This is from a paper I wrote for a peace and conflict studies class. It's not strictly psychology, but I did talk a little bit about the Milgram Obedience Study in making my point. I edited the original copy upon finding some grammatical errors, but that was the extent.

Before I paste my paper in, I do want to clarify my religious position. I am an atheist, specifically a secular humanist. I follow the Buddhist philosophy of living life. I do not think any one religion is superior to all other religions. For one thing, I do not know enough about religion to make that kind of claim. What I do believe, however, is that religious interference into politics and public interactions can and often does create large problems. I firmly believe that no one religion has the right answer and that, without God(s) coming down and showing themselves to us, pointing at a specific religion as the right one, it is impossible to know which religion is the right one. I do respect people's right to be religious; I do not think people have the right to inflict their religion and beliefs upon others out of moral superiority.

The thesis of my paper is: Religion is not the problem; rather, it acts as an enabler, giving rise to preachers asking for blind obedience instead of embracing an intellectual process. The problem lies in the adherents of the religion buying into absolute truth claims and blindly obeying.

“Authentic religion engages the intellect as people wrestle with mystery of existence and the challenges of living in an imperfect world,” (Kimball 82). Religion starts out as a new, often progressive, way of thinking, usually with morals of how people should live and treat each other. In its infancy, Christianity was revolutionary with Jesus’ teachings of peace and love for the enemy as well as the neighbor. It began as religion centered upon a pacifistic mind-set before it was legalized in the 4th century by Constantine. After that, Christian warriors began appearing in the Roman army. More and more, Christians became missionaries obsessed with spreading the word to world, convinced of the rightness of their religion over any other religion. This is counter-intuitive to the foundational basis of religion. In my personal experience, religion has served simply as a lens for understanding the world and coming to terms with our inevitable deaths. I have not encountered a religion which I have felt to be the right religion, or even the best religion. The only differences I have seen is the way in which the followers of the religion react to people of other religions, and what the leaders of those religions demand from their followers. Modern Christianity’s adherents strive to rebuke the theory of evolution simply because it is not in line with its doctrine of Genesis. Instead, they invented Creationism and attempted to make it more scientific sounding by calling it Intelligent Design in order to co-opt those members who may be more scientifically oriented. On the opposite side, the Dalai Lama once said that if science and Buddhism clash on ideologies, then it is Buddhism which should reform—not science (Gyatso). In this sense, Christianity and Buddhism reflect polar opposites of the obedience coin: blind and authentic. “Authentic obedience is never blind” (Gray 1) whereas “blind obedience is a sure sign of corrupt religion,” (Kimball 82). The difference between these two religions is one of absolutes. Buddhism has a deep suspicion of absolutes (Gyatso). Incidentally, Gyatso was the Dalai Lama who declared “if the words of the Buddha and the findings of modern science contradict each other, then the former have to go” (Paine). Creationism, on the part of Christianity, does not exemplify the Dalai Lama’s perspective that religion should conform to the empirical findings based on research. Rather, creationism is an underhanded attempt to modify reality to fit a doctrine; it is not an attempt to modify belief in the face of evidence. This is only one way in which Christianity asks for blind obedience from its adherents. However, it is probably one of the most publicized examples and sparks wide-ranging debates in the media and government as to whether or not creationism has a basis in science. While it may be the leaders who may choose to encourage blind obedience, it is the decision of the adherents to go along. “When individual believers abdicate personal responsibility and yield to the authority of a charismatic leader or become enslaved to particular ideas or teachings, religion can easily become the framework for violence and destruction,” (Kimball 82). So how is it that people choose to blindly follow orders given by authority figures? Milgram’s Obedience Study enlightened the world about how peer pressure, particularly from authority, can be very effective. Milgram said that “ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process” (Rupert). One of the most potentially important findings from Milgram’s experiments on obedience is that people easily succumb to peer pressure. In other words, “just say no” is not always enough. This can have an exponential effect: the more people there are who blindly obey, the more likely any given individual following the same doctrine will blindly obey. Blind obedience cannot be blamed on charismatic leadership. “On the contrary, [charismatic leadership] is a vital and central feature of every religious tradition … [Ghandi and King] did not command total obedience to their deeply held beliefs and teachings … Those who embraced their movements did so voluntarily,” (Kimball 93). Charismatic leadership only becomes bad when those leaders demand blind obedience. It becomes worse when people follow. With all of that, where does the rising problem of blind obedience fully come into play? The number of people in the religion does seem to really have an impact, except as a cascading effect. I would say that the majority of the blame for this particular problem lies in the acceptance of absolute truths. Religions which preach absolute truths can rapidly degenerate into religions which demand blind obedience. However, the two are not mutually exclusive; having said that, absolute truths and blind obedience do hang together. Buddhism strives to stay away from and be suspicious of absolute truths, much like science – something the Dalai Lama finds awe-inspiring (Gyatso). According to the Dalai Lama, Buddhism and science share, at the heart, significant commonalities: a deep suspicion of absolute truth, a preference to account for evolution and the “emergence of the cosmos and life in terms of the complex interrelations of the natural laws of cause and effect” (Gyatso), and the role of empiricism as a method of learning and understanding. The key here is the suspicion of absolute truth rather than the acceptance of it. This is what ultimately forms the difference between an open and intellectually inspiring religion, and one which rejects other forms of thought and does not embrace ideologies which do not conform to the absolute truths central to that religion. The problem does not necessarily lie in blind obedience. It would seem that blind obedience is a symptom of absolute truths found within a religion. If the religion does not adhere to absolute truths concerning human behavior, creation, and other ideas, how can it demand blind obedience? It cannot.

References: Kimball, Charles. When Religion Becomes Evil. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Catholic Canon Law (Gray) Mind and Life Institute (Gyatso) Boston News (Paine) New Life: Milgram (Rupert)