• "I say, if your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life." -Calvin
• Visit our companion blog Greens for Greens at greensforgreens.org for news about the Green Party.
• Subscribe in a reader

• Support the Green Party
  Buy Green Party Merchandise

  
  
• 
  

• Recently Written

  • A Move Toward Veggie Power Aloft
  • EEGs show brain differences between poor and rich kids
  • Letter on Gaza
  • Peace on Earth
  • Blagojevich Turn the Other Cheek
  • Child maid trafficking spreads from Africa to US
  • 2.6 Million Cubic Yards of Toxic Coal Ash Slurry Released in Tennessee Dike Burst
  • The Great Mumble: A New Generation Slouches Toward Nukes
  • Destroying What the UAW Built
  • Afghanistan could get up to 30,000 new US troops

Search

• Links

  Greens for Greens
  Green Party of Suffolk
  Green Party New York
  On the Wilder Side
  Green Party of the United States
  Feministing
  Appalachian Greens
  Campus Greens
  Duane's Weblog
  
• 
  

• Admin

  • Register
  • Log in
  • 
  • Wordpress
  • XHTML
• 

• 

• 

• The articles on this site are the work of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the views of any Green Party organization

• Published by Roger Snyder

• Roger's Rumblings

[From Beliefnet.com]

I oppose fundamentalist religion because it is hell-bent on ruining the scientific education of countless eager minds.
By Richard Dawkins

Despite my dislike of gladiatorial contests, I seem somehow to have acquired a reputation for pugnacity toward religion. Colleagues who agree that there is no God, who agree that we do not need religion to be moral, and agree that we can explain the roots of religion and of morality in non-religious terms, nevertheless come back at me in gentle puzzlement. Why are you so hostile? What is actually wrong with religion? Does it really do so much harm that we should actively fight against it? Why not live and let live, as one does with Taurus and Scorpio, crystal energy and ley lines? Isn’t it all just harmless nonsense?

I might retort that such hostility as I or other atheists occasionally voice toward religion is limited to words. I am not going to bomb anybody, behead them, stone them, burn them at the stake, crucify them, or fly planes into their skyscrapers, just because of a theological disagreement. But my interlocutor usually doesn’t leave it at that. He may go on to say something like this: “Doesn’t your hostility mark you out as a fundamentalist atheist, just as fundamentalist in your own way as the wingnuts of the Bible Belt in theirs?” I need to dispose of this accusation of fundamentalism, for it is distressingly common.

Continue reading Why I Am Hostile Toward Religion at Beliefnet.com

Filed Under Commentary  

Comments