Is Religion Dangerous? is the title of a very good book by Keith Ward (Lion Hudson, 2006). It is a good answer to the Dawkins-Hitchens junk-critique of religion as dangerous. I've got the book on loan from the local university library, but some fellow had the chutzpah to issue a recall. So I must return the book today, and cannot say anything further about it until I get it back again.
Consider the parallel question, Is philosophy dangerous?
The question makes little sense seeing as how there is no such thing as philosophy as doctrinal system. There are only philosophies, many of them, in conflict with one another. At most one could say that there is philosophy as a type of inquiry. (But the minute we ask what type of inquiry, by what method or methods, we will find ourselves confronted with a host of competing metaphilosophical answers. The nature of philosophy is itself a philosophical question, and metaphilosophy, despite the meta, is a branch of philosophy.)
One cannot therefore sensibly ask whether philosophy is dangerous. There is no such doctrinal system as philosophy. One can, however, sensibly ask whether, say, Kant's philosophy is dangerous. The same goes for religion. It makes little or no sense to ask whether religion is dangerous. For there is no such thing as religion as a system of doctrines and practices. One can however ask, with a show of sense, whether Islam is dangerous. But even here one must be careful. No doubt certain sects of Islam are dangerous as hell, but would you say the same about Sufism, Islam's mystical branch? The Whirling Dervishes of Konya seem not to be much of a threat to anyone.
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