(November 17, 2018 at 6:56 am)Rahn127 Wrote:(November 17, 2018 at 1:13 am)Aliza Wrote: I know you posed this question to atheists, but I'm going to answer anyway! Absolutely nothing is wrong with theist beliefs in and of themselves.
What's wrong is when theism interferes with getting along with others, or if theism inhibits progress. If you think Jesus died on the cross to "save you," and you're a productive, well-adapted, law-abiding member of society (bonus points if you can also solve the clean water crisis in India), then why should I give a shit that you think this thing is true? Knock yourself out. I have real problems to worry about and your being wrong about this doesn't rise to the level of needing my attention.
We start to have a huge problem if someone can't separate their religious values from their RL values. If you can get academia --- Shit, if you can get 51% of mainstream scientists to agree that your creation crap warrants serious consideration then I'm all for it. Give us the evidence, and let's evaluate it like adults. I am more than open minded to the possibility that I'm wrong and that the world really was created in six 24-hour days.
But your religious shit doesn't supercede my science shit, and those are the fucking rules.
First I'll address the spoiler. At the most basic level, theists think a god exists. That's the common thread among all theists, by definition.
After that any theist can hold any number of beliefs about anything involving their god, their religion, etc.
Yes, there is something wrong when you hold a belief to be true without any supporting evidence. When a large segment of a voting population share a common delusion or large segments of a population have different confrontational delusions, this is never good for a productive, law abiding society.
And when you mix delusional laws that they believe were given to them by their imaginary god with secular laws, you often don't get a well behaved individual.
You get someone who wants to impose their delusions upon others and wants to inact their delusional laws upon the rest of society.
Believing whatever you want is fine if you're living on an island by yourself, but people tend to interact with each other. We have to work together and it helps if we all can agree on what is real and what is fantasy.
Because when the jesus freaks try to kill you in hopes of saving your soul, it doesn't make for a productive society.
Suppose a segment of the voting population votes in favor of civil rights because their religious beliefs say that all people are the same while another group of voters believe that Hitler’s evidence for racial supremacy holds water and they vote to support legislation to suppress non-white races. Neo-Nazis think they have evidence, not faith.
I just don’t see theism as the root of all the world’s problems. I think assholery is the problem and yes, theists can be real assholes. –But so can other groups of people.
