There’s still a concept known as being ‘polite’. If someone wants to engage in the debate with me, great. But frankly, if another person chooses to believe in God because it gives them comfort, I’m certainly not going to ‘confront’ them about it and attempt to rub their noses in their lack of critical thinking. It’s just rude.
Mind you, if they try converting me, all bets are off. Now they’re in my personal space. It’s go time. But other than that, it’s fine with me. I have good friends who are deeply religious. I have family members who are as well. They’re not bad people or stupid or in need of a mental re-adjustment. They lead happy, productive lives. Our neighbors are a devout family - we call them the Flanders. But they are the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Every one of them. Their faith tells them to be, and they act on it. The children are well-mannered, get good grades, and are very happy. The parents seem to have a good marriage and are nice, fun people. Why on Earth would I want to confront them about their faith? That would just make me intolerant.
Take me, for example. When it comes to most things, I am very much a skeptic: I am extremely disinclined to believe reports of aliens, ghosts, paranormal abilities, alternative medicines, mediums, past lives and all other forms of new or old age claptrap. Furthermore, I am very, very skeptical about the power of prayer, creationism, miracles, faith healing and divine manifestations or revelations of any sort. Any atheist wants to challange these things, I’m on his side.
However, I believe in God, and while I certainly don’t obey all the preceipts of my faith, I still consider myself an observant man. My religion is very important to me despite the fact that I have no physical evidence to support it. It may not make sense to you, but it works for me, and so long as you don’t challange my belief I won’t challange try and alter yours.
But if you try to lump me in with the crackpots, well, you’ve lost yourself an ally. And I think that there are enough smart religious folk out there - people who believe that God gave us eyes and ears and brains so that we try to understand the world on our own - that you can’t afford to go without our support.
Hey, you want to beat your head against a brick wall, you go for it. Personally I think a debate where one person compares the other persons belief to Santa Claus and the other one answers with “oh, yeah, but you’re going to hell” got old in Junior High.
But, as a skeptic, I like to have my beliefs challenged. If they can’t hold up then they weren’t very good beliefs, and if they do then they are stronger for the challenge. It’s kind of the whole point of skepticism.
I think there is a difference between a logical argument and a persuasive argument. That doesn’t make the logical argument any less valid.
e.g. me telling my boss at work “I deserve a raise because I was promised one last year and I have accomplished all the items that were assigned to me” is logical but may not persuade him.
On the other hand, if I say “empty your wallet or I’ll shoot you with this gun” is persuasive but not logical.
I agree that many of the reasons for arguing against the existence of God are obviously not persuasive to believers, that doesn’t mean that they are incorrect arguments.
To give another example related to religion: I can tell a Mormon that if some lost tribe of Israelites migrated to the New World, surely there would be some archaeological evidence. The argument will probably not persuade him, but it is still valid.
Perhaps skeptics is the wrong word. This question came to my mind from a discussion with some colleagues over beer when the object of UFOs came about, and then the topic veered into a discussion on religion.
I don’t know. I was inspired by a book of poetry given me by a philosophy teacher named Quentin Smith. I also read an interview of his where he said that every day for a year at the age of seven he was struck by a teacher at school for refusing to say the Lord’s Prayer. That reminded me of a similar experience of my own when growing up. My real name is not Quentin Smith.
That is very true. But I don’t have a mission to convince people not to believe in God (though I am an atheist.) I was wondering more about the fact that belief in God gets “a pass”, whereas belief in ghosts, bigfoot, or other things typically doesn’t. At least this is what I notice in my daily life in my conversations with my friends in the science department.
But I see some excellent reasons said in this thread, in particular that many people have an emotional attachment to their religion, and discussion on that subject can be more heated and unpleasant than other topics. Though I did make one lady quite unhappy when I insisted that the psychic she saw was blowing smoke with her predictions of a happy marriage with her current fiance. She seemed to have quite a bit of emotional investment in that topic also.
Thank you to the link about the “why do we belive in god” thread, very interesting. Aqnd also the “weirdest stuff” thread! It took forever to read, but I’m off to claim my $500 now! (j/k)
In my limited experience, belief in God only gets a pass when it is not effecting anyone else.
When they cross that line (say, for example, abortion rights or stem cell research debate), those beliefs are indeed questioned, at least as far as that issue goes.
I would say that I’m generally a bit skeptical about things. Not necessarily skeptical to the point of doubting everything without an immediate cite for it, but I have my own beliefs that are based on my own experiences. I didn’t stick with the faith I was raised in, and I questioned it in comparison to my experience of what I feel is god(s), and from this, I have belief in some supernatural entities, but it’s pretty limited. However, I wouldn’t call myself an agnostic or atheist by any means, as I actually believe, based on my experiences that these things exist. I can’t explain it to anyone who has not seen what I have not seen, but I don’t like the assumption that I haven’t given deep thought to anything that I base my faith upon. (This is exactly where questioning my faith draws my ire, as it is making false assumptions about me because of a random factor.)
Jackknifed Juggernaut has explained some of my reasoning behind my own reaction to other’s beliefs. I cannot refute that someone else is not seeing something just because I cannot see it, but I can (at the very least) point out flaws in their theory or perception of history that are widely proven to be false. I don’t, however, often engage in debate about religion IRL because I find discussing religion with someone who is not very close to me (and often many who are close but not very close) to be impolite and inappropriate. Why? There are lots of people who are intolerant to the point of making the conversation a heated argument. I just want my POV tolerated as long as I’m not forcing it on you or going out of my way to annoy you by discussing it. If I don’t bring it up, but you find out that I believe in something anyway, it does not give you the right to pester me about it.
The point wasn’t whether the argument was valid…the point was whether you would have success with it.
The “what makes any one God any more valid than any other god or mythological figure” is a valid argument (at least, if you are arguing the existance of the Judeo-Christian God and not arguing the idea of some Universalist concept - if you define God broadly enough (which I personally do - I consider myself a Deist) it becomes much harder).
A bit of misphrasing on my part. What I meant to say is that if you don’t challenge my faith, I won’t try to convert you to it (although being Jewish, I probably wouldn’t do that anyway). Seems like a fair trade to me.
Look: as far as you or society in general are concerned, my religious beliefs are essentially harmless. Anytime science goes against my belief, I’ll go with science. I will never try and pass off faith as fact. My personal morality is not based upon my religion. What more do you you want?
Do you want all my beliefs and actions to come from a place of pure, cold logic? That’s not going to happen. Humans aren’t logical, nor should they be.
However, an unpleasant thought has occurred to me. If it is true, of course I don’t expect you to verify it. Even so, please could you pop over to the only other thread you seem to have participated in so far? You know, this one?
Nancarrow, it is, indeed, polite to indicate in a neutral Forum where another poster has been called out in the Pit. On the other hand, the “accusation” (not quite) lodged in the Pit is not one appropriate to this Forum.
I appreciate that you have left your implied accusation out of this Forum, but given that the subject is actively participating in the other thread, I do call into question your judgment placing a notice, here.
I’m an atheist that gives some religious types a “pass” I don’t extend to paranormalists, conspiracy theorists or communists because squishing the latter groups is more emotionally fulfilling.
And on further reflection I agree with you. Especially as you noted in the other thread that “Quentin S Smith” is a RL semi-famous atheist name (something I utterly failed to check), thus furthering the already-more-likely ‘coincidence’ explanation. My apologies. To our new guest Quentin, particularly.