The other day I saw a car with the bumper sticker you see on the left. It’s available from an atheist and agnostic organization called the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Of course, the first thing that came to my mind was the John Lennon song, Imagine. The second verse of the song’s lyrics goes something like this:
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
I assume the individual displaying the bumper sticker was making his opinion known that the world would be a much better place to live if there was no religion. I believe most atheists think that if only there was no religion, the world would suddenly become this global utopia, where we are one big, happy family environment. Certainly if one looks at the Crusades, the attempts at genocidal cleansing over the centuries and the current Islamic fanatics, you can make a case for this line of reasoning. However, in most instances, the people heading these endeavors were disturbed and/or evil in character and used religion as a convenient excuse to further their cause. Also, how do you explain the likes of Stalin, Lenin and Hitler? To my knowledge, there were no religious underpinnings to their slaughter of millions of people. They were basically atheists.
The same reasoning can be used to debunk the first line in the verse above – “Imagine there’s no countries.” Those that champion the idea that if we don’t have a country to show allegiance to we will suddenly solve the world’s problems because then people will have no reason to fight or kill each other. Sure, this sounds great on the surface. However, the human race, since the beginning of time has always tried to form some kind of common bonding. Whether it’s a small group of cave dwellers, a tribe, an ethnic group, etc., man will always attempt to form some kind of relationship. It’s in our DNA. Eliminating the country dynamic isn’t going to eliminate the problem. It will still manifest itself in another form.
Certainly there are numerous examples of people using religion for nefarious purposes. They definitely get more than their fair share of airtime on the networks and on the Internet. However, the vast majority of religious endeavors are made for the overall good of mankind. The bushel of religion has too many good pieces in it to throw it away because of a few bad apples.
