How religion promotes evil
Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 5:13 am
http://www.theofrak.com/2012/05/for-good-people-to-do-evil-things-it.html
Nobel prize-winning physicist, Stephen Weinberg observed:
This comment frequently leads to strong reactions by believers. The problem is that Weinberg did not explain how religion promotes evil.
I do not believe that religion has evil goals or directly encourages what most people would consider to be evil behavior. Likewise, theists are not less moral or less intelligent than atheists.
The dangerous quality of religion lies in the fact that it is a great source of misinformation that is unquestioningly believed by many to be the truth. This misinformation is what leads otherwise good people to commit horrible acts, often for what they consider to be rational reasons.
Sam Harris explained the problem as follows:
C.S. Lewis made a similar statement in Mere Christianity:
Who teaches the "fact" that martyrdom leads to seventy virgins in paradise or that believers "should not suffer a witch to live." Religion, of course. If you are told that that there is no biological basis for homosexuality and that gay people are aberrant sinners who choose a lifestyle contrary to God's Word, you will not likely be charitable when asked to vote on marriage equality.
Someday, our descendants will wonder how people of the 21st century could be so backward on the issue of gay rights. That doesn't mean we are less moral than our descendants, any more than than the people who executed witches were less moral than we are today. We, and they, are plagued by superstitious "facts" that are created and perpetuated by religion. We must learn that ideas cannot simply be accepted, without question, based on the word of some prophet, priest, or imam. Only when we turn to science and reason can we escape our dark past and enter the new age of enlightenment
Nobel prize-winning physicist, Stephen Weinberg observed:
- Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
This comment frequently leads to strong reactions by believers. The problem is that Weinberg did not explain how religion promotes evil.
I do not believe that religion has evil goals or directly encourages what most people would consider to be evil behavior. Likewise, theists are not less moral or less intelligent than atheists.
The dangerous quality of religion lies in the fact that it is a great source of misinformation that is unquestioningly believed by many to be the truth. This misinformation is what leads otherwise good people to commit horrible acts, often for what they consider to be rational reasons.
Sam Harris explained the problem as follows:
- The most pernicious and uncharitable way of parsing my remarks about Islam is to say that I believe that most (or all) Muslims are evil. The truth is, I don’t necessarily believe that any Muslims are evil—even jihadists. And this is what I find so troubling about the doctrine of Islam. Are most jihadists psychopaths devoid of empathy? I see no reason to think so. If you believe that the creator of the universe wants you to wage jihad against infidels, I think you can be perfectly healthy in psychological terms while becoming a suicide bomber. Secularists who doubt this seem to be the ones devoid of empathy, in fact: They are unwilling or unable to see the world through the eyes of our enemies—even when our enemies tell us, ad nauseam, exactly how they see the world. The most dangerous failing of secularism (and of moderate religion) is that its adherents cannot seem to grasp that some people really believe martyrdom is a path to Paradise.
C.S. Lewis made a similar statement in Mere Christianity:
- But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did-if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather, surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did. There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. (Emphasis added).
Who teaches the "fact" that martyrdom leads to seventy virgins in paradise or that believers "should not suffer a witch to live." Religion, of course. If you are told that that there is no biological basis for homosexuality and that gay people are aberrant sinners who choose a lifestyle contrary to God's Word, you will not likely be charitable when asked to vote on marriage equality.
Someday, our descendants will wonder how people of the 21st century could be so backward on the issue of gay rights. That doesn't mean we are less moral than our descendants, any more than than the people who executed witches were less moral than we are today. We, and they, are plagued by superstitious "facts" that are created and perpetuated by religion. We must learn that ideas cannot simply be accepted, without question, based on the word of some prophet, priest, or imam. Only when we turn to science and reason can we escape our dark past and enter the new age of enlightenment