To survive - lose religious faith

[Pah]

Toronto Star

Jul. 2, 2005. 01:00 AM

Losing faith in religion
Author pleads for an age of reason that will render religious faith as archaic as the worship of Odin Sam Harris says religious myths must die if we are to survive as a species, Ron Csillag reports

Compared to Sam Harris, Karl Marx was a piker. The 19th-century political philosopher derided religion as the "opium of the people." To Harris, organized faith is more like crack cocaine, and its fruits every bit as ruinous. And we must quit the pipe, cold turkey, before it's too late

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Myths die hard, Harris realizes, but die they must if we are to survive as a species. For now that millions embrace the metaphysics of martyrdom or the truth of the book of Revelation — and are armed to the teeth — "words like `God' and `Allah' must go the way of `Apollo' and `Baal' or they will unmake our world," he warns. Faith-based religion "must suffer the same slide into obsolescence" as alchemy.

Other example of Harris's carpet-bombing:

"There is no more evidence to justify a belief in the literal existence of Yahweh or Satan than there was to keep Zeus perched upon his mountain throne or Poseidon churning the sea ... we as a species have grown perfectly intoxicated by our myths."

"How can any person presume to know that this is the way the universe works? Because it says so in our holy books. How do we know that our holy books are free from error? Because the books themselves say so. Epistemological black holes of this sort are fast draining the light from our world."

"Given the link between belief and action, it is clear that we can no more tolerate a diversity of religious beliefs than a diversity of beliefs about epidemiology and basic hygiene."

"It is time we recognized that all reasonable men and women have a common enemy. It is an enemy so near to us and so deceptive, that we keep its counsel even as it threatens to destroy the very possibility of human happiness. Our enemy is nothing other than faith itself."

 

[Lady Crimson]

I agree. If we are to survive as a species, our god based religions must die.

Although this is hardly going to happen...Some religions, over the eras, have been deemed wrong and their believers told to believe in something else. Take jews for example...Not so long ago, they were told to forget about their religion and believe in christianity or what not. But they survived through it all and so did their religion...The same with christians in roman times...The point I'm trying to make is that...even if your survival is at hand, one cannot forget one's religion or forget to teach one's child the same belief.

 

[michel]

I like the "We need to be more intolerant across the board," he offers.".......I quite agree with him -let's be intollerant towards him.........


......"Anyone who reads those "and can still not see a link between Muslim faith and Muslim violence should probably consult a neurologist.".............
Is deliberate provokation - that attitude of his is the sort of attitude that encoutrages wars......
..............."by flatly declaring that the Bible and the Qur'an "both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish."...................

Oh well, each one to his own.

 

[jeffrey]

I agree with you, LC, Michel. People have been persecuted for their beliefs for ages. But for the people that believe in God do not believe that, as followers, we are of this world. Survival of this world is not important. Being a part of God's world is.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Well, it seems that humanity has survived for at least 5 to 7 thousand years with religion.

"words like `God' and `Allah' must go the way of `Apollo' and `Baal' or they will unmake our world," he warns. Faith-based religion "must suffer the same slide into obsolescence" as alchemy.

I wonder if he realizes that there are still people who worship gods such as Apollo and Baal. And still practice Alchemy.

"How can any person presume to know that this is the way the universe works? Because it says so in our holy books. How do we know that our holy books are free from error? Because the books themselves say so. Epistemological black holes of this sort are fast draining the light from our world."

So is he saying that the only religions that should be done away with are those with a holy book? Or is it just his own ignorance in failing to realize that not every religion does have a holy book?
Again, humanity has been doing ok for the past several mellinia with religion.

 

[Original Freak]

Again, humanity has been doing ok for the past several mellinia with religion.

Although I don't think it's really been doing O.K. I don't think we will die out because of it.

Survival of this world is not important.

I completely and whole heartidly disagree with this.

 

[Voxton]

I figure we'll still survive, even with religion around -- it just won't be as nice.

With no religion, there'd be no crusades, no children's crusades, no witch-trials or inquisitions, no priests fruiting up the choir-boys, no intifadas, and no 9/11 -- we'd miss quite a few wars too. It would definitely be better. Of course, we'd still do bad things, and screw stuff up. So it wouldn't be perfect -- it'd just be better.

I think that's good enough.

 

[jewscout]

i imagine the desire for wealth and power are just as equally responsible for the less than sunnier side of humanity...

is it really the faiths that are the problem...or the people that use them for ends that have little or nothing to do w/ the faith itself?

i guess what i'm saying is...should we throw out the baby w/ the bathwater...

 

[jewscout]

With no religion, there'd be no crusades, no children's crusades, no witch-trials or inquisitions, no priests fruiting up the choir-boys...

yes because all christian condone this sort of behavior:sarcastic

...no intifadas, and no 9/11

again...because all muslims condone this sort of behavior:sarcastic

-- we'd miss quite a few wars too.

that's debatable...

 

[Dreamwolf]

If your religion makes you happy then of course you are going to say that you do not need to get rid of it. I remember before I found wicca, I was absolutly miserable. So I will say no we do not need to completely dismiss religion all together. Now the question is what happens to those religions that are so strict that they hardly let people live at all to me no free will is no live at all. I think that those religions that are so strict may eventually fade away but as the story goes, it always gets worse before it gets better.

 

[may]

I would say to survive lose false religion ,that is why God tells us to get out of Babylon the great(the world empire of false religion)

And I heard another voice out of heaven say: "Get out of her, my people, if YOU do not want to share with her in her sins, and if YOU do not want to receive part of her plagues...rev 18;4the reason we have got to get out is because she is going to be destroyed by God ,good job we are being warned there will be no excuse if we are part of it when it goes down

 

[Valjean]

Religious faith has always been divisive in varying degrees and is always a favorite excuse to exploit or even wipe out your neighbors. Without it people might be forced to examine their motives more closely and may even have some difficulty justifying their misdeeds.

I've also heard Christians justifying environmental apathy or even degradation with the assertion that God created the Earth and all its creatures exclusively for man's exploitation and benefit , and that any damage is irrelevant anyway as Jesus will return shortly and make everything right.

It's this latter attitude that I find most worrisome. Like leaping off a cliff in the expectation that an angel will be dispatched to catch you.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Maybe the world should switch to actual Marxist Communism. Everyone has equal money, equal value, everyone is basically the same person. That is the only thing that would do away with everything Sam Harris blames religion for. But then again, it wouldn't entirely eliminate it.

I would say to survive lose false religion

If it wasn't for Christianity, there would have been no Crusades, no Witch-trials, no Inquisition, and fewer wars. So for the sake of the debate, I say lose Christianity and Islam and Judiasm. That would make the chances for survival go up. If Judiasm never existed, the middle east wouldn't fued as much. If Islam never existed, Jerusalem wouldn't have been captured, which is what started the Crusades, which was started by Christianity. But if Christianity never existed, then there would have not been alot of terrible historical events that happened.

 

[may]

Maybe the world should switch to actual Marxist Communism. Everyone has equal money, equal value, everyone is basically the same person. That is the only thing that would do away with everything Sam Harris blames religion for. But then again, it wouldn't entirely eliminate it.

If it wasn't for Christianity, there would have been no Crusades, no Witch-trials, no Inquisition, and fewer wars. So for the sake of the debate, I say lose Christianity and Islam and Judiasm. That would make the chances for survival go up. If Judiasm never existed, the middle east wouldn't fued as much. If Islam never existed, Jerusalem wouldn't have been captured, which is what started the Crusades, which was started by Christianity. But if Christianity never existed, then there would have not been alot of terrible historical events that happened.

i would have to disagree there ,because as far as i am concerned it was not true christianity that was involved with the crusades,witch-trials, inquisition or wars, but it was false religion, that is why God is going to get rid of false religion because of her harlotry. and so called christianity plays a big part in Babylon the great (the world empire of false religion) seems to me that the false teachers have a lot to answer for dont you?no true christianity would be far removed from such things dont you agree?

 

[jewscout]

Maybe the world should switch to actual Marxist Communism. Everyone has equal money, equal value, everyone is basically the same person. That is the only thing that would do away with everything Sam Harris blames religion for

to implement this it would require a regime worse than Stalin...so i fail to see how this would make things better:sarcastic

I say lose...Judiasm

been tried

If Judiasm never existed, the middle east wouldn't fued as much.

the present conflict, which is the only fued that has existed since the rise of Islam that invovled Judaism's followers as an active player, has little to do w/ the faith and more to do w/ basic old fashioned politics

If Islam never existed, Jerusalem wouldn't have been captured, which is what started the Crusades

the reason the Byzantium empire wanted aid from the west was not because of Jerusalem, the Turks were banging down the doors of Constantinople

Since their victory at the Battle of Manzikert (1071), the Seljuk Turks had been pressing towards Constantinople and were now actually within sight of the city. Alexius Comnenus, the eastern emperor, needed reinforcement. A couple of years previously, he had seen a group of western knights under the command of Count Robert of Flanders and returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He had been impressed by their fighting ability and decided to try to hire about 1200 such warriors. he sent his request, and the reasons for it, to Pope Urban II.

http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/first_crusade.html

But if Christianity never existed, then there would have not been alot of terrible historical events that happened.

i imagine if you look throughout history you will find more than just Christianity as a motivating factor in many of this events...



while i will agree that many use religion as a tool to do horrible things i have no doubt they would have found a different tool if they didn't exist.

Stalin didn't need religion to justify what he did

 

[Shadow Wolf]

i would have to disagree there ,because as far as i am concerned it was not true christianity that was involved with the crusades,witch-trials, inquisition or wars, but it was false religion,

But it was Christianity that was intolerant of what you call "false" religions. If Christianity was not thier, those would not have happened. True they wouldn't have happened if the church leaders of the time weren't greedy, corrupt, and had political motives behind there discision, but most church leaders even today are like that.

to implement this it would require a regime worse than Stalin...so i fail to see how this would make things better:sarcastic

True Marxism, or true Communism, is in theory the second best government, the best being anarchy. If every government was under true communism, which non of the communist nations have (they change somethings that make it different form Marx's theories), every thing would be divided equal, which means everyone would have a job and money, food, shelter, clothes, education, and many other things that would make life easier for those who might not have a good quality of life under a democracy or republic government.

i imagine if you look throughout history you will find more than just Christianity as a motivating factor in many of this events...

Christianities intolerance and/or corrupt leaders is to blame for many things such as the Salem Witch Trials and the Inquisition.

the reason the Byzantium empire wanted aid from the west was not because of Jerusalem, the Turks were banging down the doors of Constantinople

Im gonna get off the devils advocate ploy for a while. Actually, I think the entire Crusades, the first through todays wars, is nothing but a movement for attempted political gain. The Church saw potential to spread thier religion to the Jews land. Which would bring more converts and more money. The other groups fighting for the church were fighting for money. Well, thier was the Childrens Crusade that was influenced by a strong beliefe in God, but that crusade was just horrible. But maybe the kid that started it had dreams of a children run nation.

I don't blame the religion itself for the events. I blame the leaders.
Now back to being the devils advocate.

 

[jewscout]

True Marxism, or true Communism, is in theory the second best government, the best being anarchy.

true Marxism is nothing but a 19th century man's fantasy. It was thought up when it seemed that mankind was on the up and up...before WW1, WW2 and the holocaust
Man has shown it's imperfection and is a long way from that fantasy.
Again to implement such a government today would require a dictatorship, basically Stalinist Russia where they locked the religious people up in insane asylums.

 

[blueman]

Proverbs 3:5 states: Trust in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledege Him and He will direct thy path.

People who put their trust in God through faith and His Word certainly have a different perspective on life than most in secular society. I think one of the problems of leaning to your own rational and understanding in navigating your way through life is that at the end of the day, we can only do so much through our own power. In addition, some people in society have a rationale and thinking that is warped and distiurbing and leads them to make terrible, tragic decisions in life. I think this fact is a major factor that has resulted in the world we live in today with so much war, violence and perversion that permeates throughout this society. Replacing the knowledge of God with a default to our own understanding and logic would be a mistake and a drastic step backwards in my opinion.

 

[Valjean]

Human's were hard-wired way back in the pleistocene to function optimally in small, closely-knit bands. It's how we lived for a million years. Other bands, even if culturally identical, were competitors for resources.

"Communist" societies work fine -- as long as they remain small and cohesive, like the societies we're biologically programmed for. Trying to effect a communal society of more people than we're psychologically capable of regarding as us, would be a difficult task.

http://thefec.org/

 

[Hope]

I think Jewscout made some excellent points.

What people so often conveniently overlook is all the injustice and horrible things that have been done by those who profess no faith or religion. Take Stalin and Hitler, for example. Neither were religious---in fact, they were anti-God---and yet they were responsible for some of the greatest atrocities in human history.

I believe it is such a double standard to accuse 'faith' or 'religion' as being the cause of so much evil in the world. Evil will be done, by those who have faith, and those who don't. It isn't exclusive to the religious. There has been so much good contributed by those who are religious, and this, once again, is often conveniently overlooked. People tend to focus on the negative, and blow it way out of proportion, just to make a point.

I personally think faith helps make this world a better place, not a worse place. I can't imagine a world where a belief in God was nonexistent.