An atheists's view of faith

[TroutDude]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

John 13 was referencing those who embrace the lies of religious mythology, not you.

As it was posted directly under a quote from me, I naturally thought it referenced me.

Thank you for explaining for him.

[nateswift]

Food for thought: a substantial proportion of the advances that can be directly attributed to faith have come about because of challenges to established or mainstream faith systems. Example: political changes as a result of the Protestant revolution (not an unmixed blessing for sure)

[NOTaTHEIST]

Originally Posted by Texan2008

I've asked myself "What advancements to society has faith given us" and still cannot come up with a good answer except that it seemingly provides a type of psychological security blanket for some amonst other things. In the end though I have to conclude that faith does not give us much in the way of true advancement of civilization. Great discoveries about morality, inventions,medicine and other fields do not come about because someone has faith in the supernatural. They come about because people are willing to put in the hard work to think about these fields and apply reason, evidence, and building upon past discoveries...not using faith. Agree or disagree.

Agree. Faith (believing in things without demonstrable reason, and using that as a guiding principle in your life) is intellectual laziness. Sure, it might make some people feel better, but so do certain drugs.

[NOTaTHEIST]

Originally Posted by nateswift

Food for thought: a substantial proportion of the advances that can be directly attributed to faith have come about because of challenges to established or mainstream faith systems. Example: political changes as a result of the Protestant revolution (not an unmixed blessing for sure)

I will not deny this has happened. However, we probably could have come to these changes/advances just as quickly, if not much more so, by applying a reasonable evaluation of any given situation. If anything, the retardation faith has almost certainly brought to human civilization probably far outweighs any anecdotal benefits.


Edit: I might add, was it actually faith that brought about these changes, or were these things ultimately the result of someone with faith examining the situation reasonably? I'll bet in nearly every example, the later is the case.