The Story of the Woman With No Authority

phattonez wrote:the notion you have of Chrisitians as evil people who try to kill others

You have invented this fact. I have said many, many times that I don't think christians are by default evil, stupid, or whatever. I think their belief system is evil and stupid and they are suffering from its infection. My mother is a devout evangelical christian. I love her. She's very kind and caring. She also think homosexuality should be illegal. It's a tragedy that she will probably never escape from the thumb of mysticism that has locked her mind away from new ideas. Hopefully you will someday activate the part of your brain that questions insane stories of magic and super powers and stop taking ancient tribal mysticism so seriously.

OK I'm seeing some hope here because finally I'm starting to see some points I can work with and arguments I can let rest because the points have been made.

I'm going to jump between people but I trust you can keep track of whether you said what I'm quoting or not.

If you could somehow show me that people could come up with the notion of a sentient Creator without either having been told about it or having read it in the Bible, then you could make the argument that religion and atheism are on equal footing.

"Equal footing" is tough to define as well; there's many more factors than origin to consider.

First of all, we are not disagreeing on matters of faith. We are disagreeing on matters of philosophy, which is open to debate. My philosophy is that using reason and evidence is superior to believing in magic. Your position is that believing in magic does not contradict scientific thought.

The reason it is impossible to debate between matters of faith, ie christianity is better than islam, is because faith is irrational and intellectually illegitimate. There is no rational way to support christianity over islam because neither belief is based on reason. The only way to argue about faith is with swords and AK-47's[sic].

If you get into a true argument, you are attempting to force your beliefs upon another, and if you are forced to believe something your faith is not genuine. I do believe that it is silly for you to be forced to attend chapel against your wishes; I don't really believe in aggressive evangelism and it's really counterproductive to make someone say they are a Christian just so you stop harassing them.

Science requires skepticism, experimentation, observation, and reason. Faith insults and undermines these activities. Faith is the willingness to betray your mind and hand it over to the whims of your emotions. People who have accepted faith of any kind in anything have opened the floodgates for an invasion of mysticism, charlatanism, occultism, and political manipulation.

By itself, this is bad enough. But what is worse, people of faith feel compelled to spread this corruption. They are rarely happy unless they are trying to suck others into their world of depravity. It is this effect that causes faith to be so truly evil. Faith helps to foster a society controlled by zealots and mystics.

The first is true, if a person is not careful religion can breed fanaticism, and this leads to all of the things you listed. I won't attempt to refute it, but I do believe it's not what the religion is supposed to do. I believe that, at least the doctrine I follow, one must be careful to avoid these pitfalls, but many people join a church for a sense of "belongingness" for lack of a better word. Pursuit of finding a place where one belongs causes the individual to take actions they might otherwise have not taken. This effect is seen in fraternities and all manner of secret societies. The problem is most people are not strong enough to decide upon their doctrine and sever contact with groups that pervert that doctrine; they go with the flow for fear of being shunned.

Once again, the core problem is that there are always people who will pervert a religion for their own means, and their followers are the dangerous sort of people you mention.

The second statement points out exactly why I don't practice aggressive evangelism. Leaders of perverted religions seek to increase their numbers; the leaders seek power rather than enlightenment and there is strength in numbers. Larger congregations mean larger amounts of money, power, and influence. I believe that the more aggressive a religion's evangelism is, the more likely it seeks something less like than peace and goodwill towards men and more like peace (wealth) and goodwill (fear) towards the (human) leader.

I do believe we probably share a contempt for aggressive evangelism.

I thought that statement was very interesting - the same thing could be said for Christianity - it's been 2000 years, and what does it have to show but a 2000-year-old book? Sorry, but I think after a certain point in time, you've gotta admit the lack of new news on the God phone has gotta mean something.

Whether you believe in its divine nature or not, the Bible has a clear plot. It states early on that it will be a record of God's interaction with the Jews and the fulfillment of His promise to provide a savior to correct the problem of man's sinful nature. From this viewpoint, there's little reason for work on the Bible to continue past the resurrection; God's promise is fulfilled and Jesus has taught His ways. The portions of the text following the resurrection serve to clarify or expound upon Jesus' teachings and provide an epilogue in Revelation. It really wouldn't make sense for God to come down several centuries later and be all "Oh wait guys I forgot to tell you this..." In fact, it'd be downright suspicious.

Of course, the Bible doesn't really hold as scientific evidence for the validity of Christianity, but this is due to the nature of religious matters. We have math texts that are every bit as ancient that are scientifically valid: this is because mathematics can be verified and validated. How do you verify and validate "this man did not die but ascend directly to Heaven"? If the Bible were less than a hundred years old it'd be very easy to figure out if it was truth or fiction because odds are the resurrection of a man would have made the headlines somewhere. However, the age and subject matter of the Bible mean that at best we can match the names of emperors to dates and say that parts of the Bible are historically accurate. The portions on which the religion is based are impossible to verify because there would need to be several independent unbiased eyewitness accounts, and I anticipate you wouldn't agree that having the accounts of four disciples of Jesus counts as unbiased.

Finally, the last statement worth discussing:

Hopefully you will someday activate the part of your brain that questions insane stories of magic and super powers and stop taking ancient tribal mysticism so seriously.

My question remains unanswered: how is my mind closed to science by my religion? We've thoroughly discussed how there are many people who practice in the ways you despise, but you've done little to support the notion that all followers of religion are as such.

Ok, I know I have been fairly rude and unfair in this and past debates. It's because discussing religion intelligently feels to me like it lends it credibility. It's like a wine tester sniffing a turd and trying to comment on it without gagging and spitting.

I feel like this discussion is suddenly getting more focused and to the point and so I will try my best to respond with a little bit of mature decorum, as though we were actually discussing this face to face, in which case I know I would be much more reluctant to offend you. I know that's a double standard, but I find that often my rather profound awareness of manners tends to melt away under the heat of the internet.

AtmaWeapon wrote:There's no mysticism in what Jesus taught us to do; he preached asceticism, pacifism, and sympathy, none of which require mystical practices.

You are not telling the whole story. Jesus told us all these nice acceptable things, and then left with "by the way, I'm also the son of god and you should worship me and sell everything you own because after I commit suicide I'm coming back to judge you and decide whether or not to damn you eternally." It smacks very much of occultism, and in fact for many years, young christianity was largely ignored as one of many random, unsubstantiated cults.

AtmaWeapon wrote:
Indeed, we were warned to avoid witchcraft and other practices because they led to evil.

This is not a valid argument. Jesus forbade witchcraft, yes... but he supplanted it with his own magic story. He wanted you to believe in his magic, not someone else's. This does not somehow validate magic as a reasonable notion.

AtmaWeapon wrote:
but I can't seem to come up with an instance where Jesus encouraged any kind of practice other than not being a jerk.

He encouraged believing in god, which is mysticism. Further, and perhaps more insanely, he encouraged believing he was god, which is even worse than mysticism.

AtmaWeapon wrote:
My question remains unanswered: how is my mind closed to science by my religion?

We haven't addressed this because you changed your question. Originally, it was "how does faith contradict science?" I think I answered this sufficiently. Now it is different. Now you want to know how your mind is closed to science by religion.

Your mind is not closed to science by religion. However, the two are logically inconsistent. They are a contradiction. And unfortunately, your openness to religion leaves you vulnerable to irrational ideas and behavior because you have hamstrung your defense mechanism (reason) and reduced it to worrying about math equations and atoms, and forbidden it from exercising its power in other matters. You use the power of reason to learn about the physical world, but you won't extend that use to thinking about the origins of the universe. You know that belief, real belief in god, requires at some point a violation of reason.

As a person of faith, you must accept an elaborate and specific truth that has profound implications for your life, with no scientific evidence to support it.

Religion does not close your mind to scientific truths, but what it does is leaves a wedge in the door, so unscientific lies can enter your mind without passing through the filter of scientific thinking. I'm sure you are very adept at filtering out ideas that you find unscientific. If I told you that I was secretly communicating with aliens that commanded me to kill little boys, you would probably call the police on me instead of help me to please the aliens.

And yet, 2000 years ago a scraggly Jew with no knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology, evolution, or the scientific method... a carpenter who lived in the desert and who had never read a book that wasn't religious, claimed he was the king of the universe and that you should become his devoted follower. He commanded you to worship him above all things and live your life in his name.

And you believed him, because religion has left the back door of your mind open to intellectual burglars like Jesus, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, David Koresh, and the no money down real estate infomercial guy.

I urge you to more fully embrace science and close that door. Not because I hate religious people or because I'm bitter about some event in my life, but because science is beautiful and truthful and real. It is the only approach to knowledge that allows you to completely throw out your ideas and rebuild them based on new evidence. I have great confidence in the theory of gravity, but if we discover it is wrong I will cheerfully throw it out and study the new theory.

A muslim would never cheerfully abandon Allah because his mind has dysfunctionally latched on to a belief. His unreasonable death grip on his ideology cannot be broken by appeals to reason, because reason is not in the driver's seat. It would seem, from reading the news, that such attachment can only be broken by a car bomb from a competing ideology.

AtmaWeapon wrote:This is a chicken and egg problem; the fact that religion exists could be true for one of three reasons:

1. The religion is inspired by some superhuman being that revealed itself.
2. Religion was somehow instinctual.
3. Someone charismatic or powerful developed the system of belief, and others followed.

However, scenario 1 itself is highly unlikely. Why? It's like I said earlier - why would God reveal himself to people thousands of years ago, and then never contact anyone since? Back in the day, God was on the horn with us all the freakin' time. What happened? I would suggest that over the years, we got less gullible, events got documented more accurately, and previously mysterious phenomena have been scientifically explained.

Personally, I tend to go with scenario 2 - it's known that young children tend to anthropomorphisize things they don't understand. Because of this, I have no reason to take the ramblings of an ancient culture who didn't understand science seriously.

People just don't get divine messages anymore - and I think the reason is that they never did. There's a basic misunderstanding of faith. God doesn't "refuse to prove that he exists." Back in the day when the religious texts were written, there was absolutely no doubt in anyone's minds that God was as real as you or me. Faith was not blind belief in the face of facts to the contrary. Faith was holding out hope that this God person was on your side and not your enemy's. Faith was the belief that your God was stronger than your enemy's God. Faith was believing that when bad things happened to you, your God was doing it for a good reason.

They invented religion to explain all of the mysterious forces of the universe. Well, now through science, we understand those forces, and have eliminated one of the major functions of religion. Yet, we still cling desperately to those religions, giving them new interpretations, new definitions.

And yes, religion is scientifically and logically flawed. We keep saying - the way the scientific method works is, you observe some phenomenon, then you come up with the simplest hypothesis you can to explain that phenomenon. Religion skips the observing part, and leaves that to 2,000-year-old dead people. If God was talking to you personally, like He used to talk to people personally, that'd be something, but no, you just believe in Him because you were told to.

Let me demonstrate the scientific method, with something often cited by religious people as proof of God's existence. How about the Big Bang? Okay, what created the Big Bang? We don't know; it's a mystery. Well, let's make a hypothesis. Well, my guess is that is was a powerful, mysterious force that we don't understand. Now, a scientific person would leave it at that. But wait, here comes a religious person. The religious person will take his biases into account when trying to explain this. "It was God! See, a powerful, mysterious force, that sounds like God to me!" Oh, but here comes rationality again. Just because God could be an explanation, doesn't mean that God is an explanation. Why complicate things? Why assume that this force is sentient? Why assume that this force cares about human morality (especially as humans won't even come into existence for another 15 billion years)? See, there's the flaw. The religious person adds unnecessary variables into the equation in an attempt to make reality match his preconceived notions. Neither sentience nor concern for human morality are necessary to explain the origin of the universe, and yet you would throw those in anyway. It's not scientific, and it's not logical. In fact, especially if you add the morality part, it sounds utterly absurd. Why the hell should the force that created the universe care about what a small group of sentient bipeds do on an insignificant little speck of a planet orbiting an insignificant speck of a star in an insignificant speck of a galaxy?

AtmaWeapon wrote:Alex, do you really believe that a portion of the Gospel that illustrates Jesus' temptation by Satan:Has anything to do with whether Christians are supposed to pursue scientific research? If you honestly can't understand the metaphor here then you really need to stop posting because you have less mental facilities than a doorknob.

Your point was "Christians are discouraged from testing scientific hypotheses". Your verse supports the point "Christians are discouraged from testing God's existence by attempting to force God's hand into performing miracles." While there is a slight similarity, I'm fairly certain that enough people have attempted to independently verify "Will God save me if I jump off of a building?" to support an answer of "no". The situation at hand was actually "Will God save Jesus if He jumps off of a building?" but Jesus properly identified this experiment as stupid.

It would have been cooler to use a list tag for this list but it's clear that effort is too much for you, you'd prefer to copy/paste ideas you see other people put forth both into your posts and into your mind. I support this notion with the fact that this is not the first time you've said "the Bible says this" by citing a single verse that, when taken in context, refers to something else entirely.

Before I begin, the reason you truely want me to stop posting is because I don't seem to be giving ground. The spelling errors in particular is simply one thing you can call attention to to attempt to discredit me. I don't really need to spell out which other religions do this to their opponents, do I? Quit trying to play e-bully.

Now, to address your rebuttle to the bible verse. Yes, it's one statement that you claim was taken out of context. Except this isn't a single statement. This statement is reinforced many times throughout the bible in different contexts, in both the old and new testiments. The underlying message is pretty clear, and it's not just christianity that relies on this lack of reliability, it's every religion, without exception. And what is funny is that in spite of that statement being taken out of context, you then go on to base the entire rest of your post on the underlying meaning that I was trying to address through that supposedly out of context verse.

There was more here. However, I think that Beldaran has covered anything I was about to say and more, and I'd much rather see how you respond to his point then go over nitpicking me over and over again.

Beldaran's words

I will defend the fact that I am not actively researching the origins of the universe by pointing out a man can only learn so much. There are hundreds of fields of scientific research. I focus most of my attentions on computer science, and actually lately I focus much more intently upon software engineering. There's a little bit of overlap, as many of the engineering methods were chosen as the result of the theory behind them, but I digress.

There are scientists studying the origin of the universe with all of the powers at their disposal right now, and I applaud them. It's a topic that interests me only as far as it interests the average man, and I eagerly await the results of their discoveries. I imagine that in the mean time, they only care about advancements in computer science so far as it can help them with simulation and modeling of the early universe. This is the only time our courses of study overlap: when they require the use of a computer to help with their research.

To simultaneously address rock_nog's point, my religion does lead me to believe that God exists as the explanation for that which lies outside the boundary of our explanation. I feel I have adequately prepared myself for the dangers Beldaran named. If scientists can describe and recreate the forces that caused the big bang (which from what I understand is starting to fall out of vogue in favor of other theories) then I will acknowledge that "God did it" isn't a valid answer to "What caused the initial 'bang'?". If any questions about what caused the force that caused the bang linger, the scientists who study such things will descend upon that issue and I will answer the question with "God did it" until they make a solid discovery.

Surely you don't suggest I should devote time to studying everything I don't know?

AlexMax's post was so devoid of content it could have really had two sentences and been done, but I'll address it in bullet list form since it seems to be effective:

• Spelled "truly" wrong.
• ...in particular [strike]is[/strike] are one thing...
• You are not unique in not giving ground, AlexMax, you jumped into this argument at random intervals and you're acting like the only discussion in this thread has been between me and you. In reality, the primary discussion is between me, Beldaran, and rock_nog and you are off in this separate thread only vaguely referring to their discussion. Neither Beldaran or rock_nog are backing down from their beliefs either, which is a good sign that discussions of this nature are silly to start with and even more silly the longer they go on.
• Spelled "rebuttal" wrong.
• Spelled "testaments" wrong.
• You are wrong, the one statement you quoted is one statement. If you'd like to introduce a similar attitude in the numerous other contexts that you imply exist, please introduce them citing verses and the context to show that you actually understand both. I believe I completely deflated your argument by pointing out your suggestion that Jesus said "Do not pursue scientific research" was based upon an out-of-context verse that actually meant "Do not attempt to force God's hand.". If you can find a context and verse in which it is stated that man should avoid the pursuit of knowledge my defense will be invalidated. All you have done with this post is say "nuh uh the BIBLE says it it's all in there!". I am not here to defend myself from points you haven't made, and I refuse to find the verses for you so you can make the points.

Beldaran, on the other hand, has learned to know better than to ask me why God supports genocide by pointing out an ancient war between the Jews and <insert enemy here>. Instead, he and rock_nog are attacking my stance by questioning the credibility of the Bible and supporting the likelihood that it is a completely man-made construct.

A Christian that attempts to deny those statements must rely on flawed reasoning. I have noticed that there are some striking similarities between the Middle-Eastern religions, and in some interesting cases Judaism seems to have developed some new beliefs that are characteristic of the civilization that had conquered them at the time. I think this does call the Bible's validity into question and there is no way to reasonably attack that point without resorting to a faith-based argument, which only works on people that have similar faith. I personally resolve this argument with a decision that even if the Bible were revealed to be a man-made work of fiction I still agree with Jesus' principles and will continue to live by His teachings (though I might drop the capitalization of pronouns in that case). This is the only true way to end these arguments, by pushing the opponent to the point that the only defense is to say "this is what I believe, and I will not waver".

Atheism has reason and logic on its side, and I'm not convinced there is a feasible way to attack it via reason and logic. Religion has faith on its side, which is considered irrelevant by both reason and logic, but has very high value to those that have it. In the end, I feel like the only differences in an atheist's views and mine are that the atheist is content to believe in random chance initiating certain processes and I am content to believe the process was initiated by the intervention of a deity.

Atma, I really want to know, what the heck is so compelling about the Bible that you have such faith in it? What separates it from the holy books and stories of any other religion?

On another note, I disagree with the differences between religion and atheism. Atheists are NOT content to believe anything. Atheists are in pursuit of the truth. I think the difference is that atheists are willing to change their model of the universe in light of new evidence. A true scientist would never end a debate by saying "This is what I believe, and I'm not wavering." A true scientist would have no beliefs, and would be willing to say "Wow, you made a really good point there. I guess I'll have to revise my theories."

The difference, in a nutshell, is this. A religious person, in the face of proof that there is no God, would say "I still believe! You cannot shake my faith!" An atheist, however, in the face of proof of the existence of God, would say "Oh, well, I guess I was wrong. My mistake."

EDIT: rock nog posted while I was typing.

Well said, Atma. With regards to the origin of the universe, I didn't mean the actual specific physics research, but just the notion that it arose through natural processes. A person who believes god caused the big bang has decided to insert god where current scientific knowledge ends. If and when that knowledge expands, they will be forced to move god back to the next line of defense.

AtmaWeapon wrote: the atheist is content to believe in random chance initiating certain processes and I am content to believe the process was initiated by the intervention of a deity.

I think this is inaccurate. Atheists are not content to believe in anything, and that's our main point. It is illogical to just believe in something as though it were true when you don't have any evidence.

As an example, an atheist does not "believe in evolution" any more than he "believes" in gravity. It's just a recognition of a very high probability of truth based on solid scientific research.

rock_nog wrote: An atheist, however, in the face of proof of the existence of God, would say "Oh, well, I guess I was wrong. My mistake."

I think that this example better characterizes an Agnostic.

Maybe I need to take another careful look at Webster's current definition of Atheist, but I've always taken it to mean a person who has come to the conclusion that there is no God or similar religious concept.

Agnostics on the other hand, do not believe in God, but have not ruled out the possibility of such an entity existing.

My personal feeling is that the Agnostic is the one who acts the most like a true scientist, keeping an open mind and not jumping to a conclusion.

That being said, I don't think that it is unscientific to be an advocate for a hypothesis, such as Beldaran's belief that there really is no God. However, this advocation should be measured responsibly. Saying that you tend to believe that God doesn't exist and saying that the belief in God is inherently stupid and primitive are two different things.

Beldaran wrote:I urge you to more fully embrace science and close that door. Not because I hate religious people or because I'm bitter about some event in my life, but because science is beautiful and truthful and real. It is the only approach to knowledge that allows you to completely throw out your ideas and rebuild them based on new evidence. I have great confidence in the theory of gravity, but if we discover it is wrong I will cheerfully throw it out and study the new theory.

;\ Why do I seem to be the only one who thinks that claiming "Science is the only true method" is equally as arrogant as claiming "The Universe was made by a piece of fudge because that tree over there told me so"?

People do whatever they need to do to get them through the day. God acts as something to thank, rather than to thank pure coincidence. God also acts as something to blame, rather than blaming yourself or society, seeing that blaming yourself for your actions is something that humans don't like to go anywhere near. Do you need an omnipotent creator to give your existence justification? Fine. Do you need to reject all other ideas around you and accept only what you already know? Go ahead. What goes on in your own mind doesn't hurt anyone, except maybe yourself. Different ideas and faiths aren't a problem. People are.

I, for example, believe that I'm an extremely stupid and arrogant person who has never been, and will never be, right about anything he/she has ever done, or ever will do. That crate I put up on the top shelf fell and killed 3 people? Well, I'm an idiot. Who cares? I'm too stupid and ignorant than to have known better. In that respect, it may be wise for you more, intelligent people to completely ignore everything that I say and brush me off as some kid with a keyboard and an empty head.

Revfan9 wrote:;\ Why do I seem to be the only one who thinks that claiming "Science is the only true method" is equally as arrogant as claiming "The Universe was made by a piece of fudge because that tree over there told me so"?

Yes, claiming that people should believe in things for objective, provable reasons is arrogant. 🙄 I wonder who we should put more trust in a scientist who objectively explores the universe through experimentation or a priest who says that his friend God did it. Also, why find out the real reasons for things and use that to grow and learn when you can just say thank or blame god?

Revfan9 wrote:I, for example, believe that I'm an extremely stupid and arrogant person who has never been, and will never be, right about anything he/she has ever done, or ever will do. That crate I put up on the top shelf fell and killed 3 people? Well, I'm an idiot. Who cares? I'm too stupid and ignorant than to have known better. In that respect, it may be wise for you more, intelligent people to completely ignore everything that I say and brush me off as some kid with a keyboard and an empty head.

Alright, so suppose that a box that you put on the shelf falls and hits my head. Would it be alright with you if instead of blaming you for it, I blame your parents for giving birth to you? Because I'd be willing to settle for that.

Glenn, I disagree, because at least my understanding has always been that an agnostic considers all possibilities equally valid and equally likely. Whereas for me, my current model of the universe has no room for God, but as I can adapt to changing circumstances, if facts suggest otherwise, I will revise my stance. This is the problem I see with things like faith and beliefs - no matter what new facts might come to light, it's nearly impossible to change them. I mean, what kind of person, in light of facts that don't support their view, says "Well, the facts must be wrong, because I'm right." Now THAT right there is arrogance (in response to the statement about atheists being arrogant).

OK Beldaran and rock_nog you kind of both said the same thing with respect to the definition of an atheist, so I'll address both at once by saying I think perhaps it's a semantic difference, but one significant enough that I probably need to revise my definition of atheism. It seems you've taken offense to my phrase "putting your faith in science" and I misunderstood why you took offense.

rock_nog asked two questions I'd like to address:

Atma, I really want to know, what the heck is so compelling about the Bible that you have such faith in it? What separates it from the holy books and stories of any other religion?

A religious person, in the face of proof that there is no God, would say "I still believe! You cannot shake my faith!"

For the second point, I disagree that I would do such a thing. I think the concept of concrete proof or disproof is ridiculous, but let's assume someone manages to conduct an experiment that we can agree conclusively disproves God's existence; I'd be faced with no choice but to revise my beliefs about this issue. As I stated before, I'd still follow the same system of ethics and morality because I agree with them, but there'd be no more divine motivation.

There are a lot of people who wouldn't be willing to change in that case, but I assure you I'd feel as much contempt for them as you would if that situation arose. I guess an analogous situation I'd apply is wishing on a shooting star; I know there is nothing mystical about it and it is the result of a rock or satellite or unfortunate alien spacecraft burning in the atmosphere, but this doesn't stop me from making a wish. I know the star has no effect on my life, but the tradition is fun to believe.

As an example, an atheist does not "believe in evolution" any more than he "believes" in gravity. It's just a recognition of a very high probability of truth based on solid scientific research.

So, to, am I somewhat skeptical of my faith to an extent. I feel like you have to be willing to look at other views and ask yourself if you like them, otherwise you are in danger of becoming fanatical. I've looked at other systems of beliefs and really the only others that appeal to me are Buddhism and I believe Taoism (though I don't remember much about Taoism). Both emphasize that one should practice self-sacrifice and strive to be considerate to others, and these qualities are what particularly appeal to me about Jesus' teachings. Atheism just doesn't do it for me, primarily because of many of the atheists I have encountered. They seem to have an agenda every bit as repulsive as that of the Christians they despise, and I don't want to be associated with them.

Basically the people I speak of are those who would answer "yes" to "Should there be a Church of Atheism?", and I think both of you would agree with me that the concept is acceptably ironic but also stupid. To imply that the good intentions of promoting reason and rational thought would overcome man's natural greed for power and influence is particularly odd considering the Christian church was founded on promoting peace and goodwill towards men but these were not enough to overcome man's greed for power and influence.

I think the issue of who is being arrogant is moot. When you place yourself under any belief system, you are stating that you firmly believe that every other system is wrong. Atheism may be based on reason, but it is just as arrogant to say "I know that God does not exist" as it is to say "I know that God does exist". I feel like discussion of who is the most arrogant is not a good idea because unless you are willing to change to another system of belief, you have to be arrogant to accuse another.

Revfan9 I understand your point but I think your example overdid its hyperbole by a bit. If the box you placed on a shelf killed 3 people there would most certainly be a lot of people that cared, and an investigation to determine if you should be held responsible for their deaths. I've tried the "God is a substitute for random chance" here and I think I understand why that isn't good enough for Beldaran now. He feels like this is silly because in the example you listed, people would blame God for that box falling and not investigate it further, which would leave your (possibly) criminal negligence unpunished and you'd continue making dangerous mistakes. In my opinion, there's no problem with blaming God, but there's also no reason to avoid investigating whether someone besides God did it as well. Rainman hits this nail on the head.

I think I kind of understand Glenn is making some kind of metaphor but I honestly don't see where he's coming from.

Finally, rock_nog's last post is something I've been getting at for a while: the truly enlightened individual accepts evidence that contradicts their beliefs and modifies their beliefs. The fanatical individual ignores contradictory facts and insists the facts must be wrong. Of course there's no harm in verifying and validating the facts through experimentation, but eventually one has to accept the results of the experimentation.

For example, I hold young-Earth creationists in contempt because their theory is completely contradictory to piles of scientific facts that have been verified several times by several groups over several decades (and in some cases centuries). Their problem is they hold on to the idea that a strict literal interpretation of the Bible is the correct interpretation. I believe God did not set out to write a Physics and Biology textbook when He decided to have the Bible written, and that the days in Genesis serve the simple purpose of indicating that the world was created in a specific order over a period of time. This is extremely interesting because it meshes well with scientific understanding that the universe was created over a period of time, and particularly the formation of the Earth and its lifeforms followed a specific order. God could have had the entire universe created at once, but had he done so our scientific evidence would clash with the Biblical account of creation. There are arguments that carbon dating could be fooled because God could have created rocks that date to older than they are, but why would God go to such effort when he took 7 metaphorical days to create the universe instead of willing it all into existence? There's a lot of other issues I have and I've had to hold my tongue around many of my friends, but it really seems to me that God first created the physics of the universe, then he used the rules to create the universe.

Of course I could be wrong, but seriously think of T-Rex eating coconuts instead of flesh and you just know there has to be something wrong with the theory!

*edit* Also Beldaran, something about your last few posts has helped me find a lot more respect for your views. I don't know what it was, but some issue I had with you has been solved. I used to think your views were both invalid and incorrect, now I think they are simply incorrect. The points that I disagree with are completely matters of faith and I feel ethically obliged to avoid opening an argument over those.

AtmaWeapon wrote:I think the issue of who is being arrogant is moot. When you place yourself under any belief system, you are stating that you firmly believe that every other system is wrong.

Not necessarily. I'm an Agnostic Christian (I.E. I look for the answers I believe in most, but I generally follow Christianity as a guide), but even so, I do not think any system is worse than any other (unless of course, they demand human sacrifices, or other terrible things). In fact, I base my morals on Christianity because of its message of pacifism, and love for all others. As a "Healer Idealist" Personality type, I find this message highly appealing.

I just go with whatever I feel makes the most sense to me. I don't think any sytem is better or worse than another. And of course, I don't doubt science at all. :P But as it still can't prove/disprove God's existance, so that point is moot. Also, if there was undeniable, incontrovertible, absolute proof that denied god's existance, I'd just adapt my ideas to fit this, and proceed with life in more or less the same way I do now.

Aha... Well, I kinda feel like this is all winding down... So I'll just close with a quick clip of Richard Dawkins which I think explains the atheist point of view very well (much better than my endless ramblings, certainly).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg#

First, so you would shut your blithering mouth.

Second, I realize that I am not the focus of this conversation. However, I don't think that should prevent me, or anyone else, from participating in it if they have something to say. Consider me the peanut gallery, if you will.

There are two differences between a Beldaran post and an AlexMax post that lead me to ignore Beldaran's errors. First, Beldaran tends to devote more time and effort to each post, and in general there's less than one error per page of post, which is completely acceptable. In contrast, you have yet to produce half a page of content but have made approximately 10 spelling errors; that's practically one every other line.

Length of post does not necessarily correlate to how long I've been working on it. I type out my post as I think it, and then go back and revise it, and often times delete whole sections of it if I read back on it and come up with a suitable counter-argument for it. I estimate that if I shat out everything that came to my mind, I would probably have a post length rivaling yours, or perhaps even exceeding it. On the contrary, I find that when you use huge walls of text, you actually say very little.

In the end, I had been working on the post for over an hour and I ended up using an argument I probably should not have, however the problem is that when talking about religion, it's hard to not take the argument into a philosophical realm. I've already taken that trip and have made my own decisions, but it's one that I also consider mental masturbation and one that accomplishes very little in terms of convincing people one way or the other. I suppose that I try to keep my arguments real world, the ones that you so eloquently put as "Gamefaqs examples", simply because no amount of intellectual posturing will make your positions any less absurd to me, and hopefully to the other people reading this thread.

I mean, let's take an obvious example. "You can't say for sure if there's no god, especially my christian god." sounds nice if you're starting a philosophical debate, but when you live in the real world and there are tons of other religions out their, each one with his or her own doctrine, all it takes it a few seconds of thought and it ends up much easier to belive that there are no deitys and that they're all full of shit, occam's razor and all that. That also might be a commonly used 'gamefaqs argument' as you put it, but that doesn't make it any less valid, or any less convincing.

rock_nog wrote:Aha... Well, I kinda feel like this is all winding down... So I'll just close with a quick clip of Richard Dawkins which I think explains the atheist point of view very well (much better than my endless ramblings, certainly).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg#

Don't ever bring out Richard Dawkins in front of a deeply religious person. His arguments are the ones that they are most likely to have talking points for, and he pretty easy to mischaracterize or take out of context. Regardless of how well he has presented his arguments, and regardless of how convincing he is to us, any fundamentalist worth his salt already has him "covered" so to speak.

Oh... Well... Um... Alright, anybody attacking the clip I just posted, attack the argument itself, not the character of the person who made it. I am not about to sit here and listen to endless ad hominem arguments which never really address the issue.

Actually, it would be kind of interesting to hear a fundamentalist response - though in all likeliness it would have nothing to do with what was actually said. *sigh* I hate when that happens in a debate - you ask someone a direct question, and, knowing they're beat, they go and try to twist your words. Especially when you only asked the question in the first place to try and understand the other side's position.

rock_nog wrote:Oh... Well... Um... Alright, anybody attacking the clip I just posted, attack the argument itself, not the character of the person who made it. I am not about to sit here and listen to endless ad hominem arguments which never really address the issue.

Surprisingly, they can also attack his argument. The thing is, whenever you reference someone or something else for your atheist arguments, that always opens you up to being called a 'sheeple', and allows someone who can put a lot of words on a page to write a 5 page explanation nit picking about why his stance is bunk. And then it's up to you to defend someone elses stance. Unless you have a biblical knowledge of his works, his interviews, and such, it will be trivial for someone like Atma to reference something else he said in another interview or in another one of his books to make you look like an idiot for 'following' this guy, or a standpoint that doesn't quite jive with you, and once he's found one of those he can naturally follow up with a "Well then why do you believe anything this guy says" or something similar.

One thing you tend to learn after a while is that fundies don't play nicely. You can see how viciously Atma has tried to sideline me in this thread, imagine that happening to you because of an argument you made that backfired on you.

The irony of a person who believes the bible calling me a "sheep" for "following" a revered character is brain melting.

phattonez wrote:As another point of debate, do you think that the notion you have of Chrisitians as evil people who try to kill others come from the Roman part or the truly Christian part? Maybe it's the Roman history. Anyway, I'm going away from this debate again, but I wanted to bring in something relevant and interesting.

That would be the Roman Catholics...
... they make a lot of claims and crap claiming to the the Christian religion, when it's not. I would still like to see how your next session of chapel turns out, Bel.

Well I just got back from chapel. I saw that lady. I looked her in the eyes and she didn't do anything. Apparently she knows I'm simply not obligated to tell her my name and without that she can't really do anything.

The Cyborg wrote:That would be the Roman Catholics...
... they make a lot of claims and crap claiming to the the Christian religion, when it's not. I would still like to see how your next session of chapel turns out, Bel.

I often talk with a good friend of mine about religion. He's a really far out there fundamental nutjob, the "lay on hands" and "speaking in tongues" type.

You want to know what he called Roman Catholics?

Pagans.

:lol:

Beldaran wrote:The irony of a person who believes the bible calling me a "sheep" for "following" a revered character is brain melting.

Sometimes the irony lost on them, but I suspect that they don't really care either way, since it once again tries to reinforce their point that their religion is somehow on equal ground with science. This is one point that I feel that most atheists take for granted and give in on far too often, since it oversimplifies science and...over-complicates I suppose...their religious beliefs.

Beldaran wrote:Well I just got back from chapel. I saw that lady. I looked her in the eyes and she didn't do anything. Apparently she knows I'm simply not obligated to tell her my name and without that she can't really do anything.

Good to see things went OK. Did you bring your GBA with your this time?

AlexMax wrote:Did you bring your GBA with your this time?

This is a very important point. It was very important that you had your Gameboy out where she could see you playing it, or else she might have stood there thinking that she succeeded last week by making you rethink your actions and thus not bring it again.

When I saw her, I was not sitting. It was after the service. I did have my GBA in my backpack, but you know, obviously that's kind of irrelevant.

I really don't want to push the issue anymore. I have some rather amazing scholarships that I don't want to lose, so I don't want my name to come up anywhere. 😉

When I saw her, I was not sitting. It was after the service. I did have my GBA in my backpack, but you know, obviously that's kind of irrelevant.

I really don't want to push the issue anymore. I have some rather amazing scholarships that I don't want to lose, so I don't want my name to come up anywhere. 😉

OK no one wants to read a wall of quotes so I'm referencing by author and post number.

rock_nog #106:

Eh how long is it, is it objective or hostile, and is there a transcript available? I don't really like sitting in a chair listening to some guy talk and having to take notes if I want to discuss it with someone, but if there's text somewhere I'll definitely give it a go.

Also it's officially the "chill out" portion of the night so I don't really want to watch something that might inspire a long post.

AlexMax #107:

Mostly you start off crying about how unfair it is that I judged your argument based on its spelling but it's good to see you are actually making an effort to at least let the computer make your posts better. Keep in mind that the spell checker is only aware of words that are spelled wrong, and some words sound the same but are spelled differently depending on their meaning. Their efforts are great, but they're far from a full-fledged spelling and grammar checker (did you see what I did there?). Also encouraging me to read your posts is a bad idea the count is up to 4 in the same sentence-paragraph now that I'm discussing your points 😞

I don't really know what you mean by "real world examples"; all I recall without having to look back at all of your posts is a Bible verse that was taken completely out of context, with the unsupported promise that the sentiment was repeated several times throughout the Bible, which remains unsupported.

Also your final example starts with a bias; it is certainly ridiculous to start a philosophical debate with a loaded point such as "You can't disprove any god, especially mine." Such a statement implies you have compelling evidence that places the existence of your god as more likely than the existence of another, and I would never assert this in a scholarly debate. It's more appropriate to start with a less biased statement such as "No god's existence can be disproved.", because this wouldn't lead anyone to believe I have special evidence that I can reveal. Furthermore, "All it takes is a few seconds of thought" is not a way to support your point. It takes very little research to see that a large portion of the world thinks differently than you and has arrived at a different conclusion. I make no suggestion that any particular opinion is correct, but I find it curious that you start by indicating no opinion holds more weight than another and end by suggesting your opinion is the most correct. Your argument contradicts itself.

Do not respond to other people's questions in my name; I honestly haven't paid any attention to Richard Dawkins and the only information I have on the man is that he's some kind of bigshot atheist and he is referenced a lot. I hardly have him "covered" and I'm actually curious about what he says that is so compelling.

rock_nog #108

You won't hear a fundamentalist response out of me. Before you get upset because your words have been twisted, look at the name of the person who posted; his name starts with the same letter as mine so you might have got confused. He has no authority to make my points for me, and I'd appreciate it if you'd get upset over what I say rather than what someone presumes I will say.

AlexMax #109

Allow me to viciously sideline this post, I appreciate the introduction of the particularly stupid "fundie" slang because the more you resort to loaded words and spite the easier it is to discredit your arguments.

Once again, you attempt to save me the effort of typing a post by making my argument for me, but you are either very poor at logic or you severely underestimate my ability. I base several of my beliefs on the testament of men that lived thousands of years ago. For further guidance, I sometimes seek the wisdom of theologists that have made a life out of studying Biblical matters. Would it be wise for me to suggest that atheists are somehow weak-minded for "following" the arguments of similar scholars? Not only would it be fallacious, but anyone who pointed out that Christians follow the teachings of Jesus would completely destroy my argument; there is no recovery from an error so grave and I'm afraid I'd have no right to continue in this discussion.

Please return to making your own arguments, only predicting my responses in such cases as you feel making a preemptive counterpoint will save us all some effort. Instead, you are attempting to discredit me based on arguments I have not made.

At least I'm trying to sideline you for acts of poor spelling, grammar, and fallacious logic that you actually commit. I don't believe you have much room to say I don't play nice because I've been double-teamed for quite some time now, and so far I've been quite civil with everyone but you. I am sorry but if I am to let your air of superiority slide I expect your posts to at least match the intellectual quality of Beldaran's worst posts (which are still upper-crust) and you've got quite a ways to go.

Also I don't care if Richard Dawkins manages to contradict himself unless it's over something critical and the contradiction is temporally close. Since he's quite popular and respected by a community that prides itself on reason, I imagine the types of things that I would find are difficult to use because they would represent an Ad Hominem To Quoque fallacy, and fallacies make weaksauce arguments. Atheism is a progressive faith that constantly redefines what it believes (I mean this in the scientific sense, not a sarcastic or negative sense) and I'd imagine at some point Dawkins has said something he later took back. Unless it's something fundamental like "God exists I really mean it!" I doubt he's contradicted himself in a manner that can't be satisfactorily explained by the dynamic nature of atheism.

Beldaran #110

In this post Beldaran realizes the error AlexMax assumes I would make and why it would be stupid for me to make it.

Beldaran #112

As much as I love drama this is cool; believe it or not I am kind of ill that they force you to go to chapel (even though I feel they have the right to do so I think it's rude to exercise the right), and I think it's likely she went and whined to someone about how she SO was going to bust you to a friend and the friend was like "...for what?"

AlexMax #113

Does that guy handle snakes because those snake handler people are really out there... they'll get bitten from time to time and then refuse medical treatment because they figure the will of God will take its course.

I believe you'd be surprised how similar we feel towards people like that, Alex. (And I am not delusional with visions that you feel nothing but love for your fellow man towards them I'm expecting something more like "shock and disgust".) I know this kind of contradicts the efforts that I have taken to appear tolerant, but I feel like they have taken a Biblical passage that was meant to mean "believers will do great things" and interpreted it as "believers will do dangerous things if they know what's good for them".

There was a neat documentary done by a reporter who actually lived with them and became a snake handler for a while, until some mysterious force (likely his wife) snapped him out of it. It's worth a watch but it is really old and I don't remember the name, though I'm willing to bet it was called "The Holy Ghost People".

Beldaran #115

I think you made the right choice this time. As tempting as it is, I'm sure if you motivate the woman to find a way to get back at you she will manage to find a way to cause you trouble in a display of revenge that demonstrates she probably needs to pay more attention in chapel than you do.

*edit* Also seriously what is with the forums, if I get a database error then all is well and the post was made 😕

AtmaWeapon wrote: believe it or not I am kind of ill that they force you to go to chapel (even though I feel they have the right to do so I think it's rude to exercise the right),

THANK YOU.

This is my only point about chapel. I don't think it's illegal or unconstitutional or something like that I am forced to attend. It is doubtless a requirement made up by a deeply religious alumni that donated a million dollars or something. While it's not illegal, it's just tacky.

They know there are atheists at their school (I am a member of the Baylor Atheist and Agnostic Society). They force them to attend chapel. It's just petty.

Personally, I find the service to be incredibly offensive. It would literally, and I do mean literally, be like making one of the matronly, conservative women on the faculty watch hardcore lesbian porn for one hour, two days a week. It's that offensive.

I guess I should have said that at the start but I got kind of distracted by the "tribal mysticism" and overall internet tough guy attitude. I think it's cool that you acknowledge that they have the right to make you attend because at first it seemed to me that you thought it was a great injustice that they could make you attend chapel, when it seemed to me the only injustice is that they do make you attend chapel.

I mean seriously, I've always felt like the only time faith has any value is if the individual makes a conscious decision to believe in whatever it is the faith is placed. If you force a person to involuntarily make that decision, the faith is not genuine and you have accomplished nothing. I've noticed a startlingly high percentage of atheists and ex-Christians list aggressive evangelism as one of their primary beefs with Christianity, and I think if the church really wants to spread it needs to understand that there is no such thing as "turning someone to Christ", people turn to Christ by themselves. This is the something that Christians as a whole don't seem to grasp and it's really counter-productive to their goals of evangelism.

On the one hand, I feel like it's a good sign they allow an Atheist and Agnostic Society, but on the other hand I have a bad feeling they "support atheists" much like Southern restaurants used to "serve blacks"; it's fashionable to be diverse and they can always pretend like they care about your needs by allowing you to have a society. I do hope I am wrong.

Also, if I dress up like a woman and act like I don't enjoy it can I get a screening with maybe 2 or 3 bathroom breaks (I have a... bladder problem).

Atma, I wasn't talking about you personally. I was making a statement about fundamentalists. I've known one or two, and I swear, they will resort to lying to make their point because to them, the end justifies the means. Honestly, I have a hard time understanding the concept of beginning by assuming that you're right (hence why religion bothers me so much).

Oh, and the Dawkins video I posted was online like a minute or so, just a brief summary of his position. The gist of it is, someone asks him what if he's wrong about religion, and then his response is that with the number of religions out there, no matter what religion he picks, the odds are overwhelmingly likely that he's wrong, and that it's silly for the person who asked him to assume that she had any more chance of being right than he did. Of course, he puts it much more eloquently than I did... Which was the reason that I posted it.