One of the most significant things that make humans human is the ability to hold beliefs. A lot of thinkers including Decartes, Dennet, Sagan, and others have proselytized that ideas should hold no sacredness. I think this is probably the core of true thinking. Why should any notion or concept be give special protection against scrutiny? It seems that such a concept would promote the abandonment of reason and the promotion of dogma.
So here enters religion. Any follower of any religion about which I know must confess, if they are honest, that they base their beliefs on faith. I use the most derogatory definition of faith here. Faith equals belief without proof in this definition. In the real world faith accounts for nothing. The earth is not heated by the sun through faith. Photons and other energetic particles leave our star and heat our world. Faith does not power the very core of our existence. There are rational, reasoned arguments to be made for of the natural processes on Earth. And for those left unexplained, a “god of the gaps” is a poor excuse of the simple statement “we don’t know yet”. The scientific method, it seems, really does work.
Science had proven to be an amazingly useful tool to further our understanding of the natural world. Religion has not. At all. Let me be clear. Religion, and in particular the Christian religion with which I am familiar, has done a horrible job explaining our universe. So I find it disgusting and perverse when people of religion attempt to subvert reality in favor of their fantasies (religion), and on top of that perversion, declare their perverse beliefs sacred!
On top of these points, Christianity and other religions have done a horrible job providing a moral framework for humans. As it turns out, humans don’t really derive morality from religion anyway. Study after study have shown that the true moral lessons are derived outside of religion. However, this should not be construed that Christians are bad people; just that it does not take faith to make a good person.
An idea is an idea is an idea. Every idea is available to the scrutiny of reasoning and intellect. Whether the idea be string theory or the god hypothesis, the idea should be easily propped up or torn down based based on the the evidence available and sound reasoning.
Is this too much to ask?
