So, how would you define your stance? Charismatic? New Thought? Neo-Orthodox? Simple Church? (Hey, maybe you’ll find something you agree with, and then can find others like you.)
… You know, there’s all kinds of questions in that paragraph, right? I’m asking. Confined against your will? Direct intervention? Give up your faith? Where and when did this happen? (No, I’m not asking for specific dates, just, you know, country, maybe state, and yearish. Like ‘1992 in Zimbabwe’ or ‘2004 in Alabama.’)
Maybe it’ll help the OP. That said, you probably won’t get a board placed on you and then stones piled on it until you suffocate, anywhere around, today. That’s why I chose that specific method of ordeal of a heretic.
Congratulations on choosing which psychotic to whose paradigm donkey you’ve hooked up your cart of faith (unless you are a woman, in which case, condolences. Islam is a bad deal for women). But if you are looking to fill that inner emptiness, at least you’ve found a donkey up with which to cuddle.
If you are already convinced of the veracity of Islam, there’s no point of us trying to changing your mind. If you are not, it’s unlikely side-by-side objective analysis will convince you of the veracity of any religion.
Hm. It’s only fair I express my own stance on these things. My mother is Jewish, my father is Catholic, I was raised without faith.
Technically, Judaism doesn’t require faith, which is why I suggested it to blink. Because I’m not sensing it out of his postings.
That said, I am open to being called by the Lord, to either of my parents faiths. Sadly, he don’t talk to me. (Hey, people talk about having a come-to-Jesus moment. I’m open.)
So, I’m always curious, but never that involved.
I remain confident I will find out after I die… which is an oddly worded sentence, considering a very large probability involves the non-existence of the self. If, by some chance, I am sent to hell, I will appreciate it, as it implies strongly that there is a heaven, and that someone deserves to be sent there.
And there goes my point exactly. You think that any discussion of religion is a forum for abuse.
You don’t even know what I believe.
Yet you feel like Great Debates is your forum to berate anyone for believing in whatever it is you assume they believe.
It violates the ‘Don’t be a jerk’ rule, but doesn’t even get noticed by the mods, I mean I guess they’d be busy warning you three or four times a day, multiply that by the about two dozen ‘original thinkers’ who think exactly the same and see it as their holy duty to be a jackass.
Here’s a post by an atheist who actually has a background and knowledge in the topic, in a thread where he and I were actually tag teaming some theists who were trying to pigeonhole atheism.
He’s managing to make his argument without being disrespectful or rude, or at least to curb those tendencies.
I rarely see that sort of insight coming from SDMB atheists. All of you guys think you are brilliant rational thinkers, but only a couple actually stand out, like Voyager, Left Hand of Dorkness, and Sentient Meat.
It’s too bad for this forum generally that people don’t know the difference between incivility and a rational argument. The forum would be much better for it, and the fight against ignorance would go far better.
If you think, “You’re stupid for believing that.”, is a good argument, then you have a lot of ignorance to be fought. The problem with you is you don’t even know what you don’t know. You lack some fundamental ability to even recognize it, so there isn’t much point in demonstrating it.
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Bryan Ekers** I don’t discuss such things when a baseline of civility is not assured. As my argument is about civility and not belief, and you are challenging what I believe, it shows that you are missing the point. So between this and past interactions with you, I know that civility is not to be expected in such a discussion, so it won’t be had.
It’s extremely convenient for you to dismiss unanswerable questions as mere incivility, but if you can point out some objective reason whatever you believe isn’t casually interchangeable with what others believe, I’d very much like to hear it.
Well because I know this is just a tactic for you to get your jollies with a ‘gotcha’ moment. It’s the same accusation I made before, you have a prurient interest in berating people for believing things that they cannot prove to you.
The interchangeability argument can’t even be had at this low a level of discourse. Because the discussion of whether God actually exists or not is extraordinarily banal, one for the faithful recent converts or atheists who aren’t terribly bright or open-minded. Most discussions I see that bear any interest for me at all relate to the relative cultural aspects of different religions, about what the religion itself provides for the civilization in which it resides. As this forum always devolves to the completely moronic and totally uninteresting debate about the epistemology of belief in God, there’s nowhere to go with it.
On a board that actually has a discussion about, “I don’t believe anything.”, going on more than a single page. You can’t really expect a more nuanced discussion. I personally am not well enough versed in the various religions to have a discussion in a vacuum about the topic. I lack the tools to debunk misconceptions, because I do not have the scholarly background in the subject matter. So the self-aggrandizing, ‘haha, stupid theist, I knew you couldn’t answer my gotcha’, atheist will think he’s made some really brilliant point that stumped the theist when in reality it’s just that you don’t try to play erector set with someone who hasn’t moved past wooden blocks, particularly when you are just picking up legos yourself.
In other words, you have nothing, and anyone who points that out is “abusing” you. Apparently, you want to be able to make any assertion you please, and for everyone to just nod their heads and say “Yup, that’s true”.
I don’t deny that prejudice is a way of life for some Muslims-- indeed people of any faith, and in fact, people in general. However, I would caution you that much of the focus on Muslims being particularly strong extremists have to do with the availability heuristic. Yes, Islamic terrorists have been responsible for some hideous atrocities-- perhaps more than other religious groups. But that to me is less a function of how extreme and prejudicial they are, and more a function of how willing they are (due to concepts found in their scriptures) to act on these prejudices. I know there are many Christians out there would probably do pretty much the exact same acts of terrorism to abortionists and liberals if they thought they could get away with it, or if such acts were sanctioned by Jesus. Instead of blowing people up, many Christians choose to spread hate and prejudice through words and deeds-- which in many ways is a much more insidious form of destruction. And this is not to pick on Christians. With few exceptions, almost all organized religions condone such acts of hate and inhumanity.
No actually I was pointing out that you were abusing someone else. It’s that reading comprehension thing that seems to go out there window for you in these debates. You always try to psycho-analyze some sort of personal deficiency in the other person’s psyche and start rationalizing your answers from there completely ignoring any data that may conflict with your original psychoanalysis.
I’ve made the attempt before with the same people who I am speaking to now. As your argument has not evolved in any way, and you do not seem to show any greater understanding than you did when we had these arguments three or four years ago, I see no reason to expect that the outcome would be any different.
Based on that do you think there would be any point in having the discussion if it was fruitless multiple times in the past and you see no indicator that the basic assumptions of your interlocutor have progressed in any way?
I never saw your answer to a question I asked you recently. Why have you devoted multiple days worth of your time over the years to critiquing a book you will not deign to read?
How about the idea that Mohammed developed Surah’s to justify behavior he way nted to indulge in that were previously forbidden, so that the religion itself is self-indulgent toward Mohammed’s wishes, as opposed to having a broader application. He wanted to nail a 9 year old so he justified that. He wanted to steal one of his son’s wives so he modified it for that.
That sort of modification based upon Mohammed’s libidinous desires would be where I would start as a point against joining Islam.
I’m willing to bet I know as much or more about your beliefs than you know about my motives.
Well, if you want a discussion of the sociological impact of various religions on their host cultures, that’s fine. I’d probably tend more toward injecting elements of statistical analysis, i.e. if a society A practices religion X, and religion X has dogma that promotes (or at least does not interfere in) education in the sciences, I would expect society A to have greater life expectancy and lower infant mortality than society B, which embraces religion Y that has scripture calling for the destruction of libraries, the denial of education to segments of the population, etc.
I’m somewhat unimpressed with your wooden blocks / Lego / erector set analogy. I use computers, myself.
Oh, nonsense. You were accusing Bryan Ekers of abusing you, and now you are trying to pretend I was “abusing” someone else, and you were riding to the rescue. By . . . complaining about **Bryan Ekers **. :rolleyes:
What part of “he said” do you not understand ? You are claiming he said something he didn’t, and then trying to blame me.
You assume that agreeing with you would be progress. I and others make the same arguments because religion is wrong the same way it’s always been wrong. There’s nothing new to it to argue about.
I have read some of it; it’s not worth reading cover to cover. And I care about it, as I said the last time, because of all the stupidity, suffering and destruction it’s followers cause.
