Faith Is The Great Cop-out, The Great

I Mean It As A Compliment When I Say That You Could Almost Define A Philosopher As Someone Who Won't Take Common Sense For An Answer.

Granted, We May Try To Help Our Own Family Members Because They Share Our Dna. Or Help Someone Else In Expectation That They Will Help Us Later. But When You Look At What We Admire As The Most Generous Manifestations Of Altruism, They Are Not Based On Kin Selection Or Reciprocity. An Extreme Example Might Be Oskar Schindler Risking His Life To Save More Than A Thousand Jews From The Gas Chambers. That's The Opposite Of Saving His Genes.

Science Has Eradicated Smallpox, Can Immunise Against Most Previously Deadly Viruses, Can Kill Most Previously Deadly Bacteria. Theology Has Done Nothing But Talk Of Pestilence As The Wages Of Sin.

In Two Senses: One Is That You Cannot Go On The Street And Shout That You Are An Atheist, The Other Is That You Are Never Given The Intellectual Framework For Calling Your Faith Into Question.

Religion Teaches The Dangerous Nonsense That Death Is Not The End.