This poster is not entirely correct. The issue it should address is ideology generally, not just religion particularly. Religious ideology has been a source of much wrongdoing, one could even say evil, throughout history. And it is still, unfortunately, the source of much harm. But, other ideologies, such as the current American brand of neo-conservativism, also produce great harm. Rationalists and skeptics need to examine critically all sorts of group-thinking, woo and poor reasoning, whether religious, political, economic or something else. Religion is an easy target because it’s overflowing with all of those traits, but it’s not the only target we need to shoot down.
I love critiquing religion as much as the next atheist and probably more than many. Regular readers here know that I’ve got more than a handful of bones to pick with it. Nevertheless, we should aim to identify and express our criticisms precisely and avoid using cute catchphrases that skirt rather than pinpoint our issues. Even though this poster is cute and made me chuckle, it’s not actually useful as a critique, or even a starting point for a critique, of religion. We atheists can and should do better than mimic the antics of sloppy thinkers. Let’s not sink to their level in either our thoughts or our words.
– the chaplain
The Wise Fool
October 20, 2011 at 11:28 am
Well said, Chappy.
JohnEvo
October 20, 2011 at 11:42 am
Don’t get all overwrought, Chappy. To me, it’s just an amusing play on words which would hopefully get some people thinking about the natural evolution of morality – rather than this mindless assumption that religion brought it in to being.
Hey, if Larry isn’t going to come around and lecture you – I will.
Brian M
October 20, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Totally agree. Another thought pattern people should turn their skeptical eye towards: nationalism/patriotism.
It’s sad to read on (other) freethinker sites snide remarks when criticisms of American government actions are promulgated. Or the firestorm when it is pointed out the American STATE has been responsible for so much death and destruction.
the chaplain
October 20, 2011 at 2:34 pm
wise fool:
Thanks.
Evo:
I’m not overwrought. I wrote this post mostly as a memo to myself rather than an exhortation to others. I initially thought the poster was funny and started writing a hard slam against religion. As I wrote, and thought about what I was writing, I decided to go this way instead.
On another tack – does Larry know you’re filling in as the atheosphere’s resident curmudgeon?
Brian:
The nationalism/patriotism issue was the thing that prompted me to change directions with this post. Thanks for bringing it up explicitly.
Kagehi
October 20, 2011 at 5:35 pm
Yeah. Better poster would include well known symbols for specific organizations, not just religions. Did the John Birch society have a symbol that could be added? How about the logos of some right wing think tanks? Mind, the problem is, religions tend to have fairly solid “symbols” that, even if they don’t, tend to *claim* to mean something specific, and people recognize them. Closest I can think of, if you replaced “religion” with “ideology”, would be national symbols, like the soviet hammer and crescent, or a swaztica, etc. Its a bit harder to pick something specific more recent. Would be kind of funny to have the mule and elephant from US politics on there, but not 100% accurate. Sadly, the “tea party” hasn’t got its own symbol, nor, as far as I know, American Libertarians, otherwise those might work..
And, of course, a lot of the bullshit today is from ideologies that are hard to parse out, even if you had symbols. Capitalism isn’t a problem, per say, but Coche Brother’s, and the other corporatist type thinker’s, style(s) *ARE*. Socialism isn’t that big and issue, but the bloody mess that we made out of social programs *is*. The problem being, most of that mess was created to simultaneously provide more help than we perhaps should have, on one hand, while providing as little as we could get by with, on the other (dependent on whether the legislation that caused this was from someone trying to naively fix a problem, without understanding it properly, or someone that hates welfare and social programs entirely, and wanted to break them intentionally).
Yes, ideology is the real problem, but stupid ideas don’t always have obvious, simple, symbols, which you can use to point out *why* they are stupid, in obvious contrast to ideas that may resemble them, on some level, but are not totally stupid.
Religions… made the mistake of creating a brand name. lol
the chaplain
October 22, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Then again, brand names may be part of the evil genius of religion. People love labeling themselves and others, as that makes it easier to distinguish between “us” and “them.” (Gotta make things as easy as possible for the sheeple,
.)