Do you accept evolution is real?
Yes, of course. If you missed that, then you're not reading what I wrote very thoroughly.
The above is just a quick sanity check to determine whether it's worthwhile discussing any of this further.
So you would not deign to discuss differences of opinion with someone who disagrees with you? Let's say, with someone who disbelieves in evolution like Rob? In that case, what on earth are you doing?
And someone who doesn't believe in evolution isn't simply mistaken; rather, they are insane? My, my, you are generous with those you argue with.
Out of interest, do you agree with Robs last post? Or can you still see how nutty it is?
No, I don't agree with Rob's views. Since most people will view Rob's views as "nutty" without me commenting on them, I don't bother. However, when someone exploits Rob's individual views as an excuse to denigrate billions of people, as you are doing, then I chime in.
For the record, your ill informed, anti-religious posture strikes me nutty, offensive, and pernicious. This pop cult or fad of anti-religious dogmatism has more worshippers than Rob's outlier worldview does.
As an atheist myself, I find your dogmatism and intolerance especially abhorrent. There is plenty in religion that I would criticize as mistaken or morally objectionable. Likewise, in a secular society, there are plenty of viewpoints that I would criticize as mistaken or morally objectionable. But, unlike you, I don't see myself as belonging to a class of special, enlightened individuals who are entitled to declare billions of their neighbors "barbaric" and "poisonous".
True, I don't believe in God or gods. But I want a tolerant, free, pluralistic society that allows incompatible world views to coexist peacefully with mutual respect โ including atheists like me, christians, muslims, jews, everybody. Unlike you, I don't believe other groups are a "Poison" to be eradicated.
It took thousands of years to evolve a worldview that can dispense with God or gods. We have only had access to such a worldview for about 150 years out of 200,000 years of homo sapiens. Beliefs don't change overnight everywhere. Here and there, some societies become secular. Here and there, some people become tolerant. Here and there, some people become deists or agnostics or atheists. Meanwhile, older beliefs linger.
For the people who just changed their mind yesterday to declare the people who haven't changed their mind yet as "Poison" is unjust and harmful. A more reasonable attitude would be to allow people who haven't yet been converted to the new ideology (such as atheism) to gradually come around, over the course of generations as necessary, based on persuasion and voluntary change โ or not, if they choose not to.
I'm very skeptical of people who want to create an instantly "pure" society over night by eliminating some group or belief system โ whether through genocide, state censorship, building a wall, or simply through stigma and ostracism.
You seem to have intentionally misinterpreted me.
How so? You need to explain.
As I said, we'll never know what route humanity might have taken if it were not for religion dominating the economic and social framework of much of the last 2000 years. To suggest I write a fictional narrative of this alternative timeline is both silly and pointless
I agree that it would be silly. But that is your point of view, after all.
You say that humanity could have reached the present point without religion along the way. In that case, there must be some alternative route by which the same progress could have been achieved without any history of religion.
I deny that such a path exists. You assert that it does. Demonstrably, history did not take such a path. Your path is fiction. But you believe that it was possible. So you ought to attempt to explain what that path โ that alternative history of the world without religion โ would be like.
Really, your faith in this nonexistent path โ this world history of progress without religion โ is like another person's faith in an omnipotent unseen God. Once you're asked to explain it, your viewpoint dissolves in a puddle of hissing bubbles.
But religion belongs in the past
In that case what do you recommend be done with the billions of people whom you consider poisonous? Boycott? Exile? Imprisonment? Forced re-education? Concentration camps? No solution would be too severe. After all, you are the Doctor curing humanity of a Poison that has caused unspeakable harm.
The irony is that your dogmatism and intolerance are no different from the dogmatism and intolerance of the Church that you say stifled progress. When the theory of evolution first appeared, people regarded it as a Poison that would damage society.
During the Spanish Inquisition, muslims, jews, and heretics were regarded as a Poison that needed to be cured through torture. Hitler regarded Jews as a Poison that needed to be eradicated. Saying that religion โ or any group of people or any idea โ is a "poison" leads logically to repression of that poisonous influence.
As you say:
And I don't take back the barbarism comment. But I apply it equally to all religions, not just Islam. Religion, is a danger to society
So what do you propose? Concentration camps? I prefer a tolerant, free, pluralistic society.
Rabid intolerance of those you disagree with is not progress. You have retrogressed to the old internecine conflicts of tribalism, sectarianism, of "us" versus "them". The "Other" is always portrayed as Poison. But it is that attitude that is the real poison.
