Why do you ......

[paramuscle]

Believe or not believe ?

Religion is a very hot topic that seems to stimulate a great deal of heated debate. I am just curious to see what makes each of us believe or not believe.

I came to believe myself after having read The Davinci Code, I thought it was very insightful and answered a lot of the questions I had about organized religion. I began thinking about it and did a great deal of research and finally came to the position that it takes less faith to believe in Christianty than it does to not believe. I found myself thinking about it from the position of a courtroom, if you were sitting on a jury and had to pass judgment on someone, wouldn't you want to hear as many facts as you could and then place your belief in the side that had the most believable case ? That is how it is for me anyway. Who else ?

[Gator_Mclusky]

My mother read from the Bible to me and was the sweetest most caring person I've ever met. That put faith in my heart. I will see her again as she has passed on to be with God.

[Reverend Satan]

Faith doesn't equal Facts no matter how much faith you have or how many people have it with you.

Russell's teapot:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."

[paramuscle]

Is that your argument ? I asked WHY you do or don't believe ......

[Reverend Satan]

Originally Posted by paramuscle

Is that your argument ? I asked WHY you do or don't believe ......

I just answered. Faith is does not equal facts. I don't believe in something that:

A. Has no evidence to support it
B. Is contrary to the things we know are true
C. Is philosophically a mess

[Reverend Satan]

And then I illustrated how the absurdity of god/religion is not noticed by many simply because it is "mainstream."

[paramuscle]

What exactly are these things we KNOW are true ?

I know the sun comes up......and I know that my wife makes good coffee...

I don't know that the THEORY of evolution is true, help me understand it so that I may feel enlightned....

[Reverend Satan]

Sagan's Dragon
Flying Spaghetti Monster
Invisible Pink Unicorn


All of those things are just as irrational as belief in god but nobody believes in them because it isn't ingrained in their culture and thus their brains. Those things, however, are no LESS ridiculous.

[paramuscle]

Why do you have to belittle any opinion other than your own ? Why can't we have a rational explanation from you regarding these thing without the "pink unicorns" ? Just because you don't believe, in no way invalidates it....

[Reverend Satan]

Originally Posted by paramuscle

Why do you have to belittle any opinion other than your own ? Why can't we have a rational explanation from you regarding these thing without the "pink unicorns" ? Just because you don't believe, in no way invalidates it....

I don't have to respect absurdity anymore than you have to respect the absurdity of people who believe in Invisible Pink Unicorns. As I keep trying to drive home, just because your peers and most Americans believe something similar to you does not make any of you any less wrong or irrational.