By Damon Linker
Is religion is a force for good? It is a tough question. Like most efforts to make sweeping judgments about human affairs, this one at first seems to run aground on complexity.
Consider: is science a force for good? In many ways yes, since it has contributed enormously to the sum total of human knowledge and opened up technological innovations that have greatly benefited humanity. But of course science and technology have also brought us eugenics, nuclear weapons and numerous forms of environmental degradation.
What about war: is it a force for good? At first blush, with images of millions of dead and maimed soldiers and civilians flashing through our heads, the answer would seem to be an obvious no. But what if we are fighting Hitler? Or defending ourselves against an unjust attack by an aggressor out to steal our resources, enslave us, or even exterminate us? In such cases, I would submit, war can be a very great good indeed.
Religion is much the same. It has unified societies, given them a sense of collective meaning and purpose, and inspired enormous feats of creativity (good). But it has also stood in the way of scientific inquiry and treated ignorance as a virtue (bad). It has encouraged great acts of collective charity (good). But it has also provoked pious cruelty (bad). It has stirred people to challenge injustice and undertake political and social reform (good). But it has also allied with tyrants to quash dissent and ignited spasms of furious violence (bad).
The same ambiguity prevails at the individual level. Believers will line up to testify about how much they benefit from their faith. They reside in a profoundly moral universe overseen by a providential deity who rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. This creator cares about each and every one of us—and perhaps about each and every hair on each and every one of our heads. He is our heavenly father. He hears and answers our prayers. He is the author of human history and guides it towards divine ends. He miraculously intervenes in our lives. He comforts our anxiety and redeems our suffering and sins.
But religion also makes its own distinctive contribution to human suffering. It can be terrifying (and psychologically devastating) to believe that the creator of the universe sees and judges—and will punish with eternal hellfire—our every transgression. (Renowned atheist Christopher Hitchens aptly describes this aspect of piety as consigning us to a celestial North Korea.) Religious practices can also involve the infliction of pain on ourselves and others. Male and female forms of circumcision, Christian mortification of the flesh, self-flagellation in Shia Islam, the radical renunciation of worldly goods demanded by Buddhist and Hindu monasticism—each religion has its distinctive forms of asceticism.
Of course those who engage in these practices usually deny their cruelty. "This is how God intends us to live," they will say, "and following his dictates is the only path to holiness." And here we run into an added layer of complexity—namely, the difficulty of determining whether religion is good without first determining whether it is true. After all, if there is in fact a God, then we had better do what he wants—and the goodness of his commands would seem to follow necessarily from their divine origins. Raising the question of religion's goodness presumes that we have already raised doubts about, or even denied outright, religion's truth.
But the relationship between the truth and goodness of God runs in the other direction as well. Would anyone continue to believe in a deity whose commands appeared to be consistently, indisputably evil? The disturbing fact is that when believers maim and kill in the name of God, they do so not simply because that is what they think God wants them to do, but also because they think those divine edicts are morally justified. Belief in the existence of God stands or falls with belief in the goodness of God.
And that might provide hope for the future of humankind no less than the future of religion. As our moral sensibilities evolve, perhaps human beings will find it increasingly difficult to believe in the existence of a God who sanctions the mutilation of female genitalia or the murder of innocent civilians in explosive acts of suicide-martyrdom. If so, religions may face a choice between extinction and adaptation to the moral norms of liberal modernity. In that case, the religions that survive will do so by slowly shedding many of their worst aspects while expanding on their best, providing humanity with comfort and spiritual sustenance while no longer cultivating ignorance, cruelty and fear.
Is religion a force for good? Not as much as it will be.
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