[QUOTE=fessie]
But don’t typecast all people of faith as intellectual lightweights.
[/QUOTE]
Suggesting that faith doesn’t require intellectual depth is not the same as calling someone an intellectual lightweight. One of the smartest people I know is deeply religious. Jeehov, in fact.
For one thing, I thought Great Debates were supposed to try to be impersonal.
[/QUOTE]
That response was in no way personal.
Well, unless you want it to be, I suppose.
You disagree with the proposition that switching religions is as intellectually ‘heavy’ as choosing one’s style of egg frying? Then discuss why it is not so.
Why would you assume I’m a Christian? Just because I object to typecasting of religious people as intellectual lightweights?
Stepping away from the faith of one’s upbringing, questioning the beliefs one has taken for granted, and then choosing another way of looking at God and committing to practicing the rituals of that religion - that’s frivolous? A mere flip of a coin?
I think it is the height of hypocrisy that people around the Dope are so rude about religion while making claims of intellectual superiority, progress, and open-mindedness. Yeah. Sure. It’s a fuck of a lot easier to dismiss people’s beliefs than to try to understand them.
And if you want to argue for tolerance, you’d be a lot more effective if you practiced some yourselves.
[QUOTE=fessie]
Stepping away from the faith of one’s upbringing, questioning the beliefs one has taken for granted, and then choosing another way of looking at God and committing to practicing the rituals of that religion - that’s frivolous? A mere flip of a coin?
[/quote]
Yes. Religion is ALL nonsense. There’s nothing to choose between them intellectually. Now in terms of practicality and self interest, there are differences between, say, a suicide cult and the Quakers; that doesn’t mean that one or the other has any more plausibility. Believing that God loves you is just as irrational as believing that your astral form will hitch a ride with a starship if you kill youself.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Yes. Religion is ALL nonsense. There’s nothing to choose between them intellectually.
[/QUOTE]
Okay, assume you’re 100% correct (do I really have to tell you to do that?). Assume that all religion is bunk and religious people are fools/brainwashed/whatever. Assuming that the brainwashed fools fully believe in this religion shouldn’t the choice be difficult? Say I asked you to stick your hand in an open flame. You’d probably refuse as you would get physically burned. The brainwashed fools have a similar problem. Going against one’s religion would result in a spiritual burn. That sounds like nonsense to you but is deadly serious to them.
Then again that whole train of thought involves perspective taking and I’m come not to expect that from you.
Oh, and before you begin–I’m a theist and I’m being a dick to you because you frustrate me. If one looked up “willful ignorance” in Webster’s they’d find a picture of you.
[QUOTE= Der Trihs]
Ah, yes, the desperate, stupid attempt by the religious to create a false equivalance between their incredibly stupid, evidence free belief in God creating the universe and a natural event for which we have plenty of evidence.
[/QUOTE]
Even Crusaders seem rational next to DT.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, because arguing with people on a message board is just as irrational as conquering people and chopping them up with swords. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE= Der Trihs]
Yes, because arguing with people on a message board is just as irrational as conquering people and chopping them up with swords.
[/QUOTE]
The difference between you and the Crusaders is that you don’t have a sword and access to enough friends with swords.
Other than implementation issues, you’re pretty much congruent.
[QUOTE=Happy Scrappy Hero Pup]
The difference between you and the Crusaders is that you don’t have a sword and access to enough friends with swords.
Other than implementation issues, you’re pretty much congruent.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, the difference between arguing on a message board and mass murder is just an “implementation issue”. Typical religious “Atheists are the Devil !” reasoning.
[QUOTE=fessie]
I am sick to death of the constant suggestion that people who have any kind of belief in God or practice a religion must be doing so out of ignorance.
[/quote]
What if we skip the suggestions and go straight to the definitive? It saves time, if nothing else.
