Why Does Faith Deserve Respect?

know what bullshit is?do you know it when you hear it?how is it you eat it and become immortal then?two thumbs up pat.love your directness.

Pat, there is such thing as innate faith, which religions co-opt. Concentrate on that and forget about the sheep. They will never understand. Come on, do you really think you have the monopoly on the understanding of what reality is? What are you? A prophet? Leave them alone. It's a pointless pursuit.

what are your thoughts on Laveyan satanism?

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Is there any difference between faith and gullibility? Any whatsoever?

Hi Pat - first off, love your videos - agree with everything you say. I'm an orthodox Jew. And listening to your most recent talk about faith, I have to point out some problems within your argument. No offense intended, but first off, your conception of faith comes only from your limited experience with Christianity (and a bit from Islam) which are extrapolations (and not particularly good ones) of the original monotheism idea. True monotheism is not about blind faith at all. And it is not anti-reality or anti-science either. Quite the opposite in fact. Of course we have no proof in God. Because in true monotheism God is infinite. If we stop to think about that for a moment, this means there is nothing else at all. Proof can only be examined when you are able to differentiate between 2 separate physicalities: For example, evidence for water is only relevant when you can point to an absence of water. So proof is out of the question here. And to be honest - it would defeat the purpose of life anyway - as I will explain below. An infinite God also means that it is perfect in every way since it lacks nothing. It therefore needs nothing from us - not our worship and certainly not our prayers. So it seems that creation and by extension, faith must be somehow for our own, exclusive benefit. What good would it do me if there were obvious proof of God? It would leave me as a robot - with no free choice and no room for personal growth. The universe is set up according to a certain pattern (which we learn about in Judaism) and with certain rules and both a cyclical and linear progression to history. A sensitive mind, with a little knowledge, will be able to pick up on this pattern within our environment and our lives. We are then faced with a choice - to ignore the 'hints' and 'indications' of God. Or to try to act within them. And by the way, this is a completely personal choice - nobody can determine through dogma or coercion whether you choose to see God within the pattern of the world or decide that its all just by chance. However, in true monotheism our task is to recognize that God is hidden within himself, then build this sensitivity into our environment and our behavior and our interactions with others. Just like the natural world is about growth, so our life task is about growth. Its not about escaping the physical world to some imagined better place - or heaven (as our Islamic friends believe) - its about imbuing the physical WITH the spiritual through sensitivity and effort. Like everything in life, there's no escaping honest hard work! And in the process we learn about the meaning of real happiness - that is, when we see our efforts bear fruit - when we make this world a better place for all of us to live in. Just like God is One, true spirituality is about making humanity One, through unconditional love and peace. But this is where the flower-power generation got it wrong - love and peace requires understanding, effort, self-control and character building - all hard work. The physical - both our own and the world's must be tamed and shaped by human creativity - which is why we are in the 'image' of God. Just like God creates, our task is also to create and improve - through scientific advance, through art, medicine, law and all the tools at our disposal. This is true spiritualism - (and also explains why Jews have won so many Nobel prizes). That was the essential 'eureka' that Abraham, the founder of monotheism discovered - and it is that concept that set Judaism away from the many other forms of spiritualism that existed in ancient times, setting it on a path that set the stage for Western civilization as we know it. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, Christianity and Islam diluted and lost much of that original raison d'etre. Hope this helps to begin a new train of though! Happy to continue the discussion any time! Regards, Sam.

NO RELIGION AND NO FAITH DESERVES ANY RESPECT AT ALL.  ALL THEY DESERVE IS SCORN!

Full marks Pat. Keep 'em coming :-)

Religion is very personal. Disrespecting it is sort of like telling some guy that " his wife is ugly and his kid is dumb"

Damn that was good!

If religion were to be a human invention, how else would it look but exactly what we have now? God who is supposed to be so powerful is incapable to send a message that all humans would agree with. In fact, God seems to specialise in messages that are so ambiguous, even the believers argue among each other for centuries as to what they mean. God who is supposed to be fair presides over a world where a 5yo child can gets raped and murdered. In the case of Islam, the revelations from god conveniently match the needs of the messenger prophet Muhammad. Such revelations also narrowly fit the society at the time. Most messages from god are never lasting and enduring. They are always context-dependent and self serving to the inner sanctum. Perhaps the funniest part of religious books like the bible and the koran is in the number of contradictions and double standards they hold. They are riddled with it. The most incredible part of the religious fallacy is the diseased minds who believe in god while dismissing a huge body of knowledge in physics, psychology, biology, anthropology and the rest of it, to believe in something that has never gathered a single piece of reliable evidence in thousands of years. Forget all the evidence accumulated to prove evolution. Let's believe in creation for which there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever. Nothing, Nada. The so-called miracles are a tool of deception used by the clergy to keep their position of power over the gullible masses. No wonder they are doing so well in countries where education is low. There has never been a single proven miracle in the history of the world. A real miracle is when you find a spare million transferred to your bank account and the transaction reads "From God with Love".

But Pat you seem to think that you faith in evidence is above all else when no evidence is true for long didn’t einstien disprove newton. Only faith is forever your understanding is a idiots faith.

Thank you Pat.

Pat your asking a lot from the religious idiots as far as their concerned proof is only something atheists should provide and prove. there only evidence is the book of fables written over generations by unknown authors, using stories they had been told. these same stories that were not 2nd hand but had been passed on many many times, fk have religious people never played Chinese whispers. even after just a few times a message is passed on it changes dramatically and by the end iis completely different. Religion is for people who have small brains and cant think for themselves, they have been brainwashed over many years. this makes me sad for them.

well said bro

True virtuous faith is a thing that no human possesses. Christ had perfect faith. Our "faith" only counts once and Christ's faith is then transferred to our account once we believe the gospel. You can not find the "evidence" of God's holiness in a Christian life the way "Christians" claim to have the Holy spirit working in them. God does not offer you a changed life, he offers you his perfect record. You have to take him at his word without seeing the "effects" in someone's life, if you needed to see proof that someone had been given a clean record you do not then go to the old record of one's own lifetime and try to use that to proof they now have a clean "life." It's retarded. Even looking at someone's "faith" to see if they've been cleansed is ridiculous. We're given Christ's record. No one needs to be enabled to be virtuous apart from that. Do not listen to people who try to use their "clean" lifestyle as proof of their "faith." It's impossible to please God.

here's an idea. why don't you go suck a few more dicks.

I'm a chicken Christian Muslim with Buddhist overtones. I'll be happy to show you my eggs--they're on sale at the store down the road. I'll probably pick up 24

hahaha

I agree completely. The short answer: faith should NOT be respected, and in fact, should not even be encouraged, because of what you said: respect of faith only ends in mental illness, wars and bloody violence (only have to check the history books for hundreds of examples of proof).