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Atheists - serious thought needed please

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naomi24 | 17:08 Fri 16th Jan 2009 | Religion & Spirituality
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This question is asked on behalf of an Atheist friend.

How much do you have to thank religion for the quality of the objectivity that you have acquired, and now possess?
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I don't thank religion for anything; I do not believe in God, or in any kind of 'higher being'. Therefore my objectivity and views of life have been purely formed by my own personal experiences and opinions of life and the world.
Couldn't say it any better than Mrs Y...
-- answer removed --
Ooh good question

Especially since a lot of the education movement was driven by religious movements.

However a lot of the great scientists who's work was studied were less than religious!

Universities were first set up by religious houses but that like was broken by the "UnGodly" UCL in the 19th century and in any case the logic they taught was derived from the Greeks.

I think if you were asking this question 300 years ago the answer would be a lot but I think the chain was pretty well broken 150 years or so ago.

Without religion would we have gotten where we are sooner?

Possibly People like Roger Bacon were heavilly sat on in the middle ages and there was a long period of religious supression and manipulation of learning around then.

Another interesting point is the Arab translation movement and whether arab learning was helped or hinderred by religion.

I may have to think about this one more!

I can honestly say that without Christians lying through their teeth about it, I wouldn't have been driven to investigate evolution to the extent I have, and I'm well aware of my substantial debt to them for opening my eyes to quite how astonishing it is.
I don't think it's possible to answer this question, even if I knew how to define or assess the "quality of my objectivity". We all of us have grown up affected - to a greater or lesser extent - by the existence of religion in the society in which we live. To assess to what degree that experience has affected the quality of our own thought we'd have to live our lives over again in a world in which religion didn't exist - while remembering all the time how we thought in our "first" life - then compare how we thought in each experience. Not possible, even in imagination.
Mrs Y answered this. Why more?
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Oh, come, come, Chakka. Others may want to say something too. Me, for example. :o)

I didn't realise until this question was put to me that I do have something to thank religion for, since objective study of fear-based doctrines with their inaccuracies, contradictions, and blatant dishonesty, in itself, produces conclusions contrary to those that religion is designed primarily to generate. In short, anyone who has the courage to question the lessons learned will find upon objective observation that religion well and truly shoots itself in the foot. The truth of the greatest lie ever told is there, in religion, for anyone who wishes to seek it. Whether or not the quality of my objectivity has been enhanced by my studies in this area, I can't say, but I believe that my willingness to utilise my powers of objectivity to the best of my ability has grown. There is no topic so emotive as religion, and therefore truly objective investigation into this subject, and the acceptance of the undeniable truth of its resulting outcome, requires not only an element of confidence in one�s own abilities and in one�s self-sufficiency, but also an overt readiness to reject the convention of the accepted status quo. In such an instance, one could honestly say that religion sometimes teaches us a lot more than religion.

There are other areas of objective research other than into religion, Science for example.

Many of the this generation of Scientists have grown up in a secular world where religion just isn't even a consideration.

They have cut their teeth and learned rational thought without ever having considered that religion was an area even worthy of study.

The fact that we are on this thread means that we are not in their number, we take an interest, but their example shows that that interest is not a prerequisite for rational objectivity.

Historically I think there is a case as I mentioned above, but personally, had I never thought of religion again after my initial encounter with it I doubt my objectivity would be seriously diminished

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