News Watch

Religion itself has been in the news a lot of late – not just what this or that religion or sect or cult has been getting up to, but the phenomenon of religion itself.

Let’s look at three stories: one asks how it found its way into the human psyche; the second sees former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair finding its dark side; the third finds a darker side still.

First, is religion, as some suggest, hardwired into our brains? Some people, including scientists, believe so, as we saw in – among other outlets – the UK’s Sunday Times early in September.

“Atheism really may be fighting against nature,” a story declared, adding, “humans have been hardwired by evolution to believe in God, scientists have suggested.”

Religionists jumped on a bandwagon of their own making, it seems, by claiming that this proves that religion is part of our very nature. So it must be good.

But it’s not as simple as that: a Bristol University professor, Bruce Hood, had this to say in the Sunday Times article:

“Our research shows children have a natural, intuitive way of reasoning that leads them to all kinds of supernatural beliefs about how the world works” (our italics), he said.

So it’s not religion specifically, but superstition in general.

Touching wood:
some superstitions remain

“As they grow up they overlay these beliefs with more rational approaches, but the tendency to illogical supernatural beliefs remains as religion,” says Hood, a professor of developmental psychology.

It’s a bit like shedding the idea of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, but holding onto the idea of touching wood or the inadvisability of walking under ladders.

The dark side

Religion in itself was in the news courtesy of Tony Blair, too. He still thinks it’s a good thing, even though he’s admitted it has a dark side.

Blair was speaking at the Royal Society for the Arts in London during early September, and said that most mainstream religions had in recent years been “prey” to the influence of extremist groups, which had seen faith as a “badge of identity” in opposition to those of a different faith.

“Even a short stay in Israel and Palestine, where I now spend a lot of my time, would show you that, all too graphically,” he told an audience that had the usual compulsory attendance of “faith” leaders (it was the first of six seminars sponsored by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, the Department for International Development and Islamic Relief).

Mr Blair: Just how big are Catholic lies?

“But this, in a sense, is the dark side of strong belief,” he said. “People who hold deep convictions about life and its purpose necessarily can be prone to holding those views to excess or the point of prejudice. That danger is inherent in faith.”

He cited a report published by the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths, which found that development work is helped when religions acknowledge the spirituality of those other than themselves.

No more than recognising and respecting the value other people can give, surely. Why do recognition and respect need to be channelled through superstitious beliefs, when they work perfectly well without them – possibly better, because they show they can stand up without that crutch?

And darker still

The third way in which religion in and of itself featured in the news recently was a story in an American newspaper whose author spoke of its dark side, but possibly not the dark side that Blair was talking of. Our Pink Triangle blog had a reference to an article by Amarin Chanthorn, writing in the Bemidji Pioneer. He points out that religion has been responsible for more harm throughout history than disease or natural disaster, and has a go at the hypocrisy of religionists, who will say they truly believe in a loving God and yet carry on their lives while others around them are homeless or starving.

God's love in action:
burning faggots and witches.

“If we, as an American society, really believe in God,” he writes, “there would be no wars, no famine, no greed because we would be peaceful society where we treat our neighbors like we treat our own. But we’re not: millions go hungry, crime is high, war is happening as we speak and greed is evident. It is man that has done this.”

What are we to draw from all this? That humankind can get along very well without religion? That it’s an unnecessary complication? That it does harm, but if it did not exist there would not necessarily be any more harm? That the brain is hardwired for superstition (or clutching at explanations), and if we confined it touching wood the world would be a better place?

Gaytheist

Religion gets discussion aplenty on our new Yahoo! Groups discussion list, Gaytheist. You can sign up easily: Just look in the sidebar of our blog, Pink Triangle, put your email address in the box and you’re nearly there. It’s already attracted some lively discussion, so why not join in?

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