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Originally Posted by Polymirize
a counter-rant?
very well then...
I think its the height of arrogance to claim knowledge of the boundaries of reality, to say what does and does not count and so claim a full understanding of causality free from "super-natural" causes.
Nobody is claiming absolute knowledge of anything. All we are doing is asking for evidence that a deity exists, and as long as there is exactly as much evidence for God as there is for unicorns, we realize that both ideas should be treated with about the same level of seriousness. Besides, if real observable evidence of a deity or souls or whatever did surface, they would cease to be "supernatural" phenomena. They would be entirely natural, by definition, since one could detect them and potentially experiment with them, and at least provide empirical evidence that they exist. Such evidence, of course, is entirely lacking, and it is really the height of arrogance to assume that your belief should be taken seriously without any supporting logic or evidence whatsoever, while asking others to back up their claims about reality.
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I am almost certain that there is more going on behind the scenes so to speak,
Behind the scenes of what? Where's your evidence?
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and so simple humility keeps me from dismissing religion out of hand.
I am not dismissing it out of hand. I am looking at the claims, searching for evidence of them, and realizing that if the evidence is lacking after millennia of searching for it, there probably isn't much to the claims.
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Religion has its faults but I have never seen anyone attempt to justify their own through religion.
Really. You've never read much of the Crusades, have you? Or the way Islamic terrorists justify their actions? Or the doctor-murdering anti-abortionists? The ends justify the means, they say, and they have scripture to back up what they've done.
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I have never told someone that they were a horrible person only to have them respond, "well, I'm a catholic".
Umm...neither have I... :confused:
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Religion is just one path some people choose to traverse through life. Blaming religion is just a cop out to avoid blaming the choices people make. And once you choose to blame religion instead of simply people's choices, you probably think you're no longer part of the problem.
Huh? Are you denying that religion can have influences on people's behaviors? People don't just look through the available religions and choose which one fits them best. Most of the time they are indoctrinated from birth by their parents before they reach the age where they can seriously rationally analyze the claims, and by the time they can they are too emotionally and socially attached to the belief system that they are deathly afraid of giving it up, which is why most people coincidentally have the same religion as their parents (surprise surprise!). People don't make decisions in a vacuum. They are products of their social environments.
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But you are, because now religious people are just another big "them" category.
end rant.
Umm, no. I don't hate religious people, or group them all together into one unified category. I just see superstitions, especially ones which promote the idea of an infallible dictator of the universe, as destructive to common sense, rationality, and humanist ethics. We need to deal with problems ourselves here on earth instead of inventing imaginary cosmic justice systems which we think will solve everything for us in the end.
