@BluRayHiDef said:
@GazaAli said:
There's so much irony and absurdity in religious people's pursuit to prove issues pertaining to faith using science as a way to persuade nonbelievers and spread their faith, given how faith itself requires of those who profess it to do so at first on a purely spiritual level or a one of faith and belief.
You're not religious? I always assumed that you were Muslim.
I consider myself fairly religious yes. With that said, my post isn't really anti-religious or something, its just a call for rationality and consistency. If as a religious person your faith dictates that you adhere to it first and foremost on the level of belief and faith then you of all people should be conscious and fully cognizant of that fact. By trying to persuade people to adhere and profess to your religion using scientific arguments, then you undermine and compromise the very foundation of that religion you're preaching. The entire thing becomes neither rational nor religious but of pure psychological nature.
But most importantly, I feel that religious people's attempt to try and closely relate science with their religious beliefs to be of apologist and self-patronizing nature. I believe it is a result of the intense secularization the world did and still undergoes and the antagonism and alienation of religion that follow along. People are becoming less and less religious. Religion's marginalization is being consolidated day after day. Science and rationality on the one hand and religion on the other are more and more looked at as adversaries. And given the current scientific advancement of the world and what it has achieved for humanity, science will naturally appear as the shining beacon of enlightenment and prosperity, and anything that might undermine it or oppose it must be disposed of aggressively, specially if at some point of its history it brought misery and despair to the people.
I take no sides on the image I just described nor do I ascertain its authenticity and truthfulness. I'm just describing the scene as it seems to me. And I have the utmost respect and fascination for science and men of science. In that scene however, religious people feel hard-pressed to try and save face by establishing a reality in which their religious beliefs and the idolized and glamorous science attract rather than repel. There are two things that are colossally wrong in such a status quo. First as I mentioned earlier it undermines the faith that these religious people are trying desperately to save and maintain. Second is the self-alienation of religious people through which a religious person becomes divided against himself. He starts to perceive his religious beliefs to be alien to him and he becomes under the impression that he must make a choice. This self-alienation is what elicits the apologist tendencies of religious people. They try and strike a balance between their antagonized religious beliefs and the established supremacy of science by trying to justify themselves one way or another to the nonreligious. This I apprehend applies more or less to the moderate and enlightened religious for the fact that extremists bask in their intellectual inferiority and astronomical stupidity. Regardless, the simple fact is that religious people owe no one an explanation, as long as their beliefs hurt no one. They have the full liberty to adhere and profess to their creeds and they must never come under the impression that such adherence can be used against them or makes them lesser human beings. It is not a choice between science and faith and faith does not automatically disqualify you from rationality.
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