It's becoming clear that the U.S. is
being severely damaged by it's religious population. It
used to be that the religious
people claimed that without religion the world would be much worse off,
but the opposite is the case. This is made clear in the newer
books related to Atheism.
The
Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl
Sagan, (Wiki
book,
author)
Hardcover: Random House; Later Printing
edition January 1, 1995
Paperback: Ballantine Books, February 25, 1997
ISBN-13:
978-0345409461
Carl Sagan (
Wiki
Carl) "(November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an
American
astronomer,
astrochemist, author, and highly successful
popularizer of
astronomy,
astrophysics
and other
natural sciences. He pioneered
exobiology
and promoted the
Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
This is the first book that's easy to read and makes a logical case for
atheism that I found.
Wiki: "He is world-famous for writing popular science books and for co-writing
and presenting the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,
which has been seen by more than 500 million people in over 60
countries.[2]
A book to accompany the program was also
published. He also wrote the novel Contact, the basis for the 1997 film of the same name. One of the last
books he wrote was Pale Blue Dot.
During his lifetime, Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers
and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than
20 books. In his works, he frequently advocated skeptical inquiry, secular humanism, and the scientific method."
May 27, 1996 on Charlie Rose Show -
Part 1,
We live in an age based on science and technology with formidable
technological powers. ... There's no more than a handful of
members of congress with any background in science at all. The
Republican congress has just abolished it's own Office of Technology
Assessment. ... CR: What's the danger of all this?
There's two kinds of danger, 1) One is what I just talked about.
We've arranged this society based on science and technology in which
nobody understands anything about science and technology. And
this combustible mixture of ignorance and power are sooner or later is
going to blow up in our faces. . . . 2) And the second reason
that I'm worried about this is that science is more than a body of
knowledge, it's a way of thinking. A way of skeptically
interrogating the universe, with a fine understanding of human
fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to
interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical
of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan,
political or religious, who comes along.
CR: There are millions of people that understand that science does not
prove religion because religion is faith based and therefore you should
not deny the value of it because it is faith based and not
scientific.
Let's look a little more deeply into that. What is faith, it's
belief in the absence of evidence. I don't propose to tell
anybody what to believe, but for me believing when there's no
compelling evidence is a mistake. The idea is to withhold belief
until there's compelling evidence. .... Where religion gets into
trouble is in those cases where it pretends to know something about
science. The science in the Bible for example was acquired from
the Jews by the Babylonians during the Babylon captivity of 600
BC. That was the best science on the planet then, but we've
learned something since then. Roman Catholicism, reformed
Judaism, most of the mainstream Protestant denominations have no
difficulty with the idea that humans have evolved from other creatures,
that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, the big bang. They don't
have any trouble with that. The trouble comes with people who are
biblical literalistists who believe that the bible is dictated by the
creator of the universe to an unerring stenographer and has no metaphor
or allegory in it. ...
Part 2,
CR: You seem to say it's growing, this pseudo science. ...
CS: The problem is that today the technology has reached formidable,
maybe even awesome, proportions and so the dangers of thinking this way
are larger. Not that this is a new kind of thing.
The God
Delusion by Richard Dawkins (his
web
page) (WiKi
on Richard)
Hardcover:
Paperback: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (January 16, 2008) ISBN-13:
978-0618918249
Richard sets out to make a case for atheism in this book but does not
include the arguments for Evolution here. By using evolution
Richard explains the development of complex life forms.
This book was very well received, prompting two books written to try
and refute Richard's arguments, they are:
God is No Delusion: A Refutation of
Richard Dawkins by Thomas Crean (Paperback - Oct 31, 2007)
and
The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the
Divine by Alister E. McGrath and Joanna Collicutt Mcgrath (Hardcover -
Jun 8, 2007)
There is an hour and 10 minute
video
where Dawkins and McGrath "debate" the issues, but in many cases
McGrath will not answer Richard's questions.
" And I thought and thought and
thought. But I just didn't have enough to go on, so I didn't
really come to any resolution. I was extremely doubtful about the
idea of god, but I just didn't know enough about anything to have a
good working model of any other explanation for, well lift, the
universe, and everything to put in its place. But I kept at it,
and I kept reading and I kept thinking. Sometime around my early
thirties I stumbled upon Evolutionary biology, particularly in the
form of Richard Dawking's books The Selfish Game and then The
Blind
Watchmaker, and suddenly (on, I think the second reading of The Selfish
Gene) it all fell into place. It was a concept of such stunning
simplicity, but it gave rise, neutrally, to all of the infinite and
baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the
awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem,
frankly, silly beside it. I'd take the awe of understanding, over
the awe of ignorance any day." Douglas Adams (pg 116)
Six Numbered Points: (pg 157, 158)
- One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect, over the
centuries, has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance
of the design in the universe arises.
- The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design
to actual design itself. In the case of a man-made artifact such
as a watch, the designer really was an intelligent engineer. It
is tempting to apply the same logic to the eye or wing, a spider or a
person.
- The temptation is a false one, because the designer hypothesis
immediately raises the larger problem is who designed the
designer. The whole problem we started out with was the problem
of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously no
solution to postulate something even more improbable. We need a
"crane", not a "skyhook", for only a crane can do the business of
working up gradually and plausibly from simplicity to otherwise
improbably complexity.
- The most ingenious and powerful crane so far discovered is
Darwinian evolution by natural selection. Darwin and his
successors have shown how living creatures, with their spectacular
statistical improbability and appearance of design, have evolved by
slow, gradual degrees from simple beginnings. We can now safely
say that the illusion of design in living creatures is just that - an
illusion.
- We don't yet have an equivalent crane for physics. Some
kind of multiverse theory could in principle do for physics the same
explanatory work as Darwinism does for biology. This kind of
explanation is superficially less satisfying that the biological
version of Darwinism, because ti makes heavier demands on luck.
But the anthropic principle entitles us to postulate for more luck than
our limited human intuition is comfortable with.
- We should not give up hope of a better crane arising in the
physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology. But
even in the absence of a strongly satisfying crane to match the
biological one, the relatively weak cranes we have at present are, when
abetted by the anthropic principle, self-evidently better than the
self-defeating skyhook hypothesis of an intelligent designer.
"Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man -
living in the sky - who watches everything you do, every minute of
every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten
things, he has not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten
things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and
torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn
and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of
time . . . But He lover you!" ... George Carlin (pg 279)
"Fundamentalist religion is hell-bent on ruining the scientific
education of countless thousands of innocent, well-meaning, eager young
minds. Non-fundamentalist, 'sensible' religion may not be doing
that. But it is making the world safe for fundamentalism by
teaching children, from their earliest years, that unquestioning faith
is a virtue." (pg 286)
"Our Western politicians avoid mentioning the R word (religion), and
instead characterize their battle as a war against 'terror', as though
terror were a kind of spirit or force, with a will and a mind of it's
own. Or they characterize terrorists as motivated by pure
'evil'. But they are not motivated by evil. However
misguided we may think them, they are motivated, like the Christian
murders of abortion doctors, by what they perceive to be righteousness,
faithfully pursuing what their religion tells them. They are not
psychotic, they are religious idealists who, by their own lights, are
rational. They perceive their acts to be good, not because of
some warped personal idiosyncrasy, and not because they have been
possessed by Satan, but because they have been brought up, from the
cradle, to have total and unquestioning faith." (pg 304)
'I
Am Offended!' - Richard Dawkins @ UC Berkeley
The
Greatest
Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins
hardcover 2009 ISBN 978-1-4165-9478-9
This book was written to present the evidence for evolution but is a
great book for learning about evolution. It's truly an amazing
thing.
On pg 24 is the Hairpin Thought Experiment. The connection
between any living thing can be traced by going back (de-evolution) in
time to some ancestor, then making a hairpin turn, and then going
forward in time (evolution). Note that there is not a horizontal
connection between current animals.
Tree of Life
This
book was written to present definitive refutations of the
arguments of creationists. But it also has a chapter about
bats and has a lot about evolution.
Note the title is based on the work of William Paley (see
above).
Paley, Dawkins and myself have a great appreaction of the spendor
of life on earth. It's just that scientific knowledge was
primitive in Paley's time and he got it all wrong.
Society
without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About
Contentment by Phil Zuckerman
Hardcover: NYU Press (October 1, 2008)
ISBN-13: 978-0814797143
Associate Professor of Sociology at
Pitzer College
Phil spent a year living in Denmark and interviewing people
there. It is the country that has the least theism (most
atheist). It's also a country that is in the top ten countries
for lowest homicide, lowest infant mortality, lowest rape, highest
longevity, most contented population, i.e. a very good place to
live. The point Phil was setting out to make was that lacking God
a society will get along just fine. But I think he has made the
point that when the leaders of a country believe in God they will make
much poorer decisions than a more rational person so "God Fearing"
countries are much worse off.
Letter to
a Christian Nation by Sam Harris (Sam Harris web page)
Paperback: Vintage Books, Jan
2008, ISBN-13: 978-0307278777
Sam has written the book as a letter to a Christian. He uses the
technique of giving an example in another religion and then pointing
out that the same argument applies to Christianity.
"The same Gallup poll revealed that 53 percent of Americans are
actually
creationists." (pg x)
Among developed nations, America stands
alone in these convictions. Our country now appears, as at no
other time in her history, like a lumbering, bellicose, dim-witted
giant. Anyone who cares about the fate of civilization would do
well to recognize that the combination of great power and great
stupidity is simply terrifying, even to one's friends." (pg
xi) (BC: added larger font and bold)
Countries where religion is almost non existent are: Norway, Iceland,
Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the
Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom (pg 43).
"In 2005, a survey was conducted in thirty-four countries (BC:
there are 206 in the world) measuring the percentage of adults who
accept evolution. The United States ranked thirty-third, just
above Turkey." (pg 70).
Religion is the basis of most conflict in the world (pg 81).
Palestine: Jews vs. Muslims
Balkans: Orthodox Serbs vs. Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbs vs.
Bosnian & Albanian Muslims
Northern Ireland: Protestants vs. Catholics
Kashmir: Muslims vs. Hindus
Sudan: Muslims vs. Christians & animists
Nigeria: Muslims vs. Christians
Ethiopia and Eritrea: Muslims vs. Christians
Ivory Coast: Muslims vs. Christians
Sri Lanka: Sinhalese Buddhists vs. Tamil Hindus
Philippines: Muslims vs. Christians
Iran and Iraq: Shiite vs. Sunni Muslims
the Caucasus: Orthodox Russians vs. Chechen Muslims; Muslim
Azerbaijanis vs. Catholic and Orthodox Armenians
"The idea that Islam is a "peaceful religion hijacked by extremists" is
a fantasy, and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims
to
indulge." (pg 85)
Sam
Harris,
The
View
from
the
End
of
the
World, SALT talk
at Google (1:22:32) Longnow.org - explains the problems of religious
moderation
"We have a choice between conversation or violence. Faith is a
conversation stopper." To make religous war unthinkable, like
slavery and canibalism, we have to undermine the dogma of faith.
A
Conversation
with
Sam
Harris (1:29:52)- The goal is to spread
secular thinking and scientific knowledge in society. (after "End of
Faith" was published)
God Is Not
Great: How Religion
Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens
Hardcover: Hachette Book Group (2008)
ASIN: B002C4ZU6Q
Wiki:
book,
author -
"Hitchens contends that organized religion is "violent, irrational,
intolerant, allied to
racism,
tribalism,
and
bigotry,
invested
in
ignorance
and hostile to
free
inquiry, contemptuous of women and
coercive
toward children", and that accordingly it "ought to have a great deal
on its conscience." Hitchens supports his position with a mixture of
personal stories, documented historical anecdotes and critical analysis
of religious texts. His commentary focuses mainly on the
Abrahamic religions,
although
he
also
touches
on
other
religions
such
as
Hinduism
and
Buddhism.
Hitchens points out the dangers of religion ("ethic cleansing") and
shows many flaws in the various versions of the bible. He makes
the case that the bible was written by humans in the middle east and
nowhere in it is there a mention of other parts of the world like
Australia. Hitchens is harder to read than some of the other
writers because he uses a vocabulary larger than mine.
Chapter 15 "Religion as an Original Sin" (pg 205) starts :
"There are, indeed, several ways in which religion is not just amoral,
but positively immoral. And these faults and crimes are not in
the behavior of its adherents (which can sometimes be exemplary) but in
its original precepts. These include:
- Presenting a false picture of the world to the innocent and the
credulous
- The doctrine of blood sacrifice
- The doctrine of atonement
- The doctrine of eternal reward and/or punishment
- The impossible of impossible tasks and rules."
The rest of chapter 15 develops the last four points, the first being
already covered in prior chapters.
page 239: "Four days after his election (Feb 1939) by the College
of Cardinals, His Holiness (Pope Pius XII) composed the following
letter to Berlin:
To the Illustrious Herr Adolf Hitler,
Fuhrer and Chancellor of the German Reich! Here at the beginning
of Our Pontificate We wish to assure you that We remain devoted to the
spiritual welfare of the German people entrusted to y our
leadership.... During the many years We spent in Germany, We did all in
Our power to establish harmonious relations between Church and
State. Now that the responsibilities of Our pastoral function
have increased Our opportunities, how much more ardently do We pray to
reach that goal. May the prosperity of the German people and
their progress in every domain come, with God's help, to fruition!"
page 251: "The connection between religion, racism, and totalitarianism
is also to be found in the other most hateful dictatorship of the
twentieth century: the vile system of apartheid in South Africa."
Christopher Hitchens Challenge
"First, name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a
believer
that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer....
Second, think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed,
precisely
because of religious faith?"
The first is very difficult and the second it very easy.
Poison
or
Cure?
Religious
Belief
in
the
Modern
World - Video
Authors@Google:
Christopher
Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens / Bill Maher
Dennet is making the case that religion
needs to be studied (reverse engineered) scientifically. He also
calls himself a "Bright" rather than use the term atheist. It's
similar to people calling themselves "Gay".
Looks at U.S.and European religious
beliefs (not enough time for Asian religions).
