Week7, James Woodward, Beyond Belief 9

Wow, finally someone did his research and spoke about the real
discussion for this conference. James Woodward is an atheist who
states that he is surprised to listening to everything that is being
claimed such as God doesn't exist, the belief that God is responsible
for all the bad outcomes and the idea to convert the world to secular
humanism. Even though he is an atheist, I strongly agreed with him
that all answers to specific empirical evidences are required. He
states "you need to find factors that covary with one another and
therefore formulate and exclude alternative hypothesis."
I found this speaker very open minded to the topic and is the least
person that I found blaming religion for everything that happens. He
stated that one should not point the finger to religion but instead
look at the politic people, such as the government for the decisions
that affect everyone involved.

I agree with James Woodward that "a strategy is to try to better
understand the psychological mechanisms that underlie admirable and
immoral behavior and which are shared by both believers and the
secular." I think this statement should be reconsidered by many of
the speakers that attended this conference because many of them
believe that science is the only answer to a rational life and blame
everything that irrational to religion. I don't think scientist
should focus on religion as the enemy but instead focus on facts that
people or society will react in certain ways because they don't know
best. Ignorance plays an important role on why people commit crimes
not religion. James Woodward states "empirical information can still
be relevant to moral decision making."