Crime, Religion and Division

THE EDITOR: Different faiths are quite often given a platform in your newspaper to promote their particular persuasion and so it is only fair that you print a different viewpoint, in this case for those people who are atheists. Quite a lot of people, myself included, hold the point of view that religion, in its more extreme forms, poses the greatest threat to world stability and development in the future. The 9/11 murders were caused by religious fanatics who believed that they would be rewarded by going instantly to paradise likewise the suicide bombers who blow themselves up in the Middle East. Even Trinidad has had its problems. Look at the attempted coup, same sort of people. The examples of extremist religious zealots causing mass murder are too many to mention here but the recent child massacre in Russia is only the most recent.

Many people who are non theist normally maintain a diplomatic silence when the view is put that the present crime wave is caused by a lack of religion. There is nothing to support this point of view. America, of the G8 block of developed countries is the most crime ridden and almost the most religious. Japan, by contrast, is the least religious and also has the lowest crime rate. China, where most of the people are atheist, is a very safe country to be in, unlike Trinidad and Latin America. A case could well be made that the more religious a country is, the more crime. A recent survey of American jails showed that the inmates were virtually 100 percent theist (believe in religion).

Things are changing as information becomes available and the contradictions and lack of evidence for any faith become more widely known. Europe is becoming increasingly secular, church attendance has dropped dramatically, (Italy has the lowest birth rate in Europe so you can tell who they don’t believe in!) And let’s hope that Northern Ireland becomes more secular. They are the same people on both sides of the conflict. The Trinity Cross controversy here is a beautiful example in miniature of the divisive nature of religion.

Prior to Darwin, a reflective atheist would think that religion provided an explanation (albeit unlikely) that life was crated on this planet. After Darwin, and in the light of a lot of corroborating scientific evidence (Crick and Watson-structure of DNA-carbon dating and basically the ethos of observation and deduction) of the last 150 years we have an explanation of how live evolved. For further reading on this subject I would recommend the books of Professor Richard Dawkins, Charles Darwin, R Leakey, D Dennett who write about evidence-based concepts.

R POWELL
Carenage