The Anti-God Squad

[Rye]

I read this and thought it was pretty fucking cool.

You wanna guard something? Guard this!

Would we be better off without religion? It depends whether the best of humanity is already inside us or whether it needs faith to bring it out.

March 29, 2007 9:30 AM | Printable version

Religion belongs to "the abject childhood of our species", Christopher Hitchens told an audience at Westminster Hall in London last night. The author and journalist condemned the "medieval barbarism" of religious conflicts the world over and urged those listening to oppose the religious impulse whenever it shows itself. "It shows very well that religion is created ... by a species half a chromosome away from a chimpanzee," he spat.

He was defending the motion that "This house believes we'd be better off without religion", and he had some formidable artillery on his side - the philosopher Professor AC Grayling and the evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins, to whom Mr Hitchens referred tongue-in-cheekly as a "spokesman for the moderate wing" of the atheist movement.

First to pick up the gauntlet was Dr Nigel Spivey who teaches classical art and archaeology at Cambridge University. "When I'm asked to imagine a world without religion is ends up looking like the suburbs of Swindon," he lamented, after painting a picture of a grey and featureless world lacking religious inspiration. Erase King's College chapel, the Parthenon, the Sistine Chapel, the Taj Mahal and you get the picture.

And for Dr Spivey's collaborators - the philosopher Professor Roger Scruton and Baroness Julia Neuberger - the benefits of religion went beyond great art. Baroness Neuberger said her opponents missed the profound inspiration that motivates many people of faith to do good in the world. "It was the strong religious sensibilities of Wilberforce and his contemporaries that brought an end to the slave trade," she said, "In my view if we didn't have religion, we would be more selfish, self interested, certain and cruel."

But Professor Grayling would not let that pass unchallenged. "You don't need supernatural agencies ... to see that human beings are capable of good," he said. This was a theme he developed in an interview with the Guardian this week that is available as a podcast. (As well as his views on God and religion he discusses Intelligent Design, stem cells, climate change and the seductive power of pseudo-science). "People think that unless you have a faith of some kind or unless there is a God then there cannot be a moral law. That's a terrible mistake, a very very deep mistake," he told the Guardian's Science Weekly team. Most people do not act based on whether they believe they will be punished or rewarded, "[They] do it out of respect for their fellow men and in many ways are more admirable as moral agents than people who are doing it because they think they have been commanded."

Professor Dawkins was offended by the notion that we need religion for great art. Michelangelo was simply forced to work for whoever had the money, and when he painted the Sistine Chapel, power and wealth were firmly in the hands of the Catholic church. How sweet, he wondered, would Haydn's Evolution Oratorio or Beethoven's Mesozoic Symphony have sounded?

Besides, said Mr Hitchens, there is ample beauty in nature without the need to believe in myth. "Take a look through the Hubble telescope and look at the beauty and majesty of what you will see," he said, "And you want to exchange that for the burning bush?"

For what it's worth, the atheists won the day with 1,205 votes for the motion and 778 against. And although many of the arguments marshalled on both sides were as old as religion itself, the debate ended up hinging on surprising territory. Both sides tried to lay claim to the virtues of doubt and to the idea that theirs was the more optimistic view of human nature.

Mr Hitchens wanted to defend society against "those who know they are right", while Baroness Neuberger said she did not recognise that picture of religion. The nice cuddly liberal Jews whom she knew were very able and willing to embrace doubt. "Belief matters a good deal less than how you live your life," she said - begging the question of why bother with the belief.

The real question is whether the best of humanity is already inside us or whether it needs faith to bring it out. For Mr Hitchens it is possible to have the good without the faith (and hence also without the interfaith wars in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq and the rest). "It's called culture."

[mr friendly guy]

I love how they claim religion ended the slave trade whilst ignoring its part in it. Jefferson Davis and the Southern states any one?

On another note who else is counted in the "anti-God squad"?

[Shroom Man 777]

Religion in the slave trade? Why, of course! All niggers burn in hell! Get your filthy black paws off us Good White Christian Womenfolk! Negroes don't count as human beings! Throw the Jew down the well!


Any argument for the good compassionate side of religion also has its corresponding bad stuff. While nowadays you see people of all races unite under the banner of spiritual fuzzy-wuzzy sentiments, the rest of human history, straight out of the beginning when people started killing each other in Africa with spears and sabertooth tigers, religion has been used as a tool to kill people. Like a rock.

I think using religion for compassionate causes and unity is a rather recent phenomena. Historically, it's been the other way around. To quote Kingdom of Heaven:

"There must be war! God wills it!"

[Qwerty 42]

Well, to be fair, there were a number of religious groups opposed to slavery, the Quakers among them. Certainly the Confederate movement had a lot to do with religion, but it's not as if faith found itself solely on that side.

[Darth Servo]

Well, to be fair, there were a number of religious groups opposed to slavery, the Quakers among them. Certainly the Confederate movement had a lot to do with religion, but it's not as if faith found itself solely on that side.

But the point remains that these tards are trying to paint the false picture that religion was somehow a solid unified front againt slavery, that religion was the cause of its elimination which is complete bullshit. The fact that different branches of Christianity could take completely opposite sides on the matter proves that the religion itself doesn't take a strong stand on it.

[wolveraptor]

People would have supported and opposed slavery with or without religion. Religion rarely turns assholes into good people and vice versa. It can't really affect profound human nature. However, it is an effective tool to demonize any enemy for whom we might otherwise have had some sympathy. It's a largely divisive institution.

[Twoyboy]

People would have supported and opposed slavery with or without religion. Religion rarely turns assholes into good people and vice versa. It can't really affect profound human nature. However, it is an effective tool to demonize any enemy for whom we might otherwise have had some sympathy. It's a largely divisive institution.

Agreed about the power of religion to define the "enemy", but I think you give people too much credit when you say religion rarely turns good people into assholes.

Fair enough if you mean it won't fundamentally alter anyone's value system (bar the exceptionally weak minded), but speak to a seemingly rational person about religion and a fair whack of the time they will come off sounding like a gibbering idiot. The only reason these people still function in society is the bizarre habit to keep their religious beliefs seperate to everything else which IS governed by rational thought.

Maybe this is what you meant by not affecting profound human nature, but I find it's less people's strong will than their ability to believe two contradicting viewpoints at once that makes them come off not appearing to be total assholes.

[Metatwaddle]

People would have supported and opposed slavery with or without religion. Religion rarely turns assholes into good people and vice versa. It can't really affect profound human nature. However, it is an effective tool to demonize any enemy for whom we might otherwise have had some sympathy. It's a largely divisive institution.

I disagree about religion not turning good people into assholes. Religion does exactly that by warping the values of well-meaning people so that they actually harm society by doing things like voting for Bush and promoting counterproductive abstinence-only education programs in Africa and at home. Not every fundamentalist is like the Phelps clan; most are perfectly nice people who nevertheless hold morally repugnant views of the world (like the idea that every unbeliever goes to hell).

I think Steven Weinberg said it best: "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

[Darth Servo]

I disagree about religion not turning good people into assholes. Religion does exactly that by warping the values of well-meaning people so that they actually harm society by doing things like voting for Bush and promoting counterproductive abstinence-only education programs in Africa and at home. Not every fundamentalist is like the Phelps clan; most are perfectly nice people who nevertheless hold morally repugnant views of the world (like the idea that every unbeliever goes to hell).

I think Steven Weinberg said it best: "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

I'm not quite sure I buy that. In a case were a religion seems to turn someone into an asshole, they had to be pretty stupid in the first place to let them be affected like that.

[Metatwaddle]

I disagree about religion not turning good people into assholes. Religion does exactly that by warping the values of well-meaning people so that they actually harm society by doing things like voting for Bush and promoting counterproductive abstinence-only education programs in Africa and at home. Not every fundamentalist is like the Phelps clan; most are perfectly nice people who nevertheless hold morally repugnant views of the world (like the idea that every unbeliever goes to hell).

I think Steven Weinberg said it best: "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

I'm not quite sure I buy that. In a case were a religion seems to turn someone into an asshole, they had to be pretty stupid in the first place to let them be affected like that.

Oh, I didn't say these were logical, intelligent people (though some of them seem to be intelligent about basically everything but their religion, but that's another issue entirely). I simply said they were sincere and well-meaning, and that they try to be considerate to other people in their everyday lives.

I have heard the argument that if these people weren't putting all their energy into religion, it would be some other radical ideology in politics or something like that, but I don't buy that argument at all, partly because only religion provides a supernatural crutch. Granted, I don't know all the reasons why fundamentalists choose to follow their religion, and I'm sure there are more psychological snags than I see, but I don't see most fundamentalists as morally hopeless, or even intellectually hopeless (well, not all of them, anyway). I think they're exactly what Weinberg described: good people doing bad things in the name of their religion.

[Rye]

I'm not quite sure I buy that. In a case were a religion seems to turn someone into an asshole, they had to be pretty stupid in the first place to let them be affected like that.

I think you miss the whole point of childhood indoctrination; it's done early in their lives so they find it a lot more difficult to overcome. One only has to look at how adults view homosexuality in different parts of the world to see the difference religion makes, even in smart people.

[Darth Servo]

I'm not quite sure I buy that. In a case were a religion seems to turn someone into an asshole, they had to be pretty stupid in the first place to let them be affected like that.

I think you miss the whole point of childhood indoctrination; it's done early in their lives so they find it a lot more difficult to overcome. One only has to look at how adults view homosexuality in different parts of the world to see the difference religion makes, even in smart people.

If it were a case of childhood indoctrination, they wourl already be an asshole, wouldn't they?

[Rye]

I'm not quite sure I buy that. In a case were a religion seems to turn someone into an asshole, they had to be pretty stupid in the first place to let them be affected like that.

I think you miss the whole point of childhood indoctrination; it's done early in their lives so they find it a lot more difficult to overcome. One only has to look at how adults view homosexuality in different parts of the world to see the difference religion makes, even in smart people.

If it were a case of childhood indoctrination, they wourl already be an asshole, wouldn't they?

That'd be equivocating between being idiotic naturally and therefore given to assholish christian bullshit as an adult and being unfortunately skewed by indoctrination as a kid and having idiocy thrust upon them into adulthood.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

The inherrant problem here, isn't that religion or spirituality is innate to ass-holery...

But rather that we're, by nature a pack animal. This makes us incredibly willing to help those we acknowledge as part of our family... Organized faith expands that family, but has the wonderful side effect of making the faith itself family...

Of course, this means anyone disagreeing with them on matters of faith is a threat to their family...