George Carlin - Religion Is Bullshit
It has too much influence to just dismiss it as bullshit. In order to diminish its hold we have to formulate constructive arguments against it.
Religion has been defeating Freethinkers, Athiests, etc. for centuries. So it seems to me that whatever we have been doing is not working that well. There have been times like the Renaissance and brave Freethinkers and truth tellers like Galileo Galilei
who have pushed humanity forward.
'Bullshit,' as used by George Carlin, is simply nonsense. Can Carlin's nonsense of "false promises and exaggerated claims" hold disproportionate power to the point of turning vices like credulity and worship into virtues? Clearly this is the case. But it sometimes requires sarcasm, humor and wit to open one's eyes to the "constructive arguments," all of which were formulated long before the religions with which we are familiar were created.
In evolution, whether natural or cultural, nothing can survive for long that is nothing but bullshit.
People who say that religion is just BS are just too lazy to look under the hood in order to understand how religions function.
"Religion = BS" is a convenient way to get rid of it, but religion is too important to dismiss it like a bad joke.
Religion adapts to changing views. Religion is a meme and it changes with the popularity of the times. What ideas work morphs into a new branch. What doesn't will die out. So religion will be around in some form for a long time. Religion helps some people and spurs others to do good things but the stories are indeed Bullshit.