Is Religion Causing More Harm Than Good?

I'd like to tread lightly here so that you will keep reading and not skip to the next blog thinking this is the ranting of a crazy left-wing nut job who hates religious people. However, I do want to raise a legitimate question about what the pros and cons are of modern day religion in America. Barack Obama brought up a great point, I thought, last night in the South Carolina debate when he suggested that Americans who have stopped going to church and stopped participating in religious culture because their churches don't accept their gay friends and push conservative views on their families, are conceding this cultural ground to the Republicans who think they have a monopoly on Christian values. These are the same people, mind you, who want to build a giant wall across our southern boarder to keep out Mexicans rather than coming up with a rational modern approach to helping these people who are fleeing to our country to make a little money to send back home. These are the same people who fully supported and re-elected George W. Bush even after he started an unfounded war that we will never get out of in an efficient manner and that will certainly come back to haunt our children. The same people who haven't uttered a word in their debates concerning the still present racial tensions and gender boundaries that keep brown and black people of our country and women making less for doing the same jobs as white men. The same people who constantly fight for personal freedoms and state rights to uphold some of the most unhealthy behaviors and attitudes imaginable instead of letting the government step in and do what governments should do, in my opinion, which is educate (and if necessary regulate) its citizen's actions that are causing societal dissonance.

Obama's point was that the things taught in Christian faiths and by Jesus Christ (supposedly) are very much in-sync with democratic values--social justice, health care for everyone, affordable housing and education, environmental values, etc. are all things that liberals can uphold as being every bit as valid Christian values as the Republican's lip-service on family values and pro-life (Funny how they think every baby should have a chance, but once they're out of the womb they couldn't care less about the issues that provide these babies a life worth living). But this still isn't the question I want to raise.

All of the politics of religion aside, I'd like to know if I'm the only person who isn't constantly thinking, "What the hell is going on with religion in the world?" There is absolutely NO empirical evidence that has ever been shown or proven in any way that a God exists. Science consistently throughout history has come up with very logical, rational and often times proven data that explains so-called religious happenings. I have read studies that Jesus most likely existed and had some historical relevance during his time period, but no where close to that of other people who were alive at the same time and whose names show up in various types of literature from that same time. Jesus was the historical equivalent of Dennis Kucinich, just some bleeding heart carpenter's son rebelling against the harshness of society. And he died at thirty-three and really only did anything of significance from age thirty until he was arrested and put to death. I'm twenty-eight, so basically it would be like me deciding to become a social revolutionary and gathering together my cult of followers and riling up trouble with the government in between doing some social work for the poor and homeless and hanging out with my prostitute friend, than getting arrested three years later and killed after all my flaky followers bail on me and pawn me off as a crazy person.

Okay, this is not to say that I don't agree with a lot of what Jesus had to say (after all I am myself a bleeding heart liberal committed to helping the less fortunate), but the fact that our entire world will still put more faith in this old folk tale over the scientists and great thinkers of a modern day society is absolutely beyond me. Jesus, by and by, was NOT the first person to say these things. A lot of his message came from people such as Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle (among others) who were around long before anyone knew what the hell "Away in a Manger" meant. So, why can't we put this behind us? Why can't we keep the message (it's not all that sophisticated or hard to understand--don't be an asshole, make what you need, help out the people who can't help themselves, etc. etc.) and lose this mystical sob story that's causing such a rift between people in the world. If anything, why don't we all go to continuing education classes on Sunday morning and have people with PhDs in science and business and humanities talk to us about how to fix worldly problems in a real and tangible way, instead of being led through some watered-down pagan ritual in an expensive church where we can show off our B.S. happy families and newest wears from Old Navy.

I guess this is stemming from Allison studying psychology and counseling families right now and my studying science and helping with patients in the physical rehab clinic at the hospital. Both of us constantly get to learn about and see the reality of what's happening with people in the world. She gets to hear what people really think and feel and want out of life and what causes human suffering emotionally and psychologically. I get to see what people do and don't do that brings them to the hospital with missing limbs and broken bones and cancer of every imaginable part of the body. Between science and psychology we've (western culture) pretty much narrowed down the problems that make the average person suffer in life, yet when people are suffering they don't come to the people with answers. Instead they turn to religion and put faith in people and ideas that have not been proven or studied to have any basis in reality. It's an interesting study in itself why people seem to enjoy their suffering and focus on the pain and "poor me" story instead of the preventions or solutions for overcoming pain so they can enjoy life. So this is what troubles me. I think religion brings fuzzy, simple-minded, based-in-nothing, feel good answers to hard and fast, preventable, fixable problems that a good education and a life of learning and exploration could remedy. So is the little bit of comfort people receive for an hour a week better than letting those people have an all out break down that they could learn from and build a new, sustainable life based in reality? I really have to wonder. Would we be able to solve our worldly problems if people put as much effort into supporting academics, science and social science as they do faith-based initiatives and people whose hearts are in the right place but don't have a clue as to what's really causing problems in the world and how to best fix them? I have to wonder. I'm starting to think that maybe the answer is to educate the religious leaders and have them teach the people. They seem to get a better response than the doctors and scientists.