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Colonel_here
Adventuring Hero
Descendant of Ghengis Khan
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posted April 23, 2007 05:31 PM |
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Here to add to the discussion. This is the article from Macleans's magazine (April 16th issue. I read it while was at the dentist's office. Back several years ago Maclean's put the Is God Dead? question on the front page of the magazine, now it put Is God Poison? on front page. So I'll be typing up the article page by page because I can't link to it since Maclean's charges for such things...damn bourgeois. Anything in the [] are my comments.
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God is a delusion, if his enemies are to be believed: nothing more than the creation of a species with prefrontal lobes too small, and aggressive instincts too strong, for its own good. His worship is poison: his adherents commit child abuse - metaphoric and actual - on a daily basis; and the murderous clashes of rival gangs of his followers are the greatest single threat to humanity's future. Whatever else God may be, he is most assuredly not dead. You can take his critics' word, and the depth of their passion, for that.
Next month sees the publication of Christopher Hitchen's God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, a coruscating moral denunciation by the polemicist tutti polemicists. It will join the steady stream of atheist texts that began fiver years ago, after 9/11 so brutally demonstrated that religious fanaticism is still a force to be reckoned with. So too is atheism, at least as far as book sales go. Oxford scientist Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, which combines merciless schoolboy-level mockery of religion with the lessons of evolutionary biology, has been a fixture on bestseller lists since fall. [Actually it is hard for the guy to stay down from bestsellers list, he writes one book every year on the subject. The fact that the guy manages to write on same subject for so long and keep his books selling is amazing.] Letter to a Christian Nation, in which American Sam Harris casually states that raising children to believe they are members of a religious group is "ludicrous obscenity", nevertheless became a Book-of-the Month club selection last year. And Michel Onfray's In Defense of Atheism, which drips with Gallic scorn for the feeble-minded faithful, and praises the French Revolution for turning all the churches into hospitals, was a bestseller across Europe and, in translation, now on this side of the Atlantic as well.
"the argument between faith and non-faith is cresting again, in a way that's not been seen since the Scopes monkey trial," Hichens says over the phone from his Washington home. "Whether we're arguing about intervening in Darfur or about the recognition of gay marriage, underneath we're always arguing about religion." He could easily have added from endless series of other topics across Europe and North America: hot-button issues in a debate many though was long over.
Today, 82 years after Scopes, the never-ending struggle between supporters and opponents over inserting Intelligent Design, creationism's latest incarnation, into the nation's schools is a religious fight. (It's one that invokes fierce passions: judges who have ruled ID unconstitutional have received death threats.) Angry debates over the permissibility of abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research, and the public display of religious symbols and icons are all essentially faith-based. In America many of the devout not only wish to maintain the customary display of Christmas imagery in public places, but to add to it in particular by posting the Ten Commandments in courthouses.
In more secular Canada the now-settled issue of gay marriage rights was fought over scriptural grounds, so is the residual matter of whether marriage commissioners can opt out of officiating gay weddings. As with pursuing conscientious objector status in wartime, only a religious justification will receive even a hearing. A tiny Quebec town's adoption of "standards" for its (non-existent) immigrants is now internationally infamous. [A small township said that anybody who lives in their area are not allowed to do certain things. Most of them are anti-Muslim, pro-Christian standards]. Across the country there have been fights over practices associated with the stricter forms of various religions - wearing facial veils (Islam), carrying even symbolic weapons (Sikhism), gender segregation (Judaism) and the less-than-scientific biology taught in some religious schools (Christianity).
No surprise, then, that what Hitchens calls "the oldest argument in human history" is increasingly engaging the public. In London's Westminster Central Hall on March 27, some 2000 people turned out to hear Hitchens, Dawkins and philosopher A.C. Grayling debate a trio of religious authorities on the question "We'd be better off without Religion." (the motion carried, 1205 to 778) Hitchens is pleases to see the interest.He thinks it's a sign of hope. "We atheists never thought religion would die out," he continues, "because it comes from fear of death, but we did think theocracy would die. Instead, those of us who used to think we'd just live a life free from religion are fed up with insults and threats from believers, with Danish cartoonists who can't work and murdered Dutch filmmakers, with saying getting AIDS is better, more godly, than using condoms. (I think the argument that even though you suffer in this life you would be rewarded by Jesus Christ in heaven). You know who's a neighbour of mine now? Ayaan Hirsi Ali - America's first refugee from western Europe in living memory."
As Hitchens suggests, atheists were already uneasy with trends in their own Western societies when they awoke to the rude shock of Islamic terrorism -the attacks in New York, London and Madrid, the murderous Sunni-Shia civil war in Iraq. The vents galvanized them, but not only against militant Islam, as one might expect. The atheist authors all agree a clash of civilizations is under way, but it's not between East and West, or Muslim and Christians, but between rationality and superstition. Onfray, who despises equally what he calls "the fascism of the lion" (the Western side) and the "fascism of the fox" (the Muslim world), refuses to take sides, while Dawkins and Harris are primarily devoted to battling American Christianity.
The Oxford professor, in particular, seems genuinely worried over the possible emergence of the ultimate rogue state, a nuclear-armed American Christian fundamentalist theocracy. (Dawkins' anti-religious beliefs are tightly grafted to his anti-Americanism. Especially his anti-Bushism : "I just can't stand the man's style," he told the Times of London, "the way he swaggers and struts and smirks and the wa he looks sly and deceitful and the way Americans can't see it.")[have to agree with Dawkins about Bush's appearance, he is the only person who doesn't have a smart face or doesn't look presentable on any picture I have seen.] Like Harris, Dawkins thinks something can and should be be done about this - oddly enough, through ridicule of "dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads."
Next page coming tomorrow.
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"The job of saving the lives of those who are sinking is the task of those who are sinking" - Ostap Bender
"Only a fool fights a battle he knows he can not win" - Ghengiz Khan
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baklava
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Mostly harmless
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posted April 23, 2007 10:28 PM |
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Next page coming tomorrow.
Can't wait... 
I can't believe you people just can't seem to get tired of this...
Btw theocracy isn't necessarily an awful thing... Byzantium, for example, was a great country, and it was a theocracy. It's a bit obsolete as a system though...
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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executor
Famous Hero
Otherworldly Ambassador
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posted April 24, 2007 03:34 AM |
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Edited by executor at 03:34, 24 Apr 2007.
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==offtopic==
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Byzantium, for example, was a great country, and it was a theocracy. It's a bit obsolete as a system though...
We are not only both Slav, baklava, but we both admire Byzantium as well!!
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Understanding is a three-edged sword.
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted April 24, 2007 02:05 PM |
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@TitaniumAlloy: First of all, I don't really think I understand you.
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Why can't you eat something not real? It's not something bad at all.
Because you'll die. Pretty simple.
Aha, so I die if I imagine a pizza right now and eat it? 
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Normal as in what you do, normally.
A delusional criminal thinks he is normal, but compared to the general population, hes not. If the general population were cannibals, then a cannibal would be normal. weird huh
Normal is subjective, like real. But that kind of talk is for philosophers, not normal, real life
Believing/disbelieving in something (e.g God) is not related to the quantity of the people -- does it matter that 100 people think the Earth is flat, while only 1 person thinks it's round (and they say that "proofs" from that 1 person are false and do not take it seriously).
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It's obvious? How? What makes him feel that way?
What makes you feel there is no God? What makes you different than him?
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No one acts differently upon the acknowledgement of the possibility that we are in a computer matrix. No one.
Ok, so you take the Blue Pill or the Red Pill? Based on your statement, everyone should take the Blue Pill, right?
in case you don't know, the blue pill allowed Neo to simply carry life on as before (in the 'happy' illusion)
in the red pill, the answer "what is the matrix" was given (no, not a statement, but the 'true' world).
Of course that's only in the movie and fiction blabla, but the concept and perhaps moral of these 2 pills is interesting. I for example would have taken the Red Pill. (you can imagine "The Matrix" as being a different world, or God's world, whatever you want).
In my opinion, we should seek enlightenment and wisdom rather than only happiness 
if you didn't understand or didn't watch the movie, here's a quote with the pills:
Morpheus: You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. [You live happy in ignoration]
You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
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Well clearly you can, otherwise you wouldn't know about them.
I said logical like "you take one rock and another, and that makes two"
You can prove complex numbers, but with what? With rules that WE, humans, made up. Furthermore these numbers are abstract to our logic, we cannot see them in real life (like counting, etc).
Yet we can prove them with our rules, made up by us. And they are imaginary. The imaginary component i has this name for a reason.
God is imaginary. With other rules. You say He is made up by man. But math rules are made up as well (such as complex numbers). It's easy to see 4 times 5 is called 20, but complex numbers? What real life and straightforward example would you see as having an imaginary component?
Without our math rules, we wouldn't be able to explain them. So math is made up as well, except perhaps arithmetic.
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Yes you can. You can see many immediate results from a black hole, such as the accretion disc, the rays emitted.
I meant inside the Black Hole.
Go inside a Black Hole. Who knows what would happen? Let's suppose you'll be sent into the past.
Now you try to convince people that you say the truth. If you would meet yourself, what would be the outcome? I can only imagine about "stories" made up by a 'from-the-future TitaniumAlloy", bleah fairy tales.
Would you care to prove to these ignorant humans who will tell you you're making up stories and need a vacation that you really were sent back in time? You have that knowledge for yourself, humans can be stubborn and ignorant, yes I know
Again this was only an example, not even sure how sent-into-the-past on Earth is really gonna happen, but you can get the idea.
Furthermore, you can also pick up a scenario in which you get into a Black Hole and meet God, then you're sent into Earth 5 years in the past. Same outcome as above, right?
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there are no such thing as black holes
otherwise they would be in the bible
the other name for which is the gospel, so its all true. clue is in the title
anyway all the planets revolve around earth.
Well, from a relative point of view, yes everything is moving around me and I stay where I am. It's actually true in science as well 
Btw I was sarcastic when I said about The Black Hole Bible.
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Oh so now you're the advocate for seeing is believing.
No that's science actually.
The only problem i have to understand you is this: I keep repeating you cannot explain or understand many things, yet you seem to be sure God is a story. How, if you can't explain Him?
this does NOT mean that he may, as well, not be a story. You may perfectly be right and I wrong. Or I can be perfectly right and you wrong. But since you cannot explain/understand (I'm talking you as in "humans" not you the HC member) how can you be sure of that?
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why do you think our minds can understand something "from another world"?
I have never said that.
Yes you did, you said God is what we yet have to find out. Let's suppose He means whatever Aliens that created this simulation for example. Or let's suppose he means the God in the Bible. It doesn't matter, you cannot understand something "from another world". Then how can you "have yet to find it out"?
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There is Good, there is Evil.
Wrong.
You can't seriously believe that.
Person B: There are atoms, there are electrons, there are physical forces, etc etc..
Person A: Wrong.
You can't seriously believe that? It's actually, there are abcds, there are efghs, there are Gods around that you seem to call simplistically "physical forces", but instead they represent spritual elements that move along, blablabla...
Person C: Both wrong.
Who cares what's there? It only matters what I see and hear and smell
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God is love.
Okay. That renders MOST religion obselete.
God created man with love, at least that's how it says in the Bible.
What makes that obsolete? 
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Let's suppose this scenario: You are a criminal, you kill someone and really like that. You love doing that.
then god is murder, for that person?
I love your sarcasm
But of course it was referring to "you like doing that", not to the real sense of love
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how do you know?
you aren't god
you cant possibly understand him
You know what? You're right
ok, but I really feel that way 
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thats a good movie
oh were not talking about Constantine?
Never even heard of it
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Impossible. You just have to use judgement.
Ok, define judgement.
It is subjective.
Personally I think my judgement tells me God exists. True, that's my judgement.
You have your own judgement. Of course, that's why also why "proofs" are subjective and science is actually, well, fake from being "real".
Again, everyone has their own judgement. Different groups (like religion-atheism) usually see between them different, and say the others have "false judgement", etc..
From a philosophical point of view, you are a religious person yourself -- you believe in Science (that's what I understood from your previous posts).
What makes it science different than God? Apart from the primal "I can see that, I believe in that!!!!!" because science has some immediate effects.
How do you know that Zeus is not controlling each atoms, physical forces, etc.. actually?
"If I cannot see any effect on that, I won't believe it's true", is called ignorant (lame) religion (science).
"If I cannot see any effect on that, but I firmly believe it as that's what I feel inside", is called blind religion (the one with God).
Philosophically, yes, both are religions.
No one said all people are ignorant. You may call being ignorant and only accepting what you can see/touch/feel as being the true way. I will not bite you
But I call blindly-believing in God as being the true way. I hope you'll not bite me as well
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Colonel_here
Adventuring Hero
Descendant of Ghengis Khan
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posted April 24, 2007 06:21 PM |
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Ok continuing with Is God poisoin? article
Page 2 of 4
Hitchens, on the other hand, is virtually the last leftist supporter remaining for George W. Bush's war in Iraq, and finds himself rarther in position of Churchill making common cause with Stalin. ("If Hitler had invaded hell," the wartime British prime minister remarked, he, Churchill, would at least have made "a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.")As a British expat and an admirer of Hirsi Ali, who was driven from Holland by Islamic death threats, Hitches is not inclined to see Europe as the front of all secular virtues, or America as its antithesis. (Not like Harris, an American who constantly exudes the impression his overtly religious countrymen are embarassing him in front of the Europeans.)[actually it is true that you will find more hardline Chrisitans and creationists in America rather than Europe]. And he allows himself to have been a "guarded admirer" of Pope John Paul II's moral and physical courage.
But even Hitchens can find no good in religion that is not dwarfed by the virtues of human secularism. He - far more than the other authors - never takes his eyes for long off the real shooting war going on alongside the ideological struggle. "As I write these words," Hitchens pens in conscious echo of the celebrated opening of George Orwell's 1941 essay, "The Lion and the Unicorn," "people of faith are in their different ways planning you and my destruction, and the destruction of all the hard-won human attainments that I have touched upon. Religion poisons everything."
The thrust of all four books is a common assault on the world's three great monotheisms. They have a field day with the soft targets Judaism, Christianity and Islam present: the sexual obsession, the dizzying array of contradictions between and within the faiths and, above all, with the violence they've unleashed on humanity. The common God of the Old Testament is painted as a terrifying, murderous tyrant - a God whose followers can find ample precedent for their most homicidal impulses. But Yahweh's not the only culprit. Hitchens devotes a chapter to hacking away at Eastern religions - pointing out that it was Hindu Tamils on Sri Lanka who, long before Hezbollah and al-Qaeda, pioneered "the disgusting tactic of suicide murder," and the enthusiastic participation of Japanese Buddhists in their country's genocidal 20th-century wars.
Indeed, in ways large and small from the Biblical accounts of slaughter in the Holy Land through Christianity and Islam's recurrent fraticidal wars, to the genocide in heavily Catholic Rwanda (for which numerous clergy have been charged with war crimes), the religious record is blood-soaked. The 20th century was not much better than the dim past, Hitchens points out, even if you exclude religion's smug embrace with fascist regimes, which Hitchens emphatically refuses to do. "No one can tell me fascism was not a religious movement at bottom," he says. Consider that most of it took place in Catholic countries, often formalized by concordats with the Vatican [I know that often Vatican was credited for siding with Hitler however there is evidence that Vatican actually used its priests for espionage purposes to the benefit of Allies], or that the Greek-Orthodox Church blessed the junta colonels, or Hitler's Nordic paganism; "and, of course , it was literally true in Imperial Japan, that Buddhist-militarist alliance."
Religion kills, Hitchens says, because it is tribal and totalirarian, the most extreme form of in-group/out-group marker ever knwon. Although some faiths are more pacific than others, that has more to with their relative powerlessness - were the Amish, sya, to rise to supreme authority over other faiths, they would soon begin to resemble the mideival Catholic Church. Powercorrupts religion uniquely; because it consideCrs its doctrines uniquely right [actually early Islam say Judaism and Christianity as another right religions], it necessarily seeks to interfere in the lives of non-beleivers. Thus religion offers a constantly available licence for ordinary people to behave cruelly, sometimes "in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow." The entire history of Chrsitian anti-Semitism - not to mention its racial offspring, the Nazis' Final Solution - is a case in point. And the cruelty and irrationalty is still enacted regularly in less violent ways in the present day.
Two of the monotheisms, each with millions of followers in Africa, campaign against condom use in continent rife with AIDS. [The idea is that you might suffer during life but you will be later rewarded in heaven]. One can only infer they think the cure - non fatal sexual relations - is worse than the disease. Outside of the religious box, who could possibly come to that conclusion? Membersof the Bush administration resist funding the vaccine against human papilloma virus, a sexually transmitted disease that causes cervical cancer, on the grounds that fear of the disease should act as a deterrent to premarital sex. Or, if you get cancer, as just punishment for it.
Then there's the even more grotesque situation that unfolded in New York in 2005, cited by Hitchens in his book. It concerns a 57-year-old mohel, a Jewish circumciser, who like many deeply Orthodox mohels practised an ancient form of his ritual. [Why? I can't think of religious reason for this]. In this now-rare variant, the mohel completes circumcision by taking the infat's penis in his mouth and sucking off the amputated foreskin. By so doing, the New York mohel gave herpes to at least three babies, killing one of them and bringin brain damage to another. It's estimated that two-thirds of all adults, most of them unknowingly, have oral herpes virus, which merely leads to cold sores in them while posing a mortal to infant brains. The risk of contracting it from a hole is slight indeed - fewer than dozen cases have been recorded. including one in Toronto in 1994, in the past 15 years. It's slight but real, nonetheless, and the need for the procedure, from any rational perspective, is not-existent. But in an election year, New York Mayor Micahel Bloomberg backed off from the city health department's recommended ban, in the name of freedom of religion. [Who would not? In New York with such hhigh Jewish population and being Jewish himself would mean the political suicide.]
Page 3 tommorrow
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"The job of saving the lives of those who are sinking is the task of those who are sinking" - Ostap Bender
"Only a fool fights a battle he knows he can not win" - Ghengiz Khan
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted April 25, 2007 11:09 AM |
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You don't have evidence --> he's not guilty. false!
The right term (ref. to law) would be: Treated as not guilty.
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You don't have evidence of God --> he's not there. false in my opinion!
Treated as not being there.
Things that are new or unknown to someone have to be proven to convience him/her. Only by saying: It is like that!, you won't convience anyone, except the people who are easy to manipulate, resp. easy to convience.
It would all be so easy. With our modern technology, which is of course much better than the technology 2ooo years ago, God just needs to visit us here on earth, doing some "great unbelievable stuff", and you would immediately have millions of new believers. Everyone could see / hear / feel his godly power, tape it / save it with any kind of technolgy and religion would never be the same "doubtfull" thing it was before.
But it seems his/her schedule is crowded....
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Professional
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posted April 25, 2007 12:58 PM |
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@TitaniumAlloy: First of all, I don't really think I understand you.
That was apparent a while ago
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Aha, so I die if I imagine a pizza right now and eat it?
if you eat nothing else, yep
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Believing/disbelieving in something (e.g God) is not related to the quantity of the people -- does it matter that 100 people think the Earth is flat, while only 1 person thinks it's round (and they say that "proofs" from that 1 person are false and do not take it seriously).
You asked what is normal. I answered.
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What makes you feel there is no God? What makes you different than him?
That's a stupid question, no offence. You've done what everyone does. You don't have to prove that something is not there. It's impossible.
It's the same as asking, what makes you feel there is no boogey man?
It's on a different scale. Asking what makes you think something is there is reasonable.
You just don't have an answer.
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Ok, so you take the Blue Pill or the Red Pill? Based on your statement, everyone should take the Blue Pill, right?
We are not offered the blue pill. That's the movie.
If someone told neo that he was in the matrix AND LEFT IT THERE, never spoke to him again, he would go back to his normal life. There's that word again
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Of course that's only in the movie and fiction blabla, but the concept and perhaps moral of these 2 pills is interesting. I for example would have taken the Red Pill. (you can imagine "The Matrix" as being a different world, or God's world, whatever you want).
that's irrelevant because you're not offered a pill. If you were, that would be something different. But you're not. So it shouldn't be taken seriously.
In the movie, neo has a chance to act differently, to change as a result of the knowledge, shown through the pill. you have no such option, so you don't act differently. not that hard to understand really
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In my opinion, we should seek enlightenment and wisdom rather than only happiness
as you said yourself, some find happiness in wisdom, so in seeking happiness they are actually seeking wisdom
we already covered that though.
you dont seem to understand the meaning of happiness though. if wisdom and enlightenment make you happy, then go for it. IF IT DOESNT, THEN YOU DONT NEED TO. they are not mutually exclusive.
oh and I think that Cypher made the right choice
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Yet we can prove them with our rules, made up by us. And they are imaginary. The imaginary component i has this name for a reason.
rules stemming from logic
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God is imaginary.
BINGO! YAHTZEE!
to quote Bruce Almighty
there we have it. you have been enlightened after all
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With other rules.
Ah. not end of post. 
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You say He is made up by man.
Isn't he?
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But math rules are made up as well (such as complex numbers).
Many things are made up.
And we don't worship complex numbers.
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It's easy to see 4 times 5 is called 20, but complex numbers? What real life and straightforward example would you see as having an imaginary component?
Are complex numbers real, then?
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Again this was only an example, not even sure how sent-into-the-past on Earth is really gonna happen, but you can get the idea.
Yes, must suck to be god
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Furthermore, you can also pick up a scenario in which you get into a Black Hole and meet God, then you're sent into Earth 5 years in the past. Same outcome as above, right?
No. In one I get frustrated, in the second I've gone insane
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Well, from a relative point of view, yes everything is moving around me and I stay where I am. It's actually true in science as well
How did I know you were going to say that?
That's not technically true because there is no fixed point in space from which you can observe from..
And yes the earth is in orbit around the sun's centre of gravity, wherever that may be in space.
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The only problem i have to understand you is this: I keep repeating you cannot explain or understand many things, yet you seem to be sure God is a story. How, if you can't explain Him?
lol ok. just because you cant explain a character in a story doesnt mean it isnt a story.
you can understand the story without having to understand the character in it, even if the people who made up the story keep arguing how elusive and impossible to disprove he is, the story as a whole can still be viewed and discarded
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this does NOT mean that he may, as well, not be a story. You may perfectly be right and I wrong.
Maybe.
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Or I can be perfectly right and you wrong.
But since you cannot explain/understand (I'm talking you as in "humans" not you the HC member) how can you be sure of that?
What you don't seem to understand is that yes god is technically possible, but he is also completely absurd. Everything is technically possible, but that shouldn't stop us from discarding those which have no place in our world.
sure you will come up with a metaphor or bad interpretation of this with an example but you have to think of things as a realist, not with philosophical manipulation of the english language.
someone will come out and say BUT MANY THINGS SEEM IMPOSSIBLE WHICH ARE TRUE. that's not my point.
there is no place for god in this world. the very idea is ridiculous, yet the advocates for it have lived with it for their whole life and it is natural to them, and so they say to those who can view it and realize that its so ridiculous, that its possible. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. that doesn't make everything true, nor does it mean everything should be considered.
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Yes you did, you said God is what we yet have to find out.
Misunderstanding.
Everything that we are yet to explain scientifically is attributed to god. That's what i meant.
I don't mean that we are yet to find god in another world...
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Let's suppose He means whatever Aliens that created this simulation for example.
mmkay. my favourite
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Or let's suppose he means the God in the Bible. It doesn't matter, you cannot understand something "from another world". Then how can you "have yet to find it out"?
It's not from another world!! it's from our world!
the orcs in lord of the rings are not from our wold, but the story is! christ man..
[quotePerson B: There are atoms, there are electrons, there are physical forces, etc etc..
Person A: Wrong.
You can't seriously believe that?
You have totally taken my statement off on a tangent.
So you think that every single instance in the world is either good or bad, with no grey areas?
what about a man who works for the coastguard. he gets a radio from his wife and she says she is out on a boat far out to sea and is sinking fast, he has just enough time to go and rescue her though.
then he gets another message which says that there is another boat closer to shore which is sinking, with 100 people on it, and will soon be underwater. he can't do both, and he chooses his wife over the 100 lives. is this good or bad?
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Who cares what's there? It only matters what I see and hear and smell
ah. nice stab
thats my move
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God created man with love, at least that's how it says in the Bible.
What makes that obsolete?
the bible has god talking to various people, laying down the laws, punishing sinners, burning cities, doing all sorts of stuff. he does some things in the name of love sure, but the bible does not say that god is in anyway, LOVE. nor does most religions.
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I love your sarcasm
Worship it
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You know what? You're right
Finally! now that wasn't hard, was it
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thats a good movie
oh were not talking about Constantine?
Never even heard of it
travesty.
you'd like it, it has simple black and white good/bad ethics, the bible, things not from this world, love, sarcasm, the guy from the matrix (a computer simulation)
i saw it twice in two days
but it does talk about god creating the world 'for fun'
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Ok, define judgement.
You're a stickler for definitions, aren't you. See above
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It is subjective.
Personally I think my judgement tells me God exists.
No, someone else's judgement tells you that god exists. You don't even know what judgement is, according to that last post
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You have your own judgement.
Don't be jealous, its a sin
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Of course, that's why also why "proofs" are subjective and science is actually, well, fake from being "real".
nothing is real
nothing is absoulte
nothing is always
nothing is never
nothing is nothing
lets just give up
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Again, everyone has their own judgement.
arguable
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Different groups (like religion-atheism) usually see between them different, and say the others have "false judgement", etc..
contradiction, lovely isnt it
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From a philosophical point of view, you are a religious person yourself -- you believe in Science (that's what I understood from your previous posts).
Define science
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What makes it science different than God? Apart from the primal "I can see that, I believe in that!!!!!" because science has some immediate effects.
You frown upon physical evidence, to the point of ridicule...
I don't understand why.
Oh, and science is in our world.
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How do you know that Zeus is not controlling each atoms, physical forces, etc.. actually?
Because zeus is too busy with the sky and thunder and animal sex
do you accept every story you're told for fact?
and you say you have judgement..
im kidding.
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"If I cannot see any effect on that, I won't believe it's true", is called ignorant (lame) religion (science).
Again, hung up on the physical evidence thing.
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"If I cannot see any effect on that, but I firmly believe it as that's what I feel inside", is called blind religion (the one with God).
don't you mean, believe in it for no other reason than someone told me?
i'm not a big fan of blind faith. it's the stupidest thing a man can do.
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No one said all people are ignorant.
Many people have said that.
Einstein, for example.
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You may call being ignorant and only accepting what you can see/touch/feel as being the true way. I will not bite you
You probably would.
You seem to like quoting the physical evidence factor. I don't use that as why i don't believe in god. It just helps
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But I call blindly-believing in God as being the true way. I hope you'll not bite me as well
have no fear, blindly-believing in something thats not there is fine by me
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John says to live above hell.
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Colonel_here
Adventuring Hero
Descendant of Ghengis Khan
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posted April 25, 2007 04:21 PM |
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It would all be so easy. With our modern technology, which is of course much better than the technology 2ooo years ago, God just needs to visit us here on earth, doing some "great unbelievable stuff", and you would immediately have millions of new believers. Everyone could see / hear / feel his godly power, tape it / save it with any kind of technolgy and religion would never be the same "doubtfull" thing it was before.
But it seems his/her schedule is crowded....
But if you look through the gospels Jesus did miracles not to impress people and not in front of multitudes but to reward those who followed him. Therefore the God doesn't see it proper to persuade people to beleive in him through doing miracles, that is more Satan's job (to conquer souls through showing them his power).
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"The job of saving the lives of those who are sinking is the task of those who are sinking" - Ostap Bender
"Only a fool fights a battle he knows he can not win" - Ghengiz Khan
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Colonel_here
Adventuring Hero
Descendant of Ghengis Khan
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posted April 25, 2007 06:10 PM |
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Ok moving on with the article Is God poison?
Page 3 of 4
But, for the atheists, the entire religious response to death, and to a lesser degree, pain and suffering, is dangerously and immorally irrational to begin with. As far as they're concerned, believers are repellently willing to allow their own - even their own children - to die in the name of sacred tradition, because the desire for death is something inherent in monotheism. "Being told you're not really going to die is simply contemptible", Hitchens remarks. "Those who offer false consolation are false friends. Especially when behind that lie is the religious' dirty little secret: they want the world to end, they pray for the end to come soon." Christian obsession with the end of the world has real world implications, Harris notes. Almost half the American population professes the beleive that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead within the next 50 years. That means, adds Harris, that should New York be destroyed in a nuclear fireball, "some significant percentage of the American population would see a silver lining. Beliefs of this sort do little to help us create a durable future for ourselves."
Moderate believers naturally won't recognize themselves in these portraits of a bloody pathology, nor should they. But the story of the mohel brings an aspect of the atheist argument that is even more enraging for believers. Religion claims a central role in the protection of children - in Christianity, the command comes directly from Jesus: "Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that beleive in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea." (Mark 9:42). But the atheists argue that the monotheistic record, beginning with the chilling story of Abraham's willingness to obey God's command to slay his son Isaac [for Muslims it is Ismael] - a foundational myth for all three faiths - is one of constant child abuse. It runs the gamut from contemporary Catholic church's pedophilia scandal, in which known rapists were protected and moved from parish to parish, to religiously sanctioned female genital mutilation, to Jehovah's Witnesses refusing blood transfusions for their offspring, to the regular instilling of religious terror.
Dawkins writes of Colorado paster Keenan Roberts, who runs what he calls "hell houses" where children are taken by their parents to be frightened by actors playing out "scenes" of abortion and homosexuality, and by hell itself, complete with recorded screams and the smell of burning sulphur. [as was established there is no mentioning of Hell as place of eternal torments in the Bible, I also can't help but to aplaud the ingenuity of the pastor]. The fear of damnation, in its most literal and lurid forms, has been thrust into impressionable children's minds for millennia as a means of binding them to their faith. "Millions when young have had this particular terror inflicted on them," Hitchens says. "As for what happened behind the arras," he adds in reference to sexual abuse, "well, what can one say?"
In actual fact, quite a lot, if you're Christopher Hitchens. "If I was suspected of raping a child, or torturing a child, or infecting one with venereal disease, i might consider committing suicide whether I was guilty or not. [Slightly radical response but I can see where he is coming from]. If I had actually committed the offense, I would welcome death. Religion, because it claims a special divine exemption, is not just amoral but immoral." [Actually most religions do not claim exemptions, I don't know where is is he getting the idea from].
The polemicists' total rejection of faith makes the very existence of religious moderates a puzzle to them. (Dawkins, in particular, seems spiritually deaf to everything from the sense of wonder to the pull of family and community.) Except, perhaps, for Hitchens, who seems to be the only one who admits to having religious friends, the atheists' own dirty little secret - their contempt for moderates - is never far from the surface of their books. They assert that moderates enable fanatics by allowing religious arguments a privileged place - it was a liberal Catholic debating partner who told Hitchens that religious liberty demanded that mohels be allowed to carry out their ancient rite as they saw fit. "In a funny way," Dawkins said in an interview las fall in reference to one devout scientist, "I have more respect for a young creationist," referring to someone who proclaims that life on earth is only 6,000 years old.
That contempt, along with the stridency and totalitarian disdain for everything to do with religion, is rooted in fear and failure. They think they're loosing. the triumph of atheism, so confidently proclaimed by its prophets more than a century ago, now seems as far off as the Second Coming. In 1867, in his landmark poem "Dover Beach," Matthew Arnold could only hear the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the sea of faith, but the religious tide has turned with a vengeance. "This Letter," Harris concluded his book, "is the product of failure - the failure of many brilliant attacks upon religion that preceded it, the failure of our schools to announce the death of God in a way that each generation can understand, failures great and small that have kept almost every society on this earth muddling over God and despising those muddle differently"
Page 4 coming tommorrow
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"The job of saving the lives of those who are sinking is the task of those who are sinking" - Ostap Bender
"Only a fool fights a battle he knows he can not win" - Ghengiz Khan
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violent_flower
Promising
Supreme Hero
Almost there.
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posted April 26, 2007 03:01 AM |
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Actually we are all made of energy and we never technically touch anything, our energy does.
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Learn how to duck and weave because I will throw truth at you all day!
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TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Professional
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posted April 26, 2007 08:39 AM |
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Actually we are all made of energy and we never technically touch anything, our energy does.
well if we are made of energy and the energy touches then doesn't that mean we are touching?
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John says to live above hell.
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baklava
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Mostly harmless
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posted April 26, 2007 04:00 PM |
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Can you touch your thoughts?
Yet you know they're there...
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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violent_flower
Promising
Supreme Hero
Almost there.
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posted April 26, 2007 04:25 PM |
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This is for another thread, so we can keep this one on the wonderful track to resolution, NOT!
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Learn how to duck and weave because I will throw truth at you all day!
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted April 26, 2007 04:44 PM |
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Can you touch your thoughts?
Yet you know they're there...
Yep, but only in my HEAD. Same as with God maybe? Only in person's heads....
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted April 26, 2007 04:52 PM |
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Aren't "colors" in our head as well? Or everything you 'see'? Or anything you touch?
You can't feel someone else's suffering/feelings. Because they're in your head as well.
same thing sa judgement above: what tells you that believing in God is a 'naive' thing? Your judgement, right? ever considered that my judgement tells me the opposite?
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baklava
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Mostly harmless
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posted April 26, 2007 04:53 PM |
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Exactly. God is not a creature that goes around and makes stuff happen. God is just there, in our heads, in other peoples' heads, in some other things. We obviously aren't meant to comprehend that.
Perhaps God is thought, and thought is God.
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted April 26, 2007 04:55 PM |
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Everything is actually 'only in our heads'.
Would you be able to see/walk/feel/touch/anything without a head?
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted April 26, 2007 07:15 PM |
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Edited by angelito at 19:17, 26 Apr 2007.
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Everything is actually 'only in our heads'.
Would you be able to see/walk/feel/touch/anything without a head?
I don't think so. Everything may start in our head (as an emotion, an idea, a feeling, an imagination...whatever), but then we begin to make it real. And this is the point where God still "steps back".
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted April 26, 2007 07:17 PM |
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Aren't "colors" in our head as well?
Not really. If u have never seen a color, u can't have them in your head. Ask a blind person....
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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ZombieLord
Promising
Famous Hero
that wants your brainz...
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posted April 26, 2007 07:24 PM |
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We can make everything 'real' with our head only (telekinesis)
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