence. Instead remember that you live on, etched onto the retinas of those who watched your marvelous display.

Let nothing that I have said stop you from doing this! That is all.