So to change the tone hopefully. This just came out. Its really good. I for sure recommend it to any religious believer. Its even interesting for people that are interested in a historical Jesus.
Beautiful Outlaw: Experiencing the Playful, Disruptive, Extravagant Personality of Jesus (10/12/2011)
by
John Eldredge
[quote]groo wrote:
Mark 7:10 For Moses said, �??�?�¢??Honor your father and mother,�??�?�¢??[a] and, �??�?�¢??Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. I guess I was wrong about killing your own kids.
[/quote]
Funny thing is–just spotting this last one (I aint going through this entire mess),-- it’s part of a passage saying the very opposite of what you’ve implied.
So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with ‘unclean’ hands?”
6He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
"These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.
8You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."
9And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observec your own traditions! 10For Moses said, “Honor your father and your mother” and, “Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. 11But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban (that is, a gift devoted to God), 12then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”
14Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’
17After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18"Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him “unclean” 19For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.Ã??Ã?¢?? (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods ‘clean.’)[
20He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ 21For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’?
This isn’t about following old laws, it is about the fulfillment of the laws. Here, all food is declared ‘clean.’ You’re quoting out of context, and insisting on some kind of old covenant Christianity. When your own passage (in full) is disputing this as proper Christian understanding. Either you got caught copying and pasting (being unaware of the rest of the passage), or you did it deliberately and dishonestly.
So, no. Debate Christianity, which has it’s new covenant, or find yourself, I don’t know, a Hebrew. Clean it up. Don’t try to apply laws that don’t apply to us. Right now it’s one big ugly wall of hard to follow, teased out of context and Christ(ian)/new covenant understanding, mess.
If you don’t understand our relationship with the old covenant, mosaic laws, etc., try reading Acts, Romans, Corinthians. Rom. 6:14; 7:1-14; Gal. 3:10-13, 24-25; 4:21; 5:1, 13; 2 Cor. 3:7-18 and others.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
…If you don’t understand our relationship with the old covenant, mosaic laws, etc., try reading Acts, Romans, Corinthians. Rom. 6:14; 7:1-14; Gal. 3:10-13, 24-25; 4:21; 5:1, 13; 2 Cor. 3:7-18 and others.
[/quote]
He doesn’t.
He has simplistically, ignorantly tried to paint a picture using just the color black. He just does NOT know what he’s talking about. [/quote]
There was another guy, a person I ended up ignoring–tigertime, I believe. This is almost just like that. A claim to have read the bible multiple times. Accusations of cherry-picking for not following mosaic laws, etc. All pointing to an impossible ignorance–if one has read the bible ‘multiple times’ of the New Covenant, and our relationship (New Testament biblical, too) to the before-mentioned laws.
Maybe I’m being rude. But it was made into a “defend Christianity via this wall of text,” when the argument was a bit more general than that. It comes off as throwing poop against the wall, and seeing what’ll stick. We’ve seen the wall of verse collection too many times. If you want answers about Christianity specifically, do some research. Back to the more generalized, first things, type of tone for me. Well, after I do my own homework! Intro Stats is too easy, but study I must.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
…If you don’t understand our relationship with the old covenant, mosaic laws, etc., try reading Acts, Romans, Corinthians. Rom. 6:14; 7:1-14; Gal. 3:10-13, 24-25; 4:21; 5:1, 13; 2 Cor. 3:7-18 and others.
[/quote]
He doesn’t.
He has simplistically, ignorantly tried to paint a picture using just the color black. He just does NOT know what he’s talking about. [/quote]
There was another guy, a person I ended up ignoring–tigertime, I believe. This is almost just like that. A claim to have read the bible multiple times. Accusations of cherry-picking for not following mosaic laws, etc. All pointing to an impossible ignorance–if one has read the bible ‘multiple times’ of the New Covenant, and our relationship (New Testament biblical, too) to the before-mentioned laws.[/quote]
I read a lot of things. It was read as a text of literature though so I am not trying to interpret it religiously.
My main point being as its not literal which seems to be what both of you are saying as well?
Or do I misinterpret what reading in context means? If we read it in context or metaphorically then certainly you can base a semi consistent moral system off of it. At least as consistent as any other.
So your premise broadly would be that morality arises from religion?
Mine would be that it rises from biology and inherited traits.
Obviously with that great of a difference in premise there can’t be a lot of agreement on a moral system.
I
[quote]groo wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]groo wrote:
I’ll even go on board that its Evil.
[/quote]
But you can’t. It’s an emotional preference. It doesn’t mean any more in reality than the preference of the Man-Boy love folks. Even if a moral value such as “must continue the species” (it can’t, if faith in the supernatural is to be excluded), pedophilia would not threaten the survival of the species. The species will survive a whole lot of nastiness. Rape, pedophilia, theft, even murder.
But it’s silliness, as there is no moral virtue such as “the human species must survive” to be found. Evolution doesn’t care if we go the way of the dinosaur. We survive or don’t. If rape and murder-cannibalism are the most likely survival mechanism in a particular environment those acts go from Evil to Good? That’s a morality that doesn’t even believe in itself.
Had we never successfully had widespread change of hearts and minds, slavery wouldn’t be a moral evil? With that knowledge we need only to not fall for supernatural (god-given rights) and emotional arguments to keep a Good from becoming an Evil. Instead, we can intellectually comfort ourselves, by keeping the EVIL a Good, with the foreknowledge that are only preferences. Good and Evil is what we wish to make of it. So relax, the slave trade was/is as Good for as long as we want it to be, and we can be comforted by that.
As long as I check out after having some fun, why should I care that the species extends past my own life? Or, as to what of state their survival continues in? Greed, charity, violence to achieve objectives, peace, contraception, abortion, broken homes, child bearing and rearing in intact homes, an inheritance or a debt to pass on (household and national) to some unborn bio-chemical machines with the same emergent properties as my own? Preferences.
I will put no man in office who believes my right to life is nothing more than his whim. Would you?
Do you folks really believe humanity would be better if, poof!, religious faith in Good and Evil was replaced with a transient morality (philosophically, whim, or biologically) morality, that none actually had faith in?[/quote]
Lol you want to respond to one line in a post that was a throwaway line? for real? GTFO. Yes it would be more moral if there was no religion. Prove that it wouldn’t be. That is how we believers do it eh? Oh and a bunch of gibberish about knowing my holy books all the while likely never read them.
So funny you should use slavery as there were several religions that were quite all right with it as was the bible. So there must of been some mistranslation of the old holy work there eh or perhaps we used some non religious means of discernment to decide it might indeed be wrong to enslave another human. We’ll give the anti slavery religions a pass on this one though they aren’t biblical literalists either.
If you are one of those fire breathing true believers of the old testament I can get on board. I don’t think some of our actions are going to be particularly moral but what the hell I like some of these moral rules…you might even say I prefer them.
Deuteronomy 25:11-12 Don’t touch my nuts bitch
Numbers 16:23, 31-33 is how I’d handle doctrinal dispute nom nom nom
Psalm 137:9 Abortions fuck yeah.
Acts 4-5 Capitalism bad Communism good.
Samuel 15:33 Killing is wrong so we are going to kill you for doing it. This one is a famous one!
Ezekiel 23:20-21 Why the brothers get all the hawt bitches 
Lev. 25:44, 1 Peter 2:18 I want Mexican slaves those Canadian slaves are lazy.
Ecclesiastes 8:15 This one is the linchpin of all my moral belief.
Matthew 28:18 and 1 John 5:19 are a puzzling conundrum to me. Help me my brothers.
Timothy 2:12 another strong contender for my favorite moral premise. Get me a sammich and shut it.
Judges 21 Feel free to rape away religious people.
Numbers 31:18, Hosea 1:2 & 2:1-3 adultery not bad after all.
Leviticus 20:13 Kill the fags…note that only the receiver is to be killed as the ritual sodomy of the conquered warrior is ok.
So many precepts so little time.
Luke 16:17 This is why those there rules in the old testament are binding forever.
Mark 7:10 I guess I was wrong about killing your own kids.
[/quote]
Nothing like an atheist analyzing the bible…Oh wait, but you didn’t though you got it from here:
Same fucking web sites and same propaganda that all you little atheists pull from. For all being ‘individual’ and just being yourselves you seem to all read from the same book. Or in this case the same website. Your not the first, all you atheists present the exact same crap every time. Can you at least pick a different atheist propaganda website?
You didn’t think we thought you did all this research on your own…How unoriginal. Taken out of context you can make an book say anything.
I am just waiting on you to say ‘flying spaghetti monster’ because we’ve never heard that before…
I suppose this bastardization of scripture is supposed to represent ‘mutual respect’?
Because with out religion you are obviously more respectful, except if you think different, then you get no mutual respect.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Maybe I’m being rude. But it was made into a “defend Christianity via this wall of text,” when the argument was a bit more general than that. It comes off as throwing poop against the wall, and seeing what’ll stick. We’ve seen the wall of verse collection too many times. If you want answers about Christianity specifically, do some research. Back to the more generalized, first things, type of tone for me. Well, after I do my own homework![/quote]
Exactly. We’ve seen this “copy and paste from an atheist website in a matter of seconds then sling it on the TN PWI board and giggle while poor religious guy has to spend hours responding” schtick before.[/quote]
Eh I didn’t cut and paste from any site :). I just have the bible in epub format and the damn new nook reader won’t allow me to pull sections so I have to search them and recopy them which makes a huge mess. I could use calibre to swap it over to adobe but since no one is a fan of my scripture interpretations I’ll not do that.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]groo wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]groo wrote:
I’ll even go on board that its Evil.
[/quote]
But you can’t. It’s an emotional preference. It doesn’t mean any more in reality than the preference of the Man-Boy love folks. Even if a moral value such as “must continue the species” (it can’t, if faith in the supernatural is to be excluded), pedophilia would not threaten the survival of the species. The species will survive a whole lot of nastiness. Rape, pedophilia, theft, even murder.
But it’s silliness, as there is no moral virtue such as “the human species must survive” to be found. Evolution doesn’t care if we go the way of the dinosaur. We survive or don’t. If rape and murder-cannibalism are the most likely survival mechanism in a particular environment those acts go from Evil to Good? That’s a morality that doesn’t even believe in itself.
Had we never successfully had widespread change of hearts and minds, slavery wouldn’t be a moral evil? With that knowledge we need only to not fall for supernatural (god-given rights) and emotional arguments to keep a Good from becoming an Evil. Instead, we can intellectually comfort ourselves, by keeping the EVIL a Good, with the foreknowledge that are only preferences. Good and Evil is what we wish to make of it. So relax, the slave trade was/is as Good for as long as we want it to be, and we can be comforted by that.
As long as I check out after having some fun, why should I care that the species extends past my own life? Or, as to what of state their survival continues in? Greed, charity, violence to achieve objectives, peace, contraception, abortion, broken homes, child bearing and rearing in intact homes, an inheritance or a debt to pass on (household and national) to some unborn bio-chemical machines with the same emergent properties as my own? Preferences.
I will put no man in office who believes my right to life is nothing more than his whim. Would you?
Do you folks really believe humanity would be better if, poof!, religious faith in Good and Evil was replaced with a transient morality (philosophically, whim, or biologically) morality, that none actually had faith in?[/quote]
Lol you want to respond to one line in a post that was a throwaway line? for real? GTFO. Yes it would be more moral if there was no religion. Prove that it wouldn’t be. That is how we believers do it eh? Oh and a bunch of gibberish about knowing my holy books all the while likely never read them.
So funny you should use slavery as there were several religions that were quite all right with it as was the bible. So there must of been some mistranslation of the old holy work there eh or perhaps we used some non religious means of discernment to decide it might indeed be wrong to enslave another human. We’ll give the anti slavery religions a pass on this one though they aren’t biblical literalists either.
If you are one of those fire breathing true believers of the old testament I can get on board. I don’t think some of our actions are going to be particularly moral but what the hell I like some of these moral rules…you might even say I prefer them.
Deuteronomy 25:11-12 Don’t touch my nuts bitch
Numbers 16:23, 31-33 is how I’d handle doctrinal dispute nom nom nom
Psalm 137:9 Abortions fuck yeah.
Acts 4-5 Capitalism bad Communism good.
Samuel 15:33 Killing is wrong so we are going to kill you for doing it. This one is a famous one!
Ezekiel 23:20-21 Why the brothers get all the hawt bitches
Lev. 25:44, 1 Peter 2:18 I want Mexican slaves those Canadian slaves are lazy.
Ecclesiastes 8:15 This one is the linchpin of all my moral belief.
Matthew 28:18 and 1 John 5:19 are a puzzling conundrum to me. Help me my brothers.
Timothy 2:12 another strong contender for my favorite moral premise. Get me a sammich and shut it.
Judges 21 Feel free to rape away religious people.
Numbers 31:18, Hosea 1:2 & 2:1-3 adultery not bad after all.
Leviticus 20:13 Kill the fags…note that only the receiver is to be killed as the ritual sodomy of the conquered warrior is ok.
So many precepts so little time.
Luke 16:17 This is why those there rules in the old testament are binding forever.
Mark 7:10 I guess I was wrong about killing your own kids.
[/quote]
Nothing like an atheist analyzing the bible…Oh wait, but you didn’t though you got it from here:
Same fucking web sites and same propaganda that all you little atheists pull from. For all being ‘individual’ and just being yourselves you seem to all read from the same book. Or in this case the same website. Your not the first, all you atheists present the exact same crap every time. Can you at least pick a different atheist propaganda website?
You didn’t think we thought you did all this research on your own…How unoriginal. Taken out of context you can make an book say anything.
I am just waiting on you to say ‘flying spaghetti monster’ because we’ve never heard that before…
I suppose this bastardization of scripture is supposed to represent ‘mutual respect’?
Because with out religion you are obviously more respectful, except if you think different, then you get no mutual respect.[/quote]
I hardly think I attacked anyone until I was called simplistic and ignorant. But perhaps I mistook this chain of events?
Why is it so hard to believe I read the bible? I never took it as any literal work. It has been a few years though since its been a while since I was religious but for a solid 10 or 15 years I’d imagine I was exposed to it as much as anyone. I didn’t craft that post off of any site in fact the original took more time than I should have given it apparently. The second was easier since I had looked up the passages I wanted already but it certainly looks a horrible mess.
I won’t interpret scripture any more. I’d think apropos of this it would be a fine thing if people didn’t discount a biological ethics simply as preference but whatever.
As well I am not an atheist in the hard sense of the word…I only discount theism, but that is likely lost in the word itself I suppose.
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]groo wrote:
To Pat I am not entirely certain that what a number is is common to all people. Certainly the vast majority of people on this forum for example couldn’t define a number or might not even know what that definition entails. I would have to look to others work to adequately do it and I absolutely guarantee there would be no agreement on it. People don’t understand math at all and you could look at cracked.com the other day to see some examples.
[/quote]
Actually, you kinda made my point for me. I am not concerned with people’s understanding of math or numbers. Understanding is irrelevant to it. It is what it is despite peoples understanding of it. People understand it with their minds, but it doesn’t exist in people’s minds, it exists outside of that. Mathematical truths are true whether anybody knows it or not.
I am simply saying it’s a metaphysical object, not a mental construct. A mental construct would begin and end with the mind, math does not. If we all die, 2+2 will still equal 4.
.99999999_ to infinity does not equal 1, we round it to 1, but it is not exactly 1. Further it can’t ‘equal’ 1 because it’s not an equation, it’s a number.[/quote]
Actually, groo is correct. One classic proof:
1/9 = 0.111…
9 x 1/9 = 9 x 0.111…
1 = 0.999…
In fact, every nonzero number with a finite decimal notation (.4, .667, .88, etc.) has a counterpart with trailing 9s. For example, 0.3999… = .4. In all of these cases, two manifestly different decimals actually represent the same number.
[/quote]
Ok, I checked quite a few sources and the consensus is that when limits are discussed, then 1 is a viable equality, but in raw numbers this is not true. The common method of proof is to break fractions down to decimals and then work it backwards. This works in a practical sense, in that it captures the ‘essense’ of the fraction, but the reality that the decimals and the fractions are a little off. What I mean is that the decimals do not and perhaps cannot truly represent a fraction in in it’s totality.
So while 1/3+ 1/3 + 1/3 does equal 1, .333… + .333… + .333… does not equal 1, but equals an infinite series of repeating .9’s that infinitely approaches, but never reaches 1.
So it’s not a case were .99999… is the same number as 1, it’s that 1/3 isn’t accuratly represented in decimal form as an infinite series of repeating 3’s behind the decimal. If you cut yourself a 3rd of a pie, you are getting 1/3 of a pie, not .333… of a pie.
It basically says that base 10 cannot accurately represent all fractions. .9999… isn’t anymore 1 than 3.14 is pi.
It’s rounding, bottom line.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
To Pat I am not entirely certain that what a number is is common to all people. Certainly the vast majority of people on this forum for example couldn’t define a number or might not even know what that definition entails. I would have to look to others work to adequately do it and I absolutely guarantee there would be no agreement on it. People don’t understand math at all and you could look at cracked.com the other day to see some examples.
Actually, you kinda made my point for me. I am not concerned with people’s understanding of math or numbers. Understanding is irrelevant to it. It is what it is despite peoples understanding of it. People understand it with their minds, but it doesn’t exist in people’s minds, it exists outside of that. Mathematical truths are true whether anybody knows it or not.
I am simply saying it’s a metaphysical object, not a mental construct. A mental construct would begin and end with the mind, math does not. If we all die, 2+2 will still equal 4.
That is actually not true. In the pure abstract, 2+2=4 only because the conventions of algebra says it does. There is no physical 2 in existence and no physical meaning to addition if there was. It is all by convention. For example, in the convention of vector notation, 2+2 can be anywhere from 4 to 0.
[/quote]
I never said 2 or anything is physical. I am not arguing anything physical, but only metaphysical. And 2 + 2 can only equal 4. It’s not a vector, but a simple arithmetic equation and it’s true despite it’s application, despite recognition. It’s not arbitrary and it cannot be anything other than what it is.
[quote]groo wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]groo wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]groo wrote:
I’ll even go on board that its Evil.
[/quote]
But you can’t. It’s an emotional preference. It doesn’t mean any more in reality than the preference of the Man-Boy love folks. Even if a moral value such as “must continue the species” (it can’t, if faith in the supernatural is to be excluded), pedophilia would not threaten the survival of the species. The species will survive a whole lot of nastiness. Rape, pedophilia, theft, even murder.
But it’s silliness, as there is no moral virtue such as “the human species must survive” to be found. Evolution doesn’t care if we go the way of the dinosaur. We survive or don’t. If rape and murder-cannibalism are the most likely survival mechanism in a particular environment those acts go from Evil to Good? That’s a morality that doesn’t even believe in itself.
Had we never successfully had widespread change of hearts and minds, slavery wouldn’t be a moral evil? With that knowledge we need only to not fall for supernatural (god-given rights) and emotional arguments to keep a Good from becoming an Evil. Instead, we can intellectually comfort ourselves, by keeping the EVIL a Good, with the foreknowledge that are only preferences. Good and Evil is what we wish to make of it. So relax, the slave trade was/is as Good for as long as we want it to be, and we can be comforted by that.
As long as I check out after having some fun, why should I care that the species extends past my own life? Or, as to what of state their survival continues in? Greed, charity, violence to achieve objectives, peace, contraception, abortion, broken homes, child bearing and rearing in intact homes, an inheritance or a debt to pass on (household and national) to some unborn bio-chemical machines with the same emergent properties as my own? Preferences.
I will put no man in office who believes my right to life is nothing more than his whim. Would you?
Do you folks really believe humanity would be better if, poof!, religious faith in Good and Evil was replaced with a transient morality (philosophically, whim, or biologically) morality, that none actually had faith in?[/quote]
Lol you want to respond to one line in a post that was a throwaway line? for real? GTFO. Yes it would be more moral if there was no religion. Prove that it wouldn’t be. That is how we believers do it eh? Oh and a bunch of gibberish about knowing my holy books all the while likely never read them.
So funny you should use slavery as there were several religions that were quite all right with it as was the bible. So there must of been some mistranslation of the old holy work there eh or perhaps we used some non religious means of discernment to decide it might indeed be wrong to enslave another human. We’ll give the anti slavery religions a pass on this one though they aren’t biblical literalists either.
If you are one of those fire breathing true believers of the old testament I can get on board. I don’t think some of our actions are going to be particularly moral but what the hell I like some of these moral rules…you might even say I prefer them.
Deuteronomy 25:11-12 Don’t touch my nuts bitch
Numbers 16:23, 31-33 is how I’d handle doctrinal dispute nom nom nom
Psalm 137:9 Abortions fuck yeah.
Acts 4-5 Capitalism bad Communism good.
Samuel 15:33 Killing is wrong so we are going to kill you for doing it. This one is a famous one!
Ezekiel 23:20-21 Why the brothers get all the hawt bitches
Lev. 25:44, 1 Peter 2:18 I want Mexican slaves those Canadian slaves are lazy.
Ecclesiastes 8:15 This one is the linchpin of all my moral belief.
Matthew 28:18 and 1 John 5:19 are a puzzling conundrum to me. Help me my brothers.
Timothy 2:12 another strong contender for my favorite moral premise. Get me a sammich and shut it.
Judges 21 Feel free to rape away religious people.
Numbers 31:18, Hosea 1:2 & 2:1-3 adultery not bad after all.
Leviticus 20:13 Kill the fags…note that only the receiver is to be killed as the ritual sodomy of the conquered warrior is ok.
So many precepts so little time.
Luke 16:17 This is why those there rules in the old testament are binding forever.
Mark 7:10 I guess I was wrong about killing your own kids.
[/quote]
Nothing like an atheist analyzing the bible…Oh wait, but you didn’t though you got it from here:
Same fucking web sites and same propaganda that all you little atheists pull from. For all being ‘individual’ and just being yourselves you seem to all read from the same book. Or in this case the same website. Your not the first, all you atheists present the exact same crap every time. Can you at least pick a different atheist propaganda website?
You didn’t think we thought you did all this research on your own…How unoriginal. Taken out of context you can make an book say anything.
I am just waiting on you to say ‘flying spaghetti monster’ because we’ve never heard that before…
I suppose this bastardization of scripture is supposed to represent ‘mutual respect’?
Because with out religion you are obviously more respectful, except if you think different, then you get no mutual respect.[/quote]
I hardly think I attacked anyone until I was called simplistic and ignorant. But perhaps I mistook this chain of events?
Why is it so hard to believe I read the bible? I never took it as any literal work. It has been a few years though since its been a while since I was religious but for a solid 10 or 15 years I’d imagine I was exposed to it as much as anyone. I didn’t craft that post off of any site in fact the original took more time than I should have given it apparently. The second was easier since I had looked up the passages I wanted already but it certainly looks a horrible mess.
[/quote]
Pulling up scripture passages randomly hardly means any understanding of the Bible and pulling things out of context doesn’t really mean a lot unless you are trying to disparage. I never made any comment as to whether you read the Bible or not. However, you do miss an intrinsic understanding of the bible that you would most certainly have if you spent a great deal of time with it, which you would have had to to have read the whole thing.
The fact that you had pulled the exact same passages and paraphrased virtually the same sentiments, AND the fact that this very type of thing with many of the same passages has been repeated here a dozen times before is why I call bullshit.
You may or may not have read the bible before, but these passages with these criticisms are far from original. You did not pull this out of your own personal ass, you pulled it out of somebody else’s. Somebody who obviously has a following.
Scripture is meaningless for an atheist.
Not that I needed any more convincing, but I just read this whole thread and it is more abundantly apparent than ever that epistemology is everything. Until we know HOW we know anything at all, any discussion of WHAT we know is meaningless. Groo, I’m sorry ya bailed on me. Elder Forlife has a particular talent in the area of agnostic epistemology that does not translate into the topics in this thread. No offense man, or even disrespect, seriously, but you’re not nearly as formidable here. I will say though that that is largely because the material in this thread is governed entirely by the foundational areas where you are not just formidable, but invincible. (to every position but mine of course =] )
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]IamMarqaos wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
An ideal society doesn’t need religion. In such a society people treat one another with mutual respect for the sake of the act itself, and for the positive outcomes it creates for society as a whole. They don’t need to believe in supernatural entities in order to do this. By grounding themselves in reality, they circumvent the inevitable god wars that have plagued humanity during our entire history of creating religions to explain what we don’t understand.
Then again, the ideal society is a dream rather than reality. Many actually do need religion in order to treat others with respect, and thus society benefits in that regard from religion.
Die Religion ist das Opium des Volkes.[/quote]
You overemphasize the wars fought over/due to religion. Compared to wars fought over land/resources/disputes it is a very low percentage. Before any of you huff and puff at this, take a look at the wars we have, here in North and South America have been involved in. Plenty of wars in the last 400 years but none due to religion.
Now take a real close look at Asia (Unification wars in China, feudal wars in Japan, The Hun’s expansion etc etc), Africa (greed, greed and more greed) and Europe (WWI and WWII were NOT fought over religious differences) and you will find that only a small percentage of wars have been fought due to religion.
Yes you have the Crusades and the like and the current terrible situations in many countries around the world but at any given time there are dozens of situations one can label as ‘war’ and again only a few are based on religion.
That is not to say God wars have not been fought, they have, and there have been plenty BUT compared to land/resources/disputes wars it has been relatively a minor part of why we as humans like to bash each other’s skulls in.
You mention reality but for those that believe God is a reality and most believers are peaceful and wish the best upon their fellow man. Without the ‘reality’ of their God they might feel differently. I wonder sometimes how many wars have been prevented because of faith!
It is when resources are scarce and fear abounds that people start using religion as a way to distinguish themselves from their neighbor so that one is psychologically able to fight and kill.
Ah well, rant over :)[/quote]
Since I never compared the wars fought over religion to wars fought for other reasons, I could hardly overemphasize them. I just pointed out that people have killed one another for religious reasons, and your post admits this.
And I made your final point myself, in the same post you quoted. I agree that religious beliefs can motivate people to be kind to others, regardless of the actual truth of those beliefs.
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you overemphasized by ignoring wars fought for other reasons. Would we, by grounding ourselves in your reality also circumvent any other kind of war? What point are you trying to make? Blaming war on religious grounds is only true for a very limited amount of wars fought in the last 5000 years.
You make it sound (and this might not be your intention) as if most wars are fought due to religion, which is patently false. When we get rid of ‘god wars’ as you call them, there will still be hundreds of other reasons to start a war. The world if full of examples even now. War has plagued humanity long before organized religion as well as when organized religion was nowhere near as powerful as say during the Dark Ages. Stating that religion is the opium of the masses is very adolescent in nature and your comments show very little knowledge of actual history.
On both sides of the fence too many ‘sound bites’ are used. Too bad because honest intellectual discussion has become nearly impossible between the atheist and the believer.
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
If emotions, numbers, and other abstract objects didn’t exist, it would be impossible to be aware of them or manipulate them. Unless you’re claiming to be from Vulcan, I’m pretty sure you experience emotions just like everyone else.
Or course, that doesn’t imply emotions are concrete objects. Just because you’re aware of an emotion inside your head doesn’t mean it physically exists in the universe, any more than being aware of a god inside your head means it physically exists in the universe. Buddha, Jesus, and Thor exist as abstract objects, but it doesn’t make them real in a material sense.[/quote]
No one experiences emotions the same. But I claim I don’t, and you don’t have a leg to stand on.
Ah, so god exists. Why do you choose to believe and have faith in some abstract concepts and not others?[/quote]
If you have no emotions, how does that prove others don’t have emotions?
In an abstract object sense, all gods exist.
What abstract concepts are you under the impression I believe vs disbelieve?
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You believe in numbers, right and wrong, est. On what bases do you choose what abstract concepts you do vs. don’t believe in?[/quote]
Give me an example of an abstract concept I don’t believe in. Why are you assuming there is one?[/quote]
god…[/quote]
Did you see my post above where I said all gods exist as abstract objects?
Just because I don’t believe your god is a concrete object with a material presence in the universe doesn’t mean I don’t recognize the existence of your god as an abstract object. You are the one implying that only concrete objects exist, not me. Your god exists in the very same sense that Thor, the Easter Bunny, and Fred Flinstone exist.
Where we disagree is on what kind of object your god is, not on whether your god exists in the metaphysical sense.[/quote]
Never said anything about a materialistic presence.
So numbers are like the easterbunny?
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
To Pat I am not entirely certain that what a number is is common to all people. Certainly the vast majority of people on this forum for example couldn’t define a number or might not even know what that definition entails. I would have to look to others work to adequately do it and I absolutely guarantee there would be no agreement on it. People don’t understand math at all and you could look at cracked.com the other day to see some examples.
Actually, you kinda made my point for me. I am not concerned with people’s understanding of math or numbers. Understanding is irrelevant to it. It is what it is despite peoples understanding of it. People understand it with their minds, but it doesn’t exist in people’s minds, it exists outside of that. Mathematical truths are true whether anybody knows it or not.
I am simply saying it’s a metaphysical object, not a mental construct. A mental construct would begin and end with the mind, math does not. If we all die, 2+2 will still equal 4.
That is actually not true. In the pure abstract, 2+2=4 only because the conventions of algebra says it does. There is no physical 2 in existence and no physical meaning to addition if there was. It is all by convention. For example, in the convention of vector notation, 2+2 can be anywhere from 4 to 0.
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I never said 2 or anything is physical. I am not arguing anything physical, but only metaphysical. And 2 + 2 can only equal 4. It’s not a vector, but a simple arithmetic equation and it’s true despite it’s application, despite recognition. It’s not arbitrary and it cannot be anything other than what it is.
[/quote]
Only because it is defined that way as noted when you say arithmetic. That is an agreed upon set of rules that define 2+2 as 4. So yes, it’s true when you define it as true and accept it as an axiom. But there is no truth to it outside of thought and arbitrary rules the human brain assigns. I can define and claim 2+2=100 according to my rules of math and have it just as true. There is no truth to abstract math other than assigned definition. I put the number 2 with the number 2 in my head and I see 22 things. In the abstract you cannot prove one way or the other. You cannot prove or disprove anything in the purely abstract sense.
In order to prove or disprove anything it must be physically expressed. Math does not exist of itself. It is at best an estimated model of physical behavior. Math is a science, and as such it losses all truth outside the physical.