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> Few people understand that most religions e.g. Judaism and Christianity have an apologetic discipline – a deliberate arm open to debate. That's just a trick

by Shorel 5y ago

> Few people understand that most religions e.g. Judaism and Christianity have an apologetic discipline – a deliberate arm open to debate. That's just a trick religious evangelizers use as bait to unleash their barrel of canned answers. And boy, you really have a lot of ammunition to use. But, and this is an important but: In the end, it is all just rhetoric to justify what you already believe and are unwilling to change.

selfhoster11 5y ago
> That's just a trick religious evangelizers use as bait to unleash their barrel of canned answer How is that different from what the atheist side offers? The fact is, the big questions in life tend to be complicated to figure out, so canned answers are a practical way to not devote your entire lifetime to redeveloping the conclusions from scratch. Ideally, you'd also do some due diligence and try to figure out whether they agree with reality as you understand it. There's a reason why we use caching in computer science. Cached answers should of course be invalidated in cases where they are found to be incorrect, so one should remain open to the possibility of being wrong about their beliefs (though just how open, is a subject of individual opinion).
- Shorel 5y ago
  > How is that different from what the atheist side offers? That one is easy: we don't pretend we have the answer to everything. In fact, that's the first thing we say. Is the sun going to appear in the sky tomorrow? Probably yes, as far as I know, with 99.99999 certainty, but it is never 100%. Pure theological questions are answered by me with: is that even a useful question? I don't even care if a god exists, because so far they have been unable to interact with the world in any meaningful way. And you people worry so much about your next life, you are forgetting to live this one.

by Shorel 5y ago

selfhoster11 5y ago

> That's just a trick religious evangelizers use as bait to unleash their barrel of canned answer How is that different from what the atheist side offers? The fact is, the big questions in life tend to be complicated to figure out, so canned answers are a practical way to not devote your entire lifetime to redeveloping the conclusions from scratch. Ideally, you'd also do some due diligence and try to figure out whether they agree with reality as you understand it. There's a reason why we use caching in computer science. Cached answers should of course be invalidated in cases where they are found to be incorrect, so one should remain open to the possibility of being wrong about their beliefs (though just how open, is a subject of individual opinion).

Shorel 5y ago
> How is that different from what the atheist side offers? That one is easy: we don't pretend we have the answer to everything. In fact, that's the first thing we say. Is the sun going to appear in the sky tomorrow? Probably yes, as far as I know, with 99.99999 certainty, but it is never 100%. Pure theological questions are answered by me with: is that even a useful question? I don't even care if a god exists, because so far they have been unable to interact with the world in any meaningful way. And you people worry so much about your next life, you are forgetting to live this one.