May
11
“Religion is the only area of our discourse in which people are systematically protected from the demand to give evidence in defense of their strongly held beliefs. And yet, these beliefs often determine what they live for, what they will die for, and—all too often—what they will kill for. This is a problem, because when the stakes are high, human beings have a simple choice between conversation and violence. At the level of societies, the choice is between conversation and war. There is nothing apart from a fundamental willingness to be reasonable—to have one’s beliefs about the world revised by new evidence and new arguments—that can guarantee we will keep talking to one another. Certainty without evidence is necessarily divisive and dehumanizing.”
Sam Harris, taken from this article. (via murderoussloth)
An additional problem is evangelicalism and fundamentalism. They pretend - with a mixture of delusion, wishful thinking and plain dishonesty - that the evidence does support their beliefs. It does not.
(via drinkthe-koolaid)
