This article is written in response to Ken Ueda’s “The truth of the fallacy,” published on April 3, 2008.

You claim that religion is anything but rational, and thus we must be more skeptical of it. We must realize that “science, reason, justification, evidence, doubt, logic and skepticism are precious” and must be preserved. Realizing the fallacy of religion is, therefore, the beginning of the solution for bringing peace.

I would counter that perhaps you are missing the point of religion. First of all, religion is everywhere; to deny this would be irrational, given a recent Pew survey that shows us that in America, 87.3 percent of people claimed some sort of religious affiliation. Thus, I think it would be unfair to say that all of these people are simply crazy. We must recognize that religion is rational for the people who practice it. Not only is it a rational belief, but it also seems to define who they are. To help explain why religion is so influential, scholars have been creating rational justifications that both accept and reject the legitimacy of religion. So just as you can throw out names such as Napoleon and Nietzsche, I can oppose you with arguments from Hegel and Durkheim. Thus, we can see that it is really a matter of opinion whether religion is rational or not.

I cannot tell you why evil exists in the world. However, there are numerous theodicies that put forth entirely rational explanations. In one such argument, Plantinga concludes that if there is an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God, then he must allow us to have free will, which is how we have evil. It would be a greater evil to not allow free will. This particular theodicy would then conclude that if God had not granted us free will then you and I might be off happily never suffering, but also never having this debate. So you can see that evil can also be rationally justified.

I agree that there are people who use religion to swindle and fool hardworking people out of their money; however, I do not think we can blame this entirely on religion. People swindle other people for money all of the time. It happened to me just the other day in Java City; I was sitting there studying when a guy tried to get me to give him $50 for this “super great deal.” I respectfully declined. Thus, I think the problem is with humanity. We just seem to get especially offended when people do it in the name of “religion” because it seems to cross some boundaries that we are not comfortable with. However, these swindlers do not represent what religion is for most people.

I think the real problem is not whether people are religious or not. The problem comes from telling other people that they are wrong, irrational and silly. Instead of chastising people for what they do or do not believe in, I think we need to realize the importance of understanding why people think what they think. Appealing to rationality to criticize people for their beliefs, which they already think are rational, is never going to open up this debate. Also, saying that religious people are wrong for telling people to believe a certain way is no different than telling people they ought to believe what you propose. What we need is to have a greater understanding of all religions, why they are important and how they affect society. Secularization is not the tool needed for the beginning of peace, but rather the tool we need is acceptance and understanding. We need to have a little respect. We have to realize that not everyone is going to think like us and that is perfectly OK. This neither discredits science and reasoning nor faith and belief. I think we need to realize that, as Rabbi Hirshfield says, “You do not have to be wrong for me to be right.”

Katrina Roze Myers is a junior English and religious studies major. She can be reached at [email protected].