New Vatican leader raises celibacy question

[Ed Anger]

I don't believe in Richard Dawkins

[crazy canuck]

Viking does it much better anyway.

Viking comes from a different direction then Tamas.  Tamas is an atheist for the same reason Marty was an Atheist.  It helps him feel smart.  There is a idea that smart people are atheists, and since Tamas wants to be smart he decides to gravitate toward atheism.

That is the main problem with Dawkins.  He starts from the premise that all religious people are idiots because the world is older than 6000 years. 

He does?

I assume that he states this somewhere, right, since you are stating definitively what he believes?

I have not stated what he believes.  But he does state in his books that Christians are idiots for believing that the world was created as described in the Bible without making a distinction between literalists and those who are not quite so daft.

If you want to know what he definitely believes you will have to look elsewhere

[Sheilbh]

He does?

I assume that he states this somewhere, right, since you are stating definitively what he believes?

I remember his TV show when he was interviewing the Bishop of Oxford about creation. The Bishop of Oxford is an extremely liberal Anglican so in no way literalist.

Dawkins point seems to be Viking's. The holy book gives a story of creation (or two, or three for that matter). If you deviate from that you're deviating from what is true Christianity. Aren't the fundamentalists better Christians?

It's an argument I hugely disagree with about Christianity and Islam. Because in my view you're ceding the argument to the extremists that they represent the authentic version of their faith, when my view is that we have centuries of lived belief that was nothing like that.

[Tamas]

  I am an Atheist because I think religion just smells of human needs and weaknesses way too obviously to be real.

[The Minsky Moment]

You're atheist because you think religion responds to human needs?
Not the best reason . . .

[Razgovory]

Viking does it much better anyway.

Viking comes from a different direction then Tamas.  Tamas is an atheist for the same reason Marty was an Atheist.  It helps him feel smart.  There is a idea that smart people are atheists, and since Tamas wants to be smart he decides to gravitate toward atheism.

That is the main problem with Dawkins.  He starts from the premise that all religious people are idiots because the world is older than 6000 years.  While he would have a good argument that all literalists who believe the world is 6000 years old are idiots he ends up looking silly by assuming that all religious people have the same belief.   Tamas has essentially fallen into the same trap.

I think Dawkins goes one stop further.  While someone like Marty or Tamas takes such a position so he can elevate himself above those stoopid people who believe in sky fairies and bronze age books, Dawkins wants to destroy religion entirely.  He is an adherent of the conflict thesis, science and religion are totally at odds and one must die so the other may live.

[Tamas]

Viking does it much better anyway.

Viking comes from a different direction then Tamas.  Tamas is an atheist for the same reason Marty was an Atheist.  It helps him feel smart.  There is a idea that smart people are atheists, and since Tamas wants to be smart he decides to gravitate toward atheism.

That is the main problem with Dawkins.  He starts from the premise that all religious people are idiots because the world is older than 6000 years.  While he would have a good argument that all literalists who believe the world is 6000 years old are idiots he ends up looking silly by assuming that all religious people have the same belief.   Tamas has essentially fallen into the same trap.

I think Dawkins goes one stop further.  While someone like Marty or Tamas takes such a position so he can elevate himself above those stoopid people who believe in sky fairies and bronze age books, Dawkins wants to destroy religion entirely.  He is an adherent of the conflict thesis, science and religion are totally at odds and one must die so the other may live.

Raz how about you stop pretending like you know the faintest thing about me, alright.

[Razgovory]

Sorry Tamas, you aren't unique.

[Tamas]

Sorry Tamas, you aren't unique.

Not only that, but I won't even get to any kind of heaven, since I deny every religion which ever existed. Talk about zeroing my odds!

Bummer.

[Ed Anger]

I'll pray for you Tamas. 

[Razgovory]

Sorry Tamas, you aren't unique.

Not only that, but I won't even get to any kind of heaven, since I deny every religion which ever existed. Talk about zeroing my odds!

Bummer.

Nonsense.  You have a religion, it just has no afterlife.  You worship the god Market and have faith in his invisible hand.

[dps]

I am an Atheist because I think religion just smells of human needs and weaknesses way too obviously to be real.

A toilet smells of human needs and weaknesses, too, and I yet I still believe in toilets.  Though I suppose, what with you being from Eastern Europe, you might not believe in them, at least the indoor variety.

[Admiral Yi]

Nonsense.  You have a religion, it just has no afterlife.  You worship the god Market and have faith in his invisible hand.

[Ideologue]

I always thought the reasons atheists thought followers of Abrahamic religions were (at best) misguided/unthoughtful was because no one has ever generated 1)adequate proof of God's existence and 2)an adequate theodicy to explain God, even if you assume I Am's existence in the first place.  Since belief without proof and belief in the face of disproof is not rational, atheists rightly ascribe irrationality to religiosity.  I guess they tend to overlook that rationality is not what churches, mosques, synagogues, etc., are selling (and it may be equally irrational to believe that humans are built for individual rationality).

I've always thought science does provide something close to answering the latter.  Specifically, I'm amazed no liberal person of the book has ever jumped on the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.  If quantum mechanics is assumed to be a necessary feature of any physical world capable of generating intelligent life, and if MWI is assumed to be true, it would explain a great deal about evil, pain, etc, especially if I Am values existence over utility, or if utility over the lifetime of the universe turns out to be positive (we'll see, or actually we won't, because we'll be dead).

[Jacob]

As I understand it, the "we must accept the Bible as 100% literal truth" point of view really only started in the 19th century or so.

Yeah. I think in Christianity and Islam literalism's a very modern heresy.

Interesting take on the political history of biblical literalism in an American context: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2013/09/16/three-strikes-against-white-evangelical-theology/

I wouldn't be surprised if similar political narratives could apply to Islamic literalism as well.