Atheism-o-phobia Part 2

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
541

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[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. [/quote]

I’m not sure what this - “Darwinian dead of Scienatheiology” - means… But, I’ve done my part. I’ve got two sons, so there’s a pretty good chance that my genes will persist.
[/quote]

That means I was re-editing an edit, and still mangled it. Basically, I was teasing with the idea of religiosity correlating with higher fertility rates (above replacement), children tending to adopt the faith of their fathers, and the idea of having the better evolutionary survival tools for the survival of a specific sort of population.

542

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Natural law via evolutionary processes can give us the facilities to decide right and wrong and derive an unchanging morality for our species. [/quote]

Those processes select the population best suited for reproductive success in an enviroment. So, as the environment changes. so might the facilities. And as the facilities change, so might the “morality.” And, always, the despot in no less using his ‘facilities’ than the pacifist.

Now, ‘the survival of the species’ is hardly helpful. Survive in what state? Of what quality? What’s that matter to the old man going into oblivion? Sure, he sired a couple of bastards in his day, between prison terms. But, he could care less about them, much less some future generation.

543

then your codes, even the better ones, are made of hypothetical imperatives, not categorical ones.
and these imperatives are relative to a specific population, by definition.

you’re speaking about a set of survival skills. not about morality.
and/or you are a relativist.

the single most successful man, in evolutionary terms, is probably Genghis Khan. millions of people have his Y-chromosome haplotype centuries after his death.
by your definition, he is the best man who ever lived. and mass rape is morally ok ?

again,
speaking about morality in absolute terms require that you affirm the existence of objective values.
speaking about morality in naturalist terms require that you identify at least one objective universal value in Nature.

problem is that nature is made of facts, not values.

values are, by definition, subjective and relative.

saying that there IS some objective and universal values (like absolutists do) is an act of faith.

544

logic is the human science that study, define and formalize this tool.

545

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
Natural selection
[/quote]

Evolution or Darwinism?[/quote]

What are you getting at here?[/quote]

Which one are you referring to, because some folks use a general term evolution when they in fact mean the specific theory of evolution by Darwin. Different theories of evolution.

546

Because of the facilities given to us by natural law, we can perhaps transcend the evolutionary process and succeed at the biological imperative as well (continue life forever). So that means we can not only survive as a species but survive with high life qualities using a set of unchanging morals. Granted, that quality of living goes down if we say have WW3 or a giant asteroid hits us. If that were to happen, we might have to forgo certain morals to not forgo more important morals more often (choose the lesser of two evils).

Evolution led to sexual reproduction and selection which accelerated the rate evolution which gives many species an advantage. In a similar way, evolutionary processes ended up giving us the faculties to create culture. I feel culture is akin to sexual reproduction and selection in the sense that it can accelerate the rate of advancement of ideas that can improve our ability to survive and thrive.

Now life is defined as having a metabolism and being able to reproduce. I feel that within the context of humanity, a decision is either moral or immoral based on its ability to produce creativity and certain acts always increase creativity regardless of circumstance and those types of decisions are what we call moral. Creativity in this context is defined as that which can help predict and control the environment towards the end of continuing the existence and quality of life long term.

547

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

In the case of the Bible, though, the central premises are so outlandish that there really is no burden to disprove them. Whereas, there certainly is a burden of proof upon its proponents.

[/quote]

LOL, very transparent way to try to get out of proving the Bible is wrong. If you’re not up to proving that the Bible is wrong why don’t you go ahead and explain electricity, nuclear science, quantum physics and brain surgery to me. Some think that those things are so outlandish that they can’t be real. At least the ignorant think that way.
[/quote]

The difference between electricity, nuclear science, quantum physics and brain surgery and the central claims of the Bible is that electricity, nuclear science, quantum physics and brain surgery all have results and/or evidence of their existence or efficacy that can be observed, tested and repeated.

If you came to me and said, “Look. I have this evidence here in my possession that there was once a guy named Jesus who was the son of God, and he died, was later resurrected, and now lives in this awesome place called Heaven. By the way, you can be observe my evidence, and it will stand up to rigorous testing… not only that, but I can show you how to repeat the process by which I came to possess this evidence.”

… well, then you would have something. And, the burden of disproving your evidence would be upon me.

As it stands, no one - that’s NO PERSON EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD - has offered anything amounting to concrete evidence of the central claims of the Bible. This is why there is absolutely no reason for anyone to ever have to waste time disproving these claims.
[/quote]

Wait…what? So, what you’re saying is all that archeology and all those historians don’t matter? Are you comparing history to a lab experiment? What, do you want to chemically orchestrate history in a lab or something? And…I am guessing from your above paragraph that you don’t believe logical to be a science?[/quote]

I am saying that NOBODY, EVER has proven that there once lived a guy named Jesus, who was the son of God, who was killed on a cross and subsequently resurrected, and who now lives in a wonderful place called Heaven. Nor has anyone ever proven that a place called Heaven exists, or that a place called Hell exists… or any of the other outlandish claims of the Bible. [/quote]

Why do you think there has been no proof of this?

548

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
And, no. Logic is not a science. It a tool that can be employed by science. [/quote]

Okay, so philosophy is not a science, I should just scratch that off the list of sciences. Oh, okay thank you for letting me know. I’ll let the universities know. While we’re at we should probably scratch off economics since we can’t run experiments and it is based of logic as well.

549

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
The nature of the physical universe as opposed to religion or metaphysics.[/quote]

Not as opposed to religion, religion deals with the natural and supernatural. Don’t exclude what should not be excluded. I do remind you that religion came up with Natural Law which is a philosophy of morals which comes from God. If you wish to change that last part, call it something different.

550

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
The nature of the physical universe as opposed to religion or metaphysics.[/quote]

Not as opposed to religion, religion deals with the natural and supernatural. Don’t exclude what should not be excluded. I do remind you that religion came up with Natural Law which is a philosophy of morals which comes from God. If you wish to change that last part, call it something different.[/quote]

I’ll take your word for it. My bad. Maybe spirituality would work better.

551

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris 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]

It is called transubstantiation, not transformation – or whatever you’re talking about. It is still in the form of a wafer and wine, however the substance of the wine and wafer has wholly changed into that of Jesus Christ.[/quote]

Oh, man… I love the transubstantiation argument.

Okay, now… define “substance.”[/quote]

Got this off google: the real physical matter of which a person or thing consists; “DNA is the substance of our genes”

552

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
The nature of the physical universe as opposed to religion or metaphysics.[/quote]

Not as opposed to religion, religion deals with the natural and supernatural. Don’t exclude what should not be excluded. I do remind you that religion came up with Natural Law which is a philosophy of morals which comes from God. If you wish to change that last part, call it something different.[/quote]

I’ll take your word for it. My bad. Maybe spirituality would work better.[/quote]

It’s cool. Yeah, Natural Law deals with Natural…which God, Angels, Demons, Jesus (although when he became man he had the Natural Law and Supernatural Law in him) are Supernatural. And, basically it is the morals that all men know, unless of a serious disturbance in the mental and reason capacities. We can tell this very easily by the different religions around the world that hold close to the same morals (Honor thy Father and Mother, Golden Rule, Steal, Murder, Adultery, &c.)

553

in this context (transubstantiation), a substance is something that subsist in itself and apart from anything else.
one concept Christianity borrowed to pre-existing (pagan) philosophies. (in the same time they borrowed the concept of Natural Law, btw)

it should be noted that, in this meaning, a substance is not necessarily a physical / material thing.

554

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
The nature of the physical universe as opposed to religion or metaphysics.[/quote]

Not as opposed to religion, religion deals with the natural and supernatural. Don’t exclude what should not be excluded. I do remind you that religion came up with Natural Law which is a philosophy of morals which comes from God. If you wish to change that last part, call it something different.[/quote]

I’ll take your word for it. My bad. Maybe spirituality would work better.[/quote]

It’s cool. Yeah, Natural Law deals with Natural…which God, Angels, Demons, Jesus (although when he became man he had the Natural Law and Supernatural Law in him) are Supernatural. And, basically it is the morals that all men know, unless of a serious disturbance in the mental and reason capacities. We can tell this very easily by the different religions around the world that hold close to the same morals (Honor thy Father and Mother, Golden Rule, Steal, Murder, [i]Adultery[/i], &c.) [/quote]

I find it worrisome that this one is becoming perceived as less and less evil in American society and I feel it’s a major drain on society when people stray too far away from morality. But marriage, divorce, and adultery would probably be better done on a different thread so I quite on that one right here.

555

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[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).

[/quote]

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.
[/quote]

So, 60 million dead human beings is "inherently advantageous to the survival of the species? "

Is this another part of evolution that I just don’t understand?

556

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[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”.

[/quote]

Pretty sure you’re just looking for a fight now. This thread was about Athiesm-o-phobia. Now it’s Bible camp.

557

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
Yes, I read much, read 3-4 hours a day. Not sure what you’re getting at, or is this another ad hominem. You can refute a bunch of stuff in the Protestant Bibles, I would guess if you pick up a Protestant Bible there is about 2000 mistakes. However, never came across one in the Catholic Bible (with the right credentials).[/quote]

We get it, you’re a Catholic groupie. Go hit on a Pastor and calm the fuck down.[/quote]

Catholic groupie…because I don’t have the time to search the entire bible and all books that my have something to refute in the Bible I am now a Catholic groupie and a homosexual. Awesome.[/quote]

It seems you can’t miss any opportunity to say fuck you to protestants and advertise for your church.

558

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[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]

Well, I would like to read your worldview. I came in late and saw in correct arguments.[/quote]

Explaining a world view takes time and multiple posts. About halfway through there will be either “BUTJESUSLOL” or some condescending bullshit about saving souls or some other crap that is clearly irrelevant. I’m not saying it’s you, but it happens in every thread, and it degenerates into a Bible study.

559

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
And, no. Logic is not a science. It a tool that can be employed by science. [/quote]

Okay, so philosophy is not a science, I should just scratch that off the list of sciences. Oh, okay thank you for letting me know. I’ll let the universities know. While we’re at we should probably scratch off economics since we can’t run experiments and it is based of logic as well.[/quote]

What the hell are you babbling about? You can run experiments.

560

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
And, no. Logic is not a science. It a tool that can be employed by science. [/quote]

…or shamelessly abused.