Comments | rampling: Can tolerance of powerful religions go too far? Salmon Rushdie offers an opinion.

rampling

Can tolerance of powerful religions go too far? Salmon Rushdie offers an opinion.

Jun 08, 2005 15:25

X-Posted from a post by hostirad in the atheism community (with my own comments at the end): An interesting article by Salman Rushdie
The article begins: "Not believing in God is no excuse for being virulently anti-religious or naïvely pro-science," says Dylan Evans, a professor of robotics at the University of West England in Bristol.
Evans has written an ( Read more... )

religion, atheism

Comments 11

joansteward June 8 2005, 23:06:42 UTC

I am sure that Karl will want to respond, but I just wanted to say that I agreed that "Intelligent Design" is one of the biggest threats being brought up by the people that want to rewrite science books without Evolution.

Karl's other blog http://www.ritestuff.blogspot.com has numerous articles Karl has posted pointing out the errors in "Intelligent Design".

And yes, it is possible to be other that Christian and have ethics by which to live.

joansteward June 8 2005, 23:07:50 UTC

oops, typo.....
"other that Christian" should be "other than Christian"
Sorry.

asimovberlioz June 8 2005, 23:17:53 UTC

Interesting that this was spurred by remarks by Dylan Evans, who has been taking some heat this week in rec.music.classical.recordings (including some from me) for another article for the Guardian positing that Beethoven was a "narcissistic hooligan." I suspect he's an Angry Young Man who just Wants To Be Noticed.

Naturally, I am in full agreement with you on the "Creation science" nonsense and other crapola constantly blurring the line between church and state. And it frightens me too.

oddhack June 8 2005, 23:40:30 UTC

If what I read about Europe is applicable, having a State Religion in the US might be the best way to reduce the amount of virulent religiosity in the population :-)

asimovberlioz June 9 2005, 01:04:30 UTC

Well, science fiction fandom does seem to have a state religion -- it's called Wicca. ;--)

lightning_rose June 9 2005, 15:10:51 UTC

More specifically, the Church of All Worlds (it's based on Heinlein's SiaSL).

http://www.caw.org/

lightning_rose June 8 2005, 23:19:35 UTC

Well said. If I'm anti-religion (and I am), it's only because the zealots picked the fight first.

queerbychoice June 8 2005, 23:25:02 UTC

Wow, it's like we're psychically connected or something. Only a couple of hours ago I was reading a different, older essay by salman Rushdie, also about religion, and I bookmarked a passage in it to consider writing about on LiveJournal later.

hostirad June 9 2005, 00:38:13 UTC

The quotes you posted as ones you especially like are also my favorites from this article. Theists are so foolish for thinking that belief is a deity is what makes people treat each other decently. The real causes of moral behavior are evolved moral sentiments. It feels wrong (for non-sociopaths) to engage in gratuitous cruelty, and that is why we avoid it ( ... )