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WillowOne's Positions

Religion

My Positions

  1. I choose to act in the world without reference to any specific religious worldview.
  2. Religions should not receive tax exemptions by virtue of being religions.
  3. Religious institutions should be subject to the same laws, scrutiny, and accountability as any other organisation. There should be no religious exemptions from safeguarding, employment, or equality law.
  4. Religion is a human invention. It is a set of cultural technologies for explaining the world, binding groups together, and managing anxiety, which has since been superseded in the first role and is of doubtful value in the others (see The human need for religion).

Notes

  • On tax. In England and Wales, "the advancement of religion" is one of the statutory charitable purposes under section 3 of the Charities Act 2011. This means a religious organisation can obtain charitable status, with the associated tax relief, for promoting its beliefs, without having to show any public benefit beyond the promotion itself. I would remove "the advancement of religion" as a charitable purpose in its own right. Religious organisations that genuinely relieve poverty, advance education, or provide care could still qualify under those headings, on the same terms as everyone else.
  • Religious organisations may reasonably be allowed to apply for government programmes that support the maintenance of important and historic buildings, since the buildings are part of the shared heritage regardless of what is said inside them. The funding should follow the building, not the belief.
  • On the "force for good" question. It is often claimed that religion is, on balance, a force for good because of the charitable work it does. The charitable work is done by people, who would in most cases do it anyway, and in many cases the "charity" is contingent on exposure to proselytising. Against this must be set the institutional cover-up of child abuse (see Catholic Church Apologies), the opposition to contraception, the persecution of homosexuals and apostates, and the active obstruction of medical and scientific progress. See The Catholic Church is a Force for Good in the World.
  • On the social value of religion. I accept that religious communities provide real goods: belonging, ritual, mutual aid, a structure for marking births, marriages, and deaths. I do not accept that these goods require the false beliefs that come packaged with them. Secular institutions can and do provide the same things, and the task of a secular society is to make sure they are available.
  • I distinguish between religion as belief and religion as identity. Many people who identify with a religion do not hold its doctrinal claims, and many of the goods of religion attach to the identity rather than the belief. My objection is to the claims, and to the privileges claimed on their basis, not to the people.

Also see