six45ive Posted February 23, 2010 Author Share Posted February 23, 2010 How is a refusal to believe something which is illogical and for which there is no evidence a meme? If it is, then millions must be infected with a non belief in the tooth fairy. Oooops:blush: Sorry donkey. I've just reread the above that I responded to in my last post and realise that I misread it. So apologies but I'll leave my point there for what it's worth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donkey Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 (edited) right, scrub that post then. No worries Edited February 23, 2010 by donkey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redwhine Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 Just briefly- yes, that is a link to religious believers of the trendy 'personal relationship with God'. Not however necessarily anything to do with contemplatives which are people who spend years and years on an inward quest to find and know God and live by God's will. Before I qualify that with an an answer (which I could easily do, but I don't go in for shooting fish in a barrel) would you, please, give some (...any...) evidence that such a god exists? Didn't think so. Oh well, i'lll stick with atheism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karis Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 You call it arguing, I call it debating. The rest of your post just proves my point. No matter how light-hearted or positive a post, someone will always take it apart and attack back for its 'errors'... My point about not knowing about the existence of God was clearly very light-hearted. We will definitely know when we die, so that was pretty much a given! Really. Atheists do worse things than torture and execute others in the name of atheism? They discriminate against - and in the worst incidents execute - those whose consensual sexual behaviour is banned by their (non) teachings? They routinely target educational institutions so they can indoctrinate children before they are old enough to come to informed decisions? I could go on. We are totally on the same page here. And that was my point >< Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redwhine Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 I disagree. Would Mohamed Atta have flown American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center without religion? Good men do good things, bad men do bad things. For good men to do bad things takes religion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redwhine Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 Even Ann Widdecombe failed to mention these rules, despite doing a whole programme about the 10C on C4 recently. Did you actually see that programme? Confirmation bias from start to finish. She asked a librarian a question, got an answer that varied from her agenda and pressed her till she answered, honestly, that she didn't know. The next 2 interviewees spoke about what they 'believed' and their answers were accepted without question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milquetoast1 Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 I really do wish we'd all just see that religion has good and bad parts and that people can believe if they wish. No atheist I know has ever denied that religions have some good parts. We might disagree with the overall sum of positive and negative parts*, but the fact that we complain about the bad parts, often more vocally than the members of the religions themselves, is often why we know they are bad. As for believing what you wish, well of course you can, that's what a secular society stands for. The only places I can think of where that freedom is not available are non-secular ones. Then we could stop all this endless arguing about it on the forums! Sometimes, the people arguing against religion are worse than the theists in their overbearing opinions. But not only is it interesting, it is essential. Last week two sets of economists wrote open letters which set out their overbearing opinions on the timing of budget cuts. There was no compromise here, one set is wrong and the other is right. Neither wants to shut the other up, they just want to convince them. There is a sense that that theists don't want to be proven wrong, there is too much emotional investment I guess, whereas I DO want to be proven wrong. * Even if we were to accept that a particular religion has more good parts than bad, even if that religion motivated 90% in a society to be more charitable, against only 10% to be more anti-social, I'd still prefer to take my chances in a society without that religion tbh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karis Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 milquetoast1, it's not the discussion that I find depressing, it's the aloof and often condescending attitude toward the devout. It's just not necessary. Surely we can all live in a world of multiple faiths (or lack thereof) without implying (however subtly) that the religious are nut jobs!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onewheeldave Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 Before I qualify that with an an answer (which I could easily do, but I don't go in for shooting fish in a barrel) would you, please, give some (...any...) evidence that such a god exists? Didn't think so. Oh well, i'lll stick with atheism. I was refering to contemplatives- they generally have no need whatsoever for proof of god's existence- it's not a priority for them. As for you- you're totally welcome to stick to atheism, I have no interest whatsoever in trying to convert atheists to spirituality or vice-versa- your beliefs are your choice and you're welcome to hold them. All I've done in this thread is attempt to- 1. defend the rights of religious people to have their own beliefs 2. clarify some of the facts about religious/spiritual belief/practices that I find some atheists seem to be unaware of, or misunderstanding of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redwhine Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 I really do wish we'd all just see that religion has good and bad parts and that people can believe if they wish. Er... I get the bad parts. Care to share the 'good parts', please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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