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I knew a woman years ago that carried her bible with her at all times like a talisman, I'm not sure if it ever protected her from harm but it certainly came off as if she couldn't function without it. And it frightens me knowing how many parents send their children out into the world armed with nothing more than a belief that a god is going to somehow intervene and protect them from danger over something like common sense.
My own security blanket is my Iphone, now that is something I can't function without! It's helped me thousands of times, and I will never lose faith in it.
I knew a woman years ago that carried her bible with her at all times like a talisman, I'm not sure if it ever protected her from harm but it certainly came off as if she couldn't function without it. And it frightens me knowing how many parents send their children out into the world armed with nothing more than a belief that a god is going to somehow intervene and protect them from danger over something like common sense.
My own security blanket is my Iphone, now that is something I can't function without! It's helped me thousands of times, and I will never lose faith in it.
That reminds me of one time I was on a flight, and the man sitting next to me was holding a bible. We came into a bad storm, got struck by lightning, and dropped altitude very suddenly. That man was clinging on to that bible as I was clinging on to arm rests. The pilot finally got it under control. As soon as we touched down, everyone started cheering for the pilot, except for the man with his bible.
That reminds me of one time I was on a flight, and the man sitting next to me was holding a bible. We came into a bad storm, got struck by lightning, and dropped altitude very suddenly. That man was clinging on to that bible as I was clinging on to arm rests. The pilot finally got it under control. As soon as we touched down, everyone started cheering for the pilot, except for the man with his bible.
Maybe the guy with the bible knew who really saved your life.
Maybe the guy with the bible knew who really saved your life.
This is what it comes down to, ultimately. In that scenario, what evidence is there that the pilot did his job well, and what evidence is there that god or any other unseen actor did their job well?
To prove the latter you have to prove that it was their job, and to bother with that, you have to prove that they are (1) there and (2) able and (3) willing. It is infinitely easier to prove those things for the pilot of the plane, indeed, it is POSSIBLE to do it for the pilot of the plane. It is also infinitely easier to show that pilots of planes generally do their job in this regard than it is to show that any god ever does their job -- and easier still by at least an order of magnitude to prove that any god does their job than that a specific god does their job.
The thing I never get is, logically, if theists want god to have credit for keeping planes in the air, even during extraordinary circumstances like storms, they would logically blame god in equal measure when planes don't stay in the air -- otherwise you have to wonder if they actually believe that he is instrumental in things going right. Yet what they do is blame the pilot (or the mechanic or the control tower or the manufacturer of some defective part that failed). God only gets credit for success; it is man that gets the blame for screw ups. Does no one see the problem here??
For that matter, why does god allow the plane engines to start when there's a drunk pilot in the seat or a defective turbine blade in the engine or a loose hydraulic line in the rudder? And if god won't intervene in those situations because of "free will" or whatever then why would he intervene in that storm or have thanks due to him because of that intervention? Hasn't he made the crew and passengers of that flight into "robots"?
Oh, nevermind, I remember -- he gets to act randomly and is not to be questioned. God acts randomly, gets credit for what goes right, and has no responsibility, ever, when things go wrong. Pretty good gig, if you can get it!
I can't help but notice how believers use their faith as a security blanket of sorts. It's almost as if they can't function without their faith. It's kind of sad really. They can't meet life on it's own terms, which is actually a sign of maturity and courage. Then when their security blanket is questioned or challenged, it's like a child throwing a temper tantrum. Thoughts anyone???
It IS a security blanket, or fire insurance if you will if you buy into the whole "eternal hellfire" thing. It worked for me for a whole lot of years but once I was finally able to question things without the fear and guilt associated with questioning faith, I realized that I wasn't going to be struck down by lightning and that it was more than ok to question.
And you're right, the religious cannot function without their faith. I have lots of relatives (one even defriended me on fb due to my disbelief and was quite unreasonable about it) who "live" for no other reason other than to "preach" and dictate. It's their purpose in this life, which I believe is the only life we have but they don't live for now, they live for what may or may not happen in an imagined next life. It's really quite sad and depressing when you think about it.
Meeting life on it's own terms is exactly what you said, a sign of maturity and tremendous courage. I mean, it takes guts to buck a whole religious system and it's people, especially when those people (the ones who know) treat you like a demon-possessed heathen if you don't believe like they do. Being an atheist is definitely not the easy route nor is it a choice once you do your homework and study and question what you've been indoctrinated with since birth. It's hard but very freeing, being religion-free is where it's at.
I repeat myself but it's worth repeating, to tell people it's ok to question and even ok to not believe anymore if you are so inclined. Bad things happen, but nothing bad will happen if you simply stop believing in fairy tales. Other than some disappointment, was there anything bad that happened to you when you stopped believing in Santa Claus?
It is interesting that faith often survives even the most cruel demonstrations of its absence of credibility. End of the world cults see their predicted day of destruction come and go without the world ending...and they revise the dates or come up with some convoluted explanation about god changing his mind. Christianity is a glaring example of a faith surviving the the proven false prophecies of the founder, Jesus had the judgment day arriving within the lifetime of those listening to him.
Then there were the native tribes "ghost shirts" which if you performed the ghost dance and donned the ghost shirt, the white man's bullets could not hurt you. 153 ghost shirt wearing tribe members were shot to death at Wounded Knee. Despite this there is still reverence for the sacred ghost shirts to be found among some tribes.
I suppose that the lesson is that the real value of the faith for a lot of people isn't the specifics of the faith, it is simply having a faith. Of course the other lesson would be...exercise some care with regard to the specifics of your faith and avoid the ones which come with deadlines or testable tenants.
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