Among the most
persistent charges hurled at religion is that it primarily exists as a means
for a small group of philosophical oligarchs to control great masses of other
people. Atheist writer Austin Cline (2005) states, “It has been argued that one
of the reasons for the existence of religion is that it's an effective means
for society's powerful to control everyone else.” Religious belief, however,
has long served as an effective means of behavioral self-constraint for
individuals, providing a ready-made, usable moral philosophy for the
non-philosopher to use in his daily life. From the relentless assault on
abortion rights from Christian conservatives to the practice of Sharia law even
in Western Islamic enclaves, it would seem that religious control of the
individual is alive and well. Nevertheless, while large-scale religious control
both of adherents and of non-adherents may still be of major cultural, legal
and interpersonal importance, the capacity for religion to regulate individual
behavior and self-control appears to be waning, and this loss of influence is
detrimental to society.
Is religion
still relevant? Is its ability to control the masses on the rise, or on the
wane? Has our modern world of technology, science, and myriad media role models
dampened the influence that organized religion and personal faith hold over our
society?
To the atheist,
the waning of religion as a dominant cultural, social, and governmental
influence would be a welcome development. They assert that religion primarily
exists as a means of controlling others, citing as evidence both ancient and
modern history from the Crusades and the Inquisition to modern Islamic
fundamentalism. They may believe, as
does Austin Cline, that the attempt among the religious to control the lives,
beliefs and behavior of unwilling others “…seems to be increasing.” (Cline,
2005) To the worried atheist, the American Religious Right is a group of
irrational, superstitious yokels who want to institute a theocracy designed to
deprive atheists, agnostics, and those of other belief systems of their civil
rights.
These fears are
not baseless; large-scale intervention in politics and reproductive rights by
the Religious Right has been on the rise for more than 30 years. Pastors of conservative churches, as well as
the Roman Catholic Church, urge their congregations to go out and vote for
candidates based on their positions on abortion, the death penalty,
contraception, stem cell research, and gay rights. Republican-Party candidates
tailor their messages to court the support of these religious and social
conservatives, attacking other officials and office-seekers considered too
“liberal” for those audiences. Elections have been won and lost based on
candidates’ appeal to religious groups, and those decisions in turn affect such
things as judicial appointments (including the composition of the Supreme
Court) and lawmakers’ support for the Religious Right’s agenda with regard to
pending legislation. To the secular segment of American society, such influence
seems undue, disproportionate, and even frightening.
If
one asks the Religious Right, however, they might say that society is out of
control, having lost the moral compass that religious faith once provided. Peer-reviewed psychological studies have
found that religion is a means of self-control for individuals. Michael McCullough and Brian Willoughby (2009)
quote one such study as stating, “…The researchers found that parents who
frequently attended church and who frequently discussed religion in the home
rated their children as having higher self-control and lower impulsiveness.” McCullough and Willoughby examined the
mechanisms by which religion and self-control affect one another, opening their
own study’s report with the statement, “Many of the
links of religiousness with health, well-being, and social behavior may be due
to religion’s influences on self-control or self-regulation.” (McCullough
and Willoughby, 2009)
McCullough and
Willoughby determined that religion influenced both self-regulation and
self-control behavior in subjects. They quoted researchers Baumeister and Vohs
as defining self-regulation as, “how a person exerts control over his or her
own responses so as to pursue goals or live up to standards.” Regarding self-control, McCullough and
Willoughby stated, “We reserve the term self-control for situations in
which people engage in behaviors designed to counteract or override a prepotent
response (e.g., a behavioral tendency, an emotion, or a motivation),” giving
examples such as overcoming the urge to hit someone who has given one offense.
(Ibid.)
McCullough and Willoughby
state that prior evidence demonstrates that religion and self-control interact
with each other in the following ways:
“First, personality research shows that people with higher scores
on measures of self-control and personality dimensions that subsume
self-control also tend to be more religious. Second, family research shows that
religious parents and families have children with high self-control and low
impulsiveness. Third, several longitudinal studies shed light on the causal
relations between religiousness and personality variables that subsume self-control.
Fourth, a single published experiment suggests that religious cognition is
automatically activated as a form of self-control in the face of temptation.”
(Ibid.)
The
authors concluded that religion influenced self-control by regulating goal
choice and formation and the selection of principles, as governed by peer
pressure, by principles learned under religious auspices, by the sanctification of
goals involving greater self-control, and by influencing how goals are
internalized. Religion, they stated, also promotes self-monitoring, a key
element of self-control, via peer pressure, the fear factor (the fear of going
to Hell, for example), ethical instruction, and reinforcement through rituals
which activate self-monitoring. (McCullough and Willoughby, 2009)
In spite of organized religion’s influence on
American culture and government, some still believe that Americans have lost
their moral compass and spun out of control.
“As a society, we are out of control,” complained Yvette Dombrowski
(2011), continuing that America’s “…capitalistic me-first attitudes have made
us the laughing stock of the entire world.”
According to the Washington Post, church attendance is down nationwide,
and congregations are growing older. (Banks, 2011) As a result, the boons to
individual self-control offered by organized religion have given way to
impulsive behavior affecting workplace ethics, sexual activity, and
interpersonal relationships. Peer
pressure against unethical or immoral activity often gives way now to peer
pressure in favor of such activities. Among the young, athletes, musicians,
actors, and other celebrities have replaced parents and spiritual leaders as
role models. In the 1990s, the Gallup survey of Most Admired persons often
featured religious figures such as Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II, and
evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham. (Gallup.com, 1996-2011) More recently, role
models have more likely been Presidents and First Ladies, or celebrities like
Oprah Winfrey. (Ibid.) A survey by the
Pew Forum (2010) showed that young people are less religious and less are
religiously active than older Americans.
How does this waning of religion’s
influence among the young affect society as a whole? It removes the beneficial
effects of religion on the hearts, minds and characters of young people,
forcing them to substitute other models for ethical behavior and moral
philosophy. Schools may provide some
moral and ethical teaching, while parental teaching and example solidifies the
individual’s view of the world and of his place in it. If those institutions are
lacking in moral philosophy lessons for the young, those youngsters may find
themselves turning to peers and to such unreliable sources for ethical training
as television, film, music, sports, and celebrity culture. A teen might learn
through team sports, for example, that loyalty, hard work and fair play are
positive ethics to hold in modern society. A child might learn the basic moral
lessons taught via certain early childhood-targeted television programs.
Joining the military might expose a young man or woman to virtues such as
patriotism and duty. Still, the acquisition of moral philosophy would be
piecemeal and sporadic, and that philosophy would not contain the explicit and
systematic ethical code offered by organized religion.
“But,” the atheist might reason,
“Religion is for ignorant bumpkins!”
Religion, however, even if false, can have benefits to society. In fact,
the actual existence of God has very little bearing on whether religious
observance and the societal and self-control that accompanies it has a positive
effect on the world around us. When faced with the question, “Is Christianity
good for the World?” posed in a debate between the late atheist author
Christopher Hitchens and theologian Douglas Wilson, Russell Powell made the
following point:
“Posed as a disjunction, the question assumes (and by inference,
these opposing authors assume) that religion cannot be both absurd, in the
colloquial sense of illogical or laughably false, and good for the world, in
the sense of furthering what humans rightly value.” (Powell, 2009)
Nonetheless, the atheist line of thinking continues, for any good
that religions have done in the world, they have done much more evil. The late
Cornell astronomer and media personality Carl Sagan once said, “In Italy, the
Inquisition was condemning people to death until the end of the eighteenth
century, and inquisitional torture was not abolished in the Catholic Church
until 1816. The last bastion of support for the reality of witchcraft and the
necessity of punishment has been the Christian churches.” (Sagan, 1995)
Religion may have produced positive effects over the course of human existence, but it also has a great deal to answer for. The non-believer may see the controlling aspects of religion only in a negative light, because his frame of reference is only the application of human brutality to faiths presumably conceived by golden-rule-teaching pacifists. That inherent conflict is viewed by many is hypocrisy; however, an adherent to the religion in question would defend it on the ground that while those who oppressed others did so in the name of their faith, they were not necessarily practicing their faith while doing so. As the Rev. Bob Eckherd writes, “…we can see even more clearly that a religious belief is poorly defined by selecting as a sample the extreme and vocal minority who least understand or practice the central instruction within its primary texts.” (Eckherd, 2011)
Religion may have produced positive effects over the course of human existence, but it also has a great deal to answer for. The non-believer may see the controlling aspects of religion only in a negative light, because his frame of reference is only the application of human brutality to faiths presumably conceived by golden-rule-teaching pacifists. That inherent conflict is viewed by many is hypocrisy; however, an adherent to the religion in question would defend it on the ground that while those who oppressed others did so in the name of their faith, they were not necessarily practicing their faith while doing so. As the Rev. Bob Eckherd writes, “…we can see even more clearly that a religious belief is poorly defined by selecting as a sample the extreme and vocal minority who least understand or practice the central instruction within its primary texts.” (Eckherd, 2011)
According to Scott Schieman (2010), socioeconomic status is
associated negatively with a belief in divine control over the world and human
affairs. Schieman writes:
“Individuals who sustain a belief in divine
control perceive that God has a determinative influence on the good and bad
outcomes in their lives, that God has decided what their life shall be, and
that their fate evolves according to God's will or plan for them (Schieman et
al. 2005). Moreover, they tend to rely on God in their decision-making and more
fervently seek His guidance for solutions to problems.” (Ibid.)
According to Schieman’s study, the higher one’s socioeconomic
status, the lower one’s belief in an all-powerful God who directs human
affairs, with whom one may have a personal relationship, and to whom one must
answer for his behavior. (Ibid.) For
this reason, religious governance of moral philosophy and ethical behavior
exists more prominently among poor and less-educated Americans, while those
lacking the ethical directives and self-control provided by religion are more
likely to be among the better-educated and wealthier classes of society who are
more likely, through economic advantage, to seek higher education and to assume
leadership roles in society.
Moreover, the combination of low socioeconomic status, poor
educational opportunities, and lack of critical-thinking training and skill may
lead those in that socioeconomic stratum to place excessive trust in the
teachings and preaching of their religious leaders. This, in turn, plays into
the hands of those who dismiss the role of religious belief in determining
ethical behavior patterns by providing a negative stereotype of religious
believers against which those of higher socioeconomic status might wish to
define themselves. In other words, to the educated, well-to-do person,
religious self-regulation and self-control become undesirable qualities, for
the “great unwashed” rather than for the educated person in a position of
authority and leadership. If those educated persons are of different faith
traditions or are agnostics/atheists, that “us vs. them” mentality may become
quite angry and brutal, with those perceived as the enemy demonized, and all
that they represent – including faith-based self-governance – rejected and
despised.
In such a climate, those who are demonized may in turn demonize
their demonizers, as many in the Bible Belt appear to do toward the
Northeastern US elite. The rise of religious conservative
assertiveness in the 1970s and 1980s was a reaction to the vast social changes
which took place in the 1960s and early 1970s. Whenever change happens at a
faster rate than some elements of society can tolerate, there is an inevitable
backlash. The 1960s and 1970s brought the (religious-leader-driven) Civil
Rights Movement, tremendous technological advancement, and sea-changes in the
way American society dressed, spoke, and behaved. Great, charismatic leaders
rose, became popular, and were assassinated. The era brought the Sexual
Revolution (driven by the introduction of the birth control pill and the
relaxation of social mores), advances in civil rights for minorities and women,
legalized abortion, and increasingly visible ethnic and religious diversity in
the culture. It also brought with it a spasm of reactionary fear from the
former dominant culture, which had only recently come out of a period of
unchallenged hegemony and prosperity and which seemed shocked to see it all
end. This backlash from the white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian social conservative
community gave rise to the era of Ronald Reagan, the Religious Right, and to all
that have followed in their wake.
Both religious
conservatives in the red states and agnostic liberals in the blue behave as if
they are under siege. In fact, they are reacting and counter-reacting to the
waning of religion’s influence on modern American society. The Western World’s vast
scientific and technical knowledge has made blind acceptance of religious
teaching difficult for many well-educated Americans. Rather than providing a
tool for understanding the Universe, the great religions’ texts now come across
to some as simple myths and fairy tales, hardly a basis for a personal ethnical
philosophy. Church attendance and religious participation among the young are
in decline. In response to this waning of religious influence over the
population as a whole, some desire to boost religion’s influence through
lobbying legislators and political speechifying from the pulpit. When gains for
the religious conservatives become visible, secular liberals recoil in
outspoken revulsion and terror. Each side is absolutely convinced it is the victim,
yet both factions are attempting to control and to stifle the efforts of the
other. Nonetheless, neither side is fundamentally correct in its assumptions,
either about the other, or about the role of religion in society as a whole.
Religious
practice is both filled with benefits and fraught with peril. It provides hope
for life after death, a belief in a benevolent, caretaker God, social
interaction and fellowship, and support for the needy and ill. Perhaps most
beneficial to society, religion provides a set of rules for social and personal
conduct which are agreed-to and obeyed by the majority of a religious
community. For believers, religion provides a moral compass and an
easily-accessible code of ethics.
Some, however,
may find such rules stifling, controlling and intolerant, and may rebel,
rejecting the teaching of their parents as something diabolical and designed to
squash their emergence as fully-formed, adult human beings. Some may also rebel
against the social constructs which may accompany the formation of religious
communities. Most rebels against religion seem to become atheists or agnostics,
rather than converting to a different system of religious belief. The negative
psychological impact of religious practice on some inevitably leads those
individuals to suspicion and reaction against religious control – or even
religious self-control. And certainly, there are elements within the world’s
religions which seek to control and oppress others, particularly women. It is
easy to see why some might want to choose a different path other than the one
directed by faith and by the instruction of deities.
As the
individual decision to choose religion as a source of one’s moral compass and
ethics has declined, the efforts of religious conservatives to force Christian
belief and practice on those individuals have risen. Religious belief has many
benefits, but the choice to believe or disbelieve must be left up to the
individual. Religious practice forced upon the unwilling generates animosity
and rejection of even the positive effects of religion. Society would benefit
from a retreat from influence by large, organized religious conservative
movements, accompanied by the return to faith of the individual, with religious
diversity fully accepted and celebrated. Such a society of openness and
tolerance would remove the incentive for those of other belief systems to
attack, while it would welcome them into the great community of searchers for
truth and wisdom.
In such a climate, individual, faith-based
self-governance could flourish, and we would be a better, more functional
society as a result. Religion, properly utilized, is neither the enemy of
rational thought nor a simple set of superstitions and myths which should be
stamped out. Unfortunately, abuse of religion (and particularly of
Christianity) and unjust bids at controlling others on the part of America’s
conservative religious have placed them and their faith at bitter, enraged odds
with those who do not share their beliefs. This, in turn, has caused a backlash
against religion, accelerated by our society’s growing scientific knowledge
base, sending religious practice in America into a tailspin of disuse. The
case for religious control - particularly religious self-control - is compelling.
Reversing its trend of decline may prove critical to America’s future well-being
as a nation.
Resources:
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on December 5,
2011.
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