“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
— Karl Marx 1844
It is the actual quote that has been misquoted through the ensuing years as “Religion is the opiate of the masses…”
Whatever its context, find a corner of the globe where religious persecution or adherence hasn’t led to wars, conflicts and imprisonment or worse and you’d find a utopia few of us will ever see.
Likewise, some of our most famous and comforting artworks, memories and family traditions have been formed by and wrapped in a warm cocoon of religious tradition.
So why then is religion so reviled by some and fiercely defended by others — either end of the argument almost always a no-win scenario in a barstool conversation or a full-out, staged debate among intellectuals? Because, as we see from the breakdown of the world’s populations, everyone thinks their God is the right God.
The CIA’s World Factbook (yes, THAT CIA) lists the world’s religious populations for the last year available, 2012 — the break down follows: Christian 31.59 percent (of which Roman Catholic 18.85 percent, Protestant 8.15 percent, Orthodox 4.96 percent, Anglican 1.26 percent), Muslim 23.2 percent, Hindu 15.0 percent, Buddhist 7.1 percent, Sikh 0.35 percent, Jewish 0.2 percent, Bahá’í 0.11 percent, other religions 10.95 percent, non-religious 9.66 percent, atheists 2.01 percent. (2010 est.).
In a presentation given in 2001 at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit university in California, Dr. David L. Perry presented some compelling arguments in an address titled, “Killing in the name of God: The problem of Holy War.”
In it, Dr. Perry noted, despite the fundamental differences between Christians, Muslims and Jews, “they share a fundamental belief in God as compassionate and just.”
But, while many justifications for wars and killings spring from all manner of darkness in the human condition — racial and societal prejudices and the like — killing in the name of one interpretation or another of religious dogma still dogs humanity through the ages.
Perry notes: “religious violence can take on a particularly intense and ruthless character, if the objects of that violence are seen as blaspheming or insulting God, as the enemies of God or God’s way narrowly conceived. The problem of indiscriminate holy war is particularly difficult for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to eliminate from within because it’s so deeply rooted in their scriptures and traditions. The same religious traditions that affirm God to be compassionate, merciful, and just, also include more disturbing claims that promote religious hatred and intolerance, and sadly have provided a rationale for aggressive holy war. We need to face these things head-on. Questioning the moral justification of holy war leads, moreover, to troubling questions about the legitimacy of some basic theological claims and the authority of foundational religious scripture.”
There is no shortage of debate on whether religion, in any form, is right or wrong for the planet as a whole.
If you want to watch a compelling showdown between an avowed atheist on the harm religion has done to the world and a fervent Catholic arguing Christian values could be and should be the salvation of the world, check out the 2010 documentary “Hitchen vs. Blair – Be it resolved Religion is a force for good in the world.”
From the website topdocumentaryfilms.com there’s this description
of the epic encounter:
On one side you had novelist and author (the late) Christopher Hitchens, a loudly, proudly self-avowed cancer-stricken writer whose brush with death has done nothing to disavow his long-held convictions that God is Not Great, as he titled his recent book. On the other was former British PM Tony Blair, a recent Roman Catholic convert who became the latest straw man to go up against the erudite Hitchens in a debate over the existence of a divine being. The pair squared off on Friday at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto for a philosophical debate on the moral merits of religion. The surprises? Mr. Hitchens, who live(d) in Washington, D.C. has had a Christmas tree as long as he’s been a father and observes Passover. He discovered his family’s Jewish roots late in life; his wife, Carol Blue, is also Jewish. And Mr. Blair’s father, Leo, a retired law professor, is a militant atheist. The long-time politician also revealed in his recently released memoir, A Journey: My Political Life, that he has always been more interested in religion than politics. For Mr. Blair, who converted to Catholicism after leaving office in 2007, religion plays the most central of roles, both personally and in his worldview.
According to The Guardian, Hitchens won the crowd over with his impassioned, yet clinically scathing argument that religion is a harm.
As The Guardian reported, “Both men were unabashedly stalwart in their positions. Hitchens, one of the leading “new atheists” and author of the hit book God Is Not Great, slammed religion as nothing more than supernatural gobbledegook that caused untold misery throughout human history. “Once you assume a creator and a plan it make us subjects in a cruel experiment,” Hitchens said before causing widespread laughter by comparing God to “a kind of divine North Korea.”
Blair, perhaps not surprisingly, was a little less forthright. On the backfoot for much of the debate he kept returning to his theme that many religious people all over the world were engaged in great and good works. They did that because of their faith, he argued, and to slam all religious people as ignorant or evil was plain wrong. “The proposition that religion is unadulterated poison is unsustainable,” he said. Blair called religion at its best “a benign progressive framework by which to live our lives. “
We see the increase of secularism clearly exhibited in many places that were once stalwart Christian societies, including Mexico, which was once nearly 100 per cent Catholic Christian in the time following the arrival of the Spanish. The Canadian province of Quebec, which, too, was more than two-thirds French Canadian Catholic, now sees churches shuttered and the majority of its population rarely, if ever, setting foot in one of Quebec’s hundreds of magnificent stone churches.
While more than 80 percent of the province’s population lists their religious affiliation as Catholic, according to a 2008 Léger Marketing poll, the proportion of Quebec’s nearly six million Catholics who attend mass weekly now stands at six per cent, the lowest of any Western society.
Sure, one can find higher percentages of adherents to Catholicism in places like Italy and Vatican City, but erosion of religious faith is happening at almost breakneck speed in most countries in the Western world. Is the world any worse off because of it, though?
According to a 2009 posting on the Internet news and opinion site, AlterNet, societies that have proven themselves most prosperous are those where religion and religious pedagogy is least.
The piece points out that “a growing body of research in what one sociologist describes as the ‘emerging field of secularity’ is challenging long-held assumptions about the relationship of religion and effective governance. In a paper posted recently on the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, independent researcher Gregory S. Paul reports a strong correlation within First World democracies between socioeconomic well-being and secularity. In short, prosperity is highest in societies where religion is practiced least. “Using existing data, Paul combined 25 indicators of societal and economic stability — things like crime, suicide, drug use, incarceration, unemployment, income, abortion and public corruption — to score each country using what he calls the ‘successful societies scale.’ He also scored countries on their degree of religiosity, as determined by such measures as church attendance, belief in a creator deity and acceptance of Bible literalism. “Comparing the two scores, he found, with little exception, that the least religious countries enjoyed the most prosperity. Of particular note, the U.S. holds the distinction of most religious and least prosperous among the 17 countries included in the study, ranking last in 14 of the 25 socioeconomic measures.
Certainly, venturing into a Middle Eastern country where Islam isn’t just the dominant religion, but is the basis for government, it would be unwise and even decidedly dangerous to begin espousing secularism.
But, is there a correlation between many of these countries and their strict adherence to religious dogma and the poor state of their economies, outside the inherent wealth provided some of them for having oil riches?
There are compelling arguments and statistical data that show such countries that demand blind and overarching faith to the faith are indeed, by most standards, the most backward of those on the planet for a free-thinking person to encounter.
We see religious fundamentalism creeping increasingly into politics in the United States in many forms of hard right organizations, most recently exemplified by those who call themselves The Tea Party. Witness the Bible Belt politics and the Christian fundamentalism that drives the “truther” movements in pockets of the country, as well, suggesting President Barack Obama is a sneaky back-door Muslim who wasn’t really born in Hawaii.
You get the picture.
But, overall, the United States has moved into a largely secular society, in governance and in most outward expressions of the nation around the world.
Clearly, some, most vociferously from the pulpit, would argue that is a grave danger to the moral fiber of the nation.
But, while vocal arguments reach often shrill proportions in arguing the nation was founded on “Christian principles,” it doesn’t mean the nation needs to be steered into legislating for Christian beliefs, or into wars for Christian teachings.
As much of the world has shown, tolerance for religious beliefs identifies an advanced nation or society and intolerance and shaming for those beliefs can brand a country or region as dangerous, backward and a pariah among nation states.
No, a country or society doesn’t need to shape itself after religious dogma, but there certainly, and most comforting to many, is a place for ‘old time religion’ wherever we choose to find it or follow it.
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