A new commenter named “Meathead” responded to yesterday’s “dialogue” post (“Dear Religion”, etc.) with the following riposte about the benefits of faith over science:
Dear Science,
Today I helped someone love another more than they did yesterday while you devised yet another way to kill or dismember people.
Stop advancing the technology of hate – please.
Yours,
Religion
I leave it to the readers to respond on behalf of Science.
Dear Religion,
Without you there would be much less hate.
Yours,
Science
PS: And probably more elephants as well: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/10/ivory/christy-text
Dear Religion
The point you made that science devises ways to kill and maim is of course completely ill informed and plain silly.
Science and technology are able to provide countless beneficial ways of improving health care and hunger-relief to name just two. Prayer on the other hand is merely a self indulgent activity producing nothing. In fact if we waited for any of the many Gods to help us our world would be a much emptier and more difficult place to survive in.
Look what religious leaders did in the past to those who demonstrated the many scriptural inconsistencies with truth and fact. Repression and little progress is the main thrust of religion.
Orange groves are in full bloom in Jyväskylä, but over here it’s Thursday.
This is just about the logical structure of Meathead’s post:
not just a non-sequitur, but one damn non-sequitur after another, interspersed with fallacies and specious conclusions.
The first “dialogue” wasn’t anything to write home about.
This one isn’t even worth bothering.
Dear Religion,
Today, while you were hatin on teh gayez, I came up with yet more ways to heal sick people and make folks’ lives more comfortable. (I would have done more, but you kept getting in the way … something something dignity, something something immortal soul.)
Luv,
Science
Dear Meathead,
Where’s the beef? I see only a bunch of hot air.
Yours,
A Science fan.
Dear Religion,
a technology of hate would be your own speciality. From the many examples, just remember the inquision of your Roman Catholic Church. Exciting times, weren’t they for you?
Science is the only way for humans to deal with the real world and make it a better place.
“Oh that’s so mean! I’ll have to go cry into my pillow now…”
Dear Meathead,
People have been helping each other before religion was invented. There are studies which show that nonreligious people have more compassion than religious ones. We help because the issue is there, not to convert to our ideology.
Technology can be used for good and ill, as you already know.
Yours,
on behalf of Science
So, “ALL you need is love.” Really? Let us know whether that is your position.
Hey Religion (if that is even you real name!),
Stop talking in riddles and falsehoods. Plus, where is your empirical data to back up your claim? I’d love to see it and repeat your test and see if I get the same results.
All the best,
Science
Dear Religion,
While you were devising new ways and new reasons to kill people for not believing in your delusions, I was looking for new ways to heal people.
Stop pressuring people into hating and killing others.
Please?
Yours,
Science
Dear Religion,
Thanks for the lesson on Love.
Deuteronomy 22:28-29 Leviticus 24:16
Leviticus 20:27 1Kings 21:10
Numbers 15:32-56 Malachi 2:3
Numbers 31:15-17 1Samuel 15:2-3
Psalms 137:9 Hosea 13:16 Ezekiel 9:5-6
Isaiah 9:19-20
Yours,
Science
Beat me to it. +1.
I think Meathead had it backwards. Religion is the killer and dismemberer…not science! The entry should have read…
Dear Religion,
Today I helped someone be better off than they were yesterday while you devised yet another way to kill or dismember people.
Stop advancing the philosophy of hate and exclusiveness – please.
Yours,
Science
Dear Religion,
Sorry to be late in responding to your note. I’ve been busy patching up that young Pakistani girl you shot.
Regards,
Science
anthrosciguy, I think you win.
+1
Win
You win this one. 2+
Bingo!
+3
The win is strong in this one.
Meathead – I find your use of the word “love” incongruous, I’m sorry.
Everything you do is “love”, including whatever violent means you people use to enforce compliance with your beliefs. “I love you so much, I’m going to _____”.
Even the underlying scripture, “God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, etc.” doesn’t ever get analyzed by you and yours, just swallowed whole.
JUST WHO decided that we should be eternally damned and need saving in the first place? AHH, yes, the SAME GOD!! OOOH, how utterly loving!!
If you have ever, in your here-and-now real world experience, been blamed for something you didn’t do, by someone who KNEW you didn’t do it, your reaction to that would NOT be to feel loved.
Believe me, the people on the receiving end of your behavior don’t feel loved. You can call what you do “love” all you want, but it isn’t, and never will be.
Science is not in the business of causing violence, it’s in the business of figuring out how things work. It has provided much alleviation of suffering as an outgrowth. When misused, there can be violent outcomes, yes, but that is not the fault of the science.
You not only see science as evil, you see questioning of any kind as evil. Blind obedience is your goal, and even if there is no sincerity, just fear, behind the obedient behavior, that is OK with you.
Sincerely, L
Well that’s the best comment on this matter
Indeed. In some people’s mind Blind Obedience = Love.
Dear Religion,
I hereby confirm your appointment at our clinic. The problems regarding your incompetence to deal with important ethical issues need to be dealt with as soon as possible.
Highest regards,
Dunning-Kruger
Science – vaccination
Christian Science – faith healing
I know which kind of ‘love’ I choose for our children and grandchildren.
I quote from The Unpublishable, my unfinished novel.
“Felicity is nice. I’m not even sure she’s a Christian. She wants to do good deeds, to collect for charity and help people around about her. What’s that got do with Christianity? The poor girl’s been told that all her altruistic instincts are Christian ones. Nonsense. She’s just a pleasant girl. And you Christians have somehow managed to fool the rest of us that the golden rule is something unique to your religion; well, it’s not, and you, Father, know that it’s not.”
Where is the causal link between faith and good deeds? Assuming Meathead is a Christian, I’d ask what he thinks of the justification by faith alone, observable in Paul, in Luther and Augustine (in opposition to Pelagius’ promotion of the obligation on Christians to do good).
I’d also paraphrase Euthyphro’s dilemma to him. Is an action good because God says it is? Or does God stand by the good because it is good?
Not science, but not religion, either.
God became good? When did this happen?
Take it up with Socrates; I think he might agree with you.
That ain’t science, that’s technology.
So was Baumgartner’s jump, I guess.
Of course technology relies on science for the know-how that permits it to be effective.
And almost any technology can be misapplied or perverted, frequently by religion.
I’d almost echo that poster – ‘stop advancing the technology of hate’ – if by that he means just weapons development, yes I agree 100%.
But science in that respect is usually neutral, just like (say) Google Maps is – I’m sure someone’s used them before now to plan a terrorist attack. Almost any scientific knowledge can be used or misused.
Religion, OTOH, can be used as a security blanket by the faithful but more often seems to be used for regimenting people and justifying wars.
So I’d say, ‘stop advancing the religion of hate’.
This well known poem by William Blake comes to mind when religious people talk about “love”. The Garden of Love:
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys & desires.
Okay.
Dear Religion,
I didn’t invent any reasons to maim or injure people. That was you.
Yours,
Science
+1
Dear Religion,
If you really want to help people love each other more than they did yesterday, please organize your followers to approve gay marriage in all states and countries.
We won’t wait for you to show up, though….
The World
Dear meathead,
If it hasn’t already, science, at some point very soon, will probably save your life and of those you love. And probably extend them as well.
There is no Canadian physics or Jewish chemistry; there’s just chemistry. Science and Reason unify humanity, Religion divide’s it.
Dear Religion,
If you so despise the tools and techniques dreamed up by Me to ease the life of humanity, stop using my tools to shoot, blow up, bulldoze, torture and otherwise cause misery.
Stop turning my products *into* tools of hate.
If you use a gun to shoot a schoolgirl (to pick *the* topical instance) is this the fault of the technology required to smelt and forge the metal, to develop fast-burning chemical reactions, to accurately machine artefacts to a high tolerance? Or is it the fault of the one whose motivation is to develop and use a machine whose purpose is to cause misery, destruction and death?
Right, now you go away and explain exactly how telling people a bunch of stupid fairy stories helps them love one another more? I rather think your narcissistic self-delusion requires that you be incarcerated into a mental asylum for the safety of all with whom you share a universe.
Now get out of my cosmos. NOW!
… from Science.
Dear Religion,
I thought I invented Viagra.
Yours,
Science
It seems that one would need to ask what was done to help “someone love another more than they did yesterday.” How was the success of this endeavor measured? Without answers to these questions, the claim cannot be fairly evaluated. Shouldn’t such claims be evaluated openly and objectively, or should religious claims of that sort be considered private and beyond public scrutiny? In his book, The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life Austin Dacey argues that secular liberals had given away their moral compass by insisting that questions of conscience, religion, and values are private. Dacey says that idea was being challenged when the Jyllands Posten published its images of Muhammad. I feel inclined to question the the rationality of a certain presidential candidate’s presumed adherence to the tenets of his faith concerning the importance of wearing religiously sanctioned underwear. Should someone who believes that members of his church should buy their underwear from that church be given a pass as a free-market Capitalist? Would those underwear help someone love another more than they did yesterday? If so, shouldn’t we all have the opportunity to buy them without needing to become Mormons?
Well done. Notice that comparative measurements are overwhelmingly omitted from all religious texts. “More” and “less” are purposely fuzzy, because =lack= of measurement allows inventing explanations to fit real events….such as, the number of people killed in a series of tornadoes, and the the number claiming to be “saved” by Supernatural forces.
Dear Meathead.
There are three people. One of them creates two guns. One man takes one gun and saves his family from a violent intruder. The other man takes his gun and is ,in fact, the violent intruder. Of the three men, which one is evil? Is it the man who created the gun through scientific knowledge? Of course not Mr. Meathead. Millions of people have been slaughterd in the name of religion. Should we blame the manufacturer of the weapons they use to do it?
Not that I agree with Meathead’s stupid snark, but modern weapons have hugely increased casualties in ‘local’ wars in third-world countries, for example. Land mines, cluster bombs, submachine guns. One can certainly blame their proliferation on the arms trade.
Of course that is only partly down to the technologists who make the things, equally if not more culpable are the money men who finance the factories and grow rich on the profits and the agitators, possibly most of them religious, who start these wars.
Dear Religion,
While your love letters are appreciated, I can only recommend you forgo further comment on the subject until you understand what love means in theory *and* practice.
Until then, yours,
Science
Dear Religion,
Were you talking to the voice in your head at the time? You’ve been doing that a lot lately. We can help.
Science
Dear Religion,
Citation needed.
– Science
Thanks, I was going to say it but you win the word-count competition!
Dear Religion,
I am neutral but if you want to play the blame game. You can thank me for the computer and the medium that you are writing this letter on. You can give appreciation towards me for the fact that you are cognitively and healthy enough to write a letter that criticizes my discoveries. How many illnesses have I treated and prevented for you or your families? I have given your loved ones back to you. Science
Dear Religion,
Please learn the difference between my sisters science and technology, and how the same law of nature can cure or kill, harm or heal, depending how it is used.
Yours,
Philosophy
Dear Meathead,
What an appropriate name. Apparently you haven’t thought this through very deeply (what can one expect from a meathead). Science and technology are amoral. It is how people put them to use. Now here is the fact you have overlooked. While many of the scientists who have made the discoveries may well have been non-believers, it was believers (yes, your fellow Christians) who have repeatedly employed this knowledge and the technology developed from it in the wars and crusades of death and destruction inflicted on humankind. Hitler was a christian. All the popes, need I remind you, were Christians. All the kings and queens of days past, need I remind you, were christians. Bush (Iraq) is a christian. It is mostly christians who have employed the tools and practices of torture. What large kahoonas you have to blame the practitioners of science for the evils of christians.
Furthermore, hate is you speciality. The South’s opposition to civil rights was a despicable brand of prejudice and hatred led by christians. Sure, chrisitans were on the other side of this conflict, but this only demonstrates the divisiveness of your religion and its “unholy” scriptures. You really are a clueless Meathead!
I believe the “meathead” name is used, because religious folk purport that the brain is simply “meat”, and really, not all that functional. All this neurological science is all arm-waving and fabrication, the religionists purport, because a measureless, magic, invisible “soul” is what is really running things inside each human. Consciousness? Well, cannot come from the “meat” in your “head”, you see. It’s this mystical non-physical thing that transcends space, material, and time.
That doesn’t even make sense (the religious attitude I mean, not your post!) If the soul is what does all the thinking, where is it located? I would guess it should be in the head, handy to the eyes, ears, and mouth i.e. the means of communication, no? In other words, in the brain. If the brain doesn’t do thinking (or act as a container/transmitter for the soul if you like) then what the heck does it do? And why does serious brain damage kill people instantly?
To me, the term ‘meathead’ will always be an insult implying that someone has zero mental capacity, I just find it hard to comprehend a school of thought, even one that believed in a soul, that would lead one to think otherwise.
I ain’t sayin that ‘Meathead’s name for himself is wrong, mind 😉
“Meathead” is a term many weightlifters use to refer to themselves and each other. Especially if they are using steroids, but not necessarily.
Umm, OK. I still find it a bit odd that anyone would voluntarily call themselves that. Admittedly I’d call myself a ‘nut’ (as in ‘car nut’) but that implies a degree of insanity or eccentricity, which is interesting, rather than dumb stupidity which is what ‘meathead’ implies (in, of course, my opinion 🙂
I think the implication lifters are going for is that they are “meaty”, or muscular.
In addition to being a little self-deprecating.
I get the self-deprecating bit, and I’m all for it – it shows a welcome sign of not taking oneself too seriously. But in being self-deprecating, one doesn’t want to insult oneself too grievously – it’s just my personal opinion that ‘meathead’ sounds really insulting, as I said.
Nah, you’re wrong. The most Occam-like explanation is that MH has spelled it wrongly; it’s Meethead. How come?
a) Christians usually have some orthographical blunder
2) It’s archaic and suitably religiose
iii) It means ‘qualified, fitting etc…’
fourth) His amour propre is retained; he’s not doing himself down, at all
Ta-da, with one vowel the Christian was saved. It’s the homoousion/homoiousion debate all over again.
It is also a straight-up insult, as you indicate. But perhaps “Meathead” is a lifter, thus the odd choice of ‘nym.
Dear Religion,
You said
“Today I helped someone love another more than they did yesterday”.
Guess that wasn’t a same-sex couple.
Yours,
Science.
Dear Advocate of Religion,
A deeper look at the history of religion shows that there is not as good a correlation of religion and good or loving behavior as you would like us to think.
Some religion seems outwardly benign but when explored more deeply inculcates negative attitudes but in the name of something it calls “love”. And so many people I know are just naturally altruistic (without being supernaturally altruistic.)
Have you seen the film “Night of the Hunter”? It portrays a troubled clergyman with the words “LOVE” and “HATE” tattooed on the knuckles of his right and left hands. He experiences both these feelings without any definite resolution. He can’t decide between the ethos of love exemplified in some parables in Luke or the ethos of hate exemplified in the Apocalypse. In the end, he becomes a predator and a murderer. A similar depiction of a religion of love degenerating into a religion of hate may be seen in the play or film “The Ruling Class”.
Science at its worst is merely morally neutral and can supply technology which in the hands of the wrong people creates a temptation to do foul misdeeds. But there’s an ethic of truth-telling and honesty that’s more pervasive in the scientific community than in the religious community.
Having grown up in a positive religious community, I have a residue or remnant of religious attitudes in my life, a reverence for beauty, a sense of the sacredness of nature and the universe, etc. but frankly these days I worry a lot more about how religious communities might !*hijack*! or !*constrict*! my better impulses. I remain very critical of some national trends and premises of the religion I still practice, Buddhism, and routinely read the better critics of same religion in order to maintain an independence of mind. I suppose if wanted to embrace a God-concept, it would be pantheism, but other than a minor attitude-shift, I don’t know what practical difference it would make in how I understand the world.
But, I’ll concede I didn’t like the first dialogue post much at all. Your reply however is even more one-sided.
A Happy Lover of Science who has been Disappointed in his Friendship with Religion
I think the earlier thread has a great reply already, found and related by steve oberski:
“Dear religion, instead of complaining that science is all up on its moral high-horse, why don’t you simply lead by example. If you are so concerned about being labelled as amoral, backwards, selfish sky fairy lovers, then why don’t you stop shooting kids in the face, stop raping little boys, stop hoarding money for expensive churches, stop dictating what people who don’t believe your beliefs should be doing/saying etc etc
In short stop PRETENDING to be moral, and actually BE it!
Regards
Society”
If there is such a thing as “predestination”, why not castrate males-to-be-priests, in the womb?
The original pro-science item was very specific. The new pro-religion item is vague and therefore unsupported; an amateurish effort at best.
Dear Religion,
Science flies humans to the moon.
Religion flies jets into skyscrapers.
Dear Religion
What was the person’s name?
Yours
Science
Dear Religion,
mote, beam.
Science
This is a fatuous “line of argument” for this Web site to pursue.
On the other hand, maybe you can resolve this battle of the slogans once and for all. Which of the following is true:
Guns kill people; or
People kill people?
One of the things people can do to keep other people from using guns to kill yet other people is to try to make guns as unavailable as possible.
Dear Meathead,
Were there no murders, no genocides, no acts of hate before people started using evidence and rational thought to find out how the world works, i. e. before science really took off?
This “technology of hate” you’re trying to impugn is nothing more than knowledge about how the world works. Do you imagine you’d enjoy the quality of life you do if we didn’t know anything about explosives, ballistics, nuclear forces and reactions, etc? This knowledge makes a host of beneficial technologies possible.
But the knowledge is abused by meatheads who have motives engendered by the divisive tribalism of religion.
Come on, would you really listen to a phrase like “the murders were apparently inspired by a knowledge of chemistry and physics” and think “makes sense to me”?
Dear religion,
If you don’t like science so much, stop using computers to whine. BTW, wasn’t it a baptist who sanctioned the use of an atomic bomb on Japaneese civilians?
Dear Religion:
Necessity is the mother of invention. If you didn’t keep demanding new ways of killing and maiming people, I could carry on with my usual work of improving people’s lives.
Yours,
Science
I see a kind of symmetry between the Dear Science and Dear Religion letters. In both cases they are using particular instances to represent the whole, so in both cases logical fallacy is involved. These little messages between science and religion qualify as humor, not truth.
It is true that people are capable of love or hatred whether they are religious or not.
Here is something else true: people get on much better with science and without religion than they do with religion and without science. It is far easier for the atheist to abandon the benefits and beliefs of religion than for the religious to abandon the benefits and the knowledge of science.
There is no idea or teaching of love in religious doctrine that an atheist can not think for themselves, there is no moral teaching that an atheist can not decide to follow by reasoning it is a rational way to live. There really is nothing religion teaches about love or morality that is not just simple intuitive human nature. That is because simple intuitive humans, with no special knowledge whatsoever, invented religion in their own minds.
But without the systematic study of natural reality that is the hallmark of science, a study that suggests religion is totally wrong in every claim it makes about nature, the religious would live in a primitive state without high speed digital communication or high speed travel, without refrigeration, air conditioning, electricity, machinery of any kind, without surgery, transplants, anti-biotics, or effective medicine of any kind, in a world of back breaking toil, rampant disease, tooth decay and squalor, high infant mortality and short life expectancy. Humans would be little better than animals who believe in supernatural beings.
Meathead needs to thank science for enabling him or her to communicate his or her message. The only thanks we could offer religion would be if it just went away.
I think that reply is very good, up until the last paragraph. I also liked the Linda Grilli Calhoun reply above (no. 14). I’m an atheist and definitely believe science is the correct approach and religion the wrong approach.
But what good does it do in the many replies to call the “religious” person “Meathead”? How will that win over any religious person?
And the “Stop advancing the technology of hate – please.” is not so easily dispensed with. It is not fair for scientists to claim all the positive technological applications of science and fob off the destructive applications by blaming others, usually religious people, for the application. Then why can’t religious people fob off all the nasty bible verses by some rationalization or other, and yet claim the nice sounding verses? Why don’t scientists just say they only discover knowledge and have no responsibility for either the good or bad applications? Weren’t there formerly plenty of hospitals around founded by religious organization and with religious names that applied medical research to healing?
How often these days do American scientific academics refuse to be funded by militarily related money? There have been some in the past, such as George Wald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wald ) who refused military funds and who might be an answer to Mr. Religious, and there were many who worked on nuclear weapons during WWII who later worked tirelessly to contain them. But there are also religious groups, such as the Quakers, who work tirelessly against war and violence.
How many American academics have spoken out against the policy of assassinating foreign scientists whose work might have military applications? – An unethical and dangerous practice to legitimize, in my opinion. I don’t know of a single one.
So as Jeff argues, the science-religion debate cannot be advanced by pointing fingers at each other for specific misdeeds and painting each other as completely black. Science definitely trumps religion by producing knowledge, understanding and results, but that doesn’t absolve scientists of ethical responsibility for their actions any more than “coming to Jesus” absolves Christians of responsibility.
Meathead was the commenter’s own chosen name. Note Jerry’s first sentence. It’s not a pejorative I made up, it’s the only name we were given.
The people most aggressively lobbying for expanding our military budget, and in favor of past and future wars in the Middle East are also those most loudly claiming that America is lost if religious ‘values’ are not dominant.
I think scientists research what interests them, but also they are not above researching what they are paid for. Most military science and engineering comes from profit oriented private firms paid by the government to develop better ways of killing people, a program that is heartily applauded by religious conservatives.
I’ve never met a scientist who loves it because they can create better ways to kill people.
So I think the “science kills” attack can be pretty easily dismissed as a boomerang right back into religion’s face.
GoodLord, man, the commenter called HIMSELF “Meathad”. Can you read?
I agree, religion has done good as well as evil, and hospitals are a good example. Often Christian charity comes with strings attached, such as in developing countries gifts of food and clothing come conditioned upon church attendance. I’ve spoken with Buddhists in Mongolia who realized that sitting through, ignoring, and later mocking and ridiculing Christian prayer meetings and indoctrination sessions was not too great a cost for some free stuff they really needed. They were offended that Christians thought they should betray their Buddhist upbringing and life long beliefs in exchange for food and trinkets. People know arrogance when they see it, even if it’s arrogance with a smiley face.
They sure do. Even children can spot a Christian creep’s smiley-faced arrogance a mile away (choirboys believe they are more “special” than girls who displease God when they sing, and that’s a really dumb mistake for young boys to make).
But what the Mongolian Buddhists (and Mrs Fritzl) failed to appreciate is that their children are a little less less likely to escape being kept a sex slave (Numbers 31:18).
Hospitals are a bit like schools, in some ways. Their inhabitants are more likely to be emotionally exploitable, and less likely to be capable of escaping unsolicited imposition (the rudeness of the Golden Rule appears lost on all but Compassionate Christians, who regularly urinate their toxic emotional degradation onto innocents in a Golden Shower of “pissing unto others” in ways no one sane could appreciate).
The true motive for Christian missionaries has only ever been adequately understood and addressed by cannibals; or at least, this is what I have been led to believe.
“Whenever cannibals are on the brink of starvation, Heaven, in its infinite mercy, sends them a nice plump missionary.”
– Oscar Wilde
I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call the synecdoche in these “letters” fallacy. It’s a rhetorical device.
There are a lot of things wrong with “Dear Science”, but I wouldn’t pick on synecdoche as one of them.
I do think the “Dear Religion” version more closely describes reality.
Dear Religion,
I am so sorry that you are continually embarrassed and shamed by people who think you are true. If only they could see you for the historical artefact that you are, then the rest of us (who aren’t so gullible) would be able to look on you with much more fondness.
Yours
The Enlightenment
Dear Religion,
If today you helped someone love another more than they loved them yesterday, than I assume you work for Pfizer.
Thanks,
Science
Dear Science,
Viagra is a selective phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitor available as 25, 50, and 100 mg tablets indicated for the treatment of erectile dysfunction.
You may be confusing “love” for “sex”. This is one of the more common misperceptions we field inquiries in regards to.
For emotional dysfunction, you may wish to consult your doctor to determine whether Desoxyn might be considered appropriate for inclusion in your treatment program.
Desoxyn is methamphetamine available as 5 mg tablets indicated for the treatment of ADHD & obesity in children and adults. It is intended to remedy behavioral & relationship difficulties when prescribed as part of an overall treatment program including psychological, educational and social measures. It is safe to use with children aged 0-65.
WARNING: This medicine should not be mistaken for the illicit ‘substitute’ commonly found on the government’s street corners, often incorrectly referred to by the media as “meth” or “methamphetamine”. The DEA and Justice also has a habit of doing that, as well. We’ve asked them to stop doing that but they insist on asserting that Mexican organised crime cartels have the capacity & intent to distribute generic Desoxyn in the US market.
But we cannot regulate that.
Regards,
The Federal Drug Administration
p.s. Religion doesn’t exist. Luke 14:33. We’re as confused as you are. But if you’re especially certain, you may wish to speak to your doctor about that symptom as well. We don’t understand why they keep overlooking that. It’s likely that you may suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, or a schizophrenia-related illness; all of which can, if left untreated, present as a “religious belief system”. Anti-psychotics will almost certainly be advisable.
Alternatively, you may just be suffering from ADHD or another learning disorder. Downs’ Syndrome is a distinct possibility you may wish to consider.
Failing all that, you’re almost certainly a sociopath. Please don’t kill me! Hold on a minute…!
Don’t you guys use “love” for that?!
Dear Religion,
Great post. You nailed it.
Yours,
Blind Faith
This is best or second best, I feel.
The “sorry I’m late to reply” one was also great.
Dear Religion,
Next time send your answer without the computer I made. In fact, don’t use another tool I have made ever again.
Yours, Science
Dear Religion,
Please stop taking the works of science and engineering and using them to murder and maim people who disagree with you.
F.S.M.
Dear Science: Thank you for protecting me and my brother from polio, diptheria, pertussis, smallpox and too many infections to count. Thanks for relieving my father’s knee pain with replacement joints. Thanks for my mother’s 13 years of good life after the heart valve replacement. Thanks for the medicines that control my hypertension and seizure disorder. Thanks for pain medications for headaches, injuries, cramps, etc. And a very special thanks for my trifocals!
By necessity, this is a truncated list. Science, you’re one of my best friends. Sent with love and admiration.
Dear Religion,
In regards to those two people who love each other more today than yesterday, you might just want to do a little checking up on them. If you did, you would see that they, and their respective villages, are now locked in a ongoing and escalating violent conflict, due to a dispute over a slight difference of interpretation of a little part of your dogma.
They are also using cell phones in explosively inventive ways no cell phone manufacturer ever thought of as well as developing horrendously creative ways, usually involving electricity, to make members of the other side see the error of their ways. All in your name.
So, who was it again, that needed to make them stop? Peace and love, was it?
Truly, best of luck in that respect,
Science
Dear Religion and Science,
You both have your head’s in the sand regarding overpopulation, human that is.
Religion believing that their invisible magic guy will fix everything, and Science trying to prolong pointless life, human again, and cure all illnesses, adding to this problem.
We are now an invasive species.
No!!
Science has given ways to cure diseases, prolong life AND prevent unwanted children.
It’s religion that insists on forcing people to carry on living (or dying very slowly) when they don’t want to, it’s religion that encourages / forces people to have more children than they or the planet can sustain.
Death by disease may be an effective curb on population but it’s neither desirable nor (in most cases) inevitable. Science has given us more control over that – it’s our fault if we misuse it.
P.S. I agree we’re an invasive species though, and need to do something about it. IIRC the Chinese government tried (what was it, one child per couple?) and of course some stoopid ‘muricans, whining about ‘human rights’, did their best to sabotage that…
Religion is transparently obsessed with quantity over quality. Historically, they also tend to burn quality at the stake or reduce them via emotional manipulation & other “lowest common denominator” restrictive techniques. They may also attempt to paint the best & brightest as “heroin junkies” (which with their addiction to empathy in a religious world presents as agony seeking pain relief).
The issue cannot be resolved via culling nor via (blanket) limitations on the quantity of births, but rather in our understanding that it’s the poor quality of child-rearing that is to blame. Presently, parents Protect their children from what truly is a traumatic Reality, if only because we ‘protect’ our children from it with deceit and/or ‘sweet’ Fantasy. Trauma isn’t child’s play; but parents seem determined to manufacture it via what amounts to a “Protection Racket” in some very disturbing ways. China’s one-child policy has some obvious side-effects you might need heroin to appreciate without needlessly imagining trauma.
I can only speak for my Self, but the attempt to convince me that I was somehow “special” (by merely existing) and/or worth loving at the expense or (or even to the exclusion) of all of Humanity has never really helped my emotional development or recovery from imagined shock or trauma.
I make a convincing Gatsby, however. “And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into PTSD.”
Love has always seemed a little too Needy & exclusive & dependence-forming to be a sane child-rearing technique. I understand “cutters” agree to disagree.
The (mainland) Chinese government still tries to FORCE each woman into heterosexual marriage and this 1 child;
if they had called it 0.91 or 1.02 children per woman-policy, they had done it right.
Because the human right to decide over our woman bodies begins with the simplest possibility: having NO children.
Up to one third of women per generation would make the choice that way if they could decide.
Confutsianism is a duty ethics system with the same outcome as religion.
Dear Religion,
Although I cannot deny that my products are all-too-often used to kill human beings, I offer, in contrast, what might be the best possible ways to understand that violence, the best possible ways to move beyond the limitations of biology and into a world of less violence and greater personal freedom.
Through the empirical investigations of psychology, neuroscience, paleontology, anthropology, evolutionary biology, a glimpse has emerged of what human beings truly are, a glimpse unclouded by the unnecessary postulates you spread so carelessly. Without gods or ghosts or devils or spirits, as one genetically-united species of brothers and sisters under the skin, people can learn to take responsibility for their own future. Humans can learn better ways to work together, better ways to love and hope and grow; but to do this, they must build from solid foundations: the foundations of this world, and of this life.
For love comes with understanding. I can show you ways to understand.
Science
Dear Science,
Re: Understanding.
Thanks, but no thanks.
I don’t need to understand. I already Know Best.
Regards,
Religion.
p.s. Have your filthy children heard the Good News? If you’re stupid enough to let me, I would like to tell them privately that their filthy sins are forgiven.
Hey hey now. We should all tolerate. Don’t you be rude!
Dear Religion
We both know very well that the only thing stopping You from wiping Your self-created enemies from the face of the Earth with nuclear weapons during your various, interminable and frankly bloody tedious schisms/crusades/jihads/conquerings of Promise Land[TM] (some of which are ongoing, need I remind You) was the fact that such weapons hadn’t been invented yet – but hey, You’ve always managed to do plenty of damage with steel and wood and fire (and battery acid), haven’t you? So, bless You for making do.
Anyway, don’t cop that “evil science” bollocks with me. I’m just a method and toolbox for describing and investigating and I’m totally open-source and available for anyone to try out. Any discoveries made when using Me are up to the discoverer to decide what to do with.
You, on the other hand, are a dogmatic authoritarian prescription for a narrow range of behaviours and thoughts based on unverifiable ancient myths and supported by endless generations of patriarchal political pandering. You do not brook dissent or interpretation lightly and You threaten or bribe people to practice You correctly. You insert Yourself where You’re not wanted or needed and pat Yourself on the back for giving rise to the modern world at large at every opportunity, despite the fact that You spent centuries viciously opposing Me – the very thing that made modernity possible.
So just shut up and take Your hand off it.
Yours in fact
Science
To: Religion
CC: The Black Eyed Peas
Found this in my Spam folder. I believe it’s yours?
| “Where is the love?”
Regards,
Science.
Dear Religion,
today I had to work hard to try and fix all the pain and dismemberement you inflicted on people using the weapons you claim to hate.
Stop USING the technology of hate – please.
Yours,
Science
It sure does make “Preparing for Peace” difficult, as the residents of Midian discovered awhile back.
Midian Casualties:
KIA – ~200,000
MIA – ~32,000
Israel Casualties:
KIA – 0
MIA – 0
Preparing for War > Preparing for Peace. At least, this is what leeches who prepare for war have been led to believe. And what those who wish to prepare for peace have been forced to accept, by religious preparations for war.
Religion has held a gun to the temple of the globe for 4-6000 years. Not sure what happened before that, but one imagines a far more peaceful, productive (and less polite) society was in existence prior to The Beginning, when a sociopath dumber than a 5th-grader created the Heaven and the Earth (note: see below).
(nb. No evidence has been tendered to support this claim. What instead appears likely is that humans reduced into a sub-humane Needy state were merely confused into coveting a life in the Hell on the Earth their malice inevitably creates.)
(reference: Numbers 31:1-54, The Holy Bible [KJV])
Dear Meathead,
Please refrain from using science to post your opinions. Please pray that your message will be disseminated to us telepathically by your deity or simply shout loudly next time. Use a bull horn if you wish, no, not that type of bull horn, a real bull horn, from a bull. Maybe we’ll hear ya.
PH
Dear Religion,
You just used science to get your (false) point across.
Yours,
Science
So are we to conclude that Religion holds the writ and the right to claim that torture, murder and other types of old and new jurisprudence activity is their holy right and holy writ jurisdiction? (including the necessary holy technology?)
Dear religion,
I do plead guilty that I have far too often provided you with the technology to spread your hate propaganda and to enforce your ideas of “love” from the use of the invention to make fire to burn “Witches” and “heretics” on the stake.
But times are a´changing…
Maybe my brainusers get a voice into the running of things – and I like each one of those humans to use what is inside their skulls.
Best regards
Science