Irreligious intolerance or Intellectual honesty?

Go read this at 3 Quarks Daily and come back because I have more.

The hand wringing by religious apologists has gotten desperate in the past weeks. Militant atheism is the name given and it is frowned upon. The fundamental reason boils down to what Dawkins has repeatedly pointed out. Religion has a special place in the society. While we will question and rigorously debate an economic or a political point we will not do the same for religious theologies. That, dear reader, is intellectually dishonest, to put mildly.

The real question you must ponder about if you are the intellectually honest kind is, as Dawkins asks, "How did religion acquire its extraordinary immunity against normal levels of criticism?"

I had been thinking of writing a more readable post (I've lost the momentum now) on what I have come to call "The Thin Blur Line". It is the line that stymies rational folks into making a mad dash in the fog of personal belief systems. The mad dash happens when one reaches a certain point - the point where the whole belief system we held for long from childhood is called into question by our own mature realization. It is the point when the past anomalies face the present rational coherence within our minds. It is an explosive situation, and surely one may be excused momentarily for running away with the thought that provides a path of least resistance. But running away and disappearing into the abyss of irrationality is lame. When the mad dash ends, we must sit down and work our way out. Thousands have done it. So can you.

A few related links:.

• Humility among scientists
• Chicken soup for the soulless
• Has the demarcation problem been solved?
• Demarcation problem - Wikipedia
• An Edge Discussion of BEYOND BELIEF - Smart folks talking. I nod vigorously to what Dennett says, "Weinberg, Dawkins and Harris are saying that whatever the second, third, and fourth step should be, the first step must be to acknowledge the very fact of this basic irrationality of human life and society: religious convictions are rationally indefensible. (You don't have to be an expert plumber to know that the first step, when burst pipes are flooding your house, is to turn off the water!) I think they are right."