Against Organized Religion ? Yep
Think many faitful are gullible ? Yep
It takes a lot of guts to go against the mainstream or the “environment” you live in. If your whole family is atheist its brave to go against that. If most people are religious (which seems to be the case) atheism is more “gutsy”.
I was raised without the hindrances of religion so I don’t count myself as brave… thou I do consider “God” as an easy answer… not a brave one.
As for the “need to prove”… I doubt that is the case for most atheists… since by definition it cant be proved or disproved. Suppose its just that “god” doesnt answer anything at all about existance.
I have a big problem with any belief system that sabotages people’s ability to look at reality through their own eyes, and draw rational conclusions from what they see. *All *religion does this, to varying degrees. What bothers me most is the indoctrination of children - giving them ready-made answers before they’re old enough to ask questions.
You have do have a good point there- it is rather unfair that a child must be born into a belief system. But in a way, we do this outside religion too- isn’t it the same with various cultures, family values, etc? Religion is the easiest example but there are other social organizations/kinds of communities that do the same thing.
Taking it a step further Incubus… we beleive in the value of money… we beleive certain things are fair since we have known things to be that way for a long time.
You are right in that religion isnt alone… but then when we grow up we tend to figure out some things arent exactly what they seemed. Only religion keeps trying to tie us down again… or think we are going to hell.
Depends what you mean by “against”. I personally find it to be lacking in substance, but I certainly don’t harbor any ill-will towards religious people (until they try to tell me what to do). And I suspect that the majority of non-religious dopers would agree with that.
But as far as I am concerned, it is logically contradictory to say both that something is beyond human understanding, and that you understand it. If a thing is truly beyond understanding, then it is by definition impossible to know anything about it, and hence there is no practical difference between that and non-existence.
It’s not so much that absolute proof is required, it’s just that any evidence at all would be helpful.
But there’s a big difference between understanding the efficacy of the scientific method, and believing something merely because a scientist said it. A scientist’s belief in God carries little weight scientifically unless he can show objective evidence to support his belief. Anything less is merely a fallacious appeal to authority.
So if you can’t understand it, you can’t understand anything about it? I think that’s a false dichotomy.
If something is beyond human understanding, that doesn’t necessarily make it totally incomprehensible. It doesn’t mean that there’s nothing about it which can be understood.
a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
I’m against #1 – I understand the need for mythology, but I’m against it’s codification and governmental support.
I think definition #2 is a waste of time, but the results can be interesting in a morbid sort of way.
I think you need not look any farther than this thread to get an idea of certain dopers beliefs about religion:
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These posts are a good example of the tenor of religious issues on the boards in that they do tend to show a modicum of hostility to theism. And as faith gets more and more organized into religion, there tends to be more and more of these types of sentiments expressed. It is somewhat rare to find full-fledged, hold no bars attacks on religious beliefs, but much more likely to see these kinds of subtle insults to theists.
I’m certainly not against religion. I don’t like extremism in general, and religious extremism particularly bothers me - I’m not a big fan of, for example, christian fundamentalists who tell me that I’m going to hell unless I embrace Jesus as my personal lord and saviour.
That being said, as with most of the previous posters, regardless of my opinion of a particular religious belief I’m not against it, as long as they don’t actually try and enforce their beliefs on me. I’m not even really against them trying to convert me - I think it’s bloody rude, and utterly counterproductive, but they’re also perfectly entitled to do so. I may not agree with them, but just because I hold an opinion doesn’t make it right, and in a lot of cases I can at least partially understand their viewpoint.
I thought you might say that. I agree that in general, it would be a false dichotomy. But in this specific case, I don’t think it is, because we are talking about God-belief, which is generally posited as not only uncomprehended, but uncomprehensible. As an example of a scientific principle that is not fully understood, let’s use gravity. I think most people would agree that we don’t fully comprehend it at present. BUT, we have empirical evidence that it exists. With God-belief, however, there is no empirical evidence. The assertion that is generally made with regard to God is that God cannot be detected or measured empirically; only “spiritually”. The implication is that not only can we not understand God, but that we can’t even observe or measure God. This is quite different from things like gravity, that can be readily measured. To say that we can know things about God, but at the same time say that we have never observed those things is logically contradictory in my mind.
Nonsense; it merely establishes that your right to religious expression is limited to your personal space. If I told you that my religion teaches me to sacrifice all folks who use the handle “g84guy” on computer forums, should I be allowed to act on that belief?
My right to swing my fist ends at your nose.
My right to worship god ends at your home/school/neighborhood.
I am against religions. I don’t go around saying that or trying to turn people to atheism. I only post this here because it was asked. I don’t trust religions and people that are too religious. I see it as a form of weakness in most people.
I also define non-organized deity worshiping as religion.
I’m certainly not against religion, although it worries me when people are part of a belief system that makes it difficult to be happy.
Several have posted about scientists who are religious. Let me throw this out there: I’ve met a scientist or two who was a real horn dog. And they might have talked some smack about bio-evolutionary needs and stress release and whatever else they could come up with… but the deal is, they were horn dogs.
You do your job and your live your life. You don’t have to weave every element into a seamless whole.
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Are many dopers against religion?
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Only the smart ones! [/QUOTE]
Dinsdale, old buddy, I’d love to answer this one at length, but I’ve got a Mensa RG to prep for. Fortunately other people are on the chalicist and lector rotations at my church for next Sunday. back at ya!
More seriously, I’m very familiar with the belief that logic or intelligence and religion are incompatible, and I don’t wholly disagree. I would not want to believe in a God who could be limited by what human logic is capable of. There are also a bunch of people out there who, whether they intend to or not, do a very good job of putting people off the religions they practice.
There are some things in my life for which religion supplies me with the most simple and elegant explanation, but I don’t believe it’s my right to force those beliefs on anyone. If someone asks, however, I will answer. I know this sounds hopelessly fuzzy to some, and that’s fair enough. On the other hand, I also have a good friend who was a hard atheist, the kind who used to say to himself, “How can people believe that stuff!?!” He’s now a Wiccan priest.
Would you prefer that we atheists insult you more blatantly, that we show more than a mere “modicum of hostility” to theism?
In other words, would you like us to treat you the way theists often treat us?
Most theistic people in the U.S., especially Christians, are overwhelmingly smug in the superiority of their religious beliefs. The proof of this is the fact that religion, especially Christianity, has an ironclad stranglehold on virtually every aspect of our society. Everything from the Ten Commandments to religious holidays to religious statements on our money - we might as well be living in a theocracy.
It’s assumed that everyone believes in *some *kind of supreme being: “I can’t believe you don’t believe in *anything! *I mean, everyone believes in *something, *I mean, where do you think everything came from, and where do we go when we die?”
It’s assumed that everyone believes in Christian ethics. “Well, you can’t just do whatever you feel like doing, your morality has to be based on *something, *and are you seriously saying that you don’t believe in the Ten Commandments? How can you question what people have believed all these centuries?” And if you stand your ground, they come back with a condescending “I’ll pray for you.”
It’s assumed that everyone practices Christian ceremonies. “You really didn’t have a Christmas tree when you were little, and you didn’t get any presents, and you didn’t believe in Santa Claus?” “Oh my God, you haven’t been *baptized?” *“Whaddaya mean, you won’t buy a chocolate bar to support my daughter’s sunday school?”
And then there are the smug, mindless statements like: “I can prove you’re not an atheist: if you don’t believe in God, then who do you pray to?” Yes, someone actually said that to me.
How would it feel if you told someone you were a Christian, and they said, “Well you just *think *you’re a Christian, I don’t believe anyone’s *really *a Christian, I mean there are no Christians in fox holes.”
And then there’s a constant daily barrage, on the 5:00 news, of sightings of angels and miracles and Jesus-shaped rust stains and phenomena that “can’t be explained by science so it must be the work of God.”
And just try to get elected to any office after you’ve come out as a atheist.
It’s really the SMUGNESS that gets to me more than anything else, the assumption that you’ve got the numbers, so of course you must be right. So if you detect a little hostility in the SDMB toward theism, just consider it payback.
Scientific method is relatively new exhaustive procedural method coming from devices invented during the Renaissance, combined with good ol’ observation.
Some people think that once the Method was established, there is no need for subjective truth in our lives; that there is no room for faith in our lives.
But then situations such as the Tuskeegee experiments occured. Some skeptics want to discount these, but these came about on purely scientific principles. And such situations led to a massive distrust in science solving all of our problems, and indeed, may create worse ones. Sadly, that is especially true in the Black community.
I do not like organized religion. I think organized religion is a way to stifle introspection, interpretation, and independent thinking through implied exclusivity on truth, morality, or any number of subjects.
But I am not against religion in the sense that people with common beliefs band together to present a unified front; indeed this is the basis for much of human history in many areas of conduct.
This is a murky line to draw, but I believe it is there.
Not in the slightest. I can pray in the schools, in the parks, in the neighbrohoods, in the streets (provided, of course, that I’m a private citizen). My right to worship extends all over the place, although of course it can be infringed if it involves, say, human sacrifice. What matters is that I’ve no right to force you to worship as I see fit. That goes both ways, however.
But that’s not what you suggested in the first place; what you’ve said is that Joe Believer has no right to try to change society in accordance with his religious beliefs. And that is utter nonsense. He has no right to succeed; that’s up to the members of the society. But he has every right to try, IMO, and I sincerely hope that, words to the contrary notwithstanding, you didn’t mean otherwise.
On the other hand, if you did mean otherwise, it does speak somewhat to the OP, doesn’t it?
