Quote:
Originally Posted by panerd
Sorry but again I will say one last time I am talking about organized religion. The spaghetti monster and pink unicorns tend to come across as an asshole response but are perfect examples of why organized religion offers no answers to any of the universes questions that you talk about. To most believers I am sure some of my other posts also make me sound like an asshole but that's not my intention at all I just don't feel like I have to respect them and not question what they claim to have answers for. I don't have any ideas about the mysteries of the universe. However, I am 99.99999% certain that Jesus, Thor, Elohim, Xenu, Mohammad are not God. Chrisitians agree with 80% of that last statement, Muslims agree with 80%. When someone says they literally believe in Noah's Ark they are saying they believe Jesus is God and lose any credibility for any deeper conversation you wish to have.
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If billions of humans worshiped the spaghetti monster for centuries, developed a culture and way of life around it, I believe (unproveable, of course), then it does then become something more than just a hypothetical religion we make up in an argument, even if it didn't "exist" before man came up with it. It does become it's own truth. It does matter in a way that nudges human psychology, evolution, and possibly even physics. It does touch the essence of the universe, though certainly not in a perfect way.
And that's just one idea. There's plenty of other ways organized religion can matter, can be "real" to the human experience without needing to literally belief that Noah's Ark happened under the rules of regular reality we follow. And that doesn't make Noah's Ark "untrue". That gets back to the discussion of truth a few pages ago. When someone answers one of those polls that they "believe" Noah's Ark happened, I believe a lot of them are giving their answer in this way. It IS their "truth", for their purposes, and that kind of "truth" may matter a little more, and be a little more legitimate than it first appears. Faith is a really complicated concept that I certainly can't get my mind totally around. But it's something more than "believing something is true."
So "arrogant atheism" does (irrationally) rub me the wrong way, especially when it seems to be based 100% on the first, elementary, obvious question.