I did say I was going to stay out of it, but once again Fletcher throws a curveball. Damn you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xujhan
That doesn't make religion great; religion can only be great if it produces something greater than a secular society would. I see no reason to think that religion increases the amount of love and peace in the world, and many reasons to think that it diminishes them.
|
That's a rather unsubstantiated claim in its current form, and does call for these reasons to be stated and an explanation as to why they are more divisive (which is the implication) than mere politics, geography or sheer human nature.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xujhan
Messages like "homosexuality is evil" and "women should be subservient to men" and "non-believers go to hell" and "humanity is sinful and deserves punishment"? Abrahamic religions preach love and peace, at times, but they contain many ugly messages as well. It's the latter that atheists object to. If there were a religion that said only "Be nice to others and don't fight" and nothing else, I would have many fewer objections to that.
|
Surely if it had that message and no other, your objections to it should be zero? That is after all preaching love and peace in its purest form, and the fact that you would retain objections infers that you're not being entirely straightforward about the bar you are setting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xujhan
I saw him make no such claim, nor have I ever met any atheist who does. I have however heard many fundamentalists insist that all atheists must be immoral.
|
The inference was that religion exclusively causes pain, stifles free thought etc., which is inferring that all those within are extremists. I wouldn't have made the claim myself but I can see where it stems from.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xujhan
I have great respect for people who bother to educate themselves and think critically about the world; by definition then, I have less respect for people who don't. That you would say "no proof that it doesn't exist and no proof that it does" demonstrates that you don't understand the role that evidence and proof play in reasoning. Here are some other things for which there is neither proof for nor against: unicorns, faeries, leprechauns, Thor, Zeus, Sauron, Narnia, Atlantis, Klingons, etc. Essentially no one believes that any of those actually exist, and Yahweh is no more sensible a proposition.
|
This is an analogy which has come up on a number of occasions, and it remains a flawed one. All of the above have in their very nature observable criteria which fall within our frame of reference - physical characteristics such as a unicorn's horse body and forehead horn, leprechauns' size and other characteristics, Zeus' beard and robes, Thor's beard and hammer and the architecture of Atlantis. (I'm omitting the others because including characters from explicit works of fiction is a bit of a smoke-and-mirrors ploy in trying to convince people religion is fiction) All of these thereby leave markers which are observable to us and would indicate their existence; while there is some spurious evidence that suggest somewhere like Atlantis may have existed (and spurious is definitely the word), no evidence for it or the others has been found which meets the required standard and could reasonably be expected given their depictions. As such, the lack of evidence can specifically count against their existence as depicted. In contrast, Yahweh (to use your example) has no such characteristics which are observable in the same way - the Torah contains no description of him, nor does the Bible, and Islam forbids any depictions of him so you won't find any there either. Whatever form Yahweh may take exists outside of our Universe and thereby outside our frame of reference, and while that provides no proof for his existence it does make the comparison you posited a flawed one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xujhan
No one subscribes to Norse mythology, so it's past the point of being able to do any harm. When the world regards Abrahamic religions as nothing but old folk tales, they too will become harmless.
|
All I will say is that I would not advise holding your breath on that. For one thing, you tend to suffocate which is never advisable...