Monday 23 August 2010

Why Dawkins bothers me

Religion isn't really my bag, i don't know much about it and have no inclination to find out more than the stories of Christmas and Easter that i have a shaky grasp on now.
I don't know if that makes me an Atheist, Agnostic or just plain ignorant but I've managed to rub along for 40 years without reaching for the bible or going out of my way to avoid it.
This is unlike a certain strain of people who insist on pushing their views upon others to convert us to their point of view.
I have had religious enthusiasts s trying to convince me as well as atheist zealots trying to turn me to their cause and both bother me.
I don't want to be stopped by Jehovah Witnesses in the street asking me if i pray and making out i'm a bad person when i say i don't or Churchy types telling me you can only be a good person if you have faith.
Equally i don't want to be bashed around the head for not subscribing to the atheist view that it is definitely, 100% a concrete certainty that there is no God. How do they know? How can anyone be 100% certain? The only time you can be sure is after you die and then you won't be coming back to tell us.
The reason for this rant is Channel 4 is showing a series based on The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins book on how religion is not just wrong, but the cause of the majority of problems in the World.
Now you could make the argument that throughout history religion has been a contributing factor to much death and destruction but i would argue that religion has been a handy justification rather than the reason. Much as Blairs WMD justification to make the Iraq war easier to swallow by the masses, religion has been used much the same way throughout history. Opiate of the masses as Karl Marx called it, used to distort a persons perception.
In the countries where the religious hold sway in power, it is easy to justify almost anything by claiming they are doing it for God. Al Queada and the Taliban use excerpts from the Koran to justify their extreme views and Christians do the same with lines from the Bible.
Religion, as a whole, is a great comfort to many people but it only becomes a problem when it becomes part of those in power.
Dawkins has a point up to a certain mark but to say all religion is wrong and blame it for all our wrongdoings is unfair and as much as i dislike being hit over the head by the bible thumpers harassing me as i move around town, it is wrong to deny the 99.99% of people who don't hold power and don't start wars in Gods name.
Its the inclusion of devout religionists, and anti-religionists, in Governments that are the problem.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hanz,

i agree that governments are a problem. but i see the ultimate problem being that people are human.

i think humans are driven by short sighted self-interest. this is the basic reason that i lean to the right on politics. face the fact and deal with it. as opposed to the ideas of the left that government or religion or any other mechanism can change the basic makeup of humans is utterly and soundly refuted by several thousand years of human history.

dawkins being 100% confident is foolish at best. i don't see how anybody will ever be able to 100% confidence for against God. what astonishes me is that every time science learns something new it increases the questions. the more we learn the more we understand how much we don't know...

q