A scientist is religious. The media tells us that the scientist is religious.
A scientist is not religious. The media doesn’t tell us that the scientist is not religious.
Then millions of idiots jump around the world with joy and tell everyone that scientists believe in god, it means god exists.
Today’s BBC news: Joseph Murray, US organ transplant pioneer, died today.
Working at Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, he and colleagues managed to successfully transplant kidneys on dogs.
In 1954, using the new surgical techniques, he took the healthy kidney of 23-year-old Ronald Herrick and transplanted it into his identical twin, Richard, who had kidney failure. Richard lived another eight years.
In 1962, with the arrival of drugs to suppress the immune response, he completed the first successful organ transplant from an unrelated donor.
Dr Murray shared the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Dr E Donnall Thomas, a pioneer in bone marrow transplants.
And then comes subheadline: Deeply religious
Dr Murray was a deeply religious man. He told the Harvard University Gazette in 2001: “Work is a prayer. And I start off every morning dedicating it to our Creator.”
Because of media, people know which physicists, philosophers, politicians, poets, painters, Nobel prize winners are religious. They do not know who are atheists. Most people have no idea that most scientists are atheists, they do not believe that god exists.
News is the unusual: ‘Man bites dog’ is news, ‘Dog bites man’ is (most of the time) not. So perhaps that’s why ‘Wheee! Yay!! Whee! We’ve actually found a scientist who isn’t always rational’ is?
I am not an atheist. but I really like your posts.
I hope, you don’t hate god. You must hate those beasts who kill and rape in the name of god.
Keep on writing. All the very best.
@2. subhasish christche, tell me, what is this god thing you speak of?
@ remuss
i am a big fan of Taslima Nasreen and many times when i go through her posts i became curious, if she really hates god or not. actually when you have a strong faith on something and suddenly when you got to know that your idol person have totally different views about your faith, somehow you become a little sad. that was my real point.
How can one hate what one does not believe exists?
“I hope, you don’t hate god”
Of course she doesn’t! Why would she wastes time hating something she believes doens’t exist!
@ philippeorlando
how big fool i am. thanx for your logical comment sir.
You’re not a fool. You simply make the mistake that many religious people do with regard to atheists. Atheists do not believe in gods. ANY gods, even yours. Therefore there cannot be hate of those gods. One can hate the IDEA of gods, especially when people pervert those ideas to control and enslave other people. One can certainly hate the religions which enshrine those ideas. But you cannot hate something which you believe does not exist.
@ Thorne
very true sir. but i am not religious at all. i just cant help myself loving jesus whenever i imagine him from my heart and soul. i love batman the dark knight as he shows me the way of perfection and purification. he is a fictitious character.
i think sometimes you dont need real people to follow who really exists or existed. sometimes you just need the theory.
Now that is an quaint attitude, subhasish 😀
But as long as we are arguing hating or loving ficticious characters, I must say that when you read the bible a bit, the christian god is not a pleasant character at all.
& I love the Doctor from Doctor Who. But, uh, only in most stories, not in the ones where he’s a big jerk.
It used to be said that the BBC is the Church of England on the air. It may no longer be said aloud but it is still true. The BBC infamously claimed to have fought off the atheists when secularists demanded the right to broadcast on the Radio 4 programme Thought for the Day and the BBC’s Head of Religion and Ethics refused. The title of the department speaks volumes: Religion and Ethics. Ethics, as far as the BBC is concerned, cannot be considered unless it is related to religion.
It goes far deeper than that, however. The UK is a monarchy and a monarchy can only function if the establishment believes that the monarch has the blessing of an imaginary bearded sky fairy. It really doesn’t matter what the people think. You see, there are no citizens in the UK; the people are subjects of the monarch and subjects must obey the monarch or the monarch’s appointed government. I can hear the cry now: ‘Ridiculous! The government is elected by the people!’ Ah, but the head of an elected party must present himself or herself to the monarch to seek permission to form a government. No UK government can govern without that permission.
No matter how many of the inhabitants of the country claim to be godless, the Church of England is the state religion and the state religion demands that the head of state must believe in the imaginary bearded sky fairy. That same belief permeates throughout the establishment. The sad fact is that British establishment is as religious as the American establishment, it’s just that the British monarchy has had far longer to develop its deceit. Even Darwin was, against his express wishes, absorbed by the establishment, falsely reported to have converted on his deathbed and buried in the nation’s premier cathedral.
Even bog standard reporting by the BBC should be treated with caution by atheists and, regrettably, the same can be said of much of the UK’s media, which is considered part of the establishment. Never, ever, trust the UK’s media to report the news without a religious bias.
So scary! But so many legendary atheists are from UK. Darwin, Bertrand Russell, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Douglas Adams, Pat Condell, A. C. Grayling and many more.
Thaslimaji U R a wonderful person….we R proud to say that woman like U would have lived on earth 5000 years ego,along with socretes, this world would have been a better place to live today.I request U to feel proud of what U R today specially to the womankind,and in genaral to the mankind….Its a shame that after even today some parts of the world still live in the dark age and call it ‘religion’.pls find some time,to come to south India and be our guest of honour…as long as U wish to stay….
… but why do god fearing people have to be scared of an atheist?
Because they’re afraid that we might be right.
Publish more posts. I am definitely going to read all. I love your posts.
@subhasish christche
You do know what “atheist” means, right? It means not believing that god(s) exist. Your statement therefore makes no sense.
@ Tyrant
by saying i am not an atheist i tried to mean that i believe in god. actualy i didn’t get your point.
I’m not sure where you’re coming from. My simple test is this:
What is your best estimate, on presently available evidence, of the number of gods in reality?
If you answer ‘zero’, you are an atheist.
If you answer ‘one (or more)’ you are religious (even if you may not be very religious.
If you answer ‘I honestly couldn’t even begin to hazard a guess’, you are an agnostic.
You’re forgetting an option:
What the hell does the term “god” mean?
Ignostic.
Not all questions are good ones.
That’s a good point; I may have to sharpen my razor, so to speak. But assuming we are talking about ‘powerful, invisible supernatural beings which we can communicate with (at least in one direction) and whose approval is worth seeking’ – a reasonable working definition of most theistic gods as far as I can tell – then I think we can still make progress.
Sorry, I didn’t make myself clear. I meant that it doesn’t make sense to tell an atheist that you hope she or he “does not hate god”, since the person simply does not believe that this god exists in the first place.
In 1996, Nature, one of the world’s most prominent and famous scientific journals conducted a survey in which they polled scientists, all of them members of the National Academy of Science (NAS). The following was reported by Nature in 1998: “Our survey found near universal rejection of the transcendent by NAS natural scientists. Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality).” Basically the top American scientists have an average rate of atheism averaging 80%.
Actually, half of scientists are religious:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/21/religion-and-science-can-coexist_n_974116.html
Yes… of course…
The chart below breaks it down for strictly physical scientists. Overall, 33% of physical scientists are religious as opposed to 41% who are not, yet 18% express a belief in a universal spirit or higher power, but not “God”. So if if you include that 18%, 51% of physical scientists believe in a higher power as opposed to 41% who don’t.
41% scientists in the field of chemistry are actually religious compared to 39% who are not (19% believe in non-God, universal spirit/higher power).
http://pewforum.org/newassets/images/reports/Religion%20and%20science/Scientists%20and%20Belief%203.gif
Yes I believe god exists only in our deeds, within me – I am the God. Thanks Taslima.
I’m kind of baffled why someone whose extraordinary skill is “cutting up sick people and stitching them back together again in a way that makes them healthier” would be regarded as some kind of expert on the (non)existence and properties of transcendent almighty being(s).
Physical scientists, maybe — they are looking for how the world works and may find evidence for or against one or more gods. Philosophers and mathematicians can check belief systems and theories for logical consistency, though personally I know some fellow mathematicians who, judging from the absurd ideas they entertain, are completely clueless about the actual world and restrict the use of their analytical skills to their pure-maths research.
Somewhere in the last ten or fifteen years or so, there was (or is) a period where it was in vogue to claim that more and more scientists are coming to believe in god, and that scientific research prompts this belief. (Quantum DNA godditude, or something.) They even claim statistical polls confirm this, although every one I’ve seen has been debunked. Just like the studies of intercessory prayer.
If I didn’t know any better, after reading this, I might think that the Republican Party’s main goal is to be the biggest group of trolls this country has ever seen. After all, they couldn’t POSSIBLY be serious… They’re just trying to get a reaction out of me to make themselves feel better, right? RIGHT??