Remembering those who died 10 years ago today.

In this article Sam Harris posits that religious belief is the root of terrorism and that focusing only on eradicating terror does not accomplish the larger goal of a safer society: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/september-11-2011/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SamHarris+The+End+Of+Faith%2C+by+Sam+Harris
I think that many people are motivated by power and politics and they, though not necessarily consciously, use god or religious ideas to justify their behavior. However I agree with Sam on the big picture, for fighting that began 2000 years ago due to religious differences largely explain the hate-related crimes that continue today, as exemplified by the September 11th attacks.

Religion can be a 2-edged sword. It gives so many peace and purpose. And I don't mean to minimize that at all. Further, I just see different religions as simply different ways of living that bring qualities that all humans might strive for regardless of culture, such as humility and the capacity to love and respect. At the same time, the second edge is that it can hold us back from progressing toward a more just and equitable world. I see religions as trying to explain life's big questions before science was at a point of answering those questions. After all, we used to believe the earth was flat and now we have a more accurate sense of the universal bodies.

At the same time, many still believe certain notions despite us having more scientific explanations for them. Some still believe that certain diseases come from immorality rather than lack of education on how to prevent or treat the diseases. Or that losing a home to a tragic incident such as natural disaster or accidental fire are due to god punishing the person. This then leads to agony in trying to figure out why god would do that when it is the natural chaotic process of the weather or a simple accident from which nobody is immune. Further, traditional belief has oppressed various groups of people such as women and lower castes in Hindu society. As Sam Harris so beautifully describes in his book The Moral Landscape the scientific process can get us to a moral landscape even better than traditional religious thought because it is informed by how the world works rather than a set of arbitrary axioms that may have served to keep certain people in their place. He very astutely recognizes that so much religious belief is outdated given what we now know about our physical world and yet many continue to believe without thinking critically.

If god is the answer for everything, then why do science? Scientific laws don't apply only where we want them to. If gravity applies everywhere, so does law of causality, conservation of mass and energy and law of parsimony. We need to be open to learning more about the world so that our decisions can be more informed and empowering rather than simply holding onto tradition. Then only will we achieve peace because we wouldn't be judging others simply because they are different than us.