If the questioner is wrong and I am not, then results with far-reaching consequences can be seen just by examining material conditions as they exist now. Assuming my questioner is from one of the established religious traditions, we need but look at the physical holdings possessed by the establishment comprising that tradition: church buildings, vehicles, tracts of land, decorative items, artwork, and so forth. Also, if the deity is fictitious, the resources devoted to its worship can be seen as a ridiculous and nearly complete waste of effort and material, well past the point of absurd tragedy when opportunity cost is taken into account. For example, most church buildings remain unused and empty for 85-90% of the time1, and even when they are used, the vast majority of that use-time is devoted exclusively to members of the congregation – imagine how that space could be used to house the less-fortunate or to prepare regular meals for the hungry. How many coats and shoes could be bought for the price of the statues and various accoutrements in the average Christian church’s sanctuary, or even for the cost of the fancy paneling and wall-coverings? How many textbooks are displaced by the cost of a church van that gets used perhaps once every two to three weeks? Could that van instead be used as general transportation for those lacking it, or to reduce the overall use of limited and dirty resources?
Many churches near my house (and there are indeed very many) have more than one outbuilding that functions as a fellowship hall, gymnasium, or Sunday-school facility; the utilization rate of these buildings is even less than that of the typical church’s worship hall, as can be observed with random drives through the neighborhood. Church establishments take in money as charitable contributions and use that money to construct, heat, furnish, and maintain these largely unused structures. Not only do goods and services given and used for such purposes exist outside the bounds of true charity (in the sense of a moral good), they displace charity that could be of far greater benefit elsewhere. Yet the fact remains that nearly every penny devoted to these endeavors is claimed as a charitable contribution, which of course reduces the amount that would otherwise be available (through tax revenue, for example) to serve the wider public good.
If the questioner is wrong, it is also true that the basis under which she is operating is immoral and has led her to commit immoral acts – that is, her acts do not seek to maximize the common good but instead target a select and specifically limited subgroup of society. The acts are justifiable only on grounds stemming from self-interest. In anticipation of an objection that believers are convinced that their actions work to the expansion of the common good, I would suggest that if such is their claim then a heavy burden of proof lies with them. Their case is not an easy one to make, for as we all know the same argument is used to justify suicide bombings – these zealots are just as (and most likely far more) convinced of the righteousness of their cause and of the benefits to mankind should their efforts succeed overall.
The best retort the questioner can possibly make is that she causes no overt or “extra” harm, but this merely places her actions in the realm of amoral, and I doubt the average believer would find such a label any more palatable than immoral.
If the questioner is wrong it is also instructive to look at effects of belief in a god or gods (and all that entails) on the engine of human progress, especially (but certainly not limited to) intellectual and moral development. It is well documented that religious institutions have resisted progress in scientific thought at every turn, often with violence. The execution of Giordano Bruno in 1600 for heresy is a telling example, but consider also that modern opponents of abortion are able to base their beliefs on sacred religious texts yet simultaneously commit utterly ruthless acts of intimidation, humiliation, and even terrorism (all while criticism from religious institutions is muted or completely absent). The teaching of evolution through natural selection is vehemently opposed by many in the United States to this day prompted by the cheer-leading of the dogmatists even as the rest of the civilized world furrows its collective brow in puzzlement. It is also plain from just a cursory examination of history that believers in god(s) have opposed every advance in moral ideals, no matter how well reasoned or argued, that clashed with established dogma; ideals that have overcome this immense barrier have inevitably proven themselves over time to be beneficial to the human condition overall, and many have become so ingrained as to be reflexive or thought of as self-evident. The practice of slavery, for example, was staunchly defended by virtually every religious institution for thousands of years, even after the forces of secular reason had recognized it as barbarism. Adolph Hitler and his “final solution” had the tacit support of the Catholic Church from his early ascendancy throughout the times of most of his heinous acts. In fact, I have yet to discover any single moral advance humans have made whose cause has been led by a religious institution. Recent examples including the abolition of slavery, woman's suffrage, and the struggle for minority civil rights have all been originated and championed by secular as opposed to religious efforts. To be sure, there have been folks self-identified as religious who participated in and in some cases headed these endeavors, but none has been lead, initiated, or even proposed, by a religious body or institution per se.
This is indeed a poor track record and is in stark contrast with one of the chief (and loudest) claims of religion which states that we derive our moral basis from it. At best, the reverse would seem to be the case, although the term theft might be more apt.
A defining feature of the convicted religious adherent is the certainty possessed with regards to the absolute and unquestionable rightness of the system. Such certainty by definition leaves no room for compromise or even discussion. This means that there is no “engine of human progress” of which to speak, and that our moral and intellectual development is frozen at the moment of inception of the adherent's religion. If such certainty were to have prevailed we would still exist in the Stone, Bronze, or Iron Age. Thank goodness the failings of religious dogma are both inherent and obvious to free-thinking persons. It is depressing, however, to imagine how much earlier we would have enlightened ourselves and how much further along we would now be were it not for the staunch resistance of the hard-headed, stone-faced zealots who, oblivious to the irony of their self-proclaimed modesty, crown themselves as the righteous.
What if you are right?
Since saying that I am wrong does not carry the same implication as saying that you are right, this is the final permutation. If we ignore the vast majority of the history of all religious traditions and look only on, say, the last thirty to fifty years, most of us would agree that the focus of much of today’s religious discourse (and the carrot which is frequently used in conjunction with the titular question of this essay) is that the ultimate practical, immediate outcome of universal religious observance is a harmonious and peaceful human existence. In such a society, no human being would be hungry or want for any of the basic necessities of life, no wars would be fought, and all would have the opportunity to pursue what many think of as nobler ambitions. This stems from the very modern concept of a god as chiefly a being of love and compassion with equal concern for all human life, who wishes us to emulate those same ways and attitudes. This modern concept of a god is a union or aggregation of the reflected goodness inherent in each of us and in our better social establishments: in short, what modern spiritually-minded people imagine as “godly.” In the dual-spirit of both brevity and levity I will hereafter refer to these Major Attributes of a God Of Goodness as Magog.
It is easy to see how out of sync the majority of religious establishments are with Magog. This might stem from, in the case of Christians, the incompatibility of the jealous, tribal god of the old-testament with the only slightly more enlightened god of the new-testament. There are simply too many contradictions among them for any one system to encapsulate them both consistently; the result is a bewildering myriad of sects, each of which picks and chooses from the bible’s long menu to suit their tastes. A topic for a longer essay might consist of an exploration of the reasons underlying Magog's rise and what that says about the deficits of organized religion in general.
A being of boundless love and compassion is by necessity one that can encompass no hubris whatsoever. By this standard the practice of our adoration and worship must be utterly repugnant to Magog. Enlightened humans understand that we do not show love and compassion to one another through worship; we instead prove it through our feelings of empathy, expressions of sympathy, and acts of kindness. Overt worship, and all the baggage that comes with it, is more than a mere waste of time, it is a diversion of resources that Magog wishes us to put to better use. We should expect such a being to place lowest on the list those who spend their time in fawning adoration instead of expressing, through thoughts and actions, concern for all fellow human beings. Who among use does not rightly despise the sycophantic tag-along who gets the job promotion ahead of us merely due to acts of flattery? Is this any different than prostrating oneself before Magog in an effort to be first in line for the hereafter?
A being that has equal concern for all human life does not judiciously choose those on whom to bestow blessings or good will. If unconditional concern for all human life is a feature of Magog’s that we ought to emulate, then the filtering of recipients of our good will based on any criteria other than need is incongruous with the will of Magog.
Furthermore, if the questioner is right this would of course mean that all other religious traditions are wrong (in addition to the mere absence of religious conviction), which is an assertion to which all major religions hold fast. Since no religious tradition can come close to claiming a majority of the human population in its following, this means that the vast preponderance of humans that now exist (and that have ever existed) are wrong. Most religions assert that such non-followers are permanently excluded from the presence of their god; a fair number of traditions with which I'm sure the reader is familiar go infinitely further and condemn nonbelievers (and indeed all different-believers) to an eternity of torment. The very idea that a being with any similarity whatsoever to Magog could condemn one to an eternity of the most abominable torture imaginable merely for the transgression of being wrong, ignorant, or even willfully skeptical flies in the face of all that we know of both compassion and reason. If one were to believe in the existence of pure evil, such a lopsided sentence would surely be the very definition were it to be the product of deliberate intent.
Clearly, such a question as stated in the title can only be asked by those with little to no capacity for introspection, or at least only by those who have omitted sober reflection from their lives. They fail to perceive the self-directed and exclusionary nature of their beliefs, much less any of the deleterious effects on humankind brought by them. And that is precisely what is wrong with such a question and also with those that ask it.
1This assumes for example that the church is used for a full 16 hours out of a 168 hour week, perhaps a generous estimate.
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