The Real Cost Of Religious Faith - Atheist Experience

[Eldritch]

And how much death and suffering have religious conflicts caused over the centuries? I'd say it's almost certainly quite a bit more. What happened in Cambodia was essentially a result of a self-destructive mass psychosis.

[lei.talk]

[Debaser11]

Thorum, I need to finish watching the video but I'm running late right now. So I'll respond more thoroughly later.

I'll just say that much of the violence and injustice that has been done in the name of Christianity has been done due to a misunderstanding or a misappropriation of Christian doctine as far as I can tell. Keep in mind I'm not a Christian. However, the same cannot be said about Islam in its defense. Islam is an inherently barbarous tradition. I don't believe this to be true of Christianity. Christian society has produced the most humane civilization to this date. That's not incidental.

There is a tendency to lump all religion together in the West today which I find to be absolutely absurd. Religions entail a whole belief system. A whole worldview. Why not have a dialogue about the cost of philosophical ideas (in their totality)? It would be absurd. So I find the shoehorning of all the faiths for the sake of a creating an "us vs. them" duality between atheists and the faithful to be a bit lazy, simplistic, and even a tad narcissistic on the part of atheists much in the same manner that the faithful can sometimes be lazy for shoehorning all non-believers.

If Christian doctrine is abused and misunderstood by dolts, bigots, and psychopaths, it is no more the fault of Christian canon than it is the fault of Karl Marx for Stalin and Mao.

[Joe McCarthy]

I think it is fair to say that the primary role of Christianity has been as a builder of civilization, despite its violence. Atheism though can make no such claim, especially given its Communist taint.

[Thorum]

@ Joe and Debase: What were your thoughts of the video? What did they mean by "the real cost of religious faith?" Did you agree with the caller?

Neither of you watched the video...

So Joe and Debase flame the thread, make negative comments and spew their thoughts without even knowing what the thread is about!! Can I ask one thing from you two and another person I have ran across this week that did the same thing on another thread: if you want to comment, show the courtesy of reading, viewing and understanding the topic first...

Otherwise, save your propaganda, dogma and self-serving spewage for its own thread...

[Thorum]

@ Debaser: Thanks for the rep!!

"I don't think you know what "flame" means. It doesn't mean writing shit you disagree with."

Ah, ok...

[Debaser11]

Neither of you watched the video...

So Joe and Debase flame the thread, make negative comments and spew their thoughts without even knowing what the thread is about!! Can I ask one thing from you two and another person I have ran across this week that did the same thing on another thread: if you want to comment, show the courtesy of reading, viewing and understanding the topic first...

Otherwise, save your propaganda, dogma and self-serving spewage for its own thread...

How does me defending Christianity in the manner I did (to which you apparently have no intelligent response) self-serving? I'm not a Christian or an atheist. I just don't think religion is science like Chrome Dome and Squint-eyed man who you think are really "great." Thus I don't think of science and religion as being interchangable when addressing matters like Truth. This modern debate doesn't stem from Christians misunderstanding science. It largely comes from atheists misunderstanding science.

The two men are not even as good as Hitchens who is embarassingly out of his league when discussing ontological matters even if he makes himself look good by debating morons like Dinesh D'Souza and the like.

Concerning the "cost" of faith: we all know what they mean. The men go on about how faith costs a believer because it compels one to say and think all kinds of terrrible things about non-believers. That is not necessarily true. Had the hosts any real interest in the subject they base their show around and even bothered to achieve an understanding of scripture (even on a recreational level) they very likely would know better. All they are doing is strawmaning EVERYONE with faith by describing certain negative characteristics that are present within certain fundamentalist movements. Their arguments would be appropriate for attacking Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, not Christianity. lol

The atheists are tantamount to a couple emo wet blankets I'd be likely to see in Austin (a city I'm very familiar with) whining about their predicament and making something as deep as an ontological belief or a communal expression of the divine about their own thickness. It's the height of ideological vanity to have a radio show ranting about other people for not sharing your lack of faith.

Furthermore, please explain to me how anything I said was propaganda while posting such a video like this is not?

And now that I've watched the video, I still stand by everything I wrote and everything I wrote that you didn't address in my initial response is still completely pertinent to the content in the video. Would you rather just have people post who agree with you so you can take turns blowing sunshine up each other's asses?

There is nothing Earth shattering or revelatory about the things these men are saying and frankly, it's laughable that these men present themselves as the ones cloaked in reason and evidence. But that's easy to do when arguing with some layman instead of a theologian or deeper thinker or something. They are basically making Bertrand Russell's argument only in a more proletariat sort of manner against vulnerable people. Needless to say, despite the great thinker that Russell is credited as being, he's a pretty big lightweight in terms of grappling with the big questions.

How would these two "rational" men explain something like a genetic mutation? Would they say it's random like scientists? Well, where does "random" come from? Such questions whose answers seem to venture past the realm of the material and toward a more nebulous strand of being are completely beyond these two Socrates's heads.

How is this view on a scientific observation like genetic mutation by Julius Evola any less reasonable than just putting one's faith in science like Moe and Curly have done?

"Geneticists, Evola argued, failed to provide a compelling account of how mutations occur. He maintained, as a consequence, that 'the cause is to be found elsewhere, in the actions of a superbiological element not reducible to the determinism of the physical transmission of genetic materials.' The true cause of hereditary variation was to be found 'rather by starting from another point of view that affords one an entirely different set of laws' than those of empirical science."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Evola


In closing, the hosts totally miss the point of faith and it's likely that one caller did as well. On the other hand, it's quite possible he feels all the things smarter men like Evola are getting at but is just not articulate. But the video is one big strawman against the faithful, particularly Christians.

[Joe McCarthy]

Originally Posted by Thorum
Otherwise, save your propaganda, dogma and self-serving spewage for its own thread...

No offense, but I have little time for atheist boilerplate even in my better moods, and my point from the outset was to illustrate the fact that whatever foibles have been created by religion, or specifically Christianity, the historical record is still better than that of atheism. In fact, even Islam created an entire civilization and carried culture far and wide. Atheism's primary contribution, if you'd call it that, has been to try and destroy what religion created.

[Austin]

I don't think atheism is really a good thing for humanity at present, although I am not very religious personally.

Religion is too good a tool to use to achieve what still needs to be done. Just think if all the masses of consumer-imbeciles were atheists and secular.....they'd be unmanageable and we'd have to actually deal with them and their idiotic notions of personal justice... Religion simplifies the masses desires into cohesive, manageable interests that can be heavily influenced.

[anonymaus]

Atheism though can make no such claim, especially given its Communist taint.

You wanna see my atheist capitalist taint, creampuff?