Religion and Poison

 

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I'm reading Christopher Hitchen's God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.  As I expected, it's full of examples of the poisonous effects of religion, which is to say those of the Abrahamic religions, primarily. 

Thus far, at least, those religions with more than one god haven't been subject to much in the way of ridicule or used as examples of nonsense, except those of the mesoamerican civilizations whose gods were quite literally bloodthirsty.  Nor have those involving a deity which isn't a personal deity, intervening in nature, granting favors, requiring exclusive worship and pretending to absolute knowledge.  The deists of our history are treated with a certain respect, or at least as harmless.

So I think there may be limits to the criticism of religion he makes, but even then he notes the ways in which religion manages to thwart free inquiry and critical and scientific thought merely by insisting that we be ignorant and accept certain doctrines as true even if we refrain from compelling others to adopt them.  This devotion to maxims adopted unthinkingly and never questioned is itself harmful.

To his credit, he refuses to join one of his fellow atheists (Dennet I think) in referring to those who don't believe on God as "brights." There's ridicule and mockery, as well as anger, but not condescension.

It's difficult to contest his claims given his many examples of often idiotic and malicious conduct on the part of the faithful. I confess I wonder what he would, or would have, thought of the religious characteristics of Stoicism. I suspect he'd have thought it based on a hypothesis for which there is no need, to paraphrase Laplace in responding to Napoleon.  But its conception of God as immanent in Nature rather than apart from it avoids the problems associated with a creator God, and its emphasis on treating things beyond our control as indifferent makes it less liable to the urge to impose itself on others.  You don't forcibly convert others to Stoicism or persecute thise who aren't Stoics.

Which brings us to the question which it seems concerns believers in their argument with atheists most of all.  That is--if there is no God, how do we determine what's right and what's wrong?

One might reply that many of  those who purport to believe in God seem incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, or if they can don't care which is which and are fully able and willing to do wrong, to be evil rather than good.  Or one might mention the Euthypro dilemma.

In that dialogue the question addressed was whether what is good is good because God commands it, or good regardless of whether God commands it.

Clearly, if what is good isn't determined by God, then God isn't required to determine what is right or wrong.  In Stoicism what is good is what is according to nature. It isn't a matter of command by God or anyone.

Perhaps part of the poison of religion or which is caused by it is our dependence on it.  If we require a command to do what is right we needn't bother with thinking.  Nor need we take responsibility. We need only follow orders.