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April 18, 2007

Do We Really Need Religion?

Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe wrote a piece today entitled, "Why we need religion." And despite the fact that I wrote recently about the benefits of "mass illusions," in which I pointed out my concerns over the loss of a unifying belief system in American culture, I'm still having quite a difficult time with Jacoby's conclusion. He writes that atheists like Christopher Hitchens would find "unfathomable" the notion that Boston law enforcement officials would turn to ministers to pave the way in their efforts to reach out to residents of neighborhoods afflicted with crime. He says that religion is indispensable and only those who believe in God will, when it is most needed, reach into the gutters, stick their necks out, be allies of the police, exercise decency and loving-kindness, rise above themselves, love the unlovable, and exercise compassion.

Can ardent secularists, firm in their belief that there is no God to whom we must answer and no morality except that which human beings devise, be good and loving people? Sure they can. And yet when acts of charity and goodness are most needed, it isn't generally groups of New Atheists who are seen answering the call. Who is more likely to care for paupers dying in the streets of Calcutta? Secular humanist associations? Or Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, who take God's word -- "Therefore love the stranger" -- as a binding obligation? When Boston's police need moral and trustworthy intermediaries, do they find them in an organization that campaigns against religion? Or in the Black Ministerial Alliance?

This is an argument that is made far too often without any sort of substantiation and simply accepted as true at face value. Yet it is not true. First, until recently, atheists were pretty much forced to stay in the closet, so how would one know whether they historically were more or less likely to be involved in community service? Second, as anyone who has ever been involved in volunteerism knows, many people in a community who are charitably involved are neither church-goers nor overtly religious, so it is not fair to assume that they believe in God. Third, religious organizations have fostered a culture of expectation of community service, both because they believe God wants them to engage in it and because it is excellent public relations that also happens to provide a tool for recruiting new members. We should not be surprised when members of any group exhibit volunteerism when it is something their group fully expects of them, and that is why many schools today are requiring volunteer work in order to graduate - the expectation is that these kids will become community-oriented adults.

Anyway, I found a wonderful essay by Dale McGowan entitled "Atheist Virtues" that specifically addresses atheism and charity. She points out that in fact people simply volunteer because, as part of a community, they want to help others and not because they believe God wants them to do it whether or not they are so inclined.

[A]s it turns out, 82% of volunteerism by churchgoers falls under the rubric of "church maintenance" activities -- volunteerism entirely within, and for the benefit of, the church building and community. As a result of this "siphoning" of volunteer energy for the care and feeding of churches themselves, most of the volunteering that happens out in the community -- from AIDS hospices to food shelves to international aid workers to those feeding the hungry and housing the homeless and caring for the elderly -- most of that comes from the category of "nonreligious" volunteers -- not all strictly atheists, of course, but the church monopoly on community service is clearly debunked.

McGowan also explains the faulty logic that is involved in accepting the notion that charity is necessarily inspired by Christian belief:

A fairly mainstream reading of the Christian worldview could easily endorse an entirely hands-off approach to charity. God is all-just, after all. He will provide for the needy -- and if not in this world, in the next. Yet Christians -- not all, of course, but many -- are out there doing for others as a direct and visible expression of their values. So much so, in fact, that the word "Christian" has found life as a synonym for "good," as in "He's such a Christian young man," or "Are you being Christian in your dealings with others?" …

Is the reverse true for atheists? Do we renounce an interest in the good? Not exactly -- we simply frame truth as a non-negotiable highest value.

Again, I'll suggest atheists should be better at living out certain values than Christians. We should be up to our elbows in charitable work, for example, since no one knows better than we do that WE ARE ALL WE HAVE. There is no safety net, no universal justice, no Great Caretaker, no afterlife reward. We have the full responsibility to create a just world and care for the less fortunate because there's no one else to do so. The answer to the question of how on Earth an atheist parent might instill values in his or her children is plain: the human moral mandate is, if anything, clearer in the atheist worldview than in the Christian.

I actually found several atheist groups that serve their communities by acting as an organizational tool for charitable community service. Such service included blood drives, roadside clean-up, and all the other usual community volunteer work. I dare anyone who believes that a belief in God is a prerequisite for compassion and loving-kindness to survey those who deliver meals on wheels, volunteer in soup kitches, participate in walk-a-thons, clean up beaches, etc. as to their beliefs. I will bet that the percentage of atheist volunteers is at least the same as the percentage of atheists in the community as a whole. Because I think people are just people, and their belief in God doesn't really change who they are. Some are good. Some are not. Join any church and after awhile you'll see what I mean.

Jacoby concludes his op-ed by saying a world without religion is an "evil" thing, as we've already seen in the visions of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. Pol Pot was an atheist, to be sure, and Stalin waged war on religion. But Hitler was a God-fearing Christian who actually denounced atheism. Granted, he eventually went off the rails so far it's hard to know exactly what he ultimately believed, but I don't think it's fair to use him as an example of what the world would be like without religion. And even in the case of Communism, it was not the lack of belief in God that caused the destruction. It was the desire to control and suppress others, including the forcing of non-belief on believers, that resulted in the evil that we so despise. We see those tendencies in human beings who believe in God just as often as in those who do not. And we see goodness and kindness in those who do not believe in God just as often as in those who do.

Posted by Becky at April 18, 2007 02:12 PM