Does religious faith do more harm than good?

"Das Christentum gab dem Eros Gift zu trinken - er starb zwar nicht daran, aber entartete, zum Laster." (Nietzsche).

That's a key question that many in the theism/agnostic/atheism debate overlook. Here's one religious pragmatist's take on this problem:

"""""Similar ethnic, class, and nationalistic disputes underlie pretty much every fight that looks on the surface to be about religion. Suppose the Christian and Islamic faiths vanished. Sept. 11 might still have happened. Within the Arab world, where many resent the West, violent fanatics might have vowed to kill themselves solely on secular grounds. Indeed, it can be argued that since the mass murderers of Sept. 11 openly violated the Quranic prohibition against killing the innocent, they weren't true Muslims anyway. What they were was terrorist fanatics. And a certain number of people like this would exist in the world whether religious faith existed or not.

Men and women of all faiths must feel deeply chastened about the continuing violence in the name of religion. We ought to feel the very worst about violence, or hatred, perpetrated by those who say they believe what we believe. But this does not mean we should give up those beliefs. Rather, we must work to make belief sincere. Only then is there a chance the violence will stop.""

We here at Contingencies do not entirely agree with this. Certainly hysterical worship of religious dogma (whether xtian, muslim, jew, or new-agey folderol) can and DOES have some causal relation to the acts perpetuated by zealous believers. That's a rather obvious point, however difficult to confirm or verify (not so difficult when say some fundie idiot starts quoting the Book of Revelation (a text whose message he believes in) as grounds for, uh, converting the 3rd world into glass). Indeed even the benevolent sort of religious belief--say in miracles--does most likely result in creating false expectations and vague, mystical hopes. Maria Hernandez and her familia struggle to make ends meet, and go to mass each week as the Padres insist. Alas, La Misa does little in terms of providing material goods (perhaps even health risks involved). Maria does not need to witness the miraculous appearance of the Virgin of Guadelupe; at least if La Virgene appears in say Tijuana she should toss out mucho dinero, and shut down some bordelloes.

Protestant-bonehead sects are another matter. That's the boot-camp form of xtianity, and poses greater danger than does the humble faith of poor catholics (one doesn't worry too much about the flock, but about those who tend the flock). The causal relation of the bonehead xtian's faith to his acts may not seem as obviously superstitious as the catholic's belief in La Misa, miracles, or intercessionary prayer: the problem is that Bubba the Baptist worships a Sergeant Jesus, like in a Fnord 150 (or Abrams tank), a figure who has no relation whatsoever to the figure of the New Testament, assuming that the person aka JC existed. Mike Hucklebee-style Xtianity does, indeed, seem inherently dangerous. The catholics may tend to be superstitious (though the ritual has a certain sublimity); the anti-rationalist, Darwin-despising American protestant, however, generally is tooo schtoopid to even bother with, and should like any infantryman in the Sturmabteilung be, at least theoretically, shot on sight.