This was the topic of a local debate between a local Church and local Humanists at Exeter University this evening.

The debate itself got somewhat bogged down in who committed the most atrocities (the religious or the atheists), although I think an interesting quotation was.. "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." - Steven Weinberg

.. but that presupposes we divide into good and evil, when one of the atheist presenters had already referred to the work of Stanley Milgram (where folks will electrocute others if an authority figure tells them to, although I suspect the Stanford Prison Experiment would make the point as well) which shows many of us can be evil in the right circumstances (I know I could).

The starting argument for those in favour of religion being harmful, started on what I thought was the right lines. That religion effectively entails "faith", which is believing in things without evidence (or at least what most regard as reliable evidence), which means generally you have a belief that is wrong (certainly religions disagree on their "truths", so at least one of two religions that disagree on a specific item must be wrong unless religious truths aren't universal). But I don't think the argument was pushed forward clearly enough (it would have been hard in the time available). I don't think believing in untrue things is necessarily harmful till you start acting on them, when your actions are likely to be less than optimal.

The first religious case involved arguing that the rise is atheism is responsible for increase in young male suicide. But that doesn't fit with the UK figures that suicide in females and older males has fallen over 50 years, if atheism is the cause surely all ages and genders would suffer with suicidal existential angst. Of course when it was claimed I didn't have Google Scholar to hand, although he was called to task for some aspects of this claim. He also argued that morality is god given, which I queried later with a question of why the morality of the church changes with time if it is god given, but I guess god can change his mind.

The second religious proponent pointed out that religion is good for your health (regular church attendance is probably good for your health, personal religious beliefs make very little, if any, difference). Interestingly a Swedish study shows similar benefits for attending other cultural events - so it is probably going out and socializing that is good for us, not the religious belief bit. Although this might qualify as a case of doing something beneficial for misguided reasons.

This debater also argued that religion makes people more generous to charity. Whilst this does appear to be true (if the agnostics Bill G and Warren B haven't upset the numbers between them), the effect isn't perhaps as large as he claimed. The UKs largest charity (by voluntary donation) Oxfam had both religious and humanist founders, probably the largest explicitly religious UK charity is the Salvation Army which clocks in tenth (on the same scale). I guess it is arguable that perhaps these folks are too generous to charity, if we want to look at the harm religion might be doing. Many of these religious charities have an evangelical wing (it is easier to convert the down trodden - look at the success of militant Islam in such groups), and some studies include Church collections as charitable giving.

The atheist who mentioned Milgram, argued that religion provides a structure in which we may obey authority or doctrine, rather than follow our normal instincts. Whilst he made some good points, this argument could be made against many different organisations, not just religious ones. No one asked about this. But I think this well characterizes the rampant homophobia exhibited by many senior members of the church of England, where religious doctrine gives them an excuse to organize themselves in oppressing a minority, although they omit the same zeal when tackling pork consumption (oh right pork consumption is okay now - sorry hard to keep up).

The pro-religion camp were all Christians. A pity since Exeter has a small but active Muslim group (as well as an active Arab studies center), and I think it would have made for a more interesting debate if the pro-religion groups were more representative of the worlds religions. It might have stopped the "but our brand of religion is different, and true" line of argument (or it could make it twice as bad!), which is a sterile argument and statistically unlikely given how many different groups have claimed to be the "one true way" in the past.

I think Terry Pratchett in the introduction to his "children's book" 'The Carpet People' probably came closer to the truth about how religions can be harmful.

Whilst it was interesting, my main conclusion which I half suspected going in, was that debating "Is religion harmful" with people of "faith" isn't going to get you the most objective view point or the best debate. I think better arguments could have been made on each side, and the debate lost focus into what is "true", rather than what is harmful, and largely ignored the question of whether a religion could be false but harmless, or even true and harmful. It also largely skipped on the difference between religion and the religious, although one person did ask an insightful question on how religions/churches compare to their founders - alas we only got the answer for Christianity, I was so hoping for the same comparison with Buddhism/Buddha, Islam/Mohamed, Scientology/LRH, and the Mormons/Joseph Smith, especially since some of these founders are not painted quite so kindly by history as Christ (possibly because their lives are better documented, for being more recent, and less heavily doctored over time).

The debate also needed more time, which seemed to go very quickly. No doubt it qualifies as a cultural event, so it was probably good for my longevity!