My latest column is up on AlterNet, Is Religion Inherently Authoritarian? It’s about the increasing conflict between liberal and moderate religious believers who feel the doctrines of their churches should be open for reexamination, and the authoritarians who are determined to quash these democratic notions at any cost. Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the rest:
Religion is a noteworthy exception to this trend of progress. Secular moral reasoning, founded on considerations of fairness and human good, allows for continual self-questioning and improvement as less-privileged groups speak out to demand justice and call our attention to evils that we’d been overlooking. In sharp contrast to this, the immutable doctrines of religion are supposed to be elevated above skepticism. Even if we know more or see farther than the clerics who once came up with them, many religious authorities tell us we should submit our wills and believe without questioning.
The result is that, in most cases, moral progress has left the churches behind. Like the tide going out and leaving once-submerged rocks high and dry on the shore, the archaic doctrines of conservative religion are increasingly isolated and exposed as the immoral and vicious absurdities they are. This has led to more conflict and dissension within the ranks, as believers who grew up in the modern era see the contradictions between what they’re taught and know to be right, and inevitably come into conflict with religious authorities who are determined to enforce the old rules at any cost.
Image credit: Tomas Castelazo, released under CC BY-SA 3.0 license; via Wikimedia Commons
