How to defeat religion pdf free download

Three answers have emerged in recent years. The first: Religion is the major source of violence. Therefore, if we seek a more peaceful world, we should abolish religion. The second: Religion is not a source of violence. It may be used by manipulative leaders to motivate people to wage wars precisely because it inspires people to heroic acts of self-sacrifice, but religion itself teaches us to love and forgive, not to hate and fight.

The third: Their religion, yes; our religion, no. We are for peace. They are for war. None of these is true. The second answer is misguided. When terrorist or military groups invoke holy war, define their battle as a struggle against Satan, condemn unbelievers to death and commit murder while declaring that "God is great," it is absurd to deny that they are acting on religious motives.

Religions seek peace, but on their own terms. The third is a classic instance of in-group bias. Groups, like individuals, have a need for self-esteem, and they will interpret facts to confirm their sense of superiority.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam define themselves as religions of peace, yet they have all initiated violence at some points in their history. My concern here is less the general connection between religion and violence than the specific challenge of politicized religious extremism in the 21st century.

The re-emergence of religion as a global force caught the West unprotected and unprepared because it was in the grip of a narrative that told a quite different story. It is said that , the year of the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, marked the final act of an extended drama in which first religion, then political ideology, died after a prolonged period in intensive care. The age of the true believer, religious or secular, was over.

In its place had come the market economy and the liberal democratic state, in which individuals and their right to live as they chose took priority over all creeds and codes. It was the last chapter of a story that began in the 17th century, the last great age of wars of religion. What the secularists forgot is that Homo sapiens is the meaning-seeking animal.

If there is one thing the great institutions of the modern world do not do, it is to provide meaning. Science tells us how but not why. Technology gives us power but cannot guide us as to how to use that power. The market gives us choices but leaves us uninstructed as to how to make those choices. The liberal democratic state gives us freedom to live as we choose but refuses, on principle, to guide us as to how to choose.

Science, technology, the free market and the liberal democratic state have enabled us to reach unprecedented achievements in knowledge, freedom, life expectancy and affluence. They are among the greatest achievements of human civilization and are to be defended and cherished. But they do not answer the three questions that every reflective individual will ask at some time in his or her life: Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live? The result is that the 21st century has left us with a maximum of choice and a minimum of meaning.

Religion has returned because it is hard to live without meaning. That is why no society has survived for long without either a religion or a substitute for religion. The 20th century showed, brutally and definitively, that the great modern substitutes for religion — nation, race, political ideology — are no less likely to offer human sacrifices to their surrogate deities.

The religion that has returned is not the gentle, quietist and ecumenical form that we in the West have increasingly come to expect. Instead it is religion at its most adversarial and aggressive. It is the greatest threat to freedom in the postmodern world.

It is the face of what I call "altruistic evil" in our time: evil committed in a sacred cause, in the name of high ideals. The 21st century will be more religious than the 20th for several reasons. First is that, in many ways, religion is better adapted to a world of global instantaneous communication than are nation states and existing political institutions.

Second is the failure of Western societies after World War II to address the most fundamental of human needs: the search for identity. The world's great faiths offer meaning, direction, a code of conduct and a set of rules for the moral and spiritual life in ways that the free-market, liberal democratic West does not. The third reason has to do with demography. World-wide, the most religious groups have the highest birthrates.

With the sole exception of the U. This leaves us little choice but to re-examine the theology that leads to violent conflict in the first place.

If we do not do the theological work, we will face a continuation of the terror that has marked our century thus far, for it has no other natural end. The challenge is not only to Islam but also to Judaism and Christianity. None of the great religions can say, in unflinching self-knowledge, "Our hands never shed innocent blood.

As Jews, Christians and Muslims, we have to be prepared to ask the most uncomfortable questions. Does the God of Abraham want his disciples to kill for his sake? Does he demand human sacrifice?

Does he rejoice in holy war? Does he want us to hate our enemies and terrorize unbelievers? Have we read our sacred texts correctly? What is God saying to us, here, now? We are not prophets but we are their heirs, and we are not bereft of guidance on these fateful issues.

As one who values market economics and liberal democratic politics, I fear that the West doesn't fully understand the power of the forces that oppose it. It is written like an annotated bibliography and is interesting and useful. All I all, I can recommend this book as a guide to activists who want to do something practical and want to go beyond intellectual arguments against religion, because that battle has been pretty much won.

Check out the Facebook page for the book for updates and discussions about the book. Books , Nonreligious , Sociology. Facebook Twitter Search. How to Defeat Religion in 10 Easy Steps. Description: Do you want the greatest challenges of the day to be addressed with thoughtful, reality-based solutions rather than with cherry-picked quotations from scripture?

Available on Amazon. Additional Recommendations for Secular Activists: Local Groups: Approach your local university and see if they have any students interested in doing an internship. Many religions use interns to help them clean up membership lists and engage in outreach to increase membership.

Interns work for free and often have great ideas for how to attract young people to events. Posted by rcragun on January 20, Books , Nonreligious , Sociology. Latest Tweets. SmolkinVictoria I learned a lot reading your book.