Talk given to the Atheist Society, Melbourne, 10 October 2024

The destruction and the scale of humanitarian disaster in the Middle East has reached an intolerable level. Yet no solution is in sight. The endless cycle of violence just escalates to new levels of depravity. The cause of the problem and the reason for the intractability of a solution is both obvious and unmentionable: religion.

It is not a coincidence that the conflict occurs in the so called "holy lands". It is not a coincidence that the antagonists are of different religions. Yet the religious motivations that have led to the conflict are not identified let alone criticised. Most political leaders are themselves religious. This induces blindness to the issue. Others fear a backlash if they criticise religion. The fact that religion has a major role in this conflict is sufficient that religion should be indicted. I will elaborate on the religious origins of the conflict. But this is not the only reason religions should be indicted. Another reason is their total lack of credibility. Another is the burden they impose on all societies: an economic burden. I would like to elaborate on that.

First I would like to relate something about the conflict that the issue is causing within and between communities by quoting from a recent newspaper article by quoting from a newspaper article (21 September 2024) by Louise Adler "The things I’ve learnt you can’t say about Israel". Louise is a luminary figure and for many years was editor of Melbourne University Press. She is Jewish and her grandparents died in the holocaust. She is a humanist.

In her youth she was a member of a socialist Zionist youth movement and in her summer holiday went to Israel to work on a kibbutz, imagining it would be a socialist utopia. She writes:

"Instead, the reality of the Zionist project made itself explicit at the airport: European Jews stamped my passport, Middle eastern Jews manned the luggage carousels while Palestinians swept the floors and cleaned the toilets. It was the beginning of my education regarding the entrenched racism underpinning the State of Israel. ... a Jewish state is by definition exclusionary and therefore anti-democratic for everyone who is not Jewish".

Technically, not all Jews are Zionists, but she says:

"Why should Palestinians (or anyone) respect a distinction between Jewishness and Zioinism when the Israeli State is founded on – and its continued existence justified by – precisely this conflation? When the Star of David is emblazoned on the uniforms of the IDF soldiers who humiliate, torture and murder Palestinians."

She quotes a Palestinian who says:

"There is a Jew who lives – by force- in half my home in Jerusalem and does so by ‘divine decree’. Many others reside – by force- in Palestinian houses, while their owners linger in refugee camps. It isn’t my fault they are Jewish"

Louise has been vilified by the Jewish community foe her sympathy for the Palestinians. Regarding the Holocaust she says:

"The establishment of the Jewish state didn’t arise as response to the Holocaust; it was a nationalist project of the 19^th century, and its advocates set aside the fact that a Jewish state would entail the denial of an indigenous population. Think of terra nullius transported to the Middle East"

She also says:

"The tragic lesson Israel failed to learn yet again on October 7 is that peace cannot be premised on the subjugation of a people. Violence invariably returns.’

"The lesson of October 7 is that "you cannot normalise and live peacefully in the context of a profound, ongoing injustice. Peace and justice will only come when Palestinians are recognised as a people with the right to self determination, sovereignty and their own state"

Who can disagree with Louise Adler? However, apart from mentioning occupation be ‘divine decree she does not mention religion. I will.

Religions have absolutely no credibility. They are based on myth and confected stories that have been refuted scientifically and historically. There are no miracles. Lets look at the historical claims.

Regarding Judaism, archaeological evidence says that the first ten books of the bible are pure myth. There was no historical Abraham or Moses. So says archaeologist Israel Finkelstein from the University of Tel Aviv. See: The Bible Unearthed. There were no Jews in Egypt and a god did not kill all the firstborn there. There was likely no king David and Jehovah was a tribal god who once had a wife called Ashera. The archaeological record shows a time when all the statues of Ashera were smashed.

There is no historical record of a Christian cult figure riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and causing a public disturbance. If we take out all the miracles from the Jesus stories what is left? The so-called evidence of Jesus in the writings of Josephus are a later insertion because it was not referred to until the third century.

There was no Mecca at the time that the alleged Prophet Muhammad supposed to have ridden from the desert and conquered the lands of the Roman and Persian empires. The Arabs of Palestine and Syria were already part of independent kingdom that minted Arabic Christian coins. Islam arose from an anti-Trinitarian Christian sect, which is evident from the Koran itself.

The historical evidence alone, let alone the scientific evidence shows that religious doctrines have no validity or credibility and are state sponsored superstitions, maintained by indoctrination socialisation and coercion. They stand indicted.

When I first became a humanist I wrote an article on the Economic Cost of Religion. I estimated an annual cost of religion in terms of a percentage of GDP for a range of countries. Here is a revised table. It is a huge cost, an annual cost. Multiply by GDP to get dollars.

No attempt has been made here to quantify the accumulated cost. The religion-induced lower than potential income growth is sustained over a long period of time. Consider these costs compounding. The accumulated cost would be substantial and seemingly provides at least part of the explanation of observed geographical differences in income levels. That is, religious beliefs cause lower incomes.

While religious beliefs may be implausible, counter-factual and irrational, and while religious institutions may be immoral, may encourage outdated cultural practices and may stimulate dangerous conflicts, these faults do not entail religion's most serious shortcoming.

The main negative impact of religion on the world community today is its enormous economic cost, estimated here to be a fixed cost exceeding $US200 billion, which falls mainly on poor countries, and an annual cost, again exceeding $US200 billion, which falls mainly on the industrialised world. The cost of religion is not just a shameful waste of human potential, but also a waste of economic resources often by those who can least afford it. These are resources that should otherwise be used to improve the human condition.

Religion stands indicted.

There had been agitation for Jewish emigration to Palestine for a long time but it can be said that the first official imprimatur came from the Balfour Declaration in 1917. It was during the Fist World war, after which Britain assumed the administration of the territory from the Ottomans.

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

Note that the declaration refers to a national home, not a Jewish State, and declares protection for the rights of the Palestinians.

Following the Second World War, Jewish settlement in Palestine had increased. United Nations Resolution 181, resolution passed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1947 that called for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, with the city of Jerusalem as a corpus separatum (Latin: "separate entity") to be governed by a special international regime.

After this the Jewish settlers in Palestine declared a Jewish State and here were mass expulsions of Palestinian from their homes. There has been a cycle of violence ever since, with the Israelis always retaining military superiority

Not shown here are some slides derived from Google Books Ngram Viewer. The graphs depict the frequency of use of words in books, published in English, 1800-2019. Of note the term "Jewish State" has a long history from 1800, first peaking in the 1940s. The term "Islamic State" has a much shorter history, starting in about 1940 and peaking in the 2010s. The term "ethnic cleansing" dates from the 1940s and was originally coined to describe the Jewish expulsion of Palestinians. The following is a map showing changes in ethnicity.

Religious fundamentalism, the belief that religions and their texts are literally true, is the fundamental cause of this problem.

In Genesis, God promised Abraham (fictional) that his descendants would inherit the land of Canaan, so Canaan became known as The Promised Land. Modern Israel and Palestine encompass the majority of Canaan.

However this is simply a myth, there is no promised land, there are no chosen people and belief in a religion does not provide any valid entitlement to other peoples land. Somehow this seems to have escaped everyone’s notice.

If there is any doubt that the Koran inspires violence and misogyny, consider the following quotes:

Koran 5.51
Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians to be your friends

Koran 2.216
Fighting is obligatory for you.

Koran 8.12
I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers.

Koran 33:55
Prophet, enjoin your wives, your daughters, and the wives of true believers to draw their veils close around them ... so that they not be molested.

Koran 65:4 (Waiting periods for divorce)
If you are in doubt concerning those of your wives who have ceased menstruating, know that their waiting period shall be three months. The same shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated.

Koran 4:34
Men have authority over women because God has made one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their parts because God had guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them, forsake them in beds apart, and beat them.

Religion stands indicted.

Proposal for a new UN resolution

The current situation in Israel and Gaza is one of immense human suffering with no end in sight.

 A minority of the UN committee that led to Resolution 181 proposed the formation of a single binational state made up of autonomous Jewish and Palestinian areas.

 This should be the basis for a new UN resolution where

* A UN mandated force provides peace and security

* No religious or ethnic group has any monopoly on power

* Human rights for all are guaranteed in the spirit of the Universal Declaration