SlagA
Monday 9th November 2009 5:46pm [Edited]
Blackwood
5,335 posts
Quote: Dolly Dagger @ November 8 2009, 9:46 PM GMT
There is a kind of smugness from atheists, especially in comedy, that they know better and people with faith are all idiots akin to thinking Father Christmas is real and ripe for taking the piss out of.
It's the straw dog argument that feeds a sense of elitism. Reduce your opponent's real beliefs to nonsensical simplistic distortions that are easily brushed aside. It's also the reason why both sides fail to win the debate. All belief systems are incredibly complex, malleable (despite the appearance of inflexibility), and have a self-contained logic. That's why they've survived empires and races. You're not going to win millenia-old debates with straw dogs. And, tbh, any person you can convince with a straw dog argument is one you'd want to keep firmly in the other side's camp.
Quote: Kevin Murphy @ November 8 2009, 9:49 PM GMT
Sounds about right to me.
Some of the world's greatest minds were and are Christian or from other faiths. Some were not. This should be remembered whenever believers from either camp have their intellectual capacity questioned. It is not a question of intellect v blind faith or logic over non-logic or else the world would be strictly layered along IQ lines, into intellectual atheists and subnormal believers. That it isn't is proof that it's often down to a person's particular preference, rather than their intellect, as to what they finally choose to believe.
As to Dan's point re: if God is proven, would faith end? From my understanding of it, no. Even if proof existed, some people would choose not to believe despite the evidence. Some wouldn't care and carry on as if God didn't exist. The religious folk would still need faith to believe their particular walk was the right one. Faith is a strange beast. It doesn't always mean belief in the intangible, it envelopes conviction and trust (amongst other things). Faith is not purely a religious trait. Independent of God's existence; every person, every moment, lives by faith. It's the object of that faith that differs.
