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Member (Idle past 5192 days) Posts: 649 From: Melbourne, Australia Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Christianity Today: Atheism is the only rational outlook. | |||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: 1) Athiests are more likely to have a computer. 2) Athiests are more likely to have a wide range of interests 3) Athiests are more likely to be able to handle exposure to viewpoints unlike their own and often seek them out. 3) Many, many, many Christian websites are unintentionally hilarious.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Funny, it is my understanding that Europeans tend to be much better educated and informed than Americans about world religions (and just about anything else, actually), since many European countries have mandatory religious education in schools. Can you back up your claim?
quote: ...and this is different from America how, exactly? Edited by AdminPhat, : fixed quote
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: I might have a superstitious idea that the Second Coming of Christ is going to happen in 2008, but only if certain world events happen. If I become President, would it be OK for me to enact policies designed to bring about those world events, even though they involve fomenting wars and dismantling environmental protection laws? If not, why not? I would only be using my clout to further what I believe to be the most important event in history.
In addition, I'm irritated at how they indoctrinated me on unprovable dogma while growing up. quote: They say it about the moon landing and the Halocaust, too, but it doesn't make them right.
Atheists stalk Christian websites because they want to stop this regress of society. It also might be a form of amusement for them. quote: Hindus and Sikhs don't try to convert me or anyone I know, and they don't tell me I'm going to hell for believing differently from them. They don't try to meddle in my sex life, my married life, or my education. They don't set themselves up as arbiters of morality only to have leader after leader be revealed as engaging in exactly the behaviors they condemn everyone else for. It is the ignorance, arrogance, and hypocrisy all in one package, juggs. Christians make it so incredibly easy. If they just didn't try to tell everybody else how to live they wouldn't get near the flak from Athiests they currently do. But anyway, Christians enjoy all sorts of benefits and perks in this country that Athiests don't get just because they call themselves Christian. Stop whining becasue you aren't universally adored.
quote: It doesn't. If you still don't know how athiests come to their disbelief after all this time, I don't think you are able to learn it.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Let's not forget little village churches, too!
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: It has nothing at all to do with looking stupid. It has everything to do with actually being stupid. Making decisions based upon reason or evidence or thinking through the consequences for me and others seems like a good way to go. Instead making decisions based upon "woo" or what somebody else told me "the big woo in the sky" wants me to do seems foolish and thoughtless at best and downright dangerous at worst. It is a lot easier to not take personal responsibility for your own choices and instead "give up your life to God", but I think that's ultimately just lazy.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
Making decisions based upon reason or evidence or thinking through the consequences for me and others seems like a good way to go. quote: Huh? All of them used evidence and reason to achieve what they did.
It is a lot easier to not take personal responsibility for your own choices and instead "give up your life to God", but I think that's ultimately just lazy. quote: In a way you do, though, when you abandon reason and logic and evidence in favor of "woo" or what somebody told you the "big woo in the sky" says he wants you to do or be like. If you really took reponsibility for you actions, you wouldn't let these things get in the way of logic and reason and evidence.
quote: That is not the kind of "lazy" I was referring to. I am talking about "lazy thinking". By this, I mean things like not being able to follow through to the logical consequences of claims, not being able to discern when claims are contradictory; in general, not being able to think critically or ask appropriate questions before granting tentative assent to a claim.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: You are setting up this dichotomy unfairly. "Jesus is the answer" is not the default position. The default position is that "we have an intellect", imperfect as it may be. Nobody denies that we have an intellect, so it is actually the people who boldly say "Jesus/Mohammed/Buddha/L. Ron Hubbard is the answer" who need to justify their position.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: That's also what religions do, except they don't need to bother with reality when coming up with those answers.
quote: Since when does people's comfort level with something determine if it is true or not?
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
Huh? All of them used evidence and reason to achieve what they did. quote: Sure. However, you can't find God using evidence and reason. You can only find God through faith.
quote: Not using evidence and reason doesn't make someone a dummy. It means they aren't using evidence and reason. It's sort of like people not knowing how to use calculus. Both advanced math (like calculus) and the use of evidence and reason (the scientific method) to evaluate claims of fact/reality are simply tools. I don't know how to use calculus. I don't know how to use lots of different tools. That doesn't make me a dummy, it just makes me ignorant of how to use many different tools. The problem is, though, that being able to use logic and reason is paramount to being able to make good decisions in our lives in this technologically-advanced, information-age society we currently live in. Most Americans don't know the first thing about using the tool of critical thinking because they've never been taught. You can be damn sure that the more radical religious elements in this country want to keep such tools as far away from their followers as they possibly can. Even the moderate Catholic Church has always had a lukewarm relationship with scientific thinking.
You abandon reason and logic and evidence in favor of "woo" or what somebody told you the "big woo in the sky" says he wants you to do or be like. quote: You would tell God to go fuck himself?
If you really took reponsibility for you actions, you wouldn't let these things get in the way of logic and reason and evidence. quote: If you really took responsibility for your actions, you wouldn't let what somebody told you God wants you to believe or do (or what you think the Bible, or God, wants you believe or do to) get in the way of what reason and logic and evidence are showing you, or could show you if you looked. You wouldn't let your irrational beliefs (faith) override or supplant reason and logic and evidence (or lack thereof).
By this, I mean things like not being able to follow through to the logical consequences of claims, not being able to discern when claims are contradictory; in general, not being able to think critically or ask appropriate questions before granting tentative assent to a claim. quote: I'd say that in my experience, you are just as guilty of such lapses as the next religious person.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
Sure. However, you can't find God using evidence and reason. You can only find God through faith. quote: No, there is no evidence. That's why you need faith. Only people with weak faith need evidence to believe in God.
Most Americans don't know the first thing about using the tool of critical thinking because they've never been taught. You can be damn sure that the more radical religious elements in this country want to keep such tools as far away from their followers as they possibly can. Even the moderate Catholic Church has always had a lukewarm relationship with scientific thinking. quote: How would you go about instructing people to use critical thinking skills but only let them apply them to certain ideas and not others?
You would tell God to go fuck himself? quote: Are you suggesting that God is wrong sometimes?
I'd say that in my experience, you are just as guilty of such lapses as the next religious person. quote: Rat, come on. People regularly tell you in the midst of discussion that you are losing track of your own arguments, are unable to understand analogies, contradict yourself, and in general rather frequently fail to make sense. Why do you think this happens? Edited by nator, : No reason given.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
Then what do you need the big woo for? quote: Well, it is certainly refreshing to see a believer admit that they have invented an imaginary friend and called it "god". Edited by nator, : No reason given.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
No, there is no evidence. quote: It makes it useless as evidence. If you can't show me, or anyone else, your "subjective evidence", then how can we tell the difference between it and delusion, or something somebody made up, or an error? We can't tell the difference. Therefore, subjective evidence isn't useful for anything other than forming and perpetuating ideas which may or may not be based in reality.
Only people with weak faith need evidence to believe in God. quote: Yepers.
How would you go about instructing people to use critical thinking skills but only let them apply them to certain ideas and not others? quote: I wrote:
Most Americans don't know the first thing about using the tool of critical thinking because they've never been taught. You can be damn sure that the more radical religious elements in this country want to keep such tools as far away from their followers as they possibly can. Even the moderate Catholic Church has always had a lukewarm relationship with scientific thinking. You seemed to be saying that you wanted to "strike a happy medium" between people using critical thinking skills and at the same time not wanting them to use them "too much", possibly keeping them from applying them to religious doctrine or their own religious beliefs.
Are you suggesting that God is wrong sometimes? quote: But you just said that you would tell God to go fuck himself if He came down from heaven and told you to do something you didn't already know in your heart to be right. You said that He would have to convince you that He was right and you were wrong. Are you changing your mind about what you would say to "the big woo in the sky"?
Rat, come on. People regularly tell you in the midst of discussion that you are losing track of your own arguments, are unable to understand analogies, contradict yourself, and in general rather frequently fail to make sense. Why do you think this happens? quote: Sure, we all make mistakes. In my experience with you, it is very, very, very difficult to get you to see your mistakes. Often, I have been in a thread where you are being told by 4 or 6 other people that you have made certain specific errors and yet you refuse to or are unable to see where you've erred. Then you get annoyed at being nagged at and start making flippant, contentless responses to people's more and more emphatic and strident efforts to explain. It is at these times that it appears that you are just digging in your heels and refusing to correct yourself and are getting snotty to avoid having to do so. This is one of the biggest reasons people get so incredibly frustrated with you.
quote: Well, expressing oneself clearly and accurately in writing here is a big part of effective debate at EvC. However, losing track of your own arguments, contradicting yourself, and not understanding analogies are not related to writing clearly.
quote: That is insider-mentality and it is bullshit. There are many, many people who claim to have had an "encounter" with god and are plenty ignorant of the content and meaning of the bible. We "encounter" them here on EvC all the time.
quote: Sure, but that's not really what I was talking about. Edited by nator, : No reason given.
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