Nobody is talking about someone being intentionally lied to for improvement.
I guess we’ll have to disagree on that point. I don’t want to hijack this thread with a debate on whether or not religion is a lie.
true story
A friend at work is helping a customer who is a talkative and friendly. Some Christian references are made , and my friend winds up helping this guy out to his car with his purchases.
The customer asked, Do you mind if I ask you a question?
My friend, guessing what’s coming, says “As long as I get to ask you one”
Customer does some typical “Do you know Jesus?” thing and when my friend gets his turn he asks
“How long have you been sober?” Turns out he was right on the money and the guy was a little miffed.
Even if there is no god , there’s no intentional lie if a believer converts someone.
What can happen is someone has some epiphany about life and love and meaning and belonging , or a feeling of forgiveness and being valued , whatever. Regardless of dogma, those feelings and their benefit can be very real.
Consider it a placebo if you will.
A cult is a group that cuts someone off from all contact with the outside world and causes them to depend upon a single group for all human contact. It correlates heavily with that person getting their ass killed, either through suicide or ATF raid.
Cults are not the same as most religious organizations you’ve heard of. They’re honestly different and more dangerous in the immediate term, especially to their members.
I don’t care that one person who thought the placebo was the real deal convinced someone else - and therefore didn’t lie. The placebo itself is a lie. Which may or may not be a bad thing depending on the situation.
Christianity is an example of a non-bigoted religion?
Where does that put people who only listen to Fox News?
Me, too.
Suddenly, this world was all there was. The poor aren’t going to get rewarded in heaven, so I need to do what I can for them. The evil aren’t going to be punished in hell, so I need to stand up against them now. This life is all I’ve got, so I need to make the most of it and I need to leave it a better place than I found it. There is no God watching over me and loving me no matter what, so I had better be worthy of real love from real people.
I’d just like to point out that I have lived a life of debauchery (including sexual behavior that would shock even you, along with moderate to heavy drug use), yet I do it all during my free time. I am a productive member of society, working 9 to 5 six days a week! The debauchery is all in my free time, thank you.
And I love the term debaunched, whilst my spell checker doesn’t. I will use it from here on in, when appropriate, of course.
Uh, a long way away from the compound when it goes up in flames?
I’d rather have a druggie that kills himself than a religious person who tries to kill others based on his beliefs.
Ok, so the underlying thesis here is that all conversion is bad? Someone finding something that the truly believe in, stabilizes their life, and gives them hope and comfort, this is bad?
Please tell me that I’m reading this incorrectly.
Not really, since their “compound” is the entire United States. The Right’s full of people who have isolated themselves from the rest of society intellectually without any need for a physical separation.
If a person’s belief system causes them to act more honestly, more patiently, more kindly, more compassionately, then I don’t care much about what they believe. I care more about how they act.
That is the underlying thesis of a lot of the militant atheists in this thread, yes.
ETA: What’s the difference between a militant atheist and a fundamentalist religious person? A militant atheist tells you what you can’t believe in; a fundamentalist religious person tells you what you should believe in.
As far as I can tell, a “militant atheist” is just “an atheist who dares say that he’s right”. Meanwhile the fundamentalists are running around beating and killing people and trying to make their delusions the law of the land. Equating them is an example of the typical pro-religious double standard.
Well you kind of left nothing to go wrong with that scenario. The problem is that this honest, patient, kind, and compassionate person is very unlikely to have a religious belief system. And if he insisted on calling it religious it would really be a watered down religious system that resembles a version of secular morality.
Would you ever say the same thing of a doctor? Say someone successfully cured ten patients using faulty medical reasoning. Would you be their eleventh patient?
This isn’t to say I would have nothing to do with your hypothetical person. I would rather have a flawed conversion into kindness than no kindness at all.
It’s bad because while he’s stabilizing his own life he’s not helping the lives of women, homosexuals, sexually active teenagers, or the advancement of science.
[quote=“Cat_Whisperer, post:56, topic:552709”]
Actually, a “militant” atheist tells you not to force your beliefs on others. A fundamentalist tries to force you to believe what they do the way they do.
What if the religious group someone converts to is the KKK. Sure they may sober up, stop taking drugs or whatever, but they’ll probably become a worse overall person.
That is how I read this thread so far - better to let them die in the gutter than have the horror of an undefined religious conversion occur.
As for the OP - If there is a net improvement in the person, that is great. If a thief stops thieving, that is great. If, however, he stops thieving but instead works to delude retirees out of their pensions to fund his air-conditioned dog house through his ministry - then I think we have a net loss.