Religion answers nothing

Gotta pick a bone with a fellow atheist. From Bonnie Erbe in Atheists, Christianity, Bush, Religion, and Why God Is Not Dead:

During W's presidency, I often scratched my head and asked, after the liberating '60s and '70s, how did we ever go "back to the future" and end up in the political clutches of the religious Right? The fact is, '60s and '70s atheism was a bit too uninformed about the psychological and social benefits of churchgoing. Religion answers the unanswerable. It creates powerful and important social networks among churchgoers. Unless and until atheists, agnostics, and other nonbelievers can somehow replace those benefits, or form their own version of same, religion will continue to be a powerful cultural force.

There's no doubt that religion is a focus of social networks. And whether secularists need to offer some replacement for that force is an interesting and ongoing matter of debate.

My quibble is with "Religion answers the unanswerable". It doesn't. Perhaps the author would agree fully, and the sentence simply didn't come out the way she intended. Either way, those same words do get used, fully intentionally, by believers as a way of bolstering the status of religion. With those believers in mind, let's take a look at the assertion.

"Religion answers the unanswerable". Wrong. First there's the obvious contradiction: if religion (or anything) answers something, it isn't unanswerable. That aside, religion arguably does address some unanswerable questions, or at least attempt to address them (perhaps that's what the article author intended). Yet less charitable observers are quick to point out that religion, at best, only pretends to answer the unanswerable.

"It's not pretending," a believer may claim. "Religion does answer important questions. What's the nature of God, where do we come from, what's our purpose, what happens after death..." A long litany of questions follows, after which the believer may go on to relate what he believes are the answers religion provides. (Plus a friendly "Would you like brochures with that?")

Here's the slippery trick you have to catch, though: the sleight-of-hand replacing of "religion" with "my religion". We're told "The nature of God is love... and He created Adam... and our purpose is written in this scripture...", and so on. But that actually falls under "my religion", which is not the same thing as "religion". Sorry, Reverend, we spotted your little theological French drop there!

So how does religion answer the unanswerable? Like it always has. Like this:

"I want to know why we're here. Religion, please help me!"

"Certainly, my child. God has a plan for each of us..."

"Well, wait - sorry, another sect butting in here – His plan doesn't mean predestination..."

"No, I don't mean it like that. It's more of a goal for each of us..."

"Hold up, another sect here. Predestination is real. God knows the appointed time of..."

"Sorry to interrupt, but are you talking about karma? We should be talking about karma."

"There is no 'karma'. There is Divine Grace, which...."

"You're all off topic. God's plan for us was clear when he created the world 6,000 years ago..."

"6,000? More like 10,000."

"You're all insane. 14 billion years. That's when God started it all, and began directing the formation of life..."

"Blasphemer! Scripture is clear that..."

"Please, don't argue. I just want to know: where are we heading? Where will I go?"

"Why, to heaven, of course, if you accept Jesus."

"Or to hell if you don't."

"Well, my friend from another sect, if you mean hell as a figurative separation from God. It's not an actual place..."

"Like hell it isn't. There's a hell and sinners burn there."

"A hell? There are seven hells."

"I thought it was nine."

"There are none. And this heaven thing is all wrong too. If you go back to the original scriptures, you see that only 144,000 Anointed Ones will go to heaven, and the rest of us..."

"Who let the little cults in here? Of course there's Heaven for all faithful. And Hell, and Limbo."

"Limbo? Didn't you get the memo? We dropped that. It's just hell now for sinners, and heaven for good Christians."

"Christians? Excuse me? Only the true followers of Allah have the promise of Paradise..."

"Without Jesus, the Savior, the Messiah? I hardly think so! The Bible clearly says..."

"If you're looking for a Messiah, He hasn't come yet. Jesus wasn't it. He was a prophet, that's all, like Moses or Elijah or..."

"A prophet, yes. Certainly not the Prophet. That is none other than Mohammed!"

"Jesus, Mohammed, Moses... Great men, surely, but they're all avatars of the gods. Let me tell you about the gods..."

"There is but one God and his name is Allah!"

"No, it's Yahweh..."

"Stop fighting! I'm just trying to figure out what to do..."

"Accept Christ. That is all."

"Whoa, what the hell does that even mean? My sect teaches that you have to do more. 'Faith without works is dead.'"

"You've got it backward. It's faith. Not works. 'Believe in me, sayeth the Lord...'"

"Uh-uh. Works. Not faith."

"Shut up both of you. It's all about God's Law. First there are the Ten Commandm..."

"No. Sharia law. Allah clearly prescribes what we must..."

"Whoa, all those old codes are dead. The Golden Rule is all we need. We can't go around beating adulterers and condemning gays and..."

"Gays? They are an abomination and must be stoned!"

"Are you mad? Jesus hates what they do, but not what they are..."

"That's still hate talk, guys. It's time for the church and clergy to accept homosexuals like any other of God's children."

"Gay clergy? Blasphemous! Next you'll be mocking the Lord with women priests!"

"Hey, I am a woman priest, you pig!"

"Then how can you enter the House of God? His Law is clear on menstruation..."

"No, no, she can take part, but only if a male isn't present and she covers her head..."

......

And so it goes on, forever. Whatever a single religion may pretend to answer, we all know the truth: after thousands of years of trying, religion itself can't agree on anything. It spits out countless slippery, ill-supported, laughable assertions, each one directly contradicting a host of others. (After which the inummerable sects get about their true business of berating, strangling, and bombing each other.)  

Religion answers nothing. Period.