philosophy, science-and-religion, activism-promotion, atheist-outreachAt the end of the speech by Daniel Dennett linked below, he says, “If we want to understand religion or encourage it to mutate into benign forms, we need to understand how it works.” The speech is one of the best 1 hour attempts at understanding religion that I have ever seen, and humorous at times. He points out the absurdity of theology and how it manages to mask over many of the deficiencies of what it says it is trying to accomplish. He also looks at how throughout the history of unmasking theologians, much emphasis has been put on the evil agents of the church and their cruel intents. He says this might be a form of paranoia by those who are analyzing the reasons and sources of religion.
He suggests that if we want to dismantle these structures, we need to understand the dynamics of them, not just attack those who are currently benefiting from them by being there. I imagine there will be some comments on whether or not that is the correct approach, but the first question is, is it our place to “encourage” religion “to mutate”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_9w8JougLQ&feature=player_embedded
I think if we mutate religion into something benign, it will be harder to struggle with its undesirable consequences and clericalism, people tend to reject something easily if it looks less attractive and innocent.
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