#intellectual surrender

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"Theism comes down to laziness in thinking…

You look at the most complicated systems of our biological and social world - the evolution of life from single-celled organisms to complex modern beings - the chemical and physical construction of DNA- and simply get to say, "God did it". This is how religion began. Instead of looking for answers to that which is unknown, we ascribe a deity and call it a day."

-- David G. McAfee

You don't get to solve an Appeal to Complexity in three words.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

“In the brain of every religious person there is a god shaped vacuum.”

-- Jeremy Konopka

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"Freethinkers reject faith as a valid tool of knowledge. Faith is the opposite of reason because reason imposes very strict limits on what can be true, and faith has no limits at all. A Great Escape into faith is no retreat to safety. It is nothing less than surrender.”

-- Dan Barker, “Losing Faith in Faith”

Faith is where reality is not.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Just because you prefer the mystery and wonder of an epic sage told in simple language doesn’t mean there aren’t people smarter than you that know better and have figured out that it wasn’t literal magic.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

And how can you claim to know what the “supernatural” is capable of when you can’t show it even exists? Lack of explanation cannot itself be an explanation.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

“I’ll pray for you.” The condescending hybrid “I surrender”/”fuck you” escape hatch of the religionist.