serotonin_wraith

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Posts by serotonin_wraith

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  67

  Advocating Destruction of Religion Hate Speech?

  by writetoknow in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  introduction.

  in 1942, the supreme court sustained the conviction of a jehovah's witness who addressed a police officer as a "god dammed racketeer" and "a damned facist" (chaplinksy v. new hampshire).

  the court's opinion in the case stated that there was a category of face-to-face epithets, or "fighting words," that was wholly outside of the protection of the first amendment: those words "which by their very utterance inflict injury" and which "are no essential part of any exposition of ideas.".

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  serotonin_wraith

  So your beliefs are better?

  In my mind yes. And in your mind, your beliefs are better. Now if you're going to question my decision to talk about my opinion of religion, then you need to address all the people who try to spread their religion too. They are very obviously trying to change people's minds. If that stopped, so would I. What I do is a response. I'm not the instigator.

  For example, if I see someone saying evolution isn't true, I'll tell them they're wrong. I don't see why reality can't be defended.

  Thus, you take the right to condemn and destory religion because your ideology is better?

  Criticize. Not destroy. Unless I'm that powerful I can DESTROY all religion with my words!

  Would your ideology, require labling "all" the religous people as disease?

  I don't have a problem with religious PEOPLE.
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  67

  Advocating Destruction of Religion Hate Speech?

  by writetoknow in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  introduction.

  in 1942, the supreme court sustained the conviction of a jehovah's witness who addressed a police officer as a "god dammed racketeer" and "a damned facist" (chaplinksy v. new hampshire).

  the court's opinion in the case stated that there was a category of face-to-face epithets, or "fighting words," that was wholly outside of the protection of the first amendment: those words "which by their very utterance inflict injury" and which "are no essential part of any exposition of ideas.".

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  serotonin_wraith

  So you are saying religion is a disease that has to be erraticated? What authority assumes the right to erracticate this disease and how do we know they are right?

  I think religion is a disease and I'll be glad if it goes.

  But I won't decide that, and neither will you. Humanity will. You'll keep on brainwashing kids and spreading the message of Jesus, I'll keep debating people and trying to get them to use their brains and a change may or may not happen. Just think of it being like the eradication of witchcraft. Most of humanity grew out of that archaic belief, all because people used their brains. This has nothing to do with force and I know you're desperate to make that link but it's not going to work. I'd never force you to stop worshipping your god, but I'd certainly like to change your mind, and I'm sure you'd like to get others to change their minds so they can be saved.
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  48

  Weirdest Koran Qoutes = "Beat your Wife, Worship Adam, Men turned into apes

  by Witness 007 in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  adam- sura 1:1 "{allah} only you we worship.

  " however, surah 2:25,26 allah tells the angels to worship adam since he can name all the animals.

  one angel refused and became satan.??

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  serotonin_wraith

  You know what, who cares about how the books are interpreted? Someone who believes the creator of the universe spoke to a man between 1 and 2,000 years ago and told him what to write in a book is just prolonging the problems we face. Some muslims think the book justifies bad behaviour, some think it's a religion of peace. If the belief didn't exist in the first place, we wouldn't be seeing ANYONE killing in the name of Allah, and any peaceful things can still be done anyway. We don't need to believe in flying horses for that!
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  59

  NON-THEISTIC belief systems REQUIRE LOTS of FAITH (e.g. people from FISH)

  by hooberus in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i once saw dawkins refer to his views as a "belief system".

  indeed, persons who subscribe to a non-theistic belief system* have been generally forced to hold to the following beliefs:.

  that life came from non-life.. that people came from fish (fish are in mans actual ancestry in evolutionary phylogenetic trees).

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  serotonin_wraith

  I was refering to the belief that life came from non-life by purely unintelligent natural processes

  The truthful answer is that nobody knows. But we use reasoning skills to determine what seems more likely.

  We do know that stars form naturally, that planets form naturally, that evolution is natural. So far, there is nothing supernatural about the universe that has been discovered. We didn't know what thunder really was, or what volcanoes were all about. Humans used to think that there was an intelligence behind these things. But we were proved wrong. In all our searching for answers, the supernatural explanation ends up disappearing.

  This has happened in 100% of cases so far, so it's not using faith to believe life to non life was a natural process. We have good reasons for thinking this way. Would we be using faith if we thought the big bang wasn't the result of a mad scientist in an even larger universe creating this one? No. As there is no reason to think a mad scientist made this universe, we tend to reject the idea. It's the same when we talk about an intelligence behind life starting on Earth. If it's shown that there was an intelligence, I'll believe. Until then, I don't think it's wrong to reject the idea, just as most people would reject the mad scientist explanation.
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  59

  NON-THEISTIC belief systems REQUIRE LOTS of FAITH (e.g. people from FISH)

  by hooberus in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i once saw dawkins refer to his views as a "belief system".

  indeed, persons who subscribe to a non-theistic belief system* have been generally forced to hold to the following beliefs:.

  that life came from non-life.. that people came from fish (fish are in mans actual ancestry in evolutionary phylogenetic trees).

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  serotonin_wraith

  I never said on this thread that atheism is a belief system [I never even used the word atheism], but instead that non-theistic belief systems also require lots of faith.

  My apologies then. But I wouldn't agree that these other beliefs require faith.

  Are things such as "life coming from non-life" really "backed by evidence" or instead beliefs held about the unobserved past (and even held against much evidence)?

  Wouldn't you agree that when our universe began there was no life in it? Wouldn't you also agree that there is now life? So doesn't it seem logical to conclude that something happened which made it so that life started? Life is made up of the same elements found in the universe, such as stardust, which is non living. We don't know what the exact process was. Even the Biblical story of life coming about when God breathed into dirt is a life from non life process. I don't know of any evidence that goes against thinking life came from non life, because the universe has not always had life in it. So something happened.
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  59

  NON-THEISTIC belief systems REQUIRE LOTS of FAITH (e.g. people from FISH)

  by hooberus in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i once saw dawkins refer to his views as a "belief system".

  indeed, persons who subscribe to a non-theistic belief system* have been generally forced to hold to the following beliefs:.

  that life came from non-life.. that people came from fish (fish are in mans actual ancestry in evolutionary phylogenetic trees).

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  serotonin_wraith

  Even those who claim to have "a lack of faith in God" always also have some sort of a belief system and (to be logically consistent) they believe the above points.

  Not quite. If they want to believe evidence (not faith) then they will believe the points as I described them, because they are backed by evidence. Being logically consistent isn't the same, I don't think. It would be logically consistent if I thought my house could fly into space if I also thought it had rockets attached to it from NASA. Those two beliefs are consistent, but neither are actually backed up by evidence.

  There's a good video on 'designed life' and how it looks so designed here- http://richarddawkins.net/growingupintheuniverse

  It's the second video down: 'Designed and Designoid Objects'. It may help answer some of the valid concerns you have about life seeming to be designed.
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  59

  NON-THEISTIC belief systems REQUIRE LOTS of FAITH (e.g. people from FISH)

  by hooberus in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i once saw dawkins refer to his views as a "belief system".

  indeed, persons who subscribe to a non-theistic belief system* have been generally forced to hold to the following beliefs:.

  that life came from non-life.. that people came from fish (fish are in mans actual ancestry in evolutionary phylogenetic trees).

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  serotonin_wraith

  Let me help you with this construction.

  I once saw Dawkins refer to his views as a "belief system".

  First, do you have a link to this because I'd like to see it in context. If he was talking about his scientific beliefs, then sure, that's a belief system. However, atheism is not a belief system. You may have the two confused. You can be atheist yet believe humans sprung out of flowers 60 million years ago. Atheism says nothing about what a person DOES believe.

  You're being atheist too when you reject thousands of gods. I bet you don't even think about it. Just because you don't believe in Ra or Dionysis, you know that would say nothing about what you DO believe. In short, atheism is a lack of belief, and that's it.

  So, no atheist is forced to believe:

• That life came from non-life [probably many times]

But if we're on the subject, it only had to happen once. All life came from ONE ancestor. Every living thing today shares similar DNA.

• That people came from FISH (fish are in mans actual ancestry in evolutionary phylogenetic trees)

Yes, if you go very far back our ancestors used to live in the sea. But we're talking millions and millions of years here, in in all that time a lot can happen to a species. It's possible for fish to breathe on land. There are examples of fish today that do that very thing for months at a time.

• That unintelligent natural processes are the cause of all the incredible complexity and design ["unintelligent design" movement] around us.

Absolutely. The species you see today have to be the kind that have adapted well to their environment. A better 'designed' wing on an insect for example, will give it an edge over an insect with a poorly 'designed' wing. It's more likely for the 'better designed' species to go on reproducing. Most species actually go extinct. 99% of all animals that have ever existed are now gone, in fact.

* Even those who claim to have merely "a lack of faith in God" if they are also to have any sort of overal thinking worldview must also adopt the above points.

No must about it. They can believe anything they want. Most people use rational thinking and look at the evidence however.