OwlFancier posted:

Unless you believe in magic a person who does good things is good.

Pellisworth posted:

The topic of the thread is, "Is the left hostile to religion," and my point is no, it doesn't need to be. Science and religion needn't conflict, and leftism doesn't have to be atheistic. Many interpretations of Christianity have very socialist/leftist economics at the very least.

Cingulate posted:

In the US.

What does it look like across nations? Globally, or at least within the west?

CommieGIR posted:

Pretty much, minus the /r/athiest types and the Dawkins/Hitchens types.

Squalid posted:

I've only advanced a single claim in this thread which was pretty much just that one can have faith in anything they please.

RasperFat posted:

I agree, but they problem is almost everyone mostly in agreement. Don't be assholes to religious people irl, things like liberation theology have a long intertwined history on the left, and that maybe religious claims are all inherently silly on some level.

TomViolence posted:

Main Paineframe posted:

I wouldn't necessarily say that. Much of the Islamist chaos in the Middle East is in part a response to decades of oppression from local secular regimes as well as a long history of political interference from secular Western governments, and many of the worst-off countries are countries that were secular at one point. Aggressively secular regimes, which promoted nationalism and suppressed religion, not only failed to improve societies but caused deep social resentments against secularism as a result. What distinguishes the most prosperous (let's not even say "best", it's way too subjective) societies today isn't secularism but tolerance. Their laws aren't secular out of opposition to religion or commitment to atheism, they're secular as a neutral ground that treats all beliefs or lack thereof equally.

OwlFancier posted:

"Wrong views rooted in an irrational belief" is not even remotely limited to religion, I'd wager it's probably not even majority represented by religion.

rudatron posted:

The more challenging idea is that 'assumption = faith'. If you're committed to that idea, then you've subtly changed the meaning of the word 'faith' from what it generally means, to a very specific and abstract meaning, all for purpose of religious apologia. "Well isn't everything faith when you think about it?" Is a really, really dumb reply to the issues brought up against religious belief.

OwlFancier posted:

It's purpose for existence is to argue that there is such a thing as absolute knowledge, be it about the nature of the universe, right and wrong, whatever. That knowledge can be anything. Arguing that a belief in absolute truth must inherently favor capitalism is loving retarded.

magnavox space odyssey posted:

I am not trying to say that religion can replace science nor that science is basically a religion. I am saying neither of those things, I don't see how religion could at all be used as science would. I also don't see how you would use science the same way you use religion, as a way of giving meaning to your own life, for example.

Bolocko posted:

Man is great and "very good", beloved by God, elevated by the Incarnation; "for God so loved the world..." etc.; "the glory of God is a man fully alive." Man isn't a lame gently caress-up by nature, but plays one on TV, often following the path of concupiscence that leads​ to suffering for one's self and for others. We are good, but we don't always choose the good, and sometimes we choose the very bad.

So we're not a bunch of lame gently caress-ups​, but we also kill a lot of people, wreck ecosystems, exploit others, stick gum under desks, and so forth — yeah, when telling the story of man's activity on Earth, we act like a bunch of lame gently caress-ups. We stumble. The Bible is us asking God "what the hell, man" and God trying to push back to show us how to realize our true human glory, reassuring us to have no fear and to trust even as we stumble.

TomViolence posted:

We've pretty much already killed the planet we live on, we extinguish entire other species on a daily basis. I don't really consider this winning. We may dominate our natural environment, but if we carry on with our current trajectory this will have dire consequences for the viability of life itself on this planet and the distant dream of slipping earth's surly bonds and forging on into space is as deluded as believing in the rapture. We have one planet and we're loving it up massively. If we somehow do find a way to abandon spaceship earth and carry on elsewhere it'll only be a few of us and billions of folk will carry on living and dying on this toxified, decrepit sphere of ruin until our habitat becomes truly untenable -- a state of affairs creeping closer by the day.

The Kingfish posted:

It is just as easy to justify slavery on secular terms as it is on religious terms. Contemporaries of the American abolitionist movement considered them a bunch of crazy religious zealots.

Crowsbeak posted:

You know secular morality was at one time based explicitly on racial hirarchy right?

Crowsbeak posted:

Read Voltaire and Hume then get back to me.

Also secular humanism today also has a big boner for mass war against non secular humanists considering the number that love Hitchens and Harris.

ISeeCuckedPeople posted:

The reason is that the right co-opted religion, and the left didn't even put up a fight. They said "lol most of us hate religion, that ain't worth fighting for."

Despite this most major religions fall more in line with leftist thinking that right wing thinking.

Crowsbeak posted:

I notice hiw you avoided how turkey attempted to completley remove religion from it in a way advocated by raspar.

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

You can't build a moral system without an irrational and arbitrary selection of values somewhere at the foundation, and to talk about "what works" and "what benefits all of society" as if it could be determined through pure reason rather than through moral judgment (which is subjective, unless you believe in an objective, external model for morality... which in turn is a hop, skip, and a jump from believing in God) would be either a mistake or an evasion.

BrandorKP posted:

One can rather easily demonstrate that language can be used to do that.

CountFosco posted:

In the tale of the flood, it doesn't happen because of a fit of pique. It happens because all of humanity reaches a threshold of evil that is unsustainable and is made actionable. It's hard for us to imagine a society that is so universally wicked that it is better for it to be euthanised than to attempt to reform it, but just because it is hard for us to imagine such a society does not make it impossible.

Further, in the Sodom story, God already knows that it's a wicked place, a place where justice demands action, but in an act of mercy sends a couple of angels to try to find ten righteous people in order to spare the city as a whole. Before they even can get started, a mob literally comes to Lot's door demanding to rape angels. Naughty indeed.

CountFosco posted:

If Lot was the one good enough to be allowed to escape, imagine how bad the rest were.

Again, I think this represents a failure of imagination on your part.

Crowsbeak posted:

Actually that's referring to the Jews before the events of the crucifiction. It's very interesting that atheists push calvinist interpretations of the Bible. I mean it makes it easier for you to write off Christians.

CountFosco posted:

It's not wrong to talk about some brands of Christianity, but it is wrong to conflate certain brands of Christianity with the whole. Fundamentalist Christians are, globally, in the minority. They just seem like the biggest because they're relatively popular in america and they get a looooot of press. Squeaky wheel and all that. Roman Catholics are the single biggest denomination at 1.272 billion, and the Eastern Orthodox represent the second biggest unified denomination at approximately 270 million. Protestants are larger than that at 800 million, but within Protestantism the beliefs, doctrines, and ideas are so diverse that it's really difficult to know how many of those protestants are literalist fundamentalists. According to wiki, methodism represents at least 50 million protestants, and methodists are among the most progressive Christians out there.

hog fat posted:

you've narrowly defined religion to mean 'the organized religions practiced by uneducated Southerners' which are not even religions but weird cultural vestiges of Antebellum. Go to any Church in any 'progressive' city and you'll find that my view is the majority one.

Crazy Joe Wilson posted:

The slavery of the Jewish people in the Old Testament is much more akin to what we understand as indentured servitude, a period of 7 years where a person is bound to another, lives in their home, and eventually is given back their freedom. The Book of Deuteronomy has codified laws on this that explains terms of service and such.

Alienwarehouse posted:

Another thing that would help is if New Atheist shitheads would stop openly calling for the government to tax Churches out of existence. That kind of violates one of the most important aspects of the Constitution, as well.

Agag posted:

That the Trump administration is going to stomp all over gays and women, because the left couldn't appeal to enough voters, because it holds so many of those voters in contempt.

Agag posted:

I think in the most recent election you had two candidates that were obvious frauds and made token gestures to Christians. That being equal, Christians defaulted to the GOP, which they consistently do, as we've discussed.

I'm saying the left has go after some of those votes in an authentic way. What's the alternative?

Who What Now posted:

A lot of atheists grew up in and some still live in those communities, so why can't they talk about them. You do know that atheists don't just spring fully-formed from the earth in their own enclaves, right?