[shawmutt]

Quote by: GeminiBrian That's just my point - our species can be said to be moral (broadly speaking), but that doesn't justify us in projecting our moral constructs onto the cosmos, as religion tries to do with such unconvincing results.

I agree, but that doesn't negate religion or make it useless.

Intellectual laziness is nothing but the bluntest of swords, if it can be called a sword in any sense. A sword is a tool for cutting, and in this case, there is no evidence of any cutting being done - no pairing away of accumulated nonsense and tired old ideas. The theist mindset can be compared to a garden chocked with weeds and brambles, blocking out all the light needed for new growth, so a little judicious pruning can have a very beneficial effect... trouble is, people mistake the claustrophobia caused by accumulated religious clutter as somehow comforting, choosing not to appreciate the benefits of fresh air, even fearing it.

This certainly isn't exclusive to theists. There is a lot of "accumulated nonsense and tired old ideas" among people no matter what they claim about God. Even the hardened atheist can get set in his ways, and when presented with a burning bush will run for a fire extinguisher. I think what you are doing is self-selecting folks from your own experience, and extrapolating that to all theists. Granted, arguing with theists online is the easiest way to set up a cognitive bias.

We are, after all, just smart animals. Looking for patterns, getting into a routine, etc.--it's all part and parcel of our evolution and survival.

Let's not get side-tracked in a debate about absolute truth - whether such a thing exists, and would we have the capacity to handle it if it did... almost certainly we wouldn't.

OK, we won't get sidetracked. You make it hard to with your next arguments though

Would you have shot Hitler in the head before the war he started if given the chance? If you had pulled that trigger, you might have prevented untold human suffering on a scale never seen before.

No, I wouldn't shoot Hitler in the head. If I was unaware of what would happen, what reason would I have? If I was aware of what would happen, how can I be sure another person wouldn't do something even more heinous? I'd kill Hitler, and then Hermann Göring would find a much more efficient method of genocide, resulting in 12 million Jews killed.

Then again, your conscience might tell you that shooting is wrong - period. Either way, you might find it difficult to live with your choice.

It's not my conscience, it is reality. Murder is wrong. This is evidenced by the fact that unless a person is a sociopath, murder has a profound negative impact on the perpetrator.

My point being, that life sometimes presents us with impossible dilemmas, where notions of right and wrong are put to a cruel test... So no easy answers, perhaps - and certainly no absolutes.

The notions of right and wrong are not the test--the choice to do the wrong thing or the right thing is the test.

Like I keep saying, stability is an illusion we spend our whole lives chasing after - always in vain. Our only choice is to factor instability into our thinking if we are to avoid traumatic disappointment - and religious books work in the reverse direction by giving people a false sense of security. How many devout people lose their faith after the death of a treasured child, for instance?

How many have their faith strengthened by loss? I'm not sure any holy book says the world will always stay the same. They offer guides for living. The people who read these books and get certain ideas about what they say try to make things stay the same. A former Christian, now agnostic like me can read the Bible and find a lot of wisdom contained within still.

In short "stability as an illusion" is what people do regardless of religion. Many studies have been done illustrating what happens to folks after their 20s. They tend to settle down, get stuck in their ways, and look for stability. This is why you have a big population of children, a big population of older folks, and a much smaller population of 20 somethings attending church every Sunday.

Faith can undoubtedly be a crutch to many, but my OP suggests that many people, even at the peril of becoming atheist, eventually have to admit to themselves that a crutch is only a crutch so long as you are able to believe in it... Some of us reach a tipping point where we find it impossible to keep resisting disbelief, and no amount of wishful thinking is going to alter the basic amoral fabric of the universe we inhabit... but it's an indescribably liberating step forward, nevertheless.

I don't see a problem with people needing a crutch of religion. If someone reaches a tipping point and stops believing, that's fine, but the vast majority of people never do reach that point. Where religion tries to cross into science, e.g. faith healing or acupuncture, is where I draw my line. Someone saying "I'll pray for you" doesn't bother me one bit--someone praying or relying on "energy healing" instead of getting a needed treatment bothers me quite a bit. Again though, this is not strictly a theist issue. I know plenty of atheists that swear by faith-based medicine.