Greatest I am: Faith closes the mind. It is pure idol worship.
Faith is a way to quit using, “God given” power of Reason and Logic, and cause the faithful to embrace doctrines that moral people reject.
The God of the O.T. says, “Come now, and let us reason together,” [Isaiah 1:18]
How can literalists reason with God when they must ignore reason and logic and discard them when turning into literalist?
Those who are literalists can only reply somewhat in the fashion that Martin Luther did.
“Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.”
“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has.”
This attitude effectively kills all worthy communication that non-theists can have with theist. Faith closes the mind as it is pure idol worship.
Literalism is an evil practice that hides the true messages of myths.
We cannot show our faith based friends that they are wrong through their faith colored glasses.
K: you are correct in this. Faith does close the mind to other possibilities.
When I declared that there is not god and asked for evidence, those believers
said I will have the evidence when I have faith. In other words, faith proceeds
evidence. You must have faith to see the evidence, not the other way, which is
see the evidence and than have faith. but faith can be misguided.
As Hume showed us, having faith that tomorrow will come is wishful thinking.
We have no idea if tomorrow will come, individually or collectively.
To say, the sun will rise tomorrow is faith, habit of days gone by,
not proof that the sun will rise tomorrow. We don’t know if the sun will rise
tomorrow. I for one, hopes it will, but I can’t prove it or know it. I can only
hope it will rise tomorrow. Faith in matters of cause and effect is simply a matter
of habit, as Hume showed us. When I go to bed tonight, I have no evidence I will awaken
tomorrow morning. I might die of an heart attack or be stabbed by the wife or child tonight.
I can never know. I simply sleep and hope I awaken. I see little in the universe that I can
have faith in. I am a modern man in this regard, but I don’t flee like so many others
into such false matters like god. I cannot have faith in things that are so transitory,
like the universe, earth, god, even matter is transitory. How can we have faith when
even matter is transitory? Everything including me is temporary, transitory. Where lies
faith in such a transitory existence?
Kropotkin