In the Name of God
The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee published a brilliant piece today calling for the removal of religion from public life in the UK. This is a must read.
Excerpts:
In the growing fear and anger at what more may be to come, apologists or explainers for these young men can expect short shrift. This is not about poverty, deprivation or cultural dislocation of second-generation immigrants. There is plenty of that and it is passive. Iraq is the immediate trigger, but this is about religious delusion.
Intense belief, incantations, secrecy and all-male rituals breed perversions and danger, abusing women and children and infecting young men with frenzy, no matter what the name of the faith.
All the state can do is hold on to secular values. It can encourage the moderate but it must not appease religion. The constitutional absurdity of an established church once seemed an irrelevance, but now it obliges similar privileges to all other faiths.
This is a great article to forward to the religious people in your life.
~I AM~
July 22nd, 2005 at at 11:49 am
I wish more people would say things like this in public.
July 22nd, 2005 at at 12:49 pm
How could those who preach the absolute revealed truth of every word of a primitive book not be prone to insanity?
This is what it all boils down to. When push comes to shove, and I don’t care how “moderate” a religious person may claim to be, the word of their god will inevitably trump logic, reason and reality.
July 22nd, 2005 at at 1:01 pm
The sad thing is that it’s almost impossible to imagine a paper in America publishing a piece that came anywhere near as that one.
July 22nd, 2005 at at 6:49 pm
I am reminded of the Council of Nicea of 325 CE. Would it be possible to have a forced summit of the religious and political leaders of today to at the very least indentify and correct the extremities of their respective religions? I mean, in my dream world, I would force all of the religious leaders of the world to combine all of their bullshit into one unified, compromised, watered-down, world-sanctioned, generic religion. It all boils down to the same basic crap anyway. A new council would really shed light on the stupidity of superstition. Ofcourse, any public discourse sheds light on the stupidity of superstition.
This article is encouraging. Slowly, there have been more rational people voicing their opinions about religion in a public sphere. That is one of the few good effects from the continued religious attacks. They cannot be ignored for what they are. Even your average Christian or Muslim with no ill intent towards society is starting to *GASP* connect the dots.
July 22nd, 2005 at at 9:28 pm
Krucoff et al scoop the pundits
From the Evangelical Atheist:News Flash: Distant Strangers Talking to Themselves Fail to Save Lives. T.E.A. is discussing a Washington Post article on a study just published in the Lancet by Krucoff et al of Duke University Medical Center. (A good…
July 23rd, 2005 at at 1:42 am
That was a good article, I liked when he said
“It is time now to get serious about religion - all religion - and draw a firm line between the real world and the world of dreams”
I wonder how well it was received by those who read it. Hopefully it changed a few minds and emboldened freethinkers there to be more active in fighting against superstition.
July 23rd, 2005 at at 12:00 pm
That was a good one. Thanks for posting about it. I suppose if more and more of us were willing to speak out that we would find we had a lot of company.
July 24th, 2005 at at 9:38 am
boywonder:
What you propose is a summit for the very princes of ignorance. I think religious leaders are lost causes, with the possible exception of the Dalai Lama, who once said, “If science proves facts that conflict with Buddhist understanding, Buddhism must change accordingly.” Focus on the low hanging fruit. Lets win the agnostics first. Then we can go after the passively religious. This is a war of attrition. A decapitation strike is impossible.