“I did back my point up. Read it again if you need to. I think it is you who does not know what agnosticism is.”
No, you didn’t. All you did was assert that we needed to read some epistolmology.
Gnosticism refers to what we can know or what we believe we know. Agnosticism is the position that we cannot or don’t know. Gnosticism is on an entirely different axis than theism. You are not an atheist OR an agnostic. One deals with belief, on deals with knowledge. Calling yourself an agnostic in this context is like calling yourself a human because anyone who isn’t seriously deluded is one as well. Trying to make it out like some golden mean third option is what demonstrates you don’t understand the term. You’re either a theist or an atheist. Gnosticism is a whole other thing.
“Supernatural phenomena may or may not exist. Since we can't control it, then we just don't fucking worry about it, and we limit our studies to testing things which are natural.”
Except that people do take this nonexistent ‘supernatural’ seriously. In fact, MOST do. And that leads to a mess of problems. No good is done burying your head in the sand.
“Atheism is based just as much in faith as religion, because both sides claim to know with certainty something that is impossible to know.”
No. A thousand times no. Atheism is merely the rejection of the claim that god exists. That requires no faith whatsoever. We aren’t claiming to know with certainty. We are pointing out that simply saying god exists is not meeting the burden of proof. For a guy who claims everyone else is stupid, you sure have difficulty knowing what things mean.
“Evidance of what? That there is a God? I said that was self-evident.”
Your idiocy is self evident. See how easy that was? It also means nothing if I can’t back it up. You don’t get to just call something self evident and not have it challenged. Evidence please.
“So which church is Biblically consistent? You obviously know which on it is. “ There a many a backwater splinter church with their own hyper orthodox interpretation that let’s them have all the underage child brides they want. There are many more churches who just edit their bible to not talks about the stuff that is considered morally reprehensible now.
“Also you list of prohibitions will probably be a list of activities forbidden by the Law such as the Sabbath. Christians are not under the law and beside no one CAN maintain the law.”
Wrong. Christians are SPECIFICALLY beholden to the laws of the old testament as spelled out by JESUS HIMSELF during the frigging sermon on the mount. Matthew 5:17-5:20. Now either your infallible god king is wrong, or your understanding of the bible is. Either way, my point is made.
“Misunderstanding is a flaw of the reader. I'm not just talking about misunderstanding I'm talking about what is culturally and traditionally motivated”
Not when the person delivering the message is infallible. And infallible being would be incapable of delivering a message that could be misinterpreted. Why isn’t it in every language? Why is it even possible for us to get it wrong? How mindnumbingly incompetent is your god if he can’t even do the job that a fucking phone can do?
“How is god a “evil malicious sadistic asshole” if He elects people?”
The principle of unconditional election as adhered to by 5 point Calvinists is that god decided beforehand who he will save from hell/obliteration and faith/works/good deeds don’t matter. Which means a serial killer could get saved and a charity worker damned because god said so. That’s being evil and malicious. Giving people the illusion of choice, knowing full well which of them are going to make it and allowing them to suffer is incredibly sadistic and malicious.
“Anyone who reads the Bible would know that God does not endorse slaver or rape. God has curses his enemies by having there women ravaged but that doesn't make rape good. Rape is bad as so God brings that and other bad things on his enemies..”
I’m going to post this separately so everyone can see this. Do you have any idea how earth shatteringly STUPID that is? You might as well say that the germans didn’t endorse the holocaust..which si why they reserved it for their enemies. And what kind of loving god arranges for innocent women to be raped as punishment for what their fathershusbands may have done (which, given the context of the old testament, was likely to be some variant of “they were there”)
You are also wrong, because the old testament explicitly outlines the conditions under which Hebrews can be enslaved….as though any of this was morally defensible against anyone.
“So you sympathies with the Midianites why? “
For those unfamiliar, the midianites are a group that the post exodus Hebrew run into. God has moses order the Hebrews to kill them all. The Hebrews do so, but spare the women. Moses gets pissed and tells them to kill the women, except the virgin girls who are to be divided among the people as wives. (read sex slaves). It is important to note that we aren’t talking 18 year olds here. Mary, 2000 years later, was 14 at the time of her pregnancy. Women got married young. So when they say virgins, we are talking tweenage.
Why do i sympathize with the midianites? Why don’t you? Why are you, a man from the 21st century clearly intelligent enough to create a computer defending genocide and mass child sex slavery?
Hiya, this is non-atheist (I guess) Tim again. Apologies to evidentally offended atheist Tim.
First of all, getting back to JDude: My point was less an attempt to support the existence of God than to suggest that if you're reasonably sure that God exists without being certain, that is still to some degree a belief. And if you can engage in a belief in any form, is it necessary that belief be in such opposition to thinking and reason when anyone else indulges in one as well?
As for the Bible, I'm not convinced in it either. Even if it were the word of God it would have been filtered through flawed humans and therefore have mutated and been twisted and turned for other ends.
However, I don't think one has to believe in the Bible to believe in the possibility of some being that created the universe and as such, I'm not sure it's not entirely logical to evaluate the basis for whether God or some other such being exists based solely on the religious trappings or crazies that follow them. The fact that I know a lot of really idiotic Pink Floyd fans doesn't stop me from liking the band's work.
And as to the Big Bang, what do you make of Roger Penrose's theories that the low entropy in effect during the Big Bang suggests a chain of cyclical universes, or Wun-Yi Shu's suggestion that there was no Big Bang but that the universe is in a constant back-and-forth of contraction and expansion since the expansion of the universe at its current rate violates the laws of physics.
That brings up Biomechanical's point of proving the supernatural. What is the supernatural really but phenomena which have not yet been explained by science? Mesmerism and hypnotism were once considered supernatural. Many medical procedures that save lives would probably seem supernatural to someone from the far past. While it gets a bad rap, I definitely think elements of parapsychology will eventually become part of accepted science once they can be quantified in laboratory settings. And passive-aggressive? How do you figure?
@Aaron: I don't think I ever said there was proof of God existing and am not trying to prove it to you since that would as you correctly mentioned that would be impossible. I'm simply asking questions, a key step in the Socratic method.
My problem isn't with politicians changing their minds… my problem is with politicians saying whatever they think will get them votes regardless of what they believe.
Kerry didn't “change his mind” about the war in Iraq… he just wouldn't be able to drum up votes from the left while supporting it, so he started spouting rhetoric in the other direction. Same thing's happening with Romney now. He didn't change his mind about abortion, just just can't get Tea Party votes while openly supporting it.
You're trying to portray it as if these politicians thought over their views and reached the decision that the other side might be right. That, unfortunately, could not be further from the truth. They simply said what their party wanted them to say so they could get more votes and get elected. A politician “flip-flopping” is not a sign of thought… it's a complete absence of thought.
Well, since Canadian Dave has got Luke and Bio by the balls, I think I'll stick to the most recent thing directed at me…
@Religious Tim:
I don't “believe” that no God exist, I LACK belief that they do exist. I can tell you that the odds stack up in one corner, and that this suggest to me that I not take religious claims seriously. All of this is based on e weighing evidence or the lack thereof.
“As for the Bible, I'm not convinced in it either. Even if it were the word of God it would have been filtered through flawed humans and therefore have mutated and been twisted and turned for other ends.”
Here's another thing; perfection is bullshit. It's a concept that simply cannot be. EVERYTHING is “flawed” to some extent. If a god exists, it's not going to be perfect in any sense.
“However, I don't think one has to believe in the Bible to believe in the possibility of some being that created the universe. The fact that I know a lot of really idiotic Pink Floyd fans doesn't stop me from liking the band's work.”
Yeah, well, having read the Bible, I can tell you I'm not a fan.
We can speculate all day on how the Bible might have been misinterpreted, but it gets us exactly nowhere. And neither, frankly, does positing the existence of a super-being that can will Universes into existence.
My point is, why in the Hell would you propose something like this? It's silly, and it brings more questions than answers. If this being came from another Universe to make this one, then how did it come about in the OTHER Universe? How does it manipulate matter and energy?
It tells us exactly nothing to propose that an intelligence made the Universe. It's called an infinite regress: what created the creator?
“And as to the Big Bang, what do you make of Roger Penrose's theories, or Wun-Yi Shu's suggestion”
I don't know enough about these things to argue them very well, but my understanding was that the Universe was determined as being on a runaway expansion, and given we've detected evidence for pre-bang events and know an awful lot about the first microseconds of the event, I'm inclined to think it happened.
As to violating the laws of physics, I'd amend that to “laws of physics as WE understand them”. I might be totally wrong on this.
I still fail to see the point in bringing up this topic. Where are you going with this?
“What is the supernatural really but phenomena which have not yet been explained by science? While it gets a bad rap, I definitely think elements of parapsychology will eventually become part of accepted science once they can be quantified in laboratory settings.”
Don't know a thing about parapsychology. Could be legit, could be hokum.
As to what you're saying on the supernatural, the difference is we've had the ability to detect and observe these things to determine what, if anything, is going on.
When I say “supernatural”, I'm talking about magic, gods, ghosts and ghoulies. You propose maybe that these things are real, but have a natural explanation rather than a magical one. I used to think like that when I was a Christian. But the problem is, we've never found compelling reasons to believe these things aren't merely the products of our imaginations. CAN they exist? Yeah, with a truckload of “givens”, but we've seen no reason to believe they do. At least with dragons you had dinosaur bones to pick over.
JDude, what about things that exists in dimensions or universes outside of our own? Perhaps even in universes where the laws of physics are different than our physics. Would those objects be considered supernatural to our universe? Or would you consider that natural? Or maybe “natural where it came from, but not natural here”
That's a load of bullshit bro. Belief in the existence of the supernatural is not dichotomous. You can force somebody to “pick a side” if you really want to, but you can't force somebody to actually believe it. Picking a side without actually believing it is tantamount to a guess. You may as well have flipped a coin. That's like me saying “Am I eating chocolate or vanilla ice cream? ANSWER NOW!!! Oh by the way, whatever you answer, you have to believe it too.”
It's bullshit, and it illustrates why “I don't fucking know” is a valid response.
Actually, if he misspelled “its” wrong, then that would imply there's a right way of misspelling “its”, which makes no sense, as there can be no distinctions between misspellings; they're all wrong.
Obtw, I'm a horrible speller and have horrible grammar…but then, I'm not the one giving importance to these things over substance. You are.
“Belief in the existence of the supernatural is not dichotomous.”
Yes it is. You either believe something or you don’t. There are degrees to how much you might belive something. But anything over zero is belief.
“ You can force somebody to “pick a side” if you really want to, but you can't force somebody to actually believe it.”
I’m not forcing anything. I’m just stating reality. Theism is a binary choice. You either belive in gods or you do not.
“That's like me saying “Am I eating chocolate or vanilla ice cream? ANSWER NOW!!! Oh by the way, whatever you answer, you have to believe it too.””
Wrong in so many ways.
1-I’m not asking WHICH god do you belive in. A correct metaphor would be me asking you if you were eating ice cream. You either are or are not. I didn’t ask about the flavour, if you ate it before or will again. I asked if you are eating it now. You either are or are not. You cannot be neither eating and not eating ice cream.
You’ve misrepresented a binary question as a false dichotomy. The bit at the end where I force people to believe it is also puzzling. I’m not even sure what point you were trying to make with that.
“It's bullshit, and it illustrates why “I don't fucking know” is a valid response.”
You might not know what you believe, but that doesn’t mean you don’t believe it. I don’t know is not a response to ‘what do you believe.’ As I said before, belief and knowledge are entirely different planes.
That’s why the label of agnostic is so stupid and only used by those who don’t get what it means. I’m an agnostic atheist. I do not belive in gods, and I also think we can’t know. These are not contradictory positions. Logic and reason dictate that unless we have evidence for something, we should not assume it exists. The default position for anything is disbelief until sufficient evidence is provided.
To use your ice cream metaphor, it is as if I asked you if you are eating ice cream and you said you didn’t know. Now you may not know. You could be drugged or unsure of what you are eating etc. But i don’t know hoas no bearing on whether or not you are eating ice cream. You either are, or are not.
Just like you either are or are not a theist. You might not know whether or not you believe in god, but any answer other than YES means you are an atheist. Which means that in all likelyhood, you and most self described agnostics, are atheist. Whether you can admit that to yourself is your issue. But none of it warrants this insipid pride in not coming to a conclusion.
“JDude, what about things that exists in dimensions or universes outside of our own? Perhaps even in universes where the laws of physics are different than our physics. Would those objects be considered supernatural to our universe? Or would you consider that natural? Or maybe “natural where it came from, but not natural here” “
Here's the thing. Yes, it's almost certainly likely that other Universes exist with varying physical laws, or at least different values for those laws. Just how different any of them are from our own is debatable to the extent that such speculation becomes almost pointless.
One thing I would posit, however, is that whatever matter finds itself in one Universe must adhere entirely to the rules of that Universe. If the laws that allowed inter-Universal beings to survive, or even manipulate matter in their Universe, are not PRESENT in our Universe, then it is unlikely for them to survive and recreate those same feats in our Universe.
It might be entirely natural for their Universe to have emerged uniquely from our own or from others, but this does not mean that they can interfere with OUR Universe in the same manners that would make them so extraordinary in THEIR Universe.
In other words, I cannot accept a notion of gods or spirits as they are envisioned, to have anything to do with our Universe, even as mistaken entities from another Universe. There's simply no room for them to be plausible HERE.
Now, a DEIST god? That might fit with inter-universal beings, but still, we have no reason to believe this is true, nor do we have any evidence to reasonably offer it as a possibility, and it does not answer any questions.
@JDude Very open minded of you. You don't read the book but assume is full of BS.
Believe it or not they aren't religious books, they're history books, written by a Doctor of History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge.
They aren't creationism. If you even bothered to do a simple google search you would have seen that they are historical books about the churches effect on science and philosophy during the middle ages. You're knee jerk hatred of all things religious is making you look like stupid.
Galileo was attacked but not because propagated heliocentrism, as people like to push. Galileo (and Foscarini) got in trouble with the church because they were suggesting a theological solution. They were making the claim that you could interpret the bible in a way that would allow the earth to revolve around the sun. The church at the time was in a power struggle claiming that only the church it's self was allowed to interpret the bible, fighting the Reformation that was pushing to allow anyone to interpret the bible. Galileo involved himself in church politics and that's what caused him to be set upon.
Galileo was right in both case, (The sun and the reformation) and the church was wrong, but the reasons behind the events are important. If he'd just stuck to the science the church would have ignored him.
You're throwing a lot out here, and this isn't really the place to go over it all (length limitations). I agree with your points, but not the hatred you place on all the religious because of it.
Faith Healers for example, yes they are destructive but they are hardly alone. Are you going to try to be straight faced and tell me there's no medical quackery people try to ground in science? They just talk about toxins rather than demons but it's the same shit. Ever seen the Ionic Detox? Or everything ever written by Kevin Trudeau?
Do you even know why the one theologian in the church claimed Condoms would increase the risk of HIV or are you just grabbing headlines? The claim isn't that a condom increases the risk, but that it promotes indiscriminate use and that increases the risk. His argument is that, rather than sleeping around and having faith that a condom will protect you 100%, it's better to be limit your partners. (Look at how much I had to write and research in order to counter your half a sentence claim. It's so much easier to just lay false claims.)
I do read books and articles by actual scientists. On both sides. You might want to open your eyes and do the same. But don't insult me when, by your own claims, you're ignorant on the subject.
I WAS going to do a point-for-point against you here, but then I realized, why? All I'd REALLY be saying to each was how I REALLY didn't care. It's all just a smokescreen.
I don't CARE about when religious institutions grudgingly endorse science, or whether Galileo (who was still a Christian) tried to play the apologist and find a way to make his findings match his religious beliefs. I don't CARE about quacks (who I strongly doubt are making it past the FDA, and who I strongly doubt are respected or taken seriously as scientists) pushing bullshit medicine, when there have ALWAYS been phonies.
I don't CARE if Pope Darth Sidious was promoting abstinence over protection, and given that speech he made to oppose it, I doubt Richard Dawkins does either. File your grievances with HIM, why don't you?
I don't care, because at the end of the day religion is an institution that is anti-logic, anti-reason and wholesale anti-science at it's HEART. When I hear people say things like, “God doesn't want you to KNOW, he wants you to BELIEVE!” I'm all too aware that the intent is to coax people into abandoning knowledge in favor of ignorance, and it's killing our world.
You should change the name of this feature to “Big Picture” and rename “Big Picture,” “Obscure and Arcane Minutiae.” Keep up the great work in all of your platforms.
Listen, I can see past your anger, but your arguments lack solid foundations.
“I don't CARE!” how is that different than the blind religious nuts you despise so much? Both sides have a majority that are presenting their arguments poorly with the personal insults. Now this is a response to your 'Bible supports rape and slavery' arguments.
Your “God endorses rape!” argument. Read Zechariah 22:25-29. Know the customs. Jewish Custom: women who weren't virgins before marriage were labeled outcasts, no man wanted to marry a woman that wasn't a virgin. If a man rapes a betrothed woman, then he is put to death and the woman is not found at fault. However, if a man rapes a woman that isn't about to be married and in doing so taking her virginity then he must pay her dowry to her father and marry her; never be able to divorce her. Why marry her? As I've said before she would be labeled an outcast by her community. Marrying her would save her from exile plus the bastard rapist is forced to pay and care for her the rest of his life. Nothing there condones rape, it punishes.
Also the Bible doesn't endorse slavery, not in the sense you think anyway. (Exodus 21:16; Deuteronomy 23:15-16; 24:7) What “slavery” it does have however, is prisoners of war/criminals or indentured servitude (i.e. paying off debts). Their masters still had to treat them fairly and the servants had to respect their masters because it was the master that was in charge of their life.
In short it wasn't like the slavery of black or white slaves prior to the Civil War, but indentured servants from the colonial period of America.
It doesn't matter to me if your angry or don't CARE. Just don't sling mud against the Word creating false claims that it endorsed slavery or rape to justify your intense hatred towards an opinion that doesn't agree with your own. Arguments being filled with “I don't think…” “I know that's right because I think…” or “I believe that…” these are not sound arguments on your part.
Shalom (I'm not Jewish, but I just want to wish you peace).
I hope you’ll forgive me for taking on something aimed at you.
@ Joesph
RE: Read Zechariah 22:25-29.
So rape is ok as long as he marries her? What an enlightened people. How is forcing a woman to live and continue having sex with her rapist a punishment for him? If anything it rewards him by making everything official and punishes her for being raped. What kind fo twisted logic are you using?
Next you’ll be telling me that the ones we should be feeling sorry for are the midianites, because can you image how hard it must have been on the mythical Hebrews to murder that many children?
The only thing he is ‘saving’ her from is arbitrary shame in her backwards misogynistic culture. That still doesn’t get around the issue of the multiple points in the bible where God has the Israelites commit genocide, only to keep the virgin girls for themselves as wives. Oh except for the portion that are set aside for Yahweh himself. I’m sure there’s nothing sinister behind that.
RE: slavery
Bullshit. Slavery is barbaric and inhumane and ANY being with even an early 20th century system or morality, let alone a supposed all knowing, all loving creator of everything who knows the future.
One thing you don’t mention is that if a master gives the slave a wife who bears him children, THEY stay permanently when his term is up. In that case the slave can ask to remain. Then you drive an awl through his ear and he’s a slave forever. Such compassionate treatment, using a man’s wife and children as hostages to keep him enslaved forever.
Oh and not only is it legal under the bible to sell your daughter as a slave, but she can’t ever leave. Unless her master decides she isn’t good enough in bed in which case her father has to buy her back. Presumeably to sell to someone who will have more fun raping her.
And many of these ‘prisoners of war’ are the families of tribes the Israelites wiped out for kicks. How the FUCK is that justified.
“Their masters still had to treat them fairly”
/spews cola all over keyboard.
Exodus 21:21 you immoral son off a bitch. How the fuck is that fair? What kind of monstrous assholoe are you that you think it is “FAIR” for a man to beat his slave to death and get off scott free as long as the slave survives for a day or two. What the bloody fuck is wrong with you?
“In short it wasn't like the slavery of black or white slaves prior to the Civil War”
Right, it was considerably less civilized. I don’t recall anyone in the deep south selling their children into slavery. Or wiping out entire nations and keeping the young girls as live in concubines.
I really have to thank you for showing more beautifully the problem with religion than I ever could have, In mid 2011, with gays finally getting the rights they are due, black dude in office, and joss whedon getting a major motion picture, I am having a conversation with someone who is claiming that slavery and rape weren’t all that bad.
This is why people like me and Jdude get so ‘mad’ you’ve abandoned all pretence of moral reasoning to exist in scraping, bowing devotion to an imaginary deity whose morality is so incredibly backwards that he makes some of his most fanatical followers look benign. Your religious has made you sacrifice the very things that make us more than a pack of balding apes.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
@ biomechanical923
“I am not a naturalist because I do not know whether the supernatural exists, so I cannot make such a claim.”
Don't you mean to say that you are not a naturalist because you don't know if natural is all there is?
Since you ignore the supernatural for lack of evidence do you also ignore ideas or morality for lack of evidence?
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@biomechanical923
“I did back my point up. Read it again if you need to. I think it is you who does not know what agnosticism is.”
No, you didn’t. All you did was assert that we needed to read some epistolmology.
Gnosticism refers to what we can know or what we believe we know. Agnosticism is the position that we cannot or don’t know. Gnosticism is on an entirely different axis than theism. You are not an atheist OR an agnostic. One deals with belief, on deals with knowledge. Calling yourself an agnostic in this context is like calling yourself a human because anyone who isn’t seriously deluded is one as well. Trying to make it out like some golden mean third option is what demonstrates you don’t understand the term. You’re either a theist or an atheist. Gnosticism is a whole other thing.
“Supernatural phenomena may or may not exist. Since we can't control it, then we just don't fucking worry about it, and we limit our studies to testing things which are natural.”
Except that people do take this nonexistent ‘supernatural’ seriously. In fact, MOST do. And that leads to a mess of problems. No good is done burying your head in the sand.
“Atheism is based just as much in faith as religion, because both sides claim to know with certainty something that is impossible to know.”
No. A thousand times no. Atheism is merely the rejection of the claim that god exists. That requires no faith whatsoever. We aren’t claiming to know with certainty. We are pointing out that simply saying god exists is not meeting the burden of proof. For a guy who claims everyone else is stupid, you sure have difficulty knowing what things mean.
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@ Luke
“Evidance of what? That there is a God? I said that was self-evident.”
Your idiocy is self evident. See how easy that was? It also means nothing if I can’t back it up. You don’t get to just call something self evident and not have it challenged. Evidence please.
“So which church is Biblically consistent? You obviously know which on it is. “
There a many a backwater splinter church with their own hyper orthodox interpretation that let’s them have all the underage child brides they want. There are many more churches who just edit their bible to not talks about the stuff that is considered morally reprehensible now.
“Also you list of prohibitions will probably be a list of activities forbidden by the Law such as the Sabbath. Christians are not under the law and beside no one CAN maintain the law.”
Wrong. Christians are SPECIFICALLY beholden to the laws of the old testament as spelled out by JESUS HIMSELF during the frigging sermon on the mount. Matthew 5:17-5:20. Now either your infallible god king is wrong, or your understanding of the bible is. Either way, my point is made.
“Misunderstanding is a flaw of the reader. I'm not just talking about misunderstanding I'm talking about what is culturally and traditionally motivated”
Not when the person delivering the message is infallible. And infallible being would be incapable of delivering a message that could be misinterpreted. Why isn’t it in every language? Why is it even possible for us to get it wrong? How mindnumbingly incompetent is your god if he can’t even do the job that a fucking phone can do?
“How is god a “evil malicious sadistic asshole” if He elects people?”
The principle of unconditional election as adhered to by 5 point Calvinists is that god decided beforehand who he will save from hell/obliteration and faith/works/good deeds don’t matter. Which means a serial killer could get saved and a charity worker damned because god said so. That’s being evil and malicious. Giving people the illusion of choice, knowing full well which of them are going to make it and allowing them to suffer is incredibly sadistic and malicious.
“Anyone who reads the Bible would know that God does not endorse slaver or rape. God has curses his enemies by having there women ravaged but that doesn't make rape good.
Rape is bad as so God brings that and other bad things on his enemies..”
I’m going to post this separately so everyone can see this. Do you have any idea how earth shatteringly STUPID that is? You might as well say that the germans didn’t endorse the holocaust..which si why they reserved it for their enemies. And what kind of loving god arranges for innocent women to be raped as punishment for what their fathershusbands may have done (which, given the context of the old testament, was likely to be some variant of “they were there”)
You are also wrong, because the old testament explicitly outlines the conditions under which Hebrews can be enslaved….as though any of this was morally defensible against anyone.
“So you sympathies with the Midianites why? “
For those unfamiliar, the midianites are a group that the post exodus Hebrew run into. God has moses order the Hebrews to kill them all. The Hebrews do so, but spare the women. Moses gets pissed and tells them to kill the women, except the virgin girls who are to be divided among the people as wives. (read sex slaves). It is important to note that we aren’t talking 18 year olds here. Mary, 2000 years later, was 14 at the time of her pregnancy. Women got married young. So when they say virgins, we are talking tweenage.
Why do i sympathize with the midianites? Why don’t you? Why are you, a man from the 21st century clearly intelligent enough to create a computer defending genocide and mass child sex slavery?
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Hiya, this is non-atheist (I guess) Tim again. Apologies to evidentally offended atheist Tim.
First of all, getting back to JDude: My point was less an attempt to support the existence of God than to suggest that if you're reasonably sure that God exists without being certain, that is still to some degree a belief. And if you can engage in a belief in any form, is it necessary that belief be in such opposition to thinking and reason when anyone else indulges in one as well?
As for the Bible, I'm not convinced in it either. Even if it were the word of God it would have been filtered through flawed humans and therefore have mutated and been twisted and turned for other ends.
However, I don't think one has to believe in the Bible to believe in the possibility of some being that created the universe and as such, I'm not sure it's not entirely logical to evaluate the basis for whether God or some other such being exists based solely on the religious trappings or crazies that follow them. The fact that I know a lot of really idiotic Pink Floyd fans doesn't stop me from liking the band's work.
And as to the Big Bang, what do you make of Roger Penrose's theories that the low entropy in effect during the Big Bang suggests a chain of cyclical universes, or Wun-Yi Shu's suggestion that there was no Big Bang but that the universe is in a constant back-and-forth of contraction and expansion since the expansion of the universe at its current rate violates the laws of physics.
That brings up Biomechanical's point of proving the supernatural. What is the supernatural really but phenomena which have not yet been explained by science? Mesmerism and hypnotism were once considered supernatural. Many medical procedures that save lives would probably seem supernatural to someone from the far past. While it gets a bad rap, I definitely think elements of parapsychology will eventually become part of accepted science once they can be quantified in laboratory settings. And passive-aggressive? How do you figure?
@Aaron: I don't think I ever said there was proof of God existing and am not trying to prove it to you since that would as you correctly mentioned that would be impossible. I'm simply asking questions, a key step in the Socratic method.
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My problem isn't with politicians changing their minds… my problem is with politicians saying whatever they think will get them votes regardless of what they believe.
Kerry didn't “change his mind” about the war in Iraq… he just wouldn't be able to drum up votes from the left while supporting it, so he started spouting rhetoric in the other direction. Same thing's happening with Romney now. He didn't change his mind about abortion, just just can't get Tea Party votes while openly supporting it.
You're trying to portray it as if these politicians thought over their views and reached the decision that the other side might be right. That, unfortunately, could not be further from the truth. They simply said what their party wanted them to say so they could get more votes and get elected. A politician “flip-flopping” is not a sign of thought… it's a complete absence of thought.
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Well, since Canadian Dave has got Luke and Bio by the balls, I think I'll stick to the most recent thing directed at me…
@Religious Tim:
I don't “believe” that no God exist, I LACK belief that they do exist. I can tell you that the odds stack up in one corner, and that this suggest to me that I not take religious claims seriously. All of this is based on e weighing evidence or the lack thereof.
“As for the Bible, I'm not convinced in it either. Even if it were the word of God it would have been filtered through flawed humans and therefore have mutated and been twisted and turned for other ends.”
Here's another thing; perfection is bullshit. It's a concept that simply cannot be. EVERYTHING is “flawed” to some extent. If a god exists, it's not going to be perfect in any sense.
“However, I don't think one has to believe in the Bible to believe in the possibility of some being that created the universe. The fact that I know a lot of really idiotic Pink Floyd fans doesn't stop me from liking the band's work.”
Yeah, well, having read the Bible, I can tell you I'm not a fan.
We can speculate all day on how the Bible might have been misinterpreted, but it gets us exactly nowhere. And neither, frankly, does positing the existence of a super-being that can will Universes into existence.
My point is, why in the Hell would you propose something like this? It's silly, and it brings more questions than answers. If this being came from another Universe to make this one, then how did it come about in the OTHER Universe? How does it manipulate matter and energy?
It tells us exactly nothing to propose that an intelligence made the Universe. It's called an infinite regress: what created the creator?
“And as to the Big Bang, what do you make of Roger Penrose's theories, or Wun-Yi Shu's suggestion”
I don't know enough about these things to argue them very well, but my understanding was that the Universe was determined as being on a runaway expansion, and given we've detected evidence for pre-bang events and know an awful lot about the first microseconds of the event, I'm inclined to think it happened.
As to violating the laws of physics, I'd amend that to “laws of physics as WE understand them”. I might be totally wrong on this.
I still fail to see the point in bringing up this topic. Where are you going with this?
“What is the supernatural really but phenomena which have not yet been explained by science? While it gets a bad rap, I definitely think elements of parapsychology will eventually become part of accepted science once they can be quantified in laboratory settings.”
Don't know a thing about parapsychology. Could be legit, could be hokum.
As to what you're saying on the supernatural, the difference is we've had the ability to detect and observe these things to determine what, if anything, is going on.
When I say “supernatural”, I'm talking about magic, gods, ghosts and ghoulies. You propose maybe that these things are real, but have a natural explanation rather than a magical one. I used to think like that when I was a Christian. But the problem is, we've never found compelling reasons to believe these things aren't merely the products of our imaginations. CAN they exist? Yeah, with a truckload of “givens”, but we've seen no reason to believe they do. At least with dragons you had dinosaur bones to pick over.
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JDude, what about things that exists in dimensions or universes outside of our own? Perhaps even in universes where the laws of physics are different than our physics.
Would those objects be considered supernatural to our universe? Or would you consider that natural? Or maybe “natural where it came from, but not natural here”
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@ Dave
“You're either theist or atheist”
That's a load of bullshit bro. Belief in the existence of the supernatural is not dichotomous. You can force somebody to “pick a side” if you really want to, but you can't force somebody to actually believe it. Picking a side without actually believing it is tantamount to a guess. You may as well have flipped a coin.
That's like me saying “Am I eating chocolate or vanilla ice cream? ANSWER NOW!!! Oh by the way, whatever you answer, you have to believe it too.”
It's bullshit, and it illustrates why “I don't fucking know” is a valid response.
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@ 6c898700-5c58-11e0-92aa-000bcdcb5194
Actually, if he misspelled “its” wrong, then that would imply there's a right way of misspelling “its”, which makes no sense, as there can be no distinctions between misspellings; they're all wrong.
Obtw, I'm a horrible speller and have horrible grammar…but then, I'm not the one giving importance to these things over substance. You are.
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@Biomechanical
“That's a load of bullshit bro.”
No it’s not.
“Belief in the existence of the supernatural is not dichotomous.”
Yes it is. You either believe something or you don’t. There are degrees to how much you might belive something. But anything over zero is belief.
“ You can force somebody to “pick a side” if you really want to, but you can't force somebody to actually believe it.”
I’m not forcing anything. I’m just stating reality. Theism is a binary choice. You either belive in gods or you do not.
“That's like me saying “Am I eating chocolate or vanilla ice cream? ANSWER NOW!!! Oh by the way, whatever you answer, you have to believe it too.””
Wrong in so many ways.
1-I’m not asking WHICH god do you belive in. A correct metaphor would be me asking you if you were eating ice cream. You either are or are not. I didn’t ask about the flavour, if you ate it before or will again. I asked if you are eating it now. You either are or are not. You cannot be neither eating and not eating ice cream.
You’ve misrepresented a binary question as a false dichotomy. The bit at the end where I force people to believe it is also puzzling. I’m not even sure what point you were trying to make with that.
“It's bullshit, and it illustrates why “I don't fucking know” is a valid response.”
You might not know what you believe, but that doesn’t mean you don’t believe it. I don’t know is not a response to ‘what do you believe.’ As I said before, belief and knowledge are entirely different planes.
That’s why the label of agnostic is so stupid and only used by those who don’t get what it means. I’m an agnostic atheist. I do not belive in gods, and I also think we can’t know. These are not contradictory positions. Logic and reason dictate that unless we have evidence for something, we should not assume it exists. The default position for anything is disbelief until sufficient evidence is provided.
To use your ice cream metaphor, it is as if I asked you if you are eating ice cream and you said you didn’t know. Now you may not know. You could be drugged or unsure of what you are eating etc. But i don’t know hoas no bearing on whether or not you are eating ice cream. You either are, or are not.
Just like you either are or are not a theist. You might not know whether or not you believe in god, but any answer other than YES means you are an atheist. Which means that in all likelyhood, you and most self described agnostics, are atheist. Whether you can admit that to yourself is your issue. But none of it warrants this insipid pride in not coming to a conclusion.
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That was excellent! A much more amusing and insightful piece than the first. Definitely on-board with this.
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@Dave
“You might not know what you believe, but that doesn’t mean you don’t believe it. I don’t know is not a response to ‘what do you believe.”
This is the definition of a Non Sequitur.
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@Bio
“JDude, what about things that exists in dimensions or universes outside of our own? Perhaps even in universes where the laws of physics are different than our physics.
Would those objects be considered supernatural to our universe? Or would you consider that natural? Or maybe “natural where it came from, but not natural here” “
Here's the thing. Yes, it's almost certainly likely that other Universes exist with varying physical laws, or at least different values for those laws. Just how different any of them are from our own is debatable to the extent that such speculation becomes almost pointless.
One thing I would posit, however, is that whatever matter finds itself in one Universe must adhere entirely to the rules of that Universe. If the laws that allowed inter-Universal beings to survive, or even manipulate matter in their Universe, are not PRESENT in our Universe, then it is unlikely for them to survive and recreate those same feats in our Universe.
It might be entirely natural for their Universe to have emerged uniquely from our own or from others, but this does not mean that they can interfere with OUR Universe in the same manners that would make them so extraordinary in THEIR Universe.
In other words, I cannot accept a notion of gods or spirits as they are envisioned, to have anything to do with our Universe, even as mistaken entities from another Universe. There's simply no room for them to be plausible HERE.
Now, a DEIST god? That might fit with inter-universal beings, but still, we have no reason to believe this is true, nor do we have any evidence to reasonably offer it as a possibility, and it does not answer any questions.
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@JDude
Very open minded of you. You don't read the book but assume is full of BS.
Believe it or not they aren't religious books, they're history books, written by a Doctor of History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge.
They aren't creationism. If you even bothered to do a simple google search you would have seen that they are historical books about the churches effect on science and philosophy during the middle ages. You're knee jerk hatred of all things religious is making you look like stupid.
Galileo was attacked but not because propagated heliocentrism, as people like to push. Galileo (and Foscarini) got in trouble with the church because they were suggesting a theological solution. They were making the claim that you could interpret the bible in a way that would allow the earth to revolve around the sun. The church at the time was in a power struggle claiming that only the church it's self was allowed to interpret the bible, fighting the Reformation that was pushing to allow anyone to interpret the bible. Galileo involved himself in church politics and that's what caused him to be set upon.
Galileo was right in both case, (The sun and the reformation) and the church was wrong, but the reasons behind the events are important. If he'd just stuck to the science the church would have ignored him.
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(continued…)
You're throwing a lot out here, and this isn't really the place to go over it all (length limitations). I agree with your points, but not the hatred you place on all the religious because of it.
Faith Healers for example, yes they are destructive but they are hardly alone. Are you going to try to be straight faced and tell me there's no medical quackery people try to ground in science? They just talk about toxins rather than demons but it's the same shit. Ever seen the Ionic Detox? Or everything ever written by Kevin Trudeau?
Do you even know why the one theologian in the church claimed Condoms would increase the risk of HIV or are you just grabbing headlines? The claim isn't that a condom increases the risk, but that it promotes indiscriminate use and that increases the risk. His argument is that, rather than sleeping around and having faith that a condom will protect you 100%, it's better to be limit your partners. (Look at how much I had to write and research in order to counter your half a sentence claim. It's so much easier to just lay false claims.)
I do read books and articles by actual scientists. On both sides. You might want to open your eyes and do the same. But don't insult me when, by your own claims, you're ignorant on the subject.
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@Chris:
I WAS going to do a point-for-point against you here, but then I realized, why? All I'd REALLY be saying to each was how I REALLY didn't care. It's all just a smokescreen.
I don't CARE about when religious institutions grudgingly endorse science, or whether Galileo (who was still a Christian) tried to play the apologist and find a way to make his findings match his religious beliefs. I don't CARE about quacks (who I strongly doubt are making it past the FDA, and who I strongly doubt are respected or taken seriously as scientists) pushing bullshit medicine, when there have ALWAYS been phonies.
I don't CARE if Pope Darth Sidious was promoting abstinence over protection, and given that speech he made to oppose it, I doubt Richard Dawkins does either. File your grievances with HIM, why don't you?
I don't care, because at the end of the day religion is an institution that is anti-logic, anti-reason and wholesale anti-science at it's HEART. When I hear people say things like, “God doesn't want you to KNOW, he wants you to BELIEVE!” I'm all too aware that the intent is to coax people into abandoning knowledge in favor of ignorance, and it's killing our world.
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You should change the name of this feature to “Big Picture” and rename “Big Picture,” “Obscure and Arcane Minutiae.” Keep up the great work in all of your platforms.
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@JDude
Listen, I can see past your anger, but your arguments lack solid foundations.
“I don't CARE!” how is that different than the blind religious nuts you despise so much? Both sides have a majority that are presenting their arguments poorly with the personal insults. Now this is a response to your 'Bible supports rape and slavery' arguments.
Your “God endorses rape!” argument. Read Zechariah 22:25-29. Know the customs. Jewish Custom: women who weren't virgins before marriage were labeled outcasts, no man wanted to marry a woman that wasn't a virgin. If a man rapes a betrothed woman, then he is put to death and the woman is not found at fault. However, if a man rapes a woman that isn't about to be married and in doing so taking her virginity then he must pay her dowry to her father and marry her; never be able to divorce her. Why marry her? As I've said before she would be labeled an outcast by her community. Marrying her would save her from exile plus the bastard rapist is forced to pay and care for her the rest of his life. Nothing there condones rape, it punishes.
Also the Bible doesn't endorse slavery, not in the sense you think anyway. (Exodus 21:16; Deuteronomy 23:15-16; 24:7) What “slavery” it does have however, is prisoners of war/criminals or indentured servitude (i.e. paying off debts). Their masters still had to treat them fairly and the servants had to respect their masters because it was the master that was in charge of their life.
In short it wasn't like the slavery of black or white slaves prior to the Civil War, but indentured servants from the colonial period of America.
It doesn't matter to me if your angry or don't CARE. Just don't sling mud against the Word creating false claims that it endorsed slavery or rape to justify your intense hatred towards an opinion that doesn't agree with your own. Arguments being filled with “I don't think…” “I know that's right because I think…” or “I believe that…” these are not sound arguments on your part.
Shalom (I'm not Jewish, but I just want to wish you peace).
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@JDUDE
I hope you’ll forgive me for taking on something aimed at you.
@ Joesph
RE: Read Zechariah 22:25-29.
So rape is ok as long as he marries her? What an enlightened people. How is forcing a woman to live and continue having sex with her rapist a punishment for him? If anything it rewards him by making everything official and punishes her for being raped. What kind fo twisted logic are you using?
Next you’ll be telling me that the ones we should be feeling sorry for are the midianites, because can you image how hard it must have been on the mythical Hebrews to murder that many children?
The only thing he is ‘saving’ her from is arbitrary shame in her backwards misogynistic culture. That still doesn’t get around the issue of the multiple points in the bible where God has the Israelites commit genocide, only to keep the virgin girls for themselves as wives. Oh except for the portion that are set aside for Yahweh himself. I’m sure there’s nothing sinister behind that.
RE: slavery
Bullshit. Slavery is barbaric and inhumane and ANY being with even an early 20th century system or morality, let alone a supposed all knowing, all loving creator of everything who knows the future.
One thing you don’t mention is that if a master gives the slave a wife who bears him children, THEY stay permanently when his term is up. In that case the slave can ask to remain. Then you drive an awl through his ear and he’s a slave forever. Such compassionate treatment, using a man’s wife and children as hostages to keep him enslaved forever.
Oh and not only is it legal under the bible to sell your daughter as a slave, but she can’t ever leave. Unless her master decides she isn’t good enough in bed in which case her father has to buy her back. Presumeably to sell to someone who will have more fun raping her.
And many of these ‘prisoners of war’ are the families of tribes the Israelites wiped out for kicks. How the FUCK is that justified.
“Their masters still had to treat them fairly”
/spews cola all over keyboard.
Exodus 21:21 you immoral son off a bitch. How the fuck is that fair? What kind of monstrous assholoe are you that you think it is “FAIR” for a man to beat his slave to death and get off scott free as long as the slave survives for a day or two. What the bloody fuck is wrong with you?
“In short it wasn't like the slavery of black or white slaves prior to the Civil War”
Right, it was considerably less civilized. I don’t recall anyone in the deep south selling their children into slavery. Or wiping out entire nations and keeping the young girls as live in concubines.
I really have to thank you for showing more beautifully the problem with religion than I ever could have, In mid 2011, with gays finally getting the rights they are due, black dude in office, and joss whedon getting a major motion picture, I am having a conversation with someone who is claiming that slavery and rape weren’t all that bad.
This is why people like me and Jdude get so ‘mad’ you’ve abandoned all pretence of moral reasoning to exist in scraping, bowing devotion to an imaginary deity whose morality is so incredibly backwards that he makes some of his most fanatical followers look benign. Your religious has made you sacrifice the very things that make us more than a pack of balding apes.
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