[Dion]

Perhaps it’s always been trendy among a certain demographic of people to condemn religion for its violence and to claim that more harm has been done in its service than in anything else. Many people have expressed this sentiment to me in the last several months, in the wake of murders, attacks and suicide bombings – both here and abroad – done in the name of religion. They shake their heads and bemoan the tenacious saliency of religion in today’s modern world, and its inherent violence, concluding – at least as far as I can tell – that if we were somehow able to abolish religion, then we’d have no or very little violence in the world.

So, I don’t think the available data supports the notion that religion has done more harm than anything else. Moreover, even if it had – and we were able to somehow abolish religion from the hearts of people everywhere – I’m not sure we would have a reduction in world violence. Religion, like every other human cultural product (or, as a perfect revelation given by God but nevertheless managed and propagated in the world by limited, flawed human beings), does not exist as a freestanding force or entity in the world apart from its human “creators” or “caretakers.” In other words, religion qua religion doesn’t do a darn thing in the world. WE do it. When violence has been done in the name of religion, it’s not religion itself – as a separate force in the world – that has done it. WE have done it, through religion.

The alleged violence of religion is simply our own violence done in religion’s name. Without religion, we simply find other banners under which to continue our deadly plans. The violence of religion is not the problem; the real problem is the seemingly primal violence embedded in our own hearts. It is that violence which is most resistant to uprooting.

Ironically, religion is the tool we most commonly use to do just that.

http://blog.chron.com/talkingtoleran...arm-than-good/