Aradia

You ignored the point of that paragraph.

And again you ignored the point. What works for one person may not work for another. It's really not a difficult concept to grasp.

Thanks. It's actually the name of a pagan goddess (Italian witchcraft, primarily). I've used it as an online pseudonym for over a decade now.

SecularFuture

Aradia
Theism is like smoking. Yeah it may make you feel good, blah blah blah, but it’s still inherently bad for you. Nothing beats a tall glass of water [critical thought].

How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?

Aradia

False analogy. Believing in god does not cause cancer. Believing in god is not an inherently unhealthy thing.

If you believe it to be unhealthy, prove it.

I do mind, actually. People are often discriminated against based on their age. Younger people are discriminated against for being inexperienced, or lacking in knowledge. Older people are discriminated against for being close-minded, or "behind the times".

Kassiana

Hm. I guess you've never met me before. I'm a Pagan, not a Christian, and haven't been one for ... gosh, nearly four years now. And when I became a Christian, I was an atheist who was intending to make fun of a Christian tract. Sorry. Not so.

The rest of your post was basically assumption without evidence, as far as I can tell. You assumed that because I have religious beliefs, I must be unable to use critical thinking, etc. Okay. You can assume I bought snake oil all you like. It doesn't change the facts that I don't believe I did, I like believing what I do, and if I were to die tomorrow and find out that everything about my faith was a lie, I'd shrug my shoulders and say, "At least I had fun with it."

Kassiana

SF:
No amount of belief can turn something into a fact, especially when that belief is without reason or evidence.

Kass:
I don't believe I said it could, nor that I was arguing that my beliefs were facts. My beliefs are just that, beliefs, based upon my personal experience and what makes sense to ME. I don't think that makes them "factual" to anyone.


SF:
Believing because you want to believe in something, despite the lack of reason and evidence, isn’t exactly a positive reason.

Kass:
Oh, there is evidence, but it's evidence which only I could expect to find convincing. I have no interest in convincing anyone else that what I believe is best for them to believe, or that it's objectively true, or that everyone should just be like me. It's far better than any of the malicious or condescending reasons of "Well, they just can't live without imaginary friends" or "They just want not to have to die."

Hubble head

OK, I admit I made some wild assumptions. But to get a kick out of me because you think I only have negative POVs for the religious or religions was a little presumtuous too. So I responded a few stereotypes higher based on you saying you "believed"....something.

Had I known you were a (rebellious?) pagan who believed because it was fun then I would have called you out and accussed you of really not believing. What you are doing, IMO, is playing with theology and that's a whole different subject from believing. Like my neighbors gothic Vampire wannabe teenager. I went through a phase of calling myself a wiccan or sending everyone Happy Solstice cards on Xmas once too.

My point was, people believe for so many different things we can't know or judge them all. If I seem like I'm judging them all, I'm really not-it's just how my words come out when I start thinking about comic books from the sky.

SecularFuture

Aradia
But it does get in the way of critical thinking, which results in the slowing of progress towards real answers (like cures for cancers), instead of the prayer and religious healing sthuff.

Oh really?!
http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/athe...rs/brown2.html
http://www.secularhumanism.org/libra...kins_18_3.html
http://www.soulflight.com/dangersofreligion.htm

I’ve got more

Understood. So you’re 16?

SecularFuture

Kassiana
Just because a personal experience can’t be explained, or seems “divine”, does not mean that it is from a divine source. There are many things that can’t be explained in our universe. Are they supernatural because they can not be explained [at this current time]?

A long time ago, some civilizations thought that an earthquake was a supernatural event. Why? Because they did not know how to explain earthquakes naturally. Are earthquakes supernatural because they believed them to be? No. Calling something ‘supernatural’, for centuries, has been the result of not knowing how to explain something naturally. And without complete knowledge of the natural universe, you are not qualified to know, for a fact, what is natural, and what is not of the natural universe.

Why only you? If only you can find the evidence convincing, that means that it is all in you head.

Aradia

Then it's a false analogy. Next.

I hope they're better than this crap. None of them prove that belief in god is inherently unhealthy -- only that arrogance is not bound to the nonreligious.

If so, you seem around 12.

SecularFuture

Aradia
I'm almost done with playing your little game. If you, like me, believe that critical thinking is better than magical thinking, why should we not try to help magical thinkers think more critcally?

By the way:
Why do you believe critical thinking is more efficient than magical thinking?