Religion could kill us all

Is religion worth it?

From a new book out by Sam Harris, The End of Faith (and yes, Pam and Mark, I know that I've been quoting things a lot lately):

"Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs that should not survive an elementary school education. That so many of us are are still dying on account of ancient myths is as bewildering as it is horrible, and our own attachment to these myths, whether moderate or extreme, has kept us silent in the face of developments that could ultimately destroy us."

He makes a good point, one that you're not likely to hear very often but that a lot of us are, generally, inclined to agree with. Certainly organized religion has played a part in countless bloody wars throughout history, in the name of God and all that's holy. Now we have a few very active people, on all sides, who take their holy books absolutely literally, and, again in the name of God or Allah, citing this or that passage from the Bible or the Koran, deny homosexuals basic rights, or blow themselves up on crowded buses, or bomb abortion clinics, or crash planes into skyscrapers, etc. Those same people now have access to weapons of mass destruction. That's more than just scary.

With the future of humanity at stake, is it worth allowing religious zealots to get in the way of all the progress that we've made since the dawn of history? Can we allow respect for religious beliefs to ultimately lead to our destruction? Hasn't mankind come to a point where religion is not only just holding us back, it's mortally threatening us?

In an interview in this month's Stanford magazine about his book, Harris says, "In almost every other area of our lives, when people hold strong convictions without evidence, they get pretty swiftly marginalized in our culture [except Fox News - my own commentary, not his]. It's really only on matters of faith where a radical exception is being made. That double standard is something I'm criticizing."