Is it fair to be suspicious of an entire profession because of a few bad apples? There are at least two important differences, it seems to me. First, no one doubts that science actually works, whatever mistaken and fraudulent claim may from time to time be offered. But whether there are any “miraculous” cures from faith-healing, beyond the body’s own ability to cure itself, is very much at issue. Secondly, the expose’ of fraud and error in science is made almost exclusively by science. But the exposure of fraud and error in faith-healing is almost never done by other faith-healers.
Here Neil DeGrasse Tyson gives an excellent account of why science is so personally important to him. For those too lazy to watch, load the video and go to around 6:55.
The simplest thought like the concept of the number one
Has an elaborate logical underpinning
The brain has its own language
For testing the structure and consistency of the world
Religion has not merit. It is undeserving of this absurd respect demanded of it. It is something to be fully and robustly disdained. Worst yet, it’s untrue. I mean, come on. Virgin birth? Reincarnation? Shut the hell up, you crazy kooks
Rather than to dilute and delude one’s self with stories, tales, and myths of little worth, it seems far more reasonable to live every day in appreciation of Nature and its exquisiteness. This appreciation will go unnoticed, surely, by our grand, unconscious Creator – Nature herself – but the utter joy and beauty present in a view of the world based upon reality is surely more worthwhile than anything else to have been fathomed.
The proposition of a Comforting Creator seems, to me, so infantile that clinging to such a notion is nothing more than a belittling of the intricate tapestry that is the Cosmos.
I have an utter rage about me at the moment. The Oppressors want to deny citizens of my fair state their equal protections on the law. This is a denial of marriage as a right at all; should the Oppressors achieve their moral imposition, they shall have succeeded in making a marriage a privilege. They seek to undermine the very concept of rights. A clear violation of the 14th Amendment, such action would also have outraged the founding fathers.
“What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.”
For the Sake of Science 