You're getting into "No true Scottsman" territory by claiming that. The definition of "religious" is simply "believing in a religion". You can believe in a set of tenets and not follow all of them--or any of them, really. — JustSomeGuy

So say, I set up a cult which had a s its central tenets, opposition to slavery, the sanctity of free speech and the fact that the earth was hit by a meteorite 65 million years ago. You happen to believe in all those things too, are you now a member of my cult? No, of course you're not, your independently arrived at opinions of metaphysics, ethics, and earth history just happen to coincide with my. What would make you a part of my cult would be if you absolved yourself of personal judgement and adopted the tenets of my institution on faith.

This is the problem with religion that separates it from atheism. (note I'm talking about religion, not theism). Both require a faith, but one continues to allow independent judgement on other aspects of metaphysics, world history and crucially ethics. Religion does not, it encourages its followers to set aside their personal opinions to have faith in the religious authorities. That's how priests get away with abusing children such as recently with Cardinal Law's diocese, or here in England where we have recently heard of the Catholic orphanage which had three time the national average child mortality rate for nearly a hundred years and no-one stopped them. I thought I was in some war-torn state when I read the actual wording of the press release "the nuns declined to comment on how many bodies were in the mass grave". Are you seriously telling me that an institution which buries the children they've beaten to death in mass graves deserves one shred of respect? I don't care how many Catholics do good work for charity, if there's even a minuscule chance that something about their religion allowed or encouraged them to do this it should be banned immediately.

You're free to believe whatever you want to believe, but don't act as though we have any sort of proven causal relationship between religion and people doing "bad" things. — JustSomeGuy

I can't believe you're being so heartless about this, this is absolutely proven mass child abuse we're talking about and you're suggesting we wait until we have absolutely conclusive proof that the structure of religion helps abusers get away with it before we act. Why?
I can't paste links to all the references, but below is a summary of several meta-analyses highlighting the specific doctrines of religious institutions which allow child abuse to take place.

The absence of women in key leadership positions with any authority (absence of gender appropriate role models and support) (Higgins, 2001; Morrison, 2005).
Patriarchal and authoritarian beliefs about the family (creating an environment in which victims are less likely to question the authority of their abuser, see Finkelhor, 1979; Higgins & McCabe, 1994).
Doctrines about sin (an emphasis on 'personal sin' to the exclusion of issues of social justice can easily lead to victim-blaming).
Teachings regarding repentance and forgiveness (may lead premature attempts to seek forgiveness from the victim or to holding victims partially responsible for their own abuse, see Parkinson, 2003).
The role of civil authorities (teachings against the use of court proceedings, based on biblical passages referring to civil suits can lead to confusion about the appropriateness of reporting abuse).
Reverencing of church leaders (e.g., priests being viewed as 'indelibly marked') can lead to a reluctance for (i) victims to be able to speak about abuse at the hands of clergy; (ii) members of the church to question the actions church leaders take in dealing with situations of abuse within the church.

It's not just religion, the same is true of institutional schools like boarding schools and many other organisations. The rate of offence in religious schools is no different to that in ordinary institutional schools, but no-one is suggesting a belief in boarding school brings about inner peace.

It has been firmly established that there is zero correlation between guns and violent crime. — JustSomeGuy

1. Where? and 2. I never claimed that religion causes people to want to carry out these atrocities, it is sufficient that it allows it. If you made any attempt to actually follow the argument rather than just supply a set of clichés vaguely on the same topic. The point is the guns help, without guns you cannot shot someone, so why not ban guns? Without the religious authority structures (and other authoritarian structures) child abusers would be less able to get away with it, so why encourage them?

An ideology, as I define it and under which category I would include religious fundamentalisms, is an aggressive, repressive, and oppressive system of prescription and proscription. An ideology say how things are and what you must believe or be punished, — Janus

So which of the major religions don't have a set of instructions which you must follow otherwise you'll be punished? I'm no theologian, but I'm pretty sure the basic principle is you believe in the religious version of events, do the stuff it tells you or you burn in hell/come back as an ant or whatever. Maybe I'm missing the religion that says "these are just suggestions, do whatever you think best and God will be just fine with that"

I don't even know where to begin. It honestly amazes me that you're on a philosophy forum. You seem to have no interest in reason or logic, and instead rely on personal feelings and appeals to emotion.

So say, I set up a cult which had a s its central tenets, opposition to slavery, the sanctity of free speech and the fact that the earth was hit by a meteorite 65 million years ago. You happen to believe in all those things too, are you now a member of my cult? No, of course you're not, your independently arrived at opinions of metaphysics, ethics, and earth history just happen to coincide with my. — Inter Alia

Okay....

What would make you a part of my cult would be if you absolved yourself of personal judgement and adopted the tenets of my institution on faith. — Inter Alia

Well the main issue with what you're saying here is that religions and cults are not the same thing. The fact that you think they're equivalent is one example of your reliance on personal feelings and emotion rather than reason. But even replacing this example with religion instead of a cult, your conclusion is still wrong. What makes a person a member of a religion is if they identify themselves as a member of that religion. Nothing more. Religion doesn't require you to absolve yourself of personal judgement. In fact religion requires absolutely nothing of you except belief.

Both require a faith, but one continues to allow independent judgement on other aspects of metaphysics, world history and crucially ethics. — Inter Alia

This is simply untrue. You have an extremely biased, narrow view of religion.

That's how priests get away with abusing children such as recently with Cardinal Law's diocese, or here in England where we have recently heard of the Catholic orphanage which had three time the national average child mortality rate for nearly a hundred years and no-one stopped them. I thought I was in some war-torn state when I read the actual wording of the press release "the nuns declined to comment on how many bodies were in the mass grave". Are you seriously telling me that an institution which buries the children they've beaten to death in mass graves deserves one shred of respect? I don't care how many Catholics do good work for charity, if there's even a minuscule chance that something about their religion allowed or encouraged them to do this it should be banned immediately. — Inter Alia

There's some of that appeal to emotion I mentioned. This has no relevance to the conversation at hand. You're talking about an institution, not religion. Religion isn't responsible for the molestation and death of those children, the institution of the Catholic Church is. How prevalent is this sort of thing in Judaism? Or other branches of Christianity, for that matter? Where is the epidemic of Protestant molestation victims?

I can't believe you're being so heartless about this, this is absolutely proven mass child abuse we're talking about and you're suggesting we wait until we have absolutely conclusive proof that the structure of religion helps abusers get away with it before we act. Why? — Inter Alia

More appealing to emotion, and more conflating religion as a whole with a specific institution.

It's not just religion, the same is true of institutional schools like boarding schools and many other organisations. The rate of offence in religious schools is no different to that in ordinary institutional schools — Inter Alia

You literally just debunked your own argument. Thanks for saving me the trouble, I guess.

1. Where? — Inter Alia

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/136447

I never claimed that religion causes people to want to carry out these atrocities — Inter Alia

*Earlier*

One way or another religion has 'caused' all these things — Inter Alia

Moving on...

The point is the guns help, without guns you cannot shot someone, so why not ban guns? — Inter Alia

Without knives you cannot stab someone, so why not ban knives?
Without cars you cannot hit someone with a car, so why not ban cars?

Another example of your complete lack of reason. Let's throw all logic out the window and just say "this has the potential for bad things, so it needs to be banned", without any sort of risk-benefit assessment, without asking any other questions or looking at any other information.

Oh, and while we're at it...

Without religion you cannot molest children.....oh, wait....

So I guess that argument is both irrational and irrelevant.

so why encourage them? — Inter Alia

Can you show me where I said--or even so much as implied--that religious institutions should be encouraged?

I'll help you out: the answer is no, you can't, because I didn't.

What makes a person a member of a religion is if they identify themselves as a member of that religion. Nothing more. Religion doesn't require you to absolve yourself of personal judgement. — JustSomeGuy

From the Collins dictionary - "Religion - A belief in a divine or superhuman power or powers to be obeyed and worshiped as the creator(s) and ruler(s) of the universe". Note the word 'obeyed'

From The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1990): "Human recognition of superhuman controlling power and especially of a personal God entitled to obedience." . Note 'controlling' and 'obedience'.

Just in case you think the new atheists have infiltrated dictionaries. From the pro-religion humanreligions.info -" Religions are shared collections of transcendental beliefs that have been passed on from believers to converts, that are held by adherents to be actively meaningful and serious and either based on (1) formally documented doctrine (organized religion) or (2) established cultural practices (folk religion).

Nowhere does it say that a religion is just whatever any individual says it is. All definitions refer to a written or commonly agreed upon set of doctrines or practices. So if you do not follow that set of doctrines you are not part of that religion, it doesn't matter what you say you are.

How prevalent is this sort of thing in Judaism? Or other branches of Christianity, for that matter? Where is the epidemic of Protestant molestation victims? — JustSomeGuy

If you'd have actually read any of the studies I've cited you would have found that molestation in Protestant institutions was actually slightly higher than Catholic ones and victims had more difficulty reporting incidents. But actually bothering to find out whether your off the cuff opinions happen to be true doesn't seem to be important to you.

I never claimed that religion causes people to want to carry out these atrocities — Inter Alia


*Earlier*

One way or another religion has 'caused' all these things — Inter Alia — JustSomeGuy

One statement claims that religion does not cause people to act a certain way, the other claims that religion causes certain things to exist. Was it you who brought up the issue of ability to use logic to analyse claims?

Without knives you cannot stab someone, so why not ban knives?
Without cars you cannot hit someone with a car, so why not ban cars? — JustSomeGuy

Because knives and cars are useful. To make the same claim for religion you would have to point to some purpose that cannot be equally served without religion. Demonstrating that there is no such purpose has been the point of my comments,but there's little point if all people are going to hear is "someone's being nasty about religion, we'd best trot out the stock argument that it's not all bad"

Because knives and cars are useful. To make the same claim for religion you would have to point to some purpose that cannot be equally served without religion. Demonstrating that there is no such purpose has been the point of my comments — Inter Alia

I was very hesitant to even engage with you again, and this is exactly why. You are doing the exact same thing you did in our discussion of atheism: changing the argument to suit your needs when what you were previously arguing gets shot down. Look:

You've missed the point of the harms religions have done. It's not to say "do not be religious because they are burning people at the stake" it's to say "do not be religious because they have burned people at the stake and this reveals something unsavoury about being religious, something potentially harmful" — Inter Alia

Modern secular culture may well have plenty of evils, but none of them are demonstrably the result of secularism. The inquisition was demonstrably the result of a fanatical devotion to the Catholic religion. The covering up of child abuse was definitely the consequence of unquestioned faith in the church. "Swap you chemical warfare for the Inquisition any day of the week" is a ridiculous argument, chemical weapons are not caused by secularism, the inquisition was caused by Catholicism. — Inter Alia

Your argument was originally that religion caused "plenty of evils" like burning people at the stake, the inquisition, and child molestation. That is what "demonstrably the result of" means. You also say it yourself in that last sentence, "the inquisition was CAUSED by Catholicism."

When someone makes legitimate arguments against your claims, you either make a counterargument or you admit defeat. You don't change your argument. It is twice you have done this now, and it's making me not want to talk to you at all anymore since it's clearly a waste of time. You don't listen to or use reason, you are intellectually dishonest, you appeal to emotion, and you create strawman arguments to take down instead of addressing the real ones. The very first argument I made in this conversation, in response to your claims, was that religion does not cause atrocities and evil, it is simply a tool people have used to commit them. Now you claim that you are actually arguing that. So you are being dishonest both about what your argument was and what my argument was. It's ridiculous, and since it has happened two out of two times I've engaged with you, I don't think I'll try a third time.

Whoa!!

Its really not that complicated.

1. When we talk about an object causing something we do not imbue it with intent. This is not an argumentative trick, this is normal grammar. To say the plane crash was caused by faulty wiring is not to say that the wiring intended to crash the plane, nor that planes are unable to crash without faulty wiring. It is simply to assert that the faulty wiring contributed meaningfully to the crash.

2. I have repeatedly claimed, and still do, that religion caused the inquisition, religious wars and the continuation of child abuse in Religious institutions.

3. I have never claimed, and never will, that religion causes people to be evil. If a person wishes to murder on impulse, but has no weapon they may only cause harm or refrain entirely. If, however, there is a gun on the table, they may well commit murder. In the same, normal grammar use of the term the availability of the gun was an instrumental cause of the murder.

Religions, in the normal use of the term, create social structures which allow people who may otherwise have been restricted from committing evil to do so, this is supported by the evidence I provided. Religions do not provide sufficient net benefit (which cannot be replicated in other ways) to counter this harm.

What has happened here has been that you've misunderstood my argument, I've explained it in different terms but rather than adapt, you've persisted with your original interpretation, leaving the impression that I'm "changing my argument". My argument is, and always has been, as above.

What has happened here has been that you've misunderstood my argument, — Inter Alia

My argument is, and always has been, as above. — Inter Alia

Let me summarize the various arguments you just made:

1. Religion does not have intent
2. Religion caused the inquisition, religious wars and the continuation of child abuse in religious institutions
3. Religion does not cause people to be evil
4. Religions create social structures which allow people who may otherwise have been restricted from committing evil to do so

1 - I never claimed it did. Yet another strawman.

2 and 3 - If you equate the things you list in 2 with evil--which it is heavily implied that you do--then 2 and 3 are contradictory.

The inquisition, religious wars, and child abuse are examples of people being evil
Religion caused the inquisition, religious wars, and child abuse
Religion does not cause people to be evil

These are your claims. Logically, they cannot all be true. So which one is false? If we use the first two claims as premises in a logical argument, the conclusion would be that religion does cause people to be evil.
The only point I have ever been arguing against is the second claim, so why haven't you been defending that claim? You take is as a given, having provided no argument as to why it is true, and instead going off on all of these tangents, arguing for and against things that nobody brought up but you, and which have no bearing on the original argument.

4 - Religion does not create these social structures, men create these social structures. Religion allows for the creation of these social structures. This is a huge and key difference which you don't seem to understand.

If such threats of punishment exist in all religions and ideologies then it would seem that they all have their evils, which was my original point.

There is no more point arguing against anti-religious prejudice than there is against religious prejudice.

There is no more point arguing against anti-religious prejudice than there is against religious prejudice

I disagree. While there is no way to come to a resolution, such arguing often enables me to clarify for myself my position, arguments for and against, and objections. But there does come a point in which no more benefit is to be gained from a particular exchange.

there does come a point in which no more benefit is to be gained from a particular exchange. — Mitchell

That's what I was getting at. OK, I'll spell it out, I'm talking about Inter Alia, in particular. Since joining the Forum, he or she has devoted nearly every post to explicating 'the evil of religion' in the kinds of terms associated with Dawkins. I did actually join the Dawkins forum, when it was active in about 2008 - it was the first forum I joined. I found almost everyone there was literally phobic about religion, to the point of being hysterical about it.

Myself, I am non-doctrinally religious - perhaps one of those described as spiritual but not religious, although I'm finding it a hard distinction to maintain. I quite agree that there are many evils to be found in religion, many abuses, and that even some religious institutions ought to go out of business. But I will never agree that the major religions are simply evil tout courte and I think that Dawkinsian type of attitude actually betokens a form of pathology - the fear of religion, as Nagel put it, in his review of The God Delusion. That, I would be prepared to debate.

There is a difference between causing evil things by to happen by facilitation and causing people to want to do evil things. It's not rocket science.

There is no more point arguing against anti-religious prejudice than there is against religious prejudice. — Wayfarer

And who's going to decide what's prejudice and what's justified belief? You, I suppose.

And who's going to decide what's prejudice and what's justified belief? You, I suppose. — Inter Alia

Having opened this can of worms, I will now endeavour to respond.

The kind of attitude I am talking about, I encountered on the Dawkins forum when it was active about ten years ago. I asked a few questions like, what about the work done by religious charities and missions, providing hospital care and food to orphans and the like. The response was universally dismissive. The people on that could never acknowledge that religions were capable of any good, or at any rate, that whatever good they did accomplish was a result of something other than their faith. And besides, atheists were just as giving as the religious, along with stats and arguments and the rest.

After a while of posting on that forum, I realised that there is such a thing as 'misotheism', which is to religion as misanthropy to mankind, and misogyny to women. It means literally 'hatred of God' but metaphorically 'hatred of all things spiritual'. Since then I've debated a few misotheists on various Forums - Neopolitan, Krumple, 180 Proof, and others of that ilk. There is nothing that can be said to someone who simply believes that religion is evil. So I don't bother.

I will second all of this. I've been casually discussing and debating people on various forums for over a decade, and I've encountered many of these "misotheists" as you call them. I've generally referred to them as antitheists. But there really is no reasoning with people of that sort, they're as irrational and dogmatic as any other kind of fundamentalist. After a while you realize it's just not worth your time to engage them, because there is no possibility of having any sort of productive or coherent discussion. The irony is that the vast majority of these people are rebelling against the religious environment they were brought up in, and yet they go to the same extreme as the religious fundamentalists, just in a different direction.

Glad you agree, but I just want to add one point, albeit a crucial one. Which is that, ultimately, I blame religious orthodoxy for this problem. And the reason for that goes right back in history to the emergence of the dominant orthodoxy in the Western tradition. After all, 'orthodoxy' means 'right belief'. And the Church put such an enormous premium on being correct, on conformity to dogma, on Correct Belief, that they left many in the intelligentsia with no choice but to rebel. After all, you either believed correctly, or you were shown the door (or much worse). That rebellion against orthodoxy manifests in many forms, of which scientific materialism is one example, but a very influential one. So in a way, I certainly respect the rejection of religious authority, with the crucial caveat that this can't involve the outright rejection of spiritual reality, which we are getting dangerously close to.

This can be depicted in Hegelian terms: thesis, which is orthodox Christianity, and its antithesis, which is scientific materialism. But as Hegel saw, any dialectic will produce a synthesis, which I see in in the 'new physics' and the kind of systems science that Apokrisis is an expert it (albeit he is still a bit far on the physicalist end of the spectrum). But that is the way science is going - a new synthesis, in fact, a new gnosis, which is scientifically effective but spiritually informed. Can't happen soon enough.

The people on that could never acknowledge that religions were capable of any good, or at any rate, that whatever good they did accomplish was a result of something other than their faith. And besides, atheists were just as giving as the religious, along with stats and arguments and the rest. — Wayfarer

So what exactly is wrong with that opinion, you're sounding frighteningly like you're saying that some opinions just aren't allowed, those pesky 'other people' with their 'different opinions' especially when they're backed up by the dreaded 'stats', how dare they!

There is nothing that can be said to someone who simply believes that religion is evil. — Wayfarer

But someone who simply believes it is not evil is somehow automatically reasonable. Not every conflict in the world is automatically solved by sitting somewhere in the middle, vacillation does not automatically make you wise, there's nothing about the middle ground between two opposing opinions that just automatically confers rightness.

You're basically saying that unless people agree with you about the balance of harms caused by religion, you're not going to talk to them. Well enjoy your echo-chamber, it will be a bit emptier from now on.

I definitely see what you're saying and agree that the rise of religious orthodoxy probably led to the rise of materialism, but individuals always have a choice and must be held responsible for their choices (unless you don't believe in free will, but that's another discussion entirely)

What exactly do you mean when you say "outright rejection of spiritual reality"?

So what exactly is wrong with that opinion, — Inter Alia

What struck me as being wrong with it, was that Christian missionaries actually do a lot of really helpful and important work to save many perishing and suffering individuals from an awful fate. So the opinion that this doesn't actually amount to anything, or mean anything, I regard as basically a form of bigotry.

What exactly do you mean when you say "outright rejection of spiritual reality"? — JustSomeGuy

Something close to atheism, but I don't want to imply that people ought to believe in God. For example, Buddhists aren't believers and certainly don't believe in a 'creator God' but the kind of atheism I'm referring to, is the kind that wishes to account for everything in terms of physics, and so is also inimical to Buddhism.

Ah, I see. I guess the use of the term "spiritual" is what threw me. I haven't studied materialism in-depth, but as far as I remember from learning about it in college, isn't it only--or at least mainly--concerned with the mind? When you say "spiritual reality" it calls to mind a sort of unseen spiritual aspect of all that exists, rather than just an immaterial human mind or consciousness. I could be remembering materialism incorrectly, though.

How can anybody believe anything without evidence? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Isn't that what faith is? Below is the Google definition.

Faith: strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof.

So, faith, by that definition, is irrational. My point is that, as you said later in your post, everything is faith-based. So, we can't criticize religious faith and turn a blind eye to the fact that everything is faith based.

Faith: strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof.

So, faith, by that definition, is irrational — TheMadFool

I disagree. The belief that the sun will rise tomorrow is a very rational one, yet we have no proof that it will. Proof is not a requirement for rationality.

everything is faith-based. So, we can't criticize religious faith and turn a blind eye to the fact that everything is faith based. — TheMadFool

I do agree with this, but there are various degrees of faith required for various beliefs, and the more faith required, the less rational the belief is. This isn't to say less rational beliefs should be automatically discredited, only that it does make sense to scrutinize some more than others.

Also, as a side note, we need to remember that proof and evidence aren't the same thing. In fact, you could argue that obtaining absolute proof isn't even humanly possible.

The belief that the sun will rise tomorrow is a very rational one, yet we have no proof that it will. Proof is not a requirement for rationality. — JustSomeGuy

But evidence is. Evidence need not be, and indeed with regard to empirical knowledge, cannot be, "proof".

So, faith, by that definition, is irrational — TheMadFool

By that definition. But faith, in its ordinary sense meaning "trust", can be "well founded" or "baseless". A spouse who has faith in their partner need not be irrational in that faith. Having faith in the American judicial system may or may not be irrational, depending on circumstances.

But evidence is. — Mitchell

Yes. This is what I was implying here:

there are various degrees of faith required for various beliefs, and the more faith required, the less rational the belief is — JustSomeGuy

But I guess I didn't make it explicit enough.

Evidence need not be, and indeed with regard to empirical knowledge, cannot be, "proof". — Mitchell

Evidence cannot be proof? Are we talking semantics here? What else would proof be if not a piece or multiple pieces of evidence?

What else would proof be if not a piece or multiple pieces of evidence? — JustSomeGuy

Exactly, thus the scare-quotes. So now, the question about religious faith is, "Where's the evidence?" IOW, you don't have to "prove" the existence of God, just show me some evidence.

That is always said with the apparent conviction that none of the religious literature of the Judeo-Christian tradition actually constitutes evidence. I mean, it is simply swept off the table with the gesture of it 'not being empirical science', as though it is thereby settled that nothing in it ever happened, that the whole corpus is simply the superstitious accretions of the pre-scientific mentality. Never mind that it is read out at weddings and funerals, and that billions of people still live by it; there's no 'evidence'.

Glad you agree, but I just want to add one point, albeit a crucial one. Which is that, ultimately, I blame religious orthodoxy for this problem. And the reason for that goes right back in history to the emergence of the dominant orthodoxy in the Western tradition. After all, 'orthodoxy' means 'right belief'. And the Church put such an enormous premium on being correct, on conformity to dogma, on Correct Belief, that they left many in the intelligentsia with no choice but to rebel. After all, you either believed correctly, or you were shown the door (or much worse). That rebellion against orthodoxy manifests in many forms, of which scientific materialism is one example, but a very influential one. So in a way, I certainly respect the rejection of religious authority, with the crucial caveat that this can't involve the outright rejection of spiritual reality, which we are getting dangerously close to. — Wayfarer

The development of a religion is an odd thing. If we take Christianity as an example, you can see that in the early days, it needed to promote free choice, and free thinking, to attract members. This freedom is crucial to the development of a progressive ideology which sets the religion apart from others making it attractive. In Christianity you can see this trend, right up until after the scholastics. At this point there is a shift, it's almost as if the Church leaders believed that all the important metaphysical questions had been answered. Following this, the Church perceives a stronger need to protect its members from the infiltration of wrong ideas, so the problems of orthodoxy which you describe, prevail.

The central issue is the way that we, as individual people relate to the nature of free will, freedom of choice. If we whole-heartedly embrace freedom of choice we afford the same respect for others to choose as we do ourselves. We recognize clearly, that with respect to the foundations of knowledge, and first principles of ontology, the individual will naturally select what appears to be closest to the truth, when provided with the information. The individual will naturally select the truth because these principles are not useful for anything else other than determining the truth, so when given the choice, the only guiding principle is the desire for truth. Therefore, when it is the truth which we seek, there is no need to hinder anyone's freedom of choice.

Faith of course plays a very important role. It allows us to take what is granted by others, as fundamental and true. So there is no need to question fundamental principles, we take them and build on them, enabling the rapid growth of knowledge. But there's a delicate balance to the role of authority. The individuals being given the principles, from the authorities, must trust and have faith in the authorities, to accept them unconditionally and move forward. And this faith is inspired by the actions of the authorities which demonstrate the good of the principles. When the principles are enforced by the authorities, the need for force draws suspicion as to whether the "good" of the principles is really the truth.

That is always said with the apparent conviction that none of the religious literature of the Judeo-Christian tradition actually constitutes evidence. I mean, it is simply swept off the table with the gesture of it 'not being empirical science', as though it is thereby settled that nothing in it ever happened, that the whole corpus is simply the superstitious accretions of the pre-scientific mentality. Never mind that it is read out at weddings and funerals, and that billions of people still live by it; there's no 'evidence'. — Wayfarer

If the Scriptures are to count as evidence, then what about the Qu'ran, the Gita, the Upanishads, the Sutras, etc. It seems to me that citing Scripture as evidence for the existence of the divine puts the cart before the horse.

Also, it sounds as if you are hinting at an "Argument from Consensus", suggesting that "billions of people still live by it" provides evidence that the divine is real.

I know you've heard this all before, but I am wondering about your take on these two points.

Faith is the death of reason the cessation of investigation.
Faith is the failure of knowledge
Faith is the cry of the weak and the hopes of the dispossessed.
Faith is the failure of responsibility.
Faith is giving up.