Let’s tackle one more notion that seems to empower Atheists: That religion is the cause of most (or all) wars or violence. It’s a pretty common perspective, but one that doesn’t hold a lot of water. To condemn Christianity as the primary cause of conflict, you’d probably have to go back five or six centuries to the Inquisition, and as the main reason for a war, you’d have to go back seven or eight centuries to the Crusades. You might say that the Troubles in Northern Ireland were religiously motivated, given that the two sides identify themselves as Roman Catholic and Protestant, but in all reality the two sides are differentiated by their political allegiance to the British Crown or to the Irish Republic than to a theological allegiance to the transubstantiation of the Eucharist, or the role of Grace in salvation (for example). And as terrible as any death is, compare the magnitude of those conflicts to the Great War, which saw 20 million people killed, or World War II when 50 million people were killed. The World Wars were undeniably caused by Nations’ quest for political power and no one is advocating for abolishing politics (well, not seriously anyway… anarchists). People still participate in the activities of the states that caused all that mayhem and destruction in war by voting, sending their kids to school, going to the state-funded doctor (in Canada), and paying taxes. Why? Because the state is a necessary instrument of human well-being. Know what? Organised religion is too.

Anything that is important is likely to cause conflict. Love, Religion, Politics, are all things to avoid discussing at Thanksgiving dinner (unless you’re a sadist) because the things we feel the strongest about are the things that tend to divide us the most. If in fact spirituality and religion are in fact a necessary part of the human experience, and Westerners are just insulated from it, and a love of God inspires an unparalleled vibrancy of feeling, one could conclude that that we have a recipe for fanaticism. After all, no one every blew themselves up shouting, “No God is Great!” But a love of God is a love of others, to the point of detaching oneself from one’s own ego, and putting the other first by listening, by walking in their shoes. A true altruist cannot impose their own will on others, especially by violence — it’s paradoxical. So the “division” of religion isn’t a division at all — it’s the opposite.

Consider this question: How could any belief system that has altruism as its central tenant actually be worse for humanity than it is better? I’m not denying that world religions haven’t caused any suffering: The Roman Catholic abuse scandals, or the ISIS Caliphate in Syria are examples that clearly show that factions of a religion can subvert that altruistic message, through unabashed selfishness in the form of fanaticism, or a misguided sense of “the greater good”. But on the whole, when we get it right, which is most of the time, religion is a powerful force for good and does far more good than it does harm: Like feeding the disadvantaged, or providing a roof for the homeless, or administering an orphanage in Kabul.