RE: 'Default' religion...
July 29, 2010 at 1:36 am
(This post was last modified: July 29, 2010 at 1:51 am by DiRNiS.)
I am sure most of you have seen the "What if you're wrong?" Richard Dawkins video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg
It's similar to the response Min posted.
What if you're wrong about the great Juju at the bottom of the sea?
I am not sure if this has been posted in this forum before, but some time ago I came across this very insightful article by Robert Green Ingersoll:
http://www.infidels.org/library/historic...ostic.html
This is an excerpt of the first few paragraphs. It is a very interesting read indeed. Though he claims to be agnostic. Most of his views are very similar to mine and many atheists.
For the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of
habits and mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our
garments, depend on where we were born. We are molded and fashioned
by our surroundings.
Environment is a sculptor -- a painter.
If we had been born in Constantinople, the most of us would
have said: "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his
prophet." If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we
would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of
Nirvana.
As a rule, children love their parents, believe what they
teach, and take great pride in saying that the religion of mother
is good enough for them.
Most people love peace. They do not like to differ with their
neighbors. They like company. They are social. They enjoy traveling
on the highway with the multitude. They hate to walk alone.
The Scotch are Calvinists because their fathers were. The
Irish are Catholics because their fathers were. The English are
Episcopalians because their fathers were, and the Americans are
divided in a hundred sects because their fathers were. This is the
general rule, to which there are many exceptions. Children
sometimes are superior to their parents, modify their ideas, change
their customs, and arrive at different conclusions. But this is
generally so gradual that the departure is scarcely noticed, and
those who change usually insist that they are still following the
fathers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg
It's similar to the response Min posted.
What if you're wrong about the great Juju at the bottom of the sea?
I am not sure if this has been posted in this forum before, but some time ago I came across this very insightful article by Robert Green Ingersoll:
http://www.infidels.org/library/historic...ostic.html
This is an excerpt of the first few paragraphs. It is a very interesting read indeed. Though he claims to be agnostic. Most of his views are very similar to mine and many atheists.
For the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of
habits and mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our
garments, depend on where we were born. We are molded and fashioned
by our surroundings.
Environment is a sculptor -- a painter.
If we had been born in Constantinople, the most of us would
have said: "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his
prophet." If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we
would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of
Nirvana.
As a rule, children love their parents, believe what they
teach, and take great pride in saying that the religion of mother
is good enough for them.
Most people love peace. They do not like to differ with their
neighbors. They like company. They are social. They enjoy traveling
on the highway with the multitude. They hate to walk alone.
The Scotch are Calvinists because their fathers were. The
Irish are Catholics because their fathers were. The English are
Episcopalians because their fathers were, and the Americans are
divided in a hundred sects because their fathers were. This is the
general rule, to which there are many exceptions. Children
sometimes are superior to their parents, modify their ideas, change
their customs, and arrive at different conclusions. But this is
generally so gradual that the departure is scarcely noticed, and
those who change usually insist that they are still following the
fathers.
Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...
