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Trade Your Bible For Porn
An anonymous reader writes "Atheist students at the University of Texas at San Antonio announced that any student over the age of 18 will receive pornographic materials if they trade in religious materials. From the article: 'Leaders of this atheist campaign allege that porn is no worse than what's written in religious texts. A university spokesman says that this controversial cause is completely legal, though he admits a majority of the students on campus do not agree with it.'"
religious people are dogmatic by design
That makes no sense. You literally can't back that up so it's meaningful.
It's like Dr. House said, "If religious people could be reasoned with there would be no religious people."
Of course, history proves this to be wrong -- it's easy to rattle off many, many rational religious people throughout history -- but what's history in the face of a snarky television character?
So when rational argument is ignored or avoided ...
That is precisely what these atheists are guilty of, in fact. They don't want rational argument, so they do stupid things like this.
Done.
Incorrect. A straw man fallacy does not actually back up anything.
For chrissake, every dictionary definition of dogma even says it's a synonym for religious doctrine.
Incorrect.
How can that not make sense?
Because -- unlike you -- I actually understand the word "dogma," and I know what religious doctrine is. You misunderstand one or the other, or both.
All definitions I've ever seen of dogma imply that the belief is not subject to examination, or isn't backed up by any evidence. I defy you to give a single example of Christine doctrine -- such doctrine as is held by all, or almost all, Christian sects -- that is not subject to examination or isn't backed up by any evidence.
You cannot do it.
That's not to say it is PROVABLE. But evidence and proof are not the same thing. It's also not to say you will accept or appreciate the evidence, but that's hardly interesting to whether or not something is dogma.
Who said anything about rational?
Um, you.
The phrase is 'reasoned with'.
Yes, you said that too: and people who cannot be reasoned with are "irrational." That's what the word means.
You can't reason with people who exclude evidence because some book tells them to exclude it.
You're incapable of demonstrating a single thing in the Bible that tells anyone to exclude any evidence. You're just inventing something that doesn't exist.
You may be willing to judge them out of ignorant assumptions in absentia
Huh. That's what YOU were doing to "religious people." I was just playing along in the game you started.
Unless you can point me to evidence that this group has done nothing else, made no other efforts, then I reject the validity of your judgement.
And I reject the validity of your ignorant judgment against religious people.
Also, your ignorant spelling of "judgment."
Does anyone else find it hysterical when atheists evangelize?
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
There is no strawman.
Incorrect. That document falsely asserted that religion necessarily ignores contradictory evidence. That is a straw man fallacy. That document invented a false claim against the adversary, then attacked that claim in order to attack the adversary.
You clearly don't know what a strawman is.
That's my line to you.
I'll grant that there may be some dictionaries that do not list religious doctrine as one of the definitions of dogma.
I don't care if they ALL do. Dictionaries are often wrong, obviously. The point is what dogma means, and how it relates to actual religious doctrine in real life. Dogma means a lack of evidence, or ignoring evidence; you said that all religious doctrine is dogma; that's obviously false.
So, in a absolute sense, yes, not 'every' dictionary, but that is simply deliberate obtuseness on your part about a rhetorical device.
Incorrect, since my point was not whether a dictionary claimed a relationship, but whether that claim of relationship makes sense. It does not.
Stop being disingenuous.
Learn what "dogma" means.
And now the ethnocentrism comes out. Where previously we were talking about religion, suddenly we're talking about Christianity.
Ummmm. That is the topic of this discussion. You do realize they were talking about the Christian Bible in the story, right?
Further, your assertion was that religious doctrine IS dogma. All I need to do to prove you wrong is to show that SOME is not: and I was merely using Christianity as my example (since it is what I know best).
The resurrection of Christ. All Christians must believe it, and the only evidence for it is in religious text, all scientific evidence to the contrary is ignored.
False. First, there is no scientific evidence to the contrary. Evidence that people do NOT normally rise from the dead is not evidence that God CANNOT raise people from the dead, obviously. This is basic science. It's like saying if you drop a ball, it will fall to the ground, so therefore, it should ALWAYS fall to the ground ... but what if I put my other hand under the ball? It won't very well hit the ground, will it? The claim of the Bible is that God intervened, and science has never tested that hypothesis, so therefore, science has nothing to say one way or another.
Please respect science enough to not try to force it to say something it doesn't say.
Second, we have eyewitnesses who independently testified to the event, outside of the religious texts. And perhaps more to the same point, those religious texts (aside from the Gospel of John) were floating around the area while the eyewitnesses who say the saw the risen Christ were mostly still alive: standard historical analysis methods tell us that it is extremely unlikely that the gospels would have survived if a large number of people (around 500 people) would have been around as eyewitnesses to deny the events contained therein.
Is it proof? Nope. Evidence? You betcha. Is there any evidence against it, scientific or otherwise? Nope.
Wanna try again?
You don't know much about the definitions
*cough* Look, you used both words. They mean essentially the same thing, and in using both, you implied no distinction. Get over it.
You're incapable of demonstrating a single thing in the Bible that tells anyone to exclude any evidence. You're just inventing something that doesn't exist.
Of all the quotes (and weak paraphrases) you gave, NONE of them say to ignore evidence. They express confidence in the truth of the Bible. Can you not see the difference? Al Gore says that anyone who doesn't believe in AGW is wrong ... that is because he is
Does anyone else find it hysterical when atheists evangelize?
Yes. Largely because they're so bad at it. Oh, let's not say that religious evangelists can't be awful, hateful, short-sighted, and full of mockery and disdain for those they oppose. But they can also be uplifting, positive, and kind. Religious evangelists can include people who speak about the positive influences of religion in their lives without having to act judgmental towards those who have not yet had the experience.
I've never seen an atheist evangelist who wasn't just mean, nasty, and often childish. It's rare that you see an atheist try to open up people with how much better their lives are with atheism without having to in some way degrade or insult theist thought. It's not like it's not possible! It's just that atheists who want to convert people always seem to want to do so out of a belief that people who aren't atheists are delusional, irrational, or just stupid. That's not really a good place to start from.
All this stunt really does is provide opportunity for like-minded people to mock and insult people who aren't atheists. It's just as repulsive as the guy who stands on the street corner with a sandwich board and tells everyone how they're going to Hell if they don't accept Jesus -- no one is going to listen except people who already believe it, and everyone else will just be turned off.
(Off-topic: Why does Idle have these horrible tiny comment forms when you don't have JavaScript enabled when it's not a problem for the rest of the site?)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Frankly it appears you have no idea or care about dictionaries
False.
you could care less if all the dictionary had a definition other then yours
When it's wrong, sure. If YOU had an idea about dictionaries, you would understand the fact that they are not authoritative.
Your definition is so much better then every dictionary
Except, little pimple, it was not the definition that I disagreed with in this case, it was something else. The definition was not the issue at all. "Religious doctrine" was not the definition, it was an example (supposedly) given, and it was an incorrect example.
I'm sure the bible says something in there somewhere about not thinking to highly of yourself.
Your implication -- that disagreeing with dictionaries means you think highly of yourself -- makes no sense.