Variety of theological conceptions about God is totally acceptable, but that is by no means to turn a blind eye towards explicit immoral behaviour some religious teachings might have.
Written by Johanes Narasetu
Cover Image: Dasamuka by Bung Carol
In talking about acts of violence, or even war, committed under the name of religion, it is imaginable to think of some popular generalising arguments claiming that, on the one hand, this or that group does not represent this or that religion, while on the other hand, this is yet another prove that religions create only violence and injustice over time across the world. I would like to argue that both arguments are irrational and wrong, and therefore practically useless if we were to understand the plurality of beliefs in our world today.
Let us start with a background story. In one of my dinners with my landlady and my housemates during my stay in France, we stumbled upon a discussion about religious war done by ISIS in the Middle East, and carried on to some religious radicalism in my home country, Indonesia. We also brought forth a number of examples of many good religious people in our lives and one of my housemates said that religions are basically good and they originally preach peace. It is men’s wickedness that brings about violence under the guise of religious dogma. A year after, in early 2020, I came across one of his statements on Facebook criticising another example of religious extremism, saying that all religions are shi*es. How consistent of him.
The other story is Pope Francis’ decree titled Human Fraternity signed by His Holiness and Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayeb on February 4, 2019, at Abu Dhabi. The articulated aim towards the world peace and mutual respect between religious people living together is morally noble and the formal agreement between two distinctive religious figures to commit on this cause is nothing less than commendable. However, there is one single part from the document which is rationally wrong at least and practically misleading at most. It is about both parties’ conviction that “authentic teachings of religions invite us to remain rooted in the values of peace; to defend the values of mutual understanding, human fraternity and harmonious coexistence…”[i] Briefly put, it clearly states that not only all religions in the world intend to attain good, but also they really are good. Well, that notion is wrong.
I will state two points in this casual writing: first, we can rationally judge if a religion is good or bad; second, it is practically more useful to think that some religions are clearly bad.
We can Rationally Judge If a Religion is Good or Bad
I will start by judging the hasty generalisation in labelling all religions as good or bad. Saying that all religion means something good on the one hand and stating that all religions are the source of hatred, or in an even vulgar manner, ‘f**k religion!’ are actually derived from the same rationale and the same attitude. The rationale behind this is that there is no fundamental difference from a moral standpoint of any religion from the beginning of time, and the attitude behind the two opposing yet generalising statement is some laziness to invest more time to reflect on the matter.
There are two reasons for me to point this notional stance as intellectual laziness. First, we can never generalise the whole value of all religions when there has been hundreds of different religions throughout the history of humanity, each with its own understanding of the sacred, the divine, and the moral. It would then be hard, if not impossible, and so certainly irrational, to lump all of them together and judge their entire value as one, either as all good or all bad. So both positions are wrong.
The second reason is that this generalising judgement across religions also denies the fact that we can and must judge the value of a religion with our intellectual faculty. Stating that all religions are good or bad across the board simply hampers us to carefully examine which religions can contribute for the benefit of plural society which consists of believers and non believers alike. To generalise is to overlook, and in a world where there are so many religious people each with their own beliefs, this type of generalisation on matters which will definitely impact our society such as religion, notwithstanding the question of our own personal belief, is seriously lazy, if not detrimental for the society where we live in.
We need to be able to and must judge the value of religions one by one, especially if a religion is statistically held by a considerably large percentage of the society wherein we live.
Morally, Some Religions are Bad and It is Useful to Think in This Manner
In this sense, the next question would be on how to judge which religions are intrinsically good and socially beneficial and which one is not. At this point, I will propose this logic: while it might be harder to know which religions are good or to support, let alone the best of all, it is so much more effective to judge which religions are intrinsically bad and socially detrimental. My reason on this take is that the limit of goodness is less apparent than the bad. I think Jordan Peterson acutely said this numerous times during his lectures that we might not know what to do immediately in order to be better, but the things to avoid are actually clear from the get go.[ii] This is why I would apply this reasoning to the judgement of religions.
So here is the principle for our mind to precisely judge intrinsically bad religions, or since it is about religion, the evil ones: examine its moral dimension first as hard as critical as you can instead of focusing on its dogmatic teaching about the divine or god (or even gods for that matter). The rationale here is actually quite clear: if God is all good, yet can never be entirely explicable to the human intellect, some practical moral value should at least be part of that goodness, and this practical moral value would clearly state what is immoral. In this regard, we can precisely say that some religions are indeed intrinsically bad from its moral practice.
How useful is this mindset actually? It is useful in at least two things. First, we avoid being a shallow and thoughtless individual who jumps from one extreme generalisation to another. Second, it helps us to realise that what the mind should oppose in living in the world is not necessarily or directly people (even though some people are indeed corrupted), but the ideas that drive them. We can easily find in the history of religion that each religion has its example of virtuous and despicable individuals. So it is of little use to treat all religions as all-good or all-bad from a moral standpoint.
Therefore, instead of looking for harmony and tolerance of all beliefs without exception, it is time to call back the idea that truth matters, and morality is part of it. Variety of theological conceptions about God is totally acceptable, but that is by no means to turn a blind eye towards explicit immoral behaviour some religious teachings might have.
God bless our mind.
[i] https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-02/pope-francis-uae-declaration-with-al-azhar-grand-imam.html
