Religious Nonsense
- Thread starter StrangerInAStrangeLand
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It is not a phenomenon restricted to Christians, or even religion, hence we might witness in some an intense hatred of religion to the one, and stubborn insistence toward the same effective prejudices, to the other.
Actually ... okay, every now and then I recall a story from several years ago when I went off about a bunch of stuff related to atheism at Sciforums, and in the middle of all that one of our more ardent atheistic evangelists decided to insist that religion be defined as belief in God; no presentation of the literary history on this point would dissuade him, nor argument from a prominent atheist writer about what was wrong with that very sleight. The reason this atheist needed that redefinition was to utterly separate atheism from religion; if more complex definitions of religion can exist, then an atheist can be religious, and that prospect seems to have bugged the hell out of him. But it's not just personal, either. Belief in God has certain effects on people, and they are diverse, but even you note some.
Do you believe hatred, lacking empowerment of theistic religion, goes away?
You don't need God; for most people, "because" is sufficient, or, "that's just how it goes". Once upon a time even some religious people tried this point in order to ward off accusations of supremacist prejudice.
Our friend needed a new definition of religion to guard against this: Higher cause is higher cause; if an assertion of higher cause is not rational, it isn't all that different from "God"; if we get rid of God, but keep all the other irrational higher causes, then we haven't really accomplished much except, perhaps, set a new standard for human dysfunction in having gotten rid of religion.
And in all these years the atheists around here have never really been smart enough to figure out that one need not explicitly say, "In the name of Atheism, I do this". Remember, atheism is just a word, meaning, "without God", or thereabout. It's true, trying to blame atheism for Communism doesn't work, but the rhetorical standard here is that "theist" must, at some point, answer for its disparate parts; note topic post projection from Christian Scripture to "theists" as an example. If God is not in the formula, a decision is atheistic just as a decision made with God in the formula is theistic. The absence of God from the formula speaks nothing of deference to any other abstract higher cause.
Think of it this way: I believe in Justice, which in turn is nearly as arbitrary, and far more immediately relevant to me, than God.
But, you know, it's justice. And atheism has nothing to do with that, so, whatever.
Nonetheless, it's an abstract higher cause, and people fight and kill and die for Its Name.
Part of what you're overlooking with that snip job is the underlying question of the atheist advocate with a history of dubious antireligious theses posting without comment ostensible Christian advocacy that utterly botches itself. The point of that post is a fascinating question in its own right, and apparently one that makes a couple people uncomfortable. Let Stranger answer; the Iconoclast, meanwhile, does nobody any favors by such disruption.
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I would expect someone of your pomposity to at least be able to muster the intellect of recognizing the futility of your speculation.
Oh, right, sorry: You're not capable of explaining the contradiction.
#startmakingsense
Do you think you could at least pay attention to what you think you're getting yourself into?
For the present purpose, "apathetic" will suffice.
The very term "middle east" (and not middle west) is a clue how the word for the region arose from being juxtaposed in relation to certain poltical, and thus economic, dealings, not religious ones.
If you want to say the basis for the demarcation is religion, it would make more sense to establish it at the points where hinduism and buddhism become prevalent, and not merely one of the abrahamic religions (a term that causes more than one of our resident atheists to develop sweaty hands like a Tolkeinesque antagonist residing in Mordor).
But even if you want to relegate to "ancient history" events that prompted Christopher Columbus to sail west while angrily waving his middle finger in an easterly direction (Now there's a good anecdote for explaining why the term "middle east" stuck), one could plumb the depths of our recorded modern history, and examine the cold war. Did Russia run off to have its own "Vietnam" just to be competitive with the USA in the arena of proving to the world that they can also come to loggerheads against a technologically inferior guerrilla force propped up by foreign support?
But even if those events within history seem to be relegated to an era long, long, long, long ago before instagram, one can still ask why these "religious problems" seem to be determined not so much by having a religious population, but by being situated (either politically, economically, geographically, or all the above) between foreign powers. Is it the good fortune of Indonesia that they were the gateway to Australia's spice trade?They were not a front for cold war antics? They don't have sufficient
Defining the problems as "religious" is simply political rhetoric to deflect critical thought away from how events have and continue to play out.
Australia's spice trade? Not many Muslims in Indonesia? No commodities worth an invasion? No Cold War involvement? These are jokes, or sendups, or something, surely.
The problem is that as a fundie you have no credibility with regard to historical or physical fact. Readers literally cannot tell whether you are sending the thread up, or posting sincerely ridiculous claims, or whathell.
More clues needed. Indonesia is the location of some of the worst violence between people of different religions recorded in recent history, including the East Timor genocide abetted by the US (Kissinger) as part of the Cold War. Is that waht you are referring to?
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And here I was, thinking your garden shed was bereft of anything sharp.
If you had a history of displaying even a remote attention in the persons you are engaged in discussions with, perhaps I might be concerned.
Given your respose below, it appears not to be the case. At least, in your desperation to find something to disagree with, it looks like there was only one part that you could split hairs with.
I can't resist ...
So which religion in Indonesia did Kissinger have it in for?
And how does that make it "some of the worst"?
... anyway, back to our regular broadcast.
Well, even if one is of the opinion that Indonesia stands out as a prominent hotbed of post WW2 internal conflict fueled by foreign intervention (although to arrive at that conclusion, you would have to apply more torture to statistics, definitions and history than the residents of Guantanamo .... which although quite an arduous task, I suspect you may be up to it ... ), the fact that you don't feel comfortable to discuss domestic Indonesian conflict outside of a political narrative (despite an introduction full of superlatives about religious violence that you never got around to footnoting) proves my point.
Didn't think it through?
Were unaware of the contradiction because (dare I say it) they lacked critical thinking skills?
So here's a problem. In a different context, I would probably agree with you. To wit, if the question is why did a Christian draw that cartoon, yes, I would agree you're onto the most likely explanation; he tried to make some sort of point that makes sense within his circles of faith, but didn't think through the implications.
However, the actual question is more particular, such as why the Christian would explicitly and falsely attack Christianity. Also, inasmuch as the Christian "now has to find their apologetic books to try in vain to spin doctor the two contradicting passages away", it is unclear why the Christian would explicitly and deliberately do this.
Sure, the artist didn't think it through, but we have yet to hear from Stranger, and neither 21CI nor yourself demonstrate any comprehension of the cartoon or what is wrong with it. It is easy enough to eye the clock and shrug, but it is also easy enough to wonder if maybe there is a reason Stranger doesn't want to answer.
But do take note: If there is an answer to his answer, nobody will know unless he offers up an answer.
As it is, I think provocateurs should stop going out of their way to discredit atheism and atheists that way. Stupid is as stupid does, and looks really, really stupid to anyone who has bothered gathering a clue or three. It ought to be difficult to blow the retort to Frank's cartoon, but surely enough people are managing it.
I didn't specify which religions.
I didn't define the problem as religious. I asked you, "Are you suggesting that conflicts in the Middle East are not caused by religion?" Neither blithering nor blathering is required.
Sorry if I misunderstood
I was not considering the cartoon
I was thinking of the contradiction between the two bible passages
As for the artist motivation???? is he looking for others to explain to him?
Good luck with that
This part is important: The "contradiction" isn't a contradiction; the context of contradiction is fallacious. That's the really weird thing about the question of the artist's motivation. Something about the idea that botchery and failure needed to be reduced to one syllable, "Fail", goes here, because there is a straightforward reading of the cartoon, except it is also such a blatant "fail" as to reflect the intellect that needs one syllable instead of two; that is, Frank fails so badly by that reading we insult him prejudicially, and thus must, under the Principle of Charity in philosophical discourse, scramble to find not the "apologetic books" to justify the cartoon, as such, but, rather, a basic meaning to assess, because we cannot begin to explore the apologetics without some sense of what the symbol, i.e., cartoon, is supposed to mean.
It would be one thing, for instance, to have an answer sitting aside, ready for our neighbor, StrangerInAStrangeLand, but therein we find the import of the question what we are to take from the post; it's one thing to provide an analysis, but quite another to provide the wrong one because someone is actually talking about something else but is either unable or unwilling to explain what that is.
A day after the inquiry, we still don't really know what the point is; you and I, in the moment, are discussing 21CI's↑ theses, for example, even in the question of why the Christian artist would do something, that particular something is wrongly described. It is very nearly like an allergy: If we want a weird question of why the Christian artist would do something—
It seemingly is quite obvious that the intent was to explicitly show the primitive Bronze and Iron Age Christian bible to blatantly contradict itself. As if it hasn't done this before! The cartoon in this sense, is pretty fu*ked up when one has swallowed the Cool Aid of Christianity, and now has to find their apologetic books to try in vain to spin doctor the two contradicting passages away.
(#79↑)
(#79↑)
—this strange proposition actually moves the discussion further from discovering any functional answer.
To wit, please observe ....
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Hiding behind children qualifies under the standard of doing whatever it takes to duck out on any effort to actually explain anything.
It's more about not feeling like putting in much labor for the sake of the insincere. For instance—
—there isn't enough to go on, yet, to figure out what special needs require satisfaction. As it is, I can try capitalizing the word "Apathetic", if that helps, but I've found some people think in such cases it indicates some sort of larger platform, bloc, or identity. Meanwhile, it does come up from time to time, so here are some cans for you to measure:
• #3075670/4 ("Atheist Monument")↗
• #3398170/72 ("On Faith")↗
• #3455525/15 ("None of the above")↗
• #3483081/31 ("Attitudes Toward Atheists & Beliefs About Atheists")↗
• #3398170/72 ("On Faith")↗
• #3455525/15 ("None of the above")↗
• #3483081/31 ("Attitudes Toward Atheists & Beliefs About Atheists")↗
If we look far enough back in the archives, we can find posts from the year 2000 bearing a signature quote, "Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths", from Denis Diderot, ca. 1746. If you can't figure that one out, go ask the neighbor kid to explain it to you.
Something about contradictions goes here, but we're uncertain what, since you're still not explaining your argument↗ that, the cartoonist Frank, "shows once again that the bible contradicts itself".
What it comes down to is that some advocates aren't particularly sincere about anything beyond the identity label of their advocacy. Sometimes, addressing the issues some advocates raise is difficult because they either cannot or will not explain what they mean, and in many of these cases that turns out to be part of the point. As I noted above↑, there remains a question of the atheist advocate with a history of dubious antireligious theses posting without comment ostensible Christian advocacy that utterly botches itself; it's a fascinating question what we are supposed to take away from our neighbor's post of the Frank cartoon.
Toward which, as I also suggested previously, your disruptions do nobody any favors.
What was the stench rising from that word salad? You make very little sense, and I get the idea that you don't care as long as someone listens to your vomiting. Get a therapist, bother someone you have to pay to listen to your shit.
You're an asshole, not a missionary.
I don't know if you happened to notice something I said to Michael 345:
• It would be one thing, for instance, to have an answer sitting aside, ready for our neighbor, StrangerInAStrangeLand, but therein we find the import of the question what we are to take from the post; it's one thing to provide an analysis, but quite another to provide the wrong one because someone is actually talking about something else but is either unable or unwilling to explain what that is.
And you? You're so anxious you just can't let that happen, or something.
Okay, whatever.
Then again, like I also said to M345:
• This part is important: The "contradiction" isn't a contradiction; the context of contradiction is fallacious. That's the really weird thing about the question of the artist's motivation. Something about the idea that botchery and failure needed to be reduced to one syllable, "Fail", goes here, because there is a straightforward reading of the cartoon, except it is also such a blatant "fail" as to reflect the intellect that needs one syllable instead of two; that is, Frank fails so badly by that reading we insult him prejudicially, and thus must, under the Principle of Charity in philosophical discourse, scramble to find not the "apologetic books" to justify the cartoon, as such, but, rather, a basic meaning to assess, because we cannot begin to explore the apologetics without some sense of what the symbol, i.e., cartoon, is supposed to mean.
Toward that, well, you went there:
A'ight.
†
James 5.16↱, as such, is one of those passages that, strangely, coincides with reality: "Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects" (RSV). And, really: Confess the sin, talk it out with others, reflect on how the situation got to that point; it is how people heal between themselves. It's a weird line in the middle of a bunch of seeming nonsense, but one familiar with the common analysis about Luke the Physician might also notice the anointing with oil in 5.14.
Meanwhile, Paul's letter to the Romans ("To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints" [1.7])↱ actually appears to come earlier than James' evangelization "To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion", and addresses particular issues within the rising church:
I want you to know, brethren, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish: so I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (Romans 5.13-16)
Generally the epistle to the Romans is some manner of riot act read as one Jew looking down his nose a bunch of other Jews for something obvious ("Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, when you judge another ..." [2.1]) while also taking part in the early process of separating saved Christians from the rest of Judaism because, well, men and their penises ("He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal ..." [2.29]).
And, yes, the chuckles in that come from the shorthanding; the transformation and departure of Christendom from Judaism is its own fascinating identity crisis. Well, okay, he really did argue circumcision of the heart, but, yeah, at that point cartoonist Kevin Frank's critique might as well be mad-libbed by manatees.
But that's the thing, isn't it? Frank is considered a pioneer for Christians in comics.
(1) All I did was pick up a Bible.
(2) Once again, something goes here about letting people we know are wrong define anything under the sun.
(2) Once again, something goes here about letting people we know are wrong define anything under the sun.
†
No, really, that's the whole of it. That last, point two, is particularly relevant to our neighbor who posted the cartoon.
The two verses regard two different subjects. Frank, by your argument, alters the meanings of the passages—commits actual blasphemy—in order to establish the juxtaposition, ostensibly to "explicitly show the primitive Bronze and Iron Age Christian bible to blatantly contradict itself".
Our neighbor StrangerInAStrangeLand is either aware of this problem with the straightforward, superficial pretense of contradiction, or not. As I noted this morning↑, "we have yet to hear from Stranger, and neither 21CI nor [Michael 345] demonstrate any comprehension of the cartoon or what is wrong with it". At the very least, our neighbor now knows one answer to avoid, and owes you some manner of thanks for the cover.
See #96↑ above.
Meanwhile, do you think perhaps you could possibly, y'know, just once, for starters, and then we'll see what happens from there, fail to be wrong?
Or is that too much to ask?
I did introduce the curiousity that, politically/economically speaking, the muslims got tarred with the brush used to paint political/economic regimes associated with hindus and buddhists .... Hence the "middle" part of the east. ... and all this despite being an "abrahamic" religion, which seems to arise from the tar of a different brush. Perhaps in a desperate bid to make arguments and analysis of history simple, there is a strong undercurrent for acquiring "one
Conflict in an area that has a dominant religious culture obviously finds religious expression. Residents in the middle east often call upon Allah to curse their mother-in-laws. If they weren't muslim, do you think that would spell the end of such violence? Or by the same token, if they weren't muslim, do you think the act of getting fat by charging eye-watering tariffs on eastern cinnamon would have rattled the cage of their western counterparts any less?
holy ba-jeebus!
did someone let zephir back on this site?
either way, I just gotta ask this:
what, exactly, are you asking Tiassa to explain to you?
did someone let zephir back on this site?
I am thinking that either the google translate is not doing a good job or this person is ignoring it's suggestions
either way, I just gotta ask this:
WTF does that even mean?
what, exactly, are you asking Tiassa to explain to you?
None, and no relevance, and the fundie shows his colors.
As with other fundies, and the wingnuts here in general, everything posted after the word "if" in a given paragraph is lies, bullshit, or gibberish - a rule of thumb, which occasionally benefits from re-establishment via observed evidence.
Here is your initial foray into Poe's Law territory:
You have yet to clarify that remarkable little paragraph of counterfactual fundiefog.
Instead, this:
This is of course the part after the fundie "if", worthless accordingly, but even in that context it is strange to read that a posting
-focused on a famous genocide of unbelievers by fundamentalist Abrahamics
-in a thread about religious "nonsense",
-is confined to "political narrative",
apparently as a dismissal or criticism of the poster.
Of course, that requires reading sense, meaning, into that ESL demonstration paragraph. One must assume the innuendos intended, the poster with some idea of what "narrative"is, what "political" means, and so forth, to regard it as strange. Alternatively, one could assume they were just typing stuff that seemed to sound good, especially the part about "proving {the} point" - although not having a visible point undercuts it a bit.
Anyway, to return to the matter you were dodging in the first place: Indonesia is not in the Middle East, but it shares some of the foundations of ME violence: oil and Islam prominent among them. You were asked whether your attempted implication of denial of the role of religion in ME violence was something you would support explicitly, without innuendo. Your answer is - - - - ?
Reiterating your points to determine whether they are gesturing in the shadows or relevant to the discussion is not "fundie".
If it appears to be gibberish, you own it.
Its a reiteration of your contributions to discussion.
And, as a further note, every time you are provided with an opportunity to clarify anything, you respond with caricatures of hatred.
And yet again, it appears you have nothing say but plenty of shit to throw.
Kind of you to return to the subject after that attempt at an introduction ..
So now you are saying Indonesia "shares some of the foundations" rather than "one of the worst".
Do you think its possible to commit to an opinion, or is it more convenient to keep shit flexible?
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