(January 18, 2017 at 7:16 am)Autolite Wrote: I think that we're both on the same page on this. It's has taken me a very long time but I now realise that people are going to believe what they choose to believe regardless of things like truth, facts or reality. It's a sobering and unsettling realization, well for me it is anyway. I just don't know where people like Dawkins, Carrier, Krauss or Maher get the fortitude to carry on the fight.
robvalue made a comment that made me think. He said that using rationality and logic is the way to defeat or counter Theism. I figure that Atheism has been around just as long as Theism. I wonder at what point in the history of mankind does he reckon that rationality will start to kick in and do it's thing???
I think with time and repetition logic and reason will win out over dogma and faith. But I suppose we won't know. I think we are certainly starting to see the beginning of a godless world - and Christians especially are scared to death by it. There is always going to be overlap generation after generation... just to quantify it if 10 million people per generation start to learn how to think with logic rather than faith (whether or not they come to the conclusion that they are atheists) then that is a step in the right direction.
I have a five year old niece and while I would never attempt to persuade her into being an atheist, I certainly would be honest with her that I do not think there is a god. I would simply tell her what I think and then ask her what makes the most sense to her. I think a lot more children are being raised this way in today's age and slowly, but surely, the kids who are religious are starting to be seen as "the weird kid." I can remember even 6 years ago when I was in high school... no one was religious. Sure some people would tell you they were Christian or Catholic or whatever but no one really followed any of it. The kids who did were sort of seen as jesus freaks and whatnot.
I'm not condoning that religious kids be bullied or anything like that but what I am saying is that even children are smart enough to figure out that it's a very bizarre thing to follow fairy tales and made up stories with such zeal and passion. It is a strange thing and people are starting to catch on to that.
“Love is the only bow on Life’s dark cloud. It is the morning and the evening star. It shines upon the babe, and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. It is the mother of art, inspirer of poet, patriot and philosopher.
It is the air and light of every heart – builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody – for music is the voice of love.
Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to Joy, and makes royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.” - Robert. G. Ingersoll
It is the air and light of every heart – builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody – for music is the voice of love.
Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to Joy, and makes royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.” - Robert. G. Ingersoll
