Quote:
Well perhaps most, but not all of us. I think a belief in God is considerably different than believing in the Easter Bunny or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
There's a little more to a belief in God than there is to a character that is kept around to sell chocolate, or a satirical "god" like the spaghetti monster.
|
Yeah, it's true I was being a little bit cheeky comparing the monotheistic God of the major Western religions to the Easter Bunny or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but what about my latter example? How is the God of Abraham really any different from Zeus and Apollo? If someone were to genuinely, truly believe that a thunderstorm is caused because Zeus is hurling lightning bolts from atop Mount Olympus with the same conviction that Christians believe that Jesus died for their sins and Moses parted the Red Sea, most religious people wouldn't respect that belief, would they?
[Edit]
Quote:
|
I've met plenty of people who are smarter than me and they have some sort of belief in a god.
|
Of course, Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton and (somewhat ironically) Charles Darwin were all believers (as was just about everyone in their time). What is it about religion that makes people who are otherwise sensible and intelligent abandon their faculties of logic and reason when it comes to questions of "faith"?
My own grandfather is a good example of this. He's probably the single most intelligent person I've ever met, he had a master's degree from Cambridge, spoke four languages fluently, and was well-versed in science and the liberal arts. Yet he was also a very devout Christian, which I suppose resulted from his upbringing as the son of a traveling evangelical preacher.