Do Strong Religious Beliefs Stifle Innovation? - Blog from Wall Street Journal

Interesting as we have been, somewhat, discussing this issue.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/04/24/do-strong-religious-beliefs-stifle-innovation

Great article.  I particularly liked this part:

One last note: The authors focus on traditional religion but also suggest that any overly rigid ideology can impede science. As an example, they cite the Soviet Union from the 1930s through the 1960s, when “Inquisition-like methods (forced denunciations, imprisonments, executions) were used to repress ‘bourgeois’ scientific knowledge and methodology in evolutionary biology and agronomy, with adverse spillovers onto many other areas.”

It isn't necessarily religion - or, a belief in some sort of supernatural myth - that is bad.  It is simply blind belief in anything without objective evidence that is bad.  Believing in the mantra "Tax cuts increase tax revenues", for example, will hinder societal progress just as well as "homosexuals are making a moral decision that defies (insert god)" will.  Blind belief without evidence should be called out wherever it exists, and we certainly shouldn't base any policy on such beliefs.

Edison, Einstein, Hawking . . . the list of non-believer inventors and scientists goes on and on and on.


And absolutely nothing of value has been discovered by Billy Graham, the Pope, Joyce Meyers, Jimmy Swaggert, etc.

Reality.