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comment by johnnyFive
johnnyFive  ·  2616 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Does Poor Understanding of Physical World Predict Religious and Paranormal Beliefs?

    free them rather than belittling them

Hint: saying that believers are that way because they're scared of what will happen if they're not is not this. I mean, I guess it's condescending rather than belittling, if you want to split hairs.

    What people who believe lack is only the culture and settings required to eeke them out of their views and into a place where they are comfortable exploring and changing the views that they hold.

You have some very stereotypical beliefs about what religion and the religious are actually like. It's also a wildly arrogant viewpoint on your part. "People would agree with me if only they could understand my view of the world, but they can't, because they're too stuck in their culture."

Remember that the people who're loudest about their beliefs aren't typically representative.





bioemerl  ·  2616 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    saying that believers are that way because they're scared of what will happen if they're not is not this

This is a very very simplified version of what I said. What I described was based purely in my own personal experience with religion, and the behavior of all religious people I have seen up to this point. When someone I see gives me a reason, a valid reason, they hold a belief that isn't past culture or the things I had holding myself to religious beliefs, I will consider that viewpoint as well.

Again, if my beliefs about what religious people look like are stereotypical, then I have been living a stereotype when speaking to friends, family, etc, watching debates on religious beliefs, and so on. I am not someone with no exposure to religious beliefs, and unless you have a valid alternative to what I have said I do not feel like you are doing anything other than leaping to the defense of something without having real backing for why you are doing so.

johnnyFive  ·  2616 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's a simplified version of what? You yourself acknowledge that you're stereotyping, and it's hard to get much simpler than that.

Maybe all the religious people in your life really are coming at it from this perspective, but perhaps your own preconceived notions are influencing how you interpret what they say and do?

bioemerl  ·  2616 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Again, just saying I'm wrong will change nothing, you need a concrete and valid example of why exactly religious people may be believing in what they do. If the examples are not concrete or valid, it is an example of a person falling into the first category I didn't discuss in detail, plan stupidity or lack of understanding of logic/the physical world.

johnnyFive  ·  2615 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You're coming at this from a place that's surprisingly common atheists: assuming that your life experience and the whole of human experience are equivalent.

bioemerl  ·  2612 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Why are you repeating yourself rather than giving the concrete examples I asked for and stated would be able to change my viewpoint?

johnnyFive  ·  2612 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm not repeating myself, I'm showing a couple of ways that your own viewpoint is myopic (which you've sorta acknowledged by admitting that you're stereotyping). That's really my only goal ... I'm not particularly interested in justifying my faith to you.

bioemerl  ·  2611 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This claim of stereotyping is not a valid one without some form of backing for the idea of why it is, in fact, stereotyping. I can claim that men in general are going to be stupid, and you can show statistics to me about how a very good number of men are quite intelligent to prove me wrong. That is an example of an incorrect stereotype that I was using.

I didn't ask you to justify your faith. I just want a logical and reasoned point of view that a religious person might have, which I did not consider, that would be the basis in why my views are false stereotypes rather than relatively accurate judgement of a large group.

The only thing I can think of that I didn't mention in any capacity is the "Absolute and unquestionable knowledge that a higher power exist when looking onto the world" that I spent quite some time looking for through middle and high-school. That reason is little more than saying "I believe this for no reason other than I feel it is true." which isn't a reason at all, cannot be debated or discussed, and is generally useless in the context of the post I had just made.

I wasn't describing you, I was describing religious people in general and how I, as an atheist, and others, should go about treating their religious beliefs in order to best undermine them by way of first understanding them. I quite well think that the post I made is a lot more positive and cooperative than the impressions given in the article, or the idea that religious people are just stupid and don't understand the physical world.

If you have something better or a proper and concrete reason for me being incorrect, I'm happy to hear it, but otherwise this whole conversation is a waste of time for the both of us.

johnnyFive  ·  2610 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    This claim of stereotyping is not a valid one

Then why did you yourself say that's what you were doing?

Again, your argument is basically "I haven't thought of any way that makes sense, so there isn't any." This is what I meant when I referred to your presumption that your life experience is all-encompassing. If you can't even acknowledge that there may be other ways of thinking (rather than pre-judging anything I could say), you're not really listening.

    I wasn't describing you, I was describing religious people in general and how I, as an atheist, and others, should go about treating their religious beliefs in order to best undermine them by way of first understanding them.

So...you were describing religious people "in general," I'm a religious person, but you weren't describing me? At least have the courage of your convictions, especially if you're presumptuous enough to have "undermining" religious beliefs as a goal. The sheer arrogance that it takes to both be so certain about the nature of the universe and to believe we all need to be saved by you is nothing short of incredible. I don't need your protection from myself, thanks.

bioemerl  ·  2610 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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bioemerl  ·  2616 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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bioemerl  ·  2616 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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