Pascal's Wager

[Hitetlen]

MichaelTDoyle:

You are not being truthful here. Catholicism does not force anyone to be Catholic. Catholicism offers the truth. It has for 2 thousand years. While men may err and try to force, the Catholic religion is one that offers the truth, not forces. nThis is your own bias showing and not an accurate depiction of the Church’s teachings. naughty.

I did not say that every religious person tries to force their concepts on others. But if you look at all the religious regimes, they all enforced their dogma on everyone. Even today, observe the lobbying against contraceptions, against abortion, against euthanasia, against stem cell research, etc. The Catholic Church is always at the front in their fight against secular freedoms they disagree with.

MichaelTDoyle:

Atheist regimes however have forced their views. Even now I believe that condom education is forced on peoples throughout the world, tied to aid.

Education is not equivalent to force, just giving them an option. And you really should not bring up the Stalinist regime, otherwise you will find that someone brings up the Inquisition, and you will not like that comparision.

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Just as a note to all theists: before you go about claiming that atheism entails either: nihilism, ethical egoism, moral relativism, or subjectivism, it would be a good idea to back up this claim. To go from “There is no God” to “Morality is subjective” is a bit of a non sequitur; at the very least there needs to be some intermediate step.
Gilbert Keith:

BOWSER

And I have repeatedly stated that it is a bad argument to claim that because it is in my interest for X to be true that I should believe X is true. Do you have a response?

This is not exactly what I said, and I’m sorry I didn’t make that clear to you early on. Rather, the truth should be a good thing for us, not a bad thing. In that sense, we choose democracy (or republicanism) as the true political system because it is good for us. We choose certain foods as the truest type of nutrition because they are good for us. We choose certain types of exercise (walking, running, etc.) because they are more truly able to maintain our health than other forms of exercise (boxing, for example)

…

I think you are confusing two different meanings of the word “true.” Running isn’t true as opposed to false in the truth-value sense. Saying that running is a false form of exercise as in not-factual doesn’t even make any sense. We do not choose what to believe - to take as true about the world - based on what is in our self-interest. If that were true - if it were a rational means of gaining knowledge - then two people with identical evidence, reasoning powers, and prior knowledge about the world but with different desires would be equally rational in coming to believe opposite things about the world - and there seems to be a problem there.

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

The Church is on the front line for the truth, e.g. chastity is a virtue and a means to authentic love. You would then call her a hypocrit if she did not proclaim the Truth.

The inquisition was not so much Church run as state run. Look to your history, nor is its death toll anythjing like that of the 20th Century. Wow, that’s like comparing a gnat to an elephant. In any event, the Catholic church does not approve of torture, nor any EVIL to achieve good ends.

The question should not be what certain men do, but waht the dogma actually says.

Maleveolent mis-education tied to aid is an insidious use of force.

 

[Hitetlen]

JohnPaul0:

Unimportant point? Your problem is not religion itself, but ethics, which proceeds from knowledge of God? I suspect that both really trouble you, but the ethics make for a good whipping post.

You say the same thing: there is no morality, no ethics apart from God. You declare all atheists as immoral, unethical beings. And that is quite incorrect.

JohnPaul0:

It is the proper role of relgion to delineate what is right and wrong, is it not? So, if you really don’t have a beef with religion itself, you ought not to have a problem with one of its functions.

Just because someone does not believe in God (your version of God) that tells nothing about their ethical system.

JohnPaul0:

Also, it’s a HUGE difference between saying something is wrong and forcing people to do things. So, your attempt to counterargue is spurious.

So the Church does condone abortion, euthanasia, etc. for those who are unbelivers? Is the Catholic Church not on the forefront lobbying against those? Sure they try to make them illegal for everyone, not just the members of the church.

 

[EnterTheBowser]

The question should not be what certain men do, but waht the dogma actually says.

Yes! We all can pull bogeymen out of each other’s closets; but that really has nothing to do with the truth of the claims being made. So no more talk of Hitler, Stalin, the Inquisition, or what have you. They do not bear.

 

[Hitetlen]

MichaelTDoyle:

The Church is on the front line for the truth, e.g. chastity is a virtue and a means to authentic love. You would then call her a hypocrit if she did not proclaim the Truth.

Your version of “truth”, which obviously says that “authentic love” cannot exist for those who did not practice chastity.

MichaelTDoyle:

Maleveolent mis-education tied to aid is an insidious use of force.

What is malevolent about the information about condom use?

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Hitelin

The atheists do not try to force the believers to undego abortion if they do not want to.

Theists do not force atheists to go to church. Theists do not torture atheists or burn them at the stake or persecute them for their lack of religion.

When theists work against abortion the atheists ought to remember that theists are trying to protect the lives of future atheists as well as theists. Whose lives are the atheists trying to protect?

No one’s. They want the right to kill the unborn. Some of them do. Not all. I have known atheists who are horrified with theists at the killing of the unborn. Why do so many atheists side with abortion? Is it just a knee-jerk reaction against the desire of religious people to save the unborn?

Or is it the elevation of the right to kill above the right to life? If so, what does that say for the ethics of so many atheists?

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

Hitetlen:

Your version of “truth”, which obviously says that “authentic love” cannot exist for those who did not practice chastity.

What is malevolent about the information about condom use?

Wow. We are really missing each other. I was trying to say that chastity is an aid to discovering and practicing authentic love in my life. I made no negative statement about when and how authentic love can exist. I apologize if I implied that; it was not at all what I meant.

Teaching condom use is malevolent because it has the implied assertion that chastity is not attainable, that blocking the transmission of life is a good. Chastity is good; the transmission of life is good when conception occurs as a result of a committed relationship to raise the offspring. Condom education degrades the listeners and the teachers, presenting the worldview that man is a slave to his impulses and distorting the true function of our sexuality.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

BOWSER

I think you are confusing two different meanings of the word “true.” Running isn’t true as opposed to false in the truth-value sense. Saying that running is a false form of exercise as in not-factual doesn’t even make any sense. We do not choose what to believe - to take as true about the world - based on what is in our self-interest.

TRUE/FALSE TEST

Eating food in moderation is better for you than gorging. True False

Running is a healthier exercise for you than boxing. True False

Democracy is a better type of rule than dictatorship. True False

Egotistic, ungodly ethics are more likely to get you to prison than following Christ. True False

What is there about this true/false test you don’t understand?

 

[Hitetlen]

The atheists do not try to force the believers to undego abortion if they do not want to.

Theists do not force atheists to go to church. Theists do not torture atheists or burn them at the stake or persecute them for their lack of religion.

That is true, but they want to conform the atheists to their preferred lifestyle - as if they also believed. There are the so-called blue laws, which prevent everyone from opening their businesses on Sunday mornings. Why?

I do not want to derail this thread into another abortion debate.
Gilbert Keith:

When theists work against abortion the atheists ought to remember that theists are trying to protect the lives of future atheists as well as theists. Whose lives are the atheists trying to protect?

The quality of life for everyone according to their own principles - as long as they do not hurt others.
Gilbert Keith:

No one’s. They want the right to kill the unborn. Some of them do. Not all. I have known atheists who are horrified with theists at the killing of the unborn. Why do so many atheists side with abortion? Is it just a knee-jerk reaction against the desire of religious people to save the unborn?

I never heard of a woman who got pregnant just to have an abortion. It is a traumatic event, and hopefully it will eventually disappear. If you are so concerned about abortion, you should be for birth control, so that abortion will not be necessary. Are you? Is the Church?
Gilbert Keith:

Or is it the elevation of the right to kill above the right to life? If so, what does that say for the ethics of so many atheists?

There is no inherent right to life. If there would be, there would be no diseases, no accidents, no death. Life and death go hand-in-hand. Also, if you are so concerned about the lack of continuation of life in the womb, you should point your finger to God, and ask him, why does HE prevent so many zygotes to become full-fledged human beings.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Hitelin

The quality of life for everyone according to their own principles - as long as they do not hurt others.

I guess you don’t see abortion as hurting someone. Nor killing someone.

*There is no inherent right to life. *

Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence? The “right to life” is the first right listed.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Also, if you are so concerned about the lack of continuation of life in the womb, you should point your finger to God, and ask him, why does HE prevent so many zygotes to become full-fledged human beings.
Might as well complain that God requires all of us to die sooner or later.

The gift of life is God’s gift, a gift he may refuse as He pleases. When God cuts short a life, there is a reason for it. We may not understand the reason, but the reason is not a selfish one or a cruel one as you are trying to make out. If God were selfish or cruel, He would not have sent His son to live and die for us all, born and unborn.

But by the atheist’s code, the universe is indifferent to our fate, and its indifference is the source of all hopelessness, suffering and death. Nogod is the cruel god … always was, always will be.

 

[Hitetlen]

MichaelTDoyle:

Wow. We are really missing each other. I was trying to say that chastity is an aid to discovering and practicing authentic love in my life. I made no negative statement about when and how authentic love can exist. I apologize if I implied that; it was not at all what I meant.

I am glad we have cleared that up. I would not say that two people who experienced sex the first time together cannot have a wonderful, most satisfying life from that point onwards. I simply meant that it is not a prerequiste. My wife and I met after we both had bad experiences in our lives. Those bad experiences helped us to appreciate more what we found in each other.

MichaelTDoyle:

Teaching condom use is malevolent because it has the implied assertion that chastity is not attainable, that blocking the transmission of life is a good.

It does not say that chastity is not attainable, it just says that chastity is not necessary.

MichaelTDoyle:

Chastity is good; the transmission of life is good when conception occurs as a result of a committed relationship to raise the offspring. Condom education degrades the listeners and the teachers, presenting the worldview that man is a slave to his impulses and distorting the true function of our sexuality.

Sexuality is not for procreation only. If it were, should people beyond child-bearing age abstain? Should a couple where the woman had two tubal pregnancies (and thus unable to conceive) abstian from sex for their whole life? To equate sex with procreation is ludicrous. Loving, caring relationships get better and more fulfilling with sex, reagrdless of procreating intents. I had an acquintance once, who said that sex between a husband and wife is always sinful, unless their intent to have a child.

 

[Hitetlen]

Gilbert Keith:

I guess you don’t see abortion as hurting someone. Nor killing someone.

Precisely. Abortion is the termination of life, but not necessarily killing a person. At the very least, until the brain develops to have electrico-chemical activity, there is no person there to speak of. Do you agree that an egg does not equal a chicken? There is a good reason why we have two different words to describe them.
Gilbert Keith:

Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence? The “right to life” is the first right listed.

Yes, it is. A wonderful document, but it is not a legal document.

 

[Hitetlen]

Gilbert Keith:

Might as well complain that God requires all of us to die sooner or later.

Indeed. After all there was a “Tree of Life”, which God protected out of sheer jealousy - at least according to the Bible.
Gilbert Keith:

The gift of life is God’s gift, a gift he may refuse as He pleases. When God cuts short a life, there is a reason for it. We may not understand the reason, but the reason is not a selfish one or a cruel one as you are trying to make out. If God were selfish or cruel, He would not have sent His son to live and die for us all, born and unborn.

On the contrary, if God were not so jealous, he would have allowed us to live without death, he would not have created hell to punish everyone whose only fault is that he does not believe.
Gilbert Keith:

But by the atheist’s code, the universe is indifferent to our fate, and its indifference is the source of all hopelessness, suffering and death. Nogod is the cruel god … always was, always will be.

Yes, that is true. The universe does not care. Our life is what we make out of it. Hopelessness is not necessarily part of it. Death is good. Imagine Earth without death… there would be no standing room left. Yuck.

 

[AnAtheist]

Gilbert Keith:

It is just, how we see the universe, not a codex to build a life upon.

This too is false. Ask any atheist to show the advantage of atheism over theism and he will immediately begin to build his case … the most common argument being that the atheist is released from the chains of traditional morality so that he can build his own ethic by his own whim … there being no authority he acknowledges exterior to his own genius…

The most common argument being that the atheist is released from the chains of superstition.

Stalin’s enforcement of official atheism in Russia was the base upon which he built his own authority to become a monster of humanity. It was his codex … and anybody who didn’t like it was never heard from again.

Yes, but that was his codex, born of Bolshevism not of Atheism.
How can one possibly build anything upon not believing in Odin [replace with name of other gods, Allah e.g.]?

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Yes, it is. A wonderful document, but it is not a legal document.
And apparently you don’t agree with it as the fundamental moral glue that holds the Republic together.

Abortion is the termination of life, but not necessarily killing a person.

Then what is it the killing of? A sheep? A cow? A pig? A rabbit?

Weren’t you at one time a fetus? If your mother had killed you in her womb, would you be here today to defend the killing of others in the womb on the ground that they are not persons?

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

AnAtheist

*Yes, but that was his codex, born of Bolshevism not of Atheism.
*
Bolshevism and atheism became synonymous. You could not be a card-carrying member of the Communist Party without being an atheist. So much for atheism being a guarantee of our release from the chains of superstition.

Read more history. Know how the Russian Church was persecuted by the atheist Bolshevists. Lean how, with the demise of atheist Bolshevism, religion in Russia is now on the comeback trail.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

AnAtheist

How can one possibly build anything upon not believing in Odin [replace with name of other gods, Allah e.g.]?

The American system was built by a mainly Christian people, not by atheists. Thomas Jefferson himself, one of our most liberal founders, said he could never be an atheist.

 

[AnAtheist]

EnterTheBowser:

We do not choose what to believe

That is so true. But most Christians cannot or do not want to understand that, as their holy book says otherwise. They seem to think, we all somehow know, there is a god, and then said, “I decide not to believe in it.” That it is exactly the other way round does not occur to them.