Comments on: Bad religion: A harm reduction approach to God

By: adam

adam — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

AMEN BROTHER !!!

read "the aethiest manifesto" to see the human construct of the whole thing.

better still do what happened to me I saw "the life of brian" at 8. he is "not the messiah he is a very naughty boy"

By: David M

David M — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

See Guy Rundles article:
".. 60% of the US say they believe in the literal truth of the bible, 20% are young earth creationists (ie the earth is 6-10,000 years old), 30% believe in alien abductions.
this article should be taken serioiusly.
Too late for the USA

By: JamesK

JamesK — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I’m not religious and I think it is silly and of no help practically or conceptually. The problem for mankind with for the great monotheistic religions which all point to the ineffable omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent is belief . Belief is not that to which the founders of such faiths point.

“Intervene based on the relative harmfulness of the religion” has been tried many times before:
Who decides on what constitutes ignorance and ‘harmfulness’ etc?: Meeeeeeeeeeeee!

Goddammit! I agree with Mungo!

By: nic

nic — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

What a stupid analogy.

By: Mungo

Mungo — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I do enjoy Crikey for the most part but this article is churlish, disrespectful and not half as funny as the author thinks it is…I am guessing Gordon-Smith is paid by the word, but hopefully not too much!

By: mike smith

mike smith — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I’m guessing that those that found the article churlish and stupid believe in some religion. Had a friend that said religion is the original software[1] virus. Pretty accurate, really.

[1] These days we’d say wetware.

By: laughlovenjoy

laughlovenjoy — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

What a brilliant analogy. Love it.

By: AdamC

AdamC — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Oh please, Crikey must have scraped right through the bottom of the barrel to find this ridiculous article. The only other explanation I can think is that it is some kind of unannounced reverse satire which seeks—successfully—to make atheists look like narrow-minded bigots.

It also admirably demonstrates how easy it is to be concurrently not serious and not funny.

By: JamesK

JamesK — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Interesting convoluted thinking by Allen Brown. Perhaps all myths we tell children constitutes child abuse as they are in effect lies.
I suspect Willem Schultink (today’s Comments, corrections, clarifications, and c*ckups) was not confused at all. I’m sure religion is not equivalent to moral belief. However, Schultink, has an extraordinary understanding of what constitutes a religion. I do not have a religion and I know personally many more without “a motivating set of beliefs that constitutes his or her religion”. Life is prior to belief and not the other way round!
Either way, in my opinion(?belief) the article is an exercise in wankery and not be concerned over.

By: Allen Brown

Allen Brown — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Willem Schultink misses the point. He’s confusing religion with moral beliefs. We tell kids all sorts of myths: Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and religion, amongst others. But with all the others, sooner or later we tell them it’s all a “fairy story”, and they understand that. There aren’t any scary adults dressed in black saying, “You must believe in the Tooth Fairy, or you’ll burn in hell!” And that’s why religion is child abuse.