As regular readers should know by now, I'm often critical of the Columbus Dispatch, which letters-to-the-editor they publish, and their often times misleading headlines with regard to said letters. However, I came across one letter today which I found to be well written, interesting, thought-provoking, and felt the need to share it.
The letter was written by Kevin Gainer of Westerville, entitled "Religion has been wired in our brains," and reads as follows:
"The overwhelming coverage lately of religion and terror prompts me to write. It’s no coincidence that I have never read a headline “Atheist terror group kills dozens.”
Atheists, as well as agnostics, are for the most part not susceptible to the type and degree of religious brainwashing that leads to mass terror attacks. It is at the end of such brainwashing, albeit often in combination with other defects of the mind, that we have witnessed religious terror for thousands of years.
Even fancifully, one might think that in the present scientific era, religious terror could be eliminated by converting everyone to atheism. But science and objective reality reveal that the mental process underpinning faith in a religion of any sort is simply an artifact of evolution.
Consequently — this is the unfortunate reality that we all have to deal with — religious beliefs, even as they are patently illogical and insubstantial, are not a removable aspect of human affairs. The bottom line is we truly have here not only a serious conundrum but a problem in human affairs for which there is no known global or enduring solution."
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2015/12/16/1-religion-has-been-wired.html
The letter was written by Kevin Gainer of Westerville, entitled "Religion has been wired in our brains," and reads as follows:
"The overwhelming coverage lately of religion and terror prompts me to write. It’s no coincidence that I have never read a headline “Atheist terror group kills dozens.”
Atheists, as well as agnostics, are for the most part not susceptible to the type and degree of religious brainwashing that leads to mass terror attacks. It is at the end of such brainwashing, albeit often in combination with other defects of the mind, that we have witnessed religious terror for thousands of years.
Even fancifully, one might think that in the present scientific era, religious terror could be eliminated by converting everyone to atheism. But science and objective reality reveal that the mental process underpinning faith in a religion of any sort is simply an artifact of evolution.
Consequently — this is the unfortunate reality that we all have to deal with — religious beliefs, even as they are patently illogical and insubstantial, are not a removable aspect of human affairs. The bottom line is we truly have here not only a serious conundrum but a problem in human affairs for which there is no known global or enduring solution."
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2015/12/16/1-religion-has-been-wired.html
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