Thursday, November 10, 2011

Hitchslap #27 - the smiley face of religion



I must admit that this is my opinion of liberal religion, too:
Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face ingratiating way, because it's had to give so much ground and because we know so much more. But you've no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.

It's not just the morality of religion, either. As our knowledge of science has advanced, as our knowledge of history has grown, religion has had to retreat on the reality of it, too - stubbornly, slowly, dragging its feet every step of the way, but retreat nonetheless.

Now conservative believers, the real fundamentalists, simply close their eyes and their minds to all that. Liberal believers, on the other hand, tend to accept what they have to accept. But no more than that. They'll retreat, but only as much as they're forced to retreat.

I don't understand that. When will liberal believers understand the fallacy that's the very basis of religious belief? Faith is simply not a valid way to believe anything. It's not so much what you believe as how you believe it.

True, you're a lot easier to get along with than the fundamentalists, and I do appreciate that. I will gladly work with you in those areas where we agree. But,... you are just like the fundies when it comes to how you come up with your beliefs. You can't really argue that one of you is wrong and the other is right when you both believe for the exact same reason, faith.

Why can't you just accept evidence-based thinking? Why cling so stubbornly to your faith? I've never understood that. But then, I've never believed, not that I can remember. I've never understood religious faith. I can understand why you'd want to believe, but not how you can believe.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree wholeheartedly. Often it seems that the religious simply lack some fundamental brain function that is responsible for scepticism... or something. It seems fundamentally illogical to conclude something without grounds to do so.

Bill Garthright said...

Thanks, Anonymous.

Unfortunately, this video clip is no longer available. In fact, most of these "Hitchslap" videos I've posted are gone now, since they came from the same YouTube source which has since disappeared.

I should mirror them on my own YouTube page (under the standard YouTube rules about that) and embed that video clip, instead. At least then they'd last as long as I do. But I really don't have a clue how to do that, and I've been too busy to try to figure it out.

Unknown said...

So - when are you going to mirror them?

Bill Garthright said...

Unfortunately, Hector, I don't know how. As I said, I don't have a clue how to do that. I really know nothing about video capture/editing. I'm doing well just to figure out how to embed clips here.

Yes, I should learn, I really should. But I haven't taken the time, because... I'm just struggling to find the time for everything I want to do, already.

Besides, I doubt if very many people look back at these old posts. A few people find them - you did, clearly - but I don't get all that many readers even when it comes to new posts. :)

Still, if you know of useful instructions for mirroring videos, I'd appreciate a link or two. I really haven't taken the time to even search for that sort of thing. As I say, there's never enough time for everything.

Thanks for the comment!