What is the most likely way that American society, if not the rest of the world, will eventually abandon irrational faith?

I think this is a war of ideas that has to be fought on a hundred fronts at once. There’s not one piece that is going to trump all others.

But I think we should not underestimate the power of embarrassment. The book Freakonomics briefly discusses the way the Ku Klux Klan lost its subscribers, and the example is instructive. A man named Stetson Kennedy, almost single-handedly it seems, eroded the prestige of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s by joining them and then leaking all of their secret passwords and goofy lingo to the people who were writing “The Adventures of Superman” radio show. Week after week, there were episodes of Superman fighting the Klan, and the real Klan’s mumbo jumbo was put out all over the airwaves for people to laugh at. Kids were playing Superman vs. the Klan on their front lawns. The Klan was humiliated by this, and was made to look foolish; and we went from a world in which the Klan was a legitimate organization with tens of millions of members—many of whom were senators, and even one president—to a world in which there are now something like 5,000 Klansmen. It’s basically a defunct organization.

So public embarrassment is one principle. Once you lift the taboo around criticizing faith and demand that people start talking sense, then the capacity for making religious certitude look stupid will be exploited, and we’ll start laughing at people who believe the things that the Tom DeLays, the Pat Robertsons of the world believe. We’ll laugh at them in a way that will be synonymous with excluding them from our halls of power.
Interview link



The news coverage is extensive! The Atheist that created "The Beast" has waged war on Easter! (Hide the egg's! *Ever wonder how someone imagined eggs and a rabbit!?)

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A very good question and one I have a considered view about.

I'm not sure this will ever happen. 'Irrational faith' or unfounded belief, ie Fideism will always be a counter argument and is being re-honed even now as a tool against rationalism. To illustrate, a sibling and i were arguing about it ALL one beautiful hot summer's day in our parents' garden. He is a Christian and i am... his big brother. I asked him how he could believe stuff like that? He told me that I didn't understand, in that strange way all religionists do. He said, "You must place yourself in my shoes and see what i see and then you will understand", of course that is impossible without becoming a believer myself, Therefore i as an athiest cannot argue with him about his faith in a way that would change his mind. At that time, when i was still wet behind the ears, i ridiculed and laughed at him and eventually got angry with him. I was afraid he would be taken away by some religious cult, me being irrational? Later i calmed down and began to understand his point of view. He had found something to believe in however irrational that faith was. I cite this example as why it would be extremely difficult for irrational faith to simply disappear.

Religion, as a means for the down-trodden to get their reward in heaven, is not needed these days. We seem to have an economic system, whilst not fair at least provides for the Western 'poor' in a way it never has done. Fair employment and welfare and health care mean they do not need to starve as they once did. It is now possible to get our reward here, on Earth yet religion is still here. Religion is no longer part of school life as it was in my day. There has been a separation of church and state and whilst the 'church' argued for its continuance and failed, religion still continues. We even have the 'cult' of celebrity to dull the bells of the faithful yet they still continue. The faithful will ensure their faith survives.

If it ever were to happen that religion finally dies, someone somewhere will eventually 'reveal' ALL to those of us who want to listen. Science offers no comfort to the mother who has just lost a child, that is not its purpose.
I have stated elsewhere that belief in ghosts goblins gods an afterlife and people imbued with 'magical' powers are a product of the human mind and maybe, possibly, even a religious gene. Then we would have to remove that gene to kill religion, but that would be to kill the thing that helps to make us human. So if faith were to die maybe we would lose part of what it is to be human. The journey down he slippery slope would have begun.

Unfortunately the Klan is still around. There will always be religion around. People like to believe in something bigger than themselves and they don’t like the idea of this being the only life we have. That is pretty much what I thought when my wife died, boy did she prove me wrong. I saw the God Who Wasn’t There. I have no problem with the idea of criticizing faith it inspires lively debate and makes people examine their belief system. People do it to mine all the time, keeps me hitting the books and becoming complacent. I was glad Brian Femming didn’t go after my religion, he tells it like it is.

Leave me with my fantasies they are all I have that keeps me sane.

And it can also be said not a single member is affiliated with MENSA!
Seriously though. I knew someone that moved into the ghetto of Akron Ohio, years ago. They had just moved in and then ventured to dinner. When they got back, in that short period of time, someone had stuck a pamphlet in their front door that announced; This house is protected and under watch by the KKK!" An all black community/neighborhood, and yet as soon as this one lone white boy moves in, they know!

I've met bigots before. However I cant imagine living in an entire community of them or worse, amid their "police" that over see the entire community in the name of the tenets of their belief system.

I wish that had been my house in Akron. I would have run off a reply flier. "Thank you for letting me know this neighborhood is safe in the hands of people that haven't learned a damn thing in nearly 100 years! Nice dunce cap, btw!"
(and what's a flier without the artwork of an upside down cross in flames!?)

Nothing.
Nothing at all. racist cracker patrols usually know what it means and that's the important thing here. Muahahahaha

my irony meter just blew up.

Isn't easter based of a pagan holiday?

Indeed tis true. Before it was easter it was Ostara.

Or Oestre or Estre. ANd going back further to Ishtar. All the same.....

Easter was a Pagan ritual before the Romans changed it to a Christan one.

Same goes with Christmas.

~Thanato

all christian holidays are based on older pagan ones, christmas replaced the pagan winter solctice holiday, that is why it is in december, noone really knows when jesus was born, much less if he actually existed in the first place since we have no first hand accounts of his life and such from any other source than the NT and koran, both religious texts

^^He was probably born around July. It definitely was nowhere near December 25 - the weather would be too cold for the shepherds to be out in the fields tending their flocks. They'd be huddling in the barn at that time of year

PA you have a point..I have raised this before and I think it was Yel that told me the exact date

But what you forget PA is that the country from where baby jesus was born is a pretty hot country even in that time of year

BM - It's the desert. WHile extremely hot in the day time, temperatures drop unbelievable cold at night.

Well thats debatable PA..but if it where so...it doesnt mean Jesus could not have been born on dec 25th....but to be honest it dont matter to me when he was born...all that matters is he was HERE!!!

Actually other than the Bible there is no proof he was even born at all.

the temp does vary quite a bit from night to day in deserts, no humidity to stabilize it. when i was in arizona last summer the temps would drop from around 110F in the late afternoon to 70F by around midnight. it wouldnt be impossible for Jesus to have been born in December, but id say it was very unlikely.



did no one else catch the irony in the interview in the OP? i guess one would have to know about the guy behind that mess to notice. oh well.

You find 70 DegreedsF cold? Im outside in a T-shirt and shorts at 60 of your American Degress (15 real Degrees).

~Thanato

no, i was pointing out the variability of desert temps. 70F would be quite nice. 60F ok if the sun was out.

I don't know Farenheit (hell, I don't even know if I spelt it right), but in AUstralia's desert's, it can be 40 degree's celsius or more in day, and drop to single figure's at night (which is cold enough).

No cloud cover, no humidity, the heat isn't trapped anywhere and just dissipates.

Regards, PA

i looked up the average low temps for December in Jerusalem, its 6C.

i need a life.

and its Fahrenheit.