Yes, Religion Does Take Us Back into the Dark Ages

Benjamin,

I found your words, in the sense that they were learned, sober, and forthright just as comforting as the idea that someone is watching over me.

In fact, I find them more comforting because if I ever doubt them, I can come here I read them - or look around at religious people and come to the same conclusion.

It's a pleasure to use one's mind, even if that means discovering where mistakes were made or sins were committed because one is reminded that no matter what he has lost, his primary means of survival is still functioning.

*And yes, that last part was a (utilitarian) justification for religious murder, even if you say it wasn't. :)

Well put. The fact that so many people honestly believe in the invisible man in the sky is honestly shocking to me.

We have but two options -- reason, or blindness. Even Christ said "blessed are they that believe without seeing", or something along those lines.

It's disturbing.

Sorry for the double post... That last part in no way is justification for religious murder, but I'm sure yall realize that would be my stance. I hope so anyway!

And I wanted to add...

I see atheists/religious something like environmentalists. Greens can never reduce carbon dioxide enough. An athiest can never reduce irrationality enough. One can never have too little sin if religious. Sure, we COULD be rid of ALL man-emited co2 but a rational mind realizes that it wouldn't be worth the cost. And so I ask the same of irrationality/rationality. We could be rid of ALL but would it be worth the cost? It seems to me that that's what the religion/atheist issue is boiling down to: an elimination. But I certainly understand the moral grounds of the atheist if this be thier goal. That atheists are generally rejected by the religious and have endured attacks and ridicule... What other defense are they left with, especially when religious leaders are mounting what looks like an all-out assault?!

This being my view on things I would like for both sides to consider my post above. We can not keep up at this heated argument, which stirs the emotions more than the intellect (and the faith) to waste precious time and present a dangerous point of no return. I do fear that this is happening in the world today. And I do fear it will succeed. As I said before... it would be a senseless and ugly thing. Please, let us forgo that conclusion and avoid this disaster, which serves no greater (or lesser) good!

Let us risk, not raze, in these trying times.

Mr Williams

Okay, I see the point of your question :) Now to answer your other question...

I don't think it's purpose is/was meant to serve simpler matters, for simpler matters have simpler solutions. But it most certainly can serve the more personal and complex issues a person might find themselves faced with. Proper context is of course, or should be, foremost when using ANY book to address such things. We still pretty much deal with the same problems man has always dealt with (esp emotions) and so one might find guidance and insight in religion in dealing with these.

But that's not the main reason for religion, I think. One wouldn't be wrong to say religion is also a coping mechanism which, due to the fact that God and the afterlife can't be disproven, is seized upon by the mind that needs a sense of protection, a sense of life unharmed and unbroken, and of course a sense of hope and/or direction (if not a full realization of such things).

It is here that I beleive most have faith in a God and/or afterlife. Actually, it may be a case of a God in order to justify a beleif in an afterlife. How this serves a personal need depends on the person. For some, it's a means of justifying immoral behavior and others it's just a safety net that they find a freeing of mind (but not FROM mind). Life is a difficult and uncertain thing despite our best efforts. And the thought of death being final... Well, we get to the big tamle as I'm sure you realize. This possibility many find disturbing and if we are to have the better of ourselves the majority of the time, it might be nessecary for some to adopt this belief. Irrational, for there is no proof, but a little irrationality can have it's uses in freeing OF (not from) a person's mind those stresses in dealing with a possible reality they cannot effect. Thus, they are freed to be better than they are/were without that belief.

I don't consider this to be immoral because I think it unrealistic that we can all be good athiests, just as it is impossible we can all be good artists, athletes, stock-brokers etc... And if it has the unfortunate effect of a person losing their life due to an error in judgement... Well, all things in life seem to carry a "use at your own risk" label attatched. It can not be avoided that some will perish due to a belief, just as it is unavoidable that some will be killed by guns etc.

Benjamin,

As I said in my last post, what, besides a patently nonreligious appeal to reason and evidense seperates the most rabid fanatic and the most moderate believer? Thank you for providing that appeal.

I admire your willingness to let reason and evidence guide your beliefs in matters pertaining to medical advances, biological mutation, geography, and military campaigns. I also admire your willingness to let reason decide towards what ends the work in these fields should aim. That you don't consider it necessary to bow to the "dictates" of nature when it comes to treating disease; that you value the freedom of choice implicit in a political system created to protect individual liberty beyond whatever value you might hold toward the unborn or toward piety; that you do not believe that the lives and property of your fellow American's should be sacrificed towards a Middle-Eastern religious crusade - these are all commendable beliefs to hold. Thank you for your lack of religious consistency.

My only question then is this: If faith cannot be called upon to step in and solve life's most perplexing issues, what value is it in life's simpler, more personal matters?

Among scientists there is oft debate and disagreement, such as methodology, the math, dispute among causation/corrolation etc.

According to the absolutist views of this article and some of it's commenters, then, I am to lump the discipline and it's practitioners all together as either entirely right/entirely wrong, based on the erroroneous/correct conlcusions of individual scientists because individual conclusions within the practice are descrptive of the whole practice. Given that science has been wrong and right over the years, what then should I use to decide the validity of science?

Feeling, I suppose, for what else is there at such a point when absolutes must dictate my judgement?!

And (pay attention Grant Williams) that is the proof that differences exist between me, rabid adherents, AND a good many moderates. Ie, I don't think in absolutes if I can avoid it.

Bear in mind, this comes from a Christian that does not oppose stem-cell research and it's many promising applications. I think god would rather we persued these kinds of things for our own betterment. I don't reject evolution as a force of reality, but I don't think that nature is without fault and so I think conscious beings should chose their own design(s) over it's (if one so desires). I do not fear walking off the face of the earth, though most days I don't even consider the planet's sphericalness to be of any import in my desicions. Nor do I let the bible rule my life and all my decisions, nor take for literal truth everything the bible/church says... I don't think gays are evil, I don't bomb abortion clinics (nor approve of that behavior), I don't think "god is on our side" in Iraq... I don't go to church very often. I don't drop to my knees and pray for everything, for I hold that man must exert at least some effort...

...I think that pretty much covers all the bases...

That I believe in an invisible man "up there" and hold that all are created with a purpose (though we may stray/adhere to this throguh free will) is about all I have in common with the rabid adherents. Consequently, I have no bible-thumping friends; they would not have my compnay either, I suspect. Among the moderates the similarity is true, and among them I have friends, but I have differences with them as well.

Therefore, since differences between me and them and them exist, it is possible that differences exist between them and rabid adherents. And as reality would have it, these differences DO exist as reflected in the logic of what I just said.

Of those moderate friends of mine, among them some do/don't think abortion is moral, but none of them think bombing an abortion clinic is right. Some think stem-cell research is a good thing... others not... Some of them grasp evolution, some only parts, others not at all...

If that can not be enough proof that a difference exists, then I do not know any proof would be sufficient for the "athiest standard". My belief in an invisible man does not nesseciate all manner of nonsense! That's a presumptuous insult! And I would say some athiests elevate the issue, unjustly, to the point of impossibility that a religious person can be a mostly moral and rational one. Vice versa, one would then have to hold that all nonreligious people are moral and rational in their every word and deed.

But this is simply never going to be true 100% of the time among all people, whatever their faith is (or is not). Therefore, this sort of discussion is an inane waste of time. It should be clear to atheists AND religious people at this point of our existence that people differ, that people can be right as well as wrong and that a belief or lack of... means almost nothing, if not entirely so.

We exist, so we are mostly good than we are bad. Why can this not be good enough? Why must there exist an effort among the religious and the atheist to erridicate the other?

I wonder what such a victory would accomplish... And find it a nightmare I would just as soon not have to live in; it is an ugly thing as it is a senseless one!

I agree with the central thesis here but the Middle East did have a so-called Islamic Golden Age between the 8th and 13th centuries. During that time, engineers, scholars and merchants made important contributions and innovations in many fields.

Mr. Martin,

What the author discusses is not "religious fundamentalism", but the fundamentals of religion.

Take, for instance, your suggestion that there is an essential difference between rabid religious fanatics and more subdued, thoughful, moderate believers. Where is the evidence that these two approaches are not on par with one another? What, besides a patently nonreligious appeal to reason and evidence, seperates them to any degree?

Yes, there are differing extents to which people take religion seriously, but at root, in any given issue, what unites all religion is the demand that glaring contradictions be ignored and that the nonsensical solutions offered be accepted blindly.

I think you need to avoid lumping highly disparate world views all together under the term "religious."

What you discuss here is religious fundamentalism. Fundamentalists, whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, have more in common with each other than with progressives within their own tradition.

"[A] Jewish zombie who can walk on water..."

It sounds so ridiculous when you put it like that. I love it!

Brains...Brains...
Sacrifice your brains...

--Dan Edge