First YB, Most buddhist does not believe in a personnal god, they are NOT theist in a very large proportion.
And i am a left-liberal, so you have the right to call me a leftish-european.
@cystic:
My support of the “85%” argument is simply that if it is unlikely that the concept of “god” to be the product of some psychosis, or a simple irrational (childlike - if you will) belief - i.e. there are more numbers supporting a real “god” than the number of crazy people who also support a real “toothfairy”.
I partially agree
First i agree that it is not a mental sickess, but it IS an irrational belief for most people.
We must look at the history behind religion, in the first step of judaism, the Hebrew create a global philosophy, just like Plato and Aristotle, that was an explanation of Moral, of the Human race, of Animals and also of Nature. A religion is a philosophy frozen in time, it does not evolve, or if it does; very slowly.
Also - most people do not know how to treat a sickness, however clinical trials use many people to show us how to treat an illness, and we use the numbers to determine whether or not to use a drug.
Most people does not have any reason to believe in god.
Also - it is unscientific to say “God created the world - i know for a fact” just as it is also unscientific to say “There is no God - i know for a fact”. Also science is not the enemy of religion, but a complimentor of it. But we’ve been through this before.
I disagree, there is nothing unscientific not to believe in a myth created by human being 2 000 years ago, if there was evidence for god, i would be more sceptical, but what i heard is only fallacious argument, scientific deformation, attack against current scientific theory (well, that’s a fallacious argument) and the “There is so much evidence you just don’t see them” argument… So i won’t be convinced easily.
I have not a lot of certitude; but god is a lie. I am as certain he does not exist as i am certain the earth is not flat, and every year.
With regards to the staying power of Christianity - i was referring to the fact that so many people are martyred for their faith, keeping Christianity and various sects of it alive. That’s kind of: A) crazy or B) evidence of something powerful working in their lives.
We can argue forever about it, i cannot disprove god by A and you cannot prove god by B. But people die for other false god, for other religion, human sacriface were common in some polytheistic religion. Were they fool ? Sure they did not all decided to do so… but somes does.
Really, i don’t know. you havn’t really posed a question. You are correct, that statement would be fallacious, but again, i think that YB’s argument is that there might be something behind a concept if it is widely supported. Maybe not always a good thing, but there is a real force behind it.
Sure there is a real force behind religion ! The will of those who strongly believe is the force behind religion. People in general are really slow, i don’t think evolution is a very common belief, while most scientist are’nt working on proving evolution occur anymore but just how it occur.