Emptiness

I've been reflecting a little more on the implications of the stories I linked to yesterday, which seem to me to boil down to religionists attempting to impose their worldview on the next generation, if necessary by intimidation of or even death to any who dare to think for themselves. If conformity has to be enforced by fear, surely that is an admission by the enforcers that their philosophy is devoid of intrinsic merit, because if it was self-evidently 'the best way to live', then people would follow its tenets voluntarily. Atheists are often accused of living empty, pointless lives, but what is empty or pointless about using intelligence and reason to attempt to make sense of the universe, rather than relying on the infantilising credo of 'God did it, and that's just how it is, no need for further explanation', the philosophical equivalent of the parents' 'because I said so' justification for instructions to their offspring. Most of the advances made by humanity over the millennia have been instigated by individuals 'thinking outside the box', not by those slavishly following what went before. John Wyndham wrote this (of  'the Old People') in The Chrysalids: 'They learnt to co-operate constructively in small units; but only destructively in large units.'. That seems to me to be a pretty good summary of the deleterious effect of religion on society. Let it be consigned to the dustbin of history, in my opinion, and let's make a new, better thing, based on reason rather than blind faith.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B