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tonyrey
Guest
Then we don’t have free will?
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tonyrey
Guest
So you think the average Catholic ignores the Church’s teaching on abortion, suicide and euthanasia?
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tonyrey
Guest
Perhaps your standards of evidence are defective in ignoring or rejecting the reality of intangibles like persons, truth, freedom, justice and love…
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tonyrey
Guest
Irrefutable! Unless one is a cynic, sceptic, materialist, hedonist, nihilist or a combination of some of these views.
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Oreoracle
Guest
Most atheists do not commit suicide, undergo abortions, nor euthanize anyone. I agree that Catholics and atheists have different voting habits, tend to support different policies, etc. But their everyday actions are nearly indistinguishable besides church attendance (and even church attendance is waning nowadays).
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Brendan_64
Guest
I’m not getting defensive, simply asking where this correlation you have stated comes from.
Here’s an article I read recently. I’m not holding this up as evidence for a particular position, but I found it interesting.
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2015/12/atheism-may-be-fashionable-but-most-intelligent-people-believe-in-god/
It also interesting that the main brunt of the ‘attacks’ from certain atheists seems to be Christianity. Islam is rarely attacked with the same vehemence by atheists.
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Brendan_64
Guest
That was a bit harsh with regard to Peter Hitchens as he does, I believe, also criticise Islam.
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Oreoracle
Guest
Lots of intelligent historical figures were theists, there’s no denying that. Keep in mind, however, that religion has dominated the curriculum for most of history. There was a time when only those educated by the Church could be expected to read, for example. In Galileo/Descartes/Newton’s time, it was hard to be taken seriously as a scholar unless you played nice with the Church. So although these historical figures professed religion, I would take that with a grain of salt.
But we’re not talking about famous historical figures anyway. We’re talking about your everyday, average people, most of whom will only be remembered by history as data in a statistician’s thesis.
I focus on Christianity simply because it is most common here in the U.S., so I rarely find myself engaged in a debate with a Muslim. But most of my criticisms apply to Islam as well. Ironically, Christians usually agree with those arguments when Muslims are the targets, so I feel as if it’s a waste of breath to always use the “this applies to Islam too” disclaimer, since most Christians are already on board with me there.
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Brendan_64
Guest
And what of today? I seems that the reverse is true and that to profess one’s faith too loudly can have the effect of hindering one’s career in certain academic circles.
But why do you feel the need to attack religious beliefs? If, as atheists often claim, their’s is not a belief system, but simply a rational lack of belief, then why feel the need to ‘evangelise’ others?
By all means you are entitled to post on a forum such as this, but I do find it odd why atheists would wish to subscribe to a Catholic message board and engage with Catholics in debates about belief systems of which they themselves profess to have none.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
This is really a two-edged sword, isn’t it?
Whereas the scientific establishment, not the Church, today is dominant, and if you don’t play nice with atheist scientists, they and their cohorts will dump on you with the greatest fury (think Richard Dawkins & Company).
“Just because science so far has failed to explain something, such as consciousness, to say it follows that the facile, pathetic explanations which religion has produced somehow by default must win the argument is really quite ridiculous.” Richard Dawkins
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zyzz
Guest
Apples and oranges. There is no “secular” Inquisition which would burn you at the stakes, like Giordano Bruno was burned. Besides, today we enjoy the separation of church and state. There is no reason for loudly proclaiming one’s atheism, or belief in God. These views are considered personal nowadays.
No need to overreact. Asking questions is not an “attack”.
Intellectual challenge, mayhaps? Or learning about the ways and means how certain catholics will reply to an argument?
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Brendan_64
Guest
Considered personal by who? As a Christian one’s faith is not personal, it is a public matter. So yes, there is very good reason for Christians to proclaim their faith, it is what Christ has called us to do.
I appreciate that that view is not popular with liberal secularists who would rather we kept our faith hidden behind closed doors. But are here, we’re not going to go away, and we have no intention of keeping our views as a purely personal matter.
Our mission is to evangelise others; “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”. So, no, our beliefs are not simply a personal manner, core to our beliefs is the need to evangelise.
So why do you need to learn about the ways in which Catholics reply to your arguments? In order to equip yourself better when trying to ‘evangelise’?
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
I don’t have to go anywhere near so far back to find the case of a securalist (Adolf Hitler) shoving millions of carcasses of Jews into the ovens as fast as he could to hide his secularist infamy.
How negative is that?
doxa.ws/social/Hitler.html
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tonyrey
Guest
Which exceeded the Inquisition by more than five million…
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tonyrey
Guest
Not in China and other Marxist states.
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tonyrey
Guest
Anything to do with God provoked his attacks…
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cornbread_r2
Guest
Peter Hitchens isn’t an atheist. Perhaps you’re thinking of Christopher Hitchens, his brother. In addition, Jerry Coyne and Sam Harris are two prominent atheists who’ve criticized Islam enough to be labeled “islamophobes”.
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Brendan_64
Guest
Thank you for that correction, you are indeed right.
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Bradski
Guest
Whether we do or not is not germane to what I suggested.
More than seven in 10 U.S. women obtaining an abortion report a religious affiliation (37% protestant, 28% Catholic and 7% other).
Seeing as Catholics represent 25% of the population, that would be 12.5% of women are Catholics. And 28% of abortions are carried out on Catholics. So I guess yeah, the average Catholic is ignoring the church’s teaching.
Not sure about euthanasia or suicide. But you missed out contraception. I wonder why…
As you said, they are intangible. Unless you are majoring in the arts or perhaps philosophy, people who go on to higher education tend to deal with (and presumably have a tendency towards) more tangible aspects of life. Although this survey of philosophers showed a huge proportion of atheists: commonsenseatheism.com/?p=13371. My apologies that it’s from a specifically atheist web site.
So I wouldn’t say that standards of evidence are defective. I would say that there is a tendency to approach evidence from a different direction. And, dare I say, to be more rigorous in that approach. For example, appeals to authority are not held to be as important for some people. Indeed, in some areas of higher education, it is actively discouraged (don’t just accept what I say, tell me why YOU think it is so).
Can have? [edited] Let’s face it, if you believe that the world was created 6,000 years ago, then you are not likely to gain tenure as the professor of geography in any given university (although it won’t stop you running for president).
[edited] If it were true, then there would be hundreds of examples. The academic community would be awash with complaints from Christians who had been denied promotion purely on their beliefs. [edited]
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Oreoracle
Guest
No examples immediately come to mind. I know that a biologist pedaling intelligent design won’t be taken seriously, but that’s because intelligent design isn’t science (as per the Supreme Court ruling on the matter). As long as religion is kept out of their discipline, a scientist being religious is not seen as remarkable. I don’t remember the numbers off the top of my head, but significant proportions of biologists and physicists are religious. The proportions are lower than that of the general population, but far larger than that of a marginalized group.
The foremost reason is that arguing is fun, and, if we’re being honest, nearly everyone on the apologetics forum enjoys arguing. But there is a practical purpose as well. Many Catholics, but not all, have views on social policy stemming from their faith that I disagree with. In some cases, the people in question would hold such beliefs even without their faith, but faith tends to set up a buffer that makes the belief invulnerable to criticism. Dogmatic religious beliefs usually lead to dogmatic political beliefs as well.
If you want an example of something I would consider inherently negative about religion, then there it is: dogma. Dogma is bad for the religious. Dogma is bad for communist regimes. Dogma is bad regardless of whose wielding it, be they Catholic or atheist.
My response to Brendan applies here. I remind you that we’re discussing large demographics here. Finding a few quotes from celebrity atheists does nothing to illustrate a general trend. The last time that religion was “attacked” by science was when it attempted to Trojan Horse intelligent design into science classrooms. As long as religion doesn’t try to disguise itself as science, most people get along swimmingly.
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