[ExI] Fw: Re: atheists declare religions as scams.

[Stefano Vaj]

On 20 January 2011 11:26, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:

> Why would it be unethical to admit the truth that belief in god, or at
> least some applications thereof, can make it easier to get through at least
> some types of very challenging times.  That is pretty well known.  Doesn't
> mean god is real or that religion is a more good thing than not or anything
> like that.  So how would relating such a story in any wise be wrong or a
> form of lying?
>

I think there would be nothing unethical, but also that the truth is more
complicated.

Namely, I suspect that Godless religions, religions where gods have really
really little in common with God, and purely secular religions (where we can
speak of "God" only in a metaphorical fashion, the same being replaced by,
say, American Manifest Destiny or L. Rob Hubbard or the Communist Party or
la France Seule) work *equally well*, if not better.

And of course, a few of them do not involve a duty to believe in the actual
"existence" of metaphysical entities in any empirical sense similar to the
existence of the PC I am typing on right now. When this is the case, this
alone would make them probably preferable, at least from a mental hygiene
point of view.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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