"I respect you enough to not respect your idiotic beliefs."

Oh blog! I've missed you! Sorry I've been so neglectful! I've had so many thoughts of what to write in you, but all of them get stuck in my head!

So here I am. With many Thoughts. Big, big Thoughts.

I had the absolutely amazing opportunity this past week to enjoy a small Q&A session with Richard Dawkins (and 100 other OU students). It was so thought-provoking.

For those of you who might not know, I was brought up in a Christian home, and up until only a few short years ago I also considered myself as a Christian. Many people ask me what changed. The only answer that I can give is that I grew up. I started thinking. And once I started thinking, religion (particularly organized religion) just stopped making sense.

How can I (or any other person) dismiss easily hundreds of other religions and gods as "wrong" without any proof other than the Bible--no proof but a feeling? More still, how I can I dismiss so many other beliefs without even batting an eye, and expect that every single believer of those religions is not doing the exact same thing to mine? How to reconcile the idea that so many beliefs can be dismissed without proof? How can we ever know what is the true religion? Is there a true religion?

So, dear readers, these are the questions that have been floating around in my head for quite some time now. Imagine my surprise and awe when Professor Dawkins answered, almost simultaneously, all of these questions. The answer is, you can't. One religion has no more proof than any other religion. Believers have nothing more than faith and a book (in the best case scenario) that support all of their assertions.

I was beyond amazed leaving the lecture. Professor Dawkins made many fine points, the most entertaining of which was definitely "Science: It works, bitches." But for me, the most poignant thing he said was in response to a question about how to respond to avid believers in our lives:

"Be sarcastic, be ironic, be mocking; but never indulge in hate speech."

I wish that more of the religious people I knew abided by this simple rule. In fact, I wish EVERYONE abided by this rule. But I also wish more people were willing and prepared to engage in honest and factual debate. To hear everyone in my life defend Christianity by saying "Well, it's faith" lends no credence to religious arguments. Faith is not enough. I can have faith that Harry Potter is real and is, in fact, the savior of humanity, but just because I have faith and the Harry Potter book series doesn't mean that it isn't a stupid belief.

I want more open discussion. More intelligent debate. Arguments based on more than "faith" and a work of fiction.

I want truth; I want reality; I want less delusions, less hate speech, less discrimination, less war for "God", less bigotry, less misogyny. And therefore I am left with science. I am left with rationality. I am left with Richard Dawkins.

And I think that's a pretty good place to be.