What do you gain from criticism of a religious teaching you do not follow or believe in?

[MyM]

"most"?

So, the majority, as in > 50%, of posts that challenge religious views, do that?
In that case, you should have no problem giving me a couple of links to post where this is occurring.
Could you please do so?



Here's my understanding of this...........

The religious, especially those with fundamentalistic tendencies, are extremely quick to cry "insult" and "disrespect" whenever their religious views are questioned in otherwise perfectly reasonable terms.

They also tend to take any criticism of their religion or their beliefs as personal insults, while in reality they are just criticism of the BELIEFS and not of the person holding the beliefs.

 

[Secret Chief]

The question is though, who needs the rest? I gave up responding to the tiresome atheist crusaders on here, because a) you can't hold a meaningful discussion with a mind slammed shut, and b) if I let them make me angry, that's on me not them.

I thought your posts were very thoughtful.

 

[PureX]

The question is though, who needs the rest? I gave up responding to the tiresome atheist crusaders on here, because a) you can't hold a meaningful discussion with a mind slammed shut, and b) if I let them make me angry, that's on me not them.

Yep. Although I try to keep my refusal to respond to the particular post, and not to all posts by that poster. That way my door, at least, remains open to them.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I think it's fair to say that your choice of words here make your intentions absolutely clear.

Which words and why?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

They have something valuable to offer you

So you say, but I never see what that is from them or you. I already mentioned the people who say that they are learning spiritual truths on a spiritual journey, and when I ask them to share a few of these truths, I usually get no response, and when I do, it's meaningless verbiage that doesn't fit my definition of truth or knowledge. And here you are doing something similar. Making vague promises of value in their words. If only I would let them, they would have something valuable to offer. Like what? I've been interacting with these people in this way for over a dozen years on two sites, and I know very well what they have to offer. I have found no value there for me.

You seem to be using yourself as a measuring stick. You found value, so I will to. If I haven't, it can't because you're wrong. It must be because I shut them out.

But I don't shut them out. I reject their conclusions. They don't pass muster. There is nothing there for me. But there was and is for you, so you extrapolate to this being a benefit to everybody.

I've used the analogy of the guy born with blurry vision who one day gets a pair of glasses, sees clearly, and shouts to the world that everybody needs a pair, unaware that there are people who have no such need, unaware that there are people who see clearly without glasses and would actually have their vision degraded by prescription glasses of any prescription. I've worn those glasses. I've spent a decade in Christianity. I know very well what faith has to offer me - a chance to hold false beliefs and make errors looking through those lenses, with no benefit to offset the loss.

On anther recent thread asking ex-Christians why they left Christianity, I answered thusly:

I came to Christianity at about age 20, for about ten years. The religion didn't make sense to me, but I decided to suspend disbelief to give this God a chance to reveal itself to me and for the dogma to begin to make sense. I likened it to trying on a pair of shoes that didn't fit quite right, but if I walked around in them for awhile, the fit would improve.

My first two years as a Christian were when I was far from home in the military in Maryland. The two years in that Maryland congregation were euphoric, and that was enough to convince me that I had been filled with the Holy Spirit as promised. Then I was discharged and returned to California, where I went to about a half dozen congregations there, finding them all lifeless.

Eventually, I realized that what I was interpreting as the Holy Spirit in Maryland was just a psychological state induced by a gifted and charismatic pastor, since that feeling didn't come with me to California. I realized that the religion was not delivering in its promises and was false, so I kicked off that pair of shoes and returned to atheism, where I found better fitting shoes in secular humanism.​

There I used the metaphor of ill-fitting shoes instead of glasses, but the message is the same. I'm quite sure that no theist has anything to offer me based in a god belief or any type of unjustified belief (faith). I know this from ten years of Christianity and twelve years of discussion sites like this one. Yet here you are telling me that such people have something of value to tell me.

And this should be apparent to you. Just as you have adopted a faith-based worldview because it obviously meets some need in you not met without it, I have rejected it because it doesn't meet any unfulfilled need. Isn't that obvious? If we're both outside in the chill air, and you put on your coat, but I leave mine wrapped around my waist, isn't it obvious that the coat meets a need you have that I don't have?

you aren't really learning anything about them

That's not correct. I'm not learning anything from them, but I am learning about them. Consider our discussions to date. I don't take your advice or share your conclusions, but I learn just reading how you think. Look at all I've written above that I learned in part in discussion with you.

it appears that you don't care about them

Why would you say that? I don't share their opinions, but I do try to be helpful, as I have with you here, likely with no success.

I have written a few posts to one of our spiritual pilgrims here trying help him see that he has what I consider a wrong idea of what spirituality is, and suggesting that he refocus from gurus and a fruitless search for arcane knowledge through isms to mindful living. I have pointed out to him that he has already tried two different isms in the time I've known him, and that neither gives him comfort or useful insights. I have offered the example of my wife, who goes about here daily life in touch with her feelings and environment. She spends much time in the garden, where she has milkweed to attract butterflies, a fountain to attract songbirds, and hummingbird feeders. She is a woman at peace, the kind of peace I think this poster seeks. I hope I've given him something of value, but I think I've had little success there, either.

it's a very tiresome and blinding bias that you're going to refuse to let go of long enough to actually learn anything different.

So you keep saying, but never offer anything to make me think you might be right. My bias is against faith-based thinking, or unjustified belief, for reasons already given. My bias is to subject all ideas to the methods of critical thinking to justify belief in them before accepting them. Add in a Golden Rule intuition, and my whole worldview follows. Beginning with the epistemology I've just described - my means for deciding what is true about the world (empiricism) - and a desire to see the most people have the most opportunity to pursue happiness as they understand it (utilitarian ethics), my entire world view follows, secular humanism. Those are the shoes I've been walking in for the last several decades, and they fit me well. I have gone farther in them than I did in the shoes I traded away. Being evidence-based is why I reject your contention that there is something of value to me in faith-based thought, why I've rejected all of your claims about what I am missing. There's nothing there but unevidenced claims that I already know to be incorrect empirically - by asking people like you to show me what they're learning that they imply would be of value to me as well.

If you'll recall the spoiler I included in my last post, and it's references to useful knowledge, what I mean by that, and how to obtain it (empirically only), I mentioned the examples of creationism and astrology, two faith-based beliefs that generate no useful knowledge. That is the sine qua non of an incorrect belief. If a position generates no fruit - nothing that can be offered as evidence of its usefulness - it is incorrect. This is why I reject your claims and those of the spiritualists. They have nothing to show for their efforts. You haven't begun to give me a reason to think that there is any value for a secular humanist where you say there is value, or that that evidence-based thinking limits the critical thinker or holds him back. You just keep claiming it without backing it up, and I've learned to avoid going there.

Maybe you can say what it is that your beliefs that I reject do for you, and why you think they would benefit a secular humanist. What does abandoning what you call materialism and scientism and which I call strict empiricism have to offer the secular humanist? And if you have no specific answer that you can support with examples, what does that tell you? Incidentally, this is me trying to help you. If you learned that what gives you comfort or meaning or whatever it is you get out your beliefs is not of value to people that do that without them, you might spend less time being frustrated that your ideas are being rejected. You might understand why that rejection is right for some others.

 

[syo]

This thread is toward the people in RF who every day create OP critiquing any religious teaching they don't believe in or follow themselves.

Where are these people? I want one of them to criticize paganism, so we can start a discussion. But they only talk about christianity and islam.

 

[F1fan]

Yes. Because it's not about the why, to them. It's about the how. You and I ask about the whys because that's what we care about. It's how we think. It's how we move through the world, conceptually. But not everyone thinks like this. Nor are they 'supposed' to. Some people think by rote. A lot of them, in fact. It's how they move through the world, conceptually. Others do it by instinct, and intuition. They don't ask 'why', because they don't care why. They're just getting from point A to point B in life.
Under YOUR method of scrutiny. But not by their method of moving through the world. By their method, what they believe, works, and that's all that matters. It's why they believe it.

If this is the case then an online debate forum might not be for these folks. This is all part of the process of how our thinking works. I do se a variety of believers in debate. Some folks are more passive and just want to share their beliefs. Others are more aggressive and have obviously read some tutorials on religious sites about how to de ate and beat atheists. Over the years I've seen new members in forums who are very confident and arrogant believers, and they post a set of arguments we've seen before and the believer gets more than he bargained for from skeptics and thinkers. I've seen a few on RF since I've been a member. Everyone has things to learn, and they invest in ways that shows us all what they need to learn. Historically reason works better than faith in debate. That is just a fact. Even theists will claim they are using facts and logic for their claims. It comes down to who has the facts and who is objective.

I don't care what people believe for their own sake, but if they enter debate they need to understand it will be debate.

You're only saying that because you are applying your standard of reliability to someone else's method of moving through the world. That's not very logical, though, is it. It's mostly just egocentric.

Reason is the most reliable cognitive tool we humans have. Feel free to offer a better, more reliable method to understand what is true about how things are.

If a person of faith has beliefs they want to debate and they use faith, then they need to understand th serious limitation of their method versus reason as a method.

I'm not that kind of theist, either. But over the years, as I have confronted these same issues with it as you, I have come to realize that I'm not in charge of how the rest of humanity chooses to move through the world. My way isn't even the best way. It's just mine. You think science and reason are the only 'right' way to move through the world, but they aren't.

I'm not saying meaning isn't right or wrong. All I'm doing is challenging people with religious beliefs who want to claim their beliefs are somehow some sort of absolute divine meaning, and this meaning is somehow above critique. I never tell a person not to be a believer, but I will challenge what they believe if they are limited in knowing themselves and how they have come to believe, and what they believe if it is not rational yet they think they are rational.

I like what Krishnamurti says about belief and freedom. It's one thing to be a believer due to what the person's life experience created and conditioned versus a person who understand the full death of what and why they believe anything. Those who blindly believe are not free. They are just following a pattern of thought and behavior and are not aware of any alternative for themselves.

As an artist I have known this for a many years. Subjective intuition is a fantastic method of moving through the world, and is often far faster and more effective than plodding reason and experimentation. So is living by rote in many instances. It's why people in so many different life endeavors train for it.

I'm an artist too, and I can say being intuitive does not mean believing in a head full of irrational concepts. Meaning does NOT have to be based in supernatural, religious, or irrational concepts. We all form our own meaning in life, whether we create it for ourselves or adopt and withdraw it from what society values. Look at trump supporters as an example of what happens at the extreme when these folks adopt irrational concepts and lack objectivity and reason as a method of setting meaning and value in life. We need to be responsible and dedicated to having meaning that is rooted in reality, not ideology.

As an artist I had to learn to try not to be so myopic, and to let myself use these other methods of moving through the world when they worked better. And they do work better, quite often. You'd be surprised.

I find your religious thoughts/claims/beliefs unusual, as you differ from typical theists in that you make highly conceptual and abstract references about your religious belief. You often refer to God AS a religious concept, and NOT as an actual being. You seem to value these concepts without referring to them as if you use them in any way. It's like you own a car you don't use, isn't licensed, or even on your property. Your references to religion have a certain detachment, as if you own the car and it is out there somewhere, but you don't use it in the way that's typical.

Sometimes i get the sense that you are a theist for reasons that aren't because you actually value the concepts or religion in general, but more like you feel obligated or as if you don't think you have any alternative.

Sometimes I get the sense there is something not consistent in your views. You don't seem like a passionate believer, but you are passionately anti-atheist. I find this an odd mix. One thing that has crossed my mind is that perhaps you have serious doubts about theism and might even see atheism as a correct perspective, but that atheism has such a high boas against it you can't entertain that thought. I think of all the republicans over the years that were very anti-gay and at some point it is exposed that they themselves are gay. Their attacks on gays wasn't against gays, it was against their own state of being that had a conflict between their real self and their ideals.

 

[PureX]

So you say, but I never see what that is from them or you. I already mentioned the people who say that they are learning spiritual truths on a spiritual journey, and when I ask them to share a few of these truths, I usually get no response, and when I do, it's meaningless verbiage that doesn't fit my definition of truth or knowledge.

Well, that's your answer right there. "It does not compute! ... does not compute! ..."

Perhaps it's time to EXPAND your definition of truth and knowledge. And you can't do that by constantly forcing every new idea you encounter into your existing definition of truth and knowledge, or dismissing it as "meaningless verbiage" when it doesn't. You have to be willing to set that definition aside and become open to some new possibilities.

And here you are doing something similar. Making vague promises of value in their words. If only I would let them, they would have something valuable to offer. Like what? I've been interacting with these people in this way for over a dozen years on two sites, and I know very well what they have to offer. I have found no value there for me.

All I can tell you is this: until you discover what faith is, and how it works, you are never going to understand the value of theism. Forget religion. Way too much religion is being practiced by people that have no more idea what faith is than you do. So if you keep looking to them to explain it, they can't. And you'll just end up frustrated. They're being told, and they consequently believe that faith it pretending to know what they don't and can't know. It's dishonest, and self-deceiving. And it's why you couldn't buy into it. And neither can I.

But that isn't faith. Faith is not pretending to know what we don't know.

You seem to be using yourself as a measuring stick. You found value, so I will to. If I haven't, it can't because you're wrong. It must be because I shut them out.

The tools are there. And they can be of use. All I'm saying is that they won't be of use to you if you won't learn to see them, and to use them. Right now, you aren't letting yourself even see them. So of course you can't use them effectively. And that's your choice.

But I don't shut them out. I reject their conclusions. They don't pass muster. There is nothing there for me. But there was and is for you, so you extrapolate to this being a benefit to everybody.

Again, this is your choice. The tools exist, and are of use to a great many people. They could be of use to you, too. But only if you choose to recognize them, and learn to use them. It's really that simple.

Here's my analogy. You're hanging onto a bar, and your feet are not touching the ground. Gravity is pulling you downward and your arms are getting tired, but your blindfolded, so you have no idea how far you'd fall if you were to let go of the bar.

Now is the time for faith. Because sooner or later your arms are going to give out. You can't just hang there like this, forever. But if you do let go, now, you may be choosing your own destruction. (As opposed to it choosing you later on.) So what do you do? Do you choose to trust in your hope that the drop is negligible and will not destroy you, and so let go of the bar? Or do you hang on as long as you possibly can, until your strength fails and you fall to whatever your fate happens to be?

This is the dilemma of life as a human being. A being that is able to ask questions about his own fate within existence that he (or she) is not able to answer or control. Important questions that will likely have very significant and fateful consequences for those of us asking (though we can't be certain of that, either, as we can't be certain of anything). So what do we do? Do we act on faith, and trust that what we hope will happen will be what happens? Or do we remain frozen, there, in doubt. And wait for our fate to come of it's own accord?

I have written a few posts to one of our spiritual pilgrims here trying help him see that he has what I consider a wrong idea of what spirituality is, and suggesting that he refocus from gurus and a fruitless search for arcane knowledge through isms to mindful living. I have pointed out to him that he has already tried two different isms in the time I've known him, and that neither gives him comfort or useful insights. I have offered the example of my wife, who goes about here daily life in touch with her feelings and environment. She spends much time in the garden, where she has milkweed to attract butterflies, a fountain to attract songbirds, and hummingbird feeders. She is a woman at peace, the kind of peace I think this poster seeks. I hope I've given him something of value, but I think I've had little success there, either.

Well, "success" in such an instance isn't really up to us. All we can do is share what we have, as best we can, and allow others to determine if it's useful to them or not. Or if they can even understand it.

I had a sponsor in AA once tell me that it didn't matter how poorly I might articulate some bit of wisdom for someone else. If the hearer is ready to hear it, and eager to benefit from it, they will hear it and they will benefit from it. Nor how well or eloquently I articulate it for someone who is not ready to hear it, nor willing to benefit from it, because they will not hear or benefit from it, regardless. And I have found this to be true about a great many bits and kinds of wisdom. Both incoming and outgoing.

So you keep saying, but never offer anything to make me think you might be right.

That's just it. I cannot make you think I might be right. No one can. Wisdom doesn't flow like that. It flows according to one's willingness to share, and to receive.

Maybe you can say what it is that your beliefs that I reject do for you, and why you think they would benefit a secular humanist.

I don't have any 'beliefs'. Because I don't pretend to know anything about anything that matters. That's why I find faith so useful. Here is an idea that I took from Christianity: that we all have within us a 'spark of the divine'. By this I mean a divine aspect to our individual spirit that enables us to love, and forgive, and to empathize, and to share with others. And that if we will allow ourselves to become the human embodiment of that 'spark of the divine' within us, it will heal us and save is from ourselves. And furthermore, if enough of us make this choice, and live it, the whole world will be healed and saved, from us.

Now, I have no idea if any of this is actually true. But it does make sense to me in terms of my own experience of existence. So I choose to try and live my life according to my trust in and hope that it is true. And in doing that, I have discovered that I am helping to make it true! That through the action of faith, the idea that I have placed my faith in is manifesting as part of my reality. And this is why I say that faith is such a powerful tool. And that it can work for anyone who understands it properly and chooses to use it. Including you.

What does abandoning what you call materialism and scientism and which I call strict empiricism have to offer the secular humanist?

I am not suggesting we abandon those tools at all. I am merely trying to point out that they are NOT the only tools we have available to us in moving through the world or in gaining wisdom or truth from it. In fact, some of the other tools are often faster, better, and more effective. And I don't mean just faith. I mean imagination, intuition, instinct, and rote, and even occasionally, deliberate perversity.

 

[PureX]

If this is the case then an online debate forum might not be for these folks. This is all part of the process of how our thinking works. I do se a variety of believers in debate. Some folks are more passive and just want to share their beliefs. Others are more aggressive and have obviously read some tutorials on religious sites about how to de ate and beat atheists. Over the years I've seen new members in forums who are very confident and arrogant believers, and they post a set of arguments we've seen before and the believer gets more than he bargained for from skeptics and thinkers. I've seen a few on RF since I've been a member. Everyone has things to learn, and they invest in ways that shows us all what they need to learn. Historically reason works better than faith in debate. That is just a fact. Even theists will claim they are using facts and logic for their claims. It comes down to who has the facts and who is objective.

As I read this (and I agree with you, I have also seen these and other mixed intentions and methods of interaction, here and elsewhere) I am reminded of how wonderful and amazing we humans really are, even in our 'insanity'. Perhaps a bit because of it. I am honestly honored to be counted among us. We are one crazy F'n species. That's for sure! Knowing so much and so little all at the same time. And yet it is this insanity that makes being human such an amazing experience. Even if also occasionally a tragic one, too. But then what life form isn't tragic? With awareness comes suffering. And eventually death. But what a wacky ride, huh!

I don't care what people believe for their own sake, but if they enter debate they need to understand it will be debate.

There are all kinds of "debate". And you don't usually get to determine which, or how. That would be 'rigging the game'.

Reason is the most reliable cognitive tool we humans have.

Not really. Reason is a good 'editor', but a very poor content creator. Seriously. You are putting WAY too much undeserved value on it. Imagination generates FAR more value to humanity than reason ever will. So does intuition, and even rote. I'm not suggesting we abandon reason. Like I said, it's a good editor. But the other tools are far better content creators, and that's where the value comes from. Reason just helps us apply it better, and hold onto it longer.

Feel free to offer a better, more reliable method to understand what is true about how things are.

What is true about how things are is not something we humans can ever really know. The most we can know is what works for us and what doesn't. And that, of course, gets determined by the value we can derive from the functionality. Once you finally drop this delusion that we humans can or are "seeking the truth" you'll finally be able to let go of the ideal as a criteria for judgment and finally face the "functionality wall" (my term) along with the rest if us.

If a person of faith has beliefs they want to debate and they use faith, then they need to understand th serious limitation of their method versus reason as a method.

People of faith don't have belief, and people who have belief don't need faith. Faith is what we engage in when we don't know what to believe. And belief is what we call it when we have decided we know we're right (about whatever). Also, don't confuse these terms with their religious usage, as that will only thoroughly bollocks the works.

I'm not saying meaning isn't right or wrong. All I'm doing is challenging people with religious beliefs who want to claim their beliefs are somehow some sort of absolute divine meaning, and this meaning is somehow above critique. I never tell a person not to be a believer, but I will challenge what they believe if they are limited in knowing themselves and how they have come to believe, and what they believe if it is not rational yet they think they are rational.

In that instance I think you're just wasting your time. Because I don't think that kind of person can even hear you, let alone consider the reasoning you're trying to impose on their worldview.

I like what Krishnamurti says about belief and freedom. It's one thing to be a believer due to what the person's life experience created and conditioned versus a person who understand the full death of what and why they believe anything. Those who blindly believe are not free. They are just following a pattern of thought and behavior and are not aware of any alternative for themselves.

I think that applies to all "belief". I'm a Taoist, the most profound of the unknowing, unbelievers.

I'm an artist too, and I can say being intuitive does not mean believing in a head full of irrational concepts.

You really need to let go of this whole "belief" thing. It'll just make you crazy in the end. Even if what you or I or someone else believes to be true, were true, none of us could possibly know it were true, for certain. So what's the point of "believing" it in the first place? Once we let go of that ego-driven pretense, we can finally become honest, and properly humble, and start living our lives honestly and authentically.

Meaning does NOT have to be based in supernatural, religious, or irrational concepts.

I whole-heartedly agree. And in fact, my main 'beef' with religion is that it keeps wanting to impose it's "meaning" by denying it's adherents their right and ability to determine that for themselves. Many do so, anyway, but their religion becomes a constant stumbling block when it should have been an enabler.

I find your religious thoughts/claims/beliefs unusual, as you differ from typical theists in that you make highly conceptual and abstract references about your religious belief. You often refer to God AS a religious concept, and NOT as an actual being. You seem to value these concepts without referring to them as if you use them in any way. It's like you own a car you don't use, isn't licensed, or even on your property. Your references to religion have a certain detachment, as if you own the car and it is out there somewhere, but you don't use it in the way that's typical.

Taoism is actually very simple, but it's not very easy to explain. It begins, for me, with the simple fact as a human being I cannot know the 'divine'. I cannot know that "God" exists, or in what manner such an existence would be expressed. So I would be dishonest to proclaim any such knowledge within myself or to anyone else.

However, in my unknowing, I am still free to speculate, as I wish, about the nature and/or existence of any "God/gods". So long as I understand that my speculations are speculations, and are not knowledge. And I am also free to trust, if I so choose, in whatever divine possibilities I may speculate to exist, and to live my life accordingly, so long as I have no knowledge of my preferred possibility being impossible.

I realize this is difficult to follow. But the bottom line is that "God" can be anything I choose so long as I remain cognizant of the fact that I do not know any of it to be so. Which means that if I choose to conceive of "God" in any way at all, I have to do so as a matter of FAITH, not a presumption of knowledge. And that because it is a matter of faith, not fact, I can change or reject any of it at any time for whatever reason I want.

Sometimes i get the sense that you are a theist for reasons that aren't because you actually value the concepts or religion in general, but more like you feel obligated or as if you don't think you have any alternative.

I don't confuse or conflate theism with religion as so many do. That's part of it. But I am also not a "believer" in the sense that I don't "believe in" (nor disbelieve in) God. And I can do both, simultaneously, because I understand that God is an idea. In fact it's my idea. An idea that I have generated in my own mind based on the infinite possibilities afforded to me by my profound unknowing. So of course I can hold it or change it or even let it stand in it's own contradiction. And do so according to whatever I need or want "God" to be.

Most religionists are shocked by this, because they are striving to convince themselves and everyone else that God is a singular, sacrosanct ideal. That all humanity should conform to that ideal, because its GOD. But from my all-too-limited, human perspective, they cannot make that claim, honestly. So I don't have any reason to abide by it.

Sometimes I get the sense there is something not consistent in your views. You don't seem like a passionate believer, but you are passionately anti-atheist.

Atheism as it is most commonly expressed is just 'stupid'. Sorry. It's a negation of divine possibility for no good or even logical reason. I like possibilities. Especially huge, life-changing possibilities. To deny them for no reason at all is just incomprehensible to me. Honestly!

 

[Debater Slayer]

This thread is toward the people in RF who every day create OP critiquing any religious teaching they don't believe in or follow themselves.

Question:
What do you gain from it?

Are your OP made so you can learn from believers, or just to mock people you disagree with?

Does it matter to you that some people believe and live their life differently to what you do?

When a believer as you to stop the harrasment, why do you keep pushing? Don't you have respect for other people?

I rarely even start topics about religious beliefs nowadays, but within the last few days, I've encountered posts stating that leaving Islam is punishable my death. That implicitly includes people like me, since I used to belong to the religion.

I think it should be easy to see why I would respond to such a belief and strongly criticize it. I don't care much how someone chooses to practice their religion in more personal ways or what they believe in unless it could harm or dehumanize others, and I think the belief I mentioned does both. So that's an example of why someone may criticize a religious belief they themselves don't believe in or follow.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Perhaps it's time to EXPAND your definition of truth and knowledge. You have to be willing to set that definition aside and become open to some new possibilities.

I have good reason not to do that. You keep forgetting that I've done that before and regretted it, and you have offered no reason why I should do it again.

All I can tell you is this: until you discover what faith is, and how it works, you are never going to understand the value of theism

I know what faith is. And my answer is still the same - you have given me no reason to think that you are right or I wrong. I can't emphasize this enough, and it would be nice if you would take a moment to assimilate this, but you can make no progress without a compelling argument. Merely saying that I should change my definitions and my way of processing experience will never result in either of those happening. You need to be right and demonstrate that you are. If all you offer are unsupported beliefs to be accepted by faith, and they are not already mine, my answer will always be, "OK, but that's not my belief."

Here's my analogy. You're hanging onto a bar, and your feet are not touching the ground. Gravity is pulling you downward and your arms are getting tired, but your blindfolded, so you have no idea how far you'd fall if you were to let go of the bar. Now is the time for faith. Because sooner or later your arms are going to give out. You can't just hang there like this, forever. But if you do let go, now, you may be choosing your own destruction. (As opposed to it choosing you later on.) So what do you do? Do you choose to trust in your hope that the drop is negligible and will not destroy you, and so let go of the bar? Or do you hang on as long as you possibly can, until your strength fails and you fall to whatever your fate happens to be?

I hang on to the bar, call for help, and try to get on top of the bar if I am strong enough, or to at least get my legs on the bar, too. These give me my best chance. If all that fails, I hang for as long as I can hoping help arrives before I can hold no longer. And if that fails, I will fall and will discover what the case was. I will hope for a good outcome, but not expect one.

I don't see any unjustified belief in that. Faith would be letting go and expecting a good outcome with no evidence that that will be the case.

You seem to think faith is not unjustified belief, but never say why you consider that definition inadequate or explain clearly what you think it lacks and why you think that should be important to me. As you know, I divide belief into justified and unjustified, and call all of the latter faith-based belief. That works well for me. Why do you think that should I change that? How would changing that be of benefit? As I keep saying, you need more than claims to change a critical thinker's mind. You need to give reasons. You would need to demonstrate that benefit.

Have you noticed that only one of us tells the other he should change how he thinks? I have never told you how you should define words or evaluate evidence, jut how I do it and why.

And I don't mean just faith. I mean imagination, intuition, instinct, and rote, and even occasionally, deliberate perversity.

I've recently addressed this elsewhere, and using language that you as a painter might appreciate.

He: Do you subject music, or poetry, or a movie, to rigourous empiricism and logic; or do you ever use your intuition, go where others lead, search for inspiration? Isn't there a working part of the conscious self, beyond the intellect, beyond the ego, which you engage with when you're playing? That, I suggest, is the part of you which is closest to divinity, to the transcendent; your logical, empirical constructs won't get you there. Intuition, inspiration, and a willingness to take risks and have faith, these are the tools that might help your spirit take wing.[/QUOTE]

Me: Thank you, but I'm aware.

You're misunderstanding my position. When I say that I am a strict empiricist and reject faith-based thought, I am referring to how I decide what is true about the world and how I assemble a mental map over a lifetime that is to manage the rest of conscious experience, all of which is nonrational, and includes pleasant and unpleasant experiences. This is where life is lived. Reason is not an end, but a means to optimizing experience.

Without that nonrational palette of experiences, life has no meaning for many. The anhedonia of severe depression can lead to suicide, even if reason remains intact. If it has no substrate to manage, no symphony of nonrational highs and lows to conduct, it is useless, and life empty.

Thus, the nonrational is really where we live. I haven't missed that fact. My staunch defense of what others call scientism is a statement that only empiricism can teach my rational mind how to do that better, and decisions will come from that process alone.

The nonrational is the palette and the rational the brush. The nonrational is the horse and the rational the rider.

You mentioned music. Yes, I was a passionate electric guitarist from about 1970-2005, but don't play much any more. Guitar is learned empirically, rationally. One learns facts first about scales, chords, harmony, keys, time signatures, and chord chemistry (the relationship of chords to one another in apiece). One learns the fingering for the scales and chords, and practices them until he has mastered the elements of music. He learns a repertoire of the songs of others and sees how the songs he likes are constructed. This is studied like chemistry and contract bridge, using the rational mind.

And why? If just this, it's all been pointless. The magic comes during performance, when one leaves thinking about things behind and switches to a different mode, where the music flows from the fingertips like singing with the hands. This is a spiritual experience, a rapture of sorts, and it the reason for all that came before in preparation, which facilitates and manages that nonrational experience.

So, when I say that reason is how I manage the panoply of good and bad experiences in an effort to facilitate the latter and avoid or minimize the latter, I mean that reason does this better than faith-based beliefs. When I praise the brush over the fingers for managing the palette of pigments that will be the painting, I am not overlooking the palette as your question suggests.​

 

[Sand Dancer]

Christians vote in great numbers, rule the US (elect presidents, appoint judges), and from the US declare wars against nations innocent of terrorism by "bearing false witness against them" and "killing," and making torture camps while telling the world that they are "fighting evil."

After increasing the National Debt, cutting tax for billionaires, pollluting God's environment, ignoring the homeless, telling lies about global warming, outsourced jobs and factories for cheap foreign labor (now defective products), etc.

Christians have taken away our Constitutional rights (right to sue HMOs because, they say, it prevents frivolous lawsuits). Now medical costs have soared. President W. Bush moved protestors to an island, where they could not be seen or heard (right to assemble....but without the ability to affect changes)--1st Amendment right to assemble is gone.

Christians want to teach their religion (not everyone's religion) in schools, and cut out evolution in schools because it contradicts their bible. Cramming their religion down the throats of all.

We don't even have a right to object? Free speech is dead, too?

The right to harm others, without the consequence of objectors.

Mostly these are the religious right. Half of Christians are on the left. I think they need their own political party.

 

[Sand Dancer]

Generally, the religious leaders are the source of the problems.

They could preach about law or love, but to preach both is showing the contradictions. I think they should focus on love. The Hebrew god is love, supposedly...

 

[Sand Dancer]

I speak often about the 4-5 atheists in RF that are targeting everything a religious person say here.

Atheism isn't a monolithic group. Some atheists are rabid and some are easy going. I think being easy going wins a lot more friends and common ground than being rabid, but that goes for all groups.

 

[Sand Dancer]

Gay people are often marginalised and judged in the Abrahamic traditions. That's the reality.

Funny that Jesus hung with those that the religious leaders wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. Funny (peculiar) in that some of his modern worshipers don't follow his actions.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Oh you can ask questions, but drop the harrasment, ill intention coments about religious books, or religious people.

Based on my 16+ years of experience with online forums, my problem on forums like this one isn't with atheists, it's with right-wing Christians. And since I've been on RF for a few weeks, I've added Muslims and Bahá'í to my list of antagonistic Abrahamic theists.

Grant it, I've experienced conflict with a couple of Buddhists on RF, but that pales in comparison to the conflict I have experienced with evangelical conservative Christians online over the years. In contrast, the majority of my online interactions with atheists have been relatively respectful. I can't say that about my online interactions with right-wing Christians. Liberal Christians, on the other hand, have demonstrated more Christ-like behavior than any conservative Christians I've had the misfortune to encounter online.

I was an evangelical conservative Christian myself for many years, but the confrontational interactions I've experienced with other evangelical conservative Christians online and in real life definitely contributed to my decision to abandon my evangelical faith. My firsthand interactions with these Christians include being called a traitor to my country. I have also been called a squaw, a godless Demoncrat, a child of the devil, Satan's minion, spawn of Satan, and the profane name of what people call a female dog. I was even accused of being demon possessed and that's what caused me to vote for Biden, and apparently I'm going to burn in hell because I voted for him. And to add insult to injury, an evangelical pastor once told me that the entire worth of Indians could be found at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. Another evangelical pastor called me a cursed soul and told me God hates me and he's punishing me.

Long story short, I have more respect for atheists than I have for right-wing Christians, and I genuinely believe that I'm justified having this feeling after what I've personally experienced from evangelical conservative Christians over the course of my lifetime.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

you can ask questions, but drop the harassment, ill intention comments about religious books, or religious people.

For starters, I have only ever asked you one question about your religious beliefs, I've asked it of you two or three times, and you have declined to answer every time, so asking you questions has been pointless for me. I've asked you to share any spiritual truths you have gained using the methods you have chosen, and you have no answer. You don't even acknowledge that you saw the question.

Second, there is no harassment, nor malicious comments about religious books or religious people. Nor are there unbelievers who "every day create OP critiquing any religious teaching they don't believe in or follow themselves" as you claimed in your OP. In every case, you were asked to supply evidence, and once again, did not. You don't even acknowledge that you see these comments, much address them. As you know, skeptics reject unsupported beliefs, so all of those claims are simply rejected. If people deny the charges, and you can provide no contradictory evidence, it didn't happen.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Oh you can ask questions, but drop the harrasment, ill intention coments about religious books, or religious people.

The only times I've ever seen people make negative comments about your beliefs was when you specifically asked for comments on your beliefs.

 

[Secret Chief]

I've experienced conflict with a couple of Buddhists on RF

Was this when I said Ringo Starr couldn't drum his way out of a paper bag?

 

[PureX]

The only times I've ever seen people make negative comments about your beliefs was when you specifically asked for comments on your beliefs.

That is true, you often do ask.