Quote:
Originally Posted by filtherton
This doesn't take anything away from my quote; I never said that they always got along great. Russia has a very strong history of marching across Poland, yet today they are coexisting.
Right. And guns kill people.
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Its not my intention from taking anything away from your quote. I agree that given moderation, religion may coexist with science...if the believer chooses to ignore certain truths. But most religions that I have studied all champion one book or another that they claim is the unfailing word of God and that it is not open to any interpretation. In otherwords, they do not allow moderation/moral progress and are not open to academic discourse. To question their legitimacy is heresy.
As science progresses, we learn more about the world and our biological capacity for morality/spirituality. As we learn more, we find that these holy books are intellectually bankrupt. Conflict then arrises: if these books are, infact, the word of God and they are fallible, then God is fallible (and therefore not God).
I say that religion is incompatible with tolerance and respect for two reasons (I will focus on Christianity and Islam for examples):
1) While both the Koran and the Bible offer beautiful tales of human compassion and morality, they also demand that non-believers be put to death, condone slavery, fratricide, genocide, etc. (Koran Sura 4:74-78, 9:73, 9:123)(Deuteronomy 13:7-11).
The tens of millions of people that have died in the last decade that I refered to in my last post? All were killed for religious motives. For those taking part in the slaughter, they were simply carrying out their beliefs to the letter. An example:
Palestine (Jews v. Muslims) the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians v. Catholic Croations; Orthodox Serbians v. Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants v. Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims v. Hindus), Sudan-Darfur (Muslims v. Christians and animists) Nigeria (Muslims v. Christians), Ethiopia/Eritrea (Muslims v. Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists v. Tamil Hindus), Indonesia (Muslims v. Timorese Christians), the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians v. Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis v. Catholic and Orthodox Armenians), Mumbai (Muslims v. Hindus)
2) Islam and Christianity (and all major religions for that matter) believe that their religion is the correct one: they are Gods chosen people. If their faith is a path to salvation, they must concede that people with other beliefs are destined for eternal torment and hellfire. How can you truly respect someone when you know that their incorrect beliefs are going to be punished by an eternity in Hell?
Religion/God cannot hope to compete with science in explaining the physical world around us. Religion remains only partly relevant in questions of ethics and morality...and religion gives less than perfect answers for these.
Biological and anthropological science (particularly neuroscience) is beginning to give us insight into our inherent morality and our sense of "spirituality". In doing so, it is reminicient of chemistry destroying alchemy with scientific truth...I believe the same will true for religion in the near future.