This is my entry on the topic stated here, the question being, “Does less religious passion equal a more peaceful world?” This question was posed by Ariane Sherine, Bitish comedy writer and atheist. She is behind an ad campaign to “get the word out” about atheism. I am posting answers, written by guests, in the order I received them, unedited except for some HTML tagging. Please feel free to comment at length either here or on your own blog, linking back here if you please. Thanks!

Ok, I guess it’s my turn. I’m going to close this out. First let me thank my guests for their participation. It was a great experiment and I think it generated more light than heat which is always good.

Please check out their blogs/podcasts (as you see fit). I don’t endorse all of the content they generate on their own sites, but they all did good work and kept it real while here.

htttp://linthatcher.podbean.com
http://toddisme.blogspot.com/
http://thesnurp.blogspot.com
nobiliserotica.com
http://www.jdsawyer.net
Sidfaiwu
The Rhodester Chronicles

My answer is, yes…

I struggled with this a little bit. It’s hard to admit that you’re part, at least in some way, of a problem. Religious passion has caused more than its share of misery/death/strife. I can’t even really defend Christianity using some sort of, I think the term is, special pleading.

Jesus said as reported by Matthew chapter 10:
33But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.

34″Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I have come to turn
” ‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her motherinlaw—

That’s a pretty clear. Having a religious belief is almost certainly going to cause conflict of some sort. I’ve known Christians that have severely broken relationships with their families because of their faith. In some cases the Christian is to blame, in some cases not. Even being a certain kind of atheist, the militant New Atheist evangelical type, which I will hold to my last breath is a religious belief even if it’s not a religion per se, is bound to stir the pot.

Peace is the absence of hostility. It’s the absence of war or conflict. There’s a lot more to it than that naturally, but for the purposes of this talk I think that’s a good working definition. Given the above, I’m not sure how anyone could honestly hold the belief that her statement, taken at face value, isn’t true. You might make the case that in some instances the religious folks themselves aren’t to blame, but that’s not really the point. Well it may be Ms. Sherine’s point since she seems pretty anti-religion, but the statement in a vacuum doesn’t assign blame.

Of course this being my blog and me being who I am, I’m not just going to leave it there. I think I’ll quote Dan from his post, “Does this mean that atheism is the key to world peace? No.” Human nature being what it is, we will always find something to fight about. It might be that piece of land over there or what’s under it. There again it could be that someone has kidnapped a beautiful woman and we need to get her back. Our team may have lost the big game and we need to reclaim our soiled honor. I may not have the shoes I want and you do. This world will never be peaceful.

Even if I could snap my fingers and remove all religious passion from the world I don’t think this would make the world a better place in any significant way. We would loose some of the good things that religious passion has caused. I’m not trying to say that those good things somehow work to balance out the bad. Things aren’t that simple. I just think that we would lose something of our humanity if that were taken away.

I’m sure there are those among you reading this that will say something to the effect of “But Scott, secular humanism can give us those same good things in a different way without the baggage.” Maybe. You have more faith in secular humans than I do if you think that’s the case. I believe, and naturally I’m biased being a theist, that the divine spark in us that drives some to seek God’s face is an important part of who we are. It’s responsible for much beauty and in spite of the fact that it’s also responsible for no small amount of ugliness, I wouldn’t want to give it up.