But yes, if I did a good job at what I do -- which might mean working very hard, many sleepless nights, managing to pull off a miracle -- and if my boss said "Thank God that got done," I'd probably be pretty annoyed, yes. God didn't do that, I did. Even if it was God acting through me, doesn't it seem fair that I should get a raise in that case? Would you have my boss give God a raise instead?
Realistically, I would probably try to swallow an irritated outburst, realizing that I'm reading far more into this than the person intended.
Still, it's one of a number of things we say thoughtlessly which are really quite sinister. For instance, suppose a school bus is bombed and one child survives. You might be tempted to say it's a miracle, right? "Thank God!" But you're implying that God deliberately let every other child on that bus die a horrible death. And, if you think about it, you're implying that God did nothing to thwart the bomb, thus causing all those deaths and unimaginable agony for the child who survived. That's all on top of trivializing the work of the police, the paramedics, and the ER doctor, to name a few.
If God is as useless as you claim to be, then of what harm is his belief?
We who believe in God (I'm a muslim microbiologist) thank God for allowing us the opportunity to become what we are,
That's depressing -- your tone suggests that you're very grateful God didn't completely thwart your plans.
...when good things happens to us, we thank God, when bad things happens, we ask for his protection and we say "insyallah" (God Willing) when we plan for the future.
In other words, you've created a great way to never be able to show that God was actually responsible for any of this. What you prayed for happened? Praise God. What you prayed for didn't happen? That's not evidence against God, clearly he just didn't want to give you what you asked for.
You're implying, then, that there is absolutely nothing anyone accomplishes which wasn't actually God forcing them to do that?
Interesting. One consequence of that argument is that I should never thank a person, but always thank God. "I found your dog!" "Thank God! I guess I'm going to give God the reward instead of you, because you clearly didn't do any work."
See, this much, we actually know is false. We know this from "human thought", from an enlightenment which you would claim is thanks to God.
The Bible is the latest revision of the original science books,
Show me one piece of science in the Bible.
We are not so much smarter than our ancestors.
True. So what?
The way science works isn't by making people smarter, it's by building a body of knowledge so that new generations can build on that. We wouldn't have modern technology if every engineer had to figure out F=ma for himself (or herself).
Ask some of your scientist friends, if you have any, how little difference it would take for the universe to be so unobservable as to be a mystery. A little more interstellar dust, slightly different characterisics of the radiation we call 'light', even the distances.
This is the fine-tuning argument, and there are numerous answers to it. Depending on which distances you chose, for instance, you may be dealing with Creationist math -- many, many theistic and especially Creationist presentations of this subject either don't do the math or do it wrong, and end up with claims about how if the Earth was only a tiny bit closer or farther away from the sun, we couldn't survive, or if the moon was only a tiny bit closer or farther away, we couldn't see the surface of the sun during an eclipse -- wrong and wrong, unless by "tiny bit" you mean vast, vast distances.
The whole argument rests, however, on at least one profound fallacy -- the idea that things could be different.
"Fine-tuning" refers not to some sense that there is a god fine-tuning the universe. Rather, it's the scientist who is "fine-tuning" their equations, adding constants to make the equation match what reality is telling them. Sometimes we find out where those constants are from, but it's always a more fundamental law -- the little g for gravitational acceleration near the Earth's surface, 9.8 meters per second per second, is originally from measurements near the Earth's surface, but now we can derive it from a universal gravitational constant (big-G, in physics) which can also tell us what that acceleration will be between any two bodies.
In other words, little-g wasn't "fine-tuned", it follows naturally from big-G. There are tons of constants which work this way, and we keep finding properties of the universe which we assumed to be fine-tuned, but turn out to be the result of something else. Isn't it great how there are relatively few asteroids in the inner solar system, so we don't have to worry about being wiped out by one (much)? There's a reason for that, and it isn't God.
It may well be that for there to be a universe at all like ours, these constants follow naturally from some fundamental universal law -- that somehow, mass always leads to a gravitational force with precisely the strength we find -- not to mention that many things could be quite different and we'd simply have evolved different adaptations to deal with them.
It may be that chance had as little to do with forming our universe "just so" as it did with evolution.
And remember, this is only one possible argument. We could also have a many-worlds scenario, or we could have a cyclical universe in which the laws change every time. Or it could be something we haven't thought of.
Now consider your explanation. What does it solve? Now, instead of knowing little about why the universe is the way it is, we know nothing about why the creator is the way it is. Instead of knowing something about the origins of the universe, we know nothing about the creator.
Even if you had a true dichotomy, Occam's Razor wouldn't apply, because your version doesn't actually explain anything. We apply Occam's Razor to deal with two things which explain a given situation equally well -- for instance, Ptolomy's epicycles did work for predicting planetary motion, but Kepler's laws were much simpler -- but both will tell you, more or less, where a planet will appear in the sky on a given day. Suppose there's an intelligent being which created the universe -- what does that predict that's testable?
But it's a false dichotomy anyway. My position here is that this is an area where we simply do not know enough to make much of a guess, let alone a scientific prediction -- so I don't have a position. And that is atheism in a nutshell -- even if I knew nothing about science, there has to be a good reason to believe.
The icing on the cake is that as we learn more about the world, we've pretty much alwa
Even science (yes, *S*C*I*E*N*C*E*) has its myths and belief systems, not all of which are true (or provable).
Name one, and I'll show you how it's not science.
they tend to have an irrational, pre-Gödel belief that a)they are completely and totally rational, and b)rationality is all that's necessary to live a doubleplusgood life.
Can't speak for others, but neither describes me.
Rather, it's not hard to judge the rationality or irrationality of others, particularly when compared to each other, without having to assume anyone is "completely" rational; there's a big difference between you and me and Fred Phelps.
And no, rationality isn't all that's necessary. It's necessary, not sufficient. That shouldn't be a hard concept for someone familiar with Godel.
Try building a civilization without religion. So far every attempt has ended in Horrors far worse than any nuke unleashed to date.
Citation needed.
But we do have examples, today, of civilizations which seem to be getting along just fine without religion -- better, in fact, than their religious neighbors.
I'd describe myself as an agnostic
Which definition describes you? Do you think the question is just unknown, or actually unknowable?
And why agnostic instead of atheist?
Plus it's kinda like the Matrix, trying to Free a mind from Religion after a certain point in it's development is dangerous, far more likely to result in a Monster than an Enlightened Human.
Again, citation needed. Just because it's an interesting analogy doesn't mean it's in any way true, even if I couldn't drive a bus through the holes in this one -- the reason you're likely to get a monster in The Matrix is because there are Agents, and there isn't anything equivalent in the real world.
Evidence tends to show the contrary -- you can find few examples of violent atheists to begin with, and none which you can actually trace to their atheism. Very few even suggest atheism as a reason.
History also tells us that is entirely possible to be a rational, enlightened person who can contribute to the advancement of human knowledge, be an effective leader, exhibit a good moral compass, etc while being religious.
Or at least while claiming religion...
Mostly because for most of history, we didn't really have the idea of religious freedom, at least not in practice. Even today, it's impossible for an openly atheist politician in the US to be elected even to Congress, let alone the Presidency, though at least this time it's popular opinion instead of actual laws standing in their way.
So there are very, very few cases where it was possible to contribute anything to society while being openly atheist. So of course those who contributed anything to society would be religious, or at least claim to be.
Very few examples of good Atheist role models, even in the sciences.
Let's face it, we don't REALLY know much of anything about the universe past "cogito ergo sum".
Oh, come on. If you're going for universal skepticism, go all the way -- we don't even know "cogito ergo sum." How do you know you exist? What do you mean when you say you exist?
Everything else is conjecture.
Are all conjectures equal?
I mean, sure, evidentialism and naturalism are as vulnerable to universal skepticism as divine command theory and faith, but which one makes more sense: "Because this is what happens, and it happens this way every time I do it, so assuming my memory is reliable, it seems very likely that my senses and my world are not only reliable, but they behave in exactly this mathematical way."
Or, "Some guy said so, and I want to believe it, so I'll believe it. I mean, sure, on top of my senses and memory being unreliable, the guy could be lying or mistaken, but what the heck."
If you really believe those are on the same level, I want to see how you manage to get through your day with universal skepticism and random acts of blind faith. In particular, when a helpful Nigerian offers you millions of dollars, but just needs your bank account details, why do you hold him to a different standard of evidence than a thousand-year-old book?
The ironic thing will be this relevant quote [bible.cc], "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."
The irony of that is, what's the basis for him to say that? Not all sins warranted stoning under the old law, and there was no law against hypocrisy. All they had were the quite firm laws that this woman should be stoned.
Their worst failing (which is shared by people like Dawkins), is that they are so convinced that the believers are wrong that they never consider the reasons intelligent theists have for their belief.
I do consider them. I just haven't heard an intelligent reason.
they only really debate with the fundamentalists, not with anyone who can give then an intelligent argument.
Mostly because they're the ones who speak up, and they're more fun.
In general, I don't pick religious arguments. Most of the more intelligent believers don't pick arguments either, which has the unfortunate side effect that I usually end up arguing with loud idiots.
But I do prefer to argue with intelligent people, even if we don't agree at the end of it, because it's an opportunity to learn something.
There is nothing I can think of in the New Testament that can be used to justify torture etc
Closest I can find is 1st Peter 2:18, which is disturbing enough anyway. But why are you dismissing the Old Testament?
Saying it was written centuries after Christ is also misleading,
Decades is closer, I think. However, whenever they were written, it is difficult to reconcile the fact that they give at least two separate dates for Jesus' birth, about 10 years apart.
Even if they were actually contemporary, I don't see what it proves. We have plenty of stories of alien abductions today, but they're considered harder to believe than religion, despite the fact that the witnesses are still alive.
The difference is, "Science" isn't just something somebody said once. It's something which can actually be backed up. You don't need a degree to contribute, if your work is sound -- and by the same token, nothing in science is considered valid simply because of the credibility of the people who said so. Its authority rests on its repeatability and accessibility -- if you don't think something science says is right, you can certainly find flaws in the existing theory.
Oh, and it really is pretty much all of science.
By contrast, The Bible actually is just something somebody said once. Its entire authority rests on whether or not it's divine. The only other attempts I've seen people make are either trying to use it as an authoritative historical source (but if it's not authoritative, that fails), or finding "fulfilled" prophecies, which either end up being fantastically unimpressive, unfulfilled, or actually wrong.
Stereotyping religions based on the actions of a few is not enlightened. You cannot judge a philosphy by its abuse.
I agree.
However, the abuse is why it matters whether or not the philosophy is actually true. I know more than a few atheists who are activists of sorts, who run all sorts of atheist events and do all sorts of atheist promotion, and most of them say they wouldn't bother if it weren't for exactly that abuse. If Islam actually was a religion of peace, if Christians actually did keep church and state separate, if Mormons quit showing up on their door, they'd leave well enough alone.
And if the religion isn't true, then you start to realize: The fundamentalists couldn't exist without the moderates. Without ideas like faith as a virtue, belief as a core part of your identity, eternal rewards and punishments, that kind of thing, there are all sorts of lines of thinking which just don't happen. The kind of cognitive dissonance it takes to exercise critical thinking towards every aspect of your life except this one thing, this most important thing, is also the kind of thinking that can lead do, well, anything.
Now, if there actually is a god, and it's possible to know there's a god, then most of what I've said is moot, and it really is just a matter of not letting people corrupt a good thing. But if there isn't, what I inevitably arrive at is that faith is dangerous, and it just isn't worth it.
Interestingly, if you listen to him speak, even on religion, Dawkins isn't that bad.
And yes, what haruchai said. Hitchens manages to be louder and more offensive, but also more fun if you can manage not to be offended. I don't know that I agree that it's only passion, but it is interesting how I used to think Dawkins was a dick before I lost my faith, at which point I actually started reading more about him -- but Hitchens is still a dick, he's just eloquent and British enough to get away with it.
odd that an "atheist" would reference and capitalize "God" so often...
When it's a proper noun, I capitalize it, just as I capitalize, say, Linus Torvalds, Steve Jobs, or William Gates III. Does that mean these are my gods?
You might notice that I don't capitalize "His" or "Him" when talking about God or any gods -- oh, and I don't capitalize "gods", or even the non-proper "god".
I've been pretty consistent about this for as long as I can remember caring.
The real problem is whether or not to capitalize "atheist" -- it seems like it shouldn't be capitalized, yet we do capitalize adherents to religions: Christian, Muslim, etc.
Now, how does any of this have to do with "cowering" or being "pathetic"? You haven't backed up any of your core assertions about me, you've just repeated them blindly.
Yeah, and I also do the same thing with those other adjectives I've listed. I'll describe myself as a Rubyist. Nowhere do I say I'm just a Rubyist, that it is the only thing that defines me, that my entire life boils down to a programming language.
Or what should I do instead? Should I use the clumsier phrasing of "I, a person who happens to program Ruby sometimes," or should i give the full list of everything I've ever done, just to avoid the confusion? If I admit to being a Linux geek, should I also be sure I mention that I have Windows on a partition too, so people don't assume I'm a zealot?
No, people in general don't make the mistake of assuming that whatever label I've adopted at the moment defines me... Except you, when it comes to religion.
Do you have any real arguments, or do you want to just keep calling names?
Or read my posting history. I'll vigorously debate it when the subject comes up, but I won't just bring it up out of nowhere -- I even avoid making analogies with it, no matter how relevant they might be.
you define yourself with the things you don't believe in.
No one word is sufficient to define me. I'm also a software developer, son, brother, gamer, geek, martial artist, and forever a student -- and these are not sufficient to define me, either.
How do you define yourself?
But when most of the world actually spends a significant amount of time talking to the ceiling, following the same bronze-age mythology that many use to justify atrocities, I am appalled, and I deliberately do take pains to say, "No, I don't do that, I'm sane."
I also don't watch Twilight, and I don't use Facebook. 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. What's more, even of the hordes who watch Twilight, most are sane enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality, at least as far as Twilight is concerned.
you're an ignorant hypocrite.... you're also an idiot.
Citation needed.
Which of the things I have said is ignorant, hypocritical, or idiotic?
why do you cower behind a chosen pseudonym which puts your sanity into question?
I don't see how it puts my sanity into question. The intention is that I am sane, even in the midst of a world which seems anarchic at times. That, and it's mostly historical; I stole it from a warez site back when that was cool.
And I happily back this position up in reality, in several local atheist/freethought groups. Other than the pseudonym, I haven't made any particular effort to hide.
If you were that determined to track me down, it'd take you only a few minutes of Googling.
I actually don't claim superiority. I'm only playing devil's advocate here -- I consider my opinion to be superior, because it's actually based on evidence and reason, but that doesn't say all that much about my character, and I don't necessarily know that there is not a theistic position based on evidence and reason, I just haven't found one yet.
What's funny is that you still use the word "militant" to describe someone who's asserting exactly, and no more than, what the opposition is. You didn't call OP a "militant Christian", did you?
I'm a medicinal chemist working on a program to cure Alzheimer's disease, and I thank God for my abilities.
Tell me, what part of your abilities came from God? Did he go through the years of school for you? Perhaps he inspired you with the knowledge of how chemical reactions work?
Thanking God for your abilities is just pushing it back a step. Instead of me disrespecting a doctor by giving God the credit instead, that's you disrespecting every human teacher you ever had. If you're thanking God for the aptitude alone, thank your parents -- nature or nurture, the part you're crediting God with likely came from them.
If you're thanking God for every single event that deterministically led to you being where you are now, basically for setting the universe in motion, even if that were true, that seems absurdly far removed from what you're actually doing with medicine -- how do you know you're even doing what the creator of the universe would want?
I think you presume too much of the Doctor when you deny the existence of miracles.
What is it I'm supposed to be presuming that isn't possible?
Slashdot Mirror
So, all you've actually said is that an answer to the question is irrelevant.
Irrelevance isn't sufficient to show hypocrisy or ignorance.
You really need to look those words up in a dictionary.
What is it to you?
He replied to me.
Are you offended by this?
Well, I'm not a doctor.
But yes, if I did a good job at what I do -- which might mean working very hard, many sleepless nights, managing to pull off a miracle -- and if my boss said "Thank God that got done," I'd probably be pretty annoyed, yes. God didn't do that, I did. Even if it was God acting through me, doesn't it seem fair that I should get a raise in that case? Would you have my boss give God a raise instead?
Realistically, I would probably try to swallow an irritated outburst, realizing that I'm reading far more into this than the person intended.
Still, it's one of a number of things we say thoughtlessly which are really quite sinister. For instance, suppose a school bus is bombed and one child survives. You might be tempted to say it's a miracle, right? "Thank God!" But you're implying that God deliberately let every other child on that bus die a horrible death. And, if you think about it, you're implying that God did nothing to thwart the bomb, thus causing all those deaths and unimaginable agony for the child who survived. That's all on top of trivializing the work of the police, the paramedics, and the ER doctor, to name a few.
If God is as useless as you claim to be, then of what harm is his belief?
A great deal.
We who believe in God (I'm a muslim microbiologist) thank God for allowing us the opportunity to become what we are,
That's depressing -- your tone suggests that you're very grateful God didn't completely thwart your plans.
...when good things happens to us, we thank God, when bad things happens, we ask for his protection and we say "insyallah" (God Willing) when we plan for the future.
In other words, you've created a great way to never be able to show that God was actually responsible for any of this. What you prayed for happened? Praise God. What you prayed for didn't happen? That's not evidence against God, clearly he just didn't want to give you what you asked for.
You're implying, then, that there is absolutely nothing anyone accomplishes which wasn't actually God forcing them to do that?
Interesting. One consequence of that argument is that I should never thank a person, but always thank God. "I found your dog!" "Thank God! I guess I'm going to give God the reward instead of you, because you clearly didn't do any work."
He formed us out of clay...
See, this much, we actually know is false. We know this from "human thought", from an enlightenment which you would claim is thanks to God.
The Bible is the latest revision of the original science books,
Show me one piece of science in the Bible.
We are not so much smarter than our ancestors.
True. So what?
The way science works isn't by making people smarter, it's by building a body of knowledge so that new generations can build on that. We wouldn't have modern technology if every engineer had to figure out F=ma for himself (or herself).
And sorry, but F=ma isn't in the Bible.
I guess that answers my question.
equating God TO a PROPER NOUN does imply existence.
I guess Gandalf exists too, hmm? He's a proper noun, too.
you not only believe in the existence of God, but you preach His name.
And now you're being dishonest.
Ask some of your scientist friends, if you have any, how little difference it would take for the universe to be so unobservable as to be a mystery. A little more interstellar dust, slightly different characterisics of the radiation we call 'light', even the distances.
This is the fine-tuning argument, and there are numerous answers to it. Depending on which distances you chose, for instance, you may be dealing with Creationist math -- many, many theistic and especially Creationist presentations of this subject either don't do the math or do it wrong, and end up with claims about how if the Earth was only a tiny bit closer or farther away from the sun, we couldn't survive, or if the moon was only a tiny bit closer or farther away, we couldn't see the surface of the sun during an eclipse -- wrong and wrong, unless by "tiny bit" you mean vast, vast distances.
The whole argument rests, however, on at least one profound fallacy -- the idea that things could be different.
"Fine-tuning" refers not to some sense that there is a god fine-tuning the universe. Rather, it's the scientist who is "fine-tuning" their equations, adding constants to make the equation match what reality is telling them. Sometimes we find out where those constants are from, but it's always a more fundamental law -- the little g for gravitational acceleration near the Earth's surface, 9.8 meters per second per second, is originally from measurements near the Earth's surface, but now we can derive it from a universal gravitational constant (big-G, in physics) which can also tell us what that acceleration will be between any two bodies.
In other words, little-g wasn't "fine-tuned", it follows naturally from big-G. There are tons of constants which work this way, and we keep finding properties of the universe which we assumed to be fine-tuned, but turn out to be the result of something else. Isn't it great how there are relatively few asteroids in the inner solar system, so we don't have to worry about being wiped out by one (much)? There's a reason for that, and it isn't God.
It may well be that for there to be a universe at all like ours, these constants follow naturally from some fundamental universal law -- that somehow, mass always leads to a gravitational force with precisely the strength we find -- not to mention that many things could be quite different and we'd simply have evolved different adaptations to deal with them.
It may be that chance had as little to do with forming our universe "just so" as it did with evolution.
And remember, this is only one possible argument. We could also have a many-worlds scenario, or we could have a cyclical universe in which the laws change every time. Or it could be something we haven't thought of.
Now consider your explanation. What does it solve? Now, instead of knowing little about why the universe is the way it is, we know nothing about why the creator is the way it is. Instead of knowing something about the origins of the universe, we know nothing about the creator.
Even if you had a true dichotomy, Occam's Razor wouldn't apply, because your version doesn't actually explain anything. We apply Occam's Razor to deal with two things which explain a given situation equally well -- for instance, Ptolomy's epicycles did work for predicting planetary motion, but Kepler's laws were much simpler -- but both will tell you, more or less, where a planet will appear in the sky on a given day. Suppose there's an intelligent being which created the universe -- what does that predict that's testable?
But it's a false dichotomy anyway. My position here is that this is an area where we simply do not know enough to make much of a guess, let alone a scientific prediction -- so I don't have a position. And that is atheism in a nutshell -- even if I knew nothing about science, there has to be a good reason to believe.
The icing on the cake is that as we learn more about the world, we've pretty much alwa
Science does take just as much faith as traditional belief systems.
How is it "just as much faith" when I can verify it myself?
Even science (yes, *S*C*I*E*N*C*E*) has its myths and belief systems, not all of which are true (or provable).
Name one, and I'll show you how it's not science.
they tend to have an irrational, pre-Gödel belief that a)they are completely and totally rational, and b)rationality is all that's necessary to live a doubleplusgood life.
Can't speak for others, but neither describes me.
Rather, it's not hard to judge the rationality or irrationality of others, particularly when compared to each other, without having to assume anyone is "completely" rational; there's a big difference between you and me and Fred Phelps.
And no, rationality isn't all that's necessary. It's necessary, not sufficient. That shouldn't be a hard concept for someone familiar with Godel.
Try building a civilization without religion. So far every attempt has ended in Horrors far worse than any nuke unleashed to date.
Citation needed.
But we do have examples, today, of civilizations which seem to be getting along just fine without religion -- better, in fact, than their religious neighbors.
I'd describe myself as an agnostic
Which definition describes you? Do you think the question is just unknown, or actually unknowable?
And why agnostic instead of atheist?
Plus it's kinda like the Matrix, trying to Free a mind from Religion after a certain point in it's development is dangerous, far more likely to result in a Monster than an Enlightened Human.
Again, citation needed. Just because it's an interesting analogy doesn't mean it's in any way true, even if I couldn't drive a bus through the holes in this one -- the reason you're likely to get a monster in The Matrix is because there are Agents, and there isn't anything equivalent in the real world.
Evidence tends to show the contrary -- you can find few examples of violent atheists to begin with, and none which you can actually trace to their atheism. Very few even suggest atheism as a reason.
History also tells us that is entirely possible to be a rational, enlightened person who can contribute to the advancement of human knowledge, be an effective leader, exhibit a good moral compass, etc while being religious.
Or at least while claiming religion...
Mostly because for most of history, we didn't really have the idea of religious freedom, at least not in practice. Even today, it's impossible for an openly atheist politician in the US to be elected even to Congress, let alone the Presidency, though at least this time it's popular opinion instead of actual laws standing in their way.
So there are very, very few cases where it was possible to contribute anything to society while being openly atheist. So of course those who contributed anything to society would be religious, or at least claim to be.
Very few examples of good Atheist role models, even in the sciences.
Surely you're joking.
Let's face it, we don't REALLY know much of anything about the universe past "cogito ergo sum".
Oh, come on. If you're going for universal skepticism, go all the way -- we don't even know "cogito ergo sum." How do you know you exist? What do you mean when you say you exist?
Everything else is conjecture.
Are all conjectures equal?
I mean, sure, evidentialism and naturalism are as vulnerable to universal skepticism as divine command theory and faith, but which one makes more sense: "Because this is what happens, and it happens this way every time I do it, so assuming my memory is reliable, it seems very likely that my senses and my world are not only reliable, but they behave in exactly this mathematical way."
Or, "Some guy said so, and I want to believe it, so I'll believe it. I mean, sure, on top of my senses and memory being unreliable, the guy could be lying or mistaken, but what the heck."
If you really believe those are on the same level, I want to see how you manage to get through your day with universal skepticism and random acts of blind faith. In particular, when a helpful Nigerian offers you millions of dollars, but just needs your bank account details, why do you hold him to a different standard of evidence than a thousand-year-old book?
The ironic thing will be this relevant quote [bible.cc], "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."
The irony of that is, what's the basis for him to say that? Not all sins warranted stoning under the old law, and there was no law against hypocrisy. All they had were the quite firm laws that this woman should be stoned.
Their worst failing (which is shared by people like Dawkins), is that they are so convinced that the believers are wrong that they never consider the reasons intelligent theists have for their belief.
I do consider them. I just haven't heard an intelligent reason.
they only really debate with the fundamentalists, not with anyone who can give then an intelligent argument.
Mostly because they're the ones who speak up, and they're more fun.
In general, I don't pick religious arguments. Most of the more intelligent believers don't pick arguments either, which has the unfortunate side effect that I usually end up arguing with loud idiots.
But I do prefer to argue with intelligent people, even if we don't agree at the end of it, because it's an opportunity to learn something.
There is nothing I can think of in the New Testament that can be used to justify torture etc
Closest I can find is 1st Peter 2:18, which is disturbing enough anyway. But why are you dismissing the Old Testament?
Saying it was written centuries after Christ is also misleading,
Decades is closer, I think. However, whenever they were written, it is difficult to reconcile the fact that they give at least two separate dates for Jesus' birth, about 10 years apart.
Even if they were actually contemporary, I don't see what it proves. We have plenty of stories of alien abductions today, but they're considered harder to believe than religion, despite the fact that the witnesses are still alive.
Pretty convincing,don't you agree?
The difference is, "Science" isn't just something somebody said once. It's something which can actually be backed up. You don't need a degree to contribute, if your work is sound -- and by the same token, nothing in science is considered valid simply because of the credibility of the people who said so. Its authority rests on its repeatability and accessibility -- if you don't think something science says is right, you can certainly find flaws in the existing theory.
Oh, and it really is pretty much all of science.
By contrast, The Bible actually is just something somebody said once. Its entire authority rests on whether or not it's divine. The only other attempts I've seen people make are either trying to use it as an authoritative historical source (but if it's not authoritative, that fails), or finding "fulfilled" prophecies, which either end up being fantastically unimpressive, unfulfilled, or actually wrong.
Stereotyping religions based on the actions of a few is not enlightened. You cannot judge a philosphy by its abuse.
I agree.
However, the abuse is why it matters whether or not the philosophy is actually true. I know more than a few atheists who are activists of sorts, who run all sorts of atheist events and do all sorts of atheist promotion, and most of them say they wouldn't bother if it weren't for exactly that abuse. If Islam actually was a religion of peace, if Christians actually did keep church and state separate, if Mormons quit showing up on their door, they'd leave well enough alone.
And if the religion isn't true, then you start to realize: The fundamentalists couldn't exist without the moderates. Without ideas like faith as a virtue, belief as a core part of your identity, eternal rewards and punishments, that kind of thing, there are all sorts of lines of thinking which just don't happen. The kind of cognitive dissonance it takes to exercise critical thinking towards every aspect of your life except this one thing, this most important thing, is also the kind of thinking that can lead do, well, anything.
Now, if there actually is a god, and it's possible to know there's a god, then most of what I've said is moot, and it really is just a matter of not letting people corrupt a good thing. But if there isn't, what I inevitably arrive at is that faith is dangerous, and it just isn't worth it.
I hope I've made you think. And I love your sig.
Interestingly, if you listen to him speak, even on religion, Dawkins isn't that bad.
And yes, what haruchai said. Hitchens manages to be louder and more offensive, but also more fun if you can manage not to be offended. I don't know that I agree that it's only passion, but it is interesting how I used to think Dawkins was a dick before I lost my faith, at which point I actually started reading more about him -- but Hitchens is still a dick, he's just eloquent and British enough to get away with it.
how is asking for a count not hypocritically ignorant?
How is it hypocritically ignorant?
odd that an "atheist" would reference and capitalize "God" so often...
When it's a proper noun, I capitalize it, just as I capitalize, say, Linus Torvalds, Steve Jobs, or William Gates III. Does that mean these are my gods?
You might notice that I don't capitalize "His" or "Him" when talking about God or any gods -- oh, and I don't capitalize "gods", or even the non-proper "god".
I've been pretty consistent about this for as long as I can remember caring.
The real problem is whether or not to capitalize "atheist" -- it seems like it shouldn't be capitalized, yet we do capitalize adherents to religions: Christian, Muslim, etc.
Now, how does any of this have to do with "cowering" or being "pathetic"? You haven't backed up any of your core assertions about me, you've just repeated them blindly.
Yeah, and I also do the same thing with those other adjectives I've listed. I'll describe myself as a Rubyist. Nowhere do I say I'm just a Rubyist, that it is the only thing that defines me, that my entire life boils down to a programming language.
Or what should I do instead? Should I use the clumsier phrasing of "I, a person who happens to program Ruby sometimes," or should i give the full list of everything I've ever done, just to avoid the confusion? If I admit to being a Linux geek, should I also be sure I mention that I have Windows on a partition too, so people don't assume I'm a zealot?
No, people in general don't make the mistake of assuming that whatever label I've adopted at the moment defines me... Except you, when it comes to religion.
Do you have any real arguments, or do you want to just keep calling names?
That's not why I asserted it. Read the summary.
Or read my posting history. I'll vigorously debate it when the subject comes up, but I won't just bring it up out of nowhere -- I even avoid making analogies with it, no matter how relevant they might be.
you define yourself with the things you don't believe in.
No one word is sufficient to define me. I'm also a software developer, son, brother, gamer, geek, martial artist, and forever a student -- and these are not sufficient to define me, either.
How do you define yourself?
But when most of the world actually spends a significant amount of time talking to the ceiling, following the same bronze-age mythology that many use to justify atrocities, I am appalled, and I deliberately do take pains to say, "No, I don't do that, I'm sane."
I also don't watch Twilight, and I don't use Facebook. 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. What's more, even of the hordes who watch Twilight, most are sane enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality, at least as far as Twilight is concerned.
you're an ignorant hypocrite.... you're also an idiot.
Citation needed.
Which of the things I have said is ignorant, hypocritical, or idiotic?
why do you cower behind a chosen pseudonym which puts your sanity into question?
I don't see how it puts my sanity into question. The intention is that I am sane, even in the midst of a world which seems anarchic at times. That, and it's mostly historical; I stole it from a warez site back when that was cool.
And I happily back this position up in reality, in several local atheist/freethought groups. Other than the pseudonym, I haven't made any particular effort to hide.
If you were that determined to track me down, it'd take you only a few minutes of Googling.
I actually don't claim superiority. I'm only playing devil's advocate here -- I consider my opinion to be superior, because it's actually based on evidence and reason, but that doesn't say all that much about my character, and I don't necessarily know that there is not a theistic position based on evidence and reason, I just haven't found one yet.
But the clue is in the subject: "Goes both ways."
What's funny is that you still use the word "militant" to describe someone who's asserting exactly, and no more than, what the opposition is. You didn't call OP a "militant Christian", did you?
Get some perspective.
What "cult belief" am I supposed to have in order to deny another's?
Nope. Saw it in the summary. Didn't really think the article was worth reading with something that prejudicial and blatantly wrong on the front page.
So again, unless there's a whoosh coming...
I'm a medicinal chemist working on a program to cure Alzheimer's disease, and I thank God for my abilities.
Tell me, what part of your abilities came from God? Did he go through the years of school for you? Perhaps he inspired you with the knowledge of how chemical reactions work?
Thanking God for your abilities is just pushing it back a step. Instead of me disrespecting a doctor by giving God the credit instead, that's you disrespecting every human teacher you ever had. If you're thanking God for the aptitude alone, thank your parents -- nature or nurture, the part you're crediting God with likely came from them.
If you're thanking God for every single event that deterministically led to you being where you are now, basically for setting the universe in motion, even if that were true, that seems absurdly far removed from what you're actually doing with medicine -- how do you know you're even doing what the creator of the universe would want?
I think you presume too much of the Doctor when you deny the existence of miracles.
What is it I'm supposed to be presuming that isn't possible?
So, I can now see why American Baptists get so miffy about atheists -- it's horrible dealing with people who don't realize how much better you are.
That's funny... that's the same reason I, an atheist, get so miffy about Christians, especially Baptists, especially young-earth Creationists.
Hopefully this is a whoosh and there's some sarcasm I'm missing or something...