Theism vs. Atheism ... will it ever be settled?

 

Jesus came and gave new rules

 

 

Fundamentalism is wrong. Wherever it's found. It's just bad. And here I see more fundamentalism from the side of "reason". The side that I tend to agree with, except when it starts becoming a religion. 

These kind of atheist is very good at putting words in somebody else's mouth. They assume that all religion people believe exactly the same, and think exactly the same. 

I have many people around me who are religious and in whose intelligence and power of reasoning I would never doubt, and whose advice I would take 100 times before I ask for the one of the people who use reason to call other people's beliefs stupid. 

Sorry, in this case I agree with Ivan. If you call the beliefs of a person "stupid" you're pretty muich calling that person stupid. Remember, beliefs define actions, define ethics, define morals. If your beliefs are stupid, how can you not be also stupid? 

I don't believe there is a god. If there is one, I'm quite sure Mike's and the other atheist's brains (including mine) are to small and irrelevant to comprehend it. And if there's no god, so what, this is no contest of whio's right and who's wrong. 

Stop abuse, stop fundamentalism, of course. Stop church's abuses, islam's abuses, stop mutilation, stop rape, of course. It has to be stopped. But that's just stopping that which is wrong. That doesn't mean ALL people who share the same beliefs have to be called the same way and viewed as unreasonable. 

Curiously, the most reasonable person in this entire discussion has been absent, and curiously, he's extremely religious: Robert (Epignosis)

My initial comment regarding Mike never having experienced "belief" was directed at him as much as it was at anyone else. His lack of personal experience in this matter is way beyond your never experiencing atheism to the extent that it is not the same thing at all and never can be. You cannot learn belief from a book, it has to be experienced, and without that you can never understand it and you can never understand how anybody can believe it, especially when faced with the cold truth that the people who believe in that belief are rational, logical, intelligent people who will happily and readily discard all other supernatural, paranormal, mystical and mythical things without argument. To someone who has never experienced belief it looks exactly like delusion and ignorance, and by "ignorance" I mean the lack of knowledge that can be corrected by education ... something that Mike has made pains to point out, he honestly thinks that this can be cured through education - which as you, I and everyone else knows is not true. People can have all the facts, all the knowledge and all the understanding and still believe in their religion. And I do not mean "ignorance" because believer's are stupid - that is indeed an insult and one I do not believe that Mike is making, since he has specifically said he is not. Belief is more than just believing in words spoken in a church, it is not something you do with your head but with your heart, so words like "irrational", "delusional" "stupid" and "ignorant" are meaningless when applied to religion (and love come to that).

 

 

 

 

I surely hope you're not referring to me. I used to be a believer, and you won't find a more understanding person than I on how diverse and varied a believer and his views on the bible can be. 

But the bible says what it says. You can tip-toe around certain things you don't like, you can even argue that certain passages are no longer relevant, but the bottom line is this: someone at some point wrote down as religious law that it was okay to kill and abuse your family, persecute homosexuality, put other human beings into bondage and slavery, etc. And no amount of re-interpreting and modernizing as an afterthought will make that okay in my eyes. 

And Rob is smart enough to know when to quit beating a dead horse. Mike is never going to change his mind, and debating in his threads only brings about heated arguments and name-calling (ultimately). Anyone with real smarts avoids an accident waiting to happen. But since I don't have real smarts, I come and play. 

 

This is similar to the point I was trying to make in my post at the top of page 4 of this thread.

 

BTW, I don't discard out of hand... paranormal, aliens or megafauna (thanks for that great word Dean!)... well, maybe the megafauna... guess that makes me a real basket case