Understanding Religion's Relationship To Human Social Systems

(some random guy on the internet): "Gods entire modus operandi is based on fear !"  ------------------------------ (Random Guy #2): "the existence of God is proved rationality and through deductive logic (Logos) in many different manners. Ontological arguments like Anselm and even better Plantinga Cosmological arguments like Kalam, Leibnizian, or Cartesian Moral arguments (see William Lane Craig) Arguments from contingency Aquinas, Leibniz and many more. If you claim stoicism you should follow where the logic leads and its away from Atheism. Logically you're left with either pantheism like Spinoza and the classical stoics Seneca, Epictitus, Chrysippus or you're left with a personal monotheism like Abrahamic religions. " ------------------------ (me): The Stoics  used religious language to express entirely natural phenomenon. They did not make any supernatural claims. They also rejected the entire notion of any literal, self-aware, sentient Beings with ego an

Responding to:     What accounts for Theist and (more specifically) both Jewish and Christian Theists ... who happen to be: * fully appropriately credentialed historians of religion whose expertise includes: * Hebrew and Christian religious histories, and yet whom: * agree with secular historians that: * exactly zero of the miracle claims count as verified historical events ? I can see how a fundie would accuse the secular historians of anti-magic bias. But why do the God-believing historians agree with the secular historians? -------- Also, ... What accounts for all the laymen Christian who have spent considerable efforts to look into such matters and now conclude-and-confess that they ultimately: had to "take it on faith" (for emotional, and/or intuitive, and/or practical reasons), in the definite absence of objectively sufficient evidence? ------- Also, what accounts for all the Christian-theists who AGREE with Matt's claims about: what the facts a

[First Draft]   Neither definition of "Atheism" is a worldview. --- Definition 1: [also known as "Lacktheism"] A person whom is capable of understanding the concept of a Magic Person(s) In Sky ... does not perceive their to be any Magic Person(s) In Sky. This includes Christians who are presently experiencing a "crisis of faith"; having lost confidence in the idea. It also includes children and adults whom have not yet been introduced to the idea of it (via other humans. The only way that idea ever spreads). ~Not perceiving~ the existence of such entities ...  is not a "worldview".   Identically,  ~not perceiving~ the existence of the Eternal King Of The Leprechauns  is also not a "worldview". ---- Definition 2: The philosophical position.  The odds are so unlikely, given all we know, of any Magic People In Sky, that they have concluded there aren't any. Most people whom hold to this view reduce it down to "there are no gods&q

Like most of my blogs,  this all started in a Stoicism Facebook discussion group.  [Let us take a moment of silence, to reflect on yet another bounty of provocative  discourse;  which the death-cults of the Supreme Narcissist  continue to bless us with]  Some random guy posted this: My initial thoughts about that quote: It's very strangely worded. I could go look it up. But I don't really care if he really said those words or not. It's the thought that counts. And I agree with it. But I also knew that thread-post was going to ruffle some feathers.   Granted, only the most fragile of religious people are going to feel provoked to challenge that post.  But we got LOTS of those in Stoicism groups. There's only one way it ever goes.   So I knew what I'd find in the comments.    Of course, it's usually the fundie Christians who start  religiously-relevant controversial threads. [Edit] "Fundie" is short for:  Religious fundamentalist.  Here is a wiki link t