You should read Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling before condemning Abraham.
I doubt anyone can convince me it's okay to butcher your kid.
He doesn't try to, and I'm not trying to. But maybe someone can convince you that even a faulty religion can lead to positive results.
Understood. However, I'm really not interested in looking up apologists for religion. If you have an argument, go ahead and make one; but I won't be researching this just on your say-so, sorry. No offense intended.
In spite of what I said, I did just read the wikipedia entry on "fear and trembling". Didn't see anything terribly interesting there. If you hear god's voice telling you to kill, I'm putting my money on schizophrenia.
That's fine. It's very easy to write off religion from a rational point of view and it's very easy to write off science from a religious perspective. And it's none of my business if you staunchly refuse to admit that there might be reason in faith and there might be faith in reason.
You are putting words in my mouth, but it is true that I disdain faith. Faith and reason are not, in my mind, comparable things, at all. Finding one in the other is a nonsensical idea to me.
Great. The next time you scoff at a young earth creationist or someone against stem cell research, realize that you are the exact same thing but on the opposite side.
Not at all. I don't have faith in Feynman, as much as you may wish it so. Faith means I believe it with no justification (or because god says so). I have trust in Feynman, which is based on the fact that I have read a couple of his books and seen some of his lectures, and I know of his reputation. On the evidence of those things, I trust that he is not a charlatan. I may be wrong, but my belief is not one of faith.
Right, and people don't have faith in God. They've read his book, seen a few of the things he's done, and his reputation precedes him.
God hasn't written a book. No one has seen anything he's done. He does have a rep, though. So does Santa.
And if you can demonstrate something that god has done, I'll bet you could collect a million dollars from the Randi Foundation.
Because they are, for the most part, untestable.Why can’t I submit a religious or spiritual claim?
untestable claims are pretty much useless in terms of determining their truth. That's fine if you are claiming something as a subjective opinion or truth i.e. " I don't feel well." or " Lady Gaga sucks"...However, if you're making an assertion about something being a fact, if we can't test the truth of your claim, then, sorry, we feel no need to believe you.