In thinking that people with faith or religion are deluded?

[Alouiseg]

This stems from another couple of threads i'm on but until God can be proven isn't religion just an outdated patriachal method of control?

I tend to take the 'believe it when I see it/hear it for myself' approach really. That's why I don't believe DS1 when he tells me that everyone else has a iphone - I've yet to see everyone else in the land with said item attached to their ear, but when I do, he can have one....

I'm havering now, aren't I? But then, I'm not real, so it's OK

Of course we believe things on the word of others, but their words have to be based on a rational system of thought and on the ability to provide evidence that can be verified by others.

Not all religions (and I include athesim as a religion) can be true so a great many people are deluded. On this statement YANBU.

But I also have a problem with the assumption that the majority of people on this planet are deluded unless conclusive proof of a deity is provided in the here and now. All sorts of things exist (and always have done) that have gone on to be discovered by humans.

Also, what would that proof look like?

That's right - it's only been 2010 years since Jesus died (if you believe that), and yet we still haven't found this Heaven place that he was supposed to have gone onto. Funny that..

Boiledegg, humans have also believed in all sorts of things that have turned out to be wrong or not exist.

YABU

And I think it is the right to faith that ought to be respected, as against faith itself.

id more say marriage is an outdated patriachal method of control

Millyr, "humans have also believed in all sorts of things that have turned out to be wrong or not exist".

I agree, but the opposite is also true. The atheists may be right, the may be right. Who are you or I to judge?

Also agree with pixie's point about timescales. Two thousand years is a long time when measured against the lifespan of a human but is insignficant in geological terms.

MillyR, believing the word of ten thousand people is still believing the word of others- the number is irrelevant.

Yes, ten thousand people can travel to Africa and report back to you the same experience; this doesn't change the fact that you believe Africa exists based on the testimony of others.

Religion needs to be questioned; but it needs to be questioned with an acknowledgement of the role faith plays in people's lives, otherwise changes cannot be made.

Pixie, thanks

DH has just ROFL at your post, Scottish!

Surely we all judge, and base our decisions on these judgements?

Whether or not gravity exists is something that can be investigated and demonstrated. God does not exist in that sense - the concept is based on a subjective experience.

Let's not have the old idiocy that atheism is somehow a "faith" or a religion trotted out again. That one has been comprehensively dealt with the previous 246 times this topic has come up.

It's no more a faith than "not stamp collecting" is a hobby.

You can express a preference based on your gut feeling. But the rational position is on the fence.

But unless you are doing the investigating and demonstrating, you have no proof (other than the testimony of others) that gravity exists...

Wouldn't life be very boring if we all sat on the fence, though? Nothing would ever move forward, or be challenged..

As an avid anti-philatelist, I resent that, UQD.

It is rather amusing that atheists judge religion on whether it can be proven or not that there is an old man with a white beard sitting on a cloud somewhere.

If that's your test for whether a religion is worth following, no wonder you think they're all rubbish!

Anything can be investigated if the right tools or methods are in place.

Atheism is a faith IMO. It's not a rational position.

And if you try and combine the existence of gravity in Africa you are well and truly buggared

tethersend - as an old Chinese philosopher once said, philately will get you everywhere.

What's your definition of a faith, Boiled?

YABU. I never understand why we are all supposed to think the same- with the understanding that the person making the statement is right! Live and let live-why does it matter if others think differently? Life would be so boring if the 'mind police' got to work telling us what to think!