My personnal views on irrationality

[Minimalist]

Welcome, despite what min says, religion isn't "about fear" fear pervades humans in general:
" can understand that feeling, first because i feel it too sometimes (weird coincidences for example called synchronicity), and because believing in nothing at all, and only seeing our mortality and purposelessness is a terrifying thought."
Hopefully you'll gain a better understanding of religions purpose and further logical and rational thinking. Fear is no reason to believe anything.
Your English seems great to me and I look forwars to reading your posts and interacting.

You're wrong, Tack.

As H. L. Mencken said decades ago.

What is the function that a clergyman performs in the world? Answer: he gets his living by assuring idiots that he can save them from an imaginary hell. It is a business almost indistinguishable from that of a seller of snake-oil for rheumatism.

[tackattack]

I've never been assured of any such thing min. I've seen nothing but caring and nuturing and understanding from my pastors, not a hint of a sales pitch. I'll just have to respectfully agree to disagree

[AtheistPhil]

Salut Rwandrall ! Bienvenue sur atheistforum !

I agree with your intro, beliefs about things outside the physical realm cannot be tested or proved thus putting all of those beliefs on the same level. If you believe in astrology by example you can't dismiss any other irrationnal beliefs because they're as rationnally valid as astrology . That's why it isn't rare to see people believing not in one superstition but in several.
I think your 1% of non-believer figure is a bit low, sorry. Unfortunately there's a lot of 'spiritual' non-believers who are into supernatural stuff. I'd say 5-10% is more accurate, but it's just my personal estimation. I'm afraid not every atheist deconverted because of rational thinking.

they do, sadly the french are really not present on the internet: most of us that can speak english go to english boards since America and Great Britain represent a much bigger population. Also the issue of religion is much less present over there, it is more interesting to see what happens in countries where church and state are not always completely separate

Same here. A quick google search for "forum athé" doesn't give as much results as "atheist forum". The number of french forums only dedicated to atheism is really small. That's why I came here i the first place, I couldn't find any attractive atheistic forum open to international news in french.

[Minimalist]

Anyone who tells you what will happen after you die is conning you, tack.

I understand that you don't want to believe that but it doesn't matter how pious the con man is....he is still a con man.

[Rwandrall]

the main reason i gave the 1% number was because people might have thought i was generalizing, but you are probably right, i know very very few people who are purely rational.

Also, yeah i cannot find any active french athiest forums...even this forum (no offense to anyone) does not have an overwhelmingly big number of active members...

also, i need to improve my english any way i can

[deicide110]

Your English seems fine to me. i`ll probably have more gramatical errors than yourself. I agree there are many non believers who believe in something. I supose we all have a build in tendency to believe in god. Some people obviously need this saftey net for they cannot live without it. I personaly feel the need to believe its just i tend to see it as a legacy of humanitys past from which we need to break free. Our minds work in mysterious ways and generaly pull the wool over our own eyes. our understanding of coincidence being in such an area. I think the reason we see so many people believe in a modern version of spirituality is because religion does'nt cut it for them. most religions ask them to ignore the facts to much, evolution for example, people today believe in darwins theory because it just makes sense. but some also still believe in god and good luck to them whats the problem with believing in both.

[tackattack]

Anyone who tells you what will happen after you die is conning you, tack.

I understand that you don't want to believe that but it doesn't matter how pious the con man is....he is still a con man.

All the preachers I've had are rarely, if ever, on about anything in the afterlife. It's in this moment, the here and now that the best works can be done. It has nothing to do with what I want to believe or not. I would probably be a lot happier if I didn't have to have arguements with people about an afterlife and didn't care ( I actually don't care much at all for the afterlife). It's not really even a subtopic usually in my church, we're about establishing a base and good works in the now, remember, Christians aren't about reward for good deeds. At our church we're about following the teachings of Jesus, not evangelizing about the only way to get into heaven.

I fear we're veering way off OP.

[Rwandrall]

Anyone who tells you what will happen after you die is conning you, tack.

I understand that you don't want to believe that but it doesn't matter how pious the con man is....he is still a con man.

All the preachers I've had are rarely, if ever, on about anything in the afterlife. It's in this moment, the here and now that the best works can be done. It has nothing to do with what I want to believe or not. I would probably be a lot happier if I didn't have to have arguements with people about an afterlife and didn't care ( I actually don't care much at all for the afterlife). It's not really even a subtopic usually in my church, we're about establishing a base and good works in the now, remember, Christians aren't about reward for good deeds. At our church we're about following the teachings of Jesus, not evangelizing about the only way to get into heaven.

I fear we're veering way off OP.

no actually it does stick to the point of irrationality bringing good things, helping people find purpose in their lives. It is the major upside of irrationality and it cannot be ignored. My whole belief is only based on the fact that this upside comes at a great price. It is just like the atomic bomb: it can be either a weapon of mass destruction, or an incredible source of energy.

If i one day become convinced that religion brings more good things in the world than bad, i will not mind irrationality. But that is something that, for now, i find hard to even imagine possible.

here is an example from my (quite dull compared to terrorist attacks) life: someone who is studying law with me, very smart guy, friendly, open-hearted, everything. However he is religious, and his religion caused him to hate gays, he actually calls them the french equivalent of fags, saying they are only barely tolerated in our society and should conform to society's ideals and morals. It is really heart-rending to see, such a smart guy hating people because a book tells him to...

the only question about irrationality is probably this: is it worth it ?

[tackattack]

You're assuming that rationalality is somehow related directly to religion. They are not mutually exclusive. It is truly sad if he hates anyone based off of the messages in the bible. Check the sig. If you need some help straightening him out just pm me. I almost completely converted a creationist last week and converted a few Christians over the past months on that particular subject.

[Edwardo Piet]

I believe on evidence and evidence alone if I can help it. I don't believe in anything non-physical because as far as I know we live in a physical universe, are made of physical particles, and in term chemicals and we happen to be biological organisms and apes that we like to call 'humans' of course.

There may be some physical things that are not material 'matter' or are 'anti-matter' or whatever, but they're still physical. As far as I know (although I don't claim to know anything absolutely at all, I'm a full blown agnostic on all matters) there is nothing non-physical. But then how would I know if there was? Exactly - I know of no evidence for anything non-physical though so nevertheless I feel no need to believe there is anything non-physical or what that would even mean.

I would never wish to believe something irrational.

Welcome to the forums.

EvF