It seems to me that with or without religion good people will behave well and bad people will do evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.So said Nobel-laureate physicist Steven Weinberg in an interview on PBS (in the early 1990's, I think, but I couldn't confirm it).
"Still," comments John Allen Paulos, in his instructive little book, Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up:
people do often vigorously insist that religious beliefs are necessary to ensure moral behavior. Though the claim is quite clearly false of people in general, there is a sense in which it might be true if one has been brought up in a very religious environment. A classic experiment on the so-called overjustification effect by the psychologists David Greene, Betty Sternberg, and Mark Lepper is relevant. They exposed fourth- and fifth-grade students to a variety of intriguing mathematical games and measured the time the children played them. They found that the children seemed to possess a good deal of intrinsic interest in the games. The games were fun. After a few days, however, the psychologists began to reward the children for playing; those playing them more had a better chance of winning the prizes offered. The prizes did increase the time the children played the games, but when the prizes were stopped, the children lost almost all interest in the games and rarely played them. The extrinsic rewards had undercut the children's intrinsic interest. Likewise, religious injunctions and rewards promised to children for being good might, if repudiated in later life, drastically reduce the time people spend playing the "being good" game. This is another reason not to base ethics on religious teachings. [pp. 140-141]Fortunately, my own reasons for giving up God and religion were fundamentally moral. My moral values remained intact and may even have been fortified because of my realization that I alone am responsible for the morality of my actions and, ultimately, for who I am.
Besides, I know a number of people whose moral sensibility seems to me superior to God's as "He" is portrayed in the scriptures of the Abrahamic religions.
Joe wrote me privately:
ReplyDeleteAccording to Weinberg does that mean: For evil people to do good things that takes religion?
Do you believe that all religion is dangerous? Seems like Weinberg, Dawkins, and Co. pick out instances of horrible events done in the name of religion. Of course, stories of jihad, "Christians" killing abortion doctors, and religious figures cheating on their spouses get more press time. You don't see the story of local churches coming together to paint the schools at no charge to the district, or a farmers market set up for the community with free food, or car maintenance ministries that provide oil changes, and car maintenance for lower-income families.
Countless food pantries, clothes closets, homeless shelters, hot meals delivered, etc. Sure, there are non-religious groups that do all this too.
To argue that all religion is dangerous or a threat to our health is erroneous.
Since Weinberg didn't mention the case you bring up, perhaps he doesn't believe that there are any members of the set of "people who do good things because of religion"; it might be for him a null set. It is possible, however, that he put it the way he did simply for rhetorical effect. I have not read a lengthy piece of his on religion, not even the entire PBS interview.
Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, on the other hand, and I guess Christopher Hitchens, write off ALL religion because its basis is false (the "god delusion," to use Dawkins's phrase), and even its apparently benign uses have negative effects like promoting magical thinking and holding religion up as off limits for rational criticism ("Oh, you can't say that about someone's beliefs, they're his religious beliefs!")
Of course, as you say, churches (as well as religious individuals) do good things, same as secular organizations and secular individuals do. The latter are doing good without benefit of religion. You suggest that at least some of the former wouldn't be doing good without their church or religious affiliation. I wonder how much of the negative effect of religion is offset by this. Probably not much. So much of the "good" that church groups and religious individuals do seems to come with the price tag of being hounded to join the church, or being made to feel guilty about being a sinner, or preached to about this, that, or the other thing whose only basis is a selective reading of scriptures. The amount of good done by churches or religious individuals is hugely overestimated (especially by the religious).
Joe, I went back to the PBS interview of Weinberg and found the passage from which I took the quote:
ReplyDeleteQUESTION: Do you think religion has value?
MR. WEINBERG: I think there's much to be said on both sides of that. I mean, certainly religion has produced great art. Where would architecture be without the great cathedrals and wonderful Japanese temples, and mosques?
On the moral side, however, I'm less sure about it. Certainly good causes have sometimes been mobilized under the banner of religion, but you find the opposite I think more often the case. It's more often been the motivation for us to kill each other—not only for people of one religion to kill those of another, but even within religions. After all, it was a Muslim who killed Sadat. It was a devout Jew who killed Rabin. It was a devout Hindu who killed Gandhi. And this has been going on for centuries and centuries.
I think in many respects religion is a dream—a beautiful dream often. Often a nightmare. But it's a dream from which I think it's about time we awoke. Just as a child learns about the tooth fairy and is incited by that to leave a tooth under the pillow—and you're glad that the child believes in the tooth fairy. But eventually you want the child to grow up. I think it's about time that the human species grew up in this respect.
It seems to me that with or without religion good people will behave well and bad people will do evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
By the way, Joe, John Allen Paulos quotes Weinberg slightly differently in his book Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up, so perhaps he was quoting from something Weinberg published. If I discover it, I'll let you know.
This follow-up from Joe just came in privately:
ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"So much of the 'good' that church groups and religious individuals do seems to come with the price tag of being hounded to join the church, or being made to feel guilty about being a sinner, or preached to about this, that, or the other thing whose only basis is a selective reading of scriptures."
Yes, that is true. Christians should stop trying to convert everyone they meet, stop being judgmental, and start living life as "The Dude" they claim to follow did (The Dude as in Christ, not the movie "The Big Lebowski").
Seems like a lot of Christians out there are caught up trying to defend Scripture instead of actually reading and living what the Word they believe in says. Recent example comes to mind of the Congressman (can't remember his name) who was arguing for hanging the Ten commandments in a court room in his district. Interviewer asked, "Can you list the Ten Commandments?" Deer in headlight stare and the interview was over.
I'd say that has a lot to do with the hypocrite label that is easily applied to Christians talking a good game but not practicing what they preach.
"The Dude" reminds me of a T-shirt my wife and I saw on a teenage girl at a shopping mall last Sunday: Jesus Is The Man. Popular culture has long since co-opted Jesus. Christian rock, etc.