Culture War - Religious cannot win a debate so they start a war.

Great Debates
101

[QUOTE=hotflungwok]

What latest results? People arent discovering new things about god, theyre just rewriting old things. Nothing written about religion can contradict established dogma, and until you find more established dogma, nothing new can be written about it. Everything else is just a big circle jerk with everyone agreeing with everyone else that what they wrote has to be true, it agrees with what everyone else wrote.

[/QUOTE]

This is untrue. Beliefs and belief systems change and grow. Certainly tradition fights any change but change still happens. Dogma and doctrine changes.

102

[QUOTE=Ammonius Saccus]
Religious people cannot say they have a subjective feeling that God exists. If they did they would have to admit they have no evidence that God actually exists. They would only have evidence that they have a feeling that God exists. But that evidence in no way would support them believing that God exists.

Evidence that a person has a feeling that God exists is not evidence that God actually exists even to that person.
[/QUOTE]

You seem to thiink that religious people are unreasonable, that they have this infatuation with rejecting logic when it comes to the existence of God. I have an idea: why don’t you prove that there is no God and then see how many of those who hold those itrrational beliefs still insist on clinging to the illogic of their belief?

I’m sure you don’t realize it, but you are cooming off exacltly like the fundemental religious people you cannot fathom. What would help them IMO—and you—is to finish every thought with “…but I may be mistaken”. That is, of course, if you alllow for that possibility. If not, well, there is a God and it is you. Poor logic and insulting tone aside.

103

[QUOTE=Ammonius Saccus]
I would still like to hear why the person who believes that a cracker has become flesh is not crazy. We would surely call the person that thought the table had turned into bacon was.
[/QUOTE]

It is my understanding of the Catholic faith that the wafer(NOt cracker) becomes the body of Christ, because he was said to change the bread and wine at the last supper and told them it was his body and blood,and whoever ate his flesh and drank his blood would live for ever. The Catholic’s believe at the consecration part of the mass it is then when the unlevened wafer becomes Jesus Body and blood as he was said to have told the Apostles, to “DO THIS” in memory of me.

There are many beliefs that people have that I do not share but I do not think it kind to ridicule them for it. Belief is just that and if it helps them, then so be it!

In the Books, Osiris and the Egytian Ressurection, they also had a bread and wine ceremony like the Catholic mass, and I heard they still have a bread and wine offering.

Monavis

104

[QUOTE=mlees]
They are relevent only because the OP has made statements to the affect that those who hold various religious beliefs accept them without debate (which is not true), and without evidence. (Which may be true, depending on what you classify as evidence.)

To further clarify: eyewitness testimony may be given. “I swore I saw Saint so-and-so heal the blind with the laying on of hands!” That’s evidence. Does it meet the SDMB standards? No. Not at all.

How about the Shroud of Turin? (I may be behind the times on this one, so bear with me…) The faithfull claim that through a minor miracle, the image of the Christ was embedded in it.

There is definately an image that can be discerned in the material. Scientists have been unable to explain how it was placed there. (It ain’t pigment.) They have tried to date the cloth, and have had mixed results. So, it’s a big fat question mark.

To some, (and probably a lot of us here) all that doesn’t prove anything one way or the other. But the shroud still bears evidence that something interesting happened to it.

The OP has further gone on to stipulate (paraphrasing again) that no evidence will be forthcoming, as the exisistance of god (not just Christian god, he targets all religion) cannot be proven. In other words, he has already decided that there is no god.

The OP has also gone on to say that all the religious nutjobs need to be confronted, and proof demanded. (I am not sure to what extent he feels that the nutjobs need to be confonted.) He has given various policies (condom vs. AIDS) and dogma (the Eucharist) as issues he disagrees with, and that’s fine. But he does not limit his demand for confrontation during secular policy debates. (Which is were most of us draw the line.) He seems to be advocating “total war against ignorance”. See here:

What is the purpose of calling someone out, and labeling them a nut? Usually, it is with the intent of reducing that persons credibility. Why seek to reduce someone’s credibility? Well, we don’t want any “nutjobs” running things, do we?

I wish I had all the answers, or at least was smart enough to figure it all out on my own. I am not sure why God chooses to be so hard to find, if He exists. Philosophers may speculate that God wants us to explore ourselves and our Universe, in order to “grow” in some way, on our own, without interference.

We can do that without labeling the religions (and faithful) as nutjobs, IMO.
[/QUOTE]

Forgive me if this is not part of the debate, but a scientist in Arizona made an image like the Shroud of Turin by placing a statue on a cloth in the hot sun.It was on Television a little over a year ago. It also showed that the image on the Shroud had a flat fold and made no room for the top of a man’s head,it was more like two separate pictures. also the cloth was dated not in the 1st century.

Monavis

105

I am still not clear on why we need to accept a prohibition against murder because it is based on an intuition that is both personal and widely held, but reject belief in God that is based on the same thing. Ammonius Saccus, could you explain a bit more? Be prepared to show your work, and justify it from a scientific basis.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Shodan

106

[QUOTE=Shodan]
I am still not clear on why we need to accept a prohibition against murder because it is based on an intuition that is both personal and widely held, but reject belief in God that is based on the same thing.
[/QUOTE]
I think I can defend this, if i’m understand the argument correctly.

A secular reason for not murdering people might be based on the fact that generally victim’s families and friends are saddened by the murder. As you say, that being sad is a bad thing is obviously just as much guesswork as there would be for a prohibition from a god. However, with this view, we do at least have observable evidence that the result is accurate; people certainly are sad. The equivalent in the prohibition-from-god scenario would be that the god is pleased; that’s *not * observable. Still subject to the overall “is feeling sad a bad thing?” problem, but it’s definetly a reason to go with one and not the other.

107

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
This is untrue. Beliefs and belief systems change and grow. Certainly tradition fights any change but change still happens. Dogma and doctrine changes.
[/QUOTE]

Religion responds to changes, it does not discover new things on its own. When something new comes along that isnt already expressly addressed by religion, like the stem cells issue, it looks at what it already has and tried to find a best match, in this case ‘all life is sacred’, and uses that. No change has been made, nothing new is added, its just the same stuff, maybe in different words. The interface may look a little different, but the OS is still the same.

108

[QUOTE=Ammonius Saccus]
Once you accept a belief is justified on faith you cannot turn around and argue against the action that flows from that belief.

[/QUOTE]

That’s only true if there is an on/off status of belief. But one can have several levels of belief. A scientist can believe a hypothesis is true based on one experiment, but that belief is usually less strong than after the experiment has been reproduced by other people.

I think the reaction you are getting is from the fact that most religious Dopers appreciate that their belief in God is not justified enough for them to support laws implementing Biblical injunctions. Unfortunately, there are plenty of religious people who do support this - they don’t last long here.

109

[QUOTE=Shodan]
I am still not clear on why we need to accept a prohibition against murder because it is based on an intuition that is both personal and widely held, but reject belief in God that is based on the same thing. Ammonius Saccus, could you explain a bit more? Be prepared to show your work, and justify it from a scientific basis.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Shodan
[/QUOTE]

Since when is the prohibition of murder based on intuition, and not a strong ethical argument based on facts (like dead people can’t enjoy life.) I notice you said murder, not killing. Given the fine distinction between these, I have a hard time believing that people’s simple intuition includes self-defense, war, etc. I’d guess that an intuition would be that killing is wrong, and then argument would refine that into the proposition that murder is wrong.

If you would give me an argument for belief in God (any god) as strong as that for prohibiting murder, I would appreciate it.

110

[QUOTE=magellan01]
You seem to thiink that religious people are unreasonable, that they have this infatuation with rejecting logic when it comes to the existence of God. I have an idea: why don’t you prove that there is no God and then see how many of those who hold those itrrational beliefs still insist on clinging to the illogic of their belief?

[/QUOTE]

Would you mind clearly defining the God he is supposed to disprove? Does he have a son, or is he the Jewish variety? Did he create the world 6,000 years ago of 14 billion years ago? Is he a cosmic muffin or a hairy thunderer? How many arms does he have? Has he ever communicated to mankind or not?

I’m not asking for a full definition, since that is impossible for most gods. But a start would be helpful.

Thanks.

111

Indeed, there are myriad secular reasons for the prohibition against murder that have nothing to do with God. The trouble is that Ammonius Saccus seems to be advancing the proposition that any view that cannot be justified scientifically is irrational on its face, and that anyone who holds such views can be dismissed out of hand.

I still haven’t seen how science can prove that anything is good or bad. Those are fundamentally qualitative value judgments that societies make through intuition, experience, and (sometimes) religion. It doesn’t make them wrong, it just makes them unscientific.

112

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
This is untrue. Beliefs and belief systems change and grow. Certainly tradition fights any change but change still happens. Dogma and doctrine changes.
[/QUOTE]

Long time, no see. :slight_smile:

You are right in this, and it is quite curious, really. If religion and belief systems stem from contact with god, as commonly recognized, I have a hard time understanding why they would be changing. Our understanding of the world changes, and I’d suspect as our scientiic and ethical maturity grew, it would converge on what God told us. If, on the other hand, religion and ethics are our fumbing attempts to make sense of the world and how to act in it, then I’d expect religion and dogma to change just as you say.

Now, I’ve seen people respond that God was making it easy for us. However, there are plenty of instances in the Bible where God did not make it easy. He did not understand that the golden calf gave comfort, after all, and he didn’t give Adam and Eve a second chance. I’m sure he could have figured out a way to command a society to have no slaves at all. So, I don’t buy it.

113

Because, at the end of the day, this argument relies not only on facts, but on basic unproven assumptions. It is a fact that toasters can’t enjoy toasting bread after they’re broken. Is it therefore immoral to trash broken toasters and not get them fixed? Of course not.

To justify prohibitions on murder through solely scientific means would probably necessitate scientific definitions of “good” and “bad.” I don’t think that’s been done yet.

I don’t know about Shodan, but I’m not arguing that the arguments for the existence of God are as strong as the arguments against murder. I’m just saying that, on a fundamental level, they’re both not based entirely on science.

114

[QUOTE=aclubs]
I still haven’t seen how science can prove that anything is good or bad. Those are fundamentally qualitative value judgments that societies make through intuition, experience, and (sometimes) religion. It doesn’t make them wrong, it just makes them unscientific.
[/QUOTE]

It depends on how you define good and bad. In a purely societal context, you can say that good and bad are what benefits and hurts the society, respectively. On that basis, you can now make what you refer to as qualitative value judgements. Murder is bad because it hurts society. Theft is bad because it hurts society. Its difficult to measure everything this way, but if you have enough information about the society you can determine if things like abortion are good or bad for the society. Of course, you have evaluate each case individually. If you kill a known repeat violent criminal, it is good for the society, so in that case, murder isnt necessarily bad.

115

[QUOTE=aclubs]
Because, at the end of the day, this argument relies not only on facts, but on basic unproven assumptions. It is a fact that toasters can’t enjoy toasting bread after they’re broken. Is it therefore immoral to trash broken toasters and not get them fixed? Of course not.

To justify prohibitions on murder through solely scientific means would probably necessitate scientific definitions of “good” and “bad.” I don’t think that’s been done yet.
I don’t know about Shodan, but I’m not arguing that the arguments for the existence of God are as strong as the arguments against murder. I’m just saying that, on a fundamental level, they’re both not based entirely on science.
[/QUOTE]

Notice I said an ethical argument, not a scientific one. Since the term murder is not well defined (except legally, not morally) we can’t expect to find a scientific argument. The OP seems to have been talking about evidence, though he could have done a better job laying out his argument.

In fact, different cultures come down on this subject in different ways. We’d call killing a prisoner of war murder, but it was quite common in the past. We execute criminals, most of Europe does not. There is clearly no right answer to this (there would be if God existed and told us) but there are plenty of logical, evidence-based, arguments.

Now, if you are claiming that a toaster enjoys anything, and stops enjoying it when unplugged … But I think there is plenty of evidence to support the argument at murder, in basic form at least, is wrong.

116

[QUOTE=aclubs]
, myopia, .
[/QUOTE]

Yes, yes, the evil myopes! Anyone with concave lensed glasses…burn 'em! :smiley:

117

[QUOTE=Ammonius Saccus]
My mistake it was the terrorists that flew planes into the WTC that you said were rational, sane, and justified.

Sorry for the mistake.

See post #31.
[/QUOTE]

Here’s the quote to which I agreed (emphases mine):

And here’s a quote of you screwing around (emphases again mine):

Welcome to the english language; when you change the words, you change the meaning.

“justified in their beliefs”: means they didn’t just invent their beliefs on the spot. They got their beliefs exactly the same way you do, by being indoctrinated as a child, by continuing to take the word of persons they consider to be a competent authority, by examining the details through the lens of their personal experience, and by engaging in a certain limited amount of personal experimentation. Does this mean their beliefs are correct? Not necessarily. But are the people who hold these beliefs therefore irrational, insane, or unjustified in their beliefs? Certainly not.

“completely justified”: the word “completely”, particularly when applying this to a monolithic organization rather than an individual person, takes us to a whole 'nother level, since we don’t read it to mean ‘the complete set of their beliefs leading to this action have at least some flimsy justification’ (which I’d agree with); we read it to mean ‘their beliefs leading to this action are completely justified’, which bears no resemblance whatsoever to my opinion.

My position is this: religious people have at least some justification for their beliefs, even if that justification is nowhere near rigorous enough to be held up to an objective standard. Because their beliefs are justified, they are not irrational or insane in holding them. This does not make them correct beliefs, but they are not insane beliefs.

If this does not make sense to you, then I suspect that you are operating under a different definition of “sane” than the rest of us.

As I said before, you might simply be having difficulty understanding what I say. If so, that’s fine, feel free to ask for clarification or actually debate the points. But don’t go making statements for me based on your certainly incomplete and inaccurate assumptions about my thought processes. You may might be entertaining the religious belief that you can read minds, but if so I assure you your justifications in believing this are suspect at best.

118

Voyager, I think we might be arguing at cross purposes here.

My argument is a response to what I perceive to be the argument of Ammonius Saccus. That is to say, I argue that a belief should not be dismissed out of hand simply because it’s not based on science, and that people who hold beliefs not based on science should not be dismissed as loony. To argue this, I refer to many widely-held beliefs not based on science (mostly, questions of right and wrong) and claim that, because these beliefs should not be dismissed out of hand, and because many people who hold these beliefs aren’t loony, then therefore Ammonius Saccus’s claim is mistaken.

I am not arguing that God exists. Similarly, I am not arguing that ethical views are not partially based on facts. (Murder is, obviously, bad for society. And that’s part of the reason why it’s been considered wrong in every civilization I know of.) I am arguing, however, that ethical views cannot be entirely based on science, because no science I’m aware of has proven what is right and what is wrong.

If Ammonius Saccus were to argue that people who hold views contrary to scientific data were mistaken, I’d probably generally agree with him. (Yes, I believe in evolution and in an earth that’s billions of years old.) But that’s not what he’s saying. I take him to say that every belief, whether dealing with ethics of whatever, that isn’t supported completely by science is irrational and can be dismissed out of hand. To the extend that he makes this argument is the extent to which I disagree.

I claim no such thing about toasters, of course.

Then again, my toaster seems to take pride in burning my toast. So take that as you will. :slight_smile:

119

[QUOTE=begbert2]
My position is this: religious people have at least some justification for their beliefs, even if that justification is nowhere near rigorous enough to be held up to an objective standard. Because their beliefs are justified, they are not irrational or insane in holding them. This does not make them correct beliefs, but they are not insane beliefs.

[/QUOTE]

So what you’re saying is that as long as a person has some reason for a belief, no matter what that reason is or how they came to it, it prevents them from being insane because of it? Why? That doesnt make any sense. Is your definition of insanity someone who does things for no reason at all? All people who do things we would consider insane have reasons for doing them, be it voices or twisted logic or whatever.

What exactly do you mean by ‘justified’? I dont think youre using it correctly. Simply having a reason for something doesnt justify it. Oh, you might be able to say that it justifies it for the person with the belief, but that doenst prevent them from being insane because of it. A person can do whatever they want in thier own head, as long as it doesnt effect the rest of us. If they want to think thier beliefs are justified in their own heads, fine. But they cant expect the rest of us to agree that their beliefs are justified if close examination reveals that they are not. Having the reason does not justify the belief, its the quality and reality of the reason establishes justification.

120

[QUOTE=hotflungwok]
What evidence? If there is evidence then please bring it forward, because up until now all thats ever been presented is twisted logic and appeals to emotion.
[/quote]

I’ve already listed five authors, and I see no reason to repeat that list. I could name other authors: G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, T. S. Eliot, and obviously there are many more that I haven’t read.

So here we see the basis of your argument. One ignoramus says that all theology is worthless, therefore all theology becomes worthless. Plainly it doesn’t look worthless to several billion human beings from throughout the ages. Therefore, tapping the old adage that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, the ball is in your court. You have to provide some reason why the opinion of one person who doesn’t even know basic spelling and grammar should outweigh the opinions of billions. I believe that all the Christian authors I’ve listed and many others provide sound logical arguments. If you are able to state flaws in their arguments, I’d be happy to listen. So far you have written three lengthy posts without mentioning one single fact. All you do is state your opinions. When asked to justify your opinions, you merely repeat your opinions. Obviously you believe that anything you make up will become the truth if you repeat it often enough. Perhaps this explains your inability to grasp even the simplest of Christian writing. Christians believe that opinions should be supported by facts, so if you refuse to use any facts, you’re not likely to get it.

You accuse me of ignoring reality. Now you provide a description of what occurs in Bible study groups that has nothing to do with reality. Which is hardly surprising, given that you made it up, just as you make up everything else you say. By the way, do you have a cite to back up the claim that Catholics are currently burning people at the stake, or should I chalk that up as another statement that you believe without any justification?