MellowDem
MellowDem's JournalI have made no assumptions of you...
since you haven't explained your beliefs to me. I have no idea what your position is, and don't care either, since it hasn't been relevant to the discussion. I'm talking about religion and believers in general, not you. You seem to be assuming and taking offense to a lot of things while utterly ignoring the topic. But back to the topic...
Many Christians (as you point out) do subscribe to the idea that the Bible is indeed faulty (which many would say contradicts with Christianity), but they still base their belief on a supernatural being off of it, and the way they decide which parts are faulty and which aren't (basically claiming that some parts are indeed true) is where the intellectual dishonesty and cognitive dissonance come in.
The fact that humans are faulty and inconsistent does nothing to reinforce religious beliefs. It's a good excuse for those who want to engage in lots of intellectual dishonesty and cognitive dissonance by picking and choosing from texts like the Bible to believe what they want, but it's terrible logic and reasoning and is easily exposed when you divine how they decide what God's word "really" is.
Lots and lots of statistics...
like how many Catholics in the US use contraceptives for example. Or read the Bible. Or don't know even the most basic assertions of their belief system.
Or how many people are simply the religion of their parents (the vast majority).
Your implied ad-hoc attempting to conflate my opinion with fundamentalist religion was pretty poor. And your non-answers are telling.
I don't tell people my opinions are fact, much less endorsed by a supernatural supreme being that will utterly destroy anyone that doesn't hold to them. They're just my opinions and preferences, and the fact that you can't address them at all implies you have a very poor argument, if you even have an argument at all. Like how you still haven't said why my opinion on indoctrinating children is wrong.
I'm not putting them all in the same box...
I'm clearly stating that some believers are intellectually honest and try to be consistent. These types are very scary, they are the fundamentalists. They're a significant minority anymore in the US, and a significant majority in places like Afghanistan. Of course, it's impossible to have a consistent belief system based off of such contradictory books, but they try. They don't ignore the uncomfortable parts in other words.
The position that the Bible is a faulty document, but also the basis for a belief in a wonderful supernatural being, requires some level of intellectual dishonesty and cognitive dissonance, for example. Sure, I like believers that engage in this a lot more in the sense they are far more sensible and practical, but they still aren't all that honest. The excuses for the actions of God in the Old Testament are hard to bear. How the "all-loving" god wipes out community after community, how he kills everyone in the world at one point, how he promotes slavery and misogyny, etc. etc. It's easy to see that the Bible does indeed endorse bigoted and hateful views.
Basically, your position on god is no more credible than the hateful bigot's position on god. And that's the crux of the matter, and why faith based belief is so harmful. Neither position is credible at all, but if you are a believer, you have to concede that other believer's own positions are just as likely as your own, if you're being totally honest.
No...
these adults have rarely "adopted" anything. They've been coerced/indoctrinated into a belief system they don't actually believe in for the most part, but they go with the motions to avoid strife. Of course, when the silly rules come into conflict with the silly rules of another belief system through your partner, it adds unneeded strife. If these adults HAVE truly adopted these beliefs for themselves, most wouldn't be getting inter-faith marriages, which shows another bad side of faith based belief: missing out on being with wonderful people because of opinions based on absolutely no evidence.
You can spare me the "I'm offended" non-argument. I never said that all believers are deluded sheep. The vast majority are quite normal, which is why they don't believe in their own belief systems (which advocate all sorts of heinous crap). All I've said is that the vast majority are intellectually dishonest and engage in lots of cognitive dissonance when it comes to religion. That's not what deluded sheep do. It's what rational humans balancing the benefits of pretending to believe so they can get the very real tangible benefits of a society that is still very religious. Like avoiding family strife or continuing to get family support.
Non-believers can be quite deluded. Not everyone comes to atheism through skepticism, and there are atheists who don't believe in gods but do believe in all other sorts of supernatural things. Theism requires at least one supernatural belief.
Any parent that indoctrinates their child into anything is doing something I find highly distasteful, whether it's strong atheism, communism, libertarianism, etc. Indoctrination is always wrong. It's a form of abuse of a child by taking advantage of their lack of cognitive ability to manipulate them into your own opinions. Education is the way to raise a child.
Indoctrination in religion gets a pass or is even lauded still today because of the privileged status it has had in the past, and I think it should be pointed out it's just as wrong and distasteful and abusive, no matter the fact that few parents give it a second thought. Spreading awareness through exposing them to a realistic perspective and breaking through the status quo is part of the solution.
It's because the major religions are inherently bigoted...
so no major suprise there. Read your Koran, Bible, or Torah to get some full throated endorsment of bigotry and cruelty that even Republicans have to try and tone down from time to time.
Doesn't help that many "believers" in these same texts engage in massive intellectual dishonesty and cognitive dissonance, claiming to be for GLBT rights while simultaneously claiming to be followers of writings that call GLBT "abominations".
It'd be like a civil rights advocate also being a member of the KKK, or a Col. Sanders being a PETA member. I don't know how people live with that sort of mind boggling cognitive dissonance and intellectual dishonesty, but I'm guessing "indoctrination", "tradition", and "societal conditioning" have a lot to do with it.
Kinda how indoctrinating your child in anything other than religion is considered at least distateful, but indoctrinating them in religion is no biggie.
Another reason religion sucks...
creating unneeded division between couples from the very start, as if relationships can't be hard enough, to say nothing of their families.
The only way around it (if both want to remain part of their religions that, in all likelihood, they were indoctrinated into and feel compelled to stay in due to family/community pressure) is to be intellectually dishonest and engage in lots of cognitive dissonance, which these couples do with expertise. What kind of belief system forces you to do that to yourself?
Actually, what kind of belief system gets most of its members through childhood indoctrination? I think that's the first red flag.
And then the cycle continues with the couple indoctrinating their children etc. etc. Hopefully they won't.
Not at all, it's called having a position...
and stating it. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not one way thinking. I have an open mind. If good evidence is given to me, I will accept it and change my view. So far, you haven't even tried addressing my points. You have simply said that you don't like the words I use and think they're too harsh. Which just seems to back up my position. If you could give me a good reason to think that "faith" is ever a good way to think about anything, or any reason, I'd have something to discuss.
I have no great regard for people who do good works based on faith. I think it's better than doing "bad" works, but faith actually causes it to lose its luster. I have regard for people who do good because they want to, rather than because they think an all powerful god told them to, or for fear of hell, or for the reward of heaven, etc.
I'm not buying your explanation about the link at all.
Yes you are:
Of course some religious people still explain scientifically proven events as supernatural phenomenon.
Yeah, I agree, it's common knowledge, so why did you ask for it again? I think you misread my original comment as somehow saying all people with religious beliefs have a mental disorder, which is not at all what I was saying. I was saying that people have been claiming god can explain their experiences forever, even after science has shown that in some cases it's just the brain. And for the rest of the cases, it's the god of the gaps.
Look, I'm happy when faith based beliefs just happen to line up with my own beliefs, but the reasoning behind them is still flawed and can cause harm. It's similar to saying that libertarians support decriminalizing drugs, but their reasoning is very different, and also leads to supporting such things as getting rid of SS, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.
Statistics on Bible reading and religious growth...
which they've been doing for a while. Plus, if you hold to the idea of faith, then you don't question by definition. Believing without evidence precludes questioning.
I wasn't raised in a fundamentalist religion. I was indoctrinated in a very moderate religion actually, and during my time as a believer I met other believers from different faiths and attended their services as well.
Anectdotal evidence, including myself, showed that every believer, fundamentalist or not, engaged in extensive cognitive dissonance and intellectual dishonesty on the subject of their religious beliefs, and that most were very uncomfortable ever getting into it at all, and that most knew little to nothing about their own belief systems, and indeed most did not follow them very well, and most pick and choose if they have to, and that there is a whole lot of very poorly thought out apologetics.
Statistics just backs up the anectdotal evidence. Like the number of Catholics that use birth control, for example.
I think progressive religions engage in far more intellectual dishonesty and cognitive dissonance about their sacred texts like the Bible than fundamentalists do. Indeed, fundamentalists are often much more consistent, which shows why so many educated people are turned away from them, and progressive religions are just trying to adapt to survive in a more educated world, as religions have always had to do. The Mormons changed the rules on polygamy when it became politically necessary. They changed their rules on black people when it became socially necessary. That's just a recent example, but it's something every religion engages in to stay relevant, otherwise they die off.
It is not similar to what fundamentalists do...
at least not as I understand the term. I'm on a discussion board, trying to convince others of my position. I mean, that's what most of politics is, right?
Everyone who is a faith based believer uses the same flawed system of thinking. Only some may use that belief to oppress the rights of others, but the method of thinking is poisonous regardless. That is, believing something is true without evidence is never a good idea. And, it's not just others who violate my rights. It's the people who trash the environment because they believe god is coming back soon, for example. And it's not just religion. It's atheists that try to use herbs to cure cancer because they were told it does so by a new age healer. Sure, progressive religions generally don't try to impose their beliefs on the rest of society, and for that I'm grateful, but the belief systems themselves are still irrational and can still lead to harm.
Skepticism is what I advocate. I am not using terms like "rationality" or "gullibility" as personal attacks, but as accurate descriptors of the kind of thinking promoted by religion. I think religious people generally are incredibly sensitive to having their beliefs criticized because traditionally they have been given privileged status over other ideas or belief systems. I'm treating them no differently than I would political ideologies or ideas. If someone wants to say why the idea of faith doesn't lead to gullibility, I'm all ears.
The link I provided was purposely from that source, since I didn't want to seem biased, I was just showing that religious people have and still do explain experiences with supernatural explanations, even as they themselves aknowledge experts have concluded these explanations are in fact bogus. They just think the experts are wrong, of course.
No, most do not question in religion...
and it's set up that way, starting with childhood indoctrination. Critical thinking on the subject of religion is often discouraged, indeed, existence of a particular god is stated as fact from before the time a child has critical thinking capabilities. And, once a child does gain the ability to question, there are thousands of years of apologetics that have developed, full of horrible logic and reasoning, that is there to answer their questions on the inconsistencies of the religion, and for most people not trained in formal logic, it's very convincing, especially if they're just looking for some explanation.
Given the claims of a book like the Bible, which are extraordinary, you'd figure most Christians would have read it themselves, but they don't. There is no way they can have a deep questioning of their beliefs without even reading the text on which it is based.
That's because most don't care about religion as a belief system. Religion is a social function, or a family tradition, or a cultural identity, or all three, but certainly not a guide to live one's life by for the majority here in the US. That's why they easily ignore the beliefs they supposedly subscribe to on a day to day basis. It's cognitive dissonance, but it's not the kind that makes them uncomfortable. What makes them uncomfortable are the terrible beliefs themselves, and the prospect of losing social, family, or cultural capital etc. as a result of really examining beliefs. So ignoring them is their first and best line of defense.
In the US, the cost of leaving a church your indoctrinated into is becoming less and less though, so more feel free to question the belief system.
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