When atheists, agnostics, or non-believers read a newspaper, or turn a television they will behold a frightening sight. Christians are preaching against Muslims and Muslims against Christians. Zealous suicide bombers assault innocent lives while religious leaders seem to be denying obvious scientific facts. Despite all the religious conflict in the world upon closer inspection one will see that religion is not the source of the violence.
When I was very young my mother took me to a catholic church every Sunday and I was bored to death by the end of the day. Not only was I bored, but I was also terrified that God was going to send me to hell as soon as he could. I simply couldn’t imagine loving an old man living in the sky somewhere. Eventually we stopped going and I became an atheist. I felt liberated, the fear of hell was gone and I no longer had to pretend to be interested in the Bible. After liberation came intense feelings of anger. Why did so many people reject evolution even when they didn’t understand what it really meant? Why did countries murder people because of what they claimed to see in their “holy” scriptures? The answer to these questions appeared at the time to be that religion is inherently evil, and that the human race should eliminate it.
It is very easy to be mad at religion. I heard a political pundit claiming that people who tried to secularize America incited the 9/11 attacks and I felt my anger was justified. There is a vibrant Internet community devoted entirely to angrily denouncing faiths of all kinds. It seemed the only way to fix the world was to proclaim loudly that, “God is a farce.” I was certain that the best thing for the human race was to reject the ancient scriptures and to believe in the world of science.
My mindset changed when a friend invited me to see the Dalai Lama speak. I was interested to see what he would have to say, but I hoped to be reassured that religion was silly, backward, and dangerous. However I was amazed to discover that the message of His Holiness was simply to be compassionate. The Dalai Lama teaches about the many messages of Tibetan Buddhism, but he only encourages cooperation between members of other faiths and non-believers. After reading about the Dalai Lama I saw that Al Qaeda would not simply lay down their arms once they realized that Darwin was right about evolution and that the Bing Bang Theory makes sense.
During the Spanish conquest of Peru the Spanish claimed to be acting in the name of God. However after robbing the Incas of an immense amount of gold and murdering countless innocents it is clear that the conquistadors worshipped gold more than their Christian God.
On the other end of the spectrum Mahatma Gandhi used his Hindu faith as a rallying cry for equality and peace. Gandhi was not a hero because he had a different faith than the Spaniards or because he saw something in his scriptures they did not. When someone filled with hate and greed reads a religious text he or she will see a call to arms. When someone filled with compassion reads a religious text he will find reason to go out and be righteous. Atheists too will find ideologies to justify their actions. The Chinese government is an atheist sate and is responsible for innumerable atrocities against the Tibetan people as well as its own. They find the justification for their violence in their worship of Maoist values.
To say that religion is the cause of all the hatred in the world is misguided and a contradiction of the simpler truth. It does not matter if you believe in Darwin or the Buddha or in Jesus, it matters whether you treat your fellow human beings with respect and honesty. Although I am an atheist I would much rather live in a world of Evangelical Christians committed to doing good than a world of angry atheists
