I sent the YouTube links for Richard Dawkin’s The Root Of All Evil show (part 1, part 2 and part 3) to a co-worker today, triggered by a conversation we had over coffee.
She wrote back with the following comment:
But it’s fanaticism, not really religion that is the problem. Not all religions are like this… there are wonderful things that believing in a god can bring to society.
So I challenged her to name three.
She came back with the following three statements – I’ll interleave my replies with them:
– a sense of responsibility to a higher power, something unworldly and therefore more powerful.
Why do I need this? Why does believing in some “sky daddy” help me in my life? Because I can blame him for all that goes wrong and not take any personal responsibility? It was “God’s will”?
Why do I need to pretend that there is something living in the sky and watching everything I do (Santa Claus)? What possible use is this to me?
As for a sense of responsibility, I have that. I have responsibilities to my family. I have responsibilities to my community. I have responsibilities to my job. Hell, I have responsibilities to the world. Why do I need some “god” to be responsible to? I don’t need a “higher power”, I have plenty of things that I am already responsible to.
– the value of forgiveness and redemption.
Why do I need to be forgiven? I have not done anything. “Sin” is a concept created to get people to go to church. The whole forgiveness thing bothers me. I can go out and do bad things and the only thing that I have to do is ask the priest for forgiveness, and then pray a couple of times and I’m a good person? And this promotes good behavior how?
Redemption? Isn’t that what you do with green stamps? What does redemption mean? That I’m going to some fairy tale “heaven” when I die? Sorry, I don’t buy that.
– promotes faith. faith is a great thing, it gives some people hope and comfort.
Faith is not a good thing. Faith means you believe in something without any evidence or proof. Faith is wooly thinking and leads to making bad judgments based on your beliefs instead of the real world.
How does believing in a “sky daddy” give me comfort and hope? If this “god” is all powerful and beneficent, why does he let people die horrible deaths? Because they are not “saved”? Because they don’t “believe” in him? Or perhaps because he doesn’t exist?
I’m sorry, but when you die, you are dead. You are gone. You don’t come back as a bug, an animal, another person. You don’t go to some magical place in the sky.
The Islam suicide bombers believe that when they die, they go to a heaven with 72 virgins. And we don’t believe this. We think it’s crazy. Yet Christians believe that when we die, they go to some magical place where they will see all our friends and family again. Or we go to some place of eternal torture if we are “bad”. How is this less crazy than the Islam beliefs?
Why are they wrong and we are right?
I call bullshit.
I believe there are more bad things that come from religion than good. I think it’s a blight and a virus that should be wiped out.
