Porterboy
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2006
- Messages
- 446
I've just finished watching a very thought-provoking TV show called "The Trouble With Atheism". In it, the presenter travels round the world talking to relligious believers and atheists. He interviews the physicist Rocky Kolb and the famous Darwinian zoologist Richard Dawkins. Also featured are scientists who have a Christian belief like John Polkinghorne and the director of the American "Atheist Viewpoint" organization.
The theme of the programme was that although atheists claim to be anti or opposite religion they can sometimes behave exactly like staunch religious believers do. There was one interview with a man protesting outside a church wearing a T-shirt with the anti-littering symbol, but with a Christian cross being dumped in the bin. When questioned he said he would like to pass laws banning religion and forbidding people to practice their faith! This is exactly what the rulers of religious fundamentalist states want to do to people who don't practice their faith! Spot the hypocricy?
The narrator compares Fermilab to a "temple to science", which was very amusing and observant. He was making the point that scientists are so sure that their way is the right one that they exhibit religious behavior. Kolb himself says "The way to understand the universe is through science based on experiment, not some religious scripture." Notice the way he uses the word the, not a.
The narrator then points out something else: that although we hear all the time about how religious intollerance has spawned multitudes of atrocities, the Crusades, suicide-bombers etc, atheism is not lily-white and super-enlightened. There are examples of atheist fundamentalism persecuting religious believers; I've seen this in my own life, so don't tell me it never happens! This still goes on; in some countries priests still have to operate in secret or suffer imprisonment, even death.
I agree with what he was saying. The danger is not religion as such, nor science. The danger is the human tendancy to refuse to allow others to hold different views to yourself. It's a process that begins with "I'm right and you're wrong" and ends in genocide.
The theme of the programme was that although atheists claim to be anti or opposite religion they can sometimes behave exactly like staunch religious believers do. There was one interview with a man protesting outside a church wearing a T-shirt with the anti-littering symbol, but with a Christian cross being dumped in the bin. When questioned he said he would like to pass laws banning religion and forbidding people to practice their faith! This is exactly what the rulers of religious fundamentalist states want to do to people who don't practice their faith! Spot the hypocricy?
The narrator compares Fermilab to a "temple to science", which was very amusing and observant. He was making the point that scientists are so sure that their way is the right one that they exhibit religious behavior. Kolb himself says "The way to understand the universe is through science based on experiment, not some religious scripture." Notice the way he uses the word the, not a.
The narrator then points out something else: that although we hear all the time about how religious intollerance has spawned multitudes of atrocities, the Crusades, suicide-bombers etc, atheism is not lily-white and super-enlightened. There are examples of atheist fundamentalism persecuting religious believers; I've seen this in my own life, so don't tell me it never happens! This still goes on; in some countries priests still have to operate in secret or suffer imprisonment, even death.
I agree with what he was saying. The danger is not religion as such, nor science. The danger is the human tendancy to refuse to allow others to hold different views to yourself. It's a process that begins with "I'm right and you're wrong" and ends in genocide.
Last edited:
