Ron Johnson wrote:
> Then Sam Harris was foolish for writing that.
No, you're foolish for not reading more of what he's written...
> If atheism is so fired up great, then the Soviet Union and the PRC
> would have been workers paradises instead of mass killing fields and
> the greatest(?) environmental polluters.
...and mistaking either of those as reasonable. Atheism in and of itself
is reasonable. But it does not mean that there aren't other ways of being
unreasonable than being religious. Furthermore you are making the leap that
Atheism was the cause in either case and not just a byproduct of some other
forces at work.
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/10-myths-and-10-truths-about-atheism1/
"2) Atheism is responsible for the greatest crimes in human history.
People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot
were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and
communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem
is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the
core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable
from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing
fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious
dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run
amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its
people became too reasonable. "
--
Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream?
PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do...
-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature