Published by Scottie
I am an older gay guy in a long-term wonderful relationship. My spouse and I are in our 36th year together. I love politics and news. I enjoy civil discussions and have no taboo subjects. My pronouns are he / him / his and my email is Scottiestoybox@gmail.com
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I do wish skilled speakers such as AaronRa would avoid making universal claims without any room for exceptions. If he had used most religions or almost all religions instead of every religion then it would not have devalued what he had already said. Even if he had stated every religion that I know of then he would not have caused my eyebrows to raise.
“That’s how faith works: inherently auto-deceptive“. Does that apply to all faith or only religious faith? While his arguments make sense if the prayers are to an all knowing, all powerful deity, not all religions, not even all religions that have evolved from the Abrahamic traditions claim such a being exists. I endorsed everything he said right up to the point where claimed that the spiritual leaders of every religion want us to pray: so that we will pull the wool over our own eyes.
Making a claim that the spiritual leaders of my own faith tradition want me pray is an absolute nonsense and then to suggest that the auto-deception gives these leaders more time to count up the tithing adds insult to injury. The spiritual “leaders” of my faith tradition are long dead – more than 300 years ago, and as the tradition makes no claims about an afterlife, it seems unlikely that they could count at all, let alone count tithing, as one of the reasons those leaders came into prominence is because of their opposition to tithing in the first place.
My faith tradition makes no claims about the existence of a deity nor of its nature. Nor does it claim that it is above (or more true than) any other religion or denomination. It makes no claims about a heaven, hell or afterlife, does not demand prayer, has no religious or secular leaders, makes no distinction between the religious, the sacred and the secular; opposes tithing; and regards everyone as being absolutely equal regardless of gender, ethnicity, wealth, social status, or authority, no matter whether that authority is religious or secular. The belief in absolute equality has resulted in its members clashing with the authorities from time to time. I’m no exception in this regard.
Even his claim that all faith is auto-deceptive is questionable. I have faith in a great many things including the love of people important to me; that the people I deal with day to day are essentially trustworthy; that most motorists will obey traffic rules to the best of their ability; that my doctor’s first interest when I visit is my health and not how many dollars he can extract from me and/or the public health system. Unless one’s faith is blind, which is perhaps what AaronRa is referring to, although he doesn’t make that clear, then I’m not persuaded that faith is auto-deceptive regardless of whether that faith is of a religious or secular nature.
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Hi Barry. Wow, this is impressive and shows you really did watch the video. I will give you my ideas to your questions, which I think are great btw, but if you want the real answers to your questions I suggest you go to the YouTube video and leave the comment there also. My understanding is he does reply to questions.
To start, Aron has made his career out of responding to and debunking the Abrahamic faiths, so I suspect he was mostly talking about them. While he has occasionally mentioned Hindu and a few other faiths, he mostly has talked about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the scientific view point of pointing out how they fail the test of reality, and how there is simply no evidence to support them. He often points out how the things written in their holy books are simply wrong from a physical point and also from a historical point.
As for the leaders wanting to pull the wool over the eyes of the flock and the question of tithes, here in the US so much of Christian worship is symbolized and pushed by grifters trying to steal money, that those leaders he is talking about in my opinion, are the ones who keep telling low income people they have to keep donation / tithing because god wants the leader to have another bigger private jet or another bigger mansion. The mega church leaders, the TV preachers, the Jerry Falwell’s who preach one way to live and then live the other way the “sinful” way themselves.
Again I really shouldn’t try to speak for him, but when he says faith is auto deceptive he is talking people that think the ark story is true and somehow possible, he is talking people who deny something so well proven as evolution. Remember Ra started his road to this career by being an online educator debunking lies about evolution and science in general, working to keep Christian religion out of school texts. So he feels people have to deliberately choose to ignore facts to believe religion.
Barry I enjoyed going over your comment. I hope I got the major parts. If you feel I missed something, I would be happy to keep talking with you about it. If you do comment on Aron’s page, and he answers please let me know what he replies. Btw, your belief system sounds like it really works for you. There are many people who do get much honest benefit from their personal beliefs. Roger and Ali are two who come here who have deep religious views. For me there is a large difference between the people who use their personal faith to guide themselves, and those who use a religion to attack others different from them. The first I support and care for, the second I despise because the target of their hate / attacks is normally people like me. Best wishes. Scottie
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