Excerpt #38 from my book, Religion, An Obstacle to Human Progress
Samanthapettai, a tiny Hindu village in India’s southern Tamil Nadu, near the temple town of Madurai, faced near devastation on December 26, 2004 when massive tsunami tidal waves wiped it clean of homes and lives. Most of the 200 people there, who became homeless or displaced, battled to rebuild lives and locate lost family members as they faced risks of epidemic disease and trauma.
The people were jubilant when they saw the relief trucks loaded with food, clothes, and much-needed medicine for the villagers, many of whom had not had a meal for days.
Their jubilation turned to shock when the nuns asked them to convert to Christianity before distributing biscuits and water.
When the villagers would not agree to convert, the Christian missionaries refused them aid.
Heated arguments broke out as the locals forcibly tried to stop the relief trucks from leaving.
The missionaries, who rushed into their cars on seeing television reporters and cameras, refused to comment on the incident.
They left the hapless villagers disappointed and shocked in disbelief.
I can hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine. – Charles Darwin
All the good that archaic religions do could be done by other institutions without all the extraordinary controversy and problems triggered by religion.
That, obviously, would be an enormous net gain.
You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. – Bertrand Russell (Why I Am Not a Christian)
HUMANITY’S GREATEST ENEMY IS IGNORANCE.
Our desire for meaning and wonder in our world can be forever satisfied—not in myths and superstition—but in the observation and experience of the infinite and ongoing events that occur in life. We can take great joy in the ethical and life-affirming qualities that humans have identified and honored in our constant evolution. The fact that one can live a life where morality is solely a human affair; where the natural world offers beauty in abundance; and where life is even more precious for being finite is one all freethinkers know, and that’s why religion doesn’t matter.
– Colin Jacobs