Religion is quite possibly the most powerful social construct in the world today. No other social construct has managed to kill as many people (and animals) nor save as many lives as religion has. No other social construct is primarily responsible for as many wars or as many charities as religion. Religion itself is responsible for such incredible good in this world and yet is the root cause of so much bad.

For all its good I am no fan of religion. The bad is just too great to ignore for me. Now don’t get me wrong. I encourage faith in whatever you believe. But lets not confuse faith with religion. There is a distinct difference: faith refers mainly to a blindly, loyal belief in something that you cannot quite prove. Religion is the doctrine that surrounds faith that insists that its followers not only have some truth that everyone else does not, but also demands that all other faith is wrong. There is no room for tolerance in MOST religions (some religions do seem to promote some modicum of tolerance, but they are few and far in between).

That is the major problem with religion. Religion and tolerance cannot truly exist together. Oh… religious people will often act like they are tolerant of others but they are in fact only acting. Their intolerance still exists. They still believe that belief in their faith will result in reward and that rejection of their faith will result in punishment.

As much as I am against most forms of organized religion I also realize that religion is necessary. You see, it is faith that keeps this world from falling into darkness. Faith in leading a good life, or faith in higher virtues, or even the atheists faith (what? Atheists have faith too… just not in God) in social morality and in doing good so that good can be done to you. The faith of many of the worlds religions have one thing in common: love your fellow man. Faith understands that it cannot survive without followers and that it must, for the most part, protect its followers. And to that end most faiths will promote loving and caring for your fellow man. But religion has no such understanding… religion seeks to separate and divide people by the god they worship or the god they don’t and then gradually to consume each division into the other until there is only one religion left. But to this end religion performs a very important role: religion is the vehicle that spreads faith throughout the world. If a religion spreads a faith that encourages loving your brother and caring for others and respect and freedom and benevolence then I can tolerate it. Truly tolerate it.

To me, it matters not that you worship Jesus, God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Jah, a bald, fat, pot-bellied, little man, or aliens. What does matter is whether your faith encourages loving each other and doing good in this world. With more faith and less religion this world would be a better place. The catch 22 is that faith doesn’t just spread by itself. It needs religion to reproduce. And though my faith is Christianity, my religion is Tolerance. Tolerance of faith.