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datapad
Saturday, April 23, 2005
ah, so here's my correspondence to xinyang's correspondence to my previous post. Religion might have its good points, but nevertheless it is still an entire moral belief system founded on the fundamentally flawed assumption that there is a god. in a manner of speaking, the pastor or priest or whoever conducts the sermon every sunday is lying to his followers by speaking about a creator as though he actually existed. that is something that i feel theists must come to realise. it must also be noted that while a religion strives for social cohesion amongst its followers, the same thing does not apply for when it comes into contact with people who are not followers of that religion. it is not possible for the beliefs of one religion to be congruent with those of another- one cannot be a muslim, a christian and a catholic at the same time. in fact, most religions are intolerant of the beliefs of other religions as they feel that their own religion is the one true creed- they therefore are opposed to the practice of other such religions on the grounds that it is not the "Right Way". a very good example of this is the roman-catholic Inquistion, of which cardinal joseph ratzinger was a member of before being elected to papalcy- oh the terror. and as for science, it has only one purpose- to uncover the objective truth. i do agree, though, that science can sometimes be a double-edged sword-- in the wrong hands (for example, in the hands of religious extremists), and for the wrong purposes (active elimination of all other nonbelievers), it can lead to untold death and destruction. that is not to say that religion cannot be used for the wrong purposes as well-- muslim extremists such as the JI or Al Qaeda, palestinian activists like Hamas or Hezbollah, white/american supremacists like Ku Klux or other followers of Yahweh, and not to mention the roman-catholic Inquisition, are all good examples of the darker side of religion. also, it is incorrect to say that how beneficial a religion is can be measured by its popularity, and that it would not be in humanity's best interests to oppose that religion. the power of stupid people cannot be underestimated, and it is only through the advent of truth that antiquated superstitions can be vanquished. also, if the maintenance of status quo is all that important, how could revolutions occur? i reiterate that science and religion are at cross purposes with each other. throughout the ages, the progress of science has met unfailingly with religious opposition. and every time science emerges victorious, a certain aspect of religion has had to recede. it is only through science- in particular, scientific revolution- that people today no longer believe that the earth is at the centre of the universe, a "baseless assertion" brought about by theological ignorance. thankfully, religion today is not as commonplace as it used to be in the past, and hopefully it is only a matter of time before it fades away completely. also, i apologise if i did not make myself clear in the previous post. when i brought up the subject of humanism, i was referring to secular humanism. on a sidenote, hinduism is NOT a philosophy. a belief system whereby people worship gods with elephant heads, gods who ride on peacocks or lions, and gods who habitually rip out the intestines of sinners, not to mention feeding newborns to the gods of the river- crocodiles... i find it quite hard to accept that as a philosphy. and i shall end off with an excerpt from the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. just for laughs: "The Babel fish," said the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy quietly, "is small, yellow and leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it...... The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. "Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof for the nonexistance of God. "The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.' " 'But,' says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It would not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' " 'Oh dear,' said God, "I haven't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic." |
