The Argument Against Arguing Against Religion

No, I don't...

Yes, you do! It's not easy to look at ourselves. You did not do what you did out of anger or ill intent. I believe Real Life understands that.

I am also sure Real Life understands you have compassion for everyone's feelings. There is nothing wrong with that.

You do rock. I'm the Momma! And like my mom used to tell me, "It's what I say it is because I am the Momma and you are not! "

Is everyone upset with me now?

Why should we be?

I feel like I've disappointed several people, and it bugs me to be honest. I want to feel welcome to still post here, but I realize that I may have offended some. Which I know if that is the case and my apology is just seen as a cheap bandage, then it would be pointless for me to remain. I don't want to leave though. I like it here. I like the people. I like the debate. I hope that makes sense.

From my perspective, you are a very welcome addition to A2K.

I know how you feel. I really do not like to offend people and I do not want to disappoint my Heavenly Father, but I know that I have done so. It is so easy to get lost in the heat of debate and lose all reason. We know it. We acknowledge it. We vow to ourselves to never do it again. And, then....boom.... we did it again.

I am sure that there are many here who think that I am an arrogant jerk. I probably come across that way. It is not intentional.

I do hope that you remain, hephzibah

A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. He knew that she was old, and not overwell built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon his mind, and made him unhappy; he thought that perhaps he ought to have her thoroughly overhauled and refitted, even though this should put him at great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely through so many voyages and weathered so many storms that it was idle to suppose she would not come safely home from this trip also. He would put his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous suspicions about the honesty of builders and contractors. In such ways he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched her departure with a light heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales.

The sincerity of his conviction can in no wise help him; because he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts.

He who truly believes that which prompts him to an action has looked upon the action to lust after it; he has committed it already in his heart. If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future. It goes to make a part of that aggregate of beliefs which is the link between sensation and action at every moment of all our lives, and which is so organized and compacted together that no part of it can be isolated from the rest, but every new addition modifies the structure of the whole. No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant; it prepares us to receive more of its like, confirms those which resembled it before, and weakens others; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may someday explode into overt action.

A train, here, is a train of explosive leading from a detonator to a mine. Someone sitting on a completely unreasonable belief is sitting on a time bomb. The apparently harmless, idiosyncratic belief of the Catholic Church that one thing may have the substance of another, although it displays absolutely none of its empirical qualities, prepares people for the view that some people are agents of Satan in disguise, which in turn makes it reasonable to destroy them. Our beliefs help to create the world in which our descendants will live. Making ourselves gullible or credulous, we lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them, and that means 'sinking back into savagery'.

Ummm aktorist... I'm not getting you here. I'm sorry.

Read the story. That is exactly what faith is. We have our responsibilities to believe carefully.

Faith is the disrespect for plausability, for reason, for evidence.

Faith is respect for God.

Thank you for explaining. You are right. But believing carefully will never make us perfect unfortunately.

But faith will make us worse.

Again, faith is the disrespect for plausability, for reason, for evidence.

You want truth. And you aren't going to get closer to the truth with faith.

Read my story. Because we do have the obligation to believe carefully.

Aktorist I'm bowing out of this challenge. I'm sorry. I've had enough fighting for awhile.

Thank you Intrepid. I appreciate your kindness. I don't know what to do right now. I feel so weak. Like I've lost the will to fight or something. I don't know why. I just hate hurting people, and I sincerely fear that I hurt more than just real life. More than just myself. It's tearing me up inside.

Look, I read the story, ok? See aktorist the whole deal is you seem to think that man is the ultimate authority on things. I don't believe that. God is the ultimate authority. So, while you would end your search with the answers of man, I will go further and seek the answers of God.

Ah, just go read a couple of Setanta's posts and you will feel real good about yourself.

Re: The Argument Against Arguing Against Religion
I get to practice my typing, learn more about the depth of irrational beliefs and their rationalized counter-arguments, and place jokes that sometimes get noticed; such bliss! Most importantly I have swayed many posters away from faith based belief systems and towards scientific rationalism, just ask Mommy Angel

Actually, where is the evidence for God?

The difference between man and God is that we know that man is there, and we are determining how the rest of them around us will live.

And it's shaped by our beliefs.

We have to obligation to inquire because we want things to be true. And reason is more true than God.

How do you speak of beliefs on one hand and try to debunk God on the other? God is faith based, after all.