Opinion peice on Athiests

by SickofLies 203 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  BurnTheShips

  "I have never found in any measure where secular people give more than religious people," Brooks noted.Even secular charities benefit more from donors who have a religious faith than they do from secular donors. Religious people are 10 percent more likely to give to secular causes than secular people, he said.

  
  

  The study states that the last line (in red) is due to church's practice/encouragement of tithing.

  Well that just proves my point doesn't it? And besides, even if there was parity in secular donations, religious charities feed clothe heal and shelter a lot of people!
• 

  blueviceroy

  Meh ,,50% off GODs LOL !!

  I think you get my meaning anyway. we have an unknown nature , But to say that a GOD somewhere is the answer is strange and unacceptable to me.
• 

  nvrgnbk

  Centuries of unquestioning obedience to the Church and the "God-appointed" King/Czar was facilitated by Christian theology.

  Skepticism, the antithesis of religious faith, makes one difficult to control by any ideology, be it religious or secular.

  Prove it!

  Ignorance makes one easy prey.

  Skepticism diminishes ignorance.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  Ignorance makes one easy prey.

  Skepticism diminishes ignorance.

  Sounds axiomatic to me.

  Please forgive me for requiring the same burden of proof that is placed on believers like me.

  Good night and cheers,

  Burn
• 

  kwintestal

  Well that just proves my point doesn't it?

  No actually it doesn't. The report is found at the link I posted. What it shows is that if a religious person gets more money, they give more and it's directly tied to tithing, which goes to the church. It doesn't say that after a religious person starts making more money the group as a whole give more, the results of the study are stll the same, overall there is no difference.

  religious charities feed clothe heal and shelter a lot of people!

  Not around here, and I live in Canada's Bible Belt. The only ones that you can see what they do are the Salvation Army, which is the only religious group I would personally give to, and have given to as you can SEE that they're giving what they're taking.

  Feeding someone while you're preaching to them is a recruitment tactic, and an investment. MLM's do it all the time. I could live forever on timeshare "charity" moving from one resort to another, living for free the whole time. Fact of the matter is the only reason they're doing it is to get my to buy into what they're selling. It's an investment.

  Kwin
• 

  SickofLies

  Here's an interesting fact for you,

  The single largest drop in church attendance occurred in Europe after state sponsored welfare was imposed. Throughout most of history people have had no choice but to turn to the churches for help in times of need, of course this is no accident and not because of any special caring on the part of the religious. The motives were purely selfish as most still are today, secular or state sponsored charity not only contributes vastly larger sums of money to the poor and needy but they also do a better and more fair job distributing it.

  Think of it this way, how would you feel in modern times if the only source of help came from the church? What kind of state would modern society be in?

  It seems to me that it would be vastly worse than it is today.

  Now back to the insane copy pasta and embeded pages.

  Have fun!
• 

  nvrgnbk

  Please forgive me for requiring the same burden of proof that is placed on believers like me.

  LOL!

  You're asking me to prove the veracity of a statement, an abstract concept.

  You've been asked to prove the existence of an entity, only because you've said you could.

  You've been rather evasive about the nature and identity of that entity, by the way.
• 

  hillary_step

  And the fact is that science has eyes. Which suggests that more weight should be put in science than in the "blind" do you not agree?

  Science deals with the natural. It is "blind" when it comes to the supernatural. This dovetails with the poem posted above.

  Science is not blind. It is falsifiable and has eyes for what is provable alone. It is blind to the unscientific, and that is where religious belief enters the picture.

  .....if you are correct, then equal weight should be put into the existence of Santa Claus. BA tried to circumvent the logic of this position by stating that, yes, all these are "gods" of a sort, but there is only one Almighty God. An obvious logical fallacy......

  It is not a logical fallacy. Comparing the infinite God to finite Greek, Roman, or pagan gods like Zeus, Apollo, or Thor or conjured up characters like Santa Claus etc is comparing apples and oranges. They are not the same thing. You can not construct an ontological argument for a finite lower-case god like Thor as you would for God (call Him/Her/It what you will, in the end we are speaking of the same thing).

  A logical fallacy is exactly what this is. Yesterday's Thor is today's Almighty God and tomorrow's Universal Quantum God. The names change but the attempt to identify a 'god" of which NO evidence of existence exists does not.

  Have you actually studied the history of religion? It does not seem as if you have. I recommend that you read "From Primitives To Zen" by Mircea Eliade. In this tome, the history of religious though is traced and its common theme outlined. As Funky Derek noted, all modern religion stems from primitive and common sources.

  In order to turn your "lower case god" into an "upper case God", you must present some sort of evidence as to why you do not view a "lower case god" as divine and why you view an "upper case God" as divine.

  Can you do this?

  HS
• 

  kwintestal

  In order to turn your "lower case god" into an "upper case God", you must present some sort of evidence as to why you do not view a "lower case god" as divine and why you view an "upper case God" as divine.

  That's a matter of FAITH.

  Kwin

  PS ... Dawkins calls faith the act of not thinking (or something like that) lmao
• 

  hillary_step

  Kwin,

  That's a matter of FAITH. PS ... Dawkins calls faith the act of not thinking (or something like that) lmao

  Exactly, and if one persons faith in Thor, or Isis, or Zeus is greater than the others in 'almighty God', then they are viewed as deluded by the "true" believers. The scientific process, hoever, in its unemotional judgement views them ALL as deluded because all these believers rely on the same visceral processes to reach their conclusions - belief without evidence.

  Historical believers of the Thor of Norse mythology are viewed in measurable terms in exactly the same way as I view present day believers in their "almighty G(g)od".

  As to Dawkins, well I prefer to believe that religionists disengage logic in favor of wishful thinking, and in many ways who can blame them?

  HS