This is absolutely beautiful! It is almost enough to make one feel that Dennett’s musing- that maybe it will one day just pop like a bubble, could come to pass! If every person who prefers reason to absurd dogma put this kind of conversational pressure on our neighbors I am sure it would… thank you Mr. Grayling.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

Fully accept the view expressed in the article and would like the writer to come over to Poland. He would be appalled to see a modern country horribly changed into a dogma-ruled, religious village.What a shame on god-fearing politicians.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

Very nicely written - and I fully agree with this view as well. If only we could teach everyone to refuse to allow religious groups ruling over everyone else.

What kind of messed up society allows people like Vincent Nichols, who made feeble and disgusting attempts on downplaying child abuse, to have any authority on any matter of moral and decency?

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

I have never seen anything like that printed in a major USA publication. Does anyone here know how to get it reprinted?

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

Very nice… It could not be better put.  As religious groups have no greater rights, they should be taxed like most major organizations that rake in millions of dollars.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

This article seems to have been written by two completely different persons; one wise, the other stupid (Look at the third paragraph).

I am against the idea that religion should be allowed.  The author has made a lethal mistake of expecting religions to remain harmless.  As long as religions are allowed to exist, it is a matter of time that they eventually grow lethal tumors that kill innocent people by the thousands or millions. 
Religion is freedom killer, reason killer, science killer, ignorance- and-prejudice grower, division promoter, and homicide (war)-initiator.  Religion is a mental-virus that does harm not only believers but the whole world.  It is wrong to wish that religion would remain benign or moderate. Most believers are moderate. But the scriptures and Gods are not moderate; they are fundamental and totalitarian.

Religion is the most lethal and virulent crimes man has ever perpetrated against man. Religion is what we should graduate from, not what we should allow.  Socialism and communism are also quasi-religions whose damage is not less than that of other religions.  (These two quasi religions, contrary to their propaganda, do not grow economy and freedom and human rights.)  Religions are organized crimes. I do not think organized criminal gangs have every right to exist.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

Loved it :D

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

A.C writes well - I recommend his books: first and most Towards the Light. Sheds some light on the question of religion as the historical promoter of freedom and truth.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

I would like to see relgion accepted and respected to the same extend as astrology.

We dont ban astrology, it feaures in newspapers every day. But we almost all know that there’s nothing to it.

Actually, now I think about it, I’m not sure anyone’s ever killed for astrology. Perhaps reigion oesnt deserve as much respect as astology after all!

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

Brian, Is there any advanced Western country that is not socialist?

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

I agree with brian up to a certain point.  If you look at the enormous world population, it will be impossible to eradicate religion.  Going for the most simple example, poverty.

With poverty comes little education, hence they will turn to other beliefs hoping that they might get better.

I believe religions should take a stance more similar to Buddhism:  The 14th Dalai Lama has said, “If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview.”

Believe what you want.  But dont undermine evidence and reason.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

“Believe what you want.  But dont undermine evidence and reason.”
-alopiasmag

There’s blatant incongruity here.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

AskMyAcupunturist,

It seems that you think socialism in Europe is doing fine.  Not at all. It’s chilling and scaring, in my point of view.  Please read the following article by a British Housewife.  I hope to hear your opinion.
————

We are completely broke!

  A British Housewife’s view of the UK economy/ 
  Monday, June 22, 2009
  Source:  theatheistconservative.com
Treasury forecasts that in five years the UK Government will owe £1,400,000,000,000. No, I didn’t lean on the ‘0′ key. It really is that big. Let’s take the very most optimistic view possible:
1. suppose this is true and it is not higher (bank bale-outs, PFIs, decommissioning power stations, civil servant pensions and so forth blithely ignored for the moment because Labour have made this ‘off balance sheet’ to hide it);
2. suppose this is only serviced at a rate of 3% and that it will not cost more (for example, because interest rates rise, because investors will not buy gilts, or because the pound drops further against other currencies and gold);
3. suppose that other Government income does not drop (because the economy shrinks, because people and companies pay less tax if they are bankrupt or unemployed);
4. suppose that other expenses do not go up (unemployment benefit; more bale-outs; rising pay demanded by the 40% of the workforce in the public sector);
and suppose these things even though they are probably not true at all.
Even with this rosy view, the cost of servicing that debt will be, at a modest 3%, some £42,000,000,000 a year. Again, I do not lean on the ‘0′ key.
This means that towards the end of the next Parliament, the cost of paying for all the debt will amount to about the same as the total corporation tax income the treasury takes in a year at today’s rates.
Just paying interest Government’s term will cost the entire contribution of British business to the pubic purse . Or look at it this way, interest payments will take funds which amount to more than the Government spends a year on public order (police, law courts, prisons, etc): that is just to pay the interest, not to pay back what it borrowed.
What is the alternative view? Maybe the public debt could be £1,840,000,000,000 (including the off balance sheet items ignored in the Treasury forecasts). Maybe my assumptions are a tad too optimistic. If interest rates on gilts then go up to a fairly unremarkable 6%, that would be a debt interest cost of £110 billion a year – about the current cost of the National Health Service.
What happens then, as the Government runs out of money?
It still wants to pay for the NHS, pensions, the Army, Police, welfare, rubbish collection, equality, redistribution of wealth, pocket money for low income teenagers (I kid you not), schools, universities, nauseating public art, the climate nonsense and so forth. Government spends about half our output and employs nearly half of us at the moment. It spends about £43 million a day on the European Union. Well at some point, say it can’t actually pay because of the debt interest it needs to pay.
You may say it will have to raise taxes, sell gilts (borrow even more), sell gold, or just print more money.
Raising taxes will come. but will simply strangle the last bit of life out of what is left of the productive part of our economy, or push wealth and investors abroad. I would also be amazed if the UK can carry on issuing gilts. Who will buy them? A broke UK is hardly the best investment and the credit rating is already being questioned. And if gilts are sold, we may have to pay punitive rates. Gordon Brown already sold all the gold, by the way, when the price was low. What is left? The Government will have to print money. However, this can only make matters worse. The money supply will go up and therefore prices will rise with interest rates (probably just as oil prices go up further). The worth of pensions, savings and property will be cruelly devalued by this dilution in the value of the pound. There will be public sector anger, unemployment, rising prices and real poverty.
(By the way for all of you who say the CPI and RPI measures of inflation are low, please just remember that food inflation as calculated in the Daily Telegraph, is consistently between 9 and 14%. The indices are low in energy and mortgage payments because oil prices went down and because of the low interest rate. These can always go up again.)
Can Government cut spending? Just just to pay for interest and not really touch capital obligations, we shall have to ditch the equivalent of the NHS. The main political parties have done their typical thing: Conservatives have been vague and Labour has been misleading. Conservatives have said they will cut some spending but will not cut the NHS or Third World Aid. Labour is committed to spending more in real terms but won’t say if that includes interest and unemployment benefit so this means in reality spending less too, but not admitting it (in the usual Labour way).
The only answer is of course to make the productive part of the economy work again. We must reduce the cost and size of the public sector and ditch the EU. We must somehow allow businesses to create wealth, make a profit, employ people and thereby help them pay their mortgages. Even if we do this, it is going to be tough and public policy makers simply are not facing up to it. Both main parties have obviously never kept to a household budget.
Mrs M A Westrop, UK Housewife: economists please comment.
    1. aeschines says: June 22, 2009 at 8:08 pm
In case anyone is wondering about the whole pocket money for teenagers – a link:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/24298/Teenagers-to-get-10-a-week-pocket-money-from-taxpayer
  2. Winnie says:
June 23, 2009 at 1:55 am
Yet just this morning on the UK Today programme the Trades Unions were calling for Government subsidy of private businesses because this would prevent unemployment and they talked about the ‘power of the public purse’. Just how delusional can the Left get?
  3. roger in florida says:
June 23, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Just to put this into context; when Margaret Thatcher was forced from office, the UK was on schedule to be external debt free in 30 years. Thank you John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown.
I live in the US, each and every household in the US is on the hook for approx. $600,000.00 in federal debt. This does not include State and Municipal debt. So we have a similar situation. But as Glen Reynolds of “Instapundit” has said; debts that can’t be paid will not be paid. What does this mean? What it means is that when the govts. of UK and US cannot sell their debt instruments they will continue to pay their obligations from currency printed. I mean this literally, when they cannot borrow anymore they will create money to pay their obligations. This is not new, perhaps the most famous (and successful) example is Dr Halmar Schact and the Weimar treasury of Germany who created money to pay off various debts that Germany had. The result was catastrophic inflation. let’s say you are a retired teacher or civil servant, or similar. Your pension is, for example $4,000.00 per month, an amount that currently allows you to live a comfortable life. You may find that your $4,000.00 a month pension will not buy food for one day. People who have lived responsibly and saved money will be wiped out financially. The people most affected will be the old, people who are living on fixed incomes with no possibility of returning to the workforce. The gainers will be the spivs, the drug dealers, the manipulators, the criminals. This is going to happen, because there is no political will in UK or US to take the steps necessary to head this off, as I said before; “the course is set, the wheel is lashed, we are going over the falls”.
  4. Ian says:
June 24, 2009 at 2:22 am
Don’t forget the spiralling and uncontrollable (at present ‘cos of the unions) cost of public pensions and the ridiculous rates of ‘early retirement’ taken in the police etc.
I’d love to be able to find make my occupation a ‘cash’ business, it seems to be the only way I’ll ever feel like I can keep the money I have earned.
I had my own pension statement through recently and in the last few years it has done well. It is now worth less than I paid for it – I can’t believe it has got this bad in just one year. This is my own private pension as I am self employed.
Thanks Gordon Brown, thanks Labour, I voted you in in 1997 but I will never vote for these idiots again. I’m too young to remember the problems of the 1970’s but its deja vu all over again.
    5. Mrs Westrop says:
June 25, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Dear Ian,
I don’t think I forgot the ‘off balance sheet’ figures you mention because they are the one in the CPS study I took for the higher of the two estimates.
I agree with you that the socialists have, as always been spendthrift and all those who carefully saved for a pension, as you and Roger point out, are being robbed by this ’stealth bankruptcy’, which will become apparent as the debt soars to the 1.8 figure.
Isn’t it amazing that the Left are still calling mad public spending ‘investment’? We all should have known from their language 10 years’ ago that anyone who thinks expanding the public sector is an investment probably believes money grows on trees!
  6. Ian says:
June 27, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Mrs Westrop
I agree. I’m frankly disgusted that none of the political parties have the guts to stand up and say that we seriously need to cut back on spending. The ridiculous state of having somewhere around 50% of people in work actually working for and being paid by the government is astounding – I just don’t understand how this can be sustainable.
The legacy that GB and Labour have left us will be with us through my childrens generation.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

Gordon,

If religion is as mild as astrology, we can tolerate it. 
Astrologists do not ban evolution, stem-cell research, abortion etc. 
They do not collect tithe.  They do not indoctrinate people, especially children, to hate and kill non-astrologists. 
 
I personally think that we should teach people that astrology is only a superstition, a waste of money, time, reason, critical thinking, etc.  I think it is not ethical that we let ignorant people believe in or depend on astrology.  For just fun, it is OK

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

Alopiasmag,
It is true that we cannot eradicate fraud, theft, rape, murder, etc. from our reality. But at least we have law and officers to suppress or minimize these crimes.  Religions are far graver crimes than personal crimes. Religion is the worst and biggest organized crime. The problem with religion is that both the perpetrators and the victims do not realize that religion is a crime.  We should let people know that religions are crimes. 

Buddhism is not a monolithic stuff.  Buddhism has hundreds and thousands of different faces. In a traditional Eastern Asian Buddhist point of view, Dalai Lama is a fraud.  In fact, there is not a genuine Buddhism in this world.  I am from Eastern Asia where Buddhism is a traditional religion.  Buddhism is nothing but a superstition and fraud and preposterous lies. 

Yet many lay people get comfort from the lies of priests.  The fraud and the ignorant depend on each other peacefully. But I still call this a crime.  Buddhism is mild and benign compared to Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions. Yet Buddhism is a ludicrous, stupid, hypocritical, nihilistic, irrational, and fraudulent sort of business to collect money from even more ignorant people.  Education is the solution.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

There is no need to ban religion. We just need the courage to call any of their books in court. We need to ban their books or make them to update the writings to the 21st century.
Without their so called “antiquity” .....

You don't have permission to flag this entry.