Religion: The Good, the Bad, and the 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9
Religion is a very important aspect of human life. Throughout history, the effects of religion have reverberated in every society and culture. While many societies have differing religions, ultimately, the religions all share a common purpose: belief in the supernatural. From the belief that the world is an illusion (Buddhist thought), to the concept of an all-powerful god creating the world for a specific purpose (Judaic, Lakota, etc.), religions tremendously differ in their dogma. And this difference in beliefs has caused a lot of strife in the world; religion provides an ample rationalization for many of the conflicts amongst societies. It can be concluded then, that religions have many facets with both positive and negative sides. In order to decide whether or not religion itself is beneficial to society, one must look at the effects of religion upon humans. It is perhaps easy to find support for religion; that’s what most have been taught. However, the faults of religion cannot be ignored, and ultimately, in order to decide whether or not religion is beneficial, one must place the good and the bad against each other and use a scale to decide which one outweighs the other. It is the nature of this scale that will differ in each of our arguments; the utilitarian, ethical egoist, and the Kantian will all use different scales to measure the applications of religion. And when each of these moral system advocates put religion on the scale, all of them will approach them same conclusion: religion is ultimately detrimental to society and must be dismantled.
Part I: Religion and Science
First of all, in deciding whether or not religion is beneficial to society, one must accept a definition of religion. The definition of religion itself has brought about considerable debate; in fact my previous mention of Buddhism as a religion has many detractors. But for the purposes of this project, we define religion using the definition of Dictionary.com:
| 1. | A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. i |
So with that squared away, a discussion of the history of religion (Religiongeschichteschule) can begin.
All ancient civilizations have some sort of religion. But for the purposes of this discussion, we will only refer to familiar civilizations and the effects religion had on their respective societies. So we first examine Greco-Roman religion. This is one of the earliest religions and thus can provide insight as to how religion was first constructed. While today, we might think of the stories of Jupiter, Ceres, Vesta, Sol, etc. as merely fantasies and entertainment, the ancient Romans took their gods and goddesses very seriously. Jupiter was the explanation as to why it started to rain; or even why the Roman armies sustained victoriesii,iii.Disagreeing meant death. For instance Socrates was placed on trial because:
“Socrates is an evil-doer and corrupter of the youth, who does not receive the gods whom the state receives, but introduces other new divinities”iv
So in this case, religion meant an authority on the truth. To disagree meant to deny the fundamental truths of that society. Arguing that Jupiter wasn’t the cause of rain meant that you ought to be put to death.
However, the religion of the Romans provided an emotional overview of life. Everything made sense to them as a result of religion. Because they could not understand the actual mechanisms of rain, the unsatisfied mystics attributed such phenomena to gods and goddesses. And that is why the ancient religions have many gods and goddesses, each one serving as an explanation for each natural phenomenon. Everything had a mystical purpose and reason; and with this knowledge people had a motivation in life.
As history progressed, more and more natural explanations (which did not cater to religious beliefs) arose for such phenomena. Rain, as we now understand it today, is a meteorological process. And this is why as society progressed, the desire for a separate supernatural entity behind every action decreased. But religion responded to these changes by conceding its monopoly on explanations.
Roman religion does not survive to this day; you would be hard-pressed to find a person who actually believed in Jupiter as anything but the 5th planet around the sun. However, many other religions still exist today, such as Judaism and its offshoots Christianity and Islam. And all three of these religions have changed considerably throughout their histories, and today each of them has many different sects and denominations. And not much different from the Roman religion, each of these also provided supernatural explanations for natural phenomenon which can be observed. And similar to the Roman religion, many of these explanations were found to be incorrect, and the process of finding the errors was a difficult process that warranted death.
We now turn our attention to Judaic explanations. For the ancient Israelites, God (Adonai, YHWH), was the central authority in everything. And He revealed to them the laws by which the Israelites governed themselves. The story of Moses at the top of Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments illustrates this perfectly. However, that is not set of laws the Israelites received. The entire Tanakh (Torah, Nevi’im, Ketuvim) was divinely inspired prose. So then, it is safe to say that such a divinely inspired set of books should contain no scientific errors. But many errors are observed, for instance:
In Genesis 1:1-2:3 (בראשית or Bərêšîth in Hebrew), the earth is created before light and stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before any animals. The true order of events was just the opposite. Even if taken as an allegory, the order of events is still wrong.v
In Genesis 1:30, all animals, (including lions, hawks, and dinosaurs) were given “green plant for food” i.e. vegetarians.
In Genesis 2:19, God fashions Eve out of one of Adam’s ribs. This led people to believe that men had one less rib than women, a fact which persisted until the father of anatomy, Vesalius, proved in 1543 that men and women had the same number of ribs.
This is only a small sample of scientific claims which the Tanakh makes. Among other claims include the origin of rainbows (as a result of God’s promise with Noah to never flood the whole world with water again. Next time he’ll flood the whole world with fire. See Genesis 9:13), the origin of languages (The tower of Babel contradicts current examinations of the history of language which tell us that the diversity of languages was a gradual development, not an instantaneous decree of God as punishment for attempting to reach the heavens. See Genesis 11:9), the reason why some people are born with disabilities (because God made them that way. See Exodus 4:11), and so on.
But what does this all mean? One thing that can be concluded from this is that people today no longer take these as literal. But that does not excuse the thousands of years where these verses were taken as literal. For instance, Copernicus was one of the first to offer the heliocentric theory of the universe, which means that the sun, rather than the earth, was the center of the universe. This is of course today known to be false because the sun is merely one of the many stars around the Milky Way Galaxy, and in fact because the universe has more than three dimensions, it makes no sense to ascribe to it a “center”.vi
But even though Copernicus is wrong, his idea still had to be evaluated. And based on the scientific evidence at the time, the heliocentric system was the best explanation for the evidences available at the time. How the religious authorities at the time feel about Copernicus’s ideas? Interestingly enough, the Catholic Church was not in much opposition to him at the time.vii However, as soon as his books gained widespread popularity, they placed his book (De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, or On the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs) on the List of Prohibited books (Index Liborum Prohibitorum).viii But the Catholics weren’t the only ones who took notice of him. Martin Luther, one of the most important figures of the Protestant Reformation, had this to say about Copernicus:
“People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon.... This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.”
-- Martin Luther, referring to Joshua 10:13 (above), in his series of "Table Talks" (1539)ix
Another important figure, Melanchthon (A friend and associate of Martin Luther), stated:
The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours. But certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere nor the sun revolves.... Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and to acquiesce in it.
-- Melanchthon, emphasizing Ecclesiastes 1:4-5 (above)x
And to move away from Lutheran ideology, let us turn our attention to John Calvin, who stated:
Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?
-- John Calvin, citing Psalm 93:1 in his Commentary on Genesisxi
So then, it has been shown that these famous Biblical scholars understood these verses to be quite serious in relation with the actual world. This raises the question in general: is it beneficial for religion to preemptively prohibit scientific endeavors on the basis of ancient texts? Now we can examine this question from the ethical systems introduced in the first paragraph.
Act utilitarian: Science itself has repeatedly brought about pleasures to society. Many people enjoy videos about the cosmological discoveries, magazines such as Scientific American and Astronomy. Scientific discoveries also bring about pleasure, such as cures for diseases. Religion, on the other hand, prohibits such thinking, and entraps the person into accepting dogma. A scientist has the enjoyment of knowing that he’ll learn something from his experiments, whereas a religious person already knows the “truth”. The scientific explanation for rainbows is much more pleasurable and sating than “God made rainbows to promise he won’t slaughter us.” So therefore, according to act utilitarianism, this aspect of religion is not beneficial to society.
Kant’s categorical imperative #2: I cannot rationally will to live in a society where science is not the foundation of obtaining knowledge. Therefore this aspect of religion is not beneficial to society according to Kant.
Part II: Religious Conflicts
As stated in the first paragraph, religion provides an ample rationalization for many of the conflicts amongst societies. Religious imperialism is one of the most important examples of the effects of religion amongst societies. Perhaps the earliest example of religious imperialism is alluded to in the Tanakh:
11 Obey what I command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 12 Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. 13 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles.14 Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.(Exodus 34:11-14)xii
i Dictionary.com
religion. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1). From the Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion
ii University of Chicago:
“The statue of Jupiter was clothed with a tunic adorned with palm branches and Victories… and a purple toga embroidered with gold… afterwards worn by Roman generals when celebrating a triumph”
“This temple was the centre of the religious system of the state during the republic and empire, and possessed great political importance.”
An article on the University of Chicago website: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/PLATOP*/Aedes_Jovis_Capitolini.html
iii Wikipedia.org:
“Iuppiter Pluvius (“sender of rain”)”“Iuppiter Victor (“led Roman armies to victory”)”Jupiter_(mythology). (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved December 08, 2006, from Reference.com website: http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Jupiter_(mythology)
iv Gutenberg.org:
An online translation of Plato’s Apology:
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=39508&pageno=8
v Biblegateway.com:
This website contains the text of the Bible in many versions. Here is a link to Genesis 1 in the New International Version:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201&version=31
vi University of California Riverside:
The Physics FAQ: “There is no centre of the universe!”
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/centre.html
viiUniversity of Wisconsin:
Beyond War and Peace:
A Reappraisal of the Encounter between Christianity and Science"
“Indeed, various churchmen, including a bishop and a cardinal, urged Copernicus to publish his book, which appeared with a dedication to Pope Paul… Had Copernicus lived beyond its publication in 1543, it is highly improbable that he would have felt any hostility or suffered any persecution. The church simply had more important things to worry about than a new astronomical or cosmological system. Although a few critics noticed and opposed the Copernican system, organized Catholic opposition did not appear until the seventeenth century.” http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1987/PSCF9-87Lindberg.html
viii Positiveatheism.org:
“... And whereas it has also come to the knowledge of the said Congregation that the Pythagorean doctrine -- which is false and altogether opposed to the Holy Scripture -- of the motion of the Earth and the immobility of the Sun, which is also taught by Nicolaus Copernicus in De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, and by Diego de Zuñiga On Job, is now being spread abroad and accepted by many... Therefore, in order that this opinion may not insinuate itself any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth, the Holy Congregation has decreed that the said Nicolaus Copernicus, De Revolutionibus Orbium, and Diego de Zuñiga, On Job, be suspended until they are corrected.”
-- The Roman Catholic Church, from The Decree of the Roman Catholic Congregation of the Index which condemned De Revolutionibus on March 5, 1616
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/bilecopr.htm
ix Ibid
x Ibid
xi Ibid
xii Biblegateway.com
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