Unsure if relevant, since this is a meme post, but for anyone interested: faith is quite a complex concept. And this silly atheist vs religious conflict is so pointless. It does nothing but elevate some people’s egos and infuriate others.
Sadly, both sides are heavily uninformed. Most atheists spent at most 3 seconds studying religion, while most religious people never questioned a single thing about their religion. How can you understand somebody and their point of view, if you haven’t even imagined yourself in their shoes, let alone walked in them?
Short story is: to ‘believe’ in God, or any other religious entity, does not mean ‘to think He exists’. In fact, you can ‘believe’ in any god, while being completely convinced they don’t exist. Fact and faith are fully separate.
At least some confusion here is intentionally created by religious institutions, like the Catholic Church. Most of what they do goes against the Bible and Jesus’ teachings, but it’s not like they care. Focusing on Christianity here, because that’s what I studied the most (my country is Christian). Same applies to Judaism and Islam. Other religions less, since these three have the biggest, most organized official structures (massive red flag in case it wasn’t obvious).
Anyway, I invite everyone to read about and learn their so-called enemies’ ways instead of blindly ridiculing them.
Second, that isn’t how everyone feels. That is how you feel. People do in fact find it utterly hypocritical to see one thing one way and not the other and then claim to have knowledge above anyone else.
Third, aliens are more likely than gods. Mathematically speaking.
This makes no sense. Most people when asked about the literal existence of god say they think so. Americans only fell below 50% very recently…again the literal existence of god (the numbers are similar for the Gallup poll on belief in god). You’re drawing a dichotomy that does not exist.
About half of American adults believe in the actual existence of a spiritual patriarchy and here you are trying to claim belief!=belief in existence. Unless you have something to back it up, I’m calling bs.
What you’re saying is completely true, but in no way contradicts what I said. I was referring to the fundamental idea of faith. I never said people adhere to it, and that nobody actually thinks God, or whatever else, exists.
Obviously, a lot of people do. Just like a lot of people think the Earth is flat or that chocolate milk comes from chocolate cows. A huge number of people are uneducated, have been fed propaganda and manipulated for years. I don’t think anyone needs any convincing that churches lie to and scam people on a daily basis for personal gain. But doesn’t make faith or religion itself a lie.
Similarly, there’s quite a few self improvement gurus who make up false ideas about self improvement and feed lies to their many, many followers. But does that make self improvement itself a lie, or a pointless dream?
I’m still somewhat confused about the distinction they are drawing, but it seems to be that yes we who are not morons can acknowledge scammers exist in a given field while not completely ignoring the value of that field.
Where it gets dicey for me is that from my pov the vast majority of religious “leaders” and self help people are scammers, and most people who are doing actually good work in these areas are not exactly prominent. “Do good works” doesn’t make money. “Treat yourself well” doesn’t make money. Because these people work within capitalism, they require a constant revenue stream and the positive aspects of these areas don’t provide that revenue stream.
Unsure if relevant, since this is a meme post, but for anyone interested: faith is quite a complex concept. And this silly atheist vs religious conflict is so pointless. It does nothing but elevate some people’s egos and infuriate others.
Sadly, both sides are heavily uninformed. Most atheists spent at most 3 seconds studying religion, while most religious people never questioned a single thing about their religion. How can you understand somebody and their point of view, if you haven’t even imagined yourself in their shoes, let alone walked in them?
Short story is: to ‘believe’ in God, or any other religious entity, does not mean ‘to think He exists’. In fact, you can ‘believe’ in any god, while being completely convinced they don’t exist. Fact and faith are fully separate.
At least some confusion here is intentionally created by religious institutions, like the Catholic Church. Most of what they do goes against the Bible and Jesus’ teachings, but it’s not like they care. Focusing on Christianity here, because that’s what I studied the most (my country is Christian). Same applies to Judaism and Islam. Other religions less, since these three have the biggest, most organized official structures (massive red flag in case it wasn’t obvious).
Anyway, I invite everyone to read about and learn their so-called enemies’ ways instead of blindly ridiculing them.
You’re using the term faith differently than everybody else.
First, paragraph breaks. Please use them.
Second, that isn’t how everyone feels. That is how you feel. People do in fact find it utterly hypocritical to see one thing one way and not the other and then claim to have knowledge above anyone else.
Third, aliens are more likely than gods. Mathematically speaking.
Statistically speaking*
This makes no sense. Most people when asked about the literal existence of god say they think so. Americans only fell below 50% very recently…again the literal existence of god (the numbers are similar for the Gallup poll on belief in god). You’re drawing a dichotomy that does not exist.
About half of American adults believe in the actual existence of a spiritual patriarchy and here you are trying to claim belief!=belief in existence. Unless you have something to back it up, I’m calling bs.
What you’re saying is completely true, but in no way contradicts what I said. I was referring to the fundamental idea of faith. I never said people adhere to it, and that nobody actually thinks God, or whatever else, exists.
Obviously, a lot of people do. Just like a lot of people think the Earth is flat or that chocolate milk comes from chocolate cows. A huge number of people are uneducated, have been fed propaganda and manipulated for years. I don’t think anyone needs any convincing that churches lie to and scam people on a daily basis for personal gain. But doesn’t make faith or religion itself a lie.
Similarly, there’s quite a few self improvement gurus who make up false ideas about self improvement and feed lies to their many, many followers. But does that make self improvement itself a lie, or a pointless dream?
“I don’t think anyone needs any convincing that churches lie to and scam people on a daily basis for personal gain.”
And yet televangelists exist. Megachurches exist. Churches have been scamming Christs sheep for millennia all for them to be none the wiser.
I’m still somewhat confused about the distinction they are drawing, but it seems to be that yes we who are not morons can acknowledge scammers exist in a given field while not completely ignoring the value of that field.
Where it gets dicey for me is that from my pov the vast majority of religious “leaders” and self help people are scammers, and most people who are doing actually good work in these areas are not exactly prominent. “Do good works” doesn’t make money. “Treat yourself well” doesn’t make money. Because these people work within capitalism, they require a constant revenue stream and the positive aspects of these areas don’t provide that revenue stream.