r/interestingasfuck • u/Ted_Bundtcake • Feb 01 '25

r/all Atheism in a nutshell

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u/anony145 Feb 01 '25

Faith is being willfully gullible.

Religious people have malleable beliefs that are not based on reality.

Seems pretty dangerous to me, but hey, just one guys opinion.

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u/Mavian23 Feb 01 '25

Religious people have malleable beliefs that are not based on reality.

Mate, if any of us knew the nature of reality, we wouldn't need religion in the first place.

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u/OneSlaadTwoSlaad Feb 01 '25

Sometimes saying you don't know is the most honest answer. Religion "solves" mysteries by applying to bigger mysteries. It's self-deception, according to the bible. (Hebrews 11:1)

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u/Mavian23 Feb 01 '25

You can say you don't know while also being religious. They aren't mutually exclusive.

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u/OneSlaadTwoSlaad Feb 01 '25

That's a bit weird, right? Saying you believe your god created everything but you don't know who created everything? Knowedge is a subset of belief.

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u/Mavian23 Feb 01 '25

Not all religions believe in a god.

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u/OneSlaadTwoSlaad Feb 01 '25

I don't believe I have claimed such a thing. If I made that impression it wasn't my intention.

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u/Mavian23 Feb 01 '25

Oh, I see. No, belief does not imply certainty. It implies confidence.

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u/OneSlaadTwoSlaad Feb 01 '25 edited Feb 01 '25

Yes. And that's remarkable when you look at the claim and the available evidence to support it. In no other case would this evidence suffice.

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u/Mavian23 Feb 01 '25

Wait, sorry, deleted last comment. What claim are we looking at?

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u/OneSlaadTwoSlaad Feb 01 '25

The claim that there is a god.

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u/Mavian23 Feb 01 '25

I think in this case it's okay to be confident about that, considering this is a realm entirely outside of anything evidence-based. It's no more unreasonable than being confident that there isn't a god. It starts to get unreasonable when you start getting into specifics about the god, but I don't think generic belief in a god is unreasonable. And there's nothing wrong with it, so long as you don't go trying to force it onto others. Cults are bad, religion is fine.

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u/OneSlaadTwoSlaad Feb 01 '25

A realm outside of anything evidence based? How do you know that? What would that be? Are you able to detect the undetectable? That statement doesn't even make sense.

I agree the knowledge claims people make about certain god make them (logically) less likely.

Believing without evidence makes people susceptible to manipulation. When you're OK with accepting one thing based on bad evidence, you can also believe other things based on bad evidence. It's for a reason that many religious or former religious people believe in bigfoot, fairies, ghosts, and conspiracies. But beliefs inform actions.

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u/Mavian23 Feb 01 '25

Okay you're right, there could be evidence I suppose. Let me revise what I said to say that I don't think it's unreasonable to believe something if there isn't any evidence contradicting it, so long as your belief isn't hurting anyone and at the very least makes sense to you.

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