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Author | Topic: Choosing a faith | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18351 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
What precisely is this vile? What emotions is it composed of? Be more specific
The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” - Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894). When both religious and non-religious people reach the same conclusions then you know religion isn't the reason.--Percy Democrats should not be the only party. Respect the two-party system. -Phat, in December 2022 We see Monsters where Science shows us Windmills.~Phat, remixed
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Percy Member Posts: 22506 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Phat writes: I think that mindfulness and self awareness, coupled with honesty does in fact make better people. You're speaking of the qualities of people. I was speaking of the inherent difficulty in changing people for the better. For example, say we wanted to improve your ability to resist being bamboozled, or convince you that the gold standard is completely impractical. So far no amount of information and persuasion have worked. Or say we wanted to convince someone that raging on the Internet about the dangers of vaccination is a bad thing. Has anyone ever done that? Or say we wanted to convince someone that accusing the Democrats of stealing the 2020 election and asserting that elections are rigged is a bad thing. Does that ever happen? Or say we wanted to convince someone that more guns mean more killings. Is that even possible? Or say we wanted to convince a group that taking up arms against the government is a bad thing. Where has that ever worked? Or say we wanted to convince missionaries that converting people of other religions and cultures to Christianity is a bad thing. How likely would that be? Or say we wanted to convince politicians that using religion to convince poor people to be satisfied with their lot so that they'd be less likely to engage in armed insurrection against a government uncaring of their suffering is a bad thing. Would that be possible? Or say we wanted to convince evangelicals that sex education is a more effective method of reducing teenage pregnancies than "teaching young people the Bible's full picture of intimacy will help to keep them celibate (Cameron Cole)". Would you bet on that one? Or say we wanted to convince people that those trying to illegally enter our country are not drug-addled, covid-ridden criminals and sex offenders but are desperate and fled danger and/or poverty and deserve our help. How would we do that? Or say we wanted to convince people that giving money to the rich is not an effective approach to helping the poor. Is that ever going to happen? --Percy
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9203 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
read the comment I was responding to.
I have no idea what the emotions question is even referring to.What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
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Percy Member Posts: 22506 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
GDR writes: I assume then that lack of evidence is evidence that He doesn't exist. Absolutely not. I bet everyone here would respond with the exact same words because it's been said so many, many times: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And we actually do believe the things that we say.
Stile writes: I don't see how you can profess that you "want to know the truth above anything" and then ignore our best-known-method for identifying the truth and come to conclusions based on different methods that are known to cause a high degree of being wrong. What evidence is it that this best known method gives you? Stile was speaking of the scientific method, of course. It is the most reliable and effective method of adding to our knowledge that we know of. It has so far yielded no evidence (validated evidence, if you prefer) of the supernatural.
Stile writes:
I suppose so but I don't see a god like that. Christians die of cancer just like everyone else. Actually, I wish dearly that we had a God or something taking care of us and caring for us and making sure things turned out "right."It would be nicer. So you acknowledge that prayer has no effect? Yet another example of missing evidence for God that you'd think would be there if he were an actual thing.
If there was actual evidence that the resurrection wasn't historical then I would no longer profess the Christian faith. So for you something is true until proven otherwise. Shouldn't it be the other way around, that something is true only when proven, or more scientifically, is only considered true to a degree commensurate with the evidence?
I am seeking the "truth" or #1 just as much as you do. You are lying to yourself. You are using a method that will only yield the conclusions that you want, not the conclusions that are true. You aren't interested in the truth, only in confirming that which you already believe without evidence.
We have come to different conclusions. Of course we have. You're using the methods of the flim-flam men, and we're using the scientific method. By your own admission your God has no real world effect, while science's impact on the world, whether for good or ill, is immeasurable.
Yes, and it took intelligence to learn about the natural processes but you still maintain that all that we have discovered, and what we have left to discover, with human intelligence over centuries just happened by chance. You are, in effect, asserting yet again that intelligence cannot arise naturally but could only come about by supernatural means. There's no evidence for this whatsoever. Your ability to restate your premise multiple times in a multiplicity of ways does not make it any less invalid.
All of those discoveries, like evolution, describe incredibly complex and even beautiful processes that scream out the necessity of an intelligent root. You're making the same claim again in yet a different way. Where is your evidence that complexity (which isn't subjective but is difficult to quantify, although using entropy as a stand-in for complexity might work) and beauty (definitely subjective) require the supernatural?
No matter how many processes you discover it doesn't say anything as to whether or not it was intelligently caused. Yes, this is true, investigating how the real world works says nothing about baseless propositions.
Let's say that we manage to do ourselves in through some virus or though nuclear weapons. Further to that, only the AI that we invented continued and then grew to become sentient over millions of years. That new life could very well conclude that it just happened by extreme good fortune without any need or material evidence of an intelligent root. It might be sentient but it wouldn't be life unless you change the definition. And of course it might reach those conclusions. And it's conclusions would only be as good as the available evidence. If all evidence of its origins has disappeared then the likelihood of it reaching valid conclusions would be small. And if it was truly sentient and rational then it would realize it had insufficient evidence, unlike yourself who merely declares something evidence if it supports what he already believes. But lack of evidence is not the case today. We have copious evidence going back 13.7 billion years. There's no sign of a cosmic intelligence anywhere. But you don't care whether your conclusions have evidence. That's why your conclusions are as likely to be wrong as those of your far-future AI being where all evidence of its origins has been lost. By the way, the far-future AI being would have enough information to know it couldn't have arisen naturally. It would observe that organic molecules like amino acids, the building blocks of life, form naturally all the time, but not microcircuits. It would conclude it likely that life formed naturally and then constructed artificial intelligences. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22506 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
GDR writes: GDR writes: It isn't about being a decent person. It is about being a loving person and specifically one who is prepared to love sacrificially.Tangle writes: Then you would consider buying a homeless person a meal martyrdom. Is sending aid to help someone in an impoverished nation martyrdom; is visiting a sick person martyrdom; is cheerfully brightening up the day for a check-out person at the grocery store martyrdom; and is working to help refugees in a camp to immigrate, and then helping support them martyrdom? Obviously I could go on. I have no idea of why you would see that as martyrdom. Do you not accept the belief that those actions are positive? Oh right. Now we're into martyrdom. How far down this redemption complex do we need to go? Is putting words in people's mouths dishonest? You said "love sacrificially" without elaboration, but even you can't deny that it sounds pretty dramatic. You can't post-facto claim that "love sacrificially" only means helping people, plus that's absurd anyway. Who out there even among the most deluded devout thinks "I'm loving sacrificially" when they give the street beggar a ten? If you were making valid points then you wouldn't continually be tempted into making dishonest statements like that.
Tangle writes: You asked the question so what else did you expect? And now the pious waffle. What Tangle originally said was this:
Tangle in Message 1715 writes: Yes, but what's that got to do with religion? Or Christianity specifically? Doing the right things for the right reasons must include not doing it just to get into an afterlife, so why do we (you) need religions and prayer and worship and churches and bells and all the rest of the pantomime? Just being a decent person must be good enough - by your own admission. Why don't you answer the question he asked. --Percy
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Phat Member Posts: 18351 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Oh Brother!
Theo writes:
OK... read the comment I was responding to.Lets go back. GDR writes: Then you would consider buying a homeless person a meal martyrdom. Is sending aid to help someone in an impoverished nation martyrdom; is visiting a sick person martyrdom; is cheerfully brightening up the day for a check-out person at the grocery store martyrdom; and is working to help refugees in a camp to immigrate, and then helping support them martyrdom? Tangle writes: Which led to you saying:
I'd consider doing those day-to-day things as simply being human and having consideration for others. What has smiling at a check out person got to do with "sacrificial love"? There's something deeply sickening about those words. Something really narcissistic.Theo writes: Still confusing. So I went back further.
And people like him have the audacity to expect we should accept the vile they spew.Tangle, responding to GDR writes: Yes you believe all this stuff, fine, so much we know, it's kind of revolting but I'll get over it. What I'm trying to get at is why all this ingratiation is necessary? You tell us that people do not need to do it nor even be a Christian in order to satisfy God's criteria. It seems to me that your martyrdom cult is more than a little self-serving. So again, my question. I am responding to your comment:
Theodorics Ongoing Rant writes: So who is "him"? GDR? The hypothetical homeless person? The hypothetical checkout person? Im trying to figure out who *you* think is "spewing vile". Sounds like your little antichrist demon mouthing off. And people like him have the audacity to expect we should accept the vile they spew.The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” - Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894). When both religious and non-religious people reach the same conclusions then you know religion isn't the reason.--Percy Democrats should not be the only party. Respect the two-party system. -Phat, in December 2022 We see Monsters where Science shows us Windmills.~Phat, remixed
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
That sort of response is too often typical of the responses around here. You are the host and moderator of this site. Pretty pathetic.
Percy writes: I understand that you're by yourself in this and it feels like people just don't understand and that that's difficult, but getting up on your pontifical high horse isn't going to help. Once again insult and put down masquerading as an argument. I was asked a question and answered with what I believe which is pretty consistent with most Christians. Do you want to keep this as a forum for anti-theists only, or do you want it to include the views of those who don't agree with your anti-theist beliefs?He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9203 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Wash, rinse, repeat
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9203 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Tangle was responding to GDR. Thus my comment was in reference to what GDR said.
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Percy writes:
It was a disgrace. I would question the good intentions though. The objective was to resolve a political problem and assimilation was the easiest way to do it. Our church borders on First Nations land and has done a lot of work towards reconciliation as very distinct from assimilation. Every service we have starts with the acknowledgement for we are on the ancestral lands of the specific first nations bands. The residential school system was active for more than a century and was a key part of Canada's efforts to wipe out entire nations. Hitler was only in power for 15 years or so and only attempted to wipe out two nations (Jews and Roma). Canada's goal with legislation such as the Gradual Civilization Act and the Indian Act had the explicitly well-intentioned goal of complete assimilation and elimination of its indigenous peoples by turning them into Canadians. [qs=You want to demonstrate your love of your fellow man? How about a mission to a poor Islamic community where there's no hint, not ever, that the help comes from Christian charities. And you work for years and decades to build and strengthen this Islamic community with selfless disregard for how its success compares to Christian communities.[/qs]
Our church worked to sponsor 2 Islamic families as refugees and supported them with housing and food and helped them find work. They are doing well. One thing that happened was that we had a wine fest to help fund 3 local charities of which none were Christian based. At this wine fest a couple of the Islamic teenagers came over to help set things up. They got talking to a lady working who was very friendly and who asked them where they had come from which was Syria. She expressed remorse for the pain that they and their country had and still was going through. The Islamic teenagers asked about her background only to find out that she was Jewish. They were startled as they hadn't met a Jewish person before and they did not anticipate her being so kind to them. When they went home they told their father about the occurrence and he in turned called the church to ask for her phone number so that he could invite this Jewish woman to their home for dinner, which happened. The church, with exceptions I agree, is about bringing people of all beliefs together around the message of love your neighbour which can be found in at least all the major religions and also the the non-religious communities. If you read my signature you can see that there is no mention of belief in any specific doctrine but is all about humble kindness and mercy.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
ringo writes: The consensus is formed because of the call on all humanity. If there is a "general consensus", why do we have to be "called" to do it?He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Tangle writes: There are individuals who would look down on the sales clerk as a lessor being and as someone simply waiting on them. It is about not being prideful and not treating others as inferior beings. It is anything but narcissistic. I'd consider doing those day-to-day things as simply being human and having consideration for others. What has smiling at a check out person got to do with "sacrificial love"? There's something deeply sickening about those words. Something really narcissistic.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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AZPaul3 Member Posts: 8564 From: Phoenix Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
But the motivation goes deeper than that. You do so to keep on the right side of your god, to ensure he punches your ticket to paradise. Narcissistic.
Now, giving the same smile just out of humanist habit is a considerably different display of motivation.Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
=Percy]Absolutely not. I bet everyone here would respond with the exact same words because it's been said so many, many times: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Ya, but you don't do it. You give the argument that you can find no evidence of a deity so therefore one doesn't exist.
Percy writes:
In general I remain unconvinced that God reaches out physically on an ongoing basis. I've heard the stories but I remain personally sceptical. However I do believe that God touches human hearts and minds and guides people to comfort or maybe even to heal people who are suffering with cancer or with other issues.
So you acknowledge that prayer has no effect? Yet another example of missing evidence for God that you'd think would be there if he were an actual thing. Percy writes: You mean like the atheists on this forum who reject the idea of an outside intelligence but would change their views if they could be see solid scientific evidence of such a deity.
So for you something is true until proven otherwise. Shouldn't it be the other way around, that something is true only when proven, or more scientifically, is only considered true to a degree commensurate with the evidence? Percy writes: I am very interested in the truth. I have essentially come to base my life on it. Incidentally that is just as true for anyone who rejects a deity.
You are lying to yourself. You are using a method that will only yield the conclusions that you want, not the conclusions that are true. You aren't interested in the truth, only in confirming that which you already believe without evidence. Percy writes: And that is what it seems that materialists do. If it can't be measured scientifically, it can't exist. If I feel led to help someone who needs it are you going to be able to measure that scientifically. I am not saying that God has no real world effect. I am saying that He works through the hearts and minds of humans and I would argue for in some degree in animal life as well.
Of course we have. You're using the methods of the flim-flam men, and we're using the scientific method. By your own admission your God has no real world effect, while science's impact on the world, whether for good or ill, is immeasurable. Percy writes: I'm simply saying that all of the complex processes that were required for life to evolve the way it has clearly requires a mind. The idea that it could by aw chance happen at every level of the myriad of processes, requires a leap of faith beyond anything I can muster. Of course there will always be those with sufficient hubris that they are unable to fathom a mind that much greater than their own.
ou're making the same claim again in yet a different way. Where is your evidence that complexity (which isn't subjective but is difficult to quantify, although using entropy as a stand-in for complexity might work) and beauty (definitely subjective) require the supernatural? Percy writes: There you go again using lack of evidence as evidence. What about time prior to 13.7 billion years? But lack of evidence is not the case today. We have copious evidence going back 13.7 billion years. There's no sign of a cosmic intelligence anywhere.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Percy writes: Is putting words in people's mouths dishonest? You said "love sacrificially" without elaboration, but even you can't deny that it sounds pretty dramatic. You can't post-facto claim that "love sacrificially" only means helping people, plus that's absurd anyway. Who out there even among the most deluded devout thinks "I'm loving sacrificially" when they give the street beggar a ten? It isn't dramatic and it isn't hard. It is simply about giving of our own time, money or even pride in order to benefit some else. Yes you example would fall into that category.
Percy writes: Why don't you answer the question he asked. He asked the question of why bother with God if we can all do the loving thing anyway. I simply answered the question he asked. Another answer would be because I know myself and my Christian faith has led me to be a more decent person than I was before which does not make me more decent than my atheistic neighbour. Also i have found that I can do things, such as working for refugees that l that I can't do on my own outside of church.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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