Strong and Weak Arguments

[robvalue]

What peaceful religions? A religion is what people make of it, and very few indeed haven't been used for violence. Most, if not all, contain divisive literature.

There are thousands of strands of religion. And there are really good ones. Yahwe witnesses, for example, went as far as removed hell altogether. They have a very cute formula of "serve to selflessness or "free eternal sleep from God might be coming your way"". Which is one of the cutest things I heard.

That's good to hear! I'm all for removing hell from doctrine. It's about the worst feature religion has going.

Of course intelligent people can be religious.

I would simply say that someone consistently applying scepticism would not be a theist. Everyone fails to apply scepticism properly at some points, it's just a matter of how much, how often and whether such problems are addressed.

Simply put, theistic/religious beliefs are rooted in emotion, in my opinion. And I think people can have an emotional belief which contradicts their logical belief, on the same subject. The emotional one can very easily win out. The emotion can hold logic hostage, and even use it to rationalize the belief to one's self. I've experienced this many times regarding different subjects.

In my opinion, the emotional beliefs are less likely to be accurate regarding facts about reality than the logical ones. Of course, emotion is crucial in guiding moral decisions where pure logic can never suffice.

Are you able to give a similar analysis of at least some aspects of atheistic positions? Ya know, see some of the downsides of atheism in the same way you would expect Christians to acknowledge its own tender underbelly?

Downsides of atheism you say?

Logically, I don't see any downsides. Especially if you adopt weak atheism, which doesn't even have a burden of proof. It's a simple reaction to reality as it is presented. If you do take a more solid position, particularly gnostic atheism, you do invite having to explain yourself further. I don't generally suggest people claim to be gnostic, regarding a generic creator at least. I'd reserve it for internally inconsistent claims.

Emotionally, some people do seem to struggle. They can have a need for there to be "someone in charge", and can find it unnerving to think that there might not be. Most of the time when I've heard this, it's been from someone who started off believing and later became an atheist. I can understand how losing that "comfort blanket" could be unnerving. If you're not a sceptic atheist, you can of course have whatever woo you like to fill the void so this isn't so much of a problem; although you do then compromise your logical position of course.

Personally I've never had any emotional problems with it, since I've known no different. For those who are uncomfortable not having answers, it can be hard too. Being a sceptic means saying "I don't know", to a lot of questions. Some people really don't seem to like that.

It does have the unfortunate quality of being a very misunderstood and often persecuted position of course. And it's usually accompanied by the belief in the finality of death for the sceptic, which can be depressing to some people.

EDIT: Actually, there is one kind-of downside. It's a pre-emptive position. Due to the extremely vague nature of "God", it's never totally clear what your opinion will be about any given one until you get the details.