In Ken Ueda’s most recent article, he is correct in saying that not all atheists would agree with his assertion, “Religion is destructive and backwards to human progress,” or with his anti-theist position. I, being a nonbeliever myself, do not agree with his assertion or his position. The point of this column is to critique Ueda’s most recent article, particularly the anti-theist position he upholds.
The basic premise of antitheism, as described by Ueda, is valid: “people’s beliefs guide their actions.” He goes on to give some examples that prove this premise to be true. But, his argument goes awry when he uses extreme examples in which a belief would be used to justify a believer’s atrocious action to represent the dangerous capacities of religion as a whole: “It shouldn’t be a surprise that a fundamentalist that believes that non-believers should be killed takes actions to kill those non-believers.”
I’m sorry, but can such an extreme example prove that religion is destructive to human progress? No. Perhaps fundamentalists hold such a belief. Yet how many would actually go through with this belief? How many would actually kill a nonbeliever because their belief justifies his or her action? Not many, if any.
One cannot use extreme examples to show that religion is destructive as a whole, because such extreme examples do not accurately represent the majority of religious beliefs. Moreover, the irrationality of extremists and fundamentalists cannot be applied to all of the religious because the majority of the religious are far more rational than these people. In other words, there is a certain level of rationality that leads most religious people to be moderates, which, in my opinion, is a good thing.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I have more faith in the faithful than Ueda does. The religious are not irrational people. They may be irrational in that they subscribe to a belief that has no legitimate justification, but they are still rational human beings, just not when it comes to religion. With that being said, in our pluralistic society, I think the religious are recognizing that rationality must play a role in determining which beliefs one should hold. In a sense, traditional religious positions must be softened, I think they are being softened, with most people being moderates: religious people use their rationality to reject extreme views that might cause physical danger to others. Of course, pluralism could lead more religious folk to fundamentalism, but I would hope one’s rationality would not lead one down such a path. Thus, I think any form of fundamentalism is dangerous, but religion isn’t necessarily so.
I imagine that Ueda’s response to the above would go something like this: Religious moderates and their religion provide breeding grounds for extremists and fundamentalists. Thus, we should do away with religion to prevent the destruction that could arise from harmful religious beliefs. The thing is, religion isn’t destructive, it can be destructive. But what ideology can’t be destructive? What ideology isn’t a breeding ground for fundamentalism? Is there a difference between secular fundamentalism and religious fundamentalism? No. Both are irrational and intellectually, and potential physically, dangerous. None of this means that we should rid the world of ideologies because of their potentially harmful effects.
The last thing that I would like to address is the quote by Steven Weinberg that Ueda used in his latest article: “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” This is a popular quote amongst atheists, and I can see why. It vilifies religion. Yet Weinberg’s assertion is patently fatuous. It implies that the non-religious are incapable of doing evil things and only capable of doing “good,” which is flat out false. All humans whether religious or not, are capable of doing good and bad. This, I’m sure, is commonsense to most of us, but atheists copiously quote Weinberg as if his statement has validity. See? Even atheists are capable of being irrational.
Daniel Palos is a senior accounting major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
