Exploring religion is an immense undertaking, and as a starting point I need to delimit the scope of my endeavor. First, the term religion must be redefined for the sake of brevity in my writing. A deep interest in American politics and world history has, in combination with my multi-religious upbringing, focused my frustrations and questions on the Abrahamic religions. As these are the most dominant religions in western cultures, the term religion will, on this blog, refer exclusively to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
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| The spread of Christianity and Islam, shown respectively in red and green. |
Secondly, it must be said that I predictably come to the start of my journey with a fair amount of bias and opinions. I was raised a Catholic, but no longer consider myself to be a part of that community. Indeed, I would label myself an atheist, though I don’t think I could be considered an antitheist quite yet. I could not bring myself to believe in any kind of formal religion anymore, but truly do not begrudge those who do. I grew up with people of great faith and still occasionally envy their ability to believe, but I simply cannot picture myself following in their footsteps.
In this respect, I am a very different creature than Christopher Hitchens, who works tirelessly to eradicate religion completely. I believe that religion is primarily a negative influence on human affairs, but not wholly so. Hitchens will play a significant role in this blog’s content, but my flight from formal religion was very gradual and began long before I knew his work. Hitchens’s influence on my thinking is a recent phenomenon and I strive to use his work as a road to be driven, not a destination to be reached.
As I’ve moved away from formal religion, I have not forgotten the ways I have benefited from it. Most of what I learned about the procedures of practical community service was derived from my time in a Catholic youth group. I remain grateful for these formative experiences and will never deny their impact on my life.
With these caveats now behind me, I present the most general and basic contention I have with organized religion:
At its core, the very basic requirement of religion is, in a variety of forms and guises, to exclude others. This sense of exclusivity promotes kinship and brotherhood among followers, but does not allow for any kind of communal understanding. It promotes arrogance. If the dogmas of the monotheistic religions are taken to their logical conclusions, there is no room for compromise. Even if you are not actively crusading against the existence of non-believers, you are unwilling to accept them as viable candidates for entering heaven.
I will move this discussion forward with another post soon, but I wanted to take a verbal picture of my starting point before I set out. As always, feedback is welcome, but if a discussion should break out in the comments below, keep it civil.
I’ll end with something that everyone should watch: a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath. Rarely do I hear proponents of religion make points the way Alister McGrath did. I think Hitchens is much more cutting and fun to watch in other debates, but he’s never boring. Please, if you watch this at all, watch the entire thing:
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