Why Do Atheists Criticize People's Beliefs?

[The Grand Nudger]

No, I don't.  I think that people who act out their religious beliefs in terrible ways are good people who have been compelled to do a bad thing.  The guy who slices up his daughters genitalia thinks he's helping her.  In your thought experiment, that's how it played out.  We had good people doing good things, and bad people doing bad things.  Then, with beleif, a good man doing a bad thing.  An anomalous point of data.  

If the question is what was more heavily weighted, belief or personality...in your thought experiment.......belief, and obviously so.  It was the only instance in which the outcome was not like the others.

If belief can be blamed in person A's case, leaving him blameless, why can't the same be done for C?  You're excusing A because you feel his beliefs compelled him.  Is C not under the same onus?  If we excuse people on account of them forming actions that are consonant with bad beliefs, then there is no one who will not be excused.  You've just redrawn the lines so that the person isn't responsible for their beliefs in one case, but they are in another.  That's inconsistent.

If belief can be blamed in person A's case, leaving him blameless, why can't the same be done for C?  You're excusing A because you feel his beliefs compelled him.  Is C not under the same onus?  If we excuse people on account of them forming actions that are consonant with bad beliefs, then there is no one who will not be excused.  You've just redrawn the lines so that the person isn't responsible for their beliefs in one case, but they are in another.  That's inconsistent.

Agreed (somewhat).  This is the fallacy of the whole "if not for religion, such and such a type of person would be great" argument.  It assumes that beliefs are more cause than symptom.  This is a baseless assumption.  If that were true, wouldn't you think that everyone with the same belief would be acting in similar ways?  That was the point of the hypothetical.  A and B have the same belief, but A reacts one way and B reacts completely differently.  Since both situations are plausible, the suggestion is plausible that belief is not the determining factor.  


[edit]people like Sam Harris blame Faith for ignoble life sacrifices like suicide bombings, but never credit it for noble life sacrifices like in war or emergencies.

C is under the same onus, as I already mentioned, when I asked what sense it made to call him a "non-believer".   However, if the point of the exercise, to me, was to show that it was personality over belief...I wouldn't make any such noise. Mostly, since it would then demonstrate exactly the opposite. That it was belief, and the contents of belief, that led inexorably to some terrible thing x. That with no other mentioned differences, it was a belief in some x in each case that led to a bad outcome.

It's a standard apologetic outreach argument, with a standard reply. Meh.

There just weren't any differences in personality described in the first place, a total "wtf" way to phrase a question. The entire point of example c is an example of "not a belief", "not like a" -but it's exactly like a...so?.

[Valyza1]

Belief is like a fire. If you light it appropriately, it will warm people up. If you light it inappropriately, it will burn people. If you don't light it at all, you may not burn anyone, but they'll be fucking freezing. And that pretty much sums up my view on faith.

[The Grand Nudger]

LOL....

If you light it appropriately™......

?

Yes, all of those other people are doing it wrong.   


Meanwhile, who freezes?  Who needs this>?  No one. Your view on faith is appropriately faithful and deferant.

[Rhondazvous]

Humans created religion. How can man create something intrinsically evil if there's nothing intrinsically evil in the man who created it?

[Valyza1]

LOL....

If you light it appropriately™......

?

Yes, all of those other people are doing it wrong.   

Why is this such a silly notion? I already gave an example of two people taking the same basic belief and responding to it in entirely different kinds of ways. Do you want a real life example? How about Timothy McVeigh vs Desmond Doss?

Meanwhile, who freezes?  Who needs this>?  No one.

People who think faith is a fire that burns everyone near it. Anyone would prefer freezing to that, so they prefer the cold. They don't understand and/or believe and/or just plain deny that any kind of worthwhile handling of this fire can be managed.

Your view on faith is appropriately faithful and deferant.

I don't know what that means or implies

[The Grand Nudger]

Why is this such a silly notion? I already gave an example of two people taking the same basic belief and responding to it in entirely different kinds of ways.  Do you want a real life example?  How about Timothy McVeigh vs Desmond Doss?

It's a silly notion because it's explicitly illogical and wallows in that.  The notion that all the bad shit is due to it being done wrong™.  Perhaps all the good shit is due to it being done wrong?  Perhaps all the shit is due to it being done wrong?  Perhaps all the shit is due to it being done right, good or bad.  

You didn't give any examples of a shared basic belief and it's relationship to impetus.  You gave two examples of people who fall under a broad header term for 33k different schismatic faiths, and surmised that one was doing "it" right, and one was doing "it" wrong for no reason other than your own preferred outcomes - as if there even were a singular "it" in the first place.  

Maybe bloodgod is hungry, Val.  People who do terrible things to please their bloodgod -are- appropriately lighting the fire of their religion.  Sometimes, that means warming people up, in the sense that you have piled sticks around them and then set them on fire...literally.  

People who think faith is a fire that burns everyone near it.  Anyone would prefer freezing to that, so they prefer the cold.  They don't understand and/or believe and/or just plain deny that any kind of worthwhile handling of this fire can be managed.  

This comment is too abstract for me to respond to, honestly.  I can't tell whether or not it responds to the quoted comment to which it was applied.  







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