Dear @PrudenceLouise1,

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Dear PrudentLouise1,

I am really genuinely happy you’re not angry and are willing to “talk” to me. You even went through the effort of writing some clarifications and/or responses for me. I’d like to give it the attention and thought your effort deserves and I think i’ll break it down and respond to the points in your reply one by one. The Italic text is the quote from your last article/reply. The normal text is my reaction.

I will try to keep the responses I give as close to the first things that enter my mind as I can, trying not to think my thoughts through to much so you get the “emotional instinctive” response, not the answer that’s nuanced and edited to fit facts. As such there might be errors in the replies and maybe reveal misconceptions I may have as I will not research every factoid and word, nor edit the spelling and grammar. These responses are the rough uncut raw registration of my reaction.

Here is the first quote I reacted to:

“I’m not angry. It’s true I was maybe a little blunt about the rational weakness of your arguments, but that isn’t condescending, that’s just stating facts.”

So I understand that when what is said is fact it is not condescending. I’ll keep that in mind. I was thinking about the tone of voice myself .

If you want to see what condescending looks like, here’s what you said about all religious people in your article -

Always willing to learn. I’ve been wrong before. I wonder what you felt was condascending from my side. It was not intended as such, I assure you.

"Religious people have a demonstrated disregard for rational reasoning, logical thinking, and inflexibility to change their views and opinions in the face of irrefutable evidence. "

o.O that is condascending?

If that is not fact, then I think we should have a talk with Galileo Galilee, and ask him about the heliocentric universe, which he had observed through the telescope built after hearing about a Dutch eyeglass maker inventing it. Ask him about the reaction of the religious people, like the catholic church. Or ask him about the nature of comets. He’ll be bound to mention some disregard for rational reasoning, logical thinking and inflexibility to change their view regarding the geocentric solar system and the Heliocentric view Galileo had gained from his observations, irrefutable evidence available to any and all clergymen, priests or whatever wanted to verify the observations of Galileo.

But… If Italian isn’t your forte, I know its not mine, then maybe we should ask Charles Darwin what his experience has been regarding the disregard for rational reasoning and logical thinking, or if the religious people were flexible and willing to accept irrefutable evidence, now favoring Evolution instead of creationism?

"History has also shown us that religious people are willing to kill, torture, abuse, and oppress entire populations in order to eradicate any dissenting views or knowledge.

"Now that’s condescending."

Are you saying that is not fact? Have you followed the news a bit over the years? Never heard of IS?

Or maybe, if we’re uncomfortable with recent events after I mention one more thing we can always return to the neighborhood-friendly Inquisition. I’d like to know what you call what was done to the Cathars, and the motivation behind it.

Point i had to make because... well.... reasons.;...

But I did want to specifically mention that TODAY religious oppression in the forms of abuse, oppression and killing of an entire group religious group of people is written into LAW in 13 countries. In those countries, being an Atheist is punishable by death BY LAW! In 2022.

Or how about we simply take another period that changed history and talk about Jan Hus? Wasn’t he Tortured, abused, Killed, and his followers oppressed because of their dissenting views and knowledge? Jan Hus was eventually burnt at the stake for what he preached. Savonarola was hanged and burnt for refusing to obey the leaders of the church. We all know how that worked out, but feel free to protest. (pun definitely intended)

Our history is drowning in the blood of people that were killed by religious people for stupid religious reasons. I think that’s because even the Christian, Jew and Muslim god wasn’t above a genocide or two. Of course he took it next level with godlike massive genocidal body counts that extinction was more likely than the 8 Billion of us that are killing the planet today. Noah witnessed god killing ALL LIFE ON EARTH except for that in Noah’s boat.

Noah’s story is another example of religious people disregarding rational reasoning and logical thinking and inflexibility to change view in the face of irrefutable evidence. Creationists are very religious people in my book, and they believe the flood story and Noah was a historical description of events. So they must believe that a Koala pair traveled all the way to the boat, carrying their food (they can only eat eucalyptus leaves). Then they survived on a boat with all their known and unknown predator enemies for 40 days and 40 nights only to be stranded on top of a mountain in the middle east from which they then walked back to the Australian outback and planted the next generation of eucalyptus forests. That is what they actually believe.

‘I understood that you’re not Christian, and so maybe this is all too christian focused, but all over the world right now religious people are killing torturing and oppressing other people, religious and non religious, to irradiate the dissenting views they have.

You perceiving those bits as condescending though makes me convinced, and sad, that we will not come any closer to one another’s standpoints. We will probably get farther apart the more we discuss/debate/argue i’m afraid.

“You admitted you not only thought differently about someone once you found out they were religious, you treated them differently. That’s not only condescending, that’s prejudice.”

From the Oxfort dictionary: (darned, you got me to do research I didn’t want to do…. Are you a Jedi?)

Prejudice (pre.u.dice – prejədəs)

preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

I am afraid I have to disagree that what I wrote and do is hardly Prejudice. It is very much based on reason and actual experience. It is a fact that religious people believe in something that to me and to an increasing number of scholars across almost all fields of science is so far removed from the world, and universe, that we observe, experience and learned so much about in the past few centuries that it is something we cannot help but take into consideration when valuing and evaluating the person who believes it and the context in which we must evaluate the person. This is nothing unfamiliar to any religious person I think. A religious person wouldn’t consider an atheist for a missionary post in the amazon forest right?

[WARNING, ATTEMTED JOKE FOLLOWS!]

No one would consider a believer in lizard people controlling our planet that can only be defeated by a dark knight Vladimir Putin for a job in the government, or for a seat in the… oh… wait… I forgot about Thierry Boudet. .. never mind

[/ATTEMPTED JOKE ENDED]

And back to serious: Everything you know about another person contributes to what you think of that person, and that determines how you treat that person. You made it sound as If I meant to say that religious people should be rounded up and forgotten about or something. Hardly. But just as someone who’s Acrophobia will unlikely get called upon to become a window cleaner on a high rise, and it would be unwise to have an Anarchist join the police force or department of Justice, there are some things and positions I don’t consider religious people for. I will not take them serious when subjects like archaeology or ethics come up. If that’s prejudice, so be it.

But unlike you, I don’t think atheists are less intelligent, or irrational, or immoral, or delusional. I think they’re just people who hold a different opinion from me on one particular topic. And it would nice if people stopped judging and denigrating others just because they have different beliefs.

Well, when it comes to religion, and through that a lot of other subjects one of us must be delusional, irrational or both. We can’t both be right. And we’re humans, social creatures living in a society. We go through our days judging others, deciding on our interactions with other humans based upon what we see and what we (think we) know about someone. Anyone who says they don’t either don’t know they do, or are outright lying.

When a you walk down the street, look up ahead and you see someone yelling and waving their hands wearing a hijab your reaction and actions toward that person will be different that when you see a woman head faced down to the ground obviously crying because her head and torso shake and shudder because of her sobbing.

And that is not wrong. That is what has kept us alive. The difference between jumping into a bush when it rustles and throwing a stone into the bush before jumping into it just in case the rustling is caused by a predator instead of your neighbors cat again.

And when the beliefs that we’re not supposed to judge (which is denigrating…. Why?) people on include the belief that the Inuit race is superior to all other human races, and maybe should be the rulers over all others? Am I still not supposed to judge someone for it?

I know its taken to extreme with that example but what goes for the extreme example goes for any example. A belief is a belief, no matter how tame or extreme it is, and beliefs are things that people live their lives by. Someone who believes that the surface of the earth is made of cardboard, you’ll never see them in spiked shoes or walking over wet surfaces.

So if, as you say, you want to “live life without religion playing any part in it”, I suggest you don’t write articles responding to a religious topic, or don’t ping me when you do and I won’t know what you’re up to.

You know, I wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t been faced with the question posed in the title of an article that came up in my recommended feed. It came up at the same time as a news item concerning the way a priest was being transferred from parish to parsh for over a decade and then made Bis chop eventually and that turned out to be related to the children and young men that were abused by the man threatening to expose him. Instead of letting him face judgment they kept moving him to places where nobody knew him.

Two instances where I was confronted with religion without wanting to be. Simultaneously. That’s when I got the idea to write something around that title from an atheist viewpoint. Inspiration works in mysterious ways doesn’t it?

“But don’t expect me to stay silent when you notify me to tell me I have a demonstrated disregard for logic, that I don’t change my views when presented with evidence and I’m willing to kill, torture and abuse people to silence dissenting opinions.”

I would never expect that from anyone, ever, in any situation. I’m actually quite annoyingly consistent about that. I’ll stop people trying to silence someone because they don’t like what he/she/it/they/Volkswagenlogo is saying. That goes for singing too, and is regardless of the time of day.

I was raised by my granparents and one quote my pa always hammered home to me was “I may be disgusted, offended and furiously angry because of what that [((@#&&] is saying and will say. I may even think what he sais is wrong, evil and dangerous. But I will give my life in defence of his(andsoon) right to say it, think it and believe it.

Because I do believe in that. Even while treating that person differently from someone else, judging them on those beliefs and making fun and jokes about those beliefs …

I will fight and die for everyones right to believe it.

“Because I’ll defend myself against what I think are outrageous and slanderous accusations. I also won’t mince words or worry about bruising your ego when I do it.”

Ofcourse. I never said I expected you to go “Ok sir, I will change my beliefs and stay quiet so I won’t disturb you any more”. I never said I expected you to think I am an upstanding, just and good example of the Human Species in its ultimate form.

Notice that I didn’t make any slurs against your character, I attacked your arguments. That’s what rationality consists of, it focuses on the reasons, not the person or their beliefs. It’s irrelevant who delivers an argument, only the reasons and evidence in support of the conclusion are important. To refer to characteristics of the person as a reason to reject an argument is the logical fallacy called ad hominem (to the man).

That’s not true in my opinion.

I know, shocker! I don’t agree with you on something…. Right?

No you didn’t slur or said anything about my character. But that doesn’t mean you haven’t got an opinion on it. That doesn’t mean your judgment of my personality and character aren’t at least influenced by what you think of my beliefs as you perceive to know them.

Lets be honest. You’re never going to like me, because of what I believe. If I invite you to get together to have a nice drink on a terrace some sunny afternoon you’re not going to accept and have a splendid afternoon in each others company. You think I’m a bigoted, stupid, infidel pig and you would consider humanity better without me in the gene-pool.

And that’s all right. I’m not going to nominating you for a Nobel prize anytime soon either. And you think that it’s probably better for anyone if I don’t get elected into municipal or regional governing bodies gaining political influence and power, because of my beliefs.

Which is also fine. That is all part of the thing we call society and civilization even. Being able to hate another person, what that person feels, thinks, does and want, but still acknowledge that person’s right to believe what he believes. To acknowledge and accept that we disagree and hate what the other believes, does and says but that we’re also going to have to find a way to live and exist in the same society together cause if we don’t it’s going to end up in death, violence, oppression, sorrow and suffering.

That is where the word Tolerance comes in. Tolerating something is accepting and allowing some one to do or think something you feel is wrong, bad or dangerous. In modern society we do a lot of tolerating.

“There’s no need to apologize, I wasn’t offended and I wasn’t angry. But it was nice that you did and I appreciate it, so I also apologize for upsetting you with my blunt rebuttal. There are no hard feelings my end.”

First: thank you for recognizing that my apologies were sincere. I was truly sorry because I know I sometimes intend to convey one thing but end up gonking it up so bad it comes across totally opposite of the way I intended. I’ve been told I've difficulty with communicating without the benefit of body language and infliction in voice and tone, and seeing some of the incidents in my past I don’t dispute that. It does catch me with my pants down every time it happens, and I never see it coming. So I assumed I gonked it up again, and I do take responsibility for my actions, words and existence. And everything I break I fix or pay for if at all possible. Regardless if it is physical or not.

No need for you to apologize either, and I recognize, acknowledge and appreciate the thought.

If you really want to understand the rational case for theism you need to investigate the topic of philosophy of religion, not read every religious scripture. If the case for theism fails, most of the religions are wrong so you don’t need to read those scriptures unless you’re interested in the subject.

I read the scriptures because from the age of reasoning I’ve been flabbergasted at the things people believe because it is their religion that tells them it is true. At the same time I had to concede that roughly calculated from insighfull estimates times x, devided by Z and then the quare root……..

A really huge shitload of people on the planet (who live now and who’ve ever lived before) were religious. They believed in one or more gods and not only believed in the gods but worshipped them, submitting to their wil and bidding unquestioningly. Billions to this very day zelously believe in one or more gods and worship them, love them and live their lives to the rules dictated to them by their gods (they believe)

I’ve always been tought that if everybody says is convinced of A, and you’re convinced of B, you’d better have unquestionable, indeniable and absolute solid evidence for B, or ask yourself whether it could be that you’re wrong.

That’s why I tasked myself with reading the scriptures (at first all of them… How naive, and quaint) so that if there was something in any of them that reveiled the truth and opened my eyes to what I didn’t see then I would… I don’t know…. Saved maybe?

But thinking back to the little annoying S*** that I was back then it might also have been that I wanted to be able to explain why I didn’t believe in something (why I didn’t convert) and what I actually did think about it. That’s why scripture quoting enthusiasts hate my guts after trying to quote scripture in support of an argument they make. I often manage to outquote them using their own scripture.

(okay, I admit this works for Bible and Qur’an quoters. I have nothing when it comes to Hindu, Buddhist or Scientology scripture quiting debaters. Never needed to have anything either so far, which i’m fine with. :D

“But that’s the question that was the topic of my original article. Does the rational case for theism fail? I know the atheist propaganda says it does, but that's what I made a case against in my article. I argued it wasn't true there was no good evidence God exists, and I gave a long list of evidence supporting my claim.”

And Its the question that I intended to respond to from an atheist, or at least from my point of view. I guess that you might even kick me from the Atheist club into the Anti-theist group. Which, come to think of it, might also be of influence on the way I express myself in this topic. I not only not believe in a god but I also see that religions, or religious, are responsible for, or at least partially liable, for a lot of suffering, misery and are a bottleneck in many fields of development towards progress. If the effort and resources that humanity has put into religion were instead put to the evolution, development or solving the problems that humanity faced in the physical tactile and harsh reality we exist in…

Well, better not dwell on thoughts like those. They’re not of much use until we’ve invented time machines that can go both ways.

If you want to know the truth about the explanatory strengths of theism, you first have to know what that rational case is. Researching that involves a lot of work. It’s philosophy, not science or religion. The popular idea that atheism vs theism is a contest between science vs religion or reason vs faith, is wrong. They are both false dichotomies and irrelevant to the case for theism.

Nah, thanks, I’m fine thank you. Like I said, I’ve done my own searching, reading, learning and contemplating for a couple of decades, in the days that meant more than sitting down, entering a phrase into duckYahoogle.com and then wading through billions of texts by the flick of your middle finger. Back when it meant going to a location physically and finding a certain book or document that had the information you needed. (or not). I don’t think there much that can be taught to me that would counter all that I’ve learned, experienced and so on.

And I don’t feel that I don’t know the truth about much about theism. I don’t feel I need to get very much more education about philosophy either. I know you believe every single letter in that last paragraph, and I don’t agree. And I hate it that someone could read one of your articles and come to the conclusion that god is actually real and exists. But you’ve got the right to write what you want and you’re going to have to live it, just as much as I have on the opposite side of this topic. As long as my life isn’t negatively influenced by yours, I certainly will not even think about your life. Literally.

And that’s the best we can expect, as part of the human race. We won’t know who will win it or even who’s in the lead right now!

Thanks for reading this.

Stay safe and stay happy!

@anonsunamun