Yes, kind of like if you told me you have a blonde friend, I would figure out his hair color.
Except you aren’t looking for truth. You’re looking for appealing fiction.
I’ll deal with that when/if it happens. But even if it is a sin, it’s not something for me to concern myself with until I’ve removed the plank from my own eye.
Yeah, no true religion would do this.
I was not aware that being an atheist requires me to have no respect for the beliefs of others, or to treat those beliefs as the ravings of a delusional lunatic. I guess I’ll have to turn in my atheist card.
I guess so. You can’t be an atheist and consider it rational to believe in god. It’s a straight contradiction. You can be polite, out of politeness, but that’s different from respect.
You do not KNOW these people. That’s just it. You don’t know his friend. Hell, my parents have different beliefs than I do. Do I consider them deluded? No. Just…they believe something else.
I don’t assume anyone chose anything, nor do I give a shit if they did or not. In fact, I don’t give a shit if someone believes in a god, doesn’t believe, if someone’s a Buddhist, a Christian, a Jew, or worships an old sweatsock. Just don’t be a jackass. That’s all. Don’t try to force me to believe what you do, and we’ll get along just fine. You know, “live and let live?”
Besides, I thought Der Trihs hated religion because it was dangerous. Now, I think he just likes to be a jagoff to anyone he disagrees with. (Or, just a jagoff, period).
And again, it ain’t just his views on religion.
I don’t have to consider anyone’s beliefs to be rational in order to respect their right to have them. That seems to be the major disconnect that I’m seeing here. Dismissing someone as not worthy of your respect because of something they believe is no less bigoted than not respecting them because of the color of their skin, or where they were born, or their sexual preferences.
I never said that those who hold the Bible as the literal word of God were not a true religion.
I really don’t understand this. If you belong to X brand of religion, how can you disregard parts you don’t like? If these “sacred texts” are written by or inspired by your deity of choice how can you to say, “I don’t like this part, I’ll just ignore it and only follow the pink fuzzy stuff” and still consider yourself X? Who is to say that the parts you ignore are the parts the deity in question likes the best?
Then you have trouble with reading comprehension. No one in this thread mentioned not having respect for the right to believe irrational things.
When Gustav said: "You can be polite, out of politeness, but that’s different from respect ", he was responding to your quote (bolding mine), "I was not aware that being an atheist requires me to have no respect for the beliefs of others.
Being polite to them is showing the person respect so he did not say he dismisses anyone “as not worthy of respect.” Respecting the belief is another matter.
I have to go by my conscience. If I read something in a sacred text and it doesn’t sit right with me, then I have no choice but to discard it.
To hell with that. There’s a big difference between not respecting someone because of the amount of melanin in their skin, and not respecting them because they are proudly, wilfully ignorant.
Ok, but please explain the sugar remark, you’ve lost me I’m afraid.
And this is why I’ve always considered religion – organized religion based around “sacred texts” and precepts – to be bupkis. In the end, it all comes down to what you, personally, feel is morally right, and all the Bible or Koran or whatever does is validate your personal beliefs.
Not really, because I can imagine losing respect for someone who insisted on believing (or at least insisted on claiming to believe) that two plus two equalled five. It would make me suspect a desire to evade reality and make me less inclined to respect (or want to be around) that person. If they insisted on believing all variety of demonstrably untrue things, my respect for them would drop accordingly.
If they kept such beliefs to themselves, then no problem. Trouble is, they aren’t. Religion is being used to influence law and the teaching of science, and that’s simply unacceptable and entirely unworthy of respect.
If you want to believe 5,000 impossible things before breakfast, that’s your business. When you vote that way, or stand on the side of people who vote that way, you’re just going to have to suffer the corresponding loss of respect. If you don’t like it, that’s just too bad. Feel free to disrespect us back if it’ll make you happy, though that in no way will lend even a sliver of evidence to any of your 5,000 beliefs.
I was trying to head off the inevitable No True Scotsman argument at the pass.
ETA - The original argument was about how no true scotsman likes sugar on his porridge.
Well done, you’ve taken your first steps towards atheism. If you can justify ignoring parts of a text, that is presumably the word of your chosen deity, then you can ignore all of it.
If you pick and choose which bits you like what validity does the text have then?
Also, how do you presume that your conscience or morality is better than that of your deity?
Maybe if there is a god he’s evil and wants us to burn witches, torture heretics, stone homosexuals, kill our firstborn etc and all of that other insanity in Leviticus (Fairly sure that’s the section I mean, it’s been a long time since I picked up a copy of the “good book”).
Add me into this category as well. I’m not a fan of organized religion and I feel it should be a choice to each person to accept or deny it.
- The the text is a work by Man. They may have been inspired, or they may have been stark raving mad. It’s up to me to read the texts and see how they fit with my belief systems and way of life.
- Hence the picking and choosing- the texts aren’t laws in stone or anything, they’re interpretations and essays and debates on topics. Some are easier to grok than others, others are more difficult. It’s up to me to determine what to do with it.
- My conscience or morality was given by my Deity. Or maybe not, if there isn’t one- always have to consider that option. But if there was a deity, I doubt he’s going to follow me around judging my every action. I’ve been given access to world’s sum knowledge and I should try to figure out my way in life- whichever religion, pathway, belief system is best for me and allows me to live a healthy productive life, then that’s the way to go. Atheism would be a perfectly valid option in my choice to reaching God. As would an Agnostic that lives his life out and tries to do the best he can do. I feel no need in presuming that my beliefs, or knowledge system is superior to theirs and that either of us really knows how to get to God, or even if there ISN’T a God.
If you live your life, knowing there was a kind and loving God, and that you had a chance at some magical afterlife (which I don’t really believe in- i think it’s a one shot deal, but YMMV), then that’s all good and well. However, if you had the flip side of that- that if you found out that there truly is no God and that there is NOTHING else besides this world and you had proof of that- if you would tell me that the life you would live would be completely different than the life you choose to live with 100% that there is a God?
Well then, I personally think you’ve got some issues that need to be worked out in your own belief system. A person shouldn’t live for God, but they shouldn’t swing the opposite either- “oh there’s no God, guess I can do whatever I want- hurr hurr hurr”. It doesn’t fly that way.
:shrug:
These are just some of my thoughts, I can’t say they’re valid, can’t say they’re smarter than your beliefs, and can’t say that we won’t end up in the same place eventually. But if you can live a happy productive life without harming others, well why should i try to impinge on your happiness with my own interpretations and such? Don’t really see the point of that.
Then again, I’ve always failed in ethics classes. Hated all of them, except for the Artistolean Golden mean or whatever it was.
And as to your last question/statement:
4. I don’t quite use “the Good Book” as my only (or even top 10 probably) sources of knowledge. When it disagrees with something I’ve thought about, I look towards other books and such to find one that better makes sense to me.
Like one of the first ones I rejected- the “You shall Hold No Gods above Me and such” line. That was just terrible there- so there may be other Gods? Alright, well why are you #1? That’s rather silly to assume you’re the end all be all choice, right? And all sorts of fun little questions I had growing up for my Lutheran chapel hours (Yay, being the minority in a Christian Private School- great education, and I got to learn about the beliefs that drive a majority of the world I live in. Hadn’t really been exposed to that stuff until the 2nd grade- def. made for an interesting view point).
But in the end, yeah- if you’re bending over backwards for religion and you have no idea WHY you’re doing it- maybe you should consider the alternatives. Either Agnosticism, Atheism, or perhaps another belief system…
:Shrug: but I’m probably alone in THAT belief.
In other words, your morality is just as atheistic as mine. I’m definitely okay with that, but you realize that if there is a god out there who cares about people following his rules, he’d be just as pissed with you as he would be with me.