Why I Don’t Hate Religion
I wanted to spend some time fleshing out some thoughts regarding religion, I’ve recently encountered a lot of negativity from both Christians and anti-theists towards that word and I think both sides are misinformed.
It’s foolishness for Christians to try and somehow cleave their beliefs from the title of religion. While the anti-theistic opinion that religion is an outmoded, antiquated, irrelevant societal construct in today’s modern enlightened society that needs to be evolved out of the human fabric is an equally narrow and revisionist version of the facts. It’s true what they say, that religion doesn’t have a perfect track record and will have to answer for things like the crusades, the inquisition, and even current atrocities committed in its name. But the anti-theistic camp seems to forget notable historical figures from it’s past, people like Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin who were sadistic and exploitative of people in an effort to irradicate religion and other undesirables from their realm.
However, rather than ad-homenum attacks and unproductive criticism of anti-religious thinking, I would like to share some of the positive realities of religion.
Arts and Culture
In times past it was the religious institutions that sponsored the creation some of our most memorable works of art. A tour through the Prado museum in Madrid, or the Louvre in Paris easily confirms this.
Community
We need community, and religion has traditionally provided the protocols necessary knit a people together into functioning society. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that every current legal system has its origins in the protection of religious ideals.
Social Responsibility
You can thank Christianity for things like woman suffrage and the end of slavery.
Critical Thinking
I think this one is what would surprise most people, it was the one that most shocked me. I can’t speak for all cultures, but in both Islamic and Christian background countries, the most reknowned universities were originally established for pursuing theological training.
Many Christians don’t like the word ‘religion’, firstly because they’re ashamed of the atrocities committed in it’s name. However, given the positive realities of religion, and the sketchy track record of any main stream school of thought, I don’t think a Christian needs be ashamed of forming part of a religious collective. Secondly because it’s about Jesus, not religion, and on a certain level they’re right. For a Christian, the most important thing is Jesus, but that doesn’t impede religion from still being an important biblical concept.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
—James 1:27 NIV
The above statement comes from the bible and the words there imply that God accpets religion but that it has its place. Religion is a tool to help us, the local body, better care for those marginalized by society and to not lose focus on the bigger picture; Jesus.
Webster defines religion as ‘scrupulous conformity’ or ‘a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith’. Religion, for all it’s faults, for the suffering it’s caused myself and loved ones, has profoundly and positively impacted my existence in ways that I haven’t even’t realized yet. There is only one world without religion and it’s animal.
