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I have a great deal of respect for the people who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of solutions that help everyone in the world. Notably, Karen Armstrong delivered a speech (found via Chris) at the TED conference this year discussing the current problems with religion in the world. I have tremendous respect for her scholarship and efforts put into this subject so far, and sympathize greatly with her desire for change, but I think her proposed solution is misguided due to a fundamental flaw often overlooked.

In order to elucidate my point, I’ll respond to bits of her talk, which I have paraphrased or quoted from below.

Religion is about compassion and has been hijacked for nefarious purposes

Compassion is crucial and necessary, but religion as a vehicle is fundamentally flawed. “Why be compassionate?” —”So you can achieve nirvana.” That’s not a reliable reason. There is no grounding in fact, so the ease of reinterpretation leads directly to the inevitability of “misinterpretation”. This is precisely how all people and all cultures have been able to hijack every religion for their own purposes.

The root of the problem is that religion is “the opiate of the masses”. The problem is that people give undue respect and pay tribute to the baseless collection of minutiae that have always been bent to the will of the reader. The “hijacking” of religion will never stop because that is precisely what its core design enables.

People want to be religious

What does that mean? People want to believe in magical sky gods? People want to spend time and money paying homage to invisible ideals? I think what it really means is that people want to be human. People want a sense of love, belonging, charity, freedom, compassion, success, trust and safety. Taking that collection of things and calling it religion is a misstep for the reasons previously mentioned: others will use the same exact sources to support violence, bigotry, hatred, cruelty, dishonor and annihilation. It is not a problem with the people, it is a problem with the structure of religion, and as such, is inevitable.

Move beyond “toleration” and move toward “appreciation”

Let’s take it a step further. Why don’t we move from “toleration” toward distillation, comprehension and integration? Why should we stop short, offering respect and acceptance for arbitrary religious tenets that are, by nature, abused by those who receive the respect? If the prevailing available choice is to rest one’s morals upon mythical and fundamentally subjective beliefs, it is positively foolish to expect the outcome to be at all rational or cohesive.

“…utterly mysterious transcendence which is God.”

This historical abdication of explanatory duty is possibly one of the most frustrating for those on the outside. The transcendence does not have to be mysterious. It can be warm and fuzzy and harmonious and emotional and great, but at the same time tangible and explainable. There need be no mystery in human affairs; attributing human emotional responses and qualitative experiences to a mysterious non-human is useless at best and dangerous at worst, as is seen throughout the history of religious dedication.

We need to create a movement among all people, including all three major religions…

Absolutely! A movement away from arbitrary subjective wish-based morality and toward a true manifestation of the golden rule: humanism. Instead of trying to “remember” the alleged roots of compassion in religions, show people that compassion can stand alone. There need be no mysterious faith to advocate for balance, harmony and compassion toward all fellow humans. This is something that can be taught to children because it is real and honest and tangible.

How to best prevent extremism in nations…?

The beauty of truly integrated humanism is that the solution to this question just comes naturally. There is no breeding ground for extremism in a society where children are taught to question and think critically, to avoid the trap of aesthetic appeal wrapped around intellectual rubbish; to accept, explore, engage and help every single other type of person on the planet not because someone or some invisible thing tells them to, but because it is demonstrably and rationally better for themselves, their neighbors and the entirety of the human species.