Religion like anything else in human culture is responsible for both good and bad. Boiling it down to “religion is harmful” is both inaccurate, unhelpful, and a vast misunderstanding of an entire category of human endeavor. Its like saying “politics is harmful” or “literature is harmful”.
FUNNY STORY. I was taught about evolution in church a full 5 years before the subject was brought up comprehensibly in public school. I was likewise taught that creationism didn’t hang together. How to spot the holes in it. And how to counter it with both scientific and theological explanations. In church. By my priest. My Sunday school class was taught by a multi-PhD holding biologist who was quietly Atheist.
I’m an atheist, I did not and do not put much stock in churches or religions themselves. And do not particularly like them As interesting as I find the subject of religion. But labeling all of religion as a general concept, even all religions in particular with the negatives espoused and caused by certain religions or sects. Lacks utility. Its also apt to alienate people who fundamentally have the same goals as you do. There are religious groups out there fighting to maintain separation of church and state, to bolster science, to improve human rights, inclusion, acceptance, to counter creationism.
I’ve worked with some of them.
Read up on the current kerfuffle over inclusion, treatment of women, and progressive political goals in the athiesm/skeptic movement. And Dawkins’ involvement. It also be useful to look into the much longer standing criticisms on his opinions of Islam. Its all in there and pretty easy to see.
Dawkins is tricky. He often openly espouses support for feminism, liberalism, certain progressive ideals. But he’s spent a lot of time hostilely dismissing progressives, women, and rounding these claim positions round back to fundamentally bigoted ones. Its very manipulative, its very smug. And its quite dishonest.
