The Monitor newspaper published my rebuttal to Reverend Father Hillary Munyaneza yesterday. It is a trimmed-down version of the detailed one I posted earlier on this blog.
Many people have read the article, and I’ve received e-mails from people (some of whom you’d least expect) who are glad that there are now people out there advocating for reason in the midst of the religious madness that has consumed this country.
I think it’s really cool that the ‘God’ debate is finally out in the open here in Uganda.
What do you think?
Freethought Kampala 
3 comments
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August 16, 2010 at 11:44 am
ilikebroccoli
‘Faith urges many to postulate the existence of “God” to explain the mysteries. Reason urges others to investigate and try to unravel the mysteries in order to broaden our understanding of reality.’
*fantastic!*
September 3, 2010 at 9:22 pm
Keith
That’s not true at all. There is this myth that when one believes in a God, one stops investigating and ceases to use reason. Nothing could be further from the truth. Believing in God doesn’t not stop anyone from wanting to understand better the reality of our existence. The 2 most important questions in existence are why and how. Why did we get here and how. Till we know beyond a shadow of any doubt what connected the how and why of our current reality, we can not just sit back and stop investigating how it all comes together just because we have an idea of God. That’s a God of the gaps argument and frankly such is not God at all.
September 3, 2010 at 9:45 pm
James Onen
Keith, do demons exist?
If your answer is no, then yes indeed your faith is not clouding your reason because there is no evidence to suggest that they exist, while plenty to think they do not. If your answer is yes, what is the evidence that demons exist? If you can’t provide it, then you’ve proved our point.
And this is just ONE example.
You said:
You’re misrepresenting my view, Keith (as usual). The claim is “‘Faith urges many to postulate the existence of “God” to explain the mysteries.” Think about it, most of the arguments for God’s existence go like this: “science can’t explain xyz…therefore God!!”
In the past ‘xyz’ consisted of thunder, rain, sickness, earthquakes, etc.. Now it is the origin of the universe (since we are already very close to unlocking the mystery of the origin of life). It’s still the same argument from incredulity, and indeed, god-of-the-gaps arguments.
Who said? ‘How’ is the only useful question to ask. In asking ‘why’ you are already making an unjustified theistic assumption.
‘God’ is a made-up, ad-hoc hypothesis derived from wishful thinking.