A Thread about Religion

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
301

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
The whole thing is as nonsensical as saying the rightness of the right “favorite color.” Great, I’m sure Hawing has a favorite color, too. It’s as meaningless as his “rightness.”[/quote]

And he should no more call his imaginary-personal-standard for himself “rightness” as he would his favorite color “right.”
[/quote]

This being, on Hawking’s worldview, your own subjective judgement, which is no more or less real than his (opposite) subjective judgement. He wants (by and in accordance with mechanisms already enumerated) certain things he calls “right,” and he wants to enforce them vis-a-vis others, and you cannot claim that this process does not exist. Because it does. (This answers the “shred of evidence” challenge from your other post, as well.)[/quote]

Surely Hawking can’t believe this?!

If only us Catholics /would/could still force him to accept the church. It would be rightness.

We aren’t discussing a process for making people do or not do stuff. We’re discussing rightness.

If I successfully led a global army in the name of the color blue, does that make it the ‘right’ favorite color? Nonsense.

302

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

Rightness undeniably exists in Dawkins’ world.[/quote]

One shred of evidence, since it is “undeniable.” I want to be able to measure it with SI units.
[/quote]

Rectitude is measured in microns.[/quote]

I still await my evidence. The human mind no more makes rightness a reality than it does God.

303

[quote]Sloth wrote:

If I led successfully led a global army in the name of the color blue, does that make it the ‘right’ favorite color? Nonsense.
[/quote]

Lenin and Stalin led a global army in the name of the colour red.

It would have been foolish in 20th Century Russia to question the rightness of either of these men or their choice of favourite colour.

But then we are talking about subjective rather than objective rightness.

304

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

If I led successfully led a global army in the name of the color blue, does that make it the ‘right’ favorite color? Nonsense.
[/quote]

Lenin and Stalin led a global army in the name of the colour red.

It would have been foolish in 20th Century Russia to question the rightness of either of these men or their choice of favourite colour.

But then we are talking about subjective rather than objective rightness.[/quote]

So, imaginary rightness.

308

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

Rightness undeniably exists in Dawkins’ world.[/quote]

One shred of evidence, since it is “undeniable.” I want to be able to measure it with SI units.
[/quote]

Rectitude is measured in microns.[/quote]

I still await my evidence. The human mind no more makes rightness a reality than it does God.[/quote]

Actually, considering that the rotation of our galaxy and many others, the rotation of the sun, the orbit of the planets and our moon, and the spin of the earth itself are all counter-clockwise, it is safe to say that the universe actually has more leftness than rightness.

309

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

If I led successfully led a global army in the name of the color blue, does that make it the ‘right’ favorite color? Nonsense.
[/quote]

Lenin and Stalin led a global army in the name of the colour red.

It would have been foolish in 20th Century Russia to question the rightness of either of these men or their choice of favourite colour.

But then we are talking about subjective rather than objective rightness.[/quote]

So, imaginary rightness.
[/quote]

As imaginary as any human system of morality.

315

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

Rightness undeniably exists in Dawkins’ world.[/quote]

One shred of evidence, since it is “undeniable.” I want to be able to measure it with SI units.
[/quote]

Dude, how many times does smh_23 have to write “I am not talking about authority”?

Smh_23 isn’t arguing that Hawking’s definition of right carries any real authority in the manner that a Christian may consider God’s definition of right carries any real authority. He’s simply arguing that Hawking has a concrete definition of right in his mind. As far as his current argument is considered, Smh_23 isn’t all that interested in whether Hawking’s concrete definition carries any weight or not.

316

[quote]pushharder wrote:

I don’t think I really made myself clear or you just didn’t get my point.

It was: Christ’s teachings don’t really mean much – in fact, they can and should be discarded – IF one doesn’t understand who He claimed to be and who He actually is. To understand that one needs understand the pre-incarnate Christ, in other words His place in the Old Testament as well as His place after the gospels.

He wasn’t “just a good man.” He was who He claimed to be or a huge fraud, and sensible people shouldn’t heed the words of huge frauds.[/quote]

I’m not sure how what you wrote above differs from “they do not understand the teachings of Christ unless they take up an extensive learning of the OT and NT”.

One must understand who Christ is in order to understand his teachings. And understanding who he is requires one to undertake an extensive learning of the OT and NT.

Isn’t that about right?

317

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

Right, and they can be one on Monday, the other on Tuesday, and switch back to the first when challenged on Wednesday. That, in other words, is precisely the point I’m making.[/quote]

This seems to be an extreme extension of your current definition of atheists and the argument that they cannot actually have any basis to their particular beliefs concerning morality/whatnot.

Just because they cannot carry any real weight to their moral arguments doesn’t mean that they lack morals. It’s simply that their morals don’t have anything “substantial” to back them up.

And you can most certainly challenge them on whatever moral they believe in. Whether your words have a chance to actually reach them or not depends more on whether they’re reasonable individuals moreso than the fact that they’re atheists.

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

What are Atheists supposed to know?[/quote]

I still don’t get why you’re capitalizing atheists as if it means anything.

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
How so?

I mean the only reason they have to “fix” that behavior is social pressure. If society said doing it was preferred, they would have nothing to “fix”. Conversely, if society said that behavior was preferred (making cakes for gay wedding as a Christian baker) the Christian is still obligated to ignore that, and do as their faith teaches (not bake the cake.) And if they do bake the cake, while society may be more than happy with that, they have larger issues to deal with at one point or another.[/quote]

Well, there is a reason why I wrote “man enough”. A person will frequently know that they did wrong/argued poorly/w.e., but attempt to put up a facade to save face. A “man” in my book is someone who, among many other things, refuse to do this. They accept when they’re wrong.

Oh, fuck SJW people. I don’t give two shits what they say. Stop bringing them up, they give me a headache.

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

What’s worse:
a) Be crushed by the will of millions whom disagree with you
b) Abandon your faith to conform, and face those consequences?[/quote]

Lots of Christians got fed to lions back in the old days over their belief.

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

While I thank you for the response, apparently what I thought was prime bait isn’t, lol. You don’t attack it directly. [/quote]

Eh, what’s between God and man, remains between God and man.

319

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

Rightness undeniably exists in Dawkins’ world.[/quote]

One shred of evidence, since it is “undeniable.” I want to be able to measure it with SI units.
[/quote]

Dude, how many times does smh_23 have to write “I am not talking about authority”?

Smh_23 isn’t arguing that Hawking’s definition of right carries any real authority in the manner that a Christian may consider God’s definition of right carries any real authority. He’s simply arguing that Hawking has a concrete definition of right in his mind. As far as his current argument is considered, Smh_23 isn’t all that interested in whether Hawking’s concrete definition carries any weight or not.[/quote]

The statement was along the lines of “rightness” existing in Hawking’s world. No, it does not. No more than the right favorite color existing in mine, because I chose blue. That’s it. It’s that simple.

320

[quote]pat wrote:

Push has a point. One who has no religious background or learning does not understand Christianity outside of a few cliche scripture passages can’t hold a Christian’s feet to the fire with regard to the practice of Christianity. If you do not know the Christian faith, you do not know what is or is not permissible for the Christian to do.[/quote]

Sure. It’s a fair argument. One can’t criticize something that they don’t know all that much.

But just how much do you need to learn in order to know enough to call yourself a Christian? What if you’ve been baptized and go to church every week-end and pray before bed and meals and do everything that seems Godly, but you never took the time to really understand what the Bible says?

Can such an individual dare to call out anyone in their church for un-Christian like behavior?

[quote]pat wrote:
That does not mean you cannot criticize another’s behavior. For example, you can criticize me for calling Hawking a crippled-retard, because you think it’s impolite, immature, crass, stupid, gay, or whatever, but your sentence should not start with "I thought Christians were supposed to…'[/quote]

Fair enough.

I do have a question though- Suppose I’m an atheist. I cannot reasonably claim that any of my moral arguments hold actual weight. Yet I criticize you for things. Does my criticism mean anything at all to you?

[quote]pat wrote:
Which is what, exactly?[/quote]

Something about criticizing others for having a speck of wood in their eye while I’m ignorant to the big-ass splinter in my own.

[quote]pat wrote:
We’re all human. Everybody needs criticism, nobody has “the answer”.[/quote]

Christians do, ostensibly speaking.