Any scientist welcomes criticism of his ideas, theories, and experiments. They expect it to be challenged. Even the late philosopher scientist Karl Popper was hesitant to have anyone believe him. He once taught a university class and I quote ” the aim of criticism is to eliminate our errors”. He not only expected it, he welcomed it! His scientific process went like this P1 >TT >EE > P2. Most science originates with a problem, then the scientist addresses it. That’s problem 1, or P1. Attempting a solution is TT, or tentative theory. EE is eliminate errors which brings us to fix any issues that arose in problem 1, and now we have P2, or problem 2. Little by little you find less and less problems with your going around in circles and come up with a sound solution. Sometimes the process is very slow, but the answers become real and tangible. Also his falsification methodology tried to prove everything false first and foremost. When I have an idea I like to bounce it off a few people I know are straight shooters to validate my ideas. Can we get the same from religion?
The other approach is the authoritarian approach. In the Mormon faith which is my area of de-expertise goes like this. “Do not speak evil against the lords anointed”. Church members that speak out about the hidden histories and falsehood that were propagated by the church are excommunicated. Even criticizing church leaders with known facts about doctrines and practices are excommunicated. Protesting for LGTB community and opposing any church doctrine openly will get you excommunicated. The only book that is fair game in the mormon faith is the inconsistencies in the Bible. Old prophets you can question. Current leadership, not so much. It’s a big problem all churches have- claiming infallibility. They all have the one authoritative source that is taught with that mindset. As if any church that is a “bible church” has a leg to withstand any scrutiny at all. And Popper finishes my day with some good wisdom. “We shouldn’t try to educate experts, but we should try to educate people who can distinguish between a charlatan and an expert. But I think that we have singularly failed even in this”.
Amen 🙂
As a fairly new deconvert, I found this a compelling and contrary view of good and evil, and it presented itself very plausible and convincing. A work that is very hard to counter without interjecting words like “belief” and “faith”. Another reviewer on Amazon put it well–“The research and supporting argumentation is frighteningly persuasive and would pass any Doctorate board of review.” Thank you John for the excellent work. Much appreciated! You can find the book here. On the Problem of Good (The Owner of All Infernal Names) 
TheCommonAtheist 