Tag Archive for 'religion'
Twenty-five people with albinism have been murdered in Tanzania since March, a BBC investigation has found.
Yet more attrocities commited in the name of religion.
The latest victim was a seven-month-old baby. He was mutilated on the orders of a witchdoctor peddling the belief that potions made from an albino’s legs, hair, hands, and blood can make a person rich.
You can download the mp3 here. (And you don’t need to have Quicktime, inspite of what it says on the page.)
Religion sell magic: gods, demons, angels, miracles… Well, not quite: Religion does not sell real magic. Rather, it sells comfort and solidarity to those who want to believe in magic. You pay now, but you don’t get the magic now - miracles don’t happen when you want them, after all. What you get is the promise that your beliefs will be verified to you after you die.
Science neither makes nor tolerates such nefarious promises. And science does deliver true magic: artifial limbs, airplanes, automobiles, computers, internet, vaccines - the list is enormous. Furthermore, it exposes religion for the dubious promise, human weakness, and unsupported belief it is.
This, I think, is where science and religion conflict. Science infringes on religion’s market. The appeal of the deliverables of science is too great, and its rewards are obvious and immediate. In contrast, religion is chain-bound to its one and only proposition: “Pay now, receive when you are dead.”
A buddhist monk visiting New York City goes up to a hot dog vendor and says, “Make me one with everything.”
The hot dog vendor fixes a hot dog and hands it to the monk, who pays with a $20 bill.
The vendor puts the bill in the cash box and closes it. “Excuse me, but where’s my change?” asks the buddhist monk.
The vendor responds, “Change must come from within.”