Opining Opus

Science as a Religion?

I haven't posted anything here for several reasons ... who really cares if I do is probably the most important along with blogs are a dime a dozen and becoming less interesting. Anyway, I started this because I hoped I had something important to say about life, the universe, and everything (sorry Douglas) and how religion would hopefully have no place in our future. This was at a time when creationism was being given serious consideration for inclusion in our Science classrooms in Ontario of all places. This was something that crazy Americans did in the south but in Canada? Thankfully, it never came to pass.

There's only so much you can discuss when it comes to atheism and why organized religion isn't a great thing. With that in mind I stopped posting, it can become a tired argument fast. If I helped to convert even one person it was worth it. Hey, I sound like a missionary.

Lately however, there seems to be a more serious discourse on the place of religion in society. I think part of this stems with George Bush's unpopularity who's used religion as a guiding force in U.S. policy. Of course, it can help but be helped by doughheads like Ted Haggard who was ahemmmm, outted by a male prostitute who said ole Ted paid him for regular sex. Ted was the leader of the 30 million member New Life Church in the U.S. who often railed against gays. The irony escapes no-one I'm sure, except perhaps for a few members of his church if I had to guess.


Without a doubt, the very out spoken leader of this movement to rid ourselves of the superstition of religion is emminent evolutionary scientist and writer Richard Dawkins. I defy you to search for atheist literature and science vs. religion type events without his name popping up. His new book The God Delusion (and subsequent documentary) is currently number 5 in bestsellers in Canada and has enjoyed similar success around the world.

There are many other examples. This story in WIRED magazine describes the tenants of this new self proclaimed "crusade" against religion. Many other writers are also taking religion to task. I'm not going to link all these out but Sam Harris's books End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. Mr. Harris has received the most hate mail from Christians of course. Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell calls for a rational and scientific discourse on religion. All of these were on the best sellers list. I find this not only incredibly exciting that it's being discussed but also that more and more are listening.

This past week, some of the leading practitioners of modern science were gathered last week in La Jolla, California, for a symposium entitled "Beyond belief: Science, religion, reason and survival". Some of the discourse was mentioned in the New York Times as a Free For All on science and religion. Very very encouraging stuff. All I can add to all of this is Go Team Go!