Reasonism

Since the previous podcast in September, we have seen ISIS rise up from relative obscurity to a headline phenomenon requiring the attention of leaders around the world. In this podcast we provide you with a summary of a few headline cases here in Australia to fill you in. We continue with the reading of the Tyranny of God. In Chapter 20, we look at a World Without God.

In the previous podcast, I concluded that religious beliefs exist only to benefit their own progeny, not ours. In their struggle to assert themselves and dominate our minds, the memes inside our heads are commandeering us to wage war against each other and we simply become collateral damage. The sad thing is, even if many people kill and die for these beliefs, they are not alive. Yet many of us choose to act upon them and so manifest themselves in our world. In this podcast I argue against the idea that everyone should believe in whatever they want to believe to the extent that we should not even question whether these beliefs are true, valid or supported by evidence. This Sunday, 7th of September 2014, Chapter 19 of the Tyranny of God, Why We Need to Justify Our Beliefs.

In this podcast I will discuss the Fallacy of Religious Moderation to explore the ideas of religion being more modern, being more moderate and being more tolerant as though it has now evolved to a much wiser form of its violent and intolerant past. We will be prompted to ask what it is that we truly believe in and to think about what it means to believe.

In the previous podcast, we looked at the basic premise of democracy and the crucial concept of separating religion from the state. This Separation of Church from State is under threat in two fronts: Christian Dominionism and Shariah Law. Building on that in this podcast, I will discuss how Religions are undermining our Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Thought. This Sunday, 11th of May 2014, The Final Part of Chapter 17 of the Tyranny of God, God's Threat to Democracy.

In the previous podcast, I went through how human civilisation struggled out of religious despotism from the 1600s onwards. I said that our thinking has been transformed in different stages from the Protestant Revolution, The Age of Reason and The Age of Enlightenment all the way to the influences of scientific knowledge and discoveries and the development of new thoughts and ideas in politics, economics and philosophy. Now, we live in a world that has accepted and embraced many concepts that were once considered heretical, blasphemous or just generally irreligious. Yet, in most measures, our lives are generally much better off than they have ever been if we compare them with the lives of our ancestors living in the medieval ages and in more ancient times. In this podcast, I will argue that Religion continues to threaten the basic foundation of our modern societies: democracy. This Sunday, 5th of April 2014, Chapter 17 of the Tyranny of God, God’s Threat to Democracy.

In the previous podcast, we broadcasted the first part of Chapter 16 of the Tyranny of God titled Escape from Religious Despotism. I went through certain aspects of our lives today and compared them with what it was like when religion was at the height of its power centuries ago, before the wave of changes brought about by the Protestant Revolution, the Age of Reason and the Age of Enlightenment. I discussed how homes, and not just the church, have become places of worship, and sex became something that can and should be, enjoyed by both men and women, and not something dirty, to be ashamed of. We talked about Divorce, how people no longer have to stay in relationships if they are being abused, cheated on, or for whatever reason. People have become more literate and are encouraged to read books and educate themselves. We talked about gays and lesbians who struggle to have their relationships validated and acknowledged, just like heterosexual relationships. The last topic we discussed was how art stopped being an instrument of religion. Artists began featuring everyday people, not just saints and angels, in their artworks , and began expressing their thoughts and ideas about the human experience. In this podcast, I will pick up from where we left off and discuss how the role and our perception of money and wealth evolved from just something to give to the church, to something that people used as an indicator of their soul’s fate, and now, as something on which we have built our capitalist societies. From there, I will discuss the rise of irreligious and secular ideas. I will list what they were and how we have changed the way we perceive ourselves and how we approach our lives. This Sunday, 16th of March 2014, Part 2 of Chapter 16 of the Tyranny of God, Escape from Religious Despotism.

In the previous podcast, we broadcasted the final part of Chapter 15 of the Tyranny of God where I hope to have shown how the two dominant religions, Christianity and Islam came to dominate our civilisation not by mysterious divine powers but by being methodical in ways that evolved over time as religious leaders learnt from what worked and what didn’t. For thousands of years, humanity has followed similar patterns of inventing religions, growing their number of followers through brute force and violence as evidenced by our history of wars and battles due to religious competition. Although we still have many people holding to divisive ideas and belief systems today, it is still remarkable and worthy of celebrations that we have managed to somehow break free from a world totally led and controlled by religious zealots. In the next Chapter, we will come to understand the inspiring story of how we have accomplished this feat. This Sunday, 23rd of February 2014, Chapter 16 of the Tyranny of God, Escape from Religious Despotism.

In the previous podcast, we broadcasted the first part of Chapter 15 of the Tyranny of God where I began going through the process in which religions, more specifically, Christianity and Islam have come to be the most powerful religions today. First, they establish their god and their scriptures as authorities. Then they demand people to take their god and their scriptures seriously. They encourage people to substitute the need for evidence with faith. They instil obedience. They discourage doubt and enquiry and they enforce regular meetings to keep the faith strong within the minds of their converts. They then proceed to protect beliefs and silence contradictory ideas. In this second part of the podcast, I will continue going through the steps in which these two major religions have come to dominate our way of thinking. This Sunday, 9th of February 2014, Part 2 of Chapter 15 of the Tyranny of God.

Marquez discusses how the two most dominant religions today: Christianity and Islam, have spread. We will see how they achieved this by simply looking at the way their memes work together. We will look at how their belief system is structured to understand what continues to enable and empower them to thrive in the minds of people as parents pass on their beliefs and ideas from generation to generation.

Religions are just human organisations and like other human organisations, they are under pressure to survive. To survive, they need believers to support them financially or otherwise. Thus, they act like memetic organisms. Like viruses, they replicate in the minds of people, influencing the actions and behaviour of people the world over.