Ridicule

I'm a polite sort of person, believe it or not.  I don't like to jeer at religious people for their beliefs.  I have mentioned before that I grew up in a religious family, and attended a church full of kind, sincere believers, many of whom spent considerable time studying the Bible and trying to reconcile it with modern knowledge.  Participating in such attempts was my first glimmer that they were exercises in self-deception.

But, as I say, I don't like to hurt believers' feelings.  Many of my leftist friends are Christians, and they claim to have no problem believing in both modern science and religion.  More on that later.

The recent murder of French satirical cartoonists has emboldened columnists to confront the elephant in the room:  Why do most of us continue to defer politely to religious believers in society when we inwardly have no respect at all for their beliefs?  This question is made more urgent by the fact that Muslim extremists and Christian politicians seek to force their beliefs into our governments.

This is the problem.  The beliefs are false, and certain believers want to force the rest of us to live by those beliefs.  If religious belief boiled down to "Be nice!" that would be one thing.  But each religious sect has its own set of "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" that are based nothing very rational.

When my religious friends say they have no problem believing in both science and religion, it really means that they do not care to examine either religion or science closely enough to realize that the two cannot be reconciled.  To really examine their religious beliefs in the light of science would force them to make uncomfortable life changes.  It's easier to leave the question alone.

As a person who is familiar with the beliefs of Christianity and Judaism, I can make up a quick list of things that believers can ask themselves whether it really makes sense to believe.

Elijah went straight to heaven without dying. 

The sun and the moon stopped at midday to allow Joshua to defeat an enemy. 

Jesus was born of a virgin, walked on water, calmed the seas, turned water into wine, fed the five thousand on five loaves of bread and two fishes, cast out demons, healed several sick people, raised Lazarus from the dead, rose from the dead himself after his crucifixion, and ascended into heaven. 

Communion wafers and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ when you eat them. 

Prayer is effective.

I don't know what foolishness Muslims believe, but it is not their right to murder people over it, or to force anyone to live by Mohammed's teachings.

Jeffrey Tayler, writing for Salon, puts his finger on the problem:

Faced with this uncomfortable but persistently deadly reality, what should we and our politicians (and pundits) do?  For starters, we need to cease granting religion -- and not just Islam -- an exemption from criticism.  If we do not believe the fables foisted on us (without evidence) by the faithful, we need to say so, day in and day out, in mixed company, and especially in front of children (to thwart their later indoctrination.)  We must stop according religion unconditional respect, stop deferring to men (and mostly they are men) who happen to preface their names with the titles of reverend or rabbi or imam, and de-sanctify the sacred, in word and deed.  Laughable absurdities -- be they virgin births, parting seas, spontaneously burning bushes -- do not deserve oblique pardons ("We don't have to take everything in the Bible literally"), but outspoken ridicule; courses in "religious studies" in campuses across the country might better be referred to as "lessons in harmful superstition, dangerous delusion, and volitional insanity."

In 2006, after cartoons posted in Jyllands-Posten were met with Muslim violence, Christopher Hitchens pointed out the following:

Islam makes very large claims for itself.  In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all.  The prohibition on picturing the prophet -- who was only another male mammal -- is apparently absolute.  So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing.  Very well, then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these.  But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent.  This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say.  For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism.  But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.

And, finally, Mr. Hitchens again:

I am not asking for the right to slaughter a pig in a synagogue or mosque or to relieve myself on a "holy" book.  But I will not be told I can't eat pork, and I will not respect those who burn books on a regular basis.  I, too, have strong convictions and beliefs and value the Enlightenment above any priesthood or any sacred fetish-object.  It is revolting for me to breathe the same air as wafts from the exhalations of the madrasahs, or the reeking fumes of the suicide-murderers, or the sermons of Billy Graham and Joseph Ratzinger.  But these same principles of mine also prevent me from wreaking random violence on the nearest church, or kidnapping a Muslim at random and holding him hostage, or violating diplomatic immunity by attacking the embassy or the envoys of even the most despotic Islamic state, or making a moronic spectacle of myself threatening blood and fire to faraway individuals who may have hurt my feelings.  The babyish rumor-fueled tantrums that erupt all the time, especially in the Islamic world, show yet again that faith belongs to the spoiled and selfish childhood of our species.