I've been reading this exchange between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan regarding religion. Harris's basic argument is that there's no particularly good reason to believe the truth-claims of any religion. Sully's response is that he can't come up with a reason, but he wants to believe anyway. In terms of rational argument, Sully is getting his butt kicked, but he has already announced himself to be immune to rational argumentation.
My problem, however, is that many "atheists" who denounce religion get a religion-sized hole in their psyche, which they then fill with a destructive pseudo-religion. So they become Marxists, or radical environmentalists, or just generic statist liberals who attribute to the government attributes that small children attribute to Santa Claus. Perhaps the best religion would be one which allowed people to believe in Jehovah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but which doesn't inspire them to do anything in particular.
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