I’ve though of this in a slightly different fashion, but I think the sentiment is closely related:
Religion: inhibiting the formation of communities based on genuinely shared circumstances and shared reality based beliefs since forever. When people try to claim that religion does good they almost always point to the effects of community, not religion, and while religious communities offer many of the benefits of community they inhibit the formation of more sensible, benign, and productive communities. Religious communities are irrationally arbitrary and inherently othering, malignancies that can be avoided in other kinds of communities that offer all the benefits of religious communities.
Ophelia Benson is a columnist for Free Inquiry and the co-author of The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense, Why Truth Matters, and Does God Hate Women?
1 comment
R Johnston
February 18, 2012 at 10:24 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’ve though of this in a slightly different fashion, but I think the sentiment is closely related:
Religion: inhibiting the formation of communities based on genuinely shared circumstances and shared reality based beliefs since forever. When people try to claim that religion does good they almost always point to the effects of community, not religion, and while religious communities offer many of the benefits of community they inhibit the formation of more sensible, benign, and productive communities. Religious communities are irrationally arbitrary and inherently othering, malignancies that can be avoided in other kinds of communities that offer all the benefits of religious communities.