(May 17, 2023 at 10:14 am)KerimF Wrote:(May 17, 2023 at 10:03 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Atheists usually believe in things that can be backed up by evidence, and friendship is something that requires evidence. Indeed, friendship is something that almost constantly needs evidence as it needs to be maintained.
Well said. But I wonder what 'evidence' in this case could be, to you in the least.
Human relationships, including friendship, consist of giving and taking. And it goes back from mutual grooming in primates to helping a friend move.
So if you have a friend, you usually help him with problems and he helps you. But if it comes down to you only helping him while he never helps you, then you feel used and you don't feel like that person is your friend, and that is because humans have sensitive antennae for detecting violations of reciprocity.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
