You Gotta Have Faith

 https://x.com/nancyrpearcey/status/2038361489493356852?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw

"An atheist ponders the intellectual benefits of religion: The change came when trangender ideology emerged: "I have never seen anything like it. In amazement, I watched scores of people I respected add pronouns in their emails, flags to their bios, and repeat circular mantras like “trans women are women”. The same people who laughed at religious credulity accepted the idea of a “gender” fully and without question, and worse–they suppressed all open discussion. Overnight, the same people who campaigned against blasphemy laws enacted their own version without a hint of irony. I watched long-standing figures in the movement be cast down for this crime of doubt; first by insane radicals on social media, but as the disease progressed, also by the most prominent organizations we had. In other words, movement atheism had betrayed nearly every value it claimed to stand for. I think of all the kind and generous people I had met there (including the heads of FFRF), and my heart breaks to see their fall. There are many, I’m sure, who are bowing only because the pressure to do so is enormous, and I can sympathize with this and wouldn’t wish a woke mob on anyone. I myself stayed silent far longer than I should have. But while I have compassion for the bullied, I am astonished at the zealotry of the believers, who are legion. Most humiliating of all is the fact that atheists appear to be more likely than the religious to hold this particular unscientific dogma–a malfeasance heightened by the direct contradiction it poses to (alleged) core principles of reason and science. It is because of this I now seriously ponder what I could not have imagined myself considering just a few years ago: the intellectual value of faith. I wonder if I have greatly overestimated human reason. In the past, I had mostly thought about the “ceiling” that faith created–the ways in which religion hindered progress, scientific achievement and understanding. But now I think much more about the “floor” it creates, too. Perhaps without certain myths granting the power of the sacred to some fundamental truths (like the fact that there are two sexes), we would drift away from reality altogether. Maybe that is what is happening now. I could not have imagined it could be so. I was wrong." --Sarah Haider"