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This website is being renovated throughout 2008. Pages and the content of pages will continue to change until the end of the year and there may be some inconsistencies and missing links. Please do not quote from or link to specific pages (apart from the home page) without contacting the webmaster first. Words from the wise Objections to religion By © Martin Foreman Word Count: 790 words Publication date: December 25, 2005 For my last column in 2005, I will happily step aside while others take the stage. The following quotes on religion come from various websites – in particular www.jmarkgilbert.com/atheists.html. (Given that the web is also the source of much misinformation, I apologize in advance for any errors here.) The primary objection that atheists have to religion is the irrationality of faith – the belief of individual men and women that a God or Gods exist. As Benjamin Franklin wrote, “the way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason”. Mark Twain put it more succinctly: “Faith is in believing what you know ain’t so.” William Clifford, nineteenth century British mathematician, wrote “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” Bertrand Russell, twentieth century philosopher (another Brit), noted that “where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence.” Scientist Richard Dawkins, yet another Brit, writes that “faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.” Absurdly, many Christians agree, boasting of their rejection of reason, even though it is supposedly a gift from God. Check out Hebrews 11:1: “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” And Martin Luther, the priest whose revolt against Rome led to Protestantism, wrote that “faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.” Faith leads to religion, the formal structure where individuals express their common belief. Throughout history religion has consistently abused humanity in God’s name. (Think of the Crusades, the Inquisition, suicide bombers.) James Madison wrote that "during almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution." Madison was convinced that "in no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people." He added: "religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." Russell, the British philosopher, saw a clear link between religion and barbarity: "Religion is based . . . mainly on fear . . . fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand." God’s character, as described in the Bible, suggests that we should not be surprised that Christianity has been the source of so much misery. The trail of death and torture that the deity visits upon his creation led Twain to complain that "it ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." Most fair-minded readers of the Old Testament or Revelations would agree with Twain’s observation that “if there is a God, he is a malign thug.” Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, saw the deity from another perspective, questioning the logic of "an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes." Given God’s behavior, it is hypocritical of Christians to claim him as the source of human morality. And even if God were a paragon of virtue, the notion that only faith makes us moral would still be absurd. I echo Albert Einstein’s remark that: "ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." Which brings us to the afterlife and Edgar Allan Poe’s commonsense observation: “no man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter ... than you and I.” From which he concluded that “all religion ... is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry." Let us end with a European intellectual and an American humorist. Sigmund Freud will always be remembered as a pioneer who sought to identify the origins of the beauty and chaos that lie within the human mind. He once wrote: "The whole thing [faith] is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life." Mark Twain put it differently. "'In God We Trust.' I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true."
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If God existed, he would... admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create recognize that eternity is meaningless deny both heaven and hell disown all men and women who speak in his name denounce the harm caused by religious "morality" help the human race to thrive without him If God existed, he would be an atheist. |