devnull17's bite (Score 1)

"Atheism is, in my opinion, a higher evolutionary state than theism. If you want to talk about progress, the secular, scientific worldview has brought us all kinds of advancements in virtually every aspect of life. Scientists, not priests, discovered electricity, developed antibiotics, found a way to travel to the moon; the list goes on and on. If you look back at human history, religion has generally been the biggest impediment to scientific progress. Its main use was (and continues to be) as a device allowing a select, manipulative few to gain control over and wealth from the gullible masses. Religion has had a role in almost every war in human history, and there's been a clear trend over the past few centuries: The more secular a country is, the less likely it is to go to war."

Devnull, I disagree strongly with many of the ideas in your post, and I'm surprised that you make such aggressive claims with so little evidence.

First, your discussion of the advances scientists bring to society. You laud scientists, and not priests, for bringing us technology. But producing technology is not the job of a priest. You might as well castigate a teacher for failing to put out house fires. Second, the religious analogue to a scientist is not a priest but a practitioner of religion. (Only a fraction of religious believers support a professional, celibate, spiritually authoritarian priesthood.) And the fact is, that it was primarily practitioners of religion who brought us all three of the advances you list. Indeed, all of our greatest scientists--Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and the list goes on--have been deeply religious men and women.

Even if we take up the argument on your terms, that is, looking for the value of religion in the technological achievements of celibate clergy, the contributions of monks to our most basic technology--written language--is quite significant. And that's not to mention their work in fields such as mathematics, architecture, viticulture, and art.

You offer no evidence for your claim that "religion has generally been the biggest impediment to scientific progress." Whether or not religion has impeded scientific progress is an interesting question upon which reasonable men may disagree, but it seems clear that it could not possibly be the biggest impediment. What about the fact that most humans throughout history have been illiterate? Scientific experimentation is an expensive luxury; don't you think that poverty is a greater impediment to science than religion, if indeed religion is an impediment at all?

You say that religion has been used by "a manipulative few to gain control over and wealth from the gullible masses." This is true, but it is a fault of political rulers, not of religion. Technology is also used to kill and control. Shall we abandon science because it leads to the discovery of information that can be misused? It is the misuse of science and religion that should be condemned. It would be foolish to slander an honest pursuit such as religion or science because it is abused by irresponsible and immoral rulers.

We agree that political control and its concomitant economic benefits are one use of religion, but your contention that control is religion's "main use" is impossible to prove, and, I believe, incorrect. If we measure how often religion is used for any given purpose, the billions of people who use religion in their personal life to better understanding their identity and their connection to God surely outweigh the "manipulative few" who use it maliciously. And even in the realm of politics there are wonderful uses of religion: it was religious conviction that gave Gandhi the strength to free a billion people from colonial rule; religion motivated Martin Luther King; evangelical Christians, first in England and then in America, spearheaded the first movements to eradicate slavery on moral grounds. And besides, when political leaders do use religion for nefarious purposes, they generally use it for its institutions, not the ideas. I would argue that those institutions aren't religion, at least not as Christ Jesus described it.

At the end of the paragraph, you contend that secular countries are less likely to go to war. If you mean countries "not subject to or bound by religious rule," that is, countries with freedom of religion, I agree. Democratic countries that respect individual freedoms are more peaceful because leaders have to justify war to a public that has the freedom to voice their opinion and vote accordingly. In political science this is called "the democratic peace," and freedom of religion is essential to a democracy.

To conclude, let's examine your premise: "Atheism is, in my opinion, a higher evolutionary state than theism." You say that religion leads to manipulation and war, and that it inhibits science. But in the last century alone, atheist regimes led by those who explicitly reject religion killed more of their own citizens than all other regimes combined--perhaps more than all political regimes in world history. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, and Ho Chi Minh killed tens of millions of their own people. Hitler said "One is either a Christian or a German. You can't be both." In countries where the people are forced to abandon religion, violence and crime increase and individual freedoms are disrespected. Is this the evolutionary step you wish to take?

I've decided to critique only the first paragraph of your post, but I found the rest of it equally problematic. I respect your desire to lead humanity away from superstition, and there is no doubt that many religions are confounded with a great deal of superstition. The solution, however, is not to abandon religion, but to examine our convictions more carefully to ensure that they are logically sound and morally enlightened. Christ Jesus identified the fundamental laws of religion as loving God and loving our neighbor as ourself. If we all strive to follow these, surely the whole human family will progress.