The Glade 4.0

How, exactly. People who believe that the world is only 5,000 years old *are* objectively and absolutely incorrect. We know they are incorrect for a fact. We know the world is much older than that belief. We have mountains of objective evidence to support it. We don't take the existence of dinosaurs and their age on faith.



I certainly did not intend to lump LDS followers in with Christians specifically. I chose their beliefs because they are just as irrational as any other belief taken on faith. If you believe there should be some sort of hierarchy of irrationality (for example, the belief that God made the universe versus the belief in magical undergarments), that's your prerogative. The point is simple - there are tons and tons of irrational things that people believe in with their heart of hearts. Just like Prometheus and fire, just like Zeus and thunder, just like every other God man has ever conceived. It's no different in terms of irrationality. It's not more or less rational to accept that we are all just MEST bodies (thetans) than it is to believe that a carpenter's son was sent to earth by his father, who was also the carpenter's son, to save us all from our sins.

That's not an attack on the belief. Taking faith in those ideas without objective evidence *is*, however, irrational. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Human beings are irrational creatures. I am not trying to pass judgment on religious faith. I am, however, trying to draw the line between a rational conclusion based on objective evidence, and faith.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

And not I would point out that you are falling back to a variable interpretation of a loaded word to defend your position, the exact same technique to which you argue against when used against you. Irrational, while a potentially correct use of the word, is of course a fairly loaded choice in description of the belief system (hence the view point you question their sanity).


You most certainly did when you wrote this:

That isn't an attack. The world was not created in seven days (that's fiction). The human race is not descended from two lilly white europeans made in some deity's image and likeness (that's fiction). Magic underwear does not protect the mormons (that's fiction). Black people are not the living embodiment of the curse of Cain (that's fiction). A 19th century American did not actually get divine inspiration from a rock that he put in his hat (that's fiction). The wine in a Catholic eucharist ceremony does not actually change into blood (that's fiction).

These things are either facts, or fiction. Now, people can look at the fiction, and they can come to believe in their heart of hearts that it is true. That's not rational, but that's sort of the point of faith, isn't it? To believe without evidence? To believe, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary?

Faith is not rational. Atheism is not faith. It's a rational conclusion based on objective evidence. I don't consider myself to be above people who believe. But I am certainly not an atheist because of faith. I am an atheist because of objective evidence.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Argumentum ad nauseum. You really don't listen to anyone else's opinion do you? The only rational, objective position to take is agnosticism. Anything else requires faith.

That's not a rational position at all. Plato wrote at length about the subjectivity and relativism of human perception vis-a-vis the world around them. The Parable of the Cave is a perfectly useful example in this case. Your experiences and perceptual limitations preclude you from any objective epistemology. More to the point, by rejecting an untestable hypothesis (God exists), you're engaging in a teleological (first cause) instead of ontological (state of being) understanding of the Universe. Indeed, the entire problem here is your use of the word objective: objective observation of a complex system requires the observe exist outside the mechanistic realities of that system. Consequently, your position presupposes that you are capable of perceiving the realities around you.

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The Parable of the Cave by Plato is a perfect comparison. I would highly recommend reading it. Or in similar fashion, the book Flatland.

He's never treated the US as he has her enemies, either. Classic troll posts, basically. That, or he really does hate the US.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Once person's belittlement is another person's factual statement. This idea that I'm anti-Christian is ginned up. Saying "there is no objective evidence that Christ rose from the dead" is not an attack. It's a statement of fact. Now, some folks might take offense to that. But it's not in any way intended to be an attack.

I have a *ton* of objections to Islam's faith based ideas. I also have a *ton* of objections to the kind of culture that seems to permeate Islamic countries (although I honestly believe that if we were operating under a theocracy, our country would pretty much be indistinguishable, functionally).

However, there aren't a whole lot of Muslims (if any) on the board, and if they're here, they aren't advocating using their subjective faith-based beliefs to define secular law (which happens here less so these days, but the board has a history of it happening). And so it doesn't come up nearly as much. It should be no wonder that I wind up talking a lot more about my disagreements with Christianity than with Islam.

Khross - objective evidence. It exists, regardless of Plato's philosophy. What goes up indeed comes down. The laws of thermodynamics are real. Human beings evolved from being primates. You are entitled to take faith in whatever you want, but don't try to claim it's objectively true for others (which you have not done here). Faith is irrational. That's the point. That's the value.

For example, I take it on faith that my fiance is currently at work, registering children for school this year. While it's entirely possible that she's in the middle of meeting with some sort of spy contact to sell secret information to a group of alien invaders, it's not bloody likely. But, I admit that absent objective evidence, I am taking it on faith that she is where she is.

That's easy to do. Harder is trying to live your life according to the dictates of a given doctrine. I am simply not willing to take, on faith, the existence of some sort of Deity because someone tells me it's the truth. Especially if that someone is going to ask me to live my life a certain way as a result. No, I need more than that before I take that deity's existence to be a reality. I need objective evidence.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

This statement right here tells me you're either intellectually lazy or you won't read anything that doesn't fit your principles. I suggest you read the Parable of the Cave to fully understand why this statement means that I know you've never read it in your life.

Not to mention, we've all told you how much more complex epistemology is than, "The laws of thermodynamics are real." Or, "Humans beings evolved from being primates." You continue to refuse to even entertain that may be the case. By the way, ironically enough, macroevolution has never been objectively viewed, so you're basing that purely on faith. You can say the likelihood we descended from a common ape ancestor is more likely than not, but saying it, or anything for that matter, definitively, requires faith.

How is that anti-Christian? Look at the fundamentals of the Bible. It endorses things that are no less brutal than the Koran. Slavery, murder, genocide, crazy sex stuff, homosexuality as a capital offense, male dominion - Fundamentalists believe all of those things are true. Objectively true, for all people. That's no different than a similar interpretation of Islam. And it seems pretty clear to me that extremists in both religions are equally capable of violence and hate.

Our society is secular, and so the crazy people that use their holy book as a justification for their insanity are less able to exercise that insanity. But, if situations were different, and if we lived in a theocracy, I don't really see how it would be any different. Extremism is pretty much the same, regardless of the religion. We would have stoning in the streets, beheading - you name it. Christianity is no less vulnerable to extremism than any other faith.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Really, this is irrelevant. Whether God exists is not affected by what the Bible endorses (and claiming it "endorses" those things unequivocally is precisely the mistake Fundamentalists make, as if the NT didn't exist)



Completely irrelevant, and revealing of significant stereotyping against Christians.

A number of countries have Christianity in some form as an official religion, including state employed clergy in some cases. How many of these ever stone or behead anyone?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Theocracy is not the same thing as having an official religion. Please, DE, please. Stop inventing positions and motivations for me that do not exist. If you're going to write my posts for me, you may as well have my account information.

No, don't get your hopes up, folks.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

How many stonings occur in current Theocracies? How many beheadings? How many where there is a State Religion? How about in current Christian Theocracies? Where Christianity is the State Religion?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I don't recall reading of weekly stonings in the Vatican. Maybe it's just not populous enough.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I didn't say that a country with an official religion is the same as a Theocracy, and I didn't say you thought it was. Stop pretending positions are being invented for you when they aren't.

I asked you, how often do such things occur in countries which have Christianity as an official religion? Only one that I know of is a Theocracy, and it exists for no purpose as a nation other than to serve as the spiritual focal point for followers of the same faith in other nations.

However, there are numerous countries that are either muslim theocracies or where Islamic law and Islamic clerics have major government, or government-like authority. In many of those countries, beheadings are common, and stonings occur as well.

So, why don't you explain then how both faiths are the same in that regard? Islam is very vulnerable to extremism because of its legalism and its lack of separation of the secular and religious. In Christianity, the Christians that are most likely to be extremists are also the most legalistic and see the least separation between secular and religious life (i.e. Protestant fundamentalists), but those attributes are part of their denominational mindset, not basic to the structure of the faith, which is why all Christians are not Protestant Fundamentalists; in fact most aren't even Protestants.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That's not what you're saying. You're saying the Bible is fiction. If that's not intolerance, then fine - the idea that homosexuality is not a choice is fiction.



Yes, they can. You should try this.

Hell, I fiercely support the right and freedom to worship. [/quote]

No you don't. It must be constrained and confined so that you don't see it.

What would your reaction be if no displays of homosexuality could be found in the public square?

Would you agree that Allegory is a form of fiction? Is it objectively true that Adam and Eve were the first human couple, that they were tossed out of the alleged Garden of Eden, that Eve was created using Adam's actual rib, etc? Of course it's not objectively true. It is fiction. Most of the Bible is a very impressive work of literary fiction, with some actual history tossed into the mix. That doesn't lower it's value. It's not an attack on the Bible to say something that's objectively true about the Bible. We didn't come from Adam and Eve. The world was not created in seven solar days, as the Bible claims. There is no firmament. Noah didn't actually do what the Bible claims he did, as the Bible claims it. The world is much older than the Bible and it's scholars claim. It's allegory. And that makes it fiction. Now, people who believe that it's true might take offense at that, but it's not an attack leveled at Christians or Christianity.




Homosexuality is a religion, now? I suppose if folks want to say Atheism is a religion, then they could say everything is a religion...

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Allegory is not fiction; it is a transformation of language or substance that represents meaning beyond the literal. It is a basic trope in written and spoken language. It is, ironically, the fundamental impetus of your stage art. Allegory is a way of transmitting meaning. The veracity of the meaning is entirely independent of whether or not allegory is used.

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You have absolutely no intention of furthering your knowledge or intellectual ability, do you? You're ignorant, and by god that's the way you likes it! You don't have to read anyone else's theories or explanations to know that they're wrong! The Book of Monte is divinely inspired, and anything that contradicts it is just false. Period. End of discussion.

You have no idea how unintentionally hilarious it is when you try to argue that you aren't religious. You are zealously religious, but utterly incapable of seeing that.

Let me put it plainly -- when you talk about "facts" and "objectivity":

You know not of what you speak.

You are fundamentally ignorant of these topics and you refuse every opportunity given to you to actually study them. Epistemology, a.k.a. the theory of knowledge, is the branch of study that examines knowledge: What does it mean to "know" something? Are there different kinds of knowledge? How do we acquire knowledge? What is a "fact"? etc. You don't have a basic grasp of the principles involved, and consequently you're just spewing out a mess of self-contradictory nonsense. And in any case, without laying out a framework and context for what you mean by "knowledge" and "objectivity", your arguments have no traction. Do us all a favor and either educate yourself on the subject matter at hand, or else just admit ignorance and move on.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Or, England, Iceland, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Monaco, Scotland and the Netherlands, to name a few. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya and Somalia on the other hand...

Awww, Stathol, that's too haaaard. Heck, learning to spell epistemology is an intellectual bridge too far. Reading DailyKos and Media Matters gives you all you need to know in nice little bite-sized talking points.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Allegory is fiction probably 99% of the time... so empirically... it seems to be.

edit:

Nevermind... Khross corrected me in IM.