richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

260 T H E (., O !) 1) I- I. U S I G N
Palestine, from Iraq to Sudan, from Ulster to the Indian subcontinent,
look carefully at any region of the world where you find
intractable enmity and violence between rival groups. I cannot
guarantee that you'll find religions as the dominant labels for ingroups
and out-groups. But it's a very good bet.
In India at the time of partition, more than a million people were
massacred in religious riots between Hindus and Muslims (and
fifteen million displaced from their homes). There were no badges
other than religious ones with which to label whom to kill.
Ultimately, there was nothing to divide them but religion. Salman
Rushdie was moved by a more recent bout of religious massacres in
India to write an article called 'Religion, as ever, is the poison in
India's blood'. 101 Here's his concluding paragraph:
What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the
crimes now being committed almost daily around
the world in religion's dreaded name? How well, with
what fatal results, religion erects totems, and how willing
we are to kill for them! And when we've done it often
enough, the deadening of affect that results makes it easier
to do it again.
So India's problem turns out to be the world's problem.
What happened in India has happened in God's name.
The problem's name is God.
I do not deny that humanity's powerful tendencies towards ingroup
loyalties and out-group hostilities would exist even in the
absence of religion. Fans of rival football teams are an example of
the phenomenon writ small. Even football supporters sometimes
divide along religious lines, as in the case of Glasgow Rangers and
Glasgow Celtic. Languages (as in Belgium), races and tribes
(especially in Africa) can be important divisive tokens. But
religion amplifies and exacerbates the damage in at least three
ways:
• Labelling of children. Children are described as 'Catholic
children' or 'Protestant children' etc. from an early age, and
certainly far too early for them to have made up their own