Religion and never-ending arguments

Richard Dawkins didn’t get arguing with as many complete and utter loonies in this evening’s Root of All Evil (Channel 4) as he did last week, though his opponents arguments still wandered into the mystifying. His reputation as Darwin’s Rottweiler may go before him, or it may be just his frank and direct language, but he tends to provoke some emotional reactions – it also doesn’t help when you choose to debate religion with people of a rather extreme persuasion. A satisfying debate is never too likely when an atheist discusses religion with the religious – people simply have to agree to disagree, because the atheist and the follower will find each other’s arguments just as ludicrous, and the argument often deteriorates into petty point-scoring, desperate and tenuous arguments, and insults. I learnt that the hard way when a fundamentalist Christian friend implied when pressed that my mother’s cancer was a punishment for sin.

People are entitled to believe in whatever they want – God, Allah, The Flying Spaghetti Monster. If people’s religion helps them to be a better and more co-operative person, to be generous and charitable to other people, and to apply moral standards to their life, that’s all very well, though all the millions of decent people without religion wonder what all this God fuss is about when they’re doing fine without it. Maybe most religious people in the world are decent, kind and peaceful. Sadly, the fact of the matter is that religion is and always has been the most divisive and destructive influence on mankind.

Religion has had a hard time, really. It’s been used as a controlling influence on the masses, and a justification for everything from oppression to genocide. Atheists are also capable of criminal actions, murder and atrocities, there’s no doubt of that, but the problem with religion is that it is continually used as an answer for difficult questions of political beliefs and identity; the argument of divine command, or doing the work of the Lord, has always been used as an easy way out, of justifying all kinds of reprehensible actions. Hitler said in Mein Kampf, “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord”. Religion (be it Christianity, Islam or Hinduism) is riddled with contradictions. The Bible speaks of love, hope and charity, while advocating rape and murder. Old texts, vague histories and eons-old ‘laws’ are interpreted subjectively to suit people’s own ends, to provide them with the answers they need or the justifications they seek – to the point where no-one knows the truth any more. Religion confuses matters, and when reality is about shades of grey, religion is busy calling white black and black white.

The problem is that the biggest questions of life, the universe and our place in it are unanswerable. We’re descended from apes, and yet we’re still struggling to find more meaning to our lives than continuation of the species, and death – just because we’re clever enough to have invented the iPod.

Looking for answers, philosophical enquiry, discussion and argument are endlessly fascinating, but religion would deprive us all of this opportunity to make sense of the world around us, by giving us a list of answers to every question, until we had no more questions of our own. They may be the answers, some people insist, I have no proof either way; the fact is that there is no proof whatsoever of Intelligent Design, no proof of the existence of any god, but overwhelming and constantly accumulating evidence for the natural evolution of the universe. Apart from anything else, I wouldn’t want to live in a world where I couldn’t stare at the stars and be amazed by them simply for what they were, or talk about the meaning of life with friends at four in the morning, not having any of the answers, but mind boggled by the sheer scale, complexity and beauty of the universe. Douglas Adams said “I’d take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day”.

I’ve always taken my freedom to believe what I want (and to express my beliefs) for granted, and yet this freedom is under threat. Our education secretary is a member of Opus Dei, public money is being channelled into an ever-increasing number of faith schools in the UK, some American schools are teaching creation theory and Intelligent Design to children as fact. Religion is on the rise, and the religious are ever more vocal. Religious pressure groups would happily curtail freedom of expression by banning plays, TV programmes and films they see as ‘blasphemous’. I want my children to be raised in an environment where their education and the media they see allows them to make their own decisions about what they believe, but that might be difficult in the future unless reasonable people fight for their right to freedom of expression, and the rights of their children to an education, not an indoctrination.

More info:

• Channel 4 microsite
• Dawkins interview on Radio 5
• Dawkins homepage

Possibly related posts:

• Jesus Camp
• The Atheist Bus Campaign
• Venomous spouting
• Being religious is not the default position
• Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics