Simple question?

Quote: FrGamble

LOL, I know you are trying to be funny but don't you see that just about every critical action you take requires faith?

ROFL! No

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You have no proof that mechanics actually worked on the plane, nor that your pilot is a real pilot, or the drink the stewardess serves you is not poisoned. Just about everything in life takes faith, it is how we live.

When it comes to such things, I have trust, not faith. and what I trust is the self-interest of the people involved. The mechanics and the attendants will get in trouble and/or lose their job if they don't perform it reasonably well.

This is not an absolutely reliable factor, but it's not faith.

Quote: Nareed

The mechanics and the attendants will get in trouble and/or lose their job if they don't perform it reasonably well.
.

Also observation and experience are involved.
When commercial flights started, everyone was
terrified of flying. As time went on, they saw
others doing it safely and gradually came to
trust the mechanics of flying and the expertise
of the pilots. Faith had zero to do with anything.

Quote: FrGamble

I still have never understood why those fighting for gay marriage were almost more upset about the idea of creating equal rights for civil unions.

Because we know what "separate but equal" means.

Look suppose you live in a country where there's freedom of religion, but only for polytheistic religions. But, never fear, after a long, arduous struggle and much persecution, your faith is recognized as a cult. Not as a religion, but it's given the same legal status as real religion, only it will be known legally as a cult.

I'm willing to bet the GDP of Earth for the next million years that you'd not be satisfied with this.

I would also like to see you in such a situation, then ask whether you think you're being treated equally.

Quote:

It is not marriage.

I don't care how the Catholic church defines marriage. It has no bearing at all on civil marriage. According to your church, marriage cannot end in divorce, and previously divorced people cannot marry again. Civil law takes no notice of these harmful eccentricities.

Quote: FrGamble

If you claim to be the arbiter of people's personal experiences your conclusions are going to be faulty.

I find the following a good rule, and one the human race hasn't consistently followed.

Until proven otherwise all unknowns have explainable mechanisms not requiring supernatural explanations.

So, far all human discovery seems to verify this over and over again once we begin to understand more about how things work.

As far as I know, this has held true for previous mysteries in medicine, science, physics and so forth. There's still more to learn, but nothing that I know of has defaulted into boundaries of gods, magic or whatnot of myths.

Quote: FrGamble

Aren't you guys beginning to split hairs? The fact is faith is an important aspect of daily life it is how we live and move and have our being. Now we have "day-to-day" or "reality" faith and we have "religious" or myth-based" faith. Which one is the love of your spouse found under?

Can't we just all agree that faith, understood as being reasonable and based on evidence and our past experiences, is essential to life?

I disagree completely, and I don't think it is splitting hairs at all.

There are two clearly different kinds of faith here - one which has verifiable facts, and one which does not.

In the case of faith with verifiable facts, you can make a choice as to whether or not you wish to verify the facts. In the case of faith which does not have verifiable facts, you can not choose to do this.

Quote: FrGamble

So every Christian is superstitious? What in the world would lead you to such an irresponsible and incorrect idea?

Well, yes, since I don't believe in god and saints and angels and demons and therefore the fact that they can influence people and events on earth, I believe that beliefs in these things are superstitious. Might not be exactly the right word.

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So without Christianity there would not have been innocent people blamed for bad things going on? Do you really think this human fault is something that didn't exist before Christianity? Why did Nero do what he did or Hitler or Stalin, they were surely not influenced by Christianity to do much worse than the witch trials?

I did not say that christianity was and is the only thing 100% responsible for bad things. That is a strawman argument - wrongly interpreting something that I said and showing that your interpretation is illogical.

surely the fact that hitler and stalin did bad things doesn't disprove that christians did bad things?

that is a major backsliding in logical arguing.

There were witch hunts because people believed in witches and that witches are bad so they should kill them. Why did people believe in witches and that they were bad?

Quote: Dalex64

There were witch hunts because people believed in witches and that witches are bad so they should kill them. Why did people believe in witches and that they were bad?

It's a fact that the Church really pushed the
witch agenda in the Middle Ages. They were
ramping up the fictitious spiritual war between
god and the devil, and witches played heavily
in this narrative. People felt proactive, like they
were doing gods work, when they burned some
neighbor they didn't like at the stake. It was an
hysteria that the Church did everything to
encourage. It went from denying witchcraft
existed in the 9th century, to sentencing witches
to death a few hundred years later.

Quote: Nareed

But I'd be curious to know what specifically repulses you so much.

This is what I refer to as "a good damn question". That's of course the phrase I use when I can't even begin to explain something lol ;)

Seriously. I've been chewing on this since you asked. It is a good damn question, and I've found it very hard to pinpoint (specifically, as asked) what "repulses" me. I'm still not entirely sure if I've got it, but maybe some back and forth will help me.

First, I have to say I can't remember a single thing that you, EB, or Dalex has posted that I disagree with. The amount of things "wrong" are innumerable, and the reasons you all give I agree with lock-step. I could go back and snip some quotes, but there's really no need. One of the things that have allowed me to mostly remain out of this is the fact I'd just be parroting or +1'ing everything you guys are already saying.

I know some of my anger, if that's what we're gonna call it, is just frustration. FrG just did it again, where what he was saying wasn't something I viewed as wrong, and in fact, I was nodding right along with it. I was thinking "yes, yes, and yes" as I read the words he wrote about spirituality and faith. But... it's the "fluff" all over again. There's a reason that, if forced to pick a religion, I would pick Buddhism. Partly because it aligns the closest to my feelings, but a big part of that is the lack of fluff. It's the dogma. It's all the bullshit that's been attached to some not bad and really great ideas. If you read not the Bible but the words of Jesus himself (who I do believe existed, if only as a normally mortal man), I find very little to complain about or find offense in. Perhaps some better read fellows or ladies could point some out, but his teaching are ones I do try to follow. Be humble, be kind, be helpful, show love. But then you attach so much BS to it that the very real message gets drowned out in a sea of fantasy and child-think. That pisses me off.

I often talk about potential. I have said before (stealing a line from "A Bronx Tale") that there is nothing worse than wasted potential. That's what I feel religion does. There are very real things at play, things we all feel. The things FrG attributes to a creator such as love and kindness and the desire to do "right". But rather than focus on that, rather than focus on us, which is what all these feelings consist of and where they emanate from, his kind chooses to anthropomorphize this into some fantastical being. Rather than get to roots, they intentionally keep their head in the clouds.

That pisses me off. I sometimes want to shake FrG and just shout in his face "IT'S YOU!" All these wonderfully magical and beautiful and amazing things you speak of, it's f#$%ing YOU. It's not something intangible, not something outside of your ken or control. It's just f#$%ing you. Take control of it and goddamn DO something with it, before you waste it all on a simple minded fantasy.

So, yeah. That above, that might be a big part. Most likely it's all projection, me hating them for my own faults. But there it is =p

Quote: Face

That pisses me off. I sometimes want to shake FrG and just shout in his face "IT'S YOU!" All these wonderfully magical and beautiful and amazing things you speak of, it's f#$%ing YOU. It's not something intangible, not something outside of your ken or control. It's just f#$%ing you.

That's what atheists instinctively realize. Religion
is a business, it's a money making enterprise. You
cannot put any weight to what it's representatives
spew. Ask for evidence of everything they tell you.

Quote:

Take control of it and goddamn DO something with it, before you waste it all on a simple minded fantasy.

My ex-priest friend says a day doesn't go by that
he regrets wasting 12 years of his life being a priest
and becoming a priest. He became a math teacher
instead, and is still teaching at 81.

Quote: Dalex64

I disagree completely, and I don't think it is splitting hairs at all.

There are two clearly different kinds of faith here - one which has verifiable facts, and one which does not.

In the case of faith with verifiable facts, you can make a choice as to whether or not you wish to verify the facts. In the case of faith which does not have verifiable facts, you can not choose to do this.

Okay so now we want to add distinctions between faith and trust and add verifiable facts. You simply can't live life if you are going to chose to verify everything that requires faith or trust in your life. Is it really reasonable to demand to interview every pilot about where they got their instruction and then call that school to make sure he is telling the truth. You will also have to check him out make sure he is who he says he is and then demand to see the mechanical report of the plane or inspect it yourself, but first you would have to go to airplane maintenance school. These so called verifiable facts are not really possible to verify in such a way to eliminate the need for faith or trust. You have to go by your experience, what you know about how airplane companies work, maybe even a gut feeling here and there. We do this all the time and yet when it comes to something like religious faith you throw on the emergency break and make some snide quotes about faith, which just turn out to be silly if we think about how much of our life is lived in faith or trust, still not really clear on the distinction.

What maybe it boils down to is that you simply have not had a positive experience on our airline or you don't like our policy of freeing you from old baggage or you look at our past record and only see the embarrassing crash and burns. For some reason you don't trust Catholic Airlines or our other partner companies Buddist Budget Air, Protestant Prop Planes, or Muslim Movers. That is okay I know there are other choices to use when you fly, just don't go around saying flying is not safe or doesn't require faith but that is illogical and hurts your ability to reach new heights and travel to new places.