I did, immediately before I composed my original reply. Seeing as that is considered good manners (and context is everything). I still see no connection between that quote and your level of education, gender, skin colour and location.
Non sequitur. See, I know stuff and things too.
Oh I can stop you right there…you haven’t!
The rest of your screed is just angry hand waving and yet you don’t really know who you are angry at. You seem bothered that we are asking you to support your position. Why is that? Are we supposed to give your position respect simply because you claim it is religious. Sorry. Doesn’t work like that.
Feel free to believe anything you like on blind faith. Tell me “I don’t need evidence, I just know” or “it works for me” and I will tip my hat and wish you a merry existence.
However. The very moment you start making a claim for the existence of the supernatural, guess what? You will be pushed to back it up. Not maliciously. Not with the intention of belittling or mocking, but perhaps with a world-weary sigh that lets you know we’ve been here before. I’m bored of arguments like yours not angry.
Your position is not new or interesting though any new evidence for the existence of god/gods would be.
Got any?
How about any evidence that believing in Gods makes people behave in a more socially responsible manner?
The average person of faith is just as responsible for what a terrorist or a far right loon does as any of you are for the purges of Stalin and Kruschev, or Khmer Rouge. Both arguments are nothing more than canards. It may be Dope, but it sure isn’t Straight.
There is good and bad in every one. The faithful don’t do right JUST to please God. But they DO think that doing right COMES FROM God, and it pleases him. Yes, many fall short. Yes, there are also hypocrites. If you want to challenge THEM, fine. But throwing the sins of others in an innocent person’s face is most certainly not a rational, or even valid argument for or against the existence of a Deity. It is irrelevant clutter that’s only possible purpose is to inflame. I’M NOT BITING.
Post 1. was made in response to Der Treis VERY condescending statement about ALL religions being inherently bad - did you read that part?. “I Started it?” or was it already kindled? Before you judge and condemn, perhaps it is wise to make sure where that responsibility actually lies.
If faith and belief in more than the present material REALLY somehow “evil” if it makes today’s miseries more bearable? Not everybody has the life of ease and luxury that you may have. I am disabled, but my disability doesn’t show on casual inspection. So I bear the slings and arrows of “Conservatives” almost daily. My faith helps me to shrug it off and gives me peace knowing that I am NOT simply a ‘burden upon society’. Many others worldwide are much worse off than I. If their faith brings them inner peace as well, then it’s not your place to deride it as ‘worshiping sky fairies’.
If their faith helps a person to contain and re-channel their baser urges to good, then I don’t think it a bad thing either. Yet several of you ‘shudder at the thought’? You may well choose to do good ‘simply because’, but others may need slightly more reason to resist temptations. Again it’s NOT your place to judge.
If you think I am 'lecturing you like you were errant children", then maybe you need to re-examine your behavior towards people who don’t share your beliefs. I am not addressing all, but some. Those who point to intolerance in religions as a sign that God doesn’t exist are simply wrong. They are a just sign that man has allowed his earthly religion to stray from God. It’s wrong. Just as wrong as your own. They, however, may well truly and honestly believe they have not. What’s your excuse?
Why do you hate religion?
Intolerance and dissension within the ranks of your faith is not evidence of the absence of a god; it is merely a reflection of the fallibility of the Christian faith in general. We look not to social behavior, but to science for answers as to the existence of gods.
Da Mikster, I respectfully disagree with much of your words as they does not match my experience. In my experience (and historically) persons claiming to adhere to Christian beliefs tend to use that Book to support intolerance and ruthless judgment of others. I am wary of anyone who has a built-in excuse for misbehavior (the devil made me do it) and a get out of jail free card courtesy Jesus-of-the-cross. I would prefer a world in which each individual takes complete responsibility for his or her own actions and is wholly personally accountable for both good and bad behavior. (i.e. no blaming Satan for hurricanes, cancer, or the origin of sin and no crediting God with heroic rescues, cures, or the origin of altruism) In fact, that is the world that my loved ones and I live in: one in which each of us is responsible for both the missdeeds and warmfuzzies we each cause and experience. The difference between my life and that of a believer is that when I recognize a Very Good Deed, I respect it as an example of altruism, human triumph, or evidence of reason, and there is no boogeyman waiting to torture me for all eternity if I choose not to adhere to groupthink. I blame no one but myself when I cause harm, and I credit those who inspire and educate me with much of my own accomplishments. I do not rend my garments when natural disaster takes a life, and I place my faith in modern medicine when those I care for fall ill. I guarantee I am as grateful for examples of human triumph, for each hug and for every perfect sunset as you are.
Having said that, thank you for a candid and sincere post. Since you feel compelled support an intangible, immeasurable, un-provable belief, you have done so in a manner which matches your claims: emotional, heartfelt, and from your individual point of view. I appreciate your candor and passion.
“There is good and bad in every one.” OK. And I agree, of course, that anecdotal evidence is useless in addressing the proposition that religious people are more law-abiding than us SH’s. Such a propposition ought to be clearly measurable, no?
Got objective evidence?
Let me make sure I understand this: we should follow the moral precepts set down by a deity, but we are free to choose which deity. Does that even begin to make sense to you?
There is either an absolute set of principles put in place by the one true God, or we are free to determine ourselves which collection of moral behaviors is correct. If its the latter, than I guess you are a humanist.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you textbook damning with faint praise.
No, buddy, you got that one dead wrong. **Da Mikster **opened himself up for a pile-on with a few of his comments, and he got one. He could have kept up the snarkfest, instead he shared his personal feelings rather than making sweeping claims about Christians in general. The particular post I quoted seemed as sincere and candid as anything I’ve read here, and I do appreciate his contribution.
(Da Mikster, I haven’t shared your experience, but my appreciation for your post is sincere. I certainly didn’t intend any criticism of your personal experience.)
Oh, I get that wasn’t your intention. But it’s how it comes off anyway. “Emotional” and “from your own point of view” are not exactly glowing praise for an argument, specially 'round these here parts where objectivity is sacrosanct. “Candid” isn’t exactly nice, either.
Essentially, by saying you appreciate how the arguments are made or where they come from, rather than addressing/debating the arguments themselves, you inherently undermine or dismiss the arguments. That’s what damning with faint praise is all about. The fact that you did it without even realizing it is the cherry on the cake as far as I’m concerned. I am entertained. That is indeed why I am here.
As for myself, I’ll say Da Milkster is very well spoken ! 
But let’s be clear: that’s not evidence – at all – for the existence of the god in question, right? Others who may “need slightly more reason to resist temptation” can do so by putting their faith in a real god or a purely imaginary one, if it’s the faith and not the god that’s doing all the work?
Let’s grant for the sake of argument that you worship the One True God, and said faith brings you inner peace. Let’s further grant for the sake of argument that someone else worships a number of nonexistent “sky fairies”, and said faith in purely imaginary beings likewise brings him inner peace. On your view of things, is it anyone’s place to deride either the true or the false belief?
If you have some other evidence of gods that arises from anything other than emotion or an individual pov, please share it. **Da Mikster **was able to make a sound case for his individual experience and belief without invoking generalities of Christiandom or making grand claims of proof.
That’s sort of the point, isn’t it ?
One death is a crime, a million is a statistic.
Unfortunately guys like Stalin, Kruschev, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, etc. didn’t keep very good, publicly available records as to exact numbers. Are they fewer than 2000 years of killings in the name of Christ? possibly. But we’re talking doing that in 1/20 the time. As I said before, you are just as responsible for them, as any Christian is for the other. (You aren’t) OTOH, what MIGHT be germane to ask is, Did the average Christian (or Muslim) lose more sleep over killing than the Atheist? I quite imagine it comes down to their individual temperments… despots of all stripes seem to like having, and no trouble finding, pet sociopaths to do their dirty work.
Are faithful folks more law abiding than non-believers? That wasn’t MY premise. It was yours. So I’ll leave that to you. I can say that those who pay lip service to God, but choose to actually serve greed, ego, or violence instead, aren’t really considered (at least by folks I know) all that ‘faithful’. They’re banking on God forgiving them because they say the right combination of words, but it is their hearts not their lips that matter.
I will also openly admit that, yes, there are a LOT of believers in the US that cherry pick which tenets of their chosen denomination they’ll adhere to, and cheerfully disregard the rest. Sort of a buffet style “McReligion”, at least on the surface. Their “hypocrisy” may well cause folks to question their actual faith. OTOH, Doctors are most needed by the ill. Jesus spent much of his time with the poor, the sick, the tax collectors, and harlots. Coincidence? Many are simply a work in progress, God simply isn’t finished with them yet. Maybe in time the words and ideas will sink in, and they will become more Christlike.Or maybe they are just hypocrites. Either way, unless they are actively harming you, why try to cause them harm or unnecessary distress?
Faith and religion are simply not the same thing. Religion is the formalized, ritualized expression of faith. Faith is your personal relationship with the almighty, by WHATEVER name he goes by in the region. Some take great comfort in ritual, others do not. Some would even tell you that atheists call God by the name of ‘reason’, but that would probably just cause another argument.---- And yes, by free will you CAN choose how little or much that relationship means, and the terms you address him by.
“One true faith”? That term gets thrown around a lot. In the sense of a religious denomination, it’s a man made, and yes, irrational, false, and destructive construct. But “true faith” from the perspective of a personal relationship with a deity is about bringing out the absolute best you can possibly be.
Can a religion be evil? Those that actively cause harm emotionally, phyically, and financially ARE evil, but are they really a “religion” or a “cult”? To you that may be just semantics. To me it is the difference between how much they have strayed from God’s love into the baser lusts and greed of man. They may share much the same words and pantheon, but are very different beasts.
My goal isn’t to evangelize anybody. I’m trying to explain that I honestly care less what you profess to believe -that’s between you and God- than what you do.
Last point, ‘objectivity’ really is a false idea. EVERYTHING gets filtered through our senses, sensibilities, prejudices, experiences, beliefs, and yes faith… then comes out as subjective. Lying to yourself about that is a failing nearly all of us probably have.
Wow, that is a tight. Nicely done.
Seems like the OP is pretty much a fail. Absolutely nothing other than an assertion that people without faith can not appreciate the beauty of nature or that they behave less morally than the religious. But if faith brings him comfort that’s great. I know people who get comfort from Star Wars, but they don’t try and pretend it’s real.
I forgot to add ( a failing, my brain goes a lot faster than my fingers, so important stuff sometimes get put aside for future use, then misplaced) one benefit I find from having faith is some music moves me more strongly, and on different levels than it probably does to others who don’t share that particular ‘affliction’
Ave Maria, Amazing Grace, Adeste Fideles, the Halleluiah Chorus, etc To a believer they are more than just a pretty tune (or organized noise, if you prefer) they have power to set the soul soaring into what faith CAN be… Yes, secular or popular music can be quite beautiful too, almost but not quite… Honestly, it’s something hard to describe. And much would probably be lost in translation, anyway… Much like the difference between experiencing a mind blowing orgasm and reading about one.
Thank you for telling me how I feel about music. A little bit later I will tell you how you feel about painting.
Da Mikster, you certainly do play fast and loose with the presumptions and assertions. I doubt you’re paying attention anyway, so I’ll just finish up with you with this: You have absolutely no idea what anyone else feels when listening to music or anything else others experience. You assume because the music is religious in nature that the non religious could not possibly have as profound an emotional response as you. No, they don’t assign the voice or hand of god to it as you do, but that doesn’t, at all, mean that they don’t find it just as beautiful and moving as you do. I really wish you would cease the qualitative judgements, especially since you become so upset when someone calls you on them and, more importantly, because you refuse to back them up. The most accurate thing you can say about this specific issue is that certain music affects you differently than others, not better, not stronger, not more profoundly; those are judgments you are not qualified to prove. Your experience is simply different, that’s all, just as your personal experience is different from others of your faith.