Re: [asa] Sunday School for Atheists...

Note that I said at the beginning of my post that this
was a posting from a Yahoo!Answer that I *read*, NOT
that I *wrote*. :)

Mostly I re-posted it here because I found the way the
poster views the relationship between faith & reason
to be intriguing, and relevant to the Atheist who's
quoted in the original story as noting that they
prefer to stick with "evidence" not "myths".

In Christ,
Christine

--- mlucid@aol.com wrote:

>
> Christine says:
>
> > So since all religions seem to contradict each
> other,
> > the law of non-contradiction says either all
> relgions
> > are wrong, or only religion is right. But no one
> can
> > be considered sane who knows this and things they
> > could ALL be right.
> You're talking about God here. You can't say that
> all religions
> can't be right. If God wanted it that way, all
> religions could be
> just fine and all true. It is God who created a
> world with multiple
> religions, and while I'm happy with mine, I'm happy
> as well that
> other people are happy with theirs. Â
>
> I surely prefer a man who is humbled by his religion
> than one
> who is not. The operative word again is humbled.Â
>
>
> -Mike (Friend of ASA)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christine Smith <christine_mb_smith@yahoo.com>
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Sent: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 3:58 pm
> Subject: RE: [asa] Sunday School for Atheists...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Ah, faith vs. reason again, eh? Reminds me of a
> Yahoo!
> Answers posting I read, which I found rather
> intriguing; here it is....
>
> As we start, let me ask you this question: What sort
> of things must a religion have for it to be good
> religion?
>
> How about: Kindness, A religion must teach kindness
> that’s important isn’t it.
> Love, got to have love. How about Acceptance,
> Forgiveness, Eternal Life, 70 Virgins…OK I’m
> kidding
> about that.
>
> But the truth is, those are all valid reasons for
> WANTING a religion, but they are not good reasons
> for
> choosing a religion. There is only one thing that
> you
> should use to judge and choose a religion: Do you
> know
> what that is?
>
> Here’s the one thing you should judge a religion
> by:
> It is: Is it TRUE!
> Is it true. There’s really nothing else that
> counts.
>
> You have to test each religion’s claims the same
> way
> you would check out a used car or hire a babysitter
>
> Eternal life is too important to squander on a
> religion that cannot stand the same type of tests
> that
> I would ask when screening my child’s babysitter.
>
> Now let’s evaluate a few facts about the various
> religions. Even if you know this it’s good review.
>
> Are all religions the same?
>
> All religions are not the same, they all have
> different ways to get to God and different gods and
> different concepts of what heaven is. Religions like
> Islam, Christianity, and Mormonism are exclusive in
> that they say everyone else is going to hell or some
> bad place like Hell. Hinduism and Buddhism say there
> is no Hell or that life is hell and heaven is
> becoming
> nothing. Now it’s true that they have some minor
> similarities like they are ALL based on works, but
> they are not similar in their core beliefs.
> But having said that we need to determine which
> religion we should believe in. All religions can’t
> be
> right at the same time. How can I say that? Well
> it’s
> called the law of non-contradiction.
> The law of non contradiction says that something can
> not be both true and not true at the same time. Or A
> cannot be both A and NOT A at the same time.
> To prove this I merely provide a quote from an
> ancient
> Arab scholar.
>
> "Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction
> should
> be beaten and burned until he admits that to be
> beaten
> is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be
> burned
> is not the same as not to be burned." (Avicenna,
> Medieval Philosopher) Avicenna, Metaphysics, I;
> commenting on Aristotle, Topics I.11.105a4-5
>
> So since all religions seem to contradict each
> other,
> the law of non-contradiction says either all
> relgions
> are wrong, or only religion is right. But no one can
> be considered sane who knows this and things they
> could ALL be right.
>
> So having said that we must ask: why should someone
> be
> a Christian rather than any other religion? Why not
> a
> Muslim or a Buddhist? Or an Atheist?
>
> So, I’ve come up with 5 key tests. An
> appropriately
> so, we’ll use the acronym TESTS for it. These
> TESTS
> show us both the differences between all religions
> and
> Christianity and show us what we should look for in
> a
> religion before we pick one.
>
> T: Trust Me vs. Verify Me First
> All other leaders said: Trust me. Don’t ask for
> proof
> for it shows you are unworthy.
> But Jesus said Verify Me. Then trust me. Need proof?
> Well I’ll give it to you in just a second. Let us
> first look at the second point.
>
> E: E stands for Emotional Blind Faith vs. Rational
> Proven Faith
>
> Let’s talk about this with some examples:
>
> Diabetes
> Diabetes is a very tough disease. If you have
> diabetes, one of the things you have to deal with is
> the fact that your body does not produce insulin.
> Insulin is needed for your body to process sugar.
> There is a way to control diabetes; it’s done by
> injecting insulin into your blood to make up for the
> lack of insulin. So everyday you have to give
> yourself
> shots of insulin.
>
> If you don’t get the insulin, you will have lots
> of
> side effects and possibly go into a coma and die.
>
> Now let me ask you this. Let’s say you have
> diabetes?
> And one day I meet you just outside Safeway and I
> tell
> you:
>
> Hi my name is Joe Schmoe; I have a cure for
> diabetes.
> Do you want to be cured? And since you are not an
> idiot you say yes. Well that’s great, so here’s
> what
> you have to do to be cured of diabetes.
> 1. You have to pay me $25
> 2. You have to stop taking your regular diabetes
> medicine and give it to me.
> 3. You cannot tell anybody that you have stopped
> taking your medicine.
> 4. You have to have faith in me
> 5. You have to take some of these pills that I give
> you.
>
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Received on Tue Nov 27 21:22:34 2007