Letters to the Editor
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Religion is child abuse
"Dawkins comes VERY close to calling for the criminilisation of religious teaching to children."
Religious indoctrination of children, whether by parents or teachers, is child abuse. They are being taught to believe dangerous lies that are harmful to themselves and to society.
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Religion = Delusion...
Barbara J. King is under same delusion about religion as mankind has been throughout history. Science and religion/delusion are at the opposit ends of reality.
She is confusing what has been observed in gorrila behavior as religious, when it is more likley just emotion or emphathy.
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.
Mankind has simply been caught up mass delusions in which different groups are fully engaged in believing that their delusion is the only way to go.
Nothing good can ever come out of this way of thinking from either side.
The only hope is that evolution will eventually devolve religion out of existence, then maybe humans will have a clear path to move forward.
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Searching for Meaning
I was arguing that religion assumes the cause and purpose, but NOT the nature of man or his existance. My point was that, while you say science seeks only to explain these things and religion simply ascribes them to a higher being, I would argue that religion can, like science, work to explain the nature of man. These texts are an aggregation of experience and philosphy which were collected to form the best practice for that group of people, and that it is useful to read their account and relate it to your own experience- to find confirmation of your own conceptions of right and wrong in those from the ancient past. Whether you leave the deity in the equation or not, it is ignorant to dismiss it all as religious dogma and nonsense.
"stating that science or scientists "logically can not know the cause of the big bang" is an untrue statement, as neither you nor anyone has any idea of what the permanent boundaries of scientific knowledge are."
In fact, we can. We know that our world and species were not present at the time of the Big Bang, nor will we survive until the 'Great Whimper' at the end. I'll break it down: The Big Bang created our universe. It was created outside of our universe. We are contained within that universe- we CAN NOT know the cause of it. Those are some definite boundaries for our scientific knowledge. The Big Bang is the result of a regression equation, wherein you mathematically reverse the expansion function of our universe, which we can measure, and track it back to the singularity, which we cannot. That is the extent of our discovery into that field. Period. We may wait until magnetism is incorporated into the unified theory- and I may be proven wrong- but the evidence doesn't support that theory.
As for morals, well, yes ultimately they are individual, but our nature as social creatures creates a natural morality- an aggregate balance of right and wrong which guides our society forward. Whether that aggregate balance is made of scientific observations or spiritual ones, it is still a definitive collection of rules and standards. We do not live in a vaccuum, we do not deal in absolutes.
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Fine, get rid of Religion. Then what?
So in some imagined atheistic utopia, we would all be free from the shackles of organized religion and unscientific superstition and dogma. Yippie! Let's party like it's 1999.
But then what? What will people believe in then? What will they live for? How will they live? Or, to go down the path of nihilism, why should they even live at all? To answer these questions, they will talk and form ideas and opinions and influence each other and write books and form organizations and ... oops! Darn it, we will have religion all over again!
Sisyphus laughs...
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Now you religious types know how we feel.
Rob Anderson wrote of atheists: "they are invading my ear and eye space at every turn."
Rob, I hate to break it to you, but the amount of publicity given to atheists is a drop in the ocean compared to the publicity given to religoids (TM). We atheists are drowning in a sea of religiods. If you are so bothered by the relatively new, yet still miniscule, amount of pro-atheist argument making its way into the (almost) mainstream, then perhaps you need to reexamine the strength of your own faith.
While I'm not ready to become an activist, militant atheist (I'm already a militant vegan; how much more marginalization can a fellow take?), I am all for seeing an energetic movement to rid our society of organized religion. As long as it all remains peaceful and non-coercive, what true fault can you find with that in a democratic society?
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Apologist
Indeed we have both made assumtions about one another. I'm still not sure your background or position but I will re-read your posts. As for the label 'apologist', well, what do you mean, really? That I am apologizing for the atrocities enacted by men in the name of god? Certainly not. I could be apologizing for the polarizing nature of MOST (or MOST VISIBLE) religious figures and their rhetoric- perhaps I am- but it would only be in the cause of some kind of 'live and let live' balance between athiests and religious people. In reality, I am an agnostic still searching for my own balance. I know that I have been at both extremes and found no peace in either. Perhaps that is the fate of my birth. You seem to be doing just fine without religion- good for you- but plurality and tolerance are a two-way street.
Also, the old proverb 'Know Thine Enemy' is a truth I follow through the study of scriptures because of the gross distortion of my father's faith that I see in America today.
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Re: Fine get rid of religion
We would have the beauty of nature and the universe and the challege of finding out more about how it really works, rather than indulging in the childish delusion that it is all there for us. We would have music. We would have the time and money to work on real problems like global warming and finding alternative sources of energy and controlling the human population. Without religion, the world is not less wonderful, but more. Just watch a science program about the universe, the extent of it and how our universe may be just one of an infinite number of other universes. Now that gives my a sense of awe.