@Joshcohen1 Poetic!... sophomorically so. It's all rhetoric; there's nothing to actually answer in your replies other than the erroneous statement, "you claim to know it all," and your question begging in the assumption that God is a fictional character. Do you want to debate, or are you going to keep to your cut-and-paste responses? as your comments, other than being of the same topic, have NOTHING to do with what I wrote. And in Christianity, faith isn't a virtue; it's a singularity.
Nonsense. Faith *is* a virtue in Christianity. I've had believers somewhat defensively tell me that "it's called faith because it's faith." They don't need to give a rational explanation to me and won't. They have an emotional investment in whatever articles they want to believe and no amount of obscurantism or mysticism changes that.
Many believers take the difficulty of believing as proof that it's worth believing in. They just want that magic at all costs.
@dhx84 Just because you've had SOME Christians (as you don't say all) who "defensively" told you that their belief relies wholly on faith, doesn't make all Christian belief unreasoned.
Some faith is required--the word used or not--in all things not irrefutable, and thus all things.
The impertinence of your bringing up how SOME Christians don't have an explanation--as though it's a worthful point--speaks more to your motive and need for assurance by whom you choose to question than anything else.
But you're wrong. Humans do irrationally invest themselves in beliefs that are "not irrefutable." The problem is that most things we take for granted on a day-to-day basis have more demonstrable consequence and evidence to them than core Christian assertions. To say that religion is no better than the worst of these beliefs is hardly an inspiring defense on your part.
@dhx84 You've a vague threshold for sufficient "demonstrable consequence and evidence." I doubt most--if not any--personal, life-directing philosophies (religions being some) have roots in some scientific or otherwise demonstrable foundation.
Also, I'm not wrong; "SOME FAITH" is required for ALL by your own admission: "...[that which] we take for granted...[is]...MORE demonstrable..."
Your defense is an attempt to compare the most evident to the least as a vague appeal to "What's 'reasonable.'"
Scientific understanding does underlay and influence culture and personal philosophy. And a declaration of preference, such as "I prefer redheaded girls" requires no real evidence at all because it's not necessarily making the claim that you also ought to believe that redheads are just somehow better as a metaphysical fact.
Faith is simply not a necessary requirement of belief. I may have irrational assumptions, but these aren't really fully-formed or articulate beliefs.
@dhx84 "Scientific understanding does underlay and influence culture and personal philosophy." Worthless verbiage.
The empiricial cannot bring purpose but through MATERIALISM, which would presume the nature of the universe and isn't a "life-directing philosophy." Science can support reason, but it is not itself so.
Also, I don't see the relevancy of the "redheaded" example; it's an opinion and not a statement of "IS" that comprises belief, and within the subjective topic of aesthetics no less.
I'd accuse you of now knowing what "materialism" actually is. But suffice it to say, there are consistent rules about the way reality works, with "matter" being the assigned cause of these things. These rules have CONSEQUENCE.
Even the believer has to accept materialism as a basic fact, whether caused by God or not. For the sake of argument, if you say that AIDS is God's way of punishing homosexuality or that the planets orbit the Earth, you're making material claims here.
@dhx84 The definition of materialism is clear: It's a philosophy of the material, stating that ALL WHICH EXISTS is it. Any intelligent being influencing matter--allowing it to have consequence--that is beyond said matter (as it would need to transcend this "cause to cause" relationship) would not be contained within "materialism." So your statement, "the believer has to accept materialism as a basic fact..." misuses materialism. Believers accept the existence of matter, but there's a difference.
The dichotomy between matter and something metaphysical is a *FALSE* dichotomy. To a god-like being, something invisible to normal humans would be entirely material to it because it has perceptible consequence and is inherently understood in the framework of its psychology.
Just because something is relatively inscrutable or distant doesn't make it special. And if it influences us "down" on our level, then it too is "material."
@dhx84 On dichotomy, if an alien's normal dimensions were to us higher dimensions, it's no less a higher dimension to us.
"And if it influences us 'down' on our level, then it too is 'material.'" Nonsense with the convenient use of quotes. I've noticed that the way holders of your position fill its holes is to destroy it altogether; here, you make your definition of 'material' so broad that it loses ANY meaning. Material implies capable of being expressed by matter--not causing that expression.
@dhx84 So you claim that "material or metaphysical" is a false dichotomy because the terms are relative to all beings? That if aliens see something as material and we don't, then it should fall into a "third category"? That's more a partitioning of the two existing terms than a creating of a new one.
Your loose definition of material is then, "Anything that COULD EVER BE SENSED as material by ANY TYPE OF BEING." You've destroyed your position attempting filling its holes with absurd definitions.
I didn't say it needed to be a third category. Your words, not mine.
Secondly, you've thrown a non-sequitur. How am I destroying my position? Why is the definition absurd? Because you say it is?
Just because things are distant, inscrutable or un-intuitive to us doesn't mean it is a higher moral authority or is necessarily more worthy of our attention than things that are plainly obvious. Nor does that make them a "first cause" or a "creator" by necessity.
@dhx84 "I didn't say it needed to be a third category."
You said it's a false dichotomy, meaning that there are more than two. If there is no distinction made to our system of classifying what is material after finding that aliens sense a higher-matter, how is it relevant?
It destroys your position because your argument is based on these definitions which are hardly that. Just as you would say, an explanation of everything is of nothing, well, an indefinite definition is not. Defend why or end.
No, it means that they're not mutually exclusive or intrinsically divided in the way that you want them to be. Abstractions are emergent properties of material phenomenon, for example.
People assign all sorts of unnecessary properties to immaterial things. Matter isn't base. The immaterial is not elevated. And they don't shun each other like boys afraid of cooties.
If one Christian attacks the doctor of an abortion clinic. Or kills enemies of an opposing sect, while another is basically a pacifist, where exactly do you get the idea that there's some sort of Mighty Being at the wheel, making sure that they're all tuned into the same morality?
If Bible States experience greater rates of divorce and abortions, how exactly is it shown that your god has any sort of universal morality to impose?
Basically, the distinction between the non-material and the material is a mostly arbitrary nonsense convention. Material positivism is simply a pragmatic philosophy to me.
Bluntly, you're a very literal thinker and you don't really examine why linguistic conventions exist.
Men of faith have made material claims based simply because they were "divinely inspired" rather than presenting hard evidence for their material claims. Nobody questions authority because they give themselves a special license of infallibility.
If you don't think you are accountable for big cosmological claims . . .
@dhx84 Science only reinforces beliefs of a "life-philosophy," the only philosophies solely rooted in science being scientism, empiricism, materialism, naturalism, nihilism, ultimately relativism, and the like. Any beliefs beyond this that pertain to purpose, morality, cosmic-intelligibility, etc. aren't based on science and require "faithful" assumptions. None of the philosophies listed above are "life-philosophies," as they're either merely and presumptuously descriptive or outrightly harmful.
"Special relativism" is not the same as "moral relativism." One has to do with physics, the other has to do with moral and ethical philosophy. Not that I'm accusing you of confusing the two, but it does come up a lot.
And since I'm setting things straight, "objective morality" is simply nonsense. Such a thing does not even exist in a Christian worldview since even there -- since there are only shared, enforced or agreed-upon moralities.
@dhx84 Your rejection of objective morality wrongly attempts to show how it doesn't exist because it doesn't exist in Christianity. And relative to Christianity, it's no more meaningful than your earlier appeal in the line "But that nobody can get their story straight..."
Objective morality can exist with a creator which can't be said of naturalism. Also, such a morality can exist in Christianity without any but Christ having complete insight, leaving us incomplete and different interpretations.
Wrong. "Objective morality" is an oxymoron by definition, even for Christians and Christian theology. And the only reason we take the idea seriously is because nobody stopped to think about what the phrase even meant.
Within your theology, you either agree with God's code or you don't. He simply enforces his code with carrot-and-stick policies. Not even different denominations of Christians can agree upon the same morality in practice.
@dhx84 You're saying that because people don't all and uniformly follow an objective morality, that such a morality doesn't exist. How this makes it an "oxymoron" is rational only in your mind; you claim an inherent contradiction in the terms 'objective' and 'morality' but never show it, instead going directly into some erroneous example, the answer of that objection already being answered in the reply to which this comment of yours was a response.
I didn't actually say that. I said they don't follow the same morality. I didn't say that it was objective. You're the guy who has to make sense of an oxymoron.
Morality is about values and priorities. These are PERSONAL and SUBJECTIVE. They cannot be objective in any sense of the word. Christians just like to say that God's sense of values and priorities is just innately superior to humanity's, but that doesn't make it objective, as god is also a PERSON.
Seriously man. Talking to you is tiresome. You basically answer everybody's arguments by asserting that they are nonsensical, empty rhetoric or basically the equivalent of a childish "NUH-UH, YOU'RE WRONG." You don't actually understand what people are saying or actually do anything to address their argument except to keep saying, over and over, that they're wrong.
@dhx84 "You basically answer everybody's arguments by asserting that they are nonsensical..."
When your position is based on fallaciously deduced reason, I call it what it is. So you just felt the need to spam me with 14+ responses, all to the same basic claim of "your wrong?" Don't kid yourself. Maybe if this comment wasn't representative of the substance of all you've offered thus far, I'd stop saying it, though I at least would explain why and not with convenient and meaningless definitions.
I have to spam 14+ responses precisely because I'm repeating myself that much and you're not getting the message. You're basically illiterate when it comes to religion.
You cannot just say that an argument is "just rhetoric" and then not go on to refute or demonstrate the error in reasoning or fact the other guy has. Nor can you just insist upon the soundness of the idea of "objective morality" when I'm disputing it. (Or you can, but you got to do more than insist.)
Anyway, to address the gist of your point directly . . .
Why is YOUR religion more authoritative on matters of human morality moreso than, say, democratic ideals as dreamt up by the founding fathers? (And by the by, most of those guys were relatively secular deists rather than conventional Christians.)
It annoys me that you think that your religion basically invented morality and that nobody anywhere else had any productive philosophy on such questions. Religion is arrogant that way.
@dhx84 Secular deism conceded for them, they felt the need to mention a "creator" when speaking of an endowment of "unalienable rights" in order to make it OBJECTIVE! If it were only their or some other human-based consensus giving all men such rights, freedoms would have no more standing than pop-culture.
Productive philosophy doesn't imply objectivity, leaving doubt in morality; The 1st Commandment isn't significant in that no one prior thought killing was wrong, but that God confirmed it.
In any case, you get nothing by pissing on science, given the quality of life it provides to people, regardless of religious affiliation.
I'm rather insulted that you think science or empiricism has nothing to add to human culture. Scientific knowledge has always shaped our worldview in fundamental ways. Nevermind, that things like improved agriculture and medicine have even permitted you the luxury of pursuing culture in the first place.
@dhx84 What science affords is evident. It describes complexity, allowing an easier/longer life. But what can it say of purpose? It saves lives, leaving whether life's worth living.
Scientism, empiricism, naturalism, and materialism are the same, leaving ultimate relativism/nihilism, giving reason to believe in a higher moral/purpose-giving agent. That and cosmic intelligibility/complexity give reason for a creator over agnosticism, while my views on the purpose/moral structure led me to Christ.
I've heard "nihilism" described as "frustrated solipsism."
The people who believe that nihilism is a real moral/psychological peril are usually solipsists who irrationally expect special privileges as a metaphysical fact and become traumatized when it is demonstrated that this is not the case.
It is simply not a mental pitfall once you get over the disillusionment. Personally, as an existentialist, it is simply not a problem for me.
@dhx84 This is nothing more than a rephrasing of the common and misguided objection that "atheists can be moral people without God (a creator)."
An atheist, given God's existence, is subject to the provided moral structure and can then still be good, while an atheist--if correct--has no basis for a moral foundation that permits anything but an absolute moral relativism. And I know the difference between the two types.
And why psychological? This isn't about whether nihilism is mentally bearable.
I'm sorry that you live in a little bubble that makes you ignore how real life atheists behave, which is that they behave no worse nor any better than anybody else. It turns out society has rules and that humans are social animals (for the most part).
None of these are demonstrably Christian inventions since civilizations have existed long before Christianity was even invented.
Given a creator, atheists are subject to its moral structure and can thus be good, while if correct, atheists have no basis for a moral foundation that permits anything but absolute moral relativism.
You've yet to show how atheists--if right--aren't left moral relativism while erroneously trying to put theists in the same boat.
Atheists can be moral only if a creator exists, making their position wrong. A socially derived morality is relativistic--no right or wrong nor obligation.
If your creator doesn't exist, but there are Christians, how is it they stay moral? Same way as anybody else.
Atheists aren't actually more susceptible to criminality than anybody else. If anything, prisoner populations tend to be predominantly religious and the non Bible Belt states have fewer problems with divorce.
Moral relativism is an invented term made up by religious folk who used to idiotically think that "objective morality" was sensible.
@dhx84 But how sensible is your antecedent? If false, your consequent is vacuous. If true, you've all your explaining ahead. The way you've attempted to sidestep this is to argue that moral relativism isn't a problem and that it still applies given God's existence, neither of which you've shown other than by arguing that atheists are moral. I'VE ADDRESSED THAT ISSUE! It's a basic and flawed argument by example that either presumes the existence of a moral foundation or that one isn't necessary.
If one Christian attacks the doctor of an abortion clinic. Or kills enemies of an opposing sect, while another is basically a pacifist, where exactly do you get the idea that there's some sort of Mighty Being at the wheel, making sure that they're all tuned into the same morality?
If Bible States experience greater rates of divorce and abortions, how exactly is it shown that your god has any sort of universal morality to impose?
And in any case, a apt theologian would probably point out that "moral relativism" isn't nonsense. The idea that you must obey God's laws isn't about an objective morality at all. Christianity is claiming that there is a personage who is wiser than the rest of us and that *HIS* moral code is inherently superior.
Morality is by definition, SUBJECTIVE. It is about prioritization and personal values. Whether that is given by a Philosopher Godking or not.
@dhx84 I don't care what you think "an apt theologian would probably point out." If you're going to fallaciously appeal to authority, convince me.
If you knew anything about Christianity and relativism, you'd know the purpose of heaven and hell. Moral relativism is that there is no ultimate truth/reason as to right/wrong, nor sufficient consequence (thus eternity).
People have free will, the ability to choose, but there's then actual right and wrong from which to choose. How is that relativism?
You clearly don't understand what an appeal to authority is. I'm saying a philosophically inclined person could easily argue the other way. And you still don't get it, do you? There are Christians who believe in predestination as opposed to free will.
For the sake of argument, the idea of norms of social behavior is not incompatible with predestination. It's just that these things are unalterable events, whether we know it or not.
@dhx84 There's no difference between "apt theologian would probably point out" and "person who should know would likely agree." Don't tell me that I don't understand appeal to authority when you don't and, in saying that I don't, can't explain why. This is all you've ever said.
Your entire argument requires omni-relativism: You argue that I can't be right because there are people who disagree--even within my own religion, and to you this is enough. You attach to this, saying mine is immaterial.
Nope, you still don't understand appeal to authority. I didn't say that you should accept my position because "person x said y," I'm laying out a clear example where people simply don't agree with you because, frankly, you don't seem to get that not everybody shares your beliefs.
And you're still dodging the point with pseudo-logic. If God has an absolute morality, why is he so shit at enforcing it amongst Christians?
@dhx84 "I didn't say that you SHOULD ACCEPT MY POSITION because 'person x said y.'"
No, you used a vague authority (an APT theologian) to assert that "'moral relativism' isn't nonsense," which, aside from this being what should be your ultimate conclusion that you're arguing toward in this tangent--though you've attempted to assume it since its start, is more or less irrelevant, as you made this fallacious claim that it "should be considered" (isn't nonsense) between your assuming it altogether.
No, I presented evidence. Reams of it. You don't get to pretend evidence I present is an argument from authority. Theists do not agree with other theists on how to behave, Christians being one kind of theist. Bible belt states are actually WORSE about divorce and teen pregnancy. Criminal populations are predominantly religious.
You cannot continue to assert some universal morality when the evidence is against you.
@dhx84 Your "reams" are a joke, evidence only to you and those like you. Your idiotic understanding of objective morality has led you to the unreasoned threshold that it exists if and only if everyone follows it.
Then you go on to say, "Well, Christians aren't any more moral, perhaps less." Anyone can call themselves a Christian; and this isn't a "No true Scotsman" fallacy because Christianity isn't an inherent quality, meaning that a person must follow the teachings of Christ to be a Christian.
@dhx84 Also, introspective/inter-societal conflict can occur (perhaps statistically higher) when attempting to adhere to a strict moral code which is in this case the "narrow gate" of all things true and truly difficult, being so readily affronted by culture.
You argue that objective morals exist only if everyone follows them, while your argument against the veracity of Christianity--apart from the misdeeds of followers--is that interpretations differ. On these matters, you are nothing talking.
It is quite against the veracity of Christianity. If it's so objectively-informed, it should have long proven itself by now. You should be able to defend its objectivity beyond merely asserting that objective morality MUST real because morality would be impossible otherwise.
There ought not be a debate amongst people who have all the answers. And yet, there it is.
@dhx84 "...it should have long proven itself by now..."
And I suppose that you'd argue that those who heard Christ and saw Him firsthand should have been convinced, so that His execution alone refutes the truth of His teachings and claims. The answer there as with why it hasn't been "long proven" is because people tend not to hear that which they don't wish to about their actions and lifestyle, and that PERHAPS morality is SLIGHTLY more complicated and less "concrete" than you make it out to be.
@dhx84 "beyond merely asserting that objective morality MUST be real because morality would be impossible otherwise."
You don't comprehend the significance of nor the requirements for saying something is morally wrong. If it's not objectively wrong--in any sense and from any origin, it's not wrong beyond suggestion. You've held relativism is true on nothing more than "self-evidence." Now you're supporting a possible moral objectivity without saying anything of how--more self-evidence I suppose.
And seriously. You have to do better than say then say that I'm doing "nothing talking." You have to establish exactly why the lack of universality of Christian morality and it superiority is not evident in the real world. You don't get to call evidence I present unkind names and attach random logical fallacies and expect me to take you seriously.
You keep dithering. And I am sick of it. Get real or this discussion is over.
@dhx84 I said that you're nothing talking, as you've yet to see that your objections are little more than an extension of the problem of evil that is at times specified toward Christians alone. Your argument is that with the truth known--in The Bible--that it should be apparent to all, and that Christians should better behave.
Look at your replies to me, how much you addressed of my last couple series of responses; that you're the only to whine that I'm avoiding doesn't mean you don't, yourself.
Nope. I'm done with you. You're basically saying that you're right because *YOU* say it ought to be evident to me and other Christians. Followed by a lot of stern finger wagging.
And no, not a single damn theist has ever come up with a satisfactory solution to theodicy.
@dhx84 Look at your responses. Being an atheist doesn't mean that your position on any relevant matter is the default. You've no reasoning for relativism but that people as a whole don't appear to have any agreement. And if all which existed were on the surface of things and true with the acceptance of a vague number of individuals to your standard of sufficient...
You don't live by moral relativism, yet you can't explain why? I give an answer. You resort to relativism so that you don't have to.
Nope. I'm fucking done with you. Read yourself critically. I'm not even going to touch your bullshit until you can accurately represent what other people SAY they believe. At the minimum, you should infer it accurately.
Yeah, it turns out in society, that people get thrown in jail for egregious anti-social behavior. If nothing else, people act in their self-interest and don't step out of line for some unreasonable risk. Of course, simple animal altruism and compassion play into the equation as well, but we needn't have a detailed discussion about that.
As a corollary, you're implying that if God didn't exist, or stopped believing he existed, they would be immoral and do whatever they liked.
You use 'relative' with seemingly no understanding of it. Then you unjustly conclude that all is relative and attempt to explain why people behave.
The problem: You talk about it on a micro-scale with specific examples, presuming God's non-existence to have them at all. We're discussing moral foundation and the relativism left without such. God gives such a foundation, and you've already conceded relativism without; you just can't see the problem with it.
And yet you haven't demonstrated that God is necessary as a foundation, much less that he even provides a morality at all. Remember, I don't even think he exists, except perhaps as an ad hoc delusion in the mind of the believer.
@dhx84 Relativism, which you've conceded for your position--erroneously attempting to include mine, results in there being no objective right or wrong. So any act against a moral code in a relativistic reality is wrong only in that it breaks the agreed upon system, not because it's wrong. That's the point of this section: Moral relativism is that there can be no ultimate conclusion made on the merit of an act. So in assuming such, you must argue that any morality we display is fooling ourselves.
If you're trying to imply that religion provides this; it does not.
Quite often, theocratic impingement upon society makes it worse, not better. You're the one craving certitude, not I. And how much guarantee do you need to decide that you don't want to arbitrarily make people suffer?
@dhx84 With naturalism, morality is a means of conscious beings to perpetuate themselves (the reason not to make people arbitrary suffer, right?). This isn't morality however, because then anything that's "wrong" is only so in that it breaks what appears to be a naturally established law of humanity--Ought to live. In the same way that breaking a natural law such as gravity could only ever be described as something like "unsound," such a natural morality has no "good," no "wrong," no obligation.
Uhhh what? Morality is a personally-held set of values that can include or preclude considerations like survival instinct. (A mother dying for her child. Or a Christian staring with a mean distrust of the present world and demanding people to focus their attention on some speculative afterlife.) It also isn't a "natural law."
Moral values concerning survival are popular though, because it's a common and (mostly) universal goal.
@dhx84 On an individual basis, survival instinct may be disregarded, but I said "conscious beingS" and used "themselves" when referring generally to any GROUP of such capable creatures; otherwise, I'd have said "A HUMAN."
Again, the reasoning for naturalistic morality is the perpetuation of life, this leaving something that can hardly be considered morality, as there's no reason to hold that an act is "wrong" for any reason but that it acts against nature like the creation of synthetic elements.
Talking to you is honestly seeming a waste of time.
Who said anybody acting against nature? That doesn't logically follow from anything you've said. And why is it impossible to say that an act is wrong if you "ascribe to naturalism" just because it's impossible to do so without your arbitrarily made up shit about an omni-licensed morality?
@dhx84 I'm not begging the question as I'm not claiming that moral objectivism is so, but rather that for morality to be said to have ANY objectivity, there are requirements that are necessary, e.g. a supreme moral creator and absolutely just punishments, without which relativism is the ultimate reality. A naturalistic approach to defining ethics means that things like capital punishment for 1 or 100 murders is the same and that such acts are only truly condemned in that they act against nature.
I'm saying that you don't understand your position. You can have values and priorities informed by objective things (i.e. facts). But this isn't what you mean. You're talking about a universal standard of morality that exists for everybody. Not just a superior morality but UNIVERSAL WITHOUT EXCEPTION.
This is demonstrably not the case, even within the Christian worldview. Many people do not accept Christian values and many more never will.
And fine, I'll default to "relativism" if it makes you happy.
What follows is: "So what." If your morality is the best way without exception, you've yet to demonstrate it. Where is this infallible morality? In the Bible? Nope. Slavery, genocide, fatalistic sale of ones wordly possessions and an authoritarian Big Brother you must fear.
Is it in the believers personal connection? Can't be, since Christians aren't notably more moral than average. (I'd argue they fall below.)
@dhx84 You've yet to say why relativism is harmless. You can't possibly live by such an absolute, while ANY instance of objectivity in morality requires foundation with a need for moral creator.
Also, you've used "subjective" in the past not realizing that such does occur with objective morality where beings have free will. This, your rebuttal against objective morality is no more conclusive than your example-based argument of immoral Christians being reason against the veracity of Christianity.
People evidently don't live by absolute. A point you keep ignoring. This applies to "Christians" as well, none of whom are consistent on any single morality.
I don't need to establish relativism as harmless. It's existence is evident even amongst Christians. There is simply no such thing as divine certification in moral matters, no matter how much you keep insisting that there is one.
The thing you're not grokking is that certitude is impossible. And it's because you're uncomfortable with the idea that humanity has to learn from its mistakes and involve itself in morally uncertain politics as a fact of life.
@dhx84 The extent of your ability to support anything you believe is, "It's what is and we live fine by it." The stupidity and sloth you've acquired in being an atheist and needing only to say, "The burden of proof is on you," to state your position entirely has led you to think that your asserting relativism because everyone has different moralities--when again I've said that such can occur with objective morality--is sufficient. Relativism isn't the case just because we all think differently!!
And frankly, I'm just annoyed more at the word "relativism."
Suppose one man says that under ideal circumstance, you should do no harm to any human. Never ever. Another might say that harm is justified under specific circumstances, to a lesser or greater degree. And maybe out of self-defense. Maybe not.
Seems to me that you can find a dozen Christians falling all over that spectrum.
No. That's stupid. You don't get to say that atheists are subject to a fictitious moral structure you made up. The evidence is that they have moralities and the only real problem that needs resolving is *where* the morality comes from.
You don't get to work backwards from a general premise to the evidence, then say that the evidence cannot be real just because your general premise might hypothetically be false.
@dhx84 Again, with moral foundation, atheists are subject to it no matter their belief on its origin, whereas atheists must still justify how anything can be truly objective from human-consensus, "natural law," etc. That you find what I argue permits objectivity to be "intellectually bankrupt" means nothing.
You've yet to argue for naturalistic objectivity but to say that I can't against it, while affirming relativism with ONLY a naively misguided, fallacious, "faithful" claim of self-evidence.
6.)Most if not all translations of the OT into the NT have contradictions, multiple errors, and have been proven fallacious in many accounts, acting in accordance to logic and todays standards. (The many many authors who wrote it).
The book implies it's written directly from the mind of god, by man.
If it's written by many men, written and re-edited, That means the authors were thinking, if they were thinking, than it's logical to assume it's not from gods mind, There you are.
@poprockssuck87 That is how the fact many "authors wrote it take away from the accounts and accuracy of the events that the bible describe ", Happy now?
It's all well and good to say that you're allowed to practice whatever religion or non-religion you like. That I will respect. Your particular beliefs themselves do not merit the kind of entitlement that you're demanding of me.
The Bible is a work by committee written centuries after their purported events. Jesus himself is a historical unknown. And you want me to take your belief in a 2000 year old magic carpenter seriously?
@dhx84 "The Bible is a work by committee written centuries after their purported events." With committee, are you speaking of authorship or assembly? Either way, it's irrelevant; how does it take from the Bible's credibility? And most of the NT was written within a generation or two of Jesus's death; you've partial standards.
"Jesus himself is a historical unknown." There's secular/extra-biblical evidence for Jesus's historicity, other famous historical figures being assumed while having less.
I don't mean whether a man something like the Christian fiction of Jesus existed. But that nobody can get their story straight on the man and there is no more evidence for his existence than there is for Socrates, maybe even less.
The difference here is that the arguments attributed to Socrates can be evaluated on its own merit. Christians are telling me quite literally that Jesus is a key to a better afterlife and that believing the fiction about him will make me more moral.
@dhx84 Your use of "Christian fiction"--speaking of the supernatural--is a baseless assumption that begs the question.
"But that nobody can get their story straight..." The Bible or personal belief? Probably both. Regardless, differing individual beliefs is irrelevant, and variations of His life in the Bible hardly refute EXISTENCE, while you take the Bible to hold water only in refutation and not support.
Socrates existence is hardly questioned; never have I heard this used by non-Christians.
The onus is on Christians to demonstrate and prove their claim, it is not on the unbeliever to disprove Jesus or the basic Jesus myth.
Sorry, but we don't go around expecting everybody to disprove the existence of fairies or unicorns. And yes, there are literally people who do believe in the existence of the Wee Folk. And they even decide matters of social policy (i.e. placement of Highways).
The reality of Jesus simply does not affect anybody except for social reasons.
@dhx84 This is a matter of purpose(ful/less) metaphysical concepts. In short, if fairies/unicorns were shown to exist, it would imply nothing, i.e. nothing meaningful is pending those concepts' existence. Thus, the concept of a creator isn't like them.
"The reality of Jesus simply does not affect anybody except for social reasons." This is partial and presumptuous; your definition of 'reality' doesn't include the ACTUAL implications given the reality of Jesus, which goes beyond "social reasons."
But it does have consequence. If people go around burning people on the accusation that they're witches or divert highway construction because some boulder supposedly houses some Wee Folk, it really does matter to us. Moreso since your cosmology claims to have all the answers.
And for Jesus's sake stop accusing me of presumption. Why would it surprise you that I would assert that Jesus has no real cosmological consequence? You assert otherwise on less reason and evidence.
@dhx84 Your example of witches is flawed, as I'm sure you've heard of Wicca; whether they've any supernatural ability is another story.
Such "burnings" were likely from hearsay of intentions mixed with naive hysteria. That aside, consequence doesn't imply purposefulness; it wouldn't be off to say that those were "pointless executions." Your witch and "Wee Folk" examples are trivial. How they're purposeful along side the matters of cosmic origin, morality, and ultimate meaning you've yet to show.
Stop being dense. If I refer to the Salem witch burnings and the quote "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," I'm clearly referring to times and people who clearly believed in the idea of people who get magical powers from Satan (or something similar).
I'm also clearly making a point that if you have to believe BIG CLAIMS, they have BIG CONSEQUENCES. Nevermind, the innumerable small claims Christianity makes on sexuality, morality and everything else.
Speaking of which, one of those beliefs is "atheists are less moral than Christians." Corollary to that is, "anybody who isn't Christian is less moral than Christians."
There isn't any evidence of this being true in terms of crime, divorce or anything else. This is a pretty big claim here and YOU believe it. This believe has made you a bigot. Simple as that. You believe I will go to eternal damnation and that I am unclean.
@dhx84 This tells of your ignorance of the Bible AND HISTORY. But as you're an atheist, I'd expect you not to research your most prominent and relevant opposition and then to argue over matters it concerns.
First, the Salem trials didn't result in any burnings. You're thinking of the Inquisition. Also, the meaning of 'witch' at the time of that verses authoring was more dire and equivalent to poisoner. As I said, "Such 'burnings' were likely from hearsay of intentions mixed with naive hysteria."
I agree with the hysteria part. And, the Salem trials just ended up with people HANGING. Apparently one was suffocated by pressure to the chest.
But there it is in your Bible. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
You're essentially refuting nothing. It seems like a pretty careless mistake for your god to include these things in the Bible then let Christians go on with the business of acting out their hysteria or even believing in the idea of witches.
@dhx84 With regard to hysteria, the NT--in the time of which such atrocities occurred--speaks of temperance and Christ's denouncement of acts of aggression. This is no different than your erroneous use of individual Christians' actions to refute Christianity.
Again, "witch" in The Bible is a rough, anachronistic translation, as is "slave" which is closer to how we define "indentured servant", with the Biblical use of "witch" having a sinister meaning given its historical and religious context.
@dhx84 "The REALITY of Jesus simply does not affect anybody except for social reasons."
What is meant by 'reality' in this statement? Are you claiming an absolute of what IS? If so, you've yet to provide anything close to an argument. THAT IS BY DEFINITION A PRESUMPTION!
At first I took your statement to mean something like "Given what turns out to be real about Jesus," because at least that makes sense.
I guess this is another case of your "linguistic conventions." I call it worthless verbiage.
I don't even know what it is you're trying to get at. But Jesus was hardly the only self-proclaimed prophet of that or any other time. The reality is that a historical Jesus, who he actually was, does not concern Christians. What concerns Christians are the myths and icons they've associated with the name, given that "Jesus" generically means "savior."
I have made my case before now, and my opinions are obvious, so your being snide isn't appreciated.
@dhx84 "The reality is that a historical Jesus, who he actually was, does not concern Christians."
The reality--existence and divinity--of Jesus is significant to Christians, as their belief revolves around the resurrection; if He didn't exist, he couldn't have been ressurected. So this idea that Christians don't actually care who Jesus was and that they believe in His existence regarless is naive.
This stems from your bias on what you consider reasonable, with all religions being disregarded.
They really actually don't, you care about the fantasy, not the reality. I already know you don't agree with this premise, so do something other than assert the opposite of what I say.
You don't know any better, but there is such a thing as being skeptical, inquiring and critical. You're probably a literal and concrete thinker, so you have no idea what these things even are. Nor do you care.
Such people can never have real appreciation for truth.
@dhx84 You say the veracity of Jesus's existence doesn’t matter when conclusive, irrefutable proof of His non-existence would; there's a contradiction there. Also, would you say that 1st century Christians felt this way?
"Really actually"s and citations of some 'they' are not reason. It's like you say it just to have something, regardless of sensibility.
By concrete, I'll take it as I don't make up pointless definitions to suite my needs. And please, go on about truth; I'm waiting to hear some.
No, I've been saying that his existence is anything BUT conclusive. A historical Jesus is not proof of a supernatural one. And the existence of a historical one is in dispute. I a historical one did exist, I don't think he was magical.
I'm also saying that the burden of proof is on you to prove his cosmological importance, not I. For the same reason that the burden of proof is on a person to prove the existence of Zeus if he recommends Zeus.
@dhx84 "In dispute" in the same way that Socrates' existence is--with even less evidence, no? Atheists uneducated on the topic of sufficient historical evidence and fearful of any kind of concession include such sentences as yours no matter how irrational and hypocritical their position becomes in denying it.
Your intellectually dishonest dismissal with "magical" is foolish as would be holding the findings of quantum mechanics to be such; is it unreasonable that Christ could control such things?
To put it simply, I can assert the reality of Zeus or any other god you care to name.
Being around Christians is the tiresome exercise of people asserting the reality of events and people that are hopelessly misconstrued, poorly documented and not even reasonable given available evidence.
God chose to enlighten a single poorly documented Jew to propagate his message? This is really the best he could manage to spread his message? Really?
@dhx84 "God chose to enlighten a single poorly documented Jew to propagate his message? This is really the best he could manage to spread his message?"
To ask this, you hypothetically assume existence of both God and Christ but don't also assume who Christ was in some weak attempt at giving it the appearance of absurdity, hoping that this is as logically meaningful as deduced contradiction.
What is the function of your rhetoric but to take the place of reasoned rebuttal? It is nothing but spam.
Dude, what is this turgid nonsense? I swear, you make this huge effort of sounding smart but your sentences are incoherent to the point of being painful.
It's not fucking hard to understand that I compare the hypothetical to what I know about reality. I don't know who Jesus was, but that doesn't keep me from commenting on what Christians seem to think he is.
At minimum, I'd expect an all-powerful create to be competent. The Bible is anything but.
Do you know what Jesus looked like? If you're thinking about the kindly-looking bearded white guy with a handsome face. No.
That is romanticized artistic license. But since everybody sees that image day-in-and-day-out, they assume that this was what Jesus really looked like, without questioning where the image really came from.
The average believer just honestly does not give a crap about questioning what they believe.
There is also the possibility that Jesus never existed at all. I'm inclined to think there's a person who existed that the Christian Jesus was inspired by, but I wouldn't be terribly put-out to learn if such a person never existed at all.
My central point here is that you can still believe imaginary things are real. Jesus's actual literal existence does not matter to the survival of his religion.
Believers are less concerned with who Jesus actually was and more concerned with the myth about him. They're required to believe this myth about him regardless of the evidence. Let's not pretend any differently. Believers are measured on their "faith" not on their skepticism or actual interest in the historicity concerning their core dogma.
Jesus was simply no more interesting than any other self-proclaimed prophet, except that he's the central figure of a popular religion.
@dhx84 None are required to believe: If faith is required, there's chance one is wrong; thus, none are obligated. Fear can't be the source, as one must allow such by believing, as with those who are aware of Christ and don't believe nor have fear. Now whether free will can be without faith is different.
Christianity is original and profound. You may deem Jesus's teachings "common sense," but that as you live after Him and in the information age, having the privilege, without which you couldn't.
No, I don't think Jesus's teachings were common sense. As most people don't actually know what was attributed to him. Some of his advice is questionable or only middlingly insightful. Frankly, I don't think most Biblical laws are even up to par with modern morality -- particularly the bits about genocide, slavery and bigotry. One of the commandments is to not even THINK about being covetous, which is impractical advice at best.
@dhx84 You're full of unsupported assertions. You said that Jesus was no more interesting, which led me to say that you thought His teachings were common sense as when you used it before.
His teachings are clearly attributed to Him in the Bible. That they're from sources other than Him means little. You, as always, unjustly dismiss something like the Bible offhand and expect me to follow. You say His "advice is questionable or only middlingly insightful," giving only examples in the OT instead.
You can put words in my mouth all you like, but I don't think his ideas are particularly self-evident, particularly since they are NOT our morality.
You want NT stuff? Fine. Sell all your possessions with no thought for the morrow. (The treasures in the kingdom of heaven stuff.) He also has a line in there about bringing a sword and not peace to the earth. In addition, NT is the first part of scripture to introduce the concept of hell.
@dhx84 The existence of hell is necessary for objective morality, such being given absolute exposure and objective confirmation with the coming of Christ. Even with a creator inherently defining an action as wrong, it's not truly objective if one can act against the will of God and not be punished accordingly; if one need only "wait out" punishments of life, there are acts without sufficient retribution; thus, with objective morality, a hell must exist and must have the potential to be eternal.
I haven't accepted your premise of an objective morality, as you have defined it. Then trying to jump to an unsupported assertion that such a thing necessarily requires an eternal torture dungeon, because this was the best an all-powerful creator could manage just derails the discussion altogether.
Stop repeating what other people have said and think for a change. Otherwise, there's simply no point carrying on.
Sorry, but Biblical scholars and archaeologists have tried to prove the "credibility" of the Bible and it simply doesn't have any.
To name a recent example, Israeli archaeologists who wanted to prove the story of Moses had to eventually throw their hands up and say that there was never any evidence of Jews living in Egypt at the time. The people who built the pyramids were actually well-paid and skilled laborers.
This Bible is also the book that has nonsensical laws in the OT.
@dhx84 You've a weak case in arguing that a lack of EXPECTED evidence--given the events in the Bible--means that it's "UNLIKELY" such events occurred, meaning that the Bible is flawed, meaning the WHOLE THING is rubbish, meaning that Jesus LIKELY didn't exist (though there's extra-biblical evidence), meaning that Christianity is all faith. THERE IS difference between evidence and reason.
And if you find the OT laws nonsensical, you likely require study as to its religious and historical context.
I'm not entirely clear on what you mean, but the Bible isn't just a moral guide or bunch of parables, it's also a quasi-historical chronicle. Some of the cosmological views of Christianity hinges that there was a magic Jesus, not just a historical one.
But this is a separate problem from whether the Biblical codes are actually "moral." Some of the stuff is common sense, while other stuff is bad advice or simply backwards.
@dhx84 Much of Hitchens' attack goes straight to Jesus's existence, which is what I address here.
Your use of magic is flippant. By "supernatural," say in the case of the soul, I'd mean the intelligence beyond order, still existing in the absence of matter. This is far from "magic."
What's written off as "common sense" by you today was not at the time, which is to say that its founding was profound, and that that we may take it for granted now is only evidence of its grand influence and insight.
Ahhh. "Magic." A complex topic that I love to talk about for psychological and literature-related reasons.
But suffice it to say, "supernatural" isn't really word that means a whole lot when most people speak it. Usually they just mean something that they don't understand, is distant, mysterious and that they are unreasonably in awe for all of the above reasons.
Really, we can burn cities down with nukes today and people think it's special that God supposedly razed Gomorrah?
@dhx84 "Supernatural" (but for its other connotations) and metaphysical have a large if not complete intersection. "Natural" and "material" are alike in that they are defined within a system, outside of which the two cannot be said to exist. Because a creator, in needing to transcend the "cause to cause" relationship of the "natural," must itself be outside A system of sorts already, it's not implausible that this creator could also transcend that which is the system by which natural is defined.
Why does a creator need to transcend some arbitrarily defined "system"? That certainly isn't the case with humans or animals. You can create things perfectly well while still being subject to cause-and-effect. "Creation" is just an a subjective evaluation of responsibility and it doesn't logically confer special immunity to the actor.
@dhx84 Because a creator can't begin its own existence by FULLY creating itself from ABSOLUTELY nothing. Even if creation is a part of the creator, a section of the creator must have existed before creation. This falls outside the system of 'natural.' Also, there's no reason that ALL of the creator is material but that YOU defined any 'cause' to be such.
You're arguing an infinite regress and give no reason, while the concept fails Occam's razor and ignores the possibility of an eternal creator.
Except that many religious folk will say exactly that God is eternal or self-created or something. Or they will dodge the question. I don't really give a crap about the origins of such a god though. I'm not arguing for a infinite regress and I'm well aware of the idiocy of an uncaused- cause.
But hey, why pay attention to what I'm saying?
You're also simply assigning God a special exemption from natural law, but somehow he's supposed to follow logical laws? Okay . . .
@dhx84 You say "eternal or self-created or something," attempting to equate them all and without addressing any.
Meanwhile, your "human/animal" analogy is unjustifiably narrow, and you've no foresight not to see where arguing a "cause/effect" reality without accepting the possibility of an eternal creator--giving no reason but that it's from idiocy (typical)--leads.
I stated why a creator must be more than just "nature" and have heard no refutation; I await why you think logic is ONLY "natural."
Why is my analogy narrow? Transcendence doesn't take a whole lot of specially assigned miracles to achieve. You can get it quite well simply by more mundane material means.
Also, I literally have no idea what you mean by the lack of foresight. Anyway, you're probably making an argument from ignorance here. We don't know why cause an effect works, so why not make up an explanation? (God.)
Hell, even humans "transcend" the natural world for the most part, as they are relatively immune to the brutal afflictions of animal life (i.e. famine, many diseases, natural predators, etcetera). But it still doesn't put them outside cause-and-effect.
Of course, you can assert that God is an exception, but it isn't as logically obvious as you'd like it to be.
@dhx84 Your use of "transcend" and "natural" in your reply are nowhere similar to mine, so it doesn't refute my point. First, you say that because humans learn (or have complex understanding and consciousness), that they then "transcend." Learning isn't unique, and we "transcend" only under YOUR loose, makeshift definition.
My comment is clear; the "system" I mention and the reasoning for it are defined; my use of transcendence is used in relation to this system. Your comment is then irrelevant.
@dhx84 No. Because you can't refute it by any rational means ("on board for that"), you're wrong.
I'd expect more from a child, but if I had your capacity, I'd result back to name-calling too; I might also be inclined to say first that my opposition never says anything but "you're wrong," hoping that it means that I can do the same without worry of it being used against me; then I'd make up my own definitions that assume my conclusion and get pissed when my analogies are too narrow for utility.
Frankly, you now how to imitate forms of argumentation quite well. Wrongly accusing me of false rhetoric, narrow analogy, appeal to authority and so forth; when clearly you have no idea what you're talking about.
You've been giving ground to me steadily over the past couple months. Hell, you've pretty much defaulted that OT is trash and nitpicking over tidbits concerning free will and the universality of morals.
Personally, I'm inclined to think there is a man who did believe himself to the son of a god that got a cult developed around him. I just don't there was any such man who walked on water, raised the dead, rose from the dead, healed the sick or did anything of the sort. Much less that he is a great moral teacher, a god or a gateway to heaven.
@poprockssuck87 "There's secular/extra-biblical evidence for Jesus's historicity, other famous historical figures being assumed while having less ", Citation needed, The authors of the "biblical historicity" on the "accounts of the existence of Jesus of Nazareth" Have been known to be plagiarized for centuries.
You're a pseudo intellectual, with sentences like "" Also, I'm not wrong; "SOME FAITH" is required for ALL by your own admission: "...[that which] we take for granted...[is] Etc etc.
@exiledregiment Google "The Historicity of Jesus Christ: Did Jesus really exist?"
"...Have been known to be plagiarized for centuries." A gross and unjustified assumption.
Pseudo-intellectual?! You're not even aware of the strength of science's conclusions. The scientific is "proven" in the same way a defendant is found guilty. Faith is "belief that is not based on proof." So amount of faith is inversely proportional to the strength of proof.
List some more sentences contained within your "etc."
Well, just because you say that it's gross and an unjustified assumption, it must be so.
Fuck it all, if you should have to explain or cite why that is true. It's pretty much a known fact amongst Biblical scholars that the Bible is is pretty much several books pieced together over the ages with no attribution to any authors.
@exiledregiment How is "most things we take for granted on a day-to-day basis hav[ing] more demonstrable consequence and evidence" not "a vague threshold?"
With this comment, did you mean "work WITH?" I guessing it's either a play on the sentence where I correctly used "that that," or you made a mistake and are saying that my capitalization and dashes are unnecessary? I've had enough of these conversations on here to know the common points of miscommunication, and I don't like to repeat myself.
@graemealee So movement away from religion later in life is to be noted, but former atheists who moved toward theism are "brainwashed?" Perhaps your problem is a petty misinterpretation of God and scripture, which is necessary for you as you can only reject THAT concept of Him. And it just so happens to be in the form of a paraphrasing of Hitchens. To think independently is FREE, and though atheists have adopted 'freethinker' to propagandize their cause, your comment should have them reconsider.
@graemealee "Progression" throughout the times has had little change on moral philosophy and interpretation of the metaphysical, apart from their decomposition as all tends on. You equate modern advancement and understanding in certain areas of life to a universal betterment, and in one of the dumbest questions I've ever seen posed, disregard all historic wisdom. With your reasoning, nothing should be considered but what is knowledge made in present. Also, you have no understanding of the Bible.
My favorite thing about him is that he won't be stopped or interrupted. The moment an interlocutor thinks Christopher is done talking and starts to move on, Hitch will come back with another thought or addendum to what he's already been saying without taking notice of the other person's words. He's got so much momentum. I love it.
@TomFynn sure. Agreed. But a lot of peole LISTENED to Christ who may not have otherwise. That is, they loved instead of hated, sought peace instead of revenge, etc. Given all the people Hitchens finds detestable (and who doesn't) Saddam, bin Laden, Kim Jong I, Kissenger, etc. - Christ would seem to be a healthy anti-pode to those guys. I simply disagree that religion poisons everything. In anecdote, I can name a dozen people who have been transformed by Christianity. That's all.
great interview but her constant "mmhm, yeah" in the background eventually drove me fucking NUTS.
SkyFortStudios 1 week ago 2
Hitchens was refreshing to listen to in non-combative mode... even though I love him combative.
What a huge loss.
Murphocracy 1 month ago
why is hitchens so cute? <3
SheStillRuns 1 month ago
English is not my mother tongue and I can't understand half of words that Hitchens says, it is very frustrating
cientifiko 4 months ago
Long live the Hitchens
teameymelli1 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Harold Camping was RIGHT about May 21, click on my channel to see...
youneekk 6 months ago
"STARS had to die so you could sit here" - science is indeed the poetry of reality, as Dawkins put it (:
superstitiouspigeons 6 months ago
@Joshcohen1 Poetic!... sophomorically so. It's all rhetoric; there's nothing to actually answer in your replies other than the erroneous statement, "you claim to know it all," and your question begging in the assumption that God is a fictional character. Do you want to debate, or are you going to keep to your cut-and-paste responses? as your comments, other than being of the same topic, have NOTHING to do with what I wrote. And in Christianity, faith isn't a virtue; it's a singularity.
poprockssuck87 7 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Nonsense. Faith *is* a virtue in Christianity. I've had believers somewhat defensively tell me that "it's called faith because it's faith." They don't need to give a rational explanation to me and won't. They have an emotional investment in whatever articles they want to believe and no amount of obscurantism or mysticism changes that.
Many believers take the difficulty of believing as proof that it's worth believing in. They just want that magic at all costs.
dhx84 5 months ago
@dhx84 Just because you've had SOME Christians (as you don't say all) who "defensively" told you that their belief relies wholly on faith, doesn't make all Christian belief unreasoned.
Some faith is required--the word used or not--in all things not irrefutable, and thus all things.
The impertinence of your bringing up how SOME Christians don't have an explanation--as though it's a worthful point--speaks more to your motive and need for assurance by whom you choose to question than anything else.
poprockssuck87 5 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Excuse my vacation and late response.
But you're wrong. Humans do irrationally invest themselves in beliefs that are "not irrefutable." The problem is that most things we take for granted on a day-to-day basis have more demonstrable consequence and evidence to them than core Christian assertions. To say that religion is no better than the worst of these beliefs is hardly an inspiring defense on your part.
dhx84 5 months ago
@dhx84 You've a vague threshold for sufficient "demonstrable consequence and evidence." I doubt most--if not any--personal, life-directing philosophies (religions being some) have roots in some scientific or otherwise demonstrable foundation.
Also, I'm not wrong; "SOME FAITH" is required for ALL by your own admission: "...[that which] we take for granted...[is]...MORE demonstrable..."
Your defense is an attempt to compare the most evident to the least as a vague appeal to "What's 'reasonable.'"
poprockssuck87 5 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Scientific understanding does underlay and influence culture and personal philosophy. And a declaration of preference, such as "I prefer redheaded girls" requires no real evidence at all because it's not necessarily making the claim that you also ought to believe that redheads are just somehow better as a metaphysical fact.
Faith is simply not a necessary requirement of belief. I may have irrational assumptions, but these aren't really fully-formed or articulate beliefs.
dhx84 5 months ago
@dhx84 "Scientific understanding does underlay and influence culture and personal philosophy." Worthless verbiage.
The empiricial cannot bring purpose but through MATERIALISM, which would presume the nature of the universe and isn't a "life-directing philosophy." Science can support reason, but it is not itself so.
Also, I don't see the relevancy of the "redheaded" example; it's an opinion and not a statement of "IS" that comprises belief, and within the subjective topic of aesthetics no less.
poprockssuck87 5 months ago
@poprockssuck87
I'd accuse you of now knowing what "materialism" actually is. But suffice it to say, there are consistent rules about the way reality works, with "matter" being the assigned cause of these things. These rules have CONSEQUENCE.
Even the believer has to accept materialism as a basic fact, whether caused by God or not. For the sake of argument, if you say that AIDS is God's way of punishing homosexuality or that the planets orbit the Earth, you're making material claims here.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 The definition of materialism is clear: It's a philosophy of the material, stating that ALL WHICH EXISTS is it. Any intelligent being influencing matter--allowing it to have consequence--that is beyond said matter (as it would need to transcend this "cause to cause" relationship) would not be contained within "materialism." So your statement, "the believer has to accept materialism as a basic fact..." misuses materialism. Believers accept the existence of matter, but there's a difference.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
That's a platitudinous Cliff-Notes explanation.
The dichotomy between matter and something metaphysical is a *FALSE* dichotomy. To a god-like being, something invisible to normal humans would be entirely material to it because it has perceptible consequence and is inherently understood in the framework of its psychology.
Just because something is relatively inscrutable or distant doesn't make it special. And if it influences us "down" on our level, then it too is "material."
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 On dichotomy, if an alien's normal dimensions were to us higher dimensions, it's no less a higher dimension to us.
"And if it influences us 'down' on our level, then it too is 'material.'" Nonsense with the convenient use of quotes. I've noticed that the way holders of your position fill its holes is to destroy it altogether; here, you make your definition of 'material' so broad that it loses ANY meaning. Material implies capable of being expressed by matter--not causing that expression.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
If it's a higher dimension, it just mean it's distant to YOU.
But it still is a part of some logical cause-and-effect as understood by our hypothetical alien. Sorry, but that's not incompatible with materialism.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 So you claim that "material or metaphysical" is a false dichotomy because the terms are relative to all beings? That if aliens see something as material and we don't, then it should fall into a "third category"? That's more a partitioning of the two existing terms than a creating of a new one.
Your loose definition of material is then, "Anything that COULD EVER BE SENSED as material by ANY TYPE OF BEING." You've destroyed your position attempting filling its holes with absurd definitions.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
I didn't say it needed to be a third category. Your words, not mine.
Secondly, you've thrown a non-sequitur. How am I destroying my position? Why is the definition absurd? Because you say it is?
Just because things are distant, inscrutable or un-intuitive to us doesn't mean it is a higher moral authority or is necessarily more worthy of our attention than things that are plainly obvious. Nor does that make them a "first cause" or a "creator" by necessity.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 "I didn't say it needed to be a third category."
You said it's a false dichotomy, meaning that there are more than two. If there is no distinction made to our system of classifying what is material after finding that aliens sense a higher-matter, how is it relevant?
It destroys your position because your argument is based on these definitions which are hardly that. Just as you would say, an explanation of everything is of nothing, well, an indefinite definition is not. Defend why or end.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
No, it means that they're not mutually exclusive or intrinsically divided in the way that you want them to be. Abstractions are emergent properties of material phenomenon, for example.
People assign all sorts of unnecessary properties to immaterial things. Matter isn't base. The immaterial is not elevated. And they don't shun each other like boys afraid of cooties.
dhx84 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
If one Christian attacks the doctor of an abortion clinic. Or kills enemies of an opposing sect, while another is basically a pacifist, where exactly do you get the idea that there's some sort of Mighty Being at the wheel, making sure that they're all tuned into the same morality?
If Bible States experience greater rates of divorce and abortions, how exactly is it shown that your god has any sort of universal morality to impose?
Do I have to spell everything out?
dhx84 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Basically, the distinction between the non-material and the material is a mostly arbitrary nonsense convention. Material positivism is simply a pragmatic philosophy to me.
Bluntly, you're a very literal thinker and you don't really examine why linguistic conventions exist.
dhx84 4 months ago
Also, it is not worthless verbiage.
Men of faith have made material claims based simply because they were "divinely inspired" rather than presenting hard evidence for their material claims. Nobody questions authority because they give themselves a special license of infallibility.
If you don't think you are accountable for big cosmological claims . . .
Well, you cannot run a society on that.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 Science only reinforces beliefs of a "life-philosophy," the only philosophies solely rooted in science being scientism, empiricism, materialism, naturalism, nihilism, ultimately relativism, and the like. Any beliefs beyond this that pertain to purpose, morality, cosmic-intelligibility, etc. aren't based on science and require "faithful" assumptions. None of the philosophies listed above are "life-philosophies," as they're either merely and presumptuously descriptive or outrightly harmful.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
"Special relativism" is not the same as "moral relativism." One has to do with physics, the other has to do with moral and ethical philosophy. Not that I'm accusing you of confusing the two, but it does come up a lot.
And since I'm setting things straight, "objective morality" is simply nonsense. Such a thing does not even exist in a Christian worldview since even there -- since there are only shared, enforced or agreed-upon moralities.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 Your rejection of objective morality wrongly attempts to show how it doesn't exist because it doesn't exist in Christianity. And relative to Christianity, it's no more meaningful than your earlier appeal in the line "But that nobody can get their story straight..."
Objective morality can exist with a creator which can't be said of naturalism. Also, such a morality can exist in Christianity without any but Christ having complete insight, leaving us incomplete and different interpretations.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Wrong. "Objective morality" is an oxymoron by definition, even for Christians and Christian theology. And the only reason we take the idea seriously is because nobody stopped to think about what the phrase even meant.
Within your theology, you either agree with God's code or you don't. He simply enforces his code with carrot-and-stick policies. Not even different denominations of Christians can agree upon the same morality in practice.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 You're saying that because people don't all and uniformly follow an objective morality, that such a morality doesn't exist. How this makes it an "oxymoron" is rational only in your mind; you claim an inherent contradiction in the terms 'objective' and 'morality' but never show it, instead going directly into some erroneous example, the answer of that objection already being answered in the reply to which this comment of yours was a response.
How does "free will" not answer this outright?
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
I didn't actually say that. I said they don't follow the same morality. I didn't say that it was objective. You're the guy who has to make sense of an oxymoron.
Morality is about values and priorities. These are PERSONAL and SUBJECTIVE. They cannot be objective in any sense of the word. Christians just like to say that God's sense of values and priorities is just innately superior to humanity's, but that doesn't make it objective, as god is also a PERSON.
dhx84 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Seriously man. Talking to you is tiresome. You basically answer everybody's arguments by asserting that they are nonsensical, empty rhetoric or basically the equivalent of a childish "NUH-UH, YOU'RE WRONG." You don't actually understand what people are saying or actually do anything to address their argument except to keep saying, over and over, that they're wrong.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 "You basically answer everybody's arguments by asserting that they are nonsensical..."
When your position is based on fallaciously deduced reason, I call it what it is. So you just felt the need to spam me with 14+ responses, all to the same basic claim of "your wrong?" Don't kid yourself. Maybe if this comment wasn't representative of the substance of all you've offered thus far, I'd stop saying it, though I at least would explain why and not with convenient and meaningless definitions.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
I have to spam 14+ responses precisely because I'm repeating myself that much and you're not getting the message. You're basically illiterate when it comes to religion.
You cannot just say that an argument is "just rhetoric" and then not go on to refute or demonstrate the error in reasoning or fact the other guy has. Nor can you just insist upon the soundness of the idea of "objective morality" when I'm disputing it. (Or you can, but you got to do more than insist.)
dhx84 4 months ago
And yes, God does count as a subjective actor by definition. He is supposed to be a PERSONAL god.
dhx84 4 months ago
Or to put it another way, morality is SUBJECTIVE by definition. Even if the subject in question is an all-powerful person named God.
dhx84 4 months ago
Comment removed
dhx84 4 months ago
Anyway, to address the gist of your point directly . . .
Why is YOUR religion more authoritative on matters of human morality moreso than, say, democratic ideals as dreamt up by the founding fathers? (And by the by, most of those guys were relatively secular deists rather than conventional Christians.)
It annoys me that you think that your religion basically invented morality and that nobody anywhere else had any productive philosophy on such questions. Religion is arrogant that way.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 Secular deism conceded for them, they felt the need to mention a "creator" when speaking of an endowment of "unalienable rights" in order to make it OBJECTIVE! If it were only their or some other human-based consensus giving all men such rights, freedoms would have no more standing than pop-culture.
Productive philosophy doesn't imply objectivity, leaving doubt in morality; The 1st Commandment isn't significant in that no one prior thought killing was wrong, but that God confirmed it.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
In any case, you get nothing by pissing on science, given the quality of life it provides to people, regardless of religious affiliation.
I'm rather insulted that you think science or empiricism has nothing to add to human culture. Scientific knowledge has always shaped our worldview in fundamental ways. Nevermind, that things like improved agriculture and medicine have even permitted you the luxury of pursuing culture in the first place.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 What science affords is evident. It describes complexity, allowing an easier/longer life. But what can it say of purpose? It saves lives, leaving whether life's worth living.
Scientism, empiricism, naturalism, and materialism are the same, leaving ultimate relativism/nihilism, giving reason to believe in a higher moral/purpose-giving agent. That and cosmic intelligibility/complexity give reason for a creator over agnosticism, while my views on the purpose/moral structure led me to Christ.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
I've heard "nihilism" described as "frustrated solipsism."
The people who believe that nihilism is a real moral/psychological peril are usually solipsists who irrationally expect special privileges as a metaphysical fact and become traumatized when it is demonstrated that this is not the case.
It is simply not a mental pitfall once you get over the disillusionment. Personally, as an existentialist, it is simply not a problem for me.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 This is nothing more than a rephrasing of the common and misguided objection that "atheists can be moral people without God (a creator)."
An atheist, given God's existence, is subject to the provided moral structure and can then still be good, while an atheist--if correct--has no basis for a moral foundation that permits anything but an absolute moral relativism. And I know the difference between the two types.
And why psychological? This isn't about whether nihilism is mentally bearable.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
It's a misguided theistic assertion actually.
I'm sorry that you live in a little bubble that makes you ignore how real life atheists behave, which is that they behave no worse nor any better than anybody else. It turns out society has rules and that humans are social animals (for the most part).
None of these are demonstrably Christian inventions since civilizations have existed long before Christianity was even invented.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 Reread!
Given a creator, atheists are subject to its moral structure and can thus be good, while if correct, atheists have no basis for a moral foundation that permits anything but absolute moral relativism.
You've yet to show how atheists--if right--aren't left moral relativism while erroneously trying to put theists in the same boat.
Atheists can be moral only if a creator exists, making their position wrong. A socially derived morality is relativistic--no right or wrong nor obligation.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Man, you're stupid.
If your creator doesn't exist, but there are Christians, how is it they stay moral? Same way as anybody else.
Atheists aren't actually more susceptible to criminality than anybody else. If anything, prisoner populations tend to be predominantly religious and the non Bible Belt states have fewer problems with divorce.
Moral relativism is an invented term made up by religious folk who used to idiotically think that "objective morality" was sensible.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 But how sensible is your antecedent? If false, your consequent is vacuous. If true, you've all your explaining ahead. The way you've attempted to sidestep this is to argue that moral relativism isn't a problem and that it still applies given God's existence, neither of which you've shown other than by arguing that atheists are moral. I'VE ADDRESSED THAT ISSUE! It's a basic and flawed argument by example that either presumes the existence of a moral foundation or that one isn't necessary.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
If one Christian attacks the doctor of an abortion clinic. Or kills enemies of an opposing sect, while another is basically a pacifist, where exactly do you get the idea that there's some sort of Mighty Being at the wheel, making sure that they're all tuned into the same morality?
If Bible States experience greater rates of divorce and abortions, how exactly is it shown that your god has any sort of universal morality to impose?
Do I have to spell everything out?
dhx84 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
And in any case, a apt theologian would probably point out that "moral relativism" isn't nonsense. The idea that you must obey God's laws isn't about an objective morality at all. Christianity is claiming that there is a personage who is wiser than the rest of us and that *HIS* moral code is inherently superior.
Morality is by definition, SUBJECTIVE. It is about prioritization and personal values. Whether that is given by a Philosopher Godking or not.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 I don't care what you think "an apt theologian would probably point out." If you're going to fallaciously appeal to authority, convince me.
If you knew anything about Christianity and relativism, you'd know the purpose of heaven and hell. Moral relativism is that there is no ultimate truth/reason as to right/wrong, nor sufficient consequence (thus eternity).
People have free will, the ability to choose, but there's then actual right and wrong from which to choose. How is that relativism?
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
You clearly don't understand what an appeal to authority is. I'm saying a philosophically inclined person could easily argue the other way. And you still don't get it, do you? There are Christians who believe in predestination as opposed to free will.
For the sake of argument, the idea of norms of social behavior is not incompatible with predestination. It's just that these things are unalterable events, whether we know it or not.
The free will discussion is immaterial here.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 There's no difference between "apt theologian would probably point out" and "person who should know would likely agree." Don't tell me that I don't understand appeal to authority when you don't and, in saying that I don't, can't explain why. This is all you've ever said.
Your entire argument requires omni-relativism: You argue that I can't be right because there are people who disagree--even within my own religion, and to you this is enough. You attach to this, saying mine is immaterial.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Nope, you still don't understand appeal to authority. I didn't say that you should accept my position because "person x said y," I'm laying out a clear example where people simply don't agree with you because, frankly, you don't seem to get that not everybody shares your beliefs.
And you're still dodging the point with pseudo-logic. If God has an absolute morality, why is he so shit at enforcing it amongst Christians?
dhx84 3 months ago
Comment removed
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@dhx84 "I didn't say that you SHOULD ACCEPT MY POSITION because 'person x said y.'"
No, you used a vague authority (an APT theologian) to assert that "'moral relativism' isn't nonsense," which, aside from this being what should be your ultimate conclusion that you're arguing toward in this tangent--though you've attempted to assume it since its start, is more or less irrelevant, as you made this fallacious claim that it "should be considered" (isn't nonsense) between your assuming it altogether.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
No, I presented evidence. Reams of it. You don't get to pretend evidence I present is an argument from authority. Theists do not agree with other theists on how to behave, Christians being one kind of theist. Bible belt states are actually WORSE about divorce and teen pregnancy. Criminal populations are predominantly religious.
You cannot continue to assert some universal morality when the evidence is against you.
dhx84 3 months ago
@dhx84 Your "reams" are a joke, evidence only to you and those like you. Your idiotic understanding of objective morality has led you to the unreasoned threshold that it exists if and only if everyone follows it.
Then you go on to say, "Well, Christians aren't any more moral, perhaps less." Anyone can call themselves a Christian; and this isn't a "No true Scotsman" fallacy because Christianity isn't an inherent quality, meaning that a person must follow the teachings of Christ to be a Christian.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Hell, Christians of the past would have justified slavery, while a good majority of Christians today would consider it immoral beyond the pale.
Do something better than dance around the point and accuse me of logical fallacies I didn't make. Concede points or keep your position coherent.
If you cannot do these basic things, I'm simply going to have to say that you're wrong and no longer worth the time.
dhx84 3 months ago
@dhx84 Also, introspective/inter-societal conflict can occur (perhaps statistically higher) when attempting to adhere to a strict moral code which is in this case the "narrow gate" of all things true and truly difficult, being so readily affronted by culture.
You argue that objective morals exist only if everyone follows them, while your argument against the veracity of Christianity--apart from the misdeeds of followers--is that interpretations differ. On these matters, you are nothing talking.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
It is quite against the veracity of Christianity. If it's so objectively-informed, it should have long proven itself by now. You should be able to defend its objectivity beyond merely asserting that objective morality MUST real because morality would be impossible otherwise.
There ought not be a debate amongst people who have all the answers. And yet, there it is.
dhx84 3 months ago
@dhx84 "...it should have long proven itself by now..."
And I suppose that you'd argue that those who heard Christ and saw Him firsthand should have been convinced, so that His execution alone refutes the truth of His teachings and claims. The answer there as with why it hasn't been "long proven" is because people tend not to hear that which they don't wish to about their actions and lifestyle, and that PERHAPS morality is SLIGHTLY more complicated and less "concrete" than you make it out to be.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
Comment removed
dhx84 3 months ago
@dhx84 "beyond merely asserting that objective morality MUST be real because morality would be impossible otherwise."
You don't comprehend the significance of nor the requirements for saying something is morally wrong. If it's not objectively wrong--in any sense and from any origin, it's not wrong beyond suggestion. You've held relativism is true on nothing more than "self-evidence." Now you're supporting a possible moral objectivity without saying anything of how--more self-evidence I suppose.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
Comment removed
dhx84 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
And seriously. You have to do better than say then say that I'm doing "nothing talking." You have to establish exactly why the lack of universality of Christian morality and it superiority is not evident in the real world. You don't get to call evidence I present unkind names and attach random logical fallacies and expect me to take you seriously.
You keep dithering. And I am sick of it. Get real or this discussion is over.
dhx84 3 months ago
@dhx84 I said that you're nothing talking, as you've yet to see that your objections are little more than an extension of the problem of evil that is at times specified toward Christians alone. Your argument is that with the truth known--in The Bible--that it should be apparent to all, and that Christians should better behave.
Look at your replies to me, how much you addressed of my last couple series of responses; that you're the only to whine that I'm avoiding doesn't mean you don't, yourself.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Nope. I'm done with you. You're basically saying that you're right because *YOU* say it ought to be evident to me and other Christians. Followed by a lot of stern finger wagging.
And no, not a single damn theist has ever come up with a satisfactory solution to theodicy.
dhx84 3 months ago
@dhx84 Look at your responses. Being an atheist doesn't mean that your position on any relevant matter is the default. You've no reasoning for relativism but that people as a whole don't appear to have any agreement. And if all which existed were on the surface of things and true with the acceptance of a vague number of individuals to your standard of sufficient...
You don't live by moral relativism, yet you can't explain why? I give an answer. You resort to relativism so that you don't have to.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Nope. I'm fucking done with you. Read yourself critically. I'm not even going to touch your bullshit until you can accurately represent what other people SAY they believe. At the minimum, you should infer it accurately.
dhx84 3 months ago
Comment removed
dhx84 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Yeah, it turns out in society, that people get thrown in jail for egregious anti-social behavior. If nothing else, people act in their self-interest and don't step out of line for some unreasonable risk. Of course, simple animal altruism and compassion play into the equation as well, but we needn't have a detailed discussion about that.
As a corollary, you're implying that if God didn't exist, or stopped believing he existed, they would be immoral and do whatever they liked.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 "...people get thrown in jail..."
You use 'relative' with seemingly no understanding of it. Then you unjustly conclude that all is relative and attempt to explain why people behave.
The problem: You talk about it on a micro-scale with specific examples, presuming God's non-existence to have them at all. We're discussing moral foundation and the relativism left without such. God gives such a foundation, and you've already conceded relativism without; you just can't see the problem with it.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
And yet you haven't demonstrated that God is necessary as a foundation, much less that he even provides a morality at all. Remember, I don't even think he exists, except perhaps as an ad hoc delusion in the mind of the believer.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 Relativism, which you've conceded for your position--erroneously attempting to include mine, results in there being no objective right or wrong. So any act against a moral code in a relativistic reality is wrong only in that it breaks the agreed upon system, not because it's wrong. That's the point of this section: Moral relativism is that there can be no ultimate conclusion made on the merit of an act. So in assuming such, you must argue that any morality we display is fooling ourselves.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
If you're trying to imply that religion provides this; it does not.
Quite often, theocratic impingement upon society makes it worse, not better. You're the one craving certitude, not I. And how much guarantee do you need to decide that you don't want to arbitrarily make people suffer?
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 With naturalism, morality is a means of conscious beings to perpetuate themselves (the reason not to make people arbitrary suffer, right?). This isn't morality however, because then anything that's "wrong" is only so in that it breaks what appears to be a naturally established law of humanity--Ought to live. In the same way that breaking a natural law such as gravity could only ever be described as something like "unsound," such a natural morality has no "good," no "wrong," no obligation.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Uhhh what? Morality is a personally-held set of values that can include or preclude considerations like survival instinct. (A mother dying for her child. Or a Christian staring with a mean distrust of the present world and demanding people to focus their attention on some speculative afterlife.) It also isn't a "natural law."
Moral values concerning survival are popular though, because it's a common and (mostly) universal goal.
But I shouldn't have to explain all this to you.
dhx84 3 months ago
@dhx84 On an individual basis, survival instinct may be disregarded, but I said "conscious beingS" and used "themselves" when referring generally to any GROUP of such capable creatures; otherwise, I'd have said "A HUMAN."
Again, the reasoning for naturalistic morality is the perpetuation of life, this leaving something that can hardly be considered morality, as there's no reason to hold that an act is "wrong" for any reason but that it acts against nature like the creation of synthetic elements.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
*sigh*
Talking to you is honestly seeming a waste of time.
Who said anybody acting against nature? That doesn't logically follow from anything you've said. And why is it impossible to say that an act is wrong if you "ascribe to naturalism" just because it's impossible to do so without your arbitrarily made up shit about an omni-licensed morality?
dhx84 3 months ago
@dhx84 I'm not begging the question as I'm not claiming that moral objectivism is so, but rather that for morality to be said to have ANY objectivity, there are requirements that are necessary, e.g. a supreme moral creator and absolutely just punishments, without which relativism is the ultimate reality. A naturalistic approach to defining ethics means that things like capital punishment for 1 or 100 murders is the same and that such acts are only truly condemned in that they act against nature.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
Comment removed
dhx84 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Or rather:
Why is it impossible to declare or assert something as wrong just because there isn't an infallible license sitting around?
Seriously, you keep fucking begging the question (false premise).
dhx84 3 months ago
I'm saying that you don't understand your position. You can have values and priorities informed by objective things (i.e. facts). But this isn't what you mean. You're talking about a universal standard of morality that exists for everybody. Not just a superior morality but UNIVERSAL WITHOUT EXCEPTION.
This is demonstrably not the case, even within the Christian worldview. Many people do not accept Christian values and many more never will.
Objective =/= universal without exception.
dhx84 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
And fine, I'll default to "relativism" if it makes you happy.
What follows is: "So what." If your morality is the best way without exception, you've yet to demonstrate it. Where is this infallible morality? In the Bible? Nope. Slavery, genocide, fatalistic sale of ones wordly possessions and an authoritarian Big Brother you must fear.
Is it in the believers personal connection? Can't be, since Christians aren't notably more moral than average. (I'd argue they fall below.)
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 You've yet to say why relativism is harmless. You can't possibly live by such an absolute, while ANY instance of objectivity in morality requires foundation with a need for moral creator.
Also, you've used "subjective" in the past not realizing that such does occur with objective morality where beings have free will. This, your rebuttal against objective morality is no more conclusive than your example-based argument of immoral Christians being reason against the veracity of Christianity.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
People evidently don't live by absolute. A point you keep ignoring. This applies to "Christians" as well, none of whom are consistent on any single morality.
dhx84 3 months ago
I don't need to establish relativism as harmless. It's existence is evident even amongst Christians. There is simply no such thing as divine certification in moral matters, no matter how much you keep insisting that there is one.
The thing you're not grokking is that certitude is impossible. And it's because you're uncomfortable with the idea that humanity has to learn from its mistakes and involve itself in morally uncertain politics as a fact of life.
dhx84 3 months ago
@dhx84 The extent of your ability to support anything you believe is, "It's what is and we live fine by it." The stupidity and sloth you've acquired in being an atheist and needing only to say, "The burden of proof is on you," to state your position entirely has led you to think that your asserting relativism because everyone has different moralities--when again I've said that such can occur with objective morality--is sufficient. Relativism isn't the case just because we all think differently!!
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
And frankly, I'm just annoyed more at the word "relativism."
Suppose one man says that under ideal circumstance, you should do no harm to any human. Never ever. Another might say that harm is justified under specific circumstances, to a lesser or greater degree. And maybe out of self-defense. Maybe not.
Seems to me that you can find a dozen Christians falling all over that spectrum.
So much for your "objective morality."
dhx84 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
No. That's stupid. You don't get to say that atheists are subject to a fictitious moral structure you made up. The evidence is that they have moralities and the only real problem that needs resolving is *where* the morality comes from.
You don't get to work backwards from a general premise to the evidence, then say that the evidence cannot be real just because your general premise might hypothetically be false.
dhx84 3 months ago
@dhx84 Again, with moral foundation, atheists are subject to it no matter their belief on its origin, whereas atheists must still justify how anything can be truly objective from human-consensus, "natural law," etc. That you find what I argue permits objectivity to be "intellectually bankrupt" means nothing.
You've yet to argue for naturalistic objectivity but to say that I can't against it, while affirming relativism with ONLY a naively misguided, fallacious, "faithful" claim of self-evidence.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
6.)Most if not all translations of the OT into the NT have contradictions, multiple errors, and have been proven fallacious in many accounts, acting in accordance to logic and todays standards. (The many many authors who wrote it).
The book implies it's written directly from the mind of god, by man.
If it's written by many men, written and re-edited, That means the authors were thinking, if they were thinking, than it's logical to assume it's not from gods mind, There you are.
exiledregiment 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87 That is how the fact many "authors wrote it take away from the accounts and accuracy of the events that the bible describe ", Happy now?
exiledregiment 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
And I'll be as "impertinent" as I like.
It's all well and good to say that you're allowed to practice whatever religion or non-religion you like. That I will respect. Your particular beliefs themselves do not merit the kind of entitlement that you're demanding of me.
The Bible is a work by committee written centuries after their purported events. Jesus himself is a historical unknown. And you want me to take your belief in a 2000 year old magic carpenter seriously?
dhx84 5 months ago
@dhx84 "The Bible is a work by committee written centuries after their purported events." With committee, are you speaking of authorship or assembly? Either way, it's irrelevant; how does it take from the Bible's credibility? And most of the NT was written within a generation or two of Jesus's death; you've partial standards.
"Jesus himself is a historical unknown." There's secular/extra-biblical evidence for Jesus's historicity, other famous historical figures being assumed while having less.
poprockssuck87 5 months ago
@poprockssuck87
I don't mean whether a man something like the Christian fiction of Jesus existed. But that nobody can get their story straight on the man and there is no more evidence for his existence than there is for Socrates, maybe even less.
The difference here is that the arguments attributed to Socrates can be evaluated on its own merit. Christians are telling me quite literally that Jesus is a key to a better afterlife and that believing the fiction about him will make me more moral.
dhx84 5 months ago
@dhx84 Your use of "Christian fiction"--speaking of the supernatural--is a baseless assumption that begs the question.
"But that nobody can get their story straight..." The Bible or personal belief? Probably both. Regardless, differing individual beliefs is irrelevant, and variations of His life in the Bible hardly refute EXISTENCE, while you take the Bible to hold water only in refutation and not support.
Socrates existence is hardly questioned; never have I heard this used by non-Christians.
poprockssuck87 5 months ago
@poprockssuck87
The onus is on Christians to demonstrate and prove their claim, it is not on the unbeliever to disprove Jesus or the basic Jesus myth.
Sorry, but we don't go around expecting everybody to disprove the existence of fairies or unicorns. And yes, there are literally people who do believe in the existence of the Wee Folk. And they even decide matters of social policy (i.e. placement of Highways).
The reality of Jesus simply does not affect anybody except for social reasons.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 This is a matter of purpose(ful/less) metaphysical concepts. In short, if fairies/unicorns were shown to exist, it would imply nothing, i.e. nothing meaningful is pending those concepts' existence. Thus, the concept of a creator isn't like them.
"The reality of Jesus simply does not affect anybody except for social reasons." This is partial and presumptuous; your definition of 'reality' doesn't include the ACTUAL implications given the reality of Jesus, which goes beyond "social reasons."
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
But it does have consequence. If people go around burning people on the accusation that they're witches or divert highway construction because some boulder supposedly houses some Wee Folk, it really does matter to us. Moreso since your cosmology claims to have all the answers.
And for Jesus's sake stop accusing me of presumption. Why would it surprise you that I would assert that Jesus has no real cosmological consequence? You assert otherwise on less reason and evidence.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 Your example of witches is flawed, as I'm sure you've heard of Wicca; whether they've any supernatural ability is another story.
Such "burnings" were likely from hearsay of intentions mixed with naive hysteria. That aside, consequence doesn't imply purposefulness; it wouldn't be off to say that those were "pointless executions." Your witch and "Wee Folk" examples are trivial. How they're purposeful along side the matters of cosmic origin, morality, and ultimate meaning you've yet to show.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Stop being dense. If I refer to the Salem witch burnings and the quote "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," I'm clearly referring to times and people who clearly believed in the idea of people who get magical powers from Satan (or something similar).
I'm also clearly making a point that if you have to believe BIG CLAIMS, they have BIG CONSEQUENCES. Nevermind, the innumerable small claims Christianity makes on sexuality, morality and everything else.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84
Speaking of which, one of those beliefs is "atheists are less moral than Christians." Corollary to that is, "anybody who isn't Christian is less moral than Christians."
There isn't any evidence of this being true in terms of crime, divorce or anything else. This is a pretty big claim here and YOU believe it. This believe has made you a bigot. Simple as that. You believe I will go to eternal damnation and that I am unclean.
This isn't an insignificant belief at all.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 This tells of your ignorance of the Bible AND HISTORY. But as you're an atheist, I'd expect you not to research your most prominent and relevant opposition and then to argue over matters it concerns.
First, the Salem trials didn't result in any burnings. You're thinking of the Inquisition. Also, the meaning of 'witch' at the time of that verses authoring was more dire and equivalent to poisoner. As I said, "Such 'burnings' were likely from hearsay of intentions mixed with naive hysteria."
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
I agree with the hysteria part. And, the Salem trials just ended up with people HANGING. Apparently one was suffocated by pressure to the chest.
But there it is in your Bible. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
You're essentially refuting nothing. It seems like a pretty careless mistake for your god to include these things in the Bible then let Christians go on with the business of acting out their hysteria or even believing in the idea of witches.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 With regard to hysteria, the NT--in the time of which such atrocities occurred--speaks of temperance and Christ's denouncement of acts of aggression. This is no different than your erroneous use of individual Christians' actions to refute Christianity.
Again, "witch" in The Bible is a rough, anachronistic translation, as is "slave" which is closer to how we define "indentured servant", with the Biblical use of "witch" having a sinister meaning given its historical and religious context.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@dhx84 "The REALITY of Jesus simply does not affect anybody except for social reasons."
What is meant by 'reality' in this statement? Are you claiming an absolute of what IS? If so, you've yet to provide anything close to an argument. THAT IS BY DEFINITION A PRESUMPTION!
At first I took your statement to mean something like "Given what turns out to be real about Jesus," because at least that makes sense.
I guess this is another case of your "linguistic conventions." I call it worthless verbiage.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
I don't even know what it is you're trying to get at. But Jesus was hardly the only self-proclaimed prophet of that or any other time. The reality is that a historical Jesus, who he actually was, does not concern Christians. What concerns Christians are the myths and icons they've associated with the name, given that "Jesus" generically means "savior."
I have made my case before now, and my opinions are obvious, so your being snide isn't appreciated.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 "The reality is that a historical Jesus, who he actually was, does not concern Christians."
The reality--existence and divinity--of Jesus is significant to Christians, as their belief revolves around the resurrection; if He didn't exist, he couldn't have been ressurected. So this idea that Christians don't actually care who Jesus was and that they believe in His existence regarless is naive.
This stems from your bias on what you consider reasonable, with all religions being disregarded.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
They really actually don't, you care about the fantasy, not the reality. I already know you don't agree with this premise, so do something other than assert the opposite of what I say.
You don't know any better, but there is such a thing as being skeptical, inquiring and critical. You're probably a literal and concrete thinker, so you have no idea what these things even are. Nor do you care.
Such people can never have real appreciation for truth.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 You say the veracity of Jesus's existence doesn’t matter when conclusive, irrefutable proof of His non-existence would; there's a contradiction there. Also, would you say that 1st century Christians felt this way?
"Really actually"s and citations of some 'they' are not reason. It's like you say it just to have something, regardless of sensibility.
By concrete, I'll take it as I don't make up pointless definitions to suite my needs. And please, go on about truth; I'm waiting to hear some.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
No, I've been saying that his existence is anything BUT conclusive. A historical Jesus is not proof of a supernatural one. And the existence of a historical one is in dispute. I a historical one did exist, I don't think he was magical.
I'm also saying that the burden of proof is on you to prove his cosmological importance, not I. For the same reason that the burden of proof is on a person to prove the existence of Zeus if he recommends Zeus.
Don't make me repeat myself.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 "In dispute" in the same way that Socrates' existence is--with even less evidence, no? Atheists uneducated on the topic of sufficient historical evidence and fearful of any kind of concession include such sentences as yours no matter how irrational and hypocritical their position becomes in denying it.
Your intellectually dishonest dismissal with "magical" is foolish as would be holding the findings of quantum mechanics to be such; is it unreasonable that Christ could control such things?
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
To put it simply, I can assert the reality of Zeus or any other god you care to name.
Being around Christians is the tiresome exercise of people asserting the reality of events and people that are hopelessly misconstrued, poorly documented and not even reasonable given available evidence.
God chose to enlighten a single poorly documented Jew to propagate his message? This is really the best he could manage to spread his message? Really?
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84
If that's as much evidence as Christians think is reasonable, I can just as well say that Zeus was a real guy and that my belief in him is valid.
Screw Christianity. I'd convert to something else just out of pure spite before I ever converted to Christianity.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 "God chose to enlighten a single poorly documented Jew to propagate his message? This is really the best he could manage to spread his message?"
To ask this, you hypothetically assume existence of both God and Christ but don't also assume who Christ was in some weak attempt at giving it the appearance of absurdity, hoping that this is as logically meaningful as deduced contradiction.
What is the function of your rhetoric but to take the place of reasoned rebuttal? It is nothing but spam.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Dude, what is this turgid nonsense? I swear, you make this huge effort of sounding smart but your sentences are incoherent to the point of being painful.
It's not fucking hard to understand that I compare the hypothetical to what I know about reality. I don't know who Jesus was, but that doesn't keep me from commenting on what Christians seem to think he is.
At minimum, I'd expect an all-powerful create to be competent. The Bible is anything but.
dhx84 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
I mean, this is probably how your mind works. As long as you go down a checklist of words, then you think you've made a valid argument.
Words to use:
- rhetoric
- [adjective] rhetoric
- logic
- deduced
dhx84 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Let me illustrate my point.
Do you know what Jesus looked like? If you're thinking about the kindly-looking bearded white guy with a handsome face. No.
That is romanticized artistic license. But since everybody sees that image day-in-and-day-out, they assume that this was what Jesus really looked like, without questioning where the image really came from.
The average believer just honestly does not give a crap about questioning what they believe.
dhx84 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
There is also the possibility that Jesus never existed at all. I'm inclined to think there's a person who existed that the Christian Jesus was inspired by, but I wouldn't be terribly put-out to learn if such a person never existed at all.
My central point here is that you can still believe imaginary things are real. Jesus's actual literal existence does not matter to the survival of his religion.
dhx84 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Believers are less concerned with who Jesus actually was and more concerned with the myth about him. They're required to believe this myth about him regardless of the evidence. Let's not pretend any differently. Believers are measured on their "faith" not on their skepticism or actual interest in the historicity concerning their core dogma.
Jesus was simply no more interesting than any other self-proclaimed prophet, except that he's the central figure of a popular religion.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 None are required to believe: If faith is required, there's chance one is wrong; thus, none are obligated. Fear can't be the source, as one must allow such by believing, as with those who are aware of Christ and don't believe nor have fear. Now whether free will can be without faith is different.
Christianity is original and profound. You may deem Jesus's teachings "common sense," but that as you live after Him and in the information age, having the privilege, without which you couldn't.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
No, I don't think Jesus's teachings were common sense. As most people don't actually know what was attributed to him. Some of his advice is questionable or only middlingly insightful. Frankly, I don't think most Biblical laws are even up to par with modern morality -- particularly the bits about genocide, slavery and bigotry. One of the commandments is to not even THINK about being covetous, which is impractical advice at best.
This bronze age codex is opposite of profound.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 You're full of unsupported assertions. You said that Jesus was no more interesting, which led me to say that you thought His teachings were common sense as when you used it before.
His teachings are clearly attributed to Him in the Bible. That they're from sources other than Him means little. You, as always, unjustly dismiss something like the Bible offhand and expect me to follow. You say His "advice is questionable or only middlingly insightful," giving only examples in the OT instead.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
You can put words in my mouth all you like, but I don't think his ideas are particularly self-evident, particularly since they are NOT our morality.
You want NT stuff? Fine. Sell all your possessions with no thought for the morrow. (The treasures in the kingdom of heaven stuff.) He also has a line in there about bringing a sword and not peace to the earth. In addition, NT is the first part of scripture to introduce the concept of hell.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 The existence of hell is necessary for objective morality, such being given absolute exposure and objective confirmation with the coming of Christ. Even with a creator inherently defining an action as wrong, it's not truly objective if one can act against the will of God and not be punished accordingly; if one need only "wait out" punishments of life, there are acts without sufficient retribution; thus, with objective morality, a hell must exist and must have the potential to be eternal.
poprockssuck87 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Zzzzz.
I haven't accepted your premise of an objective morality, as you have defined it. Then trying to jump to an unsupported assertion that such a thing necessarily requires an eternal torture dungeon, because this was the best an all-powerful creator could manage just derails the discussion altogether.
Stop repeating what other people have said and think for a change. Otherwise, there's simply no point carrying on.
dhx84 3 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Sorry, but Biblical scholars and archaeologists have tried to prove the "credibility" of the Bible and it simply doesn't have any.
To name a recent example, Israeli archaeologists who wanted to prove the story of Moses had to eventually throw their hands up and say that there was never any evidence of Jews living in Egypt at the time. The people who built the pyramids were actually well-paid and skilled laborers.
This Bible is also the book that has nonsensical laws in the OT.
dhx84 5 months ago
@dhx84 You've a weak case in arguing that a lack of EXPECTED evidence--given the events in the Bible--means that it's "UNLIKELY" such events occurred, meaning that the Bible is flawed, meaning the WHOLE THING is rubbish, meaning that Jesus LIKELY didn't exist (though there's extra-biblical evidence), meaning that Christianity is all faith. THERE IS difference between evidence and reason.
And if you find the OT laws nonsensical, you likely require study as to its religious and historical context.
poprockssuck87 5 months ago
@poprockssuck87
I'm not entirely clear on what you mean, but the Bible isn't just a moral guide or bunch of parables, it's also a quasi-historical chronicle. Some of the cosmological views of Christianity hinges that there was a magic Jesus, not just a historical one.
But this is a separate problem from whether the Biblical codes are actually "moral." Some of the stuff is common sense, while other stuff is bad advice or simply backwards.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 Much of Hitchens' attack goes straight to Jesus's existence, which is what I address here.
Your use of magic is flippant. By "supernatural," say in the case of the soul, I'd mean the intelligence beyond order, still existing in the absence of matter. This is far from "magic."
What's written off as "common sense" by you today was not at the time, which is to say that its founding was profound, and that that we may take it for granted now is only evidence of its grand influence and insight.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Ahhh. "Magic." A complex topic that I love to talk about for psychological and literature-related reasons.
But suffice it to say, "supernatural" isn't really word that means a whole lot when most people speak it. Usually they just mean something that they don't understand, is distant, mysterious and that they are unreasonably in awe for all of the above reasons.
Really, we can burn cities down with nukes today and people think it's special that God supposedly razed Gomorrah?
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 "Supernatural" (but for its other connotations) and metaphysical have a large if not complete intersection. "Natural" and "material" are alike in that they are defined within a system, outside of which the two cannot be said to exist. Because a creator, in needing to transcend the "cause to cause" relationship of the "natural," must itself be outside A system of sorts already, it's not implausible that this creator could also transcend that which is the system by which natural is defined.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Why does a creator need to transcend some arbitrarily defined "system"? That certainly isn't the case with humans or animals. You can create things perfectly well while still being subject to cause-and-effect. "Creation" is just an a subjective evaluation of responsibility and it doesn't logically confer special immunity to the actor.
What you're saying isn't self-evident.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 Because a creator can't begin its own existence by FULLY creating itself from ABSOLUTELY nothing. Even if creation is a part of the creator, a section of the creator must have existed before creation. This falls outside the system of 'natural.' Also, there's no reason that ALL of the creator is material but that YOU defined any 'cause' to be such.
You're arguing an infinite regress and give no reason, while the concept fails Occam's razor and ignores the possibility of an eternal creator.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Except that many religious folk will say exactly that God is eternal or self-created or something. Or they will dodge the question. I don't really give a crap about the origins of such a god though. I'm not arguing for a infinite regress and I'm well aware of the idiocy of an uncaused- cause.
But hey, why pay attention to what I'm saying?
You're also simply assigning God a special exemption from natural law, but somehow he's supposed to follow logical laws? Okay . . .
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 You say "eternal or self-created or something," attempting to equate them all and without addressing any.
Meanwhile, your "human/animal" analogy is unjustifiably narrow, and you've no foresight not to see where arguing a "cause/effect" reality without accepting the possibility of an eternal creator--giving no reason but that it's from idiocy (typical)--leads.
I stated why a creator must be more than just "nature" and have heard no refutation; I await why you think logic is ONLY "natural."
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
See? You haven't actually responded to me.
Why is my analogy narrow? Transcendence doesn't take a whole lot of specially assigned miracles to achieve. You can get it quite well simply by more mundane material means.
Also, I literally have no idea what you mean by the lack of foresight. Anyway, you're probably making an argument from ignorance here. We don't know why cause an effect works, so why not make up an explanation? (God.)
How intellectually bankrupt.
dhx84 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Hell, even humans "transcend" the natural world for the most part, as they are relatively immune to the brutal afflictions of animal life (i.e. famine, many diseases, natural predators, etcetera). But it still doesn't put them outside cause-and-effect.
Of course, you can assert that God is an exception, but it isn't as logically obvious as you'd like it to be.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 Your use of "transcend" and "natural" in your reply are nowhere similar to mine, so it doesn't refute my point. First, you say that because humans learn (or have complex understanding and consciousness), that they then "transcend." Learning isn't unique, and we "transcend" only under YOUR loose, makeshift definition.
My comment is clear; the "system" I mention and the reasoning for it are defined; my use of transcendence is used in relation to this system. Your comment is then irrelevant.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
So you have a specific vocabulary and a system that is internally consistent. And because I'm not on board with that, you are automatically right?
Go fuck yourself.
dhx84 4 months ago
@dhx84 No. Because you can't refute it by any rational means ("on board for that"), you're wrong.
I'd expect more from a child, but if I had your capacity, I'd result back to name-calling too; I might also be inclined to say first that my opposition never says anything but "you're wrong," hoping that it means that I can do the same without worry of it being used against me; then I'd make up my own definitions that assume my conclusion and get pissed when my analogies are too narrow for utility.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
I insult you in addition to arguing well.
Frankly, you now how to imitate forms of argumentation quite well. Wrongly accusing me of false rhetoric, narrow analogy, appeal to authority and so forth; when clearly you have no idea what you're talking about.
You've been giving ground to me steadily over the past couple months. Hell, you've pretty much defaulted that OT is trash and nitpicking over tidbits concerning free will and the universality of morals.
dhx84 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Personally, I'm inclined to think there is a man who did believe himself to the son of a god that got a cult developed around him. I just don't there was any such man who walked on water, raised the dead, rose from the dead, healed the sick or did anything of the sort. Much less that he is a great moral teacher, a god or a gateway to heaven.
dhx84 5 months ago
@poprockssuck87 "There's secular/extra-biblical evidence for Jesus's historicity, other famous historical figures being assumed while having less ", Citation needed, The authors of the "biblical historicity" on the "accounts of the existence of Jesus of Nazareth" Have been known to be plagiarized for centuries.
You're a pseudo intellectual, with sentences like "" Also, I'm not wrong; "SOME FAITH" is required for ALL by your own admission: "...[that which] we take for granted...[is] Etc etc.
exiledregiment 4 months ago
@exiledregiment Google "The Historicity of Jesus Christ: Did Jesus really exist?"
"...Have been known to be plagiarized for centuries." A gross and unjustified assumption.
Pseudo-intellectual?! You're not even aware of the strength of science's conclusions. The scientific is "proven" in the same way a defendant is found guilty. Faith is "belief that is not based on proof." So amount of faith is inversely proportional to the strength of proof.
List some more sentences contained within your "etc."
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87
Well, just because you say that it's gross and an unjustified assumption, it must be so.
Fuck it all, if you should have to explain or cite why that is true. It's pretty much a known fact amongst Biblical scholars that the Bible is is pretty much several books pieced together over the ages with no attribution to any authors.
dhx84 4 months ago
Comment removed
exiledregiment 4 months ago
@exiledregiment How is "most things we take for granted on a day-to-day basis hav[ing] more demonstrable consequence and evidence" not "a vague threshold?"
With this comment, did you mean "work WITH?" I guessing it's either a play on the sentence where I correctly used "that that," or you made a mistake and are saying that my capitalization and dashes are unnecessary? I've had enough of these conversations on here to know the common points of miscommunication, and I don't like to repeat myself.
poprockssuck87 4 months ago
@poprockssuck87 None of the statements you've made thus far, have actually directly combated, or defended against the main stipulations
1.)The book is mythical
2.)No accurate and verifiable evidence has been found to promote the idea that any, if not all religious teachings are fallacious and imaginary.
3.) Faith, Regardless of your uneducated opinion, IS required by all christians.
4.) If it's scientifically proven, It's not faith anymore, therefore you contradict yourself many times.
exiledregiment 4 months ago
@graemealee So movement away from religion later in life is to be noted, but former atheists who moved toward theism are "brainwashed?" Perhaps your problem is a petty misinterpretation of God and scripture, which is necessary for you as you can only reject THAT concept of Him. And it just so happens to be in the form of a paraphrasing of Hitchens. To think independently is FREE, and though atheists have adopted 'freethinker' to propagandize their cause, your comment should have them reconsider.
poprockssuck87 7 months ago
@graemealee "Progression" throughout the times has had little change on moral philosophy and interpretation of the metaphysical, apart from their decomposition as all tends on. You equate modern advancement and understanding in certain areas of life to a universal betterment, and in one of the dumbest questions I've ever seen posed, disregard all historic wisdom. With your reasoning, nothing should be considered but what is knowledge made in present. Also, you have no understanding of the Bible.
poprockssuck87 7 months ago
My favorite thing about him is that he won't be stopped or interrupted. The moment an interlocutor thinks Christopher is done talking and starts to move on, Hitch will come back with another thought or addendum to what he's already been saying without taking notice of the other person's words. He's got so much momentum. I love it.
shantih433 7 months ago
The Hitch demands respect to the border of love. I love listening to him.
formenthule 7 months ago
i could listen to him talk for hours
iSmkoeBluntsToMyFace 7 months ago
he looks really really unnatural
Hermoor 8 months ago
Hitch should not have a time limit.
Ryan44567 8 months ago
LADY KEEP QUIET. HITCHENS IS SPEAKING.
Itsnattatooma 8 months ago
@TomFynn sure. Agreed. But a lot of peole LISTENED to Christ who may not have otherwise. That is, they loved instead of hated, sought peace instead of revenge, etc. Given all the people Hitchens finds detestable (and who doesn't) Saddam, bin Laden, Kim Jong I, Kissenger, etc. - Christ would seem to be a healthy anti-pode to those guys. I simply disagree that religion poisons everything. In anecdote, I can name a dozen people who have been transformed by Christianity. That's all.
dillonfreed 8 months ago
29:30 Hitchens you sly dog! :)
josefgiven 9 months ago
Damn that was a long passage