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The subject was euthanasia. The setting was a philosophy class for adults that I was teaching two or three decades ago. I wanted a lively discussion with reasoned arguments on both sides, but I was concerned that the discussion would quickly come to a dead end, because euthanasia would be seen merely as an act of killing and therefore absolutely wrong. To break the dogmatic ice, I needed to present a particular situation in which everyone would agree that euthanasia—mercy killing—was the right thing to do.
So I put forth a hypothetical—or what I thought was a hypothetical. Suppose, I said, your best friend was caught in a fire, with absolutely no chance of being rescued, and he was burning alive before your eyes. Suppose he was begging you to kill him, begging for you to end his agony. Surely, I suggested, you would kill your friend in that situation.
One of the students disagreed. He was a young man, perhaps in his late twenties, who pretty much kept to himself; all I knew of him was his foreign accent. He quickly explained why he disagreed with me: He and his best friend, he recounted, had fought in the Lebanese civil war of the seventies. His friend was trapped in a truck that had been hit and had caught on fire. The friend was burning alive and had begged my student to kill him. My student had refused to do so because of his religious beliefs.
I have no memory of what I said then—probably something noncommittal, for surely, I wasn’t prepared to confront such a horrifically startling instance—nor do I remember how I fit his account into our discussion. But I have no trouble remembering the instance itself. It comes back to me often, as when I hear of proposals to teach religion in the schools. For I cannot think of the Lebanese civil war without thinking of the religious conflict that motivated it. Without that religious conflict, my student’s best friend would not have suffered an agonizing death. And without his (to my mind mistaken) religious scruples, my student would not have stood by while his friend suffered the agonies of being burned alive. Those who want religion to be taught more prominently in the schools no doubt want students to gain a greater appreciation of its virtues and benefits. And that is all well and good. Let students hear of the missionaries who have done good works where good works were a scarcity. Let them hear of the nuns and prelates who have given their lives for social justice. Let them hear how religion was a civilizing force where civilizing was needed. Let them hear of the comfort that religion has afforded to hosts of individuals.
But in fairness, let them hear the other side also. Let them hear about the violence and suffering and cruel oppression that religion has spawned through the ages. There are a multitude of examples to choose from: mention the Inquisition and the Salem witchcraft trials; mention the Thirty Years’ War, which served to devastate a good part of Germany, and the Wars of Religion in France; and mention the many pogroms against the Jews of Europe and the suppression of thought, as in the case of Galileo.
The Crusades, of course, come to mind, but their righteous (from our viewpoint) purpose often obscures the death and misery they caused, until we remember the instances in which they had a less than righteous (from our viewpoint) purpose. During the First Crusade, for example, Crusaders detoured to slaughter Jews in the Rhineland. The good Christian gentlemen of the Fourth Crusade spent three days sacking the Christian (but Eastern Orthodox) city of Constantinople. My favorite is the Albigensian Crusade, conducted in the thirteenth century by good Christians against a heretical sect, the Cathari, in southern France. The Crusaders ravaged the provinces in which the Cathari were concentrated and massacred them along with their regular-Christian neighbors. After the town of Bèziers had been captured by the Crusaders, their captain asked the papal representative who should be killed. The papal representative reportedly replied, “Kill them all. God will know his own.”
And lest you think that such evils belong in the dark past, let us not forget the conflict between Arabs and Israelis, nor the vicious conflict between Hindus and Muslims occasioned by the partitioning of India (a conflict that continues to this day in the dispute over Kashmir), nor, of course, the Sunni-Shi’ite strife in Iraq, nor, of course, the Lebanese civil war.
You may protest that these evils were not expressions of religion, but rather the opposite—they were contrary to the ideals of religion. Of course, that depends on what the ideals of religion are, and opinions on that subject differ radically. Everyone believes his or her own religion to be genuine; no one says, “I believe in my religion, but it isn’t genuine.” It is religious conviction itself that causes such evils, and the question of legitimacy is irrelevant.
It may seem that I have no respect for religion, for the account I have given hardly distinguishes it from a number of other outlooks and attitudes that engender violence, suffering and oppression—super-nationalism, greed, and racism, to name a few. But, surely, religion is different from these. Religion, of course, is different, but we must look to its inner nature rather than its outer form to see the difference. Religion is essentially a confrontation between an individual person and whatever that individual conceives to be the ultimate reality and ultimate source of value—a confrontation suffused with fear and trembling and contrition and awe—confrontation with a reality that is incomprehensible to humans, for the disparity between the human person and the ultimate is infinite and cannot be bridged.
Although adequate understanding is impossible, the individual commits himself or herself to a certain belief system—a certain way of construing the ultimate reality and a certain way of ordering her or his life. To be sure, this belief system is often provided ready made, and is often shared with others for solace and support. Nevertheless, it is the product of individual commitment. Consider an analogy. Philosopher and novelist George Santayana held that just as one cannot speak a language without speaking a particular language, so one cannot be religious without holding to a particular religion. This is true. At first glance, Santayana seems to be calling for steadfast loyalty to one’s own religion against all others, but we need to look further.
There is no one “true” language. Indeed, a person may be able to speak several languages, all with the one purpose of communicating. Chance occurrence, usually of birth, determines which language is primary. And just because language is an individual matter, attempting to impose an alien language, as imperial governments sometimes do, is an insult to the individual.
Similarly, there is no one “true” religion. A person may practice several religions (though usually at different times) all with the purpose of relating to the ultimate. It is chance occurrence, usually of birth, that determines which religion commands a person’s allegiance, or first allegiance. And imposition of an alien religion is an insult to the individual.
Religion, therefore, is essentially a set of individual commitments chosen on subjective grounds to provide understanding of a bewildering universe. No one’s commitment can be judged to be truer than another’s. Yes, I respect religion. The question is whether religion respects me.
Do religionists respect my belief system as my chosen commitment? Or do they condemn my commitment because it does not match theirs?
Unfortunately, some religionists mistake absolute commitment for absolute truth. (For example, those currently identified as the Religious Right.) Instead of recognizing religion as commitment chosen by the individual on subjective grounds, they assert it as dogma. They construe religion as the recognition of One Truth—as God’s Truth, so to speak—and they consider all who do not share their conception as misguided, perverse, or sick. If dogmatism is the first sin of religion, then politicization is the second. In their arrogance and conceit, many dogmatists assume that they are entitled to impose their commitment on others, and they look to the power of government to accomplish this purpose.
They may justify their imposition by appeal to democracy, pointing out that Christianity (or Islam, or Hinduism, or . . .) is the religion of the overwhelming majority. But there is democracy and there is democracy. There is democracy that respects individual freedoms, and there is democracy that allows individual freedoms to be trampled by the majority. Present-day Iraq or Iran offer good examples of the second kind. Such is the democracy that the dogmatists would give us.
Or the dogmatists may justify their viewpoint by saying that religion is the one and only source of morality. Well, the catalogue of evils I have presented above should lay that myth to rest.
If we want religion to flourish, and freedom as well, we must respect the right of each individual to choose, without compulsion or coercion. Dogmatism and politicization are the empty shell of religion, serving the impulse to power more than the impulse to religion, and are responsible for all the evils I described at the beginning of this article.
That is what we need to teach.
CFI SUMMIT
OCTOBER 24-27 2013
TACOMA, WASHINGTON
Joint Conference of the Council for Secular Humanism, Center for Inquiry, and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
The transnational secular humanist magazine
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