[MD] The End of Faith

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Platt,

>> dmb says:
>> Yes, "what people do with professed religious faith" is probably  
>> Sam's
>> central concern. What people do with their faith is prevent stem cell
>> research, put creationism in the science classroom, behead  
>> infidels, bomb
>> abortion clinics, shoot doctors, fly airliners into skyscrappers,  
>> blow
>> themselves up in a crowd and teach their children a bunch of  
>> bullshit. The
>> pragmatic consequences of religious faith is a disaster on a scale  
>> beyond
>> measure.

Platt says,
> Lest we forget, the worst genocides in history were committed by  
> atheists.


Steve:
Where do you stand on the questions I posed?
"Does the MOQ oppose dogmatic religion? I would say that since the  
"truths" of religion are to be accepted on faith, social institutions  
such as religions are an example of a social pattern attempting to  
devour an intellectual one. What do you think?

Do religious beliefs need to be "respected" in some way since the  
intellectual level's evolution depends on the social level?"

As for atheists being responsible for the worst genocides in history,  
I agree with Harris who says that the problem isn't that the regimes  
responsible for these genocides were not believers or were too  
critical of religion, it is that their regimes were too much like  
religions.

Regards,
Steve



Sam Harris from his article "Ten Myths About Atheism":
"People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao  
and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with  
fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of  
religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such  
regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to  
personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious  
hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not  
examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma;  
they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run  
amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because  
its people became too reasonable."




Regards,
Steve