Straw man. I have never disputed that one meaning of “penalty” is “punishment”, only that you a) used a dictionary (you didn’t; you used a thesaurus) and b) that “penalty=punishment=imprisonment=human rights abuses”. It’s your own assumptions and leaps that I’m disputing, and my contention is that they are unreasonable to the vast majority of people. The fact that you find them reasonable doesn’t alter what most people will think of them, as you have absolutely no logic behind your assumptions.
It’s pretty obvious you don’t get my point, and this paragraph perfectly illustrates what I’ve been disputing for quite some time now: you make assumptions and then call them facts.
I notice that you didn’t address the Crusades in that comment, or the murders of abortion providers. But let’s see if you can be perfectly clear here: will you state unequivocally that, in your opinion, there has never been a murder or killing done for religious reasons?
Would you also state unequivocally that there has never been oppression of any people that was done for religious reasons?
That isn’t the post that I was disputing, but for the record, I’ll go ahead and dispute that post now, because you didn’t provide a link to anything; therefore I have no way of knowing if you quoted anything at all or if you just made shit up. You’re welcome.
I doubt “the vast majority of people” will show up to weigh in on the matter, but that really has no bearing on what the truth is, nor what a preponderance of evidence would show were you to look and see what the most common penalty is in this country for an infraction (hint: it’s monetary fines, not imprisonment). You don’t seem, in this instance and in others I can think of, to want to let facts sway your opinion, tho.
Ah, so you accede then, that in fact, there have been murders and oppression done for religious reasons. So now you agree that Locrian was not “falsely trying to tie religious believers to murder and other major crimes”, since religious believers have, in fact, committed murder and other major crimes?
Sure you do. I gave you the name of the dictionary, so you can look it up. I promise that opening a book won’t kill you.
I agree to not such thing. Locrian claimed that every single religious person is guilty of these things–because he demands that we all be punished, and individuals can only be punished for what we’re individually guilty of–and his list of atrocities contains a great many that are purely figments of his imagination. I already pointed this out in post #241. In any case, if we followed Locrian’s logic consistently, we would have to penalize atheists for all the murders and oppression done by atheists against religious believers.
I am an atheist, and I will vouch for the opinion that Christians are generally not entirely tolerant of said belief. There have been only very few Christians who have actually given me the “meh, I disagree, but do what ya want” response. I’ve been called a Communist, a Satan-worshiper, a Scientologist, a bad person, a member of “the monkey generation,” and even “Osama’s sister.” My own father told me that he thinks I’m only proclaiming myself to be an atheist because it’s “trendy.” …Funny, I thought the trend, in this country, was toward Christianity…
People also seem to think that just because I don’t believe in any gods, it means that I don’t know ANYTHING about religion. Religion is a subject that continually fascinates me, and when I’ve tried to discuss it with others, they say things like “what do you know about it, you don’t even believe in God” and “your opinion doesn’t count.”
Most people seem to think of me as ridiculous because of my atheism, and haven’t been shy about telling me so. I think that their religions are equally ridiculous, but I try to respect them as people, even if I don’t respect their ideas.
I would be willing to use that segment as a textbook example of why I don’t turn to Wikipedia for complex topics. (It may be okay for looking up the population of Denver and stuff like that.) There are a lot of problems with that article but the biggest one is that who ever wrote it–or at least one of the persons who wrote it, since it may have been assembled from stuff written by many–doesn’t seem to grasp how theists typically understand faith. Saying “advocates of faith argue that the proper domain of faith concerns questions which cannot be settled by evidence” is partially right but partially wrong. Any article that attempted to encompass this entire topic should certainly include the viewpoint of St. Thomas Aquinas, the most influential theologian in history, who wrote that some topics of his Church’s dogma were within the realm of evidence-based reasoning while others were not and could only be known by revelation from God. That viewpoint is not represented in what Wikipedia says.
More importantly, it does not incorporate the reason for faith, which is this. We view humans beings as flawed; that’s what’s meany by the Fall. We have, on the one hand, a reason that we can use to determine what’s right, but on the other hand emotional storms, urges, appetites, and so forth that draw us away from what we know by reason to be right. As Saint Paul says in Romans, “I find myself doing not what I desire, but what I truly hate.” Faith is the virtue that allows us to take a result reached by reason and remain stable in adherence to it and pursuit of reasonable goals, even when unwanted emotional storms and such threaten to take us off course. That is what has always been meant by faith, and thus believers believe that faith and reason are complimentary; the author of the Wikipedia article doesn’t seem to get it.
Petitio principii. The belief that humans are “flawed,” or that there was a a “fall” are, in and of themselves, faith beliefs. So you’re saying your “reason for faith” is to explain other things you take on faith. Total question begging.
Maybe; the majority of humanity has never been Christian, you know.
Because that has nothing at all to do with faith; all you are doing is trying to equate faith with being good. Which is insulting to unbelievers (naturally), butchers the meaning of the word “faith”, and grossly disproven by the evidence. People with faith have never been especially prone to virtue; rather the opposite.
Faith means believing in things without evidence, or outright against evidence; it has nothing to do with virtue or with “reasonable goals”. The opposite, if anything.
The whole point of Wikipedia is that it reflects the general understanding at a current time, in general terms. Extreme and incorrect definitions don’t last long.
The public peer-review process would see to that.
What is written there is a general summary not a in-depth theological dissection so the fact that St. Thomas Aquinas is not mentioned by name is irrelevant, if you read the entry you will recognise references that reflect some of his writings.
As I maintain, those definitions of faith and dogma are fit for purpose. There is very little wrong with them as a summary.
Now if you are saying that they don’t contain all the subtlety and nuance explored in the “discipline” of theology then I’d agree, but they would fairly poor summaries if they did.
And what is theology anyway? other than the padding out of simple truisms in order to mask logical deficiencies and conflicts. It takes a thousand words to speak a sentence and considers that a virtue so very difficult to summarise it to any theologian’s liking.
Finding religion at odds with itself, I switched to Belief long ago. Now that I use my God given common sense only, I keep in mind that I can only speak and think for myself only, and even that, only to the extent to which I think I know myself.
My belief for me, is far above all religion in it’s scope and power. I meet no one on my way because it is a way meant only for me personmally. But now, I have found something… I am no longer ever alone with my new companions. There are four of us now and I expect more to come. I have continual comfort of heart and mind and all my worthy questions are always answered.
I find I am not burdened with the quagmire of debate coming from the mind’s of foolish men. I debate only with myself as I reason things out… because, I speak only for myself and so my “Belief” always remains clean and pure. I know myself… I do not lie to myself… I know that I cannot grow as I want if I decieve myself in any way… I am always on guard against lie’s and deceit. I am empowered by my three friend’s against these things, lest I stumble and fall in the way I have chosen.
Any man only has true control over what he has mastered in this world, and I suggest that all men begin with that control of themselves from within. Only then may they reach out in a profitable manner to affect the circumstances around them.
If I were to continue I suppose it would be labeled preaching, and to me, that is forbidden
Translation: You carefully avoid any deviance from your chosen course of self deception, labeling any facts or logic that contradicts your pet self delusions as " lies and deceit".
theinternetwebhighway is a funny thing isn’t it? I make a post about the nature of theology and someone comes along immediately to make my point for me.
I refer the honourable readers to Spiirit’s post, and Czarcasm/DT’s succinct replies.
If you’re wrong, but totally convinced you’re right, how will you ever know? You’ve no way to know whether or not you’re lying to yourself.
Debate, even when it happens that your opponent is a foolish and wrong man, is a means of examining the validity of your own points of view (and in normal cases, the views of others too, who aren’t entirely foolish)
Well, that’s not a very nice way to greet someone. When you start your posts off that way, you don’t come across as very intellectual or reasonable.
And I second Mangetout’s opinion. If you don’t let any other ideas or opinions into your mind, how will you have any way of knowing that you are wrong, or verifying that you are right? I think the fact that you’re posting on this message board at all indicates SOME attention given to the ideas of others. So tell us, how does your subjective truth remain pure and untainted, if you do not ostracize yourself?
