Is religion the cause of fanaticism? Does it lead to ignorance?
The “Taliban progressivism” —there is another progressivism, also misguided but likeable and harmless— never misses a chance to undertake its particular crusade against religion. The barbarity of radical Islamism is charged to the debit side of religion’s general account. Forgetting that terrorism disguises its infamy under the guise of defending some value—such as the nation, liberation, justice, or religion—it holds only the latter responsible for the terror. According to such subtle reasoners, every religion harbors within itself the germ of fanaticism. At most, they limit their condemnation to the monotheistic religions. And they recall all the wars of religion that there have ever been in the world, omitting the small detail that none would have existed without the action of the civil powers of the States. To repudiate religiosity because religious fanaticism exists is as subtle and convincing as to repudiate marriage because mistreatment and parricides exist. Thus the pathology becomes the natural consequence of the healthy phenomenon. And for the fallacy to be complete, it is also advisable to cover with a powerful mantle of silence all that religions—and, most especially, Christianity—have done to build and defend the edifice of human dignity.
Modernity, amid a handful of indisputable achievements, has led many men to embrace the absurd prejudice that religion is the daughter of ignorance and the mother of barbarism. Let us recall a few milestones along this errant path. “Science destroys religion,” confusing religiosity with its enemy, superstition, and ignoring the limits of science. “Religion is the opium of the people,” identifying an effect—the production of hope or consolation—with the whole cause. It is as if we reduced the essence of friendship to the obtaining of help in adversity. “Religion is an illusion,” mistaking a psychological explanation, valid in some cases but not in all, for a general explanation of the phenomenon. “Religion reduces man to a state of minority,” conjuring away the fact that many of the greatest men have been profoundly religious. To all these elementary errors is sometimes added a mental mechanism that leads some men to abhor religion: resentment against everything noble and excellent on the part of those who are incapable of rising above ground level.
All this, and a few things more, explains the radical incapacity of many intellectuals of our time to understand religion, and the anomalous situation it suffers in Western societies. To this is added the conspiracy of silence over all the valuable things it contains and accomplishes. Many media outlets thereby incur grave irresponsibility, contributing to the distortion of public opinion. If a diocese turns up in the Gescartera affair, it matters little whether as a fraudulent profiteer or an innocent victim: the event is assured of the front page and exhaustive analysis. But almost no one is interested in the social work of the Church, or the holding of a Congress on the family, or the condemnation of the growing moral degradation issued by the president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference. That is not news. To highlight the errors—proper, moreover, to the human condition—and to minimize the successes—also, without doubt, proper to the human condition—is a way of distorting the truth and failing the imperative of truthfulness that ought to govern journalistic activity. Error may be excusable; the lie is not.
Source: Interrogantes.net
