Religion can only destroy earth and the human race

By Letter to the Editor on April 27, 2018.

Re: “Letter adds to religious divisions,” April 9

Religious division and the fires it generates will disappear only when religion does. Encouraging two or three generations of students to think critically, in particular to weigh the belief of an imaginary genocidal maniac that controls the universe and everything in it against the reality revealed by science and its methods and decide which account is most rational, may do this.

Never has any evidence for the existence of god that meets scientific standards been cited. In addition to the evidence that supports an acceptable scientific theory, it must document experiments that buttress the theory, the results of which are reproducible by any other scientist. It must be falsifiable, i.e. it must be possible to conceive an empirical observation or a logical argument which could refute it. Religion provides none of this in spite of having almost 3,000 years to do it.

The Bible contains many references on which to base the claim of genocidal mania. “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.” (Numbers 31:17)

“Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” (1 Samuel 15:2-3)

“Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod: waste and utterly destroy after them, saith the Lord, and do according to all that I have commanded thee.” (Jeremiah 50:21)

There are at least another 19 biblical passages detailing genocides ordered by God.

Religion can never save the human race and the planet on which it lives. It can only destroy them.