Like skado said above, start killing ignorance, make religion unsexy

@St-Sinner I am all in favour of dispelling ignorance with regard to myths, however, it is a futile exercise if it is followed by the creation of new myths that are nothing other than a rehash of the old myths.

@ASTRALMAX

Just like we took sexiness out of smoking that was going on man and woman's images in Hollywood movies, advertisements, army and overall value systems for decades, we have to dispel the notion that being religious is a virtue, being religious is about being a good human being, going to church is a good thing and not doing these makes you a bad person. Attach a stigma to being religious and all will begin to fall in place. Don't you think it will work? Or has a chance?

@St-Sinner In China most of the populaton are not relgious and have no notion of god. Does it follow that they have no notion of what it means to be a good human being? I think that stigmatization does not work and only promotes a different belief system.

Last year I convinced a devout Christian to get vaccinated against Sars-Cov-2 and I did not do so by denigrating her beliefs.

@St-Sinner I think @Skado is onto something, but rather than trying to kill ignorance, perhaps we’d do better to focus on how and why we believe what we believe—we need to reform our epistemology. Ignorance will always be with us. In fact, the older I become, the more I realize how much I don’t know. Science has taught us that a new discovery or observation only leads to more questions. Knowledge reveals our ignorance.

Religion offers answers that have tended, for the most part, to put an end to further questions. Religious teachings, particularly in matters of faith, foster a form of thinking that stifles skepticism, doubt and free thought. Religious faith is believing things you simply could not know, and for reasons you really can’t explain. And yet the vast majority of humans accept this way of thinking. We must do what little we can to modify humanity’s epistemology, one believer at a time.

@p-nullifidian I understand your point and have always considered that endeavour to belong to philosophy. Of course, science is useful and we have benefited enormously as a species from it. There are some who have stated that philosophy is dead, I believe that Neil DeGrasse Tyson is one of them.

I known that nothing is written in stone except epitaphs and I am in favour of a reasonable skepticism. To doubt everything is foolish. Even Wittgenstein said: "If you attempt to doubt everything you will end up not being able to doubt anything because such a position presupposes certainty" .

@ASTRALMAX Agreed. To doubt everything is truly foolish… consider the resurgence of people who were once thought to be extinct—flat Earthers!

I have not seen the NDGT quote on philosophy being dead, however, I don’t personally think it will ever be thus. That said, philosophy can and should evolve (alongside our epistemology) which will, if we are fortunate, eventually make obsolete the need for any mythology, theology or metaphysics.