"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."

[o_O.Q]

DarthVolod said:

o_O.Q said:

there are penalties imposed implicitly and explicitly simply from living in civilisation no matter what, that doesn't go away even if you destroy all religion and i'd argue that it can get incredibly inhumane when atheism takes hold of a society, such as in the soviet union

its a perpetual problem of existing as a human being that's being framed by naive people as a problem stemming only from religion as opposed to simply coming as a result of humans coming together and forming groups and needing limitations to coexist peacefully

That is an evasion though ... I'm not talking about penalties imposed by civilization (not sure what you are referring to here). I'm talking about the implicit claim in the quote that argues that it would be better to believe in God (specifically the Christian God; ignoring all the other gods that have been claimed to exist) in order to avoid the consequences of not believing in it. I'm arguing that you should not believe in anything without proof / evidence first. We can speculate about many things, but what we should certainly not do is rearrange our lives (and society as a whole) based on a metaphysical belief that has not one shred of evidence in support of it. 

I'd argue that the Soviet Union (and communist states in general) was merely a different variety of religion that places society (which does not exist, a society is just a large collection of individuals) as a super organism of sorts that people must obey and serve. 

A society can exist based on a rational world view centered on reason / evidence. I would recommend looking into the concept of anarcho-capitalism (as for a political theory) and rational egoism (for a moral world view) as examples of means of arranging society without a God or gods or god-like super states. Atheism is a very broad spectrum ... not all atheists are communists, some, like myself, are the exact opposite. 

i was mostly talking about this

"There is a penalty imposed on us for "believing" this claim since we would have to radically adjust our lives / world view to conform to this (going to church, donating to churches/charities, following a moral code imposed by Christianity etc. etc.; it is a huge cost)."

 

"but what we should certainly not do is rearrange our lives (and society as a whole) based on a metaphysical belief that has not one shred of evidence in support of it. "

metaphysical belief is at the very core of civilisation and i mean that even separate from organised religion

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"

 for example this idea is at the core of the us justice system and is supposed to provide everyone with equal rights and its obviously not a practical concept but a more metaphysical concept and there are loads of other examples like that, which give society its structure

 

" I'm arguing that you should not believe in anything without proof / evidence first."

if people really behaved in accordance with this they'd be paralysed, there are so many things we take for granted during our everyday lives that are prone to change and we still move forwards anyway, because people generally act primarily not based on acquiring and assessing the facts of a situation but on what feels right to them subjectively

and that goes for everyone

 

"I'd argue that the Soviet Union (and communist states in general) was merely a different variety of religion that places society (which does not exist, a society is just a large collection of individuals) as a super organism of sorts that people must obey and serve. "

i'd agree that the same thought patterns that bring about religious thought are involved, but the point i'm making is that its a characteristic that is present in everyone, despite whatever position they claim to hold, whether they be atheist or catholic

 

"A society can exist based on a rational world view centered on reason / evidence."

first off i don't think so because of how inherently limited all people are and secondly "reason" and "evidence" are subjective and prone to change because we are limited

with regards to "evidence" there have been many cases of evidence appearing to give one conclusion only for further study with better equipment/methodology to disprove the prior conclusion

that doesn't mean that you don't try to act in accordance with evidence but you have to be careful and allow there to be room for further developments to update what you currently know

 

" I would recommend looking into the concept of anarcho-capitalism (as for a political theory) and rational egoism (for a moral world view) as examples of means of arranging society without a God or gods or god-like super states."

i might have before, but i'll be sure to look again

 

"not all atheists are communists, some, like myself, are the exact opposite. "

i know that i've been implying that i think that a lot, but i really don't, its just that i'm noticing what appears to be an explosion of communist/marxist ideology recently on the atheist side of the spectrum and its dangerous