Megan McArdle writes:
Daniel Dennett continues his quest for the title of "stupidist smart person in the world" with his opinion that we can do for religion what we did to smoking. Let me see if I can phrase this in a way that Mr Dennett might understand: if smoking made us live forever, it would be very, very popular. Even if it didn't make you live for ever, but could convince enough people that it might, it would be very, very popular.
And more tangibly, if smoking made you demonstrably healthier, happier, increased your circle of friends, lowered your anxiety level,* offered an economic buffer against unexpected downturns, and vastly increased your storehouse of social capital, it wouldn't be quite so maligned. You may think religion is wrong, but the evidence of its beneficial impacts on the lives of believers is quite strong. Those effects almost certainly stem from the increase in community, purpose, and activity level a church offers, but until we recreate some institutions that offer the same benefits without the theism, it's a bit rich to compare religion to smoking. Even if we could make it go away, it's not terribly clear that we'd want to, or that society would be better off if we did. Churches do create a massive increase in total happiness, hence their popularity.
One sidenote is that our society really does suffer from a lack of community building institutions. I've long thought some Match.com style sites should arise that offer nothing but friendship opportunities, but for all I know, such ventures exist and nobody uses them. That said, isolation, particularly later in life, is a depressingly common affliction, with all sorts of deleterious effects on health and happiness. There's no bit of regulatory policy or tax subsidy that can make it go away, but it'd be nice if society thought a bit harder about addressing it. This is, I think, why I'm pretty soft on megachurches, which are remarkable pioneers in the construction of communities. I'd like to see their social capital innovations, and their better effects, replicated.
*This might be true of smoking, come to think of it. and Dennet is wrong on at least one particular: Smoking remains quite cool. That's why DC just had to ban it at bars, rather than letting it peter out on its own.
