Riffhard wrote on Mar 5
th, 2010 at 4:03pm:
Brainbell Jangler wrote on Mar 5
th, 2010 at 3:34pm:
Riffy compares a challenge to religious beliefs to racist attacks on blacks by the KKK. This is an absurd analogy. Race is an
ascribed characteristic; religion is a set of
acquired beliefs. You can (at least in theory) talk a person out of a belief; you can't convince someone to stop being black.
Religion, like any other belief system, is subject to critical analysis and comparison to objective reality. There was a time when Christians did not run away from theological dispute with their doctrinal tails between their legs, shouting "Bigotry!" because someone dared to question the rationality of fairy tales such as the virgin birth or the resurrection. Read the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas for a vigorous defense of the existence of God and other Christian tenets. It would appear that, in the light of scientific progress that has undercut Aquinas's arguments, the contemporary Christian response is to declare discussion of their dogma off limits and to attack the questioner as the moral equivalent of a racist. It's a clever tactic, but like the dogma itself, it does not withstand logical evaluation.
Bigotry is bigotry BJ. You may have a tough time with that fact, but ask any employer that has ever had to deal with EOE laws, and you'll soon learn that prejudice against a person's race, ethnicity, or religion is straight up bigotry, and is prosecuted by law. In other words shut the hell up about what others believe. It only makes you look like a small minded snob. Why are you so damned intent on proving that God does not exist? What is your point? Are you trying to claim that you have some intellectual superiority. Because I have news for you my man, it only makes you look petty and mean spirited. Plus, you should be wise enough to know that that is an argument that you are far too little ever win. Billions of people on this planet get a very real sense of peace, and comfort from their own personal relationship with God, Jesus, Allah, etc.. The fact that that bothers you so much says much more about you then it does about the billions of people that do have faith in something larger than themselves.
Yes. Showing bigotry against someone's religion is just as egregious as showing contempt for race. That you choose to deny that, or can't see it, is pathetic. You grant yourself an excuse to pass judgement against someone simply becaue you don't believe in God. That is bigotry no matter how you slice it. I pity you.
Riffy
Riffy,
Thanks for the thoughtful response. The employment law example is a special situation; workplace discrimination based on religious belief is as odious as that based on race or sexual orientation. We also have laws restricting the sexual content of speech in the workplace; we wouldn't want the same legal standards to apply at, say, a bar, a party or a Stones concert. Likewise, and in the same way that my political views are fair game to your comments, your religious beliefs are open to my questions and doubts.
As to why I am intent on disproving the existence of God and thus the falsity of all theistic religion, the general point was made in the quote I've shared before: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things. But for good people to do bad things, it takes religion." The examples of good (and evil) people doing bad things in the name of religion are everywhere: the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Palestinians and Israelis, Sunnis and Shia in Iraq, India and Pakistan (in fact, the very existence of Pakistan) are all bloody, interminable battles based on doctrinal disputes over non-existent matters. Christopher Hitchens goes over the list of harmful effects of religion at length in
God is Not Great.
Billions of good people, as you correctly observe, derive peace and comfort from their religious beliefs. Those psychological benefits, along with the sense of community and the practice of mutual aid characteristic of most religious organizations, are (unlike any so-called God) very real. I would never deny those comforts to any human being; I would only point out that they do not derive from religion but actually predate it, arising from the communitarian nature of our evolutionary past. My point is that people can enjoy that sense of peace without buying into a bunch of Bronze Age beliefs.
I have certainty, not faith, in something (many things) larger than myself: my family, the Oregon Country Fair, the State of Oregon, the United States of America, humanity, life, Planet Earth, the physical universe. Physics suggests to me the possibility, even the likelihood, of parallel universes. The world is much greater than my comprehension, but the explanations of science appear more sensible to me than those of any religion--with the obvious exception of Buddhism, which, properly understood, is not so much a religion as a psychological practice and which specifically teaches the non-existence of God (
Anatta, "absence of any permanent principle;" the Third Characteristic of Existence).
"I entreat you, my brothers,
remain true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of superterrestrial hopes! They are poisoners, whether they know it or not. They are despisers of life, atrophying and self-poisoned men, of whom the earth is weary: so let them be gone!"--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche,
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
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