Because we all know that post count = intelligence.
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How is that at all science?Quote:
believing in equal opportunities because we wouldn't like to be discriminated against ourselves.
The science of Logic and Economics
Oh dear I am sorry man I feel kind of bad about this but you should really think about what you are typing when you write it. The structure of your logic is poor enough I'd almost think you're a Beldaran parachute account but I don't think he's that ridiculous.
I will also participate in slight ad-hominem by highlighting grammatical and spelling errors in your posts since the ignorance displayed by your points makes me sad.
You completely misinterpreted my point. I believe that religion does not explain the scientific phenomenon that influence the universe. Attempting to state that religion is not a source of ethical and moral guidance shows a fairly complete ignorance of religion's function throughout history. One needs only to consult a dictionary to see that religion can be:Quote:
No. Although you admit religion does not explain our world, you then say religion is a your source of ethical or moral guidance. religion is not nor will it ever be a source of ethical and moral guidance.
which suggests that religion is related to ethics in some way. The issues of morality and ethics are so important to religions that every religion I have studied devotes a large portion of their sacred texts to the discussions of what is right and wrong, why they are right and wrong, and the punishments one receives for committing wrongs. In fact, religions devote so much material to morals and ethics you reference their morality statements in your post, misinterpreted as they are.Quote:
Originally Posted by www.dictionary.com
For the Biblical statements I see nothing more than standard verses that are cherry-picked and fired at Christians time after time even though they are easily defeated. I'm not going to bother researching the source AND the rebuttal, could you kindly give me chapters and verses for the following Biblical points:I vaguely remember some of the last ones and have some preliminary arguments but I don't like (and you shouldn't either) discussing points of Biblical theology without precise verses, chapters for context, and at least two translations to catch archaic wording.
- It rewards those who give up their wives so they can be essentially abused overnight while the husband is safe.
- It encourages people to kill non-believers.
- Jesus demands all those who join him hate their mothers and fathers.
- It punishes people on the basis of what their distant ancestors did slightly wrong once because they were tricked.
For the Qur'an I have less authority but I am familiar with the larger theological foundations of Islam. I'd also like to know the locations of the things you mention, as it would help me decide for myself whether they are being misapplied. I can however dispute some claims:
Jihad is a very complicated concept that is still under interpretation by the followers of Islam. As evidenced by two sources I found rather easily, jihad has been constantly reinterpreted throughout the history of Islam. Hopfe and Woodward's Religions of the World, a rather scholarly examination of many major religions, offers some interesting insight as well and I highly recommend the book in general. The book states:Quote:
It encourages jihad in the name of God and to capture women for personal use in battle.
It goes on to discuss several major Muslim wars and how some were hailed as appropriate jihad (defense in the Crusades) but how many were largely ignored by the Muslim community (conflict in Turkey during World War I; struggles for independence in post-WWII Algeria, Egypt, and Indonesia; Iraq's invasion of Kuwait).Quote:
The real meaning of the term "jihad" is struggle in the path of God. It can mean struggle in the physical sense, which can include building mosques or leaving home to work for the spread of Islam or to avoid religious persecution, as well as armed struggle. It can also mean struggle against the human passions and instincts that can prevent people from acting in accordance with the commandments of the faith.
[...]
Muslim scholars teach that only defensive wars are truly jihad. Muslim leaders have, however, often used the concept of "holy war" to justify their actions, usually with mixed results.
Based on this evidence I would believe you are making your points either from personal ignorance, or because you heard a friend tell you they read in a book some points about religion. If one wants to discuss things in a scholarly way, one must be willing to defend statements of fact with a source. Sadly, I have only seen one source used against me while I have cited several. You'd think rational scientists would be used to defending their claims with independently researched materials.
Most band-level and tribe-level cultures in the world still practice their indigenous religions. Many of these religions are animistic (no real gods; nature itself is worshiped), they are passed by oral history (no holy book), people become shamans by voluntary choice (no structure), and issues of morality are reserved for the judiciary practices of the community (no moral code). Despite the fact that religions that meet this criteria exist, the cultures that practice these religions still engage in warfare with other camps and practice prejudice against outsiders. Sadly, I have misplaced the textbook I want to cite, but the people I was going to use as an example are the !Kung. I believe your point that organized religion itself leads to undesirable traits is invalid based upon the existence of both disorganized religions (!Kung) with these traits and "lack of religion" (Nazi party) with these traits. Perhaps cruelty is human nature, but that's more of a philosophical issue.Quote:
Other religions all have excessive torture, cruelty, war, smiting, prejudice and other such guidance. The only religions that doesn't is one with no God, no holy book, no hiearchical structure and no strict moral code. That's not much of a religion though.
Also for these two:You missed that Christianity and several other religions do both of these. A possible explanation is that their similarity to The Code of Hammurabi are not coincidental. When the religions were developed their codes of justice would logically be something the people were comfortable with, and most of them were developed in the Middle East in similar timeframes. I believe this would not be a good avenue for you to pursue since this law predates both Mosaic Law and the entire religion of Islam, and the Code of Hammurabi was not created for religious reasons. Therefore we see that it is possible for non-religious entities to come up with "atrocious" concepts of morality as well.Quote:
It wants theives' limbs to be cut off on the first offence. It encourages slavery.
This point requires the concept of universal ethics and morality to be true. However, many cultures developed in such a way that the examples you stated were not held in high esteem. Some cultures encourage harsh behavior towards individuals of different social status. In some cultures, kinship rules have nothing to do with genetic descent therefore the people one considers worth protecting have little to do with genetic makeup. Equal opportunity is a very new concept only practiced in few Western cultures. I hardly believe this establishes the existence of a universal code of morality that is only exposed by science.Quote:
So where do we get our morality from? Science. We behave according to evolved responses i.e. being nice to people because we might get something in return, caring fr our family because they share our genes and believing in equal opportunities because we wouldn't like to be discriminated against ourselves.
Furthermore, some of the world's great atrocities were committed in the name of science. Unit 731 and Josef Mengele come to mind as examples where scientific research was done in a less-than-humane manner with no religious pretext.
This was actually a really intelligent point to make and so long as you earnestly meant it then you are enlightened as well.Quote:
If I am proved wrong by evidence then the resulting evidence is also science, not religion, and I will believe that with equal conviction and questioning as all scientists.
For the grammar and spelling, I was in a rush.
As for the verses:
* It rewards those who give up their wives so they can be essentially abused overnight while the husband is safe. - (Judges 19: 23-6)
And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly.
"Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go. Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was, till it was light." ((and all the other translations were even more graphic))
*It encourages people to kill non-believers.
"But tear down their altars, crush their sacred stones, and cut down their poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah"
"but ye shall demolish their altars, shatter their statues, and hew down their Asherahs"(Exodus 34:13-17)
"And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword."
"They annihilated with the sword everything that breathed in the city,38 including men and women, young and old, as well as cattle, sheep, and donkeys. "(Joshua 6:21)
((and basically all holy wars mentioned))
* Jesus demands all those who join him hate their mothers and fathers.
"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."
"And turning round, he said to them, If any man comes to me, and has not hate for his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even for his life, he may not be my disciple."
(Luke 14:26)
* It punishes people on the basis of what their distant ancestors did slightly wrong once because they were tricked. - ((Entire Garden of Eden section of Genesis - original sin, etc.))
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But that's not the point. The point is that our morals cannot literally come from religion (and yes, some religions don't have this sort of moral code but they're not the popular ones are they?) so they must come from the world around us. Crimes may be commited in the name of science but what I meant by "morals coming from science" was that our behavioural code is built-in because it evolved to continue the species. Sometimes an individual is selfish and goes against that, but it tends not to pay in terms of reproductive success later on. When numerous cultures are faced with dilemmas like "Should you kill one person deliberately to save five?", the answer is almost universally no across religious and non-religious people. - M. Hauser and P. Singer "Morality without religion" Free Inquiry 26: 1, 2006, 18-19
You know what I've never really understood... Why does it matter what other people believe? Do those beliefs somehow invalidate your own? I mean, it seems like everyone with a set of beliefs is always trying to convert everyone else to those beliefs, whether they be religious or atheist. I tend to lean toward agnostic, because frankly, I don't know and I don't really care. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what's out there, because there's no way of knowing, and so it can't possibly affect my life (if it did, that would be proof).
Because they fly planes into buildings. They try to make teaching evolution illegal. They burn people at the stake for making telescopes. They encourage a society of backwardness and non-thought. They make life miserable for smart people who realize that the universe, real or not, is real enough that it must be understood and lived in if we are to avoid pain and nothingness in our lives.
People who believe in magic are mentally incompetent and are a danger to a rational society that desires progress and growth.
Oh, right, good call! I dunno... I know a few people who are religious but are tolerant of others' beliefs. Of course, can you really say they're beliefs if you acknowledge the beliefs of others?
You see, it's statements like these that exploded this entire thread into what it is.
Now, substituting what you have been saying during this entire thread...Quote:
Originally Posted by Transitive Property
"If you believe in a god, you believe in magic. If you believe in magic, then you are mentally incompetent. Therefore, if you believe in a god, you are mentally incompetent."
Albert Einstein definitively believed in a god. But you cannot say that he was mentally incompetent, can you?Quote:
Originally Posted by Albert Einstein
Yeah way to blow that einstein quote out of context. I have actually discussed this in person with a nobel prize winning chemist (Harold Kroto, discoverer of carbon-60 molecule, pioneer of nano-tech) and he explained that basically Einstein believed in physics, math, logic, order, and thought and he called the collection of those things "god". He did not believe in magic like most people.