“No gods, no masters,” declared early feminist Margaret Sanger. Such is the slogan for human dignity and reason, whether we are male or female.
If a close friend of yours told you he was feeling out of sorts and planning to go have a hole bored through his skull – an ancient procedure known as trepanation, once regarded as therapeutic for a number of ills – what would you do? You would explain to him that no evidence exists to recommend this, that medical science long ago discredited the gory practice. So no drilling through the cranium for him.
If, however, he were to accept your argument and desist from trepanation, yet instead choose to visit the local lobotomist for relief, you would have to urge him to refrain once again, as no evidence justifies lobotomies, once thought curative for various mental disorders, either. So no ice-pick up the eye socket for him.
If we’re interested in the wellbeing of our fellows, and we see them behaving in accordance with disproven propositions, we should tell them so and help them see the light. We should, thus, importune our faith-addled friend on the way to the church, mosque, or synagogue, and patiently explain to him the errors of his ways. He needs religion, in short, like a hole in the head or an icepick up the eye socket, and we should tell him so.
All religions are nothing more than man-made contrivances of domination and submission, exploited by humans for mundane ends, and accoutered with sundry superstitious rituals meant to ensure tribal loyalty and generate animosity toward outsiders. Long before we in the West knew of faith-sanctioned female genital mutilation or the hurling of gays from rooftops.
Religion is a lie, and those who profess it, dupes of the lie.
That religion retards children’s cognitive development has been well established: little ones indoctrinated to believe in miracles find it tough to distinguish fact from fiction. The remedy, according to the faith-deranged? Go one step further and start removing the teaching of facts from schools altogether, with bills introducing creationism into science classes now evolving, as it were, to better evade already porous legislative barricades against meddling with instruction in evolution. Presumably the Christians will fail to appreciate the irony in this, since they don’t understand evolution. Yet religious adults don’t stop at damaging their children’s cognitive capabilities; they also act in ways that imperil their health. A 2015 study showed that in 37 states where abstinence-only sex-ed is the rule, STDs are also the rule, with the Bible Belt (and especially Alabama and Louisiana) the worst off.
The brave, indomitable Ayaan Hirsi Ali published “Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now,” and one of New Atheism’s founders, the neuroscientist Sam Harris, put out, with former Islamist Maajid Nawaz, “Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue.” Both tomes deal with the faith and what can be done to mitigate the extremism it produces. On religion and its discontents more generally, the University of Chicago evolutionary biologist (and 2015 Richard Dawkins Award winner) Jerry Coyne authored “Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible,” a well-crafted vade mecum for all rationalists wishing to mount a cogent challenge to the religiously deluded. And David Silverman, president of American Atheists, helped close out the year on a positive note with his “Fighting God,” a polemic for firebrand atheism that will pour oil on faith’s funeral pyre. Yes, that pyre is already burning. The “Nones” are rising, as readers of this column know.
Unfortunately, though, the Pew Research Center now forecasts that atheists and the Nones, though increasing in number, will lose proportional ground to Muslims, who will rise from 1.6 billion today to 2.8 billion in 2050, putting them on a par with Christians.
more
Religious delusions are destroying us: “Nothing more than man-made contrivances of domination and submission” - Salon.com
If a close friend of yours told you he was feeling out of sorts and planning to go have a hole bored through his skull – an ancient procedure known as trepanation, once regarded as therapeutic for a number of ills – what would you do? You would explain to him that no evidence exists to recommend this, that medical science long ago discredited the gory practice. So no drilling through the cranium for him.
If, however, he were to accept your argument and desist from trepanation, yet instead choose to visit the local lobotomist for relief, you would have to urge him to refrain once again, as no evidence justifies lobotomies, once thought curative for various mental disorders, either. So no ice-pick up the eye socket for him.
If we’re interested in the wellbeing of our fellows, and we see them behaving in accordance with disproven propositions, we should tell them so and help them see the light. We should, thus, importune our faith-addled friend on the way to the church, mosque, or synagogue, and patiently explain to him the errors of his ways. He needs religion, in short, like a hole in the head or an icepick up the eye socket, and we should tell him so.
All religions are nothing more than man-made contrivances of domination and submission, exploited by humans for mundane ends, and accoutered with sundry superstitious rituals meant to ensure tribal loyalty and generate animosity toward outsiders. Long before we in the West knew of faith-sanctioned female genital mutilation or the hurling of gays from rooftops.
Religion is a lie, and those who profess it, dupes of the lie.
That religion retards children’s cognitive development has been well established: little ones indoctrinated to believe in miracles find it tough to distinguish fact from fiction. The remedy, according to the faith-deranged? Go one step further and start removing the teaching of facts from schools altogether, with bills introducing creationism into science classes now evolving, as it were, to better evade already porous legislative barricades against meddling with instruction in evolution. Presumably the Christians will fail to appreciate the irony in this, since they don’t understand evolution. Yet religious adults don’t stop at damaging their children’s cognitive capabilities; they also act in ways that imperil their health. A 2015 study showed that in 37 states where abstinence-only sex-ed is the rule, STDs are also the rule, with the Bible Belt (and especially Alabama and Louisiana) the worst off.
The brave, indomitable Ayaan Hirsi Ali published “Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now,” and one of New Atheism’s founders, the neuroscientist Sam Harris, put out, with former Islamist Maajid Nawaz, “Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue.” Both tomes deal with the faith and what can be done to mitigate the extremism it produces. On religion and its discontents more generally, the University of Chicago evolutionary biologist (and 2015 Richard Dawkins Award winner) Jerry Coyne authored “Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible,” a well-crafted vade mecum for all rationalists wishing to mount a cogent challenge to the religiously deluded. And David Silverman, president of American Atheists, helped close out the year on a positive note with his “Fighting God,” a polemic for firebrand atheism that will pour oil on faith’s funeral pyre. Yes, that pyre is already burning. The “Nones” are rising, as readers of this column know.
Unfortunately, though, the Pew Research Center now forecasts that atheists and the Nones, though increasing in number, will lose proportional ground to Muslims, who will rise from 1.6 billion today to 2.8 billion in 2050, putting them on a par with Christians.
more
Religious delusions are destroying us: “Nothing more than man-made contrivances of domination and submission” - Salon.com
