I have, since I started blogging in 2003, frequently criticized religion, and especially Christianity. I don’t believe in God myself, and I think that the single biggest problem we face in the world at this moment, particularly in the United States, is the influence of religious belief on public policy. And not just fundie Christian belief, either. Although it ought to be just as pissed-off and intolerant of fundie nonsense as I am, mainstream liberal Christianity shows a disturbing tendency to assume that even though the fundies differ from them on certain aspects of the faith, it’s all semantics, and that in the end everyone calling themselves “Christian” will stand together strumming harps in Heaven. Fact is, however, the fundies are looking forward to the promise of St. Thomas Aquinas, who said that one of the things believers will enjoy in Heaven is watching the torment of sinners in Hell. They expect the place to be fueled by the souls of Lutherans and Methodists.

I have many nondogmatic Christian friends, people who are open to damn near anything and sit in judgment of nothing. Some of them have jousted with me on this question in the past. They have said that religion, when used in moderation, is perfectly OK. It provides a template for living to those who think they need one; it provides a calming, centering influence; if you don’t go overboard with it, what’s the harm? Over at Pharyngula today, P.Z. Myers, a scientist who is one of the more vocal atheists on the Internet, provides 12 of Christianity’s sins against science. I’d submit these are not just sins against science, but sins against modern culture, sins in which believers are complicit through the simple act of belief. Some bits I like:

On the subject of theft, P.Z. says that “What religion does is steal human accomplishment and bestows it on a fickle imaginary being.” In other words, the highly educated and skilled doctor didn’t cure your cancer, God did. The ability you worked so hard over a period of years to develop wasn’t responsible for the touchdown you scored, God was. It’s a cheat—if you succeed, God did it, but if you fail, it’s your fault.

On the subject of the supernatural: “All the matter and energy, all the history and information of the entire universe is not sufficient, and we understand only a tiny fraction of it … so the religious invent a whole immense metaphysical realm of which they know even less, and pretend that it explains the lacunae in our knowledge of the world. . . . apparently, supernatural entities are not of this universe, so they are not bound by its laws, yet somehow they can interact with us, which actually does make them part of our universe.” The same is true of miracles, in my view, or of the very idea that God intervenes in human affairs to make it rain, protect a loved one in Iraq, or to keep a teenager from getting pregnant—if there is a realm where the laws of nature don’t apply, how can we trust anything we see in the physical world?

Ultimately, my Christian friends have sometimes fallen back on the idea that debating dogma is irrelevant and gets nowhere. They just believe, and that’s enough. But as P.Z. puts it, “Faith is this amazing idea that it is a good thing to hold incredible beliefs in the complete absence of evidence to support them.” You wouldn’t hire a house painter without evidence that he can do the job; why would you hire a life guide that way?