The root of all evil

... though religions preach morality, peace and hope, in fact, says Dawkins, they bring intolerance, violence and destruction. The growth of extreme fundamentalism in so many religions across the world not only endangers humanity but, he argues, is in conflict with the trend over thousands of years of history for humanity to progress – to become more enlightened and more tolerant.

Richard Dawkins coming up on Channel 4

Must remember to watch .....

Comments

[Frankie Roberto]

It was great. Unfortunately, to me he's preaching to the converted, but his message is a very powerful and strong one, and so it's great that it's out there on national television.

There's not many people nowadays prepared to put their hands up and say 'religion is a bad thing'.

[dave Snowden]

The basic problem with Dawkins is that he describes a view of religion that very few religious people would support and then attacks it. This is a fairly cheap form of debate and he is under increasing attack himself from biologists. The examples he used in the programme could also be assembled for politics, tribal conflict and all sorts of aspects of being human. To see religion as the causal factor on this is naive at best, doctrinaire at worst

One of the things that anthropology, and increasingly the cognitive sciences are teaching us is that religion is a part of human sense making capability, it arises from our view of the world through out abstractions. The sort of simplistic approch that Dawkins adopts makes little contribution to the debate.

[Euan]

I would agree with you Dave if we were talking about spirituality but I differ when we talk about organised religion. If you replaced the word god with the word life in a lot of religious teaching I would be much more comfortable with it but the effect of dogma and the divisions in causes are pernicious. I would agree they are not neceassarily worse than the others sources of suffering in the world but they are up there with the best of them IMHO.

[Lee]

Hmmm.... I agree with Dave that Dawkins (a big influence on my teenage years BTW) is attacking a straw man of his own making.

Anti-religion is the new religion in the West, and I don't think many of my contemporaries truly understand the role that religion plays in the lives of more traditional peoples. There is no reason why being part of organised religion necessarily means abrogating personal responsibility of morality, and when I see the un-educated, rudderless trash that populate provincial town centres in the evenings I do find myself wishing that we had stronger and more respected systems of moral codification.

Some of the people I respect most are deeply religious, though I should add that few are Christians.

I have been meaning to say for a while, Euan, that I would like to debate you on this topic as I don't think you see the other side of the coin, so to speak.

[Euan]

You said "There is no reason why being part of religion necessarily means abrogating personal responsibility of morality"

Equally there is no reason why having personal responsibility for morality necessarily means being part of a religion.

And as for "un-educated, rudderless trash that populate provincial town centres in the evenings I do find myself wishing that we had stronger and more respected systems of moral codification" - you sound just like my Dad and that should be some cause for concern!

[dave Snowden]

I don't think you can really get away with the split between organised religion and spirituality. Humans are social creatures and as such they create strucuture for everything they do - politics, religion, sports etc etc. Without that organisation we would be reliant entirely on self-organisation. Ursual Le Guinn explored this, and its inherent contradictions brilliantly in "The Dispossed" which, along with her "The Left Hand of Darkness" are two of the most brilliant explorations of the human condition I know.

I could argue that without organised religion we would not have hospitals and schools in the modern age, that despite its shortcomings the Catholic Church acting as a block on the agression of Kings at least as often as it "sinned". Look at the history of the Jesuits in Patagonia, Liberation Theology (of which I was a part) in the 70;s and 80;s and you find many examples of organised religion providing for "good" in a way that little else would.

One of my many objections to Dawkins is that he fails to realise that religion is just part of the way we do things, so like all other human things it will go wrong as well as right. It is not better or worse than any other aspect of human interactions. In fact I would be more supportative and say that my openly espousing a reasonably set of moral values, even if it does not follow them it is more good than bad.

[Lee]

I think that is right - religion is 'natural' in the sense that it is a product of humanity and human social structures.

The Jesuits, Quakers and many other groups have managed to preserve some very positive moral values whilst all around are losing theirs.

In Islam, concepts such as Mezan (balance), Zakhat (alms) Siyam (fasting) and so on are actually very similar to corresponding old Christian principles that Western societies have lost along the way, and they are quite sound.

We are working on a project - http://www.1001inventions.com - that seeks to highlight the huge debt we owe to Islamic innovation during the period we refer to as the Dark Ages. This innovation, which underpins maths, cryptography and much in the field of healthcare, was inspired by religion - i.e. innovation and research to improve peoples' lives was seen as a religious duty. I find that interesting.

For me, one of the great values of religion is the idea that we are just people who do not know everything, but that we can utilise a social values transmission mechanism that lets us benefit from thousands of years of human experience. Dave will hate the term, but this is a form of best practice ;-)

Sorry if I sound like your Dad - and as you know I do not personally subscribe to an organised religious practice - but I think it is indisputable that there is a 'morality hole' in contemporary Western societies that religion previously filled. Hence my ill-considered comment about behaviour in provincial town centres.

I am not advocating conservatism or imposed morality or indeed arguing for a return to more religious days, but I do think that Dawkins rather questionable science-centric attack on religion is culturally specific to our society and would not wash in more traditional cultures, which make up the majority of the world.

I share your preference for personal morality, spirituality, etc., but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are good reasons why religion has continued for as long as human societies have existed, and whether we agree with it or not, it's important to understand them.

[Lee]

Sorry, link in the above should have been 1001 inventions.

[Euan]

"There are good reasons why religion has continued for as long as human societies have existed, and whether we agree with it or not, it's important to understand them."

Indeed so and this is why, as those who track my reading will know, a lot of what I read is about religion and spirituality and in fact I am about to start reading Spiritual But Not Religious.

I also have a mother who was an elder in the Church Of Scotland and I sang in the chapel choir at St. Andrews University listening to eminent preachers speaking each Sunday. Disagreeing with organised religion and finding its effects pernicious was not a position I arrived at overnight!

[Lee Bryant]

Hey - I know you have thought this through, and I can understand where you are coming from. There is nothing wrong with your position and I am not trying to convert you to anything - I just find the issues around this debate very interesting in an international context.

Thanks for hosting it :-)

[Euan]

:-)

[Piers]

The issue for me is not the religion, but the extreme fundamentalism.

As you say, Euan, extreme fundamentalism brings with it dogma and division, but aren't those equally visible among zealots of any creed, be they Christians, Muslims, Animal Rights followers, eco-warriors?

It's a little like the old division of whether you're willing to die for your cause or kill for it. Wholly religious people, I think, fall into the first camp, and sometimes do astonishing things, whether they are saints, suffragettes or secular.

[Mr Jihad]

"is in conflict with the trend over thousands of years of history for humanity to progress – to become more enlightened and more tolerant."

Sorry was did I miss something during the 20th C. Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Rwanda, Bosnia & Darfur.....

[Dave Snowden]

I'd repeat the thanks to Euan for hosting this one. A couple of points:
1 - I agree with "Mr jihad" that the idea that there is universal progress towards a more enlightened and intolerant future is not supported by the facts. Interestingly I have recently been reading Isiah's Berlins "Three Critics of the Enlightenment" which brings back into contention some of the philosophers of the time who supported the ideas of the enlightmentment, but also wanted to make sure that we did not get fully wrapped up into enlightment approaches to science. I see Dawkins as continuing the intolerance of those who have discovered a "new way" with science suposidly replacing spirituality (and in particular organised religion).
2 - More importantly one of the things that I have noticed in groups associated with Learning, Knowledge etc is an increasing prevelance of cult type tendencies, particularily the cult of the leaders. Social norms can produce tyrrany as much as organisated religion but without the visibility that allows it to be chanllenged.

[Euan]

This thread has really helped me clarify my own thinking - thanks guys.

I guess what gets me most agitated is people not taking responsibility for their own thoughts and ideas and I get spooked by institutions that set out to make it less easy for them to do so whether religious, political or social. Anything that sets out to homegenize large groups of people is dangerous IMHO as it leads to massive power and the ability to misuse that power.

As I get older I realise that I am getting more and more anarchic in my views. The word still has unfortunately negative connotations but in its original meaning as the ultimate in democracy it appeals.

What excites me about the web is the potential to be local and global, to fragment society into smaller and more accountable groups but at the same time make those groups and individuals more aware of their connectedness and responsibility to others.

There is nothing new under the sun and all of the major religions and philosophies have more in common than they have differences but I do believe that the connectedness and ease of interchange between groups and individuals afforded by the web is new and exciting - and this comment thread hs been a good example!

[Piers]

Interesting points. Not that you are, Dave, but isn't there a danger of countering Dawkins' straw man with another, that of the "new way" scientist?

It's easy to characterise Enlightenment philosophes, or "new way" scientists as cold, machinelike rationalists, with no feel for spirituality, organised religion or indeed passion, but it's not 100% fair.
Dawkins' hardline stance on religion may be recognisable, but that doesn't mean it's typical. [e.g. this 2003 Guardian article]

I'd agree about the cult-like tendencies in the groups you mention, and suspect it may even be broadened to groups outside of the learning/knowledge arena. For me, that's largely a result of a little too much "Counter-Enlightenment", and what punctures the bubble is, at heart, no different from the old Enlightenment focus on individual questioning and daring to know. So perhaps what allows the social norms to be challenged is not so much visibility, as voice and the willingness to listen to individual questions?

Am sure there's some balance to be struck, but God heaven fuck knows where it is.

[Dave Snowden]

The real issue for me in this whole thread, has been the human condition. We are the way we are, although uniquely we can change, but certain things seem necessary for us to make sense of the world. Spirituality, organisation, power - I could go on. They manifest in everything we do, so they manifest in religion, but religion is not the cause. Vito, a critique of the enlightment, also supports it. Unlike Euan I am not and have never had anarchistic tendencies, but I do dislike anything that ascribes simple causaility (hus demonising "the other" by implication to say that they are right. Dawkins does this and performs worse than many a religious leader in a claim for universality and absolutism.

Euan - have you read Ursual Le Guin's "Dispossed" ? Its one of the best explorations of anarchy I know

[Dave Snowden]

OH - and a PS
The web can be local and global, and currently is novel
It does not follow that it will be "for the best"
It has still to prove that it can scale
Trust is tettering on the edge in respect of web use - it could fail
The Web, bloggs etc etc will all in turn be subject to the failings and successes of the human condition. Bloggs can and will be subverted by organisations and society, what matters is that we constantly create new things, test boundaries and experiment. However rejecting the past in doing that is (I think) a mistake

[Euan]

Thanks for the book tip Dave. I agree that can be used for good or ill as can anything else and in fact that was why I got into blogging in the first place - to make this virtual space as habitable as possible for my kids who will certainly spend more time in it than even I have.

I also agree about rejecting the past, and don't believe I have done so, and would go further and admit some sympathy with John Gray in Straw Dogs in which he quetions the whole idea of progress. In fact he sees modern ideas of progress as simply a humanist re-interpretation of religious ideas of the fall and redemption anyway!

[amba]

Euan -- listen to Dave! Read Ursula LeGuin! Dave, I fervently second the recommendation -- it's some of the best fiction of ideas I've ever read (and I include the stand-alone THE LATHE OF HEAVEN).

To come upon THE DISPOSSESSED as I did after reading some of her earlier SF novels -- THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, but also PLANET OF EXILE, CITY OF ILLUSIONS, and I think one other the name of which I forget -- was especially thrilling, because in the earlier books you see the importance of the ansible -- a space-time device which allows simultaneous travel over galactic distances -- in building an interplanetary civilization, and then in DISPOSSESSED you see the only circumstances that could possibly have nurtured the invention of the ansible -- diversity of thought, when the idealists/anarchists themselves are starting to get too rigid and purist -- and it is unbelievably moving, the kind of intellectual realization that brings gooseflesh to your arms and tears to your eyes.

[cley]

er Jonh Gray's book was disappointing to say the list - he got massive critiscism for having based himself in such weak arguments -
and so has Mr Dawkins in my opinion. If a learned man of science uses such logic then what is his merit? What does he want to prove with questions like: where was God when tzunami happened?
Thas is the most ridiculous concept of God there is is, human beings have free will, and Nature acts on it s own too ( sometimes induced by us).
If a scientist says that all roots of evil are religion, i want to understand why there is so much crime and war in the name of money, power , greed. The whole argument is flaw and just like fundamentalism requires a certain ignorance in order to sink in the minds of the weak - Atheism requires a level of stupidity and refusal to evolve ( FROM MONKEYS TO SPIRITUAL BEINGS) that any religion requires.

and if he can mention a phisicist, i can mention a mathematician, PASCAL who wrote books in defence of Christianity. So did Lewis and many others.