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

Great Debates
281

[QUOTE=mswas]
Staying within context by ignoring ad hominems is dishonest?
[/QUOTE]
No, lying by ommission is dishonest. Refusing to own up to it properly and trying to weasel out of it later by attacking the person who caught you out is even more dishonest.

[QUOTE=mswas]
My point was that there is a lot of agreement about the nature of
God among the theistic groups mentioned in the OP.
[/QUOTE]

Now see, if this had been your point, we we would never have had this argument. But this isn’t what you started out saying, my dear.

[QUOTE=mswas]
Is abuse of context kosher in your land of honesty?

[/QUOTE]
Mu!

[QUOTE=mswas]

If I made a statement about ‘all’ people then I apologize.
[/QUOTE]
If? If? Still weaseling, I see. I’ve quoted it before, might as well quote it again, with bolding by me:

[QUOTE=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
[/QUOTE]

So now, I’d like an apology without any ifs or buts. I want you to say - “I said something that I knew wasn’t true, in this debate, and I’m sorry.” That’s the only honest thing to do.

I’d also like you to say that you’re sorry for the way you tried to weasel out of your mistake by insulting me instead, but I won’t hold my breath.

But *I *am sorry I called you an idiot, BTW. I’m also sorry if I’ve referred to you as “he” at all in this thread.

[QUOTE=mswas]
I almost always apply a strict regimen of qualifying my broad generalizations with a word like ‘most’ or ‘a lot’ in order to account for a margin of error.
[/QUOTE]
Well, you didn’t that time.

[QUOTE=mswas]

My argument was always about a particular property being a fairly common property of God amongst many different religions.

[/QUOTE]

I know this now, but you refuse to outright admit that you were mistaken about some of them, and that you got the details of some wrong. That’s what I mean by dishonest debate tactics - refusing to admit an error or not trying to see the other guy’s points when he’s right.

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but if you want an example of how to do it, search for the “Demonic Free Will” thread. **kanicbird **and others did a good job of convincing me that his viewpoint on demons made logical sense (within his beliefs.) I admitted it.

So, anyway, if **all **you want to say is that “there is a lot of agreement about the nature of God among the theistic groups mentioned in the OP.” then yes, finally, I agree that you are right. But it is, still just addressing the OP, fairly non-controversial to also point out that there is also a lot of *disagreement *about the nature of God amongst those same groups.

Your point, actually, I believe, is that the agreements are more fundamental than the disagreements, am I right? And that’s still up for debate.

282

[QUOTE=mswas]

If I made a statement about ‘all’ people then I apologize. I almost always apply a strict regimen of qualifying my broad generalizations with a word like ‘most’ or ‘a lot’ in order to account for a margin of error.

My argument was always about a particular property being a fairly common property of God amongst many different religions.

[/QUOTE]

Well, this all started with QG’s

When confronted with religions like the meso-american ones there was a quick backpedalling to 'no, no, the major religions. The ones that I know about and support my view that are important today.

You then agreed with her and helped her out with trying to give a list of these many different religions. That got torn to shreds. And now we are left with that the Abrahamic religions share the Genesis story. Woooot
This reminds me so much of that often heard [meaningful voice]‘All religions have an account of a great flood’[/meaningful voice]

Oh yeah really? Name some.

‘Uh..Well you know the major ones Christianity, Judaism, Islam but also Gilgamesh aaahaaand… the Cherokee!’

283

[QUOTE=Princhester]
I think possibly **Czarcasm ** needs to add: “and doesn’t believe that subjective evidence or no evidence at all is a sufficient basis for believing in any god or gods.” Or something along those lines.
[/QUOTE]
I could go with this.

284

[QUOTE=Latro]
This reminds me so much of that often heard [meaningful voice]‘All religions have an account of a great flood’[/meaningful voice]

Oh yeah really? Name some.

‘Uh..Well you know the major ones Christianity, Judaism, Islam but also Gilgamesh aaahaaand… the Cherokee!’
[/QUOTE]

Actually, most do. Just looking in my Mythology textbook from earlier this year, there are Mesopotamian, Hebrew, Chinese, Indian, Greco-Roman, and Mayan myths about a giant flood. The fact that all these religions have myths of a huge flood does not, of course, prove that there was an enormous worldwide flood. All it shows is that there is a common theme in all these cultures*.

I was shocked to learn on the first day of that class that there is a central American myth about a virgin birth. That is, in fact, a common theme in mythology. There’s a Blackfoot myth called Kutoyis, about a boy who is born of a virgin (a virgin’s blood clot, actually), defeats a bunch of evil, sacrifices himself to defeat the greatest of these evils, then is resurrected and returns home. It’s followed immediately in the text by the story of Jesus. When you read them both back-to-back, the similarities between them are startling.

What does any of this prove? That there is a lot of similarity between the myths of various cultures, even those who didn’t know of the others’ existance. I’m not going to say that all religions have the same beliefs about the Divine (to borrow a phrase from earlier in this thread), just that they have more in common than one might think at a quick glance.

    • I almost said “common themes in all religions”, but then I remembered that the Chinese myth of Yu, while having a giant flood, has no mention of a diety having anything to do with it.
285

[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar]
Actually, most do. Just looking in my Mythology textbook from earlier this year, there are Mesopotamian, Hebrew, Chinese, Indian, Greco-Roman, and Mayan myths about a giant flood. The fact that all these religions have myths of a huge flood does not, of course, prove that there was an enormous worldwide flood. All it shows is that there is a common theme in all these cultures*.

I was shocked to learn on the first day of that class that there is a central American myth about a virgin birth. That is, in fact, a common theme in mythology. There’s a Blackfoot myth called Kutoyis, about a boy who is born of a virgin (a virgin’s blood clot, actually), defeats a bunch of evil, sacrifices himself to defeat the greatest of these evils, then is resurrected and returns home. It’s followed immediately in the text by the story of Jesus. When you read them both back-to-back, the similarities between them are startling.

What does any of this prove? That there is a lot of similarity between the myths of various cultures, even those who didn’t know of the others’ existance. I’m not going to say that all religions have the same beliefs about the Divine (to borrow a phrase from earlier in this thread), just that they have more in common than one might think at a quick glance.

    • I almost said “common themes in all religions”, but then I remembered that the Chinese myth of Yu, while having a giant flood, has no mention of a diety having anything to do with it.
      [/QUOTE]

IIRC flood myths are more common among coastal regions and areas that have flooding, although there are some in dry places as well. As for the Chinese myth - I think they had several and I could swear that they had one where people actually prevented a flood.

Perhaps I’m just crazy though.

On another note, the similarities among religions (particularly the mystery religions and Christianity) is one of the things that ultimately lead to my deconversion.

286

[QUOTE=Meatros]
IIRC flood myths are more common among coastal regions and areas that have flooding, although there are some in dry places as well.
[/QUOTE]
Well, sure, they’re dry now. :wink:
But you’re right - floodplains just happen to be attractive places for people to live;

  • easily-worked, fertile silty soil
  • flat terrain, making it easy to get about, easy to build, easy to work the land
  • a river nearby provides transportation by boat, fresh water and disposal of waste(which is bad luck for anyone living downstream, but hey ho).

Attractive, that is, until they flood, when:

  • the silty soil becomes unlimited quantities of mud, burying things, bogging down other things - making escape difficult
  • the flat terrain is inundated very rapidly, the buildings that didn’t require much foundation in the dry collapse or just wash away. Crops are lost, cattle drowned
  • reliance on the river for transportation means there might not be any easy escape routes and disruption to the fresh water supply (everything is mud now) poses survival difficulties for those not immediately killed.

So a flood could quite easily become a major disaster, worthy of record.

287

[QUOTE=Meatros]
On another note, the similarities among religions (particularly the mystery religions and Christianity) is one of the things that ultimately lead to my deconversion.
[/QUOTE]

Would you mind defining the underlined term?

288

Probably the most comprehensive summary out there:
talkorigins flood myth archive

289

[QUOTE=Zoe]
“Everything’s up-to-date in Kansas City; we’ve gone about as far as we can go…” – from The Music Man
[/QUOTE]

OK, now this is the most egregious error in the whole thread. “Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City” is from Oklahoma, not The Music Man. There are some times when you just have to draw the line.

290

[QUOTE=mswas]
That is addressed by the notion of Henotheism. There are lots of Gods, but they are all manmade except for YHVH who is the creator.

One of the points of Christianity is that Christ came to put to rest all the pagan deities, that it was an attempt to universalize the one true deity.

As the Muslims say: There is no God but God.
[/QUOTE]

Mswas, in your attempt to squirm out from under the original point I made in my OP, you are glossing over the irreconcilable differences between what a billion Christians believe and are willing to die for, and what a billion Muslims believe and are willing to die for.

You say:
"One of the points of Christianity is that Christ came to put to rest all the pagan deities.. . . . . " Then you go on to quote Muslims saying “There is no God but God”.

Wheeeeee! No contradictions here folks! :rolleyes:

What a crock!

It is not even correct to say that Muslims and Christians agree on their common monotheistic God, because of the doctrine of the trinity.

In the firstplace, since Jesus preached to Jews, he would not have had to convince his hearers that they must “put to rest all the pagan dieties”". I recall no passage in the Gospels where that is even an issue (but I stand to be corrected if I have missed something).

Christianity DID have the effect of putting to rest belief in other dieties as it spread (or was often imposed by the sword) across Europe. So in that sense it is similar to Islam.

But what about these basic, contradictory and irreconcilable differences?

Christianity :God is made up of three persons. 1) God the Father, 2) God the Son and 3) God the Holy Spirit

Islam: God is one person

Christianity: God has always been three persons, from the beginning of time. One of those persons, God the Son, became a human about 2000 years ago by being conceived by the Holy Spirit in a human female, a Hebrew virgin named Miriam (Mary). The son she bore, Jesus, had no human father, and was conceived in her womb without sexual intercourse. He was the only-begotten son of God.

The purpose of this incarnation was so that Jesus (i.e. God) could become a sacrifice who was tortured to death to atone for the sins of humanity. By paying this price he made it possible for human beings to be reconciled to God and to achieve salvation. This is arguably the single most important event that has ever occurred in history. Islam and the Koran are false religion. God never inspired Mohammed or the contents of the Koran.

Islam: God has always been one person, and has been so from the beginning of time. About 2000 years ago, God caused a human female, a Hebrew virgin named Miriam (Mary) to bear a son, Jesus, who had no human father, and was conceived in her womb without sexual intercourse. But he was NOT the son of God. The Koran is EXTREMELY clear on this point.

The purpose of this strange, unbiological birth is not explained in the Koran. Hoever, at one point God says that if HE could create Adam without a father, he could create Jesus without one too. But Jesus was simply a prophet, and entirely human. He was a good, moral human being and preacher, one of a series of prophets leading up to Mohammed, who was the FINAL prophet, the “seal” of the prophets. One attains salvation **not ** through the crucifixion (Muslims generally believe that Jesus was not crucified at all) but through submission to Islam (the word means submission) as revealed in the Koran. Non-believers will go to Hell where they will be horribly tortured forever. Believing Jesus to be the Son of God when the Koran says he is not would make you a non-believer.

Sorry, but we are talking about extremely basic, elemental, bedrock differences about the diety and his plan for humanity.

When one billion people believe X and one billion believe not-X, then simple logic tells us that at least one billion people are in error. My guess is that TWO billion (Christians AND Muslims AND Jews) are in error and are blowing their asses off for nothing but a bunch of delusional myths and flasehoods.

291

[QUOTE=jsc1953]
OK, now this is the most egregious error in the whole thread. “Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City” is from Oklahoma, not The Music Man. There are some times when you just have to draw the line.
[/QUOTE]

Thank you! I thought I knew The Music Man pretty well (having performed it a zillion times) but I couldn’t place that line at all.

292

[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
[sarcasm]As I non-stand here in front of my non-Apple computer, I eat my non-dinner, drink my non-beer and contemplate my non-religion.[/sarcasm]
Atheists are not playing a different version of the religion game, and we are not playing the same game with alternate rules-We have set down the dice, we have thrown away the pretty playing piece, and thrown the board away. We are not playing the religion game at all. We don’t have a church, we don’t have a religion, we don’t have Communism as some subset-we don’t even have a loose set of rules to live by. We don’t worship our gods, we don’t worship your gods, we don’t worship their gods, and we don’t worship gods set up by governments(that would be Communism, for those who haven’t gotten the point yet.)
[/QUOTE]

It’s funny how even with your lack of conformity you always hide behind the group when I am addressing a specific person.

That statement was directed AT YOU, not at all atheists.

MrDibble As hard as it may be for you to believe, you haven’t convinced me. I conceded that my info on the druids was insufficient and retracted it. Otherwise you quibbled about my typo of putting the Pharaoh Akhenaten’s name in the place of Aten the God he worshipped, and said some BS about the spelling of Hormuzd. If spelling mistakes and typos are the best you can do, then I don’t see much point in taking you very seriously. You seriously misrepresented my position, and then instead of recognizing a failure in communication you started calling me a liar. If I lied by ommission, it is because I didn’t give you much credit. You came across with a bunch of ad hominems and superior ego posturing, so I gave your arguments the credence that they were presented with.

If you want to present your arguments with humility, in a succinct fashion without making this about some notion of what precise behavior I should engage in, I will address them individually. If you cannot do this, I will remain flippant. I’m not going to get into an argument with you about whether or not I am a liar, they are tedious, and you are not important enough to me to warrant the effort.

293

[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar]
Would you mind defining the underlined term?
[/QUOTE]

I’m not Meatros, but I think s/he means the religions with secret initiation rites that were prevalent in the Eastern Med. around the same time as early Christianity, and were a kind of craze in the Roman Empire at the time, too. I know a little about Mithraism (big with Roman soldiers) and the Eleusinian Mysteries, but I think there were also cults associated with Osiris, Dionysus and Orpheus, at a minimum. Probably a few more. They were all about having to be initiated into the cult, but there was also a large element of dying/rebirth figures and an obsession with the Underworld/afterlife.

294

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
I’m not Meatros, but I think s/he means the religions with secret initiation rites that were prevalent in the Eastern Med. around the same time as early Christianity, and were a kind of craze in the Roman Empire at the time, too. I know a little about Mithraism (big with Roman soldiers) and the Eleusinian Mysteries, but I think there were also cults associated with Osiris, Dionysus and Orpheus, at a minimum. Probably a few more. They were all about having to be initiated into the cult, but there was also a large element of dying/rebirth figures and an obsession with the Underworld/afterlife.
[/QUOTE]

Ahem “HE!”

As to the substance you are correct. The mystery religions are a loose group of religions that had secret initiation rites that we don’t know a lot about, as you said. I believe Pythagorus also had one that centered around him returning from the dead and all. I can’t recall though.

We don’t know much about them, but what we do know is interesting. They often have a lot of similarities with Christianity, each other, and other religions. For instance, Mithrialism had a baptism intiation that was similar to Christianity - only instead of a baptism by water, it was bulls blood.

I’m actually not sure of whether or not the poorer folk used water or not.

Mystery cults often celebrated dying and resurrecting gods (attis, dionysis, etc) - most often associated with the seasons and festivals - a lot of them had virgin births, and miracles and although I don’t have my sources handy and it’s been a while since I looked into this (ie, take with a grain of salt) some of them even had familar motifs - such as the Christian fish and the feeding of the multitude with very little food (IIRC, that’s pythagorean myths).

295

[QUOTE=mswas]

MrDibble As hard as it may be for you to believe, you haven’t convinced me. I conceded that my info on the druids was insufficient and retracted it.
[/QUOTE]

That was the most mealy-mouthed retraction I’ve seen in a while. It failed to include an admission that you knew the info wasn’t good, but used it anyway. Such admission had to be pulled from you.

[QUOTE=mswas]
Otherwise you quibbled about my typo of putting the Pharaoh Akhenaten’s name in the place of Aten the God he worshipped,
[/QUOTE]

IT WAS NOT A TYPO, IT WAS A MISTAKE OF FACT!

[QUOTE=mswas]
and said some BS about the spelling of Hormuzd.
[/QUOTE]

Still harping on the point I unhesitantly acknowledged was a typo? That’s pretty weak sauce.

[QUOTE=mswas]
If spelling mistakes and typos are the best you can do, then I don’t see much point in taking you very seriously.
[/QUOTE]

No,there’s the dishonesty too, let’s not forget that. Oh, and the rudeness, there’s that too.

Let’s not forget the bit where you ignore the actual Hindu overgod in favour of his lesser triad components, did you skip over that bit?

[QUOTE=mswas]
You seriously misrepresented my position, and then instead of recognizing a failure in communication you started calling me a liar.
[/QUOTE]

How can I misrepresent what you’re saying when anyone can read what you wrote? I’m going by what you’re actually saying here. If you want me to read your mind and guess that you mean “some” when you say “all”, you’re going to have to take off the Bacofoil Hat.

[QUOTE=mswas]
If I lied by ommission, it is because I didn’t give you much credit.
[/QUOTE]

Again with the “If”! “If” is a weasel word.

But it’s OK to lie to me, because I don’t gots no credit? O-kaaaaay then! But you’re also lying to everyone else in this thread. Nice!

[QUOTE=mswas]
You came across with a bunch of ad hominems and superior ego posturing, so I gave your arguments the credence that they were presented with.

[/QUOTE]

Show me one ad hominem, please? I came across with facts. Like the fact that you were just plain making shit up. And the fact that you didn’t know what you were talking about. That’s not an ad hominem, that’s an observation.

[QUOTE=mswas]

If you want to present your arguments with humility, in a succinct fashion without making this about some notion of what precise behavior I should engage in, I will address them individually.
[/QUOTE]

No, missy, you don’t get it - YOU are the liar caught out, YOU are the one who has to humble herself. I don’t have to do jack.

[QUOTE=mswas]
If you cannot do this, I will remain flippant.
[/QUOTE]

You think you’re coming across as flippant, I think you’re coming across as desperate. Can’t argue the facts, so attack the man. And I’m the one slinging ad hominems?

[QUOTE=mswas]
I’m not going to get into an argument with you about whether or not I am a liar, they are tedious, and you are not important enough to me to warrant the effort.
[/QUOTE]

Yet still you post.
I guess I understand why you wouldn’t want to go that route, since your last thread on you being a liar went so well for you, but I don’t expect you to argue with me about it. Anyone else can also see your words in this thread, and draw their own conclusions. So far, you haven’t actually denied your dishonest debate tactics, just refused to take responsibility for them.

Aaah well, at least you’re still here. I guess QG’s otherwise engaged reading Sutras or something. Well, I can dream…

296

I’m not sure how credible this site is (I only heard it vouched for on the Infidelguy’s internet program - so take that as you will), but this might be a good starting place.

297

[QUOTE=Voyager]
The Messiah was supposed to be king. Jesus didn’t come any closer than the Burger King. :slight_smile: I’d have guessed, beforehand, that God would see to it that his true representative lasted a bit longer than Jesus did.

Of course his prophecies haven’t exactly been right on the money either.
[/QUOTE]

I see. I wasn’t making any connection to OT prophecies.

298

[QUOTE=Meatros]
IIRC flood myths are more common among coastal regions and areas that have flooding, although there are some in dry places as well. As for the Chinese myth - I think they had several and I could swear that they had one where people actually prevented a flood.
[/QUOTE]

Though ancient Egypt, which flooded every year, did not have a flood myth.

Their “Don’t make me come down there, you disrespectful mortals” myth is allegorised plague.

299

[QUOTE=Pazu]
Thank you! I thought I knew The Music Man pretty well (having performed it a zillion times) but I couldn’t place that line at all.
[/QUOTE]

You mean there is no song that goes
“We’ve got trouble,
right here in Kansas City?”

:smiley:

300

[ Moderating ]

(Listed alphabetically: ) MrDibble and mswas, knock it off.

Complaining about each other and going on about who is or is not lying have nothing to do with this thread. Neither of you are persuading the peanut gallery of anything (except that you are each a bit obsessive regarding the other poster).

If you have a straightforward thesis regarding the thread topic that you think needs to be expressed, do so without mentioning any previous posts, otherwise just knock it off or go play in the Pit.

[ /Moderating ]