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S(h)aving Religion with Occam's Razor:
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"Atheists should combat the damaging parts of organised religion by following a scientific morality which happens to coincide with much of what is in the bible, but which does not rely on any spiritual interpretation."
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Introduction "Why can't we just be good to each other and go to heaven?" a child at bible school might ask. The answer, at least from a Christian point of view, would be that faith in God is an "if and only if" condition for going to Heaven; being nice to each other is merely a necessary, but not sufficient condition, to avoid eternal damnation in Hell. Notwithstanding the religious assumption that God can lift atheists to heaven, and condemn Christians to Hell, if He wants to do so, [1] this paper argues that the contribution of religion to society is the being nice, and not the believing in God, portion of the philosophical text of the bible. [2] In short, an atheist reading of religion would take from religion morality as it relates to the material, as opposed to spiritual, world, cutting away God as an extraneous principle; whilst Christianity now seeks to convince people, for example, to "accept Jesus as one's King and saviour", an abstract concept which provides a metaphysical reason for believing it is right to act a certain way, an atheist would urge people to act well for the sake of social harmony. However, this "soft" proposition comes at a cost to those who would take such reasoning to buttress their faith in God as a rational enterprise, as this paper argues that it is belief in God which has led man to use religion to contradict the very morals one is supposed to uphold according to the bible, such as the "righteous murder" of warfare. There is currently a renaissance in Atheist thinking led by scientists such as Stephen Hawking, who recently published The Grand Design, a book which claims that the Big Bang and other previous puzzles can be explained by physics and makes a "God of the gaps" theory unnecessary and redundant. Other scholars such as Richard Dawkins, who builds on Darwin's evolutionary taxonomy, argue that God is no more valid than the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus; neither has any evidence for existing outside of word-of-mouth. Still others, such as Sam Harris, have sought to flesh out the absurdities in the Qur'an, Bible, Book of Mormon, etc., citing passages which advocate murder/genocide or simply make absurd propositions, such as the most recent passage cited on the Project Reason website: "Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?" (Corinthians 10:2). [3] Rather than rehash arguments of Big Bang over Adam and Eve, or show how passages in religious texts indicate hypocrisy, however, this paper will show how the elimination of God from the religious holy texts reduces their arguments to the pure roots of how humans should act toward other humans. Another way of looking at the benefit of cutting away God from the bible is that God, like the state, is used as the excuse for making exception to moral rules of conduct, and therefore eliminating God removes any justification for carrying out reprehensible acts to please God. And so, belief in God is not, in itself, moral; indeed, it could be argued that God is an excuse to be immoral. Like religion, the philosophy of such Enlightened thinkers as Michel de Montaigne and Immanuel Kant, [4] assumes from the outset that we must have morality as a stand-alone concept in order to live harmoniously with each other and lead a life of self-fulfilment. This means, specifically, to eliminate such threats as state violence, manifested as war, social inequality and failure to protect populations from preventable diseases such as HIV (unevenly distributed based on the ability to afford treatment). No good person would argue that war, poverty and disease are beneficial to humans; indeed, these should be anachronistic phenomena given the current technology of humans in areas such as agriculture and medicine, but due to the politics of statecraft and the religion of capitalism, humans have not yet overcome these fundamental threats to our civilisation. Belief in God means that all is as God wants it and so a malaise sets in which rationalises dominance by virtue of the circular logic of what is right is what is now. [5] Religion may promise peace of mind that human suffering will be alleviated after death (if death were prescribed as a medicine for suffering we would all just kill ourselves at the first symptoms of a cold), but this comfort is not comfortable to most people: most of us want to live a long life. This paper partly blames theistic principles, such as the assumption that life after death exists (and therefore suffering is acceptable as payment for the afterlife) and that any single religion is the one true religion, but not out of its superior teachings (and empirical success) of encouraging kindness and compassion. Most modern religions teach these principles, even if secondarily, but in a religion's particular interpretation of what constitutes God, the righteousness and presumed superiority of the people who follow "the one true way" and, ultimately, the treatment of non-believers, often involves contradicting the very moral principles allegedly contained in the corresponding holy book. And so, this paper seeks to posit an atheist view of religion, which at first might seem counter-intuitive, but as this paper shows, treating the bible as an important historical text and using all references to God to save important moral lessons, has the potential to unlock what the original writers were seeking: a more harmonious and kind society which does not use pain and suffering to profit the individual. However, this can only be achieved by cutting out God "for God's sake" from the equation. And so, an atheist reading of the bible can distinguish the metaphysical from the material in order to help decision-makers with a religious conscience make laws which reflect morality based on a universal theme of kindness which accepts that not all people find believing in God important, but who might agree that some of "God's teachings" are indeed valid and have justification in a secular context using pure reason. This paper is a start to fleshing out how this might be done. Theory and Methodology This paper is a call for an atheist morality not insensitive to the morality represented in the bible, with exceptions being anything referring to actions purely out of worship to God and actions which have no basis in science or which would persecute groups practising consensual behaviour that does not take advantage of the vulnerable or innocent. Such recognition would mean not the destruction of religion, but rather a stop to the propagation of its metaphysical over physical values in any state-sponsored way. In short, atheists should combat the damaging parts of organised religion by following a scientific morality which happens to coincide with much of what is in the bible, but which does not rely on any spiritual interpretation. The result is also an answer to religious morality sceptics such as Sam Harris, who points out the many references in the bible to such things as committing righteous genocide on non-believers. [6] The methodology of this argument will be a consideration of particular morals which can cut across atheism and theism, namely the reward of merit, practise of pacifism (and a true following of fighting only defensive wars), and a stop to the ends justifying the means in politics in any context. These morals can help eliminate war, poverty and disease whether motivated out of spiritualism or secular logic so long as no one is fighting to force belief in God on others. So What? As a colleague wrote in an informal Facebook debate, religion is a material fact if only because so many people believe in it. To a certain extent this is a post-structural argument insofar as it posits a reality created purely by the mass thoughts of people, but it is true that religion, right or wrong, significantly influences society due to how people act as a result of their beliefs. And so this is an important subject because extremists on both sides (theists and atheists) are seeking to forcefully create a world which follows their particular world-view. If either side wins completely, then liberty will have failed and this allows for such things as genocide of any people who disagree with the dominant paradigm. However, it is liberty which allows people to practise religion and atheism alike. As Brad Pitt said in an interview with Bill Maher, "if we lived in a world in which homosexuals tried to ban people from practising religion, I would be up here arguing against that proposition." [7] This is an important point, as atheism, literally interpreted as "without God", does not require one to force religious people to stop believing in God, but rather stop this belief from justifying acts which paradoxically break Moses' commandments concerning the way people treat each other, but excluding those which merely insult God, e.g. swearing. Moreover, if interpretations of the bible are allowed to become universal and enforced by violence, this means that wars will be fought, social inequalities sustained and disease spread by virtue of "because God wants it that way" trumping 'common sense' solutions which would place responsibility on humans, not God, to sort out problems on Earth in the here and now. And so, with billions of people in the world belonging to an organised religion and seeking to impose their beliefs on the state institution in order to make the laws of the land coincide with the laws of their religion, this is a very important subject because it deals with our personal liberties, but also our potential for survival as a species. This is not to say that a people should be prevented from living under religious laws if they want to do so voluntarily, but these laws, if enforced as penalties for victimless "moral crimes", can easily become contrary to the liberty of mankind. This is a central tenet of modern civilisation which allows the free practise of religion in the first place and which, if denied could lead to another fascist state, such as the Third Reich, which persecuted one religion – Judaism - so much that millions were murdered; such a state does not exist in the absence of religion, but in the absence of the freedom to practise religion. [8] Hence, discussing how atheism might be reconciled with religion is important in assuring the free practise of religion and secularism alike, but also to assure a morality which does not single out any group of people doing no harm to society outside of not believing in a metaphysical being who controls everything and whose preferences are dependent upon prophets who rely on the absolute "God wants it that way" to bolster their arguments. Neither atheists nor theists should seek to impose any ontology on humans, as religion and science evolves new views based on modern human discovery in the moral and scientific realm. Definition of Terms Before continuing, it is important to discuss what some might see as an inherent bias in the title of this paper, that is, it being written from an atheist point of view. In short, how can a paper discuss atheism and religion without favouring one over the other by virtue of the author's own bias? Ironically, the answer is that the only way to give religion due diligence is to use science, not to undermine religious belief, but rather to consider propositions concerning atheism and theism on their own merits without any reference to "just because." Just as atheism should not be defined by extremists wishing to wipe religion and its followers from the map, religion should not be defined solely by its failings, e.g. the Salem Witch Trials, Galileo, the Crusades, 911, etc. Science requires the elimination of bias as much as possible when studying any subject and so just because God cannot be proven does not mean that religion should be disqualified as a subject of scientific study. Whilst religion would seek to eliminate atheism as a legitimate practise, atheists would only seek to eliminate state-sponsored religion or any system which imposes belief in God as a way to organise mass human behaviour. So, the answer is that one must develop a model which can subject atheism and theism to the same questions toward some specific goal of inquiry, but first one must understand what is meant by the terms being used. Atheism, or "without God", is a rejection of God insofar as atheists do not believe in God and therefore do not base their thoughts and actions on God being present. Atheism is not "anti-religion" in the sense of seeking to destroy religion, but rather takes for granted that God, or God-like entities, i.e. things which are outside the realm of observation by definition, should not be considered when formulating decisions regarding the laws of the land. This applies equally to the God in which the Abraham religions believe, as well as Zeus, the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. Atheists may voice their disbelief and encourage people to question faith that God, and not humans, will sort out our problems, but there is no moral imperative for an atheist to demand of others that they "convert" away from their personal faith, merely that the belief in invisible causes are not imposed on larger society. For example, an electrical engineer coming to fix the wiring in a house does not consider that God is responsible for faults in the delivery of electricity to appliances, so why should God be considered as a causal variable in our social/economic/political lives? Atheism merely universalises cutting out God from any material decisions or actions in favour of looking to material causes and solutions first. Theism is the belief in God, or God-like entities, which are proposed to have an effect on the material world by virtue of pure willpower, i.e. omnipotence. Theism is not always proselytising, but Christianity and Islam, the two largest religions in the world, proselytise by virtue of the threat of Hell in one form or another awaiting non-believers (despite one's righteous actions on Earth), which guides the thoughts and actions of followers. Organised religion [9] is an institution which propagates the values of theists according to scripture and the preaching of interlocutors claiming authority over the interpretation of such texts. Religion itself can be defined by either ritualistic practises only, as in one brushes his teeth "religiously", or the more relevant definition, as in the belief in God and the following of ritualistic practises which demonstrate one's belief in God. In short, religion in this paper is the requiring of faith, i.e. the belief in something without evidence and organised religion is mass belief. Science is here defined as the pursuit of knowledge based on verifiability and repeatability and as such is a tool of human discovery such that we can build on foundations which support further building. Science does not contradict any proposition outright except one: that non-material causes should be considered in models which explain material outcomes. In short, science is a discreet discipline which does not seek to govern the affairs of humans as an ideology, but rather seeks to remain true to its own internal validity of mathematics and physics when, for example, sending a television satellite into space. One might say that God allows the satellite to go into space, but the scientist does not put "God dust" into the rockets of the ship as fuel: one puts flammable elements listed on the periodic table. When a rocket fails, one does not propose God did it and stop inquiring as to the cause, but rather seeks out the fault to prevent such things happening in future rockets. [10] Occam's Razor "Maybe ancient astronauts did teach ancient people art and engineering, but we don't need to posit alien visitations to explain the feats of ancient people." [11] This is a modern interpretation of Occam's Razor, a theory formulated in the 14th century which guided thought toward simplification; when two theories explain the same phenomenon, Occam's Razor cuts away the more complicated theory leaving one with the more likely explanation. Another interpretation would be that when a theory exists that explains something, there is no need to postulate a more complicated theory to explain the same thing. So what happens when we turn Occam's Razor on religion, a theory which inherently postulates an invisible accomplice to all that occurs around us? At first, one might object to this analysis on historical grounds, as Occam himself believed in God: "one hesitates to use Occam's Razor to cut off the hand of God, particularly because of Occam's piety...but [a theory requiring God] is an extraneous assumption". [12] It appears that in a pioneering way, Occam held God and science as separate spheres insofar as his piousness did not stop him from considering the need to find ever greater truths in nature. In this same way, the time has come to recognise that humans have, with the advances of sciences such as astronomy and physics, discovered over and over that God is an unnecessary variable in laboratory experiments outside His moral purview guiding the scientist in not always doing what he could do, but giving consideration in what should be done. However, such a calculation can be done without believing in God as ethics is a discipline that concerns the human calculation of what is right based on creating greater goodness for the individual and society. The logics exist without the statement "because God wants it that way." Scientific thought, whether in the social sciences or hard sciences, must not consider God, as, whether polytheistic like the Ancient Greeks or monotheistic as modern Christians, the one unifying core of all organised spirituality means the alleged existence of something which we cannot observe acting upon the physical universe. Why this is an important point is that in the case of religion, any true member would, from the start, assume religious doctrine prior to scientific discovery, as faith, or, believing in something without evidence, requires one to label any idea that would contradict one's faith as impossible and therefore untrue. The same is true for any theory relying on that which cannot be observed, such as homoeopathy, whose most effective medicines are those diluted to no active ingredient thereby making overdose impossible. [13] Whether spiritual or homoeopathic, atheists would eliminate variables with no scientific value. In the case of evolution, for example, I have argued before that the debate between evolution and Intelligent Design Theory (IDT) is a moot point because the mechanism of evolution can be observed in a laboratory setting and therefore there is no "proving evolution wrong." [14] In the case of the hard sciences, God, or at the very least, any causal effect from God, is marginalised in favour of pragmatics. For example, whilst it is believed among devout followers of the Abraham religions that God is omnipotent and thus could prop up a poorly-constructed bridge if He wanted to do so, any bridge-builder who calculated God's latent power to do just that at the expense of scientific principles would find himself out of a job and possibly responsible for many deaths. A defence relying on the supposition "I thought God would hold it up as I am a good Christian/Muslim/Jew and I prayed for it" would not suffice. The point is that scientific principles, properly applied, hold up bridges. Though people might blame God when man-made constructs fail, the foundations of our modern civilization, that is, the physical things with which we surround ourselves, are constructs based on scientific, not religious, laws. In short, Occam's Razor, or parsimony, "cuts away" alternative explanations that would posit a metaphysical cause; this material assumption tells the bridge builder to begin with observable facts, such as the force of gravity, to explain what might happen under some specific set of circumstances, for example the weight of a car going across the bridge. The calculations themselves, symbols used and logic systems employed, may be human constructs, but unlike God, science promises the follower that the same set of circumstances will always result in the same outcome. Another way of seeing this point of view is that the entire observable universe is governed by a general interpretation of Newton's First Law of motion, that "every body remains in a state of rest or uniform motion (constant velocity) unless it is acted upon by an external unbalanced force." This law, broadly defined, is yet to be contradicted by any scientific or religious theory, as God, if deciding to act upon the Earth, would constitute an unbalanced force intervening in a world of Earthly affairs in motion. Once "God" crosses the plane from invisible (not being observed) to visible (being observed), a material process is at work and thus Occam's Razor tells us to look for scientific, not spiritual, causes; that God might be "behind it all" is irrelevant to the scientist and should also be irrelevant to the politician concerned with creating social bridges which allow society to function efficiently and kindly. An Atheist Reading of Romans Due to space limitations, it is beyond the scope of this paper to examine the whole bible, or cite the Qur'an and Torah to any significant extent, and thus one chapter of the Christian bible, the book of Romans, which is rich in references on how to worship God and how to live one's life, makes for a good comparison of these two aspects of religion; future research would do well to apply the same concepts in this paper to other chapters of the bible and across other holy books in the Abraham religions. Romans is particularly suitable, however, in the repeating of the Christian commandments of (1) fulfilling one's potential, i.e. merit (2) being a pacifist and (3) not acting wrong for a right cause, i.e. the ends do not justify the means. It is argued in Romans that these acts are necessary to be in the grace of God. Using Occam's Razor, this paper argues that the numbered propositions above work on their own merit; belief in God, and the necessity to please Him, in and of itself does nothing to assure a harmonious society and therefore is extraneous to any theory of how to improve the quality of life on Earth. Belief in the Resurrection The bible says that one must believe in God to go to Heaven: That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9) From an atheist point of view, confessing belief in an historical figure is not offensive in any way, but it is pointless for getting humans to improve life on Earth. An atheist would attack the belief that a dead human could come to life again without the intervention of some scientific mechanism, such as cloning or stem-cell regeneration, two technologies religion ironically deems as acting against God. [15] Why is it important that one believes that a person was risen from the dead so long ago, when this technology did not exist (or if it did would mean science, not God, raised Jesus from the dead), in order for one to avoid Hell? But there still might be a way to save religion here, even from an atheist viewpoint. Occam's Razor would cut out the proposition that something immaterial could cause something dead to become alive again, but would not discount the possibility that something "as if dead" was restored to full animate life. It is entirely possible that Jesus was still alive when he was taken down from the cross and, like modern miracles, such as the curing of cancer, it is the case that the problem, e.g. having cancer, was not actually a reality in the first place. [16] Furthermore, the above demonstrates one of many examples where only a literal interpretation will suffice. So the atheist must deal with the material statement that something dead was made alive and that belief in this process is the primary component of "going to Heaven." Of course, Occam's Razor would cut out the possibility of a biological creature living forever; however, science is capable of conceptualising the possibility of maintaining the body to ever increasing ages, for example, as DNA instructs the body to age over time, and can be "reprogrammed" to prevent self-destruction. [17] Notwithstanding this tangent about the science of immortality, the concept of reviving dead flesh through such technologies as cloning is not incompatible with Jesus' story. However, one might question the possibility that an agent in the time period of Jesus would have had access to such technology and therefore would have to posit ever increasing complicated theories, such as aliens visiting Earth, to explain a literal interpretation of the bible, and such a proposition would undermine the notion of a single holy creator. Nevertheless one is left with needing to have faith that an unseen force made something once dead become alive, and further one must proclaim one's belief in this unseen force, labelling the force "God". If these conditions are met then, according to Christianity at least, one is saved. Occam's Razor would here determine that the above statement serves no purpose other than to establish personal faith, and as such no moral framework exists in the mere belief itself. What provides greater clarity is looking at those principles which constitute how man should act toward one another and how atheists and theists might agree on fundamental restrictions on actions such as murder, rape, or any violence against another person. Whilst most people would agree these actions are wrong, if one believes that belief in God saves one's soul, proscribing these actions is marginalised due to the belief that Jesus died for our sins and therefore acting wrong can be forgiven. Merit One important quality according to the bible is accepting one's limitations: For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think... (Romans 12:3) For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office. (Romans 12:4) Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith. (Romans 12:6) An atheist would say that this advice is rational. Occam's Razor would confirm that one cannot "prophecy" successfully above one's limitations in any field without the ultimate consequences of incompetence, i.e. failure. This concept agrees with the law of conservation of energy, which states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. In other words, kinetic energy cannot be greater than potential energy. (That disabled people can achieve beyond what people expect merely demonstrates that they are more able than people assumed.) Whilst this passage might also be applied to faith and the literal prophecy of belief in God, it is clear that the message pertains to an "uneven distribution of talent" among humans. This has scientific validity in terms of our DNA; we are, to a certain extent, limited by the capabilities of our parents. Moreover, being humble is an excellent quality no matter one's religion or creed. However, the moral obligation to accept one's limitations is slightly more ambiguous when enforced, such as when one correlates class divisions, accentuated by faith in capitalism, with these limitations and therefore justifies an uneven distribution of social and monetary resources which deny the poor tools to realise their true potential; giving to those with less capability could be viewed as a waste of resources if religion is taken literally. And so, whilst accepting one's limitations is a good moral lesson from an atheist point of view, it is important to note the negative implications of seeing everything in terms of glass ceilings which cannot be broken. Accepting that everything is the way it is because God wants it that way might dissuade people from making positive social change and cultivating the full potential of their fellow man. Those whose gifts are realised and which receive external recognition might think they need not associate with those who have not achieved as much success, but this is contrary to the bible's teachings: Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. (Romans 12:16) The bible is not without references to class divisions, and so instructs people with greater means to intermingle with those of lesser means. From an atheist point of view this is a rational instruction because if one accepts the uneven distribution of capabilities determined by nature, but maintains equal inherent worth in each individual, then it makes sense for all classes to get to know each other. The statement ends by implying that one should be modest, that is, refrain from making reference to one's career, for example, in social company, especially if such a reference places one above another. This is good social advice, even from an atheist perspective, as bragging, or making reference to one's superior intellect causes people to be uncomfortable, especially if they are just as, or more, capable, but have simply not received external recognition. In short, we might all have our limitations, but we need not be reminded of them by those who have fewer limitations. Who is, after all, to decide for certain that a person has achieved all that s/he can achieve? Autistic people, for example, whilst greatly limited in some ways, can achieve brilliance in other ways. [18] Occam's Razor would find nothing to cut from the theistic statements above; indeed, the forward-thinking psychology of social harmony that such an example illustrates is one reason why the bible has remained popular as a moral text. [19] The writers obviously knew that potentiality was not so apparent for others to judge and therefore being kind to those of "low estate" is a good thing because those people might achieve even greater things and be in a position over the very person who once marginalised them. This example, in and of itself, works for social harmony and is quite a liberal view. The statement also puts the word "condescend" in context, not in its pejorative use, as in dumbing oneself down so much that the other person feels dumb, but rather truly succeeding at speaking to people to be understood, as opposed to using jargon to confuse people who might not have been exposed to such a language system. This thinking is reflected in criticism of standardised tests used to distinguish students by their intellect which, as recognised as early as 1972, wrongly correlate socio-economic status (and race) with intellect. [20] Pacifism Romans Chapter 12 goes on to discuss peace as an inherent good in its statement "live peaceably with all men". (18) Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. (12:20) Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. (12:21) The above statements are part of a theme in the bible of "turning the other cheek." An atheist would say that a morality of looking after your fellow human is a logical thing because someone who "practises what they preach" is much more credible than a hypocrite. If one assumes that humans thrive best in a peaceful environment, and further sees peace as the best possible outcome for human civilization, then it is important that human rights are always maintained and not made exception to. There are many applications of the above. Prisoners are enemies of the state and thus a compassionate view of criminals, e.g. providing prisons with good facilities, rehabilitating offenders, assuring a high standard of care for prisoners, would mean that one is following not God's word according to Christians exclusively, but rather a "civilized" view from a secular perspective. This does not mean rewarding enemies, but rather being a good teacher: one teaches by doing. No one trusts a hypocrite and so a state that defines itself by human rights should follow the above principle, whether a religious state or not. This is, literally, overcoming "evil", i.e. actions which are contrary to the welfare of humans as a self-aware species, with "good", i.e. treating all humans, even criminals, with dignity. An atheist would argue that the belief that God punishes "wicked" people leads to post-hoc justification for torturing criminals. And what is to be said of innocent people who are wrongly prosecuted? "The most powerful legal argument against the death penalty is that there is very real risk that the innocent, in fact, will be executed." [21] So, what would happen if, in response to 911, the US had increased monetary aid to the Middle East and reached out to Muslims in Africa by giving out free AIDS medication and perhaps even sought to make it easier for Muslims to immigrate to America? This would not have been surrender, as security could still have been increased in common sense ways, like reinforcing cockpit doors, but would most certainly have heaped coals upon the extremists who hijacked planes and misused Islam to murder thousands of Americans. If America had turned the other cheek and reached out even more to the Islamic world, acknowledging that it was not Islam, but extremists who attacked America, there would certainly be far less support for terrorists who wanted America to react violently, i.e. fight wars for revenge, in order to polarize Muslims who felt they were being treated as scapegoats. Such pacifism would have upheld the value that Christian Americans claim to support and would have, in the end, helped Christians, Muslims and Jews by demonstrating the idealism of the bible, which, if followed, creates peace by example and, in social scientific terms, overcomes the prisoner's dilemma by cooperating even when the other party defects. This is not an extreme pacifism view, as in not defending oneself at all, but rather a view that wars of revenge are pointless and only create more hostility. In short, despite America's bad reputation in the Middle East, such a gesture of pacifism would have had far greater purchase with the Islamic world than fighting two decade long wars whose outcomes, according to US generals and the Dalai Lama, are described as failures. [22] Ends Justify the Means? In Romans, Book 2:21-23, it says, Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preaches a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God? It is clear from the above that the bible advocates not being a hypocrite. However, it seems that religion has sought throughout the ages ever more subtle ways of breaking commandments to uphold commandments. One might say that in the case of personal security - self-defence - that it is perfectly legitimate to defend oneself, and most atheists would agree, but there are far less clear examples in which religious states engage in hypocrisy through such things as extra-territorial assassinations (killing without due process), capital punishment (which puts to death a small fraction of innocent people), offensive wars (as in the case of Iraq, which neither had WMD nor links to Al Qaeda), or lying about the effectiveness of condoms (as the Catholic Church has done), which are all acts deemed righteous by virtue of the ends justifying the means, but only in terms of pleasing God, not in upholding any rational morality in and of itself. An atheist would seek to eliminate such hypocrisy and establish instead a legal doctrine based on immutable laws in which exceptions to compassion on the international stage were rarely, if ever, used as strategies. This is not to say that zero tolerance policies are acceptable as law itself is a normative concept and open to interpretation by solicitors, judges and legal scholars, but rather that morals in the bible concerning not killing, not lying and generally not hurting others on purpose (regardless of the religion or creed of the enemy) are followed as a rule. Such a move would save religion from itself by demonstrating consistency between theory and practise thereby giving more credibility to the religious philosophy on its own merit. Eliminate God and Eliminate War, Poverty and Disease This paper argues that atheism, or the rejection of God, but not the bible as a morality text, is the best tool for combating the three greatest security threats to humans: (1) war, (2) disease and (3) famine. Though many other threats exist, such as space objects hitting Earth, these three security threats, unlike events over which we have little or no control, are preventable and treatable using existing technologies. Each section below will compare atheist and religious thinking in terms of one specific threat to human survival and show how embracing the atheist view would provide a better guide to implementing a solution. In the end, this paper attributes the poor record of religion in solving human problems to the complacency of any religion that would place the health of the mortal world secondary to the health of the immortal world. On the converse, it is argued here that atheist thinking only threatens religious ideologues who would prevent pragmatic solutions to the above problems based on religious dogma, as opposed to scientific fact. Rather than conclude that religion must be eliminated, however, this paper argues that atheism can save religion in keeping its mysticism away from any mechanisms which affect the material world. In this way, this paper refutes Pascal's Gamble [23] by saying that it does indeed do harm in this life to believe in God when this belief contradicts material foundations on which we build our lives. In short, Pascal's Gamble may say it does no harm to believe in God and thus the potential rewards are worth believing in Him with no evidence, but if it can be shown that belief in God can destroy civilization then an atheist would say that one must reject God to be moral. War In religion the separation of church and state is summed up by the expression "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew, 22:21), a statement by Jesus which is interpreted as relating to matters of politics being removed from matters of religion. Indeed, the United States constitution sets out a separation of church and state as a premise for a society that does not persecute religious belief so long as the laws of the land are respected. The signatories of the US constitution were devoutly religious, but believed that such separation was necessary to avoid the persecution suffered by their ancestors in native England when one religion deemed itself as so right that it sought to eliminate another religion. A thorough examination of the political and religious battles between the Colonies and England in the Eighteenth Century is not possible here due to space limitations. Sufficed to say that religious freedom in the United States is paradoxically associated with political liberty and individual freedom. However, with a significant number of religious figures in government (and the informal requirement that every president is "God-Fearing"), the United States is as much a Christian state as Iran (for example) is a Muslim state. The problem is that American Christians viewing Iranian Muslims will see Iranian society as intolerant and vice versa. Rather than argue that either religion contains a better way of living, this paper argues that society should not construct its laws by religious standards in the first place. America and Iran each have their own human rights problems. The point here is not to dissect each country in terms of how much religion plays a role, as other studies have done, but to acknowledge that religion plays a significant role in the election of political leaders and therefore alters the civic landscape in terms of the flow of money, particularly how much money is devoted to science, the curriculum at schools, the laws of the land and even the promotion of individuals within all sectors of employment, but this should not be the case if we are to recognise merit, as opposed to piety, as outlined above. What modern civilisation has sought to do is recognise the need for a society that tolerates many different religious belief systems so long as they do not contradict the laws of the land which are, paradoxically, the product of one particular religion. However, modern civilization has failed to accomplish the implementation of this idealist view in reality. Indeed, many states are religious states; neither Iran nor Israel would deny that their respective societies are based around religious principles first, but the extent to which either side's military should act on these principles is something to be debated. Atheism would say that to avoid war, religion should play no role in deciding military affairs, no matter how religious the state's citizens, as it should be the primary goal to sustain the moral principles, as opposed to prioritising actions which uphold one's subjective view of God's will. Poverty The elimination of poverty is a controversial subject due to the free rider problem. However, capitalism, the predominant world order, is nothing more than a grading curve applied to the economic lives of all global citizens. Capitalism is associated with Calvinism, which in its most simplistic form, advocates reward for hard work. However, capitalism has transformed into a system which, rather than helping the poor, seeks to exploit the poor, not only in developing nations but also in the leading economies of the West. For example, the majority of a bank's profits come not from capitalisation on investments, but on fees charged for people going over their overdraft limits, which in the US exceeded $38.5 billion dollars, without which US banks would have lost $16.9 billion. [24] A recent ruling in the UK meant that banks were allowed to continue charging these fees and customers were not entitled to refunds. Indeed, on the HSBC (UK) website under the heading "Information on Overdraft Court Case" it states the following: "The ruling means that those customers who have complained that the charges are unfair or penalties at common law will not be receiving a refund of charges." [25] In short, even though the UK is officially a religious state, the Christian value of helping the poor does not translate to regulating banks in their exploitation of the poor for profit. Put simply, this means that the most vulnerable people, i.e. those whose expenses overdraw their accounts past their limit, are the ones who are providing the ability for banks to stay afloat, not just in the US, but also in the UK and Europe. In short, the current banking system in the West depends on people not having enough money in their accounts to cover their expenses. In practise, this means that CEO's who receive hundreds of millions in bonuses are effectively receiving hundreds of millions of Pounds directly from people who are so poor they have negative equity in their bank accounts. Indeed, one has to pay hundreds of pounds per year to HSBC in order to prevent the bank from automatically approving these "unarranged" overdrafts, meaning either way banks get their "pound of flesh" from their customers. "Usury" is a term used in the bible to describe the practise of charging interest on loans and there are numerous passages which refer to such a practise as a great sin. [26] An atheist would agree with this principle on the basis that charging expensive fees to the poorest of the population only supports social inequality and in ruling in favour of the banks, the UK government has, as a Christian nation, clearly practised hypocrisy. An atheist would question an economic system that relies on penalty fees to support the majority of profits of the banking system and would further advocate following the biblical principle against usury not because it displeases God, but because it is simply a poorly-constructed system of profit which only promotes social inequality by disproportionately taxing the poor to sustain the rich. Eliminating God from the bible would end any thinking that such a system must be good because God has allowed and would instead put in place a secular system that outlaws usury. Disease One example of religion harming the survival of humans is the imposition of religious morals in deciding how to intervene in cases of viral pandemics. Religion holds back the implementation of certain technologies, such as condoms, on the basis of religious belief, even though their potential to prevent harm to humans is significant. Homosexuality has its risks because HIV in men is easily transmitted, but condoms can realistically mitigate this risk. Despite this fact, George W. Bush prevented any charity receiving government funds from distributing condoms in Africa, which has the highest HIV rates in the world, but which is subjected to Papal and US presidential prevention techniques relying primarily on abstinence and monogamy without attention to condoms or worse, lying to those with AIDS about the effectiveness of condoms. [27] This is not an effective way to deal with disease because it prioritises religious morality which has no basis in the scientific world in policy regarding diseases with the potential to kill not just homosexuals and drug users, as if this is an okay proposition, but also others, including those who receive infected blood transfusions or babies born to mothers who might have been raped by men with the HIV virus. Conclusion Using Occam's Razor as an engine of analysis of the bible means that one can eliminate much of the hypocrisy and violence in holy texts of the three Abraham religions. This paper does not go so far as to suggest that religion is eliminated from the Earth as a whole, but rather that the teachings of good in the corresponding holy texts are judged on their own merit and that "because God wants it that way" is never a reason to enact a law or force someone to do something. Although followers of religion might continue to believe in the metaphysical world of heaven, hell and life after death, these beliefs should not constrain our making the world a better place and assuring that humans have a future by using the technology we have to prevent war, alleviate social inequality and put an end to preventable diseases. It is through one's merit, and recognition of merit, pacifism and putting an end to ends justifying the means politics, that will place atheists and theists on the same page, improving conditions in the here and now. Religion has the potential to be a force for good, even if followers believe that belief in God is the only way to assure an afterlife of pleasure as opposed to pain. But if this belief in God is used to undermine the morality of religion regarding how humans should treat each other, then that sort of religion should indeed be eliminated from the map, as it in not a good wager to surrender the Earth, when such an end is preventable, with the unscientific comfort of a promise of heaven forever sustaining the species of humans long after their destruction from the physical universe. And so, atheism is an excellent way not only to mend fences between religions which see themselves at war with each other, but also to confront the problems that humans can solve on their own using the tools of science and reason so that no one need suffer, and in that act, perhaps then the idea of suffering to earn one's place in heaven can finally be seen as an obsolete, if historical, notion rooted in a human past of ignorance and intolerance. Perhaps children in bible school should be taught that good deeds alone are enough to earn one's place in heaven and that belief in God is a personal choice. Perhaps then, humans can finally achieve heaven on Earth. With scholarly interests in international private security, policing, education and the politics of science, Dr. Chapman is currently using a research grant toward field work in England. This field work seeks to further demonstrate the political similarities of volunteer organisations qualified by high stakes up to and including death, e.g. skydiving, martial arts, mushroom hunting (Fine et al. 1996), etc., and public citizenship. Dr. Chapman can be contacted at: dionysus2001@hotmail.co.uk.
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