50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God (44 page)

Meacham, Jon. "The God Debate." Newsweek, April 9, 2007. http://www.msnbc
.msn.com/id/17889148/site/newsweek/print/l/displaymode/1098/-

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.

-Steven Weinberg

uch to my surprise, I have discovered that many believers
think that believing in a god is perfectly safe. What could
possibly go wrong? Religion is a peaceful and positive activity, they
tell me with a straight face. Yes, this unlikely justification for belief is
more common than one might imagine. I have heard it from numerous
believers in a variety of religions.

So, where does one begin to challenge the claim that believing in
gods is a harmless hobby? How about any history book or any newspaper? There certainly is plenty of evidence available that links belief
in gods to people being harmed. Maybe this is the problem. Perhaps
violence rooted in religious belief is so common that few people notice
it for what it is anymore. When Shiite and Sunni Muslims slaughter
each other, it's not religious violence; it's "sectarian" violence. When
a Christian murders an abortion doctor or a Muslim blows up a
building, it's not religious terrorism; it's just terrorism. When believers
block the progress of medical science at the expense of suffering
people, it's not a problem generated by religion; it's "bioethics."

Following the media's lead, most people have taken up the habit
of calling many of those who commit violence in the name of their
religion "extremists" or "fanatics." While these popular labels may or
may not be accurate, the rarely spoken description that is most accurate is "believer." Remove belief in gods from the minds of these
killers and many of them might at least think twice about throwing
away their own lives and other people's lives. But few people today
point the finger at religion even when religion is obviously a factor.

Why is this strange defense of religious belief so common? Why
do so many people say that belief in gods is harmless, when clearly it
is so harmful? I wonder if perhaps it is because believers mean to refer
only to themselves. Perhaps they intend to say that their personal
belief is not leading them to hurt or kill others, that their belief in isolation is harmless. But even this much-reduced claim may not be true.

Author Sam Harris charges in his book The End of Faith that even
the peaceful believers of the world are accomplices to evil. These
people, Harris believes, form the necessary foundation that inspires
and protects religious murderers. The men who flew planes into the
World Trade Center, for example, did not spring from thin air. They
were the products of the world's second-most popular religion. He
makes a good point. I remember after the September 11 attacks that
there was no meaningful public debate about the validity of Islam or
religion in general. Instead, there was a strong effort by many people,
including many Christians, to make the hijackers seem like they had
come from another planet and had nothing to do with Islam.

The slight variation of "my personal belief is harmless" certainly
has a better chance of being correct than the general statement that so
often comes out of the mouths of believers. But, no, I have paid attention and the intent is clear. When believers declare that belief in a god
is harmless, they are not just defending what is going on in their heads.
They are defending religion in the broadest sense (or at least their specific brand of religion in the broadest sense). And this is very odd. If
anything should be clear to us by now, after so many centuries of
spilled blood, it is that religion is a source of tremendous prejudice, hatred, division, violence, and murder. It also slows scientific progress
in ways that harm and kill additional millions and contribute to the
suffering of millions more. Although it is not as dramatic as a sword
or suicide bomber, religion as an obstacle to science, particularly medical science, probably has cost more lives than all wars combined. Just
consider, for example, that early scientists and doctors in Europe could
not even study dead bodies to learn more about human anatomy
without stirring up dangerous religious objections that could land
them in jail or worse. Many of the newer medications and procedures
that are standard in hospitals around the world today, for example,
might have been developed and made available much earlier if religions had not opposed so many avenues of research throughout history. The problem continues today with believers slowing stem-cell
research.

Many believers are so committed to promoting the claim that religion is the source of everything good, that they have blinded themselves to the reality of today and of the last ten thousand years. Religion can be very bad. There, I said it. But why is that such a bold and
daring statement to so many people? Isn't it obvious? To deny that
very bad things come from believing in gods is to deny what we see
all around us. Belief has led millions of people to hate and kill. Belief
has robbed millions of people of their intellectual potential. Belief has
enslaved millions of women. Belief has caused immeasurable suffering. These are facts, not opinions.

To state the obvious, that religion can be bad, is not to say that
nothing good comes from religion. Of course many positive things
have a direct link to belief in gods. But even the good we find in religion is not enough to justify the bad. First of all, I think enough of my
fellow humans to believe that they have the potential to be good and
to do good without having to believe that a god is watching over their
shoulders. It is also important to make clear that I am not making a
case against the existence of gods based on the horrible behavior that
religious belief so often inspires. Bad religious people do not disprove
the existence of gods any more than good religious people prove that gods are real. The harm religious belief inflicts on individuals and
societies has always been obvious to me, but apparently that is not the
case for everyone. So let's review a few ways in which belief in a god
can cause harm. The book Holy Hatred, by James Haught, is an excellent, although depressing, review of some of the routine madness
belief brings. Haught, a West Virginia newspaper editor, keeps his
eyes on the news of the world so he is well aware of the havoc and
horror generated by belief in gods. I was once a world news editor and
relate to his experience at scanning daily wire reports. Part of my
morning ritual was to browse through the Associated Press service that
my newspaper subscribes to. Virtually every day I would find reports
and/or photos of some religion-oriented horror that had occurred in the
last twenty-four hours somewhere in the world. Perhaps because of
our jobs Haught and I are just more informed than most believers
about what goes on in the name of religion. If so, trust us, it's bad.

Religion has divided, deluded, and driven people to murder one
another since the dawn of civilization. Now, in the twenty-first century, belief continues to incite many people to butcher their neighbors.
I wish that every person who holds the notion that belief in gods is
harmless would read Haught's book. Here are just a few lowlights of
religious madness included in Holy Hatred:

• India (1992): approximately two thousand Hindus and Muslims
are killed in riots over a site where Hindus believe Lord Rama
was born nine hundred thousand years ago. Meanwhile, massacres occur in Kashmir related to a sacred relic-a hair from
Muhammad's beard.

• The United States (1993): a Christian woman shoots an abortion
clinic doctor and calls it "the most holy, the most righteous thing
I've ever done." Another Christian who kills a clinic doctor is
called "a hero" by a Christian magazine.

• Somalia (1993): Islamic leaders sentence five women to be
stoned to death for adultery. Worshippers kill the women after
evening prayers. Cheering onlookers videotape the execution.

• Israel (1994): a Jewish doctor with a machine gun opens fire on
worshippers in a mosque, killing thirty Muslims. (Haught 1994)

Sadly, such acts are all too common. Belief in gods seems to me like
a loaded gun left on the table. Most people would never pick it up and
pull the trigger; but too many do. Although well-meaning believers
would say that religious tolerance is the solution for all this violence,
I can't imagine how. Read the uncompromising sacred writings of the
world's major religions. Listen to the divisive words of prominent religious leaders. The "great religions" are incompatible worldviews. The
more devout Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and Christians, for example, will
never get along, fully integrate, and live in peace so long as they continue to take their beliefs seriously.

Haught's book also offers a glance back at several historical
tragedies tied to belief. As with the news of today, there is no shortage
of god-related massacres and wars over the last several centuries.
Hopefully most people are aware of the Crusades, the Inquisition, and
the witch burnings in Europe, but how many know about the Taiping
Rebellion in China during the 1800s? It's a total blank in the minds of
most Westerners. This is odd since it ranks as one of the bloodiest wars
in all of history and the man who started it, Hung Hsiu-ch'iian, was a
Christian who fought in the name of Jesus.

Hsiu-ch'iian claimed that Jesus visited him and, as a result, he
became a highly motivated Christian. He studied under an American
missionary to learn more about Christianity and then vowed to spread
the religion across China. One of the goals of his war was to rid the
nation of false gods and idols so that Christianity could flourish. The
death toll of Hsiu-ch'iian's Asian crusade is shocking. This war in
China, fought for Jesus, claimed an estimated twenty million lives. For
comparison's sake, approximately nineteen million people were killed
in World War I. Why have so few Christians heard of the Taiping
Rebellion? Again, to be clear, citing mass deaths that were related to
belief in Jesus does not condemn Christianity in general nor should
anyone think it disproves the existence of Jesus. But it does show that religions, including Christianity, have the potential to cause extreme
violence.

Many peaceful Muslims who condemn the murder of innocent
people by Islamic terrorists seem to be unaware of just how supportive
their belief system is of such behavior. The Koran, for example, contains lines that seem to condone, if not require, murder. Fortunately,
most Muslims ignore these instructions. The problem, however, is that
some Muslims do take it as they read it. As for Jews, their own stories
in the Torah, if even half true, reveal a bloody past that includes massacres, rape, and slavery committed on behalf of their god or with his
approval. Many of the laws listed in the Torah continue to be a source
of and fuel for dangerous prejudice today.

Religion may be good for the world in some ways. But no matter
what believers may claim, it can also lead to terrible harm.

Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason.
New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.

Haught, James. Holy Hatred. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1994.

Seuss, Dr. The Sneetches and Other Stories. New York: Random House,
1989. It may be a children's story but the tale of the irrational Sneetches
and their obsession with labels offers a lesson for grownups too.

y god must exist," declares the believer, "because the
earth is put together in just the right way and positioned in space at just the right angle and distance from the Sun to provide the perfect home for us. Our world is too accommodating and too
special to be an accident. Just imagine, if our planet was slightly different, we couldn't survive."