Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
No more pathetic than someone that dedicates themselves to convince people TO believe. It's human nature to try and share your way of thinking with others and to try and convert them over, be it over religion, lack of religion, or sports team.
However most atheists don't concern themselves with deconverting, they don't believe you go to hell for believing, they just believe you are wasting your time.
|
Which is why the mainstream Christian faiths abandoned conversion of the heathens/evangelism at least 100 years ago. If you don't, you don't. You might regret it, you might not. It's Pascal's Wager to the mainstream... whats the worst thing that can happen if you do believe and there isn't a god? What's the worst thing that can happen if you don't believe and ther is a god? Does it really hurt? Does it mean I have to go nuts about it? Depends on who you ask.
Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
Mostly agree, though I wouldn't totally agree about the benefits to society, at least overall. It's been shown in a study that religiosity and quality of life do not go hand in hand, in fact there's a negative correlation (more religious countries in the first world democracies tend to have more homicides, teen pregnancies births and abortions, STDs, juvenile deaths, etc).
|
Well, considering Western society's laws are based primarily from the Bible, with marginal imput from Plato, and other Ancient writings... I'd say the benefits are pretty substantial. Not to mention the Church was the one who saved most of the ancient texts through the dark ages, invented the printing press, brought about some of the most beautiful architecture on Earth and put greater emphasis on altruism and outreach then most governments...
As well, you're right... to a degree. Being religious does not make you a good person, and not being religious does not make you a bad person.
I think you might find that religious countries in first world democracies argument doesn't hold up well. France, Italy and Spain (countries with the highest permeation of Catholic believers per capita) do not have those problems at a higher extent as say, atheist and agnostic bastions like Canada and the United States. They actually have the lowest birth rates in the world, and their abortion rate is not even close to the US.
I think that I'd need to see some stats to back up that claim... which I don't believe exist. You'd have to prove that its the "devout" people that are suffering these the most, then you'd have to show which specific christian sect they are, and then you'd have to prove that its a function of religion and not liberal society. There really is no way to prove that argument, just like there's no way I could successfully say that religious people commit more crimes than atheists. The stats just don't exist because there's no real measure of piety, and degree of devoutness.