Truthful Saturday
I'm good at mis-titling memes. That's not the “truth” I set out to write about though. I'm also good at thread-drift, but that's not what I was going to write about either.
Before I begin, it's worth notingIN BOLDFACEthat this post describes an opinionthe one I don't usually write out, because I know it flies in the face of the opinions held by something like 85% of people on this ball of mud. If it changes your view of me to such an extent that you feel you cannot follow me, that is your decision, and I completely respect it. Just remember that I havenevercommented on or questionedanyposts byanybodyinvolving the content of this post.
Let's begin.
Religionor rather, religious people.
I don't understand how intelligent people can believe, or have faith in a god, or gods. I realise this will be looked at by the vast majority of people as a lack of intelligence on my part, and they are of course entitled to that opinionin turn, I will view that as a defence mechanism that they're quite happy employingshoeboxing anything that questions their belief away neatly and tidily. Psychologists would call it “defence of self”, and liken it to many other group behaviours, such as fanboyism.
I don't understand why so many people believe what they are told to without questionwithout enquiry. Douglas Adams wrote “isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are faeries at the bottom of it too?“I totally and utterly agree with him.
People like to neatly draw a line between those with belief, and those without tooI guess to take sides. If you're not preaching, you must be an athiest. That's problematic for me too. Atheism is the belief that there are no gods -it's another belief. By their very nature, beliefs cannot be proven one way or aother, so why bother trying? No doubt some anal Atheist will comment on this, and argue that I have mis-defined them, and then reply to my replies ad-nausium.
Wether or not you might automatically term scientists “atheists” (which would make you immediately wrong), there are grounds for scientists to be pretty damn annoyed with the greater part of the population of the world though. For thousands of years people have been curious of how the world worksand for thousands of years those people have been obstructed, persecuted, slandered, imprisoned, and even murdered.
I guess it doesn't help that virtually every church on the planet is really just a pyramid scheme dressed up as a charity. Of course they are also by far the most successful pyramid scheme ever invented.
If you ignore all of the views, and the opinions, and the beliefs, and the stories, and the history, it really comes down to a simple question asked of Richard Dawkins, on stage at Randolph College some years agoClick here to watch it