The following was posted on Facebookby Laurence Boyce of Cambridge (a member of the NSS and the Liberal Democrats), in response to the accusation from pro-religion people that hes a bigot elsewhere on the Internet. Laurence wrote that one of his accusers had asked him

to justify my sweeping assertion that the claims of religion have largely been debunked by science and philosophy determined to answer everyone’s points (though nobody much was answering mine), I put together a little series of notes which I now collect here for future reference. Not to be taken too seriously a bit like religion itself, I suppose!

With his permission, Im sharing Laurences notes. Religious people of an easily-offended disposition are asked to read carefully, and learn.

Note: All the books mentioned here can be bought from Amazon, via the search box on the right, so we get commission (Note: the Amazon box will be reinstated shortly). MN

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Contents

1. Plato
2. David Hume
3. Charles Darwin
4. Darwin’s theory
5. Sam Harris
6. Reading list

1. Plato (428 – 347 BC)

OK, this is just a touch embarrassing. Hume and Darwin may have been largely responsible for holing religion below the waterline in modern times, but in fact God had already been dealt a fatal blow hundreds of years before Jesus and Mohammed even strutted their stuff. Here’s the rough idea:

According to this story by Plato, Socrates meets a guy called Euthyphro on his way to the court house. He’s going there to testify against his own father over something or other. So Socrates naturally asks him why the hell would he do that? Euthyphro replies that he believes it to be the will of the gods. And then Plato (in the words of Socrates) delivers the immortal punch line: “Do the gods wish for what is good, because it is good; or is what is good, good, because the gods wish for it