What is reasonable to blame on religion, and what isn't?
Posted: Tue May 11, 2021 2:55 am
I look at the Skeptics' Annotated Bible, and its list of hundreds of contradictions, and I am just taken aback by how people can so easily believe these authors who can't keep their own story straight on what "God" wants of us. I guess the offer of eternal bliss, and threat of eternal torture, coupled with the insinuation that we're all born sinners and they're the only way out, has a way of making people a little reluctant to do their due diligence. But I suspect that this encouragement of willful ignorance has set the groundwork for similar mistakes on other issues. I'll go through these one by one.
Criminalization of abortion: People often attribute abortion-criminalization to envy at not getting laid. Nah. Nuns are notorious for interrogating teenage mothers about whether or not they enjoyed their sin, but it's pretty obvious nuns were chaste either of their own accord or because religion brainwashed them. Males aren't known for being picky. People often attribute it to wanting to deter extramarital sex, but plenty of monogamous couples resort to abortion, and plenty of women who actually want children; whether because the unwed father can easily afford those child support bills or because she doesn't mind going into poverty for it; do not. Individual politicians might be pandering to donors who want single mothers to be poor and desperate enough to work for their companies, but they wouldn't have millions of voters backing them up if religion didn't convince them that insentient fetus has a soul, or that life "beginning at conception" didn't matter more than sentience. Theoretically an atheist could believe that, but most of the people who believe that are religious, and most of the voters voting for abortion-criminalizing candidates are from the deeply-religious rural districts.
Gun culture: When you think of places whose solution to crime is "bring your guns to the restaurant so that you can scare would-be criminals out of breaking the law in the first place," what comes to mind is Waco, Texas, where that theory failed miserably, yet other nearby towns continue to legitimize open carry. Texas is known for its religiosity as well; it's where Kenneth Copeland preaches, after all. His proposed cure for coronavirus failed miserably yet people continue to believe in him too. I know Christians who are otherwise progressive will say Jesus said to be good to those who hurt you, and this goes against relying on deterrence. But when that comes from the same book where people were stoned to death for working on the Sabbath, that tends to muddy the waters. In practice, the places that actually come closer to practicing compassion over deterrence are Denmark, Norway, Holland and Sweden... places that are less religious than the USA in general, let alone Texas in particular.
The war on drugs: When you hear of politicians who propose executing people over drugs, (Trump comes to mind) they're usually elected by people from religious districts. When you hear of countries that actually go through with it, they're typically highly religious countries, if democracies. Secular states like China are ones where the public never had much of a way in the matter so it's not clear what if anything religion could have done to solve that anyway.
Homophobia: I'm not by any stretch of the imagination calling religion the ONLY source of homophobia. Gender roles, as exemplified by homophobia in China, are probably a far more fundamental factor. But when you aren't some dictatorship who can impose gender roles and/or homophobia on your subjects, you have to find a way to sell it to your audience. Religion appears to have found the most effective way.
Otherwise-less-homophobic opponents of gay marriage and gay adoptions: I hate whenever either of these things are conflated with homophobia. There are countries where "faggot" is used as an insult all the time and they legalized both of these things. Homophobia wouldn't explain it on its own, nor should it be treated as the only explanation. Gay marriage opponents say marriage is about procreation. "Be fruitful and multiply" comes to mind. Gay adoption opponents invoke gender roles; so does the Bible.
Opposition to welfare: The Bible said "he who does not work, neither shall he eat." Regardless of its initial context, this phrase has taken off as a means to turn people against welfare who would otherwise have seen through the case against it. Places like Denmark keep welfare use to a reasonable minimum by paying the working class a living wage. But in the 'States, "he who does not work, neither shall he eat" goes hand in hand with policies that leave the genuinely charitable strapped for resources, while still pretending to be all about charity. But they're right about one thing; the Bible didn't say it was through welfare in particular we should care for the poor.
Opposition to stem cell research: Last, but not least, this one stands out to me. I think it's the main reason I hate religion so much, as I don't recall caring half as much about religion before hearing of it. People who neither smuggled drugs in Indonesia nor had the extramarital sex religion supposedly condemns (except when Trump does it) or even so much as willingly set foot in Texas, let alone its restaurants, are DYING in hospital beds, waiting for cures from embryonic stem cell research. When people said they believed life begins at conception, either they weren't bluffing, or they are terrible at coming up with alternative excuses to oppose abortion that wouldn't apply to stem cell research at all. (Unless they get it mixed up with fetal tissue research, which is hard to prove they do.) People care more about insentient zygotes in a lab than sentient people already born, because of their warped version of what constitutes "life." Would a secular person give that much of a shit about the fertilization over the chemical changes actually relevant to sentience? Maybe a person who's allergic to nuance, but I would think letting religion's bribes and threats scare you out of critical thinking would make you more allergic to nuance, not less. And at the end of the day, it was the more-religious districts that re-elected Dubya after his grandstanding against stem cell research, not the less-religious ones.
I hope these things aren't religion's fault, I really do. (It hurts like hell to picture those charmingly quaint cathedrals as responsible for people's deathbed suffering.) But in case they are, shouldn't we seek alternatives to religion for whatever benefits people think they derive from it?
. . .
EDIT: I forgot one...
Market-worship more generally: Sanders, one of the most famously vocal senators in speaking out against the ills of market-worship, is from New York and represents Vermont... both two places below average as far as religiosity goes in the USA. He invokes the achievements of Scandinavia, a place less religious than even New York or Vermont. He was voted for in 2016 primaries by the northern states; which on average are less religious than the southern states. In 2020 it was mainly Cali, Nevada, Colorado, and Utah backing him up. States condemned by religion over Hollywood, legalized prostitution, cannabis and Mormonism, respectively. (Whereas your average anti-theist couldn't care less which version of the fairy tales someone believes in; they're all comparably absurd.)
Criminalization of abortion: People often attribute abortion-criminalization to envy at not getting laid. Nah. Nuns are notorious for interrogating teenage mothers about whether or not they enjoyed their sin, but it's pretty obvious nuns were chaste either of their own accord or because religion brainwashed them. Males aren't known for being picky. People often attribute it to wanting to deter extramarital sex, but plenty of monogamous couples resort to abortion, and plenty of women who actually want children; whether because the unwed father can easily afford those child support bills or because she doesn't mind going into poverty for it; do not. Individual politicians might be pandering to donors who want single mothers to be poor and desperate enough to work for their companies, but they wouldn't have millions of voters backing them up if religion didn't convince them that insentient fetus has a soul, or that life "beginning at conception" didn't matter more than sentience. Theoretically an atheist could believe that, but most of the people who believe that are religious, and most of the voters voting for abortion-criminalizing candidates are from the deeply-religious rural districts.
Gun culture: When you think of places whose solution to crime is "bring your guns to the restaurant so that you can scare would-be criminals out of breaking the law in the first place," what comes to mind is Waco, Texas, where that theory failed miserably, yet other nearby towns continue to legitimize open carry. Texas is known for its religiosity as well; it's where Kenneth Copeland preaches, after all. His proposed cure for coronavirus failed miserably yet people continue to believe in him too. I know Christians who are otherwise progressive will say Jesus said to be good to those who hurt you, and this goes against relying on deterrence. But when that comes from the same book where people were stoned to death for working on the Sabbath, that tends to muddy the waters. In practice, the places that actually come closer to practicing compassion over deterrence are Denmark, Norway, Holland and Sweden... places that are less religious than the USA in general, let alone Texas in particular.
The war on drugs: When you hear of politicians who propose executing people over drugs, (Trump comes to mind) they're usually elected by people from religious districts. When you hear of countries that actually go through with it, they're typically highly religious countries, if democracies. Secular states like China are ones where the public never had much of a way in the matter so it's not clear what if anything religion could have done to solve that anyway.
Homophobia: I'm not by any stretch of the imagination calling religion the ONLY source of homophobia. Gender roles, as exemplified by homophobia in China, are probably a far more fundamental factor. But when you aren't some dictatorship who can impose gender roles and/or homophobia on your subjects, you have to find a way to sell it to your audience. Religion appears to have found the most effective way.
Otherwise-less-homophobic opponents of gay marriage and gay adoptions: I hate whenever either of these things are conflated with homophobia. There are countries where "faggot" is used as an insult all the time and they legalized both of these things. Homophobia wouldn't explain it on its own, nor should it be treated as the only explanation. Gay marriage opponents say marriage is about procreation. "Be fruitful and multiply" comes to mind. Gay adoption opponents invoke gender roles; so does the Bible.
Opposition to welfare: The Bible said "he who does not work, neither shall he eat." Regardless of its initial context, this phrase has taken off as a means to turn people against welfare who would otherwise have seen through the case against it. Places like Denmark keep welfare use to a reasonable minimum by paying the working class a living wage. But in the 'States, "he who does not work, neither shall he eat" goes hand in hand with policies that leave the genuinely charitable strapped for resources, while still pretending to be all about charity. But they're right about one thing; the Bible didn't say it was through welfare in particular we should care for the poor.
Opposition to stem cell research: Last, but not least, this one stands out to me. I think it's the main reason I hate religion so much, as I don't recall caring half as much about religion before hearing of it. People who neither smuggled drugs in Indonesia nor had the extramarital sex religion supposedly condemns (except when Trump does it) or even so much as willingly set foot in Texas, let alone its restaurants, are DYING in hospital beds, waiting for cures from embryonic stem cell research. When people said they believed life begins at conception, either they weren't bluffing, or they are terrible at coming up with alternative excuses to oppose abortion that wouldn't apply to stem cell research at all. (Unless they get it mixed up with fetal tissue research, which is hard to prove they do.) People care more about insentient zygotes in a lab than sentient people already born, because of their warped version of what constitutes "life." Would a secular person give that much of a shit about the fertilization over the chemical changes actually relevant to sentience? Maybe a person who's allergic to nuance, but I would think letting religion's bribes and threats scare you out of critical thinking would make you more allergic to nuance, not less. And at the end of the day, it was the more-religious districts that re-elected Dubya after his grandstanding against stem cell research, not the less-religious ones.
I hope these things aren't religion's fault, I really do. (It hurts like hell to picture those charmingly quaint cathedrals as responsible for people's deathbed suffering.) But in case they are, shouldn't we seek alternatives to religion for whatever benefits people think they derive from it?
. . .
EDIT: I forgot one...
Market-worship more generally: Sanders, one of the most famously vocal senators in speaking out against the ills of market-worship, is from New York and represents Vermont... both two places below average as far as religiosity goes in the USA. He invokes the achievements of Scandinavia, a place less religious than even New York or Vermont. He was voted for in 2016 primaries by the northern states; which on average are less religious than the southern states. In 2020 it was mainly Cali, Nevada, Colorado, and Utah backing him up. States condemned by religion over Hollywood, legalized prostitution, cannabis and Mormonism, respectively. (Whereas your average anti-theist couldn't care less which version of the fairy tales someone believes in; they're all comparably absurd.)