Ahem:
You first registered in 2000, so you’ve been around here long enough to know this.
You can not destroy another’s faith. In order for them to even acknowledge your arguments, their minds would have to be open. That would probably mean their faith had already been self questioned.The it is fertile ground for atheistic arguments. But if faith closes your mind, the only results are fighting and resentment.
Isn’t the whole point of Christian evangelism to convert people from other faiths to Christianity? Wouldn’t that suggest that the believers are the ones with the mean streak? I certainly think so.
In college, back when I was just finding my way out from under the weight of religion, I liked to mildly debate religion with a good friend who was in seminary school. We got along great and neither took offense - we were exploring ideas. One day her roommate, also in seminary, finally got fed up with our debate and yelled at me, “If you really believed what you say you wouldn’t feel the need to try to convince other people. Atheist just try to convert others so they can feel better about their false beliefs!” This from someone who planned to spend her life telling others about her religion.
She had a valid point though. I think a lot of religious debate is an effort to look for popular support for ideas with no facts. I thank her for pointing that out to me, even though she didn’t know that was what she was doing.
I guess I can see the logical distinction. In the mind of the Evangelical, conversion brings escape from eternal damnation and access to eternal paradise. They’re wrong about that, but they think it. “Conversion” to atheism doesn’t carry with it any rewards that shiny.
Oh, I dunno… being able to replace the time-wasting religious rituals with activities the individual finds more pleasant is quite the bonus. Of course, this benefit probably only works on a “convert” who is already feeling boredom or dissatisfaction with said rituals.
I don’t know. I find a certain intellectual satisfaction, the same kind of thing I get from coming up with an elegant answer to a previously unknown and controversial engineering problem. There is indeed an elegance to the atheist solution to the problem. No problem of evil, natural or human, no need to explain the divergence between the holy book and reality, and no need to justify moral stances one knows are right with clear rules from millenia ago. No need to appeal to faith in a way one would reject talking politics or nearly any other subject. But some of us get our jollies in odd ways.
The beleif that your place in the universe has significance is not exclusive to religions. What you’re describing isn’t Atheism it’s Nihilism. You can still logically arrive at the conclusion that there is no god and still also logically conclude that your place in the universe is significant. The beleif in the afterlife isn’t restricted to religions either. Thoughts travel in wavelengths which it is not rediculous to beleive persist after death. Beleive what you want but at least know what to call it so you don’t misrepresent other people’s beleifs.
Quantum physics rules out the need for any god. If you want to beleive that there is a Universal Force, that may be both correct and succint explaination but don’t just assume I don’t have a good reason for disagreeing with you.