A simple, here are the duties and responsibilities of the job for which you are applying. Is there any reason that you cannot or will not perform all of them?

@ CA

I've kind of lost track of where we are. What I was at the end trying to say is that religion is uniquely influential, but thinking about it now, I'm not so sure that's true. An stiff adherent to a political ideology or a member of a hate group functions in much the same way (bear with me).

I allowed myself to get sidetracked. The point I should have been making is that major religions have a strange sort of influence, because they foist upon their adherents a system of beliefs that supersede reality - with interesting consequences when reality doesn't conform to those beliefs. The case OP was talking about is a prime example of this.

I realize that isn't what I ended up talking about, so I wave the white flag on all that. Sorry, must feel like a bit of a cheap victory for you.

@YJ, wait are you saying that religions are like hate-groups? Maybe the do the same thing but replace hate with love... yes, that sounds like a useful descriptor ;p

Religions as love groups, I like that.

No, orthaic, I'm saying that irrational beliefs supersede evidence when you belong (see current bible reading thread for more).

Foist upon?

I can completely see why you'd choose that particular word for rhetorical purposes. However, in seeing the Bible thread, as you suggest, the adherents speak of the value of their faith. They don't sound at all like people who are disgruntled. Are you suggesting we're unable to judge religion's value in our lives? I think rather, we're better able to see how it comes in handy more than an outside observer could. Especially one that cannot observe us first hand (ie. Reading our web posts without the possibility of getting to know us personally).

I guess, to put it more succinctly, imagine a Buddhist tells me he derives great benefit in his personal life from his religion. I have no recourse but to believe him, since I have no evidence to the contrary.

For raising the white flag, you certainly took your share of parting shots ;-)

These are not the main points though. Your choice to use terms like irrational, foist upon, evidence (rather than more accurately physical evidence) show a position statement clearly, but don't in and of themselves support any position. They are just judgments that anyone is free to agree or disagree with.


The main thing was that you conceded (and I admire you for doing so, it is far more common for peel to just move on rather than admitting when an argument didn't go as they'd hoped) on that argument from Hitchens. It isn't the first time I've encountered that particular argument, and I've never seen anyone be able to defend it very well.

Yep, CA, you have it exactly right. I'm trying to not have too many discussions at once, because quality > quantity and all that. I don't agree with you, but I have to just let your points stand because I'm not willing to address them - I'd rather address them not at all than address them badly. So yeah, I just made some position statements without support and pointed the direction to a conversation that should be a good demonstration of my point.

And sorry for the barrage of posts. Kind of busy this morning and it just worked better to do a series of short ones.

No worries. If you're pointing people toward the Bible thread, I'm all for that. :-)