I once heard a quote that the most sensible stance toward organized religion is to remain agnostic. No one on Earth today stood at Mount Sinai while the Torah was given or saw Jesus turn water into wine. Simultaneously, it is impossible to prove a negative, namely that God does not exist. No matter how much tragedy and hardship exists in the world, no matter how much senseless hatred and violence remain extant in our world, not a single human being will ever be able to prove God does not exist. It is foolish to try.
Atheism, like religion, maintains its own inexplicable tenets. For instance, given the hegemonic pedestal we refer to as the Big Bang, we cannot for the life of us determine its antecedent. Something must have started the Big Bang. It is utterly infeasible to create something from nothing. Furthermore, no scientist has ever been able to describe how non-life can evolve into life. No matter how many advanced scientific experiments are conducted, this is another impossibility.
To believe something can come from nothing is just as quixotic as believing that a man walked on water. What organized religion and spirituality do provide—what atheism lacks—is a moral code. Not only are moral philosophy and practice within the realm of religion quite disparate, but some religions’ moral philosophies are incendiary, vicious and lethal because of the way they are interpreted (or misinterpreted).
My bone to pick here is not with atheism, for it is a justified belief just like any other that seeks to make some sense of our nonsensical world. The chagrin of this column stems from an extremist wave of antitheists.
For the record, there are a seemingly infinite amount of gifts religions have bestowed upon us. I will enumerate just a few. Firstly, it is because of Judaism that Israel exists. It is because of Israel we have things like advanced drip irrigation, the Pillcam and the USB flash drive. Treating your neighbor as yourself and cherishing each and every human life are notions that emanate from the Torah.
Without Christianity’s generous donations, it seems as if the United States would have a dearth of hospitals relative to the number that currently operate. Christian missionaries provide medical and physical aid to destitute areas throughout the world. And how many homeless shelters have names that start with “Saint?”
Although the term “jihad” was arrogated and warped by Osama Bin Laden, what it really means is an inner struggle, similar to the literal meaning of Israel, or “wrestling with God.” It means to constantly strive to overcome the devil on your shoulder and to be the best person you can be. Let us also not forget it was Islam that sought to preserve the advancement of science and philosophy after the fall of Rome.
Like the Abrahamic religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, etc., have all produced many of the world’s most moral individuals and innovative philosophies and technologies.
In delineating some specific achievements of religion in a short article, in effect, I am leaving out the infinite tangible and intangible largesse that religion has offered to the world, and for that I apologize.
To be sure, there are myriad elephants in the room right now: the Crusades, Islamic martyrdom, the Catholic church and pedophilia, etc. The truth is religious extremism often derives from maniacal political and religious figures that purposefully warp religious teachings to conquer a people and take their land or to usurp and remain in power. Severe problems that come from religious observance are responsible for a large portion of history’s cornucopia of human atrocities. But those atrocities derive from human error, not the religions themselves.
In short, for all of the destruction and chaos that has been brought about by human confiscation of the goals of religion, namely to understand the world and elevate your morality, history is resplendent with the gifts that formal religions have given us. To be an atheist is to reject the views of a theist while acknowledging that theistic views are justified and provide benefit to the world, while to be antitheist is to offer nothing in the way of productive dialogue or synergy that a functioning society so requires.
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