Regular readers of my column know I can be a harsh critic of religious people, especially of those who use their religion to oppress or discriminate against others.
My critiques, however, are always with the people practicing religion and never with the abstract notion of religion itself.
On Friday, after federal authorities announced they had arrested three men who planned to blow up a mosque, social media was quick to denounce religion as responsible for similar acts of violence.
A meme quickly circulated, in which Bill Maher says, “When I hear from people that religion doesn’t hurt anything, I say really? Well besides wars, the crusades, the inquisitions, 9/11, ethnic cleansing, the suppression of women, the suppression of homosexuals, fatwas, honor killings, suicide bombings, arranged marriages to minors, human sacrifice, burning witches, and systematic sex with children, I have a few little quibbles.”
Broad, sweeping criticisms of religion, like Maher’s, suggest one of two things to me.
The first is that religion is external, meaning there exists some supernatural being, responsible for the creation of religious ideas, which obliges us to commit these heinous acts against one another.
If you believe religion is external, designed by an intrinsically evil god who delights in our killing each other, then it makes sense to say if we rejected religion, those things wouldn’t happen. It makes sense only if religion is something objective that acts on us, which we can’t control.
But you would have to believe in a god of some kind.
The other possibility is that religion is internal, meaning we made it all up. All of it comes from within us.
If this is the case, that means all of the murders, genocides, pedophilia, etc. are just as internal, and people are not persuaded to commit these acts by some higher power.
If this is the case, that means human beings are simply predisposed to violence — whether it’s natural, social or environmental.
If religion is internal, then it’s merely a justification for the violence to which we’re predisposed. And saying these acts of violence wouldn’t exist without religion is absolutely illogical.
I’m willing to wager if religion didn’t exist, we would have invented another system by which to justify our acts of violence. Like politics, for instance.
There exists a city in which politics, money and religion are not “practiced.” According to their website, the Indian city of Auroville “belongs to no prince, to no god. Nobody owns it. This is everybody’s place. The earth will find joy in it. Hearts will be happy in it.”
You would imagine a city where work is done on a volunteer basis, citizens are paid uniformly in grants, there are no leaders, and religion does not divide them would be a utopia.
And, yet, the BBC reported that the city facilitates pedophilia, which, if you recall, was one of the atrocities for which Bill Maher accused religion of being responsible.
Let’s also not forget the most deadly killers of recent memory — Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao, etc. — didn’t massacre millions in the name of religion.
Those that do commit acts of violence under religious pretenses would find another justification if religion were banned.
Though I hate to end on a cliché, I implore you not to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to religion.
@TherinShowalter
thshowal@indiana.edu
