"Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris
Recently reading the above was a useful reminder that when it comes to religion, not everybody can be right. Either the world was created over a few days 6,000 years ago as the Bible says, or it was not. The factual evidence of the Earth and many things on it having existed for over 6,000 years if beyond overwhelming.
Makes one wonder if there is perhaps a good point that Harris and Richard Dawkins make (although I have not read his most recent book "The God Delusion"), about religion in general being anything but a benevolent "everybody can believe what they want" s0cial phenomenon and is on the contrary a profoundly negative factor in any society and the world as a whole.
The "intelligent design" proponents often managed to shift the conversation in the direction of "reasonable doubt" such as arguing that things don't quite hang together with Big Bang explanation of origin of everything. It is true, there are some monumentally difficult to accept (or understand) things about the Big Bang but the discussion is not one of "reasonable doubt", it is one of "preponderance of evidence". And from the preponderance of evidence standpoint, religion(s) are nowhere close to explaining much about how it all went down.
Do intelligent Christians really want us to believe there was a boat and all the animals piled into it in pairs to escape the floods? And if that was a bit of "poetic license" what else is irrefutable evidence in the great book? In our creeping tolerance many of us (myself included) have become more willing to "agree to disagree" without finishing the arguments. That is wrong because as already stated - not everybody can be right and it needs to be established who is more right.
I have no problem with people believing what they want. If people want to believe in UFOs, that is OK as long as that belief does not contain any implicit hint of moral or factual superiority of their view. If people would treat religion in the same way as UFO sightings, things would be much easier and on balance the world would be a better place.
I used to dislike religion because the local village priest was the only fat person I knew growing up and that simply struck me as fishy. Maybe I had it right then and it's time to roll back the tolerance fog curtain.
Makes one wonder if there is perhaps a good point that Harris and Richard Dawkins make (although I have not read his most recent book "The God Delusion"), about religion in general being anything but a benevolent "everybody can believe what they want" s0cial phenomenon and is on the contrary a profoundly negative factor in any society and the world as a whole.
The "intelligent design" proponents often managed to shift the conversation in the direction of "reasonable doubt" such as arguing that things don't quite hang together with Big Bang explanation of origin of everything. It is true, there are some monumentally difficult to accept (or understand) things about the Big Bang but the discussion is not one of "reasonable doubt", it is one of "preponderance of evidence". And from the preponderance of evidence standpoint, religion(s) are nowhere close to explaining much about how it all went down.
Do intelligent Christians really want us to believe there was a boat and all the animals piled into it in pairs to escape the floods? And if that was a bit of "poetic license" what else is irrefutable evidence in the great book? In our creeping tolerance many of us (myself included) have become more willing to "agree to disagree" without finishing the arguments. That is wrong because as already stated - not everybody can be right and it needs to be established who is more right.
I have no problem with people believing what they want. If people want to believe in UFOs, that is OK as long as that belief does not contain any implicit hint of moral or factual superiority of their view. If people would treat religion in the same way as UFO sightings, things would be much easier and on balance the world would be a better place.
I used to dislike religion because the local village priest was the only fat person I knew growing up and that simply struck me as fishy. Maybe I had it right then and it's time to roll back the tolerance fog curtain.
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