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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted April 24, 2011 04:50 PM |
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Edited by Elodin at 16:51, 24 Apr 2011.
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it is atheists who are abnormal.
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the most evil religion of all
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their bony fingers
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join like a pack of rabid dogs
Come on, del_diablo, don't you feel the love? 
Atheists called Christianity evil and theists abnormal. I merely responded to the charges and showed how the adjectives more closely reflect atheism.
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1. is a zero argument, remeber that the worst kind of society you can image will work perfectly if it is set into action(a society based on rape, genocide, poisoning and torture, etc)
No, your claim was that theists are abnormal. But it is atheists who are not the norm. Atheists make up a very very tiny fraction of the percentage of all people who have ever lived.
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2. I recommend you to do the same
I can apply no true scotsman to atheists just like you do that to Christans, equality is equal after all.
No, A Christian is a person who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. Jesus taught to love, pray for, and do good to even one's enemies. A person who does not do that is not a follower of Jesus Christ. Simple logic.
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3. What is wrong with demanding the same of religious people that you do with doctors, or philosophers? Which means that you demand that they do not get a moral highground without justification, because they lack one in the first place.
Besides: If there is no evidence of God, there is logic that no God exists, hence all faith about a God would then be a mental desillusion. Hence you are insane.
See what I did there? A lot more valid than your attempt at the no true scotsman.
There is plenty of evidence for theism. NONE for atheism. No, theists are not delusional. Theists know there is more than just the "material" world. Unfortunately pretty much the only thing atheists can do in a debate is throw around insults because no rational argument exists for saying "God does not exist."
Calling me insane is way out of bounds. Please learn how to respond to the points a person makes in a discussion rather than throwing around personal insults.
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shyranis
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted April 24, 2011 05:18 PM |
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Athiesm, theism... they are both as normal as one can really define anything. Most things you say about one you can really say about the other.
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Youtube has terminated my account without reason.
Please express why it should be reinstated on
Twitter.
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted April 24, 2011 05:20 PM |
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1. is a zero argument, remeber that the worst kind of society you can image will work perfectly if it is set into action(a society based on rape, genocide, poisoning and torture, etc)
No, your claim was that theists are abnormal. But it is atheists who are not the norm. Atheists make up a very very tiny fraction of the percentage of all people who have ever lived.
I do NOT claim theist are abnormal.
You do however claim atheist are abnormal, and you can not present evidence for it either.
Well, religious people make up a very small fraction of all people ever lived, because agnosticsm and "do not care for such things" are hte norm. And with the human population ever expanding, I can GARANTI that theists and antitheists will be a small fraction of all people ever lived given enough years.
Besides, if everyone belived that gravity means that everything goes up towards the sky, does that alter the truth?
Hint: IT DOES NOT.
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2. I recommend you to do the same
I can apply no true scotsman to atheists just like you do that to Christans, equality is equal after all.
No, A Christian is a person who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. Jesus taught to love, pray for, and do good to even one's enemies. A person who does not do that is not a follower of Jesus Christ. Simple logic.
If you are willing to repent, you are a Christan.
If you belive in Jesus, you are a Christan.
Other definitions & etc.
A person can do that, and still be a complete monster, and there are people disagreeing with your interprentions, which means they are on equal ground with their interprentions.
Hence: You are not right, because you claim there is no scotsman.
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3. What is wrong with demanding the same of religious people that you do with doctors, or philosophers? Which means that you demand that they do not get a moral highground without justification, because they lack one in the first place.
Besides: If there is no evidence of God, there is logic that no God exists, hence all faith about a God would then be a mental desillusion. Hence you are insane.
See what I did there? A lot more valid than your attempt at the no true scotsman.
There is plenty of evidence for theism. NONE for atheism. No, theists are not delusional. Theists know there is more than just the "material" world. Unfortunately pretty much the only thing atheists can do in a debate is throw around insults because no rational argument exists for saying "God does not exist."around personal insults.
What evidence?
If there is no evidence for something, it does not likely exist.
Please present me evidence then.
If you can't only only "belive in it", because there is no evidence.
And since all moral rules you then get from religion are worthless, because there is no deduction to get towards core morals.
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Calling me insane is way out of bounds. Please learn how to respond to the points a person makes in a discussion rather than throwing around personal insults.
You are reading not what I wrote, for it lacks my intention behind the words.
All I am advocating is that theists are forced to obey the same rules as normal people, image if a doctor came onto you and start attempting to impose bullsnow on you.
The doctor would be sued for spewing bullsnow.
But for some resaon, religion is left alone for doing that. You can pull your kids out of a class because of religion, but you can't pull your kids out of a class because you hate black people.
The ancedote I have presented is a truth in reality at the moment, and that means religion is either not entitled to what it is, or that racism must be entitled to more.
Pick your poison, the end result is the same.
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted April 24, 2011 05:42 PM |
bonus applied by angelito on 28 Apr 2011. |
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Peace
Well, since this thread is not really on topic, I'll come out of my cave and share something since it is Easter.
It has been said many times in various examples that anyone can take a hammer and build a house or ues it to bash a neighbor.
Christ is not evil. Following his teaching is not evil. It is the common man's (could be any person) ME-First" that is evil, in any guise. He addressed this with "wolves in sheeps clothing", which is about those "appearing" to be in the Church but, in truth, were revealed when; "They said; Lord, Lord but their hearts were far from Him".
Christianity is in fact one part in the history of; "the growth of man":. Meaning a very long tale of the battle between "Me-first" & what I will call the "community-spirit" better said "unto others".
This is my faith. For this post I have one purpose, a new beginning.
It's Easter day in the good old springtime (at this location . A Story of Life after Death, a land doing exactly the same. Dormant grass resuming its blanketing the earth again. Once naked trees and bushes budding, flowering, spreading seeds of life as the limbs and branches slowly gain their leaves back to shade and fill our view in many hues of green.
My view of Christ's cross is one of sacrifice for me, unasked, unearned and unexpected. Born-again I am. Ever restarting, ever beginning again, forever examining my old self as long as I am still on this old earth. Not believeing that "very long race" to be about me but about "how I am with all others". My praying is not mumbo-jumbo, it is a constant focus to love and respect those around me. I do not want to leave the earth with a single valid gripe against me. If I have sinned against someone, even if I cannot undo the damage, I want them to "know" that I care enough about them to ask for forgiveness and within that is one "rebirth", the restart. Not for a clear conscience or wonderful tally card in heaven (I am trusting God's word it is there and nothing more) but because that is who I am now. The man I have became since I took up my cross and claimed his work for my own.
Now if that is insanity to others, so be it, but I wish that it was not so, for to me...it is gold.
I can read papers (which I seldom do anymore)or hear about the "news of the world" far more than people of the past in our 24/7/365 age of information. That is when I start to see what I define as insanity. There are some happy tales but few and far between, while most events big or small are about one thing "who is on the throne?" If a Hitler or Stalin, deranged user within the physical church, politician on the take, abuser of women, self-absorbed "Star" wanting headlines for more jack or just plain old Morgoth living next door and hating those across his fence, is not "me-first" than I don't know a thing. Hmmm. that's pretty accurate btw; the not- knowing part.
So spring has sprung and the birds are chirping as some are attemping to sing with the tweets.  Me too.
Evil no, foolish?...maybe. Paul said that we would be seen as foolish and I've learned to live with that.
Make a great day. Spread something good around. Take someone a loaf of bread and better yet...stay and help them eat it.
FYI, posted with respect and that we need more good stuff...less bad.
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bixie
Promising
Legendary Hero
my common sense is tingling!
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posted April 24, 2011 07:23 PM |
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Edited by bixie at 09:38, 25 Apr 2011.
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at the end of the day, getting Atheists to believe anything is pointless, elodin.
Unless you submit hard, verifiable proof and not semantic twaddle, no-one is going to take you seriously or even the notion of god seriously. no-one is going to believe in your deity if all you can do is bemoan the "Unfairness" of fellow believers in the same god populating over half the globe without a shred of cold hard evidence to back it up. to expand on Del_diablo's point, would you accept people repeatedly knocking on your door and telling you that you are going to suffer eternal torture for not eating enough branflakes without a shred of evidence that consumption of such cereal has any corralation with the fundemental well being of your person except for pieces of scripture they published?
My own personal beliefs is that Yahweh is just as likely to exist as Allah, Brahma, Izanagi, the Jade emperor, the rainbow serpent, Hermes, Isis, Tyr, Yog-shoggoth, superman or ethel the sun-swallowing hyper badger. after all, why should I take the bible as the inherent word of god over the qu'ran, or the torah, or the Bagivagita (spelling?). after all, this is my eternal soul, and I don't want to pick the wrong denomination just in case I offend whatever entity is watching over our lives (if they even are) simply on what everyone else is going for because, well, a huge crowd of people have been wrong many times before, or what someone over the internet is trying to pedal me. I want to be sure that I am making the write decision in this regard, and even if I end up crashing and burning because somehow everything goes wrong with my life, I want to make sure that I know who to greet and possibly grovel before when I die (if that helps).
so what I am saying is that you need to provide solid, hard evidence that everyone can examine in order for me to accept that your god is true. Not personal experiences, and whilst I'm happy that you have managed to find a particular religion or denomination that makes you feel happy, Elodin, saying that you felt the touch of god isn't going to make me go to your side very quickly.
main reason for this belief? because I am a drama student, it is my future career to deconstruct events to look at them scientifically and look at what particulars went into creating that effect. Combined with my joint honours in history, I am doing a study on "supernatural" experiences throughout history and breaking them down into atmospheric and environmental factors. There has been some really interesting stuff on the spiritualist seances of the 19th century, of note the various events with Anna Kingsford, and eye witness accounts and participents have described experiences eerily similar to what you have described in your religious experience. from where I am sitting, it's got nothing to do with the idealogical question of higher beings, but it's got everything to do with atmosphere, positioning and participants. again, this is based on my experiences and what I know and the dramaturgical and Phenomenological techniques I know based on my education. you can easily look these up if you want more information.
anyway, back to my main point. even if you do present cold, hard evidence of gods existence, which you will have to do in order to convince even me, a marginally jaded but still very idealistic agnostic, to start accepting god, you have failed in tried to convert us into believers, as you will have brought god into the natural world and proven his existence, where we will just accept him as a fact of life and move on to do bigger and better things. why should the world believe in a god when he's part of life?
Look, I'm not asking you to prove gods existence to me because... I don't really think you could, what with you going on about how he's "Outside the natural world" and all, unless you want to punch a hole in reality and dragging the man back by his beard (if he has one, and I'm sure it would be sacrilegious and not a very good idea to boot). I'm just saying that you really have no argument to present, as most of your points can be picked apart by analysis that anyone could do. So far, pretty much everyone here as picked apart your points against them, with you're only argument is a personal interpretation disguised (very poorly) as an objective statement.
but hey, don't let me stop you. I'm finding one man verses the army show quite funny.
Take it away, Carl Anderson.
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Love, Laugh, Learn, Live.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 12:26 AM |
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Markkur:
How is the sacrifice of an all-powerful omniscient being even remotely a sacrifice? Death means nothing to God - His earthly incarnation could be killed a hundred times and come back each time. How is this a sacrifice at all?
And if you think sin is about sinning against others - that's only a small part of it. Man is inherently fallen and sinful - the very existence of a post-Fall man is in constant sin.
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Eccentric Opinion
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DagothGares
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
No gods or kings
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posted April 25, 2011 12:30 AM |
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Markkur:
How is the sacrifice of an all-powerful omniscient being even remotely a sacrifice? Death means nothing to God - His earthly incarnation could be killed a hundred times and come back each time. How is this a sacrifice at all?
And if you think sin is about sinning against others - that's only a small part of it. Man is inherently fallen and sinful - the very existence of a post-Fall man is in constant sin.
The sacrifice is the sacrifice of the mortal coil through pain in order to liberate man of his sins (the original sin, anyway).
At least, that's what I've been told. 
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 12:48 AM |
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But God is the one who created original sin in the first place.
Also, God is all-powerful and omniscient. A being like that cannot sacrifice.
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Eccentric Opinion
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DagothGares
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
No gods or kings
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posted April 25, 2011 01:01 AM |
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Also, God is all-powerful and omniscient. A being like that cannot sacrifice.
Well, he sacrificed what he created, did he not?
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 01:24 AM |
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But, being all-powerful, that doesn't mean anything. Imagine you're a millionaire. Giving a dollar to a beggar isn't much of a sacrifice to you. Now imagine you're a billionaire. That dollar is even less of a sacrifice. If you have an infinite amount of money, then it's not a sacrifice at all (except perhaps of your time). Same with God - it's not a sacrifice if you're not giving something up, and you can't be said to be giving anything up if you're immortal, omnipotent, and omniscient.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted April 25, 2011 01:58 AM |
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God manifested as a man (Jesus Christ) was fully human and lived a completely human life while he also existed as the all powerful Spirit. As a man Jesus Christ felt the sting of others misunderstanding and betraying him and the pains of all the torture he went through.
He let ignorant morons mock him, spit upon him, and torture him to death. And on the cross he bore the combined penalty of all the sins of everyone who would ever be intelligent enough to seek forgiveness of their sins. I'd say his sacrifice was quite significant and it was not required of him at all.
God suffered and the mockers mocked. Like they do today with a mind closed to truth and a mouth overflowing with blabbering twaddle. And he continues to put up with foolish people slapping his body (his church) around with their lies and falsehoods and with physical torture in certain places in the world. It is a sacrifice he makes to give those idiots who do so a chance to be saved.
God existing as a man sitting on the throne of God in heaven is certainly more merciful and loving than any man on earth. And we should be very thankful for that.
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted April 25, 2011 02:26 AM |
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 10:24 AM |
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I think you miss the point, Elodin.
Supposedly, God created us in His image. If anyone - you, God - ain't satisfied with the result, it's simply a production/design flaw. If people are foolish and blind, God should maybe have put a little more effort into it to make them less foolish and less blind.
Especially since he's destroyed us all, except one family. If I would have been in his place, I'd simply rescued that one family (because they deserved it), made them sterile (so that human-version 1 would have died out), and made version 2.
Whether he "sacrifices" something or not is pretty irrelevant here - he shouldn't have to do that in the first place, and if he has to you can safely say that the design "human" is a failure.
Now, I'm sure, Elodin, you will start with your usual ritual of den ying this: No, humans are no failure, no, God did everything right, no, it's all the free decisions of humans who can freely decide, and so on.
But that's just not so: If something is easy to see, people do it. It's easy to see, for example, that you shouldn't put your hand into a buzz saw. Not many do it, and if so, they do it by accident. Which means, people are generally reasonable, when the consequences of their doing are easy to see.
If, on the other hand so many people act in a way that you find unreasonable (sinful), than the reason can only be that IT IS NOT EASY TO SEE. This would again be a DESIGN FLAW: Either our ability - the "instrument" or "sense" - that allows us to see, is too weak, or the truth is hidden too "well". In fact, the flaw is rather obvious: our limited subjective point of view or angle of perspective. From that perspective truth sometimes look like a lie and lie looks like truth, and once a lie has been established as truth, more lies follow like in the well-known domino-effect.
The only unlimited capacity of humans is that of ERROR, and THAT is most cvertainly a dfesign flaw.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 11:04 AM |
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It's hard to produce a sentient being with limited intelligence that does NOT make errors, I guess maybe even impossible.
As for the sacrifice: Mvass, you forget one thing: pride A creator, infinitely smarter and more powerful, allows his own creation to ridicule and spit on him, even "kill" him. That's a pretty massive sacrifice of pride, dignity and alike, I'd say.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 11:37 AM |
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But the thing is, dying if you can resurrect yourself (or pretending to die if you're immortal) isn't a sacrifice - it's little more than a parlor trick. And letting your creation ridicule you isn't giving up pride. Perhaps it's a source of amusement or interest. Don't tell me you've never been amused by people being stupid, Perhaps it was something similar here.
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Eccentric Opinion
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 11:48 AM |
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It's hard to produce a sentient being with limited intelligence that does NOT make errors, I guess maybe even impossible.
So if a being with limited intelligence like you can make this conclusion - shouldn't God be able to make it as well (and would he, obviously)? In other words: aren't we then excused ANYWAY?
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 12:21 PM |
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But the thing is, dying if you can resurrect yourself (or pretending to die if you're immortal) isn't a sacrifice - it's little more than a parlor trick. And letting your creation ridicule you isn't giving up pride. Perhaps it's a source of amusement or interest. Don't tell me you've never been amused by people being stupid, Perhaps it was something similar here.
Being spat up, beaten and tormented is a source of amusement?
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So if a being with limited intelligence like you can make this conclusion - shouldn't God be able to make it as well (and would he, obviously)?
Guess not. I actually like the theory that what cannot be done simply CANNOT be done. it's not even in the possible options poll... 
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In other words: aren't we then excused ANYWAY?
I guess we are, although in Christianity this requires realizing a person's sinful nature iirc and trying best not to be like that.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 01:42 PM |
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So if a being with limited intelligence like you can make this conclusion - shouldn't God be able to make it as well (and would he, obviously)?
Guess not. I actually like the theory that what cannot be done simply CANNOT be done. it's not even in the possible options poll...
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In other words: aren't we then excused ANYWAY?
I guess we are, although in Christianity this requires realizing a person's sinful nature iirc and trying best not to be like that.
This is 1) a misunderstanding and is 2) gloing into the wrong direction.
What I mean is, that if we beings with limited intelligence can make the conclusion - that it is quite difficult and probably impossible to be error-free -, then God should be able to make that conclusion as well.
So the question would be why he doesn't do more to help us avoiding errors. I mean, we help children understand, we EDUCATE them to help them being able to make INFORMED decisions.
Basically that's the whole purpose of education, building a foundation that allows children, when they grow up, to make decisions based on information, not guesswork. It's what we deem reasonable, because it helps avoiding painful - and possibly desastrous - experiences.
God, however, doesn't seem to favor this approach at all, because try as I might I cannot see much in the way of information, and since I have to assume that God, should he exist, is no imbecile, I would have to assume further that this is a deliberate strategy. God doesn't want humans to make informed decisions and instead is favoring a "believe-or-die" approach.
This "strategy", however, is clearly not a successful one when the aim is to "save" (that is win for a happy ending) as many people as possible (the informed approach would be better). Instead, the believe-or-die approach would have to be called a "selection strategy": you have a couple of mismatched, rag-tag informations that could mean something or not, but are pretty questionable in their overall content. If succeeding requires unquestioning belief in these mismatched information, this means, it's a selection process that favors a certain "type" of human - the rest will be rooted out.
In other words - to pass the survival test you need a certain disposition of mind that is the opposite of what has made us successful as a species...
I find that somewhat disturbing, if you get my drift.
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted April 25, 2011 02:24 PM |
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I think you miss the point, Elodin.
Supposedly, God created us in His image. If anyone - you, God - ain't satisfied with the result, it's simply a production/design flaw. If people are foolish and blind, God should maybe have put a little more effort into it to make them less foolish and less blind.
Free will is not a design flaw. I like not being a puppet on a string. The flaw is in your thinking and your "limited intelligence" to use your words.
Adam and Eve were created as innocent beings, not perfect beings. Man had the capacity to chose to do evil or to do good. He chose to do evil.
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But the thing is, dying if you can resurrect yourself (or pretending to die if you're immortal) isn't a sacrifice - it's little more than a parlor trick. And letting your creation ridicule you isn't giving up pride. Perhaps it's a source of amusement or interest. Don't tell me you've never been amused by people being stupid, Perhaps it was something similar here.
Jesus did really die. God existing as a man allowed himself to be betrayed, slapped around, spat upon, beaten with a "cat of nine tails" whip, which chunks of flesh being torn out of his body, a crown of thorns to be pressed into his skull, to be nailed on a cross, to be mocked while on the cross and to hang there until dead.
Oh, certain people surely make stupid statements that would be quite amusing if they were not so sad.
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God, however, doesn't seem to favor this approach at all, because try as I might I cannot see much in the way of information, and since I have to assume that God, should he exist, is no imbecile, I would have to assume further that this is a deliberate strategy. God doesn't want humans to make informed decisions and instead is favoring a "believe-or-die" approach.
Oh, there is the Bible that some people like to trash with lies. There is the Spirit of God whom people ignore until they can no longer hear. The still small voice that whispers to every man until they respond to him or harden their hearts in rebellion against him.
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This "strategy", however, is clearly not a successful one when the aim is to "save" (that is win for a happy ending) as many people as possible (the informed approach would be better).
God constantly reaches out to save. Some people respond, some don't. The failure is on the part of the one who does not respond to God.
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SkrentyzMienty
Famous Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 02:45 PM |
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Jesus did really die. God existing as a man allowed himself to be betrayed, slapped around, spat upon, beaten with a "cat of nine tails" whip, which chunks of flesh being torn out of his body, a crown of thorns to be pressed into his skull, to be nailed on a cross, to be mocked while on the cross and to hang there until dead.
Even as a theist you should see a logical flaw in this bible-tale. Let's pretend god exists and he came down to Earth as Jesus; how, HOW, do the actions of one man bring salvation to all of humanity? "God" died HIMSELF to bring salvation to the "sinful" humans that he kicked out of "Eden" HIMSELF"? Where is the human part to make humanity actually EARN this?
Of course this is just a commend I couldn't resist to post, even though I don't care about the religious debates anymore.
EDIT: To put it in a way you'll actually understand what I mean, I'll use this example; if I decided to get crucified on behalf of Osama bin Laden because I "love him so much", how does that make him innocent, enable him to walk freely on the streets again, what does it even HAVE TO DO with him?
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This thread is pages long: 
