On Aug 10, 2011, at 10:36 AM, Kiran K Karthikeyan wrote: > > You cannot equate religious views to an individual's opinions since the > latter is arrived at from some form of evidence analyzed and interpreted by > the individual, whereas the other is dogma handed down and forced upon the > individual since birth.
Individual opinions on non-religious matters are frequently as dogmatic as their religious views. There is little about a religious view that is materially different than the other views most people hold in practice. The problem is not religious views per se. Most secular opinions are based on an equal paucity of analysis. A great many people hold scientifically reasonable opinions as articles of faith; evolution is a good example of this. Most people that support the idea of evolution cannot explain the reasoning behind their opinion, it is simply what they were taught all right thinking people should believe. There is no more rationality informing their opinion than the people raised to believe creationism is correct. I do not see any merit in believing something that, by coincidence, happens to be a reasonable. The underlying problem is a pervasive lack of critical analysis behind individual opinions. Forcing nominally better dogma on people does not address the real issue.
