19-02-2004 08:48									#181
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ooops

	19-02-2004 08:50									#182
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Sorry, had to get you back for the bit about hating to be allied with me in the "who goes to church" poll. Don't sweat it.

	19-02-2004 08:53									#183
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ah -- ok

	19-02-2004 08:56									#184
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d00d

Are you sure Molly is a chick?

	19-02-2004 09:22									#187
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Wow...I never expected those last four pages of posts...

Yay 'poly for putting back in me the faith that, yes, there ARE still those who debate in fun threads!

I loe you all...

	19-02-2004 09:23									#188
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That's strange. I saw your post after I posted even though my page loaded in about 9.798 seconds!

	19-02-2004 23:47									#189
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi d00d Are you sure Molly is a chick?

Does it matter? Besides, if you're gonna go calling yourself Molly, you should expect to be treated like a woman. Or is it one of those names like Ashley that some people cruelly name their sons in an attempt to revive ancient custom?

And you love me, EmpFab. Or Molly. I don't know who officially started this.

	19-02-2004 23:50									#190
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Isn't Molly Bloom from James Joyce?

	19-02-2004 23:54									#191
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Oh, is that it? Never read Joyce, I wouldn't know.

	20-02-2004 04:57									#192
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quote: Originally posted by alva Isn't Molly Bloom from James Joyce?

yeah

	20-02-2004 05:51									#193
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quote: Originally posted by MrFun First off, your protests against the abuses of religion in terms of violence in the name of God is anachronistic. Did you know that today, the vast majority of Christians no longer advocate violenct slaughter in the name of God? And as for your complaint about insult ridden posts -- you sometimes do that with your statements, such as "you can believe in anything, even Santa Clause . . ." as if to belittle our belief in something much more significant and meaningful -- God.

Oh, of course, you're right- the Balkans, Rwanda, Burundi, Northern Ireland- they're all arguments about the price of beer, or toffee apples.

I take responsibility for my own actions- the religionistas have this convenient get out clause of 'god made me do it' or 'it says I can do it in my 2000 year old book.'

As long as any religionista kills someone else in the name of a supernatural being, then my point about killing for Christ, or Allah, or Kali is relevant- besides which, the examples I gave from Christianity's history (god is love, right- except when you're killing Jews, or Muslims, or pagans) could easily be substituted by examples from Islam (Allah the merciful, the compassionate), or India's history, or virtually any religion- even the precursors of the Mennonites had a few big bloodbaths of their own in Germany, before they cleaned up their act.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01445b.htm

I wasn't aware that describing god in terms of another mythical being was insulting- after all, Christianity's history is replete with the demeaning and belittling of other people's gods- from animists, to Hindus, to Muslims, you name it- the one true god is meant to supersede them all. 'I am the way, the truth and the light'- that's not exactly leaving much room for other gods, is it? And let's face it, even Christians dispute amongst themselves about whose variety of the Christian god is the best.

In any case, I was answering Kenobi's post and talking about personal discourtesy- ascribing faults to me based on my presumed place of birth.

By the way, Elok is clearly suffering some form of derangement if he thinks I'm female- according to his way of thinking, a certain poster in New York is a dead Russian or an opera, the Emperor Fabulous, is well, who knows, and Ben Kenobi is a character from a Star Wars film.

I love the remark about 'being expected to be treated like a woman'- that's soooo religionista.

I put it down to youth- or perhaps god made him do it.

	20-02-2004 06:05									#194
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quote: ascribing faults to me based on my presumed place of birth.

That was not the point of that argument. I just wanted to show you how your statement of intelligence was based on mere opinion, and not substance.

quote: precursors of the Mennonites had a few big bloodbaths of their own in Germany, before they cleaned up their act.

The Munsterites are not Mennonites. The Mennonites come from the peace wing of the anabaptists, that outright disassociated themselves with the Munsterites.

If anything the Munsterites helped define Mennonites in what they believe, as their antithesis.

	20-02-2004 06:15									#196
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi That was not the point of that argument. I just wanted to show you how your statement of intelligence was based on mere opinion, and not substance.

Of course you did, darling. And when fez calls me a 'moron' it's his equivalent of 'extra special person'.

	20-02-2004 06:17									#197
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Well, I'm glad you are such a confident person not to let a little dig rankle you.

	20-02-2004 06:31									#198
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi Well, I'm glad you are such a confident person not to let a little dig rankle you.

It's because I'm so full of the milk of humanist kindness, and because I know that your god made you do it.

See- it was predestined for you to be a bit snippy.

And that I think, ends my role in this thread.

	20-02-2004 11:19									#199
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quote: Originally posted by molly bloom Oh, of course, you're right- the Balkans, Rwanda, Burundi, Northern Ireland- they're all arguments about the price of beer, or toffee apples. I take responsibility for my own actions- the religionistas have this convenient get out clause of 'god made me do it' or 'it says I can do it in my 2000 year old book.' As long as any religionista kills someone else in the name of a supernatural being, then my point about killing for Christ, or Allah, or Kali is relevant- besides which, the examples I gave from Christianity's history (god is love, right- except when you're killing Jews, or Muslims, or pagans) could easily be substituted by examples from Islam (Allah the merciful, the compassionate), or India's history, or virtually any religion- even the precursors of the Mennonites had a few big bloodbaths of their own in Germany, before they cleaned up their act.

And hence, my operative words, "vast majority" -- but yes, it is tragic that in some parts of the world, there are people who twist religion for their own selfish, inhuman purposes.

It's not religion itself that has been the problem -- its psychotic leaders who use religion in their dangerous rhetoric that's the problem.


Oh, and Molly -- I do like you on here, so I did not mean to be spiteful towards you.

	20-02-2004 15:26									#200
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quote: Originally posted by Elok E.G. religious individuals in the past have done bad things, so religion is bad. Much as chainsaws have been used to kill people, and are therefore bad.

Bad analogy. Judeo-Christianity was taken as authoritative in the past made it easy to slay, murder, oppress or to commit genocide. Even today the outdated moral code in Judeo-Christianity is still used to oppose or support a large number of positions.

quote: Originally posted by Elok While we're at it, something much like "secular humanism" fueled the Reign of Terror in post-revolutionary France.

Care to elaborate?

quote: Originally posted by Elok Otherwise the argument is just using perversions of the idea of religion as a sort of pre-existing strawman.

Oh yes, the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Well done.

	20-02-2004 15:33									#201
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quote: Originally posted by Elok C.S. Lewis is an apologist. Aquinas is "heavier stuff," yes, but when I made that suggestion I was under the impression that Molly could be convinced by reason, and wanted something light and easy to understand, as in Mere Christianity. Anything more mystical than that, I figured she'd mock first and ask questions later. Moot point now.

You don't think Dualism is mythical, or at least idealistic?

At any rate, most modern theologicans (e.g. Plantinga, Swinburne etc) do not rely on mythology.

quote: Originally posted by Elok The thing is, how would you go about factoring in the possible actions of God when trying to determine his existence, skywalker?

I don't think making a trickster god argument is going to hold water. Why would a god want to hide from us?

Oh, of course, we don't know. It's all ineffable.

quote: Originally posted by Elok You can't really judge what a "reasonable person" would do, because the average person is not omniscient, omnipresent, and extratemporal.

A person does not act randomly. It is not difficult to guess what a person's reaction to certain event is.

	20-02-2004 18:02									#202
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quote: Originally posted by Elok Does it matter? Besides, if you're gonna go calling yourself Molly, you should expect to be treated like a woman.

Why do you treat women differently than men?

	20-02-2004 19:32									#203
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I don't really treat them differently, but I'm going to refer to someone named "Molly" as "she." It just makes sense to me.

God isn't hiding from us-we don't know he's "hiding" at all. He could be operating the universe in a certain way that appears to us to be hiding, but is merely the most efficient way of doing things for one reason or another. And you can predict the actions of a person, provided you know that person and all the things they are acting in response to, which with a god could never be the case. Any argument about what a God would do or wouldn't do is meaningless.

My point is that the oppression committed in the name of God is always a perversion of the ideals of Christianity, and presumptively of Islam in the case of all those fatwas. They result from selective obedience, ignoring "let he who is without sin cast the first stone," "judge not, lest ye be judged," "seventy times seven," "inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these my brethren," etc. You can hold up any strong ideal as a false source of legitimacy, if you aren't picky about following it.

As to the reign of terror, what would you call Robespierre's philosophy if not "secular humanism"?

	20-02-2004 20:25									#204
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Secular humanism as a philosophy was not conceived of until 1933. Robespierre's defense of the terror is certainly a conflict with the doctrine.

Any secularism != Secular Humanism.

It's funny that in your above defense of Christianity, you assert that people who commited atrocities were actually going against what their faith should be. Should not Robespierre be given the same position, as Voltaire, from whom much of the secular philosophy of the 18th century derived, would undoubtedly have found the Terror abhorrent?

	20-02-2004 20:39									#205
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quote: Originally posted by Elok God isn't hiding from us-we don't know he's "hiding" at all. He could be operating the universe in a certain way that appears to us to be hiding, but is merely the most efficient way of doing things for one reason or another.

This is a problem for religion. If we have a universe that looks, for all intents and purposes, to be devoid of intelligent design and the acts of a conscious creator, what reason is there to believe one exists? We come up again to Occam's Razor. The "God in the Gaps" argument may be comforting to religious folk for purposes of maintaining faith, but it's hardly a convincing argument for choosing to believe in a personal deity, as it presupposes the answer one is trying to get at.

	20-02-2004 23:52									#206
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That's what I was getting at, Boris. There is no atheists' creed that says, "take anyone who you suspect of disloyalty, give them a show trial, and then hit them with the guillotine," so to judge the merits of atheism based on the Reign of Terror would be ridiculous. Much as it is ridiculous to judge Christianity based on the Spanish Inquisition or some such. Sorry if it sounded like a counteroffensive.

As to Occam's Razor, I addressed this earlier, in a way. Not sure what page, probably five. God can in fact be felt on a personal level, given sufficient effort or meditation; it is not in any way empirical in the sense accepted by science, but it is there, and you may find it if you try.

I realize it's a horrible loop, and probably sounds like a scam to you. To experience God, you must seek him out, which involves believing in him in the first place. I don't write the rules though. I guess what I'm saying is that you can't prove or disprove God scientifically, but it seems to me that there is truth in the world that cannot be ascertained scientifically.

	21-02-2004 00:14									#207
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quote: To experience God, you must seek him out, which involves believing in him in the first place.

Disagree.

God can only be reached, if he offers himself to men. Men cannot bring God down, only he can.

The key is not in believing God to experience him, for if this were so, how could anyone of us come to know him? But rather, it is by letting him into our hearts, and the recognition of his presence will allow us to get to know him, and to believe in him.

	21-02-2004 00:15									#208
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quote: Originally posted by molly bloom At least I've made it to Elok's ignore list, which means one less god-botherer to be bothered with.

I respect Elok FAR more than I respect you (given that you act like a moron). He is serious and rational, whereas you rant and rave. An atheist who isn't open to other modes of thought and who derides religious people as somehow inferior is no better than someone like Fred Phelps.

	21-02-2004 00:19									#209
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Bad analogy. Judeo-Christianity was taken as authoritative in the past made it easy to slay, murder, oppress or to commit genocide. Even today the outdated moral code in Judeo-Christianity is still used to oppose or support a large number of positions.

Evolution can be used to support Social Darwinism. That doesn't mean it's wrong or bad. Nietzsche was used to support the Nazis. That doesn't me he was wrong or bad. The problem is not in religion, or even in Christianity; the problem lies in those who are close-minded or seek to manipulate the populace. ANYTHING can be used to do that; religion has just been a favorite historically.

	21-02-2004 00:19									#210
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quote: Originally posted by Elok That's what I was getting at, Boris. There is no atheists' creed that says, "take anyone who you suspect of disloyalty, give them a show trial, and then hit them with the guillotine," so to judge the merits of atheism based on the Reign of Terror would be ridiculous. Much as it is ridiculous to judge Christianity based on the Spanish Inquisition or some such. Sorry if it sounded like a counteroffensive.

The thing is, it isn't that ridiculous. While I've no doubt a great deal of the atrocities carried out in the name of religion were actually cynical usage of religion to further power, so many examples appear to come from genuine religious fervor. For example, what other explanation can we have for Catholics slaughtering Native Americans after they had converted to make sure they went to heaven immediately? There is a big difference between using religion for political ends and committing horrors while acting under genuine belief.

quote: As to Occam's Razor, I addressed this earlier, in a way. Not sure what page, probably five. God can in fact be felt on a personal level, given sufficient effort or meditation; it is not in any way empirical in the sense accepted by science, but it is there, and you may find it if you try. I realize it's a horrible loop, and probably sounds like a scam to you. To experience God, you must seek him out, which involves believing in him in the first place. I don't write the rules though. I guess what I'm saying is that you can't prove or disprove God scientifically, but it seems to me that there is truth in the world that cannot be ascertained scientifically.

Yes, it's a loop. And this is so subjective as to be useless. What about all of the devout Christians who have lost their faith and subsequently become non-believers? Did they feel God on a personal level, and then stop? If so, how could they be allowed by God to do such? An answer akin to "well, they never really felt it in the first place" won't be accepted, because it's both arrogant and false.

People can convince themselves they feel anything on a personal level. After all, they convince themselves of ghosts, monsters under the bead and the like. When one presupposes a deity and wishes fervently for such an "experience," I'd say the likelihood of convincing one's self of such things is even greater. Considering people of every religious belief will swear to the end that they have experienced such a thing and know in their hearts their way is the "true" way, I have to remain extremely skeptical. One thing we know from psychology is the human mind is extremely susceptible to self-delusion of this kind.