(Religion=Delusion) = Delusion

obvious paradigms collide when an atheist claims a theist is deluded

the one's in communist china and russia certainly might

 

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LG, you still miss the point: it makes not one iota of difference to the truth or falsity of the tenets of the religious faith whether the majority of people are religious, or that the religions help provide people with a moral compass, or that religion has helped inspire people.

It is in the tenets of the faith where the supposed "religion = delusion" arise from... the belief in God, for example.
The number of followers of God does not determine the reality of his existence.

You fail to miss this point, and instead reiterate it as an argument despite having the fallacious nature of it pointed out to you.

 

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Whether it is or isn't is not relevant as you still need to specify which one of the 2850 gods, not including hindu gods, you are referring too. Incidently Atheists put arguments forward not Atheism, Atheism is simply a meaningless title to define them as a group, they are simply like minded people.

They are equal to any gods, they have the same concistency as gods. if you have verifiable prove of a difference, feel free to post it, thank you.

It's not relevant whether it bolsters mine, it's more relevant that it destroys yours.

Does it, we must live on different planets. But admittedly there are a lot of people who think their in touch with imaginary beings.

The point was made a won, just throwing red herrings around does not help you argument. Morals can come from any book, thats because we as the writers have a basic morality already.

That the truth is the truth and the imagination is purely the imagination. No connection should or need be made.

No but it seems you would like to. As you seem to think the truth is boring, uneventful, uninspiring.

It has it's roots in the Imagination, if you wish to call the Imagination, Delusion thats your perogative.
However if a person lived their life according to there Imagination, then I would have to agree with you and call it Delusion.

 

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Lg,

The fact remains no one can show any of these beliefs have any truth. A majority opinion does not decide a truth.

How then do we explain these popular ideas throughout history?

1. In ancient times when little was known about how things worked a lot of things that we now understand appeared magical. From that come many superstitions and god concepts.
2. When popular ideas grow they take on a memetic quality that becomes extremely difficult to dispel.
3. Most people do not do their own research or think for themselves on such matters but prefer to believe what others say. The sheep mentality.
4. Most of the supposed good morality generated by religion is created from fear of reprisal rather than doing the right thing. For most of the past 2000 years Christian preachers pushed the fire and brimstone fear of hell at people. I.e. do what the bible says or suffer eternal torment. This is not a good basis for a moral society.

From ancient ignorance, the power of memetics, and the sheep mentality, we find ourselves in the mess we have today where the vast majority of the world population chose to believe fantasies as truth.

Are they insane? No. Just mainly sheeplike.

 

I presume you imply being "sheeplike" is something negative, undesirable.
If this is what you imply, then I have a question: What exactly do you think is wrong or negative with being sheeplike?

 

Lack of practice.

 

Ignorance, superstition and wishful thinking - about what?
What is it that the religious are ignorant of, superstitious about, and have wishful thinking of?
And how are these ignorance, superstition and wishful thinking bad or negative or wrong?

 

Do you think you are not sheeplike?

 

About an all powerful being that leaves no evidence behind.
The religious are ignorant of reality- the physical world.
Ignorance is always worse than knowledge. Wishful thinking is misleading and a waste of time.

 

greenberg,

Well not really, it was a more a factual observation.

It is only bad here when it is assumed that because so many believe something that it must be true, when the case might be that only 1 had the original idea and everyone else went along with it.

 

dave,

Probably in some things when I am lazy. But my perspective for most things is analytical, so if a proposition is made I tend to ask why, and continue to probe until I am personally satisfied.

 

I don't think it is anything to do with laziness.

You are born
You learn
You make money
You pay bills and live
You have children
You die

Sheep don't have to pay bills, but ultimately they pay off their debt.

Their kids do the same thing.

So, what is different between a Christian and you(for example)?

 

dave,

Degrees of skepticism.

 

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Love always,

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Agreed.

But who has the better life?

 

dave,

Neither. We are both currently doomed to die.

 

Are you analytical about WHEN you decide to accept a given truth rather than investigate it using the skills you have?
Do truths that are widely accepted in your circles get less scrutiny than those from outside your circles?
(I mean here, for example, a person's circle could be people with academic background who tend to come from the middle class. These people for example might be extremely skeptical when faced with a Noam Chomsky analysis, but take a New York Times article as generally balanced. I hope you can translate to your country's newspapers and if you are conservative instead of liberal to the appropriate newspapers, etc.)

 

you miss the point of the OP

(actually I agree with you. Numbers does not equal truth. Truth is revealed by investigation. This thread is examining the delusional basis for atheists not bothering to investigate)

 

Fahrenheit

if the atheist argument doesn't specify, a rebuttal of that argument is not required to specify
“

yes?
so what are the great cultural contributions of mermaids, since you think they are of the same consistency as god?
“

still waiting for a cultural contribution .....
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assuming you are not posting from Mars, I would assume so

and admittedly there are a lot who are not
so once again, its ironic how society always coalesces around theistic/metaphysical ideas


“

Coming from a person who has just opened up with two red herrings, its not clear on what authority you transgress dominant academic ideas on the topic. I mean fair enough, academics can get it wrong, but if your argument boils down to something like "because I say so" it doesn't warrant a lot of discussion.

on the contrary, morals develop from a social environment and social environments develop from philosophy - in other words we are "trained" in morals - anyone who comes with ten feet of sociology will probably tell you the same thing
“

ok
I guess the topic gets kind of interesting when one starts to approach what constitutes truth and imagination, aside from self referential banter.
“

well anything less is imagination ... according to you
“

well you just openly declared that truth and imagination are diametrically opposed several paragraphs up ....
:bugeye:

In that case I guess its lucky that there is always a minor element of misanthropic sociopaths to act as vanguards for the truth

 

Cris

sure
the fact is that a correct methodology decides the truth of a matter - the other thread about why atheists are irrational in this regard discusses this in detail

there is a large element of this post of yours that is probably better discussed on the other thread - so I will just deal with what is relevant
If you want to hold that something is false in one circumstance therefore all things are false in all circumstances you have a good means to throw out any claim of knowledge, since mistakes are made in all fields.
For instance I could cite heliocentricism as a valid means to discredit the the idea that we have put satellites in orbit. (hey they were wrong then so they must be wrong now, so why bother to investigate any claim in the field)