4 ms·

What is there to misunderstand? Religious folk talk to imaginary uber-beings, shamelessly making up stories about the universe. It is a mental illness.

• bokonist 18y ago
  Did you read the article?
• Prrometheus 18y ago
  To throw away Christianity is to throw away Western Civilization and much of our heritage. I enjoyed this bit from TFA: "Arguably, the highest achievements of the human species have been motivated by that instinctive spirituality just mentioned. The great cathedrals, the precious heritage of religious art and music, are not only monuments to religious belief, but more persuasive testimonies to and arguments for faith than the disputations of theology. Have you ever read the story of the conversion of St. Vladimir, the founder of the Russian Orthodox Church? He was, as the account goes, a pagan prince of the line of Rurik; and an enthusiastic pagan, having built several temples. Yet he was not quite satisfied with his religion, and agreed to hear deputations of Muslims, Jews, and Christians each deliver their respective sales pitches. The presentations of the first two were rather arid, but the Christians (who had come from Byzantium) put on by far the best show, high mass with all the smells and bells, rich vestments, singing, the whole nine yards. Vladimir was convinced - any religion that was so beautiful had to be the right one (it also didn't hurt that it had the least restrictive dietary rules, and no ban on booze). Accordingly, Russia became Christian, and Vladimir a saint - all on the basis of his aesthetic judgment. I suppose these anthropological and aesthetic reasons explain why many people remain culturally Christian despite an abundance of doubts and discontents. They aren't willing to dismiss the spiritual out of hand; they see more benefit than detriment accruing to society from religion in spite of their doubts (as did Jefferson and Franklin); and they find Christianity aesthetically appealing (as did St. Vladimir). They are therefore unwilling to discard it in favor of the barren and austere horizon offered by the crusading atheism of a Dawkins. For my part, I'll wait to see whether Dawkinsianity produces anything equivalent to Chartres, Handel's Messiah or Mozart's Requiem, the Pietà or the Sistine ceiling. When it does we may re-evaluate it to see if it offers anything worthwhile."
  • Avshalom 18y ago
    So the christian god exists because the Sistene Chapel is pretty?
    • mynameishere 18y ago
      That's a pretty serious failure of logical aptitude, especially on a site like this. The point isn't that "god exists" but that "Russia is Christian" because of aesthetics, a somewhat important material fact.
      • ericwaller 18y ago
        "Russia is Christian b/c of aesthetics" is one piece of evidence for the greater argument which is something like "these instances of inspiration demonstrate that faith in the existence of God is reasonable."
      • Avshalom 18y ago
        No the point is that faith is meritorious because of aesthetics. That Russia is christian because of aesthetics, and aesthetics are an argument for the merit of faith implies that the christian faith is more meritorious than, paganism, judaism and islam because it's the prettiest.
    • ericwaller 18y ago
      I'm not sure why you were downvoted: "The great cathedrals...are...arguments for faith."
      • inerte 18y ago
        I downmodded him. Arguments for faith != God exists. The quoted text has the opposite meaning, more like the Sistine Chapel exists because its creator(s) were inspired by God. It's right there in fact: "the highest achievements of the human species have been motivated" Plus, it is "arguments for faith than the disputations of theology", presented as a comparison, not justifying why people have faith. Really, is my english that bad? I can't believe how someone could interpret this text the way Avshalom did.
• jcromartie 18y ago
  See, this is the sort of thing he was talking about. Maybe it was sarcasm?