"...the gods that we have made are exactly the gods you'd expect to be made by a species that's about a half a chromosome away from being a chimpanzee."
One of the things I enjoy very much about hearing Christopher Hitchens speak is his capacity to produce pithy phrases. The above is paraphrased from a "Hitchslap" youtube.com video and it's both a nice soundbite and a good argument.
Think of religion as a crime scene, humanity as the potential criminal, and ask "well, did they do it?" There motive is obvious since religion allows certain people to consolidate authority, serious financial benefits accrue to certain people at the center of the religion, and it allows the elite of the religion to manipulate standards of common decency and morality which might otherwise limit the willingness of the masses to follow their "guidance". Sure plenty of despots over the years have managed to accomplish these things without relying on established religions, but for the rest it's shown itself to be quite handy.
Beyond the motive, human fingerprints are all over the products of religion. For one thing, religious rules are the sort of generally nasty, controlling, misogynistic mess you would expect from works of convenience written over decades by gangs of fearful male politicians clutching onto power. It's the sort of thing Rick Santorum or Michelle Bachman might come up with. Of course Rick Santorum is not one to want to reinvent the wheel (not sure if he could have done it in the first place) and he just wants to go back to the good old days:
Really, Rick? Why don't you just go run for president of Iran instead.
One of the things I enjoy very much about hearing Christopher Hitchens speak is his capacity to produce pithy phrases. The above is paraphrased from a "Hitchslap" youtube.com video and it's both a nice soundbite and a good argument.
Think of religion as a crime scene, humanity as the potential criminal, and ask "well, did they do it?" There motive is obvious since religion allows certain people to consolidate authority, serious financial benefits accrue to certain people at the center of the religion, and it allows the elite of the religion to manipulate standards of common decency and morality which might otherwise limit the willingness of the masses to follow their "guidance". Sure plenty of despots over the years have managed to accomplish these things without relying on established religions, but for the rest it's shown itself to be quite handy.
Beyond the motive, human fingerprints are all over the products of religion. For one thing, religious rules are the sort of generally nasty, controlling, misogynistic mess you would expect from works of convenience written over decades by gangs of fearful male politicians clutching onto power. It's the sort of thing Rick Santorum or Michelle Bachman might come up with. Of course Rick Santorum is not one to want to reinvent the wheel (not sure if he could have done it in the first place) and he just wants to go back to the good old days:
Figure 1: Rick Santorum showing himself unfit for the
presidency of the United States of America by being
incapable of taking the oath of office.
Really, Rick? Why don't you just go run for president of Iran instead.
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