1. if you say that reducing harm is a valid standard because that is what people want, then how are you not committing the logical fallacy of begging the question by saying that what people want, is what makes something morally right?.
2. if you say that reducing harm is a valid standard of morality because that is what people want, then how are you not promoting an arbitrary standard since it is based on peoples subjective feelings and desires which change?
3. if reducing overall harm is the standard of morality, then should a nation that is being attacked by another nation not practice self-defense, since by defending itself it may very well increase overall harm to both nations?.
On a larger scale, I'm of the opinion that morality is less a universal constant than it is a civil and social standard defined by environmental requirements.
That said, my personal morality is pretty simple - I shall do nothing that directly impacts the life, liberty, or property of another living being.
this is an interesting debate paneled by people representing both pro and con aspects of religion as a ideological concept in human sociality.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfix_e1qnbm.
botchtowersociety>> Oh, just keep poking holes in my assumptions why doncha :D I was thinking the churches list of prohibited books was earlier than it actually was.
I'll agree with you to a point on this, in that there was non-christian information that was retained, but these were primarily either in monestaries and areas of Ireland and Europe distant from the core control of the church or they were retained because they were considered to be a allegorically relevant to Christian dogma. Remember too that, although it was a little earlier, it was Pope Theophilus that destroyed the Serapeum which housed at least a portion of the Great Library of Alexandria.
this is an interesting debate paneled by people representing both pro and con aspects of religion as a ideological concept in human sociality.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfix_e1qnbm.
botchtowersociety>> Good call. All my snarkyness aside, the Church did play a very important role in the actual preservation of knowledge through the dark ages and the work of re-seeding that knowledge afterwards.
Although I'd point out that it tended to be only knowledge that they agreed with. ;)
this is an interesting debate paneled by people representing both pro and con aspects of religion as a ideological concept in human sociality.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfix_e1qnbm.
But ... but ... but ... religion has given us such wonderful things like circumcision and other forms of genital mutilation! What's not to like about beliving that hacking off bits of our junk makes God a happy guy?
this is an interesting debate paneled by people representing both pro and con aspects of religion as a ideological concept in human sociality.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfix_e1qnbm.
Religion is the reason I don't have my robot army and flying car right now.
this is an interesting debate paneled by people representing both pro and con aspects of religion as a ideological concept in human sociality.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfix_e1qnbm.
The question ultimately boils down to whether or not morality is inseperable from religious belief. While I would state that religion (generally) requires it, morality itself does not require one specific (or, indeed any) form of religionin order to be practiced. Stalin, Polpot and others didn't go to war because they were atheists, they did it because they were dicks.
how do you explain david's graphic portrayal of jesus' death by crucifixion (psalm 22) 1000 years before christ lived?.
how do you account for the odds (1 in 10 to the 157th power) that even just 48 (of 300) old testament prophecies were fulfilled in jesus christ?.
in what sense was jesus a "good man" if he was lying in his claim to be god?.
how do you explain david's graphic portrayal of jesus' death by crucifixion (psalm 22) 1000 years before christ lived?.
how do you account for the odds (1 in 10 to the 157th power) that even just 48 (of 300) old testament prophecies were fulfilled in jesus christ?.
in what sense was jesus a "good man" if he was lying in his claim to be god?.
Part the Third
Is it absolutely true that "truth is not absolute" or only relatively true that "all things are relative?"
Huh?
What do you say about the hundreds of scholarly books that carefully document the veracity and reliability of the Bible?
That the majority of the ones I've ever read seem to base their reliability on either unreliable sources or unreliable reasoning. Again, I don't consider the entire work to be fiction, but I don't count it any more historically accurate than any other religious text.
Have you ever considered the fact that Christianity is the only religion whose leader is said to have risen from the dead?
Um...... I can actually think of several right off the top of my head - Osiris (Egyptian), Shiva (Hindu), Odin (Norse), Inana (Sumerian). Give me awhile, I'm sure I can think of a few more.
Why don't non-believers refer to Jesus as the late Jesus Christ?
In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, come again?
What do you make of all the anthropological studies indicating that even the most remote tribes show some sort of theological awareness?
What do you make of the sociology studies indicating an inverse ratio between IQ and religious belief? That's a serious question, by the way, and not me being snarky. Religion is fundamentally a way to explain the inexplicable. As we learn what actually goes on for something, the need for a divine explanation goes away. Case in point, we know now that lightning is a discharge of static electricity, therefore there's no longer a need to believe that it's the weapon of an angry god.
If every effect has a cause, then what or who caused the universe?
There are several theories (in the scientific sense of the word "theory", not in the sense that most people think of it), most of them generally understandable by people with brains much larger than mine and involving rather obscene amounts of math. The most satisfying explanation currently (as I understand it) is the big bang and big crunch, in which the universe cycles between explosion, expansion and collapse to a singularity. The nice men in the lab coats are still finding out new stuff, however, in their annoying insistence on not relying on "Well, God musta done it", so that might change. Stay tuned.
How do you explain the thousands of people who have experienced heaven or hell and have come back to tell us about it?
Either a) hysterical invention, b) outright lies, c) electrical misfiring in a brain that's suddenly gone into panic red-alert mode. I consider those accounts generally no more reliable than the guy in the sanitarium covering himself in peanut butter and believing himself to be Napoleon.
How do you explain the cosmological constant?
I'm not sure what relevance this question has on theology, and I'd have to dig back into a fair amount of astrophysics to get up to speed on it, but didn't that end up getting worked into dark matter/energy? I'd research this some more, but I frankly don't care enough to bother at this point unless I have to.
how do you explain david's graphic portrayal of jesus' death by crucifixion (psalm 22) 1000 years before christ lived?.
how do you account for the odds (1 in 10 to the 157th power) that even just 48 (of 300) old testament prophecies were fulfilled in jesus christ?.
in what sense was jesus a "good man" if he was lying in his claim to be god?.
Part the Second
- How can something as small as a brain understand extremely complicated aspects of the universe, even though it is (supposedly) just a bunch of chemical reactions and electrical signals?
- But at the same time, this brain can’t create another brain like itself, so how can nature, that has no brain, create a brain?
- Why can't this brain even create a simple living twig?Why is the simple cell likened to the complexity of large functioning city by experts?
This is one of those items that folks love to pop out when it comes to talking to atheists or skeptics, and it boils down to: "Look at this immense complexity, it proves that there's a designer!". Again, there's an assumption here that I feel a powerful need to point out. Opponents of evolution (and the biological complexity resulting from it) rarely seem to have a full grasp of what they're so opposed to. It's easy to look at the world and see it as a static thing, the world as we live in seems so unchangeable that the idea of a monkey evolving into man is ridiculous.
Here's a nifty, not so useless fact - did you know that the cauliflower as we know it didn't exist 300 years ago? Or that the strawberries you buy at the grocery store never originally existed in nature? These plants as we know them today are the result of intentional selective adaptation - turning a type of cabbage into a cauliflower, or breeding only those strains of strawberries that produce the largest berries. Another example - your average housecat is very ill-equipped to survive as a natural predator (no matter what kitty may think). Compared to wild (non-domesticated) cats, their jaws are too narrow and their immune systems aren't as capable. Again, these are changes brought about through intentional, selective adaptation by humans. Natural selection and adaptation occurs in much the same way, except that instead of humans guiding it, it's driven by the environment and the need for survival.
Now, we can see that amount of change in less than 1000 years of human history. What happens when you expand the timeline? Not 10,000 years, or even 1,000,000. Earth has existed for around 4.5 billion years. In that massive, near-incomprehensible span of time, the changes will be even more extravagant. The incredible complexity that we see in the world and in ourselves is a result of 4 and a half billion years of the most adaptable (and increasingly complex) life surviving.
how do you explain david's graphic portrayal of jesus' death by crucifixion (psalm 22) 1000 years before christ lived?.
how do you account for the odds (1 in 10 to the 157th power) that even just 48 (of 300) old testament prophecies were fulfilled in jesus christ?.
in what sense was jesus a "good man" if he was lying in his claim to be god?.
Part the First
I'd like to answer the last one first, if you don't mind.
Is it wrong to ask such questions? Why?
Absolutely NOT! It isn't wrong by any means, in fact I heartily encourage you to do so. Ask the next question, then ask the next, then the next. Use your powers of reason, investigate the answer, test its internal logic. What so often happens is that people don't ask these questions, relying instead on the "Well, God musta done it" answer for everything. Keep asking questions, but don't be afraid to let the answer bring you to a better understanding of the world around you.
- How do you explain David's graphic portrayal of Jesus' death by crucifixion (Psalm 22) 1000 years before Christ lived?
- How do you account for the odds (1 in 10 to the 157th power) that even just 48 (of 300) Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus Christ?
- In what sense was Jesus a "good man" if He was lying in His claim to be God?If Jesus' resurrection was faked, why would twelve intelligent men (Jesus' disciples) have died for what they knew to be a lie?
- If the authorities stole Jesus' body, why? Why would they have perpetrated the very scenario that they most wanted to prevent?
- If Jesus merely resuscitated in the tomb, how did He deal with the Roman guard posted just outside its entrance?
- How can one realistically discount the testimony of over 500 witnesses to a living Jesus following His crucifixion (see 1 Corinthians 15:6)?
I'm lumping these together because there are a couple of assumptions going on here that should be considered. First off is that the accounts of the fulfillment of prophesy as we read them today occurred exactly as described. Second, and more significantly, there's the assumption that the prophesies themselves as we read them today are exactly the same as when they were originally made.
Did you ever play the telephone game as a kid in school? Where you get all the kids together in a circle, whisper a phrase in the ear of the first one who turns around and whispers it in the ear of the next, and so on? By the time you get to the end of the circle, the end phrase is never what it originally was. Usually it's never even remotely close. Consider the fact that that level of perceptual distortion happens in the space of six or seven minutes, and then think about the bible. (Here's another experiment that you can try yourself - pick a phrase, go to babelfish and translate it from English to Spanish to German to French and then back to English. See if it reads the same.)
The bible as we have it isn't from the original texts. It's not even from a copy of the original texts. It's from a copy of a copy of a copy of a translation of a copy of a translation (etc). More than that, in the vast majority of cases, these copies and translations were done by those with a vested interest in maintaining the integrity of the religion (which is not the same as maintaining the integrity of the text, make no mistake about it).
Does that mean than I consider the entire bible a fabrication? Not necessarily, I believe that there's a seed of truth in some of the accounts. I do not, however, consider it an infallible, accurate historical record. I encourage you to consider why you don't believe that the universe was created from a golden egg hatched by Nyx, or plowed and fertilized by Enki (read the myths and you'll understand why I chuckled at that last bit). When you understand that then you'll be a step closer to understanding why I view the bible with the same skepticism.
