RE: God: No magic required
January 28, 2014 at 5:06 pm
(This post was last modified: January 28, 2014 at 5:06 pm by Simon Moon.)
(January 28, 2014 at 3:30 pm)lweisenthal Wrote: Simon, you won't accept benefits (proven by a preponderance of evidence, if not beyond a shadow of doubt), in the absence of a proven mechanism. I'm happy to accept the benefits without fully understanding the mechanism.
I accept that there are benefits, I just don't attribute them to the same source.
The exact same benefits can be obtained through purely secular sources. No need for the belief in unsupported supernatural entities to gain them.
Quote:On the other hand, it's unambiguously clear that religion offers many benefits, quite apart from "social structure," including the impact of prayer relating to solace, courage, resolve, endurance, focus, discipline, humility, morality, and (as explained before) a sense of companionship with a deity which very definitely can attenuate loneliness. All of the above can offer a wide array of healthful benefits, from stress reduction to avoidance of STDs.
Again, other sources offer the same benefits.
Quote:All the "proof" a theist requires is his/her own personal experience with theism. If it works, keep doing it.
Confirmation bias, misinterpretation of events, imagination can account for these.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
