True or false: The world would be better off without religion?

I just listened to the debate and I cannot in all honesty say who I agree with more. Both sides of the argument made very strong points. I was a little disappointed in the Atheist side because at the beginning they said it wasn’t a debate about the existence of God, but the Atheist side snuck that in there. I was overjoyed with the Rabi Hugo Gryn quote, “one can live only 3 minutes without hope” (or something similar). Do I believe that religions bring hope to the world? Yes. Do I believe that religions have harmed the world, whether on purpose or inadvertently? Yes. Do I know the precise weight of each? No. Have I been moved to examine my own spirituality and religious practices and ask myself the question – “am I a bringer of light, love and hope in the world through thought, word and action”? Yes. Overall I think this debate has raised some very good questions. Thanks Sr. Max for a wonderful post.

*Deep breath*

Ok, first post here, be gentle! And apologies ahead of time for the length of this; my nickname is “Words,” for a reason.

I am an agnostic with a complicated history and relationship with religion and spirituality: my parents raised me without religion, and I then converted on my own and became a devout Christian for the latter part of my youth. But that in my mind and actions required — perhaps wrongly, I have a feeling most here would agree — being judgmental toward the Jewish side of my family. As an adult I was an agnostic leaning toward atheism in my twenties and early thirties but have been lately leaning more toward embracing spirituality and God again… in some form. But I’m taking my time in figuring out exactly what that means. And maybe I never will.

With that background and introduction (and you can thank Zeke – who ROCKS at going outside the religious world to find common ground & community with us heathens! – for pointing this NPR broadcast, blogpost, and NL out to me) here are my thoughts on the debate:

1. What resonated with me the most strongly in the debate was the quote toward the end from George Bernard Shaw re. the Golden Rule not necessarily being the best moral guide at all, because that involves projecting what we want onto others and assuming they’d want the same thing. Instead, morality requires embracing *diversity*… seeing others for who they really are in their individuality and personalities, and meeting them where they are. Such individuality, and hearing and embracing people on their own terms is what it is to be human, and moral.

2. On a broader note, I find it deeply offensive when religious people, as at least one of the debaters did, assume that religion is a necessary foundation for the development of morality. My mother is quite possibly the most virtuous, moral people I know. She gives and gives of herself without asking in return, is charitable and compassionate and loving to an extreme, and does so completely without the framework of any set religion. And she taught me to be moral without any religious framework as well. To honor and listen to people, to accept and be patient with them for who they are, to be benevolent without expecting tangible rewards in turn… these are all virtues we inherently ARE capable of. Humanity IS a good thing. I abhor the concept of original sin and that we are inherently bad, which is what one debater suggested when he said that children in a playground are naturally BAD in their behavior, and therefore need religion to form them into moral beings. (Similarly, I was once told by a religious person that it was impossible for me to consider myself a moral person if I wasn’t a Christian, and that was one of the most deeply offensive and *wrong* things I’ve had said to me. Big, big, ouch)

3. It seems like pointless bean-counting to takes sides in what seems to be a rather silly debate about whether more wars have historically been waged in the name of religion or waged by atheists like Stalin and Hitler. That said, there IS something potentially destructive and divisive about religion that I have experienced, and which has been the primary reason I’ve not been a religious person for the entirety of my adult life: when the belief that one’s messiah or religion is the ONLY way is taken to an extreme, there is a resulting judgment against others who do not share that belief. Such judgment can and does wound. When I was a Christian, I was the one doing the wounding, when I told my Jewish relatives I was concerned for their souls, that I was afraid they were going to hell. I cannot begin to describe the pain I caused with such well-intentioned words, and the guilt I still feel decades later over my years of prosthelytizing to (and, without fully realizing it, judging) my beloved Woody Allen Jewish grandmother and other Jewish relatives on my dad’s side of the family. Most recently, the wounds have been inflicted on, not by, me, by religions that discriminate against me as a woman… and even more so as a woman who loves other women. Because my experience has been that most religions do spread judgment, not just God’s love, and they are not exactly laissez-faire in leaving others in peace with their own lifestyles and belief systems. And THAT’s the harm of religion, IMO.

On that note, one of the debaters on the side of religion attributed Darwin’s atheism to his subjective emotional experience in feeling “wounded” by the death of a loved one and by his bemoaning the realization that “if there’s a hell, many people who I love would be in it.” This to me is very problematic too. But on a broader level, while the debater seemed to criticize this rationalization of Darwin as overly subjective and based on being emotionally wounded by his particular life experience, I think it’s only fair to acknowledge that we ALL bring our subjective emotional life contexts to the table, which affect how we view religion. None of us are purely objective. That’s part of the beauty of it. I hope we can all do better at reaching out and listening and trying to understand each others’ contexts.

4. On THAT note, and on the other side of the debate, I still see much, much good in religion. While I reject that religion is a necessary sense of morality, I witness every day the good things it does for my loved ones. It serves many practical purposes, although I found it curious that two of the most practical purposes of religion weren’t mentioned in the debate at all: A) as exemplified in NL, religion is a HUGE source of *community*, which is a critical aspect of being a human. I love how religion brings people together. B) as a musician, what has moved me more than anything about religion at times are the incredibly powerful musical gifts that churches religion has historically provided to society. C) religion is also critical in providing us solace in the face of others’ deaths and in confronting our fears of our own. These three things, more than anything, in my mind, make religion valuable in society.

Maybe most importantly, religion DOES, after all, provide the structure and framework some people need to feel God’s love. And perhaps that IS what it’s all about. (the agnostic in me of course insists on adding the “perhaps”…) Or at least should be.

5. Finally, as I evolve and explore my own spirituality, which, yes, is NOT the same as “religion,” I remain open to God’s love, to the many wonderful things both spirituality AND religion have to offer, and if I were in the audience voting, as political and pro-voting as I am, I’m not sure I’d pull the lever in either direction in the end. Because just as I’d like to be free to explore my own truths, including whether or not to embrace religion… I honor all the good that many many many people (perhaps even most people) find in religion, and I would never want to take that away from them. I just wish that religion weren’t used to infringe on my rights and freedoms politically, or to be a source of judgment and destruction in my life and in the world generally…. But religion is far from the other tool that is abused for such purposes, and I still think it very likely offers at least as much good as bad to society.

Love and Pax,
Nancy

I think people are searching for spirituality. It’s a part of our being human. Religion on the other hand unfortunately often has nothing to do with spirituality. I think religion in the framework of small communities living the Gospel of Jesus or the religious tradition one believes is where spirituality can grow. Many people I know are walking away from religious institutions and they are searching for spirituality in other places.