Jun 26 2008
1/5 of atheists believe in god O_o
Few things surprise me in regards to religious faith. When the main principle of the “leap” is that a person doesn’t need evidence or facts to believe in something, anything can potentially be believed. The leap of faith has never been in my nature. The frequent reason that god demands faith because without it the belief would be meaningless is internally flawed. The reason is not that it would be meaningless, the reason is that god demands it. But the proof that god demands it is non existent. Thus, the virtue of faith is without a valid reason. Leaps of faith foster irrational belief. I’m confident that the believers think valid reasons based on evidence and logic exist. But after an exhaustive study, and inquiry, I’ve found nothing other than “the bible says so”. Therefore there is no reason. That’s my argument from ignorance but I talking to a wailing wall. The following clip from an article from Time threw me off balance.
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life last year surveyed 35,000 American, and found that 70% of respondents agreed with the statement “Many religions can lead to eternal life.” Even more remarkable was the fact that 57% of Evangelical Christians were willing to accept that theirs might not be the only path to salvation, since most Christians historically have embraced the words of Jesus, in the Gospel of John, that “no one comes to the Father except through me.” -sorce
I can wrap my head around a persons faith. They have a level of confidence in validity of the bible. I can not except the superiority of any book especially when the claims should transcend words thus nullifying the sacredness of print. If I’m to believe that Muhammad, Jesus, Vishnu or Buddha flew up into the sky, I’m going to need a little more than millennial old testimony. What I fail to understand is how a peson who bases their belief off of the stories in a book can allow their belief be counter to that word. Without any intent of condensation and no gentler way to say it, it appears to be a mental disorder or evidence of cherry pickin’
I’ve been accused of being a Christian hater because of the “caustic” language in my arguments against religion. I understand why a person who’s personal identity is superseded by Christianity would think that. I find the belief that I’m going to go to an eternal torture prison for not worshiping a ghost or come back as a cockroach repulsive. Especially when “what I’m not doing” isn’t bad according to the logical principled ethical base of self ownership and passive reciprocity. I do hate the Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. However, I don’t hate John, Mahoud, Kumudavati or Chan Khong, for I need more reason than their alegance to a religion they were most likely born into. What it takes is if John tells me I’m bad for not doing something.
I don’t see any problem with the “good” side of religious belief. Daydreaming about chilllin’ with the creator of the Universe and an eternal life of bliss with all your friends and familly on cloud nine really can’t be topped. And if the believer believes there is no one way to get there, their belief is relatively harmless to the rest of the species. I bet the results from the survay are missleading though. When a believer was asked if another religion could lead to non-damnation, they might have assumed the other religions were variations of Christianity. My first thought was that those that answered with the liberal many paths answer weren’t actually even theists. It’s such an agnostic answer. Although I’m happy with the many path answer I actually have more respect for the Orthodox believers of the doctrines I dispise. A more revealing question would be to ask if they believe a peace loving atheist will escape the firey pits of hell.
Ugh.
I thought that was a very interesting article. However, I do not know many religious groups whose doctrine teaches that all good people will go to heaven.
In fact, I remember my Grandmother (Church of Christ) calling up my mother after her Mother(Methodist) died and saying how sorry she was that my grandma Helen had not been part of the REAL church, because now my mom was not going to see her in Heaven.
It pissed my mother off to the extent that when ever she was around Grandma Vera she would break out in hives.
My interaction with JW’s is actually the only fundamentalist Christian Church (though some might call them a cult) that believes when you die you are dead. Then at some point in time when Jesus comes back to earth everyone gets raised and judged. Now you do have to repent and say that Jesus is the son of God at this time to get eternal life, but well if Jesus was standing right in front of me I guess I would have a pretty tangible belief that the whole thing was real and would bow down. JW’s also do not believe in hell. If you don’t make the cut you go back to being dead.
Does it not make sense that each church, mosque temple (Religion) would want to think that their path is the only path to eternal salvation? I mean that is a really strong recruitment factor in getting members. Members = money and religious institutions like money; yes? Not to mention that to maintain your tax exempt status as a church you have to have a congregation of believers, so I can’t think of a better way to insure this than by promising everlasting life in heaven or threatening people with eternal damnation in hell.
Kind of gives me a shiver just thinking about it; if the worst thing that happens is that you just end up dead, well that is not so bad. After all you are dead so what are you going to know, nothing. I think I would prefer the dead thing to being a ghost thing. If I was a ghost I might know that I was dead and then it would bother me unless I had other ghosts to hang out with.