slaughter the various peoples they encountered in Canaan, including the children, just because they weren't Israelites.
No. Since I realize you couldn't be bothered to google the actual scope of reasons at hand, we'll just go with the self-contradiction level. If this were true, God would have given a blanket command to kill all non-Israelites. He didn't.
Made even easier by having "moral" mean "whatever I want it to mean". Until a moral code is defined, or accepted, any given person is completely amoral.
What's yours?
BTW, it is precisely the uncertainty of faith that invalidates your argument. If one -knew- that they were going to receive a reward, that would be a different context--though, of course, your notion that you know this is the primary motivation is just an exercise in your apparent personal psychic powers to determine that one possible motivation within the religion is the exclusive one in mind by all the followers of it.
"I contend that we are both anarchists. I just believe in one less political party than you do."
I really never understood how anyone finds this argument even momentarily convincing.
Of course, "religion" per se could not possibly have a truth-value assignable to it (intentionally so, which is precisely why Dawkins, Hitchens, et al use the term so persistently--all that's left is to non-sequitur "no truth-value assignable" to "not true"), only a particular correct religion. It in no way follows from the fact the first is semantically impossible that the latter doesn't exist.
Nowhere did I say "Natural Selection", and I know very clearly what it is, how it works, and what it applies to.
I said "Natural Deselection". That you don't like the application of a turn of phrase has nothing to do with the content of Natural Selection, evolution, or my understanding of it.
Well, sure, I'd eliminate discretion in application from being a relevant factor, just like our judicial system does--because that wouldn't cause any problem with making my creation morally irrelevant to their own existence.
I understand it fully. I also understand your psychological process of falsely equivocating for yourself that the survival of -information- would mean the survival of any particular biological entity, to coddle your feelings with respect to a possible future you formally disclaim.
"and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
Sorry, my short attention span is acting up here. Were you quoting the bible, or Darwin? Because it seems like they might be saying... well, the exact same thing.
None of which were consistent with the actual content of Christianity.
But, while we're at it--are you proposing to show that these actions could have decreased the DNA propagation rates of the members of the Catholic Church here? I'd like to know what the objection is from -your- perspective.
No. I don't accept this line of reasoning at all. Apart from the question of his actual beliefs (i.e. directing his propaganda department to figure out how to get rid of "Christmas" in favor of "National Socialism day", suggests otherwise), the reality is that if a religion has a stance on particular actions, and a person claiming that religion does the precise opposite, it is that person who is to be blamed, not the religion.
Your reasoning here is no more valid than me shooting a bunch of people, claiming I'm a "free thinker" (in the hypothetical case your position actually had any moral expectations or weight at all, and codified somewhere "don't shoot people randomly"), and people concluding that it's the notion of "free thought" that is to be blamed.
No. "Homosexuality" is condemned nowhere. "Homosexual promiscuity" is. The notion that orientation by definition means one simply needs to fuck whatever it is, is entirely your pet notion.
The only "extremist" positions being offered here, are yours.
We have a methodology to address your non-representative examples, and demonstrate they should not be done, within the religious context itself. This is why you have near-universal rejection of the conclusions made in those cases, by theists themselves.
By contrast, there's absolutely no reason to object to either action from the standpoint of Naturalism that "sticks", much less any methodology to form a refined position. Neither the acid-tossers or the witch-burners, to all appearances, had a reduction in their DNA propagation rates, which is the only objection you could really theoretically make to any activity.
No, in fact, much, much closer. If you can compare, say, the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism and think the consensus is weaker on core points than the difference between Plato and Nietzsche, you are, I submit, wholly ignorant of both secular and religious philosophy.
Okay, well, in this context you can in fact question a particular person's claims to "God-given truth" by comparison to the reference documents as to whether it is contradictory to established doctrine.
I'm not sure how to address your undefined "evil" in "it will inevitably be used for evil", in a context where you demand 0% human survival. You'd probably have to elaborate.
I think we can, however, all agree that when religion is given the only say, that the results are uniformly horrifying.
Did you want a particular response to this direct and obvious lie, by the way?
Show me something comparable to Stalin and Mao, at a combined death toll of between 50 million and 100 million of their own citizens, atheist and theist alike. You have essentially two centuries to draw data points from (outside of the bloodbath of pre-religion evolution)--by comparison to religions' "liability" across all recorded history, your results aren't even close.
You don't think that we have any innate sense of right and wrong?
An "innate sense" is functionally worthless. For any given moral question, person A can claim his "innate sense" is the direct opposite of whatever person B claims is his "innate sense". Let's see, if this is true, what would we expect to see as a consequence, in verifiable reality... probably no real effective moral system emerging over any given period of time, and a history of extreme disagreement on most particular points and resulting interpersonal conflict and warfare throughout the population, and, hmm... probably a huge accretion of contradictory and arbitrary laws within secular legal systems.
Interesting. Precisely what we've got, and always have had. Hm.
Name one good, moral action that could not have been conceived of by a person of no faith.
The question is meaningless until you have a definition of "good" and "moral". I'll believe you have the very first, absolutely initial start to a sort-of beginning to that, willing to call it a "start" if we stipulate we're going to hugely overestimate the content offered in favor of your argument... when you have two atheists declare a standard, both agree to it, and show a rationale that it isn't a purely subjective personal opinion with zero weight behind it.
We've had 3000 years for a consensus on these questions to emerge from secular philosophy. Not even close.
Slashdot Mirror
slaughter the various peoples they encountered in Canaan, including the children, just because they weren't Israelites.
No. Since I realize you couldn't be bothered to google the actual scope of reasons at hand, we'll just go with the self-contradiction level. If this were true, God would have given a blanket command to kill all non-Israelites. He didn't.
"Some people said" isn't showing anything. Give me an argument derived from the defining documents of the religion.
Not comparable. There are definitional documents to reference to determine what "true Christianity" is, and is not.
Made even easier by having "moral" mean "whatever I want it to mean". Until a moral code is defined, or accepted, any given person is completely amoral.
What's yours?
BTW, it is precisely the uncertainty of faith that invalidates your argument. If one -knew- that they were going to receive a reward, that would be a different context--though, of course, your notion that you know this is the primary motivation is just an exercise in your apparent personal psychic powers to determine that one possible motivation within the religion is the exclusive one in mind by all the followers of it.
"I contend that we are both anarchists. I just believe in one less political party than you do."
I really never understood how anyone finds this argument even momentarily convincing.
Of course, "religion" per se could not possibly have a truth-value assignable to it (intentionally so, which is precisely why Dawkins, Hitchens, et al use the term so persistently--all that's left is to non-sequitur "no truth-value assignable" to "not true"), only a particular correct religion. It in no way follows from the fact the first is semantically impossible that the latter doesn't exist.
Nowhere did I say "Natural Selection", and I know very clearly what it is, how it works, and what it applies to.
I said "Natural Deselection". That you don't like the application of a turn of phrase has nothing to do with the content of Natural Selection, evolution, or my understanding of it.
Hey, whatever you need to try to tell yourself to make it though while you can...
Well, sure, I'd eliminate discretion in application from being a relevant factor, just like our judicial system does--because that wouldn't cause any problem with making my creation morally irrelevant to their own existence.
Oh wait. Actually, none of that is true.
Nothing I have said is in the least factually wrong, nor is the reason for people's emotionalism on this in the least unclear.
Are either of us unclear that there's only one religion Slashdot in general has in mind when arguments are presented against "religions"?
Okay, so then you're pro-Darwinism, or anti-Darwinism?
No, it is not a fallacy, it is a presumption of the argument.
That Judeo-Christian theism is more plausible than the alternatives, would be a premise not addressed by the argument.
I understand it fully. I also understand your psychological process of falsely equivocating for yourself that the survival of -information- would mean the survival of any particular biological entity, to coddle your feelings with respect to a possible future you formally disclaim.
This is a thread about -Hitchens-, right?
I think something about "can dish it out" comes into play here...
"and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
Sorry, my short attention span is acting up here. Were you quoting the bible, or Darwin? Because it seems like they might be saying... well, the exact same thing.
It would indeed be interesting to know what his alternate thoughts might have been upon his death, as that part is never optional.
None of which were consistent with the actual content of Christianity.
But, while we're at it--are you proposing to show that these actions could have decreased the DNA propagation rates of the members of the Catholic Church here? I'd like to know what the objection is from -your- perspective.
And Hitler was a Catholic -- so what?
No. I don't accept this line of reasoning at all. Apart from the question of his actual beliefs (i.e. directing his propaganda department to figure out how to get rid of "Christmas" in favor of "National Socialism day", suggests otherwise), the reality is that if a religion has a stance on particular actions, and a person claiming that religion does the precise opposite, it is that person who is to be blamed, not the religion.
Your reasoning here is no more valid than me shooting a bunch of people, claiming I'm a "free thinker" (in the hypothetical case your position actually had any moral expectations or weight at all, and codified somewhere "don't shoot people randomly"), and people concluding that it's the notion of "free thought" that is to be blamed.
No. "Homosexuality" is condemned nowhere. "Homosexual promiscuity" is. The notion that orientation by definition means one simply needs to fuck whatever it is, is entirely your pet notion.
The only "extremist" positions being offered here, are yours.
We have a methodology to address your non-representative examples, and demonstrate they should not be done, within the religious context itself. This is why you have near-universal rejection of the conclusions made in those cases, by theists themselves.
By contrast, there's absolutely no reason to object to either action from the standpoint of Naturalism that "sticks", much less any methodology to form a refined position. Neither the acid-tossers or the witch-burners, to all appearances, had a reduction in their DNA propagation rates, which is the only objection you could really theoretically make to any activity.
No, in fact, much, much closer. If you can compare, say, the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism and think the consensus is weaker on core points than the difference between Plato and Nietzsche, you are, I submit, wholly ignorant of both secular and religious philosophy.
Okay, well, in this context you can in fact question a particular person's claims to "God-given truth" by comparison to the reference documents as to whether it is contradictory to established doctrine.
I'm not sure how to address your undefined "evil" in "it will inevitably be used for evil", in a context where you demand 0% human survival. You'd probably have to elaborate.
I think we can, however, all agree that when religion is given the only say, that the results are uniformly horrifying.
Did you want a particular response to this direct and obvious lie, by the way?
Show me something comparable to Stalin and Mao, at a combined death toll of between 50 million and 100 million of their own citizens, atheist and theist alike. You have essentially two centuries to draw data points from (outside of the bloodbath of pre-religion evolution)--by comparison to religions' "liability" across all recorded history, your results aren't even close.
You don't think that we have any innate sense of right and wrong?
An "innate sense" is functionally worthless. For any given moral question, person A can claim his "innate sense" is the direct opposite of whatever person B claims is his "innate sense". Let's see, if this is true, what would we expect to see as a consequence, in verifiable reality... probably no real effective moral system emerging over any given period of time, and a history of extreme disagreement on most particular points and resulting interpersonal conflict and warfare throughout the population, and, hmm... probably a huge accretion of contradictory and arbitrary laws within secular legal systems.
Interesting. Precisely what we've got, and always have had. Hm.
Name one good, moral action that could not have been conceived of by a person of no faith.
The question is meaningless until you have a definition of "good" and "moral". I'll believe you have the very first, absolutely initial start to a sort-of beginning to that, willing to call it a "start" if we stipulate we're going to hugely overestimate the content offered in favor of your argument... when you have two atheists declare a standard, both agree to it, and show a rationale that it isn't a purely subjective personal opinion with zero weight behind it.
We've had 3000 years for a consensus on these questions to emerge from secular philosophy. Not even close.