Abstract

In Branden Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican’s challenging and provocative essay, we hear a considerably longer, more scholarly and less melodic rendition of John Lennon’s catchy tune—without religion, or at least without first-order supernaturalisms, there’d be significantly less intra-group violence. First-order supernaturalist beliefs, as defined by Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican, are “beliefs that claim unique authority for some particular religious tradition in preference to all others”. According to M&M, first-order supernaturalist beliefs are exclusivist, dogmatic, empirically unsupported, and irrational. Moreover, again according to M&M, we have perfectly natural explanations of the causes that underlie such beliefs. They then make a case for second-order supernaturalism, “which maintains that the universe in general, and the religious sensitivities of humanity in particular, have been formed by supernatural powers working through natural processes”. Second-order supernaturalism is a kind of theism, more closely akin to deism than, say, Christianity or Buddhism. It is, as such, universal, empirically supported, and beneficial. With respect to its pragmatic value, second-order supernaturalism, according to M&M, gets the good of religion without its bad. Second-order supernaturalism is thus rational and inconducive to violence. In this paper, I will examine just one small but important part of M&M’s argument: the claim that religion is a primary motivator of violence and that its elimination would eliminate or curtail a great deal of violence in the world. Imagine, they say, no religion, too. Janusz Salamon offers a friendly extension or clarification of M&M’s second-order theism, one that I think, with emendations, has promise. He argues that the core of first-order religions, the belief that Ultimate Reality is the Ultimate Good, is rational and, if widely conceded and endorsed by adherents of first-order religions, would reduce conflict in the world. While I favor the virtue of intellectual humility endorsed in both papers, I will argue contra M&M that belief in first-order religion is not a primary motivator of conflict and violence. Second, partly contra Salamon, who I think is half right, I will argue that the religious resources for compassion can and should come from within both the particular and the universal aspects of religious beliefs. Finally, I will argue that both are guilty, as I am, of the philosopher’s obsession with belief.