When religion does damage

THE EDITOR, Sir:

NORMAN FRANCIS makes the point that history is replete with evidence of religion's role as a catalyst for change (Gleaner 18/08/01) and apparently believes that this is justification for continuing to encourage it.

But where religion liberates it has invariably ended up substituting a new oppressive dogma for the old.

After the Reformation, the Protestants had their own quota of witches burnt at the stake. Bertrand Russell puts it concisely when he says that good men use religion to do good and evil men use it to do evil. The same is true of any belief system, even the more rational, secular humanism. What is oppressive about religion in general, however, is its insistence on having faith in all sorts of nonsense against our better judgement, common sense and empirical evidence. We brutalise our children psychologically by forcing them to believe the incredible by terrorising them with threats of hellfire when they don't.

Theologians are doing a great disservice to young people when they insist on the absolute goodness of faith. I am always amazed at how many brilliant young people in this country believe the most ridiculous things when it comes to religion. A great deal of it is due to the intellectual dishonesty of too many theologians who know about the origins of the Bible in the mythology and oral tradition of the Hebrews, and yet fail to acknowledge this to their flocks. They treat the Bible as though it were in fact an eyewitness record of ancient events and refuse to examine, critically, the morality of its stories.

Faith, we are often told is the most important thing. But in my view, the only faith worth having, is in man's own ability to reason. This sort of faith at least acknowledges that what we believe must be constantly questioned and tested.

I am etc.,

R. HOWARD THOMPSON,

thompson@infochan.com

Rockton, Waltham,

Mandeville

Via Go-Jamaica

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