Has religion been a force for good?
October 4, 2010 4:42 PM   Subscribe

Can you make the case that religion has been a positive force for good in the world?

Some people today suggest that religion is the source of what we consider evil today. In the words of Christopher Hitchens, "Religion poisons everything."

Could you provide support for the idea that religion has been an overall positive force in this world?

A general example: "Much of the education and medical care in developing countries is done by religious workers."

Not looking for support that religion is evil, only for the positive viewpoint. Also not looking for specific refutations of Hitchens, but general examples. Thanks.
posted by roaring beast to Religion & Philosophy (18 answers total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: what is the problem you are trying to solve here? This is a hot button question/topic for this site and it's unclear why you're bringing it up here, what other sources you've looked at, or why this isn't just a chatfilter "poke the atheists" post. -- jessamyn

 
Some of the world's most wonderful works of art, architecture and music were inspired by religion... this from a confirmed atheist.
posted by carmicha at 4:46 PM on October 4, 2010 [3 favorites]


There are plenty of positive things about religion, as well as plenty of negative things. Some positive things:

- Religious groups often motivate people to volunteer, donate, and generally help others
- Much of religion-based morality is consistent with a kind and well-ordered society (i.e. thou shalt not kill, give alms to the poor, etc)
- Religious groups often provide a sense of community and connectedness to many people

etc.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 4:50 PM on October 4, 2010


(Well, I would argue against your thesis, but that's another matter entirely.)

This Intelligence Squared debate (previously) centered around the specific case of the Catholic Church. It, uh... didn't turn out well for the supporters of the Church, partially because of Mr. Hitchens, but more because of Stephen Fry's passionate refutation of the motion.

Still, as I recall, the two supporters of the motion brought up points that can be generalized to religion as a whole, and the specific points against the Catholic church wouldn't apply to all religious organizations.
posted by supercres at 4:50 PM on October 4, 2010


I've found being exposed to Buddhism over the past 15 years have positively affected me.
posted by KokuRyu at 4:53 PM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


If you subscribe to evolutionary biology, then may also subscribe to the hypothesis that humans have a "God gene" that may provide an evolutionary advantage. You could hypothesize that we are because religion helped early man pass along their genes, in any number of ways (e.g. the tribes that banded together along religious lines were more successful than the ones that didn't).
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:54 PM on October 4, 2010


Religion has funded and inspired a lot of art, yes, but religion itself is an enormous, varied, and integral part of culture throughout the world. Ask any anthropologist. Native American folktales and creation stories, Polynesian systems of social organization, the great Sanskrit epics of India - these are not "inspired by religion" but constitute it.

Whether it's a "net positive" is a pointless and intellectually bankrupt game of moral arithmetic.

I'm an atheist.
posted by theodolite at 4:57 PM on October 4, 2010 [2 favorites]


Religion has encouraged many people to think deeply about the nature of our existence.
posted by Aquaman at 4:58 PM on October 4, 2010


Many, if not most, Christian churches (and probably other religions, too, but I don't have any personal experience with those) provide services to the needy. They have soup kitchens, clothing, various other charitable offerings.

Missionaries travel abroad to spread the word of God, yes, but they also teach in regions where schools are hard to come by, provide medical assistance, help build homes, etc. On a more basic level, many Christians tithe every Sunday or give financial offerings when they can. That money helps the church itself but also supports the above missions.

In fact, I don't know what it's like across all denominations, but in every Southern Baptist church I ever went to, the idea of helping people in need whether it's children in a third world country or your down-on-his-luck neighbor, was preached about all the time and compared to Jesus' works.

There are definitely "Christians" who forget about all that while thumping their Bibles before they drive off in their Lexuses, but we only think of them first because they're the most obnoxious, having also forgotten the tenet of humility. "And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8
posted by katillathehun at 4:58 PM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


In general, you could say that religion gives people a reason to do good over evil. (I'm thinking mostly of Christianity here.)

It incentivizes things like charity, humility, loyalty with the promise of eternal reward (i.e., heaven). It disincentivizes "sinful" acts (namely, harming others) by promising eternal punishment.

Whether mankind needs an external system of reward and punishment, though, is truly up for debate. As an atheist, I would say that I'm certainly no less moral of a person because I don't have the promise of heaven and the threat of hell hanging over my head. Some people need that external system, though, I guess. Strikes me as an omnipresent, omniscient, supernatural Big Brother, but that's neither here nor there.
posted by supercres at 4:58 PM on October 4, 2010


A certain proportion of the population lacks an internal conscience. I think it's likely that many of these people are held in check at least to a degree by a fear of Hell.

Some religions (Judaism, for one) laid down hygiene rules during times when good hygiene practices were not widespread.

Some religions (I'm thinking Christianity and Islam, here) laid down rules for the treatment of women which, while some of them seem sexist by today's standards, actually improved the lot of women in their time and place.
posted by Ashley801 at 5:01 PM on October 4, 2010 [2 favorites]


Could you provide support for the idea that religion has been an overall positive force in this world?

Is it possible to answer this objectively? To get an honest answer on whether religion has been an "overall positive force" would certaintly require IMO that you show me a society or place that doesn't have a religion. The closest I could even think of would be Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, but the arguments are very easily made that they had cults of personality at the very least. Or go with (insert random tribe from extremely remote place here) and they will have some type of religion. The entire idea of trying to measure whether religion has been a positive or negative force seems moot if you have no basis from which to start, i.e. no religion.

Generally apathetic agnostic here, and I am in the camp of religion probably isn't really necessary, and it's not needed for my personal morals. But my own morals and religion (or lack thereof) exists in the reality that I am one non-special snowflake of 6.5 billion.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 5:02 PM on October 4, 2010


Mod note: A few comments removed. Flag it and move on, folks.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:04 PM on October 4, 2010


Source of plenty of expressions and cliches such as "wear your Sunday best", "there but for the grace of god go i", "there are no atheists in foxholes", "god willing" and "jew someone down". • it gives you something to say when people sneeze! • It gives people a reason to band together ... but unfortunately, it translates into people banding together against people who aren't the same religion. • It allows me to say things like "it's against my religion" when i need a non-logical reason for not wanting to do something. • It gives legislators justification for something to argue for and/or against (applies to southern states in the usa, anyway) • if it's not obvious, i'm of the camp that believes "...to get a good person to do bad things it takes religion" but... you know... you can pray for me. OOH that's another one! When people ask me for money/handouts, I say "I'll pray for you."
posted by ChefJoAnna at 5:12 PM on October 4, 2010


Here's another: it can unite people who are divided along racial lines.

This is an excerpt from the "Mecca" chapter of Malcolm X's autobiography:

Back at the Frankfurt airport, we took a United Arab Air-lines plane on to Cairo. Throngs of people, obviously Muslims from everywhere, bound on the pilgrimage, were hugging and embracing. They were of all complexions, the whole atmosphere was of warmth and friendliness. The feeling hit me that there really wasn't any color problem here. The effect was as though I had just stepped out of a prison.

...

Nothing in either of my two careers as a black man in America had served to give me any idealistic tendencies. My instincts automatically examined the reasons, the motives, of anyone who did anything they didn't have to do for me. Always in my life, if it was any white person, I could see a selfish motive.

But there in that hotel that morning, a telephone call and a few hours away from the cot on the fourth-floor tier of the dormitory, was one of the few times I had been so awed that I was totally without resistance. That white man—at least he would have been considered "white" in America—related to Arabia's ruler, to whom he was a close advisor, truly an international man, with nothing in the world to gain, had given up his suite to me, for my transient comfort. He had nothing to gain. He didn't need me. He had everything. In fact, he had more to lose than gain.

...


That morning was when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men.

But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been.

That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men.

posted by Ashley801 at 5:17 PM on October 4, 2010


While I'm an atheist, it is very clear that many religious people find their faith to be a source of great personal solace. For some it may even be fundamental to their psychological well-being. Despite my virtual certainty that there is no God (in the usual sense of the word), I don't go around trying to persuade everybody of this fact because (aside from it being rude) I feel that in a mental world stripped of any definitive purpose to its existence, some people would have simply more difficulty being happy.

I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to argue that spirituality in general is sufficiently inherent to human psychology that asking whether it is good or evil is akin to debating the morality of gravity. A world without it would be so different from our own that it is pointless to draw comparisons.

The question of a personal belief in God is, of course, somewhat separate from that of organised religion, but that side of things has already been covered.
posted by d11 at 5:20 PM on October 4, 2010


Religion has been implicated in many episodes of religious ecstasy and peak experience.

These tend to be awesome, and therefore arguably constitute a positive contribution to human existence.
posted by alms at 5:20 PM on October 4, 2010


Whether it's a "net positive" is a pointless and intellectually bankrupt game of moral arithmetic.

So much so I'm surprised that this post hasn't been yoinked by now.

But: whether you believe in a Supreme Being or no, it does make sense, does it not, to at least categorize "religion" as a particular set of ideas which some people apply to the world, yes? Regardless of whether you believe that these ideas were divinely or humanly inspired, the ideas themselves exist and influence people. In fact, let's use the term "sets of ideas" in place of "religion" in this case.

Now -- in many cases, at the time each of these different sets of ideas were first introduced, they contained the first arguments for the expression of morality. Note that I do not say that they are the source of morality -- I say that it is the source of that expression of and commucation of the concepts of morality in that culture. In other words -- it is the means in which those cultures first framed the argument in favor of moral actions. Individuals and cultures still continue to falter in terms of living by those ideals -- and the fine print in these religious dogmas still continues to be written -- but each of these religions contain the first expressions which their specific parent cultures came up with in favor of "maybe it's not such a good idea to be anti-social." It's a way of stating that argument that the culture rallied around and chose to use as a guidepost.

Think of religion as kind of like the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration isn't a legal document -- we do not use it as the exact basis for laws in this country -- but the country's culture regards the Declaration as a suitable expression of the concepts upon which the country was later founded. It's something that we can all point to and say, "yeah, that's a good way of explaining what we're shooting for." And having that collective concept in our heads serves to keep us all more or less focused on the same goal, as a culture; the political disagreements we have are not about the concepts itself, but about how to ATTAIN them.

My argument is that religion serves the same function -- it has served as a good way of re=affirming what we are all shooting for in terms of morality.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:21 PM on October 4, 2010


Some people today suggest that religion is the source of what we consider evil today

I think that this isn't hard to counter. What I'm going to call the "practical communists"* are the easiest example to bring to mind, and they managed to bring more than their share of evil and suffering into the world without religion. Stalin's gulags imprisoned more than 14 million people at one point or another, with an estimated death toll over a million. Chairman Mao's forced agricultural reforms killed tens of millions of people, either through direct violence (murdering the wealthy landowners) or years of famine. And of course there's the present day example of Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il, and I imagine his successor Kim Jong-Un; what's happening in North Korean is heart breaking.

So while religion and religious institutions are far, far from perfect it's disingenuous/intellectually dishonest to say that the world would necessarily be a better place without them.

* Every time I seem to get into this debate people like to shout "they weren't really communists!"
posted by sbutler at 5:28 PM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


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