Debate Are religious people somehow weaker than atheistic people?

Are religious people somehow weaker than atheists?

  • Yes

    Votes: 20 32.8%
  • No

    Votes: 41 67.2%

  • Total voters
    61
Maciamo said:
Learn and you will see. Don't assume before checking by yourself !
Do you know everything about sciences, especially neurosciences and psychology ? It seems that I happen to know something you don't know.
This is a rather strange response for someone who prides himself in logical and intellectual superiority:
1. "Learn and you will see." Okay. Show me and I will evaluate based upon my ability to reason and the logic you use to back up your assertion. So far you haven't "learned" me a great deal.
2. "Don't assume before checking by yourself." Assume what? Checking what? What did I assume? What do you want me to check?
3. "Do you know everything about science, especially neurosciences and psychology?" No. I never said I did. You don't know everything about sciences either. No one does. I do have a masters degree in education, which means I have a great deal of background in developmental and behavioural psychology with some in psycho biology as it relates to learning theory and learning handicaps. The rest is from basic undergrad stuff-- 20 years ago. (I don't think they have proven the non-existence of God in the last 20 years, or the non-existence of the human soul since then... but perhaps you can cite a study.)
4. "It seems I happen to know something you don't know." Yes you do. You undoubtedly know a great many things I do not know. Everyone knows something I don't know. I also know things you don't know. That is why I visit forums like this. To share knowlege. Please share what you know.

I'm not certain you actually addressed the point of my last posts. I tried to summarize your position for the sake of discussion. It wasn't so much a criticism as a query to see if I had it right. The follow up was to see if you had anything to back up your opinion or that you recognize its basis.

Carlson- In my country I have never heard of a person killed over their religion-- especially over conversion or belief. People kill each other in jealous rages, ethinc bigotry, over money, over our stressed out over-busy lives, over minor traffic accidents, and over gang affiliation. People change religions with every season of their lives and every major city has a mosque, synagogue and dozens of different temples and churches.

As far as your assertion that more people have been killed over religion-- that would be difficult to check, but I sincerely doubt it. I'm not discounting the Crusades or the Inquisition, but Hitler, Staling, Mao, and Pol Pot were not particularly religious characters-- the slaughter they initiated killed hundreds of millions far far more than Europe's religious wars. Likewise the largest and bloodiest conflicts, Napoleonic wars, the American Civil War, Europe's colonial expanisons, the Russian Revolution, and the Chinese Revolution, WWI and II, the Cold War were not religious conflicts. I would argue that religion is one of many convenient excuses. Take religion off the table and guess what?-- we still slaughter one another quite easily and in large numbers. Blame religion if it makes you feel happy, but the evidence shows a far darker truth about humanity.
 
sabro said:
Revenant- I believe your intent in beginning this thread was to check whether the conception among athiests that religious people are in some way "weak" is true. Based upon what we have read here, I believe you have confirmed this prejudice. It does seem to be a generalization we can confirm that Athiests do hold their logic, reasoning and critical thinking skills to be superior to any person who claims a religion or faith.
It was pointed out to me that I should have used the word "bias" instead of "prejudice." I believe the intent of this thread was to check whether the conception among athiests is that non athiests are weak. I believe you have confirmed this BIAS.
 
It would have been nice, I can't help but feel, if some slightly more limiting definitions on 'weak' and 'strong' could have been propped up at least for the sake of discussion, although even that may not have helped so much.

Again, I would refer back to the firing patterns thing I had mentioned on my only other post on this thread--that basically means paradigm.

I will input more here soon--I have to go eat lunch now, then do a class--but will say for now that it should prove good to look into the capabilities of being able to make paradigm shifts; and what that means (in the sense of outcome), involves, and can lead to.

Of course, it is very clear that rushing into binary statements is a rushing into fallacy. (by binary statements, I mean statements that are absolute in nature such it is [which =1] or it is not [=0])
 
I think a lot of atheists think they are stronger or more superior to religious people because they tend to go down the path of scientific proof and reasoning to answer their big questions.
And when they need guidance, may it be moral or otherwise, they don't look upon the writings and learnings of people through thousands of years of humanity, but seek a cancelor or psychologist.
When an atheist fears the consequences of somthing they have done wrong, they do not fear them in death, because to an athiest there is no afterlife, no real purpose to life, other than to reproduce and evolve.

The opposites may also be true in some of these scenario's...

I think this comes down to being predudiced/biased, each person believing they are right because of the major choices in the beliefs they made so far in their life- but one thing is for certain. You cannot say "these millions of people are weaker than those millions of people because of somthing they believe which essentially nobody can prove".
Its a bit like saying your logic or strength is superior to somone else's because you support a particular political party which they don't happen to.
 
:blush:Small addition: In many respects " activity of atheists " is defined by presence in their consciousness of ideas on " presence of the termination of their existence " is "forces" them to search for ways to overcoming "it" is so the science appears and develops... But "impasse" for this way will consist that - was required to the Universe of books, not writings, not theories, not formulas, etc. to create Space, planets, forms of a life, etc... And realizing " incomprehensibility of the Universe ", "atheists" - continue to deny the God...
.....................................................................................
:blush:
 
To answer the question (which I am a little unclear of), I don't think Religious People are weaker than atheists. In my opinion, I don't think one is weaker or stronger than another.

It can depend on the person and how they view the world around them, as well as their own lives. So, I wouldn't put belief systems in the categorie, but more of attitude. Bad attitude and Good Attitude. Because to me, people with Bad attitudes are the weak ones.

Even though I answered the question, I want to know, weaker in what sense?
 
Maciamo-
My post #81 was an answer to the very pointed response by you (Maciamo) in post #79. I asked some questions for clarification and to make a point. I don't think this has been addressed.
 
Religious peoples are stronger than atheistic peoples. Faith is one of the biggest strengh, making religious peoples able to deal with the difficulties of life with much less doubts and much more confidence because "god's walking by their side".
Atheists have hope, religious have faith.
 
Yes, in bad or very bad times, like in our past. In today's developed world, atheist better appreciate this only and short existence called life. No suicide bombers amongst them.
 
I think on the contrary that there are more depressed and pessimistic peoples among the atheists than among the believers.
Not that much suicide bombers in the Bible belt either.
 
There are many 'levels' of religiosity. From the Spiral Dynamics terms, the most dangerous level is RED/blue (3rd level/entry to 4th level of consciousness) which is the militant religion. Remember the beginnings of any religion, when a "thug" (from RED) moves into beginnings of BLUE, those want to convert everyone to their 'true' religion because they consider that they have been saved. Remember the missions of conversion in medieval times and earlier. To understand this you can imagine someone who has been on drugs and now has been out of it through the help of God, God is their savoir the only Truth. The atheism has begun with 5th system when Europe started to exit the Blue system (which is also the system that has brought law and order with its starts in Roman Empire) with the first inventions in science, medicine and astronomy. This system, Orange, we know it as capitalism and era of science and atheism. We know up till now for 8 systems at work (look for the works of Clare W. Graves - Never Ending Quest, ECLET publishing) and the 8th system will be (is) spiritual but not dogmatic.


The bottom line is, we cannot simply say "Yes" or "No" to the question of this thread since the human complexity is a never ending story, or never ending quest, as Dr. Clare W. Graves found out through his 30 years of research of the human nature.
 
No I don`t believe they are weaker at all. In fact I would say they are stronger. Those who have belief gain strength from it and seem to be able to come to terms with certain aspects of life that non believers do not ..simple example being death.
On another level all faiths have patience and love for fellow humans as a fundamental lesson and believe me it takes a good deal of strength and faith to "forgive" and control your instinct not to re-act in certain situations.
 
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No I don`t believe they are weaker at all. In fact I would say they are stronger. Those who have belief gain strength from it and seem to be able to come to terms with certain aspects of life that non believers do not ..simple example being death.
On another level all faiths have patience and love for fellow humans as a fundamental lesson and believe me it takes a good deal of strength and faith to "forgive" and control your instinct to re-act in certain situations.

I think you misrepresent the point. The fact that religious people need religion to gain strength could indicate that they lack something to have enough strength in the first place.

As for coming to terms with death. I think it is the non-religious people who have actually accepted that death is only natural. Religious people on the other hand like to believe that their life will somehow continue in an afterlife.

I also fail to see your argument about forgiving. Non-religious people are able to forgive just like religious people. They just don't need some imaginary entity telling them to do that.

I am not stating that non-religious people are stronger per se. Simply, the arguments you present contradict your claim.
 
I think a man that feels he has nothing beyond the grave is weaker. Because he fears death more . I was raised a Baptist Do I believe in a higher power ? "yes" Is he in the form of our Christian God ? I don't know. But there is a higher power even some scientist believe in intelligent design Look around you look to space how can there not be?
 
I think you misrepresent the point. The fact that religious people need religion to gain strength could indicate that they lack something to have enough strength in the first place.

As for coming to terms with death. I think it is the non-religious people who have actually accepted that death is only natural. Religious people on the other hand like to believe that their life will somehow continue in an afterlife.

I also fail to see your argument about forgiving. Non-religious people are able to forgive just like religious people. They just don't need some imaginary entity telling them to do that.

I am not stating that non-religious people are stronger per se. Simply, the arguments you present contradict your claim.


You make some good points, but the question was n`t whether what they believed or how they did it was wise or unwise or child like etc..it simply asked if because of their belief were they weaker and I do not think they are. Of course all humans are able to forgive if they so choose but the point I was making is that all religions teach this as a fundamental lesson to be observed.
 
But there is a higher power even some scientist believe in intelligent design Look around you look to space how can there not be?

It's a simpler explanation that people are natural pattern-seekers and storytellers, than to posit that their stories, which they make out of the patterns that they see, are true.
 
I think a man that feels he has nothing beyond the grave is weaker. Because he fears death more . I was raised a Baptist Do I believe in a higher power ? "yes" Is he in the form of our Christian God ? I don't know. But there is a higher power even some scientist believe in intelligent design Look around you look to space how can there not be?


I strongly disagree. I think that it is fear which drives most people to believe in some form of religion. Religious people tend to have the need for a comfort zone which is provided for by their religion. But since religion is not based on evidence, that comfort zone can be broken or harmed when it is confronted with critical thinking.

As for not the complexity of the Cosmos. I can see how people (even scientists) can find intelligent design fulfilling. But there is nothing wrong in saying I don't know when you don't know.
 
Fear has nothing to do with religion at least here in the states most people of my generation went to church every Sunday as directed it is more of a habit passed down . I'm a soldier, poet and free thinker and I lean way right. But when I look around me and listen IMO a higher power exist when I study the stars and hear words like infinity and see the wonders through a telescope I know there is a higher power IMO Now as far as being a Christian power who is to say our people meaning Europeans have been pagans far longer than we have been Christian
 

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