B
Betterave
Guest
Ever heard of irony?
- Status
B
Betterave
Guest
I guess that’s possible, but I doubt it. Care to share and defend your ‘understanding’?
B
Betterave
Guest
You thought it was clear… You’re still not understanding how it works though. We believe the Bible is a history of God and man. It’s not a fairy tale, where everything is set up to be neat and tidy. It’s a real historical document. Now you may be one of those particularly philistine-minded individuals who believes that if a historical document was not written after, say, 1830 or so, then it has no rational merit, since the principles informing its writing are not the same as those used in contemporary historiography. But what can you do with such people? They’re hopeless. They need conversion, not argument, they need to learn to be less narrow-minded, otherwise they will be stubbornly, incorrigibly ignorant and unteachable. Further, they don’t understand the use of ancient documents in contemporary historiography.
Now here’s the specific point you’re missing. If human authors wrote things that consisted in misunderstandings of God, then obviously, if God inspired those authors, the authors did not corrupt God’s message. But your conclusion that everything that God willed for the human authors of scripture to write must be a mature expression of theological truths does not follow. Can you see why?
Right, and it was in response to this that I pointed out that it never occurred to you to think about the collection of writings found in the book as a whole. When one does this, it is perfectly obvious that we cannot take everything at “face value” - indeed, the suggestion that that should have been something we should expect in the first place shows the depth of your naivete.
If you still have fundamental difficulties with your other queries here, please just say and I will elaborate further. (Hopefully you can reread my last post and think about the point I made there about the interpretation of secular history (of law and morality), which is analogous to the case before us.)
H
Hooding_Trees
Guest
I do not claim knowledge about the which is not demonstrable/verifiable. I do not form beliefs without verifiable evidence. What would you like me to defend?
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Hooding Trees
Actually atheism and the evolution of cooperative societies not only makes far more sense when it comes to morality, but is actually the only way to make sense of the complexity of morals withing society.
This fallacy is easily exposed by examining atheist rule in the 20th century. China, Russia, East Germany (80% atheist), North Korea, etc. The worst possible societies to live in.
Learn some history!
Actually atheism and the evolution of cooperative societies not only makes far more sense when it comes to morality, but is actually the only way to make sense of the complexity of morals withing society.
This fallacy is easily exposed by examining atheist rule in the 20th century. China, Russia, East Germany (80% atheist), North Korea, etc. The worst possible societies to live in.
Learn some history!
H
Hooding_Trees
Guest
Actually if anything they support my case.Hooding Trees
Actually atheism and the evolution of cooperative societies not only makes far more sense when it comes to morality, but is actually the only way to make sense of the complexity of morals withing society.
This fallacy is easily exposed by examining atheist rule in the 20th century. China, Russia, East Germany (80% atheist), North Korea, etc. The worst possible societies to live in.
Learn some history!
I think you should re-read what i wrote.Learn some basic comprehension skills!
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Hooding Trees
*
Actually if anything they support my case.*
In what way do those societies support your case? Please be specific.
In what way does atheism produce moral societies when atheists are never obliged to agree on what is moral and what is immoral except at the point of a gun? Why is a gun superior to the Gospels?
*
Actually if anything they support my case.*
In what way do those societies support your case? Please be specific.
In what way does atheism produce moral societies when atheists are never obliged to agree on what is moral and what is immoral except at the point of a gun? Why is a gun superior to the Gospels?
A
AntiTheist
Guest
We again encounter a complete and miserable failure to understand what atheism actually is, a failure probably predicated on false assumptions.
Atheism is not a belief or a “building block” or a system of any kind – it’s a position on a single question (“Do gods exist?”). Since it is not a belief, it cannot be used as justification for an action, nor can it be used as the basis of a philosophical system.
For example, let’s say there’s a crazy atheist who burns down a church. Did his atheism cause him to do that? Logically, it cannot have caused the action: there is no logical way to get from, “I do not accept the claim that gods exist” to “I should burn down churches.”
However, there is a logical way to get there if we start from something that the individual does believe. Probably, such an individual believes something ridiculous like “religion is intrinsically evil.” And further, he probably believes something like “It’s good to destroy intrinsically evil things.” So the thought process would go like this: “Religion is intrinsically evil; it is good to destroy intrinsically evil things; destroying a church is the closest I can get to destroying a religion; therefore, I should destroy a church.”
This example also has the benefit of demonstrating how belief in an absolute morality (nonsense ideas like “instrinsically good” and “intrinsically evil”) can lead to atrocity. It’s beliefs that cause actions, not non-beliefs.
Similarly, “atheism” cannot be used to “build” a moral system, as atheism is utterly unconnected to moral systems. An atheist can be a Kantian, a utilitarian, an error theorist, a moral skeptic, a moral nihilist, or any of zillions of other philosophical positions on the question of morality. The moral system that he accepts will be influenced by the things he believes, not the things he doesn’t believe.
Similarly, atrocities committed by “atheist regimes” were driven not by atheism but by specific political ideologies – and while those ideologies are consistent with atheism, it’s a logical error to say that atheism leads to them. Atheism is also consistent with the decision to eat a banana, but atheism doesn’t “lead to eating bananas.”
Such logical errors are the height of sloppy thinking.
B
buffalo
Guest
The Irrational Atheist - blows this out of the water.
A
AntiTheist
Guest
Since I’m such a nice person, I’m going to give you a useful lesson in communicating with others.
When you want someone to respond to something you’ve said, you actually have to clearly and directly state what it is that you mean. You can’t just assume that others will perfectly infer your meaning.
Now I can take some guesses as to what you’re trying to say, but I’m not going to because I think it will be a useful exercise for you to restate the above as a claim that clearly and logically moves from point to point.
I’ll get you started: you seem to be suggesting that the entirety of the Bible is not a “mature expression of theological truths.” You can start by explaining exactly what that means, which parts of the Bible are less “mature” than others, and how you tell. Is it simply chronological (“it gets more mature as it goes on”) or is there some other standard you use? How do you know that your standard is correct? (for example, how do you know that it doesn’t get less mature as it goes on or that there aren’t places in the middle somewhere that are much more mature than others?)
Good luck in composing this exercise.
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
AntiTheist
*Similarly, “atheism” cannot be used to “build” a moral system, as atheism is utterly unconnected to moral systems. *
I have said this earlier. We agree. But it is for this very reason that atheism is flawed. The consequences of atheism are many and varied. One consequence is that one need not believe in absolute morals, just as one need not believe in an absolute Being. As Dostoevsky said, “If there is no God, everything is permitted.” The atheist Nietzsche said, “There is no God.” Then Hitler, another atheist, said “Everything is permitted.”
Including the Jewish Holocaust.
*Similarly, “atheism” cannot be used to “build” a moral system, as atheism is utterly unconnected to moral systems. *
I have said this earlier. We agree. But it is for this very reason that atheism is flawed. The consequences of atheism are many and varied. One consequence is that one need not believe in absolute morals, just as one need not believe in an absolute Being. As Dostoevsky said, “If there is no God, everything is permitted.” The atheist Nietzsche said, “There is no God.” Then Hitler, another atheist, said “Everything is permitted.”
Including the Jewish Holocaust.
A
AntiTheist
Guest
We’ve been through this.
Just as atheism is unconnected to moral systems, atheism is unconnected to one’s choice of diet. If an atheist decided to eat a lot of fast food and got fat, could you logically claim that atheism caused him to get fat? Or would you say that his choices and decisions – unconnected to atheism – caused his weight gain?
It’s exactly the same for moral questions. If an atheist decided that, for example, Aryans are the master race and started exterminating all other races, could you logically claim that atheism caused him to kill? Or would you say that his choices and stupid racism – unconnected to atheism – caused him to kill?
It’s the same exact question.
All of that, of course, is quite apart from the observation that belief in absolute morality is what typically causes atrocity. Hitler, let’s not forget, thought that he was doing good, that he should do those horrible things because they were good things.
People don’t act on the basis of what they don’t believe; they act on the basis of what they do believe. And when they believe that certain things must be done because they are good, then the chances of atrocity increase significantly.
H
Hooding_Trees
Guest
I guess you didn’t re-read my post. Where did i say that “atheism produces moral societies”?
Now about those basic comprehension skills!
H
Hooding_Trees
Guest
Exactly. It is not hard to see why atheism increases with education. As harsh as it sound so many people religious beliefs are contingent on lack of education/lack of intelligence.
B
buffalo
Guest
People with higher IQ’s tend to be more arrogant and less humble. They are “above” the rest. What makes them so fortunate? Evolution of course.
One has to be humble to open their mind and heart to God.
H
Hooding_Trees
Guest
You haven’t understood a single work he said have you?AntiTheist
*Similarly, “atheism” cannot be used to “build” a moral system, as atheism is utterly unconnected to moral systems. *
I have said this earlier. We agree. But it is for this very reason that atheism is flawed. The consequences of atheism are many and varied. One consequence is that one need not believe in absolute morals, just as one need not believe in an absolute Being. As Dostoevsky said, “If there is no God, everything is permitted.” The atheist Nietzsche said, “There is no God.” Then Hitler, another atheist, said “Everything is permitted.”
Including the Jewish Holocaust.
Oh and the red Indian holocaust killed twice the number of the WW2 holocaust and was carried out by christians. Wait a minute so was the WW2 holocaust. Even if you want o try an claim that Hitler was a atheist (which he clearly was not) Germany was a christian country. The people that carried out the holocaust were christian, furthermore the catholic church was not only historically responsible of the bad blood with the jews, but the were directly involved in relocating Nazis after the war.
H
Hooding_Trees
Guest
What you call humble one might call gullible.
A
AntiTheist
Guest
Well, given the fact that there are intelligent theists, I would put it like this: religious beliefs are contingent on not subjecting religious claims to the same kind of scrutiny that one would subject to any other claims.
B
buffalo
Guest
Gullible is not in the dictionary.
B
buffalo
Guest
Give me a break. All the atheists do here is challenge. Give me evidence and I will believe. St Paul tells us to test all things. There is a lot of energy spent trying to knock down God, to no avail after so many years. At least the atheists past had an intellectual foundation, long proven wrong. The new atheists lack that and are just shrill.
- Status