County Cavan represent!! Word to the McGovern clan.
Confession Session - LOCK THIS THREAD
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I'm a working class protestant.
Though I do long to get out of this area, it's not cultured enough for me.
So you don't want to be reunified with the rest of Ireland over your religion? They're still your Celtic brothers regardless of your religion.
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@Monkey:
County Cavan represent!! Word to the McGovern clan.
Fuck, I love Illmatic.
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@Foxy:
So you don't want to be reunified with the rest of Ireland over your religion? They're still your Celtic brothers regardless of your religion.
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Fuck, I love Illmatic.
Are you from the US?
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@Foxy:
So you don't want to be reunified with the rest of Ireland over your religion? They're still your Celtic brothers regardless of your religion.
Ok either you're trolling or just incredibly stupid. Probably trolling. If you said that to a guy around here you would need stitches for your wounds.
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What is this Communist IRA you speak of :S
Take a look at their manifesto, they're Communist.
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Ok either you're trolling or just incredibly stupid. Probably trolling. If you said that to a guy around here you would need stitches for your wounds.
I don't think you know of the atrocities the English committed against your ancestors.
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@Foxy:
So you don't want to be reunified with the rest of Ireland over your religion? They're still your Celtic brothers regardless of your religion.
Pan-Celtic nationalism has like never ever existed. You're appealing to a nonexistant and nonsensical urge.
The Protestant Celts have more in common culturally with the English than the Catholic Irish.
Let's not even get into the Welsh lol. -
@Foxy:
Take a look at their manifesto, they're Communist.
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I don't think you know of the atrocities the English committed against your ancestors.
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@Foxy:
I don't think you know of the atrocities the English committed against your ancestors.
Lowland Scots were far far far more brutal against Highland Scots than the English ever were. The fuckin' Scots got on the English throne fer chrissakes, far from being their bitch or whatever.
And as I said, the settlers who came in to Ireland were largely Scots, and there of their own accord.The Irish are the only ones to really have the horrible experience with the English.
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@Foxy:
So you don't want to be reunified with the rest of Ireland over your religion? They're still your Celtic brothers regardless of your religion.
Along similar lines, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand shoudl still be part of the British Empire, because they're still our English/Scottish/slightly Germanic brothers regardless of thousands of miles of ocean.
@Foxy:
Take a look at their manifesto, they're Communist.
This is proving difficult. Link?
I don't think you know of the atrocities the English committed against your ancestors.
lol read MK's post from earlier. If he's an Ulster Protestant, chances are his ancestors were the ones committing the atrocities.
edit: damn, too slow :/ Also, whatever the lowlanders did, they didn't bribe the Scottish Parliament into giving up independence :p gotta admire the English bulldog spirit, eh?
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doesn't believe imply doing it without any evidence or justification?
Whether it does or not, it doesn't really change what I'm trying to say to you.
Your idea that you can reject out of hand things which are 'unfalsifiable' is unappealing. For example, taking the idea of the matrix, one person might scoff and reject it as something we can never prove. Another might believe it because it has been presented convincingly to them. And yet another might assess it to be perfectly plausible, but since it will literally have no effect on them whatsoever, and they are not interested in finding a 'way out', they will ignore it. Similarly, with religion, one might take the view that God's existence cannot be proven, so we shall reject it, and therefore all the logic of the New Testament cannot possibly stand up to the scrutiny of our superior, atheistic mindset, because it was written by people from a time of religion some two millennia past.
I'm not sure I'm getting what you're even trying to disagree with me about here. The message I was replying to sort of had the position that they didn't have the burden of proof on their shoulders and that someone else did. I figured I'd throw my two cents in and add my generalized opinion of religion on the matter.
As far as the New Testament and it's "logic" standing up to modernity's scrutiny, I'd have to say much of it doesn't, yes. I think the first part of your paragraph is misleading on what I was trying to say - the 3 examples about the matrix. So I'm not going to attempt to address that. But anyways, The Bible and the so called teachings from the God of Abraham - the omniscient being that occasionally authors books that are so unfantastic that any man or group of men from the time period they were birthed from could have written them (and did) - have a rough time holding up with the knowledge of the 21st century, whether we're focusing on health and disease, economics, ethics, and in a way even what we consider to be moral.
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When will ireland annex massachussets and rhode island
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Along similar lines, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand shoudl still be part of the British Empire, because they're still our English/Scottish/slightly Germanic brothers regardless of thousands of miles of ocean.
You're joking, right? Most of the U.S. isn't even Anglo-Celtic anymore.
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Are you from the US?
I'm from Bossville.
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@Foxy:
You're joking, right? Most of the U.S. isn't even Anglo-Celtic anymore.
Hmm, well seems that Ulster isn't just Irish anymore either.
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I'm not sure I'm getting what you're even trying to disagree with me about here. The message I was replying to sort of had the position that they didn't have the burden of proof on their shoulders and that someone else did. I figured I'd throw my two cents in and add my generalized opinion of religion on the matter.
As far as the New Testament and it's "logic" standing up to modernity's scrutiny, I'd have to say much of it doesn't, yes. I think the first part of your paragraph is misleading on what I was trying to say - the 3 examples about the matrix. So I'm not going to attempt to address that. But anyways, The Bible and the so called teachings from the God of Abraham - the omniscient being that occasionally authors books that are so unfantastic that any man or group of men from the time period they were birthed from could have written them (and did) - tend to crumble in the face of the 21st century, whether we're focusing on health and disease, economics, ethics, and in a way even what we consider to be moral.
I sort of misunderstood. Anyway, examples on the last two? I can't fathom where economics comes into it either, actually.
@Foxy:
You're joking, right? Most of the U.S. isn't even Anglo-Celtic anymore.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
I'm from Bossville.
It's about as ridiculous as what you said, amazingly. And I'll assume that's a yes, since I neither know where that is, nor can easily find out, apparently :S
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@Monkey:
When will ireland annex massachussets and rhode island
Liam Neeson will do it.
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Liam Neeson will do it.
joke, we're going to annex the Republic of ireland as the 52nd state after P-Rico.
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Oh I miss this place. I wish I could be remotely interested in One Piece again.
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the more i think about it im kinda amazed that connecticut still has a town named Cromwell and no one has done anything about it
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Alright, good. I'm glad we were more on a misunderstanding than you disagreeing - I was a bit shocked. As far as morals go, a simple one is that I think as a whole, 1st world countries are pretty united in our belief that slavery isn't really all that moral. We're much more practiced and experienced - evolved and equipped with much more knowledge - in all those areas as a species now. Whether it's in sciences and how the world around us works (that includes economics) or the human condition as a whole, etc. etc.
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Oh I miss this place. I wish I could be remotely interested in One Piece again.
You can hang around and not be interested in One Piece.
In fact, that's what I've been doing 70% of the time since I registered. -
@Monkey:
Lowland Scots were far far far more brutal against Highland Scots than the English ever were. The fuckin' Scots got on the English throne fer chrissakes, far from being their bitch or whatever.
And as I said, the settlers who came in to Ireland were largely Scots, and there of their own accord.The Irish are the only ones to really have the horrible experience with the English.
i just realized this even weirder when you consider that the scots were originally from ireland, they invaded scotland and conqeured the picts, then later when they became the scots some of them went back to ireland, but had fights and conflict with the irish!!
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So, all this talk about Celts got me thinking about Brittany, is anyone on here Breton?
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Alright, good. I'm glad we were more on a misunderstanding than you disagreeing - I was a bit shocked. As far as morals go, a simple one is that I think as a whole, 1st world countries are pretty united in our belief that slavery isn't really all that moral. We're much more practiced and experienced - evolved and equipped with much more knowledge - in all those areas as a species now. Whether it's in sciences and how the world around us works (that includes economics) or the human condition as a whole, etc. etc.
Well, that all makes sense, but where do the teachings of the Bible - specifically the New Testament - fail to stand up to modern scrutiny? I mean, in terms of 'specific' examples?
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@Foxy:
So, all this talk about Celts got me thinking about Brittany, is anyone on here Breton?
I met a Breton couple shopping at my job when I worked at Sears, they were wierded out when I knew what they were.
They'll go back to France having met an american cashier who knew of their land…..
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@Monkey:
I met a Breton couple shopping at my job when I worked at Sears, they were wierded out when I knew what they were.
They'll go back to France having met an american cashier who knew of their land…..
Would Galicians still be considered Celtic or do they have too much Latin influence?
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@Monkey:
lol, what twilight zone did you crawl out of where OneInchPunch is the innocent set upon guy here.
Uh, the one in which suddenly the confession session thread involved chewing out on someone's personal perspectives towards spirituality and religion. And the one in which being right or wrong doesn't entitle anyone to pounce on the chance of mocking someone's very personal religious beliefs
But hey, it seems the thread has moved on so not really important anymore.
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You said this:
Religious and spiritual beliefs are extremely personal. I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't really understand why there's a need to prompt OnePunch Man to elaborate on his views to then argue against them.
Even if he were to decide to be dickishly condescending in expressing his beliefs, they're very much his beliefs, and as far as I see they're personal enough that he's not hurting anyone or trying to convert anyone.
about the guy who entered this discussion by saying this:
@OnePunch:
Sounds like New Age nonsense, unless you can explain and prove it logically.
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You said this:
about the guy who entered this discussion by saying this:
Yes, thank you. And there were posts he made that were more asinine and condescending in nature, in my opinion.
What I call out is the attitude of attacking his views by virtue of him believing in them and us thinking of him as a prick, instead of simply calling him out on having been condescending and hurtful while still allowing him space to believe whatever weird atheist idea of logic he chooses to believe.
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Well, you were the one who brought up scrutiny, so I'm not sure what YOU meant exactly by that. Are we talking things that like, science takes issue with: such as the age of the earth, evolution, Noah's Arc, and things like that? Or are we talking about moral/ethical or health related issues, such as how a loving God that created all men equal and in his image would promote slavery and depending now where you were born and the culture you were born into - your chances of going to hell for not believing the right thing are nearly 100% making it so you never had a chance, or how if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding day, you are suppose to stone her to death on her fathers' doorstep, or how in terms of medical advice, people should be taken to churches and be exorcised of demons when they are mentally disturbed (a great example of this is the MIT student who shot up him school - the mother took her obviously very troubled, mentally ill son to a number of churches for an exorcism an one actually DID conduct it. Obviously, it didn't work.)?
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Well, you were the one who brought up scrutiny, so I'm not sure what YOU meant exactly by that. Are we talking things that like, science takes issue with: such as the age of the earth, evolution, Noah's Arc, and things like that? Or are we talking about moral/ethical or health related issues, such as how a loving God that created all men equal and in his image would promote slavery and depending now where you were born and the culture you were born into - your chances of going to hell for not believing the right thing are nearly 100% making it so you never had a chance, or how if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding day, you are suppose to stone her to death on her fathers' doorstep, or how in terms of medical advice, people should be taken to churches and be exorcised of demons when they are mentally disturbed (a great example of this is the MIT student who shot up him school - the mother took her obviously very troubled, mentally ill son to a number of churches for an exorcism an one actually DID conduct it. Obviously, it didn't work.)?
I'm sorta surprised by the last one, since as far as I know, it's standard procedure for exorcists to send person supposedly possessed psychiatrist first to rule that possibility out. And majority of people turning to exorcist are actually mentally ill. In case of mental illness no obviously exorcism can help (by analogy it would be like trying to heal flue with antibiotics). Only after a person is proven mentally healthy exorcist starts his work. At least that's how Catholic exorcised work. It may come from the fact, that modern Catholic Church is rather accepting towards science including psychiatry.
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your chances of going to hell for not believing the right thing are nearly 100% making it so you never had a chance
Catholicism teaches that if one has never been exposed to God and faith because of poverty or other unfortunate circumstances, one is still going to heaven if he/she lives a righteous life. As for not believing, yeah, I think they state that non-believers who KNOW about God and shit are going to hell or whatever.
if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding day, you are suppose to stone her to death on her fathers' doorstep
Old Testament. Different times, different culture.
ow in terms of medical advice, people should be taken to churches and be exorcised of demons when they are mentally disturbed (a great example of this is the MIT student who shot up him school - the mother took her obviously very troubled, mentally ill son to a number of churches for an exorcism an one actually DID conduct it. Obviously, it didn't work.)
I don't know who advocates that besides crazy ass fanatic zealots, but like Falcon said, the modern Church accepts science and evolution, and I heard once they now accept contraceptives. Obviously Church has its many flaws but at least it's not the EARTH IS FLAT Church that once was. They're not completely blind to science, and they don't see it as a negative anti-religious thing.
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I really don't know the situations with Ireland
All I know is I have a love-affair with their political music and sometimes feel guilty because I honestly don't know whether the virtues they are talking about are something I'd actually find disagreable or not
BUT IT'S GREAT FOLK STUFF
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It is clear you have no idea how religions work so allow me to explain.
I was just using a figure of speech.
Also the fact that one simply has to "toss out" and old idea for a completely new one is too simplistic. In order to toss an idea out, the idea has to be "completely wrong" and "negates the old one". However, what if it cannot be completely proven. The idea of religion and the theology behind it cannot be strictly prove "true" or "false" due to its ambiguity. This narrow reasoning only really works on a scientific basis (and even then, that reasoning is still too simplistic and juvenile for the scientific realm).
Whether or not something can be strictly proven as true or false needs to be demonstrated. Just labeling it as "ambiguous" won't help.
This "intellectual mastery" concept sounds ludicrous since it relies strictly on logic and factual evidence as the "only" valid authority when the world and the experiences it invokes is much more complicated than that. The notion of emotions goes beyond logic and factual evidence, but should they be discarded as something that doesn't have any valid authority? Of course not because humans (well most of them) react to things that cannot be logically explained. Humans and their interaction to the stimulants within the world are too varied to be placed neatly into a database.
Emotions are most likely created by neuro-chemical reactions in the brain. An indication of this is that some brain injuries can rob a person of his emotional processing ability.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mouse-man/201001/traumatic-brain-injury-leads-problems-emotional-processing
You will need to give me more sufficient proof to convince me that emotions are beyond logic and factual evidence. Note that this idea is not very supported in the scientific community, especially since the advances of neuroscience.
I contend that everything that exists can be reasoned about. Among all other things, logic determines what is right and what is wrong, what can be proven and what cannot be proven. Intellectual mastery does not restrict itself to purely academic activities, but involves the courage to apply logic to every nook and cranny of life. The Nazi scientists might be able to articulate eloquently on a number of academic subjects, yet were absolute fools when it came to political ideological matter.–- Update From New Post Merge ---
@Monkey:
A person taking Pascal's Wager seriously would NEVER choose non-belief lol.
Referring to Pascal's wager does not mean agreeing with Pascal. As I pointed out, choosing to worship a particular God among all other Gods is just gambling.
Oh so you're already carting out No True Scotsmans to try and protect your made-up distinction "non-believer".
How very logical of you.Well, I just follow a strict definition of the word "non-believer". If you believe in the opposite, does that count as non-believing? Most so-called atheists just choose to believe God doesn't exist, and that is still a belief, which made them believers of atheism.
Why do I need to group myself with any ideology's notion of non-belief anyway?If progress is your game you would languish in Maoist China, and thrive in Abbasid Persia/Arabia. Guess which one was religious and which was "non believing".
Both are religious, in the sense that they both involve a fair deal of idol-worship and take something other than logic and factual evidence as the authoritative basis for their ideologies.
Do you imagine that mankind didn't progress a day until….when exactly?
Just because something slows down progress does not mean it completely stops all progress.
Oh alright, so emotions make us weak, thanks Ayn Rand.
That depends on whether emotions are in tune with reason.
So this never-ever-going-to-happened hypothetical is why you're so "concerned".
Never you goddamn mind how people cope, everyone has to do it, whatever floats the boat.Did I? I simply stated what I thought to be the best choice (a conclusion I arrived through reasoning, of course).
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Well, you were the one who brought up scrutiny, so I'm not sure what YOU meant exactly by that. Are we talking things that like, science takes issue with: such as the age of the earth, evolution, Noah's Arc, and things like that? Or are we talking about moral/ethical or health related issues, such as how a loving God that created all men equal and in his image would promote slavery and depending now where you were born and the culture you were born into - your chances of going to hell for not believing the right thing are nearly 100% making it so you never had a chance, or how if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding day, you are suppose to stone her to death on her fathers' doorstep, or how in terms of medical advice, people should be taken to churches and be exorcised of demons when they are mentally disturbed (a great example of this is the MIT student who shot up him school - the mother took her obviously very troubled, mentally ill son to a number of churches for an exorcism an one actually DID conduct it. Obviously, it didn't work.)?
Mmmm, yeah, you were talking about how things in the NT didn't stand up to modern scrutiny? You highlighted a bunch of areas. And in health and that sort of thing, I had a quick think about it and how the Gospels put certain things down to 'spirits' which Jesus apparently exorcises. But then you mentioned a whole load of other things, like morals and economics which didn't quite ring a bell to me.
Almost everything you've referenced here is the Old Testament at play, which is not at all the 1st century, but many many centuries before, so I suppose that's what you had in mind when you said it.
However, I disagree that believers go to great 'leaps of logic' (which is what you said) to defend what doesn't stand up to modern scrutiny. I'll just address a few ideas here quickly, and if some Christian or other wants to come along and tell me what I said is not true, feel free.
The first - and most obvious - argument, is that most of these things are not generally believed to be directly divinely inspired. That is, the Gospels were written by early Christians. These people are not believed to have been Prophets, so it cannot be that what they have written is perfect. So, you would expect how they write things to be 'tainted' by their time. Heck, Mark barely knew how to write Greek. Therefore, we can look upon these things with a pinch of salt and rationally - we're not being fundamental.
In terms of the 'moral' thing, it's an argument that gets thrown around a lot. If God is both omniscient and omnipotent, how can God be omnibenevolent? Surely, from natural disasters to people doing bad things, God has perpetuated evil which God could prevent, creating a paradox in Abrahamic dogma. I think the argument used here would be that we value the free will we have, and that we would much rather have choices that could be bad than have good choices forced upon us. And only if bad things happen can that choice feel real. I dunno, you may think that's still not all that nice.
As for things science takes issue with … I don't really want to get started on the OT, but there are a lot of things you could say here. The OT is a collection of writings form over a LONG period of time, and supposedly the whole of it was lost and had to be written out again by Ezra. So you could say it might have been rewritten slightly to suit people's convictions.
The alternative, and, I think, much more compelling argument for a believer is that a revelation from God can only be relevant to its time. If God could have revealed to Abraham that the world is a near-sphere amongst uncountable others in a space so vast, which was all started in one single point 14 and half billion years ago or so, it doesn't mean God would. Actually, it would just have made Abraham look like more of a raving lunatic. So to extrapolate to today, if you were a Jew, say, awaiting the second coming of Elijah, and that were to happen tomorrow, whatever information they brought with them would be appropriate to today. In terms of the nature of the allegories/parables, they would maybe change a bit, but certainly the laws would change drastically. If we're completely wrong about some conception or other of ours today, would a divinely inspired Prophet tell us so? I don't see why that should be. And to jump back to the moral thing, if a Prophet came 100 years ago in Western Europe, they might well have been advocating the rights of women, but if tehy came a couple of hundred years befor ethat, they would only have done so modestly.
I feel I wrote all of that far too confusedly :S I'm busy dying in the murky world of stats lol
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I have a problem with how Catholicism portrays Jesus as "Godly" especially when it was Emperor Constantine who was the one responsible for deifying Jesus.
And the story of Jesus actually comes from a Persian religion called Mithraism, that predates Christianity. Basically it follows the same pattern as Jesus.
A savior who is the son of God is born from a virgin. He is part of a "Trinity" and Mithraism believes in Heaven and Hell. The religion also had baptisms and cannibalistic rituals where they would drink wine and eat bread to symbolize the body and blood of their savior. His birthday is also December 25, which proves that Jesus is basically a carbon copy of this character.
And if this particular example doesn't convince you, we can look else where. There are countless ancient traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia that have stories that influenced Christianity.
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Old Testament. Different times, different culture.
I don't know who advocates that besides crazy ass fanatic zealots, but like Falcon said, the modern Church accepts science and evolution, and I heard once they now accept contraceptives. Obviously Church has its many flaws but at least it's not the EARTH IS FLAT Church that once was. They're not completely blind to science, and they don't see it as a negative anti-religious thing.
Different times, different culture? What the hell is that suppose to mean? There's cruelty that STILL goes on today in places such as the middle east in the name of the Koran that are much worse than what I mentioned there.
As for the modern church, what modern church? Some do, but most do not. And only to a certain extent. I've had talks with people where they might not believe that religion has it right, that there may not be a God, but that the purpose it serves in our world is a positive one. I'm of the opinion that the fact that religion promotes the process of believing without evidence and proof is a negative trait that we should not be promoting - that scaring people into believing an omniscient creature that supposedly wrote the bible through scribes will send you to never-ending torture after you are dead, but he does love you, is not something we need in our society anymore. That promoting the narrow, keyholed viewpoint written down by people from the 1st century wondering what it meant when there were thunderstorms while sacrificing their children isn't a positive thing.
If the bible, koran, or any other ancient, religious script was written or dictated by an omniscient, all-knowing, all-seeing being.. do you know how GREAT of a book that would be? I could most likely walk into Barnes & Knobles right now and pick a random book off the shelves that has a more informed worldview with more relevance to how the world really is than the christian bible.
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@OnePunch:
Well, I just follow a strict definition of the word "non-believer". If you believe in the opposite, does that count as non-believing? Most so-called atheists just choose to believe God doesn't exist, and that is still a belief, which made them believers of atheism.
Why do I need to group myself with any ideology's notion of non-belief anyway?If you believe in non-belief, that's a belief . . .
Both are religious, in the sense that they both involve a fair deal of idol-worship and take something other than logic and factual evidence as the authoritative basis for their ideologies.
You don't mean idol-worship as in the worship of idols … no in the Abbasid Caliphate lol
Just because something slows down progress does not mean it completely stops all progress.
What, so the Islamic Golden Age would have been a hyperfast AMAZING period for the advancement of science and other such things had it not been for Islam … ? You could try to apply that argument to Enlightenment Britain, I guess, but even there ... no?
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What's the point of logic and reason if there's no emotion behind it? I haven't really been paying attention to this argument going on here, but I do want to piggyback into this: why is it so necessary that people respond to things with "reason" and without "emotion"? Like, I get there are times where subjectivity is plain WRONG, but I am so sick of getting into arguments with people who basically say my argument is invalid because I rely too much on emotion. Well, gee, if it didn't affect me emotionally, I wouldn't really have an opinion on it!
Perhaps I'm just weak-minded. I can't say for sure. But I don't think it makes me wrong to hold beliefs or opinions that are rooted in emotions rather than "reason". My reasoning IS my emotions, after all. I feel that way BECAUSE it affects me emotionally.
My beliefs are all rooted in emotion. I felt deprived and inadequate without faith and vivacious and confident with it. So that's what matters to me: that I'm happier. Sure, I don't follow religion blindly, but I'm way more than comfortable with my own religious beliefs because I find them emotionally satisfying. Are they logical? Hell no. But I'd not want it any other way.
Also, I'm rambling vaguely, so uh… my point's probably not even here in the first place.
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Different times, different culture? What the hell is that suppose to mean? There's cruelty that STILL goes on today in places such as the middle east in the name of the Koran that are much worse than what I mentioned there.
As for the modern church, what modern church? Some do, but most do not. And only to a certain extent. I've had talks with people where they might not believe that religion has it right, that there may not be a God, but that the purpose it serves in our world is a positive one. I'm of the opinion that the fact that religion promotes the process of believing without evidence and proof is a negative trait that we should not be promoting - that scaring people into believing an omniscient creature that supposedly wrote the bible through scribes will send you to never-ending torture after you are dead, but he does love you, is not something we need in our society anymore. That promoting the narrow, keyholed viewpoint written down by people from the 1st century wondering what it meant when there were thunderstorms while sacrificing their children isn't a positive thing.
If the bible, koran, or any other ancient, religious script was written or dictated by an omniscient, all-knowing, all-seeing being.. do you know how GREAT of a book that would be? I could most likely walk into Barnes & Knobles right now and pick a random book off the shelves that has a more informed worldview with more relevance to how the world really is than the christian bible.
This is great post, it pretty much sums up how I feel.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
If you believe in non-belief, that's a belief.
No it's not, it's an absence of belief.
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[hide]Mmmm, yeah, you were talking about how things in the NT didn't stand up to modern scrutiny? You highlighted a bunch of areas. And in health and that sort of thing, I had a quick think about it and how the Gospels put certain things down to 'spirits' which Jesus apparently exorcises. But then you mentioned a whole load of other things, like morals and economics which didn't quite ring a bell to me.
Almost everything you've referenced here is the Old Testament at play, which is not at all the 1st century, but many many centuries before, so I suppose that's what you had in mind when you said it.
However, I disagree that believers go to great 'leaps of logic' (which is what you said) to defend what doesn't stand up to modern scrutiny. I'll just address a few ideas here quickly, and if some Christian or other wants to come along and tell me what I said is not true, feel free.
The first - and most obvious - argument, is that most of these things are not generally believed to be directly divinely inspired. That is, the Gospels were written by early Christians. These people are not believed to have been Prophets, so it cannot be that what they have written is perfect. So, you would expect how they write things to be 'tainted' by their time. Heck, Mark barely knew how to write Greek. Therefore, we can look upon these things with a pinch of salt and rationally - we're not being fundamental.
In terms of the 'moral' thing, it's an argument that gets thrown around a lot. If God is both omniscient and omnipotent, how can God be omnibenevolent? Surely, from natural disasters to people doing bad things, God has perpetuated evil which God could prevent, creating a paradox in Abrahamic dogma. I think the argument used here would be that we value the free will we have, and that we would much rather have choices that could be bad than have good choices forced upon us. And only if bad things happen can that choice feel real. I dunno, you may think that's still not all that nice.
As for things science takes issue with … I don't really want to get started on the OT, but there are a lot of things you could say here. The OT is a collection of writings form over a LONG period of time, and supposedly the whole of it was lost and had to be written out again by Ezra. So you could say it might have been rewritten slightly to suit people's convictions.
The alternative, and, I think, much more compelling argument for a believer is that a revelation from God can only be relevant to its time. If God could have revealed to Abraham that the world is a near-sphere amongst uncountable others in a space so vast, which was all started in one single point 14 and half billion years ago or so, it doesn't mean God would. Actually, it would just have made Abraham look like more of a raving lunatic. So to extrapolate to today, if you were a Jew, say, awaiting the second coming of Elijah, and that were to happen tomorrow, whatever information they brought with them would be appropriate to today. In terms of the nature of the allegories/parables, they would maybe change a bit, but certainly the laws would change drastically. If we're completely wrong about some conception or other of ours today, would a divinely inspired Prophet tell us so? I don't see why that should be. And to jump back to the moral thing, if a Prophet came 100 years ago in Western Europe, they might well have been advocating the rights of women, but if tehy came a couple of hundred years befor ethat, they would only have done so modestly.
I feel I wrote all of that far too confusedly :S I'm busy dying in the murky world of stats lol[/hide]
Lol, yeah, I'm not really sure what you're getting at so I'm not sure how to respond. The only thing that immediately comes to mind is not everything I'm referrencing (or at least what I'm thinking about in my head) is Old Testament.. I loathe when people try to pigeon-hole my arguments, saying "OHH that crazy old testament!" There's plenty of cruelty and ridiculousness in the New Testament, if not more.
As for the rest of your post, I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. :)
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@Foxy:
I have a problem with how Catholicism portrays Jesus as "Godly" especially when it was Emperor Constantine who was the one responsible for deifying Jesus.
And the story of Jesus actually comes from a Persian religion called Mithraism, that predates Christianity. Basically it follows the same pattern as Jesus.
A savior who is the son of God is born from a virgin. He is part of a "Trinity" and Mithraism believes in Heaven and Hell. The religion also had baptisms and cannibalistic rituals where they would drink wine and eat bread to symbolize the body and blood of their savior. His birthday is also December 25, which proves that Jesus is basically a carbon copy of this character.
And if this particular example doesn't convince you, we can look else where. There are countless ancient traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia that have stories that influenced Christianity.
Uh, Roman Mithraism was different to Persian Mithraism. And Mithras was born from a rock. Plus not much is known about the cult at all. Neither the Persian worship of Mitra nor the Roman cult-worship of Mithras can involve, as far as I can ascertain, any of those things you said.
Certainly though, the belief that people who drank wine and bread symbolising body and blood were partaking in cannibalistic rituals was applied to early Christians. Maybe you're a little confused?
And Jesus was assigned Mithras' feast day in order to Christianise the empire, as Mithraism had some strong popularity in particular.People who deny the historical figure of Jesus are very odd, I cannot understand them.
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@OnePunch:
(…) logic determines what is right and what is wrong (...)
The first thing I learned about logic in my academic course on logic is that this statement is false.
logic certainly doesn't determine what is true and what is false. Logic determines what is "true if". Truth in logic is just value of a sentence.
Furthermore on the ground of logic it has been proven than not everything can be proven on the ground of logic.
Furthermore what can you check for truth and prove in one logical system you may not do in another, or it may proven wrong (I wouldn't even try I only know a bit classical logic).
Furthermore thanks to Duns Scotus it's easy to prove existence of pink unicorns on Mars, Blue Griffins on Uranus, God and the fact that neither member of this does exist in real life (Sure it would explode the system, but still).And don't even get me started on science. Since reasoning in modern science is actually based on modus tollendo tollens it's hard to be talking about scientific truth at all.
Still both science and logic are very useful tools.
Science and logic aren't that much more credible than religion, but due to character of modern culture most people would rather question credibility of the religion than science. Science has largely the same function as as magic and religion. That is to create vision of world for people to live and make peoples action in world effective.
Of course I don't posses specific knowledge in brain functioning to question results on this field. -
What's the point of logic and reason if there's no emotion behind it? I haven't really been paying attention to this argument going on here, but I do want to piggyback into this: why is it so necessary that people respond to things with "reason" and without "emotion"? Like, I get there are times where subjectivity is plain WRONG, but I am so sick of getting into arguments with people who basically say my argument is invalid because I rely too much on emotion. Well, gee, if it didn't affect me emotionally, I wouldn't really have an opinion on it!
Perhaps I'm just weak-minded. I can't say for sure. But I don't think it makes me wrong to hold beliefs or opinions that are rooted in emotions rather than "reason". My reasoning IS my emotions, after all. I feel that way BECAUSE it affects me emotionally.
My beliefs are all rooted in emotion. I felt deprived and inadequate without faith and vivacious and confident with it. So that's what matters to me: that I'm happier. Sure, I don't follow religion blindly, but I'm way more than comfortable with my own religious beliefs because I find them emotionally satisfying. Are they logical? Hell no. But I'd not want it any other way.
Also, I'm rambling vaguely, so uh… my point's probably not even here in the first place.
If religion does that for you, then okay. But I'm a firm believer and advocate of the fact that you DON'T need religion or faith in a "God" to be just as happy, confident, emotionally satisfied, or morally sound.
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@Foxy:
I have a problem with how Catholicism portrays Jesus as "Godly" especially when it was Emperor Constantine who was the one responsible for deifying Jesus.
And the story of Jesus actually comes from a Persian religion called Mithraism, that predates Christianity. Basically it follows the same pattern as Jesus.
A savior who is the son of God is born from a virgin. He is part of a "Trinity" and Mithraism believes in Heaven and Hell. The religion also had baptisms and cannibalistic rituals where they would drink wine and eat bread to symbolize the body and blood of their savior. His birthday is also December 25, which proves that Jesus is basically a carbon copy of this character.
And if this particular example doesn't convince you, we can look else where. There are countless ancient traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia that have stories that influenced Christianity.
Quick fact: Jesus was obviously not born on December 25. But you all know this :P
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Science and logic aren't that much more credible than religion
What are you smoking?
Show me someone who isn't willing to use logic to examine the history of their religion or "faith", and I'll show you someone who I who desperately doesn't want to be wrong.. and that I probably don't want to have a conversation with.
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Uh, Roman Mithraism was different to Persian Mithraism. And Mithras was born from a rock. Plus not much is known about the cult at all. Neither the Persian worship of Mitra nor the Roman cult-worship of Mithras can involve, as far as I can ascertain, any of those things you said.
Certainly though, the belief that people who drank wine and bread symbolising body and blood were partaking in cannibalistic rituals was applied to early Christians. Maybe you're a little confused?
And Jesus was assigned Mithras' feast day in order to Christianise the empire, as Mithraism had some strong popularity in particular.People who deny the historical figure of Jesus are very odd, I cannot understand them.
First of all, I never denied the historical figure of Jesus, that was you putting words in my mouth. I was only denying his divinity. And Mithra wasn't born from a rock, he was resurrected from a rock tomb just like Jesus.
You clearly don't know what your talking about, you probably just looked on Wikipedia. And I wasn't getting too specific but there are undeniable similarities.
In Mithraism, there are three wise men who visit a baby Mithra and bring him gifts.
Mithra had a "Last Supper" with his twelve disciples.
I could go on but you get the point.
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@Foxy:
I have a problem with how Catholicism portrays Jesus as "Godly" especially when it was Emperor Constantine who was the one responsible for deifying Jesus.
And the story of Jesus actually comes from a Persian religion called Mithraism, that predates Christianity. Basically it follows the same pattern as Jesus.
A savior who is the son of God is born from a virgin. He is part of a "Trinity" and Mithraism believes in Heaven and Hell. The religion also had baptisms and cannibalistic rituals where they would drink wine and eat bread to symbolize the body and blood of their savior. His birthday is also December 25, which proves that Jesus is basically a carbon copy of this character.
And if this particular example doesn't convince you, we can look else where. There are countless ancient traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia that have stories that influenced Christianity.
As far as we know Jesus was actually historical character. There is historical data on him other than Gospel that is consider credible by the researchers.
Otherwise he shares some traits with many other solar heroes, which is understandable since thats how the stories work up to modern times.
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Quick fact: Jesus was obviously not born on December 25. But you all know this :P
No offense, but you're probably going to defend Jesus' divinity, so I can't take you seriously.
Also everyone knows that his birthday isn't on December 25th but it is still the date used to celebrate his birth.
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Lol, yeah, I'm not really sure what you're getting at so I'm not sure how to respond. The only thing that immediately comes to mind is not everything I'm referrencing (or at least what I'm thinking about in my head) is Old Testament.. I loathe when people try to pigeon-hole my arguments, saying "OHH that crazy old testament!" There's plenty of cruelty and ridiculousness in the New Testament, if not more.
As for the rest of your post, I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. :)
lol I'll try again.
I highlighted that most of what you said was to do with the OT because you were originally saying something about how the Bible is filled with stuff that only 1st century logic would uphold? So I got the impression that was to do with the NT, but it's clear from this post you were thinking of everything in the Bible. But I did go on to address that in general ;)
What I was suggesting is that people would not be bothered by these things 'that don't stand up to 21st century criticism' because of logical arguments that they can make. So I outlines some such arguments.
One is that if there is a God who is revealing things, those things would be proportionate and relevant to the time and place. Hence the laws that would be borne by a Prophet a few thousand years ago - the kinds you see in the OT - would not stand up to our modern standards. But those standards do change - a law-bearing prophet several centuries ago could not have greatly advanced the position of women as one a hundred years ago could have. And so on.
When looking at matters of what science 'contradicts', people will simply say that the Bible is full of allegory, and is not meant to be a guide to the Universe. Which makes a lot of sense. What use would it be to Abraham or Moses etc to know about the Big Bang or the shape of the Earth or anything like that? It would just make them seem like madmen, in there times. Thus, a modern Christian might argue, you are not meant to think the world is only 6000 years old, or that man was created in their present form w/o evolution, or that the world was made in seven days. This is not something that requires an 'incredible leap of logic' (as you put it), but it is perfectly logical.
Furthermore, in both cases - laws that seem cruel and things that seem untrue - one might launch criticism at the sources of the text. They aren't generally written directly by the people to whom the information was revealed. So, the Gospels are second hand information about what Jesus did. Genesis is a long story (or rather, set of stories). Leviticus is a collection of laws long passed down. And so on. There could easily be corruption. Heck, even in the 1st century many important Jews discredited those that upheld the Oral Law in that it could easily be corrupted.
From another of your posts, you seem to expect that w divinely inspired book should tell you all about the nature of the world and the nature of people and all the secrets of everything or something. I don't think such a tome would be as useful as you imply.
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Science and logic aren't that much more credible than religion
You lost me here. Well, I don't think logic belongs in that comparison considering that, as you explained, it's just a set of tools to apply to other concepts.
But science and religion? They don't belong in the same sentence either. One relies on observable evidence of the laws that govern our physical universe; one does not. They can and should serve entirely different roles in modern society (assuming we're beyond the point of needing to explain basic physical phenomena, like lightning, gift from the skyfather Zeus) and should not be mutually exclusive. Conflict only arises when that observable physical evidence is thrown out the window in favor of blind belief in falsifiable text (the earth was created 6000 years ago), but there's no reason that the moral lessons and belief in a deity who in fact created the physical, scientific laws of our universe has to conflict with those laws themselves. But I guess I would claim that the falsifiability of scientific hypotheses in fact makes them far more credible than the unfalsifiability of religion. Through the scientific process, those hypotheses are modified and refined all the time, moving ever closer to the closest we can get to scientific "truth," within the confines of our own perception and physical laws. Conversely, there doesn't seem to be a rational process by which religion can be rationally refined other than picking and choosing which bits of scripture are most convenient for the current state of society (if there is, and I'm just being ignorant, I'd love to know it).