The Glade 4.0

Actually it very much is the argument. It's not my fault you don't understand or comprehend it.

_________________
"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

He understands it fine. The problem is, it's bullshit. The heterosexual can marry the one they love, they gay person cannot. In order for them to have the same rights, the gay person would also have to be able to marry the person they loved.


The argument that "A gay man can marry a woman just like a straight man can, so they have equal rights already" is just being a juvenile smartass and you know it.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

So now it's about love?

Who one "loves" cannot and will not ever be defined in law. Who one chooses is but the laws of choosing apply equally to everyone. So NF is correct in the sense it is not an issue of discrimination.

However, if you ask NF, I'm sure he doesn't give a **** about gay people marrying. So make of that what you will.

I also remain starkly unconvinced that religion is the bane of man some are making it out to be. What is being lamented is more fundamental to human nature and distinct from the philosophical questions of origin and purpose and constructs that have formed around questions of that nature. The very fact we're now trying to shoehorn anti-religious leaders to be some sort of psuedo-gods to therefore broaden the definition of what religion is and what evils it has purportedly perpetrated convinces me more of this. Demagoguery and cultism (word?) toward manipulative ends, intentional or not, are not exclusive to religion nor a required feature.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Bigots are good villains. They make it so easy.

_________________

Holy shitsnacks!

I can deal with that summation.

So the intimation is without the belief, the child-touching wouldn't exist?



A) Since when were there goalposts?
B) Persecution is not a legal matter, did you think I meant prosecute?



I love the fact that you are offended when I lump you in with the more bigoted sections of the Christian faith, and then proceed to lump me in with those like Talya and Corolinth who absolutely refuse to see good in religion. This delightful ad hominem attack (success!) also completely ignored the original point. If you don't believe the church's views on homosexuality are backwards, why would you not defend it, rather than attacking the source of criticism?



Generally speaking, most agnostics and athiests don't care what you believe, as long as you don't get them involved. Claiming that there is a social stigma in wider culture is somewhat laughable in its own right, considering you can't watch a sporting event without some athlete thanking god. Or any awards show without hearing god mentioned in about half the acceptance speeches. Or that any politician who forgets to say "god bless America" gets scathing, hate-filled reviews from the religious right which gets picked up by major news outlets.

This belief that it is somehow hard to be Christian in America is just dumb, and needs to go away.



I don't like the Catholic pedophilia scandal any more than you do. I'd rather it not exist, so that discussions like this can be about matters of faith rather than matters of events (a discussion, by the way, that I've had no small amount of times with members of other faiths, and have found them to be particularly enlightening.) But ignoring the scandal is what has gotten the Catholic church into trouble, when a heartfelt acknowledgment of those wrongs would have done both the church and the victims a whole lot more good than what has been done to this point.

By the by, in reference to the "puffball out of nothing" comment: "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it." It's kind of hard to mock science for attempting to explain via evidence the things that religion has been trying to explain via faith forever.

At any rate, it seems to me that there is a pervasive belief that any criticism of religion amounts to a condemnation of any individual who is religious, which I don't personally believe in. I withhold my own judgments on the nature of a person and his character based on his actions, rather than his profession of his belief. It has been consistently disappointing to me the number of Christians who ignore the tenets of Christianity when faced with criticism of the religion as a whole, especially considering that the majority of adherents of other faiths to whom I have spoken at length have been, at the least, patronizingly self-assured of their own religion. Ask a Muslim what he thinks of his religion being used to foster terror around the world, and he will likely condemn the perversion of his religion by fanatics. Ask a Christian what he thinks of the pedophilia scandal, and he'll condemn you for deigning to insult his faith.

That difference, to me, speaks volumes.

This sentence is incomprehensible.



Persecution is a matter of actual harm inflicted on people. The lack of legal power in most countries means the Catholic Church has no ability to persecute anyone. Hence the reason Stalin wanted to know how many divisions the Pope commanded. Without the ability to exercise force, persecution cannot be accomplished.

As for goalposts, familiarize yourself with the expression. It's common knowledge.



Because while I disagree with the beliefs, the criticisms are invariably self-serving, and more often than not, idiotic.



The fact of the matter is that most Atheists and Agnostics care very much what everyone else believes and miss no opportunity to attempt to create social stigma. The events syou cite above are testimony only to a lack of generalized success.



No one said any such thing. That does not change the fact that if atheists had their way it would be exceedingly hard.



Ignoring the scandal does not excuse the exploitation of the scandal by anti-Catholics. Two wrongs do not make a right.



Religion is true whether or not you believe in it as well. You cannot make God untrue by refusing to believe in Him. As for science, by definition, it cannot explain why the Big Bang or any other theory of universal creation would occur. They involve factors outside the universe and thus not within the ability of science to observe and measure. We make observations within the physical laws that create the ability to observe, so anything outside those laws cannot be observed and is not the realm of science.



That's nice. What speaks volumes to me is the incredible hypocrisy of this view.

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

I'm still not entirely certain you understand the meaning of the word "persecute," and would recommend a dictionary to resolve that issue.

I am also familiar with the "moving the goalposts" expression. It's a catchphrase with no inherent meaning. I'm sure you're pleased that you're up on the political discourse of the day, but I prefer more substantive conversation. Stating that I'm "moving the goalposts" implies that there were goalposts to begin with, and that I care where they're placed, neither of which are true.



I'm not sure how my criticism of the Catholic church over the hiding of child molesters is self-serving. I am not a child, and do not have children, in fact, there are very few children I even remotely care about. I do, however, see the wrong in any organization hiding such beasts in order to avoid bad press and succeeding.

If you mean self-serving in the sense that reinforces my religious beliefs? I haven't even begun to discuss my personal religious beliefs here, and I won't unless someone asks me to. Therefore, I'm not sure how you can claim that any statement I make is self-serving. My life is not enriched by the things I say, but by the things I hear.



I like how you profess that the Catholic church needn't cater to those who are not a member of their religion, and then profess to know how most athiests or agnostics feel. I must confess that I don't know enough athiests or agnostics to make any definitive statements as to numbers on the matter. However, being an athiest or agnostic (and slightly indecisive as to which at any given moment), I do feel more qualified than you as to reference their state of mind.

The issue, primarily, isn't what you believe, it's how you express that belief. Those of my particular ilk don't look down on Christians for the mere fact that they believe in Christian dogma, they look down on Christians for the incessant profession of that faith in situations where no one asked them to, as well as the disdain many Christians hold for members of other faiths.

If you want the athiests to stop harassing Christians, perhaps you should try to understand that it's primarily a reflexive behavior.



I have never heard an athiest decry a Christian's ability to worship god in the fashion that he chooses. The first amendment protects your right to observe your religion. It does not, however, protect your right to foist that religion upon others, which Christianity seems to feel it has the right to. I fail to see how removing religious scripture from government buildings and the banning of sponsored prayer in government-subsidized schools is somehow making being a Christian harder.



Apparently the Catholic faith believes so, hence their covering up of pedophilia by their priests.



Instead of "untrue," perhaps you're looking for "false." And the fact is that, thousands of years ago, there were prayers offered to Egyptian and Aztec gods, whom we now learn about quaintly in history classes. Those people believed in the truth of their gods every bit as much as you believe in the truth of your own. That doesn't make your religion "true," it makes it an hypothesis which is impossible to prove or disprove. Such matters are not in the interest of rational thought, and attempting to rationally argue for or against religion is its own sort of fallacy.

It is fine for you to believe that your religion is truth, but that doesn't make it true. And I don't have a problem, in general, with people saying "god caused the Big Bang," but such statements are entirely supposition with no basis in fact. It is true that just about any other explanation we might have is just as much supposition, but you cannot parade any of those suppositions as the truth.



I'm not sure to what you are referring, because I'm not sure what possible definition of hypocrisy you might be using. Given the remainder of your posts, I'm not sure your definition equates to what it actually means in the slightest.

He didn't say it was just coming from your side of this "debate".

I find the religious debates between the religion of atheism and the religion of Christ to always be fascinating.

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

If you think I'm not aware of it's meaning, then you clearly are not. You are in no position to be recommending dictionaries to anyone.



It's a common phrase and has a common meaning and has been in common use around here for some time. You don't prefer "more substantive" conversation at all; you're taking exception to it because it's inconvenient for you.
.


That's nice. However, the bringing it up in relation to any topic relating to the catholic church is common practice, regardless of relevancy. It isn't all about what you personally do.



Maybe you shouldn't fixate on yourself too much.



I like that you feel those statements are somehow have something to do with each other.



I don't really care how you feel. You can tell me what their state of mind is all you want; their behavior in public conversation is clear. I also don't see you taking issue with statements about how "American Christians" think.



The problem being that neither you, nor anyone of your "ilk" is in any position to "look down". Atheism does not put you in an intellectually superior position. Furthermore, the relentless attempts to appeal to ridicule at the expense of logic indicate that Christian dogma is, in fact, a major target. No matter how many times silly "fairy" allegories are made, they remain devoid of reason, but that does not stop them. Evidently it just makes atheists feel better.


Thank you for admitting it's reflexive. We agree, it is not based on anything approaching a desire for honest discussion. Atheists react just as viscerally and thoughtlessly to beliefs they disagree with as anyone else; claims to being founded in "Reason" notwithstanding.



You have not been paying attention.



Perhaps you should pay more attention to statements that imply the religion should have "no influence" on public life. Seeing as how religious people vote based on their beliefs, that would imply religious people don't have the right to vote because somehow that violates the First Amendment. Pretending that school prayer and government buildings ith scripture (the first a long-dead issue, the second entirely cosmetic) are solely the issues at hand is disingenuous. Or how about atheists advocating that, essentially, children not be allowed to practice religion? A more insididous attack is hard to imagine.



Apparently the Catholic Church thinks that bad news gets better with time. The Catholic "faith" does not have any such belief. You should appreciate that given your pedantic whining about the word "persecute" above and further semantic distractions below.



As a matter of fact they very much are in the interest of rational thought. Furthermore, all religions are not automatically equal, and your attempt to assume they are simply becuase they're religion is typical question-begging for which atheists are known. The fact of the matter is that I have a book full of evidence in favor of what I believe, the known existence of the nations and major characters of that book, the inexplicable conversion of a specific {harisee from Tarsus, and the fact that the survival and world expansion of Christianity from the tribal religion of Judaism in the face of Roman persecution. While none of this comes close to legal or logical "proof" of christianity, they are evidence that doesn't exist for ancient Egyptian religions and if you do not think so then you don't understand the concept of evidence.

Furthermore, attempts to argue for or against religion are not their own sort of fallacy. You are fundamentally incorrect.



A fact which does nothing whatsoever to advance any argument. The original point was that I can ridicule "scientific" explanations for the big bang just as easy as nonbelievers can ridicule religious ones. You have accomplished nothing here except to affirm that point.



I'm well aware at this point you are very good at trying to talk down to people and pretend you're in some position of intellectual superiority, but you're really just a pompous blowhard who doesn't understand the topics he's addressing. You started off trying to lecture everyone here with your viewpoints on driving safety and rapidly demonstrated that you didn't understand that, either. You're not doing any better here.

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

Atheism as a religion really belongs on memebase.com

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

That depends on how you define religion ...

If we go with religion's defining characteristic as a belief in the supernatural, it's not so much.

If we go with the notion that religion is defined by its codified belief structure, dogma, and doctrine ... atheism is definitely a religion.

_________________

source

4 would definitely apply to atheism. 2 could also apply, depending on the circular definition of religious. It may be overreaching to lump atheism into a single collective dogma, but the same could be applied to the way most Americans define Christianity.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I don't understand how a lack of belief can be considered a religion. If you wish to argue that atheist movements and organizations are religious in nature, then I could agree. Otherwise, you are stating that everything is a religion, belief in a god(s) or no belief in supernatural at all. That makes no sense to me.

Not really. Most "Atheists" are not really Atheists. They're more correctly agnostics who have no conviction about a belief in the supernatural whatsoever...we simply give it the same lack of consideration we give every other incredible claim with no empirical evidence whatsoever to back it up. God is not found in reason or logic, therefore, it is simply not considered. Science and logic and reason are not a "cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith," it is a method of investigating the universe we live in; it is a search for truth, with the knowledge that everything you find is still capable of being invalidated. It is a search for knowledge and understanding of nature, nothing more.

While investigating the natural world rationally, you will learn that much of religion is bullshit. Some religion makes absurd claims about the world which are easily falsifiable through many avenues of investigation (6000 year old Earth, discrete creationism, worldwide flood, etc.) None of that, however, proves that there is no god. The claim of the divine cannot be disproven. It's an unfalsifiable assertion without evidence, as such it is, at best, simply ignored.

Atheism becomes faith -- even religion -- the moment it crosses from the stance above into "There is no possibility that there is a God. The supernatural does not exist, it is impossible." At this point, the Atheist has become the very thing he is fighting against - religious.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

As I see it, religion is a social mechanism created to describe the search for answers to the questions "where did we come from?" and "what's out purpose?", as well as "is there a plan?", etc. The "bigger than me, bigger than I can understand" kinda stuff, and then belief happens when you chose an answer, pretty much by definition. So, all of that's "religion".

Now, insisting ... believing ... that a random number generator is the answer to those questions, or insisting that God doesn't exist (which is indistinguishable from RNG in my book) ... well, describes the search and answer to the questions, and that's what makes it a religion as far as I'm concerned.

_________________
In time, this too shall pass.

Once again, science and logic do not insist upon, believe, or choose anything. They investigate and see what they find. They may extrapolate based on what they find, but nothing is "selected" concretely. Probabilities and possibilities are investigated. Science is skepticism... all possibilities are subjected to a constant attempt to disprove them, and as such, scientific ideas are constantly discarded and reformulated to fit known facts. One of the issues with "God" is not only the lack of evidence, but the lack of falsifiability.

Individuals may select a scientific premise and treat it like dogma. In the rare cases where those in the scientific community do this, it hinders progress, rather than promotes it -- yet another way in which such "hard atheism" might resemble religion. Science never stops digging, but faith and belief presuppose that the answers have been found to satisfaction. This presupposition of having already found the answers is the enemy of knowledge.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

The issue you are running into is that the overwhelming majority of religious individuals are unable to comprehend not having a religion. Because many nonreligious individuals experienced attempts at religious indoctrination early in life, even a great deal of atheists can not comprehend the lack of religion. Religion is so thoroughly ingrained in their thinking that they are fundamentally incapable of conceptualizing not believing, as religion demands above all else that you believe. This leads to the deeply flawed notion that atheism is a religion.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Not so much, Corolinth. The problem isn't extant, residual indoctrination; the problem is moving from a point of acknowledged ignorance (we can't know) to a definitive statement of belief either way. It takes belief to categorically deny the existence of those things beyond our perceptual and observational limitations -- the Supernatural. Now, we can encumber the Supernatural with some 4000 years of additional faith systems, stigma, and connotative attachments, but that doesn't change the fact that the Supernatural is ultimately everything beyond our observational reality. Quarks were Supernatural to the Greeks.

_________________

That's just an alternate way of paraphrasing Arthur C. Clarke's 3rd law.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Supernatural is a word that makes little sense in real world terms, to me. It's something not of nature, so thus cannot be experienced by us. And since I have no good reason to believe any such thing exist, it's a useless word for me to consider outside of a fiction work.

I do not use it to describe those things that I do not know. I simply state, "I do not know". And that's okay, although I understand some people have a problem with not knowing.

I guess I was referring to radical or activist atheism. The insistence that others must believe or act as if God does not exist.

I can't make anyone believe anything. All I want are the freedoms I'm supposed to have to act on my faith and to speak out about how I perceive it effects people and culture.

After all if I really believe what I believe how could I not? Penn Gillette (of all people) has a great quote about that.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Pulling out some random quotes, because if it's not out-of-context, it's not relevant:



Perhaps those who are religious should fixate on themselves more, and stop trying to be the moral police for others. I speak largely in the first person because I am espousing my beliefs and opinion. I do generally agree that atheists, in general, have a sort of air of intellectual superiority that I don't feel is grounded in reality. The vast majority of the world's greatest thinkers have been religious in some form or fashion, so I can't say that atheists are, by and large, more intelligent.

However, being an intelligent Christian (or member of any faith) is recognizing that faith's relation to what reality is. There is a significant problem with people using faith as a basis for flat Earth theory, or the claim that dinosaurs and man existed at the same time. This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed, because these are people who are actively attempting to undermine scientific study.

Likewise, those of the WBC, or other organizations who feel it their duty to fix or condemn homosexuality, or abortion, or undermine stem cell research, or methods we have in place to prevent unwanted pregnancy and the spread of STD's are similarly causing significant serious harm in the world, and you cannot deny that those beliefs are at least expressed in a religious manner.

As I have stated before, I would personally be offended to see my faith corrupted in such a manner. Turning the lens back on myself, do I hate atheists who incessantly mock the faithful? It depends largely on how the point is made, much in the same way that I treat Christians. Reasonable, insightful discussion is not something I am ever against, though the mocking of belief in an invisible man in the sky thing goes a bit far sometimes.



The first is not a long-dead issue, Huckabee advocated prayer in schools shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings. The second is also not entirely cosmetic, though it is a fight that I, personally, don't care about. The purpose, also, in providing examples is not to imply that these are the only issues at hand, but simply that they are some of the issues at hand.

In more direct response: I don't imply that religion should not inform public life, people should have the freedom to vote and advocate for the things they see fit in the manner that they see fit. If you find gay marriage to go against your religious doctrine, then you should be free to speak against it, just as I find no issue with it, according to my religious doctrine, and should also feel free to speak for it. The implication that the removal of religious material from government-operated institutions somehow removes the capability for a person to make decisions on a religious basis is silly.



I am not one to waste words, the phrase that I used was "attempting to rationally argue for or against religion is its own sort of fallacy." Religion, inherently, requires faith, which isn't a rational construct. Having faith is as much feeling as it is thinking, and is not a dispassionate activity. Therefore, attempting to argue for or against faith purely on reason alone doesn't work, because it ignores the emotional weight of that faith, something which cannot be reasoned against.

As for your book full of evidence, I'm not entirely certain as to what book you mean. If you mean the Bible, it is not an historically accurate record, and even contradicts itself on a number of things. There is a vast amount of information stated as fact within the Bible which cannot be corroborated, and therefore, cannot be accepted, reasonably, as fact. In addition, the specific examples quoted don't lend any evidence to Christianity being any more accurate or correct than the documents for any other religion. Christianity is hardly the only religion to survive persecution to have widespread influence.

As for the historical existence of characters and nations from the Bible, this much is true, but that implies that I should give Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter the same weight, which I think we all would agree is silly. Containing facts does not make the entire document factual.

The Bible, itself, is what it is, which is an allegorical tale, and one that has been pretty effective at that. But when you start making arguments for the Bible as a factual record, then you start claiming pillars of salt and worldwide floods as fact as well, which is heading down a pretty dangerous path.



When discussing religion, it is often helpful to categorize things. Various religions have some wildly different sects, most notably shi'ite and sunni Muslims, but that phenomenon is apparent in Christianity as well. If the categorization of religion is your feelings in relation to morality, the creation of the universe, and what happens after you die (and also encompassing a myriad of other beliefs often associated with religion), then atheism does qualify, in the sense that you do have an opinion on those things. Agnostics are about as close as you can get to "not having a religion," in the sense that they prefer not to proffer an opinion.



Claims as to the perfectly rational nature of science ignore the fact that science is a construct of people, and inherently has to subscribe to the non-rational nature of human beings. Try as we might, we cannot view the universe as purely objective and rational beings, because none of us are such beings. Scientists, by and large, get sucked into their own subjective viewpoints quite often, most notably overall in the climate change debate, where it's difficult to find any concrete, objective discussion on the matter.

Making the assumption that science is purely rational and has no personal bias is a form of hubris that I don't personally subscribe to. In the grand scheme of things, science and reason inevitably prove out as rational and objective because they're shooting at a moving target. We believe the atom to be indivisible, until we find proof that it isn't, and then we change our beliefs. It's that ability to change the belief in the face of evidence to the contrary that provides science a more logical viewpoint on the way things are.

It's not that I'm attempting to prove science to be illogical, or without reason, but a blind belief in science is as useful to rational thought as a blind belief in a god.



Unfortunately, the weight carried behind a word such as "indoctrination" inherently defeats any attempt to discuss the concept. We are all indoctrinated, in some form or another, from birth, and shaking precepts which we have been reinforced to believe all our lives is something that is extremely difficult for anyone, whether it be religious belief, or your grandmother not being able to check her e-mail without formatting her hard drive.

The belief that science provides the answers to all things is as much indoctrination as belief in a religion. Science does have the advantage of being able to consistently and repeatedly prove certain things, but science cannot explain everything, and for that we turn to imagination. The healthy means of creating suppositions about the unknown is in allegory. The unhealthy means is applying that belief as fact.



Had a paragraph here, but that was basically Talya and Sam's posts.



I generally don't cotton to Penn's discussions on religion, given his pretty radically anti-religious bent. However, there is, in this, a point that I like to make quite a bit.

Those who attempt to defend their beliefs are, inherently, unsure of those beliefs. In a sense, everyone obviously believes that their way of thinking is better than everyone else's, because if they didn't believe that, they wouldn't think that way. It's a rational viewpoint to take on this subject, and one which often goes ignored.