Arkady
President
I believe that any religion can inspire great acts of kindness or terrible acts of cruelty. Any religion can be the faith of a society that is pluralistic and innovative, or a society that is totalitarian and backwards. It isn't about what the religion's official dogma says, but rather about how it is applied. Within any foundational scripture or other teaching, there will inevitably be material available that people will see as pointing in whatever direction they were predisposed to go -- either because of conflicting material where a person can pick and choose which of the competing instructions to follow, or because of ambiguous language, or language that can be obfuscated by a poetic reading to mean what the person wishes it meant.
For example, take capital punishment and Christianity. Christians can see capital punishment as either mandated or forbidden by the Christian faith. Those who want to kill people for punishment can look to the Old Testament (which, since Jesus said not one jot of the Law would fall away, is still operative for Christians). It mandated capital punishment for a wide variety of offenses -- even kids who are stubborn and rebellious to their parents are supposed to have stones thrown at them by the men of their city, until they're dead. Those who don't want to kill people for punishment can look to the story and teachings of Jesus, who said that only he without sin can cast the first stone (and since, in standard Christian dogma, no person is without sin except Jesus and, perhaps, Mary, that means nobody can carry out a death sentence). In fact, the whole Jesus story is built around the story of a uniquely virtuous man being unjustly subjected to capital punishment, which opponents of the death penalty see as a powerful statement against the practice.
The Bible is not unusual, in that sense, nor is the question of capital punishment. With almost any major moral question and nearly any religion, you can find or fairly easily create religious support for whatever position you want. So, I generally regard religion as largely beside the point. Good people will be good and bad people will be bad regardless of what faiths they nominally embrace. Societies that are healthy will develop virtuous versions of their faiths (like the versions of Christianity practiced in today's Western Europe), while societies that are morally sick will develop morally sick versions (like the versions of Christianity practiced in Western Europe during the era of the Conquistadors, the Inquisitors, and the religious civil wars.) I oppose religion not because I don't believe religion dements people --without supernatural religion, the demented would just invent some secular faith to justify their actions. Rather, I oppose it because I think it's superfluous. I think that it slows the advance of human thinking by causing it to go through the external forms of religion, which is inefficient, but I believe that the advance will happen, one way or the other, regardless of which religion's external forms are the maze through which it must wind.
Although this is my current position, I'm open to counter-argument. Is there a case to be made that a particular religion really is unusually wedded to vice or virtue? Is there a case to be made that the fundamental dogmas of a particular religion cause it to be extraordinarily difficult to bend to the benefit (or to the harm) of mankind? I can certainly see that certain eras and local versions of religions involve a faith that is particularly harmful (e.g., Wahabist Islam in the present-day Middle East, or the Catholic faith around 1500, in Spain). But is there some sign of an enduring immorality or backwardness (or morality or progressiveness) for a particular faith throughout its history? Is there some reason to think that a particular religion is morally better than others, in terms of its objective outcomes, as opposed to your reading of its dogma?
For example, if I were to argue the inherent superiority of Catholicism over Protestantism, I might use as an example the way Catholic countries typically moved beyond slavery more quickly than Protestant ones, suggesting some inherent virtue in the faith. For example, predominantly Catholic Mexico abolished slavery long before the predominantly Protestant US (which was one of the core issues that caused the slavery-loving Texans to insist on independence). But I could turn around and argue the inherent superiority of Protestantism over Catholicism based on the greater scientific progress in Protestant nations during the Enlightenment (even French Enlightenment thinkers, like Descartes, often did their important work in Protestant countries, like the Netherlands, because of the greater intellectual freedom beyond the reach of the Pope). So, I don't see a clear argument one way or the other on this. But perhaps someone more familiar with Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism, or some other faith could make an argument that it's fairly consistently better or worse than most religions, in objective, historical terms.
For example, take capital punishment and Christianity. Christians can see capital punishment as either mandated or forbidden by the Christian faith. Those who want to kill people for punishment can look to the Old Testament (which, since Jesus said not one jot of the Law would fall away, is still operative for Christians). It mandated capital punishment for a wide variety of offenses -- even kids who are stubborn and rebellious to their parents are supposed to have stones thrown at them by the men of their city, until they're dead. Those who don't want to kill people for punishment can look to the story and teachings of Jesus, who said that only he without sin can cast the first stone (and since, in standard Christian dogma, no person is without sin except Jesus and, perhaps, Mary, that means nobody can carry out a death sentence). In fact, the whole Jesus story is built around the story of a uniquely virtuous man being unjustly subjected to capital punishment, which opponents of the death penalty see as a powerful statement against the practice.
The Bible is not unusual, in that sense, nor is the question of capital punishment. With almost any major moral question and nearly any religion, you can find or fairly easily create religious support for whatever position you want. So, I generally regard religion as largely beside the point. Good people will be good and bad people will be bad regardless of what faiths they nominally embrace. Societies that are healthy will develop virtuous versions of their faiths (like the versions of Christianity practiced in today's Western Europe), while societies that are morally sick will develop morally sick versions (like the versions of Christianity practiced in Western Europe during the era of the Conquistadors, the Inquisitors, and the religious civil wars.) I oppose religion not because I don't believe religion dements people --without supernatural religion, the demented would just invent some secular faith to justify their actions. Rather, I oppose it because I think it's superfluous. I think that it slows the advance of human thinking by causing it to go through the external forms of religion, which is inefficient, but I believe that the advance will happen, one way or the other, regardless of which religion's external forms are the maze through which it must wind.
Although this is my current position, I'm open to counter-argument. Is there a case to be made that a particular religion really is unusually wedded to vice or virtue? Is there a case to be made that the fundamental dogmas of a particular religion cause it to be extraordinarily difficult to bend to the benefit (or to the harm) of mankind? I can certainly see that certain eras and local versions of religions involve a faith that is particularly harmful (e.g., Wahabist Islam in the present-day Middle East, or the Catholic faith around 1500, in Spain). But is there some sign of an enduring immorality or backwardness (or morality or progressiveness) for a particular faith throughout its history? Is there some reason to think that a particular religion is morally better than others, in terms of its objective outcomes, as opposed to your reading of its dogma?
For example, if I were to argue the inherent superiority of Catholicism over Protestantism, I might use as an example the way Catholic countries typically moved beyond slavery more quickly than Protestant ones, suggesting some inherent virtue in the faith. For example, predominantly Catholic Mexico abolished slavery long before the predominantly Protestant US (which was one of the core issues that caused the slavery-loving Texans to insist on independence). But I could turn around and argue the inherent superiority of Protestantism over Catholicism based on the greater scientific progress in Protestant nations during the Enlightenment (even French Enlightenment thinkers, like Descartes, often did their important work in Protestant countries, like the Netherlands, because of the greater intellectual freedom beyond the reach of the Pope). So, I don't see a clear argument one way or the other on this. But perhaps someone more familiar with Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism, or some other faith could make an argument that it's fairly consistently better or worse than most religions, in objective, historical terms.
