Rabbi Shmuley Debates Richard Dawkins - Part 9

[dave474c]

Shmuley the shmuck.

[JustOneEarth]

I really wish Rabbi Shmuley wouldn't fluctuate his volume so dramatically... he sounds like he's pitching something on an infomercial. Not to mention that it's just plain painful to me ears... Gah!

[benthemiester]

Dawkins quoted what Hitlers said publicly and most historians regard his Catholic pandering as part of his Nazi Propaganda. What the Rabbi quoted was from his private letters. Hitler never changed his mind. Hitler always despised Christianity as an adult even though he was brought up as a Catholic, as Dawkins also despises Christianity though we was raised as an Anglican.

A mediocre biologist and even lousier historian but great seller of books.

[theonlyguyontheleft]

So basically since we are all the children of the same god, we can be equal. Well it's not like evolution states that we're all commonly descended from the same original lifeforms, so god must be the only way to arrive at equality...OH WAIT.

[stevethul1]

If we are created in the image of god, then we are all gods... It's too bad god is imaginary.

Man Made god, Not, god Made Man - Today's gods and religions will go the way of Zeus.

[mtanotes]

@stevethul1 created in the image of G-d does not mean his physical state. G-d is in the spiritual state and its gods characteristics that are reflected onto every human being.

[queenastilon]

So Shmuley's one argument in favour of religious morals/ethics versus the secular is: it's immutable, that "You may not kill" is not relative. Ok, that's a good argument.

The only problem is that it doesn't work; religious people DO kill. They murder individually more often than atheists do, and they kill in wars, ethnic cleansing, "honour" killing, etc (as distinct from murder).

[hugeloads]

@queenastilon you're an idiot

[BillKiernan]

hi, Shmuley...Hitler, whatever he said about Christianity and Judaism, still talked about God, in Mein Kampf, in his speeches, etc. etc. try again.

[pranays]

That not true about India yes woman through themselves on the husband's funeral pier but they were not forced to.

Actually in India divorce, remarriage of widows, and other modern ideas were practiced in India before the west.

[pranays]

Also the Christian British were so good and moral they tortured, hung and crucified men, women and Children.

They strapped entire families to cannons and blew them to pieces, had force famines, and castrated people in India and around the world.

And all the Hitler quotes are from "Table talk" it was not written until 2000 and was not written by Hitler, it was written by a Religious apologist.

What great morals religious people have.

[logician360]

The basis of morality is empathy; the acknowledgement that people feel pain to the same extent that we do, and can be happy if we treat them as we would want to be treated. That is why people are equal, because they have the same capacities for happiness and suffering.

Shmuley argues that killing is wrong because God says it is, but God's commands can only mirror necessary ethical truths. If God said killing was right, then killing would still be wrong, and God would be wrong.

[Yaalah]

Shmley would ask you, based on your first paragraph, whether you believe that people without the same capacities for happiness and suffering as yourself (either because they impaired themselves--drug-addicts--or because they were born impaired--mentally-retarded) are nevertheless as equal as yourself.

Shmuley's argument implies that they are just as equal.

Are there any secular volunteer non-profit shelters for the homeless?

Also, your second paragraph misapplies his argument's primary thrust.

[logician360]

Do drug addicts and the mentally impaired not have the same capacities for happiness? Drug addicts can get therapy for their addictions, and I don't see why mentally retarded people can't live as fulfilling lives as anyone else.

The point is that we can make people's lives objectively better by acting morally, and improve their lives.

[Yaalah]

I chose those 2 groups because either a substance (heroine) or nature (retardation) has impaired their brain's capacity for true human happiness & suffering. Pick other examples if you like, and explain why you think they're still equal to a normal human.

No disagreement with your 2nd paragraph this time.

Re: Bill Gates: Who but God believers will actually operate the ground level of his foundation? Sociologists've found that it's exclusively (or t'least mainly) the religious that volunteer.

[logician360]

The only people that are incapable of feeling any kind of suffering are those lacking self-consciousness, and I don't think we have an obligation to such cases. However, mentally retarded people and addicts can be just as unhappy or happy as anyone else. If you know such people, that becomes clear.

[logician360]

Most volunteers are religious because the overwhelming majority of people are religious. Do you have any evidence that a higher percentage of religious people volunteer than the percentage of nonreligious people?

[logician360]

On the issue of homelessness, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation works to the rehousing (And not just sheltering) of homeless families.

[lewisner]

The Rabbi says we are all equal.Does he believe Palestinians are equal to Jews?

[Falloutmoon]

He just thinks that some people are more equal than others...

[akamola]

Obviously that's what he will say to your face. Behind closed doors, when he's having a rabbinical orgy, things will definitely be different !!!!

[LogansHill]

dawkins pwned the shreiking rabbi