Just Say No!

This evening a television programme will suggest that we would be better off without religion because religion closes minds and allows otherwise good people to do bad things.

We can be persuaded to overcome moral scruples if we believe God approves of something, however bad. If only it were that simple. People have allowed morality to be over-ridden by all sorts of ideologies and beliefs, religious and non-religious. In Europe during the last century it was political ideologies hostile to Christianity such as Nazism and Communism that led otherwise good people to do terrible deeds, while some of the most stirring acts of selflessness and charity were religiously inspired.

In a world where the values of freedom and tolerance are under daily attack, humanists, whether religious or secular, ought not to undermine one another but rather ought to unite in overcoming the real anti-humanism of our time. This is that arrogant dogmatism that sets its face against anything that does not fit its own certainties and refuses to live with provisionality. That can take a secular as well as a religious form. What we see through the microscope and telescope may be all there is to know. Or it may not.

Religion is supposed to invite us to keep our minds open. Perhaps the author of the programme attended a church where the worshipers only faced the same repetitive dogma of centuries past. Perhaps the author was denied the opportunity to challenge, absorb, discover and grow, both individually and as a spiritual community, because the minister was unable to help 'lead.'

Perhaps the individual has become so dragged down by society and the all-to-often failure of the 'church' to help people grow through encouragement, inspiration, education, discovery, and celebration in a spiritual community.

If this is the case, then this programme will probably appeal to a very large audience.

Now...what are WE going to do about it?