My question for every person of every religious or spiritual flavor is the same - where is the soul? Where is it located in the body? We have had thousands of religions in the world that all begin at the same starting point. A belief in an invisible soul. A weird thing that’s somehow made up of all the parts of us that strangely cannot be found anywhere in the human body. We look at this world and and cry out how can things be so bad still? When over 90 percent of the people in the world believe in something that has absolutely no basis in reality of course you will have wars and famine and hate. Most people are living irrationally. It isn’t rational to be an adult and believe in things that aren’t real. It opens the door to all sorts of irrational thinking. I think it’s time that atheists stop debating whether it’s rational to believe in Christianity or Islam or any of the other religions and to focus on only one thing - the sheer lunacy of the idea of and belief in the soul. If we can help people see that the very basis of every religion or spiritual practice (the belief in a soul) is totally false then there will never be a need to debate the merits or faults of any religion.
It’s no wonder that this world is so messed up. There are no adults running it. Instead we have children pretending to be adults that still cling to an infantile lie to get them through their lives.
I am not a "New Atheist." I was a non-believer and very hostile to religion before Sam Harris was even born. In my youth, there were no four horsemen. We had Bertrand Russell and a few others, but above all Spinoza, who, to my mind, is without peer in time or country. Over the years, my hostility has faded, and it feels like we have won, achieving a respectable presence in the West.
My question for every person of every religious or spiritual flavor is the same - where is the soul? Where is it located in the body? We have had thousands of religions in the world that all begin at the same starting point. A belief in an invisible soul. A weird thing that’s somehow made up of all the parts of us that strangely cannot be found anywhere in the human body. We look at this world and and cry out how can things be so bad still? When over 90 percent of the people in the world believe in something that has absolutely no basis in reality of course you will have wars and famine and hate. Most people are living irrationally. It isn’t rational to be an adult and believe in things that aren’t real. It opens the door to all sorts of irrational thinking. I think it’s time that atheists stop debating whether it’s rational to believe in Christianity or Islam or any of the other religions and to focus on only one thing - the sheer lunacy of the idea of and belief in the soul. If we can help people see that the very basis of every religion or spiritual practice (the belief in a soul) is totally false then there will never be a need to debate the merits or faults of any religion.
It’s no wonder that this world is so messed up. There are no adults running it. Instead we have children pretending to be adults that still cling to an infantile lie to get them through their lives.
I am not a "New Atheist." I was a non-believer and very hostile to religion before Sam Harris was even born. In my youth, there were no four horsemen. We had Bertrand Russell and a few others, but above all Spinoza, who, to my mind, is without peer in time or country. Over the years, my hostility has faded, and it feels like we have won, achieving a respectable presence in the West.