Even though I am an atheist, I am deeply disturbed at the attitude that seeks to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I have no patience for people of faith who seek to establish public policy based on faith. I have no patience for leaders of religious institutions that seek to cover up wrongdoing by their institutions. But that does not invalidate religion ab initio.
You certainly don't need to be religious to be "good." And being religious is no guarantee that you will be "good." But any movement that teaches its followers, "that which is hateful to you do not do to others," should not be uncritically excised from society.
Quote:
TREY: I'm sorry, I'm having a problem, with the entire Judeo-Christian everything.
SHARON: Tell me.
TREY: Well, most of your major-league atrocities are committed in the name of someone's god. And can you tell me any big-time religion that isn't especially vicious to, say, women and gay people?
JANE: Just one.
TREY: Which?
JANE: Oprah.
...
TREY: Oh, all right. Do you know the only thing I really like about God?
SHARON: Spill.
TREY: The art. It's my favorite thing in the world. There's a small private chapel, in the Medici Palace in Florence. And the walls are covered in frescoes, by Tintoretto, it's the Adoration of the Magi, but the colors are so delicate, and there's so much gold, that it looks like--Cinderella. I have never see anything so beuatiful.
---Paul Rudnick,
The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told
Religion has inspired more art--be it music, sculpture, painting, architecture, poetry or any of the other myriad forms that art takes--than any other, even love. And that is not an achievement to be dismissed lightly.
_________________
--James
16 Dec 2011, 1:53 pm
