Religion
In reply to the discussion: An Easter Blessing [View all]The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,280 posts)People have believed in some religion or other pretty much forever. Maybe it started millennia ago because people were trying to understand how the world works, and without being able to analyze natural phenomena scientifically, concluded supernatural beings were running the show. These days, religious belief can also be the result of how people were brought up and what they are familiar with - tradition is a big part of it. Religion can also offer people a sense of comfort and assurance and an ethical framework. It's not going away just because the existence of a god and associated "miracles" are unprovable and even absurd. You can point out, politely or otherwise, the impossibility of - for example - Jesus' walking on water and multiplying the loaves and fishes and raising Lazarus from the dead and then doing the same himself. And the answer is always going to be that that doesn't matter because, stated in various ways, God operates outside the bounds of science.
So if you can't convince religious people that their religion is absurd, what else can be done? My own opinion is that you don't bother trying to un-convert people because you won't get anywhere. What we can try to do is mitigate the negative effects of religion on society - and by those effects I mean the sort of fanaticism that gets oppressive laws passed and, in really extreme cases, encourages acts of violence. Rather than attack religion itself, attack the premise that religion should play any role in governance. Religious beliefs must not in any respect influence the curriculum of public schools, or women's reproductive rights, or the right of all people to marry, for example.
Maintaining the absolute separation of church and state is the only way to prevent the less beneficial aspects of religion from creeping into government. Leave people alone to worship whatever and however they choose, but it is essential that the retrograde and anti-science tendencies of certain (but not all) religious groups be reined in. I firmly believe that this is the battle that must be fought; don't waste energy on debunking religion. Expend that energy on keeping it out of government.