Respect the Religious, hate the religion
Technically I'm a Catholic, but I don't believe in God. Not believing in god for me is like not believing in Zeus. In the future we will learn of the Christian god in mythology the same as we learn of Odin and Jupiter. You may ask how did I come to not believe in god?
I remember when I was six or seven and trying to figure out death. I thought of it as being asleep but wihtout dreams, and that's the way I've thought of it ever since. I didn't grow up in a devout Christian household, I think my parents are atheist or at least agnostic, but we went to church every now and then and I was confirmed (despite my protests). Hearing the bible read was simply like hearing a fairy tale read, I would no sooner believe in the talking wolf of The Three Little Pigs as I would believe in Jesus. When I finally got old enough to think critically (twelve or thirteen) I began picking apart the things in the bible.
For me, there is absolutely no possibility of me ever believing in an higher being. If there were a god, I think he would agree with me. As supposedly a rational being, he would be able to see my point of view and understand why I could not possibly believe in him. This rational being would also be mystified by why people would follow him around like sheep. We have evolved large brains to use, not to allow them to be filled with jiberish and have others think for us.
What's worse, I have yet to meet a religious (devout) person who was able to argue reasonably well. The ability to argue and critical thought are linked, so perhaps it's because those who are unable to argue well or think critically would be more inclined toward religion. More often than not, religious people are very ignorant about scientific processes and advances and state "facts" about them that are completely false.
If we doubt the very existence of god, you cannot use it to back up your argument. It's like saying I belive in pink unicorns and you doubt that they are real. I can't use information that I supposedly learned from this unicorn to prove my points because we are at disagreement as to whether the unicorn is real. The same argument can't be used aginst an atheist however because their reasoning is based in science and logic. Science and logic reguire no leaps of faith and use transparent processes to come to their conclusions.
If you say physics is phooey, then how do you explain how man built the atomic bomb? The physics as to work or the bomb would be little better than an anvil. For example say if I were caculating squares and I had to find the root of 4 and found that it was 2 and wrongly came to the conclusion that to find a root I have to divide the number by half. If I try the root of 100 I'll get 50 istead of 10 even though dividing by half worked for 4. If the basic principles of physics did not work, nothing based on it would. However science, at the moment, is unable of explaining everything but with time and experiment it can. The scientific method allows science to understand the world through experiment and observation, which the bible and the religious mindset does not allow.
As for accepting the beliefs of others, I find it very difficult to accept the beliefs of people who cannot or will not think for themselves. It's like the belief in Santa for children. I have a brother that is five years younger than me and he would use arguments for his existence based on his own lack of understanding of the world. To an adult ear, these arguments were easily disproven. I respect religious people, but not their conclusion because they are based on ignorance and lack of knowledge.
I have yet to hear one good rebuttal or argument for god!
I remember when I was six or seven and trying to figure out death. I thought of it as being asleep but wihtout dreams, and that's the way I've thought of it ever since. I didn't grow up in a devout Christian household, I think my parents are atheist or at least agnostic, but we went to church every now and then and I was confirmed (despite my protests). Hearing the bible read was simply like hearing a fairy tale read, I would no sooner believe in the talking wolf of The Three Little Pigs as I would believe in Jesus. When I finally got old enough to think critically (twelve or thirteen) I began picking apart the things in the bible.
For me, there is absolutely no possibility of me ever believing in an higher being. If there were a god, I think he would agree with me. As supposedly a rational being, he would be able to see my point of view and understand why I could not possibly believe in him. This rational being would also be mystified by why people would follow him around like sheep. We have evolved large brains to use, not to allow them to be filled with jiberish and have others think for us.
What's worse, I have yet to meet a religious (devout) person who was able to argue reasonably well. The ability to argue and critical thought are linked, so perhaps it's because those who are unable to argue well or think critically would be more inclined toward religion. More often than not, religious people are very ignorant about scientific processes and advances and state "facts" about them that are completely false.
If we doubt the very existence of god, you cannot use it to back up your argument. It's like saying I belive in pink unicorns and you doubt that they are real. I can't use information that I supposedly learned from this unicorn to prove my points because we are at disagreement as to whether the unicorn is real. The same argument can't be used aginst an atheist however because their reasoning is based in science and logic. Science and logic reguire no leaps of faith and use transparent processes to come to their conclusions.
If you say physics is phooey, then how do you explain how man built the atomic bomb? The physics as to work or the bomb would be little better than an anvil. For example say if I were caculating squares and I had to find the root of 4 and found that it was 2 and wrongly came to the conclusion that to find a root I have to divide the number by half. If I try the root of 100 I'll get 50 istead of 10 even though dividing by half worked for 4. If the basic principles of physics did not work, nothing based on it would. However science, at the moment, is unable of explaining everything but with time and experiment it can. The scientific method allows science to understand the world through experiment and observation, which the bible and the religious mindset does not allow.
As for accepting the beliefs of others, I find it very difficult to accept the beliefs of people who cannot or will not think for themselves. It's like the belief in Santa for children. I have a brother that is five years younger than me and he would use arguments for his existence based on his own lack of understanding of the world. To an adult ear, these arguments were easily disproven. I respect religious people, but not their conclusion because they are based on ignorance and lack of knowledge.
I have yet to hear one good rebuttal or argument for god!
posted by Cynic at
7:03 PM
1 Comments
