Primitive reptilian brain behaviour obviously manifests itself in Christian and Moslem authoritarian religions. The modern Moslem religion now is doing what the Christians did a few centuries ago when it was the Christians who had much political power.
Salman Rushdie has been sentenced to death and living in mental torture suffering because, according to the Moslem leaders, his Satanic Verses, “insulted the Prophet, Muhummad, cast aspersions upon Islam, cast doubts upon the authenticity of the Holy Koran and rejected the divinity of Allah”. That is, no challenge, no criticism, no satirisation, no justified ridicule of that apostasy etc. (all stoning-to-death penalty jobs in the Bible).
This is another example of how most religions make their beliefs infallible or not capable of being refuted either by law or definition or invalid self-referral logic.
Another good example. of irrefutable religious belief is the problem of evil and suffering. No matter how much evil and suffering there is in the world, even in imagination, that still does not count as evidence against the belief of a kind, loving, benevolent, all-powerful, all-knowing God. That belief is infallible.
Prof. Richard Dawkins, (author of “The Selfish Gene” and “The Blind Watch-maker”) says religious beliefs are so all-persuasive and powerful in all cultures that it needs an explanation. He says religious belief is mind virus, genetically transmitted; to which I add there is no cure, not even truth, logic and reason. But we must try and nip in the bud nutty and cruel religious beliefs, even if it seems hopeless. On the 29th December, 1990, a leading fundamentalist Jewish Rabbi and politician said the Nazi Jewish holocaust and genocide was God’s punishment for such Jewish sins as violating the Sabbath and eating pork. Rabbi Shach said that “the Almighty keeps a balance sheet of the world and when the sins become too many, He brings destruction.”
How do you refute that?
One feels we really do live in a world of religious nuts and lunacy and not much can be done about it.
By Dean R Dowling