Is religion really the problem?

“Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.” – Victor Stenger (quote for a bus ad campaign)

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. – Richard Dawkins The Guardian (Oct 11, 2001)

“Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong.” – Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

“Promise a young man that death is not the end and he will willingly cause disaster”... “To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used.” – Richard Dawkins "Religion's Misguided Missiles"

What concerns me about the New Atheism is not its atheism, which is not new, but this intemperate zeal to promote the notion that religion is inherently dangerous, and that religious people should be viewed with suspicion simply because they are religious. This is new.

Since the 9/11 attacks, people’s fears have been particularly focused on religiously motivated terrorism, but it’s terrorists we fear, not religion. Terrorism is a strategy that has been employed by power interests throughout history including anarchists, nihilists, racists, governments of the right and left, organized crime and individuals. The Oklahoma City Bombing for example, which until 9/11 was the deadliest terrorist attack on US soil, was in no way motivated by religion. It’s true that the bomber, Timothy McVey, was raised a Roman Catholic but he claims "I never really picked it up...." And, in the 2001 book American Terrorist by Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, he is quoted as saying that science is his religion.

Now, don’t misunderstand me, I’m more than willing to acknowledge that, as a system of human thought and organization, with the capacity to mobilize passion and significant numbers of people, religion can be dangerous. Like politics and science, religion can be used to wreak havoc on the earth. But it seems to me that the 20^th century was much more the victim of science and politics than of religion. – The modern practice of suicide bombing originates with the Tamil Tigers, a political, not religious organization.

As a pastor I may need to be reminded and to remind my people of the terrible things religion has been involved in throughout history. Indeed the crucifixion, which is the central event of the Christian faith, was a crime perpetrated by an alliance of religion and state. And the inquisition, crusades, witch trials, apartheid, conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, etc. must serve as cautionary tales for people of faith everywhere. But surely scientists must be mindful of their own cautionary tales. Holes in the ozone, global warming, nuclear weapons, thalidomide, DDT, thousands of carcinogens, the list goes on. At the risk of sounding religious, might I suggest that we all take note of the beam in our own eye before getting too fixated on the speck in our brother’s.

The central issue of terrorism and 9/11 is not religion as a motivation for knocking down the twin towers, or science that makes it possible to do so. It’s power and what to do with it when you have it. And some religious figures have had a good deal to say about precisely that.