It hurts. badly. Kills millions, scares more. It is especially hard on women all other the world, and contaminates children shamelessly from a young age. It has infected more than 3/4 of the world's population. I'm not talking about an organic disease, but about religion. This merciless plague is the love of god. Are you religious? Please read more.
If you're a non-practitionner, benevolent, actively helping or enlightened religious person, you might think there's nothing wrong in your faith.
But there is no such thing as a good religion or an enlightened religion: religion cannot be enlightened because it requires one to believe in something in the absence of light (evidence). There is no such thing as a harmless faith in god: everytime we join our hands together and pray for the intercession of a supernatural being we stone a woman to death, we support past, present and future murderous cruisades. I can run a nice, open-minded religious orphanage in France but ultimately if I teach the kids to believe in god, then I precipitate lethal weapons into the hands of other children in Palestine.
Why am I saying this? Because the idea that it is OK to believe in a supernatural being is precisely the one which drives or has driven cruisades, terrorist attacks, the public stoning of adulterous women and all kinds of violences on children. If I help propagate this idea anywhere in the world as part of my good deed I also become an accomplice in this ongoing butchery.
What can I do?
We must help religious people to get out of this illness. We must stop saying "I respect your faith", "I respect your religion" and so on. Would we respect someone's aids, perhaps the second most frightening spreading virus after religion? No, we would help this person in this terrible struggle, and it goes without saying, he or she would refrain from doing anything that could propagate the virus.
So the first thing to do is to point to the body count.
Then, secure the idea not to believe in anything without evidence.
Finally, realize that one can do good things without buying the god package.
Atheism should follow shortly !
UPDATE 13/12/09: now that is just priceless!
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Atheism is also a faith, the belief in no higher power, without proof.
ReplyDeleteI'm a faithless agnostic, because I'm Scientifically minded. I "believe" in the Scientific Method (Observe, Hypothesize, Test, Conclude), because it's the only logical system I know of to answer questions.
There is NO "proof" in any established Religion, or Atheism. Therefore I am skeptical of all of them.
I understand your anger though. I believe it should be aimed at the Politicians who USE Religion as a means to an end, that end more often than not benefiting the greed of their sponsors.
My 2 cents.
Hi Steve, thx for the comment. Did I came out angry? I'm not ^_^
ReplyDeleteI think we can agree that atheism is a belief (every human interpertation of the world is). But this is not the point.
The point is to distiguish between belief which is based on evidence (or in this case, lack theroff) and belief which is not. Science is of the former, religion of the latter.
The god hypothesis has no evidence for it, so IMHO if you are scientifically minded, instead of choosing not to comment on it you should believe that it is false.
best,
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ReplyDeleteI can't .... quite get to where you are, frankly. Here's why:
ReplyDeleteHypotheses are the second step in the Scientific method. Testing is the third. Without testing, there can be no evidence.
Anyway, I really liked your rant. Go to http://tetrahedral.blogspot.com/ and see how I fleshed out my response above into it's own blogpost. I have you to thank for it. I hope you enjoy it.
Plkus, your pic reminds me I have to practice my guitar. Hello, Epiphone, here I come.
Maybe your worst enemy is the one you would need the most.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. But if we force our way of thinking on to the people who still believe in a god, what makes Atheism any better than any other religion?
ReplyDelete@Anonymous: thanks. One shouldn't be preaching and threatening like the church has been, but one can hopefully still argue with people who have faith in a god. Arguing is quite different from forcing our way.
ReplyDeleteEven if we were forcing our way though (which we are not, how can you force someone to think for himself?) I think evidence-based belief/atheism would still be different from religion. In our view there is no other authority than evidence and logic, and one's own thinking is paramount. Compare this to holy scriptures, infaillible authorities (popes and prophets), and the idea that blind faith is a virtue. Quite another beast.