In "The God Delusion", Richard Dawkins puts forward various arguements as to why he believes there is no God. The most compelling, most mentioned reason for his belief is the difficulty he sees in answering the question,
"Where did God come from?"
It's a tricky one to be sure. He goes on further to point out the silliness of saying humans are too complex to be created without a creator, without stopping to ask isn't the creator infinitely more complex?
But his main arguement isn't with God. Few people really have an arguement with the Big Guy. The believers usually love him, the non-believers don't sit around arguing with something they don't believe in.
The main arguement is against religion, of every shape and size.
He models religion as a disease, spreading from one generation to the next. Symptoms of this disease include:
Mindless hatred towards the none infected.
Superiority complex.
Inabilty to question and seek out truth.
Most worryingly, he points out that religion can and does be used as an "acceptable" form of child abuse. Images of Hell, for example, are burnt into children at a very early age and can emotionally scar them for the rest of there lives.
For all these reasons and several more, Richard Dawkins asks for an end to religion and prayers for a more peaceful enlightened age of science and logic.
What he doesn't seem to really approach is how he thinks anything like that would be remotely possible.
Imagine a law passed that anything not scientifically proven to be true should not be mentioned to children. Madness. Religious outrage obviously, a complete loss of the freedom of speech and an assination of Superman, faeries and Santa.
There is no possible way to word a law to crack down on religion without it being too strong or too soft. Even if such a law where possible, there would be no practical way to uphold it. Theres also no garuntees that religion won't be replaced by something else, something new and something that could be just as terrible.
There is no "cure" for religion. Indeed, one isn't really needed. Religion has it's dark side, but it also does much good. The trick is to remove only the unwanted slag.
Perhaps, a "vacination" in childhood could help?
Teaching children that hatred based on "us and them" mentality is wrong.
Teaching children we are all equal.
Teaching children to always, always ask questions.
Any questions?
