ATAR Notes: Forum
General Discussion => General Discussion Boards => Rants and Debate => Topic started by: enwiabe on September 26, 2012, 09:23:21 pm
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I don't want to derail the AN culture thread, but I do want to answer the arguments put forth by abes22 and pi:
abes22 wrote:
"Important things don't warrant impoliteness."
a) The point I was making was that it's not a matter of politeness or impoliteness. Regardless of how you phrase it, people are going to take offense.
b) Factually incorrect. Is it important to subdue and arrest an armed robber? Is it polite to deck them and put them in handcuffs? Would you call any retaliatory action in war polite? These are just two important things where politeness is not "warranted", or more accurately, not a meaningful descriptor of the required action.
pi:
"In fairness, the number of people who do "evil things" solely due to religion is very very very few. I'm not very religious myself (so I won't be able to quote scripture etc etc in this thread), but I don't buy the point that just because there are a few crazies out there from every religion that the whole idea needs to be torn apart and dismissed. Religion also has lots of positive aspects too."
pi, given that you don't like when Paul does exactly the same thing "I don't know much about the topic, but here's my opinion anyway..." don't you think you ought to do your due diligence before commenting?
But my claim was a strong one that requires some backing.
Imagine a child. Just born. It's a male, who's just been "born into the Jewish faith". An interesting concept isn't it? That religions should be hereditary. And the one you share with your parents always seems to be the "correct one". But I digress.
At 8 days of age, this child has part of its skin hacked off, and the blood from the wound is sucked from the penis by a grown man.
Tell me who looks at a young child and thinks "what a lovely baby boy, now give me a sharp object so I can cut part of its dick off" without religion? And unquestioningly, too. To do that, it must be a religious edict. It must be "because god said so".
"Because god said so" is a bludgeon with which rights are oppressed.
No condoms in Africa? Because god said so. Enjoy your AIDS epidemic.
No gay marriage? Because god said so.
Stone the gays? Because god said so.
Bully the gays out of their sexual orientation, causing them to suffer all sorts of mental difficulty? Because god said so.
No justice for child rape victims? Because god said so.
Women can't choose what they wear? Because god said so.
Children should feel petrified for setting a foot wrong or they're going to hell? Because god said so.
Kill the apostates? Because god said so.
Stone people for committing adultery? Because god said so.
Remove "because god said so", and make people accountable to their peers and you've got a much harder time of convincing people to commit atrocities.
That's not to say we wouldn't still have conflict, but at least people would not be able to manipulate others into thinking the supreme creator of the universe told them to do it. Once you've convinced someone that their ultimate judge and jury wants them to commit an act, nothing will stop them.
And I'm categorically not talking about the crazies. I'm talking about those who would be otherwise very good and moral people. What causes a loving father of two, a charitable family man, to want to prevent gay people from getting married? He's not crazy, he's simply been brainwashed to believe that if gays are allowed to marry, it will displease the supreme arbiter of the universe. If you honestly believed that to be the case, you'd be against it too.
According to the scripture of the Old Testament, Abraham was definitely going to kill Isaac until god told him not to. And I tell you what, if anyone told me to gut my kid "because god said so" I'd say "No, fuck you."
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pi:
"In fairness, the number of people who do "evil things" solely due to religion is very very very few. I'm not very religious myself (so I won't be able to quote scripture etc etc in this thread), but I don't buy the point that just because there are a few crazies out there from every religion that the whole idea needs to be torn apart and dismissed. Religion also has lots of positive aspects too."
pi, given that you don't like when Paul does exactly the same thing "I don't know much about the topic, but here's my opinion anyway..." don't you think you ought to do your due diligence before commenting?
The difference between me and Paul is that I'm not making racist and sweeping generalisations without basis, whilst he was. I was simply pointing out that just because there are a few instances of adverse effects from religion (and you nicely listed them in your post, and I'm sure there are more), there are also positive implications too. And that doesn't require a basis as it is fairly intuitive.
As I said, and as you reminded me, I don't know enough about religion to attempt to contradict your post. So I'm not going to. But what I do know (anecdotally somewhat) is that if you go to the poor slums in India and dismiss their god as one that provokes "evils" and the like, you're dismissing more just their culture. You're dismissing their hope.
For people who have nothing, god and religion is something. It's free, it's comforting, and it's uniforming. And to take all they have and throw it against a brick wall just because you believe it's responsible for AIDS in Africa (although was religious instruction that spread AIDS in the first place? But I digress), etc. is a very insensitive thing to do. And you could argue that their hope is simply a result of brainswashing etc etc but living with hope and religion is much much better for them than living without it.
Your post makes a lot of references to homosexuals, for which I agree with you. It is disgusting that some members of some religions have not moved on to adapt themselves to the present and what is humanely fair, but if you look at the poll from the House of Reps, even atheists voted against gay marriage, implying that religion is not the cause of this hate and that there are other confounding factors that have not been considered. Some people just aren't comfortable with it, and I don't feel that I have the right or the authority to accuse them for having a "wrong" opinion, and I also don't think that religious "brainwashing" is the sole reason either.
I know religion isn't perfect, and I don't think any reasonable person will say it is. Like everything and everyone, it has faults.
But, is religion responsible for global warming? Is it responsible for the countless murders in our society? Is it responsible for the Chinese Floods of 1931? Is it responsible for the Swine Flu? Is it responsible BoS? Was it responsible for the cancellation of Cheez TV? Not at all.
Alternatively, did it put great thinkers such as Kepler, Einstein and Newton on the right path? Does it continue to provide moral fiber for many in the world? Has religion been linked to less domestic violence and substance abuse? Yes, in fact it does play a role here.
Your post makes out religion to be the worst thing ever when it really isn't, it's the individual interpretation of it that shapes people. And I know that you specified "I'm categorically not talking about the crazies", but I don't see the average dad stoning gays either tbh. Not once did you consider the positive implications it has, especially on the poor, the ill and the desperate.
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Your post makes a lot of references to homosexuals, for which I agree with you. It is disgusting that some members of some religions have not moved on to adapt themselves to the present and what is humanely fair, but if you look at the poll from the House of Reps, even atheists voted against gay marriage, implying that religion is not the cause of this hate and that there are other confounding factors that have not been considered. Some people just aren't comfortable with it, and I don't feel that I have the right or the authority to accuse them for having a "wrong" opinion, and I also don't think that religious "brainwashing" is the sole reason either.
While I agree with most of your post, I suspect not wanting to alienate some of the conservative and religious voters in their seats may have played a part in the underlying reasoning behind some of those votes. Admittedly though there would be conservative voters opposing gay marriage who are not religious, and I'm not sure if the majority of the public opinion is in favour of gay marriage or not (could depend on the seat I guess?).
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The difference between me and Paul is that I'm not making racist and sweeping generalisations without basis, whilst he was. I was simply pointing out that just because there are a few instances of adverse effects from religion (and you nicely listed them in your post, and I'm sure there are more), there are also positive implications too. And that doesn't require a basis as it is fairly intuitive.
As I said, and as you reminded me, I don't know enough about religion to attempt to contradict your post. So I'm not going to. But what I do know (anecdotally somewhat) is that if you go to the poor slums in India and dismiss their god as one that provokes "evils" and the like, you're dismissing more just their culture. You're dismissing their hope.
For people who have nothing, god and religion is something. It's free, it's comforting, and it's uniforming. And to take all they have and throw it against a brick wall just because you believe it's responsible for AIDS in Africa (although was religious instruction that spread AIDS in the first place?), etc. is a very insensitive thing to do. And you could argue that their hope is simply a result of brainswashing etc etc but living with hope and religion is much much better for them than living without it.
Your post makes a lot of references to homosexuals, for which I agree with you. It is disgusting that some members of some religions have not moved on to adapt themselves to the present and what is humanely fair, but if you look at the poll from the House of Reps, even atheists voted against gay marriage, implying that religion is not the cause of this hate and that there are other confounding factors that have not been considered. Some people just aren't comfortable with it, and I don't feel that I have the right or the authority to accuse them for having a "wrong" opinion, and I also don't think that religious "brainwashing" is the sole reason either.
I know religion isn't perfect, and I don't think any reasonable person will say it is. Like everything and everyone, it has faults.
But, is religion responsible for global warming? Is it responsible for the countless murders in our society? Is it responsible for the Chinese Floods of 1931? Is it responsible for the Swine Flu? Is it responsible BoS? Was it responsible for the cancellation of Cheez TV? Not at all.
Alternatively, did it put great thinkers such as Kepler, Einstein and Newton on the right path? Does it continue to provide moral fiber for many in the world? Has religion been linked to less domestic violence and substance abuse? Yes, in fact it does play a role here.
Your post makes out religion to be the worst thing ever when it really isn't, it's the individual interpretation of it that shapes people. And I know that you specified "I'm categorically not talking about the crazies", but I don't see the average dad stoning gays either tbh. Not once did you consider the positive implications it has, especially on the poor, the ill and the desperate.
Are you claiming that without religion, humanity would have no hope?
That we would not give to charity?
That Physics would not have progressed to where it is today?
In fact, it can be appropriately argued that we would be far further along, because of Christianity's contribution to impeding any substantial scientific development for 1400 hundred years.
We don't need religion for any of the positive things you mention, so I would be giving a lot of false credit to religion for bestowing them on people. Individual people have hope because they have a strong character. That is something they develop themselves, and I give them the credit for being hopeful. And their parents for helping to instill that hope. Religion may be the tool they use to carry that hope, but I think it's frankly insulting to humanity to say that without religion they wouldn't have found that hope.
The reason why atheists voted against equal marriage rights is exactly as genericname2365 wrote. What is a non-contentious issue for most people is a wedge issue for dyed-in-the-wool religious voters, who are sadly an all-too-powerful voting bloc and lobby group. Equal marriage approval ratings stand at 70% of all Australians approving. Why do the government drag their feet? So as not to alienate a core constituency of the religious conservative, which can honestly mean the swing to and away from power.
Because most reasonable people do not vote on single issues, they won't lose many votes by implementing equal marriage rights. Unfortunately, if they do implement them, they fear that far too many religious voters will desert them.
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From what I can see here - I think pi means that religion is not ESSENTIAL per se, but it is one of many things that, in the right situations, can enhance culture and identity as well as hope.
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Are you claiming that without religion, humanity would have no hope?
That we would not give to charity?
That Physics would not have progressed to where it is today?
LOL, typical response. When did I make any of those claims, I merely said that "it does play a role here". If I had said: "Religion was fundamental and 100% required for these to happen" then *maybe* you'd have a valid point in these questions.
All of your questions are "what ifs?" can neither I nor you can justify them.
We don't need religion for any of the positive things you mention
No, YOU don't need religion for that. There's a difference.
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Are you claiming that without religion, humanity would have no hope?
That we would not give to charity?
That Physics would not have progressed to where it is today?
LOL, typical response. When did I make any of those claims, I merely said that "it does play a role here". If I had said: "Religion was fundamental and 100% required for these to happen" then *maybe* you'd have a valid point in these questions.
All of your questions are "what ifs?" can neither I nor you can justify them.
We don't need religion for any of the positive things you mention
No, YOU don't need religion for that. There's a difference.
So if religion is not a required ingredient for all of these things, why does it deserve the credit?
Do you think that the people who currently give to charity would not do so without religion?
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Do you think that the people who currently give to charity would not do so without religion?
I think many wouldn't as religion provides them with a moral fiber (as I said earlier) and encourages, if not makes them feel almost guilty if they do not, making of charitable donations. So some would still, but I very much doubt all of those who donate now would if religion wasn't in place, and that's not even considering the fact that many charities have a religious undertone anyway.
That does not mean that those who are not religious are lacking moral fiber, it's just that for those who are religious, the morals are easily distinguishable.
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Do you think that the people who currently give to charity would not do so without religion?
I think many wouldn't as religion provides them with a moral fiber (as I said earlier) and encourages, if not makes them feel almost guilty if they do not, making of charitable donations. So some would still, but I very much doubt all of those who donate now would if religion wasn't in place, and that's not even considering the fact that many charities have a religious undertone anyway.
That does not mean that those who are not religious are lacking moral fiber, it's just that for those who are religious, the morals are easily distinguishable.
Show me one lick of research which shows that the irreligious give less to charity than the religious. Just the one. "I think" doesn't count.
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Because its helpful. Not essential, but helpful.
Some people who give to charity might do it anyway, others may not do it if religion were not a factor. Either way, religion does help in this case.
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If someone is giving to charity because of their religion, does that really make them good, pi? I'd happily donate half my paycheck to World Vision if I though that, in the end, I was going to have everything for eternity when I died and wouldn't get that opportunity if I didn't donate. I mean, can self-interest really be called morality?
And I also just wanted to clarify, somewhat off topic - Einstein considered himself an agnostic and didn't believe in a personal God. (Pet hate of mine)
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Show me one lick of research which shows that the irreligious give less charity than the religious. Just the one. "I think" doesn't count.
No-one can give you that link because no-one has had religion pulled away from them as your scenario suggests:
"Do you think that the people who currently give to charity would not do so without religion?"
Had that of happened to people, maybe either of your view or mine could be validated. Until then, "I think" suffices in a hypothetical situation.
If someone is giving to charity because of their religion, does that really make them good, pi? I'd happily donate half my paycheck to World Vision if I though that, in the end, I was going to have everything for eternity when I died and wouldn't get that opportunity if I didn't donate. I mean, can self-interest really be called morality?
The question posed didn't ask me to consider whether they'd be "good people" or not, just whether they donate. And no, anyone who donates with another motive (whether it's for God, for fame, etc.) isn't doing it for the right reason, but I'll take their money anyway if it helps someone :)
Apologies for the Einstein thing.
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If someone is giving to charity because of their religion, does that really make them good, pi? I'd happily donate half my paycheck to World Vision if I though that, in the end, I was going to have everything for eternity when I died and wouldn't get that opportunity if I didn't donate. I mean, can self-interest really be called morality?
And I also just wanted to clarify, somewhat off topic - Einstein considered himself an agnostic and didn't believe in a personal God. (Pet hate of mine)
And that's why I argue that it is a logic fallacy. Religion is simply the middle man in this case. You're always welcome to agree or disagree with the religion, and it says more about the man who thinks it's a good idea to have an imaginary friend who tells him he's bad if he doesn't give money to charity. I give credit to the man, however, and not his imaginary friend.
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Show me one lick of research which shows that the irreligious give less charity than the religious. Just the one. "I think" doesn't count.
No-one can give you that link because no-one has had religion pulled away from them as your scenario suggests:
"Do you think that the people who currently give to charity would not do so without religion?"
Had that of happened to people, maybe either of your view or mine could be validated. Until then, "I think" suffices in a hypothetical situation.
Er, what? Plenty of people live without religion every day. Est. 20% of the world in fact. Do you think that they do not give to charity?
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Show me one lick of research which shows that the irreligious give less to charity than the religious. Just the one. "I think" doesn't count.
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/20/study_less_religious_states_give_less_to_charity/
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Er, what? Plenty of people live without religion every day. Est. 20% of the world in fact. Do you think that they do not give to charity?
When did anyone say that? I'm just saying that those people chose to not be religious (much like myself), good for them. But taking away religion from those who are religious (as per your question) and then asking whether they would do X, Y and Z is an incomparable scenario.
Show me one lick of research which shows that the irreligious give less to charity than the religious. Just the one. "I think" doesn't count.
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/20/study_less_religious_states_give_less_to_charity/
:)
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Show me one lick of research which shows that the irreligious give less to charity than the religious. Just the one. "I think" doesn't count.
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/20/study_less_religious_states_give_less_to_charity/
The problem with those studies, and they have been debunked numerous times (although not that one specifically) is that they factor in ALL charitable donations. They include the donations to churches which have the express purpose of disseminating the religion and only religion.
When you reduce it down to ONLY charities that help people in need (i.e. food, water, clothing, sickness etc.) the charity levels equate to roughly the same, link: http://grisham.newsvine.com/_news/2011/11/08/8691971-are-religious-people-more-charitable-than-atheists
I was actually waiting for someone to post a study like that to give this reply, haha :)
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Show me one lick of research which shows that the irreligious give less charity than the religious. Just the one. "I think" doesn't count.
No-one can give you that link because no-one has had religion pulled away from them as your scenario suggests:
"Do you think that the people who currently give to charity would not do so without religion?"
Had that of happened to people, maybe either of your view or mine could be validated. Until then, "I think" suffices in a hypothetical situation.
Er, what? Plenty of people live without religion every day. Est. 20% of the world in fact. Do you think that they do not give to charity?
What charitable people are you referring to? The theists or the atheists/agnostics?
If religion was not apart of anyone's lives, the former theists would probably give less without the encouragement of the bible, koran etc and the promise of a eternal afterlife whereas the atheists/agnostics would continue doing what they did since no change would be made to their lives.
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Er, what? Plenty of people live without religion every day. Est. 20% of the world in fact. Do you think that they do not give to charity?
When did anyone say that? I'm just saying that those people chose to not be religious (much like myself), good for them. But taking away religion from those who are religious (as per your question) and then asking whether they would do X, Y and Z is an incomparable scenario.
Show me one lick of research which shows that the irreligious give less to charity than the religious. Just the one. "I think" doesn't count.
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/20/study_less_religious_states_give_less_to_charity/
:)
Right, and I'm saying look at the irreligious. Do the irreligious give less charity? They're not spurred by their religion.
If they don't give less charity, why would you assume that religious people would act any differently if they were irreligious?
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Show me one lick of research which shows that the irreligious give less charity than the religious. Just the one. "I think" doesn't count.
No-one can give you that link because no-one has had religion pulled away from them as your scenario suggests:
"Do you think that the people who currently give to charity would not do so without religion?"
Had that of happened to people, maybe either of your view or mine could be validated. Until then, "I think" suffices in a hypothetical situation.
Er, what? Plenty of people live without religion every day. Est. 20% of the world in fact. Do you think that they do not give to charity?
What charitable people are you referring to? The theists or the atheists/agnostics?
If religion was not apart of anyone's lives, the former theists would probably give less without the encouragement of the bible, koran etc and the promise of a eternal afterlife whereas the atheists/agnostics would continue doing what they did since no change would be made to their lives.
These claims require proof... And a simple thought experiment. Do you think if they suddenly stopped believing in god that they'd stop caring that people are suffering?
Do you think it's a logical link? I don't
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Show me one lick of research which shows that the irreligious give less charity than the religious. Just the one. "I think" doesn't count.
No-one can give you that link because no-one has had religion pulled away from them as your scenario suggests:
"Do you think that the people who currently give to charity would not do so without religion?"
Had that of happened to people, maybe either of your view or mine could be validated. Until then, "I think" suffices in a hypothetical situation.
Er, what? Plenty of people live without religion every day. Est. 20% of the world in fact. Do you think that they do not give to charity?
What charitable people are you referring to? The theists or the atheists/agnostics?
If religion was not apart of anyone's lives, the former theists would probably give less without the encouragement of the bible, koran etc and the promise of a eternal afterlife whereas the atheists/agnostics would continue doing what they did since no change would be made to their lives.
These claims require proof... And a simple thought experiment. Do you think if they suddenly stopped believing in god that they'd stop caring that people are suffering?
Do you think it's a logical link? I don't
Okay you have to admit that your question was a bit vague, when, where, why, how, who?!?!?
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Imagine you believe in god. Now imagine you realise there is no evidence for this god and you stop believing in him. An advertisement comes on showing a starving child in Africa who needs food. Are you more or less inclined to help? Especially now that you know there's no heaven for him to go to, and no divine interference to save him. It's you and the rest of humanity to the rescue, or bust.
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These claims require proof... And a simple thought experiment. Do you think if they suddenly stopped believing in god that they'd stop caring that people are suffering?
Do you think it's a logical link? I don't
Yes, because it's so easy to throw away your culture and arguably part of your identity if you're passionate about it. Great experiment.
Imagine you believe in god. Now imagine you realise there is no evidence for this god and you stop believing in him.
I stopped reading after this because I can't imagine that happening.
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Imagine you believe in god. Now imagine you realise there is no evidence for this god and you stop believing in him. An advertisement comes on showing a starving child in Africa who needs food. Are you more or less inclined to help? Especially now that you know there's no heaven for him to go to, and no divine interference to save him. It's you and the rest of humanity to the rescue, or bust.
Firstly, religion and evidence/proof/factual thingamabobs etc do not connect at all. Whatever evidence you give there is always a loophole because God is a almighty dude that can do anything and is solely based on faith unless you are a fundamentalist piece of trash.
Secondly, the situation would differ from person to person so we can't assume anything =/
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Imagine you believe in god. Now imagine you realise there is no evidence for this god and you stop believing in him.
I stopped reading after this because I can't imagine that happening.
Actually...I know of a person who went through that exact thing Enwiabe described. Me.
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Show me one lick of research which shows that the irreligious give less to charity than the religious. Just the one. "I think" doesn't count.
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/20/study_less_religious_states_give_less_to_charity/
Its ridiculous when people think charity simply is giving out money. Some people who wanna donate money but they are very poor.
Does it mean they are stingy? People can still do charity by volunteering or helping others. Sometimes money can't solve the problems, but caring and affection do.
In the end of this article, it also mentions "Boston College professor Alan Wolfe said people in less religious states give in a different way by being more willing to pay higher taxes so the government can equitably distribute more to the poor." In this way, they indirectly do charity.
These claims require proof... And a simple thought experiment. Do you think if they suddenly stopped believing in god that they'd stop caring that people are suffering?
Do you think it's a logical link? I don't
Yes, because it's so easy to throw away your culture and arguably part of your identity if you're passionate about it. Great experiment.
No, you are the one who chooses to become who you want. If you are strong and solid enough, you won't easily throw away part of your identity and yourself.
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Imagine you believe in god. Now imagine you realise there is no evidence for this god and you stop believing in him.
I stopped reading after this because I can't imagine that happening.
Actually...I know of a person who went through that exact thing Enwiabe described. Me.
Similar to me in fact (although I haven't fully rejected the concept of God yet). :) But would you agree that most people would be unable to do this though?
Especially those who depend on religion for hope and welfare? Those who are poor, ill and/or desperate?
And furthermore, just because I don't believe in God, I don't see that as my right to ensure that no-one else does, especially those living peaceful and meaningful lives. Just like it's also wrong to (as enwiabe was insinuating in his first post) that religion has a direct effect on "evil", to do so without taking into account any confounding factors would be commit some sort of "cum hoc ergo propter hoc" logical fallacy.
These claims require proof... And a simple thought experiment. Do you think if they suddenly stopped believing in god that they'd stop caring that people are suffering?
Do you think it's a logical link? I don't
Yes, because it's so easy to throw away your culture and arguably part of your identity if you're passionate about it. Great experiment.
No, you are the one who chooses to become who you want. If you are strong and solid enough, you won't easily throw away part of your identity and yourself.
My "Yes, ..." was a sarcastic "Yes" :P I don't agree with enwiabe's thought experiment at all in fact. As aforementioned, I'd be very surprised if most people who are passionate about their beliefs could easily dismiss them and move on.
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Secondly, the situation would differ from person to person so we can't assume anything =/
You can make a fair assumption that for most people, sympathy feels are visceral. Or at least, they don't need some dude to instruct them on how to feel bad when they witness suffering.
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Imagine you believe in god. Now imagine you realise there is no evidence for this god and you stop believing in him.
I stopped reading after this because I can't imagine that happening.
Actually...I know of a person who went through that exact thing Enwiabe described. Me.
We went through this on the train... And I am sure we came to an agreement about God, whatever it may be, in which he/she/it is mutually exclusive to religion.
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Again, I'm talking a theistic god. A god to whom you pray and seek favours and ask forgiveness.
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Secondly, the situation would differ from person to person so we can't assume anything =/
You can make a fair assumption that for most people, sympathy feels are visceral. Or at least, they don't need some dude to instruct them on how to feel bad when they witness suffering.
Are we talking about if religion didn't exist period, or if it just disappeared some time in our current world?
If you take away an incentive I can guarantee that at least a couple of people will try less. I'm going to out on a limb here and say most people that watch t.v and see an ad about famine they might shed a few tears but not do anything whereas there are certain promised rewards as mentioned in holy text when giving to the needy.
Also in the case of theists all suddenly losing their faith I would think charity is the last thing they would be worrying about when they learn that their lifes have been based on lies.
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Imagine you believe in god. Now imagine you realise there is no evidence for this god and you stop believing in him.
I stopped reading after this because I can't imagine that happening.
Actually...I know of a person who went through that exact thing Enwiabe described. Me.
And me.
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Dan I think your logic is sound based on the assumption that religious people are giving to charity because it is morally righteous to do so and not on the assumption because God said so. There are certainly people that would donate irrespective of their religion. I think it's fair to say however that donations to good charities (not churches) would drop with the sudden absence of religion because of people that are donating to please God or look 'Christian'. There's a person I'm thinking of - abuses his children, justifies homophobia with the Bible, thinks Asylum Seekers 'should fuck off back to where they came from' etc etc. However he does donate to charity because he's such a 'Christian' man. It's these people that would cause a reduction in religion's absence.
And to address pi - enviable isn't ensuring people don't believe in God. He challenges the beliefs, which may offer stimulul to provoke thought in someone religious by default of parents etc. Such people can then educate themselves to a greater degree where their religion is concerned and confront said challenges or acknowledge and/or accept them and disregard their belief. If he had the ability to remove someone's religion then he certainly wouldn't have the right to do so, however he certainly has the right to voice his challenges which may result in religiousl change. I think it's an important distinction to make.
Moderator action: removed real name, sorry for the inconvenience
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Sorry, coming in late...
"Important things don't warrant impoliteness."
a) The point I was making was that it's not a matter of politeness or impoliteness. Regardless of how you phrase it, people are going to take offense.
b) Factually incorrect. Is it important to subdue and arrest an armed robber? Is it polite to deck them and put them in handcuffs? Would you call any retaliatory action in war polite? These are just two important things where politeness is not "warranted", or more accurately, not a meaningful descriptor of the required action.
a) I disagree with you - sure, some people might take offence no matter how it's phrased. I happen to not be one of those people. Already, I have enjoyed reading this thread much more than previous religion threads, because no ones been criticizing each other. In short, since it matters to some, we may as well be polite anyway for their sake.
b) there's a key difference between that scenario and the one on AN. If you ask an armed robber to kindly drop his weapons and turn himself in, you're not going to be very successful. So the force is necessary. Here, it is neither necessary, nor productive to use force like that. It's certainly not "required action"
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Below (for those who don't want to read, it isn't essential but i encourage you to) is just a little background of why i'm joining in, even though i think things of this nature shouldn't happen on this forum and background to my beliefs and why i'm arguing what i do. I also most likely won't respond to anything here to stop it becoming circular. I'm writing this not necessarily for the people i'm debating below (you can see this in how i write) but with a much larger focus on everyone else that will see this and read my particular arguments. I think i'll do my best to make my case, do it well and do it once in regards to these particular points.
I highly dislike the circle-jerk these threads degrade into and i wish we could do it in the style of an actual proper debate with many more rules. I think this would reduce a lot of the complaints and gripes people have. I don't think its a good idea to have these discussions, on this particular forum (other more suitable venues are available), considering their history of degrading into something very circular and attacking. I also realise that by posting, i'm participating in the thing i do not think should exist and i'm prolonging its survival. These things would be OK if they didn't degrade as they often did. I hope in light of a recent outpouring of various views on how these things are conducted, views across the board might of changed. I also believe a few of the statements below are wrong. I'm sure we're all deeply interested in the truth and i think a few of them are worth rectifying.
Just a little background position as well, perhaps. I am indeed an atheist. It seems like many social movements or indeed, religious movements, atheism as a movement has a spectrum of people in it, with a spectrum views. In light of more recent movements, i don't think its clear enough to just claim to be an atheist. I identify as what i would term an "old school" atheist or philosophical atheist. I have (what i consider) to be good philosophical grounds for not believing in the religions i've considered and in particular, the religions predominant in the western world. I'm no supporter of God, indeed, you'll find on my blog, i've presented and formulated many of the common arguments against the existence of a God. Being deeply interested in philosophy of religion, i also realise, there are many plausible arguments in favour of God. Indeed, if the question of existence of God was so conclusively proven, we wouldn't be asking it anymore. There is no widely considered dynamite proof for or against a God, that would convince all rational average people, on either side, to change their mind. Likewise, i also realise, there are many people, infinitely more intelligent and educated than me, who have looked at the question of God and reached a very different conclusion. There is something to this. There are philosophers of religion who have seen the same arguments i have seen, that disprove a God for me and remain unconvinced. There are many extremely intelligent theologians and scientists who are believers. It's not just uneducated villagers believing there is a God in the moon.
I mentioned what kind of atheist i was because there are other people in the movement, the so called "new atheists". To quote wikipedia (yeah i know blah blah but at least its sufficiently neutral ground): "New Atheism is the name given to the ideas promoted by a collection of 21st-century atheist writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises." This is in contrast to the old school (or atheism 3.0) who just hold God does not exist for philosophical reasons, there is no particular interest in seeing religion exterminated. Whilst i think religion has brought some bad things (humans would of done at least some of those bad things to each-other anyway, if we look at relatively irreligious and atheistic places like China, bad things still happen, this is despite harsh government and law enforcement as well), it is not wholly bad, it has brought some good and it encourages some good. This is where i disagree with the so called "new" atheist movement. Applying the idea of the horse-shoe theory, i think there is much more philosophically in common between the two more extreme positions (namely militant atheism/new atheism and militant religious discourse) than there is between the large proportion of religious moderates and atheists who are not "new" atheists. Hopefully, this might illustrate just one of the reasons i'm much more opposed to any movement of the extreme.
That we would not give to charity?
Show me one lick of research which shows that the irreligious give less to charity than the religious. Just the one. "I think" doesn't count.
The problem with those studies, and they have been debunked numerous times (although not that one specifically) is that they factor in ALL charitable donations. They include the donations to churches which have the express purpose of disseminating the religion and only religion.
When you reduce it down to ONLY charities that help people in need (i.e. food, water, clothing, sickness etc.) the charity levels equate to roughly the same....
Certainly not but if the religious don't give significantly less to charity than an atheist, in relation to charity, where is the harm in being religious?
It certainly seems to help, many verses of the bible implore charity. One of the very basics of Islam is giving to needy and poor (zakat). If anything, it's apparent religion encourage charity (putting aside all other criticisms of religion, this seems to be true).
This seems good enough on its own to say charity certainly isn't harmed by religion. Indeed, it seems theoretically, religion should encourage people to give, in theory. Does it play out in reality though? Thats the crucial thing. Lets see below.
For the benefit of those not yet in uni or otherwise not in the know, i'll briefly mention somethings. A primary article is a piece of research published when the author does the research first hand. Easy enough to understand. In a review article, the authors do no original experiments themselves. What they do is look through all the primary articles and see if they notice a trend or a pattern amongst all the different experiments/research outputs. So, it gives a good indication of what the current evidence in a field supports.
A recent review study found the following:
"Religion has received ample attention in philanthropic studies (Hodgkinson & Weitzman 1996). There is a rich literature in the sociology of religion on the relationship between religious involvement and giving (e.g., Wuthnow (1991); the December 1994 volume of the Review of Religious Research). Positive relations of church membership and/or the frequency of church attendance with both secular and religious philanthropy appear in almost any article in which this relation was studied (Bekkers 2003, Bekkers & Schuyt 2005, Bennett & Kottasz 2000, Bielefeld et al 2005, Brooks 2003b, Brooks 2004, Brown & Ferris 2007, Bryant et al 2003, Chang 2005a, Chaves 2002, Davidson & Pyle 1994, Eckel & Grossman 2003, Eschholz & Van Slyke 2002, Feldman 2007, Forbes & Zampelli 1997, Hoge & Yang 1994, Hunter et al 1999, Jackson et al 1995, Lee & Farrell 2003, Lunn et al 2001, Lyons & Nivison-Smith 2006, Lyons & Passey 2005, Olson & Caddell 1994, Park & Park 2004, Reed & Selbee 2001, Reed & Selbee 2002, Regnerus et al 1998, Schiff 1990, Schlegelmilch et al 1997a, Sokolowski 1996, Sullivan 1985, Tiehen 2001, Van Slyke &
Brooks 2005, Zaleski & Zech 1992, Zaleski & Zech 1994)."
So, certainly, i agree, we don't need religion for people to be charitable but it certainly doesn't hurt and the study above shows that it is indeed correlated with giving.
In fact, it can be appropriately argued that we would be far further along, because of Christianity's contribution to impeding any substantial scientific development for 1400 hundred years.
I believe you are referring to the so called dark ages, which is largely a historical myth.
I believe the contrary is true, religious institutions actually played a crucial role in maintaining knowledge and science in western civilization.
The dark ages were spurred on by the collapse of the Roman Empire (we could all see this coming). In the violent and chaotic times that followed, the church the most likely and competent body to restore order and some degree of normality in the former roman lands. At the time, a lot of knowledge in the west was derived from other places. Many of these sources were lost in the upheaval of the collapse but thankfully, a portion survived in the monasteries and cathedrals of Europe. They didn't only act to preserve the knowledge but to continue it's existence and propagate it. In a society were very few average people were literate, monks and the church could have been seen as the guardians of knowledge in this time. Indeed, many of the earliest universities were established in concert with the religious authorities. Charlemagne established schools in most of the monasteries and cathedrals in Europe where students could study the quadrivium - arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, music, grammar, logic and rhetoric. Indeed, Monastery schools were pretty much the only institution for formal education that existed in the early middle ages.
Indeed, by far largest financial backers of education and science in these times was the church.
It's another myth that people around this time believed the earth was at the center of the solar system. Most of educated society and even the public believed to the contrary. Indeed, Galileo wasn't just prosecuted for saying the earth was the center but for political reasons (he published some pieces critical of the pope) and even personal reasons (hey a pope can be a dick too sometimes). To say this happened systematically and the result of the church as a whole though is simply false.
We have many great believers who contributed significantly to our scientific knowledge - Newton, Pascal, Galileo (he was a believer himself), Descarte, Kepler, Faraday, Mendel, Kelvin and Planck. I am not saying that for some mystical reason, had they not been religious, they would of failed at science. That is silly. However, they are proof that their religious beliefs didn't hold back science (indeed, newton seemed to be more prolific writing about religious causes rather than scientific causes).
A bit more on the role of the church can be read in this article on the Nature website by Jame Hannan who holds PhD in the history and philosophy of science from Cambridge. Nature is a prestigious journal, again, be careful, it isn't published in the actual journal (bit hard as an opinion piece) but it shows they certainly think this man is worth his salt to write about these things and he obviously has the cred. I know it might sound a bit boring but considering the above, i think its a good read - http://blogs.nature.com/soapboxscience/2011/05/18/science-owes-much-to-both-christianity-and-the-middle-ages .
As a very quick shot of learning, you can read a little bit more about the historical myth surrounding the dark-ages on wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org wiki/Dark_Ages_%28historiography%29#Rational_thought_and_the_study_of_nature).
Religion also flourished in a different context, under Islam in its "golden age" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_golden_age#Islamic_Golden_Age . Development of an early scientific method occurred and significant progress in things like optics and medicine were also achieved.
I am not saying religion has never, ever got in the way of science. Nor am i saying that it may or may not do that today. I responding to the claim that Christianity significantly retarded scientific progress, that it played not an uncaring or neutral role but a decidedly negative and dark one instead. As i've shown above, its considered this view of events isn't true. Religion provided a significant motivation for literacy in a time where people couldn't see much else use for it. Religion inspired people to try understand the world God created but nature also does that too. I'm not saying these things would of happened without the church or if religion didn't exist either. That wasn't the claim though, the claim was that Christianity held back science wholesale. We don't live in an alternative history, we only have one history. As it seems above, the church did not hold back science to the degree claimed and in-fact bankrolled and helped it.
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Imagine you believe in god. Now imagine you realise there is no evidence for this god and you stop believing in him.
I stopped reading after this because I can't imagine that happening.
Actually...I know of a person who went through that exact thing Enwiabe described. Me.
And me.
But could many people just suddenly lose faith in God and religion? Surely the decisions you and dilmah made were not as simple as turning a switch on or off, and I'd imagine that those in the same boat as you didn't just suddenly make the decision either.
That is why the thought experiment isn't at all viable imo, and it isn't getting us anywhere.
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woosh
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Lemme try and remember.
With all due respect to religion, this is what happened:
I was about...10 or 11 years old. Very impressionable. And the Jehovah's Witnesses kept talking to me since I was 8 on the front door. One day, whilst reading the Mormon Bible, I came across something really scary - something to the effect that you should cut yourself and draw blood if you want God's forgiveness. I was like wtf and told my sister.
She was like to me - "religion is bullshit, do you have any proof god exists? does god answer all your prayers?" etc. Then I thought to myself "Hold on...yeah...religion is bullshit."
And I was an instant atheist.
That was my thought process - I say this with all due respect to religion.
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But could many people just suddenly lose faith in God and religion? Surely the decisions you and dilmah made were not as simple as turning a switch on or off, and I'd imagine that those in the same boat as you didn't just suddenly make the decision either.
That is why the thought experiment isn't at all viable imo, and it isn't getting us anywhere.
Why does it have to be a sudden loss of faith? For me, yes, it was a (subconsciously) gradual process, although I do remember a point at which I went "fuck this, it's all bullshit and I'm wasting my time".
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Why does it have to be a sudden loss of faith?
Well for two reasons:
1) The statement: "Imagine you believe in god. Now imagine you realise there is no evidence for this god and you stop believing in him." infers a sudden loss of faith, and that's the basis of the last few posts
2) The fact that many people would have to "think" about the issue, some for weeks and even months, shows that religion can't inherently be "evil", because if that was the case, once someone thought something like "fuck this, it's all bullshit and I'm wasting my time", that would be it and there would be no need to think of it again. But because people do take their time to make the decision, it does show that there is more to religion than just the adverse effects in enwiabe's first post. And that's the point I'm trying to make here, that religion has it's positive effects too and they should not be ignored (again, as per enwiabe's first post).
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1) No it doesn't, it's perfectly possible to compare my charitable activities while I was (fanatically) religious to my charitable activities now that I am atheist (which I think is what you guys were arguing before, I only skimmed it). Why is that invalidated merely by reason of the fact that my loss of faith did not happen instantaneously?
2) I don't understand your argument.
I know intuitively that murder is bad, but I still need to think about it at length to be able to really justify why it is bad.
I cannot speak for any other "deconverts", but it took me so long because Christianity was such an essential part of who I was that it was impossible for me to just drop at will. It had nothing to do with my perception of how "good" religion was.
Once I made the decision to drop it, it was because I realised that religion had done absolutely nothing for me. All I got out of it was 30 mins every. single. night. wasted praying to an entity that didn't even bother to reply to me, and the years of shitty things happening and my being miserable because I figured it had to be because I was a horrible person and god hated me. No child should ever be subjected to that.
I do not dispute that religion may have had positive effects on other people, but when all its aspects are taken together, the sum points to negative.
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1) Again, enwiabe's post did infer a somewhat sudden loss of faith. But I suppose I'm just nit-picking here as you say. There are plenty of links to show that those of religious faith donate more than athiests. In addition to the one posted previously, http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/12-faithspirituality/102-atheists-and-agnostics-take-aim-at-christians
"The typical no-faith American donated just $200 in 2006, which is more than seven times less than the amount contributed by the prototypical active-faith adult ($1500). Even when church-based giving is subtracted from the equation, active-faith adults donated twice as many dollars last year as did atheists and agnostics. In fact, while just 7% of active-faith adults failed to contribute any personal funds in 2006, that compares with 22% among the no-faith adults."
It would be interesting to see how many of those atheists were those that were previously religious.
Here is another take, based on an experiment:
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/faithbased/2008/11/does_religion_make_you_nice.html
"In a review published in Science last month, psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff discuss several experiments that lean pro-Schlessinger. In one of their own studies, they primed half the participants with a spirituality-themed word jumble (including the words divine and God) and gave the other half the same task with nonspiritual words. Then, they gave all the participants $10 each and told them that they could either keep it or share their cash reward with another (anonymous) subject. Ultimately, the spiritual-jumble group parted with more than twice as much money as the control. Norenzayan and Shariff suggest that this lopsided outcome is the result of an evolutionary imperative to care about one's reputation. If you think about God, you believe someone is watching."
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"In Gross National Happiness, Arthur Brooks notes that atheists are less charitable than their God-fearing counterparts: They donate less blood, for example, and are less likely to offer change to homeless people on the street. Since giving to charity makes one happy, Brooks speculates that this could be one reason why atheists are so miserable. In a 2004 study, twice as many religious people say that they are very happy with their lives, while the secular are twice as likely to say that they feel like failures."
Of course it would be ignorant of me to suggest that God is needed to make charitable donations, but it would also be somewhat ignorant (in accordance to the above) to believe that is doesn't play a positive role.
2) I can't refute your personal experience, but I do believe that some people would consider the "good" religion has done for them (whether that be for relationships, for a sense of community, for charity, etc.) before they make the decision. It's probably very individualistic, and it seems I've made a bit of a generalisation over my previous posts in this regard.
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kingpomba, I could go through all that textual vomit and refute point by point.
But it appears your overarching point is thematic and I can simply get rid of it in a short couple of paragraphs.
You claim that the church was the largest funder of Science and advancement, and was in fact the only institution to begin founding universities. This statement is partially true, I would not deny that, but it belies a more insidious insight that you failed to address, even though I suspect you knew of it. You simply didn't want to damage your argument.
Your statement is only true because anybody doing any such learning or study without church permission was burnt at the stake for heresy. If you opened up a learning institution without the permission of the church, you were pretty much fucked.
So to say that the catholic church was the biggest proponent of science is so absurdly misleaing it verges on disgusting duplicity. In fact, the catholic church was the ONLY body allowed to fund universities and such learning. It could -and- did kill off anything it perceived as heresy, and that is why we lay in squalor for 1500 years.
When the roman empire fell we had roads and aqueducts. It took 1500 years for us to progress.
1500 years of stagnation, and you want to claim that the most powerful body ruling Europe at the time had nothing to do with it? And that we should even be THANKFUL to them? You're laughing. Surely you're having a laugh.
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pi, I feel like the discussion has now progressed to a point where I can bring in the following.
I'll happily cede that religion does cause more charitable donation of money. I don't believe on balance that charity in general is increased, because when you consider the actions of secular charities like Engineers Without Borders and Doctors Without Borders, much of the greatest charity you can give is your time - and that is not easily measured in any study.
That point, however, is tangential.
Given that the difference is, at most, 50% according to one of the studies you linked. Is a few extra dollars in charitable donations worth the damage that religion causes?
If I were to break your arm, and then pay for your hospital bill for you to recover and also the hospital bill of the next person over, would you claim that I had done a good service to humanity?
Religion has gone about breaking the arms of many and then purported to fix it by paying their hospital bills, and throwing in a tip to the rest of the community "for their trouble".
The catholic church delivered food and water to Africa. But not before drastically contributing to the AIDS epidemic by banning condoms.
They give a bit of "hope" to some emotionally desperate people, sure, but not before blackmailing them into following their way of life exactly or they go to hell. Not before making countless homosexual christian teenagers feel like their natural urges will send them to burn in hellfire for all eternity.
Religion cannot resist breaking people's arms. It's the very nature of the stuff. It's about controlling the masses, and it always has been. You must live by our way of life or fuck you, you're going to hell. It's in almost all the major religions. I say this is dangerous, and a few dollars in charity does not make up for it.
Moderator action: removed real name, sorry for the inconvenience
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The catholic church delivered food and water to Africa. But not before drastically contributing to the AIDS epidemic by banning condoms
I am not arguing or anything, but do you have any reputable journals or information or news that corresponds to that statement? I'd like to know how much is 'drastically' contributing.
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The catholic church delivered food and water to Africa. But not before drastically contributing to the AIDS epidemic by banning condoms
I am not arguing or anything, but do you have any reputable journals or information or news that corresponds to that statement? I'd like to know how much is 'drastically' contributing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_AIDS
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Want to make a meme out of this:
ASKED FOR REPUTABLE SOURCE
COMES UP WITH WIKIPEDIA
(ok all jokes aside, the statement makes sense, its just a matter of giving hard evidence)
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Religion has gone about breaking the arms of many and then purported to fix it by paying their hospital bills, and throwing in a tip to the rest of the community "for their trouble".
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Religion cannot resist breaking people's arms. It's the very nature of the stuff. It's about controlling the masses, and it always has been. You must live by our way of life or fuck you, you're going to hell. It's in almost all the major religions. I say this is dangerous, and a few dollars in charity does not make up for it.
Could you give some examples of this "arm breaking" that is solely the cause of religion?
And note that the topic of discussion is religion as a whole, not nit-picking somewhat controversial examples from Catholicism or Islam or any other religion, a holistic adverse effect from religion that classifies as "arm breaking"? (only asking because I have given some somewhat intuitive holistic benefits of religion in my posts)
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I mentioned what kind of atheist i was because there are other people in the movement, the so called "new atheists". To quote wikipedia (yeah i know blah blah but at least its sufficiently neutral ground): "New Atheism is the name given to the ideas promoted by a collection of 21st-century atheist writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises." This is in contrast to the old school (or atheism 3.0) who just hold God does not exist for philosophical reasons, there is no particular interest in seeing religion exterminated. Whilst i think religion has brought some bad things (humans would of done at least some of those bad things to each-other anyway, if we look at relatively irreligious and atheistic places like China, bad things still happen, this is despite harsh government and law enforcement as well), it is not wholly bad, it has brought some good and it encourages some good. This is where i disagree with the so called "new" atheist movement. Applying the idea of the horse-shoe theory, i think there is much more philosophically in common between the two more extreme positions (namely militant atheism/new atheism and militant religious discourse) than there is between the large proportion of religious moderates and atheists who are not "new" atheists. Hopefully, this might illustrate just one of the reasons i'm much more opposed to any movement of the extreme.[/size]
Just quickly, every time you bring up the "new atheists" crap, I can only think of this:
http://xkcd.com/774/
It's just such a useless contribution.
The reason why there is a "new atheist" movement is because it had never been globalised like it has now. Christianity has been globalised for hundreds of years. It used to be in the "old atheism" that it was the exclusive domain of academics (philosophers, scientists etc.) because for the laypeople, rejecting god often meant rejecting their entire community. It simply wasn't feasible in any way.
Now that we have the internet and a rapidly growing number of atheists, those of us who recognise it, see humanity heading for a very big step in our cultural evolution.
What part of "the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises."" sounds like a bad idea to you?
Honestly, what would be so bad about getting more people to think critically about their beliefs? Do you not see that this would cause a lot of injustice to stop? People would have to justify their actions not based on "my god said so" but whether it will have a positive or negative impact on other people.
I'm happy to be a part of the new atheist movement because it's about so much more than "railing against religion" it's about increasing the consciousness of humanity.
I think we have much to gain from a more enlightened society, and for me, this is about contributing to it.
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Religion has gone about breaking the arms of many and then purported to fix it by paying their hospital bills, and throwing in a tip to the rest of the community "for their trouble".
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Religion cannot resist breaking people's arms. It's the very nature of the stuff. It's about controlling the masses, and it always has been. You must live by our way of life or fuck you, you're going to hell. It's in almost all the major religions. I say this is dangerous, and a few dollars in charity does not make up for it.
Could you give some examples of this "arm breaking" that is solely the cause of religion?
And note that the topic of discussion is religion as a whole, not nit-picking somewhat controversial examples from Catholicism or Islam or any other religion, a holistic adverse effect from religion that classifies as "arm breaking"? (only asking because I have given some somewhat intuitive holistic benefits of religion in my posts)
Islam and Christianity account for half the world's population, so I think I can use that to generalise the effects of religion given that they affect nearly every single person on the planet.
Examples of arm-breaking are what I wrote in my previous post:
No condoms in Africa? Because god said so. Enjoy your AIDS epidemic.
No gay marriage? Because god said so.
Stone the gays? Because god said so.
Bully the gays out of their sexual orientation, causing them to suffer all sorts of mental difficulty? Because god said so.
No justice for child rape victims? Because god said so.
Women can't choose what they wear? Because god said so.
Children should feel petrified for setting a foot wrong or they're going to hell? Because god said so.
Kill the apostates? Because god said so.
Stone people for committing adultery? Because god said so.
This is the sort of arm-breaking fostered by religion.
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He is right though, the term "Dark Ages" is a misnomer as the regression only occurred in the Western Empire. Things were pretty good in the East due to protection from the Byzantine Empire.
I also dispute the claim that the Church had much to do with the Fall of the Roman Empire or anything immediately after. Although Constantine was officially Christian, it was really only done to appease the Christian public and using the Church as a political tool. Keep in mind that if he were Christian at the time, which was still ideologically pure, he wouldn't be killing so much. The church wasn't able to do much but (voluntarily) subject themselves to the emperor. It was a strong force, but nowhere enough to have that much of a significant bearing
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He is right though, the term "Dark Ages" is a misnomer as the regression only occurred in the Western Empire. Things were pretty good in the East due to protection from the Byzantine Empire.
I also dispute the claim that the Church had much to do with the Fall of the Roman Empire or anything immediately after. Although Constantine was officially Christian, it was really only done to appease the Christian public and using the Church as a political tool. Keep in mind that if he were Christian at the time, which was still ideologically pure, he wouldn't be killing so much. The church wasn't able to do much but (voluntarily) subject themselves to the emperor. It was a strong force, but nowhere enough to have that much of a significant bearing
Explain why it took us 1500 years to advance if an oppressive force were not keeping us from developing. Did humanity all of a sudden lose its curiosity and desire to innovate and discover?
To say the church wasn't that powerful is a joke. They burnt whoever they wanted at the stake for whatever reason they chose.
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Honestly, what would be so bad about getting more people to think critically about their beliefs? Do you not see that this would cause a lot of injustice to stop? People would have to justify their actions not based on "my god said so" but whether it will have a positive or negative impact on other people.
I think we have much to gain from a more enlightened society, and for me, this is about contributing to it.
Just want to say that many people have thought critically about their religions, and as a result, have appreciated them even more. I know you didn't say that all religious people don't think critically, I just wanted to point that out.
Also, I entirely disagree with the notion that removal from a religion is synonymous with enlightenment.
Ps, any response to my earlier post?
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Islam and Christianity account for half the world's population, so I think I can use that to generalise the effects of religion given that they affect nearly every single person on the planet.
If you're stance against religion is only broad enough to cover half (or just more than half) the "issue", then it isn't an overly convincing one. If there is a problem with "religion" it should be for all religions, not the ones where you can easily dot-point a few issues with. And some of the issues should be somewhat universally "evil" among all of them.
And in many of those issues, you've only looked at half the problem.
For example, the first on the list: "No condoms in Africa? Because god said so. Enjoy your AIDS epidemic."
So, you're saying that without "the Church" (not religion) this wouldn't be an issue. So we'll play hypotheticals, but surely without the Church preaching against (and I personally do NOT agree with this decision by the Church) homosexuality, AIDS would have had an even more rapid spread initially? In fact, one can argue that the Church has prevented widespread spread of AIDS in much of the world in it's initial stages.
edit: I haven't provided any research in this (but who can in such hypotheticals? I mean you can argue for days about the "what ifs" regarding the non-existence of the Church...), but to take an example, I believe there would be more people like this if it wasn't for the Church http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABtan_Dugas. Note that this is ONLY in reference to the INITIAL spread, which was nearly all homosexual.
Half the issue f the spread now (which you mentioned), the other half is why it spread in the first place. And in all honesty, the spread in the first place might have been a lot worse had the Church not have intervened (again, I'm not against homosexuality).
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Sorry, coming in late...
"Important things don't warrant impoliteness."
a) The point I was making was that it's not a matter of politeness or impoliteness. Regardless of how you phrase it, people are going to take offense.
b) Factually incorrect. Is it important to subdue and arrest an armed robber? Is it polite to deck them and put them in handcuffs? Would you call any retaliatory action in war polite? These are just two important things where politeness is not "warranted", or more accurately, not a meaningful descriptor of the required action.
a) I disagree with you - sure, some people might take offence no matter how it's phrased. I happen to not be one of those people. Already, I have enjoyed reading this thread much more than previous religion threads, because no ones been criticizing each other. In short, since it matters to some, we may as well be polite anyway for their sake.
b) there's a key difference between that scenario and the one on AN. If you ask an armed robber to kindly drop his weapons and turn himself in, you're not going to be very successful. So the force is necessary. Here, it is neither necessary, nor productive to use force like that. It's certainly not "required action"
I haven't been firm with anyone until kp's post because he was being disingenuous.
If you ask an armed robber to kindly drop his weapons and turn himself in, you're not going to be very successful
And I would say that "kindly" asking somebody to consider that everything they have learnt in their life for all time is wrong is also ineffective.
There is no need to be anything but abrupt in firmly saying "No, this is wrong". It's not polite or impolite. It's not the difference between "Excuse me sir, but I do believe that you are suffering from a mental delusion." or "You are deluded."
It's very simply about saying that your beliefs do not square with the facts and not only are they wrong, they are quite patently dangerous.
I also want to address some of the frankly ludicrous points you brought up in the previous thread.
im actually super super happy with this - valid points, without aggressive personal attacks.
We've been over this. I didn't attack you, or anyone else personally. I attacked your beliefs. You TOOK it personally, but that is entirely on you. Stop claiming I attacked you personally. You are lying.
yes, people have innate morality, and no, scripture cant come out and set everyone straight.
Then why call it a holy guide book to live by? Surely if it's the divine word of god, it shouldn't be so challenging to follow it and live a good, moral life...
of course religion is supernatural - if you accept that some almighty god exists, then of course its going to be supernatural. does that make it false? no.
It makes it completely unverifiable. And, yes, when it starts making claims that are clearly false it too is demonstrated to be false. Stone the gays. What moral edict is that? Instructions on how to keep slaves? Instructions on how to kill heretics. This is not a benevolent, all-loving god. This is a capriciously malevolent bully (to quote DickDawk).
why do people interpret things differently? i think many interpretations are simply wrong. with abortion:
Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 1corinthians 3:16.
from a purely christian perspective, abortion is wrong. i dont think its possible to argue the opposite, and i find this to be true in many other moral cases.
Except that holding up a book and saying "SEE! IT SAYS IT HERE!" doesn't cut it. I have a napkin which says that I'm the son of god. Who are you to say that's wrong? It's a supernatural claim, so obviously it can't be wrong... Now bow to me.
so now, i will tell you what i told you before. religion should not be judged by what its followers do.
So, now I will tell you what I told you before. Given that there is not a lick of credible evidence that god exists, it has EVERYTHING to do with its effects on its followers. And your religion has a lot to answer for. Just think of all the atheists that burned alive in the last 2000 years because of your religion. You should feel ashamed.
all the stoning and killing and murder is in the old testament - which is no longer applicable and exists to show the contrast between before salvation and after. that is universally understood, which is why no sane person would stone anybody else in the name of christianity.
Why did the catholic church burn heretics?
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Explain why it took us 1500 years to advance if an oppressive force were not keeping us from developing. Did humanity all of a sudden lose its curiosity and desire to innovate and discover?
To say the church wasn't that powerful is a joke. They burnt whoever they wanted at the stake for whatever reason they chose.
When the Roman Empire fell, no one really had the city blueprints anymore and the Germanic tribes weren't that down with maintaining aqueducts. I'm not saying that they weren't powerful, probably only second to the emperor, but they couldn't possibly have been the primary source of Roman decline.
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So, you're saying that without "the Church" (not religion) this wouldn't be an issue. So we'll play hypotheticals, but surely without the Church preaching against (and I personally do NOT agree with this decision by the Church) homosexuality, AIDS would have had an even more rapid spread initially? In fact, one can argue that the Church has prevented widespread spread of AIDS in much of the world in it's initial stages.
Half the issue f the spread now (which you mentioned), the other half is why it spread in the first place. And in all honesty, the spread in the first place might have been a lot worse had the Church not have intervened (again, I'm not against homosexuality).
By that logic, all the nations where homosexuality is accepted / not reviled (such as Australia) should have a high rate of AIDS infections. Which is obviously not true
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Islam and Christianity account for half the world's population, so I think I can use that to generalise the effects of religion given that they affect nearly every single person on the planet.
If you're stance against religion is only broad enough to cover half (or just more than half) the "issue", then it isn't an overly convincing one. If there is a problem with "religion" it should be for all religions, not the ones where you can easily dot-point a few issues with. And some of the issues should be somewhat universally "evil" among all of them.
And in many of those issues, you've only looked at half the problem.
For example, the first on the list: "No condoms in Africa? Because god said so. Enjoy your AIDS epidemic."
So, you're saying that without "the Church" (not religion) this wouldn't be an issue. So we'll play hypotheticals, but surely without the Church preaching against (and I personally do NOT agree with this decision by the Church) homosexuality, AIDS would have had an even more rapid spread initially? In fact, one can argue that the Church has prevented widespread spread of AIDS in much of the world in it's initial stages.
Half the issue f the spread now (which you mentioned), the other half is why it spread in the first place. And in all honesty, the spread in the first place might have been a lot worse had the Church not have intervened (again, I'm not against homosexuality).
What? Religions manifest in PEOPLE. I'm concerned with how people react. So yes, considering 3.5 billion people is more than enough fuel for the argument.
I've already established that religion makes people unaccountable to their peers. That is a thematic argument that you wanted. I already made it.
Once you are unaccountable to your peers, you can wrong them in whatever way you think your god wants you to do so. My rationalist advocacy is about setting the bar higher and saying that it is not enough to hold up a holy book and say "because god said so". You must justify it based on humanist principles.
It then follows that religion is unsustainable in this model, because it stifles critical appraisal. That is not the way forward for an advanced society.
Finally, your point about AIDS is... I have no words. I just don't. You 1) do not understand how AIDS came to be and 2) have no idea about the effects social stigma on homosexual sex caused people to have anonymous and unsafe sex.
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Lemme try and remember.
With all due respect to religion, this is what happened:
I was about...10 or 11 years old. Very impressionable. And the Jehovah's Witnesses kept talking to me since I was 8 on the front door. One day, whilst reading the Mormon Bible, I came across something really scary - something to the effect that you should cut yourself and draw blood if you want God's forgiveness. I was like wtf and told my sister.
She was like to me - "religion is bullshit, do you have any proof god exists? does god answer all your prayers?" etc. Then I thought to myself "Hold on...yeah...religion is bullshit."
And I was an instant atheist.
That was my thought process - I say this with all due respect to religion.
You should commit to further inquiry on religion, because to be honest with you, an experience that you had when you were 10 shouldn't still be a driving force to your atheism (if it is)
What I don't understand in this whole god debate, is why do people make the assumption that you only have a choice between religion and atheism, because clearly you can be a deist or a theist without believing in religion (the scriptures, rituals, and traditions)
enwiable, what are your thoughts on a deistic god - a god who created the universe but let it go to its own course - a god who hasn't revealed himself to a bunch of desert nomads - a god who does not care about human affairs?
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Explain why it took us 1500 years to advance if an oppressive force were not keeping us from developing. Did humanity all of a sudden lose its curiosity and desire to innovate and discover?
To say the church wasn't that powerful is a joke. They burnt whoever they wanted at the stake for whatever reason they chose.
When the Roman Empire fell, no one really had the city blueprints anymore and the Germanic tribes weren't that down with maintaining aqueducts. I'm not saying that they weren't powerful, probably only second to the emperor, but they couldn't possibly have been the primary source of Roman decline.
So the Roman Empire infrastructure decayed. Why did it take us 1500 years to regain that level of technology? Think for a second, here. The catholic church was the only constant. Emperors were born and then died off. The power of the catholic church that burnt heretics made people fear to pursue what most believed to be "dark arts". The physical sciences to most people was magic, and you got burned for practising magic. So only the people sanctioned by the church were allowed to do so. That stifling of progress is what caused us to be set back 1500 years.
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By that logic, all the nations where homosexuality is accepted / not reviled (such as Australia) should have a high rate of AIDS infections. Which is obviously not true
The first notable cases of AIDS appeared in the 60s and 70s whilst the first case of AIDS in Australia occurred in 1982. Many factors need to also be considered such as relative geographic isolation and the improvement of awareness of the condition before cases were detected in the 10-20 year gap.
Finally, your point about AIDS is... I have no words. I just don't. You 1) do not understand how AIDS came to be and 2) have no idea about the effects social stigma on homosexual sex caused people to have anonymous and unsafe sex.
Actually, I do have some idea of both points. What I suggested is purely hypothetical, a "what if" the Church didn't advocate against homosexuality. It is not unreasonable to assume in such a hypothetical that without such advocation (and to repeat, I do NOT agree with it) that there would have been more unsafe homosexual practice during that INITIAL period (especially given the quality of contraception at the time - 1960s).
This was an edit I made on my previous post btw:
edit: I haven't provided any research in this (but who can in such hypotheticals? I mean you can argue for days about the "what ifs" regarding the non-existence of the Church...), but to take an example, I believe there would be more people like this if it wasn't for the Church http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABtan_Dugas. Note that this is ONLY in reference to the INITIAL spread, which was nearly all homosexual.
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enwiable, what are your thoughts on a deistic god - a god who created the universe but let it go its course - a god who hasn't revealed himself to a bunch of desert nomads - a god who does not care about human affairs?
My thoughts are who cares about such mindless speculation? It achieves virtually nothing. At best, it can be entertaining in terms of culture (e.g. literature, sci-fi etc.) It can also provide a jumping-off point for investigating the truth. However, you currently have no -possible- way of determining its veracity or not. And simply guessing that that is the case is intellectual laziness.
My thoughts are about determining the truth, whatever that is, and reserving my judgment for when the evidence comes in. And right now, we do not have a lick of it. And anyone claiming to have it is a charlatan and a liar.
We don't even know what caused our abiogenesis. For all we know, super-advanced aliens came and seeded this planet with life. But that's just imagination. And while it is certainly enjoyable to consider the theories, and to posit them, committing to any of them at this point in time is delusion.
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Lemme try and remember.
With all due respect to religion, this is what happened:
I was about...10 or 11 years old. Very impressionable. And the Jehovah's Witnesses kept talking to me since I was 8 on the front door. One day, whilst reading the Mormon Bible, I came across something really scary - something to the effect that you should cut yourself and draw blood if you want God's forgiveness. I was like wtf and told my sister.
She was like to me - "religion is bullshit, do you have any proof god exists? does god answer all your prayers?" etc. Then I thought to myself "Hold on...yeah...religion is bullshit."
And I was an instant atheist.
That was my thought process - I say this with all due respect to religion.
You should commit to further inquiry on religion, because to be honest with you, an experience that you had when you were 10 shouldn't still be a driving force to your atheism (if it is)
What I don't understand in this whole god debate, is why do people make the assumption that you only have a choice between religion and atheism, because clearly you can be a deist or a theist without believing in religion (the scriptures, rituals, and traditions)
enwiable, what are your thoughts on a deistic god - a god who created the universe but let it go to its own course - a god who hasn't revealed himself to a bunch of desert nomads - a god who does not care about human affairs?
When I say atheist, I am talking about a god to whom you pray and seek favours from, or ask for forgiveness when you sin.
A god who "created the universe then stepped back" or one who "exercises some control of the universe" is theoretically possible, but immaterial and irrelevant to our daily lives as laymen.
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By that logic, all the nations where homosexuality is accepted / not reviled (such as Australia) should have a high rate of AIDS infections. Which is obviously not true
The first notable cases of AIDS appeared in the 60s and 70s whilst the first case of AIDS in Australia occurred in 1982. Many factors need to also be considered such as relative geographic isolation and the improvement of awareness of the condition before cases were detected in the 10-20 year gap.
Finally, your point about AIDS is... I have no words. I just don't. You 1) do not understand how AIDS came to be and 2) have no idea about the effects social stigma on homosexual sex caused people to have anonymous and unsafe sex.
Actually, I do have some idea of both points. What I suggested is purely hypothetical, a "what if" the Church didn't advocate against homosexuality. It is not unreasonable to assume in such a hypothetical that without such advocation (and to repeat, I do NOT agree with it) that there would have been more unsafe homosexual practice during that INITIAL period (especially given the quality of contraception at the time - 1960s).
My point, however, was not hypothetical. Condoms reduce the transmission of AIDS by 80%. We know categorically that the catholic church accelerated the AIDS epidemic by denying condoms. And that 80% figure gets thoroughly compounded when you actually consider the exponential nature of epidemics.
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enwiable, what are your thoughts on a deistic god - a god who created the universe but let it go its course - a god who hasn't revealed himself to a bunch of desert nomads - a god who does not care about human affairs?
My thoughts are who cares about such mindless speculation? It achieves nothing. You have no -possible- way of determining its veracity or not. And simply guessing that that is the case is intellectual laziness.
My thoughts are about determining the truth, whatever that is, and reserving my judgment for when the evidence comes in. And right now, we do not have a lick of it. And anyone claiming to have it is a charlatan and a liar.
We don't even know what caused our abiogenesis. For all we know, super-advanced aliens came and seeded this planet with life. But that's just imagination. And while it is certainly enjoyable to consider the theories, and to posit them, committing to any of them at this point in time is delusion.
What type of evidence are looking for? Physical evidence of god?
Why can't we make deductions about what the possible cause of the universe could be, through what that being has created (i.e. the universe)?
I'm not arguing for theism btw, I'm just trying to challenge my own views.
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1) as we've all said many times over, no one believes you shouldnt be able to come out and say "I think you're wrong - here's why", so that first point doesnt need any response because we both agree - I think we differ in that I think its important to be polite about it.
2) afaik, we haven't been over this, and i plainly need to tell you, that you were impolite, you were rude, and you did throw personal attacks. I don't think we'll agree on this, so best to agree to disagree.
3) who said the divine word of God is easy to live by? It most certainly is not - yes, if you followed it perfectly, you would be a perfect person (imo), and thats by no means easy.
4) of course religion is unverifiable! its only anecdotally verifiable - whether or not you accept that as evidence is up to you, but can it be objectively verified? the closest you can get is videos and images of saints appearing - which i wouldnt really call "proof", but no one is attempting to prove it anyway. and where are you getting this stone gay people from? if its from the old testament (which it almost certainly will be), then we've already been through that.
5)
from a purely christian perspective, abortion is wrong. i dont think its possible to argue the opposite, and i find this to be true in many other moral cases.
why are you saying things that you know are wrong? i CLEARLY didnt say that religious arguments justify social laws.
6) i think this would be a good time to tell you that I'm not catholic, im coptic. I can't speak for catholicism, all i can tell you is that i am most certainly not ashamed of my church - it has been the victim of bloodshed for its entire history, and has no blood on its hands.
7) see above
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Lemme try and remember.
With all due respect to religion, this is what happened:
I was about...10 or 11 years old. Very impressionable. And the Jehovah's Witnesses kept talking to me since I was 8 on the front door. One day, whilst reading the Mormon Bible, I came across something really scary - something to the effect that you should cut yourself and draw blood if you want God's forgiveness. I was like wtf and told my sister.
She was like to me - "religion is bullshit, do you have any proof god exists? does god answer all your prayers?" etc. Then I thought to myself "Hold on...yeah...religion is bullshit."
And I was an instant atheist.
That was my thought process - I say this with all due respect to religion.
You should commit to further inquiry on religion, because to be honest with you, an experience that you had when you were 10 shouldn't still be a driving force to your atheism (if it is)
What I don't understand in this whole god debate, is why do people make the assumption that you only have a choice between religion and atheism, because clearly you can be a deist or a theist without believing in religion (the scriptures, rituals, and traditions)
enwiable, what are your thoughts on a deistic god - a god who created the universe but let it go to its own course - a god who hasn't revealed himself to a bunch of desert nomads - a god who does not care about human affairs?
When I say atheist, I am talking about a god to whom you pray and seek favours from, or ask for forgiveness when you sin.
A god who "created the universe then stepped back" or one who "exercises some control of the universe" is theoretically possible, but immaterial and irrelevant to our daily lives as laymen.
in that case, you are and i are alike. and im not atheist, so im not entirely sure that makes you athiest...
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So the Roman Empire infrastructure decayed. Why did it take us 1500 years to regain that level of technology? Think for a second, here. The catholic church was the only constant. Emperors were born and then died off. The power of the catholic church that burnt heretics made people fear to pursue what most believed to be "dark arts". The physical sciences to most people was magic, and you got burned for practising magic. So only the people sanctioned by the church were allowed to do so. That stifling of progress is what caused us to be set back 1500 years.
The catholic church wasn't the only constant. Barbaric tribes that inherited the Western half were also present before, during and after the fall. They just continued ruling how they always did before. The Eastern Empire (which was abosrbed by the Byzantines) didn't decay at all. Regarding witch hunts: My contention isn't with the church of the 1500s as they were already established enough to be tyrannical.
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enwiable, what are your thoughts on a deistic god - a god who created the universe but let it go its course - a god who hasn't revealed himself to a bunch of desert nomads - a god who does not care about human affairs?
My thoughts are who cares about such mindless speculation? It achieves nothing. You have no -possible- way of determining its veracity or not. And simply guessing that that is the case is intellectual laziness.
My thoughts are about determining the truth, whatever that is, and reserving my judgment for when the evidence comes in. And right now, we do not have a lick of it. And anyone claiming to have it is a charlatan and a liar.
We don't even know what caused our abiogenesis. For all we know, super-advanced aliens came and seeded this planet with life. But that's just imagination. And while it is certainly enjoyable to consider the theories, and to posit them, committing to any of them at this point in time is delusion.
What type of evidence are looking for? Physical evidence of god?
Why can't we make deductions about what the possible cause of the universe could be through what that being has created?
I'm not arguing for theism btw, I'm just trying to challenge my own views.
Because these are extraordinary claims, and such claims require the appropriate amount of evidence. What possible deductions could you make as a human with very limited sensory capability? About the origins of our universe 13.6 billion years ago? The only deductions we can make are ones we discover using empiricism. We can discover facts about the universe through our scientific method, and hopefully one day, determine our origins.
It is also entirely possible that we will never know. We may be too limited in our natural form to ever discover the truth.
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So the Roman Empire infrastructure decayed. Why did it take us 1500 years to regain that level of technology? Think for a second, here. The catholic church was the only constant. Emperors were born and then died off. The power of the catholic church that burnt heretics made people fear to pursue what most believed to be "dark arts". The physical sciences to most people was magic, and you got burned for practising magic. So only the people sanctioned by the church were allowed to do so. That stifling of progress is what caused us to be set back 1500 years.
The catholic church wasn't the only constant. Barbaric tribes that inherited the Western half were also present before, during and after the fall. They just continued ruling how they always did before. The Eastern Empire (which was abosrbed by the Byzantines) didn't decay at all. Regarding witch hunts: My contention isn't with the church of the 1500s as they were already established enough to be tyrannical.
Which barbaric tribes were more powerful than the catholic church?
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Anyone of them with a standing army
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Anyone of them with a standing army
Yes, any tribe with a standing army was stronger than the catholic church, which is why it died very quickly after the fall of the roman empire... Hmm....
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Lemme try and remember.
With all due respect to religion, this is what happened:
I was about...10 or 11 years old. Very impressionable. And the Jehovah's Witnesses kept talking to me since I was 8 on the front door. One day, whilst reading the Mormon Bible, I came across something really scary - something to the effect that you should cut yourself and draw blood if you want God's forgiveness. I was like wtf and told my sister.
She was like to me - "religion is bullshit, do you have any proof god exists? does god answer all your prayers?" etc. Then I thought to myself "Hold on...yeah...religion is bullshit."
And I was an instant atheist.
That was my thought process - I say this with all due respect to religion.
You should commit to further inquiry on religion, because to be honest with you, an experience that you had when you were 10 shouldn't still be a driving force to your atheism (if it is)
What I don't understand in this whole god debate, is why do people make the assumption that you only have a choice between religion and atheism, because clearly you can be a deist or a theist without believing in religion (the scriptures, rituals, and traditions)
enwiable, what are your thoughts on a deistic god - a god who created the universe but let it go to its own course - a god who hasn't revealed himself to a bunch of desert nomads - a god who does not care about human affairs?
When I say atheist, I am talking about a god to whom you pray and seek favours from, or ask for forgiveness when you sin.
A god who "created the universe then stepped back" or one who "exercises some control of the universe" is theoretically possible, but immaterial and irrelevant to our daily lives as laymen.
in that case, you are and i are alike. and im not atheist, so im not entirely sure that makes you athiest...
Thought you were a devout christian abes? :/
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i CLEARLY didnt say that religious arguments justify social laws.
Why shouldn't they? Have the courage to back your convictions. That's the divine word of god. Why should society not obey these words?
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By that logic, all the nations where homosexuality is accepted / not reviled (such as Australia) should have a high rate of AIDS infections. Which is obviously not true
The first notable cases of AIDS appeared in the 60s and 70s whilst the first case of AIDS in Australia occurred in 1982. Many factors need to also be considered such as relative geographic isolation and the improvement of awareness of the condition before cases were detected in the 10-20 year gap.
How does this prove your point that the church was responsible for limiting the spread of AIDS?
Australia was an example to illustrate my point. Please provide evidence showing that countries which do not reject homosexuality have a higher incidence of AIDS.
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Thought you were a devout christian abes? :/
I am, God is certainly not like that. Jehovas witnesses never made any sense to me.
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dilmah, seems to me you're an agnostic then if you believe that it is "theoretically possible" that a deistic god exists.
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i CLEARLY didnt say that religious arguments justify social laws.
Why shouldn't they? Have the courage to back your convictions. That's the divine word of god. Why should society not obey these words?
because thats a stupid thing to do - I have no right to impose my religious belief as social law. that would make me an idiot.
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i CLEARLY didnt say that religious arguments justify social laws.
Why shouldn't they? Have the courage to back your convictions. That's the divine word of god. Why should society not obey these words?
because thats a stupid thing to do - I have no right to impose my religious belief as social law. that would make me an idiot.
But your god is the one true god. Why wouldn't you want all of society to live a godly life?
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For example, the first on the list: "No condoms in Africa? Because god said so. Enjoy your AIDS epidemic."
So, you're saying that without "the Church" (not religion) this wouldn't be an issue. So we'll play hypotheticals, but surely without the Church preaching against (and I personally do NOT agree with this decision by the Church) homosexuality, AIDS would have had an even more rapid spread initially? In fact, one can argue that the Church has prevented widespread spread of AIDS in much of the world in it's initial stages.
Half the issue f the spread now (which you mentioned), the other half is why it spread in the first place. And in all honesty, the spread in the first place might have been a lot worse had the Church not have intervened (again, I'm not against homosexuality).
This is spurious logic to the extreme. The issue with AIDS initially was not rate of spread, but knowledge. Nobody knew what GRID was, because it was presenting as a diffuse collection of different diseases, that we now know are a result of AIDS. Your argument that the church, by suppressing homosexuality, was suppressing the spread of AIDS doesn't hold water because it would still have reached the same endpoint of global epidemic. There were no drugs to treat it until 5 years later (and even then they cost $10,000 a patient, a year) and whether it spread quickly or slowly didn't matter, because it was still going to become an epidemic.
There are also the obvious social factors, where the attitude towards homosexuality in the mid 1900s was "it's a disease", meaning that if you were gay you didn't really care about what the Church said. I fail to see how the Church promoting it's anti-gay message could have had a substantial impact on HIV transmission in a segment of society that was being oppressed and thus didn't particularly care.
With respect to condoms in Africa, which is what we're actually talking about, I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that the Church was correct. Uganda generally gets mentioned as the model for AIDS in Africa, since they're one of the few countries that have (previously) had a decrease in incidence. There's a lot of political debate about why, but there's a pretty strong correlation between that and the fact that back in the '90s they were very big on sexual education, condom usage etc. In contrast, they've recently swung the other way and HIV rates are unfortunately going back up (relevant)
If you're interested, go read The Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani (or visit her website of the same name), since it summarizes the HIV in Africa thing pretty well. She also pays particularly attention to PEPFAR, which was an extension of the US Christian ideology that "abstinence is the only moral way" and imposed absurd requirements to get funding to deal with HIV (33% has to be spent on abstinence, refuses to fund nations that don't support abolishing prostitution, refusing to fund needle exchanges etc.)
there would have been more unsafe homosexual practice during that INITIAL period (especially given the quality of contraception at the time - 1960s).
What, latex condoms and the pill?
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Hmm. Agnostic, but very very close to atheist. I don't think anyone, even enwiabe, could be ENTIRELY atheist - because that would imply that you have absolute incontrovertible proof that god doesn't exist. Which I don't have, and nor does anyone to my knowledge.
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dilmah, seems to me you're an agnostic then if you believe that it is "theoretically possible" that a deistic god exists.
Soul_Khan, it seems to me you should look up the definition of the phrase "agnostic atheist".
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The catholic church wasn't strong from a military standpoint. The reason they survived was because the Visigoths and Ostrogoths were Christian themselves, though also only in name. The church was left alone in the various sackings of Rome. I might be skipping a few centuries here but that's why the church was also quick in paying lip service to the Franks.
Having the ability to declare anyone you want as the representative of god, or their people as the chosen ones really came in handy.
Fuck you people reply fast
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Hmm. Agnostic, but very very close to atheist. I don't think anyone, even enwiabe, could be ENTIRELY atheist - because that would imply that you have absolute incontrovertible proof that god doesn't exist. Which I don't have, and nor does anyone to my knowledge.
Indeed. I am an agnostic atheist, the only scientifically defensible position.
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The catholic church wasn't strong from a military standpoint. The reason they survived was because the Visigoths and Ostrogoths were Christian themselves, though also only in name. The church was left alone in the various sackings of Rome. I might be skipping a few centuries here but that's why the church was also quick in paying lip service to the Franks.
Having the ability to declare anyone you want as the representative of god, or their people as the chosen ones really came in handy.
So what you're saying is that the catholic church had the implied military force of whichever ruling party it got into bed with. Sounds like it had a standing army ready to go at any time it chose...
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By that logic, all the nations where homosexuality is accepted / not reviled (such as Australia) should have a high rate of AIDS infections. Which is obviously not true
The first notable cases of AIDS appeared in the 60s and 70s whilst the first case of AIDS in Australia occurred in 1982. Many factors need to also be considered such as relative geographic isolation and the improvement of awareness of the condition before cases were detected in the 10-20 year gap.
How does this prove your point that the church was responsible for limiting the spread of AIDS?
Australia was an example to illustrate my point. Please provide evidence showing that countries which do not reject homosexuality have a higher incidence of AIDS.
That quote alone doesn't prove anything, I was just making reference to the hypothetical scene in Australia as questioned in your post.
I know the logic is highly controversial (and I'm acting as a Devil's advocate here for the good of debate - I'm not religious and nor am I against homosexuality), BUT, given the standard of contraception in the 1960s (and earlier) and given that most of the "patient zero"s of AIDS were homosexual and given that most of the INITIAL (and please, I'm only talking initial, enwiabe has made his point somewhat rightly about Africa NOWADAYS, I'm giving the other half of the story here) cases were spread to other homosexual males, it seems fair to assume that if such practice was encouraged or not frowned upon by society, that the problem could have become a lot worse a lot quicker. Furthermore, the fact that AIDS is a resultant of the HIV infection, and that there is a certain latent period for the virus and a certain period of time before a "AIDS" diagnosis can be given, MANY more cases could have appeared in the given time.
As for evidence requested, none can be found as the assumption I'm making is that no Church (or any other religious presence against homosexuality) was present at all, which in no way can be paralleled to any study and set of stats in society today. It's purely hypothetical.
Again, I'm only being Devil's advocate here.
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i CLEARLY didnt say that religious arguments justify social laws.
Why shouldn't they? Have the courage to back your convictions. That's the divine word of god. Why should society not obey these words?
because thats a stupid thing to do - I have no right to impose my religious belief as social law. that would make me an idiot.
But your god is the one true god. Why wouldn't you want all of society to live a godly life?
If god wanted everybody to obey him forcibly, he'd do it himself. thats why you, and everybody else has freewill
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Also abes22, stop claiming the New Testament doesn't have any of the barbarity of the old testament.
Romans 1:26
" Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. (27) In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."
It's also an interesting argument, isn't it? "Oh no no, the old testament was wrong!"
How could god get it all so wrong? And if you're going to claim that we have free will, why did god have to interfere twice in the first place?
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i CLEARLY didnt say that religious arguments justify social laws.
Why shouldn't they? Have the courage to back your convictions. That's the divine word of god. Why should society not obey these words?
because thats a stupid thing to do - I have no right to impose my religious belief as social law. that would make me an idiot.
But your god is the one true god. Why wouldn't you want all of society to live a godly life?
If god wanted everybody to obey him forcibly, he's do it himself. thats why you, and everybody else has freewill
That's some free will, isn't it? Obey me or go to hell.
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Hmm. Agnostic, but very very close to atheist. I don't think anyone, even enwiabe, could be ENTIRELY atheist - because that would imply that you have absolute incontrovertible proof that god doesn't exist. Which I don't have, and nor does anyone to my knowledge.
Indeed. I am an agnostic atheist, the only scientifically defensible position.
What evidence would make you change your position?
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Playing Satan's Advocate: You are free to obey me. You are also free to go to hell. I am not forcing you to obey me. :P
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Hmm. Agnostic, but very very close to atheist. I don't think anyone, even enwiabe, could be ENTIRELY atheist - because that would imply that you have absolute incontrovertible proof that god doesn't exist. Which I don't have, and nor does anyone to my knowledge.
Indeed. I am an agnostic atheist, the only scientifically defensible position.
What evidence would make you change your position?
Change the universal physical constants.
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Hmm. Agnostic, but very very close to atheist. I don't think anyone, even enwiabe, could be ENTIRELY atheist - because that would imply that you have absolute incontrovertible proof that god doesn't exist. Which I don't have, and nor does anyone to my knowledge.
Indeed. I am an agnostic atheist, the only scientifically defensible position.
What evidence would make you change your position?
Incontrovertible proof to the limitations of my senses that god exists. Just like what we do in the scientific method.
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So what you're saying is that the catholic church had the implied military force of whichever ruling party it got into bed with. Sounds like it had a standing army ready to go at any time it chose...
Yes, but two things to consider at the time: 1) the church was still an instrument of the state and 2) the kings, even up to Charlemagne, didn't really appreciate a church that started butting into military affairs
They had the protection of the state they were sucking up to, but not necessarily the ability to be the aggressor
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Hmm. Agnostic, but very very close to atheist. I don't think anyone, even enwiabe, could be ENTIRELY atheist - because that would imply that you have absolute incontrovertible proof that god doesn't exist. Which I don't have, and nor does anyone to my knowledge.
Indeed. I am an agnostic atheist, the only scientifically defensible position.
What evidence would make you change your position?
Change the universal physical constants.
Lol, ty for the succinct answer :P
Theists.. I suggest you start praying..
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So what you're saying is that the catholic church had the implied military force of whichever ruling party it got into bed with. Sounds like it had a standing army ready to go at any time it chose...
Yes, but two things to consider at the time: 1) the church was still an instrument of the state and 2) the kings, even up to Charlemagne, didn't really appreciate a church that started butting into military affairs
They had the protection of the state they were sucking up to, but not necessarily the ability to be the aggressor
But they went hand in hand. The state used the church for legitimacy with its constituency. Why? The populace listened to the church. The church had that power over people which is what made them such an attractive partner for those transient states.
So when the church says that heretics get burnt and heresy includes investigating science -and they did do that- it is obvious as to why we stagnated 1500 years.
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I know the logic is highly controversial
I wonder why...
And I'm acting as a Devil's advocate here for the good of debate
If you're going to do this then you need to actually provoke interesting debate, not just post the first CONTROVERSIAL thing you can think of and run with it. I could play devil's advocate by suggesting any number of absurd things, but that's not going to further anything.
Given the standard of contraception in the 1960s (and earlier)
They had condoms...what else do you want?
please, I'm only talking initial, enwiabe has made his point somewhat rightly about Africa NOWADAYS,
Why is it only somewhat right?
It seems fair to assume that if such practice was encouraged or not frowned upon by society, that the problem could have become a lot worse a lot quicker.
Non sequitur. Just because society frowns on gays having sex, doesn't mean they're not going to do it. (also read my post above)
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I've already established that religion makes people unaccountable to their peers. That is a thematic argument that you wanted. I already made it.
Once you are unaccountable to your peers, you can wrong them in whatever way you think your god wants you to do so. My rationalist advocacy is about setting the bar higher and saying that it is not enough to hold up a holy book and say "because god said so". You must justify it based on humanist principles.
It then follows that religion is unsustainable in this model, because it stifles critical appraisal. That is not the way forward for an advanced society.
Okay, I still think that is a rather Abrahamic view of religion.
Take Buddhism or Hinduism as examples, your post isn't in line with them at all.
As for humanist principles, do you refer to common laws? If so, many of those are based on what religions advocate anyway. The two are entwined in modern times.
If you're going to do this then you need to actually provoke interesting debate, not just post the first CONTROVERSIAL thing you can think of and run with it. I could play devil's advocate by suggesting any number of absurd things, but that's not going to further anything.
I'll admit to it being fairly poor tact, but the goal was to convince everyone here that the religion is not solely to blame for the problems enwiabe listed, and certainly not "religion" as a concept.
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I would even go as far as to say Buddhism isnt really a religion as much as it is a philosophy. In Buddhism, it is taught, firstly that there is no god, that god is a product of fear.
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This has a scant level of relevance, but needs to be shared.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRUGqUkZ5Lk&feature=related
Its pretty funny as well that this news channel's fb page was removed by fb admin. Free speech?
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This has a scant level of relevance, but needs to be shared.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRUGqUkZ5Lk&feature=related
Its pretty funny as well that this news channel's fb page was removed by fb admin. Free speech?
Maybe make a new thread for this?
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If you want to make one. Personally wouldnt see much benefit in it. Just felt that some of those in this discussion might have some interest in this sort of thing.
Apologies. Correction: presstv advertisements were banned, not a massive issue.
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Hmm. Agnostic, but very very close to atheist. I don't think anyone, even enwiabe, could be ENTIRELY atheist - because that would imply that you have absolute incontrovertible proof that god doesn't exist. Which I don't have, and nor does anyone to my knowledge.
You really can't just be agnostic with no qualifier.
Agnostic is a term that relates to knowledge. Atheist/Theist/Believer is a term that relates to theology and God.
Agnostic implies you don't have enough evidence or proof to conclusively know one way or the other. I could be agnostic about the fact you own a cat for example. Indeed, its an entirely reasonable and logical thing for you to have (unlike say a castle) but i can't actually logically derive you have a cat, so, i have to witness it to be sure. Short of doing that though, i could be agnostic about your cat (of course most people will just believe you own a cat on face value, you have no reason to lie, this was just an example).
Likewise, throughout the history of philosophy of religion, theres been no conclusive argument that shows a God either does or does not exist. So, it would almost be the height of hypocrisy for any atheist to claim they weren't agnostic about the existence of God, that would be very illogical and non-scientific.
If you're interested in these things, you might like to read a little more extensive piece i wrote about it.
I would even go as far as to say Buddhism isnt really a religion as much as it is a philosophy. In Buddhism, it is taught, firstly that there is no god, that god is a product of fear.
The western idea of religion seems ill-equipped to be applied to religions from other places or maybe our consideration of religion as a whole is flawed.
It's true there is no God in Buddhism but there is metaphysical and mystical elements, there is a moral code attached to it which believers must follow and are rewarded/punished for it. It seems its more substantial than a philosophy.
Incontrovertible proof to the limitations of my senses that god exists. Just like what we do in the scientific method.
What if God couldn't work miracles or chose not too (indeed, in my opinion, there are good reasons for this). Would your method still be sufficient for establishing the truth if you were actually looking for it?
This has a scant level of relevance, but needs to be shared.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRUGqUkZ5Lk&feature=related
Its pretty funny as well that this news channel's fb page was removed by fb admin. Free speech?
They don't like Assad because he's a Shi'a Alawite Muslim. Al-queda are Sunni militant extremists. They don't think believe Shi'a are muslims. There are also political reasons here. Of course al-queda, considering its ambition, would love to have influence in a government. If they help topple Syria and insert their own agents, they can have control over a future Syria and maybe make it more friendly to al-queda. Don't think for a moment they also don't hate the USA. This just presents a useful opportunity for them to grab.
An absolutely excellent docco on the origins of Al-Queda and how its not nearly as strong or ominous as everyone thinks is the power of nightmares.
Video Link
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As for the condoms, its true the church teaching is against most forms of contraception. However, it's also true the church teaching against pre-martial casual sex. It seems logical that a lot of cases of transmission of AIDs aren't between two partners who are already married, this wouldn't really explain its explosive growth either. If they are ignoring the churches teaching on pre-martial sex, why would they be following the churches ruling on condoms?
So, if disregarded one of the teachings, they're not likely to follow the other, so its no impediment for them using condoms. If they follow both teachings (eg. no premartial sex), AID's certainly wouldn't be as bad as it is now.
Given what i said above, that should be enough but it seems they've also recently relaxed their position:
"After decades of fierce opposition to the use of all contraception, the Pontiff has ended the Churchs absolute ban on the use of condoms.
He said it was acceptable to use a prophylactic when the sole intention was to reduce the risk of infection from Aids.
While he restated the Catholic Churchs staunch objections to contraception because it believes that it interferes with the creation of life, he argued that using a condom to preserve life and avoid death could be a responsible act even outside marriage. " - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/the-pope/8148944/The-Pope-drops-Catholic-ban-on-condoms-in-historic-shift.html
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"Recently relaxed their position" doesn't make up for the decades of harm they've caused
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"Recently relaxed their position" doesn't make up for the decades of harm they've caused
If you read the rest of my post, its clear why the level of harm claimed is doubtful.
Whats happened has happened. You can be constantly antagonist to them if you like but they are changing now, feel free to stand and speak if you rather they never changed their position.
I'm not denying they done some harm and this can't totally restore that but surely you shouldn't be critical of the very thing you've (metaphorically) asked them to change. From now on, less harm will be done and i think thats something we're all in favour of, so, in terms of this particular decision, its a good step for the catholic church (pointing out of course there is more to catholicism than Christianity and Africa isn't only full of catholics).
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Right but the argument was that religion causes harm. It doesn't matter what their position is now; that doesn't change the fact that they still caused harm which is the whole crux of enwiabe's argument. Without the church none of this would have happened.
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Right but the argument was that religion causes harm. It doesn't matter what their position is now; that doesn't change the fact that they still caused harm which is the whole crux of enwiabe's argument. Without the church none of this would have happened.
The point i was attempting to make was (largely) to show that if they didn't listen to the church on one of the rulings, they aren't likely to do so for the other. Indeed, in light of this, it seems the amount of people who did not use condoms during pre-maritial sex, soley as a result of religious belief, would be small in comparison to all the other reasons people did not use condoms.
In-fact, its arguable the church did some measure of good as well. If people abstained from pre-marital sex, as taught by the church, as a result of their religious beliefs, that would certainly have an impact on reducing the spread of AIDs. Abstinence whilst obviously not being the fun option, is quite clearly the most effective method to avoid getting an STD (100% success rate afterall). Condoms fail and people can use incorrectly, indeed, in real-world epidemiological studies, it hovers somewhere around 80-90% effectiveness in the population. If the church didn't exist and give down its moral teachings, it seems plausible there would of been more people engaging in casual sex (which is risky in countries like this, even with condom use) and would of also played a role in increasing AIDS prevalence.
Considering that relatively few people would of listened to the church on one rule but not the other, compared to the number of people who would of abstained as a result of the moral teachings of the church, you could argue some good was done in cases. I'm also sure some people, for some bizarre reason, rejected one teaching but accepted the other and did not use condoms. If they followed both the rulings of the church (eg. no sex as well), there would have been no harm done. So, its hard to see how its the churches fault when these people weren't following church doctrine to begin with.
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Right but the argument was that religion causes harm. It doesn't matter what their position is now; that doesn't change the fact that they still caused harm which is the whole crux of enwiabe's argument. Without the church none of this would have happened.
The point i was attempting to make was (largely) to show that if they didn't listen to the church on one of the rulings, they aren't likely to do so for the other. Indeed, in light of this, it seems the amount of people who did not use condoms during pre-maritial sex, soley as a result of religious belief, would be small in comparison to all the other reasons people did not use condoms.
In-fact, its arguable the church did some measure of good as well. If people abstained from pre-marital sex, as taught by the church, as a result of their religious beliefs, that would certainly have an impact on reducing the spread of AIDs. Abstinence whilst obviously not being the fun option, is quite clearly the most effective method to avoid getting an STD (100% success rate afterall). Condoms fail and people can use incorrectly, indeed, in real-world epidemiological studies, it hovers somewhere around 80-90% effectiveness in the population. If the church didn't exist and give down its moral teachings, it seems plausible there would of been more people engaging in casual sex (which is risky in countries like this, even with condom use) and would of also played a role in increasing AIDS prevalence.
Considering that relatively few people would of listened to the church on one rule but not the other, compared to the number of people who would of abstained as a result of the moral teachings of the church, you could argue some good was done in cases. I'm also sure some people, for some bizarre reason, rejected one teaching but accepted the other and did not use condoms. If they followed both the rulings of the church (eg. no sex as well), there would have been no harm done. So, its hard to see how its the churches fault when these people weren't following church doctrine to begin with.
Abstinence-only education works if and only if you completely disregard human nature.
You also once more display your complete lack of understanding about the topic at hand, "for some bizarre reason, rejected one teaching but accepted the other and did not use condoms"
The missions refused to take condoms with them, even though they were going to be made freely available to them to distribute. They chose not to distribute them, and now you have an AIDS epidemic across sub-saharan Africa.
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Abstinence-only education works if and only if you completely disregard human nature.
I wasn't talking about sex education, i was talking about personal ethics and adherence to church doctrine.
For what its worth though, I agree, abstinence only sex education is a horrible idea. Plenty of people aren't religious/dont give a toss about church doctrine, especially if its only certain churches. They should have all the information available to them, its up to them whether they use it or not. You can still maintain your ethical principals and not use it whilst everyone else is better off for knowing it.
The missions refused to take condoms with them, even though they were going to be made freely available to them to distribute. They chose not to distribute them, and now you have an AIDS epidemic across sub-saharan Africa.
The catholic church aren't the only charity organisation in Africa. Plenty of other organisations are present and do hand out condoms.
If you removed the church or banned them, they would not be there carrying out charitable work. If you placed the church there, they would be there carrying out charitable work. One seems better than the other.
Of course, the church isn't the only charity present. We live in one history, not some alternative history. If you removed the church tomorrow, there would be a void in charity, it would decrease. Someone won't automatically take up the slack.
But the church knew abstinence-only education didn't work. It was explained to them. There were figures dating all the way back to the '80s that it was a failed idea. They still refused to take the condoms with them.
Again, i wasn't talking about education in any part of my original post (except in response to when you brought it up out of nowhere, maybe you misread what i was saying but i was never talking about sex education, eg. the kind you get in highschool and things like that).
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Abstinence-only education works if and only if you completely disregard human nature.
I wasn't talking about sex education, i was talking about personal ethics and adherence to church doctrine.
For what its worth though, I agree, abstinence only sex education is a horrible idea. Plenty of people aren't religious/dont give a toss about church doctrine, especially if its only certain churches. They should have all the information available to them, its up to them whether they use it or not. You can still maintain your ethical principals and not use it whilst everyone else is better off for knowing it.
But the church knew abstinence-only education didn't work. It was explained to them. There were figures dating all the way back to the '80s that it was a failed idea. They still refused to take the condoms with them.
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Abstinence-only education works if and only if you completely disregard human nature.
I wasn't talking about sex education, i was talking about personal ethics and adherence to church doctrine.
For what its worth though, I agree, abstinence only sex education is a horrible idea. Plenty of people aren't religious/dont give a toss about church doctrine, especially if its only certain churches. They should have all the information available to them, its up to them whether they use it or not. You can still maintain your ethical principals and not use it whilst everyone else is better off for knowing it.
The missions refused to take condoms with them, even though they were going to be made freely available to them to distribute. They chose not to distribute them, and now you have an AIDS epidemic across sub-saharan Africa.
The catholic church aren't the only charity organisation in Africa. Plenty of other organisations are present and do hand out condoms.
If you removed the church, they would not be there carrying out charitable work. If you placed the church there, they would be there carrying out charitable work. One seems better than the other.
Actually, the catholic charities claimed the monopoly. Other charities went to other places so as not to double up. There are more than one now, and they certainly do hand out condoms. But when the epidemic was spreading, it was catholic charities or bust pretty much. The fact that they were the only charity there does not excuse their immoral behaviour.
We come back to the analogy of breaking somebody's arm and paying their hospital bill and giving them a bit of compensation and saying "see! I did good!"
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Also, you completely failed to address my rebuttal to your argument about the catholic church supposedly advancing science. Do you concede that point?
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The point i was attempting to make was (largely) to show that if they didn't listen to the church on one of the rulings, they aren't likely to do so for the other. Indeed, in light of this, it seems the amount of people who did not use condoms during pre-maritial sex, soley as a result of religious belief, would be small in comparison to all the other reasons people did not use condoms.
What evidence do you have for this?
I cannot imagine that a lot of people actually religiously (heh) follow every single one of the teachings of their respective religion. An easy example of this is Christians who are for gay marriage/rights, in clear contradiction to what the Bible teaches.
I don't think you can argue that just because they did not observe the church's teachings on one issue (premarital sex) that they would also ignore its teachings on another (condoms) (or vice versa).
In-fact, its arguable the church did some measure of good as well. If people abstained from pre-marital sex, as taught by the church, as a result of their religious beliefs, that would certainly have an impact on reducing the spread of AIDs. Abstinence whilst obviously not being the fun option, is quite clearly the most effective method to avoid getting an STD (100% success rate afterall). Condoms fail and people can use incorrectly, indeed, in real-world epidemiological studies, it hovers somewhere around 80-90% effectiveness in the population. If the church didn't exist and give down its moral teachings, it seems plausible there would of been more people engaging in casual sex (which is risky in countries like this, even with condom use) and would of also played a role in increasing AIDS prevalence.
There is a lot of evidence showing that abstinence-only education is not only ineffective, but actually increases the rate of teen and unmarried pregnancy. (example)
I do not accept this argument that the church did any good in advocating abstinence.
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The point i was attempting to make was (largely) to show that if they didn't listen to the church on one of the rulings, they aren't likely to do so for the other. Indeed, in light of this, it seems the amount of people who did not use condoms during pre-maritial sex, soley as a result of religious belief, would be small in comparison to all the other reasons people did not use condoms.
I think this is a good point, and largely what I was trying to say before (albeit I got very side-tracked into hypotheticals and whatnot). If you take the religious instructions in full, the AIDS epidemic wouldn't be anywhere near as bad as it is in Africa nor would the initial spread (which I was trying to address) be anywhere as bad.
For those affected in Africa to selectively choose to follow "no condoms" and not "pre-marital sex" shows that religion cannot be solely blamed for this, as there must be confounding factors (re: my first response in this thread) which are causing people to follow "half of it". To blame religion (or a religion) solely for this, is a bit unfair.
I think that's what kp was trying to get at, but kp, feel free to correct me :)
I don't think you can argue that just because they did not observe the church's teachings on one issue (premarital sex) that they would also ignore its teachings on another (condoms) (or vice versa).
Well now we're just picking and choosing aspect of a religion to tackle. That isn't fair. If the full religious instruction was followed and "evil" was shown to be the direct result, then sure, religion is flawed there. But when individuals pick and choose and hence, ignore some of the original teachings, then you can't just blame religion.
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Well now we're just picking and choosing aspect of a religion to tackle. That isn't fair. If the full religious instruction was followed and "evil" was shown to be the direct result, then sure, religion is flawed there. But when individuals pick and choose and hence, ignore some of the original teachings, then you can't just blame religion.
The. Catholic. Church. Didn't. Take. The. Damn. Condoms. With. Them. How. Hard. Is. This. To. Understand.
If they'd preached their abstinence policy AND brought condoms, they would've prevented the AIDS epidemic.
Some would've abstained from sex completely, the others would have used the condoms.
They didn't bring the condoms and immorally condemned sub-saharan Africa to an epidemic of one of the worst diseases in human history. But hey, keep defending them! I'm sure they need it.
While you're at it, you wanna defend pope benedict for covering up the child rape at the hands of its pastors? And then simultaneously shipping those pastors off to other parishes to rape again and again and again? And all because the church didn't want to look bad. Some superior morality.
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You misquoted me pi... Edit your post and delete this plz
Oops sorry, got the author mixed up in the quote, fixed and apologies for that.
Well now we're just picking and choosing aspect of a religion to tackle. That isn't fair. If the full religious instruction was followed and "evil" was shown to be the direct result, then sure, religion is flawed there. But when individuals pick and choose and hence, ignore some of the original teachings, then you can't just blame religion.
The. Catholic. Church. Didn't. Take. The. Damn. Condoms. With. Them. How. Hard. Is. This. To. Understand.
Is this in reference to their charity in Africa? If so, if it was against their teachings why should anyone be surprised? Surely they would have expected that their full teachings would be observed.
Now, of course this is a very limited and unrealistic view on their behalf, but it isn't inherently against what they preach. They ask that the full instructions be followed, and sadly, humanity let them down in this regard.
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You misquoted me pi... Edit your post and delete this plz
Oops sorry, got the author mixed up in the quote, fixed and apologies for that.
Well now we're just picking and choosing aspect of a religion to tackle. That isn't fair. If the full religious instruction was followed and "evil" was shown to be the direct result, then sure, religion is flawed there. But when individuals pick and choose and hence, ignore some of the original teachings, then you can't just blame religion.
The. Catholic. Church. Didn't. Take. The. Damn. Condoms. With. Them. How. Hard. Is. This. To. Understand.
Is this in reference to their charity in Africa? If so, if it was against their teachings why should anyone be surprised? Surely they would have expected that their full teachings would be observed.
Now, of course this is a very limited and unrealistic view on their behalf, but it isn't inherently against what they preach. They ask that the full instructions be followed, and sadly, humanity let them down in this regard.
It's unreasonable to demand that humanity play by their rules. Why should it be "follow our rules or get AIDS"?
Why should homosexuals be condemned to a life of suffering because the Catholic fucking church hates them? Only an evil, disgusting organisation would do such a wicked thing as to deny them life-saving contraception purely because they disagree with them.
I don't know how you can look any homosexual friends of yours in the face, or live with yourself, and say such a disgusting thing. Really, pi? You're honestly going to claim that they've "sadly let [the catholic church down]", just because they didn't kowtow to this fucking absurd dictum to give up their sexual orientation. Something which harms nobody, and lets them live a full and loving life.
That is the sort of disgusting victim-blaming that causes homosexuals to become depressed and commit suicide because of how society views them.
Moderator action: removed real name, sorry for the inconvenience
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Well then I think your issue isn't with religion, but rather with the ethics of the Catholic Church as a charity and with the inability of humanity to avoid temptations. The religious instruction is clear here, and if it was followed, this wouldn't have happened.
(please note again that I'm being Devil's advocate here)
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Well then I think your issue isn't with religion, but rather with the ethics of the Catholic Church as a charity and with the inability of humanity to avoid temptations. The religious instruction is clear here, and if it was followed, this wouldn't have happened.
(please note again that I'm being Devil's advocate here)
No, this is just one example I've given. It's one of the more famous and well-documented ones.
This is indeed one of my main problems with religion. Its ability to legitimise powerful bodies to commit such atrocities in the name of their religion. This is the perfect example of how they were answerable only tot heir god, and not their peers, the africans they severely fucked (irony). This is how it manifests, and this is how it destroys lives.
I'm also not partial to the indoctrination of children with religion, either. But that's another debate. I have many gripes, and we've scratched the surface of just one here.
And I don't care if you're playing devil's advocate. What you said is morally reprehensible in any scenario and is tantamount to hatespeech. Imagine that you were gay. Now imagine that somebody said, in any context, that you've sadly let people down by being gay. Imagine how you'd feel, how you'd react, what you'd think. And then never do that again.
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And I don't care if you're playing devil's advocate. What you said is morally reprehensible in any scenario and is tantamount to hatespeech.
Okay, it seems I have missed one of your edits, allow me to clarify myself:
I don't know how you can look any homosexual friends of yours in the face, or live with yourself, and say such a disgusting thing. Really, pi? You're honestly going to claim that they've "sadly let [the catholic church down]", just because they didn't kowtow to this fucking absurd dictum to give up their sexual orientation. Something which harms nobody, and lets them live a full and loving life.
That is the sort of disgusting victim-blaming that causes homosexuals to become depressed and commit suicide because of how society views them.
Firstly, let me reaffirm that in no way do the Africans deserve AIDS (or any bad thing for that matter), and I never once put forth a supporting statement for the Catholic Church in allowing it to spread as it has. So if I have committed hatespeech, I sincerely apologise, I am not a racist and as a medical student, I fully understand the pain that homosexuals have gone through, and are going through in regards to mental illness and stigmatisation. And I don't agree with it on a personal note.
However, the point I was trying to make is that not ALL the responsibility of the AIDS crisis falls upon the Church. There ARE CONFOUNDING FACTORS, a point that I've made in my first reply and have been consistent with throughout this debate. In this case, the confounding factor is the inability of humanity to avoid temptation. They knew of the consequences of unprotected sex and still went ahead and took the risk.
So, I'm not saying the Church is infallible. It's not. And in my first reply I said no religious institution is without it's flaws. The Church's ethics are without question horrendous, they have essentially blackmailed the population into their teachings. BUT, had their instruction (and THIS is religion) been followed, none of this would have happened. BUT because humanity isn't like that, and of course it's never going to work out to what the Church simplistically hoped for, the crisis is what is today.
This is from IRC, and clarifies my stance a bit further (I'll leave it as anonymous):
<> i thought his point was that humanity 'let them down' by not being abstinent when they had hiv
<> not by being gay. that's an inference
<> what do you call it when you attribute a position to your opponent which they don't actually hold, in order to make it more easy to refute them? oh yeah, straw man
<>the church was wrong to try to prevent condom use when they knew it would do good. but they were right to advise abstinence for people - of either gender and any sexual orientation - who were hiv positive
<> just because it was ultimately ineffective, doesn't mean it wasn't sound advice
Both are partly at fault and no-one deserved anything. I don't think it's possible to say who's more at fault either unless we go into "what if"s again.
I will stop to argue this from here, as I find that continuing to defend the Church in this regard goes against my own moral code (in fact my last few posts have, but I was trying to facilitate debate somewhat).
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However, the point I was trying to make is that not ALL the responsibility of the AIDS crisis falls upon the Church. There ARE CONFOUNDING FACTORS, a point that I've made in my first reply and have been consistent with throughout this debate. In this case, the confounding factor is the inability of humanity to avoid temptation. They knew of the consequences of unprotected sex and still went ahead and took the risk.
They were uneducated nomads, most of whom could not communicate with the missionaries. They couldn't even read the damn bibles. So no, the church did nothing to help them. There was no way they were going to 'educate' them in any reasonable way.
There is no confounding factor here. If they'd just given them the condoms and showed them how to use them (much easier than trying to explain "don't have sex or our god will SEND YOU TO THE FIERY PITS OF HELL") then they wouldn't be in this mess. That is NOT a confounding factor. It is a direct cause of the AIDS epidemic.
And you're proving my point. Their dogma prevented them from doing the right thing by these people. They could not hold themselves accountable to other human beings, and sot hey committed a grave atrocity in the name of their god. This is all-too-easy once you have convinced yourself that this action is what your god wants you to do.
This is a fundamental flaw in every single theistic religion and is inescapable and is the reason why religion is so harmful. Once you have convinced yourself taht this is what your god wants, who's going to stop you?
Also pi, I don't know what you think you achieved by playing devil's advocate here, other than making me spell out for you why the catholic church denying condoms to Africans was a terrible thing to do. I'm actually disappointed this was the direction you took the debate. You simply disregarded numerous points I made, asking me several times to stop applying my points to "Just one or two religions" when I had done that numerous times.
You really just narrowed the debate down to one tiny point that no sane person would dispute.
Moderator action: removed real name, sorry for the inconvenience
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Also pi, I don't know what you think you achieved by playing devil's advocate here, other than making me spell out for you why the catholic church denying condoms to Africans was a terrible thing to do. I'm actually disappointed this was the direction you took the debate. You simply disregarded numerous points I made, asking me several times to stop applying my points to "Just one or two religions" when I had done that numerous times.
You really just narrowed the debate down to one tiny point that no sane person would dispute.
Hang on a minute, the reason this is so is because if you read my first reply to your post, the only part I largely disagreed with you on was your assumption that religion, and SOLELY religion, was the root of the evils you listed. Hence my posts have focused on that aspect of your post, and hence, why I have disregarded the material you have supplied regarding other points on religion. Others such as kp have tackled your other points, but my issue was solely with that one aspect of your first post.
Bit unfair to blame me for the direction of the debate when the debate may not even be over yet, there are a few points on either side that people (including yourself) are yet to address. I just haven't chosen to because 1) I admitted I have not done sufficient readings to tackle those 2) They weren't what I had taken issue with and I thought I had made that very clear throughout this thread.
As for why I played devil's advocate whilst going against my own moral code, I was genuinely interested why someone such as yourself would believe that religion was the sole factor here, a statement which until this thread I felt was intuitively laughable. Another reason (and I seriously NEVER had the intention of typing this up as I hoped it would pass silently and positively such as through Re: [SPLIT] The "finer" points of apologetics and its rebuttal where it was said "Already, I have enjoyed reading this thread much more than previous religion threads, because no ones been criticizing each other", but I will not take an accusation like yours when it isn't called for) I played along (and more importantly, chose to play along early) is to show the people of AN that you and those you support your views (and there are more than just AN admins here) aren't just some bullies who will bag the shit out of your opposition (as was the unfair portrayal of you guys by many in the "AN Culture" thread), but rather ones who could also engage in reasonable debate, especially with someone of significantly less knowledge about the topic on hand (ie. me).
So I'm not at all disappointed with what has culminated in this reply to you, I have learnt a fair bit from both sides (and I'm sure others have too- and hey isn't that what AN is about!) and this has been one of the first religious threads to not be locked due to fruitless name-calling :) So, thank-you :)
Moderator action: removed real name, sorry for the inconvenience
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This has a scant level of relevance, but needs to be shared.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRUGqUkZ5Lk&feature=related
Its pretty funny as well that this news channel's fb page was removed by fb admin. Free speech?
Well as long as we're posting vaguely relevant links, I thought this was interesting http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/05/hitchens-201105
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There ARE CONFOUNDING FACTORS, a point that I've made in my first reply and have been consistent with throughout this debate.
Your initial point was that the Church had actively protected society from AIDS by preventing spread. Now you're agreeing that they contributed to the spread but they weren't 100% responsible, in order to avoid being disproven. Your position hasn't been consistent at all, logically or otherwise.
You're not playing devil's advocate properly, all you're doing is picking a position opposed to dan and desperately trying to defend it despite evidence to the contrary.
So, you're saying that without "the Church" (not religion) this wouldn't be an issue. So we'll play hypotheticals, but surely without the Church preaching against (and I personally do NOT agree with this decision by the Church) homosexuality, AIDS would have had an even more rapid spread initially? In fact, one can argue that the Church has prevented widespread spread of AIDS in much of the world in it's initial stages.
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There ARE CONFOUNDING FACTORS, a point that I've made in my first reply and have been consistent with throughout this debate.
Your initial point was that the Church had actively protected society from AIDS by preventing spread. Now you're agreeing that they contributed to the spread but they weren't 100% responsible, in order to avoid being disproven. Your position hasn't been consistent at all, logically or otherwise.
No, read my first post again if you want to see my initial point. My original point was religion isn't perfect but it does do some good, and furthermore, what "evils" it does contribute to are only that: contributions, and can not be solely bestowed upon religion.
I've quoted from my first post here:
...religion is not the cause of this hate and that there are other confounding factors that have not been considered.
...
I know religion isn't perfect, and I don't think any reasonable person will say it is. Like everything and everyone, it has faults.
But, is religion responsible for global warming? Is it responsible for the countless murders in our society? Is it responsible for the Chinese Floods of 1931? Is it responsible for the Swine Flu? Is it responsible BoS? Was it responsible for the cancellation of Cheez TV? Not at all.
Alternatively, did it put great thinkers such as Kepler, Einstein and Newton on the right path? Does it continue to provide moral fiber for many in the world? Has religion been linked to less domestic violence and substance abuse? Yes, in fact it does play a role here.
And you have misinterpreted those quotes.
This was the clarification I gave:
However, the point I was trying to make is that not ALL the responsibility of the AIDS crisis falls upon the Church. There ARE CONFOUNDING FACTORS, a point that I've made in my first reply and have been consistent with throughout this debate. In this case, the confounding factor is the inability of humanity to avoid temptation. They knew of the consequences of unprotected sex and still went ahead and took the risk.
So, I'm not saying the Church is infallible. It's not. And in my first reply I said no religious institution is without it's flaws. The Church's ethics are without question horrendous, they have essentially blackmailed the population into their teachings. BUT, had their instruction (and THIS is religion) been followed, none of this would have happened. BUT because humanity isn't like that, and of course it's never going to work out to what the Church simplistically hoped for, the crisis is what is today.
This is from IRC, and clarifies my stance a bit further (I'll leave it as anonymous):
<> i thought his point was that humanity 'let them down' by not being abstinent when they had hiv
<> not by being gay. that's an inference
<> what do you call it when you attribute a position to your opponent which they don't actually hold, in order to make it more easy to refute them? oh yeah, straw man
<>the church was wrong to try to prevent condom use when they knew it would do good. but they were right to advise abstinence for people - of either gender and any sexual orientation - who were hiv positive
<> just because it was ultimately ineffective, doesn't mean it wasn't sound advice
Both are partly at fault and no-one deserved anything. I don't think it's possible to say who's more at fault either unless we go into "what if"s again.
And as for you your bolded part in your post LOLOLOLOL As I've said a few times "one can argue that the Church has prevented widespread spread of AIDS in much of the world in it's initial stages." Furthermore, that was referring to a hypothetical scenario. But even then, it was one that someone else agreed with in principle:
The point i was attempting to make was (largely) to show that if they didn't listen to the church on one of the rulings, they aren't likely to do so for the other. Indeed, in light of this, it seems the amount of people who did not use condoms during pre-maritial sex, soley as a result of religious belief, would be small in comparison to all the other reasons people did not use condoms.
And as per my clarification quote, I have said the ethics were disgusting, but I do agree that the above did contribute to to epidemic (not in terms of the people being homosexuals, but in terms of them being HIV carriers)
I wasn't arguing for now, and if you read my posts I do say the church is to partially blame for the current situation (real life NOT in a hypothetical scenario). And I dunno out you, but that DOES deem consistent with my initial point:
...religion is not the cause of this hate and that there are other confounding factors that have not been considered.
Okay, now for this:
You're not playing devil's advocate properly, all you're doing is picking a position opposed to dan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_advocate
In common parlance, a devil's advocate is someone who, given a certain argument, takes a position he or she does not necessarily agree with, for the sake of argument
I thought I made that pretty obvious, and you've said what position I chose.
I'm not sure why you'd re-open this against me when clearly Dan and I agreed the point was finished... But ok.
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firstly, sorry, was away from AN for a few days.
Also abes22, stop claiming the New Testament doesn't have any of the barbarity of the old testament.
Romans 1:26
" Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. (27) In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."
I'd like to draw your attention to leviticus 20, the chapter which bans homosexuality in christianity. in this chapter, the following things are punishable by death:
1 marrying into the family of Molech
2 having sex with anyone from Molech's family
3 having sex with anyone from your immediate family
4 cursing your father or mother
5 adultery with a married woman
6 having sex with your fathers wife (whether shes your mother or not)
7 having sex with your daughter-in-law
8 homosexuality
9 having a woman and her mother as your wives
10 bestiality
11 having sex on your period/with someone on their period
whilst a lot that sounds crazy and certainly not deserving of death, the reason is in this chapter:
v.3 I will set My face against that man, and will cut him off from his people, because he has given some of his descendants to Molech, to defile My sanctuary and profane My holy name.
v.23 And you shall not walk in the statutes of the nation which I am casting out before you; for they commit all these things, and therefore I abhor them.
v.24: I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples
v.26 And you shall be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine.
so all these things are to make a distinction between God's people (Israel), and everyone else.
now look at who is God's people in the new testament:
John 1:11-13
He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
i.e., anyone who wants to. so you dont have to make that distinction anymore. sure, all those things listed in leviticus are bad in the sight of god, but the punishment isnt death anymore:
acts 28:28
"Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!"
now that theres salvation, sin doesnt equal death anymore. now when you get to romans, and it says that gay people have received the due penalty (which was death in the OT), it doesnt make sense to say that must mean kill them. the important words in there were "in themselves". that idea is echoed in leviticus, after each offence is says "their blood is upon themselves". it means that homosexuality is an individual choice, but by doing so, you are choosing for yourself to be cut off from God's people, and if Christ is the way, truth and life, and you choose to cut yourself off from him, what must you be? spiritually dead.
It's also an interesting argument, isn't it? "Oh no no, the old testament was wrong!"
How could god get it all so wrong? And if you're going to claim that we have free will, why did god have to interfere twice in the first place?
the OT is not "wrong", it applies to a time where there was no salvation, and in turn, no forgiveness. humanity sinned by its own free will, so god came to save it. in the NT, there is salvation, so there is forgiveness, so theres no place for the strict law in the OT. and interfere? if youre talking about christ, i think ive already answered that. what do you mean by twice?
That's some free will, isn't it? Obey me or go to hell.
that sure is, humanity stuffs up, god pays the price, and you can choose to accept or reject it at your own will.
Also, it does seem that your quarrel isnt exactly with religion, its with the church - and i would agree with that. but if im not wrong, youre against religion in the sense that it can validate organisations like the church which are then given some kind of moral blank cheque? i think pretty much everybody would agree with you in that respect - it shouldnt have happened, and it should never happen again, which is precisely why i said it would be wrong of me to impose my religious beliefs on the rest of society.
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No, read my first post again if you want to see my initial point. My original point was religion isn't perfect but it does do some good, and furthermore, what "evils" it does contribute to are only that: contributions, and can not be solely bestowed upon religion.
I don't care about your post about religion, that's a separate issue. You said that your first post on the subject of AIDS acknowledged that there were confounding factors. I reread your first post on that subject and it didn't say that. I haven't contributed to the religion aspect of the debate, I only care about the stance you took on HIV, which you then reversed when people pointed it out.
I've quoted from my first post here:
<snip>
And you have misinterpreted those quotes.
How? That first post never addressed HIV at all. It wasn't relevant.
And as for you your bolded part in your post LOLOLOLOL As I've said a few times "one can argue that the Church has prevented widespread spread of AIDS in much of the world in it's initial stages." Furthermore, that was referring to a hypothetical scenario. But even then, it was one that someone else agreed with in principle:
This was the part I took issue with (initial stages) a few pages back, that you never responded to. If you feel like responding then PM me
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_advocate
In common parlance, a devil's advocate is someone who, given a certain argument, takes a position he or she does not necessarily agree with, for the sake of argument
I thought I made that pretty obvious, and you've said what position I chose.
I am aware of the definition thanks. My point was that you weren't doing it properly. You picked an argument that was fundamentally broken and refused to acknowledge that. I have no problem with you arguing something you disagree with or that is fringe or whatever, but I don't see the value in the argument you made.
I'm not sure why you'd re-open this against me when clearly Dan and I agreed the point was finished... But ok.
Because that's what we do..?
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Ok, you care only about my stance on HIV, AIDS and the Church. Right. I interpreted "Your initial point was..." as my initial point in this whole thread. Sorry, my apologies.
I'm assuming the post of yours I have not referred to is this one? Re: [SPLIT] The "finer" points of apologetics and its rebuttal Might have missed it among the mass posting.
This is spurious logic to the extreme. The issue with AIDS initially was not rate of spread, but knowledge. Nobody knew what GRID was, because it was presenting as a diffuse collection of different diseases, that we now know are a result of AIDS. Your argument that the church, by suppressing homosexuality, was suppressing the spread of AIDS doesn't hold water because it would still have reached the same endpoint of global epidemic. There were no drugs to treat it until 5 years later (and even then they cost $10,000 a patient, a year) and whether it spread quickly or slowly didn't matter, because it was still going to become an epidemic.
I agree it would have eventually become a global epidemic anyway, my point was that it would have become so faster, and hence, could potentially have become a much serious epidemic as more people would have been exposed to the virus. I'm not clear why you don't think that wouldn't happen, there are various severities of epidemics, and if there was faster spread in the same time period, surely there would have been a worse present day scenario.
There are also the obvious social factors, where the attitude towards homosexuality in the mid 1900s was "it's a disease", meaning that if you were gay you didn't really care about what the Church said. I fail to see how the Church promoting it's anti-gay message could have had a substantial impact on HIV transmission in a segment of society that was being oppressed and thus didn't particularly care.
Substantial or not, there would be an effect. And that effect would be to reduce the spread.
With respect to condoms in Africa, which is what we're actually talking about, I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that the Church was correct. Uganda generally gets mentioned as the model for AIDS in Africa, since they're one of the few countries that have (previously) had a decrease in incidence. There's a lot of political debate about why, but there's a pretty strong correlation between that and the fact that back in the '90s they were very big on sexual education, condom usage etc. In contrast, they've recently swung the other way and HIV rates are unfortunately going back up (relevant)
I believe I've addressed that:
This was the clarification I gave:
However, the point I was trying to make is that not ALL the responsibility of the AIDS crisis falls upon the Church. There ARE CONFOUNDING FACTORS, a point that I've made in my first reply and have been consistent with throughout this debate. In this case, the confounding factor is the inability of humanity to avoid temptation. They knew of the consequences of unprotected sex and still went ahead and took the risk.
So, I'm not saying the Church is infallible. It's not. And in my first reply I said no religious institution is without it's flaws. The Church's ethics are without question horrendous, they have essentially blackmailed the population into their teachings. BUT, had their instruction (and THIS is religion) been followed, none of this would have happened. BUT because humanity isn't like that, and of course it's never going to work out to what the Church simplistically hoped for, the crisis is what is today.
This is from IRC, and clarifies my stance a bit further (I'll leave it as anonymous):
<> i thought his point was that humanity 'let them down' by not being abstinent when they had hiv
<> not by being gay. that's an inference
<> what do you call it when you attribute a position to your opponent which they don't actually hold, in order to make it more easy to refute them? oh yeah, straw man
<>the church was wrong to try to prevent condom use when they knew it would do good. but they were right to advise abstinence for people - of either gender and any sexual orientation - who were hiv positive
<> just because it was ultimately ineffective, doesn't mean it wasn't sound advice
Both are partly at fault and no-one deserved anything. I don't think it's possible to say who's more at fault either unless we go into "what if"s again.
Sure sex ed would have worked well and I'm honestly glad it has, but the point I was making about the Church is that it isn't solely to blame in the countries it got to first (for the above reasons).
there would have been more unsafe homosexual practice during that INITIAL period (especially given the quality of contraception at the time - 1960s).
What, latex condoms and the pill?
Well, firstly the pill wasn't what I was referring to in terms of homosexual practices. But in terms of condoms, yes you are correct. But condoms itself are not a solution, and there was a severe backlash against their use by the homosexual community during this time for a large number of reasons. To take a quote from one homosexual HIV male carrier Gaėtan Dugas (one of the more prominent during the initial period we're discussing):
"Of course I'm going to have sex. Nobody's proven to me that you can spread cancer"
"It's their duty to protect themselves. They know what's going on out there. They've heard about this disease"
"I've got gay cancer. I'm going to die and so are you"
The fact is that they didn't think about it as something that can be passed, so they went for it with or without condoms. Having them or not having didn't matter to everyone. And if the Church could reduce a few of such people by campaigning against them, then that would have helped to reduce the spread and speed of the epidemic.
No of course we all agree that it's morally wrong to run such campaigns, but the point is that morals aside (I've said numerous times the ethic of the Church is a huge problem), it would have helped.
I'm not sure why you'd re-open this against me when clearly Dan and I agreed the point was finished... But ok.
Because that's what we do..?
Yeah, didn't realise you weren't talking about my initial point of the thread. Sorry again.