Another religion thread.

[br0k3n 0]

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I take it that you think you're omniscient in order to be so sure that God doesn't exist. Am I right?

I wish I was. But alas Im not.. however I have arrived at the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that god exists, and like my previous post this is by examining all the empirical evidence and forming a logical conclusion based on it. However I will admit that I could be wrong.

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So you don't want to answer my ONE question? but you want me to answer 10 (or whatever) of yours? If I answer yours, will you be upset if I put as little thought into my answers as you did with Michele's?

Not at all, however most of Michele’s questions did indeed require little thought. But please MB answer my questions how you see fit.

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--+ There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.. --+

[Mockingbird 0]

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"Proof is arriving at a logical conclusion, based on the available evidence." if you want to ensure the you arrive at the best possible conclusion then you ensure that the evidence that you consider is empirical.

In the case of Christianity there is no evidence except the bible, which is most certainly not empirical evidence.

So you don't believe in anything other than what you can experience or see, huh? I guess you don't believe in J.S. Bach or Charles Darwin either.

Blue skies & happy jitters ~Mockingbird
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[Mockingbird 0]

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I take it that you think you're omniscient in order to be so sure that God doesn't exist. Am I right?

I wish I was. But alas Im not.. however I have arrived at the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that god exists, and like my previous post this is by examining all the empirical evidence and forming a logical conclusion based on it. However I will admit that I could be wrong.

"Extremely" unlikely. That's an interesting description. Not just "unlikely," but "extremely unlikely."

You say you examined all the empirical evidence? Could you give me an idea of some of the empirical evidence that you examined?

Blue skies & happy jitters ~Mockingbird
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[br0k3n 0]

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So you don't believe in anything other than what you can experience or see, huh? I guess you don't believe in J.S. Bach or Charles Darwin either.

Absolutely not, of course I believe J.S Bach, Charles Darwin, Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Winston Churchil etc etc etc anyone else????

Now as you correctly pointed out I have not seen, or met any of these people, but how is it that I believe that they existed, and what makes them different from Jesus?????

Lets take caeser as an example, Unlike the mythical Jesus Christ, we know what Caesar looked like and we have a complete history of his life. We have words written by Caesar himself and words written by both his friends and his enemies. Artefacts confirm his life and death, as do his successors.
Caesar was an eyewitness to many of the events he describes in his commentaries. He wrote not for posterity but to have an immediate impact on the power players in Rome as he schemed to advance his own career.

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--+ There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.. --+

[br0k3n 0]

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"Extremely" unlikely. That's an interesting description. Not just "unlikely," but "extremely unlikely."

You say you examined all the empirical evidence? Could you give me an idea of some of the empirical evidence that you examined?

Yes extremely unlikely….

Now to answer you question here is a list of all the empirical evidence that suggests that the stories told of a man called jesus might in fact be real… feel free to add anything to the list that I have missed.

1.

Now here is a list of all everything else, which is considered as anecdotal evidence,

1. The Bible….

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--+ There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.. --+

[lurch 0]

So, you think you have no beliefs, huh?

The subtext in your question is clear.
I answer this way:
I don't THINK I have none.
It was a statement of fact with no iffy qualifiers like "I think".
I have none.
Beliefs, that is. I draw a line between verifiable fact, opinion and feelings or beliefs.
I've had believers jump on this before, trying to prove that I Do in fact believe whatever and my rationalist certainty on certain topics equates to their Belief. It does not. Usually the argument goes "But you believe in electricity, or gravity, or evolution..."
I do not believe in these things. I do not need to. They are self-evidently present whether I acknowledge them or not. Whether someone else tells me about them or not. They are not subject to things like "belief." They are facts.
God is not a fact. The supernatural of any description is not a fact. Resurrections virgin births and saviors are not facts unless you work in the medical field and have seen virgins get artinsem, and cardiac patients resuscitated, and thats cheating because it is real and has nothing to do with faith or divinity. Unless someone else tells you about these religious things and tries to convince you they are true, they do not exist for you. There are many who have never heard of this "god" critter or his agents Jesus and Mary. To those raised in ignorance of other people's belief structures, there is no such thing.
To those raised in ignorance of education, Gravity Electricity and Evolution are still real influential undeniable parts of their lives even if they have no names for them. Disbelieve in electricity all you want, drag your feet on a carpet on a dry day you get zapped anyway. Disbelieve in gravity all you want, jump off a cliff you splat unless you brought a canopy with you. Disbelieve in Evolution all you want, it will not stop bacteria from evolving antibiotic resistance, will not stop the roaches under your sink from evolving defenses against the Raid you've been using.
So, no. I don't have any beliefs unless you count quasi-opinions and positions like "I believe in being nice to animals." I very specifically reject the notion of "belief" in favor of living in the reality I know.
Chanman wanted discourse.
Ok, I riddle you this, then, not a rhetorical question, quite serious, here:
Hypothetical situation: You're a believer, and somehow, by cryo or time warp you wind up in the Future!
And you find yourself in the same situation any adherent to the old Greek and Roman gods would face, transported to here, now: Your religion has gone extinct.
You are in the year 2286 and there are no more christians. Rationalism triumphed 2 centuries ago. Theres nobody left who believes in a God let alone whatever particular flavor you favored, Catholic, Baptist, whatever. You are The Last Believer. You try to tell people all about how God wants this and that and commands this and that and they laugh at you as if you were actually proposing that they are subject to the will of Zeus. You realize, that, since, according to the book "there is no way to heaven except through me", and nobody believes in "Him" anymore, according to the rules you know, EVERYONE- without exception, has gone to hell unredeemed since the day the last believer died in 2106.
Pop quiz:
In such circumstances, which- HAVE happened, (ask any Zeus worshipper) What do you do? Keep your faith? Voluntarily accept the mantle of "total whacko" that would be assigned to you by an entire civilization that long ago matured beyond notions like "god"?
Or choose to become a functional member of that society and let your faith and beliefs fade away?
What would you do?

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[SpeedRacer 1]

bullshit. you have faith. not in God perhaps, but you do have faith.

Without faith society would collapse.

And yes, you, an atheist, have faith in things that don't exist (yet).

Speed Racer
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[Mockingbird 0]

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So you don't believe in anything other than what you can experience or see, huh? I guess you don't believe in J.S. Bach or Charles Darwin either.

Absolutely not, of course I believe J.S Bach, Charles Darwin, Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Winston Churchil etc etc etc anyone else????

Now as you correctly pointed out I have not seen, or met any of these people, but how is it that I believe that they existed, and what makes them different from Jesus?????

Lets take caeser as an example, Unlike the mythical Jesus Christ, we know what Caesar looked like and we have a complete history of his life. We have words written by Caesar himself and words written by both his friends and his enemies. Artefacts confirm his life and death, as do his successors.
Caesar was an eyewitness to many of the events he describes in his commentaries. He wrote not for posterity but to have an immediate impact on the power players in Rome as he schemed to advance his own career.

So, you only believe in people whose appearance can be known? and about whom a complete history has been written? If I gave you a name that you could Google, and your search turned up an obituary or a blog or... anything, would you believe that person exists or at least existed at one time? If I told you about my grandfather and you had no one's word on it but mine, would you believe he existed?

Blue skies & happy jitters ~Mockingbird
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[br0k3n 0]

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So, you only believe in people whose appearance can be known? and about whom a complete history has been written? If I gave you a name that you could Google, and your search turned up an obituary or a blog or... anything, would you believe that person exists or at least existed at one time? If I told you about my grandfather and you had no one's word on it but mine, would you believe he existed?

MB lets stop wasting time with this dead end conversation, I thought you were busy answering some of my questions???

First off, yes I would take your word that your grandfather exists or existed, that is because you are living proof? Unless you were grown in a test tube then it is logical to believe that as you exist then your grandfather exist or existed.....

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--+ There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.. --+

[Mockingbird 0]

You must've misunderstood my follow-up question. You said that you "arrived at the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that god exists" by "examining all the empirical evidence and forming a logical conclusion based on it."

What was the empirical evidence you examined which led you to believe that it's extremely unlikely that God exists?

[lurch 0]

Do I, now? (bares fangs for battle)
In what? Anything you can claim I have "faith" in I can respond with some aspect of objective reality that caused me to be that way. That isn't faith, its knowledge.
You'll have to be more specific when you refer to what doesn't exist "yet". What things are you referring to?
Closest I could come to "faith" like that would be "belief" that tech will evolve to true A.I. sentience, and even THAT is not faith any more than it is faith when you see a million pieces of aluminum and have faith that assembled, it will be an airplane. Its all puzzle pieces that haven't been assembled yet. Doesn't involve faith.

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[br0k3n 0]

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You must've misunderstood my follow-up question. You said that you "arrived at the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that god exists" by "examining all the empirical evidence and forming a logical conclusion based on it."

What was the empirical evidence you examined which led you to believe that it's extremely unlikely that God exists?

No misunderstanding let me write the list out again for you…

Here is the list of all the empirical evidence that supports the story of Jesus, and believe me I examined it all very closely..

1.

Now here is the second list, this is what is called “hearsay or anecdotal” evidence that supports the story Jesus,

1.The Bible…

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--+ There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.. --+

[Mockingbird 0]

Belief in no god is a belief. You can't call it "knowledge" or be certain unless you have proof. There is nothing "self-evident" about the belief that there is no God, as there is about gravity (to use one of your examples), so you can't call it ("God doesn't exist") a "statement of fact."

[Mockingbird 0]

Did I ask you for evidence you examined which support the story of Jesus? No. I asked you for the evidence you examined which led you to believe that it's "extremely unlikely that God exists."

Are you being purposely evasive? We get nowhere in a conversation if you evade the question.

I have to get ready for bed. Sorry, no time for games right now.

[lurch 0]

Nope. Sorry. Logically assembled rationality doesn't work that way. I think theres a logical fallacy term for the method you just used, something like a reversed "argument from ignorance" where inability to DISprove something is held as positive proof of its existence.
Belief isn't a numerical thing subject to mathematics but I can use a simile. Having a belief is like having a number. You believe, so you see a +1. You think I see a -1, which is still a number, negative number but still a number. Does not work like that. I see a 0. In reality when you subtract 2 from 1 you don't get -1, you get nothing, a failed transaction because you were able to subtract 1, but when you tried to subtract the second "1" there was nothing to subtract, reality doesn't allow you to have -1 oranges.
I didn't say I "believe in no god". The idea starts from the assumption there is a god to deny. I've gotten that misconception from many christians because they can't conceive of a blank reality without the concept of "god" in it, therefore I'm not a atheist I'm a christian in denial of god.
You can't have a specific "belief in NO whatever" if you never assumed the existence of the whatever. I don't "Believe" in NO god, I've never seen any evidence that would lead me to think there WAS one. My starting point is ZERO, not minus-one. That doesn't make me a believer any more than your knowledge of the nonexistence of unicorns or Santa makes you "believe" that they DON'T exist. Its not a proactive thing, you just know they aren't real. The starting assumption, lacking information supporting the specific positive existence of something, is a void, a nothing, until such time as someone puts forth the idea of their existence.
The same way you'd feel being told about the spirits and the ancestors by the local Feng Shui man. You don't DISbelieve the Feng Shui man, but in your world there aren't any spirits or ancestors to worry about, the things he says, (you MUST have the dining table facing east or bad fortune will come to you and the ancestors will not bless your home) simply aren't true, and do not apply to you. Thats me. I unasked myself, rewound my mind and asked myself what would I think and "believe" if I never heard of any of it until I was an adult? Saw it from the outside, like we would see Islam or Feng Shui or whatever. The answer was I don't believe in any of them, and have seen nothing to make me view the christian viewpoint as any more valid than Zeus or Zoroastrianism. The default state is assumption of nonexistence, or else you could legitimately propose the universe is actually full of unicorns because I can't prove to you there aren't vast herds of them somewhere where I can't see em, and claim my inability to prove those herds don't exist is proof that they do.
Your rebuttal?
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[Mockingbird 0]

Semantics. You do not believe there is a God = you believe there is no God. Whatever you want to call it, you are still expressing what you believe to be true, the statement that there is no God. You can't prove it's true, and you can't prove it's false. You can only believe it to be true or false... opine, feel, whatever. But NOT "know."

Since this line of discussion is not leading anywhere, I'll withdraw the comment, if that's allowed...

[lurch 0]

Semantics, yes. But you say it dismissively. On this topic, semantics are everything. Belief as defined involves thinking you have knowledge without anything objective to back it. I am an atheist in exactly the same way you are an asantaist. People have told you Santa is real, but you know he is not. You don't disbelieve Santa, you know that in the real world he is just something someone told you about, and you know he isn't real. You don't consider it to be a belief because you -know- Santa isn't real. You don't need specific proof of his nonexistence to back your knowledge of it, since you have an entire objective reality in which theres no evidence FOR a santa from which you derived that knowledge in the first place.
And the discussion DID go somewhere, I have no idea where, though. Withdraw if you like, I thought it a productive perspective to raise, myself, although if I felt like getting all Japanese about it I could get mildly bent out of shape over the fact that you thought I was such an asshole I'd demand you ask my leave to be allowed to withdraw a comment.
Now where were we going with this?

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[JackC 0]

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Unfortunately, it's virtually impossible for religious folk to accept that their beliefs should get no special treatment since they somehow think their beliefs are indeed "special".

You're over-generalizing about religious people. There are probably some like you describe, but I doubt they are in the majority.

I agree that it is a generalisation but I think it suits the majority. Religious people think that their relationship with god is special, because to them it is. They don't like it when they don't get shown the respect they think their beliefs deserve. Michelle and Pajarito for instance got all bent out of shape because they thought Br0k3n's questions and answers were mocking, insincere, and trite. They weren't, they were valid questions and answers. You yourself called Br0k3n closed minded, he doesn't seem that way to me, and I do agree that it is important to be open minded but not so open minded that your brains fall out. Are you even open to the possibility that god may not exist? Speedracer called lurch's post bullshit simply because he could concieve of the fact that it is possible to live without any beliefs in the religious sense of the word. Religious people think their beliefs are special; they're not.

[br0k3n 0]

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Did I ask you for evidence you examined which support the story of Jesus? No. I asked you for the evidence you examined which led you to believe that it's "extremely unlikely that God exists."

Are you being purposely evasive? We get nowhere in a conversation if you evade the question.

I have to get ready for bed. Sorry, no time for games right now.

MB Im not trying to be “evasive”, I’m trying to get you to see that there is no evidence to support the story of Jesus, and that based on this I am “extremely confident” that he did not exist.

However for that sake of argument here are a few examples that I think at least put a lot of doubt on the subject, if not put it to bed for good so to say…

1. There is no physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people.

2. There is no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus?

3. There is not a single contemporary writing that mentions Jesus

4. Comparative Religion shows that the story of Jesus already existed in numerous religions prior to the alleged time of Jesus. Chrishna, Horus, Orpheus, Bacchus, Osiris, Dionysus, Buddha, Apollo, Hercules, Adonis, Ormuzd, Mithras, Indra, Œdipus, Quetzalcoatle, etc. The motif of a Crucified Savior was already extant prior to the alleged time of Jesus.

5. Solar Mythology shows the story of Jesus is just an allegory for the sun passing through the Zodiac and the passage of the seasons of the year. Jesus travels throughout his one year ministry, and the description of his travels exactly match that of the sun traveling through the Zodiac during the year. Here we have the origin of the Jesus story. This common origin explains why all the stories of crucified saviors are essentially the same.

6. It's inconceivable that during the alleged time of Jesus no one bothered to write down anything about this most extraordinary person, yet we have nothing. Even the earliest Bible reference to Jesus dates to at least A.D. 64, and the first Gospel, the Gospel of Mark, dates to at least A.D. 70 (and probably to A.D. 170).

7. The fact that no history, sacred or profane,—that not one of the three hundred histories of that age,—makes the slightest allusion to Christ, or any of the miraculous incidents ingrafted into his life, certainly proves, with a cogency that no logic can overthrow, no sophistry can contradict, and no honest skepticism can resist, that there never was such a miraculously endowed being as his many orthodox disciples claim him to have been.

Paj, Michele, MB anyone care to clear up these issues?

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--+ There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.. --+

[jakee 1,262]

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As Paj said, your questions - and subsequent responses - are mocking, insincere, and trite. I took you at your word, and tried to pursue a discourse with you. I don't care what you believe or don't. That's your right, and it's fine with me what you chose, ignore, or decide is correct.

But I can't, in good faith, continue in the discussion when you are insistent on behaving less than adult-like; I have no doubt you've got reasons for the behavior, but it's not something I will encourage or condone.

I think you've misunderstood the angle that Br0k3n is approaching your questions from. the questions you put in your post are very different from the ones Br0k3n asked. His are aimed at the authenticity of Christianity, yours are aimed at receiving reassurance and clarification from within the belief system.

Several of your questions presuppose the existence of the christian god if you are to recieve the type of answer you are looking for. So while you feel Br0k3n may have dismissed the complexities of your questions, that is simply not true. As an atheist once that basic supposition of divinity has been answered, the rest of the question ceases to have any relevance.

For instance in your first question you ask why the world isn't perfect. What you are fishing for is an explanation of why god allows suffering to exist. Br0k3ns answer, because some people are bad. You feel thats dismissive but it isn't, it's just the truth.

Another question, what is divine guidance, answer, a myth. What more do you expect an atheist to say? When you have no belief in the divine then divine guidance is a non issue. So, simple answers, yes. Trite, no.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[steveorino 7]

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The term I prefer is "Correct"

Then you and Fred Felps have something in comon.

steveOrino

[JackC 0]

OK, since you didn't like Br0k3en's answers to your questions, maybe mine will be better or maybe not.

1. Why is there so much suffering in the world. Shouldn't it all be peaches and cream?

If there was a good god at the helm I would expect that evil would not exist. Since evil does exist we can conclude that either god is not good, god does not care or there is no god (which is conceptually equivalent to an impotent god).

2. What is my reason for being alive? Why am I here?

Your parents had sex.

3. What is your reason for being alive? Have you discovered it? How?

My parents had sex. Life only has the meaning you attach to it which still gives you plenty of scope.

4. How come I believe in God, see His work all around me, and yet still have doubts?

This could take a while. I always got the feeling that religion was bullshit but could never really put my finger on why. It just didn't ring true to my skeptical mind. I spent many a year as an apathetic agnostic before going to university and learning how the world actually works. I'm now a research scientist and I use the analytical skills from this discipline in any and all areas I can since it is proven to work well. When viewed in an analytical way, the whole concept of god just doesn't stand up, it isn't even self-consistent. Why you believe only you can answer. To me, the whole thing is so absurd it's laughable.

5. How come God would let people suffer in hell (or any religion's particular version of it)?

See answer #1

6. How can I be free and still obey God's laws? And how come the jews have so many laws???

Laws have to curtail freedoms, that the point of them. Free will and an omniscient god are logically mutually exclusive concepts. This question is actually meaningless with no god, you are only left with mans laws and all scripture was written by man.

7. Doesn't science preclude any god, and if not, how not?

Science isn't in the business of precluding god. God plays no part in science by definition. The only relationship they have is that science proves that god is not necessary.

8. What is divine guidance?
8a. What is coincidence rather than answered prayer? How do I know the difference? Can I test it?

Almost 70% of the population will experience an halucination at some point during their lives. Some will attribute this to divine intervention, some attribute it to drugs, some will dismiss it altogether and others end up in a padded cell. If it exists only in your mind and you can't verify it against some external and objective source, it's at best a curiosity and of no intrinsic value. If it's an event, then you first have to verify that the mechanism exists that could cause this event. For the god mechanism, no evidence exist (note bronze age mythology is not evidence). Until you can come up with evidence for a cause, your stuck with coincidence.

9. How does God work in my life? How does He know "each hair on my head", and why would He bother?

And the obvious answer is... he doesn't. Reality is something that doesn't go away when you stop believing in it.

10. What are Angels, cherubim, and Seraphim? How come I can't see them?

Things that don't have a physical form and don't posess anything by which we might identify them, are indistinguishable from their nonexistence.

11. Why does God love me?

Meaningless question. Non-extant entities do not love.

12. How can I love more? Love even those who've done me wrong; badly, badly wrong?

That's for you to descide but you don't necessarily have to love everything and everyone to be a good person. In fact, people who do are quite creepy.

13. Doesn't forgiveness mean it's o.k. to do it? And if I forgive someone, does that give them permission to do it again, and again?

Forgiveness and permission are not the same thing.

14. Why is Mary respected in the Catholic religion, but plays a lesser part in other religions? What about the feminine aspect to judeism and christianity?


Different cults often have different doctrines depending on the people who made them up.

I doubt you'l like my answers any better than Br0k3n's but at least I tried to give honest answers to honest questions even if you don't beleive me.

[Michele 1]

Hi, Jakee.

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Several of your questions presuppose the existence of the christian god if you are to recieve the type of answer you are looking for. So while you feel Br0k3n may have dismissed the complexities of your questions, that is simply not true. As an atheist once that basic supposition of divinity has been answered, the rest of the question ceases to have any relevance.

For instance in your first question you ask why the world isn't perfect. What you are fishing for is an explanation of why god allows suffering to exist. Br0k3ns answer, because some people are bad. You feel thats dismissive but it isn't, it's just the truth.

Another question, what is divine guidance, answer, a myth. What more do you expect an atheist to say? When you have no belief in the divine then divine guidance is a non issue. So, simple answers, yes. Trite, no.

See, you understand the basic aspect of my post; that I had questions, and they were quite different from Broken's. Different from the outset, inasmuch as some do, in fact, suppose the existence of a diety. They are also more personally directed - more towards inside work, towards understanding things - than his are.

What I find funny is that no-where, at all, did I ask anyone to answer my questions. I used them as an example of what sorts of questions I asked, as opposed to what questions he was asking. That is the bottom point in the post. I was not playing the game "you answer mine, I'll answer yours...", and in fact, those to whom I posed those questions - and continue to do so - are far more educated in that then is Broken...and likely anyone else here who tries to answer them. And that's not an insult to anyone; rather, it's like saying if I need canopy advice, I'll go get it from those who are expert in the field, and not rely on what I find on-line. Further, when I was first asking those questions, I was about 12-15, and the internet didn't exist at that time (yes, I'm old...LOL!)

Before my post, I had been discussing tolerance, and intolerance. Apparently, the conversation went a different direction, and it's now in a place that I don't necessarily choose to discuss...

The intolerace from some people towards those who have a spiritual life is amazing, and sad. It's very much something I'd like to discuss - and not simply christianity, but all faiths. The intolerance that people show towards any people of faith is abhorent, and that freedom is one of the basics of this country; the sociological aspects of intolerance, and of spirituality, rather than the 20 questions direction which appeared.

And frankly, I find that rabid fundamentalists of any ilk tend to be boring; there is no room for others' opinions, no acceptance that for someone else, a position is acceptable; and yes, I'm talking about fundamentalists from *any* position...not religious in specific.

It's interesting...I've asked Broken on another thread what he had against christianity, and there was no answer. I asked a similar question about that on this thread, i.e. why just attack christianity rather than all religion, and again, there was no answer.

And to be honest, unless I understand where a person is coming from, there isn't much discussion to be had; rather, it's more bashing one another over the head with views the other doesn't share, and that gets trite, tedious, and is ultimately useless.

Ciels-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[jakee 1,262]

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What I find funny is that no-where, at all, did I ask anyone to answer my questions. I used them as an example of what sorts of questions I asked, as opposed to what questions he was asking. That is the bottom point in the post.

I got that too, but it seems that on the web rhetorical questions are often the ones most likely to recieve answers.

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and in fact, those to whom I posed those questions - and continue to do so - are far more educated in that then is Broken...and likely anyone else here who tries to answer them. And that's not an insult to anyone; rather, it's like saying if I need canopy advice, I'll go get it from those who are expert in the field, and not rely on what I find on-line.

Again that analogy only holds true when you accept that religion has the same basis in fact as canopy flight does - but we've covered that.

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The intolerace from some people towards those who have a spiritual life is amazing, and sad. It's very much something I'd like to discuss - and not simply christianity, but all faiths. The intolerance that people show towards any people of faith is abhorent, and that freedom is one of the basics of this country; the sociological aspects of intolerance, and of spirituality,

Ok, what intolerance are you talking about here, the intolerance towards ideas (creationism, ID, Gods existence) or intolerance towards actual worship, gathering in churches etc. Even in this thread I have not seen anyone come close to suggesting that worship should be stopped or meeting places closed.

Intolerance of ideas is a very different subject. What I think is being interpreted as intolerance in this matter is vocal disagreementand counter-arguing. I do not see this as a bad thing at all, and in terms of name-calling and nastiness falls far short of what we see here in political discussions. the only way I could see this kind of disagreement classed as true intolerance would be if people started advocating institutional teaching of atheism. Although I know some people believe that is what teaching evolution is lets be serious, I haven't seen that route suggested either. On the flip side you can find many churches and pressure groups attempting to insert religious teachings into schools, that is where I see the intolerance coming from in this issue.

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It's interesting...I've asked Broken on another thread what he had against christianity, and there was no answer. I asked a similar question about that on this thread, i.e. why just attack christianity rather than all religion, and again, there was no answer.

99% of people who post on these boards live in predominantly christian countries. It is the default religion for discussion since that is what we are surrounded by, and those who join in to defend religion will be predominantly arguing from the christian side. Why would I waste my time arguing against, say, hinduism. I don't know anything about it and no-one would be listening anyway.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Mockingbird 0]

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Belief as defined involves thinking you have knowledge without anything objective to back it.

As far as the nature of believing and knowing goes, maybe this is where our disagreement begins. In the first place, "As defined..." In my experience, dictionaries are not at all consistent when it comes to defining words like belief, faith, truth, knowledge, etc. So if you hope to have a meaningful discussion about these things, the meanings of these words need to be agreed upon.

In the second place, therefore, I'd take issue with this choice of words: "...without anything objective to back it." If one has NOTHING objective to back his feelings, this would not be faith or a "belief", but a feeling-- a hunch, a gut feeling, or maybe even you could call it intuition--- but NOT faith. Faith (conFIDence) is based on evidence. (Note, I didn't say "proof." "Proof" and "evidence" are not synonymous.) Evidence is what feeds one's faith.

I hope this makes sense; I just rolled out of bed a few minutes ago and the sleep is still in my eyes.

Blue skies & happy jitters ~Mockingbird
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"