A Couple More Cartoons on Science, Religion, and the Bible

May 26, 2008

The editorial cartoon by Chris OBrion of The Roanoke Times illustrates the importance of not giving preference to one religion in the classroom.

It’s not like we need to ignore religion altogether, though. A Comparative Religions class would put the faiths on the same level and allow for (I imagine) very interesting discussions.

The next one makes a different point (click to embiggen).

As Carl Sagan would say, science is a candle in the dark. Religion offers a lot of explanations for the way the world works and those beliefs must be confirmed with evidence. We can’t be afraid of asking the tough questions even if we might not want to know what the truth actually is.

(via Homosecular Gaytheist and Reddit)

[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]

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What Are Your Thoughts?leave a comment

Amy

We have compulsory religious education here in the UK, where children do study many different religions, but I don’t remember many discussions in any of my RE classes, interesting or otherwise! RE seems to cause most people to have no real interest in any religion at all.
Darryl

I don’t think an education is complete without religious education–religion in general, and comparative religion.
Jen

Love the first one. And I love the point of the first one, and I am giggling a litte bit because I think religions that talk about dragons are pretty awesome.
SarahH

Yeah, I’d really like to see kids taught about different world religions in an academic setting, so they’ll learn that people believe different things and a lot of it depends on where you live and who your parents are.

I’ll admit I laughed at the second cartoon, but I’m really tired of seeing satire that lumps all ‘religion’ into a group and then demeans it all. I feel like that’s the sort of thing that theists expect from atheists and leads them to write us off as snarky and mean.
Darryl

I’m really tired of seeing satire that lumps all ‘religion’ into a group and then demeans it all.

Any religion that fits this cartoon needs to be lumped together.
Samuel Skinner

Actually lumping them into a group is easy- any one who isn’t an atheist is a theist. Of course, deists and pantheists don’t fall into the whole category- but there are so few of them anyway it is a drop in the bucket. Plus those guys fall to Occum’s raise like a knife through butter.
Mike Clawson

Actually lumping them into a group is easy- any one who isn’t an atheist is a theist. Of course, deists and pantheists don’t fall into the whole category- but there are so few of them anyway it is a drop in the bucket.

You’re kidding right? 900 million Hindus, 376 million Buddhists, 394 traditional Chinese (e.g. Confucianism, Taoism, ancestor worship, etc.), and 400 million indigenous animist/polytheists (none of which fit traditional “theism”) are just a drop in the bucket? What a very American thing to say. 🙄

Not to mention the immense differences among theists as well that such a statement just glosses over.

(btw stats are from adherents.com)
Andrew C.

Ha ha, “embiggens”

You know, I never heard that word until I moved to Springfield.
Herb

It’s a perfectly cromuent word…

The dragon comic isn’t accurate – in real life, the dragon guy would either conclude that the dragons are invisible or that the light wasn’t really on (because you can’t see any dragons). Or maybe he’d have just shut his eyes.
Polly

I embiggened the toon to brobdingnagian proportions.

One of the best counters to exclusivist / literalist / fundamentalist religion is the intuitive skepticism that arises from learning about the other 5+Billion religious adherents that think you are completely wrong. The sheer number of souls that god fails to “save” is startling.