Member-only story
How Religion Doomed Us, And Could Save Us (Against Its Will)
They dug the hole we’re in, let’s make them pay for the ladder.
Despite growing rapidly in number, the non-religious remain one of the most disliked demographics. They’re largely considered unelectable. They’re widely stigmatized in workplaces. They face discrimination around the world. Atheists are widely ostracised and despised.
They are also commonly moral and decent human beings. By contrast, religious people demonstrate less compassion than the nonreligious. Christians show significant in-group favouritism, while atheists are less likely to hold your beliefs against you. As our species faces the greatest moral crisis of its long history, the current public face of religion has chosen the role of adversary to the well being of our civilization.
The big crises we collectively face are about caring for one another. Limiting the harm of Covid requires putting the well being of the community above our personal convenience or whim. Skyrocketing inequality is about caring whether someone who works hard at a menial job should be able to afford to feed their child dinner at the end of a long day. Climate change is about whether we value the well being of the next thousand generations — literally all of the children in the world — more than we value this…
