Reason To be athiest?

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by RoadmapsToThere, Jul 4, 2012.

  1. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    James R,


    It's like the Taliban is to oridinary Islam.
    I don't know when it started, but the orgasms intensified with Darwins theory of evol.





    Don't know.




    I've often wondered about that.
    Maybe it has help from powerful satanists.

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    Everything seems to be one the primary drivers of belief in God, as far you're concerned.



    Atheists don't believe in God.



    What was it the god-man Dawkins say, since Darwin, atheists (modern) can feel intellectually
    satisfied, or something like that.




    Do you know what my religious belief is?



    I haven't got the time to have a formal debate.
    Put it this way, I don't favour the goo to man thing.



    Equally, some religious people have a vested interest in fraud.



    Agreed.



    Quite right.




    I've noticed this line of questioning creeping into your posts.
    Define ''truth'', ''happiness'', and ''contentment'', then proceed to explain how one goes
    about carving them up? Then maybe we will go down this road.

    As for attractiveness, the world is an attractive place, and humans respond to attractive things.
    Modern atheism, isn't attractive, it's nasty.



    Like what?




    It's ''modern'' atheism, like ''modern'' religion, or another form of.
    It doesn't need explanation, it is in the title.


    No, I'm saying that ''modern atheism'' is the equivilent of the takeover of religion.



    Why do you think I meant people put their faith in science?



    With alot of help.



    It wants to rule the world.



    Quite possible, it proponents are certainly bitter and angry enough.
    It could be a new incarnation of the Church.

    jan.
     
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  3. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Grumpy,



    According to you, ''man invented gods to explain phenomena'', and ''fact'' (according to you) is a/the
    basis of your atheism. Correct?


    Now tell me who it was that created gods.



    The whole idea of setting up an experiment to see if prayer works is a nonsense, no doubt put foreward
    by someone who sees dogma as religion as a whole. Here is the method to become qualified to pray directly to God:

    From Bhagavad Gita...

    Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized souls can impart knowledge unto you because they have seen the truth

    It seems these types of experiments are purposely set up to fail.




    When life can be created purely by the spontaneos coming together of chemicals, not intelligence,
    then we'll talk.



    That's exactly what I expected from you.


    You're brilliant.
    Now please explain how you know there is no evidence of God?


    How you can calmly claim that people who belief in God are devoid of reason, is amazing.



    But they prefer meat.



    Aside from the fact that it is ''religion'' not ''religions'' that encourage ''science'', and ''scientific study'', this fact has been known from ancient times. Try again.


    Why would you believe that it was God, and not some act of nature?


    What was it Lewontin said, ''...Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door" .


    And of course you know there isn't, don't you?


    As long as it wasn't God.
    Brilliant!



    Yet we find 4 non believers who between them are unsurpassed in the art of murder, torture, displacement, and general suffering.


    jan.
     
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  5. Balerion Banned Banned

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    You keep saying that, but you haven't been able to demonstrate how it's shit. All you've done is stomp your feet and plug your ears like a child.

    Again, you have to separate that quote from its context to get the desired meaning. In its intended context, the message is fear-based bullying. There's nothing wise about that. But for some reason, you can't seem to kick Jesus to the curb. Maybe you were raised as a Christian, and the full rejection of Jesus would be to you like rejecting your family or your childhood? I don't know. Either way, it's unhealthy, and unrealistic. If you want to pretend that Jesus was a great moralist, that's your prerogative, but don't try to tell me that I have to join in the delusion.

    The passage begins with someone asking how to achieve eternal life, so right off the bat we have eschewed any pretense of altruism that might have made the tale worthwhile. There's no kinship here, no neighborliness. Instead, we have people in a death cult asking for directions to heaven. If you want to take this tale out of context, fine, but as I've told you a dozen times before, you can find morality tales elsewhere that do not bait you with eternal life, and do not threaten you with eternal damnation. Your insistence on this Jeffersonian interpretation of Jesus borders on fetishism.

    As true as it is that many Republican politicians treat the poor as societal waste that should be purged through neglect, one could easily turn that around and say that there aren't any good Liberal Christians, either. Jesus' injunctions are impossible to live by for anyone who isn't going off to prepare for the end of the world. And as much as you like to take his words out of context, even the acts themselves are not enough to get into heaven. You must do them for his motivations, and believe that he is the Lord, or you're just spinning your wheels.

    You don't care what I think? Spoken like a true zealot.

    Gandhi, and the moral ramifications of his ahimsa and Satyagraha strategies, are far more complex than your overly simplistic summation hints. Who exactly did these non-violent protests work against? The faltering and desperate British Empire. How did they do against Apartheid? Not so well. Did you know that Gandhi also preached that the Jews should enact similar behavior in Europe so that they could "Melt Hitler's heart?" In one instance, his approach was successful, insofar as it could be. To apply it universally is suicide.

    And yes, slapping you is a way to destroy you. Ask any child who has been bullied. See how well they're doing after a a decade or more of head-slapping and cruel taunting. Ask them how turning the other cheek worked out for them.

    As usual, you're missing the point. It matters who he was because his words are based on his authority. His injunctions are "Do this and go to heaven," while his warnings are "Fail me and go to hell." He offers no philosophy, no "This will make us all better people." He gives orders with eternal consequences. Without his authority as the son of God, his words are absolutely meaningless. For example, if I had been the one to say "Love your neighbor and I'll give you eternal life," I wouldn't be enlightening anyone, because my message would be meaningless. If you wanted to ignore my bribe of everlasting consciousness, then my words are no better than what you might find in a fortune cookie. Without substance, words are wind. With the substance provided by Jesus, words are evil.

    If you really sought wisdom, you wouldn't be looking in the Bible. My view of Christianity is objective and informed, while yours is clearly based on some childish desire to hold Jesus as a hero. And again, I don't begrudge you that. But don't tell me I'm wrong for not sharing your Jesus fetish.

    You're right about the Reagan quote, because it is wise to close loopholes allowing millionaires to pay less in taxes than average blue collar workers, and Reagan explains why closing such loopholes is right and good and why lowering taxes for everybody is right and good. (I'm not endorsing anything here, just saying that he gave his reasons) But there is no such wheat in the Bible, because the motivations for the commandments within are nothing other than chasing eternal life and avoiding eternal damnation. Where's the morality in helping someone because you're afraid of not helping them? Where's the morality in helping someone when doing so means you're helping yourself even more than you're helping the person in need?

    Yeah, you keep saying that, but you still haven't shown it.

    You not only have to gut the Bible, you have to give the words new meaning and new motivations. You have to apply the philosophy of others to Jesus' words (and only some of Jesus' words at that, and always out of context). This is a pointless exercise, when you could just examine the roots of your own modern moral and ethical compass and find better sources who employ actual wisdom, as opposed to a bronze age rabbi who employed fear-based end-times preaching. You cling to Jesus for some other reason, most likely unrelated to his teachings.

    And Jefferson was wrong. I know you'll gasp at this, but your insistence upon his infallibility is just one more of these pseudo-religious beliefs that you cling mindlessly to.

    Oh, you don't just use the Bible, you also use the Torah and the Quaran? Good for you. How about you move on to some secular philosophy with the rest of the adults?

    And you may cite your idols and heroes all you like, because you're only making it more apparent that you've put no original thought into this, and instead have constructed a "philosophy" based on what little you've read (all of it likely second- and third-hand) of people you consider to be smart. You value consensus over objective consideration. Color me unimpressed.

    You'll excuse me if I don't just accept your ridiculous interpretation of our disagreement here. What's really happened is that someone dared to challenge your faux-intellectual idolization of Jesus Christ, and the preceding post was your tantrum. I've exposed the mindlessness of your obsession, so you're eager to find a way out of the conversation before you're forced to admit that you're wrong. After all, why change your mind when you could just stupidly cling to bronze age myth? You're no different than the religious zealots you insult every day.
     
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  7. Grumpy Curmudgeon of Lucidity Valued Senior Member

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    Jan Ardena

    In the case of Scientology, it was L. Ron Hubbard.

    In the case of Mormonism, it was Joseph Smith.

    If it is the Jewish religion most scholars say it was Abraham.

    Muslims say that Muhammad got it right, not Abraham.

    If it was Odin and Thor, some forgotten Norseman.

    There are as many inventors of gods as there are gods that were invented(more or less).

    Yet theists claim it works. Looking closer says it doesn't make any difference. Much better to rely on science for your health care(for example), it HAS been shown to be efficacious in identical blind studies. If prayer has no effect(and it doesn't)it's useless, probably because they are returned to sender, address unknown, undeliverable.

    That seems to be exactly what happened ~4.0 billion years ago. We have fossils of primitive plant life from shortly after that period(~3.7 bya). So, somewhere between 4.5 billion years ago when the surface of the Earth was molten and life was impossible and 3.7 billion years ago when we have evidence life existed, chemistry became life. As we can find amino acids(the basic building blocks of proteins)in molecular clouds throughout the Universe, I doubt that Earth is unique in this respect.

    Grumpy

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  8. Grumpy Curmudgeon of Lucidity Valued Senior Member

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    Balerion

    I do not agree, stop trolling.

    Grumpy

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  9. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Yep, keep running.
     
  10. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

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    Uh-uh. You still haven't quite grasped it.
    You know that god is a concept. You've thought about it, come to your own conclusions. Feral children don't even know what it is they're supposed to be considering.

    Feral children, those documented and studied, are completely unable to understand what god, "a" god, is supposed to even be. I asked you to think about the difference between a lack of belief and the ability to even conceptualize to begin with.
    Simply put, you cannot even begin to relate to them. the more you speak of having thought about it, the more distant you are from them.

    They are also largely unable to learn to speak, as you've noted, depending on what age they were found and "recovered". Dani Lierow is probably one of the better examples around at the moment; having been "discovered" fairly recently and a case relatively well-documented by comparison with most others (and she is well worth a read if you can find much on her outside the net). The point is, though, that one and all find it very difficult to master language, and some never do at all.
    There does appear to be a window in which infants learn the basic concepts of what it is that we consider to be human, and without that basic education at an extremely young age, the window seems to close and some concepts are never learned at all. Language, facial expressions.... god.
    So no, it does not make language "false". It does, however, point to it being learned behaviour. Your argument regarding language is a redirection; ared herring.

    That is, in a nutshell, exactly why it isn't terribly difficult to determine instinct from learned behaviour. If something is "next to impossible" to learn if not indoctrinated early in life, then it probably is learned behaviour. How could it be otherwise?

    Well of course it isn't. I said that it was a very good argument against it, not that it was proof.
    Religion, and the concept of god , is a thing of absolute beauty in that it is practically irrefutable. This is why we have these never ending arguments about it. Religion has effectively circumvented the simple argument that the burden of proof lies with the one making the claim.

    Look, it's an extremely old and overdone thing to say, but it bears repeating. That kx00-something fellow has repeated it above, and it's something quite astounding in how it can promulgate so easily and without real question. The burden of proof, normally upon the one making the claim, has become irrelevant. I can say there is a pink elephant flying outside my window right now, and it would be false. I could say, however, that I believed there was a pink elephant flying outside my window, and suddenly the burden of proof is incumbent upon the one who doesn't believe along with me. Suddenly, the unbeliever is asked to prove that it is not.
    This has been going on so long now that even those avowed disbelievers such as yourself are skeptical of the possibility that someone cannot even understand a concept.

    It's genius.
     
  11. Grumpy Curmudgeon of Lucidity Valued Senior Member

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    Balerion

    From what? A foaming at the mouth, unreasonable troll(on this point)? Hardly. It's just you keep repeating the same crap and I have already responded to that crap time and again. It is not worth any more effort on my part, we will just have to agree to disagree. But let me quote a wise man on the point I was making...

    "In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as you would be done by, and to love your neighbour as yourself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality. As the means of making the nearest approach to this ideal, utility would enjoin, first, that laws and social arrangements should place the happiness, or (as speaking practically it may be called) the interest, of every individual, as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole; and secondly, that education and opinion, which have so vast a power over human character, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of every individual an indissoluble association between his own happiness and the good of the whole; especially between his own happiness and the practice of such modes of conduct, negative and positive, as regard for the universal happiness prescribes; so that not only he may be unable to conceive the possibility of happiness to himself, consistently with conduct opposed to the general good, but also that a direct impulse to promote the general good may be in every individual one of the habitual motives of action, and the sentiments connected therewith may fill a large and prominent place in every human being's sentient existence."

    —John Stuart Mill

    He gets the point, too bad you don't seem capable of doing so. Notice that JSM said nothing of the RELIGION of Jesus, or claims of divinity, or any "or else" that the religion adds. Jesus' wisdom is wisdom even if it is surrounded by the crap of an authoritative, vengeful religious creed and can be extracted without giving the least bit of regard to whatever else is in the Bible. That was my point about the wisdom of some of what Jesus said and it still stands despite your behavior and vitriol. I will not discuss this further with you. Any further trolling will be discussed with others.

    Grumpy

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  12. Balerion Banned Banned

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    It's not my fault you're not capable of thinking for yourself. Keep relying on your fallible heroes as they try in vain to square the circle, even though none of them have been able to. John Stuart Mill even seems to believe--as you no doubt do, since you only parrot the thoughts of others--that the Golden rule is Jesus's invention. Just off the top of my head, I'm struggling to think of a less-informed assertion made by anyone of consequence. He also (wrongly) appears to believe that "Do unto others" is held in the highest regard by Jesus, of which there is evidence. Jesus makes it clear in the NT that acts and faith are the items required to reach his kingdom, so this idea that he has a "Golden Rule" is absurd. He didn't value it above any other. We do, he didn't.

    And you insist upon attacking me because you know you've lost the debate, and ad hominem is an easy way out. I get it, it happens quite a bit here at Sciforums. I had hoped you were better than that, but really your inability to carry a conversation without referring to the other person as stupid, as well as your refusal to have this debate publicly a while ago should have clued me to just who I was dealing with. You're a very smart man, Grumpy, but you need to let go of your faith.
     
  13. Balerion Banned Banned

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    It's not my fault you're not capable of thinking for yourself. Keep relying on your fallible heroes as they try in vain to square the circle, even though none of them have been able to. John Stuart Mill even seems to believe--as you no doubt do, since you only parrot the thoughts of others--that the Golden rule is Jesus's invention. Just off the top of my head, I'm struggling to think of a less-informed assertion made by anyone of consequence. He also (wrongly) appears to believe that "Do unto others" is held in the highest regard by Jesus, of which there is evidence. Jesus makes it clear in the NT that acts and faith are the items required to reach his kingdom, so this idea that he has a "Golden Rule" is absurd. He didn't value it above any other. We do, he didn't.

    And you insist upon attacking me because you know you've lost the debate, and ad hominem is an easy way out. I get it, it happens quite a bit here at Sciforums. I had hoped you were better than that, but really your inability to carry a conversation without referring to the other person as stupid, as well as your refusal to have this debate publicly a while ago should have clued me to just who I was dealing with. You're a very smart man, Grumpy, but you need to let go of your faith.
     
  14. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    Can we ignore the insults, gentlemen? Im ready to report all insults, none of us have time to seep through name calling for your genius of any subject. Sarcasm as well (negative joking, or a lie as a joke).
     
  15. Balerion Banned Banned

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    If you feel the need to report posts, feel free. But be prepared for disappointment. Also be prepared for others to return the favor.

    And there's no rule against sarcasm. Though you fancy making up your own rules of logic, you can't get away with making up your own rules for Sciforums. (see what I did there?)
     
  16. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    But then again, who is God, right?
     
  17. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    5,134
    No, what did you do?

    Sarcasm is a waist of domain.
     
  18. Grumpy Curmudgeon of Lucidity Valued Senior Member

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    Balerion

    You keep attacking me because you can't make headway with your own irrational argument. I have not claimed any "victory" here, but simply defended my view(a view supported by JSM, you seem to have no idea who he is, or the influence he had on our country). I retain my view so I have lost nothing and you have gained nothing. Your rabid attacks on religion completely blinds you to the wisdom I see. Your loss.

    Grumpy

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  19. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Erm....what?
     
  20. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Again, you name-drop as if you're going to impress me into agreeing with you. This will apparently come as a surprise to you, but John Stewart Mill was not infallible. He could be--and was in this case--wrong. And if you have indeed lost nothing in this exchange, it is only because you had nothing to lose; your ideas are not your own, and all of your conclusions have been spoon-fed to you. This is evident in your inability to defend them without appealing to authority or consensus. What's more, if this were any other subject, you would smash such a tactic to pieces, and accuse the person using of it being stupid, or worse. But when it's your own irrational, psuedo-religious belief, you don't see the problem.

    And you're right, I have gained almost nothing from this. Debating the religious doesn't really provide any satisfaction, except in the knowledge that you've kept your teeth sharp for when a real challenge presents itself.
     
  21. Grumpy Curmudgeon of Lucidity Valued Senior Member

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    Balerion

    Quoting others who have something to say on the subject is not name dropping.

    Where did I claim him to be infallible? No human is infallible, it's a given.

    But what he was(and you are not)is one of the most influential thinkers of the 19th century and someone you would be wise to consider before you rant your non-sense and hatred.

    John Stuart Mill, FRSE (20 May 1806 – 8 May 1873) was a British philosopher, political economist and civil servant. He was an influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy. He has been called "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century". Mill's conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham. Hoping to remedy the problems found in an inductive approach to science, such as confirmation bias, he clearly set forth the premises of falsification as the key component in the scientific method. Mill was also a Member of Parliament and an important figure in liberal political philosophy.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill

    Comparison between what he says and what you say..., well...you lose.

    Grumpy

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  22. Balerion Banned Banned

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    No, but saying "So-and-so agrees with me, so clearly I'm right," most certainly is. It's as if you expect me to say "Oh, well, if Asimov says so, then I must be wrong."

    By saying things like "Isaac Asimov agrees with me," and, from our previous engagement, "Thomas Jefferson agrees with me, and he's smarter than you," you are appealing to authority, as if your opinion is correct by default for agreeing with John Stuart Mill. That's all you've said so far. Meanwhile, I've demonstrated how your logic is flawed through argument.

    Here you go again. You're trying to make the case that he's right and I'm wrong simply because he's John Stuart Mill and I'm not.

    All of this is immaterial to the present subject, and the quote of his you did provide (predictably) made the same mistake you make, which is assuming that ideals of treating each other well or being neighborly somehow belong to Jesus, and that these particular injunctions held more weight than others. I don't need to be a famous philosopher to know that neither of these claims are supported by scripture.


    You keep saying that, yet you haven't demonstrated how. All you're doing is stomping your feet and plugging your ears like a child.
     
  23. Grumpy Curmudgeon of Lucidity Valued Senior Member

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    Balerion

    You have a real problem adding things to what people say that they DID NOT SAY. You even did the same thing to what Jesus said. JSM had something to say that supports what I was saying, I quoted him to counter your assertion that what I have to say has no merit. It is just another source that supports my view, of which there are many. Clearly I am right by my own lights, but what I think was formed from many sources, including Jesus and John Stewart Mill.

    No, you have not. In fact the rabid reaction you have had to this has been noted in other threads on other subjects. It's knee-jerk and irrational, demonstrating nothing but the flaws in your own logic and argument, not to mention your attack dog mentality.

    JSM is a respected philosopher who has been very influential in Liberal thought, you are some dweeb on the internet who has an attitude problem. Unless one is just mindless it is logical to weight what one says in relation to what the other says with that fact in mind(as I suggested you do). I am not mindless. He is right and you are wrong because what he says is right and what you say is not. He says the same thing I said, just in better form, and what I said stands on it's own, supported by the opinions of other wise men.

    There you go again, I never said Jesus was the only or even the first person to put forward the thought, nor does it "belong" to him, whatever that means. But he was a source for the thought, a source many consider authoritive and one who is among the many I feel are correct on that point. It is wisdom NO MATTER WHO SAID IT, OR SAID IT FIRST.

    And all you are doing is yapping like a little dog who doesn't get his way. Enough, I have had enough of your tantrums and rabid rants. Your behavior is unacceptable no matter how much Jesus pushes your rant button. I've said all I will say to you on the subject, go find someone else's leg to hump.

    Grumpy

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