On God, religion and superstition
My own mind is my own church. --Thomas Paine
The reigning buzzwords in academia are critical thinking. But if the professoriat, maybe the most intelligent group in society, really believed in critical thinking all professors would be atheists.
That is not the case. In a 1997 survey reported in Nature magazine, 40 percent of biologists, physicists and mathematicians said they believed in God, a God they could pray to “in expectation of receiving an answer.”
The majority of scientists say that science is compatible with religion. Untrue. Science and religion are incompatible.
Pastors, priests, rabbis and imams are living a lie athough they neither know it nor think so. God does not exist despite the mythmaking of millennia. God, as a creation of man, is obviously false. So it is amazing the number of intelligent people who suspend disbelief about religion.
The intellectual struggle over God has preoccupied people over the the ages: reason vs. faith, science vs. religion, rationalism vs. superstition, evolution vs. creationism, enlightenment vs. the supernatural, truth vs. delusion, intelligence vs. the preposterous, reality vs. ignorance, wisdom vs. dogma.
Religion is intellectual dishonesty. Science is not. But reason seldom prevails when it comes to religion. This is a God-drenched nation. A recent Newsweek poll showed that 92 percent of Americans believe in God. But even a nodding acquaintance with history demolishes the very notion of God.
Six million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. Where was God? Nowhere. But in spite of the Holocaust, too many Jews--perhaps the most intelligent people in the world--cling to God and religion.
Millions died in the orgy of religious killing that attended the partitioning of India and Pakistan. Where was God? Slavery? Where was God? Apartheid in South Africa—and the United States? Where was God? The Inquisition? Where was God?
The recent volleying against God has been withering. Two books are thoughtful, provocative and intellectually challenging, “The End of Faith” by Sam Harris, and “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins.
But even 99.44 percent pure atheist Dawkins has a failure of nerve. Dawkins, dubbed “Darwin’s Rottweiler,” admitted: “I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable.”
The great Thomas Paine in “The Age of Reason” assaulted organized religion and the Bible. But even he refused to go beyond the deism that most Enlightenment notables espoused. He had a failure of intellect. Paine believed in “a God of moral truth and not a God of mystery or obscurity.”
But atheists need no God to be moral. They don’t need a Sixth Commandment to tell them that murder is wrong. Indeed, atheists are more Christian than Christians.
Dawkins notes that the nastiest letters he gets are from religionists. Justice Harry Blackmun, after writing the abortion decision for the Supreme Court in 1973, noted: “I do not understand the vilification and personal abuse that has come to me…It is hard to believe that some clergymen and sisters can indulge in such abuse and still profess to be workers in the vineyard.”
The true followers of Christ have compassion, understanding and love. The fundamentalists are against gay marriage, homosexuality, abortion and birth control. They oppose stem cell research although it may well prove immensely beneficial to mankind.
A woman I know asked me why I could not tell a harmless lie. “You’re an atheist.” she said. “Why do you care?” The question showed a serious misunderstanding of atheists. They do not need a “higher authority” to be ethical and moral.
Atheists do not have to prove the existence of God. The theists do. But the truth is that they cannot. Their arguments are jesuitical: prime mover, first cause, celestial watchmaker, intelligent design and Pascal’s wager.
Theologians are masters of solemn hocus-pocus. Their logic is theological prestidigitation. No critical thinker can believe in miracles, virgin birth, resurrection, original sin and the Garden of Eden. No critical thinker can believe in the trinity, the divinity of Jesus, immortality and embryos ensouled by God. No critical thinker can believe in 72 virgins waiting in paradise for Muslim martyrs. No critical thinker can believe in the efficacy of prayer.
Yet you cannot attack religion as you can any other superstition. The Establishment press refuses to run articles exposing religious delusion. As author Harris writes: religion “is still sheltered from criticism in every corner of our culture.”
Paul in Hebrews 11:1 says: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Precisely. Hoped for but without evidence. Reason always defeats a leap of faith.
The reigning buzzwords in academia are critical thinking. But if the professoriat, maybe the most intelligent group in society, really believed in critical thinking all professors would be atheists.
That is not the case. In a 1997 survey reported in Nature magazine, 40 percent of biologists, physicists and mathematicians said they believed in God, a God they could pray to “in expectation of receiving an answer.”
The majority of scientists say that science is compatible with religion. Untrue. Science and religion are incompatible.
Pastors, priests, rabbis and imams are living a lie athough they neither know it nor think so. God does not exist despite the mythmaking of millennia. God, as a creation of man, is obviously false. So it is amazing the number of intelligent people who suspend disbelief about religion.
The intellectual struggle over God has preoccupied people over the the ages: reason vs. faith, science vs. religion, rationalism vs. superstition, evolution vs. creationism, enlightenment vs. the supernatural, truth vs. delusion, intelligence vs. the preposterous, reality vs. ignorance, wisdom vs. dogma.
Religion is intellectual dishonesty. Science is not. But reason seldom prevails when it comes to religion. This is a God-drenched nation. A recent Newsweek poll showed that 92 percent of Americans believe in God. But even a nodding acquaintance with history demolishes the very notion of God.
Six million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. Where was God? Nowhere. But in spite of the Holocaust, too many Jews--perhaps the most intelligent people in the world--cling to God and religion.
Millions died in the orgy of religious killing that attended the partitioning of India and Pakistan. Where was God? Slavery? Where was God? Apartheid in South Africa—and the United States? Where was God? The Inquisition? Where was God?
The recent volleying against God has been withering. Two books are thoughtful, provocative and intellectually challenging, “The End of Faith” by Sam Harris, and “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins.
But even 99.44 percent pure atheist Dawkins has a failure of nerve. Dawkins, dubbed “Darwin’s Rottweiler,” admitted: “I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable.”
The great Thomas Paine in “The Age of Reason” assaulted organized religion and the Bible. But even he refused to go beyond the deism that most Enlightenment notables espoused. He had a failure of intellect. Paine believed in “a God of moral truth and not a God of mystery or obscurity.”
But atheists need no God to be moral. They don’t need a Sixth Commandment to tell them that murder is wrong. Indeed, atheists are more Christian than Christians.
Dawkins notes that the nastiest letters he gets are from religionists. Justice Harry Blackmun, after writing the abortion decision for the Supreme Court in 1973, noted: “I do not understand the vilification and personal abuse that has come to me…It is hard to believe that some clergymen and sisters can indulge in such abuse and still profess to be workers in the vineyard.”
The true followers of Christ have compassion, understanding and love. The fundamentalists are against gay marriage, homosexuality, abortion and birth control. They oppose stem cell research although it may well prove immensely beneficial to mankind.
A woman I know asked me why I could not tell a harmless lie. “You’re an atheist.” she said. “Why do you care?” The question showed a serious misunderstanding of atheists. They do not need a “higher authority” to be ethical and moral.
Atheists do not have to prove the existence of God. The theists do. But the truth is that they cannot. Their arguments are jesuitical: prime mover, first cause, celestial watchmaker, intelligent design and Pascal’s wager.
Theologians are masters of solemn hocus-pocus. Their logic is theological prestidigitation. No critical thinker can believe in miracles, virgin birth, resurrection, original sin and the Garden of Eden. No critical thinker can believe in the trinity, the divinity of Jesus, immortality and embryos ensouled by God. No critical thinker can believe in 72 virgins waiting in paradise for Muslim martyrs. No critical thinker can believe in the efficacy of prayer.
Yet you cannot attack religion as you can any other superstition. The Establishment press refuses to run articles exposing religious delusion. As author Harris writes: religion “is still sheltered from criticism in every corner of our culture.”
Paul in Hebrews 11:1 says: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Precisely. Hoped for but without evidence. Reason always defeats a leap of faith.
posted by Jake Highton | 11:08 AM
1 Comments:
i burn the bush
it's a sign from god
no it's allah
with a fist full of sod
it's all a fascade
in a dream based on law
i'm the devil in disguise
in the scene where you pause
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