Now, now. Let us start at the top. Spend a couple hours on your knees in mental concentration (and not blowing anyone, please), then let us go over the "easy" and "quick" parts again, eh?
Before we proceed to that, have we agreed that prayer is indeed not "easy" or "quick"? Do we agree that the author of your little comparison is in fact grossly ignorant about prayer? Just checking. My religion forbids sharing secrets with people who don't see the obvious.
He is a smart guy with a decent eye for art and no obvious moral flaws except the usual hubris of this age. I'm not trying to make him fall down and worship Yahweh - I'm just pointing out that he and his friends are as qualified to teach religion as I am to teach sex.
Your analogy is a good one. Looking at religion from the outside and figuring that that's the whole story is like looking at porn and figuring that that's what sexual love is like. The most visible things are the tawdriest.
"Only members of the cult of irrationality are able to discuss the cult of irrationality. All others OBVIOUSLY don't understand it, because they don't agree and if they understood it they'd OBVIOUSLY agree."
Nice, Magnus.
When you can make things better (or worse!) via prayer? Call me. With proof. But despite the best efforts of billions of people, not one person has ever been able to make that happen. And until then, "praying" and "doing something useful" will continue to be categories that do not overlap in any way.
I am actually going to chime in here and point out that he does have friends who are religious or who are more open-minded about religion than he is, thankyouverymuch.
Whereas I think demanding that people support their unfounded and incredible assertions before accepting them as premises is *the foundation* of civilised discussion.
Accepting evidenceless absurdities without question is a mark of primitive, irrational, illogical thinking - the opposite of civilisation.
If you tell me that you see a tomato on the table, but I am in another room and don't come to see the tomato but instead call your assertion an unfounded, incredible, evidenceless absurdity, I am perhaps being a bit unreasonable.
I am so ignorant, I don't even know what I'm ignorant of. But I am honored to be compared to ironphoenix. I think that is a first. I must be making some sort of progress.
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Date: 2008-12-13 03:42 pm (UTC)Your analogy is a good one. Looking at religion from the outside and figuring that that's the whole story is like looking at porn and figuring that that's what sexual love is like. The most visible things are the tawdriest.
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Date: 2008-12-13 04:01 pm (UTC)Nice, Magnus.
When you can make things better (or worse!) via prayer? Call me. With proof. But despite the best efforts of billions of people, not one person has ever been able to make that happen. And until then, "praying" and "doing something useful" will continue to be categories that do not overlap in any way.
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Date: 2008-12-13 04:03 pm (UTC)Accepting evidenceless absurdities without question is a mark of primitive, irrational, illogical thinking - the opposite of civilisation.
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