Superstition vs reason, which will triumph?
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There are two ways of looking at the world – through faith and superstition or through the rigours of logic, observation and evidence – in other words, through reason. –Richard Dawkins
At the beginning of the 21st century we are experiencing a virtual war against reason that is happening due to at least two important reasons. Firstly, the religion virus has spread far and wide in recent decades capitalizing on doubt and confusion about modern intellectual achievements and cultural changes that have emancipated people from the grasp of religion. Secondly, science is advancing so rapidly that the common person cannot absorb all the new knowledge. Highly technical scientific reports are so numerous that even experts complain they are being swamped by information What chance do lay persons have? How many simply give up ever understanding.
To fill the void, peddlers of superstition have flooded in to offer bizarre alternatives to science that seem to make sense and don’t require rigor or careful thought. Purveyors advocate impossible untested schemes of quack medicine and psychics abound that have absolutely no logical grounding whatsoever. The most aggressive superstition peddlers attack the very notion that evidence and fact are critical in the search for truth. They cavalierly toss out epistemology backed by centuries of investigation and careful study. They claim one can “know” something through feelings, emotions, ephemeral insubstantial hunches. President George W. Bush, a proud born-again christian, claimed he went with his gut feeling to answer the most profound questions. According to him, what felt right is right. This is stupifying ignorance raised to the umpteenth power. If he used his gut to think with, one wonders if he used his brain to digest his food. The fool.
Richard Dawkins, a leading proponent of science education and a tireless advocate of using reason to seek the truth, stars in a two part television program, “The Enemies of Reason“, broadcast by Britain’s Channel 4 television. Here is part one.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7218293233140975017#
Part Two:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7218293233140975017#docid=6004927014381716642
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- [Update - audio added ] This Week On God Discussion Radio: Science, Reason and Superstition with Dr. Liz Cornwell, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, and other special guests – Deborah (show host) – God Discussion (richarddawkins.net)
The Root of All Evil
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In The Virus of Faith, Dawkins opines that the moral framework of religions is warped, and argues against the religious indoctrination of children. The title of this episode comes from The Selfish Gene, in which Dawkins discussed the concept of memes. The Root of All Evil? is a television documentary, written and presented by Richard Dawkins, in which he argues that the world would be better off without religion. The documentary was first broadcast in January 2006, in the form of two 45-minute episodes (excluding advertisement breaks), on Channel 4 in the UK.«
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Richard says: Biblical justifications will not fly
- Cover of What Happens When We Die
A forum member asks:
What happens if the child dies before knowing God?
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This justification for forcing religion on children is commonly offered as a knock down — end of discussion, type reply when we assert that only adults should make decisions about whether to adhere to a faith. Forcing faith on small intellectually vulnerable children is unethical because it destroys any chance they have of making an unbiased choice when they mature. The weakness in parents argument is that it is dead easy to find historical examples of faith practices that had to give way. Slavery, miscegenation, and the assignment of women to second class status are just three of many examples the faithful justified with their bible. Not to mention that we are a secular country, so religious justifications should hold absolutely no weight. Here is how I responded. Can you strengthen this approach?
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I don’t know what happens and neither do you. You obviously have been taught to fear there might be dire consequences. However, you have absolutely no basis for being fearful other than faith in ancient texts, dictatorial clergy and group pressure to believe what is in those texts. No person on our planet *knows* what happens when we die. Yet billions of people are walking around confidently telling us that they know such things. There is absolutely no obvious way of *knowing* the answer to this question — if there was, we would not still be asking it. Once we derive a satisfactory answer to a question we drop it in the “solved” box and move on. Obviously, the question is still very much alive so *no one* has an answer.
I can offer my conjecture, and the difference is I am willing to call it conjecture. Nothing happens. Medical science knows exactly what happens to our bodies. If given time, our brain systematically shuts down our individual organs, and finally that includes the one we think with. You lose awareness and never awaken. The grand adventure of life on earth is over for us. These profound thoughts are offered by Richard Dawkins:
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.”
The difference between you and I is that I don’t make crucial life decisions based on what cannot possibly be known. I reserve a special wariness towards people or institutions that have agendas and that implore me to believe what they claim is the truth. Psychological control mechanisms such as fear, guilt and wishful thinking are easily detected. I refuse to live my life driven by the fears, guilt and hopes of others. While we are at it, you don’t *know* god. I am always suspicious of this claim. Tell us please exactly what you mean by this.
Might this be the same indecisive god that centuries ago informed his Catholic followers that unbaptized babies don’t go to heaven? Then finally changed his mind and recently said: “hold up on this, I have new instructions”. Who can count the number of parents in years past who wailed and wept for their unfortunate sinful infants.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/04/20/limbo-in-limbo.html
What Happens When We Die
http://www.amazon.com/What-Happens-When-Die-Groundbreaking/dp/1401907105/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book , April 6, 2006
By Jennifer Riley “jennifer” (Boston, USA) – See all my reviews
I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who has ever thought about the ultimate question of what happens when we die… Especially those who want answers based upon the objectivity of science.
Ever since he was a medical student, Parnia MD, PhD was fascinated by what it is that makes us all unique as individuals, in other words what is the relation between the mind and the brain? Later he was touched by the experience of seeing his patients’ die and was left with the question of what happens to the human mind and consciousness at the end of life? Disappointed that science had not seriously tried to study this question, he developed a scientific model i.e. cardiac arrest and started research into this field. This was almost 10 years ago…
Johann Hari: Dear God, stop brainwashing children
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Let us now put our hands together and pray. O God, we gather here today to ask you to free our schoolchildren from being forced to go through this charade every day. As you know, O Lord, because You see all, British law requires every schoolchild to participate in “an act of collective worship” every 24 hours. Irrespective of what the child thinks or believes, they are shepherded into a hall, silenced, and forced to pray – or pretend to.
If they refuse to bow their heads to You, they are punished. This happened to me, because I protested that there is no evidence whatsoever that You exist, and plenty of proof that shows the texts describing You are filled with falsehoods. When I pointed this out, I was told to stop being “blasphemous” and threatened with detention. “Shut up and pray,” a teacher told me on one occasion. Are you proud, O Lord?
Forcing children to take part in religious worship every day is a law worthy of a theocracy, not a liberal democracy where 70 per cent of adults never attend a religious ceremony. That’s why the Association of Teachers and Lecturers – one of the teachers’ unions – has recently moved to ask the Government to stop forcing its members to take part in this practice.
I can understand why the unelected, faltering religious institutions cling to this law so tightly. When it comes to “faith”, if you don’t get people young, you probably won’t ever get them. Very few people are, as adults, persuaded of the idea that (say) a Messiah was born to a virgin and managed to bend the laws of physics, or that we should revere a man who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year-old girl. You can usually only persuade people of this when they are very young – a time when their critical and rational faculties have not yet been developed – and hope it becomes a rock in their psychological make-up they dare not pull out.
But why do the rest of us allow this fervent 5 per cent of the population to force the rest of our kids to follow their superstitions? Parents can withdraw their children if they choose – but that often means separating the child in an embarrassing way from her friends and exposing them to criticisms from the school, so only 1 per cent do it. Most don’t even know it is an option.
More importantly still, why is worship forced on 99 per cent of children without their own consent or even asking what they think? As the author Richard Dawkins has pointed out many times, there are no “Christian children” or “Muslim children”. I was classed as “Christian” because my mother is vaguely culturally Christian, although at every opportunity I protested that I didn’t believe any of it. Children are not born with these beliefs, as they are born with a particular pigmentation or height or eye colour. Indeed, if you watch children being taught about religion, you will see most of them instinctively laugh and ask perfectly sensible sceptical questions that are swatted away – or punished – by religious instructors.
I am genuinely surprised that no moderate religious people have, to my knowledge, joined the campaign to stop this compelled prayer. What pleasure or pride can you possibly feel in knowing that children are compelled to worship your God? Why are you silent?
Why does this anachronism persist in this blessedly irreligious country? For all their whining that they are “persecuted”, the religious minority in Britain are in fact accorded remarkable privileges. They are given a bench-full of unelected positions in the legislature, protection from criticism in the law, and vast amounts of public money to indoctrinate children into their belief systems in every school in the land.
For the rest of the article go here.
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- Memo to Matt Taibbi (tuibguy.com)
Dawkins says women will defeat militant Islam
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Richard Dawkins says that it is “the awakening of women” that will solve the problem of “the worldwide menace of Islamic terrorism and oppression”.
By Saeed Valadbaygi
His remarks came while praising Mina Ahadi, winner of this year’s NSS Irwin Prize for “Secularist of the Year”.
Mina Ahadi is an Iranian woman who was forced to flee her native country after leading a campaign against the compulsory veiling of women. Because of her resistance to the clerical regime, her husband and four of her colleagues were executed, and she only narrowly escaped the same fate.
She now lives in Germany and has founded the Committee of Ex-Muslims, a movement that is rapidly spreading across Europe. She has also founded the Committee Against Stoning, which now has 200 branches worldwide.
Richard Dawkins said: “I have long felt that the key to solving the worldwide menace of Islamic terrorism and oppression would eventually be the awakening of women, and Mina Ahadi is a charismatic leader working to that end. The brutal suppression of the rights of women in many countries throughout the Islamic world is an obvious outrage. Slightly less obvious, but just as outrageous, is the supine willingness of western liberals to go along with it. It is worse than supine, it is patronising and condescending: “Wife-beating is part of ‘their’ culture. Who are we to condemn their traditions?” A religion so insecure as to mandate the death penalty for apostasy is not to be trifled with, and ex-Muslims who stand up and fight deserve our huge admiration and gratitude for their courage. Right out in front of this honourable band is Mina Ahadi. I salute her and congratulate her on this well-deserved award as Secularist of the Year.”
Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “We are proud to have been able to give Mina this honour – she is a woman of incredible courage and tenacity. The suffering she has endured has not dimmed her determination to improve the lot of women oppressed by Islam and other religious traditions.”
Introducing Mina to the members and supporters of the NSS who gathered for the presentation in London last Saturday, Keith Porteous Wood, the Society’s Executive Director said:
“What can we say about this year’s winner – except to affirm our deepest admiration for Mina Ahadi’s courage and commitment?
“Mina Ahadi started her serious political activities when she was 16 and living in Iran. She was at university in 1979 in Tabriz at the time of the Iranian revolution and she began immediately to organise demonstrations and meetings to oppose the compulsory veiling of women. This courageous dissent got her noticed by the Islamic regime’s authorities and soon she had to go underground to avoid retribution.
“At the end of 1980 her house was raided by the police and her husband and four of their comrades arrested. Mina escaped only because she wasn’t at home at the time.
“Her husband and the four arrested were all executed by firing squad soon after. She lived underground for some time and then fled to Iranian Kurdistan in 1982, where she continued to struggle against the Islamic regime for the next ten years. In 1990 she went to Vienna. She moved to Germany in 1996 and has lived in Europe since then.
“In all that time, Mina Ahadi has struggled mightily for the rights of women. She founded the International Committee against Stoning – which now has over 200 branches throughout the world. She also heads the International Committee against Executions and is the spokesperson for the newly formed women’s rights organisation, Equal Rights. She formed the Central Council of ex-Muslims in Germany early this year to help people renounce Islam and religion should they so wish.
“This brilliant idea has now been replicated in several other European countries, including in Britain by our own Maryam Namazie.
“Undeterred by the inevitable death threats, Mina has pressed on, determined as ever to protect women from the ravages of Islam.
“Apostasy, of course, is forbidden in Islam and in some Islamist states it carries the death penalty – including in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan and Mauritania. She calls such states “Islam-stricken” and her own experience of living and suffering under such regimes has made her ever more determined to rescue others from their clutches. I cannot tell you how proud the National Secular Society is to honour this wonderful, compassionate, kindly but strong-as-steel woman.”
Maryam Namazie, NSS honorary associate and winner of the award in 2005, and now head of the Ex-Muslim Council of Britain, sent this message of congratulations to Mina:
“Your winning the 2007 Secularist of the Year award is a cause for celebration for people across the world. This well-deserved honour reiterates your leading role in the battle for secularism, rights and a world worthy of 21st century humanity.
“You and your movement have always been about saving lives and putting people first. Thanks in large part to your efforts, it is this life-affirming politics that is finally gaining the recognition it deserves.
“Putting people first is revolutionary in a world where people are dehumanised and deemed to be represented by political Islam or US militarism and labelled by a million characteristics beginning with religion, nationality or ethnicity and never ending in human.
“In such a world, millions of often resisting and dissenting people are deemed to be represented by the likes of the misogynist and inhuman Islamic regime of Iran, the Muslim Council of Britain or the Islamic Human Rights Commission. In such a world, opposing the political Islamic movement and defending its victims is deemed to be in aid of US militarism whilst opposing US militarism is deemed to be in support of political Islam. In such a world, people, real live human beings, are absent from the equation.
“To bring people back into the equation, to give their dissent and resistance a voice, to defend humanity without labels, is what you and your movement have done. This recognition is a victory for all of us. I salute you.”
The whole event was an upbeat occasion with entertainment provided by singer Esther Williams and comedian Christina Martin. It was rounded off by a moving performance of an Iranian love song by Elizabeth Mansfield – by that stage there wasn’t, as they say, a dry eye in the house.
Mina Ahadi was interviewed on the Radio 4 PM programme on Thursday. Listen again here (32 minutes into the programme)
26 October 2007
See a video of the event here:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
See pictures of Secularist of the Year here: http://www.rowzane.com/0000_m_e/0m_e_2007/2710/e23mina-sekolaraks2.html
Johann Hari on Mina.
See also: Public hangings ratchet up state terror and suppression in Iran
The Ex-Muslim Council of Britain’s website:
Join Maryam and Mina Ahadi’s supporters on facebook.
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