I like to think that I am an optimist. But when I look around the world, much of what I see is insanity, plain and simple. (Well, insanity may be a little imprecise, and a little too hyperbolic, but suffice it to say that billions of people on this planet--billions of them--lack what I would call good critical thinking skills.)
A significant part of my professional mission is to enable people to think better. But despite my best efforts, there's a tsunami of dogma and ignorance out there that's formidable, and I don't see us overcoming it in the next several decades--maybe the next couple of centuries.
Clearly the most formidable of all those forces is organized religion, which takes dubious thinking to new heights. Because virtually all religions regard their beliefs, and the things that underlie these beliefs, as immutable and inerrant, critical thinking goes right out the window. We're dealing with "Truth" with a capital "T," and no matter how ridiculous the notion (virgin births, 72 virgins in heaven, reincarnation of souls, etc. etc.) it has to be "true" because it's the Word of God. Well, that's just plain rubbish, and anyone with the proper education, including theology students, knows better. But most of the world just follows along as some guy in a funny outfit tells them that if they have impure thoughts, they're going to hell.
I realize that my posture is almost inherently "elitist." But it's really hard not to see the major belief systems of the world as arbitrary and illogical--and yes, even ignorant and stupid. And until we do, I just don't know how we bridge the gaps between people--all we do is perpetuate a bizarre world that is bisected into the "faithful" and the "unfaithful," the true believers and the infidels, the good and the bad.
When Christopher Hitchens says that "religion poisons everything," I regret to say that I think he's basically right. If only religion could be based on uncertainty--if it could, we could all, together, embrace the universe and its many mysteries.
