CRITIQUING RELIGION
"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned." Anonymous
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." Christopher Hitchens
"Intolerance is the natural concomitant of strong faith; tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous." Will Durant
"The danger of religious faith is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy. Because each new generation of children is taught that religious propositions need not be justified in the way that all others must, civilization is still besieged by the armies of the preposterous. We are, even now, killing ourselves over ancient literature. Who would have thought something so tragically absurd could be possible?" Sam Harris, The End of Faith
"The problem of vindicating an omnipotent and omniscient God in the face of evil (this is traditionally called the problem of theodicy) is insurmountable. Those who claim to have surmounted it by recourse to notions of free will and other incoherencies, have merely heaped bad philosophy onto bad ethics. Surely there must come a time when we will acknowledge the obvious: theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings. ... There is clearly no greater obstacle to a truly empirical approach to spiritual experience than our current beliefs about God." Sam Harris
" A kernel of truth lurks at the heart of religion, because spiritual experience, ethical behavior, and strong communities are essential for human happiness And yet our religious traditions are intellectually defunct and politically ruinous. While spiritual experience is clearly a natural propensity of the human mind, we need not believe anything on insufficient evidence to actualize it. Clearly, it must be possible to bring reason, spirituality, and ethics together in our thinking about the world. This would be the beginning of a rational approach to our deepest personal concerns. It would also be the end of faith." Sam Harris
"Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name. The consciousness that animates us is itself central to this mystery and the ground for any experience we might wish to call "spiritual". No myths need be embraced for us to commune with the profundity of our circumstance. No personal God need be worshiped for us to live in awe at the beauty and immensity of creation. No tribal fictions need be rehearsed for us to realize, one fine day, that we do, in fact, love our neighbors, that our happiness is inextricable from their own, and that our interdependence demands that people everywhere be given the opportunity to flourish. The days of our religious identities are clearly numbered.Whether the days of civilization itself are numbered would seem to depend, rather too much, on how soon we realize this." Sam Harris
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CRITIQUING RELIGION - MISCELLANEOUS
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Everyone believes his or her own religion to be genuine; no one says, “I believe in my religion, but it isn’t genuine.” It is religious conviction itself that causes such evils, and the question of legitimacy is irrelevant.
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"Faith is at its most toxic and dangerous point not when it is insincere and hypocritical and corrupt but when it is genuine. "
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Acknowledging Jesus's Jewish background is nothing new, but arguing, as Wilson does, that Christianity is largely the result of a deliberate and deceptive manipulation is more intriguing and contentious.
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Critical historical thinking in general, and its application to religious scriptures in particular, is one of the great intellectual achievements of Western civilization.
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"Spirituality" is a term beloved by seekers and loathed by atheists. But what does it mean? For a fresh perspective, turn to an old book, Ecclesiastes.
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"Readers with a scientific world view understand that faith healing does not work but might assume it will at least do no harm. Actually, it can do harm."
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As many as a hundred million Americans believe in the Rapture, a boffo scene they've extracted from the crazy, hallucinogenic, paranoid Book of Revelations.
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Rather than empowering "good" religions and repressing "bad" ones, the solution lies in imposing peace by strictly subordinating religion to the needs of modern society.
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Center for Inquiry Report for the Year 2007
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Austin Dacey calls for a bold rethinking of the nature of conscience and its role in public life. Inspired by an earlier tradition traced to Spinoza and John Stuart Mill, Dacey defends a renewed secularism based in the objective moral value of conscience.
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A review of "The New Atheists and Their Unholy Grail."
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The fastest-growing faith in America is no faith at all. And now some atheists think they need a church.
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There are some very dark passages in the Old Testament, stories of lust and cruelty that have no obvious moral. Incest, bigamy, rape, mutilation, deceit, loyalty and love can all be found in the Good Book.
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The Vatican's talk of "social sins" may indicate progress. But before it speaks for social responsibility, the Church has to have to take some itself.
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“If it’s really true that all religions have this ethical principle, across continents and across centuries, then it is more likely to have a hardwired scientific basis than if it was just a neighborhood custom.”
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The cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going end up challenging faith in the Bible.
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Lauri Lebo, author of Devil in Dover, gives an insider's account of a historic court battle about dogma and Darwin in small-town America.
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A savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus.