Are both Christians and atheists, making a good point-counter-point?

Happy_Killbot

While I, nor anyone else is going to defend the actions of your father, or of those who have criticized you for your belief, I think it is important to make the distinction between identity and ideas, and not try to form one around the other.

When I attack Christianity and religion in general, I am not attacking the person, I am attacking the ideas. People get defensive when they see themselves as a Christian or a member of their religion. To them, it feels like a personal attack, like the person is assaulting them. From an emotional standpoint, there is little difference between someone physically assaulting someone and telling someone their beliefs are rubbish.

No religion stands up to rigorous logical deliberation or logical thought. The competing theories, are very reasonable and likely, even from the perspective of any given religion. I am more than willing to discuss any of these, and show how they are all fallacious or really don't make any sense.

Consider the fact that there are tens of thousands of religious beliefs, ranging from karma, to ghosts, to gods, demons, angels, and flying spaghetti monsters. This is a problem, because that means that the infinite number of other possibilities could be true. This means that they could have been made up, and are only considered right because they have heritage and we have assumed them to be true for so long.

Furthermore, we can prove that at least some of them were made up. There are many ideas that contradict each other, one says there are thousands of gods, others say there is only one, some say that there are none. This is before we get into the specifics of the beliefs. This means that we can rule out the possibility that all of them are correct, leaving only 2 possibilities: 

• one and only one is right
• none are right

It is of course possible that the one right religion does not exist, and it is lost among the infinite possible beliefs, but it would be one right religion none the less.

From this we must consider the proof for each individually. However, no religion has thus far presented any proof besides their own holy texts. This is a problem, because it is basically the same as saying "I am right because I am right" and it has no clout in any rational debate. The evidence that none of them are right however, is heavily reliant both on this lack of evidence and the proof that at best only 1 can be true.

It is therefore, incredibly likely that all of them are made up by human minds, and then through social pressures became accepted as the norm, passed down as traditions, and eventually became accepted as absolute truth. I can not prove this is true for any given religion, but I can prove that it is true for the vast majority of them.

It then comes down to pragmatism which if any should be accepted. Even if a belief is not necessarily true, it should still be widely accepted if it is useful. For example, liberal values have been massively successful in developing wealth and human rights, while authoritarian values have mostly kept people in poverty, and loyal to the ruling party. So then the question becomes: Which if any religion has pragmatic effects?

The answer to this is that it depends on what exactly your values and life goals are.

There are practical reasons to be a Christian for example, in particular Christians enjoy the largest global community. 

There are reasons to be Muslim, for example they have the largest families.

There are reasons to be Jewish. They are wealthier in general and tend to have higher positions both in academia and business.

There are reasons to be Buddhist. They live longer lives on average and tend to have lower stress levels overall.

There are reasons to be atheist. Atheists have a higher percentage of scientists, are less likely to go to jail, and (IMHO, secretly) occupy many positions of power.

At the end of the day, I don't think there is any religion or beliefs that are absolute literal truth. They were stories that became traditions, and traditions that became assumptions. We should believe things based on their merit, and not if they have none. If anything, they should be followed for their usefulness, but this is a different debate.

MayCaesar

There is over a billion and a half atheists and over two billion open Christians in the world... Obviously some of both are going to make good points and counter-points, and some are not. Making sweeping generalisations about such huge populations is illogical.

To me personally, talking about "god" is functionally very similar to talking about goblins, flying dragons, etc.: it is a nice concept to use in fantasy stories, but it has no relation to reality. Ever since my grandmother tried to get me into Christianity at the age of 6 and failed, I could never take religion seriously and always treated it as a toy which many people have never grown out of.
At the same time, we all believe in ridiculous things, and none of us has a higher ground here. Once you realise that we all are just slabs of meat trying to make sense of the world around us, life becomes much more carefree, and you stop competing with everyone and start focusing on bettering yourself.

I have absolutely nothing against religious people, and I do not judge anyone based on what they believe in. I judge people based on how they act, and even then I cut them a lot of slack, realising that we all are prisoners of our minds and bodies and are going to make mistakes regularly.

Being judgemental is a poison that slowly destroys your spirit and makes you into a progressively more bitter and elitist individual. Once you drop the notion that you are, or should be, "more right", "smarter", etc. than other people, you feel like a large weight was just lifted from your shoulders.
Religious people are not in any way better or worse than atheists. Some individuals may be better or worse than other individuals in some particular aspects, but even that is somewhat subjective.

YeshuaBought

Happy_Killbot said:

While I, nor anyone else is going to defend the actions of your father, or of those who have criticized you for your belief, I think it is important to make the distinction between identity and ideas, and not try to form one around the other.

When I attack Christianity and religion in general, I am not attacking the person, I am attacking the ideas. People get defensive when they see themselves as a Christian or a member of their religion. To them, it feels like a personal attack, like the person is assaulting them. From an emotional standpoint, there is little difference between someone physically assaulting someone and telling someone their beliefs are rubbish.

No religion stands up to rigorous logical deliberation or logical thought. The competing theories, are very reasonable and likely, even from the perspective of any given religion. I am more than willing to discuss any of these, and show how they are all fallacious or really don't make any sense.

Consider the fact that there are tens of thousands of religious beliefs, ranging from karma, to ghosts, to gods, demons, angels, and flying spaghetti monsters. This is a problem, because that means that the infinite number of other possibilities could be true. This means that they could have been made up, and are only considered right because they have heritage and we have assumed them to be true for so long.

Furthermore, we can prove that at least some of them were made up. There are many ideas that contradict each other, one says there are thousands of gods, others say there is only one, some say that there are none. This is before we get into the specifics of the beliefs. This means that we can rule out the possibility that all of them are correct, leaving only 2 possibilities: 

• one and only one is right
• none are right

It is of course possible that the one right religion does not exist, and it is lost among the infinite possible beliefs, but it would be one right religion none the less.

From this we must consider the proof for each individually. However, no religion has thus far presented any proof besides their own holy texts. This is a problem, because it is basically the same as saying "I am right because I am right" and it has no clout in any rational debate. The evidence that none of them are right however, is heavily reliant both on this lack of evidence and the proof that at best only 1 can be true.

It is therefore, incredibly likely that all of them are made up by human minds, and then through social pressures became accepted as the norm, passed down as traditions, and eventually became accepted as absolute truth. I can not prove this is true for any given religion, but I can prove that it is true for the vast majority of them.

It then comes down to pragmatism which if any should be accepted. Even if a belief is not necessarily true, it should still be widely accepted if it is useful. For example, liberal values have been massively successful in developing wealth and human rights, while authoritarian values have mostly kept people in poverty, and loyal to the ruling party. So then the question becomes: Which if any religion has pragmatic effects?

The answer to this is that it depends on what exactly your values and life goals are.

There are practical reasons to be a Christian for example, in particular Christians enjoy the largest global community. 

There are reasons to be Muslim, for example they have the largest families.

There are reasons to be Jewish. They are wealthier in general and tend to have higher positions both in academia and business.

There are reasons to be Buddhist. They live longer lives on average and tend to have lower stress levels overall.

There are reasons to be atheist. Atheists have a higher percentage of scientists, are less likely to go to jail, and (IMHO, secretly) occupy many positions of power.

At the end of the day, I don't think there is any religion or beliefs that are absolute literal truth. They were stories that became traditions, and traditions that became assumptions. We should believe things based on their merit, and not if they have none. If anything, they should be followed for their usefulness, but this is a different debate.

Fair enough. I am thankful, for your compassion. While we have different conclusions about Jesus, I do feel you make some valid points. Jesus is the Love of my life, but I believe I can be faithful to Him, and still treat you with respect. I have gotten equal amounts of respect from both Christians and atheists, because I truly care about people, even my enemies, like Jesus said. I believe no Biblical command exists, that says I can't be kind to atheists, or other people, I disagree with. like I said before, I respect everyone's right to their thoughts, even if I disagree.

YeshuaBought

MayCaesar said:

There is over a billion and a half atheists and over two billion open Christians in the world... Obviously some of both are going to make good points and counter-points, and some are not. Making sweeping generalisations about such huge populations is illogical.

To me personally, talking about "god" is functionally very similar to talking about goblins, flying dragons, etc.: it is a nice concept to use in fantasy stories, but it has no relation to reality. Ever since my grandmother tried to get me into Christianity at the age of 6 and failed, I could never take religion seriously and always treated it as a toy which many people have never grown out of.
At the same time, we all believe in ridiculous things, and none of us has a higher ground here. Once you realise that we all are just slabs of meat trying to make sense of the world around us, life becomes much more carefree, and you stop competing with everyone and start focusing on bettering yourself.

I have absolutely nothing against religious people, and I do not judge anyone based on what they believe in. I judge people based on how they act, and even then I cut them a lot of slack, realising that we all are prisoners of our minds and bodies and are going to make mistakes regularly.

Being judgemental is a poison that slowly destroys your spirit and makes you into a progressively more bitter and elitist individual. Once you drop the notion that you are, or should be, "more right", "smarter", etc. than other people, you feel like a large weight was just lifted from your shoulders.
Religious people are not in any way better or worse than atheists. Some individuals may be better or worse than other individuals in some particular aspects, but even that is somewhat subjective.

I agree with you on the fact that being judgemental can be destructive, even if Jesus is the Love of my life. As a Christian, I don't think anyone other than Jesus, has the right to judge, and He chose not to. I also think, that we should have more interfaith discussions,and while i believe that Jesus is the only Way to Heaven, I respect everyone's right to their thoughts.