Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

[Ronn! Blankenship]

At 03:07 AM Wednesday 4/23/2008, I wrote:
>At 06:07 PM Tuesday 4/22/2008, Charlie Bell wrote:
>
>>It seems to me you're missing the point, which is that all number of
>>damaging behaviour is excused in the name of religion when it is
>>otherwise not tolerated. Of *course* these things aren't exclusive to
>>religion (as you rightly point out, politics is damaging too), but
>>religion provides a shield.
>
>
>
>I think the bigger point is that rather than 
>being a "rational" species, humanity is most 
>often a "rationalizing" species.  Its members 
>commit damaging behavior — particularly against 
>other members of its own species but also 
>against most other things, living and non-living 
>— and then look for an excuse to justify that 
>behavior.  Sometimes that excuse is labeled 
>"religion."  Sometimes it is labeled 
>"politics."  Sometimes it is even labeled 
>"science"  (e.g., the "eugenics" movement, 
>sterilization of the mentally retarded, the 
>Tuskegee syphilis "experiment," [ObGodwin:] the 
>"experiments" of Dr. Mengele and his "colleagues" . . . )



Interestingly, Eudora's spell check does not 
recognize "Mengele" and suggests as its first 
choice changing it to "Mendel" . . .


. . . ronn!  :)

"If a burglar is someone guilty of burglary, if a 
glutton is someone guilty of gluttony ... then God is an iron."
-- Spider Robinson (1948 - ), Canadian science fiction writer.