Religion is a topic which everybody seems an opinion on. The desire to unravel fundamental truths has kept the topic relevant and brought about numerous discussion which never fail to provoke people. There has even been book written and documentaries made. Richard Dawkins’ “The God delusion” is one of many controversial documentaries that has gotten a rise out of people. The documentary goes into depth about religion and explores the determination of religious groups in terms of what they want to achieve in this society. In the documentary, Dawkins states that religions cause more harm than good. For someone who may not be sure which side to affiliate themselves with, it can be hard to know whether one can agree with this statement or not. Is Dawkins statement about religions a truth that should be accepted?
The statement that religion does more harm than good is about religions impact on society, not about its basis doctrines or definition. This is not an essentialist claim, but a causal one. The majority of people would agree that religion is associated with good works and that many of them advocate some good moral principles. However, that is not a point that can be used against the statement as a valid argument. If a religion which teaches to love their enemies actually ends up inspiring violent persecutions, then in practice it harms society, whatever its holy books might say. Religions often paint an idealized picture of society, and where everyone has the same religion it might indeed foster social harmony and inclusion. However, we live in a multicultural world, and in such a world religion has far more impact through the divisions it creates than any unity it brings.
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As Darwin said in his documentary, religion thrives on unexplained mysteries. This corrupts our sense of morality by encouraging us to believe wildly implausible things on the basis of ancient texts whose writers understanding of the world was pitifully limited. For example, it’s more than 150 years since Charles Darwin Alfred and Russel Wallace discovered the theory of evolution. Since then it has been supported by huge amounts of evidence, from paleontology, biogeography, comparative anatomy and even molecular biology. Who can possibly in 21century - as an informed person - deny evolution? And on what basis? Nevertheless, religion has managed to make people deny the most obvious facts. If religion has such an impact on people, it is rather obvious that it can lead otherwise decent people to do appalling things on behalf of their belief, especially for the sake of an entirely mythical afterlife. An example of beliefs with damaging moral implications is that women should be subservient to men, that homosexuality is a sin, that some people communicate with evil spirits that can be defeated only by killing them, that martyrdom will secure eternal life in the company of seventy willing virgins. Surely, none of these would be widely held in the 21st century were it not for pernicious influence of beliefs based on bronze aged stories and ancient values.
As mentioned above, religion corrupts our sense of morality. It’s both absurd and dangerous to tie morality to religion and religious values. In “The God Delusion”, It is said by Adrian Hawkes that “If there is no God, if there is no lawgiver, why does it matter what I do? Why is rape wrong? Why is pedophilia wrong? Why are any of these wrong?” He implies that people would behave a lot worse if they thought there were no consequences, which is not farfetched. This may risk undermining morality, because if everybody is told that without religion there is no morality, then if religion or religious consensus slowly and inexorably dies, that could undermine the moral consensus. Nonetheless, religion does keep people at bay. A myriad of people find it relieving that religion has some people around a tight leash because in some way it makes the world a better place. Even so, doesn’t that make the relationship between God and Humans analogous to that of a prisoner and a jailor? You’re only motivated to keep up the good behaviour because you afraid
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