Is Religion Good for the World?

All of the world’s organized religions are false in some or all of their core tenets. See my earlier post,

. When I was younger, I used to try to argue people out of Christianity (virtually the only religion that anyone ever wanted to argue about), because it was false, and I figured that one shouldn’t have a false belief. But I rarely do that anymore, in part because I’m not sure it would be good if I were to succeed.

I am an evidentialist about my beliefs: I think that only evidential (or truth-oriented) reasons for belief count. If a belief produces some practical or moral benefits, I take that to be completely irrelevant to whether I should hold that belief.

But I feel differently about other people’s beliefs. Whether I should try to cause other people to hold a belief depends on the practical costs and benefits of their holding that belief. Hence my question about religion.

1. The Price of Faith

Religion has cost humanity a lot.

1. First, there is the intrinsic bad of having false beliefs. In the case of the world’s major religions, these are beliefs about matters of crucial import, both practically and theoretically, and the beliefs are often way off. Thus, they create an extreme overall misunderstanding of the world. Insofar as knowledge and understanding are good, this has to be counted as a cost of religion. Note,

   1. People often adjust the rest of their philosophical beliefs to fit with their religious beliefs. Thus, you can wind up having many false beliefs about metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics because of a false religion.

   2. However, this has to be compared to realistic alternatives. It may be that for most people, the realistic alternative to holding one of the world’s major religions is having some other completely false conception of reality. In that case, the falsity of the major religions is no great cost.

2. There has been a large amount of religious persecution in history, people being imprisoned, burned for heresy, and so on. Religious persecution still goes on in some parts of the world, especially in Islamic theocracies.

3. There have been many wars fought over religion. In total, tens of millions of people have been killed in religious wars in history. (Caveat: These wars generally have political as well as religious causes.)

4. Religion has slowed moral progress because all or most organized religions side with the traditional values of the society, and thus religious people tend to resist reforms. E.g., religion slowed the acceptance of homosexuality and women’s suffrage. It supported slavery back when that was the tradition. (Of course, there are religious arguments against slavery too, but the religious arguments for slavery are more straightforward. See my Scary Bible Quotes.)

5. Relatedly, religion can make you a worse person in your personal life—e.g., less tolerant, more self-righteous, more dogmatic.

   1. Note: It can also have the opposite effect; see below.

6. Religion can cause you to waste a lot of time (e.g., going to church) and make pointless sacrifices (e.g., renouncing pre-marital sex because you think God doesn’t like it).

7. But the biggest cost of religion, by far, has to be that it has slowed scientific progress. How so?

   1. One way is by directly opposing correct scientific theories, such as heliocentric cosmology or the Theory of Evolution.

   2. Another way is by co-opting the minds of many intellectuals who could have been working to advance our understanding of the world, but instead spent large portions of their lives studying religion. Sir Isaac Newton, history’s greatest scientist, wrote more about religion than about science. Given how great his scientific works are, imagine what he could have accomplished if he’d devoted himself to science full time. There are many other people (less illustrious than Newton, but still smart people) who continue to devote much of their lives to studying religion.

   3. Caveat: Some people may be inspired by religion to study nature, thinking that nature is God’s work and therefore that understanding nature helps us understand God. But this factor is probably minor compared to factors (a) and (b).

   Considering the dominance of Christianity during the Middle Ages and the accompanying shortage of scientific progress, it is plausible that Christianity set us back centuries. If not for Christianity, perhaps we would now have colonies on Alpha Centauri.

2. The Rewards of Faith

Religion also has large benefits, both for the individual and for society.

1. Many studies find that religious people are happier than non-religious people. This is probably connected to the following factors:

   1. Most religious people believe that when they die, they will go to paradise. If I thought that, I would be pretty happy about it.

   2. When something bad happens, religious people can comfort themselves with the thought that it is all in accordance with God’s plan. When they see an injustice, they can remind themselves that ultimate justice will prevail in the end.

   3. Religion gives people a general sense of the meaningfulness of life.

   4. It also gives them a sense of knowing their place in the world and what they’re supposed to be doing.

   5. Organized religions also come with communities. Religious people form social bonds with the other people who attend their church.

      Atheists, by contrast, are in danger of social isolation, nihilism, and despair.

   6. Btw, I elsewhere questioned whether religious people really believe their religion. But, while they may not entirely believe the claims of their religion, they also don’t entirely not believe them. They sort of believe them, which may be enough to get these psychological benefits.

2. Studies also show that religion reduces crime (and probably bad behavior generally). This is likely because:

   1. Religious people think that God is watching them and will punish their misdeeds.

   2. Religion may also strengthen community bonds, as mentioned above, and social influence from the other members of one’s religious community suppresses antisocial behavior.

   3. Happier people are probably less likely to commit crimes in general.

3. Religion often promotes moral virtues. Religious people do not only behave themselves out of fear of punishment; they also believe that they should act virtuously, e.g., strive to follow Christ’s example. Christianity in particular teaches the importance of love and forgiveness, said to be among God’s most central character traits. Granted, few if any live up to Christian ideals of love, but just having this idea in your mind probably makes you better than you would be without it. There is also something to the Christian virtue of humility; a proper Christian doesn’t think he knows more than he does, doesn’t take himself to be perfect, etc.

4. Lastly, despite the epistemic harms of religion mentioned above (sec. 1, #1), there are also some epistemic benefits of religion, which I have seen particularly with Christian philosophy students. Religion gives them immunity to some of the completely false and destructive ideas going around our culture, such as moral relativism, skepticism, communism, (il)logical positivism, determinism, physicalism, and empiricism. Religious people are immune to those beliefs because they are basically ideological beliefs, and religious people already have their own ideology. Since they have no need for these other ideologies, they are free, on a wide variety of subjects, to just accept what common sense tells them.

3. Overall Assessment

What do we conclude from all of the above? Is religion overall good or bad?

It depends. First, it depends on the religion. Islam is overall harmful (see esp. sec. 1, #2-4), but Christianity is plausibly overall beneficial. Second, it depends on the time period. Christianity was overall harmful during the Middle Ages. In our society today, it is probably overall beneficial.

What made the difference? Power. In the Middle Ages in Europe, Christianity had too much power. Almost everyone was a Christian; Christianity controlled governments, and it used its power to suppress dissent. When any person or group gets too much power, they abuse it. They won’t just do the thing that their power was supposedly for (say, protecting the public or saving people’s souls). Especially if an organization has too much power, it will come to be run by corrupt power-mongers, because those are the people who will do what it takes to gain the positions of power. (Of course, what goes for religions also goes for government. The government is corrupt because it has too much power.)

Today, though, Christianity has much less power. Because it is held in check by other religions, other ideologies, and non-religious institutions, it is more benign. Christians have to play nice in order to win public favor.

Anecdotally, I have interacted with many Christian students over the years (some in person, some online). I’m thinking of genuinely devout Christians, not just people who say they are Christian because their parents told them that. They all seem to be nice, prosocial people, people who cooperate and would not lie, cheat, or steal (at least, not as much as most people). Their religion also seems to be genuinely contributing to their lives, giving them a sense of meaning, a sense of community, and a motivation to try to be better people according to the tenets of their religion.

Many people in our society, perhaps most, are lacking those things. There is a crisis of meaning, people are increasingly isolated, and people are increasingly lacking in moral character, nor are they attempting to build character. Maybe that is why suicide rates have risen since the 1960’s, even though in material terms, our lives have gotten much better. As Nietzsche says, one who has a why can bear almost any how. Today, many no longer have a why.

Obviously, you can have similar virtues and derive a sense of meaning and community from other sources. But religion is at least one common source of meaning, community, and moral commitment. So that is why I don’t spend time trying to de-convert people anymore. I will still tell you what I think if you ask, but I won’t just volunteer to tell you your religion is false, nor will I make a strong effort to persuade you if the subject comes up.