Faith-based hatred

Science writer Clay Farris Naff wrote a marvelous essay in the Huffington Post, in which he makes a case for his belief that "at this historical moment it is in religion that hatred finds its most powerful and all-consuming expression."

Naff cites these examples of faith-based hatred:

• The notorious Westboro Baptist Church, whose members picket funerals of U.S. soldiers because "God hates fags." And God also apparently hates Jews.
  
  
• Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur have published a new exegesis of the Torah in which the prohibition "Thou Shalt Not Murder" applies only "to a Jew who kills a Jew."
  
  
• One Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub went on Egyptian TV to assure viewers that "The Jews are our enemies. Allah will annihilate them at our hands."
  
  
• Apparently, God also hates President Obama, according to preacher Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church.

(By the way, Obama is not the antiChrist. Pat Robertson says so. He says the antiChrist is probably a Jew who lives in Israel today.)

Naff says:

If you suspect, as I do, that religion evolved as a human trait that conferred advantage on groups by increasing solidarity in the competition against other groups, then it's all too easy to see how hatred would become an enduring feature of religion.

The vast majority of conflicts have at its root some kind of religious reason. People have been cherry-picking their respective holy books for reasons to hate, and reasons why our in-group supposedly is superior to all other out-groups.

Think of how peaceful the world would be if, in a triumphant moment of rationalism, we got rid of organized religion. Instead of all kinds of "us-versus-them" reasons to hate, we just follow the universal ethical rule to be kind to all people. Will that day come?

Grab some popcorn, watch the great debate

ABC's Nightline will film "Does God Have a Future? A Great Debate".

• Date: Sunday, March 14, 2010
• Location: Beckman Auditorium, Caltech
• Speakers: Deepak Chopra, Jean Houston, Michael Shermer and Sam Harris

From The Skeptic website:

New York Times bestselling author Deepak Chopra is an MD and board-certified Internist and endocrinologist. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and guest lecturer annually at the Update in Internal Medicine CME Course Beth Israel Hospital Boston Harvard Medical School. He directs the educational programs at the Chopra Center for Well Being. Hailed by Time magazine as one of the 100 icons of the century, and credited as "the poet-prophet of alternative medicine," Chopra is the author of more than 55 books that have been translated into 35 languages and sold over 20 million copies worldwide.

Dr. Jean Houston (B.A. from Barnard College, Ph.D. in psychology from the Union Graduate School and a Ph.D in religion from the Graduate Theological Foundation) is a scholar, philosopher and researcher in human capacities, and is one of the principal founders of the Human Potential Movement. A powerful and dynamic speaker, she holds conferences and seminars with social leaders, educational institutions and business organizations worldwide. She is the author of 26 books including A Passion for the Possible, Search for the Beloved, Life Force, The Possible Human, Public Like a Frog, A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our Greater Story, and Manual of the Peacemaker.

Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, an adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University, and the author of The Mind of the Market, Why Darwin Matters, The Science of Good and Evil and Why People Believe Weird Things. Dr. Shermer received his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University, M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton, and his Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate University. He has appeared on such shows as The Colbert Report, 20/20, Dateline, Charlie Rose, and Larry King Live.

Dr. Sam Harris is a neuroscientist and the author of the New York Times bestsellers The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. Harris's writing has been published in over 15 languages. He is a Co-Founder and CEO of The Reason Project, a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. He received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.