A wonderful world?

«The world would be a better place without religion». The words were not mine, but came from the female half of the couple sitting next to me. Almost like a slap in my face, I wasn't sure how to deal with this off-the-cuff comment, this somewhat simplistic remedy to the ills of this world.

It wasn't merely the emotional impact the words had on me that brought me to silence. But I found myself dumbfounded, unable to mount the counter-attack to this secularist missile of the mind. Not knowing at all if it really was a direct invitation to continue our friendly chat along a more serious vein, I instead introverted, my brain protesting blandly: «How can she say such a thing?»

Second later and any chance of producing counter-arguments were cut short by a thunderous fanfare. The show was breaking in on us, and the visual wonders to follow suit would soon pacify whatever disturbance of the peace brought about by the lady's impromptu remark.

It still bugs me somewhat that I didn't seize the moment and confront what I hold to be a stereotype, misinformed and with annoying frequency still being served to the spiritually illiterate, whether they be wilfully ignorant or slothfully ignore the core issues of life.

LET'S GET RID OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS?

The trouble with this stereotype isn't chiefly in that it's entirely erroneous, because – sadly – there is some truth in it. People professing and adhering to religious views are responsible for a shocking array of crimes and human rights abuses, and they come from every camp you can spell with the Latin alphabet.

Hindu ideas suppress millions of the so-called dalits, the untouchables, consigning them to both temporal and eternal punishment, because, allegedly, they must surely have committed heinous crimes to be reborn as the lowest of the low. Well, there is some kind of twisted logic in this, but it's twisted all the same, and flies in the face of decency and compassion.

A SHORT LIST OF VILLAINY

Islamist extremist, the Taliban among them, seem unflinchingly adverse to any idea that doesn't involve the use of coercion or blind violence, and thus they massacre young school-girls, whose basic education could help Afghanistan build a more prosperous, more technlogically advanced society, with dignity and respect restored to the biggest sufferers of them all: women. But no, minds darkened and fist clenching the grenade, they keep cowering their foes, burying them six feet underground whenever that's possible.

And then there are the syncretists, like the Lord's Resistance Army, who kill and maim anyone and anything they can lay their hands on. And we cannot ignore the lunatic fringe who hear God commanding them to blow up the abortion clinics real good. And well, yes, there are also those who would rather die than suffer the absolute affront to their faith: a blood transfusion that would save the life of their cancer-struck child.

So, Canadian lady, to some extent you were right. There are ideas at large that either hamper, curtail or erode progress in almost any field of human activity, and there are scores of fiery adepts whose brains and hearts have been put to rest as they charge wildly ahead in their various crusades to convince or crush their enemies.

THERE IS SOMETHING TO BE SAID IN FAVOUR OF RELIGION

But still. As I wish I could have told the lady in question, not all ideas with a 'religious' origin are intrinsically bad or destructive. Far from it. Just take a look at this impressive list of concepts and virtues that have underpinned our Western civilization for almost two millennia.

• Compassion

It was compassion that triggered the nascence of the welfare state. Not until Florence Nightingale, a committed Christian, braced herself for the horrors of the Crimean theatre of war to go and care for the dying and wounded, did soldiers stand much of a chance of recovering from gun shots or shrapnel buried deep into their bodies. Until her day the fighting men of the field were left alone in their hopeless struggles to hang on to life, whenever that life hung in the balance.

From its infancy on Crimea, nursing has come a long way to become an integrated part of the medical care programmes in all Western democracies. Embraced by atheists and secularists alike, still modern nursing wouldn't have seen the light of day if believers committed to putting compassion into practice had not doggedly clung to their novel ideas.

• Justice

The crux of the matter in all Western jurisprudence, is that the individual is regarded as worthy of special protection from arbitrary abuse, arrest or even neglect. We do not take lightly to offenses being perpetrated in either the name of the state or some self-appointed authority. We seek to punish offenders, and thus uphold the principle that any human is, simply by virtue of being born, in possession, as it were, of certain inalienable rights.

Long before the idea seemed to begin to appeal to kings and emperors, Jesus Christ taught that every human, whether a productive member of society or not, is created in the image of God. And being bearers of the Imago Dei, we were each not only unique in that there is only one of each and every one of us, but we were also allotted the divine stamp of ownership. Because God created life, and because God in Jesus also came to rescue human lives, any human ultimately belongs to God. And nobody tampers with, destroys or puts in jeopardy that which is God's.

So, instead of remaining the property of the sovereign or the slave owner, to be dispensed with at will, the idea was spawned, and proliferated rapidly, that any crime against a human being must be treated with the utmost of seriosity, eventually to be considered in a court of law, where proceedings were not prisoner to the whims of the king, but carefully laid out in written texts that were almost as sacred as Scripture.

VIRTUE: NOT AN EVOLUTIONARY BY-PRODUCT

Evolution did not birth the idea that all men possess dignity that must be defended. The social darwinists called Nazis sought to enact policies and set up a state in which humans were subdivided into categories. With supreme contempt for their Judeo-Christian heritage, Germany anno 1933-1945 annihilated millions out of the perverse conviction that they should not be allowed to live. Non-aryans were the enemies of progress, the pinnacle of which would be the stalwart warrior, the Superhuman being, with clemency for none and an iron will to rid earth of the mentally and physically impaired, the utter dregs of humanity.

Justice was never to be found within Nazi Germany for those who happened to belong to the wrong category. Because Nazis didn't believe in a superior Being to which they would ultimately be accountable to. Nazis believed in the superior Will. And those who resisted it were showered with liberal amounts of cyanide gas in the concentration camps.

• Forgiveness

Before the teachings of Christ began to make inroads into Viking society, it was the duty of males to avenge – swiftly and without procrastination – any wrongdoing perpetrated against any member of their respective clans. And it was never automatically a question of answering in like manner or in a way proportionate to the seriosity of the crime. No, a murder of one of your clan members had to be reciprocated by you doling out 'justice' to the suspected killer, but on many occasions revenge also involved going amok, ravaging and murdering indiscriminately among the perceived enemies.

There was never a question of holding back your anger, or of seeking to redress the wrong in a peaceful way. When your honour had been tampered with, it could only be restored through the spilling of blood. And so, consequently, as people doggedly held onto such convictions, a vicious cycle would go unbroken for decades, and feuds would be constantly nourished by each new killing.


OVERCOME BY MERCY

It was the courage of monks and their staunch defense of the need for forgiveness that eventually resolved the issue. As the true meaning of the Cross of Christ dawned on the savage Vikings, more and more rival clans would replace the crave for bloodshed by a more conciliatory attitude: he who now had been convicted as a sinner by the message of the monks, and who had received forgiveness for his own, past mistakes, could not easily continue resorting to the sword whenever conflicts arose.

And thus forgiveness began to bridge gaps between former enemies, albeit war would still from time to time disrupt the delicate peace that had descended on their common, ancestral country.

What I've written so far doesn't constitute conclusive evidence against the notion that religious ideas are all to be discarded, replaced instead by 'enlighetrened', secular ones. But it should, hopefully, have stirred up old ghosts of doubt to those who believe – like the Canadian lady – that the world has, is, or will be a better place withtout 'bothersome' religion.