Do you believe in God

Fact? I don't know about that. Here is a vid that explains it. This is a clip from the Reza Aslan/Sam Harris(Aslan is a Muslim and Harris is an atheist)debate:

Here's the whole debate. Very,very, interesting.

 

I don't believe that I stated that I blindly accepted Dawkin's view of everything. What I said was that a lot of his book articulated what I already believed. Yes, he is on a soapbox and I don't agree with everything that he says but there are a lot of good answers to questions I've asked. When I first brought this book up on the Books thread my words were:

I hardly think that equates to having a regular pew.

 

Which is, in itself, ridiculous.
If you counted up all the people who have died in wars, more would be under the column titled "nationalism" than "religion." It'd be closer than it should be, but the nationalists would win. So along with eliminating religion to placate Dawkins, we need to get rid of national borders as well. Ah, but there's another category, "tribal differences," that isn't so easily vanquished. Well, now what do we do? Can't fix that one, can we?
Yes, if you rid the world of religion, no one would go to war over religious differences. And all the good done in the name of religion would go away, as well.
HC, my point to you was that Dawkins has developed a religion unto himself. He's no different than anyone else who declared he had the Answer and that all those who follow his way of thinking would, in a sense, be redeemed. If you look at his work, he's got no scientific proof for his positions. He barely even has scientific theories on his side. His writings against religion are little more than screeds.
One does not have to be devout or blindly faithful to belong to a particular religion. I go to church every Sunday. Doesn't mean I agree with every word that's said -- but I also practice a lot of what is said a lot more faithfully than many who hold themselves to be True Believers.

 

praise ginger ... kinda has a ring to it, actually.

 

I haven't read Dawkins, but I know similar criticisms were leveled at Sam Harris, who wrote The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. I found the criticisms strange, because the book I read celebrated reason and rationality and opposed dogmas (tribalism, nationalism) of any kind.

This debate (on sj) has featured a number of straw-man arguments against atheism. Among the most curious is that atheists -- who define themselves simply by a lack of belief, nothing more -- are arrogant or dogmatic.

On the topic of "arrogance," Sam Harris has written:

Atheism does not assert that “it is all made by chance.” No one knows why the universe came into being. Most scientists readily admit their ignorance on this point. Religious believers do not. One of the extraordinary ironies of religious discourse can be seen in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while condemning scientists and other nonbelievers for their intellectual arrogance... And yet, there is no worldview more reprehensible in its arrogance than that of a religious believer: The Creator of the Universe takes an active interest in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death; my current beliefs, drawn from scripture, will remain the best statement of the truth until the end of the world; everyone who disagrees with me will spend eternity in hell…

 

Contained within that passage is a terrific argument for the virtues of atheism, which is supposed to lead to a more balanced, independent, virtuous and altruistic life...if man created a god, and is indeed reprehensible and selfish for having created it in order to stroke some ego, and 90 percent of the world is still embracing a malevolent fiction that shed the blood of millions throughout recorded history, then what kind of case does that make for secular humanism, which depends on man acting more virtuously in the absence of God? If God isn't real, then man deserves the indictment for having created Him, an invention that passionately argues against the whole of man, or even any kind of plurality, ever being capable of shedding the distinction of having wrought such evil throughout history?

If there is no God, then man is much worse than we believe. The humanist cause is sunk.

 

Interesting take.

Is it really up for debate whether Man has created god? It seems clear to me -- and I think most believers agree -- that man has. Of the hundreds or thousands of gods in recorded history, presumably not all of them are equally true. Which means that many or most (or, some would say, all but one) of the gods are purely human inventions.

Is that an indictment of humanity? Perhaps we're just in the midst of slow progress. There was a time when an all-powerful Church killed heretics and thwarted scientific and social advancement. Then came the Reformation. There was a time when man thought it natural to be ruled by kings. Then came the Enlightenment.

Perhaps in the next 500 years we'll shed various myths and superstitions as rapidly as we have during the last 500. Don't count humanity out just yet.

 

Certainly man has created many gods.
But I believe that man has a need to believe in a higher power because that need was placed in man by the true God.

 

I'd agree man has created many false gods.

But the empirical evidence throughout recorded history shows man has created gods. Considering how much damage secular humanists claims these gods have caused, and considering man is the cause of the gods, i'm not sure how sound secular humanism can really be for a large majority of earth.

But, then, it's not intended for most of earth. To be a secular humanist, you'd have to have a significant amount of bullshit pumped into you, and that usually happens in college. Most people in the world aren't lucky enough to get past the equivalent of sixth grade.

To me secular humanism is trickle down ethics...the girl who was sold into prostitution at 5 isn't going to have the luxury of being altruistic. That's up to her owner/pimp.

 

If you honestly think that my post was meant to be anti-Christian in any way, then you truly are the moron bully of the schoolyard who forgets to tie his shoes. Good God. If you have more useless vitriol to spew at me, at least do it on a PM, so the erudite people on this thread don't have to deal with your ravings.

 

Alma, you're making little sense here.

Which religion or belief system doesn't require "...significant amount of bullshit pumped into you."?

Which religious options are available to your five-year-old prostitute? Wouldn't they all be up to her pimp?

 

Evil has been done in the name of religion; that doesn't make religion evil.