60 quotes
“Blasphemy” and “heresy” are terms of religion, not science.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
I’m not a Marxist, but Marx got at least one thing right: for many, religion weakens the incentive to fix both personal and societal problems.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
What might be considered a real contribution of science to religious belief is the empirical demonstration that some of those beliefs are wrong.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
When one has a religious experience, what is “true” is only that one has had that experience, not that its contents convey anything about reality.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
One can meet all the emotional requisites of a human—except for the assurance that you’ll find a life after death—without the superstitions of religion.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
The conflation of faith as “unevidenced belief” with its vernacular use as “confidence based on experience” is simply a word trick used to buttress religion.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
Every bit of truth clawed from nature over the last four centuries has involved completely ignoring God, for even religious scientists park their faith at the laboratory door.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
But all that changed when Darwin explained those designlike features by natural selection. The best evidence for God simply vanished.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
The first argument, that religion is a social necessity and will always be with us, is dubious. It can be demolished with only two words: northern Europe.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
Ironically, as the credibility of creationists grows smaller, their voices get louder.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
That doesn’t mean that the religious completely abjure evidence. If it supports their preconceptions, they’ll accept it.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
In the end, why isn’t it better to find out how the world really works instead of making up stories about it, or accepting stories concocted centuries ago?
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
Above all, religion, faith healing, and alternative medicine all show the diagnostic feature of faith: an agenda not to find the truth, but to support one’s biases, emotions, and personal beliefs.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
So if morality is innate, it’s certainly malleable.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
In fact, changes like the elimination of limbo don’t come from new information, but from secular currents in society that make church dogma seem insupportable or even barbaric.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
Just as many churches don’t want to be seen as rejecting science, neither do they wish to lag too far behind public morality, and so they often tweak their religious “truths” to reflect the zeitgeist.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
But some of our moral behaviors, if not sentiments, almost certainly evolved. Evidence for that comes from finding parallels between the behavior of our own species and that of our relatives.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
Medicine can cure; faith cannot.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
It didn’t take long to realize the futility of using evidence to sell evolution to Americans, for faith led them to discount and reject the facts right before their noses.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)
Religion has nothing to tell scientists that can improve their trade. Indeed, the progress of science has required shedding all vestiges of religion, whether those be the beliefs themselves or religious methods for finding “truth.” We do not need those hypotheses.
Faith vs. Fact (2015)