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The insult of disbelief

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johnson1010
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The insult of disbelief

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People who tell me my God isn't real insult me. Not that I care about them insulting me, but more of them insulting God, and also themselves.
Discussion of religion is taboo precisely because of this attitude. I’ve been thinking about this for a bit and I want to take a crack at explaining it for believers and atheists alike.

Imagine someone walks up to you and compliments the pants you are wearing.

“Hey, nice pants! Do you like them?”

“Yeah, I guess I do. Thanks!”

“Did you know that those pants were made by papa smurf?”

Conundrum: What am I to do.

I know a bit about pants. Where they come from, who makes them, why they make them, where they are sold, and the equipment used to make them.

I know a bit about the pants that I am wearing in particular. That there’s a tag on them saying “made in china”, that I bought them at target, that they are khaki’s from a company called “faded glory” and what that means about their social origin.

I also know a lot about smurfs. Invented by Pierre Culliford for a comic strip in the late 1950’s. cartoon characters. Imaginary. Chased by Gargamel and his cat. Replace many words with “smurf”.

Putting what I know about these things it is abundantly clear that there is no way that my pants were, in any way, made by papa smurf.

Now, I have in front of me a person who just proclaimed an honest, well-intended statement about something they believe intrinsically.

I know beyond reasonable doubt that what they said is wrong. If I just come out and say: “There is no possible way that papa smurf made my pants.” It is immediately confrontational. It also comes off as offensive to the person with this cherished belief because one of our first interactions was for me to call down one of their cherished beliefs in public and in front of other people which represent prospective friends and allies.

Society likes for us to give everybody lots of elbow room when it comes to their tightly held beliefs, and that’s largely because they react so negatively when those beliefs are challenged. I am asked not to poke the hornet’s nest because it will cause a stir. I am asked to at least pretend that I haven’t heard what I heard, or pretend that, yeah, maybe my pants could have been made by papa smurf.

But the truth is, there is no indication that that belief has any solid ground, and a very substantial amount of evidence which directly contradicts the claim. In fact, in the case of the maker of my pants, I can conclusively trace that origin to the satisfaction of any non-vested witness that the claim of the believer is resoundingly incorrect.

The problem being, if I refute the claim of the believer, their irrational attachment and intrinsic self-association with that belief may inspire like-wise irrational hostility. That’s why I have been condemned to hell on forums for pointing out that god probably doesn’t exist, and why Muslims can threaten death for drawings of Mohammad.

Make no mistake. The man who tries to kill someone else for drawing a picture is at fault. Not the man who draws the picture. There is literally NOTHING that you could say or type to make me want to kill you, or wish for you to suffer for all eternity in hell.

If you feel overwhelming insult when someone merely challenges your beliefs, ask yourself why that is. Why should someone else’s doubt cause YOU any anguish?

If I assert that 2+2=7, are you angry? Are you personally insulted? Why not? Think about that.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Re: The insult of disbelief

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If I assert that 2+2=7, are you angry? Are you personally insulted? Why not? Think about that.
There may be times when this could be really hard to take. If you were a young student just learning arithmetic and you were very certain that 2+2=4 and someone older and wiser challenged your belief and insisted you were wrong that the answer was actually 7, it could be very upsetting when it just does not make sense to you.

When you think you understand something, maybe very sure you understand something, and then to be told you are wrong can be hard to take.

The people in Katelyn's life who she has admired and loved have taught her what she believes to be true, what she is sure is true and she has based much of her life so far on this truth. It can be insulting to be told that all the people in your life that you love and admire are wrong.
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johnson1010
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Re: The insult of disbelief

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Exactly.

The facts are the facts. They live independant of those who taught you. They exist independant on our opinions of them, or our preference.

If you find you are emotionally invested in some idea, ask yourself why. Probably, it isn't because it was just such a great idea. Probably there are other motives for that strong connection. Motives which are not dependant on the veracity of that belief.

So don't get mad at somebody for saying the earth is round when you thought it was flat. Find out why you need to believe the earth is flat.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Re: The insult of disbelief

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johnson1010 wrote:“Did you know that those pants were made by papa smurf?” . . . If I just come out and say: “There is no possible way that papa smurf made my pants.” It is immediately confrontational
My response to this type of statement, whether it be about pants or gods, is usually to smile and say something like, “Oh? What makes you believe that?” I say this without sarcasm, attempting to convey a sense of curiosity and interest in their opinion. Then I listen respectfully to the answer and base my response on a judgment call concerning the person’s sincerity, their emotional investment in the explanation, and whether or not I feel a rebuttal will be either a waste of time or perhaps of some value to their future wellbeing. For the most part, when it comes to religion, my judgment will be that I should not waste my time in a futile attempt to change someone’s mind or alter their belief system. Plus, there is always the possibility of my being able to win the debate and cause harm by shattering a person’s reliance on a set of spiritual beliefs that actually help sustain and maintain their emotional stability, which is something I would never wish to do.

On the other hand (said the economist), if I decide that a person’s belief system poses a danger to the world, the society, or even the person next door, I will probably do my best to convince said person that he or she is wrong. Such an effort, of late, tends to be reserved for severe fundamentalists in whom I sense an ability to persuade others that violence is a proper response to what they perceive to be the ills of the world. Others, whose babbling strikes me as being ineffective, I tend to simply write off, on the theory that their efforts will prove to be more damaging to their own cause than any influence I could have on their fundamental beliefs.
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Re: The insult of disbelief

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When I was young (in my 20's), I loved to discuss and debate religion. The older I get (now 66), the less attraction the subject has. Now, I tend to go by the rule of "if you don't seek to make me profess belief in your God or to support him, it doesn't matter" and I try to change the subject. Life is too short to argue over something none of us will know the truth of in this lifetime (even if there is another lifetime). I'm agnostic and have been as long as I can recall what I believed.
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Re: The insult of disbelief

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johnson1010 wrote: If you feel overwhelming insult when someone merely challenges your beliefs, ask yourself why that is. Why should someone else’s doubt cause YOU any anguish?

If I assert that 2+2=7, are you angry? Are you personally insulted? Why not? Think about that.
I think this oversimplifies the argument by drawing a parallel between religious belief and arithmetic. Religious belief includes some very complex feelings and thoughts about oneself, ones place in the universe and the existence of ones mortal soul. Arithmetic has none of this. Also, a religious person may feel they have a relationship with their god, even love their god and accordingly feel a strong sense of attachment and loyalty. I think this is where such anguish could come from if this god is insulted. And I doubt that any such anguish could be felt over an arithmetical disagreement (so i agree with you on this point). The elements of complex feelings, relationship, love, attachment etc. are present in the one case (god) and missing in the other (arithmetic) so I think the attempt to draw a parallel between the two is an oversimplification and is invalid.
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Re: The insult of disbelief

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giselle wrote: the attempt to draw a parallel between the two is an oversimplification and is invalid.
It is valid. If religious believers claim the world is flat, or was recently created by God, that is just as offensive as to claim that two plus two does not equal four.

In 1984 by George Orwell, if the Party says two plus two equals five, everyone is required to believe it. This type of delusory corruption is the ground of the absence of ethics in supernatural religion. Believing things that are not true is a slippery slope. As Voltaire said, belief in absurdity permits atrocity.
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Re: The insult of disbelief

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I am an atheist who writes on this stuff. My latest book is "The Words That Created God: An Atheist Reveals the True Meaning of the Ten Commandments."

The true divide is not between "believers" and "non-believers" so as much between "those who believe" and "those who have faith." Atheists can have faith; they just don't couch that faith in terms of God. It's not a new issue--it has been debated for centuries. I find that believers have a real hard time with this. One way to look at it is that believers have accepted certain things as fact, while those who have faith don't. Instead they practice trust in other people, even in God. but they don't seek to define people or God. They accept them as they are. And it is in this vulnerability of acceptance that the strength of faith is to be found--especially in the mutual vulnerability between people. Believers want a type of security that isn't really possible. they want things to be true in one form forever. Those with faith accept nuance and change. Think of it: believers try to define God and what He wants exactly, with total clarity and precision. Even if you accept the existence of God, this is impossible. God cannot be defined (it's actually in the Bible). And so on. When I get to it, my next book will be on the wars between faith and belief.
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Re: The insult of disbelief

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interesting take TPN.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Robert Tulip

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Re: The insult of disbelief

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Hi TPN, thanks and welcome, interesting analysis. We have discussed here previously how even science rests on faith in the reliability of sense and reason, although some wish to reject the term faith and call it confidence instead.

Your explanation of belief is a precise description of what the Bible condemns as idolatry. Turning Jesus and the Bible into idols rejects Paul's advice in Romans 1:25 to worship the creator rather than the creature. Dogma is inherently idolatrous. The iconoclastic nature of science is continually tearing down false idols, but even this process rests on some bedrock assumptions. The question as I see it is how we articulate these assumptions and build up systematic logic based on them. The alternative is such unhelpful attitudes as paralysis, ennui and solipsism.

This has been debated for more than just centuries - it goes back to Plato and his discussion in The Republic of the epistemology of knowledge and belief, with his simile of the divided line.

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Last edited by Robert Tulip on Fri Sep 16, 2011 12:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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