Jumalan sana tuo armon niin alas, ettei sen..

What we have here picked from no mean source is the distillation of precisely what is twisted and immoral in the faith mentality. Its essential fanaticism, it`s consideration of the human being as raw material and it`s fantasy of purity.

Once you assume a creator and a plan it makes us objects in a cruel experiment whereby we are created sick, and commanded to be well. And over us, to supervise this is installed a celestial dictatorship. A kind of Divine North Korea. Exigent, I would say, more than exigent greedy for uncritical praise, from dawn until dusk. And swift to punish the original sins with which it so tenderly gifted us in the very first place. An eternal, unalterable, judge jury and executioner, against whom there could be, no appeal. And who wasn`t finished with you, even when you died. However! Let no one say there`s no cure. Salvation is offered, redemption, indeed, is promised at yhe low price, of surrender of your critical faculties.

Religion, it might be said, must be said, would have to admit, makes extraordinary claims but though I would maintain that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence rather daringly provides not even ordinary evidence for its extraordinary supernatural claims. To insist that we are created and not evolved in the face of all the evidence.

Religion forces nice people to do unkind things, and also makes intelligent people say stupid things. Handed a small baby for the first time, is it your first reaction to think, "beautiful, almost perfect. Now hand me the sharp stone for it`s genitalia, that I may do the work of the lord"? NO!

As the great physicist Stephen Weinberg has very aptly put it, in the ordinary moral universe, the good will do the best they can. The worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people, do wicked things, you`ll need religion.

Religion, and in fact any form of faith, --because it is a surrender of reason, its a surrender of reason in favor of faith, is a fantastic force multiplier. A tremendous intensifier, of all things that are in fact divisive rather than inclusive. That`s why its history is so stained in blood. Not just of crimes against humanity, crimes against womanhood, crimes against reason and science, attacks upon medicine and enlightenment, all these appaling things. There is no conceivable way, that by calling on the supernatural, you will achieve anything like your objective of a common humanism which is, I think you`re quite right to say, our only chance of -- I won`t call it salvation, thank you.

Christopher Hitchens

Suomenkielinen sivusto edelleenkin.
Tulee vääjäämättä eksyttäjä mieleen.