Religious Worldview: It doesn’t suit me
This is the first post on my Naturalistic Worldview series where I debate some issues on religion with my friend Brian. Refer to this post for an intro on the subject.
Brian’s post revolved around a couple main arguments, which I’ll try to address mixed in with a few ideas of my own.
The first point revolves around why believe in God but at the same time not believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. I find this to be a somewhat cliché thing to say as an atheist. Yes, it raises some interesting questions on the nature of believe, but it doesn’t get us anywhere. I think that atheists need to understand that belief in God is not of the same nature as the one in fairies or ogres. We can agree that both fairies and angels share some characteristics; they’re both anthropomorphic beings with wings tasked with saving humans and grant the occasional wish or deliver a message. The difference lies in that angels live with God, and fairies with Peter Pan; which at the same time share the similarities of beings characters taken out of a book and have a nemesis. My point here is not to say that God and Peter Pan are the same, but that when dealing with religious belief we have to compare apples with apples. Comparing God and Santa Claus becomes silly because it’s not a real comparison, and certainly not one that religious people will take seriously, so atheists should stop using it if they want to have a real discussion instead of just mindless bashing.
