Reading A.C. Grayling’s The God Argument, a simplistic title that might be better replaced by its subtitle: “The Case Against Religion and for Humanism”. Grayling is a British philosopher who has written on many topics; i.e. he’s not just a ‘new atheist’ railing against religion; he’s a substantial philosopher taking time to spell out, in almost simplistic terms, why religion should be obsolete and ‘humanism’ is the best plan for a mature global society.
Let me just quote the opening paragraph.
To put matters at their simplest, the major reason for the continuance of religious faith in a world which might otherwise have long moved beyond it, is indoctrination of children before they reach the age of reason, together with all or some combination of social pressure to confirm, social reinforcement of religious institutions and traditions, emotion, and (it has to be said) ignorance — of science, of psychology, of history in general, and of the history and actual doctrines of religions themselves.
Precisely.
My own intent is not to be an anti-religion polemicist — for one thing, I’m not sure anyone is reading this blog. I’m collecting posts here mostly as, er, ‘research’ into a book I am thinking of writing, about the limitations of human judgement of reality (religion being an egregiously wrong-headed example), how reality exceeds the ability of human perception to perceive it, and how science fiction can help inform that divide.
I’m more than half way through Grayling and have seen many more succinct passages I may quote here presently.
