Religion: The practice of training your mind to ignore evidence, logic, and reas
CJKent (Banned)
“The more a person needs to be right, the less certain he is...”
Got something to say?
Start your own discussion- Strip Club List
- What's New
- Reviews
- Top 40
- Articles
- Discussions
- Forums
- Unpublished Reviews
- Unpublished Articles
12 comments
I would rather people believe in God or something bigger than themselves than believe in money, power or, heaven forbid, politics.
I mean really, what do you care what others believe in?
Thought the vast majority of the adherents of such faiths are absolute morons who could never understand this.
SJG
I taught confirmation classes in my (Presbyterian Church USA) church for a number of years. One thing I said to every class was, "If you don't have doubts about your faith, you aren't thinking about it. God won't punish people who are genuinely seeking the truth."
The Church's history, for that matter, of all organized religion or lack of religion, would have been a lot less bloody if everyone understood that.
I usually respond with another question, “If we eliminate tuberculosis, what will we replace it with?”
Other people ask why I care what others believe. I don’t lose much sleep over what others believe, but if someone tells me the earth is flat, I usually say “no, it isn’t.” If someone tells me climate change is a hoax, I will usually say “I wish it were a hoax but, unfortunately, it seems to be very real.”
If someone tells me Jesus died for my sins so that when I die my soul can go to heaven, if I am pressed to respond I will usually say “I don’t have any idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”
Apart from regurgitating some old, worn out clichés they learned in Bible school, I’m persuaded they also lack a deep understanding of what they meant.
It trying to talk someone of faith out of believing stories handed down from Bronze Age goat herders is like jousting with windmills. People of deep faith cannot be budged from their beliefs.
They’ve been taught in Bible school that reason is the greatest enemy of faith. So they're immune from reason at least where matters of faith are concerned.
Second, I’m going to push back on Papi_Chulo’s comment that it takes as much or more faith to believe in the Big Bang and evolution as it takes to believe in religion.
Come on. Both of those theories are believed by huge numbers of scientists who have literally devoted their lives to studying the details of the issue. Religion is based on faith without evidence. Science is never 100% certain but when there is strong consensus I think it takes a lot of misplaced faith in your own understanding of the issues to reject it outright. No disrespect, but that strikes me as Dunning-Kruger on steroids!
Besides, one of the first proponents of the Big Bang (before it was even called the Big Bang) was Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest. I read an interesting biography of him and he actually anticipated a major role for the cosmological constant in his work, something for which there is now evidence. Regarding evolution, one of the founders of the modern synthesis (Theodosius Dobzansky) was an Eastern Orthodox believer.
So if you want to say “I don’t understand the details but that scientists who spend their lives studying this in detail probably have the majority of ideas right, but I also choose to have faith in God” then brilliant. Some scientists believe the same thing, many are atheists. But if you start declaring the scientists wrong I’ll say you have misplaced faith!
Third, I’m beginning to think that skibum609 is trolling a lot more than I originally thought. After all, I’ve never heard AOC say anything about religion and I don’t think she’s an atheist. Why bring her up?
Either you’re trolling or you’re actually attracted to AOC and constant obsession with her reflects your attraction. Do you have a big poster of AOC that would look like a Pollock under a black light? We’re a bunch of weirdo deviants here so I’m sure we won’t judge. ;)