As alway some interesting views and thinking get found here. Some of the statements I think I would push back on are:
The median is confused. Well, I think it would be more accurate to say EVERYONE is confused if only because we’re so limited in both our knowledge and any ability to observe so much of our reality on earth. Forget the metaphysical and philosophical/religous elements. Also, when suggesting confusion about somethings as complex as “the world” I’m not entirely sure there is a good common denominator to define not confused.
I think the characterization of most religous people as above—and I’ll cast it in the worst interprestation here—as blindly hoping something will save them from bad shit and give them good things is just wrong. I’ve personally known a bunch of very religous people who are as rational or more rational than most athiests I’ve met. And, given that we simply don’t know, strict atheism (as in a rejection of the monogod concept as reality) is as much a statementof faith and any belief in such an entity. But at least the religious will own their posistion as one of faith. Too many atheists will rebell against the acusation they, in the end, are makes statement based on the faith in their logic. Now, to be fair, more than a few “ateists” are really agnostics who simply say they don’t find the arugements for a god convincing and use that as their day-to-day but acept they could be wrong. Why bring up this? It goes back to the assumption about who is and is not confused about the world.
What assumptions are loaded into the overal story here?
As alway some interesting views and thinking get found here. Some of the statements I think I would push back on are: The median is confused. Well, I think it would be more accurate to say EVERYONE is confused if only because we’re so limited in both our knowledge and any ability to observe so much of our reality on earth. Forget the metaphysical and philosophical/religous elements. Also, when suggesting confusion about somethings as complex as “the world” I’m not entirely sure there is a good common denominator to define not confused.
I think the characterization of most religous people as above—and I’ll cast it in the worst interprestation here—as blindly hoping something will save them from bad shit and give them good things is just wrong. I’ve personally known a bunch of very religous people who are as rational or more rational than most athiests I’ve met. And, given that we simply don’t know, strict atheism (as in a rejection of the monogod concept as reality) is as much a statementof faith and any belief in such an entity. But at least the religious will own their posistion as one of faith. Too many atheists will rebell against the acusation they, in the end, are makes statement based on the faith in their logic. Now, to be fair, more than a few “ateists” are really agnostics who simply say they don’t find the arugements for a god convincing and use that as their day-to-day but acept they could be wrong. Why bring up this? It goes back to the assumption about who is and is not confused about the world.
What assumptions are loaded into the overal story here?