(June 25, 2013 at 2:49 pm)Brian37 Wrote:(June 25, 2013 at 2:11 pm)Raven Wrote: Humanity did make up gods out of ignorance. It was the best available explanation back in the Bronze age. That explanation works well for unbelievers, but religioholics will never buy it. They've too much invested in their belief system for that. Imagine GC's anguish if he were to wake up one morning and finally grok that all that studying he did of the Bible was a monumental waste of time? It would not be pretty.
Well don't act as if change is always impossible. I believed at one point, and we had a majority of the world's population believe the earth was flat. That changed, so society can change too.
Shit, I have a guy on another board whose name is EX MINISTER! Ayaan Hersi Ali also once believed and desperately wanted to be a good Muslim. When I first met my younger biological sister, we were both put up for adoption, when we met as adults in the mid 90s she was a believer and took me to her church. Now she and her husband are flaming atheists.
Will there be people who will never change? Sure, but when you look at the long term change in humans, we always seem to adapt.
If our species never questioned social norms our species never would have left the caves.
I agree with everything you said in post 15. It is not that I think that change is always impossible, just bloody damned difficult. It took me a long time, and I was looking. So there you go. My sisters, no way. One's a nun, the other is a Sunday school teacher. Which is not surprising coming from a fanatically religious background. But I got out at least. So no, it isn't always impossible, just bloody difficult.
“To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?”
― Christopher Hitchens
"That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject". - George Santayana
"If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed". - George Carlin
― Christopher Hitchens
"That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject". - George Santayana
"If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed". - George Carlin