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Why Do Atheists Care About Religion?


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I've heard this question asked by various and asundry xians. This article sums it up nicely.

 

From Atheist Nexus: Why do atheists care about religion?

As a point of fact, religions are dangerous. People use religion to justify the most absurdly cruel acts and attitudes. Few will argue that religion was the principle motivator for the 911 attacks.

 

Some religious people will point out that there are lots of things in the world that people use to justify cruel acts and attitudes and yet atheists only seem to focus on religion. This is true. It also doesn’t excuse the cruelty that religion is responsible for inspiring. There is a difference between religion inspired violence and cruelty and other justifications for cruelty. That difference is faith.

 

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One might just as well ask, "Why do Jews care about Nazis?"

 

Because they're a threat, that's why.

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I don't know. To be honest, I really don't care much for the religious, but I do find some of the stories and sayings interesting. Some I can relate to on some level- a small handful of the Tao sayings and the 8-fold Path of Buddhism. However, I find myself having a tendency to "keep an eye on the enemy" so to speak. You never know what they are up to, esp politically, unless you pay attention. Sometimes it's no big deal and other times it just goes against my own values and ethics- ie Palin and her blatant disregard for nature and other animals, her views on education (ie abstinence only programs), and alike. Religious texts really don't bother me. It's what the religious do and how they use their dogmas that get my goat.

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Atheists care about religion because religion can be dangerous, our culture is so in your face with religion and since religion has been a major factor in most cultures throughout history and in our current day and age, it is smart to know what religions are all about.

 

An atheist can care about religion and yet not believe in the god of that religion. Some atheists I know actually participate in some main line religions and are enthusiastic ministers of their church congregation. They certainly care. They just have a non-fundamentalist, liberal way of interpreting things. For them, the practice of religion is a communal, social activity whose symbols and mythology are full of depth and meaning.

 

More power to them for that. The only minister like that whom I trust is in a different state, so I don't bother to participate in religion any more. But I would actually like to participate in one of his services, just to see if I get anything out of it.

 

So, as far as I am concerned, there are several good reasons for atheists to care about religion.

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As a point of fact, religions are dangerous. People use religion to justify the most absurdly cruel acts and attitudes. Few will argue that religion was the principle motivator for the 911 attacks.

 

Some religious people will point out that there are lots of things in the world that people use to justify cruel acts and attitudes and yet atheists only seem to focus on religion. This is true. It also doesn’t excuse the cruelty that religion is responsible for inspiring. There is a difference between religion inspired violence and cruelty and other justifications for cruelty. That difference is faith.

 

The author commits a number of logical fallacies in his reasoning. First, he commits the fallacy of ambiguity by saying that "religions" are dangerous. Does he mean all religions? If so, does he consider the good that has been done in the name of religion? How many hospitals in your town were started or continue to be operated by religious organizations? How many of the top universities in the world have been started by religious organizations? When disasters hit, which are the first organizations in with aid and the last to leave? To say that religions are dangerous is ambiguous and inaccurate. Are some religions dangerous? Probably. But he needs to back up this statement before calling it a "point of fact." He doesn't make the case in his article, he just goes on to make another fallacious argument in saying that people use "religion" to justify evil acts.

 

As he points out in his article, "there are lots of things in the world that people use to justify cruel acts and attitudes," however, what he fails to demonstrate is that these people have justified reasoning from what the religion teaches to their actions. In other words, can someone justify committing evil from a proper understanding of the religious text? He goes on to say that cite a verse from the New Testament, Hebrews 11:1, albeit, with a faulty understanding of that verse. His argument is based upon the word faith, which he/she equates to a blind leap of reasonless hope. That is completely contrary to the meaning of the Greek word "pistis" which here is translated "faith."

 

The proper understanding of the word is conviction or assurance and flows from the evidence that gives that conviction or assurance. It is no different than anything else for which we would have a conviction, belief, or assurance. I have assurance that the pilot of my plane has done his proper inspection before take-off. I haven't personally seen him do the inspection, but I trust the airline to hire qualified pilots and to have proper standards for those pilots. I have faith in my personal investor to carry out sound trades. I haven't taken the time to research every trade he recommends, but I trust him to make those choices. I have evidence for God's existence. I haven't personally seen God or Jesus, however, I trust my reasoning ability and the evidence seems logical.

 

For the author to make the assertion that faith means a cessation of reason, is utterly fallacious and ad hominem (another logical fallacy). I might ask the author, if he/she is just matter in motion, on what basis does he/she trust in reasoning. Reasoning involves ideas and ideas are immaterial, therefore, they violate a completely materialistic world. If we are in a completely materialistic existence, then logical connections cannot be trusted since one person's material make-up may lead them to conclusions that another person's material make-up would not. We have no basis to adjudicate between the two since we have no basis to say whose material make-up is the right one. In fact, there really would be no right make-up of matter, just differences. So, I question on what basis the author grounds these arguments and why he/she would think that anyone is wrong or right since there is no basis for morality given pure materialism. Just a couple of thoughts to consider.

 

LNC

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In other words, can someone justify committing evil from a proper understanding of the religious text?

There it is again. Shall we assume the "proper understanding" is yours?

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LNC, one does not need religion to do that.

 

“An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.” ~ Madalyn Murray O'Hair

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There have been no hospitals and clinics ever started in any town I've ever lived in by churches or other religious organizations. Private hospitals or government funded hospitals, take your pick. No good has ever come out of religion.

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For the author to make the assertion that faith means a cessation of reason, is utterly fallacious and ad hominem (another logical fallacy).

Even though I agree to a lot of what you said in your post (yes, it's winter in hell), to say the above argument is an ad hominem is plainly wrong.

 

Ad homimen is to make an argument that someone is wrong because of some perceived or real flawed characters in that person. It's not about making an statement about a thing, a concept, or some abstract idea. For instance, if I'd say, "Ken Hovind is wrong because he is in jail," that would be an ad hominem.

 

So you see, attacking religion and claiming that it somehow would affect a person's ability to reason is not an attack on the person, and hence it is not an ad hominem.

 

I just wanted to point this out. If you're going to continue to use fallacies to argue for your point, then at least use them properly.

 

---

 

When it comes to religion and evil people, my view is that evil people do evil things, regardless. But religious evil people use religion as an excuse for their evil behavior, while non-religious evil people are just plainly evil. And religion does not make an evil person un-evil. However, occasionally people turn a leaf in their life from evil behavior to less evil when they are confronted with their life-style and have a major change in ideology or belief, regardless of what they converted to.

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There have been no hospitals and clinics ever started in any town I've ever lived in by churches or other religious organizations. Private hospitals or government funded hospitals, take your pick. No good has ever come out of religion.

 

Well actually, many of the private hospitals are own by Catholic, Jewish, or Protestant orgs. Barnes Hospital in St. Louis is a Jewish affiliated hospital, last I knew. St. John's here where I live is blatantly Catholic. It is plastered with nuns, priests, crucifixes, Catholic icons, etc. So, yes, churches do start hospitals, mostly as an effort to evangelize to people. When you are sick you are at your weakest and very susceptible to such types of brainwashing. The religious take advantage of such things.

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If religion were largely a matter of private belief, I probably wouldn't care that much.

 

Unfortunately, it isn't. Religion and politics are intimately intertwined in America, such that religion has become part and parcel of public policy. This was perhaps most recently obvious during the W administration, but the Religious Right has been on the rise since at least the 1960's, largely to the nation's detriment.

 

I care because I can't sit idly by and watch religious asshats gut the civil rights of GLBT people, denigrate women, compel the dumbing down of science education, shackle vital medical research, vilify nonbelievers, compromise the health of others, and do any of the various other crappy things they do, all justified by their religious beliefs (and that most dangerous phrase of all: Because God Says So™).

 

If religion - and religious people - would behave themselves, I'd be quite happy to live and let live.

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. . . He goes on to say that cite a verse from the New Testament, Hebrews 11:1, albeit, with a faulty understanding of that verse. His argument is based upon the word faith, which he/she equates to a blind leap of reasonless hope. That is completely contrary to the meaning of the Greek word "pistis" which here is translated "faith."

 

The proper understanding of the word is conviction or assurance and flows from the evidence that gives that conviction or assurance. . .

 

There you go again, LNC, with your faulty definition of faith based on your faulty use of Easton's faulty Bible dictionary, once again.

 

Your addition of ". . .and flows from the evidence that gives that conviction or assurance. " is completely spurious. I could not find that connotation of the greek word pistis in a careful reading of the definition in Colin Brown's "Dictionary of New Testament Theology" Vol 1 . Nor could I find anything remotely resembling your personal augmentation of the real definition of pistis in Arndt and Gingrich's "Greek-English Lexicon of the New testament."

 

Believe me, in trying to give you the benefit of the doubt I scoured those two detailed and thorough treatments and nothing of the sort was even implied. Faith can be described as conviction, assurance, possibly a sense of certainty. But the requirement that it flows from the evidence is just something you have dreamed up because you so badly want it to be so.

 

Remember, LNC, your own bible tells you "do not go beyond what is written." Your evidential form of apologetic is very involved, but you cannot gain some sort of aura of biblical support by sticking your favorite word in there and declaring that "the greek word pistis means . . ."

 

The picture of faith drawn in the new testament is simple. A non believer hears the preaching of a story. That story is the narrative of the death of jesus on the cross and the resurrection . Because of the perceived power of the person speaking and (presumably) the working of the Holy Spirit in some way, that person "believes" and gains a sens of certainty or assurance that Christ will save him or her.

 

That's it. If they believe the story based on the perception of some divine authority on the part of the speaker, in the message itself or possibly with the crowd that is hosting the speaker, then that is all that is required. "Faith comes by hearing , and hearing by the word of God."

 

Your use of the word "evidence" is extraneous at best and just plain misleading at worst. Your addition of the word evidence distorts the true meaning of the word pistis.

 

That is what makes the effort to equate using reason with applying faith so ludicrous. You might have a chance to make your case if you could get people to swallow your "evidence" definition of pistis. But what is ludicrous is that you go from the original point of the article(Atheists have to care about religion because religionists force their way onto society), to a straw man about believing in a purely materialistic world. The concept was never even mentioned in the article.

 

Well, guess what! Most believers don't use evidence. They use their pre-conditioning about the authority of the Bible and their perceptions of the personal authority of priests and preachers to come to an assurance and a conviction about Christ. And , guess what! THAT is pistis. No reasoning required. AND, in most cases, no reasoning desired.

 

What "reason" does, is dare to question the authority of the speaker and the religious preconditioning that many comers to the faith have had thrust upon them. It dares to want to certify and verify everything that promoters of the christian faith have to say and ask, "Is it REALLY so?"

 

Otherwise, we might have overzealous religionists trying to slip the word "evidence" into the definition of pistis to fool people into falling for false perceptions of what faith entails.

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In other words, can someone justify committing evil from a proper understanding of the religious text?

There it is again. Shall we assume the "proper understanding" is yours?

 

Are you implying that we cannot understand texts as intended by the author? Are all interpretations merely relative to the reader?

 

LNC

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LNC, one does not need religion to do that.

 

“An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.” ~ Madalyn Murray O'Hair

 

I never said that an atheist cannot believe these things. I am merely asking for the objective grounding of that belief. Can you give an objective reason, given atheism, why these beliefs as stated by Ms. O'Hair are any better than those espoused by Kim Jong Il who impoverishes, starves, and exploits his people? Just curious.

 

LNC

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There have been no hospitals and clinics ever started in any town I've ever lived in by churches or other religious organizations. Private hospitals or government funded hospitals, take your pick. No good has ever come out of religion.

 

What town are you in?

 

LNC

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Even though I agree to a lot of what you said in your post (yes, it's winter in hell), to say the above argument is an ad hominem is plainly wrong.

 

Ad homimen is to make an argument that someone is wrong because of some perceived or real flawed characters in that person. It's not about making an statement about a thing, a concept, or some abstract idea. For instance, if I'd say, "Ken Hovind is wrong because he is in jail," that would be an ad hominem.

 

So you see, attacking religion and claiming that it somehow would affect a person's ability to reason is not an attack on the person, and hence it is not an ad hominem.

 

I just wanted to point this out. If you're going to continue to use fallacies to argue for your point, then at least use them properly.

 

I've got to disagree with you. The author states, when "someone has faith in something, no amount of logic or evidence can change their immediate view. Such a thought numbing mindset is not just a justification for cruelty, hate, and violence; it is a direct cause of such things." Why is that not an attack on the person rather than evidence that religion is evil as he states in his premise. This is a clear example of an ad hominem. This does nothing to prove the premise, it only is possibly evidence that some people act irrationally. I can show plenty of atheists who act irrationally, but does that count against atheism or against those people? To paint all people of faith this way is not only false, it is a hasty generalization. Thanks for the warning, but I believe I have properly applied identified the fallacy.

 

When it comes to religion and evil people, my view is that evil people do evil things, regardless. But religious evil people use religion as an excuse for their evil behavior, while non-religious evil people are just plainly evil. And religion does not make an evil person un-evil. However, occasionally people turn a leaf in their life from evil behavior to less evil when they are confronted with their life-style and have a major change in ideology or belief, regardless of what they converted to.

 

Evil people with use whatever excuse that suits them to justify their evil acts. More is required to justify that connection than to simply point out evil people and the fact that they may attribute their behavior to a certain excuse. One must show that their reasoning logically follows. I don't see that the author has made this case in his article. In fact, he doesn't even attempt to do this. I appreciate the fact that you see people as inherently sinful/evil. That is a view that not many people are willing to accept these days of relativism. It is this problem that Jesus came to deal with. He didn't come to make people perfect in behavior; unfortunately, we are still sinners. What he did come to do was to take our sinfulness upon him so that we could enter his presence in heaven. I'm not perfect since I became a Christian, nor will I be in this life; however, I am better than I was and would have been had I not trusted Jesus. Still, it is not the fact that I am a better person that earns heaven for me, it is Jesus payment for my sins that does.

 

LNC

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LNC, one does not need religion to do that.

 

“An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.” ~ Madalyn Murray O'Hair

 

I never said that an atheist cannot believe these things. I am merely asking for the objective grounding of that belief. Can you give an objective reason, given atheism, why these beliefs as stated by Ms. O'Hair are any better than those espoused by Kim Jong Il who impoverishes, starves, and exploits his people? Just curious.

 

LNC

 

Well for one thing, I don't know who Kim Jong II is. I can't imagine anyone enjoys watching people suffer. I don't think one would be normal if they wanted to see someone suffer from illness. Even elephants keep their dying company and mourn when they see one of the loved ones die. Secondly, prayer never works. No one is cured by prayers. It takes knowledgeable drs to help the sick and even then, like say in the case of cancer, there is no guarantees, but I can guarantee you that IF my mother had not gone in to see a dr when she discovered that lump in her breast, she would have died of breast cancer. It was already at stage 3 and she procrastinated too long as was, using prayer in hopes it was not cancer. Even my grandmother, who was alive at the time was surprised because we never had a case of breast cancer in our family. Turns out that is usually the case, BUT since my mother had breast cancer, I am at risk. It's been 10 years now and she has been declared by the drs as being a cancer survivor. Prayer alone cannot do that. We must seek out other knowledgeable humans to help us.

 

I do not know of an atheist who condones starvation or exploitation of others. That is just morally wrong, but that does not mean, given that atheists are human, that there isn't one out there. What you say of Kim Jong II is totally opposite of what O'Hare was saying. People made O'Hare out to be a monster just because she was an atheist and someone killed because they were sick and demented and probably believed such crap about her. The thing is, it simply was not true from what I can tell. The other mistake she made was giving people a second chance. She gave an ex-con a second chance, probably without even looking into his background. She had been a little too trusting and wanted to believe he had been rehabilitated. She probably also thought that if no one gave them a chance to prove themselves, they'd just end up right back in jail. She seemed to have had good intentions, but they backfired on her.

 

I do not believe she was necessarily a bad person and I do not believe for a minute she was a bad person because she was an atheist. What she stated had nothing to do with starving people or exploiting them. Everything she said in that statement are good things. There is not a thing wrong with what she said. Show me how they were bad things. Show me how that statement does not live up to this by the AHA: Humanist Manifesto III

 

Creating hospitals benefits society and advancements in medical science benefits society. Good health also maximizes happiness too. What she stated are ethics based on human need and interests.

 

What she said also fits this by the CSH: Humanist Manifesto 2000

 

Now show me how what she said was a bad thing and does not fit either of those Humanist Manifestos. Of course at that time, the Humanist Manfesto III did not exist. It was the Humanist Manifesto II, but she still did not go outside these things with her statement: Humanist Manifesto II

 

Everything she stated benefits society, encourages the betterment and advancement of society, maximizes happiness and well-being, and focuses on individuals, not the advancement of some religious ideology and dogma, which really hasn't done much to advance and better society.

 

One more thing, her statement wants to rid society of poverty, not impoverish them.

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In other words, can someone justify committing evil from a proper understanding of the religious text?

There it is again. Shall we assume the "proper understanding" is yours?

 

Are you implying that we cannot understand texts as intended by the author? Are all interpretations merely relative to the reader?

 

LNC

I'm not implying anything, but stating that people quite obviously DO NOT understand the Biblical texts as intended. Why else would, or could, there be so many different interpretations of the same words? It obviously means whatever the reader thinks or wants it to mean, and everybody thinks and wants something different so there is no way to know if anybody actually got it right. All we can know is that everybody gets a different message, and everybody thinks they are the one who has correct understanding.

 

But you already know all this. No need to travel this road again and again.

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I've got to disagree with you. The author states, when "someone has faith in something, no amount of logic or evidence can change their immediate view. Such a thought numbing mindset is not just a justification for cruelty, hate, and violence; it is a direct cause of such things." Why is that not an attack on the person rather than evidence that religion is evil as he states in his premise. This is a clear example of an ad hominem. This does nothing to prove the premise, it only is possibly evidence that some people act irrationally. I can show plenty of atheists who act irrationally, but does that count against atheism or against those people? To paint all people of faith this way is not only false, it is a hasty generalization. Thanks for the warning, but I believe I have properly applied identified the fallacy.

You throwing around the accusations of fallacies like some new years fireworks.

 

I agree with you that it's an hasty generalization, but I don't agree it's an ad hominem. Sorry.

 

He's not saying religion is bad because people are bad, he's saying people are bad because religion makes them bad.

 

He doesn't say religion is wrong because people are bad, he's claims religion is bad because it makes people bad.

 

It's a huge difference.

 

An ad hominem means "to the person." It's an attack on the person who argues a certain argument. The fallacy is to claim that he is wrong because something is wrong with his character.

 

You got it wrong.

 

Evil people with use whatever excuse that suits them to justify their evil acts. More is required to justify that connection than to simply point out evil people and the fact that they may attribute their behavior to a certain excuse. One must show that their reasoning logically follows. I don't see that the author has made this case in his article.

And I didn't argue against you on that point.

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Evil people do evil acts and use whatever excuse that suits them. The Bible god is definitely evil. People that worship an evil entity are pretty much by default, evil themselves or they would't worship such a horrid entity. Then to make it worse, they claim such evil is good.

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In other words, can someone justify committing evil from a proper understanding of the religious text?

There it is again. Shall we assume the "proper understanding" is yours?

 

Are you implying that we cannot understand texts as intended by the author? Are all interpretations merely relative to the reader?

 

LNC

 

It's a two-way process. Author intent and relative to the reader. The author has intent, but cannot deny the experience which the audience brings to the text which influence how that text comes alive and what is made of it.It is a two-way process.

 

P

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There you go again, LNC, with your faulty definition of faith based on your faulty use of Easton's faulty Bible dictionary, once again.

 

Actually, I didn't refer to Easton this time, but you have a long memory. Let's try to add some light to this discussion as I think you are mistaken in your attempt to cloud the issue.

 

Your addition of ". . .and flows from the evidence that gives that conviction or assurance. " is completely spurious. I could not find that connotation of the greek word pistis in a careful reading of the definition in Colin Brown's "Dictionary of New Testament Theology" Vol 1 . Nor could I find anything remotely resembling your personal augmentation of the real definition of pistis in Arndt and Gingrich's "Greek-English Lexicon of the New testament."

 

Believe me, in trying to give you the benefit of the doubt I scoured those two detailed and thorough treatments and nothing of the sort was even implied. Faith can be described as conviction, assurance, possibly a sense of certainty. But the requirement that it flows from the evidence is just something you have dreamed up because you so badly want it to be so.

 

I noticed that you didn't actually state what Brown or A&G say about pistis{/i], you merely give your interpretation of their entries. The root word for pistis is peitho which means persuasion. So, the question is how one is persuaded without some type of evidence or reasoning by which to be so. I don't have either reference you cite handy, so let me refer to some others that I do have here. Strong's says of pistis - to have faith (in, upon, or with respect to a person or thing). It means to entrust one's self. It is no different than the examples that I gave in my previous post and always involves entrusting one's self to a person or thing and that would involve, by implication, evidence that the person or thing is trustworthy.

 

David Hay, in is article Pistis as Ground for Faith in Hellenized Judaism and Paul states, "Subjective pistis also involved trust for Paul - and this passage [Gal. 3-4] indicates that subjective trust of Christians is a response to God's demonstration or proof of his trustworthiness in Jesus. Trust always hinges on a perception of dependability...we should understand that the background for this 'ground of faith' sense of the term lies in the widespread contemporary use of pistis to mean 'pledge' or 'evidence.'" (Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 108, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), p. 464))

 

So, unless you have clear evidence to show that Brown or A&G are speaking of a blind faith, I would suggest that one has to look at the complete etymology of the word and it is generally used as a convinced trust. I wonder how widely you "scoured" those references if you could not find this etymology or whether you simply did not look at the etymology and other uses of the root and forms of the word as it is quite apparent and easy to find.

 

Here are some other related words: pisteuo - believe; pistikos - trustworthy (implies a reason for trust); pistos - believing; pistoo - to make trustworthy (establish trustworthiness). These words imply, when tied together, a reason for the trust that has been placed. However, let's take the occurrence in Hebrews in context and see what we find there.

 

The author has spent ten chapters establishing why Jesus can be and is worthy of our trust by showing that he is the fulfillment of the OT sacrificial system, as well as the completion of what Adam and Israel were meant to be. The author completes the argument in chapter ten by explaining why we can have conviction and full assurance in Jesus (the object of our faith) and then says, "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." (Heb. 10:23)

 

In chapter 11, he begins, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Why do we have assurance? He has explained why in the first ten chapters. The word translated conviction, is elenchos, which means, evidence. Yes, evidence! So, as I said, there is evidence involved with pistis (faith) and the author says so in this very verse. The root word here is elegcho, which means proof, conviction, evidence. The evidence is within the argument of the first ten chapters. So, contrary to the what the author of the article seems to imply, the author if Hebrews is not, in any way, implying a blind faith. Neither have you made the case for such.

 

Remember, LNC, your own bible tells you "do not go beyond what is written." Your evidential form of apologetic is very involved, but you cannot gain some sort of aura of biblical support by sticking your favorite word in there and declaring that "the greek word pistis means . . ."

 

Please quote chapter and verse on this and interpret it in context, please.

 

The picture of faith drawn in the new testament is simple. A non believer hears the preaching of a story. That story is the narrative of the death of jesus on the cross and the resurrection . Because of the perceived power of the person speaking and (presumably) the working of the Holy Spirit in some way, that person "believes" and gains a sens of certainty or assurance that Christ will save him or her.

 

That's it. If they believe the story based on the perception of some divine authority on the part of the speaker, in the message itself or possibly with the crowd that is hosting the speaker, then that is all that is required. "Faith comes by hearing , and hearing by the word of God."

 

Your use of the word "evidence" is extraneous at best and just plain misleading at worst. Your addition of the word evidence distorts the true meaning of the word pistis.

 

That is what makes the effort to equate using reason with applying faith so ludicrous. You might have a chance to make your case if you could get people to swallow your "evidence" definition of pistis. But what is ludicrous is that you go from the original point of the article(Atheists have to care about religion because religionists force their way onto society), to a straw man about believing in a purely materialistic world. The concept was never even mentioned in the article.

 

Well, guess what! Most believers don't use evidence. They use their pre-conditioning about the authority of the Bible and their perceptions of the personal authority of priests and preachers to come to an assurance and a conviction about Christ. And , guess what! THAT is pistis. No reasoning required. AND, in most cases, no reasoning desired.

 

What "reason" does, is dare to question the authority of the speaker and the religious preconditioning that many comers to the faith have had thrust upon them. It dares to want to certify and verify everything that promoters of the christian faith have to say and ask, "Is it REALLY so?"

 

Otherwise, we might have overzealous religionists trying to slip the word "evidence" into the definition of pistis to fool people into falling for false perceptions of what faith entails.

 

That is a fanciful explanation that is biased to your point of view, not what I have shown from the Bible. I have already shown that the word evidence is contained within the very verse under discussion, so your point is falsified. The rest of your argument has already been shown to be moot by what I have explained above. Whether most believers use evidence is another discussion. I might agree with you on that; however, it does not mean that their faith is in vain. Most people board aircraft with no evidence or investigation of the airline's safety record or standards of inspection, training of the pilots, or airworthiness of the plane that they are boarding; however, it does not mean that their trust is in vain if the airline has met all the standards mentioned.

 

I could say that most atheists haven't looked into the arguments thoroughly or sufficiently to ground their beliefs either. You certainly have shown in your post a misunderstanding of one simple verse of the Bible, so I wonder how many others you have really studied and understood beyond the cursory English words on the paper or screen. Do you have proper grounds for you rejection of the evidence of Christianity? Your belief that reason plays no part in the faith involved with Christianity leads me to think that you do not. However, I will withhold judgment and merely encourage you to be more fair and honest in the treatment of the convictions of the Christian faith.

 

The author of the article paints with a broad brush in lumping all religious belief systems together and you seem to paint with a broad brush in saying that because some Christians use less evidence to come to their convictions, therefore, reason is not used to come to Christian convictions. That is an unreasoned belief on your part. I have used reason to question the authority of your assertions, I will look forward to your reply.

 

LNC

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I distrust any segment of society with such a tenuous grip on reality that spirits, spooks, and other-worldly gods are not only deemed to exist but worshipped.

 

Vehement lengthly protests such as above are generally a sign of "convincing ones self."

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I'm not implying anything, but stating that people quite obviously DO NOT understand the Biblical texts as intended. Why else would, or could, there be so many different interpretations of the same words? It obviously means whatever the reader thinks or wants it to mean, and everybody thinks and wants something different so there is no way to know if anybody actually got it right. All we can know is that everybody gets a different message, and everybody thinks they are the one who has correct understanding.

 

But you already know all this. No need to travel this road again and again.

 

Just because people come up with wrong conclusions, does not in any way imply that no one has come up with the right conclusion. There are many different interpretations of scientific data regarding issues as diverse as the origin of the universe to the presence of life forms as we know them. Just because there are different interpretations of this data which lead to vastly different conclusions, doesn't mean that one of the interpretations that we do have is not the right one. For you to claim that people do not understand the Biblical texts as intended, you would have to know the proper understanding of those texts and know that the ones that we have are wrong. You cannot simply conclude that because there are varying interpretations, that all are therefore wrong. That does not necessarily follow from your argument. If you hold this perspective, you would also have to hold that we cannot glean anything from scientific theories since we have the same situation there as well. Yet, I'm sure that you will object to this conclusion, and rightfully so. I agree, this road is a dead end and not worth travelling down again.

 

LNC

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You throwing around the accusations of fallacies like some new years fireworks.

 

I agree with you that it's an hasty generalization, but I don't agree it's an ad hominem. Sorry.

 

He's not saying religion is bad because people are bad, he's saying people are bad because religion makes them bad.

 

He doesn't say religion is wrong because people are bad, he's claims religion is bad because it makes people bad.

 

It's a huge difference.

 

An ad hominem means "to the person." It's an attack on the person who argues a certain argument. The fallacy is to claim that he is wrong because something is wrong with his character.

 

You got it wrong.

 

I throw out the accusation often only because the author committed them with blinding frequency. He did not prove that religion is bad, he only asserted as much. However, my quote shows that he asserts that those who hold these beliefs do it by suspending reason. That is also unproved and an ad hominem. He has attacked the person, not the argument which is what an ad hominem is. When he says, "People use religion to justify the most absurdly cruel acts and attitudes," it seems to me that he is speaking about bad people that use religion as their excuse (not giving evidence as to whether the religion really did inspire this behavior). Second, he cites as his only example the 9/11 attacks, which were perpetrated by Muslims, but then never mentions Islam directly, but instead, attacks Christianity. This is a common pattern practiced by the likes of Christopher Hitchens and others. This is the fallacy of the broad brush. So, I have once again pointed out how he used ad hominem and how he uses a broad brush technique to paint all religions with the same brush, yet without justification within his/her article.

 

LNC

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