Religion, Rationality, and Violence - Essay Example

Violence. Religious differences that coupled the globe in the papacy age, was a renaissance that was provoked by wars that plagued the world in the fifth century. It is evidence, however, that the devil is still ravaging the minds of many religious fundamentalists. In our contemporary society, religion has been a base for bloody conflicts. According to research findings, religious violence or terrorism is a modern socio-political syndrome arising from the far-fetched religious thinking. This has vividly projected cosmic images of war. Religions have sought the restoration of order by the affirmation of life through the violence of cosmic war. Many schools of thought have held the maxim that for religion to do more good than harm in our society, then religion has to dress up the armor of temper of rationality and fair play that Enlightenment values gives to society. Religion qua religion is inherently violent; the Enlightenment must redeem it. Harrison, Everett F., ed. (1960) Christianity for example, has been known to have harbored the worst violent legacy the stretches back into the black age. Questions being pondered are whether Christianity should get the Enlightenment redress. The exposition of a religious Hitler can be depicted in most fanatical scenario's perpetrated around the globe the most lunatical believers. Mother Teresa, with all her shortcomings, is a typical embodiment of what modern Christianity is contrary portraying. Harris, Harriet A. (2004). Religion Islam has been demonised as a rhetorical device, to try to persuade fundamentalist Christians. Harris brings out comparisons with the "terrorists" that Christian's are so afraid of. In so doing, Harris paints all of Islam with a rather broad brush and makes some serious errors of cause and effect. For example, he contends that Middle East terrorism is indeed because of religion and repeats the old propaganda about virgins in paradise, while completely ignoring class issues, imperialism, occupation and invasion, poverty, desperation, and political manipulation by Arab states for entirely secular reasons. Barthel, Manfred and Mark Howson, trans. (1982). The only evidence he offers in favor of his thesis is that the World Trade Center hijackers were middle-class and hadn't experienced political repression, a contention that he doesn't bother to defend and that also doesn't support generalization from al-Qaeda to all of Islam or even all of Islamic terrorism. He's way too eager to use a current political bogeyman to support a different argument and in so doing falls into the sloppy and simplistic reasoning that he's criticized through the rest of the book. Harrison, Jane. (1996) Harris does a good job pointing out the reasons why atheists find fundamentalist Christianity so absurd. The sections on Biblical inerrancy and on the Bible as a moral force are particularly good, although if one hasn't already realized that the Biblical text cannot support its supposed moral lessons without a great deal of strain and selective reading, I don't think Harris will convince. And that raises the strategic problem: Harris is preaching to the choir, will make those who already believe what he believes feel better about their beliefs, and is unlikely to make much impact with his supposed target audience. First, the basic argument over religion faces a communication gap before it ever reaches the level of argument and analysis. People don't tend to seek out polemics against their closely held beliefs unless they're just looking for reasons to get angry or ways to undermine an argument. Harris says that he's writing this book to provide ammunition, but while that ammunition can turn away or argue down evangelicals who are trying to convert an atheist, I doubt it ever does much to convince them their belief is wrong. Second, I think Harris misses, or at least fails to address, the basic reasons why people believe. His target is religious faith, but he's attacking it in the way that one would attack a scientific theory. Religious faith is not, in my experience, a logical or scientific belief; it's a cultural belief and carries a different set of priorities. Rationale Sam Harris makes his case with blunt, hard-hitting argument that underscores faith in itself as the most dangerous element of modern life. Presenting his arguments with verve and intellectual clarity, Harris focuses on debunking religious faith. In the age of weapons of mass murder, faith is now a danger of unquantified proportions, that calls for alternative approaches to the mysteries of life. Harris uphold the axiom inherent in human nature, that human beings fear death and that we often crave something more we cannot easily define, and which we cannot achieve regardless of the material magnanimity that we tend to accumulate. Harris, Harriet A. (2004). Simply stated, any belief system that speaks with assurance about the hereafter has the potential to place far less value on the here and now. And thus the corollary --when death is simply a door translating us from one existence to another, it loses its sting and finality. Harris pointedly asks us to consider that those who do not fear death for themselves, and who also revere ancient scriptures instructing them to mete it out generously to others, may soon have these weapons in their own hands. Harris advocates for a serious end of religious faith in the modern world. He vehemently argues that modern religious faith lacks a rational base, insistently he extrapolates the urge for religious tolerance that allows a too-easy acceptance of the motives of religious fundamentalists. Religious faith, according to Harris, requires its adherents to cling irrationally to mythic stories of ideal paradisiacal worlds (heaven and hell) that provide alternatives to their own everyday worlds. Moreover, innumerable acts of violence, he argues, can be attributed to a religious faith that clings uncritically to one set of dogmas or another. Very simply, religion is a form of terrorism for Harris. Harris, Errol E. (1977) Predictably, he argues that a rational and scientific view-one that relies on the power of empirical evidence to support knowledge and understanding-should replace religious faith. 'We no longer need gods to make laws for us when we can sensibly make them for ourselves'. But Harris overstates his case by misunderstanding religious faith, as when he makes the audaciously nave statement that "mysticism is a rational enterprise; religion is not." As William James ably demonstrated, mysticism is far from a rational enterprise, while religion might often require rationality in order to function properly. Harrison, Jane. (1996) References: Harris, Errol E. (1977) The Problem of Evil. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. Harris, Harriet A. (2004). Fundamentalism and Evangelicals. Oxford, Oxford University. Harrison, Everett F., ed. (1960). Baker's Dictionary of Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker House. Harrison, Jane. (1980). Study of Greek Religion. Cambridge University Press. Harrison, Jane. (1996) Ancient Art and Ritual. Kila: Kessinger Publishing Company. Barthel, Manfred and Mark Howson, trans. (1982). The Bible and what it says. New York: Quill. Read More