You're splitting hairs. I am not an expert in nuclear launch sequences, but my point remains-- should the access codes for secured buildings be leaked? What about Obama's VPN and email credentials? What about alarm codes for the IRS building?
They did, with the trading card game, though it does not add actual game-changing items. Blizzard is trying hard to have each be a legitimate e-sport, and doing that may make it look less serious.
So why is it not fair for me to say (regarding the inquisition) thats not Christianity, its opression? My ENTIRE point is that, just because an action is done in the name of an idea, does NOT mean it is in line with that idea or justified through it. Many things have been done in the name of democracy that are not democratic; many things have been done in the name of justice that are not just.
By contrast, it's trivial to justify an atrocity directly from a religious text.
Not without making rather serious errors of judgement and interpretation. The historical writings were NOT examples-- modern Christians are NOT OT Israel.
It's where God actually commands mass genocide
I dont really ask you to understand this, but Ill try to explain. If we start with the proposition, "The Bible is truth from God", then it is easy to reach conclusion A, that God is the only truly capable judge, and that he is within His "right" to judge wicked people. If you accept those two, then it is not hard to see why it would be OK for God to judge canaanites for their wickedness through the Israelites, much in the same way several hundred years later he would judge the Israelites through the Babylonians, and the Babylonians through the Assyrians.
The mistake you are making is that, in arguing against my position, you start with the premise "well, the main thing you believe in (Biblical truth) is wrong; therefore God is not just; therefore he has no right to judge people; therefore doing so proves that the Bible is false; therefore God is not just...." which is circular logic. If you want to argue that God cannot be just and use the Bible as evidence, then you must start with the proposition "If the Bible is true...". If you wish to prove that the Bible is false, you must start a whole separate line of reasoning.
First, I don't think I claimed that there's no proof the New Testament was written in the first century, but I am curious what form that proof takes.
Check the Wikipedia articles (which are generally NOT biased in my favor here-- they mostly lean towards the "christianity is bunk" side); I doubt you will find more than a very few books which are held with any seriousness to be written later than 120AD. Not being a historian or a student of Koine Greek, I cant go down the list of proof myself, except to say that church fathers at least as far back as 150AD seemed to be familiar with a number of the NT texts.
Second, that's an implication, not a statement, and there is a not-insignificant subset of Baptists who are also young-earth Creationists.
You may be correct, but I havent seen any statistics on that. Seemed a rather bold statement regardless.
Jesus says nothing against the old law, and when asked, says "Not one stroke of a letter will disappear from the Law..."
Lets not take things out of context or misquote them, please. The full quote ends with "until all is accomplished", the context being his fulfillment of the law through his life ( full passage).
Haven't done that..... (etc)
That wasnt quite directed at you, but simply to say that for all the flak Christians get for being non-reasoning idiots, we certainly get hit with a number of unbelievably fallacious arguments, strawmen, unfounded assertions, etc. Some fairness in that regard would be appreciated.
and my beliefs were starting to sound absurd, even to me.
Depending on how you define absurd, you must believe absurd things whether you are athiest or Christian. IIRC Stephen Hawking recently stated that there was no need for God, that the universe simply "popped in" from nowhere; personally, I find that, and the inherent contradiction of the laws of thermodynamics inherent in its alternative (perpetual crunch-bang-expansion cycle) to be unbelievable myself.
considered torture by many - even John McCain (though he won't admit it now)
I havent followed the post-leak situation much, so cant comment to much on THAT, but if John McCain is "not admitting" that it is torture, who are you to put words in his mouth?
Communism, based on the idea that all should be equal, has resulted in quite a lot of strife in the last hundred years. Love has been used countless times in history to justify a jealous killing. Patriotism was used by both Japan and Nazi Germany in WW2. I dont quite understand what youre asking, if that doesnt answer it-- the "form the justification takes" is love, patriotism, etc.
By contrast, religion actually has these things in that holy book.
Well, as the first section of the book is basically "the history of Israel", and considering that those things happened historically, its not surprising to see mentions of them. I wouldnt put much stock in a book claiming to be true that also claimed that a particular nation never committed heinous acts, while simultaneously claiming that all men are prone to evil.
training yourself to believe something without sufficient justification
In this very thread you will note several athiests doing just that-- claiming that there is no proof that the NT was written in the first century (there is), implying that "young earth creationist" is a subset of "baptist" (its not), assuming that, because the inquisition claimed the name of christ it must therefore be in line with christian belief (its not), etc.
Very few things seriously bother me-- but I am bothered when an athiest calls me dense or not based in logic, and then launches into logical fallacy, ungrounded theories, and personal opinion, all the while asking why I have the gall to take things on faith. It is all the more distressing when there is apparently no understanding that a good deal of the things that supposedly "prove" the absence of God (aside from the fact that they can't, strictly speaking, do so) are all BASED on assumptions. I enjoy discussion, but all too often these dissolve into a mess of rantings and demonizing, trying to pin all of the worlds evils on religion of all things.
I didnt really mean to turn this into a rant, but before pointing the finger at religion or folks who follow them, examine your own arguments in the same light and by the same metric with which you would judge ours-- I think you will more often than not find your own stances just as lacking.
Since there is precisely the same proof of your deity as there is for Ganesh, Xenu, etc.
That is a false statement. I do not claim to know what Scientologists bring to the table as proof of their claims, but I am quite certain that it is different (and less sound) than what I would present for Christianity.
I would start by noting that while Scientology seems to teach that we're all basically good (along, in fact, with a good deal of today's culture), all of human history seems to cry out against it. Christianity, among a few other religions, teaches that man is basically not good-- and I can point you to every society which failed, historically (that is, all of them) as evidence of this.
Non-christians have a number of thoughts on that topic, but no one theory is without its issues.
Christians believe that while man wrote the scriptures, the writing was "inspired" and free from error. The idea that a church council or a pope speaking ex cathedra could be infalliable was an idea that came up later. Certainly we do not hold Athanasius or Luther or Calvin to be free from error.
I think that is about as coherent a response I have heard. My only objection is to point out that a lot of Luther's protestation was that ONLY scripture is free from error; men-- even men in the vatican-- can make terrible errors, questions of their actual faith aside.
The second part of your comment is indeed correct, and is kinda given in big letters by the title "Primary Programming"
You seem to be misreading, or not reading, my posts in entirety. My question centers around the word "requires"; to say that religious belief requires indoctrination is inherently false unless man has existed in perpetuity along with religious belief; otherwise it must have been either derived or received.
You have your quotes mixed up, that is not Matthew 16, but rather Mark 16. And I will note that Jesus was speaking specifically at that point to his disciples, one of whom later did go, get bitten by a viper, and live (Acts 28). Nowhere in there is a statement that "if you pray for something, it will happen".
You made an interesting claim at the end of your post-- are you saying that if one cannot prove their own beliefs by invalidating all others, then their own beliefs are, themselves, invalid?
(And by the way, I dont think "leprechaun" is really warranted, Its "Jesus of Nazareth", not "Sheamus O'Malley")
No, because he specifies "bible", not "new testament". Bible refers to the 2 testaments together.
And even if that were the case, even militant athiest scholars tend to concede that a good portion of the New Testament was written in the first century; Ive never heard anyone of any academic standing make the claim that all of it was written "several hundred years later".
Just because you and I disagree, doesnt mean you need to support aarghh's ridiculous assertions; it is entirely possible to support someone's general stance while rejecting their poor arguments.
If you are satisfied to have your quotes by a professional body builder and a comedian pontificating on religion and philosophy, thats fine, but forgive me if I dont give much weight to them. Stephen Gould brings a little more prestige to the table IMHO.
And my point about the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls is that they completely contradict the idea that the bible as a whole was written several hundred years after Jesus crucifixion. You would be hard-pressed to find a reputable scholar of history, whatever his religions persuasion, who would deny that the Old Testament predates Jesus. Or do you intend to claim that the religious elite cleverly hid the dead sea scrolls away in order to support their newly created bible some time in the 9th century?
OP heavily implied that religion requires either a lack of reasoning, or an early indoctrination. I want to be clear that that is what he is in fact saying.
. But I'm also not aware of anyone who's used either Twilight or Facebook to justify rape, murder, institutionalized slavery, or ritualized genital mutilation.
Im aware of equality, patriotism, justice, and love being used to justify just about every one of those, however. And Im rather curious that people point to religion as the source of all evils, given just how much of your list occurred in the last 100 years with no mention of religion (save as a way of identifying victims).
The only difference is that people like Richard Dawkins are actually very talented and educated people,
It may suprise you that it is possible to be intelligent AND believe in the supernatural. As Stephen Gould famously put it,
"Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs—and equally compatible with atheism."
I would extend his argument to just about any belief-- just because it may be wrong (be it scientific, religious, or political), doesnt mean you have to be a moron to believe it.
believe that the bible (created by MEN centuries AFTER the supposed birth of Christ)
Slashdot Mirror
You're splitting hairs. I am not an expert in nuclear launch sequences, but my point remains-- should the access codes for secured buildings be leaked? What about Obama's VPN and email credentials? What about alarm codes for the IRS building?
They did, with the trading card game, though it does not add actual game-changing items. Blizzard is trying hard to have each be a legitimate e-sport, and doing that may make it look less serious.
Assange seems to think there should be no secrets at all; this would include launch codes, unless "all" somehow doesnt really mean "all".
That is true. But there are, and being the only major player without them would be fatally idiotic, as would leaking their launch codes.
I dont really ask you to understand this,
Just wanted to mention that that ended up condescending; that was not my intention.
Athiesm comes from a-, meaning without, and theos, meaning God. It is a belief system around the idea that there is no theos.
That's not love, that's jealousy.
So why is it not fair for me to say (regarding the inquisition) thats not Christianity, its opression? My ENTIRE point is that, just because an action is done in the name of an idea, does NOT mean it is in line with that idea or justified through it. Many things have been done in the name of democracy that are not democratic; many things have been done in the name of justice that are not just.
By contrast, it's trivial to justify an atrocity directly from a religious text.
Not without making rather serious errors of judgement and interpretation. The historical writings were NOT examples-- modern Christians are NOT OT Israel.
It's where God actually commands mass genocide
I dont really ask you to understand this, but Ill try to explain. If we start with the proposition, "The Bible is truth from God", then it is easy to reach conclusion A, that God is the only truly capable judge, and that he is within His "right" to judge wicked people. If you accept those two, then it is not hard to see why it would be OK for God to judge canaanites for their wickedness through the Israelites, much in the same way several hundred years later he would judge the Israelites through the Babylonians, and the Babylonians through the Assyrians.
The mistake you are making is that, in arguing against my position, you start with the premise "well, the main thing you believe in (Biblical truth) is wrong; therefore God is not just; therefore he has no right to judge people; therefore doing so proves that the Bible is false; therefore God is not just...." which is circular logic. If you want to argue that God cannot be just and use the Bible as evidence, then you must start with the proposition "If the Bible is true...". If you wish to prove that the Bible is false, you must start a whole separate line of reasoning.
First, I don't think I claimed that there's no proof the New Testament was written in the first century, but I am curious what form that proof takes.
Check the Wikipedia articles (which are generally NOT biased in my favor here-- they mostly lean towards the "christianity is bunk" side); I doubt you will find more than a very few books which are held with any seriousness to be written later than 120AD. Not being a historian or a student of Koine Greek, I cant go down the list of proof myself, except to say that church fathers at least as far back as 150AD seemed to be familiar with a number of the NT texts.
Second, that's an implication, not a statement, and there is a not-insignificant subset of Baptists who are also young-earth Creationists.
You may be correct, but I havent seen any statistics on that. Seemed a rather bold statement regardless.
Jesus says nothing against the old law, and when asked, says "Not one stroke of a letter will disappear from the Law..."
Lets not take things out of context or misquote them, please. The full quote ends with "until all is accomplished", the context being his fulfillment of the law through his life ( full passage).
Haven't done that..... (etc)
That wasnt quite directed at you, but simply to say that for all the flak Christians get for being non-reasoning idiots, we certainly get hit with a number of unbelievably fallacious arguments, strawmen, unfounded assertions, etc. Some fairness in that regard would be appreciated.
and my beliefs were starting to sound absurd, even to me.
Depending on how you define absurd, you must believe absurd things whether you are athiest or Christian. IIRC Stephen Hawking recently stated that there was no need for God, that the universe simply "popped in" from nowhere; personally, I find that, and the inherent contradiction of the laws of thermodynamics inherent in its alternative (perpetual crunch-bang-expansion cycle) to be unbelievable myself.
So lets just post all the nuke launch codes to wikileaks too, how bout that? After all, there shouldnt be ANY secrets in the government!
Where are you getting the idea that Lamo is a Wired journalist?
Adrian Lamo isnt a journalist, last time I checked.
considered torture by many - even John McCain (though he won't admit it now)
I havent followed the post-leak situation much, so cant comment to much on THAT, but if John McCain is "not admitting" that it is torture, who are you to put words in his mouth?
and unconstitutional conditions imaginable
Im not sure that means what you think it means.
And what form does that justification take?
Communism, based on the idea that all should be equal, has resulted in quite a lot of strife in the last hundred years. Love has been used countless times in history to justify a jealous killing. Patriotism was used by both Japan and Nazi Germany in WW2. I dont quite understand what youre asking, if that doesnt answer it-- the "form the justification takes" is love, patriotism, etc.
By contrast, religion actually has these things in that holy book.
Well, as the first section of the book is basically "the history of Israel", and considering that those things happened historically, its not surprising to see mentions of them. I wouldnt put much stock in a book claiming to be true that also claimed that a particular nation never committed heinous acts, while simultaneously claiming that all men are prone to evil.
training yourself to believe something without sufficient justification
In this very thread you will note several athiests doing just that-- claiming that there is no proof that the NT was written in the first century (there is), implying that "young earth creationist" is a subset of "baptist" (its not), assuming that, because the inquisition claimed the name of christ it must therefore be in line with christian belief (its not), etc.
Very few things seriously bother me-- but I am bothered when an athiest calls me dense or not based in logic, and then launches into logical fallacy, ungrounded theories, and personal opinion, all the while asking why I have the gall to take things on faith. It is all the more distressing when there is apparently no understanding that a good deal of the things that supposedly "prove" the absence of God (aside from the fact that they can't, strictly speaking, do so) are all BASED on assumptions. I enjoy discussion, but all too often these dissolve into a mess of rantings and demonizing, trying to pin all of the worlds evils on religion of all things.
I didnt really mean to turn this into a rant, but before pointing the finger at religion or folks who follow them, examine your own arguments in the same light and by the same metric with which you would judge ours-- I think you will more often than not find your own stances just as lacking.
You DO realize that TCP requires both upload and download, in order for acks etc to get through, right?
Since there is precisely the same proof of your deity as there is for Ganesh, Xenu, etc.
That is a false statement. I do not claim to know what Scientologists bring to the table as proof of their claims, but I am quite certain that it is different (and less sound) than what I would present for Christianity.
I would start by noting that while Scientology seems to teach that we're all basically good (along, in fact, with a good deal of today's culture), all of human history seems to cry out against it. Christianity, among a few other religions, teaches that man is basically not good-- and I can point you to every society which failed, historically (that is, all of them) as evidence of this.
No apology was necessary; my comment about "sheamus o'malley" was made tongue in cheek, but I suppose the humor was not appreciated or recognized.
Non-christians have a number of thoughts on that topic, but no one theory is without its issues.
Christians believe that while man wrote the scriptures, the writing was "inspired" and free from error. The idea that a church council or a pope speaking ex cathedra could be infalliable was an idea that came up later. Certainly we do not hold Athanasius or Luther or Calvin to be free from error.
I think that is about as coherent a response I have heard. My only objection is to point out that a lot of Luther's protestation was that ONLY scripture is free from error; men-- even men in the vatican-- can make terrible errors, questions of their actual faith aside.
The second part of your comment is indeed correct, and is kinda given in big letters by the title "Primary Programming"
You seem to be misreading, or not reading, my posts in entirety. My question centers around the word "requires"; to say that religious belief requires indoctrination is inherently false unless man has existed in perpetuity along with religious belief; otherwise it must have been either derived or received.
You have your quotes mixed up, that is not Matthew 16, but rather Mark 16. And I will note that Jesus was speaking specifically at that point to his disciples, one of whom later did go, get bitten by a viper, and live (Acts 28). Nowhere in there is a statement that "if you pray for something, it will happen".
You made an interesting claim at the end of your post-- are you saying that if one cannot prove their own beliefs by invalidating all others, then their own beliefs are, themselves, invalid?
(And by the way, I dont think "leprechaun" is really warranted, Its "Jesus of Nazareth", not "Sheamus O'Malley")
No, because he specifies "bible", not "new testament". Bible refers to the 2 testaments together.
And even if that were the case, even militant athiest scholars tend to concede that a good portion of the New Testament was written in the first century; Ive never heard anyone of any academic standing make the claim that all of it was written "several hundred years later".
Just because you and I disagree, doesnt mean you need to support aarghh's ridiculous assertions; it is entirely possible to support someone's general stance while rejecting their poor arguments.
If you are satisfied to have your quotes by a professional body builder and a comedian pontificating on religion and philosophy, thats fine, but forgive me if I dont give much weight to them. Stephen Gould brings a little more prestige to the table IMHO.
And my point about the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls is that they completely contradict the idea that the bible as a whole was written several hundred years after Jesus crucifixion. You would be hard-pressed to find a reputable scholar of history, whatever his religions persuasion, who would deny that the Old Testament predates Jesus. Or do you intend to claim that the religious elite cleverly hid the dead sea scrolls away in order to support their newly created bible some time in the 9th century?
OP heavily implied that religion requires either a lack of reasoning, or an early indoctrination. I want to be clear that that is what he is in fact saying.
. But I'm also not aware of anyone who's used either Twilight or Facebook to justify rape, murder, institutionalized slavery, or ritualized genital mutilation.
Im aware of equality, patriotism, justice, and love being used to justify just about every one of those, however. And Im rather curious that people point to religion as the source of all evils, given just how much of your list occurred in the last 100 years with no mention of religion (save as a way of identifying victims).
The only difference is that people like Richard Dawkins are actually very talented and educated people,
It may suprise you that it is possible to be intelligent AND believe in the supernatural. As Stephen Gould famously put it,
"Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs—and equally compatible with atheism."
I would extend his argument to just about any belief-- just because it may be wrong (be it scientific, religious, or political), doesnt mean you have to be a moron to believe it.
believe that the bible (created by MEN centuries AFTER the supposed birth of Christ)
Youre going to have a rather tough time explaining the Septuagint or the Dead Sea Scrolls.