Religious dagger OK at Auburn elementary school

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

85. I wasn't clear enough, I think

So are patients that present with pain delusional because there is no proof that they are actually experience pain. I would hope that would not be your position.

How is this different than those that believe in a god? Who are you or I to say that they are wrong.

I chose pain specifically as being something qualitatively different from God.

If want to use the argument that something is right because humanity generally agrees that it is true, then you will have to concede the religion argument, because an overwhelming majority of humans believe.

As I pointed out, EVERY human with a functioning nervous system (including a brain) has had direct experience with pain. That's quite a bit different from 'a majority' or even 'an overwhelming majority 'believing'. You don't 'believe in' pain - you've felt it, you've had direct proof of it. I can 'prove' to you that pain exists by doing something painful to you. I'm not trying to prove that at one particular moment in time you were in pain, just that 'pain' as a concept does have some shared reality for all of humanity. How do you similarly prove to me that God exists (in the way that humanity typically describes God in various religions)? If you want to say 'God is everything', ie, 'God is the universe', I've got no problem with that, I can interact with the universe. It 'is'. But if you want to say 'He's a 'he', who sits in judgment upon human beings after death, etc, etc, what is the actual proof, that isn't just the same thing I brought up in re unicorns? Ie, many people believe(d) in them, painted them, wrote about them, for hundreds or thousands of years, so they 'must exist'?

As to the 'challenging them', I generally agree - I'll 'challenge them' within the sandbox of an online forum, but I don't go around talking religion or lack thereof with people on a daily basis, unless I see a direct harm originating with a specific belief. And I don't go around telling people I think they're delusional, unless they specifically ask me if I consider their beliefs so. In part, because a lot of people take it as a personal insult, rather than just a statement of my opinion of non-empirically based 'belief'. And also that (people asking me if they are delusional) generally just doesn't happen offline.

And yeah, it's getting close to bedtime, I'm getting groggy here.