These types of arguments always irritate me. It is faith! Why are people demanding proof of faith? Does faith have some definition of which I'm not aware? It is believing the unbelievable; it can never be proven concretely to those who want, well, concrete proof. You simply must observe and make the choice for yourself.

What also irritates me is the rampant politicization of religion and atheism. It is an f-bombing personal thing. Religious people (and the few outspoken atheists) need to keep their opinions to themselves. At its core, this is not an arguable subject. I believe; you don't. Shake hands and part ways.

Just as an aside, if you want my reasoning behind God's existence despite the horrible things happening in the world, here it is: when God gave us free will, he had to pretty much detach himself from day to day occurrences in order to do that. Basically, free will = free consequences. As for natural disasters, I guess he knows we have the free will to get the hell out of dodge. If you live under a volcano/major fault line, you're the one screwing yourself over, not God.

 

You're free to disapprove of the politicization of religion and atheism, but it's kind of hard to compare, at least in the US or Western world. Everywhere political forces are doing all they can to impose their will on the political process and shape society as they see fit. At best there are some groups opposing them and trying to preserve secular society, who may or may not have any connection to atheism. There aren't any atheist groups with any political power in the US at all, that I know of.

Also, on your 3rd paragraph; you're not a Christian, I assume? You are advocating a deist philosophy of a natural world with an absent creator, much as the Founding Fathers of the US did. Christians (and Muslims, and Jews) are theists. Those religions explicitly postulate an active, interventionist God, one who is all knowing, powerful, etc. And is thus therefore directly responsible for natural disasters. They don't call them "acts of God" for nothing. People of those type faiths are the ones Harris is addressing in his book (as the title makes clear) and theists have a difficult time explaining how the omniscient, loving God their holy books propose can allow such suffering and destruction on Earth.

That's a very old argument though, usually one that forces the faithful to resort to the catch all, "God works in mysterious ways." or "Man can not know the mind of God." defenses. The point I cited of Harris was more about how people who decide to believe in that version of the religion will stick to it no matter what, and will even say their faith was reinforced by events that, by any logical standard, utterly disprove the core facts of their stated philosophy. But as you point out, that's why it's faith; it can not and need not be defended with logic.

I would consider that a fatal flaw in the use of "faith," but to others it's the defining, winning feature. Funny how that works.

 

When I referenced atheism in politics, I mostly had the ACLU trying to slowly erode Christmas until it was no more. To me, that is just as insidious as imposing moral limitations through government. There is certainly a line, but I think that approaching it is a worthy effort so long as we don't cross it.

I am a Christian insofar as I believe Jesus Christ died for our sins, etc. Beyond that, I intentionally detach myself from thought and study on the subject because, really, anything anybody says could be right. I just keep it simple and try to be a good person.

As for your lack of faith in faith (har har), science is beginning to understand that it can affect great change on people. One compelling example is that when women with breast cancer are resigned to death, they almost all die. However, those who "keep their chin up" or even outright deny the possibility of death survive at much higher rates.

Faith in and of itself isn't bad -- even in a religious context. It is how it's used. It is unfortunate that it is so regularly used to destroy and manipulate, though.