Is Religion Dangerous? - Keith Ward

Is religion dangerous? Does it do more harm than good? A current glut of best-selling books answer these questions in the affirmative. Professor Richard Dawkins teaches that religion is “the root of all evil.” Christopher Hitchens believes religion is deadly, poisoning everything it touches. Sam Harris argues that commitment to religion at any level – from fundamentalist to liberal expressions – is dangerous to society. Keith Ward responds to the arguments put forward by these atheists (or better, anti-theists) in his newest book, Is Religion Dangerous? He argues that “such assertions are absurd. Worse than that, they ignore the available evidence from history, from psychology and sociology, and from philosophy. They refuse to investigate the question in a properly rigorous way, and substitute rhetoric for analysis. Oddly enough, that is just what they tend to accuse religious believers of doing” (7). Surely, religion does some harm – but it also does some good. Indeed, one could reasonably argue that it does a great deal more good than harm. And that is exactly what Ward does in this book. He provides a reasonable argument for the positive contributions of religion. For an extended summary of Ward's arguments, click HERE.