To reach a level of natural harmony among the races—i.e. to release all these classy self-starters—(and for several other improvements in social living), we need an end to dogmatic faith, particularly religious dogmatic-faith systems. That’s a bold statement, so let’s defend it by resurrecting some common-sense analysis of an admittedly Aristotelian-Randian origin:
Reason is the faculty for discovering, perceiving, and integrating the facts of reality. Life and, therefore, morality require the commitment of people to know, i.e. use reason to discover the truth of things. We can spend a lot of time arguing exactly how to define reason, but most of us know it when we see it… or when we use it. Reason, the art of knowing things, is first and foremost our tool of survival.
Faith, by the definition I’m using in this analysis, is the acceptance of ideas or propositions without sensory evidence or rational demonstration. People of dogmatic faith are literally liable to believe in anything. There are no standards of logic, evidence, or fact to validate one set of faith-based propositions relative to others.
Faith is the “because I say so” of philosophy, and people of faith are held virtuous to the extent they unquestioningly obey whoever/whatever is doing the saying-so, whether a deity, a king, a commissar, a führer, the Bushwhacker… or the Great Pumpkin.
Now more than ever, we need to think in order to live. Faith is an atavistic mechanism of social control, necessarily imperfect, and now withering because the broad masses of mankind cannot survive on automatic pilot. “Faith is a short-circuit destroying the mind.”
Harsh?
Faith is a barbarous relic that must be discarded if civilization, much less any prospect for freedom, is to emerge. Someone who tells you not to think for yourself, rather to believe or face eternal punishment, is not your friend… nor is s/he a reliable ally in the fight for freedom. This person is at best a misguided idealist and at worst an enabler of the specie’s suicide.
Faith poses an immediate threat to civilization. We really can’t afford to pussyfoot around the issue anymore, especially with the advent of radical Islam. We can’t continue to pretend that since advocates of faith mean well or are good people somehow the human race will “get by” with a childlike trust in magic. The barbarians are at the gate.
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Nor does avoiding the fundamental decision become a tenable response. Agnosticism represents the “gee whiz, Mr. 900-Pound Gorilla, why can’t we all just get along?” of philosophy.
The main difference between an agnostic and an atheist is
guts. — Madalyn Murray O’Hair
“A is A, facts are facts, and things are what they are.”
Nothing is more sacred than facts. Where we have reason,
we don’t need faith. Where we have no reason, we have
lost both our connection to this world and to one another.
People who harbor strong convictions without evidence
belong at the margins of our societies, not in the halls of
power.
Religious violence is still with us because our religions are
intrinsically hostile to one another. Where they appear
otherwise, it is because secular interests have restrained the
most lethal improprieties of faith. It is time that religious
moderates recognize that reason, not faith, is the glue that
holds our civilization together.
—Sam Harris, The End of Faith:
Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
It’s odd for me to suddenly realize that reason is a minimalist position.
Instead of faith, let’s encourage the positive development of rational spirituality. Secular approaches to spirituality such as meditation, discussions of ideas, communing with Nature, romantic love, and so forth offer provable, testable methods for achieving genuine social, spiritual, and psychological benefit for real human beings.
All right, now that I’ve completely pissed off the FSP Hospitality Committee, let me emphasize that the Portal welcomes anyone who believes in the Sacred Nonaggression Principle and wants to come hither to practice it.
