Re: ATHEISM - A Side-Effect of Religious Stupidity

[snips]

On Sat, 10 May 2008 19:34:33 -0500, SongBookz wrote:

> The fact that all people have a religion

This is not a fact, as evidence by the existence of us atheists.  Even if 
one were to go as far as to say that all non-deity-oriented philosophies 
are "religions", it *still* wouldn't work, as not all of us, by any 
means, ascribe to such things.

So where, exactly, do you get this "the fact that all people have a 
religion" nonsense from?

> useless." "Religion" is a word that describes part of the human
> condition - we all have one, like we all have livers and spleens.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but while we may indeed all have livers and 
spleens, we do *not* all have religions.  Try again.

>> You're also trying to redefine the word "belief" conflating religious
>> faith with accepting a set of scientific theories as provisional facts.
>>
>>
> A "provisional fact" isn't really a fact at all now, is it? 

Isn't it?  At most one can say it _might not_ be a fact.  Then again, it 
might.  Since we're not omniscient, we don't claim to know many 
absolutes, many capital-T Truths.  What we do know is that which stands 
up to critical scrutiny - but such things are, as noted, accepted as 
provisionally true, not absolutely true.

> The American Heritage dictionary defines "Faith" as "Confident belief in
> the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing."

It's one definition of faith.  I have faith in my partner, because I know 
her character.  Given the choice to do the easy thing or the right thing, 
she will do the right thing.

This is a radically different use of "faith" than that applied to 
religious belief, which usage might be best summed up as "complete and 
absolute unquestioning acceptance of an idea, despite no reason 
whatsoever to accept it at all".  

> 2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis
> would be substantiated by fact.
> 
> That last particularly describes faith in the BB or evolution.

Actually, it describes _all_ science.  Science doesn't do proof; it does 
evidence.  Religion, on the other hand, doesn't even bother with 
evidence, going straight to completely unfounded acceptance. :)

> Neither
> are proven but make sense to a large number of people, including a large
> number of theists.  Personally, I have no problem with either theory,

"Theory"?  Sorry, you said "evolution", but now you're saying "theory".  
Since evolution is not a theory, perhaps you could figure out just 
exactly what it is you're trying to talk about, so that your statements 
don't trip over each other, as they're doing right now.

> Anyway, religion is part of the human condition, it's instinctual. 

If so, then some of us have evolved beyond having such a pointless 
instinct.

> We
> have to believe "something"

Why?