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Portwes's comments:
on Keeping the Faith
Oh, and Hitler was baptised as a child into the Catholic church - no deathbed conversion there!
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on Keeping the Faith
First, it wasn't a strict fundamentalist church, like Westboro Baptist, just a normal, middle-of-the-road one.
Second, I didn't use Santa in a debate to argue the non-existence of god, simply that non-theists will not commit to something for which there is no verification. Your exact words were that "people fear religion because it means commitment". I don't know a single non-theist who fears commitment, and I was just saying that you can't and shouldn't make a blanket statement like that. Is that unreasonable?
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on Keeping the Faith
@kjustg - you said: "I think people fear religion because it means commitment. my inner voice doesn't always tell me to do the right thing. I need more than reliance on my own thinking to get the strength to endure and explain life's tribulations"
Two major errors in that statement:
- not a single agnostic or atheist I know is afraid of commitment: their main objection to religion and it's claims is a lack of verifiability. Why believe in Santa Claus if you are sure he doesn't exist? I was committed as a fundamentalist christian and missionary for 46 years, so I certainly wasn't afraid of commitment: in the end it made no rational sense!
- you assume that people who don't believe in god can't be as moral as religious people. That is debunked by surveys of all kinds: the divorce rate among religious people is higher than non-believers, the prison population is made up of a much higher proportion of believers in god than the non-prison population. How people treat each other primarily comes from what "feels" right, and not from a holy book. If it weren't true, then where's the evidence that non-theists steal and kill and rape and lie at a greater rate than theists? There is none. Please be objective and stop making assumptions about people who choose not to believe in a deity.
(FYI, I was the audience member - Wesley - who spoke during the live taping of the show, at 31:40, for a few minutes.)
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on Keeping the Faith
@spunky: here is when it is necessary to pass judgement on personal religious beliefs:
-when other people's religious beliefs direct them to kill others that don't agree with them (common in Islam and present in Christianity)
-when other people's religious beliefs lead them to try to establish theocracies - taking over governments - much as the Christian Dominionists and Islamic fundamentalists try to do now
- when believers end-time beliefs takes away the fear of war in the Middle East (such as Jesus' Second Coming)
- when religion oppresses women, non-conventional gender orientations, or any minority
Many times religious belief is not benign, and like a cancer can destroy an enlightened, benevolent culture. I am not talking of moderate and tolerant religion, but of the destructive, close-minded versions.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on Keeping the Faith
@Desolation, you need to cite sources to verify your claims. I have seen many studies to show the opposite of what you claim, and here is just one of many:
http://www.skepdic.com/essays/healingprayer1.html
It is a very, very well-researched paper, with in-depth examination of the methods used in the various surveys and their use of statistical data.
Just one small quote: "Recently, Herbert Benson published the results of his randomized, double-blind study of the effects of healing prayer on cardiac patients (see below). He failed to find any significant difference in the IP group."
As an ex-christian (ex-missionary, etc) of 46 years, this is my main complaint with religious claims: they are non-verifiable.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on Faith in the Recession
Rich, in your second sentence, I removed the word "spiritual". In the next sentence, I replaced "faith" with "life".
I am left with a life principle that applies to any human being, and it doesn't require faith in god.
posted 3 years, 5 months ago
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on Faith in the Recession
And please don't condescend to non-theists by implying that, because we don't believe in god, that we have no moral anchor or compass!
If your belief was true, then our prison populations would be primarily composed of agnostics and atheists. In actual fact, the proportion of non-theists in prison is far smaller than in the general non-prison population. This is just another example of christians believing they are morally superior to everyone else, and there is just no evidence to support such a view.
posted 3 years, 5 months ago
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on Faith in the Recession
To those people who say that they could not cope without their faith and God, I wonder how many have tried to do just that? Those who believed as a youngster, have not really had the opportunity as an adult.
As a former evangelical of 46 years, with a bachelor of theology and years serving as a missionary in Europe, I am now an agnostic. I have experienced no more difficulty coping with life's curveballs now, than I did as an evangelical. In fact, I feel that since there is no personal god solving my problems, there is more personal responsibility in examining and solving my problems. I am just as content now as I was before.
Having said that, I think that religious communities provide an embrace of support that is hard to find elsewhere. But that is the intrinsic nature of communities, not an evidence of divine intervention.
Wes Mahan
posted 3 years, 5 months ago
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on Northwest Passages: Donald Miller
(I posted this on Friday morning, after the commenting activity died down, but I still want to post even though I didn't get a chance to listen to the show. This reply pertains to Scotts first comment up top)
Scott, your comment is an exact reflection of my life. Blue Like Jazz is probably the last book I read as an evangelical of 46 years standing, about 3 years ago. I was already headed toward the exit door, and when I read his book it delayed my exit by a few months, because I thought, "well, there are some intelligent enlightened christians who are more tolerant. Maybe this can still work for me . . . " But then I realized, I still can't believe in any kind of "hell", hot or otherwise, and without that, you don't have an exclusive, "I Am The Way" kind of religion either.
As a newly-formed agnostic, I am just as happy (probably happier!) and certainly less guilty than I was as a christian. I wonder what my life would have been like had I not taken a detour getting a theology degree from Multnomah and working as a missionary in Europe, but no answers exist for those kinds of questions!
posted 3 years, 5 months ago
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