Should religious beliefs be up for intellectual debate?
After reading Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” this winter break, many points that I have thought about, or was opened up to, lead me to writing this article. I was born to Catholic parents, baptized, went to Catholic elementary and high school, went to church, participated in Communion and was confirmed. I did the whole religious thing, but what I didn’t know is that I had a choice to make for myself. After being raised Catholic all my life, believing in something my parents put upon me, I decided to no longer believe. This was due to my maturation in university, as well as a newfound infatuation with scientific curiosity.
Now before you dismiss this article and say, “Ah just another atheistic piece of garbage” or what have you, the point isn’t to discuss my personal beliefs, but rather to question religion in and of itself.
People will often avoid discussing such topics, to avoid conflict or to respect other people’s choices, but religion shouldn’t be some “no man’s land.” Similar to politics or ethics, people have a set of opinions or beliefs and often will debate with others, and religion isn’t any different. People can and should debate religion’s authenticity or usefulness, just like we debate our morals or political standpoint with others. There is no need to avoid “stepping on toes,” as it is important to introduce intellectual debate, and examine facts versus opinion.
Our Canadian society is embracing secularity, but other nations are not so lucky. American politics, for example, are heavily influenced by religion, an example among them being George Bush Sr.: “Lincoln said you cannot be President without spending some time on your knees. I have repeated that and a bunch of Atheists got all over me. Wait a minute. Does that mean that you cannot be President if you are an Atheist? I say yeah that does mean that.” Wholly non-sense – of course you could be a president without faith – but saying so to the public would be political suicide.
The majority of American people won’t stand for their religion to be questioned, and some are so fanatical that they would rather vote for a Christian, rather than an atheist, politician. This inhibits further the openness to debate because so much relies on respecting it. If a Westerner politician claimed that Islam was not welcome in Canada, there would be outrage from many Muslims in various countries, and we could possibly be targeted for an attack from Islamic fundamentalists like Al-Qaeda.
That is how closed religion can be; it is seen only in a positive and unquestioning light if you want to avoid any sort of clash. How is it that some religious followers can be so sensitive to anything that might be critique, where Liberals can be Marxists and Conservatives religious fundamentalists and no one bats an eye? Even the Christmas holidays are neutralized to “Seasons Greetings” to be less offensive to members of nonparticipating religions.
To be clear, I am not asking for an all-out intolerance of religion, but rather for a more open debate without all this slavish obedience to respect, to the point that you can’t even try and criticize one religion or another without being called disrespectful or narrow-minded. Politicians are always slandering each other during election time, so I am sure religion can take a little bit of intellectual criticism without too much offense.