Like Peggy, I think the question “Does God exist?” is not a useful one. Here’s a skeptic talking about the ineradicability of human belief….
The battle continues
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6 thoughts on “The battle continues”
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I’m more interested in “If god exists, do I want to be on that miserable bastard’s side?”
Two scientifically valid studies on the issue both found a strong negative correlation between intelligence and a belief in the supernatural. Since we humans seem to be breeding for stupidity, a return to the religious tyranny and repression of the dark ages seems to be a certainty.
Very well summed up Loki. This seems confirmed in Bush administration actions and Allegra’s earlier blog entry which states Bush is surrounding himself with C-students from Yale or Harvard. I would think the idea of any elected President or Prime Minister would be to surround himself with the most brilliant minds in the country. Trudeau did!!
Thanks, Debbie. I’m afraid I’m not a fan of Turdeau, but will refrain from venting my spleen. I agree though that you can tell a lot about a leader by the people she surrounds herself with. As I have said, every monarch (or leader) needs a fool – someone who can tell him the truth without fear of punishment.
I have started reading Christopher Hitchins’ God is Not Great. I will probably quote him on this thread, as he has a mastery of lucid and courteous invective which I find entertaining, plausible and informative.
Well, I can’t resist. Here it is: “If you will devote a little time to studying the staggering photographs taken by the Hubble Telescope, you will be scrutinizing things that are far more awesome and mysterious and beautiful – and more chaotic and overwhelming and forbidding – than any creation of “end of days” story. If you read Hawking on the “event horizon,’ that theoretical lip of the “black hole” over which one in theory could plunge and see the past and the future (except that one would, regrettably and by definition, not have enough “time”), I shall be surprised if you can still go on gaping at Moses and his unimpressive “burning bush.” ”
(I didn’t say he wasn’t prolix, but he IS grammatical – I parsed. But if you read that aloud you will be breathless.)
I think there is another group of people who are attracted to a belief in God or some other form of a Higher Power. These are the people that has been fighting to stay above water — women married to abusive husbands, those that have lost their children or a spouse, etc. — these people have been living with so much stress that handing the whole mess over to God and doing what they can to carry on is probably not a bad survival tool.