Is Faith Rational? - Atheist Experience

[ItsjustMe]

[-misanthroptimist]

1. It's kind of odd since I started my message board "career" on atheist boards.

But I can no longer sustain more than five minutes interest in this kind of thing. I guess I've just become bored by it all. I know all the pro-god arguments, the tortured logic, the cherry-picked definitions, etc...and why they're either wrong or pointless. I guess that's what 40+ years of atheism will do for you.

I did listen to five minutes of the video, though. I can recommend at least the first five minutes.

[Random Boomer]

2. I'm curious

For those who have been "actively" atheist at some point, what do you think that involvement offered you?

From my (quite admittedly limited) experience, this type of participation in atheist discourse seemed to be most important for people who were once believers in the Christian god, who then wrenched themselves away from that belief. I'm guessing the immersion in discussions about the irrationality of religion/belief in god helped define this new direction for them.

For myself, I've never felt any need to engage in these arguments. I've always been an atheist. As a child, I listened to the stories about various gods (Christian and otherwise) and found them vaguely interesting, but didn't actually believe any of them. I don't feel urge to convince myself or others that my lack of belief can be justified. I just don't believe.

[-misanthroptimist]

4. For me...

...I think it was testing my beliefs. Due diligence, I guess. It would have been pretty important had I been wrong. (Spoiler: I wasn't wrong.) Along the way, I picked up a good deal of scientific knowledge -cosmology, and evolution, for instance- and developed my critical thinking skills. I also like to argue, not necessarily antagonistically...but I wasn't (and still am not) above a good flame-fest.

[Duppers]

5. I'm in the same place.

But for the novice atheist, this could be interesting.

[comradebillyboy]

3. Martin Luther said that Reason is the enemy of faith.

“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”

[RFCalifornia]

9. Well what would you expect from an anti-Semitic priest who tried to launch a coup to be pope? nt

[Midnight Writer]

6. Faith is rational economically.

If your faith is in step with your community, you will derive economic advantages from being a member in good standing.

I know many people who got jobs or enhanced their business by espousing the prevailing community views on religion.

How many commercial vehicles do you see imprinted with "Praise God Daily" or other religious slogans?

Conversely, how many business do you see bragging about being atheist? How many politicians do you see elected to office who say all religion is a sham?

[Eko]

7. For some yes,

For others no. I know plenty of religious poor people.

[RFCalifornia]

8. Are humans rational is the question I have to ask

Someone mentioned "The Life of Pi" earlier and the takeaway from that movie is that people would rather believe the fantasy than the reality

The reality: the universe is indifferent, most of space is toxic to humans, Earth is the only place we know life exists, there is no one watching out for us, we aren't even watching out for us and we can't even trust our own observations sometimes. Bias is always there, no matter how much we try to eliminate it