Another point: some posters here say that referring to Christianity as a “fantasy” and comparing God to a “magical sky pixie” is disrespectful. I contend, however, that a truly rational atheist will generally mean no particular disrespect toward the people who practice religion. Rather, the atheist in question knows that there is precisely the same amount of evidence available for the existence of God as he is known in the Christian religion as there is for “Binky the Space Clown, Lord of the Outer Reaches,” or any other entity you could think of. Since this rationalist (and yes, I’m one) bases his beliefs on testable hypotheses and evidenciary assertions, even the religion of billions of people assumes the same level of rationality as any other idea for which there is no support. Remember that argumentum ad populum is a fallacy.
To say that these references to “fantasy,” et cetera, are disrespectful is to ask that the atheist assign some level of importance to an idea that he has rejected as irrational.
Now, I realize that no one is a perfectly rational robot, and that we all have to engage levels of diplomacy and social interaction…I’m just expressing my idea of why such expressions might be justifiable from an atheist’s viewpoint.
Furthermore, I doubt that an atheist (of the type I describe in my last post) would hold a lack of respect for a practitioner of Christianity, as that person would understand what attractions the belief might hold, and how difficult it is to force oneself to “step outside” of it to look at it objectively.
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Anyway, Chekmate, I tend to agree that this relationship seems to be, from what you’ve described, mired down in philosophical differences, and seems likely to remain that way.