We need not look far back in history to find instances of violence being carried out in the name of religion. What is more, the secularisation of Europe along with the ‘God is back’ phenomenon elsewhere around the world brings the topic of religion and its appropriate place in the public sphere very much to centre stage. What exactly is religion's role in promoting intolerance or tolerance in society, and can we say that there is something in religion that causes violence? This book has brought together scholars in the three disciplines of evolutionary anthropology, experimental psychology and analytic philosophy, religious sympathizers and challengers alike, to address the different dimensions of the question.
From an evolutionary anthropology perspective, religion can be seen as an adaptive mechanism to help society function. With the increase in the size of communities, the arrival of doctrinal religions helped to facilitate social cohesion by decreasing risks of free-riding of other members and making punishment for wrong-doings a real threat. By looking at one aspect of religion in particular – the ritual – we also learn that participation in low frequency and emotionally intense rituals creates strong group bonds but increases out-group hostility. Religions, however, which have routinized their rituals manage to include more members, albeit with weaker ties of identity and cohesion. In addition, religion can be argued to have an adaptive function in war and in fighting more effectively. Johnson and Reeve argue that by promoting heroism and self-sacrifice, offering supernatural rewards, dehumanising the enemy, and encouraging cooperation and comradeship within groups, religion serves as an adaptation to survive inter-group conflict. As such, we can expect to see more inter-religious warfare, rules and conditions for appropriate recourse to war, as well as religion to be a recurrent element of war across societies.
Experimental psychologists face the challenge of identifying the different dimensions of religiosity, finding ways to capture them through experiments (with caution against self-reporting bias), and linking this to evidence of intolerance. Identified dimensions such as ‘extrinsic’ and ‘intrinsic’ religious orientation, as well as ‘religion as quest’, added to the ideological predictors of social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), are all common classifications used to tease out how dimensions of religiosity can be associated with prejudice or intolerance. A challenging task indeed, yet the reader becomes confused with the use of ‘prejudice’ and ‘intolerance’ intermingled; a slight problem for a book where definitional clarity is paramount.
Findings in these chapters highlight the interaction between a religion's proscribed or non-proscribed intolerances and the believer's religious orientation (extrinsic, intrinsic, religion as quest). Religion as quest is the best orientation to have in terms of being tolerant, as it provides an openness to life's complexity, its meaning, and religious questioning. Another finding is that religion can provide a ‘buffering’ role to decrease mortality salience and actually protect religious individuals from prejudice since they feel secure in their worldview and belief in immortality. Besides dimensions of religiosity, the out-group can affect the type of prejudicial reaction. Prejudice can manifest itself in different ways – disgust, distrust or fear – according to the perceived threat the out-group poses. For example, Gervais and Norenzayan argue that anti-atheist prejudice is most likely among those who believe in a ‘watchful’ God – a God who makes people behave better. This group shows a prejudiced reaction of distrust, rather than fear or disgust, towards atheists.
Following these chapters we are brought to several philosophical contributions. Thurow's conceptual clarity on defining ‘religion’, ‘cause’, and ‘tolerance’ is much needed in this book, as well as his stress on the need to investigate both religious and non-religious systems and institutions. He sets the stage for several discussions feeding into the debate on whether religion should have a role to play in the public sphere. Roger Trigg and C.A.J. Coady believe religion does have a place, particularly because the state itself is not a neutral agent – as demonstrated in its commitment to upholding the value of individual freedom. Moreover, cognitive psychology can show us that it is ‘natural to believe’, that our minds have a cognitive architecture already predisposed to some form of religion, with natural tendencies to find meaning in life, to conceive of minds as separate from bodies, and to detect agency. Furthermore, religious difference does not necessarily have to be socially divisive, religions can and have evolved in their teachings, and involving religion in public life is necessary to keep religion open to scrutiny and non-manipulation.
Other authors are more sceptical. ‘Thick’ compromises, as discussed by Sinnott-Armstrong, in terms of sacrificing central values and recognising the other's point of view for the sake of peace and friendship, are hindered by absolutist religious beliefs. Persson and Savulescu argue that if religion should be included in the public sphere, it needs to do so using secular justifications, and that children should not be taken to places of religious indoctrination. Perhaps it is also the type of religion which is the issue: Flanagan presents the case that Buddhism and Confucianism may be more tolerant than the Abrahamic religions due to their emphasis on an impersonal god and gods which are not omnipotent. The hope for the West may lie in Aristotelian virtue ethics to promote tolerance.
This book whets the appetite rather than provides conclusive arguments for or against religion's relationship to intolerance. As a first venture it is ambitious in its interdisciplinary character; however the inclusion of expert theologians would have provided useful insights to the role and interpretation of violence in sacred texts and historical events. Moreover, religion is used too broadly as a term, and the bunching together of ‘religions’ of the pagan gods and of a monotheistic God has overlooked important differences. In order to arrive at decisive conclusions, a more thorough examination will need to tease out religion's role in violence as compared to other deep identity markers such as ethnicity, the possible manipulation of religion to serve political ambitions, an analysis of which aspects of which religion could cause intolerance, and an examination of intolerance and violence in non-religious or anti-religious systems.
More fundamentally, however, the book raises several important questions which need to be addressed in order to move forward in the debate: What is religion exactly? Is compromise and tolerance necessarily good? How can we determine when it is not? How can we be sure it is not something in man qua man (pride, desire for power) which leads to violence and manipulation? Excluding religion from the public sphere may also be seen as intolerant. The elephant in the room is how we agree on a vision of what is good or bad, and the common good. The book shows the need for dialogue amongst the different sides and different disciplines to improve their understanding of the issues at play, and will certainly provide those interested with a thought-provoking read.
