Why shouldn't superstition be ridiculed?

[Lucia39]

In answer to the OP regarding the 'chattering classes' who 'sneer at Christianity' I would answer thusly.

If people living in the 21st century and who depend upon the advances made in science and technology to benefit their lives still desire to cling on to infantile beliefs that a big daddy in the sky is really running the show and one day he is going to make it all better for them, then they deserve everything they get.

Why can't these people put away such childish things and just grow up?

I am an atheist and in my mind have an absloute certainty that deity does not exist.

However, ridicule is wrong. I would tell my children off if they were ridiculing another child in the playground (even if the basis for their taunts was factually correct ie you have hairy eyebrows (hope that is non-controversial enough)).

I teach my children to tolerate differences and I would hope I do the same, even when I am sure in my heart that they are wrong.

before I head out for the rest of the afternoon to tackle the monster in my front garden - I think beanieb's point on another thread kind of sums up what this is all about

Relgious belief isn't fact - it's faith. (paraphrased)

I have tried to articulate this before in relation to atheism and failed but... from my perspective at least, it is not a question of tolerating people who have a different view point from mine, it is tolerating people who believe something which I know is wrong. Atheism does not admit the possibility of alternative beliefs, it is a certainty of the absence of God.

That said, as I have already said, ridicule in any form is wrong.

A N Wilson wrote a rather average book on ST Paul when I was applying for university that was a must read for budding theologians. I can remember being asked about it in my university interview with the lovely Tom Wright and disagreeing with a passion ( cant remember what I said now!) and in my letter offering me a place he commented on how he had agreed wholeheartedly with me.

I suspect Lucia reads a lot of Dawkins, or if she doesnt she shouldn't do. You bother employ the same technique of creating a rather absurd type of Christian and then saying I cant believe that it is absurd therefore I am an atheist.

However Lucia et al I am playing the part of Dawkins in a philsophers tea party at school next week and I may pick your brains.

just to make it crystal clear "Why we should no longer be cowed by the chattering classes ruling Britain who sneer at Christianity" was the title of AN Wilson's article, I was not stating a personal opinion - hence the quote marks around the post title....

This thread is silly. Stating that a belief in something unproveable is childish is a ridiculous assertion given that much of scientific advancement is technically "unproveable" to a degree.

Your argument seems to be based on the idea that there is no longer a need for spiritual belief, but so far doesn't seem to have touched upon the one thing that religion still offers an answer for, the age old "Life after death" issue.

As we have no idea what happens after death religion offers an explanation and comfort to those who have lost loved ones and need to feel that this isn't all there is.

Belittling other people's need for belief is crude and childish.

Oh and just so you know, I 100% believe in all the science stuff, am a staunch atheist and have no belief or need for belief in an afterlife.

This thread is pointless and I wish I hadn't risen to the bait

"There's nothing in most manistream religious belief that precludes the use of medicine."

Well, yes, not mainstream religions, but the global religious discourse has turned more fundamentalist in recent years. As a result you have a fairly large minority who have access to, but reject mainstream medicine. I've family in the midwestern US, and I've met these people with an alarming frequency.

I think OP is referring to the hypocrites who support creationism and all the anti-science fluff surrounding it, but still use allopathic medicine. The people this Doonesbury comic was aimed at. I find them to be hypocrites too. They remind me of this awesome article written by a journalist interviewing healthcare professionals who have performed abortions on pro-life protesters.

dizietsma, certainly. And if the OP would like to decry to evils of hypocrisy, I'm fine with that.

But religious belief doesn't automatically equal hypocrisy, as I'm sure you know.

Well yes,but not nly are there hypocrites in all faiths, they are also a minority.

Me, I think medicine was a gift from God. I wouldn't refuse it for anything.

A company I once linked to was linked itself (sorry for being obtuse, I ahve reasons here- confidentiality etc) to a non mainstream cancer 'treatment' group. From the people I met, I don't think Christians would be a sizeable group, and there were a good few Atheists, Agnostics and every other sector there for amny reasons that included having ahd bad experiences previosuly, having decided to come to the end of the 'conventional' route and accept death but with as much holistic support as possible (big difference between accepting death and suffering after all)..... there's always far more to it than faith as we are far more complex creatures than that

T&P just a quick question why are you "playing the part of Dawkins in a philsophers tea party at school next week"?

I can't see where an evolutionary biologist and ethologist would fit in! Now if you were playing Dan Dennett or even good old "Freddie" Ayres it would make more sense! Still, I hope you enjoy being the 'devil's advocate'!

I'm not attempting to say no one has the right to believe in these things. If people feel inclined they can go out in the moonlight and dance with the pixies if that is their 'thing'.

I am just putting forward the idea that we don't need childish religious beliefs anymore.

I also find it worrying that simplistic ideas and the notion that at the end of the day 'someone will come down and make it all better' allows us to ignore serious global problems that need addressing right now, and which, incidentally, we will need science to solve, not religious faith!

I think I can answer this one in list form (a first in my MN history!)

Why shouldn't superstition be ridiculed?

1. Because one person's superstition is another's faith.

1. Because it's rude and nasty.

1. Because superstition / religion clearly isn't going anywhere, so the whole "disproportional correlation between scientific discovey and religion" theory isn't very convincing.

1. Because it's rude and nasty.

1. Because even if you wanted intelligent discussion with people of different beliefs to yourself, possibly with the view to identifying and discouraging the 'loony fringe' elements, is ridicule really the best ice-breaker? No, thought not.

1. Because it's rude and nasty.

1. Becaues for millions of poeople across the world, their faith is the deepest thing that defines them. "Tread softly for you tread on my deams". Ridiculing little, inconsequential things may or may not be okay. Ridiculing people's very soul is not.

1. Because it's rude and nasty.

[Aside] As to the title of this thread?

Well I just like to rattle the cage bars now and again!

Lucia glad to see you have not given up my critique of teaching.

It is a celebration event for some of my GCSE students and as they have not studies A Level philosophy yet we are picking names they will know and whose ideas are quite straightforward. I am playing Dawkins as he makes me roll my eyes is despair.

See, I think that's interesting about science solving global problems. Because I can't honestly see how science will do any better in dealing with selfishness and greed than religious belief has done, tbh, and arguably, religion has a better chance of influencing inner-motivations than science.

T&P "I am playing Dawkins as he makes me roll my eyes is despair."

Why?

I don't think atheists need ridicule mystical thinking, but it bugs the fark out of me when I'm expected to give extra respect to religious leaders (of whatever shade) on the grounds that they've spent years studying their fantasies and know lots about them. A man once told me that his shaman was "better" than me because of this, I was very about it.

Well thats twusted thinking though (shamanistic man, not yours)

I'd respect the Shaman's knowledge of his own faith yes, indeed better than my knowledge of his certainly.
And his right to practice would be on a par with mine.

But it stops there, surely?

Because as I said before he has a habit of creating a Christian straw man. He portrays us all as creationist terrorists who all think the ontolological argument is the best thing since sliced loaves and fish. I also find his tone irritating and insulting. As Rowan Williams says Dawkins just does not really get religion, he does not understand what we do and what we believe.

As someone who switches from being an Agnostic to a believer I have no issue with people not believing in God. I am a huge fan for example of Bertrand Russell and Freud.

Ah, well that's one of my issues with Dawkins, tbh - he ridicules and dismisses religious faith, which he's well within his rights to do.

But then he spends all this time grappling with problem-of-evil issues without acknowledging that religious folk might just have thought of some of these questions before he did, and refuses to look at their work on the matter with the same respect that many religious people give his work.

But lucia you will be pleased to know that I present atheist standpoints in my lessons as well as agnostic ones and faith specific. I even have had The God Delusion on my Miss Twinset is reading board.

But I know my department think it is very amusing that I am having to pretend to be him next week. Our resident atheist is taking an intellifent design position though. So all is fair in love and war.

As a former Christian who has seen the light, my main objection to ALL religions is the waste of time and effort. If the good hearted people spent as much of their time and money on improving the lot of mankind as they do on their religious observances then the world would be a better place. Also if the various religions and their adherents could stop fighting among and between themselves half of the world's problems would be solved at a stroke

'childish religious beliefs anymore'

So what would you consider an alternative adult religious faith? Lucia?

Have you thought about counselling, Lucia?