Belief in a nonexistent god doesn't harm someone.
If we're going to approach catharsis, this is the moment. Belief in a nonexistent god doesn't harm someone? Oh really? What if you thought that God wanted you to die in a holy war against those that didn't believe in him, would that harm you? What if he wanted you to kill every male of a certain tribe, mutilate your flesh, or not take medicine when you're ill because it would be a sign of a lack of faith? Your over-simplification is so baselessly absurd that I can barely believe you've managed to formulate it into a sentence.
If you tell people God's watching out for them in their suffering, that he ordained all events, that there'll be a final reckoning, etc., etc., etc., and you can't demonstrate anything of the kind, you are not speaking honestly. You think it's okay to make something up instead of seeing the world for what it is. This is not a respectable way to go about life in my view. Incidentally, why does God allow entire tribes to be murdered? Why does he allow famine, pestilence, genocide, and torture? Doesn't he have the power to stop it? What are you going to do when people start asking you these questions? You're a believer. You're the expert. I don't tell anyone there is a god. I don't tell anyone there isn't. I don't think anyone knows.
And that's the truth, the only one that matters. If truth isn't your concern, our conversations are as pointless as your philosophy of meaninglessness.
Ignoring your usual victim mentality and whining about
ad hominem attacks
, I think you're missing a point here. I'm not telling anyone anything about any god. I'm not proselytizing here, I'm discussing security blankets. It's been a while since I've described myself as Christian, and that description hasn't held true for me for some time.
Did you or did you not say that I'm an angry, vindictive individual who's taking out his anger on other people because of a sh**ty life? None of which is true, none of which makes your arguments any better, and none of which is relevant to the conversation. Don't get me wrong, I'm not offended in the least. By all means say whatever you want. It's a little disappointing to me, though, because the more personal you make the debate, the less interesting the conversation becomes. Something to be aware of.
By some time I'm supposing you mean about seven months, because my entire impression of you goes straight back to 1:16 PM January 16th, 2010 where you wrote: "
I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, that I exist in a fallen world, that I am a sinful creature, and that, although I do not deserve it and could not possibly earn it, I have been given a reprieve from my sins, that I have been justified with God and that when I die I will live with Him in heaven." Add to that your views on cosmology and evolution, and I was guessing Catholic, but wasn't sure. That's a pretty straight Christian answer, no? Now either you were bathing in sarcasm when you wrote that, which I really doubt, or you've pretty recently begun a new path. People change their minds for all kinds of reasons at all kinds of times, but that's why I've been addressing what I think are your points in a Christian context. What brought about the switch, BTW?
Your whole paragraph containing examples of the harms of belief in a nonexistent god is a contradiction. If the god is nonexistent, the harms you describe originate from the man who dreamt them up. You erroneously put forth that, in the absence of a god, these harms wouldn't occur. They would - they are human creations, and as long as we have humans, we'll have these harms. In the absence of a god excuse another excuse will be used, but the war will still happen, the genocide will still happen, the mutilation will still happen, and the refusal to take medicine will still happen. The god being nonexistent, you can't blame the harm the human does on that god.
We disagree, and here's why. Beliefs matter. What you believe can dictate you you act. Imagine if you were sitting in the office today and you got a call from your wife. "Honey, I bought a lotto ticket the other night and...and we won! Seventy-six million dollars!" It doesn't matter if it's true. If you gave that statement credence, if you believed it, your heart would begin to pound, your palms would sweat, you'd breathe deeper. If we had your brain hooked up to one of those real time MRI machines the thing would be going off like the Fourth of july. The objective truth of falsity of the claim has nothing to do with it. Your belief is what matters. Some people in that situation would storm into their boss's office and quit their job, then go buy a sixty thousand dollar car they can't afford. Your claim that believing in a nonexistent god doesn't matter is the exact same thing as saying beliefs don't matter. Yes they do. They alter the way you think, the way you perceive the world, and the way you behave. Religion leads to a variety of beliefs, a variety os ways to see the world, and a variety of behaviors.
Secondly, I've already agreed, bad things would happen. But contrast the person who won't have their children vaccinated because of their faith with someone who won't have them taken because they're afraid they lead to autism (pretending these were the only two reasons, let's say it's 50/50). The people who are worried about autism but are otherwise rational only need to be shown the data. That should pretty much take care of it. Vaccinations don't lead to autism and a ton of studies have concluded that, as well as explained the appearance of an increase in autism in the past thirty years. Now what about the religious mindset? What facts could you show them or arguments could you make that would open their minds to life-saving medication? Not getting vaccinated is not only a danger to yourself, but the species in general. If you can remove the superstitious group from the total of unvaccinated people, you have not eliminated
every reason someone might avoid vaccination, but you've dealt a sizable blow to the problem, and made the world a better place.
You have no monopoly on truth. Your head is in the sand every bit as much as those Theists you target. You continue to believe that life will have meaning if you simply speak Truth, if you stop lying to yourself and others - yet you refuse to face the truth that at its very basis existence is an accident, devoid of meaning, destined to end in nothing. You still seek meaning in your existence just like Theists, you just seek a different meaning. Good luck on your quest, but you'll never find your answer until you stop lying to yourself about the very basis of your search.
I don't pretend to. How do you know life is an accident? The only contradiction I see is that you've somehow gotten it in your head that because something might end that the present doesn't have meaning. The meaning is in the activities themselves, my friend, and what we ascribe to them. Only a consciousness can give meaning to something, so this idea of a grander 'objective meaning' is a concept without any legs to begin with, and a useless comparison. My favorite book has a final page. That doesn't make the story meaningless. My favorite film has a final shot. That doesn't make the film meaningless. As a matter of fact, knowing that our lives are going to end might be the single thing that allows us to value something more than something else in relation to a goal––ergo, meaning. If we were going to live on forever, why would any action have more value that any other action? We could do them at any time, and we'd always have time to do them again. There would be no immediacy, no sense of the now as opposed to the future.
Something to chew on.
