RE: This Has to Stop
September 25, 2017 at 9:25 am
(This post was last modified: September 25, 2017 at 9:34 am by Harry Nevis.)
(September 24, 2017 at 9:51 pm)beepete Wrote: Hating other people that hold a different view will probably only confirm prejudices on both sides. I'm a Christian and for years refused to look at opposing views. Recently I have started watching videos by Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and a few others and it has been both eye-opening and challenging (in a positive sense). So far I have not seen them attacking the holders of certain beliefs but rather the beliefs themselves. Clearly, these men have a superior intellect to mine - but they don't attack or hate others for not being as clever as they so obviously are. Hating religious people will probably only confirm them in their belief system.
I don't hate the people. I'm Irritated and appalled that, in this day and age, they've given up critical thinking for a warm blankie of personal certainty. Certainty that has no valid support except that it feels good. But, hay, to each their own. If this was all there was to it, it would make me do noe more than ask a few questions and shake my head in disbelief. But when they push their BS to kids in schools, and fight for laws to allow them to be racists and bigots, the gloves are off. Religious people don't need confirmation of their beliefs. But people on the fence, when they see how empty their value system is when challenged even at the most basic level, may see them for who they are. Egotistical, needy people who, by their belief, feel superior to people who actually think and consider issues.
(September 25, 2017 at 12:24 am)beepete Wrote: Yes - a lie is a lie is a lie and killing and harming others for a lie (or the supposed truth) is evil.
I will never be an atheist but can see myself well on the way to being an agnostic. I can't prove nor disprove the existence of God.
Right and wrong, however, are reasonably apparent. Killing children because they are an Amalekite or a Foetus is clearly wrong.
I can't prove or disprove god. So I'm an atheist. I wasn't born believing in gods. Gods have been proposed as real, no sufficient evidence has been shown to validate these claims, so I have no reason to move from not believing. But show me good enough evidence, and I'm willing to revisit the topic.
And killing a fetus is not clearly wrong outside of your belief system.
"The last superstition of the human mind is the superstition that religion in itself is a good thing." - Samuel Porter Putnam
