Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
Atheism can be a frustrating position to argue sometimes because it is entirely based on logic and evidence. This is going to sound very belittling and condescending, but I'm an atheist and I find arguing with religious people like talking to my three year old about monsters. She has never seen one and there is no evidence they exist save for what she hears from her friends and sees in movies/reads in stories, but she is 100% certain monsters are real and I can't convince her otherwise.
Religious people are exactly the same. The difference is, my daughter doesn't really approach anything rationally. She applies her fata'd up toddler pseudo-logic to everything she encounters. For instance, she thinks a baby can't walk because its feet are too small. Well that isn't true, you can see how it kind of makes sense to her.
Unlike a three-year old, a religious person usually does approach the rest of their life logically, except for this one area. It is hard to comprehend why the critical-thinking component of their mind shuts down when it comes to the absurd claims of their religion, but it does.
Religious people make unsubstantiated, preposterous claims. Atheists follow logic and our claims are backed up by evidence. If we don't know the answer to something, we don't make something up and we don't turn to out-dated, ill-informed, mistake-riddled books and teachings with a dubious agenda. Our agenda is truth. That is not the agenda of a religous book, although it is what they claim.
In an atheist's mind, the jury isn't out on this issue. In the same way a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu and a Buddhist all know a Christian has it wrong, an atheist has only taken it one step further and dismissed all the religions as being wrong. For the Christians reading this, how can you see this as such a wild jump in logic? It's exactly what you do when you think a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu and a Buddhist are wrong, with the exception that you don't dismiss those other religions on any fundamental logical ground, you just believe your fairytale is superior to their fairytale.
Frankly, it's ridiculous and this is an issue of right versus wrong and it is not okay for us to pander to the hurt feelings of religious people that don't think their asinine beliefs are fair game for criticism.
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Argh, my first instinct was to snipe back, but your post is such a perfect case in point... Let me clarify, I read political philosophy part-time and will hopefully one day both read and teach it for a living. I am familiar with atheism. People don't change, here have always been skeptics and in no way does Charles Darwin represent any sort of meaningful breakthrough in the search to falsify or confirm the existence of God.
The sectarian differences and their contradicting claims to truth really do not represent any sort of meaningful obstacle to religious truth. You want to uncover more, you uncover the philosophy. You attack the particular damage it does to the human spirit. Now none of the philosophers ever discount religion, to do so would be foolish. That is my first problem with the humanists.
Second, the proper way to understand religion is to study its impact on the human spirit. You have nothing with which to replace religion, except for cold materialism. There is no eros in your thought. It is cold, boring, and frankly, stupid. Go read Rousseau and see what he had to say about Christianity. He disliked it, but he suggested something radical and wonderful to replace it.
We all dislike sectarians, except most people are themselves sectarian. The Darwinian humanists or atheists are as bad as anyone else. You have a bare grasp of humanity, preferring scientists to do your thinking for you.