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Originally Posted by Nostradamus
Spelling......dawkins background....
I think weve all heard enough from you... thanks... bye...
I was a bit dissapointed in the way dawkins deals almost exclusivly with christians and jewish religions... But on the subject of christians, I kind of dissagree with people who will label themselves that after simply picking and choosing what they want and dont want to believe..
A car isnt really a car without an engine..
Just like a christian isnt really a christian if their missing fundemental sections of the christian belief system..
Religion is crazy dude... Simplyfied its more or less a denomination of people who allow themselves to be lead into belief's without any form of proof.. I see where your getting at when you say that dawkins is mainly dealing with extreme cases, but given the opportunity what belief's exactly would you remove from the christian religion in order to make it all seem any more logical and scientific than what it currantly is?
What parts of the bible do you dissagree with that make what you believe any more feasable than the weird and wonderful belief's of creationists?
Do you dissagree that jesus was an avatar and the sole son of god, aspect of the deity that created the entire universe and existance itself? Do you dissagree that the bible was inspired and recited to those who wrote it by god himself? Do you dissagree with the genesis creation story? Would you be such a heretic to admit there is substantial plausability behind the theory of evolution?
And if you actually can bring yourself to take elements away from the bible and discredit them, can you actually safly call yourself a christian? Or is your philosophy on life more personal and not really adapt to that of mainstream christianity?
I mean, granted dawkins does generalise quite a bit on the belief's of those hes arguing against, hes taking it all straight from the fundemental belief's of the religion you guys are still claiming to be a part of and also what weve all heard religious people and theologons say time and time again.. To be a christian, you should believe that existance was designed by an exterior being.. And this is literally what the book is arguing against..
So my overall question to you is, what is it youve changed about christianity in your own mind thats a whole lot more probable than the creationist philosophy?
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Ok. First thing is first.
I should've stated the fact that the point of view I was arguing from was that of a group I was debating with at the catholic church down the road from me. We weren't talking about Dawkins in particular, but I was bringing up "the insanity of religion" topic. They went on to tell me, which I believe is a weak but commonly used Theological debate strategy, that there are different sects of christianity and therefore my argument does not apply. I started to mention the whole "basis of christianity" thing with the divine and perfect creator, and they just started crackin' off about nothing. My eyes began to glaze over and I started to drool a little bit.
Now I am not a christian in any form. I don't recognize the fable of Jesus, the divine son of god himself, walking the earth (I don't think I even need to get into why). I decided to try out religion at one point because, why the hell not? But as I got into it and as I read about other religions it made me realize something. Each religion, given the certain aspects and guidelines each has, can be believed over each. You can't have a muslim and a christian argue and one convert the other, unless of course one is really weak minded. Christianity and the Islamic faith, if perceived by the books and through the guidelines they lay out, can both be argued to no end (well, until the crash of civilization). That is why we are faced with the religious genocide (caused by christianity mainly) that no one recognizes (Crusades, Missionaries, Wiping out of the Indians, Wiping out of almost every indigenous culture and religion on the planet).
Religion has this tendency to run itself in circles and into walls occasionally. I believe that the people that I was defending don't like to be grouped with the creationist idea of "no evolution, 10,000 year old earth, dinos on the arc" crap. Then when they are faced with a good argument, they take the religion cop out by saying something like "you gotta have faith" or they make some quote out of the bible. Yes, because when I am looking for a debate that may really teach me something, I want to hear quotes out of a book of hearsay chinese telephone bull shit. Yes, please tell me about the man (men*) named Jesus and about his "miracles" and his parables (which I do believe are good to use to teach lessons).
So to sum that post up, I am on your side Nostra.... I just wanted to post up the defense I was given when taking the Atheist (or even Gnostic) side of the argument. So, if we could get someone who actually BELIEVED in this stuff to argue, maybe this would get interesting. Because there ain't nothing like trying to make a blind man read text.