Assess the extent to which society would be a better place without Christianity. Discuss (40 marks).

Assess the extent to which society would be a better place without Christianity. Discuss (40 marks).

The statement that the question presents is a secular statement. Secularism is the concept that religion should not be involved in government and in public life. Regarding the question, society would not become a better place without Christianity, in fact, the opposite is more likely to occur. Claiming that society would be better without Christianity is just as arrogant as claiming that society would be better if everyone converted to Christianity. To suggest that 2.2 billion people are wrong for believing in Christianity is bold. When parents choose to send their children to a faith school or choose to baptise, them, it is because they want to do what is best for them not so that they could indoctrinate or abuse them. The idea that Christianity is detrimental to society is rather ironic. This is because Christianity is at the basis of modern and western morality. It is deeply ingrained in our laws and how we are governed. The ten commandments and Natural law are Christian doctrines which have produced a safe society. Without Christianity, these morals would cease to exist, and our society would end in chaos. In this essay, I will endeavour to show that society would not be better without Christianity. I will be using scholars such as Dawkins, Freud, and Marchant to weight the argument.

Atheists such as Dawkins argue that society would be a better place without Christianity. This is because religion is repressive. Religion dictates what we should wear, what we should eat and how we should behave. For example, the Bible tells us not to eat pork, not to go to church whilst menstruating, to wear a headscarf at church, not to steal and so on. Dawkins suggests that religion deprives people of their free will. However, others argue that Christianity provides comfort and gives a purpose for life meaning that it gives people fulfilment which contributes to making society a better place. Hence religion is crucial to society. To counter the argument, Dawkins argues that life should be meaningful without references to religion. In The God Delusion, he writes “there is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has responsibility to give your life meaning and point. Somebody else must be responsible for my well-being, and somebody else must be to blame if I am hurt. Is it a similar infantilism that relies behind the “need” for a God?” Here he is trying to demonstrate that we do not need religion to validate and give meaning to our life, we should give meaning to our own lives instead. This idea is liberating, against the oppression of religion. Therefore, perhaps society would be better without Christianity. The problem with this thinking is that it is only liberating for intellectual people, intelligent people can act wisely without the need for religion guided morality. However, the rest of the population needs a strict form of guidance given in the Bible since they themselves cannot think sensible hence need harsh rules to monitor them. This suggests that since not all are intellectually advanced, there is still a key role for religion especially Christianity within our society.

Freud would argue that society would be a better place without Christianity because religion is a lie. In “Civilization and its Discontents” he writes “the whole thing is so patently infantilism so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life”. He also writes, “The religion of mankind must be classed as among the mass of delusions”. Freud believed that religion and modern religious beliefs are a delusion that exists to protect us from nature and fate.  Religion is a product of wish fulfilment, the experience of vulnerability and helplessness that humans experience as children are made more tolerable by the invented belief that there is a purpose to life, with a moral code advanced by a higher wisdom, and that any injustices in this life will be corrected in the next. A deity or a divine force is invented to replace the sense of uncertainty with something uncontrollable. Religious beliefs are psychological inventions that exist to protect us from nature and fate. Hence, a society without religion would be better. People could finally escape these delusions and accept life for what it is, this might enhance and improve their experience in this world rather than waiting for a life after death which is not real. On the other hand, although Freud argues that religion is obsessional, infantile illusion, which is disabling and cuts a person off from the real world; this might be the case for some, but for others, religion is enabling and gives one a spiritual deeper and richer appreciation of life and the world. Rather than being the cause of social discontent, Christianity helps form communities with shared values and a sense of purpose.

Christianity not only dims our view of the world, but it is also the cause of conflict. Dawkins suggests that conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland exemplify the problem. Christianity is something that everyone needs to escape from, but Dawkins is particularly concerned about the indoctrination of children by Christianity, as well as other harm that it can bring upon children. Dawkins cites instances in the nineteenth century of children of Jewish parents being kidnapped by priests and raised as Catholics. Dawkins argues that the idea that an uncomprehending child can be regarded as Christian or Jewish is absurd, something that comes about when a mind is “hijacked by religious faith”. For Dawkins, bringing up a child as a Catholic is a form of long-term psychological abuse. He cites an example of a Hell House, devised by a pastor in Colorado, where children were scared witless by what might happen to them if they die. This can leave profound scars on a person’s psyche. Dawkins argues that Christianity is replete with messages of these kinds of extremes making it unhealthy for society and especially for children. To illustrate his point, Dawkins quotes Nicholas Humphry’s What Shall We Tell the Children, “Children, I’ll argue have human rights not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people’s bad ideas – no matter who these people are… In short, children have a right not to have their minds addled by nonsense, and we as a society have a duty to protect them from it.” This suggests that religion is brainwashing and abusing children. Therefore, we as a society must get rid of Christianity. However, Although Dawkins gives many examples of physical and mental harm caused by Christianity, it is not a condition of Christianity; Jesus specifically taught against the use of violence. The same charge might be aimed at atheism, which has also caused terrible human suffering for example communism, but Dawkins doesn’t accept that violence is a necessary condition of atheism. Another issue with his argument is that it is not accurate. It can be supported by a small percentage but the majority shows that religious schools tend to perform better than none religious schools in the UK and tend to have more academic success suggesting that religion is still essential for our society as it has a function to serve. By claiming that Christianity is abusive and a form of indoctrination, Dawkins is disrespecting Christians as he ignores the selflessness of Theresa of Avila and the sacrifice of Bonhoeffer that made it possible for Christians to stand up against injustice, to fight for the “weak” and the “fatherless” who have made society a better and a fairer place to live in.

In conclusion, despite Freud and Dawkins believes that religion is “irrational” it can be a source of happiness and purpose for many. This does not mean that these people are out of touch with reality like Freud suggests but rather that religion allows for a deeper and spiritual understanding of our life and the world. Jo Marchant, a scientist, states that “there are powerful evolutionary forces driving us to believe in God, or in the remedies of sympathetic healers, or to believe that our prospects are more positive than they are. The irony is that although those beliefs might be false, they do sometimes work: they make us better.” This suggests that Christian belief is not useless and has some benefits such as a longer life span suggesting that it is useful to society meaning that society would not be better without Christianity. However, the belief that schools with a religious character could be seen as helping to nurture cultural diversity demonstrates that perhaps we must become more secular and remove religion out of public matters and education.