Atheism-o-phobia Part 2

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
501

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
The beginning (and end) of the Abolition movement in slavery era America:

Slavery is immoral!

No sir, you have it wrong. You see, morality is relative. Presently it is moral to own and work slaves. And, it can remain moral from here to eternity. In fact, it can only become immoral in the future if you succeed in changing our customs today. So, if slavery today is as moral as anti-slavery of the future, why put yourself through the trouble?

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You have once again shown your ignorance regarding scripture. The Bible is not “okay” with slavery. However, the Bible was not written as a political tool of the times. It didn’t comment on how brutally the people were taxed either. In fact, even you know the scripture where Jesus said “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is Gods.”

Here a quick guide for you: The Old Testament was about history and the various ancient laws of the Hebrews. The New Testament is about the coming of Jesus Christ and what that means to the world.

Sheesh, if you’re actually going to continue to attack Christianity PULEEEZE read up on it a little you’re looking bad.

502

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]BBriere wrote:
Why is it on these religion threads, we always start with one topic (i.e. do people fear atheists) and end up debating: A) The existence of God B) Evolution vs. Creation or C) Can you prove the Bible[/quote]

Not sure.[/quote]

Because when Atheist try to explain what it is that forms their worldview, Christians get butthurt and have to make it about them.[/quote]

Get off your high horse man. How many times have you mocked God with your “wizard in the sky” and “spaghetti monster” metaphors. Gee you think that might be just a little bit offensive to believing Christians? DUH!! Are you stupid or just so hateful that you are unable to see the other side? It is one or the other.

503

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
Go hit on a Pastor and calm the fuck down.[/quote]

Nice, another good example of either ignorance or hate.

504

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

It’s also not all about Christianity. Stop trying to play the victims here, it’s really sad.[/quote]

When you stop attacking Christians I’ll stop saying that you’re attacking Christians.
[/quote]

Pretty sure I never said I don’t attack Christians. You should re-read my statement.

That is if you learned to read between all those book burnings.

505

[quote]ZEB wrote:
Get off your high horse man. How many times have you mocked God with your “wizard in the sky” and “spaghetti monster” metaphors. Gee you think that might be just a little bit offensive to believing Christians? DUH!! Are you stupid or just so hateful that you are unable to see the other side? It is one or the other.[/quote]

I was answering a question. Every time a thread gets started, you have to hijack it into some perversion of spiritual discourse that consists of a right wing Christian circle jerk.

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[quote]ZEB wrote:
Nice, another good example of either ignorance or hate.[/quote]

507

[quote]Makavali wrote:

That is if you learned to read between all those book burnings.[/quote]

More stereotyping from the far left. You guys are exactly what you accuse the right of being, it’s comical.

508

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:
Get off your high horse man. How many times have you mocked God with your “wizard in the sky” and “spaghetti monster” metaphors. Gee you think that might be just a little bit offensive to believing Christians? DUH!! Are you stupid or just so hateful that you are unable to see the other side? It is one or the other.[/quote]

I was answering a question. Every time a thread gets started, you have to hijack it into some perversion of spiritual discourse that consists of a right wing Christian circle jerk.[/quote]

All of your homoerotic fantasies aside, I am not out of line based upon the title of the thread. Oops, did you forget?

509

[quote]Makavali wrote:

Pretty sure I never said I don’t attack Christians.[/quote]

Any sane person would have to wonder why anyone would attack Christians if that person is perfectly happy in their own faith or lack thereof. Does atheism leave one that unfulfilled?

Maybe I should start a thread: “Christian-O-Phobia”.

510

Evolution sounds pretty smart. How does it know when it’s advantageous to use morals, and when it should go with the baser instincts?

511

[quote]krsoneeeee wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]krsoneeeee wrote:

Well I think you’ve constructed a very simplistic view which works for you, ands that’s cool but it doesn’t mean its true - For example, the above references to “instances”, you pointed out inconsistencies on how civilizations have evolved independently.
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Uh, no, that’s not what I was pointing out at all.

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What? were you not pointing out the aztecs, nazi’s, stalins “evil” acts? I kinda read between the lines…

Just because a behaviour is bad or immoral doesn’t mean it didn’t put someone at an advantage. IE- people will do what advantages them whether its moral or not. IE IE - behaviour can be independent of a moral but its doesnt mean the morals arent there. IE IE IE behaviour can be independent of morals(free will) but morals are dependent on evolution. game set.
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This is why I don’t like arguing with you. Look at what you said. It’s right there above this text, quoted for you. You didn’t mention anything about evil acts. You said evolved independently. Now you are amending it to fit what I was actually talking about, but you act like that’s what YOU were talking about the whole time.

512

[quote]Cortes wrote:
Evolution sounds pretty smart. How does it know when it’s advantageous to use morals, and when it should go with the baser instincts?

[/quote]

You really need to read up on evolution. It is evident from your posts that you do not understand the mechanisms of natural selection.

Natural selection is not an intelligent force, not is it always predictive. By this I mean that natural selection does not always occur in the manner of forcing an adaptation based on stressors. Consider the example of giraffes;

Giraffes are uniquely suited to eating the leaves of certain trees because of the height of their necks. Now, the more common understanding of the evolutionary mechanism at work here is that the necks of giraffes lengthened over successive generations, such that they could reach these leaves… a reaction to an external stress.

This is not how it works.

What is much more likely to have happened is that, like all species, each generation of giraffes and their evolutionary ancestors included genomes spanning various lengths of necks. There were short and tall necks, relative to the norms of each generation. Giraffes with longer necks tended to be more adapted to their environment… so, they were more likely to thrive, live longer, and reproduce more. This is the mechanism by which the genome(s) for tall necks persisted where the genome(s) for shorter necks did not.

When you look at a process like this in a frame of millions of years, it’s logic becomes clear.

There are also phenotypic regulations that affect adaptations in a shorter window of time… examples could be as simple as using weightlifting to stress your muscles. This stress affects genetic expression - phenotype - and can actually affect the genome of your offspring. I am admittedly less versed on phenotype than I am on natural selection, so this is about as far as I can take it. Some books on the subject are on my list.

If you can stomach some level of browbeating, I recommend reading The Greatest Show on Earth by Dawkins. I can see how he would be an offensive, bore to someone who is religious, but his description of the process of natural selection is very readable and understandable.

513

Brother Chris,

Do me a favor. The next time you take mass, save some stool samples for the next few days. I will gladly pay to have them analyzed.

If upon examination of your stool sample, it is evident that you consumed human flesh, I will immediately convert… no lie. I will immediately convert to catholicism.

514

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
Brother Chris,

Do me a favor. The next time you take mass, save some stool samples for the next few days. I will gladly pay to have them analyzed.

If upon examination of your stool sample, it is evident that you consumed human flesh, I will immediately convert… no lie. I will immediately convert to catholicism. [/quote]

515

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:
Divine morality requires divine authority and divine accountability.

Human morality requires human authority and human accountability.

Pseudodivine morality requires human authority and human accountability pretending to be divine authority and divine accountability.

Claiming it’s impossible for an atheist to be moral artificially constrains morality to the supernatural realm, and completely ignores the laws and morals that societies establish to govern themselves.[/quote]

True, the Taliban has laws. So did Mr. Stalin.[/quote]

What’s your point?[/quote]

I was demonstrating how everything is moral, therefore, nothing is moral. If a human can think up the standard, then it must be moral. If others have differing standards, then no one is morally correct…or, perhaps all are. If the laws and values of one society executes raped women because they lacked sufficient eyewitnesses to their vicimization, yet another soceity protects the victim and incarcerates the rapist, then both are moral. Or, both are immoral. Or, more precisely, neither are moral or immoral.

So risk takers are moral in vicitmizing others, while the potential victim is moral in oppossing them. Further, the risk takers are moral and validated in their triumph over the victim. And the victim is moral and validated when they triump over the risk taker. Basically, nonsense.

Even the inclusion of divinity in two of the 3 options, would be as moral as the the one lacking. And the divine-less option no more moral than the first two. Furthermore, if geno and phenotype are all there is too it, then religious morality is no less or worse a human standard than…well, whatever. Unless of course, one of the most common shared systems in human history isn’t a human standard. Or, if religious predisposition just so happnes to be the orientation conviently missing (though religious thought has been about as wide-spread as it gets).

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Okay.

Let me see if I can make this clear for you:

I AM NOT A MORAL RELATIVIST.

Got it?

To elaborate a bit: opining that morals originate from a set of evolutionary tools does not exclude the possibility that some moral codes are better than others… and by better, I mean that they are inherently advantageous to the survival of the species.

516

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:
Evolution sounds pretty smart. How does it know when it’s advantageous to use morals, and when it should go with the baser instincts?

[/quote]

You really need to read up on evolution. It is evident from your posts that you do not understand the mechanisms of natural selection.
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Hey, I’m just going off what the evolutionistswhoarenotmoralrelativists have been claiming evolution is responsible for.

517

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
Brother Chris,

Do me a favor. The next time you take mass, save some stool samples for the next few days. I will gladly pay to have them analyzed.

If upon examination of your stool sample, it is evident that you consumed human flesh, I will immediately convert… no lie. I will immediately convert to catholicism. [/quote]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation[/quote]

Yes… that is exactly why it is so funny… a classic example of religion attempting to substantiate one of its more absurd claims.

518

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:
Evolution sounds pretty smart. How does it know when it’s advantageous to use morals, and when it should go with the baser instincts?

[/quote]

You really need to read up on evolution. It is evident from your posts that you do not understand the mechanisms of natural selection.
[/quote]

Hey, I’m just going off what the evolutionistswhoarenotmoralrelativists have been claiming evolution is responsible for. [/quote]

Weak cop-out, Cortes.

if this; “evolutionistswhoarenotmoralrelativists” is directed at me, then could you please do us all the service of pointing out where I have claimed that the process of natural selection gives perfect results every time?

519

We are a product of evolution. We are not evolution. Evolution does not know morality, but it’s product (us) can understand morality and ask questions concerning purpose and creation and etc.

520

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
Brother Chris,

Do me a favor. The next time you take mass, save some stool samples for the next few days. I will gladly pay to have them analyzed.

If upon examination of your stool sample, it is evident that you consumed human flesh, I will immediately convert… no lie. I will immediately convert to catholicism. [/quote]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation[/quote]

Yes… that is exactly why it is so funny… a classic example of religion attempting to substantiate one of its more absurd claims. [/quote]

Well, we all can’t be of the Darwinian dead of Scienatheiology. Someone has to build families and propagate the species.