I have a former classmate who is an aggressive atheist. Her worldview is largely built around an idea, frequently and obsessively repeated on social media, “Religion is never benign.” Her framing is that absolutely no good ever comes from religion. In this two-post series, I’m considering a milder form of that framing. I freely acknowledge that religion brings good into many lives and societies, but also harm. As Mark Twain noted in “The Dervish and the Offensive Stranger”, there is both good and harm in every deed. There are no good deeds without bad consequences, and no bad deeds without incidental good. My question, then, is whether religion is a net benefit or a net harm to society.
My previous post considered the historical record of religion – unjust sacred texts, religious wars and persecutions, absolutism, abusive cults, abusive clergy and misdirected social resources. Weighing against those are unquantifiable benefits of kindness and community, which sometimes (but not always) accompany religion. This post will address the principal harm from religion, which is that religion does not have a foundation in truth. The problem with religion is that it simply isn’t true.
Is Religion True or False? How We Know What is True
"Inuring us to lies lays the groundwork for many other evils."
-- Thomas Paine, quoted by Carl Sagan in The Demon-Haunted World
We know religion isn’t true for several reasons. First, there is an utter lack of reliable evidence for the existence of God or unseen sentient spirits. Second, there is a complete lack of agreement among the world’s cultures regarding the nature and history of these unseen beings. Third, there is a lack of reason and justice in acts attributed to God, and in sacred literature. Finally, there are irreconcilable logical inconsistencies regarding God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and goodness, compared to what we observe in the world. Occam’s razor forces the conclusion that God isn’t real, and religion is false.
People are responsible for discerning what is true and what is false. It is essential for personal safety, for citizenship, and for social order. Without a common agreement on what is true, a society cannot have a fair football game, fair marathons, fair elections, ethical marketplaces, prices and advertising, trustworthy science and medicine, etc. Civilization falls apart without widespread integrity and commonly accepted truth.
I have a friend who maintains from a philosophical perspective that there is no such thing as absolute truth. I strenuously disagree. The concept of absolute truth is necessary for science, for justice, for government, for business and for society. We cannot deal in relative truth when submitting annual reports to investors, writing a scientific publication or deciding on the guilt of an accused person. I believe that absolute truth exists, and is generally accessible to everyone. (This is one of the few statements in which I will say “I believe”, as an assertion that cannot be proven.) In a scientific sense, truth will always be incomplete, like the mathematics of Goedel’s theorem. For example, complete truth about historical matters may never be known. We will never know the music that was played on a 40,000 year-old bone flute. In physics, we may never know the true nature of dark matter or energy. But we can put firm bounds on what is known to be true, and reach whatever conclusions are possible from these bounded uncertainties.
The Triumph of Conscience over False Prophets
(Also called the Triumph of Truth over Falsehood)
Johann Sadeler, Circa 1580
Does It Matter If People Believe In False Gods and Spirits?
“When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way.”
-- Stevie Wonder, Superstition
One person’s religion is another person’s superstition. It’s kind of astonishing how missionaries (including my ancestors) traveled the world, met indigenous people, told them their timeless beliefs were false, and replaced those beliefs with other false beliefs. We tend to look with derision upon ancient Greek oracles, and the notion of gods dwelling and squabbling on the top of a mountain, but those were very real articles of faith for those people. Socrates died for “impiety and corrupting youth” by questioning those beliefs. A few plots of Star Trek imagined encountering cultures that worshipped a rock, or an ancient visitation by space travelers. What would star-faring visitors to Earth think of our religions?
As atheists, is religion something we can safely ignore, or should it be challenged in public discourse? Another college classmate wrote this rhetorical question to me:
“All major religions exhort followers to be good, ethical, moral...if that helps you live well, what difference does it make if there is heaven or hell at the end?”
College classmate #2
Does it matter whether religion is true? Yes, it matters. Faithful people rarely consider the possibility that all of religion is a lie. As a consequence, there is great harm done by what follows from believing in things that are not true.
People make irrational decisions based on faith, ignoring the obvious consequences if that faith is misplaced. Plains Indians warriors believed that Ghost Shirts would protect them from bullets (didn’t work). The mother of a childhood friend, as a practicing Christian Scientist, did not take my friend to a doctor or dentist, believing that God would protect him. Many people refuse vaccines, believing that God will protect them. Others refuse life-saving medical care for themselves or their children, instead trusting to “God’s will.” In recent memory, many Christians believed that religious gatherings would be protected from COVID. In a cruel inversion of that belief, fundamentalist Christians sometimes ostracize members of their congregation who fall ill to cancer or other diseases, inferring that it signifies sin on the part of the member who falls ill.
Apart from irrational decisions about health and wellness, religious faith leads people into other irrational behaviors regarding diet, dress, social hierarchy (particularly regarding women) and sexual orientation. These result in personal guilt, a loss of personal realization, oppression of others, psychological distress, and misdirected time, energy and financial resources. Other people have taken random events as signs from God about pathways or decisions that may have been far from the best choices. What could humanity have achieved if we had not spent our fortunes and energy in building pyramids and cathedrals? Some people have piloted Kamikaze planes or strapped explosives on their bodies, trusting that they will receive eternal reward in the afterlife. Some people have spent their lives in devotion to God, through prayer, worship and contemplation. What could they have achieved, if they had applied their intelligence and energy to science, education, or public service?
Truth and Untruth, Anastasia Tyutyunnik
Conclusion
“In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, but that it should become credulous.”
-W.K. Clifford, in Bronowski, Science and Human Values, published 1956
You cannot reliably reach good conclusions from false assumptions. False assumptions will inevitably lead to a loss of reason, a loss of rational judgment. No matter how well-intentioned, any system of false belief will ultimately result in irrational and damaging decisions and behaviors.
When people learn to accept their deepest beliefs without proof and without question, it erodes their ability to discern what is true. When holding one unfounded belief, it becomes easier to accept other unfounded beliefs. Judging by comments on social media by religious people, it also becomes easier to reject truths that are established through rigorous processes of proof. The alignment of conservative religious beliefs and conservative social and political beliefs is a major social phenomenon of our time. It’s a movement that crosses national and continental boundaries. In the United States, someone who is deeply faithful to Christianity is likely to accept false claims of faith healing, election fraud (when Republicans lose), conspiracy theories about the political opposition (ranging into the absurd), etc., and to doubt well-established truths, such as the safety of vaccines, human-caused climate change, the reality of the moon landing.
In recent history, religious belief has been politicized. Religious belief seems to predispose believers to believing political falsehoods, influencing their votes. Our current presidential race features former President Donald Trump, an inveterate liar. The Republican party has doubled down one his false claims, regarding the integrity of Joe Biden’s electoral victory in 2020, the dangers of immigration, the state of the economy, the war in Ukraine, etc. There’s a good correspondence between people with strong religious beliefs and those who strongly disbelieve facts from science, medicine, journalism and politics. The Venn diagram approaches a circle.
False beliefs lead to irrational and harmful actions. Someone who believes that God will protect them from COVID at a family Thanksgiving dinner may transmit the disease to me at the grocery store. Someone who believes that their God is the right and true God may blow up a bus, or start a war that will kill, maim, and make homeless thousands of innocent people, including many of their own sect. Yet 90% or more Americans believe in God, or spirits or the afterlife, and every day are making irrational decisions that affect me and society. I live in the Middle Ages, a time of superstition, ignorance, plague, war and feudal hierarchies and other than writing this blog, I am powerless to correct the problem.
I conclude that my classmate is essentially correct. Religion is not benign, and causes more harm than good, because fundamentally, the precepts of religion and spiritualism are false. Religion and spiritualism inevitably lead to harmful decisions and behaviors affecting all of society.
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Irrational Beliefs
https://www.progressfocused.com/2016/05/3-types-of-harm-from-irrational-beliefs.html
Donald Trump’s Lies
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/01/politics/trump-dishonesty-avalanche-102-fall-false-claims/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-fact-checker-tracked-trump-claims/2021/01/23/ad04b69a-5c1d-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html
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