I do not like this book very much at all, for the following reasons.
A religion is a bunch of big answers to the really big questions.
Okay, that’s fine.
[...] religions have real good answers to real big questions.
…That’s not fine. At all.
I would have less of a problem with this if the authors substantiated this claim, but they don’t. They just state it. And it’s patently false.
The way we see it, there are four big questions all the religions in the world try to answer:
- “What’s our place in the world?”
- “How can we live the right way?”
- “How do we pray?”
- “What happens to us after we die?”
If something answers these questions, it’s a religion; if it doesn’t, it isn’t!
WHAT?! With the exception of #3, this is a patent falsehood. We can amend the last sentence, however, to “If something answers these questions [and such answers are arbitrary and require faith-based belief], it’s a religion; if it [answers these questions (with the exception of #3, which is inherently religious) using sound reasoning to arrive at logical conclusions], it isn’t.”
Sigh. These people need an editor.
Here’s the next gem:
We don’t want all the religions to melt down into one big religion. This would be boring and would make the world very dull. It would be like having [...] just one flavor of ice cream.
No, no, no. This is a category mistake. There’s lots of flavors of ice cream because there’s no right flavor. You’ll notice, though, that there aren’t lots of answers to things like, “What color is the sky?” or “What is 4 times 9?” because with questions like that, there are right and wrong answers. Similarly, the “real big questions” that religion attempts (and usually fails) to answer also have concrete answers. There is no, “What’s your favorite flavor of what happens when you die?” We don’t know for sure what the answers are. We may never know, but that shouldn’t stop us from looking for them.
So, in a sense, the religions should melt together, if they knew what they were doing. At that point, though, it would cease to be called a religion, and would just be a collection of universally agreed-upon facts.
If you live long enough, you will meet somebody who hates religions.
I guess that would be me. Congratulations, reader, you’ve lived long enough!
One of the things people who hate religions say a lot is, “Religions divide people and teach them to hate each other.”
We say a lot of other stuff, too, but we’ll stick with that for now, I suppose.
This is ridiculous, and here’s what we say to people who don’t like religions: “Look around this world! Look at the people who are doing good stuff, the people who are giving out soup to hungry folks, [etc.] Can’t you see that lots of these people doing good stuff have a religion that taught them to do it?”
Not as many as the authors suggest, no. Furthermore, as charity organizations, religious institutions are miserably ineffective, as they have so many irrelevant overhead costs. How many more bowls of soup could we have given out had we not bothered to construct megachurches, marble alters, gold cross necklaces?
Then we say, “Look around this world at the people who are doing bad stuff. [...] Can’t you see that none of these people learned how to do that bad stuff from a religion?”
I’m looking. I’m seeing suicide bombers. I’m seeing holy wars. I’m seeing ruthless manslaughter in the name of religion splattering blood all over the timeline of history. The authors completely failed here.
We know that y ou can be a good person even if you have no religion.
Well, that’s certainly good to know!
[...] The teachings of religion are behind all the good things people do.
Whoa, there. Do I even need to address this?
People can come up with moral values on their own, without the help of religious doctrine. If we have any doubt, we can simply check out, for instance, the Richard Dawkins foundation, or any other charity that is not founded in a faith tradition. The teachings of religion are simply not behind every good thing anyone has ever done, and the claim that they are is quite frankly completely, wholly, and utterly wrong.
[...] when somebody says that religions divide people and teach them to hate each other, you should stand up and tell them that they are full of baloney.
Wait. So we’re saying religion doesn’t divide people… and then we’re calling for religious people to tell nonreligious people that they’re filled with baloney?
“Religion teaches people to love each other! If anyone tells you otherwise, tell ‘em to go **** themselves!!!”
The sad part is, one of the authors has a Ph.D… in philosophy.
The sadder part is, we’ve only made it to page four.
