RE: This Has to Stop
September 16, 2017 at 2:44 am
(This post was last modified: September 16, 2017 at 2:50 am by Kernel Sohcahtoa.)
(September 15, 2017 at 5:17 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: (1) Teaching children to willfully ignore the evidence for God, (2) that they are biological robots in a meaningless universe, (3) that all the people the love who have passed will be eaten by worms, (4) and that they should mock, ridicule and wish for the death of those who believe otherwise....
That is pure evil.
I'm sorry if this is the experience that you have had with people from the secular community.
Regarding (1), I'm more interested in keeping an open-mind and being open to various modes of inquiry. Based on my observations on AF, I think that a theist's definition of evidence is different from a non-theist's definition of evidence. IMO, regarding the former, religious faith, personal experience, shared experiences, group solidarity/connection, preconceptions about reality, and the claims of holy books, all play a big part in concluding that one's god belief is true; while the latter demands that any claim, statement, belief, etc., must be rationally proven (science, logical argumentation/proof, physical evidence, etc.) before it can be accepted as true. Thus, IMO, while some members of the secular community may be closed off to religious ideas and blindly opposed to them, there are plenty of people in this group who just see things differently than theists and are not willfully ignoring anything; they are simply asserting their individual uniqueness.
Regarding (2) and (3), I'm comfortable admitting that I do not have all of the facts about death, especially in a metaphysical/philosophical sense.
Regarding (4), I'm in agreement with you that such conduct is uncivil and reprehensible: it kills dialog and ensures that people stay entrenched in whatever misconceptions/misunderstandings that they hold toward people who are different than them.