[ExI] Basis of Belief

Lee Corbin lcorbin at rawbw.com
Tue Feb 26 03:56:59 UTC 2008


Well, I am a bit ashamed of the vehemence of my atheist brethern
here.

Isn't it possible to entirely disagree with, even despise the
notions, ideals, values, and beliefs of others without coming
to the point of saying it's like they don't even belong to the
same species?   That communication is impossible?

I just think that Jeff here---and some others---are really
overdoing it:

> On Monday 25 February 2008, Jeff Davis wrote:
>> Your best bet when encountering a person of "faith" is to remind
>> yourself repeatedly that they might as well be aliens from another
>> galaxy -- they are that different, and walk away (from any attempt
>> to persuade).

What next?  Are people we disagree with politically (and who may
be just as hard, i.e. impossible, to "convert") next on the list?  I happen
to be reading about the French revolution, you see, and this kind of 
thing often tends to really get out of hand....

Bryan wrote

> And other people see this difference, and then the holocaust happens.

I'm not sure what that means exactly, but that kind of talk does invite
holocausts, all right.  Would you be comfortable with some devout
Moslems or Christians sadly coming to the conclusion that *you*
were hardly human, and certainly not worth saving?  You think that
this is really smart, or even accurate?

People are a hell of a lot more than just their beliefs, and even more
than their values. While there is absolutely nothing problematic about
saying that some people are  WRONG  WRONG  WRONG  about
certain things, they're really more like "us" than you think.

Lee




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