Religion is Harmful
Religion does little good and great damage.
I believe that Religion has been harmful in world history and in the lives of believers. The following explains why I believe this.
By ‘religion’ I mean the traditional kind: belief in a God who specifies required beliefs and behaviors, and an afterlife where God rewards good persons or believers and punishes evil persons or non-believers. The two most widespread religions, Christianity and Islam, fit this model. Of course there are many complicating and obscuring factors, but I am emphasizing the big picture view, which exposes some fundamental absurdities.
Religion has been with us since the beginning of recorded history. Mankind has always had religion. The search for identity, significance, and eternal life is something we do. Using religion to put ourselves into some class approved by God is emotionally attractive. A belief system promising something we need is easy to accept.
The historical origins of religion are obscure and distorted by zealots long after the beginnings, creating a politicized history and myth. Most believers remain largely ignorant about the true historical origins of their faith. Researchers cannot even assert with certainty that Jesus was a single historical person. Muhammad certainly did exist, but he personally wrote nothing and is not the source of the written Koran.
Religious leaders have always protected their influence through blackmail: doubters are cast as arrogant sinners who have turned away from God and will be punished. This intimidates most believers from asking difficult questions.
Distortion of history and intimidation are bad enough in themselves, but perpetuation of religious belief systems causes greater problems than this.
Religion discourages people from taking responsibility for their lives and problems: they rely instead on false hopes (prayer, divine intervention); they passively wait for God to reward the faithful and correct injustices in the afterlife; they accept suffering as God's will, or a path to greater personal sanctity. If an earthquake wipes out a family, the lone survivor praises God for sparing his life (Turkey 2023, multiple TV interviews).
Religion replaces difficult moral choices and challenges with easy formulas: repent and be forgiven; you are saved by faith in God and by following his rules. Righteousness in life becomes a simplistic set of beliefs and behaviors, replacing the need for thought, careful judgment, open-mindedness, and moral courage. Religion makes it easier to be immoral and irresponsible. It can promote hypocrisy. There are so many examples of horrible but sanctimonious persons, in history and in modern times: the kings and popes of the middle ages, the 9-11 terrorists, clerical child sex-abusers, TV evangelists pocketing donations from gullible believers.
Religion provides justification for self-righteousness and persecution of outsiders. Throughout history, powerful leaders have used religion to control their subjects and destroy their enemies: Crusades, Inquisition, countless religious wars and persecutions, witch hunts, divine right kings, the popes of old and the mullahs of today.
The whole idea of (typical) religion is inherently absurd. Here is the core set of common religious beliefs:
There is a God who defines required beliefs and behaviors.
Historical person(s) were sent by God to deliver his message to Man.
Man’s obligation is to hear this message and to believe and to obey.
Those who reject God will suffer a terrible fate in the afterlife.
There are anointed agents of God who interpret and direct religious and moral thinking, and it is Man’s obligation to hear and obey them.
Some religions (e.g. Buddhism) do not fit this mold. These also do not claim divine revelation, an exclusive path to God, or moral guides who demand obedience.
When you step back from the details and reduce religion to the above core principles, the absurdity should be clear to any honest mind:
Why would God communicate with Man through obscure messengers in ancient times? Is this a reasonable method to reach all mankind? Is it not more reasonable to believe that deluded persons were pushing their own agendas? Why should one believe in them?
What happens to the great majority of persons who are never exposed to the ancient revelations, and therefore have no way to reach God?
Why would God hate and torture persons (hellfire) who do not accept his religion? In a human, this would be the behavior of an egomaniac, condemned in every culture. Does God behave like Stalin?
What does God get from Hell? Revenge? Ego gratification?
Even if you believe that Hell is a proper fulfillment of divine justice, the punishment does not reverse some prior evil – it just adds more evil.
I will now pick on Christianity, which is my own background. From what I have read of Islam, it seems equally unreasonable, but I will not comment further. Since this essay is aimed at Americans, Christianity is the appropriate target.
In Christianity, the core belief is that God suffered and died to atone for the sins of Man (or the Original Sin of Adam), thus making Man worthy to be loved by God. Is this a sound idea? Would you accept the suffering of a mother as atonement for the crimes of her child? Would this make her evil child more lovable? Are babies born with Adam's sin on their souls? Does this idea of Original Sin and Redemption make sense? Christianity contains a great contradiction: Jesus told us to love our enemies, but God throws his enemies into hellfire. God loves only those who believe and obey, reducing God to an egomaniac like Stalin.
Some apologists claim that misguided humans have distorted the original truth brought to us by Jesus, St. Paul, etc. Perhaps the idea of Hell was invented by religious leaders to intimidate and subjugate their followers, and the necessary words were put into the mouth of Jesus by later writers. If this is true, then how are we supposed to know what is true and what has been distorted? Who can we trust if the agents of God are misleading us, or the divine scripture has been manipulated?
Some apologists attempt to raise Christian religion to the level of philosophy, turning dubious religious dogma into analogies of high moral principles and eternal truths. But one can arrive at these principles without the incredible baggage of Christianity. The most fundamental moral principle, the Golden Rule, is found in every culture since the beginning of written history. It is more logical to believe that Christianity is claptrap. There is an incredible burden of proof (both logic and history) and a long tradition of obvious evil for Christianity to overcome.
The Christian Bible is far more myth than history. In the case of the Old Testament, this is obvious enough; but this is also true for the New Testament. None of the four evangelists knew Jesus personally – they wrote 30-100+ years after his death. They recorded a verbal tradition. They were motivated by a desire to spread their faith. Like the proselytizers of today, they wrote to get results. We have no more reason to trust them than the originators of Astrology. Citations from the New Testament in other Christian writings do not appear until about the year 150, and these are not the same as in later texts. The obvious conclusion is that the New Testament was still being revised 150 years after Jesus. The final version was established by the Council of Nicaea in 325 - Constantine needed to unify competing Christian sects for the sake of political stability in the Roman Empire. Today’s dogma came from Constantine’s politics and a committee of bishops taking votes.
Understanding the early Church as a political and historical process is sufficient to explain everything. There is no need for a divine plan. Anyone who believes that the New Testament is the word of God does not base this belief on history or logic, but on faith alone, and an incredible suppression of inconvenient historical data and logical thought.
If Christianity is illogical and based on distorted history, is it harmful? Perhaps it could be considered an innocuous pastime, or even an influence for good. I disagree. For the reasons I have already given, freeing people from the obligation to think critically has been a bad influence on both their moral character and their lives. Replacing moral courage with beliefs and rituals and reliance on God is worthless at best and hypocrisy at worst.
Religion is clearly harmful.