Imagine No Religion

[by Richard Dawkins http://richarddawkins.net/]

Imagine, sang John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Kashmir dispute, no Indo/Pakistan partition, no Israel/Palestine wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no Northern Ireland 'troubles'. Imagine no Taliban blowing up ancient statues, lashing women for showing an inch of skin, or publicly beheading blasphemers and apostates. Imagine no persecutions of the Jews - no Jews to persecute indeed, for without religion they would long ago have intermarried with the surrounding populations.Of course today's religious killings and persecutions are not motivated by theological disputes. IRA gunmen don't kill Protestants (or vice versa) over disagreements about transubstantiation. The motive is more likely to be tribal vengeance. It was one of 'them' killed one of 'us'. 'They' drove 'our' great grandfathers out of our ancestral lands. The grievances are economic and political, not religious, and the vendettas stretch back a long way.But although the tribal disagreements themselves have nothing to do with religion, the fact that there are two tribes at all has everything to do with religion. There are, no doubt, tribal distinctions of genetic or linguistic origin, but in Northern Ireland what else is there but religion? The same applies to Indo-Pakistan, Serbo-Croatia, and various regions of Indonesia and Africa. Religion is the world's most divisive label of group identity and hostility. If a social engineer set out to devise a system for perpetuating today's most vicious enmities, he could not come up with a better formula than sectarian education. Faith schools that taught all religions comparatively might do some good. But the whole point of faith schools is that the children of 'our' tribe must be taught 'their own' religion. Since the children of the other tribe are simultaneously being taught the rival religion with, of course, the rival version of the vendetta-riven history, the prognosis is all too predictable.What can it mean to speak of a child's 'own' religion? Imagine a world in which it was normal to speak of a Keynesian child, a Hayekian child, or a Marxist child. Or imagine a proposal to pour government money into separate primary schools for Labour children, Tory children, LibDem children and Monster Raving Loony children? Everyone agrees that small children are too young to know whether they are Keynesian or Monetarist, Labour or Tory, too young to bear the burden of such labels. Why, then, is our entire society happy to slap a label like Catholic or Protestant, Muslim or Jew, on a tiny child? Isn't that, when you think about it, a kind of mental child abuse?I once made that very point in a broadcast debate with a Roman Catholic spokeswoman. I've forgotten her name but she was probably some kind of agony aunt, and a stalwart of Thought for the Day. When I said that a primary school child was too young to know whether it was a Catholic child or a Protestant child, she bristled: "Just come and talk to some of the children in our local Catholic school! I can assure you they know very well that they are Catholic children." Well yes, I believe it only too well. The Jesuit boast - "Give me the child for his first seven years, and I'll give you the man" - is no less sinister for being familiar (in various versions) to the point of clich?. But, you may ask, what if religion is true? (What if my particular religion is true, you should rather say, for mutually contradictory beliefs can't all be true.) Surely sectarian indoctrination would not be child abuse if it saved the child's immortal soul? Despite its smug presumptuousness, I can see how you might take that view if you sincerely believed you had the God-given truth. Let me, then, be ambitious if not presumptuous, and try to persuade you that you do not have the truth. Your confidence in your God is simply wrong!Why do you believe in your God? Because he talks to you inside your head? That is surely not a reliable argument. The Yorkshire Ripper's murders were ordered by the perceived voice of Jesus inside his head. The human brain is a consummate hallucinator, and hallucinations are not good grounds for beliefs about the real world. Perhaps you believe in God because life would be intolerable without him. That's an even weaker argument. Maybe life just is intolerable. Tough! All sorts of things are intolerable, but it doesn't make them untrue. It may be intolerable that you are starving, but you won't make a stone edible by believing - no matter how passionately and sincerely - that it is made of cheese. By far the favourite reason for believing in God is the argument from improbability. Eyes and skeletons, hearts and nerve cells are too improbable to have come about by chance. Man-made machines are improbable too, and they are designed by engineers for a purpose. Surely any fool can see that kidneys and wings, ears and blood corpuscles must also be designed for a purpose, by a master Engineer? Well, maybe any fool can see it, but let's stop playing the fool and grow up. It is 146 years since Charles Darwin gave us what is arguably the cleverest idea ever to occur to a human mind. He demonstrated a working process whereby natural forces, with no design whatsoever, can by slow, gradual degrees generate an elegant illusion of design, to almost limitless levels of complexity.I have written books on the subject and I obviously can't repeat the whole argument in a short article. Let me give just two guidelines to understanding. First, the commonest fallacy about natural selection is that it is a theory of chance. If natural selection really were a chance process, it is entirely obvious that it could not explain the illusion of design. But natural selection, properly understood, is the antithesis of chance. Second, it is often said that natural selection makes God unnecessary, but leaves his existence an entirely open possibility. I think we can go further. The argument from improbability, which traditionally is deployed in God's favour, turns out to be, when you think it through, the strongest argument against him.The beauty of Darwinian evolution is that it explains the very improbable, by gradual degrees. It starts from primeval simplicity (relatively easy to understand) and works up, by plausibly small steps, to complex entities which, by any non-gradual process, would be too improbable for serious contemplation. Design is a real alternative, but only if the designer is himself the product of an escalatory process such as evolution by natural selection, either on this planet or another. There may be alien life forms so advanced that we would worship them as gods. But they too must be ultimately explained by gradual escalation. Gods that exist ab initio are ruled out by the Argument from Improbability, even more surely than are spontaneously erupting eyes or elbow joints.Religious faith is not only a major force for evil in the world. Its very foundations are undermined and denied by scientific logic. Imagine a world where nobody is afraid to follow such thoughts wherever they may lead.

Some good quotes ...

"It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science." [Darwin]

"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." [Voltaire]

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism." [Einstein]

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true." [Nietzsche]

"I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul.... No, all this talk of an existence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our tenacity of life – our desire to go on living … our dread of coming to an end." [Edison]

"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." [Lincoln]

"Religion is a byproduct of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?" [Arthur C. Clarke]

"Religions are all alike – founded upon fables and mythologies." [Thomas Jefferson]

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile." [Kurt Vonnegut]

"Religion is based . . . mainly on fear . . . fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. . . . My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race." [Bertrand Russell]

Saudi king appeals for tolerance

[from www.bbc.co.uk]

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has called on followers of the world's main religions to turn away from extremism and embrace a spirit of reconciliation.
The king was opening a conference in Madrid which brings together Muslims, Christians, Jews and Buddhists.
He said the great conflicts of history were not caused by religion, but by the misinterpretation of religion.
King Juan Carlos of Spain, the co-host, said Spain had always sought to promote international dialogue.
Critics have dismissed the gathering as a propaganda gimmick by the Saudis who, they say, are not best placed to host a meeting on religious tolerance.
Wahhabism, the strain of Sunni Islam that is officially practiced in Saudi Arabia, is considered one of the religion's most conservative and intolerant forms.
"My brothers, we must tell the world that differences don't need to lead to disputes," King Abdullah said.
"The tragedies we have experienced throughout history were not the fault of religion but because of the extremism that has been adopted by some followers of all the religions, and of all political systems."
Correspondents say King Abdullah has made reaching out to other faiths a hallmark of his rule since becoming king in 2005. He is the first reigning Saudi monarch to meet the Pope, for example.
In June, Abdullah held a religious conference in Mecca in which participants pledged improved relations between Islam's two main branches, Sunni and Shia Islam.
The conference is sponsored by Saudi Arabia and is billed as a strictly religious, non-political affair. It is off limits to journalists apart from the inaugural session.

Hari on science versus religion

[Posted by cabalamat on 2008-Jul-09]
Johann Hari warns against the dangers of religion:

Does anybody else find it depressing that as science teaching declines in our schools, we do more than ever to push the sterile fictions of religion on children? As a direct result of government policy, Physics and Chemistry are withering while the enforced study of religion – in faith schools – is swelling.
Hari is right to be concerned about this. Science has a direct effect on Britain’s prosperity. Bad science teaching, or no science teaching, will make us materially poorer than we would be otherwise. It will also make us spiritually poorer, because it’ll replace the true awe and wonder at the natural world with the trite and silly fantasies of religion.
Despite the claims of woolly-headed kum-by-ya multiculturalists, there is a fundamental conflict between science and religion. Science offers a natural explanation of the world, based on empirical observation and reason. Religion offers a supernatural explanation of the world, based on ‘divine revelation’ – in other words, hallucination.
These two roads lead in different directions. Empirically observing the world will never lead you to conclude that (say) the Archangel Gabriel inseminated a virgin and she produced a Messiah who could produce infinite amounts of fish from a basket.
The more we explore the world with science, the more we find it is not as described in the Holy Books. Their maps, their explanations, their histories – all are empirically false. So the religious can either scramble rather pitifully to deny the facts, as creationists do, or they can turn more and more of their faith into gaseous metaphor, with their ‘God’ reduced to a distant First Cause.
In terms of policy the solution to these problems of science and religion is fairly obvious:
1. science should be taught as a compulsory subject in all schools; and taught in an interesting way.
2. religion should also be a compulsory subject. The purpose of religious education should be to innoculate children against religious belief, so that future generations can grow up free from religion.
3. there would be no faith superstition schools
4. independent schools would be required to follow the same policies as state schools regarding the above

Absolutely Right !!!

Keith Allen will burn in hell

[First shown on Channel 4 in June 2007 - from http://www.channel4.com/]

Keith Allen discovers an unnerving mixture of hatred, fanaticism and fun when he investigates one of the USA’s most extreme fundamentalist churches.
The members of Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, which preaches that every word in the Bible is literally true, are some of America's most fanatical Christian fundamentalists. Bearing ‘God Hates Fags’ and ‘God Hates America’ placards, they cheerfully picket the funerals of US soldiers killed in Iraq, and delight in provoking outrage among both liberals and patriots.
Programme-makers in America and Britain have repeatedly tried to expose their beliefs as anti-Christian, but these attempts have failed. In Channel 4’s investigation, Keith Allen takes a smarter, more streetwise approach. During three extraordinary days at Westboro, Keith reveals more about the church than other television programmes have unearthed in three months.
In interviews that are hilarious, infuriating and compelling, he forensically exposes the curious mixture of hatred and jollity that underpins their faith. Using all his journalistic skills and instincts, he scavenges for information in local bars and discovers a secret about the church's chief spokesperson, Shirley Phelps-Roper. Shirley confesses her ‘sin’ on camera, making a memorable climax to a programme that exposes the hypocrisy of this bizarre, fundamentalist sect.
Find out more
There’s lots more information about Christian fundamentalists in the USA in other parts of the Faith and Belief website.
God's Next ArmyConservative evangelical Christians hold key positions in the US Government, and now they're training the next generation to take power.
Make Me A VirginWhen filmmaker and ex-evangelical Christian Jamie Campbell is asked to make a video promoting sexual abstinence, he discovers some unexpected agendas at work in the ‘no sex before marriage’ movement.
Putting the Fun Into FundamentalPresenter Elliott Gerner travels around the world meeting different religious groups, from Christian fundamentalists in America's Bible Belt to an obscure Hindu goddess in India.
Texas Teenage VirginsIn the town of Lubbock in Texas, where a lot of people take the Bible literally, the church is powerful enough to ensure that teenagers receive no education about sex, while the Christian radio stations and preachers tell them that condoms don’t work, that sex brings disease and that abstinence is the only option.
The Doomsday CodeTony Robinson investigates the people with powerful political friends in the White House, who are trying to bring about the end of the world.
The FundamentalistsMark Dowd finds that there are fundamentalists of all religious persuasions across the world – Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims and, unexpectedly, Buddhists.
The New FundamentalistsRod Liddle investigates the evangelical Christians who tell teenagers that contraception won't protect them and that homosexuality is wrong.
Turning Muslim in TexasIn the state of Texas, the Bible Belt is transferring its allegiance to the Qur’an because, for many erstwhile Christians, believe it or not, the church is too liberal.
With God on Our SideA detailed and fascinating exploration of American Christian fundamentalism, the intentions and implications of the separation of church and state, and a round-up of evangelicals.