Prager is saying that faith is a feeling. Feelings are subjective, and therefore cannot be argued about or proven. Every time you accept religion as "real", you have to have competing doctrines. As soon as you have competing doctrines, you are discussing conditioning and taste. At that point, you simply give up reason entirely. Most people, including atheists, don't actually mind faith, either as someone feels it or as an experience, but faith is not the problem, religions are. Religions are instruments of social conformity and, often, social coercion. There are other forms of social coercion, but religion, historically, is the most powerful and full of righteousness because it is always based on the principal of the fetish (which is a form of intensive conditioning, and works the same for religion and sex). A fetish is always about power and hierarchy, and therefore dangerous. So, lets say that faith and love are feelings that understand themselves as subjective, and religions and lust as feelings that are projected outward as attempts to manipulate others. No one who argues for religion can, in the end, reasonably change another's mind. He has to use some form of manipulation and conditioning. I withthe religion people would realize this and shut up.
Anonymous
faith is a feeling
Prager is saying that faith is a feeling. Feelings are subjective, and therefore cannot be argued about or proven. Every time you accept religion as "real", you have to have competing doctrines. As soon as you have competing doctrines, you are discussing conditioning and taste. At that point, you simply give up reason entirely. Most people, including atheists, don't actually mind faith, either as someone feels it or as an experience, but faith is not the problem, religions are. Religions are instruments of social conformity and, often, social coercion. There are other forms of social coercion, but religion, historically, is the most powerful and full of righteousness because it is always based on the principal of the fetish (which is a form of intensive conditioning, and works the same for religion and sex). A fetish is always about power and hierarchy, and therefore dangerous. So, lets say that faith and love are feelings that understand themselves as subjective, and religions and lust as feelings that are projected outward as attempts to manipulate others. No one who argues for religion can, in the end, reasonably change another's mind. He has to use some form of manipulation and conditioning. I withthe religion people would realize this and shut up.