| purkjr said: Unfortunately, there is a lot of religion-based terrorism and other problematic behaviour. We have had religion wars, crusades and in modern times shootings and self-bombings.That hurts! However, there were some really problematic periods in history when the damage was done from a strictly atheistic world-view. I just name Pol Pot (Cambodia) and Mao Zedong (China) for example. Both made millions of victims. I don't think the problem is religion (or atheism, for that matter) Both can be used in a damaging way. I've read some people saying they 'belief' in science or 'follow the path of reason' as opposed to religion. That intrigues me in two ways. First of all, this paints a picture of reason vs religion (or faith) But I don't see a opposition between those two. For example, I'm a religious man and also an academic with a cum laude degree. In fact, the most brilliant scientist can be religious people (just google on Francis Collins, for example) Why should religion be opposed to reason? Second, I'm wondering which science or reason do you mean when you claim something like that? I think science is very important, but I'm not believing in it. In fact, science proved that 40% of the scientifical claims made today, will be outdated in the next 20 years. So again: how can I 'believe' in science? Just to be clear: I'm not saying science is not important, I'm just wondering how I can 'believe' in it. |
Just to toss my two cents in here. I don't think it's about rational people and irrational people I think it's about rational reasoning and faith reasoning. For example Fransic Collins doesn't cite reason for why he became religious, he talks about a waterfall he saw. So while religious people can obviously use rationality like science, their religious believes are not made the same way their scientific conclusions are.
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