I am saying that you can have the default position of "Not proven" whilst not being passive in your disbelief and challanging others on their beliefs. I think that a passive acceptance of others beliefs is actually harmful. Beliefs of all types should be challanged, religious or otherwise. If someone is making a particular claim about a diety then passive acceptance of "Well we can't prove that isn't true" isn't and shouldn't be the only acceptable response. Which is, at times, what you seem to be advocating (I could be mistaken, but this is what comes across to me from your posts, of course it could just be because of the side of the argument you happen to take most of the time, much like when I am being accused of being pro-Israeli when in reality I am just not pro-palestinian).
I think you need to read some of my posts more often....as people like Spudbynight and Bunnykilbot will attest, I can be just as critical, if not more so about how people justify their religious beliefs as I am about how people justify their prejudices against peoples right to hold religious beliefs. I enjoy challenging people on their beliefs and many of those I challenge are more than happy to answer to that challenge, Spudbynight, Stef and Adnan for example and I have had lengthy conversations on why they believe as they do and why I disagree or agree with them...but all based on objective and rational discourse...not the simply dismissal of his (or my) positions as being delusional. I will definitively say if I feel those beliefs are not supported by either their scripture or my interpretation of it, equally I will express my disagreement with justification that I feel do not fall within a rationale and moral framework that we should be promoting....some of the religions (or rather interpretations of scripture) I am most critical about are Jehovah Witnesses, Islamism and various evangelical and primitivist literal interpretations of Christianity. My position is not the passive acceptance of belief, quite the opposite, but that the challenge should be rational and informed and unfortunately on many occasions that is not the case and we sink into the
lolreligion, you are all lunatics position.
This is especially true if people then go and use those beliefs to attempt to enforce their morality on others. If I attempt to force my beliefs on someone then I would expect and ecourage them to be challanged, I should be able to justify them, I should be able to say "This is the harm that is done if we do not do this." "The Bible says so" is not an acceptable response. We see this time after time in threads on homosexuality for example, religious people desperately trying to justify their religious objection to homosexuality and coming up woefully short.
I do not disagree, however this cuts both ways and you will see also that if you look at threads on homosexuality where faith arguments against are prevalent I am opposed to them. If you are going to challenge those beliefs you should at least know what they are and how they are derived. Simply saying "You Mad Bro" doesn't really cut it and neither does replacing one imposition with another, which is what some are doing.
Frankly we need to stop treating religious beliefs as a special case and they should be as freely open to challange as any other ideology. If it is OK to take the micky out of socialism, liberalism, libertarianism or conservatism then religion should be equally fair game.
There is a difference between "taking the micky" and prejudice. There is nothing wrong with humour or poking fun at religion...but that is not what I am opposed to, it is the imposition of one faith position over another and the idea that simply because someone holds a different world-view from someone else that they are somehow less human or belong in a mental institution. (I realise that is not what you ascribe to).
For me, all criticism should be objective and done with actual knowledge of the subject under challenge and simply because I justify my world view differently than another is not enough.
As to whether someone who holds religous beliefs is delusional or stupid, it would depend on how they hold those beliefs. I struggle to see how anyone could rationally consider their faith to be the one and only true faith in any sort of rational way considering how much an accident of birth is involved in what faith you actually hold.
The same could be said of any culture or ideology if that is the only one you are exposed to....as I pointed out earlier people in the UK for example simply do not live in that isolation (unless you are in a cultist environment) and as such they make their own rational choices...rationality and critical thought doesn't preclude religious belief as many atheists and religious critics would like to portray. Many people of faith have come to their faith becasue of a critical and rational decision making process...and that includes those that remain in the faith of their birth. Religions themselves evolve because of such critical thought processes, Christianity particularly. No doubt some believe simply becasue they are not exposed to, or don't care (or bother with) for other competing or opposing views and this includes all philosophical positions not only religious ones. The Labour support who supports Labour because their Father and their Father before him did for example....
How someone interprets and acts on their beliefs would inform on how rational or delusional they are, not simply holding a belief in God or a Great Spirit or whatever......and this applies to other forms of philosophy as well, from religion to politics. The sweeping dismissal of all people of faith is simply unfair and is hardly a rational position to take.
I struggle with labels, rationally I am agnostic because I know that we do not have enough information yet to make a decision on the question of some sort of divinity. However I am very much atheist when it comes to pretty much every god ever described by man.
I agree wholeheartedly...labels simply limit peoples ability to hold several positions depending on the context of the position and effectively express themselves without artificial definitions defining them. I am effectively Ignostic, however that definition is only part of what I believe or promote....and one way or another everyone is an atheist about something, and everyone holds faith about something.
Anyway this is going down well trodden and familiar territory that doesn't particularly need repeating yet again.
