Criticising Religion

Public criticism is a cherished freedom. Criticism could be of a policy, institution, practice, book, culture, attitude, belief, law, philosophical outlook, movement, or ideology, religion in general, or a particular religion. Criticism (cf. literary criticism – showing how a text hangs together to produce certain effects) involves giving reasons, arguments, evidence why :
A belief is unreasonable, implausible, false, irrational.
A practice or belief is psychologically or socially harmful.
A practice or belief is unjust or immoral.
Criticism is not the same as name-calling or just asserting or contradicting.

Guiding, meaning-giving outlooks or beliefs – atheistic as well as religious - are arrived at as a result of coping and protecting mechanisms (as well as acculturation and conditioning), and themselves become a fundamental part of our coping/defence mechanisms. People thereby develop a strong emotional attachment to/investment in a particular philosophical, political, or religious outlook. They will tend to get upset by criticism of a view or practice in which they are emotionally invested or which gives meaning to their lives.

Thus books like Richard Dawkins ‘The God Delusion’ or Christopher Hitchens ‘God Is Not Great’ often evoke emotional reactivity rather than a calm measured response even in academics. Criticism of these works/authors relies heavily on use of pejorative terms – ‘childish’, ‘old-fashioned’, ‘simplistic’, ‘ignorant’, ‘smug’. This sneering is different from analyzing the arguments and pointing out dubious premises and presuppositions, non sequiturs, and informal fallacies such as equivocation, straw man, red herring, ad hominem. It is different from questioning analyses of key terms and concepts, and offering more plausible or clearer analyses.

One academic critic, Terry Eagleton, tries to invalidate the Dawkins-Hitchens thesis by claiming that it is motivated by pro-Western, anti-Islamic bias or bigotry. This is to overlook the distinction between what may influence acceptance of a belief and whether or not the belief is true. Thus I may readily accept that second-hand tobacco smoke is a grave health danger because I find it unpleasant but that doesn’t mean evidence and arguments I put forward for the damage to health caused by second-hand tobacco smoke can be ignored.

It is very important to look at underlying, unacknowledged motives or reasons for why people embrace certain views and reject others – why they are emotionally invested in or attracted to certain positions, views, or beliefs and find others too upsetting to look at fairly. This does not supplant the need for logical examination of evidence and arguments for views we may find distressing or threatening because of self-interest or for more general psychological reasons.

A common move to safeguard religion from criticism is to equivocate and redefine religion in terms of characteristics which are paradigmatically reasonable and desirable. So, (true) religion is said to be : belief in the transformative power of love, forgiveness, compassion; openness to the possibility of something transcending the natural physical world and ordinary human consciousness; recognizing that happiness and fulfillment do not come primarily from the pursuit of material benefits – renunciation of hedonism, selfishness, greed, pursuit of wealth, status, or worldly power; losing the self in order to enlarge the self; appreciation of art, beauty, the wonder of nature; awareness of deep, poetic, mystical feelings or experiences which are not easily captured in utilitarian, mundane, or scientific language; a fairer distribution of wealth, decent quality of life for all, greater equality of opportunity.

Perhaps most/all religions do in part preach these goods but this is definitely not their sole focus (further, many who are non-religious or anti-religion practise and advocate these values perhaps as much as or more than religious believers or practioners!). Instead religions assert specific doctrines – a code, cult, and creed – which are at least questionable on moral, rational, and humane grounds. Religious doctrines include :
A sacred text.
A psychoid quasi-eternal power of goodness and love somehow sustaining the universe and human life which existed before human beings and would still exist even if human beings were annihilated.
Some kind of life after death.
The immorality of homosexuality, abortion, contraception, sex outside of marriage, euthanasia, assisted euthanasia, suicide, eating pork, alcohol, bloodtransfusions.
The unfitness of women for spiritual office.
Restricting the freedom and autonomy of women.
Sanctioning the death penalty, burning, stoning, flogging, female circumcision, mutilation, fatwahs, holy wars, animal sacrifice.
Obeisance to priests or clerics and images or sites.
Various rules concerning food, clothing, prayer, fasting.

(Note in passing that religion seems very much about control – particularly of women and sexuality.)

A main point of the Dawkins-Hitchens critique is that religions do not focus on advocating and practicing generally acknowledged goods and guides to human fulfillment such as brotherly love, non-violence, fairer distribution of wealth, equal opportunity, a sense of the transcendent or non-mundane, overcoming selfishness and greed, etc. Instead religions strenuously inculcate dogmas about the nature of God and underlying reality and laws of conduct which God supposedly commands. How arrogant to claim to know definitely the mind of God and ultimate reality! Religion is the greatest blasphemy.

Rationalist critics of religion such as Dawkins, Hitchens, or Bertrand Russell may be closer to anti-rationalist poet-visionary William Blake than are defenders of organized traditional religion. It is worth remembering that both Socrates and Jesus were put to death for questioning established religion. Religion including communist and Marxist ideology has repeatedly opposed open critical inquiry.

In making sweeping claims not open to question about fundamental reality and codes of conduct religions breed intolerance and unwillingness to open one’s own underlying beliefs to examination and criticism. Either you believe as we do or you must be immoral, ignorant, stupid, or insensitive (or in Eagleton’s terms childish, old-fashioned, or blinkered/corrupted by Western rationalism, materialism, or imperialism). We already have the truth on grounds superior to logic, observation, and calm analysis (viz. revelation, holy scripture, the mythopoeic, tradition, the Church) so we don’t need to look at evidence, arguments against, and criticism of our own beliefs.

Religion is very much a human natural phenomenon springing out of human psychology, needs, fears, yearnings, and defence and coping mechanisms. As such it is not immune from criticism, but rather stands in need of it. (If there is a religious, mythopoeic, or non-rational way of knowing it should still be open to intersubjective criticism of some sort to remove possible bias or error.) Criticism should not be stifled by accusations of racism, Western bias, bourgeois liberalism, etc. Political correctness can become a new form of fascism.

It is dangerous if we dare not criticize lest members of a supposed visible 'minority' are offended. Being upset or upsetting is part of the nature of criticism. Learning to give and receive criticism (politely) and be upset is more healthy than pretending large portions of humanity do not really have flaws (or if they do it is just a legitimate response to/natural consequence of Western colonial oppression – as though colonizing and oppression have not been widespread throughout human history anyway).

It is dishonest and unhealthy to pretend all religions fundamentally express the same doctrines about underlying reality, and the same codes of conduct, notions of social justice, and attitudes to non-believers and women. A vital part of a healthy society is to have open critical discussion of all political outlooks, philosophies, and religions.