Religion & Ethics: Content from Across the ABC




Date/Time 17 Mar 2014 1:18:15pm
There is so much wrong with this article it's hard to know where to start. Here are a few points:

There is no evidence provided to support Gray's claim that "Secularisation is in retreat."

The theory of memes is a reasonable and coherent theory that deserves far more serious attention than it currently receives. Natural selection will inevitably apply to any suitable situation where replicators are copied, varied and transmitted. Genes are one example of such replicators, and memes represent another.

There is no evidence that "religion is hardwired in the species". Various evolved characteristics may predispose some people to adopt religious beliefs, but these beliefs can certainly be modified or abandoned because of education.

There is no evidence that Hitler was an atheist. If anything, he was a Christian, and his hatred of Jews had deep historical roots in European Christianity.

The crimes of Stalin and Mao were not driven by their atheism, but rather by their deranged lust for power. They established all-encompassing ideologies that were equivalent to political religions.

How can belief in "universal democracy" be "more offensive to reason than the mysteries of religion"?

Gray continually conflates atheism with secularism, but they are quite different. Atheists simply claim that there is no evidence for God, or for related religious beliefs. Secularists want there to be a clear separation between government and religion.

Gray is a poor scholar, who either deliberately or naively misrepresents much of his subject matter, and frequently draws unjustified conclusions. There are many relevant thinkers and writers (such as Dawkins, Dennett and Grayling) who deserve our attention. Gray is not one of them.