This is the third entry in my guest postings 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!

Snurp – http://thesnurp.blogspot.com

Beliefs: Epistemological agnostic/practical atheist (I do not believe that one can know with absolute certainty that God does or does not exist, but I believe that God does not exist nonetheless). In other words, I do not believe, and this in multiple senses.

And here’s my response:

I think this is true –

“If there were a lot less passion about religion then the world would probably be a lot more peaceful.”

- because I think this is true:

“If there were a lot less passion then the world would probably be a lot more peaceful.”

Here’s my thesis: passion leads to violence, destruction, and all-around bad things. Not to imply that it leads to only bad things, or even to mostly bad things. It can get you to risk your life for a loved one, or kill that loved one in a fit of rage. It can make you protest for peace out of indignation, or attack peace protestors. Passion itself is value-neutral; it can be used for good or evil of any level. What signifies passion is not a certain type of activity but, in a sense, its degree. Passion is deeply felt, personally motivating, powerful stuff. It leads one to act, and actions have consequences (again, both extreme or slight, destructive or engendering peace). What distinguishes the act of passion is that it is willing to pass barriers and fight resistance in order to act. It wants to do something or have a result, and it is willing to fight to get it.

Let’s compare passion to its alternative. I’ll give it the technical term “feeling kinda ‘meh.’” If one feels kinda meh, one has no passion. “Are you going to do the laundry?” is a question that typically does not lead to passion. As a result, people typically do it with a minimum of effort, if at all. Nothing exciting happens, there are few if any surprises. If there is an obstacle to doing the laundry (say that, for some reason, the Laundromat is being robbed and some heinous villian is stealing all the socks) one will probably back away and not cause any trouble. Compare this with the passionate cleaner. “Are you going to do the laundry?” “HELL YEAH! LAUNDRRRRRRRRRRY!!!” The passionate launderer will not be stopped in his quest for suds. Whereas the launderer feeling kinda meh would avoid any unnecessary effort to accomplish a goal, the passionate launderer will not settle for a criminal getting in the way of his spin cycle. This would, of course, lead to conflict.

This example can be applied anywhere. Passion, once again, is basically drive. Upon encountering resistance, it pushes back. Without passion, drive is gone. Even if desire or motivation is there, a complete lack of passion is practically guaranteed to lead to inaction. (“Your car is breaking down; you should get it checked out.” “It’ll be fine, maybe later.” vs. “MECHANIIIIIIIIC, YOU BETTER GET READY TO ROOOOOOOCK!!!”) If one assumes that, no matter what we do, there will always be resistance at some point in our lives (and most of us do), it follows that passion will lead to conflict and trouble where the total lack of passion would not (since someone who feels meh will try to avoid conflict, as it is kinda troublesome and, you know, really I could do that stuff tomorrow. I don’t want to get into a mess, after all.)

If all of the above is accepted, it becomes obvious that reduced passion about religion would lead to less conflict. There would of course be many other consequences; the world would become rather boring, for one. But that is leaving the topic at hand (though it would make for very interesting discussion). The point, and the argument, is this:

1: Passion is intense emotion and motivation to action or towards an objective; the lack of passion is the lack of these.

2: Upon encountering resistance, passion fights it (because it intensely seeks the action or objective which the resistance blocks) and that which lacks passion does not.

3: Fighting against resistance disrupts peace.

C1: Thus, passion disrupts peace, whereas the lack of passion does not.

4: Passion in religious belief is identical to other forms of passion; that is, it is intense feeling about religious belief and motivation to act upon it or pursue related objectives. Likewise, the lack of religious passion is the lack of these.

5: There is resistance to religion and to particular religions in the world.

C2: Thus, passion in religion will disrupt the peace, whereas the lack of religious passion will not.

These arguments are not necessarily universal, since passion need not disrupt peace and, even if it seeks to, exists in degrees of passion. However, this a the general rule that I think we can all accept as such. When passion is blocked, it attempts to express itself. If not carefully managed, this will be disruptive. Generally speaking, I would say that passion is rarely managed well.

Is this to argue against passion? No. I firmly believe that we should not exist empty of passion. For, as I said, life would be boring. I mean this in all senses, up to the grandest sense of human purpose and drive. Passion vs. no passion is utterly tranquil sameness versus risk and reward, with the reward being emotion, accomplishment, and all that fun stuff we cheer for in movies. I don’t look forward to a robot future if it implies a future with no passion. But it should be recognized that passion always has a risk, namely that it could go out of control or simply find a roadblock it decides to move by force. In that case, events happen, often not smooth ones.