Posted by Joe Meert on August 22, 1998 at 12:59:43:
In Reply to: some thoughts posted by Helen on August 22, 1998 at 12:45:56:
Religious beliefs in and of themselves are not bad things.
It is when those religious beliefs take the form of anti-itellectualism
and domination. For example, there is a small group of fundamentalist
Christians who assume such absurdities as a 6000 year old earth, a global
flood and that evolution does not occur. This anti-intellectual stance and
exercise of mind control is accomplished by wrongly binding these
'issues' to salvation. It is precisely this type of superstitious and
anti-scientific brainwashing which will endanger our society. I do
agree that disease would probably not be wiped out even absent the
dark ages. We all know how evolution works and bacteria are among
the best at surviving no matter what we throw at them. However, intellectually
we may have grown past the anti-intellectual mindset of certain religious
sects. Therefore, in terms of technological and scientific advances, we
are probably less advanced than we would have been had the Dark Ages
not occurred. What we need to prevent is another set of Dark Ages overwhelming
us in the name of any religion. The Catholic Church has come a long way
towards recognizing the harmony that exists between science and God, now
if only other churches can do the same. In the meantime, I suppose we
will continue fighting those who believe that fairies, nymphs and dragons
are real.
Cheers
Joe Meert
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