Harris Vs Sullivan - Atheism vs Catholocism

[L'ennemi.]

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Then Of course, when X become the simple religious feeling, the belief in the existence of something else, it becomes completly irrefutable, as you cannot rationnaly demonstrate the absence of god, or his exitence for that matter. (see Kant)

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See the celestial teapot argument.

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which relies on a very caricatural view of religion.

[Sisyphus' Rock]

Unfortunately, most of thes type of arguments tend to end this way. The theist says 'I believe it to be, so it is true'.

The skeptic/scientist says 'prove it'.

So I guess that there is indeed a racially-based conspiracy by the Feds against Michael Vick, the water in my toilet goes that way because of the Earth's rotation, & that street person I passed this morning is really talking to someone but appeared to me as an invisible adversary. They all believe those things to be true, so therefore they must be true.

[L'ennemi.]

Or, the religious people say disprove it?
and the skeptics say: Why should I disproof your stupid beliefs, that are unfalsiable anyway?

[vhawk01]

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Religious faith is also often reducible to circular reasoning (as in the "I believe X to be true because I believe it is true" example). These are all intellectual dishonesties. It seems obvious to many that this undermines critical thinking. The problem with faith, however, is a different one; one that can be seen here on this board and Sullivan's closing comments.

It is analogous to arriving at a checkmate only to have your opponent declare, 'I am not and have not been playing chess, therefore you do not win'.

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Thats exactly right, because they sure ACT like they are playing chess, and mimic a chessplayer in every way, right up until the point they realize they are about to be mated.

[vhawk01]

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Then Of course, when X become the simple religious feeling, the belief in the existence of something else, it becomes completly irrefutable, as you cannot rationnaly demonstrate the absence of god, or his exitence for that matter. (see Kant)

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See the celestial teapot argument.

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which relies on a very caricatural view of religion.

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Caricatural, perhaps, but also overwhelmingly popular and common.

[Justin A]

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Then Of course, when X become the simple religious feeling, the belief in the existence of something else, it becomes completly irrefutable, as you cannot rationnaly demonstrate the absence of god, or his exitence for that matter. (see Kant)

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See the celestial teapot argument.

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which relies on a very caricatural view of religion.

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No, it relies on the view of religion that you just stated. Just because I cannot demonstrate the absence of God does not mean I should hold that a belief in his existence is rational.

[L'ennemi.]

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No, it relies on the view of religion that you just stated. Just because I cannot demonstrate the absence of God does not mean I should hold that a belief in his existence is rational.


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That's right, but not nobody says that the belief in God is rationnal. Faith and reason have nothing to do with each other.
The teapot argument is useless in my opinion since it supposes that religious people have to prove the existence of god. They don't. And the skeptic don't have to disprove their belief either.
There should be no burden of proof on anyone. Well, maybe scientists could disprove everything and answer all of mankind's question, but nobody expects them to do so.

Religion, usually, is different from simply believing in an imaginary teapot.
Faith gives people answer to questions that science can't answer. Progress in science has made some of the answers irrelevant(see evolution), but the truly fondemental metaphysical questions are still out of science reach, and believing that sciences will one day answer is a faith as irrational as any religion.

The teapot is also very bad analogy as in the catholic religion God is a concept that your mind cannot grasp.

[KipBond]

I was going to reply to the parts of your post that aren't correct -- but there were too many of them. Instead, I'll just quote the one part that was correct:

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And the skeptic don't have to disprove their belief either.

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[L'ennemi.]

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I was going to reply to the parts of your post that aren't correct -- but there were too many of them. Instead, I'll just quote the one part that was correct:

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And the skeptic don't have to disprove their belief either.

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I'm not religious, and I woul like very much to see you try to point what is wrong in my points. Except the art of the concept of GOd since it would have too many implications and would be kina long/boring. But the rest is really basic stuff, and I'msurprisde that a rationnal mind would disagree on this subject.

[bunny]

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That's right, but not nobody says that the belief in God is rationnal. Faith and reason have nothing to do with each other.

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There are at least two different brands of theists on this board who do think the belief in God is rational. I'm of the school of thought that rationality is important and consistent with theism. If my faith leads me to a contradiction, there is something wrong with what I believe on Faith. I would abandon a belief in God if it was logically inconsistent. I think faith and reason have something to do with each other because they are both making claims as to "what is true" if they conflict, you need to pick which has priority.

A stronger claim is that theism is the only rational worldview. I know NotReady believes this, I suspect Peter666 and plenty of others do too. It is true that some people say the two are unrelated and that inconsistent, faith held beliefs are not a problem. But there arent many posters here who say "That may be true scientifically, but it's not true from a religious point of view." or other such nonsense.