Mankind has shown an inexhaustible capacity for corrupting and harming every human institution, without exception. History is the long chronology of this harm. To argue that religion is especially prone to this is a singularly narrow form of selective thinking when even greater harm can be seen in all other institutions. We corrupt our democracy, we corrupt our economic systems, we use power to selfish advantage, we use power to brutalize others, the list goes on and on. The simple truth is that it is the human animal that causes the harm in whatever he touches. To attribute the harm to the institution is an astonishing form of willful blindness.

To work against our nature we create institutions that attempt to limit our capacity for harm. Democracy is an example of this. Or we create systems to try and prevent the harm at its source. Religion is such an institution. Both institutions are only partially successful because of the powerful nature of our primitive drives, embedded in the more ancient parts of our brain.

There are some atheists who believe that the elimination of religion will somehow eliminate harm. Well, we have conducted two very large experiments with atheism in Stalinist Russsia and Maoist China and the net result was the largest mass killings in all of recorded history.

Humility. Jesus Christ displayed it, and commands his followers to do otherwise. Pride is the greatest of sins—and as sinners, religious people are prone to it like any other.

Humility goes a long way on both sides.

Or the certainty that concentrating all power in the hands of the State will lead to Utopia.
Or the certainty that getting rid of religion in every form will lead to a perfect world.
Or the certainty that…

It is not the details of the worldview that cause harm so much as *dogmatism* about that worldview and the inability to tolerate doubt and differing opinions.

It seems important to me to not only be polite and interactive in person but to be polite and interactive, period, if more productive dialogues like these are going to work. If one is exceedingly polite and thoughtful in person but mostly using attacks on “cartoon” characterizations of the same people everywhere else (i.e., online), IMO it makes the in-person civility look contrived and disingenuine, even if that isn’t the intent. If one goes out of their way to be nice to a group of people to their face and talks all sorts of trash about them other times, that just seems like a double standard that will eventually self-destruct.

It seems like Coyne’s visit might have at least flipped some of the cartoon preconceptions of the faithful that I’ve seen in the past on his blog on their heads – and it probably did the same with preconceptions about atheists for the Methodist congregation! I’d argue the real trick is in seeing if that will hold, or if we’ll be back to the same tired cartoons in a day or so.

That said, the dogma inherent in religion adds another layer of certitude that stifles adaptation. For this reason the Catholic church has made slow, halting steps towards accepting the scientific narrative and in particular evolution. But they are getting there and the Catholic church is coming close to accepting evolution in its entirety.

Ironically, there need not be any conflict between scientific and religious narratives. If one believes in God one need only accept that God created both the laws of the universe as well as the universe. All conflict then goes away if one assumes that God acts according to the framework of laws that he created. And that seems to me to be a most reasonable assumption for a believer. But religion, because it is stifled by dogma, adapts slowly, however all the signs are that bodies like the Catholic church will in time fully accept the scientific narrative.

Rather bold conclusion would require some form of proof and proof would be hard to find because how do you measure certainty?

Certainty in what exactly?

How do you define “harmful” when you have no basis for morality?

I would say the harmful aspects of religion are correlated with the use of the potentially harmful aspects of religion, including but not limited to the certainty displayed by some of its adherents, by those who use the potentially harmful aspects to achieve their own ends. And I think you could say the exact same thing about science.

I find that, overall, the first group tend to be more religious than the second group.