Observation: I seem to spend at least as much of my time defending the church as I do expressing my own, atheistic understanding of the world.
Discussion: Whenever I get into a discussion about religion, it can sometimes be difficult to express my views without being caught on one or another side of “the fence”. It is generally assumed, for example, amongst atheists, that anyone who goes to church must firmly believe in God, Jesus as our saviour, heaven, and even creationism, whilst it is often assumed amongst theists that atheists will find no significance in religious thought, or that to be an atheist one must “believe” in the absence of a God as strongly, and with as little evidence, as any theist.
Whilst these claims may well be justified in certain cases, it’s not an approach to religious and philosophical thought that I am at all comfortable with. All discussion on this subject, I feel, should be balanced and understanding, rather than condemning. And so it is that I end up defending the church, in those cases where atheists, and even sometimes theists, see it as a selfish, corrupt institution which provides no value to society.
I currently go to church because I sing in a church choir. I enjoy singing the music of the wonderful English choral tradition, and also have a fondness for some of the liturgy. It gives one a sense of perspective when you think that these traditions have been going on for hundreds, sometimes even over a thousand, years. And another triumph of the church is its architecture. These three elements make up the arts benefit of church – music, literature and architecture. So much of our cultural history has such close links with the church that you cannot deny the benefit that society has had from it. In fact, the separation of cultural arts from the church has, in many ways, caused a degradation of the quality of those arts on both sides. Secular music, driven by the profit motive, and without any moral compass, becomes hedonistic, vulgar and, to take advantage of economies of scale, automated. Whilst church arts, no longer being expected to be a cultural art in its own right, serves only to support the liturgy, and is therefore bland and shallow. This, it seems to me, is in stark contrast with medieval arts and architecture, and traditional choral music, which is of such high cultural value, but needed a context to justify it, and that context was the church.
The other really significant benefit that the church provides to society is the community benefit. In a world that is increasingly fragmented, the need for building strong communities is more pertinent than ever, and whilst I personally regret that such communities should come together based on the pretence of religious belief, rather than humanistic commonalities, I still feel that it is better that there should be a community at all rather than none. People coming together in an environment that does not have an ulterior motive (such as profit or political power) is a necessary part of a healthy society. People coming together to reinforce their commonalities is good. One benefit of forming such a community based on the values of the church is that it also becomes a force of those values, which, in many cases, are hugely beneficial to society. The value of charity, for example, upheld by the church, makes it a powerful force for charitable fundraising and support. The value of care for others, to take another example, means that the church becomes partially responsible for the well-being of its parishioners, a service which may not be able to be provided by any other body.
Whilst the above defence can be used to justify the church’s presence within modern society, it cannot be used to justify the significance of religion as a core basis for that society. Religion (by which I mean the belief in and worship of superhuman powers) is quite different in that, in itself, it provides no benefit to society (even if it does provide psychological comfort to the individual believer), and can even cause a blindness on the part of believers to damaging effects where the distraction of searching for religious truth disrupts a human’s natural compassion (see this TEDTalk by Sam Harris). Science, however, is always searching for a universal truth, and is quite willing to change its beliefs when new evidence becomes available, something that religion is unable to do.
Conclusion: The two benefit spheres of the church are, in my opinion, those of arts and community with religious belief being a detrimental effect of the church on society. However, I’m open to discussion, where arguments can be justified. Discussion on the subject of religion is best when it is balanced and understanding, rather than condemning, and both parties in the discussion must be prepared to adjust their standpoint, lest the discussion will degrade into a pointless argument.
[UPDATE 24/7/12]: Related reading: Religion for Atheists: A non-believer’s guide to the uses of religion