Are religions evil?

What do all these have in common: a documentary on the BBC about illegal Zionist settlers in Palestine, the recent news about a couple owning a B&B who refused to accommodate a married gay couple and the heart breaking story of a little girl caned to death for being pursued by an older neighbour?

They all make me feel distinctly depressed about the extremes of behaviour that religious faith can drive individuals to.

This was also one of the points that kept being made repetitively, and boringly, in the debate between Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens in Canada. The former cited the many examples of extraordinary charity, support and goodwill carried out by religious people and groups around the world. The latter noted the evil, intolerant and bigoted behaviour often seen by the same.

So is it a one-all draw? Well, essentially, yes. Human beings have the capacity for exceptional love and kindness; and evil and misery. Religion, for its enormity, for its calls for sacrifice and powerful action, can push these tendencies to each extreme.

What distinguishes religion from other drives which lead people to behave well or badly (sexual desire, hunger, ignorance, empathy, etc) is that those extremists on either side are willing to act <<in the name of their religion>> The Israel/Palestine conflicts might be best understood using a realist theory of international relations but it is carried out in the name of God or, rather, of different Gods. Whatever the role of Judaism or Islam is in the conflict, it is tarnished by the religious language used on either side.

I think it is probably an important caveat that the vast majority of religions, in the vast majority of their interpretations, stress love, forgiveness, mercy and generosity. Those who commit extreme acts of viciousness are generally to be found far outside the majority opinion of the faith. This is not to say that there are no 'mainstream' popular theologians, thinkers and religious leaders who freely propagate some horrible beliefs - homophobia springs to mind here in particular - but these examples are rarely typical of the core teachings of the faith.

The God Gene, part II

It's Christian Union week next week and the faculty is filled with undergraduates in bright blue hoodies with 'Truth' emblazoned across the front and a line up off implausibly ambitious talks on the back. It's reminiscent of a tour hoodie for a rock band but without the flavour of dark and dingy suburban gigs.

In the student newspaper this week is a letter by the President of the CU in response to an article run last week about a genetic tendency to religious faith. He argues that religious faith is simply one form of the faith that everyone has - in relatives, friends, and so on. It is not some sort of speculative, general philosophical thought or 'worldview'. Specifically, he writes, Christians put faith into Jesus Christ, a specific person like mum, dad or Bob.

This might make Christianity sound like a pretty enormous leap into the dark - who would put their entire repository of religious faith in an individual they, nor anyone they knew, had never met and whose person is unknowable - but he does make an important distinction between religion as <<I think there's something else out there>> and as <<here are the people and creeds I trust in>>

Religious faith can be stimulated by trust in many more people and things than God - in other religious people, in institutions, in books, in prayers, in liturgy, in art, in music, in architecture, in experiences, in religious history, even in the natural world. Faith in one particular divine person can be a culmination of faith in every part of our experience, things that show God in a way that is far more accessible than one messianic figure.

The God Gene

I'm interested by the arguement that there exists a 'God Instinct', which tilts those with the necessary genetic make up to be more inclined to believe that God exists (or something along those lines).

My first thought was that this is slightly embarrassing for religion - making it ultimately a matter of biology not revelation. If you believe because you were always going to believe and not because you chose to take a leap of faith isn't that reductive, even embarrassing, for those who hold that God freely gave them religion? It has nothing, ultimately, to do with truth. Or even 'Truth', if you prefer.

Then I read this article by Nick Spencer, a director at Theos. He argues that the God gene could work in a totally different argument - that it is suggestively consistant with a divinely created universe. Evolutionary advantage could suggest that:

Not only does God tilt creation towards life, and life towards sentience, and sentience towards intelligence, and intelligence towards morality and wonder, but he tilts that package of intelligence, morality and wonder that we call human nature towards himself. Creation delivers us to God's doorstep and bids us only knock at his door.

Of course it doesn't prove anything - transferring from helpfulness or inevitability to truth or goodness jumps Hume's is-ought gap - but perhaps it's less of a problem than I thought.

Spencer concludes saying its bad news for the atheist who must defend his/her beliefs for their 'unnaturalness'. I'm not sure he's right, there seems something rather noble about being unnatural, and this is where I worry that the God gener might still be bad for religion.

If religion were weird or 'unnatural' it would give religious faith a valourous, against the odds sense of overcoming an 'animal' disposition. What greater obstacle to overcome than genetic disbelief? Bigger than martyrdom or persecution. And what is the effect on personal experience - for the fool that saith in his heart there is no God, but trusts in him anyway?

The most reasonable answer is probably that of Michael Argyle, as quoted by Spencer:

psychological research can tell us nothing about the truth, validity or usefulness of religious phenomena: these are questions which must be settled in other ways

He is, however, only repeating the conclusions made eloquently by William James in Lecture I of The Varieties of Religious Experience. The 'nervous' causes of any belief do not determine our judgement of it, which is based rather on other values (how pleasing it is, how well it fits with other beliefs, etc). As the mad genius is no less a genius for being mad so the mad believer is no less true or insightful for his madness.