“Religion is a crutch”
I’ve always found this criticism a bit perplexing. What do you have against crutches? As medical technology goes, they’re not terribly controversial. If you break an ankle, there’s really no substitute. It’s great to have a crutch around when you need it.
And that’s the essence of the criticism—that we shouldn’t need a crutch. We’re not broken people. From cradle to grave, we’re self-made Übermensch. We bend the world to our will with our sticktoitiveness. We seize life by the bootstraps and pull order out of chaos. We are born of science and democracy. The pied piper of progress will lead the elect (and anybody they drag with them) to a more perfect future. Jefferon and Darwin and Marx and Rand and Hemingway and Oppenheimer (well not Oppenheimer because we learned our lesson there but definitely the others) would all be proud of us.
If that’s our attitude, there’s not much to say. Except, maybe, I hope that works out for you. I hope we’re as awesome as we think we are. But if the illusion of power and control turns out to be … illusory, let’s talk.
