Posted by
Andrews on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 2:19:26 AM
I was thinking tonight about the beliefs of Hitchens and various other modern thinkers who have argued recently that religious belief, far from being a civilizing force, has been one of, if not the most, destructive forces in human history. If we take them seriously, then a strange conclusion arises.
Now, first of all, we have to recognize that religion is part of every human culture we have found, at least in some form. Some very primitive cultures have a more "thaumaturgical" view, seeing things in terms of spirits and magic more than more formally religious terms, but, still, as a precursor of religious belief, and as a form of mysticism, I will include those views and say that every human culture we have found has a set of religious beliefs. Whether this means man has an innate need for religion, or whether religion developed at some "choke point" from which all modern cultures evolved is irrelevant. All cultures have religion, and that religious aspect of culture has persisted for hundreds of centuries.
And that lead me to ask a question of Hitchens and his ilk. If religion is so damaging, if it does so much to hamper human progress and slow our growth and generally destroys us, then why has it persisted? You would think that a handful of nonbelievers, lacking this massive hindrance, would have, at some time in hundreds of centuries, managed to surpass their hindered compatriots, shown the superiority of a life free of religion, and established an alternate course of societal evolution. More, since religion is so harmful, you would think that path would have thrived and eventually driven the others into extinction, destroying the whole concept of religion. At least if religion is so harmful.
After all, have we not seen that in history? The European cultures, being more open to adopting new ideas, being slightly less xenophobic, having progressive ideas, at least in comparison to other cultures, such as some concept of individual rights, of democratic governance, and so on, have managed to reshape the world to such a degree that we could say the entire world has become, in some sense, westernized. So, if something as simple as the Athenian love of democracy, or Herodotus' interest in foreign lands could eventually yield such fruit, then wouldn't you think atheism, being free of all the ills ascribed to religion, would have brought about similar success? Yet we don't see even a single atheistic culture arising, much less a thriving atheistic culture.
So, why not?
Well, the obvious answer is that Hitchens and company ascribe too much evil to religion, or else overlook the even greater harms contemporary with the religious acts they describe. (In fact, my personal belief is that they are mostly guilty of anachronism, holding the past to modern standards of behavior. Well, that and blaming religion for purely secular ills, or else ascribing common features of an age to religion for no clear reason other than that religious belief was common as well.) But there is one other possibility.
The argument above is only valid if religion is false. If religion is true, if there is a G-d or some set of divinities who help their believers, then obviously that would outweigh all the harm that Hitchens and company blame on religion.
Which leaves Hitchens and friends in an odd position. Either they have exaggerated the harm that religion has done, or else, religion is every bit as harmful as they say, but religious beliefs also happen to be true.
Somehow I don't foresee the neo-atheists embracing either argument any time soon.