Mythology, which is a category that for Dawkins includes all the major religions, is explained as a collection of ancient Just So stories. Enjoyable as the story of the Garden of Eden (or the Tasmanian aboriginal god who forgot to give humans knees) may be, The Magic of Reality insists that science composes stories as thrilling as those found in Homer, as profound as the story of Job, and as entertaining as anything written by Kipling. . . The other one I thought of was telling children about hell – telling them they’ll go to hell if they’re bad. I think that’s child abuse because it’s genuinely frightening. Many adults, especially Catholic adults, never really manage to shake off that fear and guilt they imbibed as children . . . ” “It’s almost as though in America they’ve become a different species. There are the reasonable people who are educated and believe in science education and then there are the know-nothings, who mostly vote Republican, and they’re kind of diverging . . . ” “Sensible Christians don’t try to fight science but evangelicals do and Muslims do.”
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. . . [I]t’s indicative of a larger eroding of the separation of church and state, which concerns not just atheists but all people who understand the importance of maintaining a secular government . . . We’re a long way from the days when John Kennedy assured the public that he respected the separation of church and state and would keep his faith separate from his policy-making decisions . . . Things that used to be considered beyond the pale in politics, such as religious intolerance or ministers blatantly claiming they know who God supports in an election, have become normalized . . . Neither atheists nor believers benefit when leaders are guided more by religious dogma than by rationality. Angels and demons might be a fine thing to worry about when you’re in church on Sunday, but when you’re trying to govern real people in the real world, it’s far better to rely on evidence and empirical facts, interpreted through reason and not through the guesswork of faith.
Always Question Authority 