Historically, religious people seem obligated to push their beliefs and values onto the rest of society, ideas that tend to oppress and discriminate against segments of society in the name of love and acceptance. And woe to anyone on the wrong side of the fence. Moreover, religion as a broader social phenomenon has been more about constructing moral absolutes out of some sort of perceived and/or 'revealed' objective authority than personal transformation and enlightenment. In this sense, religion, as opposed to personal faith, is really about control over the hearts and minds of people via dictating and then enforcing societal norms that, because of their 'divine' origins, are notoriously difficult to challenge, let alone amend, becoming immune to things like compassion and reason.
That said, I don't think the solution is to eradicate religion. For one, the same argument against religion could be made about anything where factions emerge and ideologies lead to oppression and discrimination. Take politics, for example. While many political individuals may possess more enlightened and progressive political ideas, political systems themselves are all about control, dictating and then enforcing their own set of societal norms that are just as difficult to challenge, let alone amend, and which tend to oppress and discriminate segments of society in the name of order and justice. Whereas religion in the US has played a large role in oppressing the LGBTQ community in recent times, politics (as well as bad science) has played an equally large role in oppressing ethnic minorities (e.g., slavery, Jim Crow, etc.). To say religion is all bad is essentially to say that politics is all bad.
On one level, I think the problem comes down to authority, i.e., who has it and how far it extends. Generally speaking, the more absolute and insular an authoritarian structure is, the more control they seek to establish over society and the more difficult their ideas are to challenge/reform. And this is especially true when things like laws and moral values are considered valid because they're enacted by 'legitimate authority.' As Leo Strauss argues in his essay on Plato in History of Political Philosophy, when "the just is the same as the lawful or legal," there's nothing higher to which one can appeal (37). Moreover, when justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger, and the will of the ruling class becomes the sole source of justice since they create and enact the laws that the rest of us must follow, we become trapped within a system where justice doesn't exist for the state since each regime "lays down the laws with a view to its own preservation and well-being" (38). And I think the same is true when it comes to religion and religious authorities, as well.
I can also understand that, for critics of religion in general, both religion and religious authorities appear to be archaic and essentially irrelevant in our modern day and age, being relics of a superstitious past. The Catholic Church, in particular, has been opposed to social progress and change, historically as well as presently. However, despite all the negatives associated with religion, I think that religion not only helps to give a voice to deep and profoundly moving feelings that are often difficult for us to express, but offers a spiritual and emotional dynamic to our existential suffering. As Marx wrote in his introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, "Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
Hence, even if one discounts religion, in some sense it's a type of pain-killer that speaks to real and often materially-unanswered needs, and this is one of the reasons that religion shouldn't be dismissed totally off-hand. To do so is unfair to people who are themselves religious, in my opinion, and it also runs the risk of denying the underlying aspects of religion that touch the very core of our humanity and the miasma of joy, sorrow, and camaraderie that religious beliefs often speak to or find expression in. After all, religion is, among other things, a creative expression of our search for happiness, meaning, and truth in a seemingly infinite universe. In this capacity, religion can be a beautiful thing that brings communities together and inspires profound acts of love and charity, as well as bring individuals closer to a happiness that transcends much of the suffering and unsatisfactoriness seemingly inherent in this fragile thing we call life.
That's not to say religion is somehow above criticism, of course. As sympathetic towards religion as I am, I'm also quite critical of religion's proclivity to fall into absolutism and dogmatism, not to mention its historical reliance on things like authority and tradition over evidence and rationality. All in all, though, I'm a firm believer that a person can be both rational/scientifically-minded and spiritual at the same time; but unless such a person also tries to remain open-minded and willing to alter or even throw out their religious beliefs when they seemingly conflict with reality and the evidence presented to them, or if they end up harming and oppressing a section of the population, social progress will always be somewhat at odds with religion and religion will lose in the long run.
On a deeper yet complementary level, however, I think the problem comes down to class and social relations. One of the many things I think Marx was right about in his analysis and critique of capitalism as an exploitative mode of production is the formative role material conditions play in the social structure of a society, which includes the dominating ideology in any society. As Marx famously writes in The Germany Ideology:
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.
Of course, that doesn't mean every politician or clergy member is some kind of evil puppet master. What it does mean is that, once placed in a position of authority, their roles in society are often conditioned to be ones of control, helping to preserve and reproduce these ideas and social relations because that's how the logic of the system works, whether that system is feudalistic, capitalistic, etc. From this point of view, then, we certainly need to critically assess these social structures and their socio-economic foundation, but to what end? This is a question I struggled with for a long time myself, both politically and spiritually.
Politically, I found myself drawn towards the more immature aspects of 19th century revolutionary nihilism, with its focus on the disruption and destruction of the present social order by any means necessary; while spiritually, I was influenced by 'new atheists' like Dawkins who see religion as the root of all evil and advocate a similar fate for religion, becoming somewhat anti-religious myself. But over time, I started to see some of the drawbacks to my approach, drawbacks I think Dostoyevsky brilliantly and humorously explores in his novel Demons. I lost myself in my own certainty and self-righteousness, alienating those I attacked as ignorant and being just as inflexible as those I was criticizing, whether they were capitalists or religious. I sought to tear down with nothing to put in its place, leaving nothing but a void.
I also became conscious fairly early on that I was a minority in my views and realized I wasn't going to convert the world with what I thought were my superior arguments, nor was I interested in forcing them to with violence, so I started to look for more holistic solutions. And in the process, I unexpectedly found a deeper appreciation for religion, seeing in its rich history something I'd missed before and acknowledging a yearning in my own heart for deeper spiritual truths. It's hard for me to explain that journey or what I took away from it in a sentence or two, but suffice it to say that I gradually found myself opening up to religion and what it has to offer in its purest form, which for me is an expression of mystery and wonder, a framework of morality built on the principle of harmlessness, an inclusive sense of community, and an exploration of what it means to be human through loving and treating others as yourself, whomever they may be.
That doesn't mean I think people need to be religious, only that I don't think religion is the proverbial devil, which reminds me of something I wrote during my six-day retreat at Our Lady after my mom passed away:
I don't go to church, meditate, or read spiritual books to debate or convert anyone. I respect everyone's beliefs or lack thereof. If you're an atheist and believe that science alone can uncover all there is to know about the universe and our experience of it, that's fine. It's a valid approach. Beauty and meaning can be found in life without spiritual beliefs and practices. My girlfriend's an atheist and we have no conflicts about it whatsoever. Rather, I do these things because I find meaning in them; because I have an intuitive sense of something more underlying reality and human experience, a unifying force or awareness or potentiality, and I'm interested in exploring that feeling, as well as the spiritual experiences and knowledge that I believe help point the way towards its realization. I see in them a reflection of a continuing evolution in our consciousness (collective and individual) and connection to the universe.
Buddhism and Christianity, for example, are icons of this evolution, evincing existential, psychological, and spiritual developments through the transformative focal points of their founders. Both the Buddha and Jesus were influenced by their cultures, which were characterized by religious and ethnic tribalism, and led by a priestly caste in charge of rituals and sacrifices meant to control and/or manipulate the mysterious forces of life, reflecting an early state of consciousness that I think can be found at the beginning of most early religions. There was certainly an awareness of interbeing and the larger whole, but it was trapped within a kind of group identity, making it exclusive rather than inclusive. And there was certainly a reverence for creation, but it was trapped within a kind of fear. But out of these seeds grew a new kind of consciousness that increasingly pulled people out of their tribalism and fearful worship of the unknown—a maturation that can be found within the religious texts of their time, but which are given fuller expression in the Buddha and Jesus' respective teachings. Each utilized their cultural and religious language, but infused them with new meaning and perspective.
In Things Hidden, for instance, Richard Rohr talks of a "development of crucial divine wisdom" and stages of consciousness found in both the Bible and our history (12-3). And I think the Pali Canon, along with the Vedas and Upanisads before it, show such a development, as well. If we look closely, we can see this spiritual dialectic in most, if not all, religions. We can see that these cultures and ancient texts were trying to give expression to, and find ways of connecting with, their collective sense of something greater underlying experience (God, truth, the absolute, ground of being, or whatever label you want to place on it) through myths and stories, symbols pointing towards a deeper level of truth and shared knowledge/experience, "a full-body knowing, a cellular knowing ... a transference and sharing of Being" (63-4).
In essence, they're exploring the mystery of consciousness, something that's notoriously hard, if not impossible, to objectify; and ultimately pointing towards what I believe to be a unitive and even psychologically-healing experience piercing the illusion of our dualistic way of thinking, the illusion of separation between subject and object, between the non-spiritual and the spiritual, between matter (body) and spirit (mind). These stories first and foremost attempt to illustrate that what we call God or awakening isn't something outside of us, something 'otherworldly'—it can be experienced right here, right now. The Pali Canon talks of "touching the deathless element with the body" (AN 6.46). Jesus says "the kingdom of God is among/within us (Luke 17:21); and Paul writes that "your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you" (1 Cor 6:19-20). Are they all delusional? Perhaps. Or perhaps they're talking about a shared reality/experience—a unifying awareness, a heightened state of consciousness, a glimpse through the veil of ignorance and into the absolute, a realization of the luminosity within us.
It sounds fanciful, I know; but the closer I come to this experience, the greater my faith in its reality grows. I know that many people have grasped these symbols too tightly, or else held them in the wrong way, so that they turn to bite them like the proverbial snake, creating fanatics and fundamentalists; and I share the concerns of others about them, and about those forcing others to agree with them. But that doesn't mean there isn't something of value here, that they haven't helped our progress as much as they've served to hinder it. Historically speaking, the religious and philosophical seekers of the time were often its best scientists. And science itself is just as easily capable of destroying whole cities as religion if held inappropriately. All I can say is that, if others want to walk with me on this journey, they're more than welcome. And if they don't, that's ok, too.
To be honest, I'm not really sure what the point of all this is. Maybe I'm just trying to convince myself that I'm not a fool for being religious. I don't know. While I've heard people express their desire to 'kill religion' (e.g., Dawkins et al.), and can sympathize with some of their reasoning for making such statements — especially when you have people using religion to justify suicide bombings and discrimination against gays, women, etc. — I also can't help but think that doing so would come at a great cost to humanity in that we'd be losing an important part of what makes us, well, human. And I feel the need to defend that, if only to myself since I was once one of those calling for the death of religion.
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