Ten Commandments

[denuseri]

The little man in the attic story simpley doesnt equate to even nearly the same thing. The analogy imho and is yet another not so well vieled attempt to insult people of all faiths that differ from your own. Which I might add, is so much the scientific pot calling the religious kettle black.

Your ancestors and family members, the very people you trust in your comunity, didnt pass down stories about him from generation to generation becuase more than one of them saw it or experienced first hand for themselves and felt at the time it was so vitally important to them that their children carry on the same beliefs and traditions as they did into their posterity.

[Thorne]

The little man in the attic story simpley doesnt equate to even nearly the same thing. The analogy imho and is yet another not so well vieled attempt to insult people of all faiths that differ from your own. Which I might add, is so much the scientific pot calling the religious kettle black.

Your ancestors and family members, the very people you trust in your comunity, didnt pass down stories about him from generation to generation becuase more than one of them saw it or experienced first hand for themselves and felt at the time it was so vitally important to them that their children carry on the same beliefs and traditions as they did into their posterity.

The fact that the story is centuries old has no bearing on the fact that there is no evidence for its validity! Whether it's one person, or a thousand people, or a million people saying it has no bearing because there is no evidence for its validity! Billions of people, both living and dead have believed in gods primarily because they have been taught since infancy to believe in the gods of their parents/culture! They are taught from infancy that it is a sin to doubt the existence of gods and that they will go to hell if they don't believe as the parents believe!

And why do these people believe it? Because there is a man who stands up in the church or temple or mosque or wherever and tells them that the man in the attic is real! And if you don't believe that he's real, aside from the spiritual price you will pay, you will be cast out of the community, or executed, depending on the religion. In some cases you will be shunned by your own family, just for not believing in the man in the attic! Of course so many people profess belief. The price for not doing so may be too high for them to bear.

Some people will tell me that they have turned away from their birth religion and found something else to replace it. I applaud them for exhibiting the strength to rebel against the status quo. I could wish that they had exhibited more critical thinking and spurned superstition altogether, but at least they have thought about their beliefs.

And for the umpteenth time, I have no problem with people who wish to believe in gods. Faith is not necessarily a bad thing, unless it is blind faith. If you have studied your religion, and have really looked at the arguments both for and against belief and still believe, then you have done all that can be asked of you. I have turned away from religion and superstition, finding their arguments false and borderline insane at best. I have chosen to not believe.

But when you parrot the comments of church leaders without really trying to understand what they are telling you, and then have the gall to state that what you believe is absolutely true just because you've been told it is so, then I will argue against you. Why? Because blind, unreasoning faith kills people!

So believe what you will, there is no man in the attic. The emperor has no clothes!

[leo9]

The little man in the attic story simpley doesnt equate to even nearly the same thing. The analogy imho and is yet another not so well vieled attempt to insult people of all faiths that differ from your own. Which I might add, is so much the scientific pot calling the religious kettle black.

Your ancestors and family members, the very people you trust in your comunity, didnt pass down stories about him from generation to generation becuase more than one of them saw it or experienced first hand for themselves and felt at the time it was so vitally important to them that their children carry on the same beliefs and traditions as they did into their posterity.

Any smart Pagan knows that "my tradition is older than yours" is a dangerous game. My Scandinavian relatives follow Norse gods whose legends are certainly older than the legend about the revived rabbi, though probably about of an age with the legends about the burning bush and the stone law books. I know people who follow the gods the Egyptians had been worshipping for a thousand years before Moses proclaimed a new one. If ancient tradition were the test of truth, we should all worship the Great Mother depicted in Stone Age idols - which sounds good to me, but I don't think that's what you had in mind.

As for preserving traditions, the same people whose folk wisdom you invoke also passed down a tradition that a fat man in a sleigh drawn by reindeer would bring gifts at Xmas...