I should say, my USAGE of the word “liberal.” The way I wrote it sounds stupid.
And, frankly, I don’t understand your usage of the phrase “perpetuating ignorance.” I know the board leans left, and while I tend to be on the opposite side of most debates than the majority of the participants, that doesn’t mean that they are “perpetuating ignorance.” It’s about giving your opinion and attempting to defend it…it’s the exchange of ideas that ultimately fights ignorance.
Say, Tom? could you please fix that coding for me? Thanks.
There’s no rule in Great Debates that precludes voicing a belief. If you make a specific, factual claim you will be expected to provide a cite. However, there are many topics, ones less controversial than religion, where “accepted cites” may not be available. With Christianity and the early development of the religion, the “miracles” in the bible and et cetera we’re talking about events that happened in an area of the world that was not traditionally filled with great historians whose works have been preserved for 2,000+ years. Nor are the specifics in question ones that can easily be demonstrated as false or true based on archaeological evidence.
Actually, it’s unlikely a Scientologist WOULD come here and talk about alien beings, since you have to be pretty high up in the organization to find out about those stories AND they wouldn’t tell outsiders about it.
Oh, but I wish they would! Never talked to a real life scientologist.
A further point of inconsistent SDMB moderation that concerns me is the lack of interest in cracking down on what might reasonably be termed Christian hate speech. I hestitate to call for such a crackdown myself, since I don’t favor the whole concept of hate speech, but since the SDMB includes hate speech as one of the types of discourse it strongly discourages, I wonder why they don’t consider the rantings of **Friar Ted ** and **Askeptic ** (on p. 17 of the "Badchad, a moment of your time…"thread) to constitute hate speech?
Is there a clearer sign that someone wishes ill on someone else than gleefuly anticipating their eventual eternal torture? Doesn’t this go way beyond just wishing for someone’s death? It assumes the death as a given, and tacks on specific suffering beyond mere death.
I merely make the point to suggest that if an atheist wished for Friar Ted to die and then to suffer, as he does repeatedly in that thread, I’d think he’d come in for an admonishment or two, but that seems to be fair game. I’m just saying…
No, I’m talking about the specific identification of one’s belief as “knowledge.” When I asked someone if she would agree to describe her belief system as what she believes rather than what she knows to be true, she insisted on the term “knowledge,” to which I took exception. “Arguing facts not in evidence” is how I believe it’s phrased in legal terms.
It’s a small point, but I think it must be extremely valuable to theists to insist that they know, rather than believe in, God’s existence, otherwise I think a few might readily give up that small debating point. Those who insist on abusing the term “knowledge” are doing so for the rhetorical advantage they think it lends to their argument, and in my own mild way, I’m reminding them that they are, to my mind, describing beliefs rather than knowledge.
I believe the claim **pseudotriton ruber ruber **was initially advancing is that Christians and other theists are not held to the same standards of backing up their claims of the nature of Man or God, as other posters are in debates about other subjects.
In a sense that’s correct, as we by and large understand that matters of faith require no objective, factual underpinning. But it is because of that very understanding of the nature of faith, that we allow different standards for professions of faith.
There are two ways to get into problems on the board when debating faith. One is to claim that your faith IS fact in the absenxe of evidence. The other is to belittle someone for their faith, even while the particulars of that faith are fair game.
I’m not denying that they’ve got a tough row to hoe, Martin. But it’s the same tough row that other claimants are sternly told that they must hoe.
I believe that you are referring to me, and you have again completely misrepresented what I had said. I did not say that I “know” God exists in the context of trying to convince you of it. I said it as a way of expressing my own personal level of satisfaction that God exists, which has nothing to do with you or anyone else. It was not a matter of debate, unless I was debating with myself. In fact, I specifically recall saying that it doesn’t matter to me who else believes or does not believe, or whether or not anyone can provide proof that God exists, because I already know everything I need to know. I don’t think it gives any rhetorical advantage to my argument…if anything, it detracts from my argument. The point is that it doesn’t matter, because I think it’s kind of silly to debate the existance or non-existance of God, anyway.
I don’t believe that is the case. I’ve seen few threads where someone has said, “Jesus lived during X-XX years, died on X year, did this on X day, and that is fact.”
I have seen people (myself, for example) make arguments like, “While it is impossible to attain any first hand source material about the life of Jesus outside of the bible due to our existing historical records, I believe that due to the way human beings spread information and how oral histories work it is unlikely that in the 100 or so year span between the purported life of Jesus and the first secular historical footnotes concerning Jesus that such a person could have been invented out of thin air to such a degree that a secular historian 100 years later would be deluded so.”
Most Christians that I know (myself included) and most of the Christians I’ve seen on this board believe in Jesus and the religious significance of Jesus as conforms with their particular form of Christianity. But asked, “do you know, without a doubt, factually, that God exists?” they would answer “No, I don’t know factually that god exists, but I have complete faith that he does exist.” That’s different from making a factual claim.
If someone were to respond, “I do not know factually that God exists, but I know God exists” that also in my opinion would not be making a factual proclamation but rather a profession of personal belief, which is not something this message board really has any business asking for a cite for, since such a cite seems a bit ludicrous in application.
I thought I was referring to Jodi, but maybe I’m wrong about that.
But in any event, I think you are trying to privilege your point of view by describing your belief in God as something you know. You can believe whatever you like, as far I’m concerned, and I have no problem whatsoever with it, but if you know something, you should have some means of allowing me to share your knowledge, but the evidence you put forth falls far short of any reasonable person’s threashold of evidence.
Further, I think that in claiming that “it’s kind of silly to debate the existance or non-existance of God, anyway” you assume that my contention isn’t even worthy of debate, which I find belittling and patronizing in the extreme, to say nothing of closed-minded.
It’s fine if you choose to be closed-minded about your belief system, but if you’d call things by their proper name, I wouldn’t feel so inclined to offer a contrary point of view.
Yeah, that’s what I claim too when I don’t have a cite. It doesn’t go over as well as I’d hoped it would.
Who said it had been invented out of thin air? Jesus could well have existed, and many of the stories in the Bible could have some real basis in fact. But ALL of the extraordinary claims could well have been invented, and I believe they probably were.
Here’s just one example of “perpetuating ignorance”.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7802618&postcount=29
That post is factually incorrect. Yet, when I pointed that out, as did renob,
there was no response. In fact, AskNott has posted to at least 3 threads since then, but he hasn’t come been back to support his claim.
And the board in general lets his factually untrue post slide.
That’s what I mean by “perputauing ignorance.”
All I can say to that is that I think you are reading me wrong.
The knowledge comes from inside me, so I am sharing it as much as I can by telling you about it. I really don’t have any way of letting you see inside my soul, so you can see what resides there, so this is the best I can do.
I certainly don’t intend to belittle or patronize you or anybody. I just don’t happen to believe that it is possible to convince a firm non-believer that God exists, and the arguments tend to go in circles. So, what is the point? I don’t think your opinion isn’t worthy of debate…in fact, I have plenty of regard for what YOU know to be true (that God doesn’t exist)…so much so, that I think I have no hope of changing your mind. So what is the point of debating it? I guess it’s an interesting enough topic for discussion, but as far as a “debate” that one might expect to win or lose? I guess I just don’t get it.
Look, I’m nearly 40 years old. I have spent at least 20 of those years searching for what I believe to be the truth about God. I have run the gamut from very religious to agnostic if not a flat-out atheist. I have reached, in my own heart, a conclusion that (I hope) will be a final one. If that makes me closed-minded, then I guess I am, but that is not how I define that term. As far as calling my belief “knowledge,” I’m sorry if it offends you…I have never had anyone react that way to it before. I think most people, whether they agree with me or not, are sophisticated enough to understand that I am talking about “knowing” God in the Christian sense of having a relationship with Him. Again, I was talking about my personal feelings, not what I expect anyone else to believe.
Oh, sure…people make all kinds of unsubstantiated claims, but I think they come from both sides of the political spectrum.
I’m going to be totally honest with you Carol Steam, I don’t think anyone wants to get involved in a conversation that your a part of.
I’m not trying to be nasty, and it has nothing to do with agreeing/disagreeing with you. It’s your posting style of half sentence, snarky digs. Idiot that I am, I tried posting in that thread and instad of any kind of debate from **renob ** or anyone else, I got snippy, non-answers from you pretending you didn’t know what I was talking about and correcting my post. Who in their right mind would try to post in that thread.
Oh, no doubt about that.