On The Destruction of mankind:
By: Zack Anderson
Stop Tolerating Intolerance
“Religion
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without
it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people
doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it
takes religion.”
religion.
-Steven
It all began
Weinberg
when man asked that first question: “Why?” Why are there thousands of
lights in the sky? Why do apples fall to the ground? Why does snow fall for days on end, and then there is
nothing but sunlight? Why does that fiery ball of light rise every morning?
It all began when man refused to use rationality to answer these questions, and instead, answered:
“it is God.” It is God, the holy creator that makes the sun rise. Or: it is Apollo on his golden chariot. It all
began when man stopped questioning and just answered.
It is the reckless disregard of rational thinking that we collectively call religion that is to blame for
the most severe problems that face our world today. It is at the very heart of our most deeply seated
conflicts, and it is what fuels intolerance. It is about time that we take an intolerant stand on such
intolerance.
Nine out of ten people who read these words will hate me for it. There are people out there that, in
another country (or perhaps even in our own, as we have seen by such killings in the name of religion
such as minister Paul Hill’s cold-blooded murder of an abortion physician) might even want to kill me for
it. Why? Because this idea is dangerous to religion. It challenges dogma that has been drilled into people
from the day they were born. It risks to uproot their very core beliefs. Chances are, it risks to challenge
your very own deepest assumptions not only about religion, but about tolerance. I wonder whether even
the western reader, in her liberal tolerate-all viewpoint, will be able to see that acceptance is not the
catch-all solution. Loving everyone for who they are does not work. Not when they are intolerant, narrowminded dogmatists.
“Faith.” We hear it every day. “Just take it on faith.” “Why do I believe in god? What kind of a
ridiculous question is that? I have faith!” But what exactly is faith? What is it that millions of people come
to decisions based on? Faith is the belief in something for which there is no direct proof. Here are
generations of people being taught to take notions on faith. These are people that are being taught that
not only should they believe without proof, but to question such notions, and to ask for proof, is inherently
bad. The notion of faith is the most dangerous rival to rationality that ever existed. Even mere mention of
it is dangerous.
Countless people have died in the name of faith. Muslim Ottomans killed thousands of Apostolic
Armenians, throwing the bodies into mass graves. In Bosnia, Orthodox Christian Serbs committed “ethnic
cleansing” – mass genocide on Bosnian Muslims. “Non-believers” were tortured to death by the Catholic
Church during the inquisition for their alleged heresies. Islamic fundamentalists crashed airplanes into US
buildings with the intent of killing thousands and shaking a nation. Even in heated conflict where religion is
not the key factor, the fundamental dogmas perpetrated by religion are at the root.
Voltaire, one of the most respected philosophers of the last millennium, summed up the destructive
nature of religion in one terse line: "Men who believe absurdities will commit atrocities."
No civilization has ever suffered from people being too rational – from basing decisions on too
much evidence. Could the same be said about faith? Today we live in a world of suffering at the hands of
irrationality… at the hands of dogmatic religion.
Men of reason for years have tried to make an appeal to the intellect – often without much
success. Founding father Thomas Jefferson was adamant about the problems of religion. “Millions of
innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured,
fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of
coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites,” he says. Jefferson, the
principle author of the Declaration of Independence, often seen as one of the most influential thinkers of
the past few centuries, went on to say, “Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on
man.” Indeed Christianity is not the only perverted system: any religion that fundamentally says “I am
right and you are wrong,” is. Such a notion is the very root of intolerance and hatred in this world, and
any religion which preaches it further perpetrates this.
Religious indoctrination begins at an early age. From the start, kids are taught to follow the beliefs
of their parents. Isn’t it amazing that three year olds are already Jews, or Catholics, or Muslims based
solely on the beliefs of their parents? Isn’t that just as preposterous as labeling the infant as a republican?
These kids never have a chance. Author and outspoken critic of religion Richard Dawkins characterizes
religion as a “virus”. When one looks at how it spreads, he could not be more accurate. Kids are brought
up to self-segregate. Large numbers of children are sent to religious schools where they only associate
with other members of their religious sect. They are taught intolerance – if not in scripture, then by
example. A Jesuit proverb says, “Give me the child for the first seven years, and he is ours for life.”
God forbid the children be allowed the other viewpoint. That might just convince them to cherish
reality. The Hasidic Jewish community, one that has historically self-segregated to a large degree, allows
scientific theories such as evolution to be taught. But one would be somewhat hard-pressed to find an
orthodox Hasidic Jewish child that believes in such a crazy notion that is merely supported by “evidence.”
I mean, overwhelming “evidence” to the contrary is not enough to convince the 43 percent of Americans
that still believe the world is less than 10,000 years oldi. 43 percent? That’s well over one hundred million
Americans, who presumably all went through compulsory education, and still believe the world to be less
i
CBS News poll, taken between 4/06-9/06
than 10,000 years old. I am not saying that half of the US population is made up of total morons, but they
certainly have an utter disregard of huge amounts of evidence. Oh… wait… maybe they are morons.
Morons at the hands of religion. It seems to have that effect on people.
It is completely unacceptable that millions of children never even have the chance to think for
themselves, but rather, are indoctrinated from early ages with the dogma of their parents. The result is
generations of citizens that do not think for themselves. These are people that have been frightened into
complacency. I don’t care what you tell a child, no matter how ridiculous the story is (such as some wild
story like the entire universe – with its greater number of stars than there are grains of sand on the Earth,
was created in only six days) that if they don’t believe without thought – if they don’t take religion on faith
– then they will burn for eternity in hellfire, they are sure to believe. Hell is no laughing matter in
Christianity – it is a very scary notion that much of the world is seriously in fear of. And they operate their
lives based on this fear, and use graphic imagery such as hell for moral enforcement. In Christianity, the
Church has an immense amount of power over the people. I can only imagine what complacency an
impressionable person must have been brought to upon hearing one Jonathan Edward’s sermons about
hellfire and how we are all awful sinners. Such powerful rhetoric is the precursor to a cult-like following
more powerful than the world has ever seen.
Philosopher and mathematician Betrand Russell explained that, "Religion is based, I think, primarily
and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel
that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the
basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of
cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand."
Many might criticize these views as over-generalizations. The only people that would even dare to
read this far are people that have tolerance of other views. How can one stand me saying, “the very
notion you base your life on is wrong”? Some might say, “well, rational thinking and religion can co-exist.”
They might say, “not all religions are militant.” But most predominantly, they might say, “I am right and
you are wrong and there will be no negotiations because I know I am right because I have faith.” I am
here to say they are wrong.
Put a Catholic and a Muslim in a room together and they can figure out which of the two can jump
the highest. They might even be able to settle whether white or red wine goes best with chicken. But
bring up God and they will never come to any kind of a consensus. Their religions expressly prohibit it.
Whenever someone believes something without evidence, very little will convince them of another view.
For whole-hearted believers, this cannot coexist with other belief systems. Fundamentally, most religions
require one to say, “I am right and you are wrong.” There are no negations. There is no tolerance. There
is no thinking.
At its very heart, religion preaches this intolerance, albeit some far more than others. How can we
expect to get along as nations when we feel – no – we know people from the other are all going to hell? Is
it all that unreasonable for suicide bombings to be perpetrated by people who believe that they will go to
heaven, when they have been taught so from childhood? Is it so unreasonable to imagine thousands of
Christians trotting off to kill in order to obtain their holy land? Today it’s suicide bombers; a thousand
years ago it was the Crusades. The war hasn’t changed, just the weapons it’s being fought with. I would
be willing to bet the war will never end until religion is abolished. I am taking these examples to the
extremes, but a challenge to rationality anywhere is a challenge to rationality everywhere. All of religion is
the problem, not just fundamentalism.
I am not discussing some problem that is half the world away from us. I am talking about a
problem that lies just down the street and around the corner at the local perish. The problem of the
Muslim religion overseas is just as much a threat to the American people as is the evangelist next door.
We Live in
a generation of politicians that think religion is destructive, but only if it is a
certain type of religion. We unsuccessfully try to coexist with other religions, and pinpoint conflict to the
extremist groups.
George Bush, trying desperately to be politically correct, has said that Islam is a religion of peace,
and it is the fanatics that have distorted the religion. As Pope Benedict XVI might say (of course, in his
political correctness he only had the fortitude to quote someone else saying it) Islam is a religion of
violence. There is no question about it. So is Christianity. And even Judaism (although most Jews would
be shocked by such a statement). Any religion that believes members of the other are inherently wrong
and that resolving differences is fundamentally impossible, is a militant religion. Indeed Judaism has a far
better track record than Islam and Christianity. But do not forget the Jewish massacre of Christians in
Jerusalem in 614 A.D. Although historians argue about the specific role the Jews played in the massacre,
many believe thousands of Christians died at the hands of the Jews in the conflict. Do not forget, either,
that this is a group of people who (for the most part, but certainly not completely) are willing to kill in
order to protect the lands that they deem as holy. It is not all that questionable for a nation to want to
protect its lands, as Israel is trying to do, but the intense religious views and the enormous significance of
cities such as Jerusalem to the three major religions of the world make the conflict impossible to solve. As
long as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam remain in existence, there will never be peace over the city.
Israel may be an even larger problem than people imagine. 35% of Americans believe that conflict
in Israel is the precursor to the second coming of Jesus Christii. While polls are somewhat mixed over the
exact percentages, somewhere around 20% of the US population actually wants to see the second coming
of Christ in their lifetime. One has to wonder whether this is what we want in a responsible citizen. The
Bible speaks of the second coming to be a post-apocalyptic event where the “armies of heaven” fight the
devil. The Book of Revelation in the Bible describes the second coming as follows:
"And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and
True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are
many diadems... He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood... From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so
that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads
the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty."
ii
Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2006 survey
It should be very worrisome that millions of American citizens, mostly supporters of the current
administration, not only believe this will happen, but at least on some level would like to see it happen.
These passages in the bible were written during a time of Roman persecution, and it is believed by some
that the “Beast” referred to Rome. Ironically, Americans have historically seen themselves as the
inheritors of Rome. Will we mark the beginning of the end? For a rational person it’s hard to believe that
there is actually a large number of people in this country that want such a cataclysmic worldwide clash
over Israel. They perhaps want World War III: the nuclear war to end all wars. Permanently. They may
actually think that unthinkable violence is a good thing… so long as some God comes down from the sky to
save us after most of us die. There is only one force in this world powerful enough to convince people that
this is good: religion. Christ will save us from the fire in the sky and the radioactive dust that rots our
skin, they think. In truth, it is religion that is rotting our skin.
It is no secret that America today is run by evangelicals. President George Bush is a “born again”
Christian, and evangelical leaders in the US such as Rev. Ted Haggard claim to have direct hotlines to the
president. Just look at how charged religious issues are in politics: abortion, “traditional” family values,
evolution. Evolution? Have we gone insane? There is actually a large constituency that believes evolution
should be taught alongside creationism and “intelligent design”: the Christian work-around that says
beings came into existence with “divine intervention.” A 2004 Gallop poll reveals that a mere 28 percent
of Americans believe in evolution. If we are going to be teaching crazy religious notions in school as
serious scientific debates, then I would say we may as well teach “retarded design”: my theory that
evolution has occurred, but assisted by a retarded creator. If you have ever seen the ridiculously large
nose of a Platypus, you would certainly be able to come to no other conclusion than that it was created by
an idiot. Give a three-year-old some crayons and she can design a better animal than that monstrosity.
There is a clear disregard to the notion of a separation of church and state. This is a very fundamental
principle that American democracy has cherished for centuries, and now it is being taken under assault.
Christians in America would rather see people die than have their religious dogmas challenged.
Religion is killing America. Some Christian fundamentalists believe that AIDs is a sin. They have argued
against birth control, and have tried with all their power to have sex education banned from schools. I’m
sorry to tell them the reality of the matter – but teenagers are teenagers – and teaching abstinence is not
going to make them any less horny. All it is going to do is make the situation more dangerous, because
they may not use birth control. I am not talking about a remote group of people petitioning the
government. I am talking about the government itself. Dr. Reginald Finger from the immunization
advisory committee of the CDC has stated that even if there were a vaccine for HIV, he would think long
and hard before distributing it because it may promote premarital sex. Indeed there are many
evangelicals that take disease to be nice deterrents to what they see as sin. Christians at the CDC would
rather see girls die of cervical cancer (worldwide the second most common form of cancer in women) due
to the Papillomavirus than to chance a rise in premarital sex rates if the proven and effective vaccine were
to be administered. Let the girls die a horrible death amidst chemotherapy and radiation treatment as
their vagina slowly bleeds – they say. Better than to possibly chance a rise in something some book
written thousands of years ago says is wrong. But more on that later. Now I realize there are many
spectrums of each religion. Not every Christian believes that birth control should be banned – but those
might believe something else, equally archaic. Some people say they are religious, but in reality they
merely follow cultural customs – or perhaps they are more introspectively spiritual. This is not
problematic. The problem comes when people dogmatically look to religion and come away intolerant.
Sects such as Christian Science do not believe in medical treatment at all. They have faith that God
will heal them. Well, if they are right then God really must hate the Christian Scientists, because most of
them, when faced with a serious illness, are not cured. Nope, to them it’s better that they die because
God must have willed it than to seek medical treatment. They propagate false hope that people will get
better. Turn a television onto Christian television and in a few minutes time images of people convulsing
on the floor will appear. These are people that have been so heavily brainwashed that their body actually
convulses when they think they are getting treatment from these evangelical reverends. Even worse,
parents will enforce their beliefs onto their children, and prohibit medical treatment for them. That is child
abuse, and here in America, in our political correctness, we must tolerate such religious practices. I see
little distinction between what Christian Scientists are doing to their ill children and what Islamic Jihadists
did on September 11th. Both believe that what they are doing is ordained by god and the moral thing to
do. Both are killing in the name of religion. We cannot tolerate such abuse any longer.
If someone ran for president that believed UFOs had abducted his parents and implanted tiny
probes into their brains, the American people would never vote for such a lunatic. But then why would we
vote for someone that believes some old guy could part waters, girls could have children without the seed
of another man, and dead people have been resurrected? If I were an employer, I surely wouldn’t hire a
UFO conspiracy nutcase just as much as I wouldn’t hire the large percentage of Americans that believe
Jesus is going to come down from the heavens like Superman sometime during our lifetime to save us all.
Sounds pretty crazy when put in plain light, huh?
And Is It
all worth it? What does religion really provide us that a set of morals cannot
provide? Does it provide us with a sufficient explanation? While God serves to some as one explanation as
to the creation of the universe, it begs an even greater question: if God created the universe, then who
created God? When looked at critically, most religions do not even provide a sound moral code. The Old
Testament, shared by both Christians and Jews, preaches intolerance of others.
If your brother, the son of your father or of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the spouse whom you embrace, or your most
intimate friend, tries to secretly seduce you, saying, “Let us go and serve other gods,” unknown to you or your ancestors before
you, gods of the peoples surrounding you, whether near you or far away, anywhere throughout the world, you must not consent,
you must not listen to him; you must show him no pity, you must not spare him or conceal his guilt. No, you must kill him, your
hand must strike the first blow in putting him to death and the hands of the rest of the people following. You must stone him to
death, since he has tried to divert you from Yahweh your God. . . .(Deuteronomy 13:7–11)
Love your neighbor. But if he’s not Christian, he’s going to hell. Isn’t that what the Bible says?
Well, that sets up a great standard. Too bad many Christians are more concerned with Muslims going to
hell than they are with loving them. Islam, as seen by the militant Jihadists, is very similar in its
intolerance of other religions.
The Bible paints a picture of God as being jealous, a condoner of genocide, vindictive, often
unforgiving, a murderer, a torturer, a racist, and highly intolerant. Is this what we want to live up to?
Moses brought a rock off a mountain that said “Thou shalt not kill,” but the Old Testament speaks of how
Moses was a murderer. In the book of Numbers Moses said the following:
“Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the
women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”
I could go on with countless examples of how the Bible promotes hatred, murder, abuse, and
racism, but to pick on the Bible would almost be unfair, it is so flawed. But why then do millions live by its
every word? Certainly there are Christians that take the Bible figuratively, but many take it for its word.
Why should we believe some book written by a number of people, based on stories that were passed on
for many generations. If one has ever played the game of telephone, it is apparent that a sentence has
trouble passing from just a few people. Now try passing elaborate stories and ethical codes over many
centuries and through hundreds of people. The Bible is the word of God? I think not.
What about the good that comes from religion? Many allege that religion reduces violent crime and
increases mental well being. But take a look at the most crime ridden cities in the US and one will see that
most lie in the religious conservative states. The Bible Belt has a significantly higher murder rate than the
US average. While this doesn’t necessarily prove that religion causes more violent crime (although I would
tend to think that it does), it certainly does prove that religion doesn’t lessen crime.
Take a look at some of the worst genocides in history, and often you will find religion as the
motivator. It takes a very skewed mental state to kill thousands with a vengeance. With every genocide,
one will encounter people that have fundamental beliefs that are dogmatic like religion and cannot be
challenged. Genocide would not happen without such unchallengeable notions. But this is the very nature
of dogma. It is a belief that is taken without evidence and based on mere faith. There is no questioning
the belief because there is no reasonable means by which one can challenge such a belief. Its very
definition prohibits it. We are not willing to have our beliefs revised. We will not negotiate. While we may
say we tolerate others’ views, the very notion of faith means we will not accept them. This is incredibly
dangerous because the only real means by which two religions can reconcile disagreements, therefore, is
through war.
But what about
the so-called rational religious believer? The moderate who cherry
picks beliefs. The person who believes in evolution – who takes much of the bible as allegory, but other
parts as fact. I might say that such a person is even more irrational than the person that staunchly
believes in the Bible and bases his or her beliefs on it. These moderates say, “I’ll believe the resurrection,”
since to not do so would invalidate a major premise of Christianity, “but I’ll take the whole story about
Noah’s arc to be an allegory.” One such man, Francis Collins, is the director of the National Human
Genome Research Institute. This man led one of the most profound scientific research projects humanity
has ever involved itself with: the Human Genome Project. Yet Collins, in his recent book The Language of
God, makes many irrational claims. His purpose is to demonstrate proof for his belief in God, but quite to
the contrary, his “proof” is not only insufficient, but downright pathetic when one considers the supposed
intellectual stature of this man. In his book he writes how he finally came to adopt Christianity:
“On a beautiful fall day, as I was hiking in the Cascade Mountains … the majesty and beauty of God’s
creation overwhelmed my resistance. As I rounded a corner and saw a beautiful and unexpected
frozen waterfall, hundreds of feet high, I knew the search was over. The next morning, I knelt in the
dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to Jesus Christ.”
This glorious example of non-thinking is exponentially magnified by the fact that Collins is a
scientist. People should be no more moved by this account than if Steven Hawking decided to “prove” the
Big Bang Theory with some account of his witnessing the incredible act of viscous concrete mix solidifying
into a rock-hard structure. When scientists start substituting magic in place for proof, the integrity and
power of science is diminished. Thinking and non-thinking coexisting is dangerous. Scientific
advancements are not magic – they are based on thinking and evidence. The ability to transplant organs
to save lives did not come of magic. It came of years of research into human anatomy, often times in
secrecy due to fear of church retaliation. More stable agriculture, which has greatly reduced the incidence
of famine for billions of people, did not come of magic, but rather from centuries of careful genetic
selection, refined techniques, and delicately engineered fertilizers. The discovery of antibiotics did not
come of magic. It came from an accident, indeed, but was fostered by a rigorous scientific study as to how
antibiotics such as penicillin actually work to kill bacteria. Science has had a very clear positive impact on
human society. Collins’ “waterfall faith”iii distorts his reality such that he goes so far as to refute history.
“The traditional lore about Galileo’s persecutions by the Church is overblown,” he says. When scientists
start accepting core beliefs without sufficient evidence and refute facts that are backed by sufficient
evidence when it is incompatible with their belief systems – the very fundamentals of science are truly in
trouble.
There are people out there that say we need religion to enforce a moral code. Is it enforcement
they look for, or a moral code, because without religion both will still exist. While there are certainly ideals
in religion that preach sound moral code, religion as a whole is not a good idea. If someone says they live
by Christian ideals but is not religious, I do not have any problem with that. Well, other than the fact that
Christian ideals, as I have already stated, are contradictory and completely and utterly immoral in my
opinion and that of most any other rational thinker today. For someone to say that we need fear as moral
enforcement is a very grim outlook on mankind. Furthermore, it makes me question just how divine a
religion is where its subjects are only good out of fear of retaliation from God. I am not religious and I do
not steal or murder. I do not do these things out of fear of the law – I have certainly had many
opportunities to steal and not get caught, but I do not do so because I have an inherent moral code
hardwired into me. Morality is far older than religion. Other animals exhibit primitive morals and altruistic
tendencies, and I’m pretty sure those chimpanzees aren’t Jews, Christians, or Muslims. Monkeys will
actually starve themselves to protest cage mates from receiving shocks. Studies show mice demonstrate
more distress when pain is induced on familiar mice than unfamiliar ones. Chimpanzees exhibit a certain
fairness when food is given to a group of them. New studies are being published that demonstrate clear
iii
I would typically call this “blind” faith, but since it is based on a frozen waterfall, I grant Collins some credit
evolutionary rewards for moral action. Harvard biologist Marc Hauser conducted an extensive study into
moral judgment and was able to demonstrate very clearly that the large majority of humans respond to
moral dilemmas the exact same way, regardless of their religion. All of these studies illustrate morality to
be genetically based and largely devoid of religious necessity.
There are many liberals that believe tolerance is the key to ending conflict. In Dawkin’s newest
book, The God Delusion, he says, “As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be
respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin
Laden and the suicide bombers.” Liberals can tolerate Islam all they want, but the fundamentalists are not
going to change their world view. They cannot. It is time that such liberals stop thinking we can all get
along and coexist with different religions, because such thoughts are simply untrue. Tolerance of
intolerance does not affect change. In fact, it might even make the situation worse. There is little the
Jihadist despises more than the weak non-confrontationalist who says we can all coexist. We cannot
effectively coexist with totalitarian religion.
And Is it
possible?
Is it possible to do away with the most powerful force this world has
ever seen? Can we as a people destroy the very fabric that runs our society? The only answer to such a
question would be a guess. I like to think the answer is yes.iv But maybe I’m just that naive. Countries
such as Canada, Sweden, Denmark, and Japan seem to be making great progress in this area. They are
highly secular, but only time will be able to tell whether this can happen elsewhere. We need to strive for
this. When we as a people say we should not think, we should not question, we should not investigate;
when we become satisfied with non-thinking and start to take beliefs on faith; when we say so-and-so is
going to hell; or when we say, “you can do what you please, but you are wrong”; or when we say, “I will
tolerate your intolerant views”; when we say we are proud to take matters as fact without evidence; when
we as a people say faith and science can coexist – that rationality and irrationality can intermingle; when
we say upholding our dogmatic beliefs is more important than life itself; when we say there is no possible
way to negotiate with these people of other religions; when we say these things, it is then that the
destruction of mankind has begun. We need to do all we can to put an end to it.