Since I’ve seen you insist that Communism was really a religion I wouldn’t expect you to see any evidence. religion is one of the things used to separate people and set them against each other. We’re saved, they’re not. We’re God’s chosen people they’re not. People will draw lines of separation and kill each other within the same religion.
It’s far from the only thing., skin color, tribal affiliation, culture, economics, geographic area, resources, the list goes on. As long as mankind can find reasons to label others as some evil or dangerous “them” especially with the help of corrupt leaders then our problems will continue. As long as the intent and purpose of separating people into opposing groups exists if it’s not religion it will be something else.
Of course it’s only my opinion but I’ve yet to see anyone who touts that mankind would be much better without faith based beliefs make any kind of convincing arguments that it is fact rather than their opinion.
Really. Or, perhaps removing one more cause of conflict, one especially noted for the irrationality and brutality it produces would make things better.
And would you apply the same logic to, say, racism ? Sexism ? “Solving this problem won’t bring Paradise so it’s not worth the effort” is a silly standard.
How could it not ? How can faith be anything but destructive ?
It is through the eyes of your own prejudices that you make such a statement. We are familiar with the obvious historical evils done in the name of religion but I see no realistic way to weigh that against the countless positive things done by religious people and in the name of religion over the centuries.
Yes good things can be accomplished without religion just as evil things have been done without religion involved. The answers are deeper and more nuanced than anything you’ve suggested.
But hey, it’s your opinion. Most of us are familiar with it.
That is a silly standard …it’s also not what I said.
Is this a serious question? Didn’t you just acknowledge that faith has done some good?
Once more, Given how widespread religion has been over the centuries I don’t see that there is any realistic way to measure the bad things done vs. the good things. I’ve seen the obvious things mentioned over and over again… I don’t find it realistic or convincing. There must be literally millions of things to measure on both sides of the argument. So far nobody has done that and that leaves the argument incomplete and inaccurate. Just an opinion.
By luck. Faith by definition ignores reality, therefore it cannot do good except by luck.
And how do you propose to do that? I’m curious about what your ideas are.
Love you, brother.
Education come to mind, especially scientific education; well educated people are less likely to be religious. The promotion of tolerance inevitably weakens religion as well. Eventually, genetically engineer people for more intelligence ( smart people are less likely to be religious, naturally ), and eliminate the genetic contribution towards religiousity.
Utter and obvious nonsense.
Because the story revolves significantly around the Catholic Church/molesting scandal. That’s big news. If it had just been an article about a religious journalist losing his faith over religious people’s poor behaviour generally, it would have been on page nowhere
Is the effect of the reminders discernable or not? The gist of the journalist’s realisation appears to me to be that if the reminders are having no effect, this alleged god is either useless at what he does or altogether absent. Which of those is the explanation is not practically important.
Of course this is just same old, same old. Psychics, astrologers and mouthpieces for alleged gods all sell something with charactistics so vague that no matter what happens or doesn’t happen, it is compatible with their hypothesis.
Or the null hypothesis, but who cares about that?
True, but whether this logically is a good reason to stop believing depends why you chose to believe in the first place.
If I believe a particular field has an funny shaped rock in it because I recall seeing a photo of part of the field showing a funny shaped rock, but then I get the photo out and actually it doesn’t show a funny shaped rock:
1/ logically, the field may still have a funny shaped rock in it, but
2/ there is no longer any reason to believe that it does.
If one has decided that one believes in a god because of the good things that worship of him causes to happen, but then one reaches the conclusion that those things actually don’t happen amongst worshippers, that’s a perfectly logical reason to stop believing. Logically, it may still be that there is a god, but one’s reason for believing so has now gone.
cosmosdan, you keep hinting towards “spirituality” and “nuances” and yet you insist on quick one-line posts as responses to Trihs’s well thought-out posts. Keep it up and we’ll start to get the impression you’re not sure what you’re talking about.
The same way all bad ideas die. Public ridicule. Let Christianity and Islam go the way of sun gods and alchemy.
No, the simple truth. Faith is, like it or not, about making up your own version of reality and treating it as true. Which makes it absolutely terrible to base any judgements on. Whenever faith based beliefs have been able to be tested, they’ve almost always been wrong, because they are not only just guesses, but guesses that are never even honestly checked; checking is something the doubters, the skeptics do, not the faithful. If they are checked, any negative results will be quietly ignored, unless some unbeliever does it and rubs the facts in the faithful’s face hard enough.
All of which means that a belief based on faith has only a miniscule chance of being true. And also means that even the well meaning faithful are going to do more harm than good, because their actions are based on almost certainly false beliefs, whcih they refuse to check, including by looking at the consequences. Abstinence only sex ed is a good example; no matter how many times it’s shown to be a disaster, it’s proponents simply ignore the facts; God told them Sex Is Bad, and if the facts say otherwise, the facts are wrong. That’s faith.
Think what you like. Your characterization of my responses is inaccurate. I’ve tried to respond to Trih’s arguments several times and found that shorter responses is time better spent. Although he occasionally makes a good point he inevitably comes around to some wildly generalized and non fact based assumed belief. {which has just happened} He exhibits the same type “I’m right regardless” behavior he criticizes in believers.
I’m not a big fan of organized religion myself and I see the problems. However, here in this board I often see everyone with any faith based beliefs lumped in with the Christian right. IMHO there are some very positive results from spirituality and it’s a mistake to dismiss them because of a disdain for religion in general. Human nature is much more complex than “religion bad” “science good”
Considering that Christian and Muslims far outnumber everybody else I’m not sure how this will work out. I am glad that folks like Harris, Dawkins and others are at least stimulating the discussion. There are far too many beliefs that are held on to for the sake of tradition. It only hinders progress.
The thing you seem to keep missing is how often you do this.
To some degree all people accept certain things on faith. I don’t see any way to avoid it. I’ve said many times that we should challenge beliefs and those maintained in spite of ample evidence against them should be the first to fall. It will take time and persistence. I think it’s a matter of educating the coming generations and teaching them to think for themselves.
I’m not sure how all this relates to the specific post you’re responding to. Many believers consciously give of themselves to others , helping the needy. I don’t see how that kind of conscious act can be construed as luck.
This is a common furphy. There is a major difference between:
1/ trying hard to avoid something but occasionally stuffing up (or having unavoidably to do something one doesn’t want to do); and
2/ doing something deliberately and even extolling it as a virtue.
yet you seem to be suggesting these things are equivalent.
Sure, sometimes even the most sceptical of us have to take something on faith because there is no evidence to go by, or as a working hypothesis, or by mistake. But that is qualitatively different to deliberately taking something on faith, and even extolling faith as a virtue.
I don’t agree with the full and very broad brush strokes Der Trihs has painted, but I think the gist is that if someone works out that something is a useful thing to do based on consideration of reality, they are (by definition) not doing it based on just faith. If contrastingly they do it based just on faith, then if what they did happened to be useful that would have to be due to luck.
I don’t see taking something on faith as a bad thing. It’s simply how humans operate. It’s in the balance between intellect and emotion, personal experiences and what we use to interpret them.
What we are able to see and measure in an objective way is affected by what we feel subjectively. In that sense I see few positive outcomes for non believers to dismiss believers as gullible fools when they operate with these same human traits.
Clinging to a belief in spite of conflicting evidence is another issue. Part of the mystery to me is why certain beliefs seem so crucial to Christians. You don’t have to let go of revering the sermon on the mount if you let go of creationism. IMHO a persistent less combative approach is called for, especially among the more liberal and moderate believers.
I can understand that and it may be an interesting argument but I’m not convinced it’s based in reality.
Either person is viewing what they see as reality through the lens of their objective evidence and their subjective experience. If an atheist decides that helping people “feels” better than not helping them and can see the positive results of their efforts that’s great. If a believer “feels” led by God to help others and also sees the positive results of their efforts it’s not luck. For both people it’s the intent to help others with different labels attached.
IMO both people are on the same journey. Sorting out what they value and what is important and relevant to them. We share that journey with those around us and should be aware of how we affect each other as we interact, but we shouldn’t delude ourselves into thinking our path is completely right and anothers is completely wrong.
that is a sad story, but I lost faith in relgion a long time ago. I think it has done some wonderful things, and some horrible things, but feeling I need someone how to tell me to pray just always struck me wrong. Why would I need a whole relgion to tell me how to live, pray, work, vote, etc…?
I know God, He knows me. nothing else should be needed.
Well put.
I think if someone is a member of a certain congregation because it meets their spiritual needs and allows them to express themselves in a group that’s a beautiful thing. It’s unfortunate when people feel pressured into thinking they must believe a rigid dogma or they are in danger of hellfire.
I recently talked to a nice lady who is now Baha’i but was raised in a conservative pentecostal home. Her Dad is a minister. As you might imagine her change didn’t go over that well.
She said her Dad was recently upset at a certain Christian conference because one particular group was baptizing in the name of the father son and holy spirit instead of in the name of Jesus. I mean seriously upset. I think it’s tragic to let such a detail be a point of separation.