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Kirata -> RE: Atheism's Money Man (3/25/2013 7:58:13 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LookieNoNookie
Anyone that wants to really hear some absolutely powerful arguments against religion, should look up this guy on youtube:
Christopher Hitchens
I have a different view. In my opinion, Christopher Hitchens does not make a powerful argument against religion, he makes a facile argument against a caricature of religion. I am no fan of scriptural literalism and dogma, but I do not conflate them with the entire sphere of religion.
Christopher Hitches and the other "New Atheists" are as intolerant and bigoted as any religious fundamentalist. Where the latter try to sell a utopian vision of collective salvation through their version of religion, the former try to sell a utopian vision of collective salvation through science and reason.
In both cases, the solution they offer is for people to become like them, think like them, and adopt their values if humanity is to advance morally and save itself from its delusions. In both cases the problem is "them," those who are impediments to the utopian vision, and who must therefore be converted, marginalized, suppressed, or somehow gotten out of the way of progress.
Where one blames everything on religion, the other blames everything on secularism. But the secular version of this salvation myth is no less delusional than the one it opposes, because in both cases the evil is externalized. The real danger we face is falling under the sway of either of these intoxicating, non-reality based, utopian fantasies that we can "save" ourselves from human nature.
Like the religious fundamentalists, the New Atheists fail to comprehend the dark side of human nature, our capacity for evil. Human nature is inherently flawed. Institutionalized religions are guilty of moral offenses for exactly the same reason that governments are: They are run by human beings.
Religion has brought both good and evil, teachings of love and tolerance, but also acts of cruelty and barbarism. Science has brought both good and evil, medical and social advances, but also technolgies that we have used to pollute the Earth as never before and to annihilate human populations on horrific scales. The fault lies with neither religion nor science. It lies with us.
Having faith in science and reason as our "saviors" is just as delusional as believing that the Lord Jesus Christ will save us and set everything aright. It is simply a new set of clothes for the same old self-serving deception, and just another way of setting the "faithful" against the "non-believers," based on the premise that the "problem" is something other than ourselves
K.
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