return to portland

[armrha]

Back from my trip. I had a great time.

My coworker linked me this as soon as I got to the office. It's a typical armchair commentary on atheism: Basically, assuming atheists really want to go to church and reap the 'benefits' of religion but don't because they want to be 'elitists'. My coworker, at comment #220, made the following excellent reply

Comments

[armrha]

Under their belief system, it's totally reasonable for them to try to convert you. After all, if the thing they think is right was right, then it would be horribly inconsiderate of them to let us all head off into an eternity of torment. I'm surprised more Christian's aren't trying to convert us, given that -- you would think they'd do anything to try to convince people (especially loved ones), if they were a hundred percent sure of it. (I know some people just assume their loved ones are getting a free pass, and that always amused me. I don't get why people think they can pick and choose when their book is supposed to be an absolute kind of thing.)

My belief isn't that the Christian's souls are in peril, just generally that religion stands in the way of scientific progress and, for example like a few people I know in catholicism, grants crippling guilt for their entire lives. Evangelically-backed legislation attempts like the ban of stem cell research have almost certainly cost lives and caused people to suffer. Guilt and stress like I mention for the catholics can actually take years off your life from stress.

But anyway, I think that ultimately it's not a 'conversion' that I want to try to convince people of, but just a rational argument. There are some well-reasoned theists here that have really thought about it and have personally solid, if not universally compelling, ideas for believing in god, but a vast majority of people I talk to that do believe in god just really haven't ever thought about it -- They just do.

I think a lot of these people believe because they've coasted through life never knowing any alternative. Lots of people can't really answer why when you ask, 'Why do you believe?' They just say things like 'Because the bible!'... which isn't any kind of answer.

By disengaging from debate entirely, you encourage a world where everybody just goes off and believes their own thing. This is cheered as a good thing, for some reason, but it is absolutely not. If we didn't depend on every person doing their civic duties to make a country work, it'd be fine -- But we do. Instead of shooting down debate and rational conversation, we should embrace it. Christians should try to convert us all -- they should do their damnable best. And atheists should remain vocal, keep publishing things like the signs and keep debating against it in public, attempting to undermine it at every turn and expose it for the massive fraud that it is.

I'll post more about this in a second in an actual post, approaching the comment limit.