What Makes Religion a Force for Good or Evil?

By Terrence McNally and Robert Wright, AlterNet. Posted July 11, 2009.

Getting back to what brings out the best and the worst in religions -- when you're in a zero-sum situation with another group, you tend to judge their religion uncharitably. Your evaluations are slaves to your self-interest. This was a fundamental insight of Buddhism way back: We go around evaluating everything all the time, and our evaluations are not fundamentally valid. They impose a self-serving, judgmental scheme on reality.

TM: One more big one: We've got some trends that are looking poorly now: climate change; the end of oil; huge inequities between and within societies; violent confrontations based on tribal, ethnic and religious differences, and so on. If you could stand in 2025 and look back, did humanity turn things around, and if so, how?

RW: Some of the things you laid out have non-zero-sum implications. It's in the interests of people in lots of continents to solve climate change. Likewise, overfishing the seas or just keeping the global economy on track. To meet these challenges, it is in the interests of people to cooperate with others. And if they pursue those interests rationally, that will tend to subdue the other threat you mentioned, which is conflict among people and religions.

The argument in this book [is]: To the extent that we accurately perceive non-zero-sum relationships, we can be more tolerant of others and their religions.

Westerners are actually in a non-zero-sum relationship with Muslims for lots of reasons. If Muslims get less and less happy with their place in the world, that foments extremism and is bad for the West; and if they get happier, that's good for the West.

As we both realize we're in a non-zero-sum relationship, we will tend to judge them more charitably, they will tend to judge us more charitably.

I hate to say "them" and "us," because I know there are lots of Muslims in the West, and the whole idea of a Muslim world is a vast oversimplification.

But you take my point. Once Israelis and Palestinians see that it's "lose-lose" to leave their situation unresolved, then, assuming a certain amount of trust, you can start building the more charitable view of each other that fosters cooperation.

TM: Can you imagine how we're going to get there?

RW: I think it takes leaders of vision and inspirational power, and I think Barack Obama is pretty good in that regard. I was very impressed by his Cairo speech. Very early on, I said this guy is well-positioned by background to teach the world that we all have an interest in cooperation, that violence is senseless and that we should come to our senses.

TM: I consider myself a progressive. When we find fault, myself and others, with the way he's handling the bailout or Afghanistan, those are real arguments. But you know, he didn't specifically say he was going to do too many of those things. He said he was going to change the way we deal with each other, the way we govern. He basically argued for a non-zero-sum worldview more than he argued for any one policy.

RW: He's been more pragmatic on some political fronts than I would like, but in some areas I think he's stuck to his guns. On Israel-Palestine, I've been impressed. I think for domestic political purposes, it would have been easier for him not to insist that the settlements be completely stopped.

I've been a little despondent over some of his compromises, but you can't be picking a fight on every front at all times. To the extent that he's focusing on global issues of international, transethnic and transreligious cooperation, I think that may be where he should put his chips. That may be where his assets can best be deployed.

You can learn more at evolutionofgod.net and bloggingheads.tv.

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Interviewer Terrence McNally hosts Free Forum on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles (streaming at kpfk.org). Visit his Web site,A World That Just Might Work, for podcasts of all interviews, and more.

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