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.
I was quoting myself in a previous post.
You’re just trying to be smarter than me, come on admit it, it’s all about measuring the size of anatomy now right?
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!
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.
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?
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?
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.
Whooosh!
I am smarter than you. I’m smart enough to admit it when I’m wrong, for one thing.
Yet you used it to support your side anyway. That’s dishonest debating.
Are you an idiot? “Your side” is singular, and contrasts with “My side”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Manipulate, deceive, and exploit people, and spread and maintain itself; yes, it’s good at that.
Most but not all knowledge has been discovered by science, if that’s what you mean.
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.
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’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.
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.
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.
Beyond; transcending; more comprehensive: metapsychology.
(from dictionary.com)
Go back to my birthday analogy.
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?
It explains the metaphysical aspects of Buddhism.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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’.
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!
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.
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.
You didn’t do it very convincingly.
There we have it - exactly what I found.
You can continue to stretch the argument until it’s completely misshapen but it’s not the way to make a point.
You do understand what a meta-level analysis is, do you not?
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.
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.
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.
Well you said
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.
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.
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.
No, because that analogy sucked. Use an actual logical argument, not a dumb analogy.
“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?
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.
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.
Which are the only pointers to the nature of their Divine inspiration.
I thought “The Divine” was an abstract concept. It thinks, now?
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)
“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)
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.).
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.
Yes, it does.
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.
Bogus argument. Not all Christians claim to “know.” Faith and belief are different from “knowing.”
Not all Christians believe that the Koran is a “phoney book.”
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.
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
This was posted in response to the excerpt from Saul Bellow’s Nobel Lecture:
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.
Quite right; my apologies. It was a scrolling error; Valteron posted that in a post below yours; I missed the author change.
Moderator’s Warning: Personal insults aren’t allowed in Great Debates. Tone it down or take it to the Pit, please.
Will do.
I can still keep up the sarcasm, though, right?