Recently, I’ve been starting to question my stance on religion. As you will probably know by now, I’m a Nihilist because that is the only belief I can have. It was always puzzling to me how other people manage to believe the outrageous things that other religions tell you, but despite my inability to join them, I tended to view them as inherently positive. I always say that nihilism is the worst belief there is and if you are capable of believing anything else you should do that. From an individual’s perspective I still consider this to be true. The emotional support a proper religion can give you will be immensely beneficial to your wellbeing and nihilism provides none of that. The only reason to choose nihilism is because you have no other choice and the only reason I would promote it is because it’s still better than having no other choice and not choosing it.
But now comes the dilemma: I am no longer sure if the benefits of having a religion outweigh its downsides. In particular, the level of access that religious leaders gain to your emotional state. If you truly believe in any religion that is actively practiced by a group of people, you are susceptible to becoming a tool for the advancement of your religion’s goals. And since the governance structures of most religions leave much to be desired, that means you become the tool of a handful of very powerful individuals. If you are part of their religion, you believe that they don’t make the decisions but that they follow a divine plan or that they are in contact with some deity or something like that. But in reality they are the ones who decide what you should feel. They might not even be aware of that themselves, they might not necessarily be malintentioned and they might not even be still alive. But if you rid yourself of the burden of having to steer your emotions, someone else does.
The collective emotions of a large group of people is difficult to steer. It’s not like religious leaders are handed a control panel that they can just push a button on and suddenly everyone goes on a crusade. They have a difficult job that takes a lot of wisdom to perform and many of them are probably highly honorable people. But none of that matters if their goals are not aligned with what would be best for you. And as I’m looking at the world right now, it very rarely is. Many armed conflicts taking place in the world are only enabled because people put the goals of their religion, not only before the lives of millions of others but also before their own. Can you imagine how pointless the conflict in the middle-east would be if being a Jew or a Muslim wasn’t a deeply rooted personality component but a choice that anyone was free to make, just like they are free to choose their cellphone carrier?
Nihilism is the other extreme. You have to take full control of your emotions and you don’t get to rely on any help with that. It’s like doing the difficult job of those religious leaders but without any followers to send on a crusade except yourself. It would be foolish to think that this could be an alternative for most people. It would be even more foolish to think that it should. So where is the middle ground? What can we do to prevent people from becoming slaves to ideologies that cause bloodshed all around the globe? If you are an attentive reader you might have already spotted the solution in the previous paragraph.
Religious freedom. It is the only answer to the problem, but it may be as unattainable as it is straight forward. You don’t need to be left alone with your emotions and face the terrors of existence yourself if you can choose a religion that suits you. Yet, you don’t become a slave to the collective emotions of a belief system if you are free to leave if it no longer suits you. We don’t need to abolish religion to end the bloodshed. We need to abolish religious exclusivity. In many ways, religions are like cellphone carriers. They take some of your money and provide services while prescribing arbitrary rules that have no technical justification. Let’s apply the same consumer protection and put rules into place that prevent them from trapping you in a relationship you are no longer comfortable with.
We should have laws that prevent any religion from making it more difficult to leave them than it is to join them. We should require consent from those joining a religion. We should make it illegal to sanction people who have the wrong religion (as is already prescribed in the German constitution) and apply those laws also to religious institutions (as is not the case in Germany which I find outrageous). As a society, we should treat anyone the same regardless of what they believe, but we should not tolerate anyone being forced into believing something. And if someone believes that others should be forced into believing something, we should make it clear to them that they are free to believe that but that they are still not allowed to act on it or they have to face consequences. This is the precise point where we should draw the line. This is how we prevent religions from abusing their power.
But this issue can’t be solved with laws alone. Forcing a religion on somebody should be met with the same disgust and outrage as trying to force their gender, their sexuality or, while it does not actually happen it would probably be the highest form of outrage, their cellphone carrier. Because there is no plausible reason why religions would need to force themselves onto people if their primary goal was to serve their believers and that is the only thing they should do. For everything else we have states, companies, NGOs and associations. Entities that hold power but should not be allowed access to our emotional state. Yes, I know, we are also a long way from that but that’s a different story.
So how do we get there? Well, the most obvious place to start is to establish a proper separation between states and churches. The catholic church still has way too much power in Germany, even though religious freedom is prescribed in its constitution. But this problem is not unique to Germany, other countries give even more power to religious institutions, some even are outright theocracies. So if you have any religious friends, discuss the benefits of religious freedom with them. Make sure they understand it’s not a threat to their belief but that it will benefit them more than anyone else. And if they actually have good counterarguments, send me an email. I’d be very much interested to hear them.
