Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Too good not to share...
Don't know if everyone here is familiar with theologian Karen Armstrong's ongoing efforts to absolve religion from any role in violence or terrorism (one of her worst errors is always engaging the straw man argument that somehow religion causes ALL violence, which neither I nor any other atheist I'm aware of insists), but I was just reading the comments section of an interview with her here and came across an absolute gem of a comparison:
It’s certainly true that violence predates religion. It’s also certainly true that violence can and does happen today without religion, and that getting rid of religion would not get rid of all violence.
However, religion is clearly an aggravating factor which amplifies and enables violence. There are clear reasons for this in the very basis of religions. Because religions rely on private revelation (scripture) as a source of truth, those who disagree cannot “check the source”, to see if the private revelation is “real” as opposed to just something someone made up. Since private revelation cannot be objectively tested, the only thing left is to resolve the dispute by fighting, which is what has been proven time and again over the past several thousand years.
Without religion, people have to rely on objectively testable data for their worldview. If there is a disagreement, simply repeat the test, consult those who did, etc. No need to fight. If one wants to keep an idea of a pantheistic god, then that data could be called “public revelation”.
That’s one, perhaps the biggest, reason why religion is violent, why reducing religion reduces violence (shown many times by studies), and why supernatural religion needs to be abandoned if we are to have a just, healthy and peaceful world. It’s a lot like asking if smoking causes cancer – the answer is no – mutations cause cancer. But those mutations are encouraged and made much more likely if one smokes.
There are other reasons – like clear verses in most Bibles, the Qu’ran, and so on, which encourage violence. Those might be avoided with different scripture, but the supernatural basis of most religions makes the first reason unavoidable, regardless of how many counterexamples this book might list.
However, religion is clearly an aggravating factor which amplifies and enables violence. There are clear reasons for this in the very basis of religions. Because religions rely on private revelation (scripture) as a source of truth, those who disagree cannot “check the source”, to see if the private revelation is “real” as opposed to just something someone made up. Since private revelation cannot be objectively tested, the only thing left is to resolve the dispute by fighting, which is what has been proven time and again over the past several thousand years.
Without religion, people have to rely on objectively testable data for their worldview. If there is a disagreement, simply repeat the test, consult those who did, etc. No need to fight. If one wants to keep an idea of a pantheistic god, then that data could be called “public revelation”.
That’s one, perhaps the biggest, reason why religion is violent, why reducing religion reduces violence (shown many times by studies), and why supernatural religion needs to be abandoned if we are to have a just, healthy and peaceful world. It’s a lot like asking if smoking causes cancer – the answer is no – mutations cause cancer. But those mutations are encouraged and made much more likely if one smokes.
There are other reasons – like clear verses in most Bibles, the Qu’ran, and so on, which encourage violence. Those might be avoided with different scripture, but the supernatural basis of most religions makes the first reason unavoidable, regardless of how many counterexamples this book might list.
Well said, "Jon." Whoever you are.
Side note - I know there is a 4 paragraph limit for quoting from an article, but I'm assuming here that doesn't apply to user-submitted comments on a site. If anyone knows otherwise, just tell me.
9 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Ooops!
Review of Armstrong's "The Case For God." That one was supposed to be her answer to Dawkins, Hitchens, et. al.:
...this work suffers from the same shortcoming of all Armstrong's voluminous work. Were she a theologian, one might forgive her for ignoring all those arguments that ran against her claims of universality, though it would still be intellectually sloppy. However, Armstrong claims to be a historian of religion, and as such she is guilty of appalling sins of omission. When a fact contradicts her thesis, she does not even give it the due regard of inconvenience and seek to reconcile, but simply pretends it is not there.
That tendency was really glaring in her book "Muhammad - A Prophet For Our Time." Lots of blather about justice, equality and how much Mo loved the other "People Of The Book," Jews and Xians. Little to no mention of the taxes imposed on non-Muslims and other punishments for not converting, misogyny, or the occasional massacre of really stubborn non-converters.
Still, I'm looking forward to Armstrong's future books, as she discovers more fun religions she can fall in love with. Maybe "Rev. Jim Jones, A New Appreciation" or "The Scholarly Side of the Taliban."
Also, Armstrong's bio says she is an expert in "religious affairs." But I didn't see any Armstrong works about Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggert or Jim Bakker...
