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Billions Of People Infected With Potentially Deadly Disease
29/11/09 15:57 Filed in: Religion
In our lifetimes we’ve all seen or read about diseases that once killed millions, reduced to a minor inconvenience that can be avoided with a simple immunization. Our ability to defeat disease is a testament to the scientific method. This set of easy to follow rules provides the framework for any cure that has ever been. The experiments themselves may have been too complex for the layman to understand, however this simple framework that takes us from hypothesis to proof can be easily understood by almost anyone. This methodology has served humanity so well in fact, that I can only wonder why it hasn’t been applied to tackle the grandaddy of infectious disease; the most prolific epidemic to ever be set loose upon planet earth. This contagion that is referred to as “faith”.
In a post nine-eleven world, I need not site myriad examples of how faith can lead to fatality. The basic idea is that the more religious a population, the greater the possibility that extreme fundamentalist ideas, (like ethnic cleansing, genital mutilation, slavery etc.) will be tolerated or accepted.
In truth we all know the solution to wiping out faith once and for all is deceptively simple. All we need to do is to prohibit the teaching of religious doctrine to children. If we could manage to do that we could wipe out religious faith in perhaps one or two generations. This would yield a society based on secular ideas, filtered through the purifying process of the scientific method. At each new stage of our development, we could stand and rest on the best possible knowledge in any given endeavor. From these footholds we could then push off to learn even more. Can you imagine a world where we actually listen to the world’s foremost experts on any given topic? A world where all of science would be freely allowed to hypothesize, struggle through a process of falsification and then, after the rigors of this process are over, reach a proof as close to the truth as humanly possible? Even in those instances where the hypothesis is wrong, we learn new facts, unearth new questions and thus our understanding could potentially grow in the process. In short can you see, in your lifetime, a world where humanity begins to reach anything like our full potential?
Well, I’m sorry to say that I can’t, and I can say with some certainty, neither can you! Why the hell not? Well, it’s because we know that any time the findings lead us away from that which is written in the articles of faith, we’ll find we’re on a path riddled with land mines. Dogma-bombs are exploding overhead while we crawl through the barbed wire that is religious doctrine. It’s hard to concentrate with all this noise distracting us from proceeding in an orderly fashion. Instead of doing battle with the problems that we all face, science is in a constant battle with the infected. Those indoctrinated into a world view that teaches that belief without proof is a virtue. And so, we waste valuable resources on a constant skirmish with a disease for which we have a cure. If it’s true that the medicinal properties of reason are wasted on those infected by faith. how can we proceed?. Should we soldier on, with the heaviest of hearts, while we abandon the faithful? The unfortunate truth is that this is a triage situation. We’re trying to save a planet here!
It should be the goal of Atheists to marshal our collective political muscle before it is simply too late. If we are able to exert enough secular pressure upon governments to make more difficult, or illegal, the practice of infecting children with faith, we can begin to create a society capable of tackling the problems we face. We must turn our attention to the children everywhere on this earth. Wherever children are under educated and under fed, we must find ways to raise the standard of living. We must ensure that our governments will not fund any religious pursuit, and lobby for religious organizations to pay the same taxes as any similar secular counterpart would have to pay.
Whenever faith is held up as an equivalent to science, we must illuminate the incongruity. When those infected by faith site the holy texts to refute science, we must show those who are susceptible to the cure how one simply cannot compare that which is written in an ancient scroll with tried, tested and factual scientific evidence. It must be shown, again and again that the process that produces scientific evidence is as close to pure as we can make it, while the holy texts are based on outmoded ideas that have long been falsified. We must also recognize how the infection causes the faithful to act in any debate on the subject of religion versus science.
Religious apologists always seem to use the same arguments. When it’s an argument on something specific, the holy text itself usually forms the basis of it’s own undoing. At this point most theists will divorce themselves from the text by inventing a non-literal interpretation of it. This leads to a kind of religious rope-a-dope that produces a stalemate in nearly every contest. Since holy texts are not written in our current vernacular, these multitude of interpretations can go on ad-infinitum. As the debate rages on, another generation of children are infected. Therefore the only useful goal of debate is to make free thinkers of those who are at risk of infection. This increases the likelihood that the children of those hedging their bets will at least be spared contact with religioniogenic ideology, for the most impressionable stages of early childhood. Anyone who enters any such a debate should ask themselves if the format of the debate will allow this objective to be achieved. If not, the format will need to be altered, and when this cannot be done, the invitation to engage in debate must simply be declined. I have watched hours of video of Christopher Hitchens in debate with any willing theist. Thus far only one has ever come close to bringing something even remotely original to the discussion. Douglas Wilson, a pastor from Moscow Idaho, in the documentary film “Collision”, actually provides some intelligent and thoughtful points in favor of his variant strain of the disease known as christianity. He does this so eloquently in the film that you almost forget that he is infected. However when he says that he does not take the bible literally word for word, but nevertheless believes it to be absolutely true, it becomes very clear indeed that he must be counted as one who has been stricken. Pastor Wilson is one of a very few infected whose faith has not dissuaded him from thinking. After all it’s his faith that allows him to believe absolutely what he cannot take literally. So even he, one of the best examples of a thinking man’s theist, must cross an ideological bridge to allow him to have this absolute belief in the bible. It is unfortunate for him that this bridge of faith has absolutely no substance on which he can stand. He may invoke the name of god until he is blue in the face, but until he can prove the rationality of faith, he can only pretend to cross this bridge. It is obvious, to me at least, that it is only a world view warped by infectious faith that allows him to see his feet planted firmly on the other side.
I am neither capable nor qualified to develop a treatment protocol to reduce this outbreak. Those who are more educated and more intelligent than I am must engage themselves to this end. I only suggest here that the scientific method is the most likely candidate methodology for the rectification of this pandemic. However before we can go forward here all Atheists and Anti-theists must have a common set of objectives. This is essential because we do not, for the most part hold weekly meetings. We have no anthems, no fight songs etc. So our objectives must be made clear.
We must never forget the universal truth of science. This truth being that any information discovered by science is available to everyone. The mixture of two reactive chemicals (for instance) at standard temperature and pressure yields the same results for anyone, regardless of ideology. This transparency and independent verifiability is what makes science uniquely able to unify all the peoples of planet earth. The only reason that the pandemic of faith continues to propagate itself is that the majority of the population does not understand the science and cannot give the evidence the proper weight.
Victory over this viral infection will only be achieved when the vast majority of people realize, that even though for the time being science is a somewhat leaky vessel, it, unlike faith, holds water long enough to allow one to have a drink.
In a post nine-eleven world, I need not site myriad examples of how faith can lead to fatality. The basic idea is that the more religious a population, the greater the possibility that extreme fundamentalist ideas, (like ethnic cleansing, genital mutilation, slavery etc.) will be tolerated or accepted.
In truth we all know the solution to wiping out faith once and for all is deceptively simple. All we need to do is to prohibit the teaching of religious doctrine to children. If we could manage to do that we could wipe out religious faith in perhaps one or two generations. This would yield a society based on secular ideas, filtered through the purifying process of the scientific method. At each new stage of our development, we could stand and rest on the best possible knowledge in any given endeavor. From these footholds we could then push off to learn even more. Can you imagine a world where we actually listen to the world’s foremost experts on any given topic? A world where all of science would be freely allowed to hypothesize, struggle through a process of falsification and then, after the rigors of this process are over, reach a proof as close to the truth as humanly possible? Even in those instances where the hypothesis is wrong, we learn new facts, unearth new questions and thus our understanding could potentially grow in the process. In short can you see, in your lifetime, a world where humanity begins to reach anything like our full potential?
Well, I’m sorry to say that I can’t, and I can say with some certainty, neither can you! Why the hell not? Well, it’s because we know that any time the findings lead us away from that which is written in the articles of faith, we’ll find we’re on a path riddled with land mines. Dogma-bombs are exploding overhead while we crawl through the barbed wire that is religious doctrine. It’s hard to concentrate with all this noise distracting us from proceeding in an orderly fashion. Instead of doing battle with the problems that we all face, science is in a constant battle with the infected. Those indoctrinated into a world view that teaches that belief without proof is a virtue. And so, we waste valuable resources on a constant skirmish with a disease for which we have a cure. If it’s true that the medicinal properties of reason are wasted on those infected by faith. how can we proceed?. Should we soldier on, with the heaviest of hearts, while we abandon the faithful? The unfortunate truth is that this is a triage situation. We’re trying to save a planet here!
It should be the goal of Atheists to marshal our collective political muscle before it is simply too late. If we are able to exert enough secular pressure upon governments to make more difficult, or illegal, the practice of infecting children with faith, we can begin to create a society capable of tackling the problems we face. We must turn our attention to the children everywhere on this earth. Wherever children are under educated and under fed, we must find ways to raise the standard of living. We must ensure that our governments will not fund any religious pursuit, and lobby for religious organizations to pay the same taxes as any similar secular counterpart would have to pay.
Whenever faith is held up as an equivalent to science, we must illuminate the incongruity. When those infected by faith site the holy texts to refute science, we must show those who are susceptible to the cure how one simply cannot compare that which is written in an ancient scroll with tried, tested and factual scientific evidence. It must be shown, again and again that the process that produces scientific evidence is as close to pure as we can make it, while the holy texts are based on outmoded ideas that have long been falsified. We must also recognize how the infection causes the faithful to act in any debate on the subject of religion versus science.
Religious apologists always seem to use the same arguments. When it’s an argument on something specific, the holy text itself usually forms the basis of it’s own undoing. At this point most theists will divorce themselves from the text by inventing a non-literal interpretation of it. This leads to a kind of religious rope-a-dope that produces a stalemate in nearly every contest. Since holy texts are not written in our current vernacular, these multitude of interpretations can go on ad-infinitum. As the debate rages on, another generation of children are infected. Therefore the only useful goal of debate is to make free thinkers of those who are at risk of infection. This increases the likelihood that the children of those hedging their bets will at least be spared contact with religioniogenic ideology, for the most impressionable stages of early childhood. Anyone who enters any such a debate should ask themselves if the format of the debate will allow this objective to be achieved. If not, the format will need to be altered, and when this cannot be done, the invitation to engage in debate must simply be declined. I have watched hours of video of Christopher Hitchens in debate with any willing theist. Thus far only one has ever come close to bringing something even remotely original to the discussion. Douglas Wilson, a pastor from Moscow Idaho, in the documentary film “Collision”, actually provides some intelligent and thoughtful points in favor of his variant strain of the disease known as christianity. He does this so eloquently in the film that you almost forget that he is infected. However when he says that he does not take the bible literally word for word, but nevertheless believes it to be absolutely true, it becomes very clear indeed that he must be counted as one who has been stricken. Pastor Wilson is one of a very few infected whose faith has not dissuaded him from thinking. After all it’s his faith that allows him to believe absolutely what he cannot take literally. So even he, one of the best examples of a thinking man’s theist, must cross an ideological bridge to allow him to have this absolute belief in the bible. It is unfortunate for him that this bridge of faith has absolutely no substance on which he can stand. He may invoke the name of god until he is blue in the face, but until he can prove the rationality of faith, he can only pretend to cross this bridge. It is obvious, to me at least, that it is only a world view warped by infectious faith that allows him to see his feet planted firmly on the other side.
I am neither capable nor qualified to develop a treatment protocol to reduce this outbreak. Those who are more educated and more intelligent than I am must engage themselves to this end. I only suggest here that the scientific method is the most likely candidate methodology for the rectification of this pandemic. However before we can go forward here all Atheists and Anti-theists must have a common set of objectives. This is essential because we do not, for the most part hold weekly meetings. We have no anthems, no fight songs etc. So our objectives must be made clear.
We must never forget the universal truth of science. This truth being that any information discovered by science is available to everyone. The mixture of two reactive chemicals (for instance) at standard temperature and pressure yields the same results for anyone, regardless of ideology. This transparency and independent verifiability is what makes science uniquely able to unify all the peoples of planet earth. The only reason that the pandemic of faith continues to propagate itself is that the majority of the population does not understand the science and cannot give the evidence the proper weight.
Victory over this viral infection will only be achieved when the vast majority of people realize, that even though for the time being science is a somewhat leaky vessel, it, unlike faith, holds water long enough to allow one to have a drink.
Sigmund Freud Versus God
18/11/09 11:29 Filed in: Religion
Religion is festooned with a plethora of bad Ideas, false promises and doomsday predictions. These belief systems expend vast amounts of our time, energy, blood and money. This has been going on for centuries, and as our ability to make war has increased the danger from religious extremism has escalated exponentially. There is a hidden hierarchy here that I begin to see more and more as I delve into research, watch documentary films and read articles on faith and the lack thereof.
It seems that, religious ideology in society, has a pattern akin to Freud’s model of the human psyche. Religious extremists dream up the really crazy stuff, they take their holy text to mean literally anything that allows them to support their agenda. Many holy books are amazingly flexible in their ability to support the most barbaric acts known to man in the name of god. In this example this part of Freud’s hierarchy could be considered the ID.
Of course religious extremists are always wanting to spread these ideas far and wide and so when word reaches the masses a discussion often follows. The bulk of the population acts as a filter, applying their own morality to these extreme ideas. In most cases the danger of extremism is at the very least diluted if not destroyed altogether. When, in rare instances these ideas pass through this filter unchecked the results can be horrific. Wars, Ethnic Cleansing/Genocide and the like are all examples of what happens when this sort of “filtration system” for ideology fails to do the job. When this happens, the process of non-thinking called “faith” is usually to blame. This is the reason that even moderate religion can be a danger. The greater the level of faith the more likely this mechanism akin to Freud’s ego will fail.
We humans are basically good on the whole. We’ve learned our morality over thousands of years and as time goes on we are able to employ our innate morality to an increasing degree. One might even argue that this concept is at the root of the rise of atheism or the plague of “lazy faith” depending on your personal perspective. However you choose to spin it our collective consciousness functions as the superego of society. In many cases the transition from a theistic to an atheistic world view has to do with an objection to the shameful moral teachings inherent in most religious texts. This is the reason there are so many denominations in religion. Deplorable ideology from the holy text is discarded or explained away so that faith can live on with a new brand name.
Religion is, in a way is like cigarettes. It doesn’t matter if you smoke regular, light, extra light, menthol, with or without a filter, it’s all bad for you to varying degrees. Although the jury may still be out on secondhand smoke there’s no denying that the aroma of it is often enough to entice those who have quit to relapse back into being a smoker. This is why the focus should be on children. Kids raised in religious doctrine, are more likely to relapse into faith later in life even if they break free from religion earlier in life. This is because once a core ideology is installed into the human psyche and deeply rooted into the unconscious mind below the level of awareness, it is forever there to “inform” the conscious mind which believes most of what it is told no matter how ridiculous. This is how people like Francis Collins can be perfectly rational, and be brilliant in an area of science that conclusively proves evolution by natural selection and yet remain religious. The religiosity comes from religious ideology placed in his subconscious mind in childhood.
So in conclusion, the simple solution that may prove nearly impossible to implement (in the short term) is to fortify the ego! It may happen naturally. As humans evolve we may gradually abandon religion and become better and better equipped to filter out extremist ideology in society. If we want this to happen faster we need to keep religion away from children until they reach an age when they are able to appreciate it for what it is. It is essential that our children’s moral compass be set by the best ideas we have at the present time, not bronze age mythology, fear and totalitarianism. Science doesn’t currently have all the answers, but we know more now than at any other point in our collective history. Our best chance lies in using the best information we have. This information, never has, and never will come from religion.
It seems that, religious ideology in society, has a pattern akin to Freud’s model of the human psyche. Religious extremists dream up the really crazy stuff, they take their holy text to mean literally anything that allows them to support their agenda. Many holy books are amazingly flexible in their ability to support the most barbaric acts known to man in the name of god. In this example this part of Freud’s hierarchy could be considered the ID.
Of course religious extremists are always wanting to spread these ideas far and wide and so when word reaches the masses a discussion often follows. The bulk of the population acts as a filter, applying their own morality to these extreme ideas. In most cases the danger of extremism is at the very least diluted if not destroyed altogether. When, in rare instances these ideas pass through this filter unchecked the results can be horrific. Wars, Ethnic Cleansing/Genocide and the like are all examples of what happens when this sort of “filtration system” for ideology fails to do the job. When this happens, the process of non-thinking called “faith” is usually to blame. This is the reason that even moderate religion can be a danger. The greater the level of faith the more likely this mechanism akin to Freud’s ego will fail.
We humans are basically good on the whole. We’ve learned our morality over thousands of years and as time goes on we are able to employ our innate morality to an increasing degree. One might even argue that this concept is at the root of the rise of atheism or the plague of “lazy faith” depending on your personal perspective. However you choose to spin it our collective consciousness functions as the superego of society. In many cases the transition from a theistic to an atheistic world view has to do with an objection to the shameful moral teachings inherent in most religious texts. This is the reason there are so many denominations in religion. Deplorable ideology from the holy text is discarded or explained away so that faith can live on with a new brand name.
Religion is, in a way is like cigarettes. It doesn’t matter if you smoke regular, light, extra light, menthol, with or without a filter, it’s all bad for you to varying degrees. Although the jury may still be out on secondhand smoke there’s no denying that the aroma of it is often enough to entice those who have quit to relapse back into being a smoker. This is why the focus should be on children. Kids raised in religious doctrine, are more likely to relapse into faith later in life even if they break free from religion earlier in life. This is because once a core ideology is installed into the human psyche and deeply rooted into the unconscious mind below the level of awareness, it is forever there to “inform” the conscious mind which believes most of what it is told no matter how ridiculous. This is how people like Francis Collins can be perfectly rational, and be brilliant in an area of science that conclusively proves evolution by natural selection and yet remain religious. The religiosity comes from religious ideology placed in his subconscious mind in childhood.
So in conclusion, the simple solution that may prove nearly impossible to implement (in the short term) is to fortify the ego! It may happen naturally. As humans evolve we may gradually abandon religion and become better and better equipped to filter out extremist ideology in society. If we want this to happen faster we need to keep religion away from children until they reach an age when they are able to appreciate it for what it is. It is essential that our children’s moral compass be set by the best ideas we have at the present time, not bronze age mythology, fear and totalitarianism. Science doesn’t currently have all the answers, but we know more now than at any other point in our collective history. Our best chance lies in using the best information we have. This information, never has, and never will come from religion.
You Cannot Blame Atheism for the Holocaust
04/11/09 14:42 Filed in: Religion
In nearly every religion versus atheism or god versus no god discussion or debate I see on You Tube or elsewhere, the forces of religiosity invariably trot out Hitler and Stalin. The claim is that they were atheists who were trying to rid the world of religion by killing the faithful. By all accounts one could make a case that Stalin was on some level an atheist, but Hitler, was not. However even if he was in fact an atheist he would have had to round up all the Jews pretty much by himself because 99% of the population of Germany were Roman Catholics at the time! So the idea that Atheism played a major role in the Holocaust just doesn’t hold any water whatsoever. Religion however did play a role.
At the heart of all types of religion lies the idea that it is a virtue to believe without any sort of proof. When this idea is at the foundation of the belief system of any group, this group becomes easy to sway into actions that are immoral, hateful and in this case genocidal in nature. This underlying misguiding idea of faith as a virtue is reason enough in my opinion to rid oneself of any kind of religious belief.
At the heart of all types of religion lies the idea that it is a virtue to believe without any sort of proof. When this idea is at the foundation of the belief system of any group, this group becomes easy to sway into actions that are immoral, hateful and in this case genocidal in nature. This underlying misguiding idea of faith as a virtue is reason enough in my opinion to rid oneself of any kind of religious belief.