This poor man. He must have been tired of speaking by the time he was asked the question about religious scientists. He really did not answer the question, he merely made some general comments around the topic. Pity.
Why so many argue that faith is not compatible with science: science is a system of discovering reality without relying on guesses with no proper reasoning. One can actually do both, but one can't be willing and able to apply their skeptical-until-a-reason-is-given scientific reasoning to religion and actually still be a theist. You have to be the kind of person who understands why science works the way it works and how it limits faulty conclusions, but still decide to make one.
@Truthiness231 Because science says there is no evidence of God. Life on earth is harsh, much much harsher for our ancients - so naturally people hoped for a nice afterlife & some religions jumped right in telling people what they wanted to hear - a Santa for adults awaits - ready to take care of ur every need- enjoy till eternity! yay!
@ramaraksha01 I concur. If you check closes, you'll see I said, essentially, "science punctures these happy thoughts, but only if one is actually willing to apply it to that part of life". Most theists understand science just fine (as we're surely both aware, the majority of scientists are still sadly theistic), they just generally refuse to apply it to that one single aspect of life (hence my "you have to be the kind of person who understands science [and still fail to use it to be religious]")
Bah, I meant "close" not "closes"... in my defense I have been watching some Metalocalypse lately and been copying Toki/Skwisgaar speech patterns for laughs; didn't thinks it would affects my typing thoughs. =D
@acidstars9 Yes it´s called deism to believe in some god that isn´t any god of any religion. Atheists in general know about deism. Atheists in the US know more about religion than theists do, according to studies. Probably because they care more about truth.
Can you explain in what way you are justified in claiming that atheists have a very underdeveloped intuition?
@katnils I know in general they are more educated about religion than religious people, but what I'm saying is that most of us are taught about God as being this man in the sky that judges everyone, rather than the idea that God could just be a non personal energy that exists in everything. It seems like atheists think of God in the religious way we have been taught, and don't consider anything else.
@acidstars9 You can think of the universe as god if you like. To me it is the universe. It has nothing to do with not seeing any beauty in nature or not feeling any fascination for anything.
"It seems like atheists think of God in the religious way we have been taught, and don't consider anything else."
An atheist reject the claims that are made about the nature and existence of gods. It isn´t we that make any claims about what any gods are. It is others making the claims.
@katnils As for the intuition, our entire school and science systems are based on the left brain and physical hard evidence, and completely ignore the right brain and intuitive learning through feelings and ideas. Atheists in particular believe that if it can't be physically tested and proven it must not exist or it must not be true. Those who are more inclined to believe in a form of spirituality have a more developed intuition but are probably less developed with science.
@acidstars9 ---"As for the intuition, our entire school and science systems are based on the left brain and physical hard evidence, and completely ignore the right brain and intuitive learning through feelings and ideas."
You get important personal experiences and learn from intuition and feelings. But would you seriously prefer that scientific knowledge was based on researchers personal intuition and feelings instead of evidence?
@acidstars9 ---"Atheists in particular believe that if it can't be physically tested and proven it must not exist or it must not be true."
I don´t really know what it is that is so hard for you to get with that some people ask for evidence to believe in the existence of god(s). You also ask for evidence to believe in most other things I presume.
---"Those who are more inclined to believe in a form of spirituality have a more developed intuition..."
@acidstars9 I am also puzzled about why you claim that atheists reject the importance of personal experiences and feelings to a video with Sam Harris who is known for emphasising the importance to our well being of what is known by tradition as spiritual experiences and who is known for meditating. He just doesn´t make claims about the universe from such experiences.
@acidstars9 We would all have fundamentally different believes about the nature of reality if we would all make claims of the universe based on so called spiritual experiences without having cultural preconceptions about it. What this tells us is really nothing else than that humans are hardwired to have a good imagination about things we don´t know and that imagination and so called spiritual experiences are important to humans.
@acidstars9 Obviously it has been an evolutionary advantage to us to imagine things about whatever happens to be unknown (it makes us able to put ourselves in someone else's shoes and it makes us able to be more creative and inventive) and also to believe what we are told. As children it is extremely important to believe authorities about what to do and not do to survive and not get harmed.
@acidstars9 So there´s perfectly rational explanations for why people are more or less inclined to believe authorities about just whatever. Especially regarding what is taught in childhood.
But to ask for evidence to believe something is also important to us if we want to learn more and separate facts from beleives there´s no evidence for being true. And some people are more inclined to ask for evidence than others. That doesn´t make you less intuitive or less "spiritual".
@katnils The religious replace rationality with faith, and by their very irrational nature regard this as a superior 'spiritual being'.
All debates with the religious end with them resorting to professing some form of superiority out of frustration, as they're incapable of defending their beliefs with evidence.
@katnils Although I am being general, since people such as Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan were known to be pantheists, so they seemed to have a more developed understanding of both sides.
@acidstars9 What have the believes of Einstein or Carl Sagan got to do with anything? You can appeal to whatever authority you like about any belief you like. It doesn´t make a belief more or less true. It is with evidence and reason you can explain why anyone else should believe what you believe. To say you have a feeling about the existence of someone invisible and undetectable isn´t more convincing to me than if you had a feeling that Elvis is alive.
@acidstars9 If you don´t even belong to any religion that demonize people outside the religion, I don´t even get what it is you criticize with not believing in the existence of any gods.
@acidstars9 Remember it isn´t atheists that are making any positive claims. Atheism is just a rejection of claims of the existence of deities that atheists don´t find reasons to believe in.
It is the ones who make the claims who have the burden of proof if they want to convince someone else why they should also believe the same.
Good for Sam Harris, he speakes for intelligent people. The believe in any god is for ignorant people like in the old days when primitive people believed in the rain god because they did not understand the water cycle, now even children understand it and that god is gone. The same will happen with present gods, in 15 or 20 years all religions will be gone.
I agree with Sam Harris those that have a true understanding of the natural world and still condone ancient superstitions are doing a great disservice to the general public.
We can't eliminate it, it will probably be around as long as we fear death, or at least until we can stop aging., Probably will be for a long time. But we can ke
pt it from being taught in classrooms or being used for political purposes.
@RichtoffenRoach people aren't stupid or wasting their time fighting it. because it (religion) directly impacts all of us. there is no "eliminating it". it's going to be here. the question is, how much are we going to let it affect our lives? so yea, apathy is not the ultra-cool position you make it out to be. actually, it's pretty worthless...
How could some of the scientists permit themselves to make a claim that would necessitate knowledge as extensive as the scheme of the universe, when their knowledge of the total scheme of being is *close* to zero, when confronted with a whole mass of unknowns concerning this very earth and tangible, lifeless matter, let alone the whole universe?
in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them.
@BrightLight57 You can quote ancient religious writings all day long, but your lack of evidence that your source is credible causes intelligent, rational people to simply dismiss your claims. That's why atheists make up a growing segment of the population.
Religious people seem unable to grasp this simple fact.
in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them.
@BrightLight57 Religious nuts keep quoting the Bible as if that makes it believable. Empirical evidence supporting the credibility of the Bible would be convincing, but you provide none. Why?
in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them.
1-Everything that exists either has necessity for its existence (immaterial objects, ie numbers) or exists because of an external efficient cause (material objects)
2-The universe exists
3-The universe cannot exist out of its own necessity (as a baby cannot cause its own creation), therefore needs an external efficient cause.
Whta is wrong with a "religious" scientist who does good work ? There are plenty out there; cosmology,medicine, psychology,mathematics, philosophy, physics, biology all have their element of people who are believers in a creative power
God is energy and to be in tune with energy, you need to be in the same wavelength. The same with God, you need to be in His wavelength to be saved. Buddhists call it Nirvana or Enlightenment, Hindus call that Moksha, Islam calls it Taubah and we call it living in Grace. There's only one Divine Consciousness with many names and dogmas, but just one reality. You can be spiritual and be one with God consciousness without religion, but to get somewhere, a map is always helpful. Open your eyes.
@dejesusluisx God is not energy, at least not the quantity we deal with in physics. You can say god is blahblahblah, but unless you have an explanation for blahblahblah you don't have an explanation for god.
@brangelito Here's your explanation: God is a spirit, an immaterial conscious being. All things in the universe consists of matter and/or energy, so if God isn't matter, is energy by definition. Energy is the capacity to do work, is eternal, omnipresent, wasn't created and can't be destroyed, can create matter, was the only thing present before the BB, and the energy required to make the universe must had been powerful. All these match Biblical descriptions of God. Therefore God exists. Got it?
@Waltham1892 ""Nice reasoning. Now prove a word of it."" Don't have to, the statement is self explanatory, I'm just putting two definitions together. The Biblical definition came first, that's indisputable, so no one can say theists steal the definition of energy from a science textbook to apply it to God.
God is real, no doubt. Science is just helping us understand His true nature.
@dejesusluisx lol no no. that's allah. that's hanuman. That's thor. That santa since he has the capacity to be everywhere at once. in no way does science grant credence to the existence of yahweh in particular anymore than it does grant the credence of allah
@tamu77095 "in no way does science grant credence to the existence of yahweh in particular anymore than it does grant the credence of allah" First the existence of God is a philosophical argument, not scientific, so leave science out of it. Second Allah and Yahweh are exactly the same God, the Biblical God, the God of Abraham. Look it up, before you make a fool out of yourself somewhere else.
@dejesusluisx "First the existence of God is a philosophical argument, not scientific"
How is the existence of a creator god that loves us or interferes with our actions not scientific? That overtly tresspasses over science. Either Jesus walked on water or he didn't. Either Jesus was the son of a virgin or he wasn't. Either Jesus came back to life after dying or he didn't. Either a god created the universe or he didn't. How could you say none of those claims are scientific?
@PointLarusso Is Jesus here so science can study his miracles? No. But there are many other miracles that doctors and scientists study and had approved as unexplainable by science. These miracles occur to people praying in the name of Holy People, these miracles are studies by a panel of doctors and scientists and if they can be explained by science, they aren't considered. A claim where you can't gather data from to study, doesn't pertain in the realm of science.
@PointLarusso You can't have evidence that Jesus did or didn't walk on water, because we don't live in the past to actually test that. You can't have evidence that Jesus was born of a virgin or wasn't born of a virgin, because, again, you can't test that time period, since you don't live in that time period to make that observation. This also works the same with Jesus dying or not, or god creating the universe or not. They're not scientific claims, because you can't test them.
@TheApollo81 We can test these actions. They don't appear to be repeatable. Regardless, simply stating something happened without evidence doesn't amount to anything worthwhile as that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. If someone claims that a human can walk on water, be born of a virgin, or return to life after being dead for 3 days, those are scientific claims. Period.
@PointLarusso You can't test them. They're not universal statements, which is what science tests. An observational statement, like "Jesus walked on water" isn't testable, let alone one that is in the past where we can't go. Learn what science does, not this pseudo-science you're proclaiming. "Jesus walked on water" isn't a scientific claim, because it's not testable. Only statements like "All X are Y" are testable, because we can find a Y that isn't an X. j did W isn't testable.
@TheApollo81 Look. The claim that Jesus walked on water, was born of a virgin, or survived death are all scientific claims because they attempt to make 2 arguments. 1. Humans can walk on water or be born of virgins or survive death or 2. Humans can be born of gods or be gods. These seem to be scientific claims, quite obviously, to be claims that trespass science. Regardless, this is all semantics because in all likeliehood Jesus never fucking existed.
@PointLarusso No, they're not scientific claims. You're talking about an *individual* person, and we can't find out if that stuff was the case or not. IOW, we can't test it. And it's not two claims of "Humans can walk on water and etc. It's "Jesus walked on water and was born of a virgin." That's a specific individual, and not saying something about *all* humans, like you're trying to switch it to. I could even say Genghis Khan never existed. Nothing but stories and no body.
@PointLarusso "What you mean to say is that none of those claims have any scientific evidence; a claim to which both I and tamu would agree" They don't have empirical evidence by neither have them any of the claims physicists made regarding the origin of the Big Bang. Basically almost all physicists agree the BB is the explanation on how the universe came to be, but there is big controversy as to what caused the BB. The problem is that all the information points to a non random conscious event
@dejesusluisx you can add any metaphysics you want by that means. that aside your really suggesting that chrstians and muslims believe in the same god. chrstian's believe in the god that endorses sharia? Muslims believe in the god that said the jews should get the promised land? They clearly believe two different realities and both cant be mutually coexistent. Youre missing the point. your claims are no more valid than a claim about the existence of thor. philosophy is a branch of science genius
@tamu77095 Any person, of any religion, can have God’s grace. Religious dogmas don't determine your Faith in God. You may have the craziest beliefs but if you're righteous, live under God’s laws and conduct your life putting God first always, you can be saved. He is a personal God. God was before religions, before the Bible, before man, and before time. Live under God’s love in His wavelength and you can be saved. Dogmas were created by man trying to understand God. Religions are tools not goals
@dejesusluisx I love how ppl claim to know god's will, it always seems to coincide with their own personal desires. You know I've heard that explanation before, but it was from a muslim. I like how you backed off once you realized where you stood in this argument with me. It's sad really. If i were a christian I wouldn't stand for my fellow primate to be burned in hell, i would stop at nothing to 'save' him. you lack the courage of your convictions and for that you are damned
@tamu77095 "I like how you backed off once you realized where you stood in this argument with me" You have no idea what you're taking about. Never assume. My position came as a revelation, I was a non-believer and I have been confirming them with every new knowledge of theology I acquire. Hell is the eternal darkness, the absence of God. You have so much to learn. I was were you were a few years ago, but the lord saved me, and I saw the light, I'm born again and is the best feeling in the world.
The word "homosexual" is more appropriate and accurate than the word "gay".
A person does not need religion, hatred or any kind of phobia in order to acknowledge important, qualitative differences between heterosexual attraction / behavior / marriage / adoption and homosexual attraction / behavior / marriage / adoption.
Homosexual activists, with support from the media, have succeeded at framing themselves as noble victims and martyrs; it's an effective way to push a social agenda.
It sounds as if you were taught some extremely defective principals of hemanuetics when it comes to studying the Bible. To talk of fictional Holy Books while conflating the Bible w/the Quran, Book of Mormon, etc is clearly nonsensical& contrived itself; they all make vastly dis-similar truth claims regarding meaning & purpose (which is evident in reading them). If you are so concerned w/the pragmatism of the BIble, try reading & following the man-made laws of most county/state statutory codes.
Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian nation' is an excellent book. For similar great thoughts try Dan Barker, John W. Loftus, Robert M Price, Valerie Tarico, Victor Stenger, Bart Ehrman, Ken Humphreys, Richard Carrier, Ken Pulliam, Keith Parsons, Gary Greenberg, Robert Ingersoll, Thomas Paine, Mark Twain, Earl Doherty, Israel Finkelstein, Daniel Dennett, C Dennis Mckinsey, Joseph Wheless, Bertrand Russell, Christopher Hitchens
That was just the tip of the ice berg of the many people that i could mention, not only in the christian tradition, but in the muslim and jewish as well as other traditions that have contributed to science. So this silly notion that religious people have done nothing but impede progress is a ludacris fantasy on the part of some militant atheists who want to use it as a sell talking point for the drone of sheep that will acutally believe that non sense.....
In terms of the modern evolutionary synthesis, many of its biggests proponets have been christian. R.A Fisher(dubbed by Dawkins as the greatest biologist since Darwin) was part of the Anglican church. Theodosius Dobzhaskly, another prominent modern biologist in the development of the evolutionary synthesis was a Russian orthodox christian. The person who developed the Big bang, George lemaitre, was a Roman catholic priest(continued)
2) Many of the best Scientists are (or have been) Christian
C) Therefore Christianity is good
No that is a composition fallacy. There are no good ideas is Christianity that cannot be acquired from another source that does not have all the horrible "death to Gays" "pro-slavery" "burn in hell forever" baggage.
@TheOmegajuice let me answer you contentions of christianity being "pro-slavery", "death to gays" type of accusation. Christianity is not pro-slavery. The people who used the old testament verses to justify slavery never really read the fine print of what type of servitude old testament society required. 1) the slaves were kidnapped and brought to the new world. Deuteronomy chp 24 7 states "Whoever kidnaps a fellow israelite and takes him as a slave and sells him to slavery is to be put to death
@TheOmegajuice Therefore, if all those slave traders and slave masters had been living by that principle, they would have been all put to death. Second, the atlantic slave trade was a system forced on the africans who were brought here. They were forced to be slaves. In the old testament, slavery was not forced. Instead there was a contractual agreement between the master and the servant were the servant sold himself into servitude for 6 years to pay of a debt(continued)
@TheOmegajuice Deuteronomy chp 15 vs 12 "If a fellow israelite sells himself to you as a slave, you are to release them after they have served you for 6 years". Also, there were measures put in place so that if the master mistreat the servant, he would be held accountable. Exodus chp 21 vs 20 "If a slave owner takes a stick and beats his slave, whether male or female, and the slave dies, the owner is to be put to death".(continued)
@TheOmegajuice If the servant is being mistreated at any time, during the contractual years he has to serve his master, he is legally allowed to leave and revoke the contract. Deuteronomy chp 23 vs 15-16 "If a slave runs away from his or her owner and comes to you for protection, do not send them back. They may live in any of your towns that they choose, do not treat them harshly". In the slave trade, if the slave ran away that slave by law had to be captured and given back to the master.
@TheOmegajuice now to your "death to gays" accusation. Your probably referring to Leviticus chp 18 vs 22 that everyone misinterprets. It says "No man is to have sexual relations with another man; god hates that". Now, if you contextualize it is forbidding the pratices that were occuring in the land of canaan. "Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these acts, for that is how the pagans lived in the land before you and who god is driving out" Leviticus chp 18 vs 24(continued)
@TheOmegajuice the type of practices that is referring to now was the cultic practices that involved temple prostitutes, a lot of times males. Deuteronomy chp 23 vs 17 "No person, male or female is to become a temple prostitute". These temple prostitutes were tied to sacrificial practices that honoured gods like molech and baal . "When the Israelites where camped in the Valley of Acacia, the men began to have sexual intercourse with the moabite women who were there(continued)
@TheOmegajuice -These women invited them to sacrificial feasts, where the god of Moab was worshipped. The israelites ate the food and worshipped the god Baal of Peor" Numbers chp 25 vs 1-3. These sacrificial practices were tied to infant sacrifices often. "Anyone of you that gives his or her children in worship of the god molech shall be stoned to death" Leviticus chp 20 vs 2. Now, to your whole "burn in hell forever thing", what you have to understand is hell is not so much a place(continued)
@TheOmegajuice as it is a state of being, or misery and torment. In god, we find eternal happiness, joy and our hearts desire. Psalm chp vs 4-5 " Seek your happiness in the lord and he will give you your hearts desire. give yourself to the lord and he will help you". So if eternal happiness and joy is to be found in god, and you make the decision to reject that source of eternal happiness, the natural result is you end up with eternal misery, despair and anguish(continued)
The Bible IS pro-slavery. You seem to fail to understand the meaning of the phrase "fellow Israelite". There are some protections to the enslaving of fellow Israelites (although the Bible offers some sneaky ways to get around the problems in Exodus 21:2-6)
Enslaving foreigners is pretty much fair game. You can buy men, women and children and treat them as your property, including passing them and their descendants down as permanent inheritance. cont.
@TheOmegajuice ok, first you say there are protections to the "enslaving of fellow israelites". As i said before and you can read the verse, the choice is with that israelite as to whether they want to be a servant or not. Leviticus 25 vs 39 makes this clear when it re-iterates exodus saying "If a fellow israelite living near you becomes so poor that he sells himself to you as a slave, you shall not make him do the work of a slave". When you sell yourself to someone, they legaly have bought you
Leviticus 25 is apparently describing debt slavery but Exodus 21 doesn't say that. It tells you how to hold your Israelite slave's wife and children hostage to try and make him decide to be your slave permanently and hammer a spike through his ear... sounds like blackmail.
"It means an arranged marriage the next verse specifies that"
Er... no the next verse says how you should treat her if you or your son decide to marry her... clearly she isn't married already (cont)
@TheOmegajuice siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhhh. Leviticus 25 is talking about debt servitude as well as exodus 21 because as i have said dozens of times now, when someone sells themself to you back then, you have legally bought them. "It tells you how to hold your israelite slaves wife hostage and try to make him a slave permanently"....wow...just wow. The verse says "If he was unmarried before he became your slave(so before the contract started) and then he becomes married(continued)
I'd quite like to know which translation of the Bible you are using because you are consistently quoting Bible passages wrongly (although not by a huge amount)
It is explained the owning a fellow Israelite is a form of debt slavery limited to 6 years. You can get around this if you get your (male) slave a wife and children while they are under your servitude, then you can make them choose between there own freedom and their family which is blackmail. (cont)
It actually doesn't say "if the slave loves the master" but instead says that the slave must declare his love for the master and his family and choose to remain his master's property.
Female slaves do not go free (even Israelites) after six years. Depending slightly on the translation they either sound like sex-slaves or purchased young-brides... neither sounds especially appealing and would probably involve most of the same stuff. (cont)
@TheOmegajuice The translations i have(and its more than one) does not say that the slave has to "declare his love for the master and his family like the way your construing it to be). And yes female servants do go free after 6 years because again as i said when it uses the word 'hebrew', or 'israelite', it is not gender discriminant. I can go on and on but obviously we're not gonna get anywhere on that front anyways. As to verses 18-19 and 20-21 it is linked(continued)
It's not the word "Hebrew" that confers gender but the word "he" that is used during the rest of the passage. (also the next bit talks about a man selling his daughter and "that she is not to go free as the male slave does" which in fairness could equally mean not going free after 6/7 years or that she can't go free around the nearby village or whatever). (cont)
Neither of us are Bible scholars (I assume you're not anyway) and both of our interpretations are possible
(although I feel that yours involves a lot of extra information that is not present in the passages and I take the view that, what it says it what it means. Your interpretation makes the meaning the least-immoral that it could. You might be right but I think there's quite a bit of wishful thinking involved)
Wow that bracket wasn't supposed to get that big! (cont)
@TheOmegajuice yes it says "they will be punished", but the thing you have to understand is depending on what was the motive of the fight, and the situation, if it was an accidental murder, then yes he is just punished but not put to death by jewish law(he would have to go to one of the cities of refuge) But again, we're probably gonna disagree on the meaning of this, or the slavery passages anyways(continued)
@TheOmegajuice he can't take his wife with him when he leaves. If hes married before he became a slave(before the contract) then he can take his wife with him. It also says "If the slave loves the Master, his wife(the master's wife) and his children(the master's children) then the master shall take him to the place of worship were he gets his ears pierced(paraphrasing)". So, if the servant likes the master, the masters kids(continued)
@TheOmegajuice and the master's wife then he can get his ears pierced to make the contract permanent. As to the verse talking about the man selling the daughter as a servant, the only time that the master would not free the daughter is if he was intending to marry her. Because again, in Exodus 21 1-6 and Leviticus 25, it speaks about a "Hebrew" slave and a "Israelite" slave(with no gender discrimination), and it says that they have to be released after 7 years of service(continued)
@TheOmegajuice i suggest you read Deuteronomy(all of it) because it recaps all the events, and legal decisions that have occurred in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers and the go to chp 15 vs 12-18 were it restates the master-servant policy. There you'll see that it says that it is debt servitude as i have saying a million times now. As to there being no link between 18-19 and 20-21, yes there is because if the master beats his servant(continued)
@TheOmegajuice then he is liable to follow the rules and ethics laid out in verses 18-19. As to your general charge that what the mosaid law is prescribing is immoral, first thing i'll say is that the fact that he lost his servant is a "punishment enough", because he wouldn't have hired the servant if he didn't need him. Second, this is 1450 B.C. it is absurd to judge laws 3451 years ago by a 2011 standard(continued)
@jamaicanification "this is 1450 B.C. it is absurd to judge laws 3451 years ago by a 2011 standard"
Not if you consider the Bible to be the word of an infallible, unchanging God. Regardless of date the laws are immoral compared to the ones we have now, I accept that we cannot say that individuals in that time were morally worse, however their laws were. We have made significant moral progress since then. (cont)
@TheOmegajuice if thats the case then say every single law that ever existed in antiquity at that time is immoral. Dont personally care other than i'd simply point out that you'd sound embarrasingly foolish if you said that. But thats the fallacy your committing yourself to. Finally, "believing or rejecting a book from the big boss". First, you dont believe in the big boss so why are you hollering about how immoral it is?(continued)
@TheOmegajuice secondly its more than 'rejecting a book', its rejecting the atoning sacrifice of god's son on the cross to give us a way out. I could get into the hermeneutics of the whole thing but you'd just get bored and repeat to yourself how yahweh is a mean, spiritual hitlerite sky daddy who doesn't do justice the way you want your fallible mind to do it. "The seriousness of an offence is based on the severity of it".(continued)
God punishes consensual homosexual sex and unbelief the same as he punishes murders and rapists (if he punishes rapists at all). That is immoral and obviously so.
I hate the idea of hell and I also hate the fact that Christians don't realise just how insulting and vitriolic the phrase "if you don't believe then you'll go to hell is". Christians with those ideas exist even if hell doesn't. My hatred is legitimate and justified.
@TheOmegajuice (continued) "He shall stay with you as a hired servant and serve you until the next year of restoration" vs 40. So basically if a person sells himself to you, you have legally bought them. second, you are not to give them the work of a slave but treat them as a hired servant. So, to go to your point of foreigners being fare game, it says in vs 44 "If you need slaves you may buy them from the nations around you"(continued)
@TheOmegajuice That is saying that if there are no available israelites where this contractual agreement can be made, you can go to other nations and make the same contractual agreement with those people seeing as though by the israelite definition "buying someone" means that is would have to be a process where they sell themselves to you(continued)
@TheOmegajuice (exodus 21 vs 2 "if you buy a hebrew slave, he shall serve you for 6 years"-leviticus 25 39 "If a fellow israelite becomes so poor he sells himself to you as a slave, you shall not make him do the work of a slave"). so no, foreigners are not 'fair game'. Also, they are not to be your 'permanet inheritance unless they choose to do so. "but if the slave declares that he loves his master, his wife and his children and does not want to be free(continued)
@TheOmegajuice -then his msater shall take him to the place of worship. There he is to make him stand against the door or the door-post and pierce his ear. then he is a servant for life". Exodus 21 5-6. So again, the choice is entirely up to the servant whether he wants to serve for 7 years, or for life, if he even makes that contractual agreement at all. As to the female verse, that is dealing with an arranged marriage, not with slavery. the english translates it as 'slave'(continued)
@TheOmegajuice but thats not what it means. It means an arranged marriage because the next verse specifies that. As to 'the master only being punished if the slave dies that day'. Read exodus chap 21 vs 18-19, the verses right on top of the others. it says "If there is a fight and one person hits another with a stone, or fist but does not kill them, they are not to be punished. If the one who was hit has to stay in bed, but later has to walk outside with the help of a stick(continued)
Also girls do not have the same protection from being sold into slavery, they cannot be sold to foreigners but can be sold back if they fail to please the man who bought her (whatever that might involve...) [Exodus 21:7-11]
You quoted Exodus 21:20... that along with the following verse only punishes a master who beats their slave hard enough for them to die the same day... if they die the next day they aren't punished. cont.
Your interpretation of hell is one of many that I've been presented with. The Bible can be used to support several different interpretations of the afterlife for non-believers/ sinners. Your interpretation is one of the slightly less wicked but still rewards gullibility and mindless loyalty and punishes (at least by omission) people who believe disagree. cont.
@TheOmegajuice -the one who hit them is to pay for their lost time and take care of them until they get better". vs 18-19 are connected to vs 20-21. So if there is a fight between the slave and slavemaster(look at vs 18-19 and vs 20-21 in sinct) and the slavemaster beat him with a stick and lets him die on the spot without taking care of him, the slavemaster is to be put to death(continued)
There is no link between Exodus 21 18-19 and 20-21. They are talking about different subjects, there is no explicit link between them, vs 20 talks about beating your slave with a rod, that's completely different to getting in a fight that ends badly, and even if it was it is still an immoral idea that the slavemaster should no be punished because the loss of their property (the slave) is punishment enough for the manslaughter. You are just making up excuses (cont)
@TheOmegajuice yeah, i totally agree. Thats why you'd agree that violating the authority of a teacher is nothing compared to violating the authority of a supreme court judge right? Its not about "gods eternal feelings", its about you violating divine law and there being a repercussion. What, do you think that if an infinite being created a divine standard and you violated it there should be no repercussion? Please. (continued)
It speaks of a Hebrew slave and then says 'he' that IS gender specified, and it says "his wife and children" not "the master's wife and children"... again which translation are you using?
The bit about beating slaves to death... there is no link made, neither explicitly or implicitly between the "quarrel" in 18-19 and the beating to death with a rod in 20-21. (it also says they will be "punished" and not "put to death" if their slave dies the same day) (cont)
Plato, for example, was (for his time) a feminist progressive, however his words on were women were still just as wrong then as they are now (the important thing is that they were less wrong that what was commonplace at the time)
you dont believe in the big boss so why are you hollering about how immoral it is?
because I am capable of engaging with a hypothetical... I consider Darth Vader to be immoral too. (cont)
@TheOmegajuice and also, what i find interesting is that your willing to say "god is immoral", the "big boss does this" and all these objections, but what moral foundation are you using to even critique the bible or any other religious book for that matter? Because from the atheist point of view(which is purely naturalistic in most cases) we're just a bunch of poorly evolve primates on the grand scale of the evolution of life in general(i do believe in evolution by the way)(continued)
"what moral foundation are you using to even critique the bible or any other religious book for that matter?"
What moral foundation did you use to judge that God is a good God? Obviously after you prove to yourself that God is good and the Bible is his word then the other stuff is relatively easy but how did you judge that God is good in the first place?
Also how did you come to the judgement that Rape is wrong when it is not prohibited in the Bible? (cont)
I don't want you to think that I deflected your questions so I'll give you a proper answer now (but if you could, would answer the questions in my last post before reading my answers please)
"whos to say that humans commuting genocide...is any worse than a pride of female lions hunting a pack of zebras..."
I liked the way you phrased that, it takes several issues together which is good. It also makes it harder for me to answer in these small boxes but I'll try(cont)
Who's to say, well me for a start, the people being genocided (not a word but anyway) and the members of the society who have to live with the culprits.
We have to get along in a society, doing so is significantly better than attempting to make it on our own. As we are cooperate, social animals, we need rules (or guidelines) to make sure that social intercourse is beneficial. This is common in most social animals (lions rarely kill each other for example) (cont)
I could produce a better answer that is not so reliant on me but I can justify my refusal to allow genocide this way. I care about other human beings and as such I would want to prevent harm that could be done to humans (and animals, I'm a vegetarian btw but I won't go down that road atm) and enforcing rules such as "no rape" "no genocide" "no theft" etc. protects me and also protects the other human beings who I care about. (cont)
@TheOmegajuice well, first thing is that rape is prohibitted in the old testament as being punishable by death. Second, in terms of the moral foundation im using, i would have to say that i am starting from the world view that god created us in his image. I know that doesn't full answer your question , but the general point i will make is that we all have different world views that we use to judge things, including the character of god(continued)
@jamaicanification "well, first thing is that rape is prohibitted in the old testament as being punishable by death."
Where? I know Deuteronomy 22 condemns raping a married or betrothed women but not a virgin/ available girl (and no mention at all is made of husbands raping their wives or similar) is their another passage that condemns rape?
@TheOmegajuice rape is condemned to death for those who rape an engaged woman. In terms of a 'virgin', they could avoid the civil penalty by paying a fine if the father consents, and only if the woman's body was not violated, because you have to understand back then society had a different understanding in many respects as to what rape was. Plus, sex outside of marriage is condemned in the new testament so rape would be too(continued)
"sex outside of marriage is condemned in the new testament so rape would be too"
Condemned the same amount though! (and no condemnation of rape within marriage)
"What is socially acceptable or not acceptable doesn't tell you if something is inherently moral or immoral"
When did I say anything of the sort? Inherent morality is about people's experiences and not people's beliefs. I think I made that perfectly clear. (cont)
Morality is objective because we can derive an objective criterion for "well-being" "benefit" which morality is the process of maximising (or improving anyway)
What benefits a certain person is difficult to discover (everyone is unique) and some individuals may not be the best judges of their benefits (heroine-addicts is probably a fair example) (cont)
@TheOmegajuice I disagree that morality is inherently 'objective'. Yes, i think there are objective moral truths from my perspective(because they derive from god) but on the naturalistic perspective morality changes and shifts as society changes and shifts. What could have seemed moral 2 thousand years ago, may not be moral today. "moral arguments on my world view revolve around arguing which actions would be to the overall advantage of peopel". Thats making the fallacy of assuming(continued)
"on the naturalistic perspective morality changes and shifts as society changes and shifts"
No that is your perspective of the naturalist perspective. There is no unified "naturalist morality", there a large number of moral viewpoints that are consistent with naturalism. Moral relativism is only one of those and it is not the one I subscribe to and I have said so repeatedly. (cont)
"What could have seemed moral 2 thousand years ago, may not be moral today"
It may have seemed moral then but it was not. The fact that all the most intelligent people of the time believed it to be case does not make it so. Slavery was wrong then and it is wrong now. The difference is that we know that it is wrong and people 2000 years ago did not. We have progressed, not simply changed our mind.
@TheOmegajuice of what is socially acceptable or not. What is socially acceptable or not acceptable doesn't tell you if something is inherently moral or immmoral. Slavery for instance was socially acceptable back in the day, but we wouldn't say it was moral just because it was acceptable back then......
We all have different world-views yes but we all have very similar brains and bodies. All things equal we all prefer to not feel pain and we all prefer to feel pleasure. You can come up with a pretty detailed morality with just this knowledge.
Moral arguments with my world-view revolve around arguing which actions would be to the overall advantage of people, it's difficult but it is true there is one particular action that is "the best" so morality is objective. (cont)
@TheOmegajuice "We have to get along in a society, doing so is significantly better than attempting to make on our own". I concur, and i agree we are social animals that need to co-operated for us to survive. Its in our evolutionary make up, and one that we've refined as we have evolved. Dont get me wrong, i dont think that atheists sanction things like rape, genocide and murder(continued)
We have different world-views. How do we decide which is better?
If you want objective criteria then how about logical soundness, confirmation by evidence, testability and benefit to yourself (and your loved ones)
Your world-view professes a God and does not prove, it might even profess a logically inconsistent God (I don't know what your particular belief is). It fails to make confirmed, testable claims and it is designed to help one (probably fictional) person.
@TheOmegajuice the point i was making was on a purely naturalistic world view morality is very subjective because the point of view that is taken is one were morality, though convenient, is not really essential to our survival. at any rate, whether we believe in god or not, i think personally that we have to just find a way to get along as human beings if we're gonna progress in society. I we disagree about the afterlife, at least we can find some agreement on this present life...
In morality the issue is what is the essence of goodness. God cannot be the essence of goodness (Do you know of the Euthyphro Dilemma?) but as to what it is there a couple of answers.
I don't know how familiar you are with moral philosophy but I'd consider that moral decision making must include some kind of consequentialist basis, at least at the very basic level of "things are only good only if they are good FOR some person (i.e. in their benefit in some way)"
@TheOmegajuice so from that naturalistic perspective, whos to say that humans commuting genocide, or killing other people, or attack innocents is any worse than a pride of female lions hunting a pack of zebras and ripping them to shreds for there meat? all you have is an amoral perspective make a judgment that these holy text, religion, and god whom you despise so much is immoral, and that is a contradiction in itself
Finally hell, you can it's my choice as much as you like but the point is that my choice is whether or not to believe a book and join a club. How can that ever be an appropriate crime for eternal punishment.
Your justification is essentially God is the biggest boss and is sensitive so we can be punished forever for hurting his feelings by not loving him. No judge or teacher or police officer would ever punish you for that (cont)
@TheOmegajuice so its not gods feelings thats the issue here, its pretty much yours. Your the one that hates the idea of a hell and that hatred of hell and a misinterpreted view of old testament ethics makes you think of yahweh as some planet of the apes type of sky daddy on steroids. But hey, you cant hate whats not real right?
The seriousness of the offence is the basis for the severity of the punishment, the reason that we use a higher authority for more serious crimes is because it requires more formality and force to judge and uphold those punishments. (cont)
God's eternal feelings do not the crime more severe, if anything it means he should be better at getting over it. Also his authority isn't subject to any kind of checks, a bad teacher or judge can be fired a bad government can be voted out. A bad God just keeps going. I don't submit to God's authority until he can prove to me that he is deserving (and not just the biggest and toughest) and he has to prove that he exists too.
@TheOmegajuice if there is a fight between the slave and slavemaster and the slave doesn't die that day but has to be put to put to bed, and the master took the responsiblity of taking care of him to make up for the fight, then the master is not to be punished because loosing the slave is punishment enough. As to your view of hell, all i can say is that from what the bible says its your decision(continued)
@TheOmegajuice but the consequences are eternal because of the authority you're violating. If you disobeyed a teacher for instance, the consequence might be a mild rebuke, or detention. If you disobeyed your principal, you could face suspension(depending). If you disobeyed the police in an investigation, you could face some jail time for obstructing justice. if you disobeyed the supreme court order, you could face a maximum sentence(continued)
@TheOmegajuice so naturally, as you go up the ladder of authority, what do you think should be the consequence if someone violates the authority of an eternal being?
Now as to the original point that I made. I wouldn't deny that religious people have made an important contribution to science and education, most universities where built by the churches. the churches had all the money, if progress was going to be made it would require their support in one way or another.
The point is, would progress have been made faster without the church. I say yes.
@TheOmegajuice Thats what hell is. Your instictual decision to reject the source of all joy and happiness, with the consequence being misery and despair. Now, to your statement that i made a 'composition of fallacy'. i never, ever said that science proves christianity of the bat. i never said many scientists are christian therefore christianity is good. I was trying to break the notion that the church and christianity have only been responsible for stifling scientific progress, which is showed..
Copernicus, was part of the catholic clergy and he was important for discovering heliocentrism. Galileo, though tried unjustly by the church, was stilled influenced by Christianity and its world view. If we look at the theory of evolution and how it developed, its philosophical basis(uniformitarianism), was popularized by Charles lyell who happen to be apart of the Anglican Church. Asa Gray, an important friend of darwin in the field of biology was a Presbyterian minister(continued)
First of all the scientific method as we know it today, came out of a religious tradition and background in which church men(and imams in the middle east, as well as rabbis in judaism) sought an understanding of the earth that helped explained how god created the world. Many of the most prominent scientists both in ancient/medieval times, and even modern times were and still are religious people(continued)
funny how atheist are "thanking god " on this forum for the separation of church and state, when that idea had some of its origins traced back to the Protestant reformation, a deeply religious movement. Also, it finds traces of in Luther's works such as the Doctrine of Two Kingdoms. Also , its funny how they love to the repeat old "well this is an age of science and reason card, so screw religion atheism's the game in town...".....lmao(continued)
You could have saved yourself that rant if you actually bothered to stop and think for a second.
Of course most of the great guys of the past centuries were religious. Have you ever considered that might be because most people back then were religious? And what does people who were religious accomplishing things in the past have to do with religion itself being incredibly stupid?
I think it may also prove helpful to some of the viewers here to try to evaluate many of the more strident claims of the anti-theist critique ("brights") from a ideological/ metaphysics perspective. Check out the recent article by Jackson Lears in the May 16, 2011 issue of the The Nation entitled "Same Old New Atheism" .The article offers a compelling analysis of Sam Harris' works. Consideration is given to general secularist social perspective
@shieldsff One peek at your channel and it's clear that the words in your comment here are the words of a delusional religious person. Say hello to your invisible friends for me. It's not the 14th century anymore, this is the age of science and reason. Evidence should be considered before believing in anything. Religion is wishful thinking in magic fairytales.
@bigboy45454545-- my, my, really..... all that from just "one peek", huh ? Are you really leveling with all of us here and not harboring some "magic fairy powers of your own ?!? (lol).
@shieldsff Well it was more than a peek of your channel on my part to see that it's full of your delusional Christian garbage. Your channel seems to be all about how the magic cosmic Jewish zombie sky wizard Jesus is going to save people through belief and wishful thinking. You religious retards on YouTube are hilarious. Could you please indicate the magic Christian sky wizards for me? Your whole channel is you talking out of your ass. As Dr, Harris says here, intelligent people need evidence.
not quite: I would probably say it's far more about what it takes to make the world a better place for all of God's children. If you want to make it more personal, there's also quite a'bit there that deals with how sincere, reasonable, logical people can address issues and challenges of faith matters in their own experiences. Hope that may be of help to you, but if not best of luck o to you in this the reminder of this brief existence & hope U find something productive to do. Ciao
Atheism is a religion because it takes a position on whether deity exists or not. Ideologies concern the the tangible, religions concern the intangible. This wingnut is an atheist evangelist. I might be concerned if he had any ethical substitute theories on the intangible, but he doesn't. Just science...theories on the tangible...and 'show' tunes.
@JustinSepheren Me not believing in a God is a religion? I don't follow. There is an ideology attached to not believing in a God? I don't see how there can be.
This is the nonsense he's arguing about: if I bother defining myself as an "atheist" someone feels it's necessary to attach a dogma.
So, if you care to, explain to me how me not believing in a god is a religion (or "theism" - derived from the greek "theos"... look it up)
@JustinSepheren The intangible (better defined as "abstract" - long explanation as to why) either have a physical measure (think of hormones and neuro-activity when talking about emotions) or are a creation of the mind (think of numbers and hypotheticals).
Science can explain these abstracts.
God, according to theists, is the only thing that is neither of these things, but still an abstract (I think God is a creation of the mind).
That being said, I'm glad you don't think it an issue of science.
@Allallt Don't confuse chemical 'reactions' to intangible concepts as a physical quantification of same. Just because you have a finite neural 'concept of GOD' mentally, doesn't mean you've quantified anything on the infinite. Does a tree or an ant perceive our totality, or just our shadow or smell?
An 'abstract' is an idea; one created to forge an intangible theory which allows us to tangibly progress. Science offers theories composed of abstract concepts designed to affect the tangible.
This poor man. He must have been tired of speaking by the time he was asked the question about religious scientists. He really did not answer the question, he merely made some general comments around the topic. Pity.
CharlotteMaryFoster 2 days ago
QWhy cant people like sam harris or richard dawkins ever run for office. These are the real intellectuals of our world
MiloMatrataMusic 3 days ago
He looks like Ben Stiller
santran 1 week ago
Why so many argue that faith is not compatible with science: science is a system of discovering reality without relying on guesses with no proper reasoning. One can actually do both, but one can't be willing and able to apply their skeptical-until-a-reason-is-given scientific reasoning to religion and actually still be a theist. You have to be the kind of person who understands why science works the way it works and how it limits faulty conclusions, but still decide to make one.
Truthiness231 3 weeks ago
@Truthiness231 Because science says there is no evidence of God. Life on earth is harsh, much much harsher for our ancients - so naturally people hoped for a nice afterlife & some religions jumped right in telling people what they wanted to hear - a Santa for adults awaits - ready to take care of ur every need- enjoy till eternity! yay!
Science punctures these happy thoughts
ramaraksha01 1 week ago
@ramaraksha01 I concur. If you check closes, you'll see I said, essentially, "science punctures these happy thoughts, but only if one is actually willing to apply it to that part of life". Most theists understand science just fine (as we're surely both aware, the majority of scientists are still sadly theistic), they just generally refuse to apply it to that one single aspect of life (hence my "you have to be the kind of person who understands science [and still fail to use it to be religious]")
Truthiness231 1 week ago
EDIT
Bah, I meant "close" not "closes"... in my defense I have been watching some Metalocalypse lately and been copying Toki/Skwisgaar speech patterns for laughs; didn't thinks it would affects my typing thoughs. =D
Truthiness231 1 week ago
I am zeus, and i am offensive!
RawSwedishMeatball 4 weeks ago 2
I would vote for Sam Harris for president in a heart beat. I'd also spend every free second teaching people why.
shabido1 1 month ago 16
I can't stand religious zealots but I can't stand this guy either. I guess I should just think for MYSELF.
acidstars9 1 month ago
Athiests have no understanding that God and religion do not have to go hand in hand. They also have a very underdeveloped intuition.
acidstars9 1 month ago
@acidstars9 Yes it´s called deism to believe in some god that isn´t any god of any religion. Atheists in general know about deism. Atheists in the US know more about religion than theists do, according to studies. Probably because they care more about truth.
Can you explain in what way you are justified in claiming that atheists have a very underdeveloped intuition?
katnils 1 month ago
@katnils I know in general they are more educated about religion than religious people, but what I'm saying is that most of us are taught about God as being this man in the sky that judges everyone, rather than the idea that God could just be a non personal energy that exists in everything. It seems like atheists think of God in the religious way we have been taught, and don't consider anything else.
acidstars9 1 month ago
@acidstars9 You can think of the universe as god if you like. To me it is the universe. It has nothing to do with not seeing any beauty in nature or not feeling any fascination for anything.
"It seems like atheists think of God in the religious way we have been taught, and don't consider anything else."
An atheist reject the claims that are made about the nature and existence of gods. It isn´t we that make any claims about what any gods are. It is others making the claims.
katnils 1 month ago
@katnils As for the intuition, our entire school and science systems are based on the left brain and physical hard evidence, and completely ignore the right brain and intuitive learning through feelings and ideas. Atheists in particular believe that if it can't be physically tested and proven it must not exist or it must not be true. Those who are more inclined to believe in a form of spirituality have a more developed intuition but are probably less developed with science.
acidstars9 1 month ago
@acidstars9 ---"As for the intuition, our entire school and science systems are based on the left brain and physical hard evidence, and completely ignore the right brain and intuitive learning through feelings and ideas."
You get important personal experiences and learn from intuition and feelings. But would you seriously prefer that scientific knowledge was based on researchers personal intuition and feelings instead of evidence?
katnils 1 month ago
@acidstars9 ---"Atheists in particular believe that if it can't be physically tested and proven it must not exist or it must not be true."
I don´t really know what it is that is so hard for you to get with that some people ask for evidence to believe in the existence of god(s). You also ask for evidence to believe in most other things I presume.
---"Those who are more inclined to believe in a form of spirituality have a more developed intuition..."
How do you know this?
katnils 1 month ago
@acidstars9 I am also puzzled about why you claim that atheists reject the importance of personal experiences and feelings to a video with Sam Harris who is known for emphasising the importance to our well being of what is known by tradition as spiritual experiences and who is known for meditating. He just doesn´t make claims about the universe from such experiences.
katnils 1 month ago
@acidstars9 We would all have fundamentally different believes about the nature of reality if we would all make claims of the universe based on so called spiritual experiences without having cultural preconceptions about it. What this tells us is really nothing else than that humans are hardwired to have a good imagination about things we don´t know and that imagination and so called spiritual experiences are important to humans.
katnils 1 month ago
@acidstars9 Obviously it has been an evolutionary advantage to us to imagine things about whatever happens to be unknown (it makes us able to put ourselves in someone else's shoes and it makes us able to be more creative and inventive) and also to believe what we are told. As children it is extremely important to believe authorities about what to do and not do to survive and not get harmed.
katnils 1 month ago
@acidstars9 So there´s perfectly rational explanations for why people are more or less inclined to believe authorities about just whatever. Especially regarding what is taught in childhood.
But to ask for evidence to believe something is also important to us if we want to learn more and separate facts from beleives there´s no evidence for being true. And some people are more inclined to ask for evidence than others. That doesn´t make you less intuitive or less "spiritual".
katnils 1 month ago
@katnils The religious replace rationality with faith, and by their very irrational nature regard this as a superior 'spiritual being'.
All debates with the religious end with them resorting to professing some form of superiority out of frustration, as they're incapable of defending their beliefs with evidence.
weefeatures 1 month ago 4
@katnils Although I am being general, since people such as Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan were known to be pantheists, so they seemed to have a more developed understanding of both sides.
acidstars9 1 month ago
@acidstars9 What have the believes of Einstein or Carl Sagan got to do with anything? You can appeal to whatever authority you like about any belief you like. It doesn´t make a belief more or less true. It is with evidence and reason you can explain why anyone else should believe what you believe. To say you have a feeling about the existence of someone invisible and undetectable isn´t more convincing to me than if you had a feeling that Elvis is alive.
katnils 1 month ago
@acidstars9 If you don´t even belong to any religion that demonize people outside the religion, I don´t even get what it is you criticize with not believing in the existence of any gods.
katnils 1 month ago
@acidstars9 Remember it isn´t atheists that are making any positive claims. Atheism is just a rejection of claims of the existence of deities that atheists don´t find reasons to believe in.
It is the ones who make the claims who have the burden of proof if they want to convince someone else why they should also believe the same.
katnils 1 month ago
Good for Sam Harris, he speakes for intelligent people. The believe in any god is for ignorant people like in the old days when primitive people believed in the rain god because they did not understand the water cycle, now even children understand it and that god is gone. The same will happen with present gods, in 15 or 20 years all religions will be gone.
acuaman42 1 month ago
Did he use the word "refudiate" @ 0:14 !?
ronyan1 1 month ago
I agree with Sam Harris those that have a true understanding of the natural world and still condone ancient superstitions are doing a great disservice to the general public.
gerardrbain1972 2 months ago 12
We can't eliminate it, it will probably be around as long as we fear death, or at least until we can stop aging., Probably will be for a long time. But we can ke
pt it from being taught in classrooms or being used for political purposes.
MasterRobinHood 2 months ago
Stupid people wasting their lives on religion and stupid people wasting their time fighting it. Who the fuck cares? Eliminate religion and that's it.
RichtoffenRoach 2 months ago
@RichtoffenRoach people aren't stupid or wasting their time fighting it. because it (religion) directly impacts all of us. there is no "eliminating it". it's going to be here. the question is, how much are we going to let it affect our lives? so yea, apathy is not the ultra-cool position you make it out to be. actually, it's pretty worthless...
isaachaze1 2 months ago 2
@isaachaze1 tax churches keep it out of public policies then enjoy the delusion all you want
phildirt3 2 months ago
@isaachaze1 really do not care, I don't believe, that's about it man, It just doesn't work on me, on my mind. Peace
RichtoffenRoach 2 months ago
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@RichtoffenRoach The atheist Delusion!
How could some of the scientists permit themselves to make a claim that would necessitate knowledge as extensive as the scheme of the universe, when their knowledge of the total scheme of being is *close* to zero, when confronted with a whole mass of unknowns concerning this very earth and tangible, lifeless matter, let alone the whole universe?
1tabligh 2 months ago
This man has been sadly deceived....
"Little "g" has you deceived...2 Corinthians 4:4
in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them.
BrightLight57 3 months ago
@BrightLight57 You can quote ancient religious writings all day long, but your lack of evidence that your source is credible causes intelligent, rational people to simply dismiss your claims. That's why atheists make up a growing segment of the population.
Religious people seem unable to grasp this simple fact.
ndrthrdr1 3 months ago
Read this...
"Little "g" has you deceived...2 Corinthians 4:4
in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them.
BrightLight57 3 months ago
@BrightLight57 Religious nuts keep quoting the Bible as if that makes it believable. Empirical evidence supporting the credibility of the Bible would be convincing, but you provide none. Why?
Because there is none.
ndrthrdr1 3 months ago
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@ndrthrdr1 Read this...
"Little "g" has you deceived...2 Corinthians 4:4
in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them.
BrightLight57 3 months ago
Just because scientifically explain something yet doesn't mean it's a miracle, or magic or voodoo.
That's just nonsense.
FlipHard180 3 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
1-Everything that exists either has necessity for its existence (immaterial objects, ie numbers) or exists because of an external efficient cause (material objects)
2-The universe exists
3-The universe cannot exist out of its own necessity (as a baby cannot cause its own creation), therefore needs an external efficient cause.
johhnycarlos 4 months ago
Whta is wrong with a "religious" scientist who does good work ? There are plenty out there; cosmology,medicine, psychology,mathematics, philosophy, physics, biology all have their element of people who are believers in a creative power
no1hoopsman 4 months ago
God is energy and to be in tune with energy, you need to be in the same wavelength. The same with God, you need to be in His wavelength to be saved. Buddhists call it Nirvana or Enlightenment, Hindus call that Moksha, Islam calls it Taubah and we call it living in Grace. There's only one Divine Consciousness with many names and dogmas, but just one reality. You can be spiritual and be one with God consciousness without religion, but to get somewhere, a map is always helpful. Open your eyes.
dejesusluisx 4 months ago
@dejesusluisx God is not energy, at least not the quantity we deal with in physics. You can say god is blahblahblah, but unless you have an explanation for blahblahblah you don't have an explanation for god.
brangelito 4 months ago
@brangelito Here's your explanation: God is a spirit, an immaterial conscious being. All things in the universe consists of matter and/or energy, so if God isn't matter, is energy by definition. Energy is the capacity to do work, is eternal, omnipresent, wasn't created and can't be destroyed, can create matter, was the only thing present before the BB, and the energy required to make the universe must had been powerful. All these match Biblical descriptions of God. Therefore God exists. Got it?
dejesusluisx 4 months ago
@dejesusluisx
Nice reasoning. Now prove a word of it.
Waltham1892 3 months ago
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@Waltham1892 ""Nice reasoning. Now prove a word of it."" Don't have to, the statement is self explanatory, I'm just putting two definitions together. The Biblical definition came first, that's indisputable, so no one can say theists steal the definition of energy from a science textbook to apply it to God.
God is real, no doubt. Science is just helping us understand His true nature.
dejesusluisx 3 months ago
@dejesusluisx lol no no. that's allah. that's hanuman. That's thor. That santa since he has the capacity to be everywhere at once. in no way does science grant credence to the existence of yahweh in particular anymore than it does grant the credence of allah
tamu77095 3 months ago
@tamu77095 "in no way does science grant credence to the existence of yahweh in particular anymore than it does grant the credence of allah" First the existence of God is a philosophical argument, not scientific, so leave science out of it. Second Allah and Yahweh are exactly the same God, the Biblical God, the God of Abraham. Look it up, before you make a fool out of yourself somewhere else.
dejesusluisx 3 months ago
@dejesusluisx "First the existence of God is a philosophical argument, not scientific"
How is the existence of a creator god that loves us or interferes with our actions not scientific? That overtly tresspasses over science. Either Jesus walked on water or he didn't. Either Jesus was the son of a virgin or he wasn't. Either Jesus came back to life after dying or he didn't. Either a god created the universe or he didn't. How could you say none of those claims are scientific?
PointLarusso 3 months ago
@PointLarusso Is Jesus here so science can study his miracles? No. But there are many other miracles that doctors and scientists study and had approved as unexplainable by science. These miracles occur to people praying in the name of Holy People, these miracles are studies by a panel of doctors and scientists and if they can be explained by science, they aren't considered. A claim where you can't gather data from to study, doesn't pertain in the realm of science.
dejesusluisx 3 months ago
@PointLarusso You can't have evidence that Jesus did or didn't walk on water, because we don't live in the past to actually test that. You can't have evidence that Jesus was born of a virgin or wasn't born of a virgin, because, again, you can't test that time period, since you don't live in that time period to make that observation. This also works the same with Jesus dying or not, or god creating the universe or not. They're not scientific claims, because you can't test them.
TheApollo81 3 months ago
@TheApollo81 We can test these actions. They don't appear to be repeatable. Regardless, simply stating something happened without evidence doesn't amount to anything worthwhile as that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. If someone claims that a human can walk on water, be born of a virgin, or return to life after being dead for 3 days, those are scientific claims. Period.
PointLarusso 3 months ago
@PointLarusso You can't test them. They're not universal statements, which is what science tests. An observational statement, like "Jesus walked on water" isn't testable, let alone one that is in the past where we can't go. Learn what science does, not this pseudo-science you're proclaiming. "Jesus walked on water" isn't a scientific claim, because it's not testable. Only statements like "All X are Y" are testable, because we can find a Y that isn't an X. j did W isn't testable.
TheApollo81 3 months ago
@TheApollo81 Look. The claim that Jesus walked on water, was born of a virgin, or survived death are all scientific claims because they attempt to make 2 arguments. 1. Humans can walk on water or be born of virgins or survive death or 2. Humans can be born of gods or be gods. These seem to be scientific claims, quite obviously, to be claims that trespass science. Regardless, this is all semantics because in all likeliehood Jesus never fucking existed.
PointLarusso 3 months ago
@PointLarusso No, they're not scientific claims. You're talking about an *individual* person, and we can't find out if that stuff was the case or not. IOW, we can't test it. And it's not two claims of "Humans can walk on water and etc. It's "Jesus walked on water and was born of a virgin." That's a specific individual, and not saying something about *all* humans, like you're trying to switch it to. I could even say Genghis Khan never existed. Nothing but stories and no body.
TheApollo81 3 months ago
@dejesusluisx What you mean to say is that none of those claims have any scientific evidence; a claim to which both I and tamu would agree.
PointLarusso 3 months ago
@PointLarusso "What you mean to say is that none of those claims have any scientific evidence; a claim to which both I and tamu would agree" They don't have empirical evidence by neither have them any of the claims physicists made regarding the origin of the Big Bang. Basically almost all physicists agree the BB is the explanation on how the universe came to be, but there is big controversy as to what caused the BB. The problem is that all the information points to a non random conscious event
dejesusluisx 3 months ago
@dejesusluisx you can add any metaphysics you want by that means. that aside your really suggesting that chrstians and muslims believe in the same god. chrstian's believe in the god that endorses sharia? Muslims believe in the god that said the jews should get the promised land? They clearly believe two different realities and both cant be mutually coexistent. Youre missing the point. your claims are no more valid than a claim about the existence of thor. philosophy is a branch of science genius
tamu77095 3 months ago
@tamu77095 Any person, of any religion, can have God’s grace. Religious dogmas don't determine your Faith in God. You may have the craziest beliefs but if you're righteous, live under God’s laws and conduct your life putting God first always, you can be saved. He is a personal God. God was before religions, before the Bible, before man, and before time. Live under God’s love in His wavelength and you can be saved. Dogmas were created by man trying to understand God. Religions are tools not goals
dejesusluisx 3 months ago
@dejesusluisx I love how ppl claim to know god's will, it always seems to coincide with their own personal desires. You know I've heard that explanation before, but it was from a muslim. I like how you backed off once you realized where you stood in this argument with me. It's sad really. If i were a christian I wouldn't stand for my fellow primate to be burned in hell, i would stop at nothing to 'save' him. you lack the courage of your convictions and for that you are damned
tamu77095 3 months ago
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@tamu77095 "I like how you backed off once you realized where you stood in this argument with me" You have no idea what you're taking about. Never assume. My position came as a revelation, I was a non-believer and I have been confirming them with every new knowledge of theology I acquire. Hell is the eternal darkness, the absence of God. You have so much to learn. I was were you were a few years ago, but the lord saved me, and I saw the light, I'm born again and is the best feeling in the world.
dejesusluisx 3 months ago
@tamu77095 Yes, religion is sad,,,,imagine a god making most of the people on earth live in the wrong faith then punish them for it for eternity?
MUHAMMADFUCKEDAKID1 2 months ago
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The word "homosexual" is more appropriate and accurate than the word "gay".
A person does not need religion, hatred or any kind of phobia in order to acknowledge important, qualitative differences between heterosexual attraction / behavior / marriage / adoption and homosexual attraction / behavior / marriage / adoption.
Homosexual activists, with support from the media, have succeeded at framing themselves as noble victims and martyrs; it's an effective way to push a social agenda.
lightandbeautiful 4 months ago
Very enlightened! Even the thought about atheism and its comparison with non-astrologist
biokant 4 months ago
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It sounds as if you were taught some extremely defective principals of hemanuetics when it comes to studying the Bible. To talk of fictional Holy Books while conflating the Bible w/the Quran, Book of Mormon, etc is clearly nonsensical& contrived itself; they all make vastly dis-similar truth claims regarding meaning & purpose (which is evident in reading them). If you are so concerned w/the pragmatism of the BIble, try reading & following the man-made laws of most county/state statutory codes.
shieldsff 4 months ago
Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian nation' is an excellent book. For similar great thoughts try Dan Barker, John W. Loftus, Robert M Price, Valerie Tarico, Victor Stenger, Bart Ehrman, Ken Humphreys, Richard Carrier, Ken Pulliam, Keith Parsons, Gary Greenberg, Robert Ingersoll, Thomas Paine, Mark Twain, Earl Doherty, Israel Finkelstein, Daniel Dennett, C Dennis Mckinsey, Joseph Wheless, Bertrand Russell, Christopher Hitchens
zytigon 4 months ago
Thousandth thumbs ups!
MisterJeebus 5 months ago
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That was just the tip of the ice berg of the many people that i could mention, not only in the christian tradition, but in the muslim and jewish as well as other traditions that have contributed to science. So this silly notion that religious people have done nothing but impede progress is a ludacris fantasy on the part of some militant atheists who want to use it as a sell talking point for the drone of sheep that will acutally believe that non sense.....
jamaicanification 5 months ago
In terms of the modern evolutionary synthesis, many of its biggests proponets have been christian. R.A Fisher(dubbed by Dawkins as the greatest biologist since Darwin) was part of the Anglican church. Theodosius Dobzhaskly, another prominent modern biologist in the development of the evolutionary synthesis was a Russian orthodox christian. The person who developed the Big bang, George lemaitre, was a Roman catholic priest(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
A Summary of You comments:
1) Science is good
2) Many of the best Scientists are (or have been) Christian
C) Therefore Christianity is good
No that is a composition fallacy. There are no good ideas is Christianity that cannot be acquired from another source that does not have all the horrible "death to Gays" "pro-slavery" "burn in hell forever" baggage.
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice let me answer you contentions of christianity being "pro-slavery", "death to gays" type of accusation. Christianity is not pro-slavery. The people who used the old testament verses to justify slavery never really read the fine print of what type of servitude old testament society required. 1) the slaves were kidnapped and brought to the new world. Deuteronomy chp 24 7 states "Whoever kidnaps a fellow israelite and takes him as a slave and sells him to slavery is to be put to death
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice Therefore, if all those slave traders and slave masters had been living by that principle, they would have been all put to death. Second, the atlantic slave trade was a system forced on the africans who were brought here. They were forced to be slaves. In the old testament, slavery was not forced. Instead there was a contractual agreement between the master and the servant were the servant sold himself into servitude for 6 years to pay of a debt(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice Deuteronomy chp 15 vs 12 "If a fellow israelite sells himself to you as a slave, you are to release them after they have served you for 6 years". Also, there were measures put in place so that if the master mistreat the servant, he would be held accountable. Exodus chp 21 vs 20 "If a slave owner takes a stick and beats his slave, whether male or female, and the slave dies, the owner is to be put to death".(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice If the servant is being mistreated at any time, during the contractual years he has to serve his master, he is legally allowed to leave and revoke the contract. Deuteronomy chp 23 vs 15-16 "If a slave runs away from his or her owner and comes to you for protection, do not send them back. They may live in any of your towns that they choose, do not treat them harshly". In the slave trade, if the slave ran away that slave by law had to be captured and given back to the master.
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice now to your "death to gays" accusation. Your probably referring to Leviticus chp 18 vs 22 that everyone misinterprets. It says "No man is to have sexual relations with another man; god hates that". Now, if you contextualize it is forbidding the pratices that were occuring in the land of canaan. "Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these acts, for that is how the pagans lived in the land before you and who god is driving out" Leviticus chp 18 vs 24(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice the type of practices that is referring to now was the cultic practices that involved temple prostitutes, a lot of times males. Deuteronomy chp 23 vs 17 "No person, male or female is to become a temple prostitute". These temple prostitutes were tied to sacrificial practices that honoured gods like molech and baal . "When the Israelites where camped in the Valley of Acacia, the men began to have sexual intercourse with the moabite women who were there(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice -These women invited them to sacrificial feasts, where the god of Moab was worshipped. The israelites ate the food and worshipped the god Baal of Peor" Numbers chp 25 vs 1-3. These sacrificial practices were tied to infant sacrifices often. "Anyone of you that gives his or her children in worship of the god molech shall be stoned to death" Leviticus chp 20 vs 2. Now, to your whole "burn in hell forever thing", what you have to understand is hell is not so much a place(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice as it is a state of being, or misery and torment. In god, we find eternal happiness, joy and our hearts desire. Psalm chp vs 4-5 " Seek your happiness in the lord and he will give you your hearts desire. give yourself to the lord and he will help you". So if eternal happiness and joy is to be found in god, and you make the decision to reject that source of eternal happiness, the natural result is you end up with eternal misery, despair and anguish(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
The Bible IS pro-slavery. You seem to fail to understand the meaning of the phrase "fellow Israelite". There are some protections to the enslaving of fellow Israelites (although the Bible offers some sneaky ways to get around the problems in Exodus 21:2-6)
Enslaving foreigners is pretty much fair game. You can buy men, women and children and treat them as your property, including passing them and their descendants down as permanent inheritance. cont.
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice ok, first you say there are protections to the "enslaving of fellow israelites". As i said before and you can read the verse, the choice is with that israelite as to whether they want to be a servant or not. Leviticus 25 vs 39 makes this clear when it re-iterates exodus saying "If a fellow israelite living near you becomes so poor that he sells himself to you as a slave, you shall not make him do the work of a slave". When you sell yourself to someone, they legaly have bought you
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
Leviticus 25 is apparently describing debt slavery but Exodus 21 doesn't say that. It tells you how to hold your Israelite slave's wife and children hostage to try and make him decide to be your slave permanently and hammer a spike through his ear... sounds like blackmail.
"It means an arranged marriage the next verse specifies that"
Er... no the next verse says how you should treat her if you or your son decide to marry her... clearly she isn't married already (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhhh. Leviticus 25 is talking about debt servitude as well as exodus 21 because as i have said dozens of times now, when someone sells themself to you back then, you have legally bought them. "It tells you how to hold your israelite slaves wife hostage and try to make him a slave permanently"....wow...just wow. The verse says "If he was unmarried before he became your slave(so before the contract started) and then he becomes married(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
I'd quite like to know which translation of the Bible you are using because you are consistently quoting Bible passages wrongly (although not by a huge amount)
It is explained the owning a fellow Israelite is a form of debt slavery limited to 6 years. You can get around this if you get your (male) slave a wife and children while they are under your servitude, then you can make them choose between there own freedom and their family which is blackmail. (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
It actually doesn't say "if the slave loves the master" but instead says that the slave must declare his love for the master and his family and choose to remain his master's property.
Female slaves do not go free (even Israelites) after six years. Depending slightly on the translation they either sound like sex-slaves or purchased young-brides... neither sounds especially appealing and would probably involve most of the same stuff. (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
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TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice The translations i have(and its more than one) does not say that the slave has to "declare his love for the master and his family like the way your construing it to be). And yes female servants do go free after 6 years because again as i said when it uses the word 'hebrew', or 'israelite', it is not gender discriminant. I can go on and on but obviously we're not gonna get anywhere on that front anyways. As to verses 18-19 and 20-21 it is linked(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
Which translation(s)? Just from curiosity.
It's not the word "Hebrew" that confers gender but the word "he" that is used during the rest of the passage. (also the next bit talks about a man selling his daughter and "that she is not to go free as the male slave does" which in fairness could equally mean not going free after 6/7 years or that she can't go free around the nearby village or whatever). (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
Neither of us are Bible scholars (I assume you're not anyway) and both of our interpretations are possible
(although I feel that yours involves a lot of extra information that is not present in the passages and I take the view that, what it says it what it means. Your interpretation makes the meaning the least-immoral that it could. You might be right but I think there's quite a bit of wishful thinking involved)
Wow that bracket wasn't supposed to get that big! (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice yes it says "they will be punished", but the thing you have to understand is depending on what was the motive of the fight, and the situation, if it was an accidental murder, then yes he is just punished but not put to death by jewish law(he would have to go to one of the cities of refuge) But again, we're probably gonna disagree on the meaning of this, or the slavery passages anyways(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice he can't take his wife with him when he leaves. If hes married before he became a slave(before the contract) then he can take his wife with him. It also says "If the slave loves the Master, his wife(the master's wife) and his children(the master's children) then the master shall take him to the place of worship were he gets his ears pierced(paraphrasing)". So, if the servant likes the master, the masters kids(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice and the master's wife then he can get his ears pierced to make the contract permanent. As to the verse talking about the man selling the daughter as a servant, the only time that the master would not free the daughter is if he was intending to marry her. Because again, in Exodus 21 1-6 and Leviticus 25, it speaks about a "Hebrew" slave and a "Israelite" slave(with no gender discrimination), and it says that they have to be released after 7 years of service(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice i suggest you read Deuteronomy(all of it) because it recaps all the events, and legal decisions that have occurred in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers and the go to chp 15 vs 12-18 were it restates the master-servant policy. There you'll see that it says that it is debt servitude as i have saying a million times now. As to there being no link between 18-19 and 20-21, yes there is because if the master beats his servant(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice then he is liable to follow the rules and ethics laid out in verses 18-19. As to your general charge that what the mosaid law is prescribing is immoral, first thing i'll say is that the fact that he lost his servant is a "punishment enough", because he wouldn't have hired the servant if he didn't need him. Second, this is 1450 B.C. it is absurd to judge laws 3451 years ago by a 2011 standard(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification "this is 1450 B.C. it is absurd to judge laws 3451 years ago by a 2011 standard"
Not if you consider the Bible to be the word of an infallible, unchanging God. Regardless of date the laws are immoral compared to the ones we have now, I accept that we cannot say that individuals in that time were morally worse, however their laws were. We have made significant moral progress since then. (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
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TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice if thats the case then say every single law that ever existed in antiquity at that time is immoral. Dont personally care other than i'd simply point out that you'd sound embarrasingly foolish if you said that. But thats the fallacy your committing yourself to. Finally, "believing or rejecting a book from the big boss". First, you dont believe in the big boss so why are you hollering about how immoral it is?(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice secondly its more than 'rejecting a book', its rejecting the atoning sacrifice of god's son on the cross to give us a way out. I could get into the hermeneutics of the whole thing but you'd just get bored and repeat to yourself how yahweh is a mean, spiritual hitlerite sky daddy who doesn't do justice the way you want your fallible mind to do it. "The seriousness of an offence is based on the severity of it".(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
God punishes consensual homosexual sex and unbelief the same as he punishes murders and rapists (if he punishes rapists at all). That is immoral and obviously so.
I hate the idea of hell and I also hate the fact that Christians don't realise just how insulting and vitriolic the phrase "if you don't believe then you'll go to hell is". Christians with those ideas exist even if hell doesn't. My hatred is legitimate and justified.
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice (continued) "He shall stay with you as a hired servant and serve you until the next year of restoration" vs 40. So basically if a person sells himself to you, you have legally bought them. second, you are not to give them the work of a slave but treat them as a hired servant. So, to go to your point of foreigners being fare game, it says in vs 44 "If you need slaves you may buy them from the nations around you"(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice That is saying that if there are no available israelites where this contractual agreement can be made, you can go to other nations and make the same contractual agreement with those people seeing as though by the israelite definition "buying someone" means that is would have to be a process where they sell themselves to you(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice (exodus 21 vs 2 "if you buy a hebrew slave, he shall serve you for 6 years"-leviticus 25 39 "If a fellow israelite becomes so poor he sells himself to you as a slave, you shall not make him do the work of a slave"). so no, foreigners are not 'fair game'. Also, they are not to be your 'permanet inheritance unless they choose to do so. "but if the slave declares that he loves his master, his wife and his children and does not want to be free(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice -then his msater shall take him to the place of worship. There he is to make him stand against the door or the door-post and pierce his ear. then he is a servant for life". Exodus 21 5-6. So again, the choice is entirely up to the servant whether he wants to serve for 7 years, or for life, if he even makes that contractual agreement at all. As to the female verse, that is dealing with an arranged marriage, not with slavery. the english translates it as 'slave'(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice but thats not what it means. It means an arranged marriage because the next verse specifies that. As to 'the master only being punished if the slave dies that day'. Read exodus chap 21 vs 18-19, the verses right on top of the others. it says "If there is a fight and one person hits another with a stone, or fist but does not kill them, they are not to be punished. If the one who was hit has to stay in bed, but later has to walk outside with the help of a stick(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
Also girls do not have the same protection from being sold into slavery, they cannot be sold to foreigners but can be sold back if they fail to please the man who bought her (whatever that might involve...) [Exodus 21:7-11]
You quoted Exodus 21:20... that along with the following verse only punishes a master who beats their slave hard enough for them to die the same day... if they die the next day they aren't punished. cont.
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
Your interpretation of hell is one of many that I've been presented with. The Bible can be used to support several different interpretations of the afterlife for non-believers/ sinners. Your interpretation is one of the slightly less wicked but still rewards gullibility and mindless loyalty and punishes (at least by omission) people who believe disagree. cont.
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice -the one who hit them is to pay for their lost time and take care of them until they get better". vs 18-19 are connected to vs 20-21. So if there is a fight between the slave and slavemaster(look at vs 18-19 and vs 20-21 in sinct) and the slavemaster beat him with a stick and lets him die on the spot without taking care of him, the slavemaster is to be put to death(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
There is no link between Exodus 21 18-19 and 20-21. They are talking about different subjects, there is no explicit link between them, vs 20 talks about beating your slave with a rod, that's completely different to getting in a fight that ends badly, and even if it was it is still an immoral idea that the slavemaster should no be punished because the loss of their property (the slave) is punishment enough for the manslaughter. You are just making up excuses (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice yeah, i totally agree. Thats why you'd agree that violating the authority of a teacher is nothing compared to violating the authority of a supreme court judge right? Its not about "gods eternal feelings", its about you violating divine law and there being a repercussion. What, do you think that if an infinite being created a divine standard and you violated it there should be no repercussion? Please. (continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
It speaks of a Hebrew slave and then says 'he' that IS gender specified, and it says "his wife and children" not "the master's wife and children"... again which translation are you using?
The bit about beating slaves to death... there is no link made, neither explicitly or implicitly between the "quarrel" in 18-19 and the beating to death with a rod in 20-21. (it also says they will be "punished" and not "put to death" if their slave dies the same day) (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
Plato, for example, was (for his time) a feminist progressive, however his words on were women were still just as wrong then as they are now (the important thing is that they were less wrong that what was commonplace at the time)
you dont believe in the big boss so why are you hollering about how immoral it is?
because I am capable of engaging with a hypothetical... I consider Darth Vader to be immoral too. (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice and also, what i find interesting is that your willing to say "god is immoral", the "big boss does this" and all these objections, but what moral foundation are you using to even critique the bible or any other religious book for that matter? Because from the atheist point of view(which is purely naturalistic in most cases) we're just a bunch of poorly evolve primates on the grand scale of the evolution of life in general(i do believe in evolution by the way)(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
"what moral foundation are you using to even critique the bible or any other religious book for that matter?"
What moral foundation did you use to judge that God is a good God? Obviously after you prove to yourself that God is good and the Bible is his word then the other stuff is relatively easy but how did you judge that God is good in the first place?
Also how did you come to the judgement that Rape is wrong when it is not prohibited in the Bible? (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
I don't want you to think that I deflected your questions so I'll give you a proper answer now (but if you could, would answer the questions in my last post before reading my answers please)
"whos to say that humans commuting genocide...is any worse than a pride of female lions hunting a pack of zebras..."
I liked the way you phrased that, it takes several issues together which is good. It also makes it harder for me to answer in these small boxes but I'll try(cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
Who's to say, well me for a start, the people being genocided (not a word but anyway) and the members of the society who have to live with the culprits.
We have to get along in a society, doing so is significantly better than attempting to make it on our own. As we are cooperate, social animals, we need rules (or guidelines) to make sure that social intercourse is beneficial. This is common in most social animals (lions rarely kill each other for example) (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
I could produce a better answer that is not so reliant on me but I can justify my refusal to allow genocide this way. I care about other human beings and as such I would want to prevent harm that could be done to humans (and animals, I'm a vegetarian btw but I won't go down that road atm) and enforcing rules such as "no rape" "no genocide" "no theft" etc. protects me and also protects the other human beings who I care about. (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice well, first thing is that rape is prohibitted in the old testament as being punishable by death. Second, in terms of the moral foundation im using, i would have to say that i am starting from the world view that god created us in his image. I know that doesn't full answer your question , but the general point i will make is that we all have different world views that we use to judge things, including the character of god(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification "well, first thing is that rape is prohibitted in the old testament as being punishable by death."
Where? I know Deuteronomy 22 condemns raping a married or betrothed women but not a virgin/ available girl (and no mention at all is made of husbands raping their wives or similar) is their another passage that condemns rape?
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice rape is condemned to death for those who rape an engaged woman. In terms of a 'virgin', they could avoid the civil penalty by paying a fine if the father consents, and only if the woman's body was not violated, because you have to understand back then society had a different understanding in many respects as to what rape was. Plus, sex outside of marriage is condemned in the new testament so rape would be too(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
"sex outside of marriage is condemned in the new testament so rape would be too"
Condemned the same amount though! (and no condemnation of rape within marriage)
"What is socially acceptable or not acceptable doesn't tell you if something is inherently moral or immoral"
When did I say anything of the sort? Inherent morality is about people's experiences and not people's beliefs. I think I made that perfectly clear. (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
Morality is objective because we can derive an objective criterion for "well-being" "benefit" which morality is the process of maximising (or improving anyway)
What benefits a certain person is difficult to discover (everyone is unique) and some individuals may not be the best judges of their benefits (heroine-addicts is probably a fair example) (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice I disagree that morality is inherently 'objective'. Yes, i think there are objective moral truths from my perspective(because they derive from god) but on the naturalistic perspective morality changes and shifts as society changes and shifts. What could have seemed moral 2 thousand years ago, may not be moral today. "moral arguments on my world view revolve around arguing which actions would be to the overall advantage of peopel". Thats making the fallacy of assuming(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
"on the naturalistic perspective morality changes and shifts as society changes and shifts"
No that is your perspective of the naturalist perspective. There is no unified "naturalist morality", there a large number of moral viewpoints that are consistent with naturalism. Moral relativism is only one of those and it is not the one I subscribe to and I have said so repeatedly. (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
"What could have seemed moral 2 thousand years ago, may not be moral today"
It may have seemed moral then but it was not. The fact that all the most intelligent people of the time believed it to be case does not make it so. Slavery was wrong then and it is wrong now. The difference is that we know that it is wrong and people 2000 years ago did not. We have progressed, not simply changed our mind.
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice of what is socially acceptable or not. What is socially acceptable or not acceptable doesn't tell you if something is inherently moral or immmoral. Slavery for instance was socially acceptable back in the day, but we wouldn't say it was moral just because it was acceptable back then......
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
We all have different world-views yes but we all have very similar brains and bodies. All things equal we all prefer to not feel pain and we all prefer to feel pleasure. You can come up with a pretty detailed morality with just this knowledge.
Moral arguments with my world-view revolve around arguing which actions would be to the overall advantage of people, it's difficult but it is true there is one particular action that is "the best" so morality is objective. (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice "We have to get along in a society, doing so is significantly better than attempting to make on our own". I concur, and i agree we are social animals that need to co-operated for us to survive. Its in our evolutionary make up, and one that we've refined as we have evolved. Dont get me wrong, i dont think that atheists sanction things like rape, genocide and murder(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
We have different world-views. How do we decide which is better?
If you want objective criteria then how about logical soundness, confirmation by evidence, testability and benefit to yourself (and your loved ones)
Your world-view professes a God and does not prove, it might even profess a logically inconsistent God (I don't know what your particular belief is). It fails to make confirmed, testable claims and it is designed to help one (probably fictional) person.
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice the point i was making was on a purely naturalistic world view morality is very subjective because the point of view that is taken is one were morality, though convenient, is not really essential to our survival. at any rate, whether we believe in god or not, i think personally that we have to just find a way to get along as human beings if we're gonna progress in society. I we disagree about the afterlife, at least we can find some agreement on this present life...
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
In morality the issue is what is the essence of goodness. God cannot be the essence of goodness (Do you know of the Euthyphro Dilemma?) but as to what it is there a couple of answers.
I don't know how familiar you are with moral philosophy but I'd consider that moral decision making must include some kind of consequentialist basis, at least at the very basic level of "things are only good only if they are good FOR some person (i.e. in their benefit in some way)"
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice so from that naturalistic perspective, whos to say that humans commuting genocide, or killing other people, or attack innocents is any worse than a pride of female lions hunting a pack of zebras and ripping them to shreds for there meat? all you have is an amoral perspective make a judgment that these holy text, religion, and god whom you despise so much is immoral, and that is a contradiction in itself
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
Finally hell, you can it's my choice as much as you like but the point is that my choice is whether or not to believe a book and join a club. How can that ever be an appropriate crime for eternal punishment.
Your justification is essentially God is the biggest boss and is sensitive so we can be punished forever for hurting his feelings by not loving him. No judge or teacher or police officer would ever punish you for that (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice so its not gods feelings thats the issue here, its pretty much yours. Your the one that hates the idea of a hell and that hatred of hell and a misinterpreted view of old testament ethics makes you think of yahweh as some planet of the apes type of sky daddy on steroids. But hey, you cant hate whats not real right?
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
The seriousness of the offence is the basis for the severity of the punishment, the reason that we use a higher authority for more serious crimes is because it requires more formality and force to judge and uphold those punishments. (cont)
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
God's eternal feelings do not the crime more severe, if anything it means he should be better at getting over it. Also his authority isn't subject to any kind of checks, a bad teacher or judge can be fired a bad government can be voted out. A bad God just keeps going. I don't submit to God's authority until he can prove to me that he is deserving (and not just the biggest and toughest) and he has to prove that he exists too.
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice if there is a fight between the slave and slavemaster and the slave doesn't die that day but has to be put to put to bed, and the master took the responsiblity of taking care of him to make up for the fight, then the master is not to be punished because loosing the slave is punishment enough. As to your view of hell, all i can say is that from what the bible says its your decision(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice but the consequences are eternal because of the authority you're violating. If you disobeyed a teacher for instance, the consequence might be a mild rebuke, or detention. If you disobeyed your principal, you could face suspension(depending). If you disobeyed the police in an investigation, you could face some jail time for obstructing justice. if you disobeyed the supreme court order, you could face a maximum sentence(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice so naturally, as you go up the ladder of authority, what do you think should be the consequence if someone violates the authority of an eternal being?
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
Now as to the original point that I made. I wouldn't deny that religious people have made an important contribution to science and education, most universities where built by the churches. the churches had all the money, if progress was going to be made it would require their support in one way or another.
The point is, would progress have been made faster without the church. I say yes.
TheOmegajuice 5 months ago
@TheOmegajuice Thats what hell is. Your instictual decision to reject the source of all joy and happiness, with the consequence being misery and despair. Now, to your statement that i made a 'composition of fallacy'. i never, ever said that science proves christianity of the bat. i never said many scientists are christian therefore christianity is good. I was trying to break the notion that the church and christianity have only been responsible for stifling scientific progress, which is showed..
jamaicanification 5 months ago
Copernicus, was part of the catholic clergy and he was important for discovering heliocentrism. Galileo, though tried unjustly by the church, was stilled influenced by Christianity and its world view. If we look at the theory of evolution and how it developed, its philosophical basis(uniformitarianism), was popularized by Charles lyell who happen to be apart of the Anglican Church. Asa Gray, an important friend of darwin in the field of biology was a Presbyterian minister(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
First of all the scientific method as we know it today, came out of a religious tradition and background in which church men(and imams in the middle east, as well as rabbis in judaism) sought an understanding of the earth that helped explained how god created the world. Many of the most prominent scientists both in ancient/medieval times, and even modern times were and still are religious people(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
funny how atheist are "thanking god " on this forum for the separation of church and state, when that idea had some of its origins traced back to the Protestant reformation, a deeply religious movement. Also, it finds traces of in Luther's works such as the Doctrine of Two Kingdoms. Also , its funny how they love to the repeat old "well this is an age of science and reason card, so screw religion atheism's the game in town...".....lmao(continued)
jamaicanification 5 months ago
@jamaicanification
You could have saved yourself that rant if you actually bothered to stop and think for a second.
Of course most of the great guys of the past centuries were religious. Have you ever considered that might be because most people back then were religious? And what does people who were religious accomplishing things in the past have to do with religion itself being incredibly stupid?
narutofan9999 5 months ago
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jamaicanification 5 months ago
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jamaicanification 5 months ago
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jamaicanification 5 months ago
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jamaicanification 5 months ago
I think it may also prove helpful to some of the viewers here to try to evaluate many of the more strident claims of the anti-theist critique ("brights") from a ideological/ metaphysics perspective. Check out the recent article by Jackson Lears in the May 16, 2011 issue of the The Nation entitled "Same Old New Atheism" .The article offers a compelling analysis of Sam Harris' works. Consideration is given to general secularist social perspective
shieldsff 6 months ago
@shieldsff One peek at your channel and it's clear that the words in your comment here are the words of a delusional religious person. Say hello to your invisible friends for me. It's not the 14th century anymore, this is the age of science and reason. Evidence should be considered before believing in anything. Religion is wishful thinking in magic fairytales.
bigboy45454545 6 months ago
@bigboy45454545-- my, my, really..... all that from just "one peek", huh ? Are you really leveling with all of us here and not harboring some "magic fairy powers of your own ?!? (lol).
shieldsff 6 months ago
@shieldsff Well it was more than a peek of your channel on my part to see that it's full of your delusional Christian garbage. Your channel seems to be all about how the magic cosmic Jewish zombie sky wizard Jesus is going to save people through belief and wishful thinking. You religious retards on YouTube are hilarious. Could you please indicate the magic Christian sky wizards for me? Your whole channel is you talking out of your ass. As Dr, Harris says here, intelligent people need evidence.
bigboy45454545 6 months ago
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shieldsff 6 months ago
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shieldsff 6 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
not quite: I would probably say it's far more about what it takes to make the world a better place for all of God's children. If you want to make it more personal, there's also quite a'bit there that deals with how sincere, reasonable, logical people can address issues and challenges of faith matters in their own experiences. Hope that may be of help to you, but if not best of luck o to you in this the reminder of this brief existence & hope U find something productive to do. Ciao
shieldsff 6 months ago
0:16 Did Sam Harris pull a Palin and serious use "refudiate?"
chromelemon 6 months ago
Atheism is a religion because it takes a position on whether deity exists or not. Ideologies concern the the tangible, religions concern the intangible. This wingnut is an atheist evangelist. I might be concerned if he had any ethical substitute theories on the intangible, but he doesn't. Just science...theories on the tangible...and 'show' tunes.
JustinSepheren 6 months ago
@JustinSepheren Me not believing in a God is a religion? I don't follow. There is an ideology attached to not believing in a God? I don't see how there can be.
This is the nonsense he's arguing about: if I bother defining myself as an "atheist" someone feels it's necessary to attach a dogma.
So, if you care to, explain to me how me not believing in a god is a religion (or "theism" - derived from the greek "theos"... look it up)
Allallt 6 months ago
@Allallt There are two kinds of theories:
1. TANGIBLE - The things we can see & touch & smell & measure & quantify.
2. INTANGIBLE - The things we cannot see & touch & smell & measure & quantify.
An intangible like LOVE, cannot be quantified, only it's effects.
Similarly, God, angels, demons, ghosts, Heaven, Hell, etc.
Science defines the natural; religion...the supernatural.
You cannot use science to judge a religion or a religion to judge science. they are mutually exclusive.
JustinSepheren 6 months ago
@JustinSepheren The intangible (better defined as "abstract" - long explanation as to why) either have a physical measure (think of hormones and neuro-activity when talking about emotions) or are a creation of the mind (think of numbers and hypotheticals).
Science can explain these abstracts.
God, according to theists, is the only thing that is neither of these things, but still an abstract (I think God is a creation of the mind).
That being said, I'm glad you don't think it an issue of science.
Allallt 6 months ago
@Allallt Don't confuse chemical 'reactions' to intangible concepts as a physical quantification of same. Just because you have a finite neural 'concept of GOD' mentally, doesn't mean you've quantified anything on the infinite. Does a tree or an ant perceive our totality, or just our shadow or smell?
An 'abstract' is an idea; one created to forge an intangible theory which allows us to tangibly progress. Science offers theories composed of abstract concepts designed to affect the tangible.
JustinSepheren 6 months ago