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Going back to the original topic, is it against the Separation Clause for the government to designate the Year of the Bible?

I'd take that case.

dogma wrote:

mattyrm wrote:
So the long haired colonel tells me, but there is nothing warm I wont eat from 7-eleven if im ten pints deep.

If you haven't been to a White Castle, you're missing out on your long lost home.

mattyrm wrote:
My missus loves Chicago Dogs, where's the other one from?

New York, its not named after the city, but the style of the dog itself is pretty consistent; usually mustard and sauerkraut on top. Nathans is a good example.

Also, I found this abomination when I googled "hot dog":



The white stuff is mayonnaise.

Truly, Chile is an awful place.

There's also Sonoran Hotdogs which are themselves abominations.

crunchym8 wrote:IReally, why is it so hard to just mind your own business?

If both sides agreed to this then the world would be a much better place...

Manchu wrote:I thought he made a pretty good point. I mean, how do you organize of the absence of belief in a particular thing?

Which is why most atheist organizations are so small. But the ones that are there tend to be focused around the belief that religion (or at least religious extremism) is bad for humanity, rather than about the atheistic aspect.

Manchu wrote:Who's talking about what it takes to be a religion?

You.

My objection was over the idea that atheism itself is a "faith".

It's one of the more stupid claims made on the topic. Atheism is, in general, a position which argues that there is no proof of the existence of whatever entity that one might call "god", singular or plural. If that's faith, then everything is faith and the term is meaningless trash to be tossed aside like the gak my cat had on my floor this morning.

Melissia wrote:

Manchu wrote:Who's talking about what it takes to be a religion?

You.

Nope, but you know that. Or you just dismissed Polnius without understanding what he was actually saying.

More likely, you read it without actually understanding what he was saying.

Aaaand read my post without really understanding it either.

By the way, I edited an explanation.

One of the many nice things about Adepticon is being within easy shuttle ride distance of Portillo's, which is one place to get good Chicago dogs.

Manchu wrote: And that's the argument that the atheists in this case deployed on their billboard: that the transatlantic slave trade prosecuted by white Christians was, in some part at least, an authentic function of their Christian belief system. But this is only convincing in an ahistorical or even anti-historical sense. Most obviously, human beings don't need the Bible to do really terrible things to one another. Perhaps less obviously to this audience, human beings have regularly done terrible things to one another in spite of the Bible.

Certainly true and valid, but I think sidestepping a bit the point that the book does explicitly condone slavery. And that many modern practitioners still seem to adhere (at least superficially) to the concept of Biblical inerrancy, and regularly take (what seem at least to me outdated) bits from the Old Testament when they choose, such as to reinforce prejudice against homosexuals, or pagans. If modern Christians still reference the OT in justifying their intolerance toward some people, is it an enormous leap to think that members of that religion might retain sympathy toward some of the other outdated and barbaric concepts their holy book endorses from those times?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_slavery wrote: Some members of fringe Christian groups like the Christian Identity movement, and the Ku Klux Klan (an organization dedicated to the "empowerment of the white race"), and Christian Reconstructionists still argue that slavery is justified by Christian doctrine today.

Certainly Identity Christians and KKK members are the extreme end, and not representative of the vast majority of the religion’s adherents. But when you’ve got people like GG who are not them, but seem to be trying to mislead us about what’s present in the Bible, it does invite questions. When he tells us that slaves really were just servants rather than property, or that all slaves were to be freed after seven years, what are we to think? It seems like he believes that the passages on slavery really don’t correspond to any immoral act.

Manchu wrote: The most crushing analysis of the billboard argument, however, is that Christians did hold slaves right from the beginning and yet it took them sixteen centuries to invent the kind of slavery that we now recognize as morally reprehensible.

I don’t think it took sixteen centuries for slavery to become something we would or should consider morally reprehensible. While I agree that the particular form we most often think of (mercantile, industrial slavery) is relatively recent, and has little or no connection to early Christianity, that doesn’t mean that I can find the concept of owning a person to be okay. Or excusing physical abuse of that person on the basis of them being property.

Manchu wrote: But that brings us back to the new atheist conception of Christianity as some kind of timeless mold that presses human beings into the same shape no matter what century they inhabit. That explanation simply cannot account for some Christians plying the slave trade at one point and other Christians passionately working to end that same trade at another point.

I’m not an atheist, as you know, and I’m not familiar with that idea, really. I will say that I don’t see anything particularly surprising in the facts that some Christians ardently opposed slavery while others just as ardently supported it. Not everyone is primarily defined or their behavior controlled by their religion. And as slavery is not a central tenet of Christianity, obviously there’s a lot of room for abolitionists to write it off as an obsolete and immoral concept belonging to the past.

Manchu wrote:But the new atheist ahistorical/antihistorical perspective obliterates these distinctions in favor of rhetoric -- yet another thing the new atheists have in common with other fundamentalists. If you think back over the last decade, it won't be hard to see how this ahistorical/antihistorical argument has been deployed time and again against Muslims.

If Atheists can legitimately be grouped into a unified perspective or organization I’d be surprised. If there are many who can be described as fundamentalist that’d surprise me too. I think I know what you’re talking about in terms of Muslims. Being slandered by people taking certain passages out of context from the Koran and acting as if the modern religion hasn’t changed at all and still adheres primarily to a medieval and intolerant mindset.

Manchu wrote: American liberals, even those who not terribly sensitive to a historical point of view, understood that these arguments were simply thinly-disguised calls to lynching. Like I said, one does not need the Bible to round up a lynch mob. But when this same hate speech is directed against Christianity, whose adherents are not so closely tied to any particular race or culture, the same liberals are slow to acknowledge it for what it is. In the politically-charged atmosphere of American religion, I can understand that -- but I can't excuse it.

It seems to me that you’re making quite a leap to get from this billboard to hate speech or lynchings. If liberals are slower to leap to Christianity’s defense, I can only say that for my part, I do regularly defend Christianity and Christians when I see them slandered. But that I don’t see much danger to them in critical or even hateful speech. One fears for a person or small group in the midst of a crowd of those who hate them. One isn’t so scared for the crowd if a couple of people in their midst are shouting nasty names at them.

Melissia wrote:More likely, you read it without actually understanding what he was saying.

No, read further. He and I talked a little more about it and settled on the term creed as opposed to religion.

Manchu wrote:

Melissia wrote:More likely, you read it without actually understanding what he was saying.

No, read further. He and I talked a little more about it and settled on the term creed as opposed to religion.

Try reading. My post happens to be put in words.

Polonius wrote:Athiests have a shared faith

Melissia wrote:My objection was over the idea that atheism itself is a "faith".

It's one of the more stupid claims made on the topic. Atheism is, in general, a position which argues that there is no proof of the existence of whatever entity that one might call "god", singular or plural. If that's faith, then everything is faith and the term is meaningless trash to be tossed aside like the gak my cat had on my floor this morning.

The argument that "atheism is faith" is stupid and as a science major who has to keep a very distinct difference between proof and faith in mind any time any study is made, the argument is frankly offensive. Faith is a very specific concept, which really doesn't apply to the general concept of the view of atheism.

I wouldn't even describe myself as atheistic, I just hate the misuse of the term "faith". Just like I hate it when people claim that you have no faith because you don't go to church, as if somehow attendance is tied to anything other than attendance (church is a social event, it does not define one's faith, one does not need to belong to any faith to participate, and one doesn't need to have any particularly strong faith to participate regularly).

Mannahnin wrote:If modern Christians still reference the OT in justifying their intolerance toward some people, is it an enormous leap to think that members of that religion might retain sympathy toward some of the other outdated and barbaric concepts their holy book endorses from those times?

Yes, I think that's quite a leap. Similarly, mere racism doesn't imply advocacy of transatlantic style slavery.

I don’t think it took sixteen centuries for slavery to become something we would or should consider morally reprehensible.

Well, but it did -- I mean, even longer than that actually.

While I agree that the particular form we most often think of (mercantile, industrial slavery) is relatively recent, and has little or no connection to early Christianity,

Or Christianity at all.

And as slavery is not a central tenet of Christianity, obviously there’s a lot of room for abolitionists to write it off as an obsolete and immoral concept belonging to the past.

Yes, exactly right. But I'd still criticize that narrative of the inferior past along the same lines I already have.

If there are many [new atheists] who can be described as fundamentalist that’d surprise me too.

I think it's quite common, based on the self-representations I've seen.

It seems to me that you’re making quite a leap to get from this billboard to hate speech or lynchings.

The distance is equivocal to me, in this case. To quote from the Prometheus trailer, big things have little beginnings. Most hate speech won't result in a lynching the next day.

One isn’t so scared for the crowd if a couple of people in their midst are shouting nasty names at them.

This doesn't seem to be the case at hand though, does it, where a group of atheists went into someone else's community to cast stones?


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Melissia wrote:Faith is a very specific concept, which really doesn't apply to the general concept of the view of atheism.

I'd disagree that faith is a very specific concept. This is belied by its actual use by actual people. As in this case, where faith was meant along the lines of "doctrine" or "worldview" as was apparent in the context of the conversation.

Yes, there are people who are misusing the term. Just like tehre are people who use the term "Christian" in place of "mentally slowed"; as in "You seriously ran a red light? Stop being Christian."

But misuse of the term is irrelevant except to point out that it is misuse.

I recognize that in a narrower discourse, terms have very specific meanings. But a narrow discourse does not capture all possible uses of a word.

Manchu wrote:I recognize that in a narrower discourse, terms have very specific meanings. But a narrow discourse does not capture all possible uses of a word.

If you want to "capture all possible uses of a word" then all words are meaningless.

Thankfully we can discover what people actually mean by discussing it with them.

Which could be anything and everything. One can use faith for "stupidity", "enlightenment", "ignorance", "wisdom", "disk jockeys", or anything else you can think of.

But since subjectivism pisses me off with its intellectual laziness, I don't really find myself caring overmuch about subjectivist philosophies on topics.

I think I understand what you mean and generally agree with you. In this case, however, Polonius used a term to make a point and then that point and the terms involved were discussed and different terms were introduced in order to make the point more clear. Saying that the earlier, less clear terminology is an "epic fail" several pages after that part of the conversation is needlessly provocative and doesn't even address the point Polonius was trying to make.

Manchu wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:If modern Christians still reference the OT in justifying their intolerance toward some people, is it an enormous leap to think that members of that religion might retain sympathy toward some of the other outdated and barbaric concepts their holy book endorses from those times?

Yes, I think that's quite a leap. Similarly, mere racism doesn't imply advocacy of transatlantic style slavery.

Of course not, but:
A) Remember I'm not just talking about the transatlantic slave trade. IMO local slavery (of war prisoners and members of neighboring tribes) is still an evil, and saying "It's fine to beat your slave, because they're your property, it's only a problem if they die" represents a kind of barbarism which we find morally reprehensible today and which I have no doubt at least some people found morally reprehensible at the time, even if it was generally accepted by the societal mores of the time and place.
B) Not to pick on GG, but by inaccurately describing what the Bible says about slavery, he seemed to minimize and excuse that barbarity and that evil, even to the extent of arguing or at least implying that it wasn't actually wrong or bad.
C) We know there are a few racist extremist Christians out there who do miss slavery and would like to see it back, and who still use scripture (like good ol' Jeff Davis did) in justifying it.

Manchu wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:It seems to me that you’re making quite a leap to get from this billboard to hate speech or lynchings.

The distance is equivocal to me, in this case. To quote from the Prometheus trailer, big things have little beginnings. Most hate speech won't result in a lynching the next day.

I still don't agree that it's hate speech. And the idea that it could result in lynching, ever, relies on the possibilty that Fundamentalist Atheists could ever become a large enough percentage of society to put such acts into practice, while remaining angry enough to do so. A possibility that seems absurd on its face, to me. From what I've seen it seems that the strident Atheists are the way they are because they feel isolated and alone, like they have to shout and be nasty to be heard at all. Hence attention-getting stunts like this billboard.

That exchange between Mel and Manchu made me lol hard

I like returning to a thread and finding myself being called stupid for a choice of words I had long since corrected.

As an atheist myself, I think this billboard is a bit extreme I don't really see why they had to bring race into it.

Although maybe extreme statements like this are needed to make America wake up. I dunno.

Mannahnin wrote:I still don't agree that it's hate speech.

I think it's a pretty clear example but I agree we won't have atheist lynchmobs anytime soon. My point is there's nothing about atheism itself that doesn't preclude it. It's very like Christianity and slavery. There's nothing inherent to Christianity or atheism that necessitates humans being despicable to humans. But inhumanity will find a way.


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GalacticDefender wrote:Although maybe extreme statements like this are needed to make America wake up. I dunno.

Wake up from what? That's a pretty awful thing to say itself so I guess I can understand why you might give that billboard a pass.

Manchu wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:I still don't agree that it's hate speech.

My point is there's nothing about atheism itself that doesn't preclude it. It's very like Christianity and slavery. There's nothing about inherent Christianity or atheism that necessitates humans being despicable to humans. But inhumanity will find a way.

I agree with this about 90%. Certainly nothing about atheism prevents being hateful, or a dick. And human beings of all kinds and creeds find ways to be awful to each other.

But I do think there's a distinction between a set of people who don't have any specific dogma, and don't have any foundational texts supportive of ancient barbarity, and a set of people who do. Now, all of us have lots of ancestors (Christian and Pagan and other) who engaged in barbaric acts we would find immoral today. But if a member of any religion starts making excuses for the barbaric, outdated parts of their holy text and pretending that those parts aren't barbaric or nasty, that seems a bit off to me. I can totally respect you putting things into historical perspective. I can't respect a Christian misrepresenting the text, claiming it says something other than what it does, and acting like ancient slavery wasn't a bad thing. Any more than I could respect a Muslim who stood up for oppression of women based on outdated parts of the Koran. Or a Shinto practitioner defending racism toward non-Japanese.

I'm not saying your comments to GG constitute hate speech by any stretch. I'm saying that the billboard in this case, with it's ludicrous charge of Christianity being responsible for the terrible treatment black people have suffered and continue to suffer in the country, is hate speech.

The old testaments tacit approval has many possible reasons.

First: that the human writers of the OT knew they couldn't end slavery, but thought they could clean it up some.

Second: That even the divine author of the OT knew He couldn't end slavery, but thought He could clean it up some.

Third: The God of the OT actually has no problem with slavery.

Fourth: god realized that humanity could only handle some truths at certain times. So, rather than explain macro evolution or heliocentrism from the get go, he told a story. Rather than try to create a moral code of human dignity, he gave them complicated rules.

Honestly, there's plenty of support for four. The whole reason for Jesus was to free humans from complicated regulations, and instead base moral decisions on more basic principles.

The problem, of course, is that such a reading requires viewing all specific moral lessons of the new testament through modern understanding. Which would lead no more murders or robberies, but more non-procreative sex, and less slavery, wife beating, and rape.

It's also possible that God is either a dick, not all powerful, or not the author of Leviticus.

Manchu wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:I still don't agree that it's hate speech.

I think it's a pretty clear example but I agree we won't have atheist lynchmobs anytime soon. My point is there's nothing about atheism itself that doesn't preclude it. It's very like Christianity and slavery. There's nothing inherent to Christianity or atheism that necessitates humans being despicable to humans. But inhumanity will find a way.


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GalacticDefender wrote:Although maybe extreme statements like this are needed to make America wake up. I dunno.

Wake up from what? That's a pretty awful thing to say itself so I guess I can understand why you might give that billboard a pass.

Wake up from thinking that every word from the bible or any other religious text is the word of god and what is right (Not that it is all bad. There are quite a few things in the Bible that I do agree with. Things like "Thou shall not Kill" ). But bringing race into it was the wrong thing to do. They could have just used the same quote in another way. (or something completely different. I dunno)

GD, I don't think most religious people think that every word of their chosen religious text are infallible. I think that's pretty uncommon.


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Manchu wrote:I'm not saying your comments to GG constitute hate speech by any stretch. I'm saying that the billboard in this case, with it's ludicrous charge of Christianity being responsible for the terrible treatment black people have suffered and continue to suffer in the country, is hate speech.

Is that what it said? When I read it, it appeared to reference "Bronze age ethics" being part of the Bible, and made clear that the statement was in response to the state legislature's declaration of the "Year of the Bible".

That is not a depiction of Bronze Age slavery, my friend.

Has anyone recognized mannys propensity to compare GG with the bogey man?

Really Polonius is spot on yet again... stop trying to read into the OT Law the same kind of understanding we have today ( we don't have a complete understanding of the way they did things and how they saw things back then). I tried(and failed) to explain it to Manny earlier. Guess I should just stop trying.


GG

generalgrog wrote:Has anyone recognized mannys propensity to compare GG with the bogey man?

Really Polonius is spot on yet again... stop trying to read into the OT Law the same kind of understanding we have today ( we don't have a complete understanding of the way they did things and how they saw things back then). I tried(and failed) to explain it to Manny earlier. Guess I should just stop trying.

So, you're saying that the Bible is either not inerrant, or not directly applicable to modern times?