by Valerie Tarico
Surprisingly, fifty-fifty alongside those who depict themselves as “very religious” xx per centum tell that organized faith is harmful to society.
For that nosotros tin in all likelihood give cheers the internet, which broadcasts everything from ISIS beheadings, to stories virtually Catholic hospitals denying aid to miscarrying women, to lists of wild as well as weird religious beliefs, to articles virtually psychological harms from Bible-believing Christianity.
In 2010, sociologist Phil Zuckerman wrote a book titled Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment.
Zuckerman lined upward prove that the to the lowest degree religious societies besides tend to live the most peaceful, prosperous as well as equitable, with world policies that assistance people to flourish spell decreasing both desperation as well as economical gluttony.
We tin ground whether prosperity as well as peace atomic number 82 people to live less religious or vice versa.
Indeed prove supports the stance that organized faith thrives on existential anxiety. But fifty-fifty if this is the case, there’s goodness ground to suspect that the connector betwixt organized faith as well as malfunctioning societies goes both ways.
Here are vi ways religions brand peaceful prosperity harder to achieve.
1. Religion promotes tribalism
Infidel, heathen, heretic. Religion divides insiders from outsiders. Rather than assuming goodness intentions, adherents oftentimes are taught to process outsiders with suspicion.
“Be ye non unequally yoked with unbelievers,” says the Christian Bible.
“They wishing that y'all disbelieve as they disbelieve, as well as so y'all would live equal; thus conduct maintain non to yourselves friends of them,” says the Koran (Sura 4:91).
At best, teachings similar these discourage or fifty-fifty foreclose the kinds of friendship as well as intermarriage that assistance clans as well as tribes larn component of a larger whole.
At worst, outsiders are seen as enemies of God as well as goodness, potential agents of Satan, lacking inward morality as well as non to live trusted. Believers mightiness huddle together, anticipating martyrdom. When simmering tensions erupt, societies fracture along sectarian error lines.
2. Religion anchors believers to the Iron Age
Concubines, magical incantations, chosen people, stonings....The Iron Age was a fourth dimension of rampant superstition, ignorance, inequality, racism, misogyny, as well as violence.
Slavery had God’s sanction. Women as well as children were literally possessions of men. Warlords practiced scorched-earth warfare. Desperate people sacrificed living animals, agricultural products as well as enemy soldiers as burnt offerings intended to appease unsafe gods.
Sacred texts including the Bible, Torah as well as Koran all save as well as protect fragments of Iron Age culture, putting a god’s cite as well as endorsement on to a greater extent than or less of the rattling worst human impulses. Any believer looking to excuse his ain temper, feel of superiority, warmongering, bigotry, or planetary devastation tin discovery validation inward writings that claim to live authored past times God.
Today, humanity’s moral consciousness is evolving, grounded inward an always deeper as well as broader agreement of the Golden Rule.
But many conservative believers can’t displace forward. They are anchored to the Iron Age. This pits them against alter inward a never-ending battle that consumes world position out energy as well as slows creative work solving.
3. Religion makes a virtue out of faith
Trust as well as obey for there’s no other agency to live happy inward Jesus. So sing children inward Dominicus schools across America.
The Lord industrial plant inward mysterious ways, pastors tell believers who conduct maintain been shaken past times horrors similar encephalon cancer or a tsunami. Faith is a virtue.
As scientific discipline eats away at territory ane time held past times religion, traditional religious beliefs ask greater as well as greater mental defenses against threatening information. To remain strong, organized faith trains believers to exercise self-deception, nigh out contradictory evidence, as well as trust regime rather than their ain capacity to think.
This approach seeps into other parts of life. Government, inward particular, becomes a cope betwixt competing ideologies rather than a bespeak to figure out practical, evidence-based solutions that promote well-being.
4. Religion diverts generous impulses as well as goodness intentions
Feeling distressing virtually Haiti? Give to our mega-church. Crass fiscal appeals during times of crisis thankfully are non the norm, but organized faith does routinely redirect generosity inward monastic tell to perpetuate organized faith itself. Generous people are encouraged to give till it hurts to promote the church building itself rather than the full general welfare. Each year, thousands of missionaries throw themselves into the difficult piece of work of saving souls rather than saving lives or saving our planetary life back upward system. Their tax-free piece of work gobbles upward fiscal as well as human capital.
Besides exploiting positive moral position out energy similar kindness or generosity, organized faith oftentimes redirects moral disgust as well as indignation, attaching these emotions to arbitrary religious rules rather than questions of existent harm.
Orthodox Jews pass coin on wigs for women as well as double dishwashers. Evangelical parents, forced to select betwixt righteousness as well as love, boot queer teens out onto the street. Catholic bishops impose righteous rules on operating rooms.
5. Religion teaches helplessness
Que sera, sera—what volition live volition be. Let locomote as well as allow God. We’ve all heard these phrases, but sometimes nosotros don’t recognize the deep human relationship betwixt religiosity as well as resignation. In the most conservative sects of Judaism, Christianity as well as Islam, women are seen as to a greater extent than virtuous if they allow God handle their identify unit of measurement planning.
Droughts, poverty as well as cancer larn attributed to the volition of God rather than bad decisions or bad systems; believers hold off for God to solve problems they could solve themselves.
This mental attitude harms social club at large as good as individuals.
When today’s largest religions came into existence, ordinary people had lilliputian ability to alter social structures either through technological excogitation or advocacy. Living good as well as doing goodness were largely personal matters. When this mentality persists, organized faith inspires personal piety without social responsibility. Structural problems tin live ignored as long as the believer is sort to friends as well as identify unit of measurement as well as generous to the tribal community of believers.
6. Religions seek power
Think corporate personhood. Religions are man-made institutions, merely similar for-profit corporations are. And similar whatever corporation, to endure as well as grow a organized faith must discovery a agency to construct ability as well as wealth as well as compete for marketplace position share. Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity—any large enduring religious establishment is as proficient at this as Coca-Cola or Chevron. And merely similar for-profit behemoths, they are willing to wield their ability as well as wealth inward the service of self-perpetuation, fifty-fifty if it harms social club at large.
In fact, unbeknown to religious practitioners, harming social club may genuinely live component of religion’s survival strategy. In the words of sociologist Phil Zuckerman as well as researcher Gregory Paul, “Not a unmarried advanced republic that enjoys benign, progressive socio-economic atmospheric condition retains a high grade of pop religiosity.”
The poorer as well as to a greater extent than impoverished people are, the to a greater extent than religious they become.
***
Valerie Tarico is a psychologist as well as author inward Seattle, Washington, as well as the founder of Wisdom Commons.
She is the author of "Trusting Doubt: Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs inward a New Light" as well as "Deas as well as Other Imaginings."
Her articles tin live establish at valerietarico.com. Sumber http://www.dnbstories.com/
Surprisingly, fifty-fifty alongside those who depict themselves as “very religious” xx per centum tell that organized faith is harmful to society.
For that nosotros tin in all likelihood give cheers the internet, which broadcasts everything from ISIS beheadings, to stories virtually Catholic hospitals denying aid to miscarrying women, to lists of wild as well as weird religious beliefs, to articles virtually psychological harms from Bible-believing Christianity.
In 2010, sociologist Phil Zuckerman wrote a book titled Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment.
Zuckerman lined upward prove that the to the lowest degree religious societies besides tend to live the most peaceful, prosperous as well as equitable, with world policies that assistance people to flourish spell decreasing both desperation as well as economical gluttony.
We tin ground whether prosperity as well as peace atomic number 82 people to live less religious or vice versa.
Indeed prove supports the stance that organized faith thrives on existential anxiety. But fifty-fifty if this is the case, there’s goodness ground to suspect that the connector betwixt organized faith as well as malfunctioning societies goes both ways.
Here are vi ways religions brand peaceful prosperity harder to achieve.
1. Religion promotes tribalism
Infidel, heathen, heretic. Religion divides insiders from outsiders. Rather than assuming goodness intentions, adherents oftentimes are taught to process outsiders with suspicion.
“Be ye non unequally yoked with unbelievers,” says the Christian Bible.
“They wishing that y'all disbelieve as they disbelieve, as well as so y'all would live equal; thus conduct maintain non to yourselves friends of them,” says the Koran (Sura 4:91).
At best, teachings similar these discourage or fifty-fifty foreclose the kinds of friendship as well as intermarriage that assistance clans as well as tribes larn component of a larger whole.
At worst, outsiders are seen as enemies of God as well as goodness, potential agents of Satan, lacking inward morality as well as non to live trusted. Believers mightiness huddle together, anticipating martyrdom. When simmering tensions erupt, societies fracture along sectarian error lines.
2. Religion anchors believers to the Iron Age
Concubines, magical incantations, chosen people, stonings....The Iron Age was a fourth dimension of rampant superstition, ignorance, inequality, racism, misogyny, as well as violence.
Slavery had God’s sanction. Women as well as children were literally possessions of men. Warlords practiced scorched-earth warfare. Desperate people sacrificed living animals, agricultural products as well as enemy soldiers as burnt offerings intended to appease unsafe gods.
Sacred texts including the Bible, Torah as well as Koran all save as well as protect fragments of Iron Age culture, putting a god’s cite as well as endorsement on to a greater extent than or less of the rattling worst human impulses. Any believer looking to excuse his ain temper, feel of superiority, warmongering, bigotry, or planetary devastation tin discovery validation inward writings that claim to live authored past times God.
Today, humanity’s moral consciousness is evolving, grounded inward an always deeper as well as broader agreement of the Golden Rule.
But many conservative believers can’t displace forward. They are anchored to the Iron Age. This pits them against alter inward a never-ending battle that consumes world position out energy as well as slows creative work solving.
3. Religion makes a virtue out of faith
Trust as well as obey for there’s no other agency to live happy inward Jesus. So sing children inward Dominicus schools across America.
The Lord industrial plant inward mysterious ways, pastors tell believers who conduct maintain been shaken past times horrors similar encephalon cancer or a tsunami. Faith is a virtue.
As scientific discipline eats away at territory ane time held past times religion, traditional religious beliefs ask greater as well as greater mental defenses against threatening information. To remain strong, organized faith trains believers to exercise self-deception, nigh out contradictory evidence, as well as trust regime rather than their ain capacity to think.
This approach seeps into other parts of life. Government, inward particular, becomes a cope betwixt competing ideologies rather than a bespeak to figure out practical, evidence-based solutions that promote well-being.
4. Religion diverts generous impulses as well as goodness intentions
Feeling distressing virtually Haiti? Give to our mega-church. Crass fiscal appeals during times of crisis thankfully are non the norm, but organized faith does routinely redirect generosity inward monastic tell to perpetuate organized faith itself. Generous people are encouraged to give till it hurts to promote the church building itself rather than the full general welfare. Each year, thousands of missionaries throw themselves into the difficult piece of work of saving souls rather than saving lives or saving our planetary life back upward system. Their tax-free piece of work gobbles upward fiscal as well as human capital.
Besides exploiting positive moral position out energy similar kindness or generosity, organized faith oftentimes redirects moral disgust as well as indignation, attaching these emotions to arbitrary religious rules rather than questions of existent harm.
Orthodox Jews pass coin on wigs for women as well as double dishwashers. Evangelical parents, forced to select betwixt righteousness as well as love, boot queer teens out onto the street. Catholic bishops impose righteous rules on operating rooms.
5. Religion teaches helplessness
Que sera, sera—what volition live volition be. Let locomote as well as allow God. We’ve all heard these phrases, but sometimes nosotros don’t recognize the deep human relationship betwixt religiosity as well as resignation. In the most conservative sects of Judaism, Christianity as well as Islam, women are seen as to a greater extent than virtuous if they allow God handle their identify unit of measurement planning.
Droughts, poverty as well as cancer larn attributed to the volition of God rather than bad decisions or bad systems; believers hold off for God to solve problems they could solve themselves.
This mental attitude harms social club at large as good as individuals.
When today’s largest religions came into existence, ordinary people had lilliputian ability to alter social structures either through technological excogitation or advocacy. Living good as well as doing goodness were largely personal matters. When this mentality persists, organized faith inspires personal piety without social responsibility. Structural problems tin live ignored as long as the believer is sort to friends as well as identify unit of measurement as well as generous to the tribal community of believers.
6. Religions seek power
Think corporate personhood. Religions are man-made institutions, merely similar for-profit corporations are. And similar whatever corporation, to endure as well as grow a organized faith must discovery a agency to construct ability as well as wealth as well as compete for marketplace position share. Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity—any large enduring religious establishment is as proficient at this as Coca-Cola or Chevron. And merely similar for-profit behemoths, they are willing to wield their ability as well as wealth inward the service of self-perpetuation, fifty-fifty if it harms social club at large.
In fact, unbeknown to religious practitioners, harming social club may genuinely live component of religion’s survival strategy. In the words of sociologist Phil Zuckerman as well as researcher Gregory Paul, “Not a unmarried advanced republic that enjoys benign, progressive socio-economic atmospheric condition retains a high grade of pop religiosity.”
The poorer as well as to a greater extent than impoverished people are, the to a greater extent than religious they become.
***
Valerie Tarico is a psychologist as well as author inward Seattle, Washington, as well as the founder of Wisdom Commons.
She is the author of "Trusting Doubt: Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs inward a New Light" as well as "Deas as well as Other Imaginings."
Her articles tin live establish at valerietarico.com. Sumber http://www.dnbstories.com/