Of god, or what god wants, or why god wants it, or of any of the moral exhortations or prohibitions of scripture.
And yet these people that have that expertise disagree fundamentally on what it means. With other texts you get subtle distinctions, differences of emphasis or detail, but you don't get the wholesale divergence that you do with scripture.
How many terrorist incidents in, say, London (where I regularly travel for work) does it take before my concern becomes rational? How many recidivist pronouncements from the established church do I have to suffer before my distaste for religious influence becomes justified? How many accounts of institutional misogyny, homophobia and racism is enough to consider the enterprise perhaps a little passé?
And as I pointed out there are lots of religious scholars who don't claim to be experts on anything more than traditions, etymology and history and therefore provide a context and translation of texts that are broadly the same. Everything else they are happy to tell you is just their considered opinion based on the above, and moreover various Islamic scholars set out the differing opinions of other scholars rather than just their own opinions. Since most religious people are not seeking answers as to whether they should kill someone or not, this works pretty well for them. Obviously the minority of scholars who want you to kill people to further a political cause are not going to tell you, "By the way, there are actually contrary opinions from other mainstream schools of thought that say it is haram for you to carry out this terrorist attack, so you know, it's up to you what you want to do."
That some people want to use a book, religious or otherwise, to further their own ideologies or causes they believe in is nothing special to religion and therefore your vague assertions above about fundamental differences with absolutely no definition of fundamental or what those differences are fails to make a special case of why a phobia about religion is rational.
As an example of just one text that creates divergence, you only have to look at the disagreements over United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. There are thousands of similar examples. Your belief that only scripture causes such divergence shows a staggering ignorance of history and law.
Regarding your worry about terrorist attacks in London - I live in London, my children travel on the tube every day, they go into Central London, my niece would have been on the same carriage as the Parsons Green bomber getting off at Parsons Green to go to school that morning except she decided to walk that day - and I don't have this irrational desire to hold religion responsible for the criminal actions of a few religious people.
Maybe if you had lived a less sheltered life and had lived in London through the IRA bombings or bothered speaking to people or watching documentaries on people who have lived and do live through far worse attacks in the name of non-religious ideologies than the few London terrorist attacks, you might be less of a wuss and less irrational about terrorism in the name of a religion. That is a perspective issue for you to get a grip and deal with I'm afraid, I can't help you with that.
There are plenty of religious people who are no more and no less misogynistic or homophobic than atheists, so clearly there are religious people who are able to think for themselves and interpret their scriptures in a way that is compatible with cultural changes.
Perhaps you should actually read what I've read, rather than what you want me to have said. I'm not generalising about all theists based on the behaviour of some, I'm pointing out that there isn't a reliable argument against a particular incarnation of religious belief, so in order to remove the brake on civilisation that the worse elements represents it's necessary to highlight the shortcomings of the whole edifice.
Yes, beliefs - whether moral or political or religious or philosophical - don't have a reliable argument against particular incarnations. For me that's not a problem - I don't crave certainty and can cope with differing beliefs that may impact on my life. For you it clearly is a problem. Again that is your issue you to deal with. If it helps you to cope with uncertainty around beliefs by targeting theists to argue with and try to convince them that they should also want certainty like you - I don't have a problem with that. Your arguments are unconvincing but much like Alan's proselytising - it's pretty harmless and whatever works for you.
Stories that could be true, though, rather than one that's been pretty universally demonstrated to hold less water than a desert-bound collendar.
You get charity work from any number of cultural groups, motivations and associations. How many horticulture-motivated suicide bombers have you heard about?
Tell that to the guy that's predicting the end of the world based on his (expert?) interpretation of scripture. Yes, bad things happen, people get debilitating illnesses... and religious conservatives agitate against research for cures because of nonsense concepts like 'souls' and 'spirit' and 'god's will'.
It is baseless. It's understandable, they have a motivation, but that's not a rationale that supports the notion, it's just an excuse for why they don't pay attention to the fact that there's no rationale.
Yes, and no. I try to be broadly respectful of them, but I don't have to respect any interpretation of religion when the whole thing is such palpable nonsense.
That's pretty much a non-starter - the way to convince people of the failures of religion is with logic, reason and evidence, and if they were the sort of people that would be influenced by those they wouldn't be theists in the first place. The point is to keep making the point publicly and clearly so that more and more impressionable youngsters grow up in a world where there are no sacred cows, where the holy is ridiculed, where the obvious nudity of the Emperor is printed in the headlines every day. This is the long game.
O.
Leaving aside that the theist concept clearly holds little merit for you, personal experience demonstrates to me that the religion I practice works for me. Having been an atheist and now a theist, I prefer the experiences I have now that I have added a belief in God, and understandably I have no incentive to give up those experiences just because some atheists find them ridiculous.
I do have an incentive though to pass these beliefs and experiences to my kids, and it helps me that I used to be an atheist, and it really helps that I come on this forum and update myself with various atheist arguments - so that I can focus my arguments against atheism when talking to my kids. Ultimately it's up to them - but currently they like the bonding rituals, values and thought processes of their understanding of Islam and find them very helpful in navigating against the pressures of being teenagers in the culture that they live in.
