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Unless you're a deist, it's pointless to argue that the Big bang/evolution must have been created by god, because people have worshipped literally thousands and thousands of gods, and there's no way of knowing which, if any, was responsible.

At 12/25/07 06:43 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: HAHA. 80+% of the earth's surface is uninhabitable for one thing. Without civilization, food is very very scare and surviving was pretty much, well, miraculous. This world was definitely not designed with humans in mind.

That's dogmatic belief on your part. Actually, the galaxy is very fined tuned to Earth having life. It is at just the right distance from the sun, has just the right amount of backround radiation, etc.

Earth isn't the right distance away so we can survive, we survive because the sun is the right distance away. It's all chance.

Wtf? Again, just because something is comforting, that does not in any way make it more likely to be true.

It doesn't mean it's less likely to be true either.

1. I only said the above because he was arguing as if it does make it true.
2. Say you have multiple religions and ideologies competing for support. It only makes sense that a religion etc. would assert that it has the greatest reward for belief, so it gains supporters.
This MAY not necessarily be the case here, but it is possible that comfort indicates human invention.

Yet it was written by men who at least BELIEVED they experienced the divine.

A revelation by a omniscient being, no less, yet the bible in many many areas contradicts itself, whihc makes no sense except that the revelations were faked or hallucinations/dreams.

And it has enough staying power to be around after 2 millenia,

Only through fear.

A: Fear of eternal afterlife suffering.
B: Fear of punishment from the church, For centuries the church has punished and killed those who didn't agree with them, so people basically HAD to be Christians or face death, so only people who at least claimed to be Christian survived in these countries.

whereas many other religions that pre-dated it have fallen to the wayside.

That doesn't mean they aren't real.
Also, if you want to go down this path, Hinduism is far older than Christianity.

They do actually have a few songs where they express religious sentiments (I used to listen to them).

" My axe is my buddy, and when I wind him back
me and my axe will give your forehead a buttcrack"

Hrm, I bet they do.

Your arguments are worse than his.

No, they're not at all, and the only reason you believe in this is because he agrees with your religious views.

At 12/25/07 02:13 PM, Earfetish wrote: it totally does.

No, it doesn't. Pointing out that something has a comforting effect doesn't make it not true. For example, unless someone is suffering eternal agony, the comforting phrase used after death, "At least they're not suffering anymore" is 100% accurate. Pointing out that something is comforting has no meaning.

if one was to look at religion through a sociological or psychological perspective, one could infer that it was made, by man, to fulfill certain desires.

do you have any reason to believe in your particular religion?

do you have any evidence for your particular religion, as opposed to the others?

That was never the point. The point made was "Because it is comforting, it is therefore 100% untrue." That's garbage. The comfort level of something has absolutely nothing to do with it's truthfulness.

Actually, religions are very different. Anyone who looks at all religions and tries to deduce something common from them is a very unintelligent and agenda driven person, who will not come to a correct answer.

At 12/25/07 03:09 PM, Togukawa wrote: Guess what: If the Earth wasn't finely tuned to having life, we wouldn't be around here contemplating why Earth was so perfect for life. It's like a cosmic lottery, the odds of one specific person winning the jackpot are incredibly small, but eventually SOMEONE (or some planet) has to win it.

And? What have you proven?

I am still 100% correct. The Earth is finely tuned to having life. Pointing out randomness means crap.

That's like saying "you wouldn't be talking about losing a limb if you hadn't lost a limb" or "you wouldn't be talking about winning the lottery if you hadn't won the lottery". Sure you're correct. If I hadn't stubbed my toe...I wouldn't have stubbed my toe. But I did. So where do we go from here.

He claimed the Earth wasn't primed for life. The fact that we are here proves that it is. And you arguing with me...well I guess it proves you can't understand an argument.

And sure, then you can think there must be some God out there that must have wanted you to win, but the simple truth is that if you didn't win, you wouldn't be asking yourself the question "why did I win?".

Well, there's two possibilities.

1. There are a multitude of worlds out there with life (I happen to believe this), and the chances of life could be (but aren't neccessarily) random.
2. We are the only life in the universe. If this is true, there is unquestionably a God who made us. Otherwise other life would arise in other ways, because other random phenomenon would've produced them.

Which means that it is a very "contagious" religion. A religion that would teach that you have to pray to the one true God, but that only the guy who prays the most can go to Heaven and the others go to Hell, wouldn't be spread at all. Staying power has nothing to do with how true it is, only with how much it encourages believers to spread the religion.

That's pretty much what Christianity teaches. That the pious go to heaven and the evil to hell. Many of the old religions were replaced with Christianity due to it's much more gracious and essentially good message.

And Judaism has thousands of years on Christianity, but doesn't teach the believers to spread the faith. If you take out the "spread the message" underlying your criticism, you don't have much wind in your sails at all.

Lol. Yeah, arguments like " living forever is better than just dying, so it's the better thing to believe" own the living shit out of Earfetish's.

Yes, actually they are.

Let's examine the two arguments side by side:

1. Christianity is wrong. And therefore it is better to believe this life is all we have and die miserably.
2. We have a life awaiting us that depends on us doing good to our fellow man. If we embrace Christ, we will live forever, and have eternal happiness.

Not only does 2 promote a giving and benevolent worldview, but it comforts the believer. Even if 1 is true, there is simply no logical reason for ANYONE to accept it (other than perhaps hedonism). It offers no comfort to the sad or dying. And it promotes selfish desires over the common good.

At 12/25/07 04:34 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: We don't need people responding to Shaggy's own personal beliefs on religion based on how he see's his PGIS' [power gods in the sky] , and then throwing them on the entirety of all theist believers. Just ignore him, and respond to ME.

[Because i know you can, because i know you're right, and i am wrong, so to speak]

Your thesis is basically, there is no evil because there is no God. Evil is what advances or gets in the way of personal goals.

On this basis:
The desire to procreate is not inherent on a human level.

Having a bany is an unselfish act that requires a lot of sacrifice. You must give up time, resources, sleep to devote to this creature that gives absolutely nothing back. You must give up career advancement, free time, romantic pleasures, etc, to deal with this. It is no wonder that all ancient cultures except for teh Jews looked at childbearing as a convenience. "If you want to great, it may work out for you in the long run...if you don't want to...throw it off a cliff."

Even on an animal level, many creatures eat their young, or leave them to fend for themselves. In the animal kingdom, procreation seems to be a byproduct of pleasure...not a means of itself.

There seems to be little biological imperative to defend ones own or even to not eat them on birth. In humans, infanticide and abortion have always been around. Arguing that procreating is a human goal is not self evident.

At 12/25/07 10:48 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote: Earth isn't the right distance away so we can survive, we survive because the sun is the right distance away. It's all chance.

It's not that the Earth is the right distance from the Sun. It's that the sun is the right distance from the Earth!

Yawn.

1. I only said the above because he was arguing as if it does make it true.
2. Say you have multiple religions and ideologies competing for support. It only makes sense that a religion etc. would assert that it has the greatest reward for belief, so it gains supporters.
This MAY not necessarily be the case here, but it is possible that comfort indicates human invention.

Christianity may offer the greatest reward (it doesn't), but it also offers the worst punishment...found in no other faith. That alone deprives it of the "wishful thinking" category.

A revelation by a omniscient being, no less, yet the bible in many many areas contradicts itself, whihc makes no sense except that the revelations were faked or hallucinations/dreams.

Such as? I love debating this.

Only through fear.

Please. Do better. That's a terribly weak argument.

A: Fear of eternal afterlife suffering.

Or eternal bliss.

B: Fear of punishment from the church, For centuries the church has punished and killed those who didn't agree with them, so people basically HAD to be Christians or face death, so only people who at least claimed to be Christian survived in these countries.

Bull. Forced conversion to Christianity was rare. In no other religion (except Judiasm) in history have we seen such a freedom to disagree. Your points are moot.

That doesn't mean they aren't real.
Also, if you want to go down this path, Hinduism is far older than Christianity.

Hinduism has also benefitted in many areas from contact with Christianity. The practice of emolation was abolished by Christians.

And really, if we wish to look to wishful thinking, Hinduism is it. Everyone is imortal, no matter their actions, and if one lives a good enough life...they can become a God.

" My axe is my buddy, and when I wind him back
me and my axe will give your forehead a buttcrack"

Hrm, I bet they do.

Echoside (Jeckle Brothers):
Imagine a place that exists beyond, a place that seldom seen A place that even the wickedest souls that burn have never been There was a soul named Dameon he was nothin heaven to say Instead he was cast to the flames of hell to serve an eternal grave Even in the After life things don't always go as planned Satan's relm see's through, it's hectic and over changed Dameon earned his spot in hell right until his dieing day So the wagons took his sorry soul and taunted him all the way They finally reached that resting place and endless pit of fire But Dameon had excapte throught the back door of Satan's lair Out the back entrance of hell with no were else to hide His time is just a toomb resting in the Echoside
...
Fuck the Devil Fuck That Shit We Believe in life legit If you diggin what we say Why you throw your sould away?

Nothing Left (on teh same album) also has religious tones.

No, they're not at all, and the only reason you believe in this is because he agrees with your religious views.

No. His arguments aren't great. But yours are far worse.

At 12/26/07 04:35 AM, WolvenBear wrote:

At 12/25/07 03:09 PM, Togukawa wrote:

And? What have you proven?

I am still 100% correct. The Earth is finely tuned to having life. Pointing out randomness means crap.

That's like saying "you wouldn't be talking about losing a limb if you hadn't lost a limb" or "you wouldn't be talking about winning the lottery if you hadn't won the lottery". Sure you're correct. If I hadn't stubbed my toe...I wouldn't have stubbed my toe. But I did. So where do we go from here.

He claimed the Earth wasn't primed for life. The fact that we are here proves that it is. And you arguing with me...well I guess it proves you can't understand an argument.

The point is that it really is not surprising that the Earth is a big ball of coincidences that allows live to thrive here as it has. That does not mean it was specifically designed with humans in mind. Which was the original argument. And proof of that claim is that someone can get lucky in the lottery like the Earth has, but that does not mean that there's some greater power that specifically designed a certain person/planet to get lucky.

This wasn't about "does the Earth support life", as you've said, duh since we are here. It's about "Is the Earth necessarily designed with humans in mind". The answer is a resounding no.

And sure, then you can think there must be some God out there that must have wanted you to win, but the simple truth is that if you didn't win, you wouldn't be asking yourself the question "why did I win?".

Well, there's two possibilities.

1. There are a multitude of worlds out there with life (I happen to believe this), and the chances of life could be (but aren't neccessarily) random.
2. We are the only life in the universe. If this is true, there is unquestionably a God who made us. Otherwise other life would arise in other ways, because other random phenomenon would've produced them.

No, even if we're the only life, there doesn't need to be a God. It follows in no way.

Which means that it is a very "contagious" religion. A religion that would teach that you have to pray to the one true God, but that only the guy who prays the most can go to Heaven and the others go to Hell, wouldn't be spread at all. Staying power has nothing to do with how true it is, only with how much it encourages believers to spread the religion.

That's pretty much what Christianity teaches. That the pious go to heaven and the evil to hell. Many of the old religions were replaced with Christianity due to it's much more gracious and essentially good message.

Heh, I beg to differ. Hell is not a gracious and essentially good message. Ancient Greek religion didn't send you to a horrible place to suffer forever if you didn't believe, only murderers and other horrible kind of folk ended up there. And the fools that thought they were above the Gods. And they did have Elysium, a.k.a. Heaven v0.1. I would hope very much that they and not Christianity have it right. Or basically any other religion without the barbaric concept of hell.

Anyway, it doesn't even matter how gracious or good the message is, it has zero relevance to the odds of it being true. Christianity teaches that you have to spread the word of God, because if you don't the other guys will go to hell. It abuses the goodwill of people in order to spread the religion.

And Judaism has thousands of years on Christianity, but doesn't teach the believers to spread the faith. If you take out the "spread the message" underlying your criticism, you don't have much wind in your sails at all.

It still instills a certain degree of passion for the faith, that makes the believers resistant to being converted by other more expansive religions. A religion that teaches that as long as you behave well, you will go to Heaven won't go very far. After all, why not believe in Christianity as well, and go to Heaven when either of the two are true! Twice the odds of getting in to heaven.

Lol. Yeah, arguments like " living forever is better than just dying, so it's the better thing to believe" own the living shit out of Earfetish's.

Yes, actually they are.

No. It doesn't matter how attractive something sounds, it doesn't make it more or less likely to be true. Earfetish gives reasons as to why it's likely the teachings are not true. Shaggy just says "But I'd really, REALLY like it to be true".

Let's examine the two arguments side by side:

1. Christianity is wrong. And therefore it is better to believe this life is all we have and die miserably.
2. We have a life awaiting us that depends on us doing good to our fellow man. If we embrace Christ, we will live forever, and have eternal happiness.

Not only does 2 promote a giving and benevolent worldview, but it comforts the believer. Even if 1 is true, there is simply no logical reason for ANYONE to accept it (other than perhaps hedonism). It offers no comfort to the sad or dying. And it promotes selfish desires over the common good.

No, it does not promote a giving and benevolent worldview. It provides a stick and carrot worldview. Do good to get in heaven, do something bad like not believing and you wind up in hell. People don't help eachother out of goodness of their hearts, but just because their teachings tell them that's what to do. And it has all this useless baggage of outdated rules, like gays are evil, adulterous women have to be stoned to death, don't wear clothes of different fibres, and so on.

1 expects us to offer comfort to the sad or dying, surely not as much as the promise of eternal hellfire, but at least it aren't lies. And it promotes doing the good thing just for the sake of doing the good thing. Because we are all humans, because we all feel pain, and we can feel for our fellow beings. We do good for other people, they do good for us, and we all make this world a little bit closer to the carrot that is Heaven. Because the only thing we are sure of is that we are alive right now, and that we can feel pain. (Forgot the third one pox :p). And also, it allows for a lot more tolerant society. No "ZOMG GAYS SHOULD BURN" drivel.

At 12/25/07 04:34 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

Having a bany is an unselfish act that requires a lot of sacrifice. You must give up time, resources, sleep to devote to this creature that gives absolutely nothing back. You must give up career advancement, free time, romantic pleasures, etc, to deal with this. It is no wonder that all ancient cultures except for teh Jews looked at childbearing as a convenience. "If you want to great, it may work out for you in the long run...if you don't want to...throw it off a cliff."

Even on an animal level, many creatures eat their young, or leave them to fend for themselves. In the animal kingdom, procreation seems to be a byproduct of pleasure...not a means of itself.

You're very wrong. Humans and some kind of monkeys are the only species that get pleasure from sex. For example, for cats the process is an extremely painful one. The male cat even has some kind of barbs on the penis. And lions do eat their young, but it's the young of rival males, to give more survival chances to their own offspring. Eating the own offspring is quite rare among animals, and as far as I know close to nonexistant with mammals.

Also, throwing babies of cliffs was mostly girls or weaklings. Strong males were needed to fight for the tribe/city/faith/whatever.

There seems to be little biological imperative to defend ones own or even to not eat them on birth. In humans, infanticide and abortion have always been around. Arguing that procreating is a human goal is not self evident.

Surely there are and have been people that are disappointed with their baby and want it killed, but there are and have been far more people that wanted healthy male offspring than no offspring at all.

At 12/26/07 04:53 AM, WolvenBear wrote:
Yawn.

No I mean, The earth isn't the right distance so we can survive, we survibe becasue it happens to be the right distance.

That alone deprives it of the "wishful thinking" category.

Did you consider that the therat of punishment may be satisfying to those who consider non-Christians enemies?

Such as? I love debating this.

Well for starters, altough not revalation, the four gospels actually portray things as happening differently.

A: Fear of eternal afterlife suffering.

Or eternal bliss.

So? It's still surviving because people want it to be true.

Bull. Forced conversion to Christianity was rare. In no other religion (except Judiasm) in history have we seen such a freedom to disagree. Your points are moot.

Um, THE FUCKING INQUISITION COCKFAG.

Hinduism has also benefitted in many areas from contact with Christianity.

No it hasn't.

And really, if we wish to look to wishful thinking, Hinduism is it. Everyone is imortal, no matter their actions, and if one lives a good enough life...they can become a God.

There is still punishment after death. And it is no more implausible than Christianity.

No. His arguments aren't great. But yours are far worse.

No. You only argue your points because they suit your beliefs.
If you honestly believe that Christians have allowed non-Christians to express their beliefs freely you know so little about Christian history.

At 12/26/07 04:35 AM, WolvenBear wrote: Response

It matters little since the even if they don't enjoy it, they have the need to do it. [unless you want to argue it's a full on conscious and contemplative act] The fact that humans did it out of pleasure rather than instinct only furthers the argument that

Altruism can be done for the following of reasons;

- Winning Favor, getting praise makes one feel 'good'
- Fear of punishment, whether it be god, karma, or the government's police forces and the justice system. [Good Samaritan act]
- Habbit, humans repeat processes that are seen by those around us in order to adapt, this is why conformity is the easiest rode to take, you see it all the time.
- Biological happenstances that make on feel good for doing good, Serial killers get pleasure out of causing pain for other people, which is why they do it, if the opposite is true, you have a whole bunch of people doing good deeds.

On the whole, every deliberate act of kindness can be explained biologically; it's just the fact that some people want to think that what they do has positive or negative importance by the standard of 'good and evil'

At 12/26/07 05:17 AM, Togukawa wrote: The point is that it really is not surprising that the Earth is a big ball of coincidences that allows live to thrive here as it has. That does not mean it was specifically designed with humans in mind. Which was the original argument. And proof of that claim is that someone can get lucky in the lottery like the Earth has, but that does not mean that there's some greater power that specifically designed a certain person/planet to get lucky.

This wasn't about "does the Earth support life", as you've said, duh since we are here. It's about "Is the Earth necessarily designed with humans in mind". The answer is a resounding no.

Earth is the only planet that we know of that supports life.
As such, until we find another, planet, the Earth is the only one we know of the support life.

If we never find another, that is resounding proof of divine intervention.

No, even if we're the only life, there doesn't need to be a God. It follows in no way.

Yes, actually it does.

There is simply no way that a universe created itself from nothing and then created one single planet with life. If the universe came to be out of chance, then there is a 0% possibility that life only occured in one place. It's simply not possible that in an inifity of space and planets that only one is capable of producing life.

Heh, I beg to differ. Hell is not a gracious and essentially good message. Ancient Greek religion didn't send you to a horrible place to suffer forever if you didn't believe, only murderers and other horrible kind of folk ended up there. And the fools that thought they were above the Gods. And they did have Elysium, a.k.a. Heaven v0.1. I would hope very much that they and not Christianity have it right. Or basically any other religion without the barbaric concept of hell.

Actually, in the ancient Greek religion, everyone went to Hades, which was just a storage place of the dead. There was no heaven or hell for the common folk. They were treated like old sweaters...just to be stored.

And anyone who wants Greek Mythos to be right over Christianity is an imbecile.

Anyway, it doesn't even matter how gracious or good the message is, it has zero relevance to the odds of it being true. Christianity teaches that you have to spread the word of God, because if you don't the other guys will go to hell. It abuses the goodwill of people in order to spread the religion.

No, it doesn't. You don't know what you're talking about. Christianity is based on treating your fellow human being well. It says in the Bible that we are to spread the message of the gospel yes. There's not a single passage that says "If you have never heard of Christ you burn for eternity.

It still instills a certain degree of passion for the faith, that makes the believers resistant to being converted by other more expansive religions. A religion that teaches that as long as you behave well, you will go to Heaven won't go very far. After all, why not believe in Christianity as well, and go to Heaven when either of the two are true! Twice the odds of getting in to heaven.

What? You have no clue what you're talking about do you? To put it into context:
For 5000 years, God said the chosen where German. Under this belief, ONLY germans are saved. There is no salvation for others. A new religion comes around and says all are saved. Unless you're German, believing in the first one gets you nothing.

No. It doesn't matter how attractive something sounds, it doesn't make it more or less likely to be true. Earfetish gives reasons as to why it's likely the teachings are not true. Shaggy just says "But I'd really, REALLY like it to be true".

But the argument is still better. You can try to justify it to yourself, but the argument for Christianity>0 and the argument for athiesm<0.

No, it does not promote a giving and benevolent worldview. It provides a stick and carrot worldview. Do good to get in heaven, do something bad like not believing and you wind up in hell. People don't help eachother out of goodness of their hearts, but just because their teachings tell them that's what to do. And it has all this useless baggage of outdated rules, like gays are evil, adulterous women have to be stoned to death, don't wear clothes of different fibres, and so on.

You're not helping your case here, you know that right?
Your argument: "Christianity tells people: Do good or suffer! Athiesm doesn't have that!"
Therefore,Christianity forces a true believer to be good while athiesm doesn't. Any true believer in the Christian faith is forced to be good, while there is nothing that binds the athiest.

1 expects us to offer comfort to the sad or dying, surely not as much as the promise of eternal hellfire, but at least it aren't lies. And it promotes doing the good thing just for the sake of doing the good thing. Because we are all humans, because we all feel pain, and we can feel for our fellow beings. We do good for other people, they do good for us, and we all make this world a little bit closer to the carrot that is Heaven. Because the only thing we are sure of is that we are alive right now, and that we can feel pain. (Forgot the third one pox :p). And also, it allows for a lot more tolerant society. No "ZOMG GAYS SHOULD BURN" drivel.

There's not a single thing in the athiest doctrine that says that you need to be nice to your fellow man. You need to up your argument here...because you have no clue what you're talking about.

You're very wrong. Humans and some kind of monkeys are the only species that get pleasure from sex. For example, for cats the process is an extremely painful one. The male cat even has some kind of barbs on the penis. And lions do eat their young, but it's the young of rival males, to give more survival chances to their own offspring. Eating the own offspring is quite rare among animals, and as far as I know close to nonexistant with mammals.

Yea, try again, Hyenas are known for giving each other oral sex. They are one of teh few species gay rights experts use in arguing that gay sex is natural.

You have provided nothing to prove me wrong. If the process of procreating is painful, there is no reason for animals to do it. Moreover, there is ZERO incentive to protect the offspring, which is what many species do.

Also, throwing babies of cliffs was mostly girls or weaklings. Strong males were needed to fight for the tribe/city/faith/whatever.

Which again, doesn't prove me wrong.

Surely there are and have been people that are disappointed with their baby and want it killed, but there are and have been far more people that wanted healthy male offspring than no offspring at all.

I'm sure you feel smart right now...but don't.
You've done nothing but reinforce every single point I've made.

At 12/26/07 05:51 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: No I mean, The earth isn't the right distance so we can survive, we survibe becasue it happens to be the right distance.

NO! I didn't get born because the egg fused with the right sperm, I am here because the sperm and egg fused.

Same thing, diff way of saying it.

Did you consider that the therat of punishment may be satisfying to those who consider non-Christians enemies?

Yet, what does that do for the actual believers? And is that an incentive to join? To see those you hate burn? Hardly.

Well for starters, altough not revalation, the four gospels actually portray things as happening differently.

No, actually they don't. They protray different events. Athiests love to jump on the two different geneologies, but that means nothing. The one geneology was the lineage of Joseph, and the other was of Mary. There are no contridictions in the gospels.

So? It's still surviving because people want it to be true.

Oh please what a crappy argument. Christianity is unique in its dipiction of everlasting torment or everlasting bliss. Wishful thinking doesn't account for it.

Um, THE FUCKING INQUISITION COCKFAG.

Um, the fucking Inquisition was about the Christian church judging Christians for herecy. There were no non-Christians tried during the inquisition.

The fuck are you talking about fool?

You know, there actually were periods you could've pointed to (insignificant as they were) where the Church forced others to join. Instead you point to a period of internal purging. God, you're stupid.

No it hasn't.

Yes, it has. It used to be commong practice in Hindu India to burn women when their husbands died, on the funeral pyre (immolation). English Christians put a stop the that.

There is still punishment after death. And it is no more implausible than Christianity.

There is no punishment in Hinduism. No matter how evil you are, you get to try again. By the very means that make you a bug, you are guaranteed an equal or better life than the one you had before yu became a bug. How is this punishment?

No. You only argue your points because they suit your beliefs.
If you honestly believe that Christians have allowed non-Christians to express their beliefs freely you know so little about Christian history.

Excuse me? On this board, I probably know more about religion in general, and Christianity in specific, than anyone here. You believe the Inquisition was a means to force people to join Christianity.

You're the dumb kid who sits in the back of the Greek Mythology class and talks about Thor.

At 12/25/07 09:26 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote: Unless you're a deist, it's pointless to argue that the Big bang/evolution must have been created by god, because people have worshipped literally thousands and thousands of gods, and there's no way of knowing which, if any, was responsible.

Hmm, that is probably the only smart thing I've heard u say lol.
In other words than urs, there has to be a God or some type of.... pretty powerful being if all of this was created, nothing was ever just here, wondering what may have created God is too big I think, it's impossible to know what created God unless you think we ourselves created him by belief.

So uh..... hmmm..... thats it.

At 12/26/07 10:14 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: It matters little since the even if they don't enjoy it, they have the need to do it. [unless you want to argue it's a full on conscious and contemplative act] The fact that humans did it out of pleasure rather than instinct only furthers the argument that

I assume you're talking about sex here so I'll full out counter you.

Anyone who has seen two dogs mate can usually tell you, it's usually rape. The female hates it. As such there is ZERO reason for her to engage. On a biological or pleasurable level the argument fails.

Altruism can be done for the following of reasons;

- Winning Favor, getting praise makes one feel 'good'

Which makes sense to a point. But that doesn't describe people who give blood or organs.

- Fear of punishment, whether it be god, karma, or the government's police forces and the justice system. [Good Samaritan act]

Unless one is a Christian, there is no need to fear this. The good samaritan act only protects those who try to help others, it doesn't punish those who don't.

- Habbit, humans repeat processes that are seen by those around us in order to adapt, this is why conformity is the easiest rode to take, you see it all the time.

Routine doesn't explain altruism.

- Biological happenstances that make on feel good for doing good, Serial killers get pleasure out of causing pain for other people, which is why they do it, if the opposite is true, you have a whole bunch of people doing good deeds.

I have yet to hear of the "serial do-gooder". Please provide me a link to such an occurance.

On the whole, every deliberate act of kindness can be explained biologically; it's just the fact that some people want to think that what they do has positive or negative importance by the standard of 'good and evil'

Actually, most acts of kindness can't be explained biologically.

Despite Darwinistic efforts to the contrary, self sacrifice never makes sense on a biological level. Not even for a child. Yet we have people who die to save their spouse, 3rd child, sister, etc. This doesn't make sense on a biological level.

Moreover, when we get into small acts of kindness, such as donating money or time, there is simply no biological explaination for this. Yet we do it.

Er... I take that back lol

At 12/27/07 06:23 AM, WolvenBear wrote: Earth is the only planet that we know of that supports life.
As such, until we find another, planet, the Earth is the only one we know of the support life.

...

If we never find another, that is resounding proof of divine intervention.

Why? The universe is forever changing, it could very well be that in a matter of a few hundred thousand years Earth doesn't support life anymore, and that another planet that previously did not support life, becomes suitable.
It's not because right now we're the only planet in the infinitely small fraction of the universe that we have knowledge of that supports life at this time, that some kind of God must have created it.

No, even if we're the only life, there doesn't need to be a God. It follows in no way.

Yes, actually it does.

There is simply no way that a universe created itself from nothing and then created one single planet with life. If the universe came to be out of chance, then there is a 0% possibility that life only occured in one place. It's simply not possible that in an inifity of space and planets that only one is capable of producing life.

We don't know a lot about the conditions near t=0. The laws of physics as we know them are no longer valid, and basically, it's all very confusing and strange when you study behaviour on very small scales or close to t=0. It's not because we don't understand it yet that "there's simply no way".

The chances of life happening are incredibly small, and the universe is incredibly big. The chance of only one planet in a huge area being hospitable to life are far from 0. It's positive and real, albeit still smaller than one.

Actually, in the ancient Greek religion, everyone went to Hades, which was just a storage place of the dead. There was no heaven or hell for the common folk. They were treated like old sweaters...just to be stored.

As if heaven woudln't get boring after half an eternity. Oh no, I guess God is just so incredibly wonderful and awesome that you never ever get tired of being in his presence.

I'd rather have a common life and be free, and then be bored forever, than having to go to hell because I disagree with many rules in the Bible, and then burn forever.

And anyone who wants Greek Mythos to be right over Christianity is an imbecile.

Luckily what we want to be true has little impact on whether it is true or not. Oh wait, there we differ in opinions.

No, it doesn't. You don't know what you're talking about. Christianity is based on treating your fellow human being well. It says in the Bible that we are to spread the message of the gospel yes. There's not a single passage that says "If you have never heard of Christ you burn for eternity.

You'd think that with there being only one official Bible, Christians would be more or less in agreement about how not to go to Hell.
So all these rules in the Bible, they don't matter if you haven't heard of them? So a serial killer that lived before Christ will not go to Hell, because without God saying "thou shall not kill", it's no problem if you do? Without being given the word of God, and knowing the "rules" you need to obey in order to avoid Hell, you're bound to end up there.

What? You have no clue what you're talking about do you? To put it into context:
For 5000 years, God said the chosen where German. Under this belief, ONLY germans are saved. There is no salvation for others. A new religion comes around and says all are saved. Unless you're German, believing in the first one gets you nothing.

Wha? It was just an example, perhaps it wasn't the best one. In any case, my point is that the fact that the religion is still around after 2000 years doesn't mean it has an ounce of truth in it, it means that the religion was designed in a way that it allowed it to survive for such a long time. By your own example, the first religion probably wouldn't survive long or spread far. This has no relevance whatsoever on whether the German are in fact the chosen people or not.

Shaggy just says "But I'd really, REALLY like it to be true".

But the argument is still better. You can try to justify it to yourself, but the argument for Christianity>0 and the argument for athiesm<0.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree there.

You're not helping your case here, you know that right?
Your argument: "Christianity tells people: Do good or suffer! Athiesm doesn't have that!"
Therefore,Christianity forces a true believer to be good while athiesm doesn't. Any true believer in the Christian faith is forced to be good, while there is nothing that binds the athiest.

I don't consider people doing "good acts" for selfish reasons exceptionally good people. If you don't do it to help someone, but only to help yourself, can the act still be considered "good"? Is one a good person for collecting all the trash on a festival, and exchanging it for money? Sure, on one hand one cleans up trash, so that has benefits for the other people, but on the other hand one is only doing it because of the money, without being able to care care less about pollution or the appreciation one gets.

I think the intents are far more important than the effects.
An atheist does something to help people, a christian does something to get into heaven.

Of course a christian can do good, but it is when he acts out of kindness, out of wanting to do good, and not because the Bible tells him to. Just like an atheist can opt not to care about his fellow man and not do good. The point being that the worldview of Christianity is NOT inherrently better than that of the atheist.

There's not a single thing in the athiest doctrine that says that you need to be nice to your fellow man. You need to up your argument here...because you have no clue what you're talking about.

No, because there is no atheist doctrine. My argument is that being a good person does not come from following rules. That christian doctrine says to act nice to your fellow man, or else, that does not make christians better persons.

Yea, try again, Hyenas are known for giving each other oral sex. They are one of teh few species gay rights experts use in arguing that gay sex is natural.

Ah yes, it appears so. I was taught in high school that as a rule, animals did not have sex for pleasure. Apparently that has since been proven wrong. Still, the mating process of cats is a very curious one.

You have provided nothing to prove me wrong. If the process of procreating is painful, there is no reason for animals to do it. Moreover, there is ZERO incentive to protect the offspring, which is what many species do.

Not to the extent that humans do though. Most species lay eggs and just forget about the offspring. Although there are exceptions, most notably mammals.

Also, throwing babies of cliffs was mostly girls or weaklings. Strong males were needed to fight for the tribe/city/faith/whatever.

Which again, doesn't prove me wrong.

Muh, many people throughout the ages wanted a strong heir to carry on their legacy, and others wanted kids to work and support them when they got older. I'd say that in general, people did want strong offspring. Not just a "convencience".

Surely there are and have been people that are disappointed with their baby and want it killed, but there are and have been far more people that wanted healthy male offspring than no offspring at all.

I'm sure you feel smart right now...but don't.
You've done nothing but reinforce every single point I've made

Oh shit, I fail by the standards of convincing the great WolvenBear. I must be some kind of huge retard for not agreeing with him. Hahaha, at the very least I'm not too stupid to realize my own stupidity, I guess that's a plus somehow!

As for a serial do-gooder? Look no further than JESUS ;)

At 12/27/07 02:20 PM, Togukawa wrote: Why? The universe is forever changing, it could very well be that in a matter of a few hundred thousand years Earth doesn't support life anymore, and that another planet that previously did not support life, becomes suitable.

That's not terribly likely. Background Radiation will continue to disperse, and if it hasn't produced life yet, it's not terribly likely that it will.

It's not because right now we're the only planet in the infinitely small fraction of the universe that we have knowledge of that supports life at this time, that some kind of God must have created it.

You're trying to change the argument. You guys originally said that "the Earth is not fine tuned for life". But it is. Everyone from Hawkins, to Dawkins concedes this. It's true that this doesn't guarantee a God, but you're simply trying to change the arguments.

We don't know a lot about the conditions near t=0. The laws of physics as we know them are no longer valid, and basically, it's all very confusing and strange when you study behaviour on very small scales or close to t=0. It's not because we don't understand it yet that "there's simply no way".

Man, you were pretty damn sure about what you were talking about before. But now, we just don't know. And because we don't know...that of course still makes you right.

The chances of life happening are incredibly small, and the universe is incredibly big. The chance of only one planet in a huge area being hospitable to life are far from 0. It's positive and real, albeit still smaller than one.

It's an infintesimally small possibility that life would only spring up in one place. This assumes that all life needs the same conditions, which, as we know, isn't true even here on Earth. In a purely chance universe, different life will spring up in different conditions. And if the universe is not "fine tuned" for us, this chance that we're all there is=0.

As if heaven woudln't get boring after half an eternity. Oh no, I guess God is just so incredibly wonderful and awesome that you never ever get tired of being in his presence.

What does that have to do with anything? Why don't you just admit you're wrong here?

And none of us know what heaven would even be like. You're like that dumb little kid who's never tried a food, but already has an opinion on it.

I'd rather have a common life and be free, and then be bored forever, than having to go to hell because I disagree with many rules in the Bible, and then burn forever.

White supremicists would prefer no black people existed. And I would like liberals to be less stupid. Neither preference or want fundamentally alters reality.

Nor do you personal preferences speak to whether or not God exists.

Luckily what we want to be true has little impact on whether it is true or not. Oh wait, there we differ in opinions.

That seems to not be what you're arguing above. And it was certainly what you argued in the previous post. You have a bad habit of changing the subject when you lose a point.
And depending on who's concept of Hades you read, many of them are quite unpleasant. And pretty much everyone went there.

You'd think that with there being only one official Bible, Christians would be more or less in agreement about how not to go to Hell.
So all these rules in the Bible, they don't matter if you haven't heard of them? So a serial killer that lived before Christ will not go to Hell, because without God saying "thou shall not kill", it's no problem if you do? Without being given the word of God, and knowing the "rules" you need to obey in order to avoid Hell, you're bound to end up there.

Change the subject yet again!
You said that Christianity was eeeeevil because poor people who have never heard of Jesus will burn for eternity. Not so, says I. There is nothing in the Bible that says not hearing of Christ will make you burn! So you twist this to say, HAHA, so evil serial killers will be freed as long as they are ignorant of Christ.

But I never said that either.
Of course the rules matter.
But let's be honest. You're not seeking to argue here. You just want to assert that Christianity is evil, and if you have to be dishonest to do so...so be it.

Wha? It was just an example, perhaps it wasn't the best one. In any case, my point is that the fact that the religion is still around after 2000 years doesn't mean it has an ounce of truth in it, it means that the religion was designed in a way that it allowed it to survive for such a long time. By your own example, the first religion probably wouldn't survive long or spread far. This has no relevance whatsoever on whether the German are in fact the chosen people or not.

Yet, that's what both Hinduism and Judaism are. It is something you are a part of, or you are not. Christianity was a rapid departure from that.
And that shoots down your earlier point. A religion that just requires belief won't last or expand. But both Hinduism and Judaism prove that belief wrong.

And you can't be of two religions. That's not how it works.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree there.

There's no comparison. You're saying "Believe in nothing! There's no heaven, there's no hell! You just die! Life has no meaning!" Gee real attractive.
And on the truth issue, whereas his is "I have faith." You're the one pretty much saying..."But I really REALLY DON'T want it to be true."

I don't consider people doing "good acts" for selfish reasons exceptionally good people. If you don't do it to help someone, but only to help yourself, can the act still be considered "good"? Is one a good person for collecting all the trash on a festival, and exchanging it for money? Sure, on one hand one cleans up trash, so that has benefits for the other people, but on the other hand one is only doing it because of the money, without being able to care care less about pollution or the appreciation one gets.

But what does that have to do with anything? OK, under your example, the guy is getting paid. We'll compare that to heaven. That's fair. So, he has a motivation to do it. Clean up trash, get some cash. He is going to clean the trash. Or he will get nothing. The incentive makes him more likely than if he is to be compensated nothing. So, by your very example, Christianity is more likely to produce good things than athiesm.

I think the intents are far more important than the effects.
An atheist does something to help people, a christian does something to get into heaven.

And more Christians than athiests, do good things.
It follows that Christians will be compelled to do good things, where as there is no need for athiests to. While athiests are not precluded from doing good, any good they do cannot be linked to the tenets of athiesm. Athiesm is motivated by selfish desires. It is more likely that the athiest will do something good hoping for an earthly reward, or "just cause".

Of course a christian can do good, but it is when he acts out of kindness, out of wanting to do good, and not because the Bible tells him to. Just like an atheist can opt not to care about his fellow man and not do good. The point being that the worldview of Christianity is NOT inherrently better than that of the atheist.

Yes it is.
The very nature of the two makes Christianity better.
"Do good for others or else..." will always produce more good than "There is no reward for doing good and no consequence for doing evil.

No, because there is no atheist doctrine. My argument is that being a good person does not come from following rules. That christian doctrine says to act nice to your fellow man, or else, that does not make christians better persons.

Yes, it does.
And of course there's an athiestic doctrine. There is no God or eternity. Live for today and for yourself.

(Continued)

(Continued from above)
So, why do intents matter? It does not matter to the little old lady who got pushed out of the way of a car WHY she got pushed out of the road. She is still alive to celebrate it.

And moreover, why would an athiest ever sacrifice themselves for another? This life is all you have. Losing your life for someone is insanely stupid.

Ah yes, it appears so. I was taught in high school that as a rule, animals did not have sex for pleasure. Apparently that has since been proven wrong. Still, the mating process of cats is a very curious one.

I'm assuming you're a public school kid.

Not to the extent that humans do though. Most species lay eggs and just forget about the offspring. Although there are exceptions, most notably mammals.

Which I do believe I mentioned. We've come full circle, with you actually arguing my original point.

Muh, many people throughout the ages wanted a strong heir to carry on their legacy, and others wanted kids to work and support them when they got older. I'd say that in general, people did want strong offspring. Not just a "convencience".

But this does not undermine the original argument. I know you dislike having things brought back to where they were, but you're using the fact that you're wrong to pat yourself on the back...which is curious. It's even more so, considering that you either are misunderstanding my argument...or are deliberately mischaracterizing it.

I said: Looking at human history, the having of children is not inherent. If you wanted to have a child...do it. If it's not what you want, then get rid of it. Children were looked at as a product. You had a kid because you wanted a farmhand, or people were told to do it to produce soldiers.
THEREFORE: Procreating is not a biological imperative. Except for the Judaic/Christian values, children are had if they are convenient or useful, and discarded if they aren't. While you are correct in pointing out that the Oriental cultures valued boys, but not girls (which, as we're seeing in China, hurts the spreading of genes and leads to negative population growth), and that Sparta only valued the strong, many other societies did indeed regard children as a convenience factor. Abortion is prevelant throughout history as in infanticide of children, both boys and girls, in general.

And pointing out the reason that the various societies found these children worthless and discardable doesn't do a whole lot to undermine the argument of "convenience".

Oh shit, I fail by the standards of convincing the great WolvenBear. I must be some kind of huge retard for not agreeing with him. Hahaha, at the very least I'm not too stupid to realize my own stupidity, I guess that's a plus somehow!

You're reinforcing the argument I made fool. And yet you think that by pointing out the reason they didn't think girls were convenient, or useful, that somehow that denies that the societies didn't find them convenient or useful.

As for a serial do-gooder? Look no further than JESUS ;)

The personification of GOD? Who many athiests consider a fabrication of the church?
That's your argument? Wow, you suck at this whole debate thing.

At 12/27/07 06:44 AM, WolvenBear wrote: Anyone who has seen two dogs mate can usually tell you, it's usually rape. The female hates it. As such there is ZERO reason for her to engage. On a biological or pleasurable level the argument fails.

Then why would the female try and get away? and why as a result would the specie die out?

Altruism can be done for the following of reasons;

- Winning Favor, getting praise makes one feel 'good'

Which makes sense to a point. But that doesn't describe people who give blood or organs.

The same reason a person might give to charity; doing good will benefit the person. It's the same as an investment; the cost of losing must be less than that of the cost of what a person might get back. People who donate organs know that they have nothing to lose if they're organs are removed after they die, and most people who donate blood don't beleive that what they do could endanger their safety. In both cases, blood or organs, they have no real reason to say 'I really shouldn't do this'. They are in fact possible attracted to altruism in this case, because doing acts of good might make them feel better about them selfs.

- Fear of punishment, whether it be god, karma, or the government's police forces and the justice system. [Good Samaritan act]

Unless one is a Christian, there is no need to fear this. The good samaritan act only protects those who try to help others, it doesn't punish those who don't.

Punishment can also be on the self, [Guilt?] A person does something that conflicts with their 'pre-programed' morals. [unless the morals are broken and rationalized] And that will punish those as well. Ultimately, most individuals are more cenetered on improving their situation in THIS realm, not the afterlife; since biological beings apt for survival would naturally think this way.

- Habbit, humans repeat processes that are seen by those around us in order to adapt, this is why conformity is the easiest rode to take, you see it all the time.

Routine doesn't explain altruism.

Yes it does, i open the door for people all the time, it's not something that comes to me in a brilliant unatheistical flash of light of good and kindness, i do it because it's an impulsion. Saying hello, Shaking hands, being polite, Programming... A kind atmosphere warrants increased degree's of kindness, since something very conflicting of this puts the 'subject' in danger.

- Biological happenstances that make on feel good for doing good, Serial killers get pleasure out of causing pain for other people, which is why they do it, if the opposite is true, you have a whole bunch of people doing good deeds.

I have yet to hear of the "serial do-gooder". Please provide me a link to such an occurance.

If a person feels happiness out of doing something, they will be more prone to do it. I don't understand how you could be confused with this.

On the whole, every deliberate act of kindness can be explained biologically; it's just the fact that some people want to think that what they do has positive or negative importance by the standard of 'good and evil'

Actually, most acts of kindness can't be explained biologically.

Despite Darwinistic efforts to the contrary, self sacrifice never makes sense on a biological level. Not even for a child. Yet we have people who die to save their spouse, 3rd child, sister, etc. This doesn't make sense on a biological level.

"Women and childeren first" Ever hear that expression? Women, because they can help the society prosper, and childeren because they will be able to live longer. [The parent dies before the child in most cases]

Moreover, when we get into small acts of kindness, such as donating money or time, there is simply no biological explaination for this. Yet we do it.

1) We would rather not look stupid or greedy
2) One does not see the money being given away as valuable, that's why people like oprah will give away huge sums of money BECAUSE it's within their ability to do so without hurting themselfs. Why not ask yourself why a people don't throw away all of their assets at somone else with this idea of 'unexplained kindness'
3) Tax Exemption

At 12/27/07 05:30 PM, WolvenBear wrote:

It's not because right now we're the only planet in the infinitely small fraction of the universe that we have knowledge of that supports life at this time, that some kind of God must have created it.

You're trying to change the argument. You guys originally said that "the Earth is not fine tuned for life". But it is. Everyone from Hawkins, to Dawkins concedes this. It's true that this doesn't guarantee a God, but you're simply trying to change the arguments.

The argument was whether Earth was designed with humans in mind. And it's not. Life and more specifically humans adapted to the Earth, not the other way around. And that life in general is possible somewhere, is not some kind of miracle. I'd be extremely surprised if Dawkins said something different.

Man, you were pretty damn sure about what you were talking about before. But now, we just don't know. And because we don't know...that of course still makes you right.

Amazing, since I don't recall actually having spoken about the origin of the universe yet.

It's an infintesimally small possibility that life would only spring up in one place. This assumes that all life needs the same conditions, which, as we know, isn't true even here on Earth. In a purely chance universe, different life will spring up in different conditions. And if the universe is not "fine tuned" for us, this chance that we're all there is=0.

It's not like the chance of life springing up in two or more places is necessarily bigger. "And if the universe is not "fine tuned" for us, this chance that we're all there is=0." is simply not true. On one hand you're saying that it's impossible for life to be only in one place, and on the other hand you're saying that it's impossible that there's life at all, given a non designed universe.

What does that have to do with anything? Why don't you just admit you're wrong here?

My point is that Heaven is a more luxurious storage place for souls, but a storage place for souls nevertheless. And getting in the non-hell part of the greek afterlife still is easier than getting in the non-hell part of christian afterlife. But yeah, they both suck, I'll grant you that.

And none of us know what heaven would even be like. You're like that dumb little kid who's never tried a food, but already has an opinion on it.

Stabbing yourself in the heart is awesome, and don't you dare have an opinion on it without having tried it.

White supremicists would prefer no black people existed. And I would like liberals to be less stupid. Neither preference or want fundamentally alters reality.

Nor do you personal preferences speak to whether or not God exists.

Lol. This sounds familiar. Oh yeah, it was back when you said that "I really like it to be true" was a better argument than any of those for atheism.

Luckily what we want to be true has little impact on whether it is true or not. Oh wait, there we differ in opinions.

That seems to not be what you're arguing above. And it was certainly what you argued in the previous post. You have a bad habit of changing the subject when you lose a point.
And depending on who's concept of Hades you read, many of them are quite unpleasant. And pretty much everyone went there.

It's what I've been arguing for several posts now. You claimed the contrary, that "I really like it to be true" was more valid that any of the arguments Earfetish gave.

As for Hades, yeah it sucks, but you can have a free life and not end up in Hell. I fundementally disagree with the many rules in the Bible, so for me boring Hades part is still better than the Hell that christianity offers me. Since I'm not about to change the way I live my life for an afterlife that we're unsure about.

Now if we were absolutely sure about what the afterlife was and how to get there, then Christianity would be by far the better religion. After all, what's a short lifetime of what I consider immoral compared to guaranteed eternal bliss.

Change the subject yet again!
You said that Christianity was eeeeevil because poor people who have never heard of Jesus will burn for eternity. Not so, says I. There is nothing in the Bible that says not hearing of Christ will make you burn! So you twist this to say, HAHA, so evil serial killers will be freed as long as they are ignorant of Christ.

You don't seem to get my point. I said that people who have never heard to word of God will go to hell. I.e. people who are unaware of the rules laid out for us by God. Not so says you, because not hearing of Christ doesn't land you in Hell. Since if you don't know the rules, you can't avoid breaking them (me) AND not knowing the rules does not necessarily land you in hell (you), then it follows that either the rules don't matter if you don't know them, or people magically already know the rules and don't need to be told, making the Bible obsolete. And I illustrated it by taking the obvious rule "do not kill".

But I never said that either.
Of course the rules matter.
But let's be honest. You're not seeking to argue here. You just want to assert that Christianity is evil, and if you have to be dishonest to do so...so be it.

I am seeking to argue. You can't support the position that people won't go to Hell if they haven't heard Gods message, without making the entirity of Gods message obsolete. Which means that if a person believes this, and is intrinsically good, he will seek to spread the message of God. Or saving of the soul as a religious person described it in another thread.

That doesn't mean Christianity is evil, but it offers another explanation as to why it is so widely spread, other than "because it's the one true religion". I called it abusing of goodwill, because it takes something that was there first (being good), and uses it to spread itself, instead of doing useful things.

I just think it's sad that a good person wants to do good, and instead of actually going out and help people, he locks himself up in a cloyster, and spends 80% of his time praying, instead of doing something to help. Or he goes and teaches about the Bible, instead of teaching useful things like maths and science. It's not evil, but I think it's a pity.

Yet, that's what both Hinduism and Judaism are. It is something you are a part of, or you are not. Christianity was a rapid departure from that.
And that shoots down your earlier point. A religion that just requires belief won't last or expand. But both Hinduism and Judaism prove that belief wrong.

It won't expand as much, but it can still last, unless believers are converted to another religion. Christianity and Islam are spread out far more, even though they are younger religions. I believe that they illustrate my point pretty well.

And you can't be of two religions. That's not how it works.

Heh, not with monotheistic religions, indeed. I compared a religion without a God, that said "just behave well" and Christianity. But as I've said already, the example was a bit unlucky.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree there.

There's no comparison. You're saying "Believe in nothing! There's no heaven, there's no hell! You just die! Life has no meaning!" Gee real attractive.
And on the truth issue, whereas his is "I have faith." You're the one pretty much saying..."But I really REALLY DON'T want it to be true."

I didn't say life had no meaning. You might consider "here's a bunch of rules, live by them and worship me and you'll get a big juicy carrot, otherwise it's the stick" attractive, but I prefer the freedom of my worldview. Not that attractiveness has anything to with it.

And indeed, I really don't think it's true, for a whole bunch of reasons.

As for not wanting it to be true, well, I'm kind of split on the issue. On one hand if we were absolutely sure that it was true, nothing better than having a bunch of rules that will guarantee you eternal bliss. On the other hand, I think even if we were absolutely sure, our existence would become more shallow. Just following orders and obeying rules, instead of finding our own way and helping eachother.

continued >:)

At 12/27/07 05:30 PM, WolvenBear wrote:

At 12/27/07 02:20 PM, Togukawa wrote:

But what does that have to do with anything? OK, under your example, the guy is getting paid. We'll compare that to heaven. That's fair. So, he has a motivation to do it. Clean up trash, get some cash. He is going to clean the trash. Or he will get nothing. The incentive makes him more likely than if he is to be compensated nothing. So, by your very example, Christianity is more likely to produce good things than athiesm.

Yeah, I'll grant you that. Atheism doesn't guarantee doing any good whatsoever. Of course, christianity also considers praying and going around preaching the word of God as a good thing, and perhaps even the most import thing of all.
Luckily there's humanism, which has a lot of the good, and none of the bad. And it doesn't waste valuable resources on wasted efforts like praying and preaching.

But I started from the assumption that good was being done, and not for a physical reward, and discussed the value of the actions being done.
There are other things than christianity that induce doing good, and it is those other motivations, other than expecting a reward in the next life, that give value to doing good.

I think the intents are far more important than the effects.
An atheist does something to help people, a christian does something to get into heaven.

And more Christians than athiests, do good things.

That depends on what you consider "a good thing". If you say praying is good, and saving souls is good, then yes, you're probably right. If you talk about things that are actually helpful in this life, I'd like to see you back up that claim.

It follows that Christians will be compelled to do good things, where as there is no need for athiests to. While athiests are not precluded from doing good, any good they do cannot be linked to the tenets of athiesm. Athiesm is motivated by selfish desires. It is more likely that the athiest will do something good hoping for an earthly reward, or "just cause".

I agree with the first part. "any good they do cannot be linked to the tenets of athiesm". When they do good, they do it for another reason. A person that is only atheist and nothing more, without any other incentive or motivation, won't do good acts. But a similar christian, while he is compelled to do good acts, I don't consider it a good person. What he is doing is following orders, securing his spot in heaven. True good in mankind does not come from God or a religion, but from something else. For example humanism. And this goes equally for the atheist and for the christian.

Then there's "Athiesm is motivated by selfish desires.", which is complete bull. There is no motivation inherrent in the tenets of atheism, as you've said yourself.

Yes it is.
The very nature of the two makes Christianity better.
"Do good for others or else..." will always produce more good than "There is no reward for doing good and no consequence for doing evil.

But does "go good for others or else..." make someone good? So wow, he does something good, what a good boy, the way he follows orders is absolutely amazing. Major props.

It's just because there's no reward for doing good, and no consequence for doing evil, that doing good is so amazing. You could have done evil, but you chose good. That is the mark of a good person. Not following orders, not acting because you expect some form of reward.

Yes, it does.

We'll have to agree to disagree here again I'm afraid.

And of course there's an athiestic doctrine. There is no God or eternity. Live for today and for yourself.

Yes, atheism implies no belief in a God. But I wouldn't call that a "doctrine". All the rest, eternity, living for today and for yourself is not part of atheism.

At 12/27/07 05:54 PM, WolvenBear wrote: (Continued from above)
So, why do intents matter? It does not matter to the little old lady who got pushed out of the way of a car WHY she got pushed out of the road. She is still alive to celebrate it.

Sure, for the person on the receiving end of the kindness it doesn't matter in the least.

And moreover, why would an athiest ever sacrifice themselves for another? This life is all you have. Losing your life for someone is insanely stupid.

Indeed. And that is why, should it happen, for whatever motivation, that it is so amazing, so worthy of respect. An atheist that sacrifices himself sacrifices everything he has and will ever have, for the benefit of someone else. A christian would sacrifice a single lifetime out of an eternal one, or basically nothing much.

You don't sacrifice your life because you're atheist, you do it for another reason. Just like you don't sacrifice your life for someone just because you're christian. Otherwise there would be no problem finding organ donors.

Which I do believe I mentioned. We've come full circle, with you actually arguing my original point.

That procreation is a byproduct of pleasure? You could argue that point for mammals, but the vast majority of life gets no pleasure from procreation. Plants, insects, spiders,.... They are lucky if they have a nervous system capable of feeling anything at all. But they still procreate, without the pleasure.
Which is why it would seem strange that for mammals, just because they can also feel pleasure, suddenly procreation would become a side effect.

...
THEREFORE: Procreating is not a biological imperative.

I don't see why humans would be so different from all other life. In the end we still do procreate, for whatever reason. You can call say it's not forced on us by biology, but somehow our biological "design" makes it so that the vast majority of humans throughout the ages have procreated.

As for a serial do-gooder? Look no further than JESUS ;)

The personification of GOD? Who many athiests consider a fabrication of the church?
That's your argument? Wow, you suck at this whole debate thing.

Note the caps and the ";)". I haven't heard of "serial do-gooders" either. Wouldn't even know how you would define such a thing.

At 12/28/07 06:43 AM, Togukawa wrote: The argument was whether Earth was designed with humans in mind. And it's not. Life and more specifically humans adapted to the Earth, not the other way around. And that life in general is possible somewhere, is not some kind of miracle. I'd be extremely surprised if Dawkins said something different.

The argument was whether Earth was fine tuned to provide life. The answer is yes.
You cannot prove the Earth wasn't designed anymore than I can prove it was.
Nul point.

It's not like the chance of life springing up in two or more places is necessarily bigger. "And if the universe is not "fine tuned" for us, this chance that we're all there is=0." is simply not true. On one hand you're saying that it's impossible for life to be only in one place, and on the other hand you're saying that it's impossible that there's life at all, given a non designed universe.

No that's not what I'm saying at all. (Again, my arguments are easy to understand.)
I'm saying that it is simply impossible for life to be only one place in a random universe. And that, if we are all there is, that is proof that there is a God.

My point is that Heaven is a more luxurious storage place for souls, but a storage place for souls nevertheless. And getting in the non-hell part of the greek afterlife still is easier than getting in the non-hell part of christian afterlife. But yeah, they both suck, I'll grant you that.

The athiesian fields (the non-hell) were exclusive to the children of the Gods and various heroes that they had blessed. Unless you were predestined from birth, you didn't get in.

Stabbing yourself in the heart is awesome, and don't you dare have an opinion on it without having tried it.

We have emperic evidence on what stabbing oneself in the heart is like.
On a more basic level, you see someone stub their toe and scream in pain. You don't need to try it yourself to know it sucks.

Offer a comparable analysis to heaven.

Lol. This sounds familiar. Oh yeah, it was back when you said that "I really like it to be true" was a better argument than any of those for atheism.

No, that was nowhere close to what I said.
I said that your arguments for athiesm were inherently inferior to Shaggy's rather lackluster beliefs in Christianity. In the time since I have said that, you have tried a variety of tactics, but I have shot you down every time. Mainly cause you don't know what you're talking about.

As for Hades, yeah it sucks, but you can have a free life and not end up in Hell. I fundementally disagree with the many rules in the Bible, so for me boring Hades part is still better than the Hell that christianity offers me. Since I'm not about to change the way I live my life for an afterlife that we're unsure about.

In only the best accounts is Hades boring, but still.
Greek mythos (best accounts):
You live a good life, wrong no one substantially, and worship teh Gods as is proscribed. At death you are thrown into a chaotic vortex where there is no real communication between you and other souls. You float in a limbo type area for eternity.

Many other accounts list Hades as being a place of eternal agony.

And yet, the Greeks ALSO believed in Tarturas. Or as we'd define it, hell.

Now if we were absolutely sure about what the afterlife was and how to get there, then Christianity would be by far the better religion. After all, what's a short lifetime of what I consider immoral compared to guaranteed eternal bliss.

And by what objective standard would you consider Christianity immoral?

You don't seem to get my point. I said that people who have never heard to word of God will go to hell. I.e. people who are unaware of the rules laid out for us by God. Not so says you, because not hearing of Christ doesn't land you in Hell. Since if you don't know the rules, you can't avoid breaking them (me) AND not knowing the rules does not necessarily land you in hell (you), then it follows that either the rules don't matter if you don't know them, or people magically already know the rules and don't need to be told, making the Bible obsolete. And I illustrated it by taking the obvious rule "do not kill".

Yet, that's not what either you or I said.

You claimed that the Bible claims people go to hell for simply not hearing of Christ (which is said nowhere). When I countered that with, "Not hearing of Christ alone will not send you to hell", you moronically claimed I was pardoning murderers.

Arguing that a person such as Ghandi wouldn;t burn in the fire of judgement because he had never heard the name Jesus is not the same as claiming that mass murderers will be spared for rejecting their inner morality.

I am seeking to argue. You can't support the position that people won't go to Hell if they haven't heard Gods message, without making the entirity of Gods message obsolete. Which means that if a person believes this, and is intrinsically good, he will seek to spread the message of God. Or saving of the soul as a religious person described it in another thread.

If the sole issue is hearing of Jesus, your point is moot. All societies without exception have embraced that message that killing should at the least be limited to those outside one's tribe. This indicates a universal morality.

Or he goes and teaches about the Bible, instead of teaching useful things like maths and science. It's not evil, but I think it's a pity.

Yet, it is Christianity that invented science.

It won't expand as much, but it can still last, unless believers are converted to another religion. Christianity and Islam are spread out far more, even though they are younger religions. I believe that they illustrate my point pretty well.

Islam is a religion of the sword. So we'll ignore that.

The spread of Christianity is directly linked to Judiasm (and to a lesser extent, so is the spread of Islam), which have expanded the message of Judaism to non-Jews.

And you can't be of two religions. That's not how it works.

I didn't say life had no meaning. You might consider "here's a bunch of rules, live by them and worship me and you'll get a big juicy carrot, otherwise it's the stick" attractive, but I prefer the freedom of my worldview. Not that attractiveness has anything to with it.

If there is no God, no tommorrow...then life has no meaning. Except pleasure.
All the meaningful athiestic scholors agree. There's really no other conclusion.

As for not wanting it to be true, well, I'm kind of split on the issue. On one hand if we were absolutely sure that it was true, nothing better than having a bunch of rules

Double talk. You don't want it to be true. You've said so a variety of times.

The biggest proof that Christianity and Judaism are true is that they are the only religion to go against the basic human condition. All other religions are of the "we'll make rules to defend you're behavior" variety. Judeo-Christian values show a God that seeks to reform man. This is unique.

At 12/28/07 08:53 AM, Togukawa wrote: Luckily there's humanism, which has a lot of the good, and none of the bad. And it doesn't waste valuable resources on wasted efforts like praying and preaching.

Nonsense. Humanism IS athiesm. It is the belief that human existance is all there is. Humanism and athiesm are one in the same.

It's like saying, "Yea Christianity is bad. But thank god for CATHOLICISM."

But I started from the assumption that good was being done, and not for a physical reward, and discussed the value of the actions being done.
There are other things than christianity that induce doing good, and it is those other motivations, other than expecting a reward in the next life, that give value to doing good.

Backtracking again.
You stipulated that the motivation was more important than the deed, I showed that a more powerful motivation was more likely to produce the desired deed.

That depends on what you consider "a good thing". If you say praying is good, and saving souls is good, then yes, you're probably right. If you talk about things that are actually helpful in this life, I'd like to see you back up that claim.

Christians donate more money than all other groups combined. Habitat for Humanity is a Christian group. The good Christians do in the world is incalcuable.

I agree with the first part. "any good they do cannot be linked to the tenets of athiesm". When they do good, they do it for another reason. A person that is only atheist and nothing more, without any other incentive or motivation, won't do good acts. But a similar christian, while he is compelled to do good acts, I don't consider it a good person. What he is doing is following orders, securing his spot in heaven. True good in mankind does not come from God or a religion, but from something else. For example humanism. And this goes equally for the atheist and for the christian.

Yet Christ said himself that doing good deeds for the sake of reward would get a person nothing but earthly praise. It is simply doing good for the sake of doing good that will get a believer into heaven.

Then there's "Athiesm is motivated by selfish desires.", which is complete bull. There is no motivation inherrent in the tenets of atheism, as you've said yourself.

Christopher Hitchens, quite possibly the most intelligent athiest alive, would disagree. In a debate with D'Souza he said "We give blood in the hope that if we need it, someone will give it to us. We give our seat to an old lady in hopes that, when we are tired, then someday someone will give it to us."

But does "go good for others or else..." make someone good? So wow, he does something good, what a good boy, the way he follows orders is absolutely amazing. Major props.

Are you going to actually provide something or just speculate?

It's just because there's no reward for doing good, and no consequence for doing evil, that doing good is so amazing. You could have done evil, but you chose good. That is the mark of a good person. Not following orders, not acting because you expect some form of reward.

What a load of shit.
That's a Christian belief and we both know it.
If there's no God, motivations are irrelevant.

Even as a Christian, I don't care whether it's a devout Christian or an athiest looking to look like a hero to a hot girl, who saves me from being run over by a bus.

There is simply no athiestic reason to judge motivations and we both know it.

Yes, atheism implies no belief in a God. But I wouldn't call that a "doctrine". All the rest, eternity, living for today and for yourself is not part of atheism.

According to whom? Not any major athiestic philosopher.

Indeed. And that is why, should it happen, for whatever motivation, that it is so amazing, so worthy of respect. An atheist that sacrifices himself sacrifices everything he has and will ever have, for the benefit of someone else. A christian would sacrifice a single lifetime out of an eternal one, or basically nothing much.

Why is that amazing? It's insanely stupid.

You don't sacrifice your life because you're atheist, you do it for another reason. Just like you don't sacrifice your life for someone just because you're christian. Otherwise there would be no problem finding organ donors.

No one sacrifices their life to be an organ donor.

That procreation is a byproduct of pleasure? You could argue that point for mammals, but the vast majority of life gets no pleasure from procreation. Plants, insects, spiders,.... They are lucky if they have a nervous system capable of feeling anything at all. But they still procreate, without the pleasure.

That procreation is not a biological imperative. Either on a human level (which we both have proven) or on a level of animality (so many abandon their children to the wild).

And plant mating is done by bees. Wind. Or humans.

Jeez, no knowledge of religion OR science?

At 12/30/07 08:13 AM, WolvenBear wrote:

At 12/28/07 08:53 AM, Togukawa wrote: Luckily there's humanism, which has a lot of the good, and none of the bad. And it doesn't waste valuable resources on wasted efforts like praying and preaching.

Nonsense. Humanism IS athiesm. It is the belief that human existance is all there is. Humanism and athiesm are one in the same.

Absolutely not.

Saying that Humanism is atheism is like saying Buddism is atheism. Just because the two haves similarities does not make them the same.

Atheism, as a philosophical view, is the position that either affirms the nonexistence of gods or rejects theism.

Humanism is a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualities particularly rationality.

It's like saying, "Yea Christianity is bad. But thank god for CATHOLICISM."

No it's not. Atheism is about the non-existiance of Gods, while humanism is about human worth. It's not even mildly related.

It's like saying Republicanism IS Christianity, because so many people are both.

Christians donate more money than all other groups combined. Habitat for Humanity is a Christian group. The good Christians do in the world is incalcuable.

Let's not get into a comparing battle, but Christianity isn't perfect in all aspects. Although donations is very high in Christianity, crime, divorces and such are also high, while education is low.

It's way too advanced to simply say that "lol Christians donate more money, so everybody should be a Christian".

Yet Christ said himself that doing good deeds for the sake of reward would get a person nothing but earthly praise. It is simply doing good for the sake of doing good that will get a believer into heaven.

Then I think a lot of believers are going to be disappointed when they die.

Then there's "Athiesm is motivated by selfish desires.", which is complete bull. There is no motivation inherrent in the tenets of atheism, as you've said yourself.

Christopher Hitchens, quite possibly the most intelligent athiest alive, would disagree. In a debate with D'Souza he said "We give blood in the hope that if we need it, someone will give it to us. We give our seat to an old lady in hopes that, when we are tired, then someday someone will give it to us."

That isn't the result of atheism. Atheism isn't a belief that modifies values in that way (at least, not normally, there are always strange people out there).

What Christopher Hitchens does there, if you haven't noticed, is promoting the Golden Rule, not atheism.

But does "go good for others or else..." make someone good? So wow, he does something good, what a good boy, the way he follows orders is absolutely amazing. Major props.

It's a trade. I scratch your back and you scratch mine. I'm not saying that it makes you into an saint, but, it's generally very good for humanity.

What a load of shit.
That's a Christian belief and we both know it.
If there's no God, motivations are irrelevant.

No, THAT is a load of shit. If there is no God, who got to decide that motivation is irrelevant? How can you, a mere human, stand there and tell me, another human, that somehow, my motivation is irrelevant? Who gave you that power?

You are doing a very big logical flaw here, assuming that if Christianity has value X, and if Christianity isn't true, then value X must be meaningless as a default.

Even as a Christian, I don't care whether it's a devout Christian or an athiest looking to look like a hero to a hot girl, who saves me from being run over by a bus.

There is simply no athiestic reason to judge motivations and we both know it.

Yes, exactly. Because atheism is not a set of values. It's like saying "There is no non-goblinistic (people who doesn't belive in goblins) reason to judge motivations, therefore non-goblinisticism does not promote these values.

I don't define myself by my atheism. The atheism points out what I am NOT, not what I am.

Yes, atheism implies no belief in a God. But I wouldn't call that a "doctrine". All the rest, eternity, living for today and for yourself is not part of atheism.

According to whom? Not any major athiestic philosopher.

Sigh. so flawed.

You don't sacrifice your life because you're atheist, you do it for another reason. Just like you don't sacrifice your life for someone just because you're christian. Otherwise there would be no problem finding organ donors.

No one sacrifices their life to be an organ donor.

Whoa, you sure overturned his point there.

I think what might be worth pointing out here are some more philosophies other than humanism which atheists might subscribe to:

nihilism
communism
existentialism
well whatever, there's no point, you've got three there

All atheism says is 'there is no God'. You can't infer any philosophies from that statement. There is nothing more to atheism than 'there is no God'; you might think humanity needs to be eradicated, too - you don't necessarily have to be a humanist.

Just because Daniel Dennet and Christopher Hitchens are doesn't mean that Marx was.

At 12/30/07 07:59 AM, WolvenBear wrote: The argument was whether Earth was fine tuned to provide life. The answer is yes.
You cannot prove the Earth wasn't designed anymore than I can prove it was.
Nul point.

You say "look we can survive perfectly, this means the Earth is adapted to us." I say that we are adapted to the Earth. Even though there are so many hostile things like deserts, arctic regions and natural disasters, we still manage to live. We adapt to the Earth, not the other way around.
And the fact that it supports life at all, is not surprising because of the lottery argument.

No that's not what I'm saying at all. (Again, my arguments are easy to understand.)
I'm saying that it is simply impossible for life to be only one place in a random universe. And that, if we are all there is, that is proof that there is a God.

But that follows from nothing. It is not impossible for life to be in only one place in a random universe, just like it is not impossible that only one person wins the lottery at the same time, and not two or three. And even if we're all there is, that doesn't prove that there's a God. Just that we got very lucky, and other planets didn't.

The athiesian fields (the non-hell) were exclusive to the children of the Gods and various heroes that they had blessed. Unless you were predestined from birth, you didn't get in.

Elysian. There were many different areas in Greek afterlife, and there was a boring place for common folk as well.

We have emperic evidence on what stabbing oneself in the heart is like.
On a more basic level, you see someone stub their toe and scream in pain. You don't need to try it yourself to know it sucks.

Offer a comparable analysis to heaven.

There is none, since conveniently heaven is something supernatural, and no empirical evidence is possible. That doesn't change that heaven is defined, albeit in many different ways. Hence we can apply logic on it and have an opinion about it. Even though it can't be tested for truth, since heaven does not exist in our reality while we are alive.

No, that was nowhere close to what I said.
I said that your arguments for athiesm were inherently inferior to Shaggy's rather lackluster beliefs in Christianity. In the time since I have said that, you have tried a variety of tactics, but I have shot you down every time. Mainly cause you don't know what you're talking about.

The very fact that you can shoot them down and argue about them, mean that they are based on something that we can discuss. "I really like it to be true" is not based on anything and hence is an even lousier reason.

As for Hades, yeah it sucks, but you can have a free life and not end up in Hell. I fundementally disagree with the many rules in the Bible, so for me boring Hades part is still better than the Hell that christianity offers me. Since I'm not about to change the way I live my life for an afterlife that we're unsure about.

And yet, the Greeks ALSO believed in Tarturas. Or as we'd define it, hell.

Makes one wonder what a coincidence it was that the Greek already had a concept of infinite incredible agony, when it later appeared to actually exist after all. Except for every sinner lands there, not just evil and immoral people like those that offer their own children to the Gods.

And by what objective standard would you consider Christianity immoral?

Not christianity in general, but the Bible does have many commands that are considered immoral. Like death by stoning, or killing children for the crimes of the parents. It doesn't make christianity immoral, but since the Bible is the only word of God, the single way to be sure to end in heaven is to follow every command to the letter. Which would be immoral.

Yet, that's not what either you or I said.

You claimed that the Bible claims people go to hell for simply not hearing of Christ (which is said nowhere). When I countered that with, "Not hearing of Christ alone will not send you to hell", you moronically claimed I was pardoning murderers.

No, I said "Christianity teaches that you have to spread the word of God, because if you don't the other guys will go to hell". Spreading the word of God is not equal to having heard of Christ. I didn't claim you would pardon murders, I claimed that according to your logic, murderers would have to be pardoned.

Arguing that a person such as Ghandi wouldn;t burn in the fire of judgement because he had never heard the name Jesus is not the same as claiming that mass murderers will be spared for rejecting their inner morality.

See, but still God deems it necessary to make a big lists of things that are and aren't moral. Do not kill is one of them, and many people argue that morality comes only from religion.

And Gandhi had in fact heard of Jesus, but he decided not to convert to christianity in the end. Hell, no hell? There are those that argue, based on the Bible, that it's "eternal death" for him. http://www.soundwitness.org/pop_culture/
a_critique_of_gandhi.htm

I am seeking to argue. You can't support the position that people won't go to Hell if they haven't heard Gods message, without making the entirity of Gods message obsolete. Which means that if a person believes this, and is intrinsically good, he will seek to spread the message of God. Or saving of the soul as a religious person described it in another thread.

If the sole issue is hearing of Jesus, your point is moot. All societies without exception have embraced that message that killing should at the least be limited to those outside one's tribe. This indicates a universal morality.

Not only hearing of Jesus, but also the 10 commandments, not being allowed to wear clothes made of different fabrics, and every single other little rule telling us what is and is not a sin.

There's no reason for the Bible to exist if we already universally know what is right and wrong according to god. Except for to tell us that we will end up in Hell if we do wrong, but then there was no need for the BIble to be so long and waste so much words telling us what we should already know.

Yet, it is Christianity that invented science.

Hawhaw. If by science, you mean studying the Bible to find answers to real world problems, then yes. If you mean anything even remotely close to the "modern" science starting at the 17th centure, then no, definitely not. Men like Galileo were silenced because his findings didn't conform to the then common interpretation of the Bible.

Islam is a religion of the sword. So we'll ignore that.

The spread of Christianity is directly linked to Judiasm (and to a lesser extent, so is the spread of Islam), which have expanded the message of Judaism to non-Jews.

True enough, but there are obviously reasons why Christianity and Islam spread so much more violently then Judaism and Hinduism. And they have nothing to do with how close the teachings are to the truth. For example, the conversion by the sword.

If there is no God, no tommorrow...then life has no meaning. Except pleasure.
All the meaningful athiestic scholors agree. There's really no other conclusion.

No, I don't believe is a single greater ultimate purpose to life for all of us. That doesn't mean that we can't all individually find a meaning to our life. Which is not necessarily hedonistic pleasure.

As for not wanting it to be true, well, I'm kind of split on the issue. On one hand if we were absolutely sure that it was true, nothing better than having a bunch of rules

Double talk. You don't want it to be true. You've said so a variety of times.

There are many other afterlives that I'd rather want to be true than the Christian one, yes.

The biggest proof that Christianity and Judaism are true is that they are the only religion to go against the basic human condition. All other religions are of the "we'll make rules to defend you're behavior" variety. Judeo-Christian values show a God that seeks to reform man. This is unique.

And Islam and Hinduism don't? All religions have rules that you need to follow to a greater or lesser extent.

If I don't respond to a part, it's because I agree with what Drakim said on the issue.

At 12/30/07 08:13 AM, WolvenBear wrote:

At 12/28/07 08:53 AM, Togukawa wrote: But I started from the assumption that good was being done, and not for a physical reward, and discussed the value of the actions being done.
There are other things than christianity that induce doing good, and it is those other motivations, other than expecting a reward in the next life, that give value to doing good.

Backtracking again.
You stipulated that the motivation was more important than the deed, I showed that a more powerful motivation was more likely to produce the desired deed.

Indeed. But I don't judge motivation by the likelihood of producing the desired deed. I say that doing something because you think it's the right thing to do, because you want to help, makes you more of a saint than doing something because you expect to get something in return in the afterlife.

Of course it's only natural that you expect someone else to do the same for you, but I don't believe that it's only that. If you only help people for the single reason that you want to be helped yourself, then it's still good for humanity, just like the christians helping people because they want to get into heaven is good for humanity, but it makes neither a saint.

That depends on what you consider "a good thing". If you say praying is good, and saving souls is good, then yes, you're probably right. If you talk about things that are actually helpful in this life, I'd like to see you back up that claim.

But does "go good for others or else..." make someone good? So wow, he does something good, what a good boy, the way he follows orders is absolutely amazing. Major props.

Are you going to actually provide something or just speculate?

I've already given my opinion. Doing good for the sake of doing good makes you a good person, doing good for the sake of a reward (in this life, or the next) is normal, nothing extraordinary. It makes you deserving of "nothing but earthly praise" at best.

It's just because there's no reward for doing good, and no consequence for doing evil, that doing good is so amazing. You could have done evil, but you chose good. That is the mark of a good person. Not following orders, not acting because you expect some form of reward.

There is simply no athiestic reason to judge motivations and we both know it.

I see what you mean Drakim, but I interpret this more in the light of "there's no reason to judge motivations if atheism is true, and there is no God". And I disagree of course, I don't see why motivations and intents wouldn't matter if there were no God. In our court systems you can get convicted even if you merely "attempt" murder. And we have different "degrees" of murder, with differing punishments, even if the consequence for the victims is still the same. They're dead. But the motivation does matter to the judge/jury. As it should.

Indeed. And that is why, should it happen, for whatever motivation, that it is so amazing, so worthy of respect. An atheist that sacrifices himself sacrifices everything he has and will ever have, for the benefit of someone else. A christian would sacrifice a single lifetime out of an eternal one, or basically nothing much.

Why is that amazing? It's insanely stupid.

Stupid? I'd call it many things, but not stupid. Firemen risk their lives to save other people, where I live they are even volunteers. Of course, they don't go in a burning building with the intention to die to save people, but they still know they are risking their lives, and firemen do die doing their jobs.

And even when it is knowingly sacrifing your own life for someone/something, I think that shows the enormous value you attach to something. Valueing the life of your child above your own, it's the ultimate token of love. Not of stupidity.

No one sacrifices their life to be an organ donor.

No shit. But if that wouldn't land you in Heaven, I don't know what will.

That procreation is a byproduct of pleasure? You could argue that point for mammals, but the vast majority of life gets no pleasure from procreation. Plants, insects, spiders,.... They are lucky if they have a nervous system capable of feeling anything at all. But they still procreate, without the pleasure.

That procreation is not a biological imperative. Either on a human level (which we both have proven) or on a level of animality (so many abandon their children to the wild).

They abandon their children to the wild, but the children still survive. Most animals either have rather small amounts of offspring, and guard them during their infancy, or have rather large amounts of offspring, and abandon them.
There are species of butterflies that die shortly after they mate, but they still do it. Males of the praying mantis get eaten after they mate for extra proteins for the female, but they still do it.

All lving creatures today procreate in some form, most of them incapable of feeling pleasure. You're telling me that it's all just a coincidence, that there's no biological imperative to do so? I find that hard to believe.

And plant mating is done by bees. Wind. Or humans.

Yet the plants themselves have elaborate mechanisms to ensure the spread of their seed. Some produce nectar to lure bees, others attach tiny little chutes so the wind can carry them. All these features cost energy to grow. Yet the plants have the features and are "forced" to expend energy to grow them. Not biological imperative?

Well lets say there is a god for purpose of this argument and he created everything, humans, earth, Laws, etc. How can we humans use the science that god created prove his existence or disprove it? He used these Laws to make a inhabitable world for us and organized ( sorta ). So how can we ignorant humans use something that our creator invented against him? Our feeble minds cannot even come close to grasp God's reason,intelligence, and ability. I think of it that way. So that's why I am more agnostic but lean towards the "Believe God" Side

What u think?

At 12/30/07 11:47 AM, DraGoN-RaGe-9001 wrote: Well lets say there is a god for purpose of this argument and he created everything, humans, earth, Laws, etc. How can we humans use the science that god created prove his existence or disprove it?

God didn't create science, humans did. And we can't prove God through science, since science deals with natural, observable things. Not with the unobservable supernatural.

He used these Laws to make a inhabitable world for us and organized ( sorta ). So how can we ignorant humans use something that our creator invented against him?

If anything, science is trying to understand what rules and laws govern our reality. It deals with understanding God's creation, not with God himself.

Our feeble minds cannot even come close to grasp God's reason,intelligence, and ability. I think of it that way. So that's why I am more agnostic but lean towards the "Believe God" Side

Sure, I agree. If he exists, we can't possibly hope to understand what he wants or why. Which is why it's foolish to make arguments based on God. "Homosexuals are evil because God hates them", "genetic modification research is immoral because God doesn't want us to tinker with His creation", and so on. All rubbish, there's no way to know. The only possible way of knowing what God wants, is for Him to clearly tell us. Some people believe that the Bible, Koran, whatever is exactly that, God telling us what He wants.

But I believe that when taken literally, what he wants from us is downright immoral. Such as asking us to kill children for the mistakes of their parents. Nobody knows whether God cares for us, or whether he enjoys to see us suffer, whether he is telling the truth in his holy book, or whether he is lying to us for his own reasons that we can't possibly understand.

Secondly, I don't even believe that these Holy books were in fact the ever word of God.
There are far too many reasons to doubt it. The abundance of different holy books, the contradictions, the scientific mistakes, and so on. Furthermore, their lifetime they've been changed, translated and edited so many times that even if it was once the word of God, it's doubtful that it's still in any way close to the original thing.

So I'll live my life as if there were no God. I don't even care whether he is real or not, he's definitely outside of the natural world and doesn't affect my life.

At 12/30/07 01:49 PM, Togukawa wrote: So I'll live my life as if there were no God. I don't even care whether he is real or not, he's definitely outside of the natural world and doesn't affect my life.

That's what I think, really. If I'm pressed, I'll argue from an atheist standpoint, but I personally think that the question of God is irrelevant, because there obviously isn't a personal God and religion is definitely definitely incorrect.

At 12/30/07 11:47 AM, DraGoN-RaGe-9001 wrote: Laws, etc. How can we humans use the science that god created prove his existence or disprove it?

he didn't create science. Science is a field of study.

He used these Laws to make a inhabitable world for us and organized ( sorta ).

Inhabitable? Ha! Most of the earth's surface is either too wet, too dry, too hot or too cold to live on. Small pox alone killed over 500,000,000 people. 99% of all living species have become extinct. Some god.

So how can we ignorant humans use something that our creator invented against him?

That's if he exists. But this science he "created" seriously suggests he is quite frankly, bullshit.

Our feeble minds cannot even come close to grasp God's reason,intelligence, and ability. I think of it that way.

If you look at scripture, God certainly has ability, but is severely lacking in intelligence and reason.

At 12/30/07 10:07 AM, Drakim wrote: Saying that Humanism is atheism is like saying Buddism is atheism. Just because the two haves similarities does not make them the same.

Oh please. Athiesm is a philosophical system that says there is no God. Humanism says "Who cares?" That they come to the same conclusions on everything makes them the same thing.

It's like saying Republicanism IS Christianity, because so many people are both.

That's a pretty fair example. The vast majority of Republicans are Christian.
Though, the fact that some athiests find it attractive (not being killed by Muslims savages), doesn't disprove the Christian undertones of the movement.

Let's not get into a comparing battle, but Christianity isn't perfect in all aspects. Although donations is very high in Christianity, crime, divorces and such are also high, while education is low.

Divorce is high across the board.
Though I'd love to hear you blame Christianity (which abhors divorce) WITH divorce.

It's way too advanced to simply say that "lol Christians donate more money, so everybody should be a Christian".

Yet, I never said that. Congrats for not being able to address EITHER my argument, or the context that it was being made in.

Then I think a lot of believers are going to be disappointed when they die.

And provide something for that. Other than your own biased belief.

That isn't the result of atheism. Atheism isn't a belief that modifies values in that way (at least, not normally, there are always strange people out there).

Of course it is. Humans, in one way or another, ALWAYS do things out of some selfish reason. This could be as simple as "it makes me feel good", or the desire to go to heaven, or as Hitchens put it.
Or they do things out of an unconscious nature. "The man rings a bell, I should put a dollar in." But that too is a religious trait (because most athiests are brought up in Christianity), even if the athiest does it.

What Christopher Hitchens does there, if you haven't noticed, is promoting the Golden Rule, not atheism.

No, Christopher Hitchens is promoting things based on a selfish doctrine. The golden Rule says "treat others as you would like to be treated". Not "treat others well and hope for the same in reverse."
Since you haven't seen the debate and I have, I'll inform you. Hitchens was trying to refute the point that there is no need under athiesm for people to act nice. Hence the above.
But, if he WAS arguing the golden rule...that just shows that athiestic arguments of fairness are based on Christian tradition.

It's a trade. I scratch your back and you scratch mine. I'm not saying that it makes you into an saint, but, it's generally very good for humanity.

But, there's little reason to do it if we chuck morality out the window. I can fuck over the little old lady by parking in a handicap spot...to be closer to the door, and make life easier. I could keep that dollar and buy a soda with it...instead of giving to the Red cross.

Perfect example:
Tonight I was at a comedy club. They were raising money for a cause. They said that if we donated anything we got ONE free ticket to the club (the comedian wasn't that funny). But the cause sounded nice, so I donated money. I had no intent to use the ticket (who goes to a club alone?) But because I gave more than the minimum donation, the guy gave me more than one ticket.

Did this benefit me? Yea. I can have a date there. Did I know that going in? No.
I figured I'd be giving away money with no benefit to me.

No, THAT is a load of shit. If there is no God, who got to decide that motivation is irrelevant? How can you, a mere human, stand there and tell me, another human, that somehow, my motivation is irrelevant? Who gave you that power?

Because if there is no god, then you don't know my motivation.
If there is no God, then morality is what humans decide it is, and since we can't see inside each other's minds, it will be a result based enterprise.

PLease try to offer something substancial.

Don't rant like a jackass. Offer me a reason that motivation should matter without a divinely based morality.

You are doing a very big logical flaw here, assuming that if Christianity has value X, and if Christianity isn't true, then value X must be meaningless as a default.

Yet, my reasoning is correct.
If there is no God, then there is no reason motivation matters. If I give 100 bucks to charity because my girlfriend offers to let me do her in the butt, or if I do it out of a sense of guilt, or if I do it cause I don't need the money, or if I do it because I want to help others...it is IRRELEVANT.
No one will know my motives unless I tell them. Therefore the action itself is all that matters.
The belief that the state of mind someone is in is a Christian belief. An athiest can use it sure...but they're using a Christian belief.
You won't be able to, but I'll challenge you anyway. Provide me a non-religious based answer on why I should care about your motivation.

Yes, exactly. Because atheism is not a set of values. It's like saying "There is no non-goblinistic (people who doesn't belive in goblins) reason to judge motivations, therefore non-goblinisticism does not promote these values.

Yet, if there was a goblinistic value system, and you were borrowing from it, then teh goblinistics would tell you "that's OUR value system, not yours". Outside of Christianity, there's no belief system that claims "motivations matter." So by your own terms, you're quoting our values, then claiming our values don't matter in the same sentence.

I don't define myself by my atheism. The atheism points out what I am NOT, not what I am.

Your athiesm points out a lot about you. You are virulently anti-Christian.

Sigh. so flawed.

How so?
If every single athiest philosopher disagrees with you, then how can you be right? There has not been a single athiest writer in history who hasn't advocated a "live for the moment" type philosophy. Usually this involves a lot of sex and "anti-God" devices.

But because Drakim, who's worldview is identical in every aspect, tries to refute a lacksedasical Christians claim....2000's years of history go out the window.

Not even close.

Whoa, you sure overturned his point there.

Quite definitively.

At 12/30/07 11:01 AM, Togukawa wrote: You say "look we can survive perfectly, this means the Earth is adapted to us." I say that we are adapted to the Earth. Even though there are so many hostile things like deserts, arctic regions and natural disasters, we still manage to live. We adapt to the Earth, not the other way around.
And the fact that it supports life at all, is not surprising because of the lottery argument.

This is a bullshit argument. I'm tired of this.
Let's be prefectly honest here. Your argument is insanely stupid.

Your original argument was: "The Earth is not perfectly adapted for life."

It is. Without equvication. Everyone who has ever spoken on teh subject agress, the Earth is suited for life.

Now that you are definitively proven wrong by anyone who has ever spoken on science, you try to change gears.

"Because there is life, you claim it is god given."

I did no such thing. In fact I have repeatedly said that life doesn't prove God.
I have however said that, "in a random universe, the chances of life not being able to come up on any other planet is 0."

You are, yet again, trying to make yourself right by changing what you argued to fit my responses.

But that follows from nothing. It is not impossible for life to be in only one place in a random universe, just like it is not impossible that only one person wins the lottery at the same time, and not two or three. And even if we're all there is, that doesn't prove that there's a God. Just that we got very lucky, and other planets didn't.

To start with, on lottery. The chances of you winning are 1 in "x" (I haven't calculated it). It doesn't matter if you are the only one playing or if there are 100 billion people in, you're chance of winning are the same.

It is not possible, in a random universe for life to spring up in only one place. Comparing it to the lottery is irrelevant.

Elysian. There were many different areas in Greek afterlife, and there was a boring place for common folk as well.

There were three.

The fields (which were destined for the Children of Gods, and the warriors Gods chose at birth), Hades, for everyone else, and a "Hell" that rivaled ours.

There is none, since conveniently heaven is something supernatural, and no empirical evidence is possible. That doesn't change that heaven is defined, albeit in many different ways. Hence we can apply logic on it and have an opinion about it. Even though it can't be tested for truth, since heaven does not exist in our reality while we are alive.

No we can't. Christ himself said that Heaven was beyond our comprehension.

So, here's the difference. I have no clue as to what heaven is like and offer no opinion. You have no clue what heaven is like and OFFER an opinion.
Moreover, you claim that, whatever heaven s, it CANNOT compare to Greek Hades, which is not a pleasant place.

The very fact that you can shoot them down and argue about them, mean that they are based on something that we can discuss. "I really like it to be true" is not based on anything and hence is an even lousier reason.

No at all.
I can discuss "I hates them darkies." The fact that I can discuss it doesn't add to it's truthfullness.
At the end of the day, your arguments are basically:

You: I don't like God, therefore he's fake.
Shaggy: There's a lot to make me believe. Smarter people than me will argue it. But I'll keep my belief that feels right in my heart.

Clearly his belief is superior.
And this is the first time I've agreed with him. So it's not like we agree a lot.

Makes one wonder what a coincidence it was that the Greek already had a concept of infinite incredible agony, when it later appeared to actually exist after all. Except for every sinner lands there, not just evil and immoral people like those that offer their own children to the Gods.

And? You can't have it both ways (though you try) to paint things exactly as you like.
No ideas are really original.

Not christianity in general, but the Bible does have many commands that are considered immoral. Like death by stoning, or killing children for the crimes of the parents. It doesn't make christianity immoral, but since the Bible is the only word of God, the single way to be sure to end in heaven is to follow every command to the letter. Which would be immoral.

Again. By what STANDARD.
We execute people and perform abortions. You're simply nopt going to debate me away without using Judeo Christian codes.

No, I said "Christianity teaches that you have to spread the word of God, because if you don't the other guys will go to hell". Spreading the word of God is not equal to having heard of Christ. I didn't claim you would pardon murders, I claimed that according to your logic, murderers would have to be pardoned.

You're so full of shit.
"I didn't claim you'd pardon murderers" only that "cause murderers hadn't heard of Christ they get heaven." I've already addressed this, and you're a dishonest little twat.

See, but still God deems it necessary to make a big lists of things that are and aren't moral. Do not kill is one of them, and many people argue that morality comes only from religion.

God made a list of ten things we can;t do (Jesus simplified it). There is no canonic belief that says screaming is equivalent o murder. Yet you continue...

Continued tomorrow.