the.heart.of.worship

Sunday, January 25, 2009,2:00 PM

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
Quote by: Steven Weinberg

A quote I took off my Jon David's blog. Was planning to rebutt it on his comments page but was too lazy.

Anyway, I will just rebutt it here then copy the whole thing on his comments page. :P

Firstly, by saying that religion is an insult to human dignity, this arrogant atheist ( I assume he is atheist since agnostics are not so intellectually suicidal to make such a deterministic statement) is saying that religion makes people do disgraceful or degrading things. Most widely accepted religions usually preach loving others, giving to charity and believing in a higher order. I would think it is more disgraceful and degrading to your own dignity if you do not love others and give to charity.

Secondly, in saying that religion is the only thing that can make a good person do a bad thing is being simplistic. Anything that you feel strongly about whether it be God, Science, studies, food, sports, etc. will make you do things you would otherwise not do. Most of the things we do for what we believe in are acceptable in the world but some things we do are not. Lets take it from the point of studies. You want good grades and you know everything is marked on the curve. You would do a bad thing to get an advantage over your peers. It could be as innocuous like not sharing you notes or not studying with fellow students. It also as malicious as cheating or stealing people's notes just before the exams. These people could be good people normally, nice guys, loving boy/girlfriends, etc, but when it comes to studies, they turn into bad people.

The irony of his statement is that religion is also one of the rare few things that can make bad people do good things and turn into good people afterwards. What is preached by many religions is aimed at the bad people not the good ones. Jesus came to Earth to save the Lost not to chill with the Righteous. His statement was probably made in response to all the suicide bombings and religious violence in the world. A more careful analysis of the religious texts of Christianity and other widespread religions would say that these 'good' people doing bad things are actually bad people. Nothing is more 'bad' than abusing the name of your God to fulfill your own selfish aims or justify your actions. We as children of God know this all too well.

I came across such an example recently. This person (let this person be A_ has had a bad experience in church owing to the abuse of Jesus' name. A's mentor used physical and mental abuse to get information from A. When A refused, the mentor said that he/she had the authority from Jesus to know. After the revelation of the information, A's cell group used 'Jesus' authority to control A's life. Needless to say, A no longer follows God and hates Jesus to the extent A sees all bad things as from Jesus to destroy A's life.

We know as followers of Christ that such actions are unbiblical but from the perspective of a rabid atheist this is an example of good people doing bad things.

On a less serious note: I got ten vouchers to go watch movies at GV. They expire on 31st Oct. We can use these for any purpose. :)

Ian

3 Comments:

Like you said, good people doing bad things become evil people... so in the first place, the definition of good people and evil people are already two separate extremes in the statement, assuming no in-betweens..

However, we all know that all of us sinned, no matter how 'good' we may be.

In another way, though, I see the last part of the quote as recognising that we're 'evil', all the more as we learn about God, and God's standard. of holiness etc. Or rather, its just a reminder for myself. haha.

By LoVe*m|cHeLLe*AnGeL, at January 28, 2009 at 2:27 AM

Well I don't think we should jump to conclusions on this matter so fast. Weinberg is an atheist, yes, but he is not stupid. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics btw. Apparently, he shouldn't be that dumb to make such a controversial statement without thinking twice. If we study what he says carefully, there appears to be some truth in that statement. Just look at what's happening in Gaza right now. A very interesting question would be, if Isreal and Palestine had the same faith, would the slaughter still occur?

By Anonymous, at January 31, 2009 at 8:59 AM

Ha, usually I dun like to comment on "matters of intellect" which throws up plenty of questions but may not actually conclude anything.

As I attempt to understand Weinberg's statement, "But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion", I find myself interpreting it in various ways as well.

1. Religion provides an "excuse", an "avenue" for "good" people to do bad things (terrorism etc),and these people do it with strong, genuine belief that what they are doing are actually good, in accordance with what's taught in their religion.
2. Religion causes "good" people to do evil things, through what is being taught in the religion.
3. Religion causes "good" people to do evil things, not because its what religion teaches, but the existence of religion, their "laws" etc brings out the side of people that wants to go against what's taught.

So which one is it? Haha. The first one makes sense when we consider what the world regards as "extremist groups" feel when they actually do bad things. In this case yes, the statement seem right but it does feel like a swipe at religion without bringing in the part about people being misled. The second is prob not what he's referring to, like what Ian said, religions mostly preach loving others. The third is the one I'm most interested in, because good people doing bad things as a result of the existence of religion or religious laws does sound a lot like how the Law caused "death" mentioned in the bible, in Romans 7:7-11 (NIV). I'm not sure how clear the link is, but try reading Romans 7:8-25 (Message Version) and that might help us understand how religion and law "causes" us to sin. I use certain terms loosely, pardon me. But anyway in the last case, I do agree that "religion" can cause "good" people to do evil things.

End of the day, my point is that simply following religious laws and practices do not get us anywhere; salvation is not through works, and neither are we able to be "good" people who stay away from "evil" things just by practising religion. Walking with God, experiencing His grace and love, relating to Him, partnering with Him... allows ourselves to be influenced by Him, desire more and more of the good things and less and less of the evil things.

By SL, at February 1, 2009 at 1:59 AM