Saturday, April 26, 2008

Rational Thinking vs Religion - Part One

Thoughts On Religion
By
Intelligent People Who Think For Themselves


Richard Dawkins in A Devil's Chaplain:

"Why has our society so meekly acquiesced in the convenient fiction that religious views have some sort of right to be respected automatically and without question? If I want you to respect my views on politics, science or art, I have to earn that respect by argument, reason, eloquence or relevant knowledge. Ihave to withstand counterarguments. But if I have a view that is part of my religion, critics must respectfully tiptoe away or brave the indignation of soeicty at large. Why are religious opinions off limits in this way? Why do we have to respect them simply because they are religious?"


"...modern Theists might acknowledge that, when it comes to Baal and the Golden Calf, Thor and Wotan, Poseidon and Apollo, Mithras and Ammon Ra, they are actually atheists. We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

Quoting Gore Vidal-
"The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal - God is the Omnipotent Father - hence the loathing of women for 2000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is not just in place for one tribe, but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good."


Sam Harris in Letter To A Christian Nation:

"According to a recent Gallup poll, only 12 percent of Americans believe that life on earth has evolved through a natural process, without the intervention of a deity. Thirty-one percent believe that evolution has been "guided by God."

"The same Gallup poll revealed that 53 percent of Americans are creationists. This means that despite a full century of scientific insights attesting to the antiquity of life and the greater antiquity of the earth, more than half our neighbors believe that the entire cosmos was created six thousand years ago. This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue. Those with the power to elect our presidents and congressmen - and many who themselves get elected - believe that dinosaurs lived two by two on Noah's ark, that light from distant galaxies was created en route to th earth, and that the first members of our species were fashioned out of dirt and divine breath, in a garden with a talking snake, by the hand of an invisible God."

Wow! Sam, you hit the bullseye dead center. Makes me proud to be an atheist...