Originally posted by Suzianne
And I think it's just plain sick that since you've painted yourself into a corner with your dreams that your fondest wish of there being no God are really true that you now have no other choice but to claim that people are delusional so that you can be all cozy and comfy with your opinion that you're right, and they're wrong.
Furthermore, you and people ...[text shortened]... ning bias against someone who is not like you, [b]just because they are not like you.[/b]
No, I do not hate you. I certainly don't hate you [or anyone else] because you [they] are religious.
I do hate religions, including yours, but that is entirely not the same thing.
I explained it once with an analogy to smoking.
I cannot stand the acrid smell of cigarettes and smoking. It makes me choke and gag.
I hate what that smoke does to people, and the corporations who make money off of
the poor people who they made addicted to their poisonous product.
I have friends who smoke, and I hate the fact that they smoke. I hate seeing them know
that it's bad for them and not be able to stop, because they are addicted.
Even as they try to keep the smoke and smell away from other people I care because of
the harm it's doing them.
I hate smoking. I hate the companies and individuals that promote smoking.
I don't [necessarily] hate the smoker.
I do not hate you because you are religious, I hate the religion, and the fact that you are religious.
And I do so mainly because of the harms that your religion inflicts on you.
You admit yourself to be afraid of an apocalypse that is never going to happen.
You fear a hell, and of others you care for going to that hell, that does not exist.
You fear the wroth of a non-existent god.
And your ability to understand and accept reality has been destroyed by the requirement
for belief by blind faith imposed upon you by your religion.
Blind faith is inherently dangerous, because their is no link back to reality that grounds it.
My beliefs [and those of any good skeptic] are ideally based on observable reality.
I ideally only believe things that are and have been demonstrated to be true.
Being human, there are inevitably some things I believe that don't meet this standard.
However, because my commitment is to the standard, and not the beliefs.
If and when I discover/have pointed out, facts that contradict a belief that I hold [perhaps with a struggle]
what goes is that belief.
As much as I hate the idea of your god [or gods in general], if I were presented with evidence sufficient
to justify my believing in your god I would cease to believe that your god does not exist and instead
believe that it did. Because my commitment is to believe stuff that is true, and not stuff that merely makes
me feel good. There are many things I believe to be true that I wish were not true, and many things I
wish were true but aren't.
You don't have that commitment.
Blind faith can be used as a justification [and has been used as a justification] for believing in anything.
If blind faith is an acceptable method of forming beliefs then there is literally no valid argument against
those who [for example] shoot up Planned Parenthood, or Paris.
Because if blind faith is ok then they can simply say that they have faith that a god exists that wants
them to do these things and that they will be rewarded in heaven for committing these crimes.
And all you can say in response is that you have faith in a different god and that your god says that
this is wrong. You likewise cannot form a valid argument against people like RJHinds who believe that
the world is [something like] 6000 years old and that any and all evidence to the contrary is just the
devil planting false evidence [or scientists lying etc etc]. His position is unassailable if faith based
beliefs are a valid form of belief formation.
The vast majority of people with faith based beliefs are not personally that dangerous, because they
are generally nice people trying to do the right thing and their own morality causes them to pick
their faith based beliefs to be vaguely nice. But by holding on to the idea that faith based beliefs are
valid, they legitimise the idea. And that legitimacy helps protect those whose beliefs are not so
warm and cuddly.
Your personal experience [as described] was a very powerful experience that no doubt seemed completely
real. I can understand why people who have such experiences believe them to be real.
However, what you saw qualifies as an extraordinary claim. People being visited by angels is not a
normal everyday occurrence. [something even you should accept as true]
And extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In Bayesian terms the evidence has to be
strong enough to overcome the very low prior probability.
Eyewitness accounts are not extraordinary evidence. We are ALL to easily deceived, even without the immense
stress you describe in your tale. Again I/we have provided mountains of evidence for this that you ignore
because it would threaten your world view. To which I say 'if your world view id threatened by evidence then
there is something wrong with your world view, and it's not worth keeping'.
This is neither sick, nor intolerant, nor prejudice, nor inhuman.
Does your god understand "Fun"?
30 Nov '15 12:37
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