Are you a theist? Maybe you should reconsider... - Page 2

Yeah the snacks were AWESOME!

Ah, but everything I read in the Letter indicated that the world would be a better place once all of us religious types would dry up and blow away and he seemed to be judging what was moral and what wasn't. BTW I haven't met a theist yet who claimed to be able to do the water into wine thing.

I believe he was arguing that the world would be a better place when theists stopped acting on their irrational religious beliefs, not when the people themselves go away.

Harris believes that the attempts by organized religions to impose a global moral standard is itself destructive. Neither he nor any other rational secularist hopes to impose their own moral standard, but rather allow morality to be based on rationally attained, mutually beneficial principles such as equality, honesty, and openness. These are not religious principles, although many religious doctrines do contain them. They are human principles that precede any religion which attempts to lay claim.

For me, one of the frustrating aspects of religious debates with open-minded and decent theists such as yourself is that I see us having much more in common with each other than either of us has with religious fanatics. However, by rational theists (such as you Capt.) insisting that they worship the same god as the fundamentalists within their religion, the fundamentalists are given lethal credibility and influence in the public sphere. It is an influence the world can no longer afford, and rational, humane, egalitarian theists must be called upon to deliniate their beliefs with greater clarity. Pat Robertson must be mocked. James Dobson must never be allowed to present his dishonest opinions on homosexuality in Time magazine again. These people need to be removed from the public sphere, and we need the majority of Christians in America to do it.

I have a feeling that part of the reason for this has not yet happened is that many Christians feel heretical by denying they believe in the same god as Robertson and Dobson, because on some level they respect their the fervour of their irrational faith as a virtue rather than a destructive vice.

I wasn't talking about abolishing religion (although I have in other places); I was talking about the criticism of atheism for not being able to generate a universal moral standard. Believing in the Loch Ness monster doesn't cure cancer, but that's not the grounds on which I criticize that belief.

As for water-to-wine, see: Transubstantiation. Technically, that's wine-to-blood, but the gist is the same.

So, yeah, that's what you were doing. Either that, or you're too stupid to catch on to the point being made.

Really? And you're fine with that? You're fine with the fact that the only thing tying you to your religion is your faith? Even knowing that people (I don't mean theists, just people in general) are, for lack of a better word, idiots? I mean, there's absolutely nothing about our inner compasses that suggests we should discard logic for them. Hell if anything, history has shown that we should be distrustful of those faiths we hold blindly. How many tragedies could have been averted if people had stopped using "I just know!" as an excuse?

Very well put. I concur.