bob young <alaspectrum@netvigator.com> wrote :

My only enemy is the man who may want to push religious dogma down the
throat of my four year old son, and those who want to bomb 'infidels,
and take my family with them

A four-year-old son at 77? I'm impressed.

But to answer the point, the problem is that you're NOT limiting your
enmity to the people who want to 'push religious dogma' down your throat
(or that of your son). And you're certainly not limiting it to those
relative few who believe that violence is the way to go.

You're attacking ALL religious people, of ALL religions, because you've
set up a polar view of things: there's Us, and there's Them.

For
example, my religious beliefs don't require me to convert you (or your
son); and they don't require me to hold any concept of an 'infidel'. Yet
you've made your feelings about my being religious abundantly clear.

You're not alone. It's quite common amongst the fervent anti-
religionists here to confuse 'religion' with some sort of amalgam of
Christianity and Islam and assume that that's as far as the word goes.

No the case. i was taken to Sunday school by my favourite cousin,
stuck little stamps in a book when i got questions about Jesus right,
went to a school that was right next to the parish church so we had
prayers once a week plus a class called 'divinity' three ties a week
[The catholic boy, there was only one, had to sit outside in the
corridor, which was the first indication for me that there was
something completely wrong with it all, helped in no small way by some
of the idiotic claims in the book we had to read.

Then we were taken to the church monthly to chant The Creed. criminal
to have young impressionable men forced to read such a catalogue of
nonsense and then 'swear they believed it'

I went from UK to Africa at age 23 and that started me thinking and
from that time on I had no further Christian leanings

That's great. And it makes my point: YOU decided your path. Over the
course of those years, YOU thought about what you felt, and YOU decided
that this religion thing wasn't for you.

And if I tried to persuade you - or rather, if I tried to TELL you - that
your position was wrong, and that you're an idiot if you don't conform to
mine, what would your likely response be? Anger? Hostility?
Indignation? Whichever of these might emerge, I'd lay good money on one
thing in particular: resistance.

This is why I say what I say: religious people, for the most part,
believe. And, right or wrong, they believe they know WHY they believe.
If you can't bring yourself to account for that, then you won't be
successful.

The best you can hope to convert are those who are wavering
anyway, or who feel cheated or betrayed by their religion. But those who
are content, and who have an established worldview, won't be swayed by
patronising demands and oblique abuse. If you want to make inroads with
THEM - as I presume you would if what you said about wanting to make
people see sense was true - then you'd need to start by establishing
common ground, showing an understanding of their beliefs and why they
hold them, and working slowly from there.

Of course, if all you really want to do is mock the religious idiots,
then you don't need to put any particular effort in:

Corrrrect. Only idiots believe what cannot be verified

Like that.

But to a believer, there's ALREADY evidence FOR
God (or whatever) -

WOW............... please trot it out
[been waiting for this for years !]

No, you misunderstand. I said that to a believer there is already
evidence of God (or whatever). I've already told you what evidence *I*
see - but you've demonstrated that you're not able or willing to register
my concept of 'God'.

Perhaps it's because I keep referring to it as
'God', which is a word I wouldn't normally use, and it may be that that's
what's misleading you into believing that I'm Christian.

Even so, you've
had *my* evidence for *my* belief, and you've rejected it, and that's
fine.

If you want *other people's* evidence for *their* beliefs, then you'll
have to ask *them*.

Or you could just make a sarcastic demand with no
intention of listening to what they say, and see how many of them are
willing to try to engage you in a clearly futile conversation.

Yup -what your mum taught you. the Hindu girl next to you will say
something akin to what you said about her god that has the body of a
woman with the head of an elephant

Yeah, there's my mum again... You really have got stuck on this point,
haven't you?

Let me explain it again: my parents raised me in a Christian environment,
being Christian themselves. I, however, have not been Christian for a
good many years, because it was not right for me. My parents made no
attempt to persuade me back into the Church, nor ever criticised my
decisions in this regard.

Do you understand?

Aye, 'invariably'. So you've said - and it is a nice, easy
explanation for it, isn't it?

IT IS A FACT, applies to over 90% of religionists, does not that have
you saying "Hey stop wait a minute, there's something wrong here"

The first thing it has me saying is "where did he get that figure?".
Even so, it doesn't sound unreasonable, so we'll go with 90%. Then we
have the question of how 90% becomes 'invariably' anything. Then we have
the question of how high that figure has to be before you decide that the
minority percentage can be discounted. If the figure was 60%, would the
40% who were NOT influenced by their parents be worthy of note?

Then, after all that, I find myself asking "does it really matter?". The
reason that comes up is because I'd say a fairly high proportion of
religionists are nominally religious at best. The sort who go to their
place of worship for weddings or funerals, or the occasional festival,
and otherwise don't really give it much thought. Not because they don't
really believe (although that's no doubt true in some cases), but because
they're just pretty casual about manifesting the belief.

You've identified two specific groups of religious people that you claim
are the real targets of your contempt: those who convert, and those who
bomb. But the fact is that, globally speaking, the percentage of those
who *aren't* willing to use violence to further their religious ends must
be pretty close to 100%.

That small percentage that's left is,
unfortunately, pretty loud, so tends to get all the attention. And even
amongst those, an honest person taking a balanced view would then ask,
"is this really about religion? Or is it more about personal gain,
politics and power, rationalised through religion?" Even where the
conflict is ingrained - as in the Middle East - the fact is it's not
because the religions in question make an undeniable demand that their
followers kill each other. Sure, you can point at passages in each
group's holy book that say "kill the unbeliever" - and that's the
standard argument as to why 'religion is evil' or 'religion causes wars'.
But consider how many religious rules each side has abandoned, revised,
or adopted over the centuries. Consider how many passages speak of
peace, and tolerance - but these don't get mentioned very often because
they don't serve the agenda of keeping the hatred alive. Where conflict
is ingrained, it's not the religion that drives it - it's maintained
largely by the fact that 'we have always hated them'.

Regardless, the fact remains that the vast, vast majority of religious
people - and again, please try to understand that 'religious' describes
far more than Christian, Muslim and Jew - would consider it unthinkable
to take up the gun or the bomb to try to spread their religion by force.

So what about the preachers? What about the evangelical types who want
to frighten you into submission? Well, again, they're still a relative
minority, certainly in the UK and I'm reasonably certain the same could
be said in the USA - but again, most religious people who *aren't*
preachy and loud just don't get noticed. So the perception is that
evangelical fevour simply goes with being religious.

When you meet a preachy type, you have a choice. Lots of choices. You
can get angry and shout at them; you can take time to argue reason with
them; you can hit them; you could ignore them and walk away; and so on.
Or, you could get angry and direct that anger to everyone religious on
the assumption that they're all the same.

Aaaaah well that is where you are wrong, I am a pacifist as indeed are
many atheists

You may well be a pacifist in terms of your disapproval of war. But your
manner with regard to religion is militant. If you don't like that
definition, then you might want to consider your attitude. And
personally, as I've said, I think you'd make more headway in getting
people to 'see sense' if you started by showing even a glimmer of respect
for their current point of view.

, Bertrand Russell is no exception, you should read more

of his writing:

Two great religions- Buddhism and Christianity- have sought to extend
to the whole human race the cooperative feeling that is spontaneous
towards fellow tribesmen. They have preached the brotherhood of man,
showing by the use of the word 'brotherhood' that they are attempting
to extend beyond its natural bounds an emotional attitude which, in
its origin, is biological. If we are all children of God, then we are
all one family. But in practice those who in theory adopted this creed
have always felt that those who did not adopt it were not children of
God but children of Satan, and the old mechanism of hatred of those
outside the tribe has returned, giving added vigor to the creed, but
in a direction which diverted it from its original purpose. Religion,
morality, economic self- interest, the mere pursuit of biological
survival, all supply to our intelligence unanswerable arguments in
favor of worldwide co-operation, but the old instincts that have come
down to us from our tribal ancestors rise up in indignation, feeling
that life would lose its savor if there were no one to hate, that
anyone who could love such a scoundrel as So-and-so would be a worm,
that struggle is the law of life, and that in a world where we all
loved one another there would be nothing to live for. (A.I.p19/20)

It seems that Mr Russell makes the same mistake that you do: he assumes
that the hatred he speaks of is an inherent part of the two religions he
identifies. It isn't - though it is certainly an inherent part of some
of those who claim to practise them.

Do what? Attack followers of other religions? how about if all
religions were put into the trash can?

Then you would be responsible for the most extensive subjugation of
liberties the world had ever seen.

And it's self-perpetuating. You, for example, have no desire to
learn about and understand those who have different points of view
than yours, do you?

How silly you are, why do you think I am debating here?

Well, that would be because you've expressed a desire to persuade others
to 'see sense'. If that had really been your intent, then you would have
recognised that debate is a necessary part of the process.
Realistically, as I've said, we both know that that's NOT why you do it,
and I know that the reason you actually do it doesn't require any
concession or effort on your part at all - but it's up to you whether you
want to be consistent or not in the claims you make about your
motivations.

Your hatred of the religious means that you see no value in
lowering yourself to our level;

I have told you dozens of times 'I do not hate religionists, i simply
feel sorry for them' I do not go around burning down churches like
some idiots burn down clinics that perform abortions.

And nor do the vast, vast majority of religionists go around burning down
abortion clinics. But those are the only ones you recognise, because
they're the ones who get the media interest.

I don't as it does not bother me. Some of my best friends are
religionists, my daughter is for one and we spend hours debating the
god no god idea.

So you ARE for debate, after all? Or does that just apply to family
members?

Seems your arguments are week[...]

Sorry - I'm not going to accept that from someone whose last two
arguments consisted of 'nope'.

hey enjoy the rest of your week, it will soon be Sunday !

Does Sunday have some sort of significance for you?

--
Midwinter

bob young <alaspect...@netvigator.com> wrote :

My only enemy is the man who may want to push religious dogma down the
throat of my four year old son, and those who want to bomb 'infidels,
and take my family with them

A four-year-old son at 77? I'm impressed.

But to answer the point, the problem is that you're NOT limiting your
enmity to the people who want to 'push religious dogma' down your throat
(or that of your son). And you're certainly not limiting it to those
relative few who believe that violence is the way to go.

You're attacking ALL religious people, of ALL religions, because you've
set up a polar view of things: there's Us, and there's Them. For
example, my religious beliefs don't require me to convert you (or your
son); and they don't require me to hold any concept of an 'infidel'. Yet
you've made your feelings about my being religious abundantly clear.

You're not alone. It's quite common amongst the fervent anti-
religionists here to confuse 'religion' with some sort of amalgam of
Christianity and Islam and assume that that's as far as the word goes.

gudl...@yahoo.com wrote :

Unlikely but not impossible. People who were sincere and devout
believers in various faiths have, as a result of reason, left those
faiths.

No, I'll happily concede it's not impossible. My doubt in relation to
the Stephen Roberts argument is that it's not *likely* to have much of an
effect, so employing it seems either trivial or desperate.

there are anecdotal accounts you can offer me of religious people
abandoning religion for atheism; but we both know that there are
anecdotal accounts of people shifting the other way, too.

And some of us have been able to see that and break away. It is
indeed hard to go against conditioning, but it does happen.

Some of us, I guess, are able to accommodate emotion and feeling AND
science and fact. We don't need to abandon one to concentrate on the
other.

Some of us, it bears repeating, hold religious beliefs without having
been conditioned into them. Some of us have left religions behind
without any difficulty at all.

I think some people just find it easier
to imagine their opponents as ranks of mindless zombies.

Isn't a great deal of your argument based on your strawman atheist?

My argument, in case we're losing track, is that the suggestion in
Stephen Roberts' argument that religious people are basically atheists
with regard to all the gods but the one(s) they worship is not accurate.
The reason I believe it's not accurate is that it distorts what atheism
means: atheism means a lack of belief in god or gods (or, unpopular
though it may be to suggest it, possibly a belief in no god/s). The non-
belief of a theist in a god other than their own is NOT a kind of
atheism, because in order to be atheist the theist would have to renounce
ALL such belief. Even the belief in one god amongst thousands
disqualifies someone from the label of atheist.

Secondly, the intended goal of the argument is to show the religionist
why atheists don't believe, and therefore why they should also not
believe. The problem with that is that it doesn't take account of the
reasons why religious people DO believe. And it's all very well arguing
that there's no 'objective evidence'. It's true that there isn't; but
that's not what makes a religious person believe. There are many reasons
why someone might be religious - and in all cases the reasoning is
adequate for the individual concerned. Reasons why they might reject
belief in OTHER gods might be similarly varied.

So the argument isn't based on any 'strawman', as far as I'm aware: it's
merely intended to explain why Roberts' argument doesn't seem to make any
real sense to me.

In the real world most atheists get along quite well with most
theists, at least where freedom of religion exists.

Sure. In the real world. That's one of the points I often find myself
making in here: while anti-religionists on Usenet frequently demonise and
vilify religious people as being the aforementioned mindless zombies, and
all but accuse us all of terrorism and mass murder, the truth is that, in
the REAL world, it's a far more moderate story. Things just aren't as
straightforward as the militants on either side would like to make out.

I have no respect for
irrational beliefs, but that does not translate into lack of respect
for a person's right to such beliefs or to lack of respect just
because they have them.

Speaking for myself, I ask for nothing more.

--
Midwinter

Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote :

No, it just asks the theist to think. If you're saying that theists
are incapable of thought, I won't comment.

I'm sure that's what you'd like to suggest that I'm saying. But no, it's
not. I'm saying that I *do* credit theists - of any stripe - with the
ability to think, unless I have reason to believe otherwise. That's
precisely why I suspect that most of them KNOW why they believe what they
believe. In most cases, it's not simply a matter of believing because
they're told to believe.

The problem with that reasoning is that it requires
first of all that the theist dismisses the reason they DO believe in the
one or ones that they DO believe in