--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltabl...@...> wrote: > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" > > > > > > I had a good run with this topic so I really can't complain. > > > Too bad I can't prove that Barry wrote the Bible! > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > If you could do that I'm pretty sure everyone > > here knows that not only would she join you in > > ragging on its ideas and their stupidity, she'd > > say it was bad writing. :-) > > Yes mocking certain individuals is a moral duty but mocking > ideas is a moral failing. I got the formula.
And only *certain* individuals. Mock Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton or Michael Jackson and that's a moral failing, too. I think the formula is that if you do it or I do it, it's a moral failing, period. :-) > But it did demonstrate one of my main points (thanks Sam Harris) > which is that religious ideas are held in a protected class. They > are shielded by people who don't believe in them as if the people > who believe them are delicate children whose feelings must not be > hurt by someone challenging the idea as unsupported by reasonable > evidence. > > In this one area of human "knowledge" alone are the standards of > debating an idea suspended, we must treat this class of ideas as > beyond refutation or criticism. We must give the appearance of > going alone with whatever cockamamie concept is presented as the > will of God even though we have a history of every other claim > about the natural world in scripture that can be refuted by > science having been proved false. > > And most of all we must never challenge the virtue of people > believing things through faith alone, without evidence of any > sort, by merely asserting that it is so. Even though this > standard for knowledge is exactly the opposite one from every > other human intellectual discipline that we value in modern > society. Just today on this forum we've had someone assert the truth of something because they "know" it's the truth. Not "believe," "know." And another per- son quoted scripture as if it were history. I reacted as you might have, by allowing them to believe whatever cockamamie idea they want, but unconvinced that their beliefs are anywhere even *near* the ballpark of truth, let alone Truth. Anyone who can't do better than this to sell their ideas is never going to entice me to be a buyer. And yes, I have the absolute right to mock their ideas, just as they have the absolute right to mock any of mine. > Just tell the emperor his new clothes are magnificent like > everybody else. What blew my mind in the latest CORRECTORFAIL attempting yet again to make herself look smart by trying to make someone else look stupid is the trotting out of the term "antireligionists." Other than a *very* few very vocal atheists who use this stance to sell their books and lecture tours, I can't think of anyone who fits that description. Certainly not anyone on this forum. Me, I think that religion can be blamed for most of the world's wars and periods of persecution through- out history. But that doesn't make me "anti" religion, just suspicious of it and never likely to fall for any of its guff and willing to mock the guff whenever it deserves being mocked. If the religion is *real*, it can *handle* a little mockery. If its proponents claim that it can't survive a little mockery, or worse, if non-believers on the sidelines claim it can't handle a little mockery, I don't see how they can claim to make a case for the religion having any worth at all.
