But if you wanted to convince others that zombies should not be taught about in schools, saying that the people who believe in zombies have maggoty piles of shit for brains might not be the best debate tactic. That’s especially true if a substantial part of your audience believe in zombies but don’t think schools are the right place to talk about them. You’re alienating people who started out on your side, and that’s not a winning tactic. This is about debate tactics and convincing people that you are right, at least as much as it is about scientific evidence, and it would be very foolish to ignore that.
Yeah, this thread is sort of novel in that the OP rather explicitly didn’t ask us to gently coax the creationist to a belief in truth, light, and no lying gods; instead, we’re asked to ask a question that will kick the creationist in the mental teeth and knock them flat on their rhetorical asses, for the benefit of observers. So, while calling the creationist stupid does little good (as ad hominem is only really convincing if you’re already inclined to believe it), if you can make the creationist look stupid, that’s perfect.
OK, but at some point you must realize that America was not founded on a Juedo-Zombie ethos. This isn’t about zombies, it’s about something that has a serious, perhaps THE MOST serious and definately deepest root in modern society. This isn’t just a “hey, lookit this Jesus dealie, he’s on the MTV hangin with diddy, I should listen” It’s something that is ingrained, and wholly believed by generations upon generations of people who, absent any other proof, attributed everything from wind and rain to darkness on invisible spirits. I think as a nation we’re past the really dumb stuff (no, not all of us, but most of us) and are starting to find the middle ground, but we have a REALLY long way to go.
And I’m saying that ridiculing something the observers believe isn’t likely to do that- it just sets you up for an ad hominem attack from the creationists (which might work if the observers have negative stereotypes of people who don’t believe as they do, as many people do). There are things that you can ridicule about young-earth creationism without ridiculing the idea of belief in a god or gods in general (some of which were mentioned in this thread).
Well, I did just explicitly say that you’re not going to accomplish the end of debunking the creationist debater by using ad hominim. It’s just interesting that we have a thread where the goal is technically not to convince the person to whom you’re speaking, but instead other people not involved in the discussion.
You’re right; the myth that America was founded on Christainity is false.
(And I thought Jesus was technically a zombie. I mean, he died, percolated for a day and a half, and then rose from the grave to walk again, still bearing the wounds that killed him, didn’t he?)
And metaphorically can’t christianity be said to “Eat” or consume the brain of the believer?
If the ad hominem attacks of my posts upset you, replace “maggoty shit for brains” references with something about “other beliefs not grounded in reality”.
Zombies have as much proof as any god. Most people honestly don’t realize that. They never in their whole lives question religion because it’s so monolithic and omnipresent. Maybe something shocking is what they need. Maybe in forming an argument to rebut my angry one they’ll look at their own beliefs and come away questioning why they do believe.
Look carefully, and you will see i didn’t say America was FOUNDED on Christianity, but the fact is that the Judeo-Christian ethic is the one most prevalent in the history of our country, and indeed Christianity has very DEEP doots here.
No, I don’t believe he did, I think he probably wasn’t all the way dead (hell, we bury people still alive even today) rested for a day woke up, said, “that’s it, you people are fukin nuts, everything I do for you, and you nail me to a cross, my best friend sticks it in my ass and breaks it off, and I get bread for my last supper? BREAD? Fuk you guys, I am SO outta here” and he took a hard right out of Bethlehem, grabbed the first camel to Al Arish, set up shop as a fish monger and lived the rest of his life drinking wine and selling fish in Egypt.
Why is it that you feel the need to do this? Granted, we’re engaged in a debate right now, but (goddess Help me, I’m following lekatt’s logic) generally, if someone believes in the whole Christian package, why do you bother trying to shake that? And lets say you do, and you’re able to shake the faith of some unsuspecting believer, the only thing you’ve done is made a person otherwise comfortable with their life, unstable and uncomfortable, which leads me to believe you are unstable and uncomfortable, and are simply looking for company.
That said though, if the Christian engages you, all bets are off, but you make it seem like you’re looking for people to harass because they believe differently than you. Apologies if I’m wrong there…
The “whole Christian package” has some surprising nuggets of hatred nestled in amongst its general theme of goody-goodyness. These nuggets have been known to occasionally pop up and do great harm, so it’s worth the effort to try and scrape this foolishness out of thier heads before they decide to do something to you, like ban your books or your marriages, or maybe hang or set fire to you if you’re really unlucky.
This is why there are more militant atheists then militant aSantaists or aEasterBunnyists. Those beliefs lack the nuggets of evil and hatred, so nobody much cares whether you believe them or try and indoctrinate your children with them.
There are Christians that hate those who disagree with them, yes, but these do not define Christianity. It is people that do evil and not religions.
I seem to remember the phrase “evil or mad” scientists doing horrible things to people, but that doesn’t define Science.
When knowledge and wisdom are present one doesn’t blame the gun, book, or teaching, only the person who committed the evil. We are responsible for our actions and words and thoughts and beliefs, only we can change them. This is called maturity.
Yes, that’s true, Christianity, like almost any other group of humans have their share of violent, despicable morons amongst thier membership, but it is no more your business to decide what is in someone’s head than it is to dcecide what goes in their stomach. Unfortunately, we live in a REactive society, because we can’t assume all Christians are book banning witch burners, any more than we can assume all Muslims are suicide bombing terrorists.
You’re making me defend Christians, me no likee.
Didn’t Gandhi say that Christianity was a wonderful religion - people should try it some time?
It is true that no religion will prevent evil people from being evil, but not all religions include precepts which can assist evil people from justifying their evil. (Which doesn’t mean that they don’t have good precepts also.) If a religion claims that conversion yields eternal bliss even at the cost of some present pain, some people will take it at its word, and think they are doing good while actually doing evil.
But those people, if they don’t have a religion to justify their evil, are usually pretty good at finding something else to accomplish the same goal. Humans are good at finding justifications for things they want to do, and unfortunately “things they want to do” sometimes includes evil things. I’d be all for the elimination of religion if I thought that doing that really would stop people from being evil, but I don’t. I don’t think it will eliminate evil, any more than any religion has been able to do that.
Unfortunately, I think that trying to gain power and control at the expense of the freedoms of others is part of human nature. If these people didn’t have religion as an excuse for banning books, marriages, and other things, they’d find plenty of other excuses to do pretty much the same thing. They might do slightly different evil things, or do the evil things to different people, but I don’t really see that as a vast improvement.
The difference between the “God wants it” excuse and any other excuse is that there is no reasoning someone out of it. You can’t appeal to logic, someones better nature, or historical context. “God wants it” trumps all other arguments, ethical, moral and legal, and due to the promise of a heavenly and/or earthly reward coupled with (in some religions) an eternal punishment, “God wants it” can excuse anything. Add in the factor of people being afraid of being “against God” if they argue against it, and you’ve got one powerful force.
What you say is true. Some of the salvation doctrine of Christianity could indicate once saved, always saved. I have heard that many times, but Jesus did not agree with that nor say it. His teachings were love one another if you want to enter the Kingdom of God.
Incidentally, as a religious person, I believe that, if eliminating all religion would stop humans from being evil to one another, God would want religion eliminated, too…
You do. But I don’t think it’s particularly easy to reason someone out of doing an evil thing that they really want to do even without the “God wants it” excuse. And people do come up with other ideas that they feel trump ethical and moral arguments, historical context, and the like. “This will help more people than it hurts” is a good one.