[QUOTE=Hostile Dialect]
I could be underestimating the lengths he goes to, since I don’t spend much time in GD. But at the very least, the lesser, and included, contentions that belief in a specific higher power seems a little loopy; that the Bible and its sister books seem for all the world to be collections of fairy tales; that those fairy tales don’t provide a superior system of morality; that organized religion has caused most of the world’s problems; and that fervent belief in spiritual beings says something about a person’s rationality; all seem pretty agreeable to me.
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I think that pretty much everything that can be said in this subject has been said, but I’ll chime in that I agree with the first three points you made and disagree with the last two.
Yes, the beliefs themselves strike me as loopy too. I used to joke around about Christianity. Let’s see, what were some of the jokes? OK, I used to wonder aloud that if God was so damned omniscient and all-powerful, why was he still so pissed off about a 4,000-year-old fruit tree dispute. Why can’t everyone see that Jesus was the biggest tweaker on earth? Long hair and a beard, raving about worms and lakes of fire, spending all night in the desert arguing about the meaning of life, come on, people, read the clues. (OK, I never said they were good jokes.)
I’ll also agree with the books being essentially fairy tales and the opinion that a theist is no more likely to be moral and upright than an atheist. He’s not less likely, either.
I’ll disagree with religion being a major cause of the world’s problems. As far as I’m concerned, religion has been a scapegoat for the three main factors behind the world’s problems: money, earth, and politics. Religion is what the kings and politicians tell us it’s about, but if one looks deeper, he will find money, earth and/or politics somewhere in there. Also, I don’t think nations are run on religions. They’re run on money, politics, and blood. Religion’s the excuse; it’s the rabbit that the magician pulls out of the hat after setting it on the table, and everyone ooh’s and ahh’s, but they never come together as a group to see just what’s under that table, and why would they? It’s so much easier and more interesting to pay attention to the rabbit.
I’ll also disagree with religion saying anything about a person’s rationality one way or another. I’ve run into too many squared-away Christian surgeons, Jewish shrinks, Muslim engineers, and Buddhist everything’s (You run into a lot of Buddhists in Korea.) to give any credence to the idea that a theist is any less rational or intelligent than an atheist.
In short, I’m more than happy to mock the religion. It’s mocking the religious person that I have a problem with, not just because it’s a dickish thing to do–although it is that–but because it’s simply not true.
