Well, I don’t know, I’m not saying people are stupid, but it’s very natural for people to want very simple explanations for everything rather some complex answer and in reality, everything’s complicated, so people like to believe in a divine higher power that is responsible for everything that happens, that’s the most simple explanation ever. And the theory is that god will never be wrong so people act sll emotioal when they’re against this simple explanation.
Lol. But seriously, it seems to me that when people get defensive, there is often an element of fear, uncertainty or doubt involved.
For example, I believe down to my core that I’m a human being. If somebody told me “You’re really a kangaroo,” I wouldn’t get argumentative or defensive.
You did say you were agnostic but you hypothesized an elegant theory about God that you shared with SO and he put it down. The bastard !
This has nothing to do with religion, you’re both not religious.
Its like you don’t want to have sex tonight so you tell SO you have a headache. He tells you that he doesn’t believe you. What, he doesn’t trust you! The bastard ! Now you’re sure you feel a headache coming on.
I’m sorry, but a theological discussion can go nowhere but downhill if you start from the premise that questioning God is even worse than questioning your mother-this turns every conversation on the subject into personal attack on your loved ones, and this is, IMHO, silly and unproductive.
That’s why I’m so mad at President Bush.
Is snickering an indication of hatred?
I agree that you get a similar emotional reaction from any strong conviction. Political parties, abortion, Sports teams, the list goes on. I think Tom made a good point is suggesting it’s about the persons self image, and an emotional attachment that equates certain beliefs with self image. Besides, nobody really likes being called a fool.
I’d add that concerning religious beliefs, people have a hard time separating the details of belief. If you question one article of doctrine they sometimes react as if you’ve attacked everything about their value system. I think people have to learn that reevaluating specific details of your belief system is a positive process. Lot’s of people resist change though.
…which shows you have absolutely no concept of what religion is. You’re not hated by the religious, no matter how persecuted you believe you are.
It’s a subject that holds enormous importance to many people and virtually all of the evidence is subjective.
I’m not persecuted, because almost no one knows that I’m an atheist. That doesn’t keep me from being hated by people who don’t even know I’m alive.
Have you ever considered it might be you?
Well, now, hang on there. So-called “imaginary number math” (involving roots of negatives) wasn’t created on a whim. It serves a very useful purpose in solving certain geometry problems, for starters.
God may be useless, but imaginary numbers are definitely not.
Considering that as I just said, the people I’m talking about don’t even know me, no, I seriously doubt that it’s me. If, say, some guy a thousand miles away disowns his son for being an atheist, I really doubt that his hatred of atheism and his son has a single thing to do with me. I see no reason to believe that I have anything to do with atheists and atheism being so hated and feared.
Actually, a rather more important point is that mathematics is a logical construct, not a claim about some supposedly objectively real entity. And as well, mathematics IS provable by pure logic, so it’s really a bad comparison on all levels.
People get defensive about the subject because people on both sides of the issue get offensive about it. That’s where the hope of a discussion turns into a conflict. Defensiveness for both sides is simply a reaction.
It’s a shame, too, because if the hostility from both sides were removed, so would the defensiveness. Think of the mass comprehension that could occur.
To reflect what others have said up-thread, there is a phrase I once heard that went something like this: “There are three things about which you’ll never change someone else’s mind: politics, religion, and music.” These are opinions/beliefs that go straight to the core of most people, and even with the best intentions, a disagreement with something that is so close to how that person sees himself is often taken like a disapproval of who that person is.
There are countless times when my friends and I had political and/or religious discussions in which I tried my best to not be offensive but stay true to my perspective, and they would very quickly get offended. Sadly, the most common response to offense is often aggression, and it quickly devolves from there.
The other problem is, none of these sorts of subjects have definitive, factual answers where we can just go look it up in an encyclopedia. Despite what some people may assert, there is no way to definitively say whether conservativism or liberalism is “correct” or whether rock or metal or rap or country or whatever is “best” or whether God does or doesn’t exist; however, we’re all convinced that we are right, otherwise we wouldn’t hold those beliefs.
Particularly when it comes to religion, for those of us who have had experiences, this is undeniable proof of God’s existence and no amount of argument can change that fact. Yet, despite our conviction, we’re left with no real way to prove anything because we can’t share that experience. For those who feel God doesn’t exist, it’s very much the same. You have reasonable explanations for the experiences and that sort of thing, and it must be frustrating for you because it’s impossible to change our minds.
Of course, people stepping in and deliberately instigating the opposing side rather than being reasonable doesn’t help. :rolleyes:
Speaking of which, Charger, I think it’s the other way around. The defensiveness is natural. How else can a rational person behave when he holds a possition that cannot be rationally defended? Instead, as I said above, I think it’s this defensiveness that spawns the hostility; that is, it’s a sort of a “I’m under attack, I must fight back” initial reaction that quickly becomes bitter. I mean, really, both sides of this sort of argument perceive themselves as being under attack, it’s only a matter of time before one or the other actually intends to attack the other as a result.
Sadly, I don’t think this will go away as long as we have differences in beliefs, opinions, and preferences.
There’s a difference between questioning and insulting. If necessary, I can provide examples or links to dictionaries.
The fact is that I cannot give you a statement that is not an example. When I say ubiquity, I mean it. My experience has attached an aesthetic significance to every single thing I have observed, and every person who has ever communicated with me (including you) has left me with an aesthetic dilemma that I must resolve. Inasmuch as I posit God as the objective free moral agent, goodness as edification, and love as the transitivity agency of goodness, there has never existed a spacetime event that has not had the potential for moral significance. A little old lady standing on a street corner is in physical essence nothing more than electromagnetic waves suspended in a gravity field. And yet I am called upon — indeed compelled — to make moral decisions with respect to her once I, as a free moral agent, have identified her. Will I help her cross the street? Will I mug or rape her? Will I speak a kind word? Will I insult her? Will I turn my head and ignore her? If all these are aesthetically equal, then there is no God. But if one is more loving than another, then God is a necessary agent. This is not because of epistemic emptiness, but metaphysical emptiness. In other words, there is no gap in knowledge that must be filled by God; rather, there is a gap in existence that must be filled by God. There is no theoretical model of the universe that includes morality waves or aesthetics particles, not because we haven’t learned them yet, but because they don’t exist. Goodness is supernatural, and I see it everywhere always.
God is a necessary agent? I can think of a good few alternative deities that would make those options morally different, and a good few atheistic ones that would make them appear so.
If you’re coming from the perspective of already believing in God, and thus these examples are evidence for his existence, that still doesn’t make them evidence for him. I don’t consider the potential for morality, the appearance of morality, to be evidence alone (or at least not good evidence); but either way the most you could say is that it is evidence for a subjective system of morality. Not the particular deity you refer to as God.
Badness too?
I must say that I’m intrigued by the notion of an atheistic deity, but you’ve mistakenly assumed a parochialism where none exists. It doesn’t matter to me whether it is the notion of my God or your God or his God or her God that fulfills the Godness I’ve described. Whatever deity it is that has laid out the plan to assemble free moral agents into a network of aesthetical edificiation is the one Who gets my worship.
Of course. Badness is merely the obsruction of goodness. It too is a moral decision and would apply in instances I described about the little old lady. Raping or mugging her, for example, might likely not be edifying for her.