Recently I ran across a great PZ Myers quote talking about what the role of religion should be in society as we further evolve and distance ourselves from faith-based myths….
What I want to happen to religion in the future is this: I want it to be like bowling. It’s a hobby, something some people will enjoy, that has some virtues to it, that will have its own institutions and its traditions and its own television programming, and that families will enjoy together. It’s not something I want to ban or that should affect hiring and firing decisions, or that interferes with public policy. It will be perfectly harmless as long as we don’t elect our politicians on the basis of their bowling score, or go to war with people who play nine-pin instead of ten-pin, or use folklore about backspin to make decrees about how biology works.
My add to this would be, that bowlers stop attempting to recruit me into their bowling league. Let’s keep these intrepid bowlers in their bowling alleys enjoying their hobby without feeling the need to disturb others. We can dream…
Bowling rocks. The shoes are killer.
Aren’t you trying to recruit people to your point of view because you believe you’re right? How is that seriously different from people doing the same to you?
Jim, there’s a pretty big difference I think. I publish what I think here, if someone chooses to read that it’s up to them. I don’t go door to door or even engage people in this conversation to convince them I’m right or recruit them into some sort of atheist movement that requires dues and sacrifice of time in some temple of worship or projects a belief system into government.
It’s not a matter of me being right, it’s a matter of the invasion of privacy into the lives of others as religions and the fanatics that finance them work to infiltrate all levels of government and inflict their beliefs on me. We’re only one click away from the christian version of sharia law here (and we judge these folks nuts here in the good ole US of A.) We should look in the freakin’ mirror.