mirgro said:
I'll copy my edit from before: For your benefit I will compare drugs and religions. Both have mind altering effects. In most cases both are extremely addictive, both can make a person feel a feeling of elation. Both have cause great turmoil in society, both can pass from parents to children easily. Both are used as an escape from reality, both are used as something to comfort someone when one is weak. The only difference is, that drugs are a physical body which can be consumed, meanwhile religion is an idea. Otherwise religions and drugs share far too many commonalities for religions to be considered anything other than a plight. Religions had their uses back in the tribal days when rulers needed tools to control their people so a tribe couls survive and reproduce. That's why all tribes which believed in the supernatural survived, they could easily be controlled. However these tools are obsolete and antiquties in the modern world. Something not needed, something extremely primitive. If you read the story I linked, I'd love to hear why that is less plausible than your Jesus Christ.
And then address this: Faith has nothing to do with it. The only thing that has to do with it is just how far you are willing to believe your imagination or that of others. In the case of Jesus, the right word isn't faith, but gullability. Is a person gullible enough to believe something like Jesus, or is he not. Here is the definition of faith, complete confidence in a person or plan. That implies 100% belief, maybe if the world was only black and white, like the Bible would have us believe, then that is certainly true, not falling for the implausible would be the equivalent of 100% complete confidence that it did not happen. However such is not the case, there is an infantesmally small chance that the guy named Jesus actually guessed everything right. It's small, but not complete, and that makes all the difference between faith and just plain common sense. So no, faith has absolutely nothing to do with it.
I can't help but laugh at your human rights argument. This is your premise "The ideal of human rights says that each human being is of infinite worth." Do you realize human rights have never been defined by anything? Yeah we have a definition right now, but the Aztecs had a whole different set of human rights, and the aboriginals had a whole other set of human rights, and the Japanese another set of rights. Even in today's world people can't completely agree, for instance the right to a gun. Different countries have different human rights, and yes they all share some very basic ones, but even those didn't exist in some countries . Who knows what will happen in the future. Already your premise is not correct in the present, the "the ideal of human rights says that each human being is of infinite worth" is false already. In China you aren't allowed to have a second child, therefore the 2nd one is most definitely not seen as having "infinite worth." Your very basic premise you built your entire argument on is false, and by association your very argument. Simply put, human rights are defined by what is most convenient for the people with power at a given time in history, and nothing more. You really don'thave to look too far back in history to see this is true. |
Hmm. Asking why a fictional story full of 100%-fictitious characters isn't more plausible than the life story of a real person in history is like asking why the plot of "Harry Potter" isn't more plausible than the plot of "The Pursuit of Happyness".
There's a quite a difference between looking to a drug for a temporary escape (that may kill you) and looking to God to actually guide every aspect of your entire life. I fail to see how these two things are in any way on the same playing field.
Looking at Dictionary.com, the top two definitions of "faith" are:
1) confidence or trust in a person of thing
2) belief that is not based on proof
Go ahead and try and prove that God doesn't exist. Millions of people have tried to do so and have utterly failed, because it's not possible. You can't prove or disprove the existence of something that exists outside of the known universe. So both beliefs require faith. End of story.
Just because human rights are being ignored doesn't mean that they don't exist. Does the fact that the Nazi's thought it was okay to slaughter the Jews make it right? Does the fact that Mao thought it was okay to starve millions of his own people during the "Great Leap Forward" make it right? Does the fact that the Aztecs thought they were justified in sacrificing their own people make it right? There are certain things that everyone knows are wrong; that is why completely separate and distant cultures are able to both come to the consensus that things like murder and stealing are wrong. To even suggest that human rights are totally relative (which is exactly what you are doing) is what is truly laughable.
Lastly, you should really examine the person and life of Jesus Christ before you assume that I am as gullible as you say. Have at it... disprove anything about the life of Jesus that the Bible teaches and get back to me when you do. I'll be eagerly awaiting you.
