I had a conversation with a coworker today about religious faith. Besides being a bad idea, it made me think of an expression I've heard many times; "If you don't have anything, you don't have anything to lose." It's what makes a criminal dangerous and a religious fundamentalist terrifying. Throughout history, religion has been used for both good and bad. Here in the Northeast however, religion is fading. Traditional faith based values are waning. I certainly cannot advocate any single religion, but I find it to be a scary world where people believe that nothing they do in life will affect what happens to them in death.Christians, Jews and Muslims believe in an afterlife and punishment for wrongdoings in life. The Egyptians believed that their very soul would be literally devoured by a dog god if they did not convince the gods that they had led a good life. Those who believe in reincarnation have always known that their social status or even their existence as a human beings hang in the balance if they do not live by certain principles.
No religious or secular system of morality is without faults. For those in society who don't live by society's rules could hypothetically still live as good moral people due to a higher belief system. When people decide that nothing they do in life has consequences, it frees them to do as they please. Inhibitions exist for a reason. When they are removed, chaos can ensue. Imagine if every member of a given society decided that rules don't matter, that consequences for their actions don't exist. What incentive would anyone have to do the right thing, to behave civilly, to not simply kill each other and take everything they want?
The political philosopher John Locke of the 17th century wrote about these very issues. Locke is known well for his social contract, the idea that humans have agreed to not kill eachother in order to survive. However, this is NOT what he should be known for. Locke described the origins of society from units as small as a family up to a kingdom. The system he described made a lot of sense, but only worked assuming the society feared consequences for living in chaos rather than order.
To me, a country of atheists is far more terrifying than a fundamentalist. The people who believe that this is it, that their life has no greater meaning, who fail to see that their actions affect people still living or don't care, are the ones who scare me the most. Faith is not without its risks, but it is a lot less scary to me than to believe in nothing at all.
