https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/11/reason-is-non-negotioable-steven-pinker-enlightenment-now-extract
Steven Pinker is from a Canadian Jewish background. Author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Science, Reason, Humanism and Progress. Interview PBS Newshour Feb 22 2018 The human condition is a lot better than many believe. Statistics show humans are making a lot of progress. "Step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom [climate change], and instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise."
(Oct. 15, 2007) Salon.com interview, Pinker and his wife Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, said they were proud atheists and Pinker continued: "Atheists are the most reviled minority in the United States, so it's no small matter to come out and say it. . . . I would put faith in the same category [as alchemy] because faith is believing something without a good reason to believe it."
Pinker is on the honorary board of Freedom From Religion Foundation.
John's comment: Pinker is a bright person and engaging professor, typical of the many who cut themselves off from the source of Western morals and forge a path they want all to follow. Sometimes they cause people a lot of trouble and steer society the wrong way. The sexual revolution of the 1960s and Marxism are examples.
About Pinker's comment about faith and alchemy: the Bible disagrees with Pinker, it describes faith as confidence in something that is not proven. The Bible tells us that God does not prove himself, people are made smart enough that they can operate in faith. Alchemy is indeed criticized but it brought about purified chemicals and lab equipment and processes that gave us modern chemistry and the model of the atom.
Richard Dawkins
2012 Feb 28 http://loltheists.com/?attachment_id=1765 English Prof. Richard Dawkins "if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane" (Religion Poisons Everything facebook.com/GodIsNotGreat)
In the blog, one writer: I think the statement is scientifically dishonest and if we non-theists cannot make all our points honestly and intelligently, then we are doing no better than those blank-minded folks that show up on Saturday mornings trying to get me to read some worthless literature. Seriously, I’m disappointed.
Christopher Hitchens
2007 English-born American, atheist Christopher Hitchens http://philgons.com/docs/Hitchens-Wilson-Debate.pdf Many of the teachings of Christianity are, as well as being incredible and mythical, immoral.
I would principally wish to cite the concept of vicarious redemption, whereby one’s own responsibilities can be flung onto a scapegoat and thereby taken away. In my book, I argue that I can pay your debt or even take your place in prison but I cannot absolve you of what you actually did. This exorbitant fantasy of “forgiveness” is unfortunately matched by an equally extreme admonition—which is that the refusal to accept such a sublime offer may be punishable by eternal damnation. Not even the Old Testament, which speaks hotly in recommending genocide, slavery, genital mutilation, and other horrors, stoops to mention the torture of the dead. Those who tell this evil story to small children are not damned by me, but have been damned by history.
John Maddox
1994 Nature, 368:185 British John Maddox "many professional scientists are deeply religious, often justifying their belief on the grounds that 'science cannot know everything.'. . . it may not be long before the practice of religion must be regarded as anti-science"