to Arbiter

sorry about the lack of posts, and sorry Arbiter for the late reply. army life has been very busy and we dont even get to sniff an i-net computer in that cui camp of ours.

anyway, these are arbiter's comments:

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"Hi. You don't know me but I happened to chance upon your post. To me the only good reason anybody needs to disprove religious belief is the sheer number of religions in the world. To overuse an oft-repeated slogan, an atheist only believes in one less god than a theist (or a hundred billion if that theist is hindu, but that's outside the point). There is absolutely no basis for preferring one religion over another except that its the one you came into contact with."

"As for Christianity, the only rational basis for belief is the account of Christ's resurrection. Note only that the earliest accounts of this were written years after the alleged incident, and the records of the various apostles differ on many details. Personally I believe that Jesus did exist and was an inspiration to those around him, but I doubt that he in any way claimed he was God. The whole Trinity idea was syncretised into his teachings centuries after he died."

"More importantly, I think it's important to consider that you don't need religion to be moral and ethical, and you don't need religion to understand what an absolute miracle that you should exist to be able to observe the world in all its beauty and splendour."

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my views:

i dont think the first argument necessarily refutes belief in religion. as i understand the arbiter's argument, the theist is almost/just as rigorous as the atheist in rejecting a great number of religions, and the basis for the theist's belief is the bigoted upbringing he had in it. this bigoted upbringing cannot objectively account for the theist's disbelief in the legion other religions, and hence his belief in his own religion cannot stand. (please forgive any defective understanding!!)

But if someone were to go beyond the usual theistic approach and take a good, reasoned, logical look at each religion, and then come to a good, sound conclusion, then the massive number of other religions which he has disproved supports the basis for the religion he has objectively and scientifically chosen, because he has taken a look with an eye neither bigoted nor biased by upbringing or the concept of faith.

i definitely agree with using the resurrection episode as one of the key bases for belief/disbelief. evidence from without the four gospels must be sought, evidence preferably not of one of his followers. but then there are so many more arent there? there is francis collins' interpretation of the genome (when i finish reading that book in maybe 20 years we can talk more about non overlapping magisteria!), there is the whole pandora's box of apologetics, there is CS lewis' argument on moral law, there is dawkins' vitriol on any possible aspect of the subject.. but more later!

lastly i agree with the arbiter about not needing religion to live a happy, full, moral life. im all for a fully humanistic experience of the world, where we do things for the people who count in our lives and matter to us (i remember thinking about this before my first post!) but we must be careful, i think, because the fact that it is irrelevant does not disprove religion and should not hinder one's search and ultimately, adherence to the authority of reason if a religion is ever proved true.

cheers! happy new year