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Jaakko Wallenius

Is there a connection between standard of living and birth control? - Being Human - 0 views

beinghuman.blogs.fi/...ving-and-birth-control-7084074

population control religions

shared by Jaakko Wallenius on 02 Oct 09 - No Cached
  • Jaakko Wallenius on 02 Oct 09
     
    It has been shown that a certain level of population control can be achieved with very little effort, if there just is will to tackle the problem. Religious leaders however already bear the main responsibility for the continuing population explosion in the developing world. I fear that the issue cannot be resolved before their power is diminished to an extent where sensible population control policies can be enforced in the poorest countries of the world also. The other option of course is that they change their odd religious dogmas so that these countries can be saved from hunger, poverty and desolation brought about by the uncontrolled rise of population.
thinkahol *

YouTube - Sam Harris SALT - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

YouTube - Sam Harris SALT

shared by thinkahol * on 02 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 02 Jan 11
     
    December 9th, 02005 - Sam Harris"The View From The End Of The World"This is an audio only presentation. This talk took place in the Conference Center Golden Gate Room, San Francisco. Quote: With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow audience into the core of one of the crucial issues of our time: What makes some religions lethal? How do they employ aggressive irrationality to justify threatening and controlling non-believers as well as believers? What should be our response? Harris began with Christianity. In the US, Christians use irrational arguments about a soul in the 150 cells of a 3-day old human embryo to block stem cell research that might alleviate the suffering of millions. In Africa, Catholic doctrine uses tortured logic to actively discourage the use of condoms in countries ravaged by AIDS. "This is genocidal stupidity," Harris said. Faith trumps rational argument. Common-sense ethical intuition is blinded by religious metaphysics. In the US, 22% of the population are CERTAIN that Jesus is coming back in the next 50 years, and another 22% think that it's likely. The good news of Christ's return, though, can only occur following desperately bad news. Mushroom clouds would be welcomed. "End time thinking," Harris said, "is fundamentally hostile to creating a sustainable future." Harris was particularly critical of religious moderates who give cover to the fundamentalists by not challenging them. The moderates say that all is justified because religion gives people meaning in their life. "But what would they say to a guy who believes there's a diamond the size of a refrigerator buried in his backyard? The guy digs out there every Sunday with his family, cherishing the meaningthe quest gives them." "I've read the books," Harris said. "God is not a moderate." The Bible gives strict instructions to kill various kinds of sinners, and their relatives, and on occasion their entire towns. Yet slavery is challenged nowhere in the New or
Bakari Chavanu

Amazon.com: The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture (9780970950512): ... - 5 views

www.amazon.com/...ref=sr_1_1

bookreview

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 19 Nov 09 - No Cached
  • The God Virus goes beyond analogy, offering a fascinating and detailed look at the wiggling, maddening virus itself how it moves, how it survives, and how and why it continues to thrive. Dale McGowan, Author/editor, Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers, Harvard Humanist of the Year (2008) --Dale McGowan, Author/editor, Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers, Harvard Humanist of the Year (2008)
  • It's a book that non-believers will enjoy and religious readers can only dare to read. --Hemant Mehta author of I Sold My Soul On Ebay (Waterbrook Press, 2007)<br /><br />Your book is a convenient handbook on how real life Atheists can stay sane while others are freaking out with religious madness and blaming it on those that challenge the true believer s faith based system.
  • What makes religion so powerful? How does it weave its way into our political system? Why do people believe and follow obvious religious charlatans? What makes people profess deep faith even as they act in ways that betray that faith? What makes people blind to the irrationalities of their religion yet clearly see those of others?
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • The paradigm can explain the fundamentalism of your Uncle Ned, the sexual behavior of a fallen mega church minister, the child rearing practices of a Pentecostal neighbor, why 19 men flew planes into the World Trade Center or what motivates a woman to blow herself up in the crowded markets of Baghdad.
  • The author speaks of the importance of "vectors" (priests, ministers, etc) in propagating religious ideas and how religious people and organizations will protect those "vectors" even in the case of abuse or other crimes.
  • Similarly, the fifth chapter deals with sex, and religion's attempt to control sex by creating a sex-negative environment. He mentions that even though religion uses positive terminology such as "focus on the family" really the message of "focus on the family" is a message of focusing on the rules and tenets of religion, which cause feelings of guilt and negativity towards sex. The function of this is not to create happy, dynamic family structures, but to propagate religion.
  • Rather than approach the god problem from a logical or hypothesis perspective A la Victor Stenger's God: the Failed Hypothesis, it approaches the problem of religion's impact on the individual and society.
  • It may not be so appealing to people who are intensely literal or who take the metaphor of the god virus as an argument rather than as a mechanism or metaphor for explanation.
  • One could say that atheism is a type of mind virus, and my feathers would not be ruffled. I think that it is very accessible to people who are capable of stepping outside of religion and looking at it objectively. I think that the book could have also been titled "the religion virus" without much harm.
  • After reading Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris, I still needed a question answered- How does religion work? None of the aforementioned books really make any in-depth attempt at answering this dangerous question. -Dangerous only if one would try to tell the truth. The God Virus does exactly that.
  • This book answer's that question! Darrel Ray's explanation is undeniable, comprehensive, and brutally accurate of what religion REALLY IS. Those who are infected will not understand his analogy, and will by definition try to protect there infection as instructed.
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