How Faith Undermines Democracy

Most Americans are well-aware of how dysfunctional our national politics are. In most places, even to identify yourself as a Republican or a Democrat (for the few that still identify with either party) means to publicly beg for a shouting match.

What I strongly suspect, however, is that the religiosity of most Americans plays a large part in this: this is purely anecdotal, but I've noticed that I almost never have the same types of arguments with other atheists that I have and see other people have in political discussions with the religious. Granted, most atheists tend toward the liberal side in the USA, but there's a sizable minority of conservatives, and no matter how strongly we disagree, or how much difference there is in class or education levels, we're generally still able to discuss political issues rationally. That isn't what I see in discussions between people of faith - while obviously there are plenty of rational theists and plenty of irrational atheists, religious people typically seem to spend most of their time talking past each other, never directly addressing each other's points, making assertions without backing them up with anything, and making emotional pleas that don't convince anyone but the already-converted.

I think it's possible, or even probable, that religious faith is one source of this problem, or at least doesn't do much to create an environment where rational discussion is likely to take place. The problem with faith is that it rests in the personal: religious faith means essentially to identify the subjective with the absolute - that is, to turn a personal belief into a commandment of God. There is scientific evidence that people use their own opinions to infer what God thinks. On the more philosophical end, many people's faith is strongly influenced by a personal experience, whether that's a miracle, or a strong feeling of oneness with the universe, or what have you.

The problem here is that you can't base your life off of another person's personal experiences, and because of that, you can't use your personal experiences to convince others. The only way to resolve a debate is to communicate through the universal, and so far as I know, the only universal modes of proof are in sound logic and hard evidence.

So, people of faith will build a belief system or a set of morals based on personal experience, but when it comes time to convince others of the rightness of their position - which is generally necessary to resolve a political dispute - they have no way to actually change the other person's mind in a reliable way. What's worse, if the other person is also religious, they're not likely to change their mind even if strong evidence is provided against their position, since their belief system isn't based on evidence in the first place. And, just to really make matters really impossible, people who believe they have the absolute truth on their side have a very difficult time compromising, which is basically the last resort there is in a political dispute. All that's left, most of the time, is some sort of emotional plea or manipulation, or the use of force - whether that's jail time, fines, or actual violence.

Now, again, there are plenty of irrational atheists, and plenty of rational theists, but I think that atheists in the USA have a strong advantage in resolving political disputes, since there's a high correlation between rationalism and atheism, and a high correlation between faith and religiosity (obviously). So, where the environment most religious people live in is not conducive to settling political disputes, most atheists have an environment that requires them to be well-versed in rational or philosophical discussion, which makes it much easier to solve these kinds of problems, and compromise when there's no real resolution available.