I've never once read a compelling argument that relies on the intelligence of any party. Ultimately, it's an appeal to authority/accomplishment, when it isn't even clear what authority would apply. So, if you want to challenge my arguments, take those on, but I really don't care how smart or not you are. I've had significant education myself, but I have no interest in engaging in a side-contest of who has the best academic record for discussing the topic, because it really can't reach a conclusive end, and I see no potential for reaching any useful insight from it.
:nono: That IS relativism. That'd be like me saying your grades in astrophysics doesn't matter and I, without them should be allowed in the space program. You are logically inconsistent here, because I do have the education. History is not used the way you 'think' it is used and thus I hold your 'education' suspect for abusing it so. You can assert otherwise, but I know pretty well that history is not your strong suit or you wouldn't have abused it. That means education and prowess in that education really does trump the amateur.
It's funny that you accuse me of relativism, because the list that I posted objectively happened, and it isn't all that controversial.
Your 'take' isn't controversial, it is wrong. Flat out. Listen or don't. This again is your audacity over-asserting into an area you obviously haven't studied and obviously don't care about to abuse in this fashion. Your comparison is erroneous so I'd call that an embrace of relative truth with scape-goating agenda. However:
Truthfully, I hadn't read or considered the OP until my last post to you. Naz is on my ignore list, although I sometimes read his posts anyway. My posts were in response to a particular point being advanced by brewmama.
The fact that the video didn't support atheists killing people may be an oversight or perhaps Naz was aiming at the fact that anti-theists have been attacking all influence of religion from society. That leaves an ugly wake of nothing and no-purpose, which in turn makes for an aimless society that may very well value life less.
Our Constitution disagrees with you.
Um, no, read my sig. It even has the doh icon. The Constitution was simply trying not to abuse another's religion. There is NO WAY we can live together if you cannot put up with my expressions of faith or more specifically, the genuine values portrayed by them. Tell me truly, Does "Merry Christmas" really affect separation of church and state? I don't believe it does. Only Affirmative Action for all minorities has started attacking the base of American belief and values. That attack is leaving casualities, whether by bullets or ink doesn't matter, they both end with lost life and value.
I don't see this connection between secularism and tribalism that you seem to.
"Us/them." It is a tension that must exist, and I too embrace it, but in the end, my philosophy, while rejecting the philosophy, does seek to keep the person. We really aren't witch-hunting this century, just trying to retain values we really do believe are good for society as well as embrace ourselves.
To my mind, whereas it's pretty easy to find tribalism in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, it's downright irrational otherwise.
We are supposed to 'learn from' the Old Testament, not go and do likewise. MADists on TOL repeat this often enough that I don't think we should overtly apply. Today, I support Israel, but land isn't what I'm after so a lot of the wartime conveyance in the OT isn't for us today AND they weren't wrong for doing it then. Think of the Old West. One of us would be in jail if we dueled today. The law used to look the other way but challenging you outside the saloon in the street, while we can appreciate the points and why it happened, isn't how we do things today but it wasn't wrong in that day - it was at times, the only thing they could do.
I think "melting pot" is more an ideal of what the US could be than a reality. Certainly, we're a nation of many people from many different places, but we are also a nation derived from racist slavery, and organized white supremacy, constructed deliberately segregated on racial lines. And we have a pattern, over multiple generations, of suspicion on different groups of immigrants, whether it's the Chinese and Japanese, Irish, Italians, people from the Middle East, Mexicans and other Hispanic people, it seems like any group that finds itself a minority gets its turn to be the object of discrimination and fear-mongering.
We HAVE to find commonality or we can't exist. That is the lesson from every fallen government. The Roman Empire fell, but we still have Italians. There has to be a binding, so the strong-hand of a melting pot isn't always a bad thing. Harsh, yes, but it has to happen. There is no way we can exist well if we are not unified. Right now, minority colors are mixed but we must find something of commonality and value or there is no reason any longer to 'come to America.' "Opportunity" is a selling feature of bonding and unity, but us/them tribalism has to give way to 'us.' Somehow we have to get there. The TOL-atheist version has been "Yay! No more Christians!" That'd be a bloody, violent way to go and literally advocates the removal of blacks, whites, Hispanics,
That's actually quite offensive. When white Christians arrived on this continent, there were already a lot of people here who weren't Christians. You just swept them from history.
:nono: I've a lot of Native blood, you? If not, your offense doesn't mean a lot. We were talking about the history of the United States, not the History of America. Know the difference? Many natives are Christians. Not only is my Great Great Grandmother, full-blood, but I've served many of these in my church as well. You trying to take offense for me is noble, but misplaced, both historically and culturally. Our cemetery is an 'Christian Indian' cemetery.
But beyond that, the comment idealizes a reality that never was, and certainly won't be forever.
You took offense rather than paid attention. The only way for Christianity to not be forever, is by violence. Even Europe has churches yet, even the most atheistic ones. I simply said that the "United States" would cease being what we have been up to this point, and that is certainly true. Question: Do you desire it by usurping and fighting or by better means? I do not envision atheism being much beyond the small percentages in America but an Oligarchy can certainly do mass damage.
You're revealing your cultural perspective (i.e. relativism). Christian actions that were absolutely abominable are excused as having been done for "a purpose" (which was often money), whereas the actions of others are assumed to be motivated by incomprehensible impulses. But of course, if you ask them, they will give you reasons for what they are doing. They may not be very relateable, and in the case of Daesh are quite nihilistic, but I'm not sure it actually makes a big difference how you stack those up.
No, I rather am relating what historical commentary allows and what it does not. We know there are substantiated reasons for fighting. We support having police and military for the most part. We don't however, support atrocity, and that's the point here. I am not sure Europe had a choice but to go on the Crusades. It is somewhat like today, in that we have to do something about Muslim extremists. When history looks at us exploiting the situation, they will probably say we have some blame here, but they are attacking the bottom line rather than the direct line of who they might blame and it is certainly true that they have embraced portions of their religion to justify those attacks. Conversely, the removal of Christian influence in America is tied to the rise in what is meaningless in comparison.
Survival of the fittest? Well, if you're referring to terrorist organizations like Daesh and al Qaeda, they don't even want to survive. Other than that, I don't think you can ascribe an overarching agenda to all of Islam, but I'm certain that survival of the fittest is not a part of it.
Mortal conflict is always a survival of the fittest in result.
Ah, well, I did my upper-level philosophy classes with a Presbyterian professor, not that he made that much a part of the classes. A minister, in fact. Good guy. The best part about those classes was the diversity of actually intelligent thought among the students, though.
I think you have some grasp on philosophy principles, but, for what it is worth, atheism handicaps the broad category and limits its expression because it literally denies over half of its precepts.
You don't know anything about my education, Lon. I'm prepared to be corrected on the facts if I'm mistaken, as I would hope any honest scholar would be, but I'm not interested in being talked down to baselessly.
Again, you make statements beyond historical prowess. That indeed, is a problematic education.
I'm still rather baffled at that assumption. But it's neither here nor there, ultimately.
You make a lot of historical blunders with erroneous assessment. Instead of being baffled, you could listen to someone who has spent a lot of time in history.
I recall you saying that. I don't recall ever saying anything about being smarter, however. That's you projecting. What I think is that the stupidest person in the world could potentially correct an error made by the smartest, so it's no argument either way.
It is. While you give me instruction below on mark-up language, that doesn't automatically mean you get to teach the class or are allowed to tutor. It doesn't even mean someone is necessarily helpful in the correction.
Do you recall hearing anything in your studies of logic about the appeal to authority fallacy?
Yes, but think further, the one asserting the fallacy was appealing to authority for you to accept it, and imho, blind to counterfactuals. The only thing the fallacy given is good for (though over-used and abused) is to remind people that authority isn't "always" right. That said, I will go to the ten year astrophysicist or the specialist doctor, which is indeed a deference to authority and prowess. Your parents were most often right when they said "because I said so." It may not suffice, but essentially that is what my appeal is as well. The fallacy is over-abused thus wrong, a philosophical sleight-of-hand for rejection.
It's not that I don't like them. It's just that that isn't normally what they are used for, so it wasn't clear what you meant by them. You can manually enter bold and italics markup.
Nothing but agreement on this, though there could be keyboard frustration on my side over compliance (my son has my desktop so I'm trying to 'make-due.' :Z
We all have a particular perspective. Christians often have blind spots about the history of their religion. Muslims do too. I'm prepared to accept that I may have blind spots as well, but I would want to see the demonstration.
The discussion could be over on that note
:up:
Well, no. Atheism is a non-thing.
Sin is essentially the same, a privation, so I understand the concept here.
It's the lack of a religion, so it really can't have positive attributes at all.
That is why it is problematic, it leaves a voided wake. If kids are no longer taught 'why' it is wrong to do an 'evil' (emphasis rather than {I} {/I} six more strokes!), they have no reason to refrain from doing so. Christianity isn't the only one that does, but again, we are talking about a void left in a wake of removal. It was actually wrong to take the Ten Commandments off the walls.
You could argue that atheism therefore lacks Christianity's emphasis on others, but I would counter that Christianity's focus on the well-being of other people is often more theoretical that real, and can end tend toward paternalism, if, say, a Christian doesn't approve of the sexuality of someone else.
Paternal, yes but more theoretical? :nono: Dead wrong. Yes I can and often do easily substantiate that. In comparison, I volunteered about 6 hours last month giving food to needy people. You? How about $? In addition, $ trails are really easy to follow. We really do out-give our counterparts. Maybe that is a really hard pill for atheists to swallow given that I have to overtly repeat this line of conversation so often, but I really wonder where your head can be at, that you'd ignore statistics and likely your own actions in comparison. It is flat-out crazy to even suggest as much after such contemplation. How could you possibly say 'theoretical' at that point? I realize your atheism isn't always 'against' religion by intent, but your neutral stance isn't neutral either, it has and leaves consequences. This goes back to support what I said. It is more about atheism not contributing positively. You just said as much so it is water under the bridge at this point, but I would like to challenge you to think about positively contributing to society where laws removing positive messages simply because they were from someone religious, had left behind. It is really strange to take "thou shalt not kill" off of a wall. It was, in fact, psychotic.
There is a ton but
here for instance. That and, to date, I contribute a lot and have found most on TOL cannot talk about their efforts and contributions, because they don't. In effect, their lack of positive influence in religious choice also crosses into their actual lives and sentiment without effort or sacrifice. Makes sense in the end. Richard Dawkins raised money, oddly, given that he's a millionaire, and donated the money to 'converting.' Great humanitarian work??? :think: again, the information is out there and it doesn't take long to see who is paying for food, shelter, water, medicine and other needs vs desires and philosophies. If I remember right, it took Dawkins a long time to get that million.
I'd like to see that data, and not just bulk statistics about total charitable giving, but also what causes they give for. Because one thing that often happens is that Christian contributions given to their churches are often counted.
It is, but again, through organizations like Compassion Int. I've personally give tens of thousands specifically to individual children I sponsored. I continue to volunteer at the food bank where Christian, Muslim, or Atheist (yes we have some) freely come. Don't look to naysay such, it is a poor use of analysis and actually spiteful imho. There is no reason to second-guess people actually doing beautiful things. I suppose if you doubt it, but do you really? Sure there are abusers out there. That's sad too. I realize there are bad politicians but I'd like to think there are a lot of good ones. Am I naïve? Is there something in the atheist psyche that precludes such?
Well, it's worth noting that that phrasing isn't atheist in origin. It's actually Wiccan. I rather like it though.
It is also in Anton Lavey's book.
I suppose you could argue that it's not clear that it's meant to prescribe positive action. But that comes down to interpretation, and I think there's latitude to interpret it either way, which is what all people do with moral precepts anyway.
I think whether that interpretation is noble and otherly or self-excusing is an important consideration.
I hope your friend gets his surgery. It's sad that the state of affairs in our country is that so paltry a sum of money could decide life or death.
Thank you for this, and the next, sincerely. Both are heavy on my mind.
I hope you understand that I am not maligning Christian charity. In fact, it is one of the honorable traits of Christianity that it encourages regard for others.
Thanks here too.
I just ask that you keep it in perspective relative to other cultures and groups, as well as Christianity's checkered past. I don't think any of us have a right to be smug because of our group identities, whatever they might be.
We oddly, are allowing natives to sue the government for things neither they nor we experienced. I don't think you should blame 'this' white boy for what 'another white boy' did. I have nothing to do with him. I don't mind helping out the tribe at their request, but suing me? Likewise, I don't mind helping a black person either, nor a white on hard times. I, however, don't want you blaming me for slavery. Likewise, any historical reference to the Catholic church, which is twice-removed by generation AND Reformation, must be seen as me being a 'different kind of Christian' than perhaps my ancestors as well as realizing that we have to be very careful about 'importing' values into another harsher culture. I readily admit that 'our' culture has us not understanding theirs and seeing it as brutal. It was. How do we reconcile? Well, in many ways, we don't. We rather understand they really did have different values. You can judge them for what they did, I'm not saying that. I'm saying rather that you can't say 'in the name of Christianity' as if Christianity today is affiliated with those actions, any more than you can say "Southern today" is directly affiliated with slavery. What you 'can' and should say, is that a current happening is a consequence of other current happenings and events. I can rightly say, for instance, that atheists have killed more people in history, than any other philosophy. That does not mean, however, that ever Atheist would do the same thing, given the opportunity. Rather, there is some connection between 'godlessness' (removal as well as atheism) and how society behaves. You could turn around and blame Christians for 'allowing' it to happen. We could certainly have had another civil war before we allowed bible verses to be removed or prayer to be removed, realizing ahead of time, that a void would cause this kind of problem. I'm not sure how the blame-game works though, I'm still trying to be wise as a serpent, but gentle as a dove. -Lon
