http://www.blackphi.co.uk/webitorial.php#Dawkins

In it he says – “Dawkins claims to be promoting rational truth and scientific method, yet his presentation is just as dogmatic, just as manipulative, and just as irrational as the worst of those he attacks. In short these programs were nothing more than crude propaganda.”

But what is Richard trying to promote? The ability to reason things out for ourselves, to measure what we’ve been taught against available evidence. Richard is attempting to promote reasoning, logic and the ability to see the world as it is not as some old book or scholars would have us believe. Harmful propaganda is having kid’s brains filled up with superstitious twaddle of the most poisonous kind from a young age, them growing up believing that on some level they are worthless and when they do good it’s because of some supernatural component and when they err, because they’re sinners. Pathetic. The Alpha Course is harmful, impregnating vulnerable minds is harmful. Richard is merely asking us to think for ourselves and when it’s told like that, it’s no wonder the religious find all this dangerous, after all they have based their entire worldview on faith, that is, belief in something without proof.

Hugh, as a fellow Atheist I was tempted to say “keep the faith” in answer to your statement above, but thought better of it – inappropriate humour! I realise that our seemingly endless struggle with the forces of ignorance, fear and bigotry, or as we all know them “Organised Religion”, seams never ending, but let me share a story that might cheer you up.

My sister passed away a couple of years ago and my brother in-law re married. Now, my sister, brother in-law and his new wife were/are members of a local Pentecostal church and the wedding was held there. Of course I attended what was a happy family event.

Anyway the service started and I listened to it, expecting a wedding. Instead the Pastor subjected us to a tirade of gibberish, culminating in an attack on Darwin and the theory of evolution. AT A WEDDING? At first I almost walked out, and in hindsight part of me still regrets I didn’t. But upon reflection what I found encouraging and wonderful was the sight of this fool, talking to a congregation largely made up of gullible fools. Before my eyes I saw a man who despite all his words and filibuster was afraid. So much so that he took this totally inappropriate opportunity to attack what he was scared of. He reminded me of an 8-year-old boy pulling the pigtails of the girl he is secretly in love with. I have seldom seen someone on such denial of the truth and desperately wanting others to agree with him.

What I took from this is that the religious who are most extreme in their beliefs are the ones who are most in doubt, the most afraid of admitting that their faith is a lie.

Ohh, and as for Dawkins… excellent program.

I’ve spent far too much time trying to conceive of what it might take to reverse this trend. In a more fanciful moment it occurred to me how religion is primarily rooted in a fear of death and of gods supposed power over life. I wonder if someday a distant scientist brethren of Richard Dawkin’s might, by stretching human life expectancy into the hundreds of years, finally prove that it is the human mind which is truly the greatest power in our little corner of the universe. Without death God would seem even more pointless.

You have every right to believe what you wish, but please understand that when you make claims to “truth”, then if you want them to be respected, you have to be prepared to watch them go down in flames, just like any sane, rational person.

I respect his search for the truth that lies behind our universe. All I ask is that he respects mine.

Why should Dawkins, myself or anyone else have to respect your religous beliefs, expecially when we may find those beliefs to be quite laughable?

Perhaps this might make things clearer. If I were to take a camera crew and interview Pol Pot (Killing fields), could I then claim that that Pol Pot’s views and actions represent the truth about non-belief?

Of course not. And nor do I feel it fair to represent my own faith in terms expressed by a Mid-American cherry-picking bible basher, however well he might express his views.

Dawkins seeks an answer to how and why the universe exists and persists. So do I and many others who believe in a God of some kind. I would welcome him at any time to meet and seek the truth together. Not that he would come, of course, since I am but an unknown. I respect his search for the truth that lies behind our universe. All I ask is that he respects mine.

I also do not know why his interaction with the universe is not detectable…because I have never seen any physical manifestation of the interaction. If his interaction with the universe is essentially undetectable, it is hard to distinguish him from other things that do not exist, such as Santa Claus, which also gets talked about but in reality does not exist. The assumption that there is something called God is unverifiable and cannot be tested, so it is safe to assume by default that that something simply does not exist.

As a man whose life is governed by reason a 100 percent, and who thinks deeply about things, I haven’t the vaguest idea why religion advances the theory of an enigmatic God; a God that cannot be seen but “works” — and in an undesirable way nine times out of ten; a God for whom everybody, anybody speaks and acts but cannot come out to say: “This I like or that I do not like.” God, if he existed, would still be what religion wants us to believe he is — even without having to be indescribably enigmatic.

You talked about regimes that have been led by leaders that do not believe in God causing untold/unspeakable/unmatched violence, but the fact remains there are as many pious leaders as there are non-pious ones that have caused violence. Many African leaders that have killed people they lead are not known to be atheists. And the more than 13 million atheists in the US are not the ones committing the most heinous crimes. George Bush’s war in Iraq has killed hundreds of thousands but there are atheists in the US that would not think even for a moment about waging war of any kind.

My argument can end in this simple way. If there was God, there would be incontrovertible, independent, direct, ocular, irrefutable, water-tight proof of his existence. Belief in and worship of God is a human weakness. Religion (started by people) creates God but sadly fails to give proof of his existence. That’s why we do not know God’s compelling reasons for creating the universe and, most importantly, why, how and when he created himself. The most popular religious book, the Bible, is silent on the beginning of God, who supposedly wrote it and knew in advance that people would ask how he came to be. But that does not surprise me at all because the Bible was written by human beings.

Last, but far from least, neither the theory of God nor evolution can tell us convincingly how life started.

With best wishes,
Musaazi

Only knowledge can bring enlightenment from religion.

Christianity is only one religion out of a countless amount that have existed. The sheer variety makes even a definition of religion difficult.
If there were any truth in religion we would expect to find a central fact, core to all religions. Instead we find an amazing breadth of supernatural possibilities.