That's missing the point, I think. Dr. Krauss wouldn't avoid challenging non-religious beliefs and theories that he believes are wrong, either. For example, he's vocal on climate change, and while there's some overlap between religiosity and disbelief in climate change (or disbelief that it matters even if it is occurring), the core claims of climate change vs no climate change are about sources of data and validity of models, which are secular arguments.

Pointing out that the sociological pathologies that lead to bad beliefs under religion can also exist in an ostensibly religion-free culture or group does not address the disparity in social acceptance of critique between bogus religious doctrine and bogus non-religious doctrine.

Krauss's argument is not that we should try to eradicate anything that encourages wrong belief (Krauss is not as extreme as Harris or Dawkins). Rather, Krauss's argument is that religious beliefs should be as open to criticism as non-religious belief (and not defended simply because they're religious in origin).

> The article says that through god you can justify anything. It appears in the absence of God you can do the same things.

Would you like to substantiate this claim? How is it possible for an atheist with a philosophy rooted in the scientific method justify "anything" without contradicting core principles of said scientific method?

EDIT: For some reason I am unable to reply anywhere in this thread, so I am updating this. Current replies are missing an important point: adherence to scientific method and atheism requires adopting a set of constraints logically derived from axioms of the scientific method. This constraints are concrete, empirical, testable. They greatly decrease the cardinality of a set with non-contradictory justifiable ideas.

On a side note, it is amusing to see HN blossom with postmodern philosophy when religion is involved.

Because the scientific method has nothing to do with morality. The author gives the example in his own article when he says that he doesn't understand why people would have a problem experimenting on aborted or miscarried foetuses.

Well the scientist might see it as a bag of matter that would otherwise be thrown out with the trash, but unborn child's mother might have a different perspective on the issue. It concerns me that the author apparently doesn't get this.

The scientific method is not strictly sound from a logical perspective - it depends on the acceptance of an unproven prior axiom, namely that the universe works through repeatable rules and all knowledge about it can be acquired by performing controlled experiments. That axiom is not falsable, and therefore does not follow the scientific method; but as long as the results of this process are consistent - i.e. devoid from contradictions, we accept it for pragmatic reasons.

Scientific religious people work from a slightly different set of axioms: there is God which defines how the universe behaves, and knowledge is acquired by a combination of empiric observation and introspection about your own and others' feelings. As long as the results of this process are also consistent, there is no logical difference between both philosophical approaches - either both are rational, or neither are.

I would love that more atheists understood the philosophical problem of the Regress argument [1] - it would make science-religion debates much more friendly and respectful.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument

The Brother's Karamazov. If there is no god, than perhaps there are no consequences to our actions.

Anyways. I'm with Einstein, the universe is way too elegant for there not to be a god.

He could take a nihilist, hedonistic position. It doesn't matter if he hurts someone through his acts if there is no one to judge him.

Of course atheists are not devoid of morals and certainly not all religious people are acting in a moral way.

Yes, with the absence of god Stalin for example justified a whole lot of things. So did Mao.

One shouldn't underestimate the effect of an authority (possibly imagined - I don't want to argue about this here) that might judge you no matter if no one will be able to judge you here in life.

There are many people that would refrain from certain acts just because of this belief.

I don't think that an attempt to bluff sociopaths is sufficient benefit for a generalized belief in a specific revengeful or judgemental higher being.