(December 11, 2015 at 8:02 pm)Newton66 Wrote: Most religious people don't see God as "magic", that is your term.
A typical religious person can still differentiate between obvious lies.
Religion is not an obvious lie because it has thousands of years of teachings behind it.
Magic and religion aren't different. What unites them is their ad hoc working. There is no "how" behind it. There's really no difference between casting a spell and saying a prayer. You say the words, and the thing happens by no discernible mechanism. Same with superstition. What, exactly, is the difference between rubbing a rabbit's foot and splashing a baby with water? There isn't one. They are both superstitious practices. The difference is purely cultural.
The fact that something has had thousands of years of teachings behind it doesn't make it not an obvious lie. Of course some guy didn't put every kind of animal on a boat in a worldwide flood. Of course some guy didn't fly to heaven on a winged horse. Of course people don't rise from the dead after 3 days. That's blatant. It's no different from knowing that of course there wasn't a thunder god named Zeus or a guy who delivers presents to a billion children on Christmas Eve. These are myths. The ones that someone isn't raised with are transparently so to that person. Even being raised with them, all it takes is a little honesty.
