There’s a favorite quote of mine, attributed to Karl Marx, that I used to repeat a lot during my sociology classes back in college. The unabridged version goes like this:
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of aheartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. Itis the opium of the people.
The key phrase is of course, "the opium of the people." I kept expecting this quote to turn up while reading Sam Harris’ brilliant treatise, , recently, as it seems to line up with most of his opinions on religion.
Harris believes that in order for civilization to progress, we have to make a collective decision to abolish religion. His reasons are largely pragmatic, and extremely well-argued:
- Religion has been at the center of much of the violence we have inflicted upon each other for the last few millenia, particularly this recent "War on Terror." Other examples include the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust, and hundreds of other instances throughout history. It is in the nature of a religion to want to protect itself and destroy non-believers. Both Islam and Christianity are fairly adamant about this.
- Faith is used too often as a kind of irrational rationalization for things, e.g., God creating the universe in 6 days, Jesus rising from the dead, Mary being a virgin, etc. There is no compelling proof that any of this ever happened, so instead we say, "we believe it was so, because we have faith." This is where religion is at its most dangerous because it encourages belief without justification, and thus becomes a barrier to discovery and the furthering of human knowledge.
- Morality is not a product of religious belief, as many churches would like to claim. Therefore, the single most compelling reason to be religious (i.e., it makes us better people) is farcical. Being religious and being moral and ethical do not have to go hand-in-hand, although this is often the case in our laws and policy-making. For example, the only real reason marijuana is illegal is because being in a state of induced happiness is frowned upon by the Church. (Think of it: marijuana has no known lethal dosage, and is responsible for fewer deaths per year than cigarettes or alcohol. Strange that those other two goods are legal, don’t you think?)
In the face of these obvious problems, what is it that makes religion beneficial to its practitioners? I’m tempted to say "nothing," but I know that a lot of people look to religion to make sense of their lives, as well as their inevitable deaths. Having an afterlife to look forward to, especially one that is as paradaisical as those painted in the Bible (eternal existence in a new Garden of Eden) and the Koran (martyrs will be rewarded with a harem of 72 virgins … geez, is it any wonder these guys turn into suicide bombers?), can be a fairly tempting come-on.
Of course, the fact that nobody has ever come back from the afterlife and confirmed any of these promises renders the whole issue rather dubious. It is a testament to our great collective fear of death that so many of us can blindly accept claims like this without any concrete proof, and allow our lives to be controlled to such a degree.
if, like me, you’ve grown up with nothing but questions about religion and its various denominations. It puts a lot of things into a fairly brutal, uncompromising perspective, and is probably the most important book I’ll read at this stage in my life.