BTW. I look for wisdom saying and do not care who says them. The words are more important than the speaker.
Faith closes the mind. It is pure idol worship.
Faith is a way to quit using, “God given” power of Reason and Logic, and cause the faithful to embrace doctrines that moral people reject.
The God of the OT says, “Come now, and let us reason together,” [Isaiah 1:18]
How can literalists reason on God when they must ignore reason and logic and discard them when turning into literalist?
Those who are literalists can only reply somewhat in the fashion that Martin Luther did.
“Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.”
“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has.”
This attitude effectively kills all worthy communication that non-theists can have with theist. Faith closes the believers mind as it is pure idol worship.
Literalism is an evil practice that hides the true messages of myths. We cannot show our faith based friends that they are wrong through their faith colored glasses. Their faith also plugs their ears.
Sure the religious live a bit longer and happier lives, but to a thinker, as compared to a sheeple, cannot see being a sheeple as better than a thinker.
The small difference is not enough to make an atheist put his mind in intellectual and especially moral dissonance.
We value our minds and truth more than theists. By we I mean thinkers, not atheists. Not being an atheist, I cannot speak for them.
At present, atheists are beginning the trend of providing what were known as mystery schools. Some are calling them atheist churches. That trend will give them the longer and happier lives without them having to insult their intellect and morals.
They know how utterly stupid and brain killing idol worship of a genocidal son murdering god can be. They have seen what it does to Christians and Muslims.
They are not interested in growing atheism with inquisitions and jihads.
That is why countries with less religiosity are more peaceful and law abiding.
Regards
DL
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In a few decades when they’re dead, atheists will see the error of their ways, unfortunately. Pride comes before the fall.
Let’s hope they change before then.
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Fear mongering. A poor apologists last lying retort.
Your lying clergy must have gotten to you when too young and you still have yet to reach the age of reason.
But most atheists know hardly anything about religion or theology. They are only guided by their own egos.
Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens (RIP) are the perfect examples. They are experts in their field, so they assume they are experts in every field.
In reality, they have a 7th grade education in religion and theology. Watching them “debate” is embarrassing because of their ignorance.
I include you in this group because of your cliche generalizations and obvious narcissism.
Oh and regards to your ignorant assumptions, I was an atheist for 10 years until I began my own study. I know how you people think.
Belief is a mental state that suggests that there is something out there. It acts intelligently so we can conclude that an intelligent person responsible for it if we accept the argument, which is, I) There is an intelligent act (an intelligent act being an act which is directed to somewhere), II) Intelligent act is caused by an intelligent person, III) Therefore there is an intelligent person. I, however, don’t see any difference between natural and supernatural except that the first is common whereas the second is rare. They are both caused.
Any so called supernaturnal phenomena that is objectively real is natural by definition
And so if it is caused and can be demonstrated to exist then it cannot be supernatural
Belief is a mental state that suggests that there is something out there. It acts intelligently so we can conclude that an intelligent person responsible for it if we accept the argument, which is, I) There is an intelligent act (an intelligent act being an act which is directed to somewhere), II) Intelligent act is caused by an intelligent person, III) Therefore there is an intelligent person. I, however, don’t see any difference between natural and supernatural except that the first is common whereas the second is rare. They are both caused.
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Rare?
I hope you do not mean the 7th hand hearsay in holy books.
Tell us what you have seen please or know of miracle as facts please.
Regards
DL
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Here are a few associated with Christianity.
@ freespirit; see hume’s argument against miracles and russell’s ‘natural law’ argument. i’d get the links for you but my iced mocha just blew up and i’ve got whipped cream all over my fingers. i shouldn’t even be posting this much. you owe me.
You atheists always reject anything that exposes your materialist world view.
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I might have missed something but as I said, I saw nothing concrete.
If you had anything in particular, I am sure your would have highlighted it.
I agree that atheists reject your fantasies for what they are.
Thanks for trying to label me such out of your frustration in having me thing as delusionally as you do.
They can read my mind and put thoughts inside my mind in a way that I feel that it is my thoughts. They are very powerful and there is a hierarchy within them.
An inelegant stereotype. I am an atheist and not a materialist. There is nothing about atheism that dictates worldview beyond literally “without God”. Anything else is on the table.
In terms of established worldviews, mine probably most closely fits Panpsychism, but I have ironed out the issues in this and all other worldviews in my own Experientialism.
There is zero need for religious narrative in either of these, and inserting a token Deistic “God” into the vocabulary serves no use.
Dawkins, maybe. Hitchens simply brought up scripture and presented it for what it is without mercy. Harris has a mastery of philosophy that is on par with the best of them, and far beyond mere experts. He even differs with the 4th horseman of the counter-apocalypse, Dennett, with his monist Materialism that I too rejected back in university. None of them think they’re experts in every field just because they are in their own field.