I would have liked to see Shermer engage in a more traditional style of debate (not only impart support for your position, but point out the fallacies of your opponent’s arguments). For instance, when D’Souza was speaking about religion as wish fulfillment not having Hell, it would have been nice to hear the mention of “cosmic justice” in Shermer’s rebuttal. A debate, by its nature, will not be won only by explaining how you are right. You must also explain why your opponent is wrong. D’Souza did a better job of this, even if his arguments were flawed.

I more or less agree with Shermer as to whether religion is good or evil, only instead of yes, my answer is no. Religion (just like many human constructs) is neither good nor evil, just as an ingot of steel is neither good nor evil. The ingot could be used to make a sword that kills children, or it could be fashioned as part of an irrigation system allowing fresh water for the impoverished. Either way, the ingot is neither good nor evil, it is only what humans do with the ingot that can be considered good, evil, moral, or immoral. Good and evil are themselves human constructs and do not exist outside the human social construct. Religion has been used as the rationalization for great wrong, and the inspiration for great altruism.

My father is a more aggressive athiest, and hopes that some day religion will wither away under the weight of empirical and rational thought. Religion will never go away. The simple fact of the matter is that people are not only rational, but emotional and capable of great rationalization (in the logical sense). People believe not what is true, but what they choose to believe. This is true of all people. “I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.” (typically paraphrased: “God does not throw dice.”). This is a quote from Albert Einstein regarding quantum physics. Einstein chose not to believe the theory, even though he admitted that this was where the math lead him. It turns out that the theories that Einstein was referring to were correct.

We all believe what we choose to believe. This is part of the human condition. We are hard wired to be tribal, we are hard wired to seek patterns, and we hate and fear not knowing something. This is what it is to be human, and as long as we are human, there will be religion.

We would be the same without religion. Mother Teresa and Osama Bin Laden would still exist without religion, they just would have found other justifications for their actions. I was reading something about the new U.S. hate crime legislation and how many congressmen felt it would eliminate racism. I laughed. Racism is an expression of traits that are hard wired into humans, as are sexism, ageism, communism, egalitarianism, and, yes, religion. Passing a law will not stop humans from acting like humans. That doesn’t mean that the negative aspects of these traits should not be dealt with (they must for us to progress as a society), but let’s not kid ourselves. The only way for us to stamp out religion is to stamp out certain hard wired human traits, which will have its own set of negative consequences.

Like it or not, religion is here, and it’s here to stay until our brains evolve significantly. The same argument can be made for science (remember, science is merely the process for finding the truth of the physical laws we are constrained by). It would be great if, as with any social group, the members could work with each other to benefit society as a whole.

There is no God . . it’s just a convenient excuse.

I would agree that D’Souza won this debate, but the format, audience and moderator where all very obviously in favor of Dinesh from the beginning. I’m not sure anyone could pull off as much as a draw when debating someone in front of a hostile audience, with a moderator agreeable to the opposition in a format that almost always allows your opponent the final word.

As someone who had a focus on history in college (undergrad degree in it) I see this comment by P K Narayanan (Dr) as proof there is such a thing there is a misleading and aggressive atheist.

Plenty of wars have been started (and are fought today) over reasons that don’t relate to religion. The latest civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which killed a great many people) has been fought over a combination of resources that can be exploited for profit and ethnic tensions.

Looking back in history there have been plenty of times religious individuals killed others for being heretics, non-believers, and so on. Most of these killings were aimed at people who had different beliefs rather than none. However, atheists have been involved in murdering others. It is a fact that thousands upon thousands of people were killed under Stalin by the atheist (and communist) Russian government of the day. At the very least atheism has failed to protect people’s lives when in a position of power. And while many of the killings in Cambodia were done for a list of reasons that didn’t always include religion it is a fact that Buddhist monks were killed by atheists in Cambodia for being religious people.

I have no hope that atheism will bring peace because people, atheist or not, have been willing to kill in the past and likely will in the future.

While not frequently being a reason some atheist ideology (and atheism can and has been developing into an ideology) has been used to justify murder.

I have a good friend who is an atheist. If you asked me if I expected her to murder others the answer would probably be no. But does that mean someone being an atheist magically makes it impossible for them to be rude (my friend has been on occasion-not usually but sometimes) or murderous? The answer is no.

So I was pleased to see Shermer not taking the bait, not responding with angry counter personal attacks. Yet, I could have hoped for more direct rebuttal of some points others have mentioned, such as the genocide in Cambodia being due to atheism. Just a few words might have stopped the ‘believing’ audience from taking those talking points home with them.

D’Souza’s digs seemed especially gratuitous to me, seeing as how he already enjoyed home field advantage. But I imagined that they grew less common as the debate went on. Is it possible that the the example of tolerance from the atheist, positively influenced the christian?

I can only imagine the strength it takes to stand up before a hostile audience and defend any position — thank you Michael Shermer for your public efforts on behalf of reasoned atheism, not to mention civility.

P. K. : “But, as I view it, these generalizations would not constitute a viable answer to the question whether religion and faith are forces of destruction or otherwise.”

Can we exclude socioeconomic factors from the belief, more specifically the pull towards violence? I understand that religion i.e., faith is counter reason and logic and therefore makes it easier to believe outlandish things but does that necessarily make it “evil”?
Is there a danger of “blaming” a thing for the actions of an individual or individuals? In other words, someone can say that (easy target) Nazism is the Truth, but ultimately the individual decides (regardless of means of knowledge acq.) what is or is not viable or true. So to blame an “ism” seems misplaced, no?
Social Darwinism and the subsequent eugenics movement is a prime example of a secular trend towards sloppy thinking and misguided ethical practices.
While I agree that religion(s), in general, foster, and indeed make a virtue of blind faith, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the individual has to “buy.” More to the point, one may have that very same “Blind Faith” in strictly secular ideals, organizations and institutions.

P. K. : “No doubt, majority of the followers of different religions are peace loving and rationale but then, how and through what mechanism, the perpetrators could have a stake in their community of rationality? How to infuse a stake in them?”

This is, in my mind, the million dollar question. Fear seems to be a great answer. Fear of no future, obliteration of ones culture and way of life. No economic prospects, and in Islam this is a killer, because young men with no economic prospects get no women, via marriage ergo no sex.
Let us think about the demographic of extremist Islamic sects that perpetrate violence. Largely young males who’s “imams” are telling them that their reward for martyrdom will be ex-amount of virgins in the afterlife i.e., sexed up in heaven.
These young men have no future within the context of their culture, because there are no jobs for them to support a family, so the pull factor of radical Islam is strong because it claims to fulfill that desire.
A counter example would be Western Middle-Class Christianity. The followers of those sects of Christianity have a no less barbaric and war based ideology and yet are not as (currently) violent.
I think that “middle-class” is the key. In other words, you don’t rock the boat when you have a stake (read property and/or the ability/resources to attain “The Good Life”) because the society you destroy isn’t “foreign” or the “other” it is in fact, legally, yours.
It’s easier for a person to use the rationale of faith when they’re destroying someone else’s life, and to then obliterate they’re own (suicide attacks) when there is no reason for you to preserve the society that you feel is not yours and will never be.
I used to work with gang members and they have the exact same conditioning with regard to society and they’re place in it. The fix, is giving them a place in the society and access to the means so that they may have a chance to succeed or fail, but all important is a sense of purpose, and agency.

P.K.: “It is impossible: In the context of the penchant for power, penchant for authoritarian dictatorship, the perpetrators have chosen the fittest of the tools, that is religion and faith because the faithful followers of the particular religion uphold the tenet that the ones who do not follow their faith are enemies to be annihilated.”

I agree to a point. It logically follows that if ones belief dictates that one must convert or destroy ones rivals then that’s what should occur, yet we don’t see that in “faithful” countries with large middle-class populations.

P.K.: “In this process of destruction the faithful will remain silent spectators for they regard the process as ordained by their god. What has happened and what is happening in America (9/11) Afghanistan, Pakistan, India (26/11) and elsewhere at the hands of terrorists, is the result of engaging the ‘fittest tool’ that is religion. Any other set up whether secular or not is “satanic” for the religious fundamentalist terror conglomerate for its target for destruction.”

To be honest, I must admit that your statement rings true. I think there (at least with regard to the Big Three) is an element of an “End-Times” that is preordained and that “Good” will win out over “Evil.” So there is an idea in the believers mind that the future is preordained and that the events are grand spectacles of a cosmic war, played out by participants in the here and now, and in the service of God. The belief gives the believe a sense of purpose, specialness, smugness-something that their societies probably don’t give them.
How seductive is the pull of “Fighting the Good Fight”?

Thank you for the conversation, I’m going to have to re-read your posts, I think (Read hope) that I’m getting the message, and thanks again for your patience.

Chris