Religion & Ethics: Content from Across the ABC




Date/Time 15 Mar 2014 3:30:02am
I think perhaps you have in your head a caricature of what the non-religious think. Not all agree with Dawkins and Hitchens, and no-one I have ever met accepts them "as gospel" as you assert. Nevertheless, they do put forwards convincing arguments on many topics and Dawkins at least is consistent in where he draws value from, as a scientist looking for evidence of verifiable fact.

I can never understand why religious people are so uncomfortable with concepts like "mind", "consciousness" and "thought" that they have to wrap them up in shrouds of mysticism and mythology. They're all just various interpretations of the function of the brain, and actually pose very little dilemma for modern "materialists". It's understandable that one should be in awe of a system like the brain, as it's a fascinating marvel of nature, but it is disingenuous to apply magical properties in lieu of actual investigation.

As for "faith", when religious people start using words like that consistently and unambiguously in their meaning, the rest of us will be able to engage a lot better in those discussions. Until then, religious people will continue to obfuscate real discussion by using ambiguous language as a defense against having to actually understand what they mean themselves.