My thread in Religion Forum

[edhopper]

I find it interesting that almost none of the believers can actually ask the specific and hopefully clear question i ask, and answer to something I expressly say is not at issue.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/121882026

Do you accept that their belief in multiple gods and reincarnation can be valid and true. If so, how does that align your beliefs in the one true God, Jesus and the Bible? If you think they believe in things that aren't true (no parsing here, many believe in the absolute reality of their gods), how do you remain so convinced that what you believe is true in the face of hundreds of millions who have beliefs in what amounts to a fiction?

Please don't miss the point, of course people have to right to their beliefs, we also have the right to question them.

You may find it interesting too.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. I finally got one to admit that those other gods over there are bullshit

But that he would NEVER be so rude as to tell a person that.

[edhopper]

2. saw that

None of the others will even say that.

[skepticscott]

3. You hit those types of threads sometimes

with questions that go right to the heart of the fundamental cognitive dissonance in their religious beliefs and practices. And they simply cannot look in the mirror and face it.

My favorite was "If your god told you to sacrifice your child, would you?" You never saw so much tap dancing in your life.

[edhopper]

4. I did not anticipate

so much avoidance. Nor directly answering in a way I said was not the point.

[deucemagnet]

11. The question that's amazing me lately is the agnosticism vs. atheism question.

It has been explicitly, painstakingly explained in several posts, yet people still answer the theistic vs. atheistic question as if they were asked whether they were gnostic vs. agnostic. The cognitive dissonance is really mind-boggling. That forum is responsible for my logging off of DU in disgust a lot lately.

[dimbear]

5. There are a handful of fatal questions which never will get answered.

You do what you got to do to hold on.

Some of them (the fatal questions) are so famous that they have names. It's a little like naming an animal so that you can't make use of it as soup.

[edhopper]

6. I'd like to see that list.

[dimbear]

7. The most famous one which has its own pet name is 'theodicy.'

Quite the little skullcrusher.

[edhopper]

8. I think

Epicurius solved that one quite well.

[skepticscott]

10. I thought that was Homer

[edhopper]

14. I refer to this

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent.
Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent.
Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?"

[skepticscott]

16. I was referring to

Theodicy of Homer

[edhopper]

17. Yes, it's there too

When i read the Iliad I thought how much more sense those gods made to the conditions of the world than the all loving God of the Bible.
The Earth does seem to be ruled by capricious beings.

[AlbertCat]

30. The Earth does seem to be ruled by capricious beings.

No it doesn't. It seems to be ruled by laws of physics.... or nature, if you're an ancient.... that are totally indifferent to what you want or need. That's all.

Those silly humans! Anthropomorphizing nature! Like they do pets.

[edhopper]

32. of course

I was just making the point that the ancient gods make more sense than the biblical God.
None of which exist.

[AlbertCat]

35. the ancient gods make more sense than the biblical God.

I remember hearing someone.... Joseph Campbell?... saying the Abrahamic god is very unusual. In most religions the "creator" is female (for obvious reasons) and creation comes from within her. The Abrahamic god is male and creation is just some act he does, not something that comes from within him.... or like in most religions, the Earth itself is the "mother", but Yahweh or Jehovah just sorta "touches" the earth.

[edhopper]

36. That is

interesting indeed.

[uriel1972]

9. I just read the thread heads and it gave me a headache ouch...nt

[defacto7]

12. When someone really, really, really needs to have a belief system to survive,

and their entire paradigm is found teetering on facts, there's no doubt that denial, strawmen, dismissal, and blame will be their only salvation.

You can't expect a scientific approach to reason to come from a person who can't stop drinking the booze. The addiction isn't like physical addiction, it's their entire being/self/ego that's at stake. Until they can begin to break the habit or addiction to the sum of their fears and see that there is life (and death) after truth, they can't budge and must find a way out.

I see it another way... If we were once steeped in religion, and we were able to come to the realization of our mortality and still find freedom from fear's lie, we atheists were very lucky.

[skepticscott]

13. And the truth is

that you're never going to see someone in a thread like that come right out and say, "wow, you're right...my beliefs just don't make sense and I'm going to abandon them as a result". People's minds just don't work like that, about religion or much of anything else, for that matter. Even if someone does actually realize that the basis for their beliefs or convictions has been weakened, by evidence or arguments they had never been exposed to before, long held, cherished beliefs simply aren't that easy to let go of. It happens, certainly, but usually not immediately.

[edhopper]

15. I just didn't think so many

would not even understand the question (or willingly feign ignorance)

[skepticscott]

18. Well, you stated it about as clearly as could be

how do you remain so convinced that what you believe is true in the face of hundreds of millions who have beliefs in what amounts to a fiction?

It was just a bit too pointed, especially for people who want everything to be real and true, and everyone's beliefs to be correct, even when they are directly contradictory.

[edhopper]

19. I have been accused several time on the thread

of having a hidden agenda, when I think my challenge to their faith is quite overt.

[skepticscott]

20. And the whole concept of "live and let live"

would be just dandy, even to atheists, if religious people could actually manage to do that. But as we are reminded in the news every day, they can't.

[edhopper]

21. it would work fine

if no one did anything based on their religion.

[dimbear]

23. Yes indeed, quite overt. You deserved the highest praise, namely the dictat that you are

asking the wrong questions.

[edhopper]

24. Many are complaining that i am not accepting their answers

but to me it's like I'm asking what 2 + 2 is and they are answering "Red".

[dimbear]

25. There are special rules for logic over there. Most important is that two wrongs

make a right. There are others.

[defacto7]

26. and the more wrongs

the more right.

[trotsky]

27. Because that's the standard defense pattern.

If you can't answer the question, impugn the questioner's motive or otherwise engage in ad homs. Bonus points if you can somehow include the words "bigot" or "militant atheist"!

[edhopper]

28. I did get

"fundamentalist atheist.

[Arugula Latte]

22. Here's something I'd like an answer to:

Why do people feel the need to believe in these elaborate stories? The common ground of almost all religions is some variation of the Golden Rule: "Treat Others as You'd Want to Be Treated." Why not just run with that and not invest so much in all the silly tales of people coming back from the dead and delivering messages from other dimensions and so forth? It just strikes me as a giant colossal waste of time. I don't get it.

[AlbertCat]

31. Because no one wants to die.

They want to do something else, anything else, but die.... go somewhere nice, go somewhere that's nowhere, come back again, or as something else, get your own planet... anything but actually die.

They need "just so stories" that show that they indeed go somewhere else, or come back or whatever....


Anyway, that's the most "logical" answer I can come up with. I mean.... I myself don't want to die, but I really don't have a choice, do I? Besides, it's not being dead that's the problem, it the DYING that you want to make easy.

Some folks just hate reality. But, reality always wins, so why spend all this time and energy denying it? That's my question.

[onager]

29. Thanks! Lotsa Dodges in that lot...

As usual, most of the believers' arguments remind me of...

[trotsky]

33. Just wanted to check back in and say that with 400+ responses,

you sure did hit a nerve.

[edhopper]

34. Could my simple little question

have generated the longest thread in the history of the Religion Forum?

Who'd of thunk it?

[edhopper]

37. It's now past 500

truthfully I am not sure what to attribute to this.

I know I asked a core question about belief. But we have had other threads that deal with such issues.

Of course i have started other threads i think are of great interest and received a total of 3 responses, so I am not a good judge of this.