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  1. #121
    Sexual Deviant Vengeful Scars's Avatar
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    atheist, Atheism. It doesn't matter to me, but the people who speak of themselves as Atheist(capital fucking A) piss me off for some reason.

    And atheism is not tasked with disproving god. If that was the case, then (insert religion here) would be tasked with proving God exists. And no matter what you think, no religion ever tries to prove the existence of their God.
    lik dis if u cry evertim
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    yes
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    Oh I was expecting a guide to making meth

  2. #122
    ))) joke, relax ;) coqauvin's Avatar
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    it's too early for me to give a full response to gwahir, so I'm just going to tackle VS for the moment.

    regardless of who has the onus of proving the existence, how exactly do you plan on proving it? Scientifically?

    The scientific method is fantastic for small phenomena that we can observe closely, but is more difficult to use for things at a distance. Keep in mind that science, because it relies on what we already know, can only use what we know to describe the things we don't. There is a huge gap between what actually goes on and what we say goes on.

    A good example is back in the late 1800's, early 1900's scientists believed the globe floated in a liquid they called the "luminiferous aether". Now that we've been to space, we know the universe doesn't quite work like that, but for all our accomplishments to that point, we had no better answer to give except for a wrong one. Since God is beyond our understanding, much like space in the 1800's, how do you expect to begin to prove anything?
    Quote Originally Posted by Nermy2k View Post
    yeah obviously we'd all suck our alternate universe dicks there was never any question about that
    Quote Originally Posted by Atmosfear
    I don't know if Obama did anything to make that happen, but I do know that he didn't do anything to stop me from blaming him.

  3. #123
    LooshiusLeftfoot yrogerg123's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by coqauvin View Post
    it's too early for me to give a full response to gwahir, so I'm just going to tackle VS for the moment.

    regardless of who has the onus of proving the existence, how exactly do you plan on proving it? Scientifically?

    The scientific method is fantastic for small phenomena that we can observe closely, but is more difficult to use for things at a distance. Keep in mind that science, because it relies on what we already know, can only use what we know to describe the things we don't. There is a huge gap between what actually goes on and what we say goes on.

    A good example is back in the late 1800's, early 1900's scientists believed the globe floated in a liquid they called the "luminiferous aether". Now that we've been to space, we know the universe doesn't quite work like that, but for all our accomplishments to that point, we had no better answer to give except for a wrong one. Since God is beyond our understanding, much like space in the 1800's, how do you expect to begin to prove anything?
    And then, thanks to advancements in science and technology, we found out. Now we know an incredible amount about the universe and all sorts of natural phenomena. Science is also very rarely in the business of explicitly disproving things. The vast majority of times what you call disproving is simply 1. Assertion 2. Data 3. Data failed to support initial assertion.

    Many people think that a lack of proof for the existence of god is proof that god doesn't exist. This is a pretty explicit misuse of the scientific method. The best you can say is that we have no evidence. You can use that to estimate how probable god's existence really is, but you cannot use that evidence to say god exists or doesn't exist. That's why I maintain that trying is a fool's errand. Maybe god is out there, floating around in the ether. Maybe he exists on an entirely different energy plane entirely.

    What I can say is that the existence of a biblical god is nearly impossible, in that so many of the creation stories are just factually wrong. Wouldn't god want the story of how he made everything to match observable reality? Wouldn't people be true believers if, 2000 years ago, people were able to give accurate descriptions of phenomena they had no way to observe or understand? Like if the bible were to describe the structure of galaxies, how the sun, though it looked overwhelming and inherently different than the white dots in the night sky, that it was one of billions of stars in one of billions of galaxies in the universe. But the bible spoke in ignorance about very basic universal facts, leading me to believe that god had no part in it.

    I keep going back to the biblical god, because your (coquavins) god seems very personal to me, unattached to any religion, and thus I can't address specifics because he hasn't given any. You can believe what you want. I attack organized religion because of their insistence on indoctrinating people on a global scale.

    But again, god as a concept, as a lifeforce flowing through the universe, is not a concept that can be proven or disproven. If you are looking for a proof that your god doesn't exist, you will never see one. But if you take that lack of proof to mean that he does exist, your method is utterly wrong. I'm not saying you do that, but it is worth pointing out.

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    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    And then, thanks to advancements in science and technology, we found out. Now we know an incredible amount about the universe and all sorts of natural phenomena. Science is also very rarely in the business of explicitly disproving things. The vast majority of times what you call disproving is simply 1. Assertion 2. Data 3. Data failed to support initial assertion.
    and you completely missed the point. Yes, we did find out later what has happening (using that method, which is where the analogy is on shaky ground). The point is that, at the time, everything science had to say gave an answer that was completely incorrect and great and leading minds of that day accepted this fact as reality. Now, in this scenario, let's swap out "space/luminiferous aether" with "god does/does not exist" and changed the year to 2011. It's not exactly unlikely or improbable.

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    What I can say is that the existence of a biblical god is nearly impossible, in that so many of the creation stories are just factually wrong. Wouldn't god want the story of how he made everything to match observable reality? Wouldn't people be true believers if, 2000 years ago, people were able to give accurate descriptions of phenomena they had no way to observe or understand? Like if the bible were to describe the structure of galaxies, how the sun, though it looked overwhelming and inherently different than the white dots in the night sky, that it was one of billions of stars in one of billions of galaxies in the universe. But the bible spoke in ignorance about very basic universal facts, leading me to believe that god had no part in it.
    The thing is, you really need to read the Bible much more like you would read the Iliad. A lot of the quotes I see sound more like a recounting of history with after-the-fact God added in. I'm surprised no other atheist pointed this out.

    The other thing is to understand that the Bible is a book from 2000 years ago, translated more than once and gone through several editors before we see the words today in English. Do you expect this to be 100% accurate? Do you expect no biases to show up?

    The real thing to remember is that the Bible was inspired by God, and with few notable exceptions (I'm thinking things like the sermon on the mount, or Moses and the 10 commandments), He really doesn't say much of what happens. I am, of course, discounting much of the history-after-the-fact that occurs.

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    I keep going back to the biblical god, because your (coquavins) god seems very personal to me, unattached to any religion, and thus I can't address specifics because he hasn't given any. You can believe what you want. I attack organized religion because of their insistence on indoctrinating people on a global scale.
    this is the thing - aside from a few bad things that get stressed waaay to much, organized religion is not a terrible thing. The problem is, I see, most people who are so profoundly against religion had a negative personal experience with it as a child and this bitterness flavours everything they say about it. I don't see anyone speaking from complete neutrality and genuinely considering things with the understanding that there is, at best, imperfect information.

    This is also why I give no specifics about God - I don't know what God is, how can I describe something I don't know? Could you describe to me what "wahkomiwew" means, without using Google? Again, giving specifics is quantification, and as far as I know we don't have the units of measurement to quantfy God at this point.

    wahkomiwewBut again, god as a concept, as a lifeforce flowing through the universe, is not a concept that can be proven or disproven. If you are looking for a proof that your god doesn't exist, you will never see one. But if you take that lack of proof to mean that he does exist, your method is utterly wrong. I'm not saying you do that, but it is worth pointing out.[/QUOTE]

    You're pointing out something very basic and very obvious. I would like you to know that you should swing your arms when you walk to keep your balance as your weight shifts.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nermy2k View Post
    yeah obviously we'd all suck our alternate universe dicks there was never any question about that
    Quote Originally Posted by Atmosfear
    I don't know if Obama did anything to make that happen, but I do know that he didn't do anything to stop me from blaming him.

  5. #125
    LooshiusLeftfoot yrogerg123's Avatar
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    How much have you read of the bible? Because a LOT of it is just rule after rule after rule of how people should live, how they should interact with eachother, and how they should be punished if they don't follow God's law. We point out the egregious ones because they illuminate just how little the bible applies to modern life, and just how violently rule-breakers are supposed to be punished, but stuff like not wearing clothing with mixed fibers is just as arbitrary. Then you get into the stories of how God tricks his followers, how he punishes non-believers, how he justifies murder and violence and torture in the name of His Will.

    I don't read the bible like the Illiad because IT IS NOT TREATED IN SOCIETY AS THE ILLIAD IS TREATED. We have presidential candidates espousing that we scale back the separation of church and state and turn the United States into a Christian nation. It's not that I even have personal connection to religion, for the most part I don't give a shit. It's only serious because it is infecting our political system and the way our children are educated in school. If I thought that Christians just went to church quietly on sundays, heard an uplifting sermon, and smiled their way home I would think that religion is unequivacally good. But I'm not sure why you don't see that's not how religion works in this country. Have you seen the super churches in this country? Do you hear what their ministers say? Religion is not some benign subculture. It is pervasive. To be a republican candidate for president you need to appeal to the christian right, and what they want is anything but benign.

    As long as people in positions of power use the bible as the sole justification for actions I don't think are right (such as ceasing to teach evolution in classrooms), I will continue to discredit the bible as much as humanly possible. You seem to miss the point that the bible is used as a tool for gaining and wielding power, and that people read the bible and take it seriously because they are afraid of God and afraid of not doing so.

    And I speak of the Christian God because he is spoken of as if the Bible is his will, and his will is known. We SHOULD think of the Bible in the same way that we think of the Illiad, but far too many people do not, and that is the problem.
    Last edited by yrogerg123; 12-10-2011 at 03:24 PM.

  6. #126
    ))) joke, relax ;) coqauvin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    i know it's not what you want to hear, but, yes. i mean, those people are prescribing certain things, and advising others, but (1) mostly they DESCRIBE problems without telling anyone what to do about them, and (2) there is simply no atheist tome or single text or whatever that all our beliefs come from. you don't have to believe anything to be an atheist. you don't have to believe anything to be an atheist. you can believe in invisible unicorns and think that we are tiny sentient playthings living in a giant dollhouse owned by galaxy-sized space beings and still be an atheist. there are stupid atheists who know and care fuck all about science, but don't believe in god.
    Sorry, I didn't make this clear - there is atheism, the belief in no gods. Then there are Atheists, people who identify themselves in part by their lack of belief. You are correct in saying there is no doctrine - I never said there was. There is definitely a common attitude of hubris through knowledge that people who identify themselves as atheists tend to have, as though their second look and subsequent rejection of religion somehow qualifies them as geniuses. This is what I have fault with and refer to when I say Atheists.

    It doesn't help if I say I knew all this already, does it?

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    you're right that, mostly, a person's atheism will stem from his or her intuitive trust in observable facts and knowledge gained by scientific means, but-- so what? that's to be expected, isn't it? it doesn't mean you have to believe anything to be an atheist.
    The bolded part is a vast load of bullshit. what about children indoctrinated to believe there is no God? regardless of the justifications given, their faith in the lack of God stems from what they were told as a child, not from some vague sense of intuition that something doesn't add up.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    you know, i was going to mention, say, oppenheimer there, but i reconsidered. he recoiled from all the horror his work caused. go on, name one person who's ever purposefully done something bad in the name of science.
    I mean there's the whole Nazi use of human experimentation. We can argue that the primary motivation was for the glory of the reich, but it could not happen unless the science was sufficiently advanced, thus the primary goal was advancing science. There's the whole unit 731, where the Japanese did things like vivisect live people (for fear decomposition would affect results) after infecting them with virulent diseases. This shit wasn't done in the name of religion, it wasn't done in the name of a political party or as torture to a subgroup of the population; it was done to advance science and understanding. I'm absolutely certain there are more examples of this happening, but these are the 2 off the top of my head.

    For the names, iirc, it's Joseph Mengele and Shrio Ishii, respectively.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    people use science and technology in reprehensible ways all the time, but they don't act "in the name of science".
    You're right - the ones that do it in the name of God are more honest about their intentions. They really believe they are doing it in the name of God.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    they act out of greed or ambition or fear or hatred.
    Usually "in the name of greed/ambition/fear/hatred" makes for a terrible rallying cry.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    you might say the same applies to religious evil people, only you know as well as me how easily i can find examples of people doing things "in the name of" religion -- whether there are any other substantive causal factors or not. here's your challenge, coq: find me an example, from real life, not sci fi, of someone purposefully doing something reprehensible in the name of science.
    While previously I gave groups of people who did terrible things specifically to advance science, if not in the name of it (something religious folk have done as well), here is someone who purposefully tortured people in the name of science: [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Ewen_Cameron]Donald Cameron[url].

    Quote Originally Posted by wiki entry
    This was Dr. Cameron's ongoing "attempts to establish lasting effects in a patient's behaviour" using a combination of particularly intensive electroshock, intensive repetition of prearranged verbal signals, partial sensory isolation, and repression of the driving period carried out by inducing continuous sleep for seven to ten days at the end of the treatment period. During research on sensor deprivation, Cameron experimented with the use of Curare, (the deadly poison used by South American Indians to tip their arrow heads), to immobilise his patients. After one test he noted: "Although the patient was prepared by both prolonged sensory isolation (35 days) and by repeated depatterning, and although she received 101 days of positive driving, no favourable results were obtained." Patients were regularly treated with hallucinogenic drugs, long periods in the "sleep room", and testing in the Radio Telemetry Laboratory that was built by Rubinstein under Dr. Cameron's direction. Here, patients were exposed to a range of RF and electromagnetic signals and monitored for changes in behaviour. It was later stated by other staff members who had worked at the Institute that not one patient sent to the Radio Telemetry Lab showed any signs of improvement afterwards.
    I found out about this in Naomi Klein's the Shock Doctrine, where one of Cameron's patients lives was completely destroyed by him. He did what he did not because he was paid to develop a method of torture for the CIA, but because he truly thought that erasing someone's mind and starting over was a good idea to cure mental issues.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    you don't think that's religiously motivated?
    No. It's pretty simple, too: Nowhere in the Bible does it say anything about fucking kids and keeping your friends who fuck kids safe from laws.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    then, at best, it's motivated by a twisted sense of needing to protect one's community based on shared religion.
    which is a purely social factor, I might add, because the shared element could be replaced by any other hierarchical organizational system with the same effect (I'm lookin at you, Penn State).

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    of course it's to protect the image of the church and stymie the loss of adherents. they do that so "christianity's" power is not dimished. how does that make it any better? how does it make it not what i said? if you're saying the people at the TOP, the very peak of the catholic faith, are "extremists", i'm saying that, again, you've misunderstood the word.
    I don't want this to turn into a "Nuh uh, YOU'RE wrong!" argument, but you really don't seem to know what the word "extremist" means. Here's a wiki definition, while I'm on the site:

    Quote Originally Posted by wiki entry for Extremism
    Extremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society
    Basically, you have different amounts of belief in a system and how much this system affects your life. Non-believers bottom the scale with 0 in both. Extremists tend to top the scale in both. There is a scale of extremists who will act in their own interest as well. Fanatics generally will not abuse the system for their own gain, but there are those who will as well. Of these two types, which do you think most likely to work their way to the top of a religious hierarchy? The ones who play the political game to win, motivated by self-interest.

    In this way, those at the top are, in fact, extremists. Most religious folk I've met are pretty regular people who don't fuck kids, beat women or terrorize their neighbourhoods. They live their life according to their faith, but they don't make their faith the center of their existence, which is something an extremist does.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    the people at the very highest place in the church are criminals who are deeply entrenched in a system of aiding and abetting child abusers. this has been very well documented.
    Yeah, I really can't argue that, nor do I disagree with it or try to make apology for what they do.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    i'm saying, you can't write off extremists as a loony fringe minority. they're all over the place. religion invites extremism, what with its "do this right or you'll go to hell" stuff.
    Religion doesn't invite extremism. Some people are inclined to it by personality, but most become extremists because of the situation that they live in. Things like poverty, lack of food, water, work and education will all lead to extremists popping up everywhere because the people have nothing else to live for, even if they wouldn't normally be inclined to be extremists. You're blaming the tool, mon ami.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    if i have a problem with religion, it's that the main religions, at least, want you to be extremist. they ASK you to be. they want your whole life lived in service to your god's commands, even if your god's commands are horrifying and insane.
    Religions don't want you to be extremists. Those in charge of smaller groups may imply that you should be, but religions, if we're going to anthropomorphize them, just want you to be a part of them. If you're going to take part, you must follow all the doctrines perscribed. Here's the Baha'i list, you can tell me if it's horrifying and insane:

    Quote Originally Posted by Shoghi Effendi
    The independent search after truth, unfettered by superstition or tradition; the oneness of the entire human race, the pivotal principle and fundamental doctrine of the Faith; the basic unity of all religions; the condemnation of all forms of prejudice, whether religious, racial, class or national; the harmony which must exist between religion and science; the equality of men and women, the two wings on which the bird of humankind is able to soar; the introduction of compulsory education; the adoption of a universal auxiliary language; the abolition of the extremes of wealth and poverty; the institution of a world tribunal for the adjudication of disputes between nations; the exaltation of work, performed in the spirit of service, to the rank of worship; the glorification of justice as the ruling principle in human society, and of religion as a bulwark for the protection of all peoples and nations; and the establishment of a permanent and universal peace as the supreme goal of all mankind—these stand out as the essential elements [which Bahá'u'lláh proclaimed].
    I mean, to balance this out, this summary is coming from a faith that views homosexuality as an illness to be cured, but you can't tell em that this kind of doctrine is going to turn people into monsters. Too much of what you're ascribing to religions stems more from people than the faiths they are a part of.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    huh? there's a difference between limiting someone's education and systematically, purposefully teaching them to be suspicious of any people or knowledge that contradicts their teachings.
    I agree, this is a reprehensible practice.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    teaching them, for instance, that dinosaur bones are the work of the devil to fool us. remember, these people are a huge proportion of americans. not the majority, perhaps, but not a fringe minority. there are so many creationist museums that all do quite nicely for themselves.
    I wouldn't say a huge proportion of Americans, and I would also say very, very few educated or intellectual Americans. This brings up another topic - what of the people who have not the ability or inclination to decide for themselves what is true or not? There are plenty of people who exist entirely off of what they learned from their parents/community and attempts to later teach them tend to fail. This is another topic altogether, but my arrogant, armchair assumption is that they would be followers in any cause pitched to them properly (meets their needs, appeals through benefits etc.).

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    and then there are the presidential candidates who say "you know there's something wrong in america when gays can serve openly in the military but kids can't say prayers in school".
    Again, this is politicians seeking to be elected playing, to a limited extent, their own beliefs, but mostly telling the people they see what they think they want to hear.


    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir
    the more moderate, sensible members of any one community -- whether it be a religious, national, ideological or cultural one -- need to be the first to come out decrying the actions of extremists and look at fixing things. instead, moderate religion has a real problem with denying, ignoring and distancing itself. when a passage in the bible literally says "gays are an abomination who should surely be put to death", and then someone quotes it when they kill gays, that's not taking a doctrine out of context. that's basic literacy and following clear instructions.
    uh... i guess not, no, but i'm not sure what you're getting at with the question.
    Would you give this moral imperative to someone who lives in Iran to protest what Iran does at the cost of their own lives? That moderates living under the yoke of Nazi Germany should do the same? It's a pleasant thought, and, if acted on early enough (when it is too difficult to tell what's going on because, again, religion is a single causal factor among many) will see change, but after this oppression has taken hold... it's not easy. You're blaming the victim at this point, or the witness.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    ok, i'm going to do a quick google search, so take or leave these passages. "if a man lies with another man, he is an abomination and should surely be put to death" is nearly verbatim, from memory. that ALONE should be enough for you. but i'll include a few:

    "Go up, my warriors, against the land of Merathaim and against the people of Pekod. Yes, march against Babylon, the land of rebels, a land that I will judge! Pursue, kill, and completely destroy them, as I have commanded you," says the LORD. "Let the battle cry be heard in the land, a shout of great destruction". (Jeremiah 50:21-22 NLT)
    I've said it before, and I'll say it again - why are you reading this as documented history instead of something like the Iliad? This is after-the-fact history writing by the victors, recorded in a book with many editors and translated a minimum of 3-4 times. To use this as provocation for anyone, especially since it applies to a world and worldview that existed over 2000 years ago, is completely insane.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    Meanwhile, the LORD instructed one of the group of prophets to say to another man, "Strike me!" But the man refused to strike the prophet. Then the prophet told him, "Because you have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, a lion will kill you as soon as you leave me." And sure enough, when he had gone, a lion attacked and killed him. (1 Kings 20:35-36 NLT) (this one is just insane)
    I... I just don't understand. I can see the point of the parable (do as God instructs, pretty common as far as religion goes, and while 2000 years in the future, the crime and punishment seem at odds, it may not have at that time), but I don't understand how this is a terrible thing.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are about to enter and occupy, he will clear away many nations ahead of you: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. These seven nations are all more powerful than you. When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them, and don't let your daughters and sons marry their sons and daughters. They will lead your young people away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and he will destroy you. (Deuteronomy 7:1-4 NLT)
    When I ask for context, quoting a paragraph isn't enough - you need to tell me significant points that occur before this passage and what it leads into. If I provide a random paragraph from a short story:

    Quote Originally Posted by The Ransom of Red Chief, O. Henry
    Ebenezer Dorset, Esq.:

    We have your boy concealed in a place far from Summit. It is useless for you or the most skilful detectives to attempt to find him. Absolutely, the only terms on which you can have him restored to you are these: We demand fifteen hundred dollars in large bills for his return; the money to be left at midnight to-night at the same spot and in the same box as your reply -- as hereinafter described. If you agree to these terms, send your answer in writing by a solitary messenger to-night at half-past eight o'clock. After crossing Owl Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are three large trees about a hundred yards apart, close to the fence of the wheat field on the right-hand side. At the bottom of the fence-post, opposite the third tree, will be found a small pasteboard box. The messenger will place the answer in this box and return immediately to Summit.

    If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand as stated, you will never see your boy again.

    If you pay the money as demanded, he will be returned to you safe and well within three hours. These terms are final, and if you do not accede to them no further communication will be attempted.

    TWO DESPERATE MEN.
    It doesn't make much sense, does it?

    The other part of context is understanding this story in the perspective of someone who lives in a world where aqueducts haven't even been invented yet. It is a military history flavoured with God, IMO.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'" (Bukhari 84:57)

    “I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them.” (Quran 8:12)
    This is exactly what I was talking about - you need to provide full content, not a single line, and provide context for whatever passage you're quoting. Of course I'll agree with you if you provide me with only small enough bits that agree with your opinion. This isn't enough to explain what's happening.

    In the interest of adding another bit of effort for myself, here's the first quote, in full:

    Quote Originally Posted by Bukhari 84:57
    Narrated 'Ikrima:

    Some Zanadiqa (atheists) were brought to 'Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn 'Abbas who said, "If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah's Apostle forbade it, saying, 'Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (fire).' I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah's Apostle, 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'"
    First, I am unfamiliar with the book "Bukhari", but from what I internet detective'd:

    Quote Originally Posted by yahoo answers lol
    Bukhari is only recognized by Sunni muslims. Shias have their own Hadiths. Ahmadiyya muslims do not follow Hadith at all as far as I know.
    So we're already dealing with a text applicable to a single sect of a schism'd faith. I am unaware of the important particulars that differentiate the Sunnis and the Shias, so don't take my word for it.

    But if you want to get into the detail of "whoever changed the _____ religion, kill him." why do you think this is horrific? People who go to change the text or the meaning of scripture are trying to create their own faith - this is a pretty fuckin serious crime. On top of this, we're also dealing with a text that has been translated, although I'm relatively certain in this first case that the meaning probably wouldn't change too much.

    It's difficult to get into why the idea of changing scripture is such a severe no-no with people who have no professed doctrine. The best analogy I can give is to say: what if someone decides to alter the scientific method? Why would they do that? Is it to improve it? Is it to make cheats easier to get away with? Does it enrich the changer? What impacts would this have on the community? and so on.

    The last quote, from Qu'ran 8:12 comes again without context. It is handpicked from a verse that's talking about a larger army of unbelievers assaulting the smaller army of muslims, apparently in the city of Madinah. What kind of pep speech do you think they're going to get?

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    and more, but i have to go. i can find more if you want, later. you are free to look up context and see how it tempers any of the hateful, violent insanity of the passages themselves.
    Man, you really should've looked up context yourself - the two you picked for Islam are either incomprehensible (because neither of us understand significant detail to correctly understand how that verse impacts the Islamic population at large, and because it's translated from another language completely), or, as I said in the first place, cherry picked to sound terrible out of context.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nermy2k View Post
    yeah obviously we'd all suck our alternate universe dicks there was never any question about that
    Quote Originally Posted by Atmosfear
    I don't know if Obama did anything to make that happen, but I do know that he didn't do anything to stop me from blaming him.

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    Quote Originally Posted by coqauvin View Post
    it's too early for me to give a full response to gwahir, so I'm just going to tackle VS for the moment.

    regardless of who has the onus of proving the existence, how exactly do you plan on proving it? Scientifically?

    The scientific method is fantastic for small phenomena that we can observe closely, but is more difficult to use for things at a distance. Keep in mind that science, because it relies on what we already know, can only use what we know to describe the things we don't. There is a huge gap between what actually goes on and what we say goes on.

    A good example is back in the late 1800's, early 1900's scientists believed the globe floated in a liquid they called the "luminiferous aether". Now that we've been to space, we know the universe doesn't quite work like that, but for all our accomplishments to that point, we had no better answer to give except for a wrong one. Since God is beyond our understanding, much like space in the 1800's, how do you expect to begin to prove anything?
    There are way too many words after this post, so I'll read them later.

    What I was saying no one is tasked, or should even try to, prove that there is/isn't a god/Giod. Religions have their beliefs based on Faith. Where as Atheists have their beliefs on the lack of faith. Or the faith that there is no god/God.

    Quote Originally Posted by coqauvin View Post



    this is the thing - aside from a few bad things that get stressed waaay to much, organized religion is not a terrible thing. The problem is, I see, most people who are so profoundly against religion had a negative personal experience with it as a child and this bitterness flavours everything they say about it. I don't see anyone speaking from complete neutrality and genuinely considering things with the understanding that there is, at best, imperfect information.
    Let me just say this;

    I had no bad experience with religion. At all. I was raised to be a Catholic, when I say raised, I was baptized and taken to Mass every week... up until I told my mother I didn't believe in God, and that was around the age of 6 or 7. I remember the conversation clearly it went something like "Mom, I don't believe in Santa Claus..." "Well, honey, that's alright, Santa Claus just makes Christmas fun, kinda makes it special... it's alright if you don't believe in him." "Yea, well, if he's not real, I also don't believe in the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny." "Well, they're pretty much the same thing as Santa..." "And if they aren't real, then I don't believe in God either." At which point the car was pulled over and all I can remember her telling me was "Wow... that's an idea most people don't get until they are in college..."

    That's why I stopped believing in God at a very early age. Since then, I've gone to private parochial schools, and attended different churches/Masses, going with friends, or in the case of going to school, I was forced to go to Mass. Since that age, I've looked at the world without the idea of God influencing me in any way.

    You can only choose your religious ideas as much as you can choose your political beliefs(this comparison only applies to people who are firmly set in a political group). Only something that makes you think long and hard on your ideas, has any chance of changing it.

    God is not falsifiable, so God does not get involved in the scientific method. To even try that is almost retarded.
    Last edited by Vengeful Scars; 12-10-2011 at 04:52 PM.
    lik dis if u cry evertim
    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. E View Post
    yes
    Quote Originally Posted by KT. View Post
    Oh I was expecting a guide to making meth

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    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    more, in case you wanted it

    If a man has sex with a woman on her period, they are both to be "cut off from their people" (Leviticus 20:18)

    Psychics, wizards, and so on are to be stoned to death. (Leviticus 20:27)

    If a priest's daughter is a whore, she is to be burnt at the stake. (Leviticus 21:9)

    Anyone who curses or blasphemes God, should be stoned to death by the community. (Leviticus 24:14-16)

    If anyone, even your own family suggests worshipping another God, kill them. (Deuteronomy 13:6-10)

    edit: oh and the exact wording of the one about gays: "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be on them." (lev. 20:13)
    Of course everything is out of Leviticus or Deuteronomy.

    The traditional view is that ... the material (Leviticus) in it goes back to Moses' time. However, the tradition is comparatively late (it dates from Josephus, a 1st century CE historian), and scholars are practically unanimous that the book had a long period of growth, that it includes some material of considerable antiquity, and that it reached its present form in the Persian period (538-332 BCE).
    For the psychics/wizards - in looking at several translations, the common theme was talking to the dead. Cultural context again, mon ami. Even today, those claiming to speak to the dead are fucking cold readers seeking to enrich themselves. That kind of influence is retardedly strong, and, if you're susceptible to it (which is heartbreaking - a sister of mine genuinely believes in this), pretty much impossible to defend against. Look up MacKenzie King, the Canadian Prime Minister (In WWII, I think) who consulted the spirit of his dead mother and had his dog stuffed (who he also consulted) for help making decisions that affected the country. I can see why, in a world where harsher punishments were the only ones people paid attention to, this would be acceptable.

    fun leviticus facts quote:

    ...Although [Leviticus 18] is principally concerned with incest...

    Apart from the questionable case of a man marrying his daughter, the list in Leviticus 18 roughly produces the same rules as were followed in early (pre-Islamic) Arabic culture. However, most tribal nations also disliked exogamous marriage—marriage to completely unrelated people ... In several prominent cases in the Torah, the incest rules are ignored in favour of marriage to a close relative; Jacob is described as having married his first wife's sister, and Abraham as having a father in common with Sarah (rather than a mother, which would have been permitted by the list). These are not seen as illegal marriages as the incest laws were not given until Moses.
    I just don't have the energy to go on through all these now, but I'll give a more serious effort in the future.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nermy2k View Post
    yeah obviously we'd all suck our alternate universe dicks there was never any question about that
    Quote Originally Posted by Atmosfear
    I don't know if Obama did anything to make that happen, but I do know that he didn't do anything to stop me from blaming him.

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    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    How much have you read of the bible?
    Almost none of it.

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    Because a LOT of it is just rule after rule after rule of how people should live, how they should interact with eachother, and how they should be punished if they don't follow God's law.
    Pretty sure that's just the Old Testament, which, to be fair, does comprise almost half. The rest is a recounting of Jesus' crucifixion, some history of the Israelites and weird prophecies about the end of days.

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    We point out the egregious ones because they illuminate just how little the bible applies to modern life, and just how violently rule-breakers are supposed to be punished, but stuff like not wearing clothing with mixed fibers is just as arbitrary.
    The whole point I was making earlier is that not only is the Bible triple/quadruple translated, transcribed multiple times and gone through many editors, it's also dealing out rules for cultures that have almost disappeared off the face of the planet. A lot of the restrictions are to advance people from living in tribes to living in larger numbers that aren't based on family units - hell, most tribes frowned upon marriages where both people weren't related in some way. This whole concept is lost on people as they try to mash a square peg through a round hole.

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    Then you get into the stories of how God tricks his followers, how he punishes non-believers, how he justifies murder and violence and torture in the name of His Will.
    Again, gonna need quotes with context for this, especially the tricking and justifying violence aspects.


    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    I don't read the bible like the Illiad because IT IS NOT TREATED IN SOCIETY AS THE ILLIAD IS TREATED.
    You also manage to miss the point. Yes, the Bible is used much differently, but the perspective on how the voice of God, especially in these cases, should be viewed is similar to how we'd read the Iliad - written by the victor after the fact, marinated in the supernatural/divine, and in a culture almost completely alien to our own.

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    We have presidential candidates espousing that we scale back the separation of church and state and turn the United States into a Christian nation.
    Let me get this straight - are you saying that the non-religious segment of the population is opposed to having religion involved with running the country and the religious folks are for it? Why, colour me surprised!

    Again, this is a fucking ploy to get people to vote for them. It's not about turning the US into a Christian nation, it's about cherrypicking the bits that change to enrich the people in charge. There is not legitimate religious sentiment in any politician who says this (because good people never make it that far in politics).

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    It's not that I even have personal connection to religion, for the most part I don't give a shit. It's only serious because it is infecting our political system and the way our children are educated in school.
    I can't argue that, except I don't blame the religion, I blame the people who use it and I blame the non-religious system of election that lets this blatant votemongering happen.

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    If I thought that Christians just went to church quietly on sundays, heard an uplifting sermon, and smiled their way home I would think that religion is unequivacally good. But I'm not sure why you don't see that's not how religion works in this country.
    First, I'm Canadian. Second, why are you setting up strawmen? You're conflating the politically motivated and superficially religious aspects of your political candidates with legitimate religion. I'm not so sure you understand how religion works at all.

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    Have you seen the super churches in this country?
    Yep, and those aren't religious. They use religion to get people in, but what happens is not religious. A better example of a superchurch is the Baha'i Temple in Wilmette, IL.

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    Do you hear what their ministers say? Religion is not some benign subculture.
    Again, you're conflating the extremists with the moderates and religion with socio-political manoeuvring.

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    It is pervasive. To be a republican candidate for president you need to appeal to the christian right, and what they want is anything but benign.
    What they want is no less than what you want - to impose your worldview on everyone else around you because you feel it's superior to what's already in place. Yes, the particulars are different, and I agree that what they want really isn't the best thing (because they're just gonna get sidelined while more power and money gets siphoned out of your shithole country, or those extremist values will be imposed), but at heart, it is the same desire.

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    As long as people in positions of power use the bible as the sole justification for actions I don't think are right (such as ceasing to teach evolution in classrooms), I will continue to discredit the bible as much as humanly possible.
    As long as I see one atheistic asshole without perspective imposing his worldview on those around him in the same manner as the people he decries, I will continue to argue that religion is not all that bad. Because all it takes is one bad apple, right?

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    You seem to miss the point that the bible is used as a tool for gaining and wielding power,
    No, I'm pretty sure I've said that many, many times. You seem to miss the point that it's not the tool that kills or maims people.

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    and that people read the bible and take it seriously because they are afraid of God and afraid of not doing so.
    Nope, I've said that too. You really need to work on your critical reading skills.

    The point is, taking the tool away won't solve the problem. It's like banning pit bulls in Ontario, or calling French Fries, Freedom Fries. You aren't addressing the root cause of the problem, you're hardly tackling a single symptom. All of the things that make the Bible an effective tool are socially or culturally controlled and not entirely by Christians. My point is even if you take the Bible away, something else will come and fill it's place to accomplish the same end. You can change the name, but you haven't solved the fucking problem.

    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    And I speak of the Christian God because he is spoken of as if the Bible is his will, and his will is known. We SHOULD think of the Bible in the same way that we think of the Illiad, but far too many people do not, and that is the problem.
    No, it's not the problem! The problem are these constant misinterpretations! The problem is fucking willful ignorance, narrow-mindedness and a lack of understanding about the fucking world. We shouldn't think of the Bible as we would the Iliad, because the Bible is still a holy book that contains good fucking things. We should read the histories in the Bible as we would the Iliad - at a distance and with uncertainty, because what's being described to us is completely different from out own reality and understand the social and cultural context of when the book was written, how the book was written, who was all involved with writing the book, what the audience of the book was like, what the audience of the book expected and how the audience of the book then is different from the current audience for it.

    I may not be Christian, but I refuse to give the same level of respect to

    Quote Originally Posted by the Iliad
    So long as Hector lived and Achilles nursed his anger, and so long as the city of Priam remained untaken, the great wall of the Achaeans stood firm; but when the bravest of the Trojans were no more, and many also of the Argives, though some were yet left alive when, moreover, the city was sacked in the tenth year, and the Argives had gone back with their ships to their own country- then Neptune and Apollo took counsel to destroy the wall, and they turned on to it the streams of all the rivers from Mount Ida into the sea, Rhesus, Heptaporus, Caresus, Rhodius, Grenicus, Aesopus, and goodly Scamander, with Simois, where many a shield and helm had fallen, and many a hero of the race of demigods had bitten the dust. Phoebus Apollo turned the mouths of all these rivers together and made them flow for nine days against the wall, while Jove rained the whole time that he might wash it sooner into the sea. Neptune himself, trident in hand, surveyed the work and threw into the sea all the foundations of beams and stones which the Achaeans had laid with so much toil; he made all level by the mighty stream of the Hellespont, and then when he had swept the wall away he spread a great beach of sand over the place where it had been. This done he turned the rivers back into their old courses.
    as I would

    Quote Originally Posted by the Bible
    1The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;

    2To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;

    3To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;

    4To give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.

    5A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain to wise counsels:

    6To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

    7The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

    8My son, hear the instruction of your father, and forsake not the law of your mother:

    9For they shall be an ornament of grace to your head, and chains about your neck.

    10My son, if sinners entice you, consent you not.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nermy2k View Post
    yeah obviously we'd all suck our alternate universe dicks there was never any question about that
    Quote Originally Posted by Atmosfear
    I don't know if Obama did anything to make that happen, but I do know that he didn't do anything to stop me from blaming him.

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    ))) joke, relax ;) coqauvin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vengeful Scars View Post
    There are way too many words after this post, so I'll read them later.

    What I was saying no one is tasked, or should even try to, prove that there is/isn't a god/Giod. Religions have their beliefs based on Faith. Where as Atheists have their beliefs on the lack of faith. Or the faith that there is no god/God.



    Let me just say this;

    I had no bad experience with religion. At all. I was raised to be a Catholic, when I say raised, I was baptized and taken to Mass every week... up until I told my mother I didn't believe in God, and that was around the age of 6 or 7. I remember the conversation clearly it went something like "Mom, I don't believe in Santa Claus..." "Well, honey, that's alright, Santa Claus just makes Christmas fun, kinda makes it special... it's alright if you don't believe in him." "Yea, well, if he's not real, I also don't believe in the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny." "Well, they're pretty much the same thing as Santa..." "And if they aren't real, then I don't believe in God either." At which point the car was pulled over and all I can remember her telling me was "Wow... that's an idea most people don't get until they are in college..."

    That's why I stopped believing in God at a very early age. Since then, I've gone to private parochial schools, and attended different churches/Masses, going with friends, or in the case of going to school, I was forced to go to Mass. Since that age, I've looked at the world without the idea of God influencing me in any way.

    You can only choose your religious ideas as much as you can choose your political beliefs(this comparison only applies to people who are firmly set in a political group). Only something that makes you think long and hard on your ideas, has any chance of changing it.

    God is not falsifiable, so God does not get involved in the scientific method. To even try that is almost retarded.
    Actually, I find this very interesting. This is much wiser than I would expect from you VS, which I hope is a compliment and not an insult.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nermy2k View Post
    yeah obviously we'd all suck our alternate universe dicks there was never any question about that
    Quote Originally Posted by Atmosfear
    I don't know if Obama did anything to make that happen, but I do know that he didn't do anything to stop me from blaming him.

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    Sexual Deviant Vengeful Scars's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by coqauvin View Post
    Actually, I find this very interesting. This is much wiser than I would expect from you VS, which I hope is a compliment and not an insult.
    Haha, I'll take it as a compliment. I know my persona screams "Retard" but I have a policy in how I represent myself: act retarded, dumb, ignorant, what ever, and people won't expect much from you, and when you say something that requires real Intelligence, people will be amazed.

    I do actually carry myself as semi-simple in real life, but considering test scores, school, what I read etc etc, I'm more intelligent than your average bear.
    lik dis if u cry evertim
    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. E View Post
    yes
    Quote Originally Posted by KT. View Post
    Oh I was expecting a guide to making meth

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    Leading Seaman sailor jack's Avatar
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    everything coq said
    YO HO YO HO

    ceci n'est pas une signature

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    ))) joke, relax ;) coqauvin's Avatar
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    sailor jack don't lie you didn't even read that wall of text
    Quote Originally Posted by Nermy2k View Post
    yeah obviously we'd all suck our alternate universe dicks there was never any question about that
    Quote Originally Posted by Atmosfear
    I don't know if Obama did anything to make that happen, but I do know that he didn't do anything to stop me from blaming him.

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    feel like funkin' it up gwahir's Avatar
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    okay.

    firstly, i want to make clear if it wasn't already, that coqauvin, you're defending something i'm not attacking. your experience with religion is very far removed (in a good way) from, say, any of the big three abrahamic religions.

    as for your examples of terrible things done for science: i know about mengele. i had a jewish education for 16 years -- lemme tell you, we did our holocaust study. and you'd have a damn hard time convincing me that anything done by the nazis was done for the advancement of science itself and not for the proliferation of the nazi cause -- which you noted. as for unit 731, i've never heard of that, but i'm not calling you a liar about it. it's interesting. but you wanna talk about outliers! of the long, assorted history of horrendous things done in the name of religion, you found one done in the name of science. you're creating a false equivalence there. remember that science doesn't TELL you to go out and do bad stuff, even if you do end up doing something insane in its name. the holy books literally tell you to go out and maim people.

    as for your request for context: here you get into the whole bible/iliad comparison. and... i won't really argue with you on that. i think it's a pretty good way to read the bible.

    however, NOT MANY RELIGIOUS PEOPLE DO. you either have the few nutcases who literally believe in the absolute truth of every word, or you have more moderate people who believe that it's a good set of parables and guidelines about how to live your life. the problem with the second viewpoint is that it's also a set of parables and guidelines about how to hate people and do awful things so that you please god.

    you ask for context, but how CAN context make any of it better, to someone who believes that it is an actual commandment? like i said, sure, most people ignore those terrifying and violent commandments. but, over history, most people have not ignored them. that's what i mean about religion WANTING extremism: the commandment says "you shall not change your religion." the commandment says "this is the 100% accurate, perfect word of god, and if you displease him, you will burn in hell for his vengeance." YOUR religion doesn't invite extremism, coq. i respect that a lot. but it makes the baha'i faith very different from christianity or islam. (judaism kind of gets a pass here as well, because there are no actual after-death eternal punishments given to us, but not a total pass, because our god is just as petty and vengeful as any other, as described by the torah/old testament.)

    penn state/catholic church is also a bad comparison. the church HAS to believe that, if it falters or loses its foothold, the whole world is in serious trouble, religiously speaking. it's much more than just a community of people with a shared belief. it's a community of people who (hopefully earnestly, but sometimes i have my doubts) believe that they are SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SALVATION OF THE ENTIRE WORLD.

    the problem with calling the occupants of the vatican "extremists" is that they are extremists that hundreds of millions of moderates look to for guidance and so on. they ARE catholicism, officially speaking. they dictate what it is. sure, they're totally hardcore, but they're not a fringe element in any way. if they are extremists, then the highest catholic office on the planet is extremist. which just makes the mainstream extreme. you fail to recognise the extent to which the vatican has power and how many "mainstream" catholics there are that look to it for leadership.

    again, i need to stress that your perspective on this is so far removed from most religious practice. i had a semi-religious education -- it wasn't bad, i was never abused or severely indoctrinated (i was taught as a matter of fact that god exists, but once i realised i was an atheist, everyone was like "meh"), and i have no particularly negative experiences or stories about it. but i know that, at least in the case of the big three, religions want you to believe every word. the texts tell you to. you and i know that the texts AREN'T the holy word of god -- but many don't. many don't view the bible as a stone in the mosaic. they see it as the mosaic.

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    feel like funkin' it up gwahir's Avatar
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    you know, i'd really rather talk about atheism than this, considering the point of the thread. but we can let this play out however it does.

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    okay, i'm going to respond to this to see if i can drift somewhere resembling back on track.

    Quote Originally Posted by coqauvin View Post
    A good example is back in the late 1800's, early 1900's scientists believed the globe floated in a liquid they called the "luminiferous aether". Now that we've been to space, we know the universe doesn't quite work like that, but for all our accomplishments to that point, we had no better answer to give except for a wrong one. Since God is beyond our understanding, much like space in the 1800's, how do you expect to begin to prove anything?
    er... we don't. as VS described, the scientific process isn't asked for when looking at the existence of something as unscientific -- or ascientific -- as god. we have no tools or methods. and if we used electromagnets or chemicals or microscopes to look for proof of god, that'd be bad science.

    i mean, really bad science. like, you'd have to be a stone cold idiot.

    i don't have FAITH that there is no god. i think there's no god, but i'd be willing to change my mind if any compelling evidence came up. without that evidence, why should i believe in god? i don't believe in anything until there's evidence. that's where my invisible unicorns thing from ages ago is relevant: i'll believe in invisible unicorns when there's evidence that compels me. same goes for god.

    that's the first reason i don't believe in god. that's the reason, if you will, that i have no belief. now, as for the reason i believe there is no god:

    i know i'm using my puny human brain for this, but i don't believe there is any way that an omnipotent, omniscient and beneficent being can exist. maybe if the world was a better place, it would make sense. but one look at uganda, or palestine, or bosnia, or a guy who lives on the street talking back to the voices in his head tells me that there is so much suffering in the world, and there can be no purpose that makes it just. you can argue that His reasons are unknowable, but i just don't buy it. (because, see above paragraph about "no evidence".) maybe he's all powerful and means well, but we're just too complex a people to manage without some of us going to shit. but then he isn't omniscient. or he knows what to do and wants to help but he just doesn't have the ability to manage such a complex system. then, no omnipotence. but the existence of a universal creator who either doesn't know everything or isn't all powerful is hard to swallow, for me, so the only remaining possibility is that he created us and doesn't give a shit about our suffering. i refuse to believe that.

    the three big holy books and the religions to which they are attached make it clear that the god they describe is mean, petty, desperately needy, horrfiyingly vengeful and limitlessly cruel (an ETERNITY of punishment for a mortal crime cannot be just to any rational thinking). holy texts and religions are the only reason one really has to believe in god, and i don't think that god is possible. he'd have flooded us again by now. sure, there are other descriptions of possible gods, like your baha'i faith, and that's fine. but i still don't see how he could possibly be all powerful, all knowing and still a loving god.

    it's that inconsistency -- that inability to fit with what i KNOW is decent, just, moral and good -- is why i am completely confident there is no god.

    if evidence ever appears, i'll change my tune. but he'll have a god damn time of trying to convince me he's all three of those things and not just the first two.

    my atheism in a nutshell.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vengeful Scars View Post
    atheist, Atheism. It doesn't matter to me, but the people who speak of themselves as Atheist(capital fucking A) piss me off for some reason.

    And atheism is not tasked with disproving god. If that was the case, then (insert religion here) would be tasked with proving God exists. And no matter what you think, no religion ever tries to prove the existence of their God.
    Both sides have to try to prove their position for legitimacy. Religious people have formulated various proof attempts for the existence of God. Do you mean religions as a whole don't, or the attempts are insincere?

    Quote Originally Posted by coqauvin View Post
    The scientific method is fantastic for small phenomena that we can observe closely, but is more difficult to use for things at a distance.
    This is a silly statement. That's a problem with the equipment they had at the time, not the scientific method itself.

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    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    an omnipotent, omniscient and beneficent being
    Get 'beneficent' out of there.

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    Quote Originally Posted by mutton View Post
    Get 'beneficent' out of there.
    did, uh, did you read the rest?

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    Sexual Deviant Vengeful Scars's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mutton View Post
    Both sides have to try to prove their position for legitimacy. Religious people have formulated various proof attempts for the existence of God. Do you mean religions as a whole don't, or the attempts are insincere?


    When what you believe in only relies on Faith, then trying to prove what you believe in ignores the concept of 'Faith'.
    lik dis if u cry evertim
    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. E View Post
    yes
    Quote Originally Posted by KT. View Post
    Oh I was expecting a guide to making meth

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    feel like funkin' it up gwahir's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mutton View Post
    This is a silly statement. That's a problem with the equipment they had at the time, not the scientific method itself.
    this is nearly right -- i'd say that at the time, a scientific method didn't really exist. it was observational study and guesswork, and there often wasn't a clear line between the two.

    science is held to a very rigorous and historically unprecedented standard nowadays. when we claim to know something scientifically, we know it. we may learn in the future that it's more complicated than we think, or we have some details wrong, but we know it. not so even a hundred years ago.

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    Deal with it DaiTengu's Avatar
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    Oh dear god there are a lot of words on this page, and I've had about 3 hours of sleep.

    I'm seeing a recurring thing though and I feel the need to make a correction.

    Atheists do not 'believe'. Atheism is the lack of belief in god(s). Arguing about what atheists believe, or could believe is therefore silly.

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    Quote Originally Posted by DaiTengu View Post
    Atheists do not 'believe'. Atheism is the lack of belief in god(s). Arguing about what atheists believe, or could believe is therefore silly.
    Atheists don't just lack belief in the existence of god(s); they believe there isn't one.

    Gwahir gave his reasons for these separately.

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    mutton mutton's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vengeful Scars View Post
    When what you believe in only relies on Faith, then trying to prove what you believe in ignores the concept of 'Faith'.
    You have to prove that it relies on faith, and that the faith is foolish. Science relies on faith in induction, but this faith isn't a bad thing at all.

    Consider, for example, Gödel's ontological argument. You can attack any of the axioms, and a religious person can try to defend it. Such a discussion would be perfectly rational without any talk of faith.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    did, uh, did you read the rest?
    No, sorry, I skimmed it.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    the only remaining possibility is that he created us and doesn't give a shit about our suffering. i refuse to believe that.
    Is your favour for omnibenevolence purely for personal reasons? Imagine God as a scientist-like entity who creates the world as an experiment and merely observes. Is this scenario inconceivable or abhorrent to you? Also sorry if you explained this earlier.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    it's that inconsistency -- that inability to fit with what i KNOW is decent, just, moral and good -- is why i am completely confident there is no god.
    This is a really strong statement. To back it up, you'd have to establish a coherent moral theory. As far as I can tell, believing in morality requires some serious faith—much less faith than belief in the existence of God, and much more faith than belief in induction. I'm not saying this to be a pedantic prick (nor am I to you, VS) with a position like "you're just as bad as them." What I mean is there's say a hierarchy of faiths that looks something like this:

    1. Belief in the existence of yourself / your consciousness
    2. Belief in the existence of the physical world
    3. Belief in the existence of other consciousnesses
    4. Belief in induction
    5. ???
    6. Belief in the existence of true moral propositions
    7. ???
    8. Belief in the existence of god(s)
    9. ???
    10. Belief in the existence of heaven / hell / invisible unicorns


    So you can draw the line somewhere between morality and god and say only faith in things listed above it is worthwhile. This approach may appear relativist, but it's super hard to argue that any of them except #1 requires absolutely no leap of faith whatsoever.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    when we claim to know something scientifically, we know it. we may learn in the future that it's more complicated than we think, or we have some details wrong, but we know it.
    Your conception of knowledge is sort of loose, even if it's common sense. Is Newtonian physics knowledge? My answer is no, not really. Do you have any knowledge of morality? I believe not.

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    ))) joke, relax ;) coqauvin's Avatar
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    mutton is much better at this than I am.

    I do regret taking this stance:

    Quote Originally Posted by mutton
    "you're just as bad as them."
    Quote Originally Posted by Nermy2k View Post
    yeah obviously we'd all suck our alternate universe dicks there was never any question about that
    Quote Originally Posted by Atmosfear
    I don't know if Obama did anything to make that happen, but I do know that he didn't do anything to stop me from blaming him.

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    Quote Originally Posted by mutton View Post
    Is your favour for omnibenevolence purely for personal reasons? Imagine God as a scientist-like entity who creates the world as an experiment and merely observes. Is this scenario inconceivable or abhorrent to you? Also sorry if you explained this earlier.
    I didn't explain it earlier, no. I just sort of let it hang.

    Basically, yes. I feel guilty enough knowing how many live in absolute misery around the world, and not devoting literally every speck of energy I have to improving things. Imagine how guilty I'd feel if I were omnipotent. We're taught by pretty much all religions (as discussed earlier) that we are to be kind to others and treat them as we would ourselves, but we have a terrible role model in our holy father.

    The idea that god is sitting back and viewing us as lab rats in an experiment -- or watching us try to work our own way through a brutish natural life -- is abhorrent to me. As you say, this is abhorrent to me. I can conceive it, it's just a combination of abhorrent and unconvicing.

    Quote Originally Posted by mutton View Post
    This is a really strong statement. To back it up, you'd have to establish a coherent moral theory. As far as I can tell, believing in morality requires some serious faith—much less faith than belief in the existence of God, and much more faith than belief in induction. I'm not saying this to be a pedantic prick (nor am I to you, VS) with a position like "you're just as bad as them." What I mean is there's say a hierarchy of faiths that looks something like this:

    ...

    So you can draw the line somewhere between morality and god and say only faith in things listed above it is worthwhile. This approach may appear relativist, but it's super hard to argue that any of them except #1 requires absolutely no leap of faith whatsoever.
    You're totally right. And I've wrestled with this for a while. My only answer is that, logical or not, we need morality to survive as a species and improve the world. The same cannot be said for religious faith.

    Quote Originally Posted by mutton View Post
    Your conception of knowledge is sort of loose, even if it's common sense. Is Newtonian physics knowledge? My answer is no, not really. Do you have any knowledge of morality? I believe not.
    Mmm, I was more or less using the "common sense" understanding of science. I'm not using it in any philosophically precise way. All I mean is, when modern scientists claim to know something, there are far more rigorous scientific standards in place before you can call it knowledge than there were a hundred years ago.

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    feel like funkin' it up gwahir's Avatar
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    As for my statement about morality. I'll expand a little.

    When I say I KNOW certain things about morality, I can break that down into two points:

    1) Morality is a concept relating to improving the wellbeing of any creatures capable of having "wellbeing"
    2) Certain actions and teachings contribute towards or harm the wellbeing of those creatures.

    These both seem eminently true. It is the definition of the word -- or at least the only one that I think matters. If there is such a thing as morality, it is that which concerns the actions we make towards or against the wellbeing of all, er, beings.

    The second point is very murky. It's undeniably true that our actions make a difference to people's wellbeing. What's murky is "what is wellbeing?" and "which actions have which effects?" Here's where we have to make, well, our best guesses. There are certain things that seem pretty obviously detrimental, like blowing people up, maiming and raping, and indoctrinating children into hatred and bigotry. Almost nobody would deny that those things are bad. Then there's an EVEN MORE complicated question of responsibility; that is, if something bad is happening that you have the power to stop, do you have moral responsibility to stop it? My answer to that is yes, but that's not exactly philosophically sound. I just can't accept that it's okay to stand by and watch from the comfort of your deck chair while a child drowns. And if that's not okay, what makes it okay when the child isn't drowning but starving, and isn't right in front of you but living on the street/at a homeless shelter/in Africa?

    Does that help?

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    LooshiusLeftfoot yrogerg123's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mutton View Post
    Is your favour for omnibenevolence purely for personal reasons? Imagine God as a scientist-like entity who creates the world as an experiment and merely observes. Is this scenario inconceivable or abhorrent to you? Also sorry if you explained this earlier.
    I know this was directed at gwahir, but this possibility seems not inconceivable but rather inconsequential. Why would we treat such a god differently we treat, say, Da Vinci or Einstein? As in, respected, perhaps revered, but not worshiped. To the extent that a God does not expect anything of believers and punish non-believers, I'm not sure there is a difference between God and no-God other than simple curiosity and the quest for knowledge about the nature of reality.

    To put it simply: if God is just there, a being floating around, maybe the spiritual energy in the universe, maybe occupying another dimension we can't conceive of (however one defines god, and however god could possibly exist), I would be interested to know that such a God existed, I would find it fascinating, but ultimately it would be like finding out that there was another type of galaxy we didn't know about. Obviously proving the existence of a God would be significantly more profound than that, but it would not change my life at all. I would imagine most atheists are significantly more non-religious than they are atheistic. I can't speak for everybody, it's just the nature of atheism that you are open to and interested in scientific possibilities (if I am generalizing too much about atheism here let me know, I can really only speak for myself and the few atheists have had real conversations with about the subject). That being the case, my life would remain the same in the presence of a God that is not attached to any religion.

    Of course, if it were PROVEN to me without a shadow of a doubt that one of the religions actually has it right (let's call that extremely unlikely), then I would willingly follow that religion as closely as I could. But to be blunt, I don't see that happening, so it's not something I have to worry about.

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    feel like funkin' it up gwahir's Avatar
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    i'm going to go on record to say i don't need anything proven to me, just shown by evidence to be more likely than the alternatives.

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    LooshiusLeftfoot yrogerg123's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    The second point is very murky. It's undeniably true that our actions make a difference to people's wellbeing. What's murky is "what is wellbeing?" and "which actions have which effects?" Here's where we have to make, well, our best guesses. There are certain things that seem pretty obviously detrimental, like blowing people up, maiming and raping, and indoctrinating children into hatred and bigotry. Almost nobody would deny that those things are bad. Then there's an EVEN MORE complicated question of responsibility; that is, if something bad is happening that you have the power to stop, do you have moral responsibility to stop it? My answer to that is yes, but that's not exactly philosophically sound. I just can't accept that it's okay to stand by and watch from the comfort of your deck chair while a child drowns. And if that's not okay, what makes it okay when the child isn't drowning but starving, and isn't right in front of you but living on the street/at a homeless shelter/in Africa?
    The inherent problem with defining morality is the sheer amount of grey area that exists. It's not okay to kill somebody, unless he is trying to kill an innocent person, then it's fine. It's not okay to watch a child drown, but if the circumstance is such that you were almost sure to die trying to save the child, you are completely justified in doing nothing. These are just a couple of examples. Ultimately, morality comes down to trusting your own definition of morality, and abiding by your own integrity to uphold your own definition of morality. At the same time, morality is to a certain degree universal. If you ask certain moral questions, you will get some sort of consensus about what is right and what is wrong. I'm not sure that lends itself to the existence of some absolute moral truth, but it does imply that people view morality in a similar way, which is important. It means that morality is both personal and societal.

    I'm not sure that a coherent moral theory even exists. The sheer number of variables that go into a moral decision are overwhelming, and combine that with the fact that in most cases of morality, you just sort of intuitively know what is right and what is wrong. The definition of morality is a very hard thing to pin down. It's sort of odd to have to admit that we all agree it's important but nobody quite knows what it is.

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    feel like funkin' it up gwahir's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    Ultimately, morality comes down to trusting your own definition of morality, and abiding by your own integrity to uphold your own definition of morality.
    if you said that as your own opinion, like, that's just the way you conceptualise it, that'd be one thing. but the fact that you said "ultimately" before it makes it a vastly short-sighted statement. and you undercut it in the next sentence, which is confusing.

    i'm just not sure what you're saying. it's abiding by your own moral guidelines, even though there are certain moral absolutes?


    Quote Originally Posted by yrogerg123 View Post
    I'm not sure that a coherent moral theory even exists. The sheer number of variables that go into a moral decision are overwhelming, and combine that with the fact that in most cases of morality, you just sort of intuitively know what is right and what is wrong. The definition of morality is a very hard thing to pin down. It's sort of odd to have to admit that we all agree it's important but nobody quite knows what it is.
    well, i defined morality earlier. it's not hard to DEFINE. it's hard to SPECIFY. it's hard to discriminate between moral and immoral.

    the closest thing we have to a coherent moral theory, i think, is utilitarianism. it concerns itself directly with the wellbeing (or at least utility, which is either happiness or preference satisfaction depending on your school of thought) of all people and an action is considered good if it leads to higher utility. utilitarianism has its flaws, but i think it's consistent and coherent.

    you have a problem when you get into the nitty gritty of moral and immoral actions: first we can't all agree what wellbeing means, and then we have tremendous trouble knowing whether the consequences of certain actions will be more or less wellbeing. it's hard. and often you need to make a best guess. but in many cases, even if one can't be sure what course of action will lead to the best outcome, it's easy to discriminate between an action that will cause MORE wellbeing (e.g. helping your recently raped daughter with medical care, counselling and unconditional love) and an action that will cause LESS wellbeing (e.g. honour-killing her).

    the examples are there mostly to tie this back into a conversation about religion.

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    LooshiusLeftfoot yrogerg123's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    if you said that as your own opinion, like, that's just the way you conceptualise it, that'd be one thing. but the fact that you said "ultimately" before it makes it a vastly short-sighted statement. and you undercut it in the next sentence, which is confusing.

    i'm just not sure what you're saying. it's abiding by your own moral guidelines, even though there are certain moral absolutes?




    well, i defined morality earlier. it's not hard to DEFINE. it's hard to SPECIFY. it's hard to discriminate between moral and immoral.
    I thought I made it pretty clear that I think moral absolutes are extremely hard to pin down. Which means that yes, morality relies on personal feeling in a lot of cases. I said that the consensus among different peoples feelings about moral questions hints at an underlying universal moral code. But I never said that absolute morality exists, and I don't think it does. Morality is a feeling derived from circumstance.

    And with regard to your define vs specify argument...You're arguing semantics. I don't care for semantics. You know what I meant.
    Last edited by yrogerg123; 12-12-2011 at 12:58 PM.

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    ))) joke, relax ;) coqauvin's Avatar
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    clarity is more important than your distaste for semantics
    Quote Originally Posted by Nermy2k View Post
    yeah obviously we'd all suck our alternate universe dicks there was never any question about that
    Quote Originally Posted by Atmosfear
    I don't know if Obama did anything to make that happen, but I do know that he didn't do anything to stop me from blaming him.

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    feel like funkin' it up gwahir's Avatar
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    well coq said it better than i would have.

    i wouldn't quibble if i "knew what you meant".

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    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    if you said that as your own opinion, like, that's just the way you conceptualise it, that'd be one thing. but the fact that you said "ultimately" before it makes it a vastly short-sighted statement. and you undercut it in the next sentence, which is confusing.

    i'm just not sure what you're saying. it's abiding by your own moral guidelines, even though there are certain moral absolutes?




    well, i defined morality earlier. it's not hard to DEFINE. it's hard to SPECIFY. it's hard to discriminate between moral and immoral.

    the closest thing we have to a coherent moral theory, i think, is utilitarianism. it concerns itself directly with the wellbeing (or at least utility, which is either happiness or preference satisfaction depending on your school of thought) of all people and an action is considered good if it leads to higher utility. utilitarianism has its flaws, but i think it's consistent and coherent.

    you have a problem when you get into the nitty gritty of moral and immoral actions: first we can't all agree what wellbeing means, and then we have tremendous trouble knowing whether the consequences of certain actions will be more or less wellbeing. it's hard. and often you need to make a best guess. but in many cases, even if one can't be sure what course of action will lead to the best outcome, it's easy to discriminate between an action that will cause MORE wellbeing (e.g. helping your recently raped daughter with medical care, counselling and unconditional love) and an action that will cause LESS wellbeing (e.g. honour-killing her).

    the examples are there mostly to tie this back into a conversation about religion.
    I don't agree that utlitarianism is a moral theory. Morality has to be about bringing in a transcendental operator to arbitrate between competing desires; utilitarianism is a theory giving a means of arbitration WITHOUT any transcendental operators. For example, if there is a woman in a cave on a hill who has a child, and nobody knows of her existence, and an infertile couple desperate for a child come along and decide to steal the baby from her, there's no clear reason why that would be objectionable to utilitarianism - you'd have to show that somehow the one woman's suffering was greater than the couples' -and their families'- joy. I don't think this can be done without question begging, and yet I find the scenario abhorrent. Utilitarianism is mostly a heuristic that describes what we view as ideal in non-moral situations - i.e. if a pregnant lady and I stumble across a chocolate bar in the desert after days of starvation I don't believe it is morally imperative for me to do more than share the bar with her - but I like to think I would, because it benefits her and the child more than it would me. But in a moral situation - i.e. My pregnant wife and I discover that our desert companion has a chocolate bar saved in his backpack and so we steal it so that she can eat it- a distinction creeps in for me precisely because I think that the situation cannot be reduced to maximising benefits for participants considered collectively.
    If it can, that's not morality - that's the ideal way to act in its absence.
    Quote Originally Posted by sycld View Post
    of course it's acknowledged by the Catholic Church, since it's true
    For paradise among this world
    Is finding love in boy and girl

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    Quote Originally Posted by mutton View Post

    This is a really strong statement. To back it up, you'd have to establish a coherent moral theory. As far as I can tell, believing in morality requires some serious faith—much less faith than belief in the existence of God, and much more faith than belief in induction. I'm not saying this to be a pedantic prick (nor am I to you, VS) with a position like "you're just as bad as them." What I mean is there's say a hierarchy of faiths that looks something like this:

    1. Belief in the existence of yourself / your consciousness
    2. Belief in the existence of the physical world
    3. Belief in the existence of other consciousnesses
    4. Belief in induction
    5. ???
    6. Belief in the existence of true moral propositions
    7. ???
    8. Belief in the existence of god(s)
    9. ???
    10. Belief in the existence of heaven / hell / invisible unicorns


    So you can draw the line somewhere between morality and god and say only faith in things listed above it is worthwhile. This approach may appear relativist, but it's super hard to argue that any of them except #1 requires absolutely no leap of faith whatsoever.
    Which leads me to this - I think Gwahir's a little lower on this scale than you're arguing precisely because utilitarianism doesn't require anything transcendental or ontological and because it's considerably more parsimonious - ostensibly just one principle, "maximise wellbeing", albeit that I think that "wellbeing" often stands in for a multitude of assumptions - than the sort of thing most people mean by "morality".
    Quote Originally Posted by sycld View Post
    of course it's acknowledged by the Catholic Church, since it's true
    For paradise among this world
    Is finding love in boy and girl

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    Quote Originally Posted by sycld View Post
    OH MY GOD THINK.

    You are so intelligent, so WHY HASN'T WHATEVER SCHOOL SYSTEM YOU ATTENDED TAUGHT YOU HOW TO WRITE IN A READABLE MANNER???

    I made some quick revisions to your post so that people can ACTUALLY READ IT and UNDERSTAND IT.

    PS A DASH is "--" with NO SPACE between the neighboring words. A "-" is a HYPHEN and is NEVER USED TO CONJOIN PHRASES. It is used in COMPOUND WORDS or to CONTINUE A WORD ON THE NEXT LINE.

    PPS STOP BREAKING UP--like this, for instance, where you have to plod through an entirely different--even if related--idea while suspending the broken up clause where halfway through the clause enclosed in dashes the reader has already forgotten the beginning of the embedding clause--CLAUSES WITH OVERLY LONG DASHED PHRASES.

    PPPS LRN2PARAGRAPHFFS


    I've heard that Britain has done more to murder the English language than America could ever hope to do, and frankly Think's posts often confirm this in my head
    I write this way for you babe

    Also, I would willingly dig up the remains of the british empiricists, skullfuck them and then burn them at the stake
    Last edited by Think; 12-13-2011 at 10:46 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by sycld View Post
    of course it's acknowledged by the Catholic Church, since it's true
    For paradise among this world
    Is finding love in boy and girl

  38. #158
    windmills of your mind Think's Avatar
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    Oh, and whilst the British school system is far from perfect, this is not something for which I think it can be blamed. I write like a writer in most contexts, whereas writing as though I was talking was an affectation I learned on LWS that has now become a habit. You're right though, it shows a lack of courtesy to the reader which I shall attempt to amend in future.

  39. #159
    feel like funkin' it up gwahir's Avatar
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    i can understand the way think writes it's just his words i am unable to grasp

    thanks, single semester of philosophy i did at uni

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    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    Basically, yes. I feel guilty enough knowing how many live in absolute misery around the world, and not devoting literally every speck of energy I have to improving things. Imagine how guilty I'd feel if I were omnipotent. We're taught by pretty much all religions (as discussed earlier) that we are to be kind to others and treat them as we would ourselves, but we have a terrible role model in our holy father.

    The idea that god is sitting back and viewing us as lab rats in an experiment -- or watching us try to work our own way through a brutish natural life -- is abhorrent to me. As you say, this is abhorrent to me. I can conceive it, it's just a combination of abhorrent and unconvicing.
    First, extending your own feelings onto a god is irrational. Omnipotence does not imply omnibenevolence.

    'If I were omnipotent...' as a counterfactual clause doesn't really make sense to me. If you were omnipotent, you wouldn't be you. Omnipotence is so far removed from your current attributes that it's highly questionable whether your thought processes would apply. It's sort of like 'if I were a bat...'


    Second, consider that a benevolent god may have proper justification for the misery, suffering, injustice, etc. in the world.

    • If God mitigates misery, people behave differently. They may lose the magnitude of any empathy, happiness, etc. that they can feel.
    • Let's say God removes all serious misery above a certain threshold. Maybe people then suffer from minor [first world] problems a lot more, to the extent that overall misery reverts back to what it used to be. Then God has to reduce this misery too, and so on. Maybe this cycle never ends, and people become progressively more immature/spoiled and begin suffering from things that used to make them happy. In this scenario, God cannot change the levels of misery in the world as they always fall back to equilibrium.
    • Alternatively, the cycle does end and God has removed all misery. How does this work logistically? What happens if I decide to become a criminal/tyrant? Does God plan out a series of events that ensures my failure? Does he try to talk me out of it? Does he impede on any free will I may have? Do I not suffer when he stops me from causing misery to others? The logistics aren't important, but how can I decide whether I would rather live in a world where this sort of thing happens?
    • The morality [of God] may have no principle that tells him to mitigate misery. If God is an egoist, he can easily be omnibenevolent.
    • From the long-term and large-scale perspective of God, who is possibly looking over multiple planets worth of life forms, maybe the amount of misery on Earth really isn't that ubiquitous—nothing that humans can't/won't eventually solve for themselves. Maybe God doesn't solve it for us because the good of doing it ourselves will outweigh the relatively negligible misery.
    • Maybe God already has mitigated a ton of misery in ways we can't detect: We observe 1 million good people have cancer, but God has already prevented cancer for 1 billion good people.


    Literature on the problem of evil should provide better reasoning than my thoughts here.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    My only answer is that, logical or not, we need morality to survive as a species and improve the world.
    When you say 'need', do you mean survival and improvement are impossible without morality, or just highly unlikely? We have reasons other than morality to sign a social contract, abide by laws, and be nice to each other. It's conceivable, albeit unlikely, that we develop into a secular, amoral society that thrives.

    Suppose moral nihilism is true. Since many people are dumb or lazy, it's hard to teach them why, and they could easily interpret it wrong and start being selfish bastards. Would you suggest that we teach them common sense morality* as a lie, for the greater good?

    *Common sense morality is expressed by yrogerg123 in post #153.

    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    When I say I KNOW certain things about morality, I can break that down into two points:

    1) Morality is a concept relating to improving the wellbeing of any creatures capable of having "wellbeing"
    2) Certain actions and teachings contribute towards or harm the wellbeing of those creatures.

    These both seem eminently true. It is the definition of the word -- or at least the only one that I think matters. If there is such a thing as morality, it is that which concerns the actions we make towards or against the wellbeing of all, er, beings.
    Morality is about right/wrong/good/bad. It's not necessarily about wellbeing. Some moral theories hold that good = wellbeing and right = actions that improve wellbeing; others don't.

    Morality isn't necessarily about actions either. Some moral theories say right = intention, duty, or character...

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