Let Theists agree before they have the nerve to criticize atheists!

[Der_Trihs]

[QUOTE=mswas]

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]

Except science works.
[/QUOTE]

:dubious:

I hope it gets paid well.
[/QUOTE]
You know what I mean. Science, and technology it’s offspring, works; religion fails. Faith can’t move mountains; bulldozers and nukes can. Laying on hands won’t cure the sick, but antibiotics can. Religion can’t tell us what happened a million years ago, but science can. You tried to claim that religion and science are equivalent because both try to explain the world; the difference between the two is that science succeeds. Religion fails. When it comes to revealing the truth, relgion is so bad that the fact that a belief is religiously based is a good argument against that claim being true, judging from history. Religion is almost obsessively wrong.

[mswas]

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
I would leave off the quotes if I were you.
[/quote]

I was quoting myself in a previous post.

Now you’re just trying to poison the well. You were wrong, and you should just admit it with good grace.

You’re just trying to be smarter than me, come on admit it, it’s all about measuring the size of anatomy now right?

Yet you saw fit to use them as an example in your theory anyway. What does this say about the honesty level of your side of the debate?

Look, I have heard information about certain things, the historical evidence on most of this stuff is not that well known, as I pointed out in the parts that didn’t suit your sniping.

My debate has a side? You mean I represent more than my own personal opinion? Awesome! I need to find me some rubes cuz I’s got me some snake oil at discount prices!

More importantly than the difference between a man and his artificially-elevated God - why pick on one isolated blip in all the rich tapestry of Egyptian mythology? Do you see how that naturally leads to accusations of cherry-picking? Can you say “confirmation bias”?

I also referenced what is more well known about Egyptian religion that they jumped around as it regards the supreme God of their Pantheon. You chose to ignore that also as you would rather fixate on a typo.

Do you have any legs left to stand on?

Two actually, my anatomy is unaffected by my making an argument about comparative religion on an internet message at the level of discourse of an internet message board.

Are you cherry-picking from my statements to show me my behavior through reflection or something?

At least you are having an argument on topic which is more than I can say for others of ‘your kind’.

However, do you disagree that there is a remarkable amount of agreement upon the one aspect of God that I have been focusing on, even if it isn’t 100% and some aspects of my cite choices were off?

[Thudlow_Boink]

[QUOTE=Pochacco]

[QUOTE=Musicat]
A friend and I once had a discussion on this topic, a little like this:

“You know that the Bible is a collection of myths and the very existance of Jesus, let alone any supernatual powers he once may have had, is in serious doubt, don’t you?”

My Christian friend: “So what? Even if the whole book is bullshit, we can use the good parts to our advantage, and ignore the crap. It doesn’t matter whether Jesus lived or died, I can still help out in a pancake breakfast and raise money to help needy families. God might not exist, but it gives many people a good feeling to pray to Him. Why try to take that away?”
[/QUOTE]
Truth
[/QUOTE]
It might lead to an interesting philosophical discussion if I asked you Why Truth Matters.

Or we could discuss the relative merits of Truth and Pragmatism. e.g. If there’s something that we can’t know for sure whether it’s true or false, should we focus our attention on how likely it is to be true, or on the practical effects of believing that it’s true?

Depending on the circumstances, I might have answered Musicat much the same way his friend did. And I would have meant something like: Look, I believe what I believe, but I’m not in the mood to defend myself right now. If you want me to question my beliefs, you’re going to have to give me a motivation. I believe that my beliefs are correct, but even if they’re totally wrong, what harm is it doing me to go on believing them?

[mswas]

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
You know what I mean. Science, and technology it’s offspring, works; religion fails. Faith can’t move mountains; bulldozers and nukes can. Laying on hands won’t cure the sick, but antibiotics can. Religion can’t tell us what happened a million years ago, but science can. You tried to claim that religion and science are equivalent because both try to explain the world; the difference between the two is that science succeeds. Religion fails. When it comes to revealing the truth, relgion is so bad that the fact that a belief is religiously based is a good argument against that claim being true, judging from history. Religion is almost obsessively wrong.
[/QUOTE]

If there is anything I hope to teach you in this life it is not to read more into a statement that someone is saying simply because you think that the argument fits a template that was handed to you.

I meant precisely what I said. That Science can be put into that sentence and it be equally true. There are many questions about ‘truth’ even if it is subjective, that are not even addressed within the scope of most scientific inquiry, of a nature that, if Science were to address them, it would achieve religion status. Science is meant to answer questions about mechanical processes, it doesn’t answer questions like, “Who am I?”, or even attempt to. Religion, ‘works’ at what it’s supposed to do. What you are referring to is actually called ‘ignorance’. Some people are behind the times in their educations. You seem to believe that knowledge was invented in the 16th century. I do not. I think there is a longer tradition, even if there was a tremendous leap forward in the 16th century. I do not believe this tremendous leap could have been made without the foundational ‘truth’ that preceded it.

[MrDibble]

[QUOTE=mswas]
I was quoting myself in a previous post.

[/QUOTE]

Whooosh!

[QUOTE=mswas]

You’re just trying to be smarter than me, come on admit it, it’s all about measuring the size of anatomy now right?

[/QUOTE]

I am smarter than you. I’m smart enough to admit it when I’m wrong, for one thing.

[QUOTE=mswas]

Look, I have heard information about certain things, the historical evidence on most of this stuff is not that well known, as I pointed out in the parts that didn’t suit your sniping.

[/QUOTE]

Yet you used it to support your side anyway. That’s dishonest debating.

[QUOTE=mswas]

My debate has a side? You mean I represent more than my own personal opinion? Awesome! I need to find me some rubes cuz I’s got me some snake oil at discount prices!

[/QUOTE]

Are you an idiot? “Your side” is singular, and contrasts with “My side”.

[QUOTE=mswas]

I also referenced what is more well known about Egyptian religion that they jumped around as it regards the supreme God of their Pantheon. You chose to ignore that also as you would rather fixate on a typo.

[/QUOTE]

WTF? You just mentioned Akhenaten in a list of gods, you didn’t qualify anything. That’s the post I was responding to. Aten was their supreme God once. For twenty [del]minutes[/del]years!

Ancient Egypt had a unique, highly evolved mythology that lasted millennia and you pick their one brief moment of monotheistic madness, that they actively worked to erase afterward, as representing their interaction with the “Generative Principle”? That’s some nerve.

And your misspelling of “Ahura Mazda” was a “typo”. Mistaking Akhenaten for Aten was more what I’d call a fuckup.

[QUOTE=mswas]

Two actually, my anatomy is unaffected by my making an argument about comparative religion on an internet message at the level of discourse of an internet message board.

[/QUOTE]

I meant the legs of your argument. But you knew that. Trying to clown your way out of this, are you? You’ll need bigger shoes, Krusty.

[QUOTE=mswas]

Are you cherry-picking from my statements to show me my behavior through reflection or something?

[/QUOTE]

It’s hardly cherry-picking when your posts are right above mine, unlike the way you stealthily dip into the entire collective pantheon of the human theosphere for the few godlings you mistakenly believe support your thesis.

[QUOTE=mswas]

At least you are having an argument on topic which is more than I can say for others of ‘your kind’.

[/QUOTE]

My kind? My scare-quotes-‘kind’? What the hell kind of idiotic sniping is that? Name names, and realise that just because you can’t keep up, doesn’t mean others aren’t on topic, man.

[QUOTE=mswas]

However, do you disagree that there is a remarkable amount of agreement upon the one aspect of God that I have been focusing on, even if it isn’t 100% and some aspects of my cite choices were off?
[/QUOTE]

Yes, I disagree that there is agreement. You and the other latter-day Syncretist in this thread have utterly failed to prove your case. Not only because you cherry-pick your examples, but because you both display remarkable ignorance about what you are arguing.

Don’t get me started on why in the hell you’d bring up “Shiva/Brahma/Vishnu” but leave out the Paramatman and Brahman (but I bet that last oversight was a typo, huh? :rolleyes: )

Wait 'til you find out about the Demiurge, I’m sure your head will explode.

[The_Hamster_King]

[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
It might lead to an interesting philosophical discussion if I asked you Why Truth Matters.
[/QUOTE]
Yes. But it’s rather an odd position to take on a message board devoted to fighting ignorance.

It’s sort of taken as a given around here that understanding truth from falsehood is a good thing, as is disseminating that understanding. If your position is that it doesn’t really make any difference whether any statement is true or false then I think you’re arguing from a very different set of premises than the rest of us.

Or we could discuss the relative merits of Truth and Pragmatism. e.g. If there’s something that we can’t know for sure whether it’s true or false, should we focus our attention on how likely it is to be true, or on the practical effects of believing that it’s true?

I think that’s a rather patronizing way to approach theists and their beliefs. They can’t be trusted with the truth so we tell them convenient lies to keep them happy and well-behaved?

Depending on the circumstances, I might have answered Musicat much the same way his friend did. And I would have meant something like: Look, I believe what I believe, but I’m not in the mood to defend myself right now. If you want me to question my beliefs, you’re going to have to give me a motivation. I believe that my beliefs are correct, but even if they’re totally wrong, what harm is it doing me to go on believing them?

“I don’t want to talk about it” is a perfectly acceptable response in polite company. Nothing compels you to participate in this thread, just as nothing compelled the panel of theists in the OP to go on television and rebut Dawkins.

[Der_Trihs]

[QUOTE=mswas]
Science is meant to answer questions about mechanical processes, it doesn’t answer questions like, “Who am I?”, or even attempt to.
[/quote]
Yes it does; there’s been a lot of research in human nature, the mind, and so forth. There are questions it can’t give an answer to, but religion can’t give a truthful one to those sorts of questions either. All it can do is make stuff up. Scienctists could lie just as well if they were so inclined, but then they wouldn’t be doing science anymore.

[QUOTE=mswas]
Religion, ‘works’ at what it’s supposed to do.
[/quote]
Manipulate, deceive, and exploit people, and spread and maintain itself; yes, it’s good at that.

[QUOTE=mswas]
You seem to believe that knowledge was invented in the 16th century.
[/quote]
Most but not all knowledge has been discovered by science, if that’s what you mean.

[QUOTE=mswas]
I think there is a longer tradition, even if there was a tremendous leap forward in the 16th century. I do not believe this tremendous leap could have been made without the foundational ‘truth’ that preceded it.
[/QUOTE]
The majority of that tradition was garbage, and the only "foundational ‘truth’ " needed was the principles of science and an objective reality it can study. Religion is sterile, and empty of truth. An intellectual void.

[Thudlow_Boink]

[QUOTE=Pochacco]
Yes. But it’s rather an odd position to take on a message board devoted to fighting ignorance.
[/QUOTE]
Whuh? I wasn’t taking a position, I was raising a philosophical issue. And notice that it was “Why Truth Matters,” not “Whether Truth Matters”!

I think that’s a rather patronizing way to approach theists and their beliefs. They can’t be trusted with the truth so we tell them convenient lies to keep them happy and well-behaved?

I’m not sure where you’re getting this from. Who said anything about telling lies?

And again, I was musing on a philosophical issue, one that was inspired by, and possibly relevant to, but not specific to, the debate at hand.

[Apos]

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
You confuse God with religion. I don’t know why people do. Some Muslims or Jews might say that the God they worship isn’t the same one that Christians do but they wouldn’t be speaking from the position of their own religion but for themselves. Like I said before religion is a way of celebrating God - different birthday parties, same guest of honour.
[/QUOTE]

Again, its one thing to speak for yourself, but trying to speak for all these other religions and religious people: all of whom disagree with you, is silly. Both the official stances of these religions as defined by their major leaders and major figures, as well as the basic opinions of the rank and file, all disagree with you.

You can have whatever opinion of God you want. That doesn’t change the fact that most believers in God don’t share your opinion on things.

[Apos]

[QUOTE=JThunder]
As I said earlier, you folks can’t even agree on the definition of atheism. That strikes me as a much more fundamental form of disagreement than these other teachings – none of which are intrinsic to theism itself.
[/QUOTE]

This is a pretty false issue. That we can’t agree on the specific definition of what the TERM atheism should mean has no relevance to anything: it’s just a word, and the debate over how to use the word is purely a debate on the least confusing way to describe things.

We don’t particularly need the word though, because we can get on fine without it. Some are theists. Others are not theists. Theists share a belief: in a god (though that’s a pretty vague and broad grouping). Those who are not theists don’t have any particular beliefs in common, so asking them or expecting them to agree on anything just demonstrates a basic misunderstanding of things.

You are certainly on the right track: attacking “theism” because of the particulars of various specific beliefs is silly. But your particulars are sloppy.

[Quiddity_Glomfuster]

[QUOTE=MrDibble]

Originally Posted by Quiddity Glomfuster
Not the point. You, too, can’t pull out to meta level.

What the heck does that even mean?
[/QUOTE]

Beyond; transcending; more comprehensive: metapsychology.
(from dictionary.com)

I don’t think you can separate the two. “The Divine” can only be conveyed in how its adherents express their belief.

Go back to my birthday analogy.

Care to explain where’s the “universal consciousness” in a state that means “no self/soul?”. Ana-tman is the very opposite of the deity you cite as “The Divine”. Buddha would say you are still stuck in one of the “62 views”.

I don’t cite a specific deity; as mswas perhaps better termed it; ‘Generative Principle’. How is ‘no self because there is no separation; all is one’ different from universal consciousness?

Oooh, you can google! Now google me this - where the hell on that page does it in any way, shape or form address anything about my objection to your characterisation of the basic tenets of Buddhism?

It explains the metaphysical aspects of Buddhism.

I italicised some words in that sentence for a reason. Go back, reread for comprehension, and tell again that harm I do to someone else is the same as harm I do to myself (there, I did it again, just to be helpful)

You can drop the snark because you have not made a coherent point about this in response to mine; which is that humans allow themselves to be caused pain in honour of principles they believe in.

Are you telling me it matters if someone is a willing human sacrifice or not? I mean, that it matters to “The Divine”? I mean, I realise you’re a Christian, but still, that’s taking a “All is God” approach just a little too far, no?

You were talking about rituals and how humans perform them. We’re not talking about what The Divine thinks about it. Your claim is that religions cause harm and I said they cause harm to people who participate as a manner of honouring their Divine.

Not that it matters, but no, I can’t assure you that the victims of Xipe Totec weren’t willing. I can assure you, though, that the sacrifices of Tlaloc were certainly not willing or capable of informed consent.

Why do people like you, when discussing ideas and principles, look for the minute nits to pick and somehow think that negates a whole segment of the discussion.

The basic principles of the major religions and most of their adherent sects are the same. The minor religions believe in the Divine but the odd one, yes, will end up not following those basic principles. That does not negate the original point. Nobody said that every single religion, include Joe-Bob and Billy-Sue’s Divine Doughnut Intervention and Sex Shoppe Religion, is included in that statement.

[QUOTE=Voyager]

Then 600 years later, that same God speaks to an illiterate caravan driver named Mohammed and inspires another book that contradicts almost all of of what is expounded in the above paragraph. Now, with two mutually contradictory statements there are only two possibilities. One is right and the other wrong, or both are wrong (because there is no God).
[/QUOTE]

We’ve got plenty to go on. They get these opinions directly from a book supposedly inspired. If the book really is inspired, you’ve got a direct conduit from God. If not, the rules just reflect what the writers thought morals should be, backed up by appeals to a made-up deity. Or, more likely, the rules reflect what the writers were sure the deity would want.

As long as the deity himself didn’t physically create the book; whatever information came to us has been filtered through humans; imperfect, tiny-brained humans. And different languages. And a couple centuries at best. Think about explaining a motherboard to an ant. You can pretty much guarantee the ant will get it wrong when telling the rest of the ants what it was told.

[QUOTE=Valteron]

• Why has nobody ever captured one or found the skeleton of one?
  [/QUOTE]

Every year new animals are found that nobody ever saw before. Did that mean they didn’t exist because physical evidence of their existence was not found?

[QUOTE=I Love Me, Vol. I]

Jim Jones’ and Fred Phelps’ ideas of religion are PRECISELY as valid as anyone else’s views of religion. The Pope, Rabbi Goldstein down the block and those nutty kids who discovered the Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster also have valid views on religion. None of their views are ANY different from any others in terms of their validity as religious points of view.
[/QUOTE]

You’re welcome to take semantics right to hell if you like, but ‘religion’ does not mean ‘whatever somebody thinks and decides to call a religion’.

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]

No, I’m not. I’m discussing anything that isn’t just in your own mind. “White-Haired Old Man”, seven headed dragon, the Force, Cosmic Oneness; anything that isn’t purely internal to the mind, purely subjective.
[/QUOTE]

So you think all abstract concepts are only internal? What is ‘knowledge’? ‘Understanding’? Even ‘thought’? Do you claim that you only understand them in relation to yourself? Surely not!

I’m afraid it is. All the evidence we have is that thought is a physical process withoin our brains, and nothing more.

There is no evidence which proves that. And you still can’t take a photo of a thought, nor can you put it in a test tube. The scan is not showing you thought. You can insist it is until you’re purple, but saying it doesn’t make it so.

If I’m just casually thinking about it, as either a timeline or a calender. If I’m thinking more about time itself rather than scheduling, I tend to think of a diagram showing worldlines.

That’s very interesting. I’m wondering if people like yourself who conceive of abstract concepts as something concrete, with a visual image, would have a harder time with conceptualizing in the abstract. For instance, do you ‘see’ an image of ‘thought’? I really appreciate your answering because I’m very curious about this.

That’s not what I meant. I was just pointing out that not all religion does or has held to the allegedly universal “treat your fellow humans well” standard that Quiddity Glomfuster claimed.

You didn’t do it very convincingly.

Originally Posted by mswas
One agreement that I have found amongst all the religions I have studied at all is that there is a single Creator or Generative Principle that has absolute dominion over the spark of life. Whether that is Akhenaten, YHVH, God, Allah, The Druids’ Source, Shiva/Brahma/Vishnu, Uhura Mazd, etc… There is some pretty wide agreement on that one.

There we have it - exactly what I found.

Because one of the original reasons/excuses for religion was to serve as an explanation for things people didn’t understand, life being one of those things. And people seem to like the idea of a single life maker god; such are predominant in the pantheons made up for the fantasy fiction I’ve read. Are you going to claim that the near universality of single life makers in fantasy is evidence of God?

You can continue to stretch the argument until it’s completely misshapen but it’s not the way to make a point.

[QUOTE=Apos]

Again, its one thing to speak for yourself, but trying to speak for all these other religions and religious people: all of whom disagree with you, is silly. Both the official stances of these religions as defined by their major leaders and major figures, as well as the basic opinions of the rank and file, all disagree with you.

You can have whatever opinion of God you want. That doesn’t change the fact that most believers in God don’t share your opinion on things.
[/QUOTE]

You do understand what a meta-level analysis is, do you not?

[Voyager]

[QUOTE=mswas]
You’re not playing by the rules. The point is about agreement between different types of theists and you are moving back to relying on cliche arguments about atheist logic. You haven’t addressed the main point regarding similarities of core tenets, such as the dominion over the spark of life. Many people have different explanations for rain. The Mectaway people of Zoombaloomba may believe that it rains when Shectahan flushes his toilet, whereas the the Phomapawow people of Seroquat believe that rain is the tears of Smooshkonish crying over her lost lover Arapmanic. That’s hardly relevant at all, and is a digression from the point that there is a tremendous amount of agreement on certain key features of Deity that is agreed upon by disparate cultures far and wide.

[/quote]

I didn’t think my logic was peculiarly atheistic, and I don’t see any cliches. Got an answer, or do you say it is invalid because you can’t respond.

I haven’t seen a bunch of core tenets yet. You’ve got your list to research. Most of the stuff you’ve posted has been refuted already. Something useful would be universal tenets that would not be expected based on all the holders being human. Dominion over the spark of life? I’m not sure what that means exactly. is that part of God being a creator? Does it mean God can kill people? People kill people, and since primitive religions saw the gods as more powerful people, of course they could kill people more effectively.

You got any common tenets that would be surprising? If, say, many religions agreed that the universe was very, very old before science confirmed this, that would be interesting. I believe Hinduism says this - maybe they got it righter than our culture does.

Time to stop asserting and start giving evidence.

What you are talking about is a socio-political hierarchy as it pertains to worship. One of the problems with the atheist cliche of expecting us to justify our existance by ancient religions is that often what we are expected to justify is the vulgar traditions of the hoi polloi, and does little to address the views held by the priestly elect.

Yeah, the ancient gods had hierachies just like humans. Odd, that. I certainly don’t expect you to believe in or justify the Greek religion. That’s the whole point. If there was agreement across religions, then you should want to and be able to do exactly that. Since there clearly isn’t, I don’t expect you to be able to.

Of course it is quite difficult for us to know what the priestly elect of different cultures believed, but in the case of the Greeks, a lot of the logic that you are employing in your arguments was developed by their priestly elect. There is also a lot of evidence that the intellectual traditions of ancient cultures had a great deal of intertribal commerce of ideas.

Not just ancient religions. God kings who die and are resurrected weren’t invented by Christianity. Gods bonking women to create demigods was certainly not a Jewish concept - but was all over the culture in which Christianity flourished. You’d think there would be more similarities, considering this.

[Voyager]

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]

That’s not what I meant. I was just pointing out that not all religion does or has held to the allegedly universal “treat your fellow humans well” standard that Quiddity Glomfuster claimed.

[/QUOTE]

Well you said

Except for the ones that say to hate all other gods, or certain other gods. And the ones that say to kill all unbelievers, or certain unbelievers, or the wrong kind of believers, or people who used to be believers but aren’t any more.

which I misread as saying that most religions do this. My apologies. Even the ones that didn’t want to kill unbelievers didn’t particulary call for treating those out of the tribe well in times of war.

[Voyager]

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

Originally Posted by Voyager
Then 600 years later, that same God speaks to an illiterate caravan driver named Mohammed and inspires another book that contradicts almost all of of what is expounded in the above paragraph. Now, with two mutually contradictory statements there are only two possibilities. One is right and the other wrong, or both are wrong (because there is no God).

[/QUOTE]

I never said that - you have seriously misquoted me. Whether or not Mohammed was illiterate, he was damn astute. Much more so than Jesus, as shown by him doing a lot better at the prophet game.

[MrDibble]

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
Beyond; transcending; more comprehensive: metapsychology.
(from dictionary.com)

[/QUOTE]

No, I meant what does the whole sentence mean? “meta” is a meaningless suffix without a word to qualify, and “metalevel” isn’t any more meaningful. Like I said (and you’ve failed to answer), I haven’t switched the level I’m talking about, so you can’t accuse me of “pulling out” to anything.

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

Go back to my birthday analogy.

[/QUOTE]

No, because that analogy sucked. Use an actual logical argument, not a dumb analogy.

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

I don’t cite a specific deity; as mswas perhaps better termed it; ‘Generative Principle’. How is ‘no self because there is no separation; all is one’ different from universal consciousness?

[/QUOTE]

“All is One” is a gross mischaracterisation of the Buddhist belief of anātman.

“One is None” is closer - a dissolution of selfconciousness, not Union with the Great Link syncretic crap. Breaking the ties that bind us to the atman, not creating links to all of it.

And I wouldn’t cite mswas as any better, either, if I were you. He got a little … mixed up, to put it charitably, about religions that weren’t his own too.

Just make your own arguments and use your own terminology, don’t assume because mswas is arguing against me, he’s arguing with you. I don’t know if he’s one of your so-called “fans”, but he’s made it quite clear he’s only arguing by himself here.

I, it turns out, am having no problem keeping up with both of you. Maybe if you did the research before doing the argument?

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

It explains the metaphysical aspects of Buddhism.

[/QUOTE]

No, it doesn’t. The word anātman doesn’t even appear there once. It’s about the actual Buddhist “physical” cosmology, not metaphysical. Actual Buddhist heavens, actual Buddhist demons, actual preta. Mythology, not meta-anything.

Buddhist metaphysics would talk about anātman, about dukkha, Buddha-dhatu, samsara, dharma, pratītya samutpāda, not devas, asuras and other impermanent stuff. That page doesn’t go beyond the 62 views. Kind of like you.

Did you read your own cite? Did all the foreign words confuse you?
Where on that page is there any metaphysics? Do you even know what metaphysics means?
You really should keep on talking about things you clearly know nothing about, because you’re making my arguments for me.

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

You can drop the snark because you have not made a coherent point about this in response to mine; which is that humans allow themselves to be caused pain in honour of principles they believe in.

[/QUOTE]

See, that’s an actual point rather than analogy - but have you actually looked at how it refutes one of your Two Commandments? Allowing myself to be caused pain doesn’t fall under the “harm no-one” commandment. Plus, you have yet to address the issue of unwilling sacrifice.

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

You were talking about rituals and how humans perform them.
[/QUOTE]

Which are the only pointers to the nature of their Divine inspiration.

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
We’re not talking about what The Divine thinks about it.
[/QUOTE]

I thought “The Divine” was an abstract concept. It thinks, now?

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
Your claim is that religions cause harm and I said they cause harm to people who participate as a manner of honouring their Divine.

[/QUOTE]

My claim is** not **that “religions cause harm”, I’ll leave that to DT. Nice try, though.

My claim is that a religion founded, rooted,based on causing harm can not be said to adhere to your Two Commandment model. That your two principles of “honour the divine” and “love your neighbour” don’t have to co-exist in a human-conceived divine. Clearly, there are religions (even today) that do not see the Divine as you do. Why should I take your view over theirs? (to bring us right back to addressing the OP)

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

Why do people like you, when discussing ideas and principles, look for the minute nits to pick and somehow think that negates a whole segment of the discussion.

[/QUOTE]

“People like me”? My debate opponents are just brimming over with the milk of theistic kindness today, aren’t they?

“All of Meso-American religion” is not some fucking nit to pick. And that’s just one, I haven’t even gotten into the human sacrifices done in honour of the Druidic gods (or mswas’s “Generative Principle”, if that makes you feel any better)

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

The basic principles of the major religions and most of their adherent sects are the same.
[/QUOTE]

Keep repeating it. I’m sure that will make it true.

No, wait, it won’t. Yes, it may, at a great stretch, be true for IslamoJudeoChristian religion, Hinduism too if you really stretch it, but it sure as hell isn’t true for Buddhists and for Chinese Traditional religion (ConfuTaoBuddhist, to coin a term.).

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

The minor religions believe in the Divine but the odd one, yes, will end up not following those basic principles.
[/QUOTE]

Meso-american religion was not some “odd one” - it was a major trend over a large region for a long time.

ConfuTaoBuddhism also isn’t some blip. It collectively has hundreds of millions of adherents, and does not subscribe to your concept of “The Divine” as a theistic monad.

And please, don’t even try and tell me the Tao is an aspect of your “The Divine”. You will be in the BBQPit before I finish reading the post.

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

That does not negate the original point.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, it does.

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

Nobody said that every single religion, include Joe-Bob and Billy-Sue’s Divine Doughnut Intervention and Sex Shoppe Religion, is included in that statement.

[/QUOTE]

The Meso- and South-America sacrifice cults, most Eastern religion, Druidism, heck, animist religions too, are not some corner shop cults.

You tried to shoehorn every major religion into your syncretic Black Hole of a Divinity. I have shown that you are sadly mistaken in your conception of at least one of the world’s major religions, as well as sadly over-eager in painting with your Big-God-Two-Commandments brush. But you just won’t give it up, will you?

Do yourself a favour. READ about what Eastern religions actually believe. LEARN what metaphysics actually is (ask Liberal, he know his metaphysics).

Then come back and tell me that every major religion believes your conception of the Divine. Or apologise for being wrong, if you have the decency to admit it.

I know what the right thing would be, but I’m not holding my breath.

[Zoe]

Der T: They claim they know that there is/are God(s) because of this "knowledge, yet they can’t agree with each other on all sorts of things. That implies that their “knowledge” of God’s existence is equally unreliable.

Bogus argument. Not all Christians claim to “know.” Faith and belief are different from “knowing.”

Thudlow Boink: Christians, for example, would agree with your second sentence:

Valteron: Or else one billion plus Muslims are living and dying for a phoney book that is not inspired by God and which teaches them NOT to worship Jesus as God when in fact he IS one of the persons in the Trinity.

Not all Christians believe that the Koran is a “phoney book.”

Voyager: As for Judaism, the Shema is far more important than the 10 commandments. How you align “the Lord is your God, the Lord is One” with Hinduism or even the Trinity is way beyond me. Yeah, I know that this contradiction is a mystery.

You give me way too much credit. I was simply naming what I guessed to be basic teachings. I wasn’t laying out the similarities found in the teachings or making claim to specific similarities.

Der T: Most but not all knowledge has been discovered by science, if that’s what you mean.

When you are an old man, remember that you said this in 2007.
– “Everything’s up-to-date in Kansas City; we’ve gone about as far as we can go…” – from The Music Man

[Zoe]

This was posted in response to the excerpt from Saul Bellow’s Nobel Lecture:

Revenant Threshold: It’s nice, but it’s the debating equivalent of glurge emails.

You make my point. The OP wanted to know how we could expect him to be converted when theists disagree on the facts. I understand his point and yours. Facts (or interpretations and opinions) are something that can be debated.

Belief cannot be debated. It doesn’t make sense to say, “You do not believe in that!” or “You have no such faith.” Despite the respect that I have for atheism and most atheists, they are as removed from knowing what I’m about as I am from being able to give them “just the facts.” You are talking about math and I am talking about art. (A flawed analogy)

Both math and art have their place in the scheme of things.

And maybe you are right that my subject of art can’t be debated in your debate about math. I agree. You describe the borrowed text that I quoted as “email glurge” for purposes of debate. For purposes of debate – which is what this thread is about – I suppose you are right.

I wonder if anyone would dare have called Saul Bellow’s comments witnessing. His “glimpses” and Proust and Tolstoy’s “true impressions” are one way of attempting to explain what I believe about “God” – “the Divine” – the Sacred.

Lately some atheists have been wanting to nail all Christians down to some fundamentalist doctrine. I don’t even see anyone at the Dope these days with such an attitude.

I’m tired of having beliefs ascribed to me that I don’t hold. That seems to be the M.O. in this thread and in other threads that target “all” Christians. Most I can cope with. But I’m not going to be a whipping boy for the kind of incoherent “debate” that I was subjected to last night.

Why it was suddenly necessary to shift to a debate on the 2nd Amendment, I do not know. And yet another position that I had not expressed was ascribed to me.

[Quiddity_Glomfuster]

[QUOTE=Voyager]
I never said that - you have seriously misquoted me. Whether or not Mohammed was illiterate, he was damn astute. Much more so than Jesus, as shown by him doing a lot better at the prophet game.
[/QUOTE]

Quite right; my apologies. It was a scrolling error; Valteron posted that in a post below yours; I missed the author change.

[MEBuckner]

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
Are you an idiot?
[/QUOTE]

Moderator’s Warning: Personal insults aren’t allowed in Great Debates. Tone it down or take it to the Pit, please.

[MrDibble]

[QUOTE=MEBuckner]
Moderator’s Warning: Personal insults aren’t allowed in Great Debates. Tone it down or take it to the Pit, please.
[/QUOTE]

Will do.

I can still keep up the sarcasm, though, right?