Helena
I would argue that one of the greatest challenges facing civilization in the twenty first century is for human beings to learn to speak about their deepest personal concerns—about ethics, spiritual experience, and the inevitability of human suffering—in ways that are not flagrantly irrational.
Sappho
Absolutely. We desperately need a public discourse that encourages critical thinking and intellectual honesty! Unfortunately, it is probably true to say that nothing stands in the way of this project more than the respect we accord religious faith.
Zoe
Surely, you would be the first to admit that the prospects for eradicating religion in our time do not seem good?
Sappho
I see your point. Nevertheless, the same could have been said about efforts to abolish slavery at the end of the eighteenth century. Anyone who spoke with confidence about eradicating slavery in the United States in the year 1775 surely appeared to be wasting his time, and wasting it dangerously.
Zoe
That analogy is not perfect.
Helena
I agree, but it is suggestive. If we ever do transcend our religious bewilderment, we will look back upon this period in human history with horror and amazement.
Sappho
How could it have been possible for people to believe such things in the twenty first century? How could it be that they allowed their societies to become so dangerously fragmented by empty notions about God and Paradise?
Helena
The truth is, some of people’s most cherished beliefs—whether they be part of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or Scientology for all I care—are as embarrassing as those that sent the last slave ship sailing to America as late as 1859 (the same year that Darwin published The Origin of Species).
(Based on: Harris. S. 2006. Letter To A Christian Nation p. 28)
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