Slashdot Mirror
Einstein Letter Goes on Sale
ErkDemon writes "For any Slashdotters who want a piece of frameable Einstein memorabilia, a letter from A.E. to Eric Gutkind goes on sale at Bloomsbury Auctions today (May 15th). The content of the letter mostly deals with Einstein's views on religion. (Einstein pronounces himself rather unimpressed by the whole idea and rejects it as "childish.") The Guardian has printed a translated excerpt from the letter."
Unfortunately even though religions and their idea of God are indeed a 'childish ideas', the impact on society is far from childish, sometimes for good but also many, many times will consequences: prejudice against homosexuals, women, abortion, unwanted pregnancies, etc.
IMHO the fastest growing religion these days is atheism
You're confusing things. The fact that fewer people are being suckered into adopting a world view and moral framework that's creakily perched on top of a fantasy notion of the supernatural isn't "growing atheism," it's... just fewer people falling for the fairy tales. Mysticism has a harder and harder time getting hold of young minds when they grow up not needing it to (badly!) explain earthquakes, the weather, viruses, and vitamins.
Atheism isn't a religion. It's the simple absence of one. It's the normal state of seeing the world. It doesn't "grow," it simply IS. The only thing to pay attention to are the numbers of people who go out of their way to twist their kids' minds into tolerating the contradictory, silly notions of a capricious, personality-having omniscient and all-powerful being that isn't happy unless he's worshipped and having people beg for a good life... but who none the less still likes to sometimes kill kids with cancer and tornados just to keep everyone on their toes.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
When discussing certain aspect of theology, theist(American Christians*) will try to use that as an argument.
It's a non sequitor or a strawman, but what's another logical fallacy amongst believer, eh?
* A certain breed of Christian that only reads passages dictated by there pasture, doesn't actually attempt to understand the history of the bible, and fails to understand that science is used to determine how things work, and the religion doesn't. Also, they refuse to believe there book that has been retranslated many times could not possibly be anything but literal.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on