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Originally Posted by Penelope_Grey
That is the whole point of religion and being religious its a leap of faith. Placing trust in someone or something else that you cannot quite see or cannot quite prove.
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And why do you think that is a virtue, instead of a delusion? Problem is that you cannot prove, never, that something does not exist. To turn that into an argument why it should be reasonable to assume that something does exist, is a bit too much, I think. You cannot prove there are ponk elephants living in a deep cave below the arctic ice. But why believe that they do live there?
the moral and education I have seen in some individuals I met, has not come from to their religous views and attitudes, but has emerged from within themselves. It did not reflect the value of their religion, but the value of their own inner essence. Whereas the existence of theistic religions has caused nothing but violence, hate, intolerance, limiting of the functions our brain is capable of, trying to poison our perception of reality, our ability to learn; religion led to war, inquisition, sharia, for centuries and millenias. Theistic religions never have led a single man into an imgained paradise - all they do is bringing out the worst in us. Without theistic religions - no Taleban, no al Quaeda. No Inquisition. No 30-years-war and centuries of other religiously motivated wars in europe, no Islamic civil war. Let's not forget that the age of enlightenment has been the time and power that forced the churches to give up their iron grab for society and people's minds. but in our present time, we try harder again to even abuse the weakest and youngest of ours to bend their minds again to hear-say and educating them not to ask analytical and critical questions: our children. To educate them to become belivers when it is still beyond them to analyse these things themselves and make a decision dpeending on their results is nothing but abuse of children, imo (and prominent authors) opion. It is high time that the voice of reason makes it self heared much louder again - before Christian and islamic and Jewish beoliefs of god-like psychopaths kills us all in one final cataclysm that in an act of self-fulfilling prohecy and logic-in-cycles is oracled by some from man-made scriptures.
I do not see that the Jesus of the gospels (that were put together not until 70-140 years after his death, so they do not represent any authentic report about him) has taught about these believing-is-a-virtue-things, and these old concepts of simple blind believing hear-say and fairy-tales. Instead he led the way to directly experiencing the reality, and taking responsibility for one's life. This is what makes him more comparable to a Zen master than to a "holy man" ursurpated by a politcal organisation called "church". I still wait for the first thing being shown to me that could qualify for being seen as "holy". He choosed his path not in our place, but for our sake, and he repeatedly said that nobody of us is saved from doing like him ourselves. If he really would have meant the same belief-concepts and the same conception of a god like all the other lunatics in the bible, he just would have been as insane as them, and nopt worth to be remembered.
In the end, believing is no virtue, but expression of lacking knowledge and understanding of the cosmos that surrounds us. Due to that uncertainty, man has a desire to beolueve he has a role, a place in this chaos that apprantly surrounds us, and a state of constant uncertainty is hard to bear for us, and makes us desparate. But believing is for children nevertheless, and they find comfort in believing the fairy tale that tells them they are safe and guarded. when we grow up, we do not wish to depend un such infantile explanations anymore - so we think, before starting to beloieve in a god whose nonexistance has not been proven - which is the argument for us why it is the right thing for some of us to take his presence as granted. That's like assuming that there is a bridge of invisible glas outside the window in the 10th floor, and becasue nobody knocked on the door and proved to us that it is not there, makes us stepping out the window and wanting to cross the street the easy way without needing to climb all the chairs in the house on the other side. Here, scriptures come into play: they easy the burden of needing to think, they offer all answers to all questions imgainable, and if there are new questions, it is tempting to ignore them, even to prevent them, in order to not needing to take the effort and think ourselves. The conflict between fundamental christians and creationists on the one hand, and scientist and defenders of evolution theory on the other hand is a good example.
we may have a craving for beoieving, we may wish to beoieve in something. But a junkey also is craving for a jo0int, and an alcoholic is craving for alcohol. This does not turn metabolic poisons into gods. In the end, our desire to believe in something that gives us an image of being secure in a constantly changing universe full of uncertain variables and uncertainties, is simply this: our desire, our wish, or better: our choice, our decision. Nothing in all that turns our decision into an evidence for gods existing.
I consider that do be infantile, and due to the enormous tools of potential self-destruction avaulable to us I consider it to be vital that we finally move beyoind this childish stadium. for that reason I reject to respect theistic beliefs, and do not pay them any respect at all: it is suicidal in this modern world, and will lead to the final last war or act of self-destruction sooner or later - all in the name of God and his religion, of course.
Let's end this madness - before it ends us.