Quote:
Originally Posted by kerry
I don't think they are two separate issue. In my view, the vocal atheists think that the power of a culture is diminished to the extent that it accepts magic and superstition into itself. It's an attempt to defend modern democratic culture against its superstitious opponents. I have a fair amount of sympathy with this view but some reservations. No traditional theism was democratic. They were authoritarian and hierarchical. So theism in itself appears to have a non-democratic political trajectory.
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I agree that superstition is a waste of time and resources and can actually be dangerous in the wrong circumstances. I also recognize that there is an almost universal need for people to externalize their moral code. I guess I don't have enough "faith" in the masses, but maybe it's a good thing that many of them live in fear of a superior being. I'm fairly comfortable with the status quo, as long as the people elected to high offices of major nations are only pretending to believe in magic. Is that too cynical?