carepov

Both the number and the expression "medieval social views" is an exaggeration. Generally, attitudes towards women, gays and Jews in less developed countries today are comparable to Western attitudes well within the last century. More importantly, there are civilized people in uncivilized countries and visa versa.People should be judged as individuals and thankfully the Canadian government does that and screens everyone with the same criteria: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/inadmissibility/who.asp

Top 10 source countries in 2015(http://canadaimmigrants.com/canada-immigration-by-source-country-2015/) Philippines India China Iran Pakistan Syria USA France UK Nigeria The fanatic countries I included were bolded ad up to 32,000 in 2015. How do you get "hundreds of thousands per year"?

Is Malaysia a failed state/dictatorship/war zone?

Malaysia

I'm not sure what your point is. Islam does not cause dictatorships or failed states.

The goal of practically every immigrant is to increase their personal and financial security for themselves and their family. Surveys show that Muslim Canadians are effectively integrating into Canadian society: "Do Muslims feel attached to Canada? As a population made up mostly of immigrants (many having arrived in the past decade), Muslims truly stand out as being among the most enthusiastic group of Canadian patriots. More than eight in ten are very proud to be Canadian (more so than the nonMuslim population) and this sentiment has strengthened over the past decade, especially in Quebec. Strong religious identity notwithstanding, Muslims are as likely as others in this country to say their Canadian identity is very important. And they agree with other Canadians on what makes Canada a great country: its freedom and democracy, and its multicultural diversity. Their greatest dislike, not surprisingly, is the cold climate. " http://www.environicsinstitute.org/uploads/institute-projects/survey of muslims in canada 2016 - final report.pdf

Is this based on some evidence or just your faith?

I would be surprised if there are more than 80,000 Muslims per year. Canadian Muslims are certainly more religious than the average Canadian. I have no problem with that. Canadian Muslims are blending in fine as per the Pew survey, I see no evidence of hatred of gays and Jews.

No, I am saying 32,000 is not hundreds of thousands...

First of all, hyperbole hinders your argument: "hundreds of thousands of people every year whose religious values are completely and violently incompatible with both secularism and tolerance" http://canadaimmigrants.com/canada-immigration-by-source-country-2015/ Second, odds are that most people leaving their "intolerant and theocratic" home countries (eg: a combined 32,000 from Iran, Syria and Pakistan in 2015) are those that would rather live in a more tolerant and secular country like Canada. Finally, the greatest eroders of Canadian tolerance are not immigrants it is those that are intolerant of immigrants.

There is evidence that some people need faith.

I agree, we are social beings. I think that saying that the religion declined due to an increase in education/reason is like saying the popularity of boxing declined because we are a less violent society. There are certainly other major reasons for the decline of religion, some may be more local: -overall decline in the respect for authority -uncovering corruption and horrific crimes by religious leaders Maybe, but I am skeptical and very hesitant to call it a major blow. The timing doesn't make sense. I see the most significant decline of religion as quite recent, maybe since the 60's. 100 years after Darwin. The Quiet Revolution in Quebec is an interesting case. Like we disused above, most religious faith is not based on understanding science/nature and besides, we will never have all the answers, the more answers we have the more questions we have too.

There is plenty of evidence to show that in some people faith is a virtue. Some very intelligent and successful people say that their faith is one of their strongest virtues. Who are we to judge otherwise. If faith were not a virtue then why would all successful societies develop systems of faith? What you seem to be doing is assuming that everyone is or should be like you. Faith is a virtue for some people (and I agree a vice for some). I believe that I was born to teach, to help others to...

Yes it is. At least for some people, to get through life you need to answer certain questions and make some decisions based on no evidence. Gathering evidence is sometimes not worth the time and it is best to act on faith so that you can move on to other things. Are human being born equal? If a person decides that they are certain that the purpose of their life is to... (tell stories, advance humanity, enjoy the pleasures of life, help the less fortunate...etc). Is that not a type of faith? I agree that faith is believing without evidence.

We surely both agree that like ideological zealots, religious literalists are mentally retarded and that we should put aside. There are are a significant number of successful, intelligent, progressive and rational religious people -some at the top of their scientific or other professional fields. I am interested in these people and I take issue with the two groups being lumped together. I disagree that reason is crowding out religious faith. In the west religious faith is declining but it is not clear to me that reason is increasing. IMO, faith got crowded out by shopping and football. People no longer join religious groups because: 1. Individuals are way better off now and better able to comfortably survive without relying on community support 2. There are so many more options of things to do during leisure time (shopping and football) 3. The snowball effect of the above two reasons: working hours are 24/7 and there is less peer pressure to attend religious services

I strongly believe that everyone is different and I almost never say "everyone...." Clearly I see "faith" differently than you. Faith is a virtue like any other, if taken too far it can be disastrous like in your example. However, IMO if one lacks faith then it similar to lacking confidence or trust or having excessive skepticism or doubt, one risks missing out on opportunities and perhaps can lead to excessive pondering and indecisiveness. Do you believe in human rights? Do you think that "all men are created equal"? What is the purpose of (your) life? I think that these are questions of faith. A major influence of my thinking of this subject is from the book "Sapiens" by Yuval Harari here are some excerpts and key points: http://www.ynharari.com/power-and-imagination/articles/the-most-important-things-in-the-world-exist-only-in-our-imagination/ http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2015/07/imagined-orders-like-religions-depend-on-shaky-myths.html

I disagree. A well balanced life is a mixture of faith and reason. For reasons of efficiency some things are best left to faith. Perhaps, but I argue that what some people like the OP call "living a faithless life" is untrue and many things are faith even though we do not recognize it as such. We could both be right. Perhaps, but surely for some people this has led to a very happy and successful life. Surely for some people taking such a leap of faith was a reasonable course of action.

Correct me if I am wrong but we seem to at agree that: -Faith and reason can co-exist -Non-religious people can have faith (evidence-free beliefs) I do take issue with terms such as "made up fake personal gods believed in by Abrahamic skygod cults" but perhaps it is related to some other inane exchange of posts. Getting back to the ideas in the OP, do you agree that making a life-long commitment to stay with a partner can be an act of faith? Think especially of people that say: "the first time that I laid eyes on Pat, I knew that we would be together for the rest of our lives." If this is not faith I don't know what is. Besides why do we say that to not cheating on someone is to be faithful?

You would be right if we were talking about a belief is a specific god with a description. I am not. Comparable 1: -Some kind of god exists that we cannot even fathom because it's existence is beyond our comprehension -Some kind of extraterrestrial life exists - like you said Comparable 2: -Like you said - specific god(s) are doing specific things (like Zeus or some people's interpretation of the biblical God) -Little green men from alpha centauri exist and in fact built the pyramids or your huge invisible purple rabbits, however I'm not sure that one can be purple and invisible simultaneously 1 and 2 are not comparable.

You are correct not a perfect comparison. Believing that your business will be a success is different and does not necessarily involve faith - but it can. Believing in god is comparable to believing in the existence of extraterrestrial life. p.s. For some people, "god" does not necessarily represent an actual being

What I am trying to get at is to point out that you and others here seem to have a double standard. For non-religious beliefs, any evidence, even anecdotal, will do "their own skill-set at running a business, books they've read, courses they've taken, the fact that other businesses doing the same thing have been successful, etc, etc.". While for religious beliefs you start to judge good/bad evidence as above.

In some of these cases the business is successful and it turns out that the person was right all along - what do you call that? *** If we were to continue down your line of reasoning, correct me if I am wrong, but it would then seem to me that a belief in the existence of a God/higher power can also be perfectly reasonable, based on all kinds of evidence.

hmmm... Some people 100 % know that they will succeed despite overwhelming evidence that indicate that they will fail. If you don't call this faith what do you call it?

Without evidence, some people believe that their business will succeed.

The evidence shows that most businesses fail. Sure, many people carefully weigh the evidence and calculate their odds and reasonably start a business. However, many people just take a leap of faith and trust their gut and decide to start a business with no evidence whatsoever.