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JEB_Stuart wrote:Wow, even after imbibing a bit more to make this thread more tolerable

Don't drink and type! You'll make lolbunny cry:



I do think though that the language you are using is not very nice.

Nurglitch was trying to tie in the Christian-Pagan ties to which Christianity must be thankful for.

Sorry KK, I blame the angry Scot inside the bottle. I am done for the evening...with Dakka

JEB_Stuart wrote:Sorry KK, I blame the angry Scot inside the bottle. I am done for the evening...with Dakka

How do you fit a man inside a bottle? How about a keg? Maybe that will be a bit easier.

(provided man is awake enough to try)

WarOne wrote:I do think though that the language you are using is not very nice.

True, but then again I wasn't trying to be nice. I tend to be rude to rude people...its a classic character foible of mine

WarOne wrote:Nurglitch was trying to tie in the Christian-Pagan ties to which Christianity must be thankful for.

The idea that I must be thankful for his statement is based upon the false reality that he proclaims. His ideas are not supported in any credible academic or religious circles, not to mention my own religious beliefs...

JEB_Stuart:

Oh, well, my beliefs disagree with yours and therefore must be false and offensive? At least you've been useful in helping me make my point. Shine on you crazy diamond.

Jeb: No no no. I understand that Nurglitch needs more proof about that particular statement he made, but Christianity had some of its basis in prior religions and beliefs. I am not asking you as Christianity to thank him for his statement; I am asking Christianity to be thankful of what prior religions and belief systems had given to Christianity in order to pay for the rent.

Maybe it helps to understand that I am not talking about Christianity in the context of every person who worships Jesus Christ in some context, but as a separate entity and idea regardless of the worshippers of that religion.

Nurglitch: Your not helping.

If I went around telling other people off about my imaginary deathbot in the sky is watching them and going to punish them for wearing pants or whatever random problem I have with them I'm pretty sure I would be put a way too. They call it "insanity". Some old timers also call it "faith" but the terms are interchangeable. I don't wanna hear about your imaginary friend any more than you want to hear about mine, buddy.

BTW his name is Zoltar and he is watching, and he knows when you are wearing pants, and his son walks among us spreading lies and deciet in the name of some carpenter and thereby shall bring about the plague of poop unon all of those who do not accecpt Eris Esoteric as the purveyor of the origional snub doctrine, BY WHICH THOU SHALL PARTAKE OF NO HOT DOG BUNS ON FRIDAY!!! ...which has been seconded by J.R. "bob" dobbs as proof of its RIGHTEOUSNESS! BOW DOWN SINNERS AND KISS THE FEET OF THY PET SNAKE FOR TOMORROW WE SHALL ALL BE WAITING FOR 2012!!!!!

yeah If I walked around saying that kind of stuff I'd probably be arrested too. Makes about as much sense as noah's ark, or talking bushes, or zombie messiahs.

Score 1 for sanity.

Guitardian wrote: I don't wanna hear about your imaginary friend any more than you want to hear about mine, buddy.

Funny that.

Question: What is the best selling book in the Wurld?

Answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books

Advice: Start writing about your imaginary friend now!

Nurglitch wrote:Oh, well, my beliefs disagree with yours and therefore must be false and offensive? At least you've been useful in helping me make my point. Shine on you crazy diamond.

No, that isn't what I said. I could care less if they are offensive or not, but I expect such statements to backed up by academic or religious thought. Your claim is backed up by neither, and decidedly false. I merely pointed that out, albeit in a rather rude manner: my apologies on that. That does not however allow your point to hold any truth whatsoever...

WarOne wrote:Jeb: No no no. I understand that Nurglitch needs more proof about that particular statement he made, but Christianity had some of its basis in prior religions and beliefs. I am not asking you as Christianity to thank him for his statement; I am asking Christianity to be thankful of what prior religions and belief systems had given to Christianity in order to pay for the rent.

And we are. Judaism is the religion that we come from; indeed Christianity is not something different then Judaism, rather it is Judaism fulfilled. That being said, as I Christian I believe in the omnipotence and eternal nature of God, and that it is He who influenced other religious, not the other way around. Again, my beliefs, not that I am forcing them on anyone else...

JEB_Stuart wrote: Again, my beliefs, not that I am forcing them on anyone else...

I think you need to use a much stronger force:

Fundamentalist atheists are as bad (though in my view worse) than fundamentalists of any religion.

You don't attack what people believe - no matter how twisted and "wrong" their thinking, they still believe what they do based on evidence of one sort or another.

Attacking people for their beliefs is just as abhorrent as the most terrible beliefs.

I believe (although perhaps believe is the wrong word, since I don't "believe" in a religious way, more "understand it to be correct" in the work done by science which shows a natural evolution of the universe, life and other natural phenomena. To this is evidence that god(s)/etc do not exist.

Someone else can look at the exact same science and think "wow, this can't have all happened by itself" and thus come to believe that there is some higher power. There is plenty of science (which I don' particularly agree is either science or correct) which will show that everything has been designed by god etc.

Even without this, there is plenty of scope for people to see god in science.

Not saying that it is a good thing, or that I personally can see god in what science has discovered but many do. This is of course aside from all the religious teaching, religious community/spirit, etc that hooks youngsters in and which converts older people in later life.




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WarOne wrote:Advice: Start writing about your imaginary friend now!

Many people have, which I think is part of the problem

Nurglitch wrote:
One's beliefs are always favoured above those of others.

No, that's only true if you fail to extend the self beyond one's person. Parents often place more importance on the beliefs of their children, than their own. It also happens between significant others, and between close friends. This significantly complicates the 'self' in rational self-interest. Indeed, the very concept of subservience requires that one's beliefs be subsumed by those of others.

Nurglitch wrote:
It follows that one preferring freedom of speech oppresses one that wishes to enforce radical controls on speech and print. Perhaps you would like to prove me wrong by arguing for my position against your own.

Yes, in cases where diametrically opposed perspectives conflict, one must necessarily oppress the other to achieve dominance. But you didn't say anything about diametric opposition. You said any form of government can be reduced to a tyranny because any form of government must seek to oppress those who oppose it.

What comes to mind immediately is that dominance is not necessary for governance, only control; thereby eliminating the need for oppression, and thereby eliminating the potential for reductive tyranny. We can further reduce this into an argument over free will, but that seems counterproductive.

JEB_Stuart:

How is the historically ecumenical development of the Christ "decidedly false"? You validated my point about how we prefer our own beliefs to those of others by deciding that my opinion was false because it disagreed with your own.

I mean I'm not offended by your ugly religion claiming any legitimate descent from Judaism, nor your crass manner for proclaiming such stupid and offensive beliefs in a public forum where your opinion cannot be avoided. I'm just glad alcohol has affected your judgment enough that you're able to make my point for me while attempting to deny it.

WarOne:

I'm curious, but how can Christianity be understood as a separate entity from those who hold it as a religion? I mean I don't have a problem imagining English as a separate entity from the people who use it, but a set of beliefs seems somehow different from a language.

SilverMK2 wrote:Many people have, which I think is part of the problem

Or maybe we do not have enough imaginary friends.

Imagine this:

What if we had the capacity to end war and death by war by allowing imgainary friends to fight by proxy the conflicts to which we waste so many real lives!?!?!?

Think about the consequences of such an action: all conflicts would be resolved by having real people act as generals at the head of an army of imaginary people, complete with gear and weapons to fight such a war. The winner would then be able to declare that her side is victorious and ergo her demands or point of view superior.

All we would need is some sort of way to define how such conflicts occur and what imaginary friends count when they are drafted by their real friends.

Nurglitch:

Easy.

Christianity could not pay the drug dealers back to which he owed money to them for a prior transaction in which money was lended in exchange for drugs. After that time window ended, Christianity had its knee caps busted.

Now if you wanted to add worshippers, things would get very complicated indeed:

As Christianity was backed into a corner by drug dealers holding bats in a menacing fashion, Christianity suddenly turned on the drug dealers, who attacked en masse in a mob attacking with fists, kicks, and amens that Christianity in this context was being treated plurally as a religion of many people rather than in the context of a singular noun.

JEB_Stuart wrote:This thread becomes much less enjoyable after the Scotch wears off....

It's your own fault for wandering into a Dakka thread sober.

WarOne:

I like the way you theologize.

Nurglitch wrote:sebster:

If one's belief is in freedom of speech, then clearly one prefers that freedom of speech to radical controls on speech. So...if one's belief is in freedom of speech, it follows trivially that one prefers that belief in freedom of speech.

Right. Now, what if instead of being a hypthetical construct defined by a single belief, they are complex human beings, perhaps even having two beliefs. What if they simultaneously believed in free speach, and the idea that people can walk down the street without hearing something offensive?

Wouldn't they then support a system where all speach could be heard, but not at all times in all places? Wouldn't sensible people call that compromise, and silly people call it tyranny?


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Orkeosaurus wrote:It sounds like Manchu is using tyranny to mean "overly restrictive laws/a government that has such laws", while Nurglitch is using tyranny to mean "restrictions/a government that has restrictions", and they're fighting over it. Or something.

Yeah, that was the piece I was trying to puzzle out. Was Nurglitch hiding some insight under the wordplay, or was it really just a cover for how silly 'every control is tyranny' really is.

sebster wrote:or was it really just a cover for how silly 'every control is tyranny' really is.

Ah! He discovered a third of the truth:



control AND alt AND delete are watching you!

sebster:

I was addressing precisely what Manchu labeled "equivocation": naturally these things occur in single bodies as much as they occur in multiple bodies. One often makes such equivocation as one might make to skirt the elephant in the room in the relative privacy of one's own skull. I believe it's sometimes called "cognitive dissonance", but given certain people's tendency to wander off into crazy-land, let's stick with strictly epistemic terms of "belief".

Firstly, let's acknowledge that physics, and perhaps economics, put a hard and fast limit on our powers of opinion such that we cannot have our opinions impressed upon others at all times and in all places. Given that nature has given us such limits to work within, politics gives us further limits on our powers of opinion, as much self-inflicted as by sovereign power.

Secondly, those political limits are considerably more concerned with content: we might not wish people under our power ever have the opportunity to send or receive pornography involving children, as much as organize the use and sale of radio frequencies, or disseminate information about ongoing legal proceedings.

Such an attempt to be 'sensible' as you describe is then wrong-headed in principle as well as in practice because we have to go back and make all the ad hoc tweaks to such a compromise as should shoe-horn such sensible compromise into the realities of physical, economical, political, and personal powers.

More realistically one would recognize that acknowledging the tyranny of politics, as well as those of physics and economics, should be done by those seeking to develop principles about what additional limits should be set on our powers of speech. Appeal to tyranny as setting those limits too low, even as a rhetorical move, begs the question (in the colloquial and technical senses) as to the nature and rightness of those limits, as though one had not already admitted to tyranny and was merely bargaining on the price.

Which puts me in mind of something Winston Churchill is reputed to have said to a rich Englishwoman once (again, poorly paraphrased):

Churchill: "My dear, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?"
Woman: "Why certainly my dear, for a million pounds!'
Churchill: "How about five pounds?"
Woman: "Winston, do you take me for a prostitute?"
Churchill: "Dear lady, we've established what you are and are merely haggling over the price."

Or words to that effect.

SilverMK2 wrote:Fundamentalist atheists are as bad (though in my view worse) than fundamentalists of any religion.

You don't attack what people believe - no matter how twisted and "wrong" their thinking, they still believe what they do based on evidence of one sort or another.

"beliefs" by their very nature attack other people's beliefs, in that "if I believe something and you believe something different... one of us must be wrong...". At least the Atheists and Agnostics have the sense to say they have no idea what they are talking about.


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WarOne wrote:

Guitardian wrote: I don't wanna hear about your imaginary friend any more than you want to hear about mine, buddy.

Funny that.

Question: What is the best selling book in the Wurld?

Answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books

Advice: Start writing about your imaginary friend now!

yeah and mariah carey was the 'artist of the century' according to dumb people's votes too... and 'transformers 2' deserves an oscar. Sorry I don't look to sales as a guide to authenticity. SO MANY PEOPLE WATCHED TRANSFORMERS IT MUST BE TRUE!! dumb.

I prefer to stay holed up in my high high IQ tower and trying not to follow a herd, or use the herd as my exscuse to argue about something that nobody can give a definite answer about. Numbers don't speak for you, you speak for you.

Watch out... according to the most popular movies of all time, megatron and Sauron might just have it out for you (with Chris Aguillera doing a soundtrack!) yeah these things are real. They are real because they are the voice of the walmart nation, so they must be on to something, right?

Wow, way to insult every Christian out there.

Now I have even less respect for you Guitardian.

"dumb peoples votes"? Seriously?

Guitardian wrote:"beliefs" by their very nature attack other people's beliefs, in that "if I believe something and you believe something different... one of us must be wrong...". At least the Atheists and Agnostics have the sense to say they have no idea what they are talking about.

Belief does not imply that other systems of thought are incorrect. I believe that the stapler on my desk is a dark blue colour, however, because everyone's eyes are different, someone else may think it is purple. Neither of us is correct or incorrect because we each see the exact same thing in different ways. The evidence would support either one of us. Science may be able to supply us with an exact colour value of the stapler and then render it into a "judgement" of what colour it "actually" is, but that does not change how each person experiencecs the stapler., neither of which is more or less valid than the other.

A very simple illustation and nothing like as complex and emotionally invested as religion/belief in the existance or non-existance of higher powers, however, you can have belief in something such as god and still not exclude the fact or possibility that someone believes in the same god/power, just in a different, equally valid way.

I was of course, referring to sales, not xtians.


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Fateweaver wrote:Wow, way to insult every Christian out there.

Now I have even less respect for you Guitardian.

"dumb peoples votes"? Seriously?

Yeah I needed your respect. The point is that you can't count "most popular sales" as truth.

Guitardian wrote:
Yeah I needed your respect. The point is that you can't count "most popular sales" as truth.

Second Most Popular Book Ever Sold:



Tell me direct quotes from a real person are not true.

Lot less ways of going about it than calling people who buy the Bible "dumb".

I could stoop to your level and insult your beliefs about the immigration bill in AZ but I won't as I'll end up with another vacation from here, most likely a month and I like Dakka (most times).

WarOne wrote:Think about the consequences of such an action: all conflicts would be resolved by having real people act as generals at the head of an army of imaginary people, complete with gear and weapons to fight such a war. The winner would then be able to declare that her side is victorious and ergo her demands or point of view superior.

Yeah, and then you have the RAW lawyers telling you that you can't use certain powers or even entire imaginary units because the Rules of Imaginary Warfare are so poorly written that they contradict themselves

Besides, you have never played army, or cowboys and indians when you were smaller?

"I shot you!"
"No you didn't!"
"Yes I did!"
"Didn't. I'm telling mum on you!"

etc...

I have owned several bibles, and never bought one. They get left in hotel rooms for your reading enjoyment, handed out by Gideons on street corners, shovelled upon you by well meaning people who are genuinely interested in your 'soul' finding 'Jesus'. Just leave it in the drawer before you go and satan wont burn you. That's the theory. Yeah. Dumb. Sorry.

SilverMK2 wrote:Fundamentalist atheists are as bad (though in my view worse) than fundamentalists of any religion.

Sorry mate, but that is the biggest load of crap I have ever had the misfortune to read on here, and I've read some of Tony the Guardsman's threads.

PICTURE REMOVED SO AS NOT TO CAUSE OFFENCE

When has an Atheist/Agnostic/Secularist committed a heinous crime such as 9/11 or the London Bombings in the name of their beliefs? When? Seriously, I'll wait.

SilverMK2 wrote:Someone else can look at the exact same science and think "wow, this can't have all happened by itself" and thus come to believe that there is some higher power. There is plenty of science (which I don' particularly agree is either science or correct) which will show that everything has been designed by god etc.

Enlighten me.

SilverMK2 wrote:Even without this, there is plenty of scope for people to see god in science.

I would say that this is more accurate.


Do I think that arresting the man was a little heavy-handed? Perhaps.

Do I care? No.

I firmly believe that homosexual people should be allowed to walk down the street without having to hear that their 'lifestyle' is wrong - remember, we are talking about a group which has been vehemently victimised in our society. Just BEING gay was enough to land you in prison not so long ago, and being openly gay in public was a very dangerous thing to do until relatively recently (some would argue it that it still is in certain places). I don't want gay people to feel threatened in my country.

I have no problem with religious people feeling threatened in my country. I am not a reasonable man.

Sure, on an interpersonal level I am an amiable sort of chap - I can mix with people from all walks of life, and can maintain friendships with religious people. I get on fairly well with several religious Dakkites (although, not after this I suspect...) and bear them no ill-will for their beliefs.

However, I would like to see organised religion dismantled - totally removed from public life. I believe that religion is something which should be practised behind closed doors.

Is that reasonable? No.

Do I care? Again, no.


This message brought to you by the Atheist Taliban

Albatross wrote:Sorry mate, but that is the biggest load of crap I have ever had the misfortune to read on here, and I've read some of Tony the Guardsman's threads.

Oh dear, I must have done something horribly wrong to you in order to be compared in this way

When has an Atheist/Agnostic/Secularist done something like this in the name of their beliefs? When? Seriously, I'll wait.

I can't see the image at work, but from the file name, I assume you are talking about the 11th of September attacks?

I would like to clarify that when I said "Fundamentalist atheists are as bad (though in my view worse) than fundamentalists of any religion." I was meaning in terms of those people who are a case of "do what I say, not what I do" - the people who complain about people not washing and then down themselves in aftershave, people who talk about the evils of smoking and then go out and get hammered on booze, etc, not in terms of horrific physical acts against people, places, nations etc.

I was going to include the following few lines in the first post, but did not want to do so because of how it may have come across, but in reply to your post, I think I may well include them: The reason that millitant atheists annoy the crap out of me more than fundamental religious people is that atheism is supposed to be about reason and logic, not about emotion, conversion, "I'm right and you're wrong", etc. You expect a certain amount of foaming at the mouth from religion, but atheists are supposed to be above that - to show that you don't need an invisible man looking over your shoulder to live a good and worthwhile life, that you don't need to get everyone around you to bend the knee to your way of thinking in order to get on with them and get a bit of "love thy brother" (homosexuality pun? Fun times ) community spirit on the go.

Atheism is not a system of belief, it is a catch word for people who do not believe in god(s), either actively or passively. That is it. There is no church of the atheiest, no atheist text telling you how to lead a good life, etc. You can't and shouldn't "convert" people to your cause. Reasoned debate should be the cornerstone of atheisum, not attacks on people of faith.

Some people you will never be able to demonstrate that there is no evidence for the existance of god (in so far as I would call something evidence anyway, as I went on to say and which you questioned, there are ways of interpreting the universe to suggest there "is" a god, etc... I'm not going to go into it as I don't personally subscribe to this idea, and I don't keep up with "Christian Science" (or any other religious science)), but you don't then go on to mock them or attack them in other ways. With no framework of belief and "accepted behaviour" to fall back on and/or blame for your behaviour, you are just being an idiot, rather than someone who may well have been raised and "brainwashed" into spouting whatever it is they are saying.

I'm not going to comment on the rest of your post as it seems to be personal beliefs and I don't particularly see the point in commenting on them as they are personal beliefs.

What about Humanism?