Is religion to blame for oppressive governments?

If you're looking for in-depth coverage of the swine flu pandemic and other disease outbreaks that is both technical and accessible, you can do no better than Effect Measure, a blog on public health whose editors, interestingly enough, go by the name of Revere in honer of Paul Revere's service on the first local board of health in the U.S. When discussing issues like epidemiology and public health policy, they write with deep knowledge and clear passion; their concern for their fellow human beings seems to motivate them as much as their interest in science. And then there are their commentaries on religion.

Every Sunday, they post what they call a Freethinker Sunday Sermonette, which is for the most part very much in line with New Atheist thought and not really a big deal; usually I just skim it over and concentrate on the rest of the week's posts. But this last Sunday's sermonette caught my attention, because it is a good example of of an idea that, like so many ideas of our age, seems to make sense on the surface but contains deep contradictions: the idea that religion is to blame for oppressive governments.

Because there is so much that can be said in response to this, I have decided to do it in a two part series. In the meantime, I wouldn't really suggest checking out the video on religion included with the sermonette, both because it is not really amusing and because there is a pretty graphic drawing towards the end, but I do think it was funny that this line was spoken without a trace of irony: "The great thing about religion is, once you get it, you can feel the need to tell everyone you know who doesn't have it how miserable and useless they are and how much less useless and miserable they could be if only they were as smart as you and believed in stuff." It's a legitimate criticism of the attitude that we religious people sometimes have, but just change a few words around, and you've pretty much captured the essence of the New Atheist movement.