From OP
[quote]clip11 wrote:
Peeing on a picture of Jesus is funny, thats what HBO says. I wonder how HBO would feel if someone told funny jokes about the holocaust? Or maybe if someone doo dooed on a quran? I don’t think HBO would be too amused somehow.[/quote]
Tell me you knew about this??
Some more
Same as original but with more before.
[quote]Cortes wrote:
[quote]Cheeky_Kea wrote:
You say that if I don’t believe there is a God then I have to accept that nothing suddenly exploded and became everything.
Those are the only two alterantives huh?
The trouble is the same with both arguments, they regress ad infinitum.
[/quote]
Actually, that is not what I was saying. Explosions have nothing to do with it. Either all of this came from nothing or it came from something. Stated thus, there really are only two alternatives, and the only one that must (necessarily) regress ad infinitum is the atheist supposition of a cosmos lacking an Uncaused Cause, or Necessary Being. Again, it has been covered nearly ad infinitum here, so I’m not going to get into it and derail this thread too, but see the cosmological argument (from contingency) if you are interested.
Bottom line: I’m at least as big a fan of science as you are. I have no fear of it, my religion welcomes and nurtures scientific inquiry, and neither I nor, do I believe, most Christians go about our days blaming malicious spirits for our broken air conditioner or imagining God was the one behind the recent Japanese tsunami. I’m not talking about day to day stuff. I am talking about epistemology, what it is possible to know, the very limits of knowlege that simple empiricism could never even hope to approach. It is around that event horizon that, if you are really honest, it starts to become clear that atheists don’t have any sort of monopoly on the truth, and that the sheer magnitude of what we don’t know, what we cannot ever even hope to know in this life, should be, should be enough to bring most of these debates to a screeching halt.[/quote]
Yes but the usual alternative to the theist point of veiw is the big bang theory…that is all I was alluding to with talk of explosions.
Atheists usually have a problem with the necessary Being in thinking that something must have in turn created the necessary being otherwise it just popped into being one day like an uncaused cause – hence the regression with both models.
If you argue God always was then you could equally argue the cosmos always was without a God needed to explain it’s existence.
Of course Atheists have no monopoly on the truth and are probably just anoyed that theists usually act like they do.
Yes, the sheer magnitude of what we don’t know, what we cannot ever even hope to know in this life, should be, enough to bring most of these debates to a screeching halt.
And yet here I am.
And here you are all over PWI debating your ass off.
I am not a giant fan of science. I think it is a great tool for alot things but that is as far as it goes.
It is not much use for spriritual matters (although it’s sheer wonderment at times can be breath taking) I pursue other avenues for that.
Scientists are just as passionate and hence just as prejudiced as anyone else.
It was not just the church but the established astronomers of the time who condemned Galileo.
They are also just as bad at admiting what they beleive is no longer working.
Edison’s commitment to Direct current electrical generators led him to insist alternating current ones were unsafe years after there saftey had been proven beyond doubt to everyone else.
It’s just that the typical God of the bible is so obviously made in our image and not the other way around.
I can’t worship a being who sounds pettier than me.
That stupid song “what if God was one of us” used to make me puke.
I can’t think of anything more depressing.
I find it hilarious that the things most of us domesticated primates are asking our preists for forgiveness for, constitute no more than normal mammalian behaviour.
Us the way God made us.
I am inclined to agree with regarding the human mind behaving as if it were divded into two parts — the thinker and the prover.
The thinker can think about virtually anything. History has recorded it as thinking that the entire unniverse revolves around the earth, that the earth is hollow, that the earth is flat and the present model doing the rounds (and believed by billions of people including me,) that the earth is floating through space.
The thinker can regard itself as mortal, immortal, both mortal and immortal (reincarnation model) and also as totally non-existent (buddism)
It can think itself into living in a christian universe, a scientific-quantum universe, or a Nazi universe amongst a multitude of others.
The prover is simple…what ever the thinker thinks the prover proves in some way.
To take a horrible example that is a blight on human history, if the thinker thinks that all jews are rich, money grubbing hoarders, the prover will prove it.
It will find evidence, no matter how slim, that the poorest jew in the most run down ghetto has hidden money somewhere.
If the thinker thinks that the sun moves around the earth, the prover will obligingly organise all perceptions to fit that thought. If however the thinker changes it’s mind and decides that the earth moves around the sun, the prover will reorganise the evidence.
If the thinker thinks that holy water from Lourdes will cure their Lumbago, the prover will skillfully orchestrate all signals from glands, organs, muscles etc. until they have organised themselves into good health again.
Of course it is very easy to see that other people’s minds work this way but much harder to be aware or even acknowledge that yours does too.
There have been so many examples throughout history of several groups “proving” something to be right and several other groups independent of them “proving” the smae thing to be wrong or non-existent.
And yet Atheists and theists alike still think they are being objective.
What interested me about your posts was that you don’t sound like the usual christian.
You sound to me when you talk of event horizons and epistemological concerns like someone who regards theism as just another model and way of trying to understand the nature of things.
In other words a usefull construct of the mind.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
ANYONE who claims that one who believes there is no God does not believe in anything is an intellectual dunce.
[/quote]
Where did I explicitly state this?
I think you misunderstood when I said “Atheism has no beliefs” I of course ment none about God. (I thought everyone was on the same page with that one…I mean that was the subject.)
I did not mean they do not not believe in anything. Atheists can of course still belive in the toothfairy if they want to…just not a God.
And if you are actually alluding to the your non-belief is still technically a belief thing…farrrrkkk we went over that.
Do try to keep up slow poke.
You calling someone else out on haughtiness is hilarious.
Thanks for the laughs.
Or “teh lulz” as they are known.
[quote]clip11 wrote:
Peeing on a picture of Jesus is funny, thats what HBO says. I wonder how HBO would feel if someone told funny jokes about the holocaust? Or maybe if someone doo dooed on a quran? I don’t think HBO would be too amused somehow.[/quote]
You must’ve seen this before then, right?
@Big Flamer; It was written as a joke dude. Obviously you take yourself waaayy too seriously. Chill the heck out
[quote]FrozenNinja wrote:
@Big Flamer; It was written as a joke dude. Obviously you take yourself waaayy too seriously. Chill the heck out[/quote]
LOL…I posted that thinking I would get a laugh, that’s all. If I was to have taken your post seriously, I would’ve given a serious response.
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
[quote]FrozenNinja wrote:
@Big Flamer; It was written as a joke dude. Obviously you take yourself waaayy too seriously. Chill the heck out[/quote]
LOL…I posted that thinking I would get a laugh, that’s all. If I was to have taken your post seriously, I would’ve given a serious response. [/quote]
Well Alright then…carry on. lol
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Cheeky, you were meant to be offended. Your haughty tone along with you shoveling the bullshit, mainly the shoveling of the bullshit, warranted it.
ANYONE who claims that one who believes there is no God does not believe in anything is an intellectual dunce.
We all believe in something, buddy. We ALL believe in something.
The agnostic tries to solve this “dilemma” but sitting on the fence and claiming, “I don’t know…” but even he still believes in something; he’s just a pansy ass for not openly taking a position. I will give that to the atheist any day over the agnostic.[/quote]
As an agnostic, I don’t claim to have no beliefs. I just admit that I don’t truly know anything. And some beliefs are more likely to be true than others, based on supporting evidence.
Asserting anything, whether it be the existence of a god or the nonexistence of a god, with absolute certainty, and refusing to even consider that you might be wrong, is where people get into trouble.
[quote]Cortes wrote:
[quote]Cheeky_Kea wrote:
You say that if I don’t believe there is a God then I have to accept that nothing suddenly exploded and became everything.
Those are the only two alterantives huh?
The trouble is the same with both arguments, they regress ad infinitum.
[/quote]
Actually, that is not what I was saying. Explosions have nothing to do with it. Either all of this came from nothing or it came from something. Stated thus, there really are only two alternatives, and the only one that must (necessarily) regress ad infinitum is the atheist supposition of a cosmos lacking an Uncaused Cause, or Necessary Being. Again, it has been covered nearly ad infinitum here, so I’m not going to get into it and derail this thread too, but see the cosmological argument (from contingency) if you are interested.
Bottom line: I’m at least as big a fan of science as you are. I have no fear of it, my religion welcomes and nurtures scientific inquiry, and neither I nor, do I believe, most Christians go about our days blaming malicious spirits for our broken air conditioner or imagining God was the one behind the recent Japanese tsunami. I’m not talking about day to day stuff. I am talking about epistemology, what it is possible to know, the very limits of knowlege that simple empiricism could never even hope to approach. It is around that event horizon that, if you are really honest, it starts to become clear that atheists don’t have any sort of monopoly on the truth, and that the sheer magnitude of what we don’t know, what we cannot ever even hope to know in this life, should be, should be enough to bring most of these debates to a screeching halt.[/quote]
Given that we are such infants in our understanding of the universe, isn’t it wisest to humbly acknowledge that ignorance and admit that our most cherished beliefs could in fact not reflect reality?
[quote]Makavali wrote:
Atheism is to belief what baldness is to hair color.[/quote]
hair color exists, even if someone is bald. They just don’t have the hair to display the color on.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Yes an atheists action can be peaceful or violent.
[/quote]
I know. That’s what I said.[/quote]
And you also said they were killing in the name of atheism, which is stupid.
[/quote]
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
Atheism is a belief, not a not belief. Even if you’ve decided God does not exist, you made a choice and there for a belief. The opposite of belief isn’t atheism, the opposite of belief is an absence of opinion on the matter. Therefore, if you believe there is no God, then it’s still a belief and one atheists wish to spread because they think it’s superior.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
It’s an artform
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ[/quote]
I know. Mocking Christians and Christianity is the last tolerated form of bigotry that is still acceptable. Everybody else is off limits.
But alas, Jesus predicted exactly this, that we would be mocked and persecuted and so we are. But it’s ok, we’re used to it.[/quote]
RE: Piss Christ…
[Serrano] has also said that while this work is not intended to denounce religion, it alludes to a perceived commercializing or cheapening of Christian icons in contemporary culture.
Carry on.[/quote]
Oh good, so if I took a shit on his mother’s picture, I would just be illustrating the cheapness of his mom. What horseshit.
[quote]Cheeky_Kea wrote:
[quote]Cortes wrote:
What’s laughable about this is that there is no way, NO WAY to prove that God does not exist. Yet you follow the absurd statement about skeptical atheism having “no beliefs” with the more absurd positive statement that God does not exist. And if you disagree with this, then we should be calling the whole thing agnosticism.
[/quote]
Fair enough.
The burden of proof usually lies on the one claiming the existence of something/someone, not the other way around.
If I told you I had a magic Unicorn that could predict the lottery numbers and that all you need to do was provide me your banking details and password over the internet and I will deposit it’s winnings in your account…you would most definitely want me to prove this assertion before you gave me those details.
[/quote]
The arguments exist, and haven’t been proven wrong, ever. Just because you haven’t seen it or chose to ignore it doesn’t mean a clean logically deductive argument has not been made. If you want to see I will direct you to another thread where it has been discussed to death. I certainly don’t feel like retyping it all. If you want to see it, here:
http://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/world_news_war/physics_of_the_afterlife?id=4694416&pageNo=3
Start on about page 4 I think. It’s a lot to read, but if your actually interested in the argument the logic behind it and how it’s defended and not refuted or indeed refutable, it takes a lot of reading. If you flippantly disregard it and think you have solved it, then you don’t understand it.
Anyhow, it’s there, you can add if you wish, but do the background stuff so you don’t reply with what’s already been said. That gets really annoying.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
It’s an artform
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ[/quote]
I know. Mocking Christians and Christianity is the last tolerated form of bigotry that is still acceptable. Everybody else is off limits.
But alas, Jesus predicted exactly this, that we would be mocked and persecuted and so we are. But it’s ok, we’re used to it.[/quote]
RE: Piss Christ…
[Serrano] has also said that while this work is not intended to denounce religion, it alludes to a perceived commercializing or cheapening of Christian icons in contemporary culture.
Carry on.[/quote]
Oh good, so if I took a shit on his mother’s picture, I would just be illustrating the cheapness of his mom. What horseshit.
[/quote]
Although I love certain modern art (Pollack, Rothko, Chagall), I think that much of what is exalted as “art” nowadays has absolutely no value outside of an example of our current society’s tendency toward masturbatory self-deification. The fact that it is assumed, even demanded, that each piece contain a message, or commentary, or a reason for being is the root of this problem, I think, or its primary symptom.
Art shouldn’t need to “say” anything, and if you have to explain it, you’re either a shitty artist who didn’t know how to properly convey his message, or a no-talent charlatan relying on shock like I believe Serrano and many of the Saatchi gallery to be. Good art just is. It doesn’t have to be anything other than itself. It doesn’t have to say shit. It doesn’t need an explanation. Its quality and value will be self-evident.
Look at Picasso’s Guernica. We don’t need someone to explain to us that this is a representation of an atrocity committed during the Spanish Civil War. It speaks for itself, and it applies to any time and place, because it represents us, and we recognize ourselves in it.
It also takes a lot more talent and imagination than dropping a crucifix into a jar a piss and haughtily referring to the commercialization of Christian icons you don’t give a fuck about as your enabling progressive coherts pat you on the back, lauding your “bravery” and “brilliance,” wholly ignoring the conspicuous lack of that we should most expect of good art: talent, skill, and imagination.
[quote]Cortes wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
It’s an artform
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ[/quote]
I know. Mocking Christians and Christianity is the last tolerated form of bigotry that is still acceptable. Everybody else is off limits.
But alas, Jesus predicted exactly this, that we would be mocked and persecuted and so we are. But it’s ok, we’re used to it.[/quote]
RE: Piss Christ…
[Serrano] has also said that while this work is not intended to denounce religion, it alludes to a perceived commercializing or cheapening of Christian icons in contemporary culture.
Carry on.[/quote]
Oh good, so if I took a shit on his mother’s picture, I would just be illustrating the cheapness of his mom. What horseshit.
[/quote]
Although I love certain modern art (Pollack, Rothko, Chagall), I think that much of what is exalted as “art” nowadays has absolutely no value outside of an example of our current society’s tendency toward masturbatory self-deification. The fact that it is assumed, even demanded, that each piece contain a message, or commentary, or a reason for being is the root of this problem, I think, or its primary symptom.
Art shouldn’t need to “say” anything, and if you have to explain it, you’re either a shitty artist who didn’t know how to properly convey his message, or a no-talent charlatan relying on shock like I believe Serrano and many of the Saatchi gallery to be. Good art just is. It doesn’t have to be anything other than itself. It doesn’t have to say shit. It doesn’t need an explanation. Its quality and value will be self-evident.
Look at Picasso’s Guernica. We don’t need someone to explain to us that this is a representation of an atrocity committed during the Spanish Civil War. It speaks for itself, and it applies to any time and place, because it represents us, and we recognize ourselves in it.
It also takes a lot more talent and imagination than dropping a crucifix into a jar a piss and haughtily referring to the commercialization of Christian icons you don’t give a fuck about as your enabling progressive coherts pat you on the back, lauding your “bravery” and “brilliance,” wholly ignoring the conspicuous lack of that we should most expect of good art: talent, skill, and imagination.
[/quote]
Like when Sinaed O’Conner bravely ripped a picture of the Pope on SNL??
That’s her, BTW. Wow!
Good grief. Seriously?
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
It’s an artform
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ[/quote]
I know. Mocking Christians and Christianity is the last tolerated form of bigotry that is still acceptable. Everybody else is off limits.
But alas, Jesus predicted exactly this, that we would be mocked and persecuted and so we are. But it’s ok, we’re used to it.[/quote]
RE: Piss Christ…
[Serrano] has also said that while this work is not intended to denounce religion, it alludes to a perceived commercializing or cheapening of Christian icons in contemporary culture.
Carry on.[/quote]
Oh good, so if I took a shit on his mother’s picture, I would just be illustrating the cheapness of his mom. What horseshit.
[/quote]
For all you know, he was being sincere when he said that.
[quote]Cortes wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
It’s an artform
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ[/quote]
I know. Mocking Christians and Christianity is the last tolerated form of bigotry that is still acceptable. Everybody else is off limits.
But alas, Jesus predicted exactly this, that we would be mocked and persecuted and so we are. But it’s ok, we’re used to it.[/quote]
RE: Piss Christ…
[Serrano] has also said that while this work is not intended to denounce religion, it alludes to a perceived commercializing or cheapening of Christian icons in contemporary culture.
Carry on.[/quote]
Oh good, so if I took a shit on his mother’s picture, I would just be illustrating the cheapness of his mom. What horseshit.
[/quote]
Although I love certain modern art (Pollack, Rothko, Chagall), I think that much of what is exalted as “art” nowadays has absolutely no value outside of an example of our current society’s tendency toward masturbatory self-deification. The fact that it is assumed, even demanded, that each piece contain a message, or commentary, or a reason for being is the root of this problem, I think, or its primary symptom.
Art shouldn’t need to “say” anything, and if you have to explain it, you’re either a shitty artist who didn’t know how to properly convey his message, or a no-talent charlatan relying on shock like I believe Serrano and many of the Saatchi gallery to be. Good art just is. It doesn’t have to be anything other than itself. It doesn’t have to say shit. It doesn’t need an explanation. Its quality and value will be self-evident.
Look at Picasso’s Guernica. We don’t need someone to explain to us that this is a representation of an atrocity committed during the Spanish Civil War. It speaks for itself, and it applies to any time and place, because it represents us, and we recognize ourselves in it.
It also takes a lot more talent and imagination than dropping a crucifix into a jar a piss and haughtily referring to the commercialization of Christian icons you don’t give a fuck about as your enabling progressive coherts pat you on the back, lauding your “bravery” and “brilliance,” wholly ignoring the conspicuous lack of that we should most expect of good art: talent, skill, and imagination.
[/quote]
I never said he was a good artist, and just because he’s not a good artist, doesn’t mean you should take offense. Especially when he clarifies what his message was.
