Tuesday 22 December 2009

Relgious shame

Ada Calhoun;
I am a closet Christian At least, I was until now. Because in my circle, nothing is more embarrassing than being religious
This has become more and more evident. The contempt in which religion is spoken of amongst certain classes especially-shames rather than persuades people out of religion. That's okay if the impulse withers away. More often than many realise though, its repression means it just pops out in a more indirect and insidious form pressing upon science and moreso medicine, bringing a quasi religious quality.

Rather than a tool, it becomes the master that needs to be answered to. Someone once said something similar about the human brain itself. That it must always be the servant never the master.

Which is apt because it's our careless over veneration of the conscious mind and the pretense that we are or can become creatures solely made up of reason rationality and logic. We cannot, we were not designed that way. In fact one of the many reasons we are stuck in this circular caricature of rationality; calories count or you defy the laws of physics et al, is itself the belief that the conscious mind is a good vehicle for the control or in this case repression of necessary impulses.

Let people have their religion without shame. It keeps those impulses out of science. 

As an atheist, I salute Calhoun's honesty and her being true to her own feelings.

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