thedisaster said:
besides you have no proof that religion is ignorance
Coincidentally, confirmation bias is another means through which people hide from the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
You've cast far too wide a net, and the myriad of counter examples necessitates some quick and lazy Wikipedia links. If you're unsatisfied with those, then I direct you to the source material (at the bottom of each article). Most of the publications seem sound.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblate_spheroid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_AIDS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases
And from the Omniscient forums (Just-World Hypothesis - believed by many religions):
“Melvin Lerner (1980) argues that the tendency to be critical of victims stems from our deep-seated belief in a just world. According to Lerner, people need to view the world as a just place in which we “get what we deserve” and “deserve what we get” - a world where hard work and clean living always pay off and where laziness and a sinful lifestyle are punished. To believe otherwise is to concede that we, too, are vulnerable to the cruel twists and turns of fate. Research suggests that the belief in a just world can help victims cope and serves as a buffer against stress. But how might this belief system influence our perception of others? If people cannot help or compensate the victims of misfortune, they turn on them. Thus, it is often assumed that poor people are lazy, that crime victims are careless, that battered wives provoke their violent and abusive husbands, and that gay men with AIDS lack moral integrity. As you might expect, cross-national comparisons reveal that people in poorer countries are less likely than those in more affluent countries to believe in a just world (Furnham, 2003).
The tendency to disparage victims may seem like just another symptoms of the fundamental attribution error: too much focus on the person and not enough on the situation. But the conditions that trigger this tendency suggest there is more to it. Studies have shown that accident victims are held more responsible for their fate when the consequences of the accident are severe rater than mild (Walster, 1966), when the victim's situation is similar to the perceiver's (Shaver, 1970), and when the perceiver is generally anxious about threats to the self (Thornton, 1992). The more threatened we feel by an apparent injustice, the greater is the need to protect ourselves from the dreadful implication that it could happen to us – an implication we defend by disparaging the victim."
Then there's faith itself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith
"Religious faith appeals to
transcendent reality, or that reality which is beyond the range of normal physical experience (e.g. the future).
Transcendent reality, in this view, constitutes a realm which is off limits to material measurement and other rigors of scientific inquiry such as
falsifiability and
reproducibility."
Contrast with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
And, of course, you should never mention faith without a thorough understanding of this man's contributions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Søren_Kierkegaard
Faith, by its very definition, allows for removal from reality - it allows for "justified" ignorance, prejudice, irrationality, and idiocy. Conversations simply cannot be held when one side continually hides behind centuries-old, apocryphal texts and circular reasoning.
The benefits of religion don't excuse its atrocities and allowances; life isn't a zero-sum game. If you want to believe, then by all means, believe. However, take a damned hard look at the system that's supposed to encompass and guide your life, for acceptance without thought and understanding is the worst sin of all.
![T[h]E Dis[as]teR](/data/avatars/m/0/88.jpg?1305676428){kind=avatar}
