I couldn't agree with anything more...
You have to pick your battles carefully...
I often preface questions of believers with "Do you find it odd that..." and some of these people find nothing whatsoever odd about the illogic of the scriptures....nothing.
There are huge numbers of people who think that abandoning previously accepted truths as a sign of weakness. I do not.
I don't tell anybody anything. I just ask questions.
When I hear something like this...
When I hear something like this...
...I ask how the no mistake comment jives with the flood.
I sometimes believe that one of the greatest allures of religion is that it frees you from any kind of critical thinking. You never have to ask questions. You are, in a word, satisfied knowing your life is controlled by another.
I find that disquieting.
I find that disquieting.
I also believe that most religious people know next to nothing about other religions.
But my major concern is what mainstream religion does to children.
This sickens me. Not because it differs from my own beliefs, but because discussing science while at the same time dismissing the scientific method is...what?....unfair?
Wow! Somebody nailed it...
Posted this often but it's worth a reread from time to time...
I like revisiting this concept also...
You remember the "they were born for a different time" from above? Well, I hear that often when I quote some of the sins below. That is picking and choosing, which makes the whole exercise meaningless...
Gosh, I wish I had written this...
5 comments:
George Smith's firm conviction is pretty dumb. People obviously get many good things from false beliefs: comfort during tragedy, inspiration to create, desire to be charitable, etc.
Loads of bad shit is inspired by false beliefs, too, but false beliefs aren't unique to religious people, nor is a trite blanket statement about a person's religion likely to persuade them that they'd be better off without it. It's just preaching to the choir.
I've tread this ground before, but "human life has inherent value" is as unfalsifiable as "god exists". There are better reasons to pretend the former is true, though, and those reasons are far more universal among humans than explicitly-religious claims.
We needn't say people have nothing to gain from untruths; that's a bald lie. We just need to convince religious folk that the good things they get from religion can come from other sources which don't have to bend to silly and often dangerous woo and dogma.
I was an educator of children for decades. If I learned anything, it is to call a duck, a duck. Sadly, as I have gotten old, I view most fantasy oriented people as children who have never even considered backing away and taking another view. As foolish as it may sound, I want to be the one to ask just the right questions that will at least give them permission to question the magic.
There is no wisdom and no understanding And no counsel against the LORD. (Proverbs 21:30)
It doesn't matter what you say, what you believe or what you think you believe or what you post that others say or believe, in the end, at the very end of all things, you will stand before the Lord and give an account of your life. It doesn't matter if you believe this or not. It WILL happen. There is absolutely no way you will get out of it, nor will anyone else. You will absolutely stand at the judgment seat of God and will you be counted among the sheep or the goats? It's your choice.
And you learned all this from Bronze Age oral history and rumors that were translated countless times before your version was published and then only after hundreds of other books were discarded because the bishops didn't like what they said.
Good luck with that.
Darling, I know you believe it. It's a very comfortable thing to believe in...life eternal. After the sun dies and the universe expands until there is nothing but darkness, you and yours will be.....what? Walking in a magic city with streets of gold?
And you earned this right because you overcame original sin that you got because a rib woman was talked into eating from a magic tree by a talking snake? Can you not see why I have just a few problems with that?
And instead of answering for my life at the pearly gates, I prefer to think I answer for it every day; without false rewards of eternal life or the threat of burning in the magma of the Earth's core.
That's fine; I was just taking issue with the Smith quote. Like your new anonymous friend, he has a firm conviction about something he can't possibly know and which is very poorly evidenced.
It's true that many people with genetic disorders are burdens on the state; should we just kill them, then, and save ourselves time and effort? It's true intelligence has a genetic component; should we practice eugenics, then, and only implant embryos which have all the genes associated with high IQ?
Many reasonable people believe something like, "I know we aren't born equals, but it's generally useful to behave as if we were." People can clearly derive beneficial morality from untruths!
Again, "life has inherent value" is an unfalsifiable notion; it can never be proved true or false because there is no objective measure by which to quantify the "value" of life. That will always be subjective (and circumstantial).
Nonetheless, it's very useful to behave as if life does have inherent value, because we are life! We could say that human life is self-justifying, but that's no more logically valid than "the Christian way is self-justifying".
So where does that leave humanists and atheists such as we? How do we argue against religions when the foundations of humanism are exactly as circular? Well, we can agree with the positive parts of religions (with Christians that'd be don't murder, pursue the Golden Rule, be hospitable, etc) and we can reject the inconsistent or outright bad parts (divinity/souls, stoning, slaving, anti-gay bigotry, etc).
Furthermore, we can highlight the positive facets of the human condition which most people, regardless of creed, can circle their moral wagons around. The joy of children, the ineffable experience of sharing music, food and laughter with strangers, the reassuring comfort of cultivated relationships, etc. All those things are good, and the fair pursuit of them by the population at large requires certain cessations of liberty (e.g. we won't wantonly kill or antagonize one another, steal each other's stuff, perjure ourselves, etc).
We can have all of that good stuff and all the worthwhile law & order without believing, as Anonymous here clearly does, that the torture and execution of an ancient cult leader has meaningful bearing on our daily lives.
Post a Comment