Original question:
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20150410215027AAMB8KD
From Y/A user "John"
https://answers.yahoo.com/activity/questions?show=VGTHD7JLI4BJSJ7CZPS7ZZ7SLA&t=g
John, leave me a comment if you actually read this. Thanks.
1. Do you think Christianity has something different to it then the other religions?
Yes, all religions are different, but it doesn't seem fundamentally different to me. It seems especially similar to Islam. Not fundy Islam, but regular Islam. I have Islamic friends who are not insane (i.e. fundy), so don't take that as an insult.
2. Why is atheist point back to the crusades and just very little bad things Christians do instead of understanding they donate the most amount to charity and help people on a daily basis.
I don't do that unless provoked usually. Plus there's no reason to go that far back: the 1st half of the 20th century reflects a LOT more poorly on Christianity than does the crusades or witch or heretic burnings (well over 100 million dead under Christian hegemony and crazed Christian antisemitism in Europe alone, and all before 1945). A lot of theists will come out swinging making all kinds of claims about how atheists have no morals, and then point to Mao and Stalin (admittedly atheists themselves) but then throw in Hitler, Leopold II, Tojo and Chiang kai-shek (none of which were atheists) for good measure. I recognize that Christians do many beneficial things.
3. If so why is it you feel christians force their religion down your throat?
I don't feel that way. What I'm concerned with are these things:
A. Creeping theocracy like Christian home school advocate and fundamentalist leader Mr. Rushdooney advocates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Reconstructionism (also Google "Christian Dominionists")
Or like Fundamentalist apologists Sye Ten Bruggencate or Eric Hovind advocate:
http://tinyurl.com/ljw9ht7
B. Screwing with children's minds like Reverend Furniss did with his children's books:
http://stuffconcerningstuff.blogspot.com/p/father-furniss-books-for-children.html
Or like what these sick "Good News Clubs" for children as young as 5 do at public schools after school hours:
http://tinyurl.com/q8edd4w
C. Undermining science education and critical thinking skills, especially in children (which I consider to be a national security threat as a strong economy and military depend on fundamental scientific research not prayers or incantations or rain dances). For example take a listen to this 16-second long clip of this creationist / fundamentalist pastor Peter LaRuffa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysecinv367w
Or look what it does to children here (clouds their ability to distinguish reality from fantasy):
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cogs.12138/abstract
D. End-times nonsense: this really scares me: people who live for the next life, not the only one they'll ever have. When they become so convinced of their religion that they want to just go ahead and get the nuclear war started now so they can be raptured, we're in serious trouble. Sociopathic hucksters like mega-church pastor John Hagee are the epitome of this kind of extremely dangerous insanity:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/John_Hagee
A good friend of mine fell big time for Hagee's lies, and now he's a paranoid delusional: 51 years old, living with his mom, unemployed and unemployable, drunkard, obese, diabetic... but still a Hagee fan. He used to be a bright fit young man. His life was ruined by that paranoid claptrap.
4. What do you think of Evangelicalism compared to things like Catholicism or other protestant religions?
I am anti-fundamentalist and anti-creationist. Very conservative evangelicals are similar to fundies AFAIK, so I'm not a fan. I prefer mainline churches like Catholics, Orthodox, Methodist, Anglican and Episcopalian and Lutheran because they are not as virulently science hating and fearing as are the others. I was raised Catholic at a community centered around a remote government lab populated entirely by scientists and engineers: I'm used to a community being extremely pro-science. I never met an actual creationist face to face until I was 18. I've never recovered from the experience: it was like talking to somebody straight out of the dark ages. Deeply shocking to me. My community was majority Christians but the families on that remote government base didn't desperately hate and fear science: just the opposite: I didn't know any kids who weren't super into science. It was hard to believe that that kind of ignorance still existed in the United States! Absolutely shocking! My dad is a Methodist: old school. My mom is dead but was a Catholic. My dad's wife is Episcopalian. All my friends growing up came from mainline churches. None of them were dark age crazed science haters. Nor are 80% of Christians world wide. But there is a virulent strain of science hatred and tin-foil hat type fundamentalist paranoid dark-age mentality running through the Bible Belt of the USA. I view it as a mental disease. Here's some normal Christians that aren't like that (I keep a list! Lol):
http://stuffconcerningstuff.blogspot.com/2015/02/theist-scientists-who-believe-theory-of.html
5. Why is it in science when ever they try to figure out something they will always disclose the idea of God.
"disclose the idea of god?" I have no idea what you mean. Do you mean "discard" instead of "disclose?"
They "discard" the idea of god because god is not an explanation: it's equivalent to "it was magic" which is appropriate for neolithoic shaman dancing under a full moon to the frenetic beating of bongo drums, and drinking goat blood and performing human sacrifice... but since the 1600s that is NOT appropriate for Natural Philosophy. Science literally is the search for natural explanations to aspects of reality, thus supernatural explanations (i.e. "God did it") is a dead end that brings science to a standstill. It quite literally is NOT science. If that's how science was run we'd still be using rock tools and sacrificing our 1st born as burnt offerings.
6. Have you ever tried to have legitimate relationship with God? It requires faith.
Yes, I used to believe in God (I assume you mean the Christian one and not one of these) but then I learned basic high school level science and that was the end of that. My community had EXCELLENT science and math teachers: I went to state university in engineering with ALL my math done (two years up through differential equations and linear algebra) plus all my English and history requirements completed (about 50 units total). Mind you I started out life as an unbeliever. Here's how I know:
http://stuffconcerningstuff.blogspot.com/p/why-i-know-i-was-born-atheist.html
I had to be trained to be a Christian, but it wore off later as I learned physics, chemistry, biology, 1st and 2nd year calculus, philosophy, literature, history, etc. in high school. It was not a traumatic thing for me at all... but it took about a year.
7. Do you think real Christianity has a positive or negative influence on society?
Christianity itself, a bit more negative than positive in general, but Christians can be very positive, including ministers and priests. There is a sense of community at church and I won't deny that. I would have VERY little problem with Christianity if it was all like what I was used to growing up: pro-science, and non-fundamentalist. In fact I do on occasion still attend a mass or service for some sort of social function (plus I was dating a non-denominational woman who'd sometimes go to the United Methodist or the Catholic service, and I'd sometimes go with her). Growing up I never once heard a minister (sometimes I'd go to my dad's church) or priest criticize science, get involved in politics, berate homosexuals or atheists or other religions, try to scare people with garbage about Bible prophecy, end times, rapture or John Hagee like insanity, or do anything but behave like pillars of the community. That's why I have such a violently hostile reaction seeing charlatans like Hagee or Pat Robertson or Bryan Fischer spew their vile clap trap, hogwash and hokum.
8. What do you not like about Christianity?
I think I made that clear already! Lol.
9. What do you think of the bible?
I'm very interested in the Bible, much more so now than when I was growing up. Here's a page I've written about the New Testament and what I've learned:
http://stuffconcerningstuff.blogspot.com/p/new-testament-nt-earliest-fragments-and.html
Here too:
http://stuffconcerningstuff.blogspot.com/p/whats-wrong-with-kjv.html
I'm extremely interested in the history of the Bible and especially the NT. The more I learn the more inconceivable it is to me that anybody could take much of it literally.
10. My most important question is why do people like Richard Dawkins have so much hate towards religion? Its really not that bad and he goes really far with it do you agree with him?
I've been a Richard Dawkins fan since the 1980s: I absolutely LOVED his 1st book "The Selfish Gene." There was nothing in there about religion. But I've read all his other books since, except the God Delusion. I think that Dawkins, because he's an evolutionary biologist, sees the corrupting influence of fundamentalist religion on science much more so than other sciences and he finally had enough and snapped. I don't blame him one bit (I still remember the shock of encounterinig a living creationist when I was 18). Now does he take it too far? Perhaps. I don't agree with him that ALL religion is as bad as he makes it out to be. My attitude is more along the lines of the "non-overlapping magisteria" concept of his fellow biologist Stephen Jay Gould.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlapping_magisteria
However I think that Dawkins definitely has a case to make, and he's not the only one. My favorite "public" atheist is physicist Sean M. Carroll (there's a biologist who gets involved in these issues too named Sean B. Carroll who I'm also a fan of, but Sean M. is my favorite). Carroll has a position closer to Dawkins but IMO he's much less "combative" sounding. Carroll also thinks that physicists such as Krauss should be less dismissive of philosophy. Here's a good example of Carroll in action if you're not familiar with him:
http://tinyurl.com/mbhah5k
Here too:
http://tinyurl.com/lxs5xjd
I had a Christian email me two days ago to thank me for posting this Carroll presentation: (he said he didn't agree w/ Carroll, but really enjoyed the talk):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFp5PPSTiDc
I'm also a huge Richard Feynman fan and Victor J. Stenger fan too (also both atheist physicists). Feynman's book "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman" re-invigorated my own interest in science and is the whole reason I went to grad school. I can't recommend it enough (it spends very little time on religion).
I might as well show you my favorite Christian scientist too while I'm at it: cell & micro biologist Dr. Kenneth R. Miller: hero of keeping religion OUT of the science classroom where it doesn't belong:
http://tinyurl.com/qyzv262
"I certainly would advise any fellow Christian not to stake their faith
on the idea that this is a problem [abiogenesis] that science will never
solve. We have a way of solving these problems."
-- Dr. Ken Miller
Also I think Dawkins' anti-religious ways are somewhat overemphasized: he says he still goes to church at Christmas time and sings carols! He makes it clear that he was not traumatized at all by his Christian upbringing. Thus it's clear he's a "cultural Christian" as I am (I go to church at Christmas time and sing carols too, with my dad because it make him happy). I'm very proud of my dad. He worked all his life as an engineer at that government test and research base. I have three much older half siblings and one full brother who's 10 years older. My full brother and I share my mother, and he was a super science nerd... he was my hero growing up. He and I are atheists. My older half siblings did not grow up with us and were in fact married off by the time I was born. They turned out to be fundies. They tried to convert our dad, several times. He patiently heard them out, but he was having none of it. He tried to talk some sense into them actually: tried to get them to fear and hate science less. I'm not sure he was successful, but I was very proud of him for not getting carried away by that fundy madness. To this day he's got an EXCELLENT head on his shoulders (he's 97 years old!). He's on the computer all the time: facebook, youtube, writing emails and even books! They sell three of his books at the Natural History museum in his city (the same place I grew up). His friends were (most are dead now) equally brilliant. It was a great environment to grow up in!
11. Some evangelicals have called their beliefs a relationship with God rather then a religion what do you think of that?
That cracks me up! Especially when atheists are accused of being a "religion." It makes no sense to me. It sounds like a marketing ploy. Like those old advertisements for Zest. "It's not soap it's Zest!" Lol. They should just say "Yeah, we're basically soap." That would sound a LOT more honest.
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