Why religion is ridiculous

In Our Non-Christian Nation , I discuss the many ways that atheists have started to demand their rightful place in American public life. The growth of the aforementioned Secular Student Association is one such example.

Atheists have also succeeded in putting up symbols and displays on government property celebrating the absence of god, including an atheist monument in Bradford County, Florida , and all sorts of godless displays around the holiday season. Atheists have also begun offering invocations before town boards all around the nation. Many of these have been quite good. I mentioned earlier that I watched an atheist give an invocation before a town board she had previously sued. Her name is Linda Stephens, and her speech was inclusive and inspiring.

While the Christian majority has occasionally welcomed atheism into the public square, often our presence has been met with ridicule, anger, and derision. Displays have been torn down , school groups have faced hostility by teachers and administrators , and board members have occasionally left a meeting room rather than listen to an atheist invocation.

We have been putting up with this kind of treatment for a long time, and our numbers are still rising. In the future, I may still be a little sad, but atheism as a whole will likely become a loud, mainstream, and inescapable force in American public life.

Jay Wexler is a professor of law at Boston University. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.

By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. So what? Eyeglasses were first made in Why do Christian people wear the cross around their necks? Why would you want to wear the thing your hero died on around your neck?

I guess it made sense in the context of the time, because water was so unclean, so wine would be better for sick people. But why not turn water into medicine. Or, better yet, why not turn it into clean water? People in the church would say that sex was for procreation, so if two people are having sex with each other not for procreation, then that is wrong. Should they also not be allowed to be together? And throughout this debate, there was always the Westboro Baptist Church rearing its ugly head.

You know them, those people who picket the funerals of AIDS victims and fallen soldiers. And they do this all with the same slogan. Secondly, he has an adoptive son. Oh, and if you ever want to talk to him, what do you have to do? But the main reason that God is the biggest closeted homosexual in the entire world is: God hates fags. And finally, the thing that seemed the most ridiculous to me about Christianity was the whole debate of evolution versus intelligent design. The Grand Canyon was created over millions of years of erosion.

Nobody pulled out a magic wand and just created it. It evolved slowly. Today there are more than seven billion people on Earth. How did we get them from Adam and Eve? Because these beliefs are not reinforced socially, they are held to be incorrect by the majority, the beliefs being unique to the individual. A dose of anti- psychotic meds and the beliefs and psychotic symptoms go away.

A belief system does not have to involve a god at all. There are plenty abounding in psychology for instance! Have you ever tried to argue with a person suffering anorexia that their belief about the normality of their body shape, size and food intake is not correct or argue that an individual is not a reincarnation of a famous pop star who committed suicide and who is doomed to repeat that act in fulfilment of their self- fulfilling prophesy?

Well, religious belief is constructed and maintained in an identical way to any other belief. I really hoped that being right, would be enough to convince someone of the vegan position years ago, but I soon learned that people choose or are given their position and only then do they shoe horn the evidence to fit their position. Maybe psychology, as the amphitheatre of thinking, should set out instead to formalise a rigid set of objective rules for binary argument.

You made an emperically testable assertion. If belief in God is a delusion akin to psychosis, then taking antipsychotics should markedly decrease or even eliiminate belief in God. Does this happen? Maybe you should test it.

All physical things which impinge on our senses must be physical, rule No1 of causation. The same rule that necessitates a dismissal of free will and in fact consciousness itself, as nothing but user illusion. First cause is a supposition, not based on any real evidence. Causality is eternal and infinite, it must be so, as all things have antecedents and are composed of reducible parts.

You now have to consider what potential infinite causality has to have in order to produce what we experience. You may have a little problem to overcome, however. You have dismissed freewill. From which it follows that your conclusions can have no truth value since you are claiming that they are inevitably a result of a chain of causalities which you cannot analyse.

And, by the way, you have abandoned the concept of morality because you hold that we have no free choice to choose the good rather than the bad. You are, so to speak, hoist with your own petard. Fortunately for you, your grasp of causality is weak at best. You fall at the first fence, assuming that concsciousness is a thing at all. Evolution just required that the human animal produce a set of outputs, as if consciousness were a thing. These outputs include reflexive descriptions of the human model of self, reacting to and describing their own outputs.

There is no-one doing the experiencing, just outputs, or thoughts, that simulate that fictional self. To say that free will could ever be a thing, you have to say, something exists that is not caused.

Nothing does exist of that nature, other wise it would not be physical and hence not knowable by human or machine senses. Non-Sequitur chap, sorry. You have zero evidence for a god and even less reason to make huge leaps in inference, as you do. Morality and such matters are easy enough to live by, due to the practical demands of life. Dear Nick, thank you for your splendid answer. I see where you are coming from. It would be great to debate this face to face but I doubt if anything would be solved.

Of course none of my questions were answered. All I can do is to hope we will meet in Heaven where we will have a jolly good laugh over our mugs of nectar. I am confident that you will feel sufficiently conscious to enjoy that. Kind response Quentin, that is what is most important. The difference between most on my side and me, is that I have no point to make on if heaven or God exists. So it is a slim chance that I could end up in heaven or hell and be one of maybe 20 former embodied creatures, who know that consciousness is not a thing.

Yes it appears to be a mountain when assessed through limited senses and perspectives, but on closer inspection, after a perspective change, the mountain is merely suggested or implied in 3d, by a 2d arrangement of pigments. Break down what it is you take as obvious evidence that you exist. I feel, I remember, I remember how I felt about perceiving myself perceiving. Every single response in an example used by you to show to yourself that you are conscious, is just a cognitive output, every one.

Everything is physical, nothing can be known without being physical, otherwise it could not interact with the senses. God is said to to be known, hence he must interact with our senses. If God is said to exist, via our senses, then he must be physical.

If he is physical he is constrained and created by causal antecedents. Hence, God, even if he did exist, would be as much an illusion to himself, as we are.

This reasoning puts the idea of God, to bed, forever. Quantum does nothing to shake causal necessity, our current understanding is the thing which limits the workings of our postulated system. Our bodies are rigidly determined.. On what do you base this statement. If consciousness is an illusion, then who is being deluded? And if free will is an illusion, then you believe your argument above because your brain chemsitry compels you to beieve it, not because it is true.

It would be like trying to tell the time by consulting a broken clock — it MIGHT just hapen to be right, but what are the chances? Quentin, first cause is false, rather obviously, as everything physical is reducible, in an infinite matrix of cause-effect relationships. I do not claim that I know that God esists. I do claim to believe that God exists. There is a difference between the two. Others appear to believe that the physical world is uncaused. Good for them: as long as they continue to love their neighbours, a fundamental requirement in Christianity, they will happily one day find out.

Let me ask you some silly questions: do you know everything that exists in the universe? Do you believe that your physical senses are capable of detecting all things that exist? Do you believe there are only three dimensions? Are you not aware of the fact that the majority of the universe is made up of invisible matter and energy? Your arrogance is astounding. Also, assuming your ad hominem attack was justified and i was arrogant, it is a logical fallacy to then conclude that my arrogance in any way effects the validity of my argument.

The comment about the self-deluded is just one indication of the problems monotheists face — and of the self-delusion and limited philosophical imagination of the atheists. For example, suppose that, like breathing. Suppose further that those whose IQ was in the range were just foolishly wise enough to suppose they could get along without breathing normal air and just successful enough to buy scuba tanks. Then an analysis of breathers of natural versus tanked air would show that the artificial breathers were smarter than those content to breathe the air.

It would show ONLY that at a certain level of intelligence and intellectual training one can make choices that the less educated and less intelligent would not make. In other words, perhaps, intellectual incapacity and ineptitude protect some from errors that those who have drunk only lightly from the Pierian spring would think of making.

The stunning ignorance of philosophy of the atheist on the street or the popular TV atheist is reflected in this study. If you get into the data, for example, you find that while theism declines in the lower ranges of higher than average intelligence, it picks up when you pass around IQ. Harold, you used an example of doing an apparently irrational thing. We have no indication if the tank breathers had any evidential reason to choose the option that they did.

Do you see what the problem is with your example? It lacks even the most basic similarity to our debate. Atheism originates from a rational, reasoned and fully evidence based foundation. Your example does not, hence it is of little intellectual use. I get what you were trying to say, but probably not the best way to say it. Maybe one day when study methods are more advanced, we can have a reliable and valid means of measuring intelligence.

Until then, I trust my experience, which tells me that people of low self awareness and lacking in critical thought, are more likely to have a void which needs filling. Religion is today offensive and completely unacceptable to the majority of the world. Is that acceptable to you? Buddhism and even within the faith Baptist vs. Or is this a PC thing to not risk non-PC results?

This article is straight out of the Third Reich. Luckily our Creator left us a Book that warns us of this time coming upon the world. I am not worried; I read the Book and, good news, we win! Hitler was a Catholic who believed that Jews should be punished for their part in the crucifixion of Emmanuel bin David aka Jesus read Mein Kampf.

It has lots of empirical evidence, unlike the book of mythological fairytale bespattered Chinese whisper on paper I think you are referring to, nicely rewritten by Thomas Jefferson of US president fame. The Jefferson Bible is available from Amazon. Please provide the quote from Mein Kampf that you are referring to.

I think you just made that up. Hitler had longed ceased practicing Catholicism, or any type of organized religion, long before he wrote Mien Kampf.

Yes, Hitler was brought up as at least a nominal Catholic, but he had long abandoned it. Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took to the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence.

In retum, Christ was nailed to the cross p. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.

As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. And as a man I have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient world some two thousand years ago—a civilization which was driven to its ruin through this same Jewish people.

In addition to the pledge of loyalty, the full text of the SS oath comprises the following three questions and answers:. So wahr mir Gott helfe! We pledge to you and to the leaders that you appoint allegiance unto death. So help me god! So there you are, theists. Religiosity, will in all likelihood be responsible for the next third Reich and Holocaust, relevant considering what day it is today. As far as I can see, the silent, peaceful majority, is always irrelevant in atrocities.

When Islam tips over in to a majority in the west, I think it is reasonable to predict a radical coup of political power, a western Islamic revolution.

Then will come the biggest holocaust we have ever witnessed. I guarantee there were thousands who would have dismissed and mocked his predictions as alarmist scaremongering and anti-German bigotry. When it happens, the peaceful majority will be subjugated, just as they were during the Spanish inquisition and most other culls.

It is the extreme minority who dominate history and as with all religious people who are cognitively challenged, they will make atrocious errors of thought and commit terrible acts, all in the name of doing what is right and moral. By the way, one of the most significant groups killed in the Holocaust were Polish Catholic churchmen. What part of what I have said is incorrect?

My point is based on human intuition and common sense. There is quite simply no way at all you people can really believe like you lie about doing? Human common sense. How can you believe without proof? That actually proves to anyone reading this, that you can ONLY be a liar.

I mean, is it not normal when we hear or read someone make wild claims, claims like the so-called great events of Jesus Christ, to ask them to prove those claims? And is it not then normal to disbelieve those claims like the miracles etc, until they can be proven?

The religious go about things in a remedial nonsensical way, they make no sense, none, not even a little sense, everything they want to believe in and claim, can today, be proven against! Seems incongruent. We are still the selfish Ape, hardwired to act in the short term. Before the invention of technology, plastic and nuclear weapons, that worked well for the environment. If you think human breeding being halted is a bad thing, you are looking at it from a species-centric viewpoint. From the perspective of every other life form on the planet, we are the problem.

Atheists are smartest, but morality runs parallel and independently of intelligence and reasoning ability. What people fear is when a society is dominated by a book that is used to justify prejudice against groups, like homosexuals and women. Not a problem when religious dissent is possible, but when you get killed for opposing clerical opinion, then it all of a sudden becomes a great deal more serious.

The only Empire in this world today is the religious empire. They also own your banks, chain stores, electric companies, Jewellers, Doctors surgeries and many enterprises. All the religions around the world is how they plan world dominance.

Hard to believe? It works along the same line as we would see a corrupt government work, when corrupted governments get power, how do they keep it? Ancient Egypt actually proves all religion is a Jewish made up lie. We know they went on strike when the Pharaoh was late delivering their grain. We see this many times in Ancient Egypt. But we see nothing, no mention or anything of Moses or any Israelite unrest. Yet the reality as we now know was, they took over Russia in the revolution.

From the most respected organization to the very worst, at the drop of a hat as the Jew piled on the pressure. Yet the reality as we now know was, the Jew financed all sides of WW2, massively increasing their overall wealth and therefore power. Those three lies see the lie start with you thinking the Jew was persecuted, abused, beaten, or even killed.

Yet as always with Jew lies, they end up with the Jew in much more powerful positions. But again as with all Jewish lies, ends with God rewarding them with everything?

And fools still swallow it. Every religion stems from the book of Genesis. You can even start to predict what comes next! LOL But soon this God will need to make another appearance because nobody believes that myth any more. It is good to question everything, no exceptions, but when your examinations become addicted to iconoclastic destruction of established facts, that is more to do with conspiracy theorists and kooks.

I realise the weaponisation of the anti-semitic label, was a creation of the Israeli intel services. I know that people of Jewish heritage are grossly over represented in Film, academia and banking. Those are material facts. If you question and dismiss everything, you are on very slippery ground.

The undeniable truth really is, we have no evidence of a single thing the religious claim, not one thing at all can be proven or ever has been proven. Believing in things that never happened is simply pathetic. What a vile bunch they all really are. Slavery is not forbidden in the Bible but it is discussed, the Bible teaches how you should treat a female sex slave.

Religions appalling attitudes towards all women as well as all non-believers is disgusting and shows how sick these religious people really are. You only need to read it, and nobody in their right mind could possibly believe in those things.

Trying to portray religion as anything other than what it is murderous as history proves One death because of religious belief should be enough for any sort of good person to at the very least question it.

My experience is that the deeply religious mind does not follow scale. That is it does not check its logic on successively larger time and spatial scales or against other logical dimensions.

Extreme religiosity functions logically within bounded thought domains. Within those domains any degree of intelligence may be manifest. For example Newton was deeply religious in what now would be categorized as a fundamentalist belief pattern. Newton was smarter than I am by a longshot. But I believe that I think on a wider span of scales than Newton did. This thought pattern may give me an advantage on some tests. It also leads me to conclude that no deity exists. Just that I appreciate scale.

That is how I would explain any difference in measured intelligence between theists and atheists — appreciation of scale. Trying to use other people as proof one way or the other is meaningless. Who would have guessed? Astounding that a magazine covering the field of human responses to their environment would conflate correlation with causality.

No, you will say, we did not. Ah, but psychology professionals know how to say a thing without really saying it. Shame on you. Proves it then,ha. Intelligence is not a single thing, just averaged abilities on many distinct tasks. You are probably good at spatial awareness, logic and maths, maybe verbal reasoning or visual imagination.

However, you are not so good a mental consistency within your own brain, objectivity in assessing evidence and your ability to grasp and join up the implications of causality and determinism. Scoring above average on IQ tests, says nothing about your ability to throw off previous cultural religious bias and to avoid non-sequitur conclusions based on evidence alone. Thus God, if he existed, could not have free will and hence is not what we consider God to be. So go on, tell me, tell me an atheist what your religions most fundamental belief really is?.

Only you think that the remaining LOL Are you really going to need an atheist to remind you what your most fundamental belief really is? And why are you not ashamed and appalled that an atheist knows far more about the religion you claim to follow?

Maybe a priest would like to come and answer some of these questions.. Did the authors apply this battery of tests across different races and sexes? If not I wonder how they controlled for variations across sexes and races.

Researching differences between races and sexes is going to be controversial, while looking for differences between believers and atheists is not. Faraday — Relation of Magnetism and Electricity, discovery of Benzene Maxwell — four fundamental equations of electricity and magnetism, proved that Light was Electromagnetic Radiation Trace most of the physical Sciences back to one of these men.

All three were devout Christians. True,the two variables religiosity and intelligence are not mutually exclusive. This misses the point however that Scientific gnosis evolves. It is always inevitably a product of the time and culture in which discoveries are made and the extent to which new knowledge and findings are accepted and fit the current zeitgeist the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time.

Galileo, Charles Darwin and Thomas Jefferson all had one thing in common. Religious belief is on the rise in some areas of the world, but in decline in others.

This is for several reasons closely aligned to the rise of democracy and capitalism in countries with large populations, most of whom still live in comparatively poor conditions compared to more established Western countries.

For instance, I sponsor a child with PLAN who receives education and healthcare from a christian organisation. Belief in the supernatural, is not a prerequisite for humanitarian altruism. If it was, secular not connected with religious or spiritual matters countries would be exclusively inhumane and religious countries exclusively humane in their treatment of their population and others.

I want the freedom to explore, test and develop knowledge based on facts, not fantastic falsehoods and two thousand year- old concepts of how we got here, what our purpose is and what happens to us when we die, that irrelevant in the modern world. Psychology and scientific knowledge generally is evolving rapidly with technological advances in processing power and experimentation in every field of endeavour.

This knowledge is increasingly distant and out of step with ancient belief systems that have failed to evolve alongside them and which we now KNOW to be false. You want to believe in a book that was written by nobody at the time of the so-called Moses and later the same with the so-called Jesus. You want to believe in a book that offers nothing, not a single thing or anything at all that can be proven. Can you explain to me, What was so special about them lot years ago?

They all got to see! Why not us? Do we smell?