I am so happy to be invited to argue the affirmative. To clear the air I will begin by conceding two points.
First, while some religion may be true, religion may also be entirely untrue. If what we mean by religion is the particular claims of scriptures and religious legends, then at the very least, a lot of religion has to be untrue, since major religions make conflicting claims. If Jesus is in fact the messiah, then we can safely say that contemporary Judaism and Islam are false, or at least deeply mistaken; if Jesus is not the messiah, then there are big problems for Christianity. If certain Wicca claims are true, then certain claims of Hinduism are not. And so forth.
Second, it is clear that religious institutions and people are responsible for major crimes throughout history—maybe more so, all things being equal, than their irreligious peers, maybe less so. I am not sure how we would quantify such things. And as a historian and journalist, I am firmly in the camp that believes too much religious “journalism” just sucks up to clerics and churches. Our job should be to report fairly and unflinchingly, and that means often showing just how crooked religious folks, like the rest of us, can be.
Basically, I think of religion as a major human institution, like markets, or marriage, or government. These major institutions are powerful and persistent, and they can lead to profound happiness, deep misery and a lot in between. They are not logical necessities of human existence—that is, we can conceive of a world without any one of them—but they seem not to be going anywhere.
Lastly, let me add that while some scholars can call anything religious, from the cult of Lady Gaga to the Super Bowl, I will trust that we know what we are talking about. It might be interesting if Sam Harris, my interlocutor, wants to talk about “spirituality”, which I generally take to be more personal and less communal than “religion”. But I will avoid that thicket for now.
So what might we mean by saying that “religion is a force for good”? I’ll talk about three things today.
First, religion responds to a deep, satisfying human need for ritual. Throughout human history (and certainly among my three young daughters, who are the nearest evidence at hand), people have liked occasion, routine, ceremony. We like regular, predictable occasions to come together, offer thanksgiving, celebrate common history and experience, and affirm our ties of community.
Such rituals do not have to be religious, of course: there are civic rituals, which in America include Independence Day (and its fireworks), Thanksgiving (and its meal) and Memorial Day (often with a picnic or barbecue). But many of the best, most enduring rituals are religious: Christmas, Easter, Sukkot, Passover, Iftar, etc. And it is worth noting that even supposedly secular rituals tend to accrue quasi-religious elements to lend them meaning: prayers, invocations, discussions of a people’s “destiny”. In other words, it is hard to keep such rituals purely secular, although I am sure it can be done.
By the way, the best religious ritual of all is the Sabbath, and it so happens that religious people are much better at keeping a day of rest than secular people who make periodic resolutions to keep a “secular Sabbath” or just to “slow down”. It seems to be a particularly, if not uniquely, religious good.
Second, religion often organises the human quests for ethics and meaning. To think about the common good, the purpose of life and how to live, it has proven useful to use religious stories or theology. Pure scientific materialism is much better at describing how people evolved, and evolutionary biology and psychology are the best ways to inquire about human nature. But these are insufficient tools for thinking about value and meaning. At the very least, they are not the only tools.
Let me offer a specific example of what I mean. Discussing the Old Testament concept of a jubilee year, with the land lying fallow and property returned to its original owners, is morally valuable and inherently interesting. Maybe one could start that conversation with science, or with a purely secular ethics, but I have no reason to believe those are better ways to begin the conversation.
Finally, religion is fun! As a philosopher might say, it generates utility. Not everyone will enjoy reading religious books, or singing hymns, or puzzling over theological puzzles, or hunting for Easter eggs, or hearing a great sermon. And in a free society—the best kind—nobody has to. But for people who do enjoy these things, religion is certainly a force for good.
Tags: Economist
