To steal yet another example from Sam Harris: The more extremist you become as a Muslim the more violent you become. The more extremist you become as a Jain, the less violent you become. The content of the belief matters, and not all beliefs are morally neutral or equal.
Religion is used as an instrument and as I stated previously, it's the people who are evil that's the cause of all violence. If people decide to interpret their beliefs using a pessimistic evil view, then it is themselves that are to blame, not the religion. It's like how some people commit a crime and say that they are instructed by their god or are fulfilling the will of a divine being.
see.. you're missing my point.. what you're doing here and essentially to everyone who's posted in your thread is to take apart what they said and then tackle them a point at a time instead of reading the whole post in context.. this is what debaters do.. not people who ask for explanations..
my hunch is that you aren't after any explanations per se (and your reply confirmed my suspicions) but empirical evidence to show you that paranormal creatures do exist and like i said.. we can't offer you that.. that was the central point of my post and yet you completely took it out of context...
as requested... i'm merely telling/explaining why i believe in what i do about paranormal things and that is because i've experienced them.. i have essentially answered your question and fulfilled the purpose of this thread..
and the last sentence there was just lighthearted humour.. it wasn't meant to be taken seriously.. =P
see.. you're missing my point.. what you're doing here and essentially to everyone who's posted in your thread is to take apart what they said and then tackle them a point at a time instead of reading the whole post in context.. this is what debaters do.. not people who ask for explanations..
Quoting the whole thing makes walls of text. It doesn't seem to me that anyone has offered more of a reason than their own experience, which according to the Latin quotes that have been so popular they should be extremely suspicious of. I feel that even with everything in its proper context there's a bit of an inconsistency there.
siuying;48515 said:
my hunch is that you aren't after any explanations per se (and your reply confirmed my suspicions) but empirical evidence to show you that paranormal creatures do exist
No, I'm well aware that there's no empirical evidence. My point is that you use empirical evidence to establish pretty much every other belief in your life; that paranormal beliefs like religious beliefs are held to a different standard.
siuying;48515 said:
as requested... i'm merely telling/explaining why i believe in what i do about paranormal things and that is because i've experienced them.. i have essentially answered your question and fulfilled the purpose of this thread..
You can sit out the discussion if you really want. I think that having established that your reasons for believing in these things are purely experiential, your own philosophy of uncertainty and restraint would dictate more caution in jumping to a paranormal conclusion. Feel free to address this or not, or explain to me what your statements mean "in context" that I missed. I have to say I don't see why they wouldn't stand up individually- to provide a strong enough basis for a specific belief I think they'd have to.[/QUOTE]
siuying;48515 said:
and the last sentence there was just lighthearted humour.. it wasn't meant to be taken seriously.. =P
Forgive me if I have trouble telling serious ghost stories from joke ones- I've heard some truly funny ones that people defend absolutely viciously.
Religion is used as an instrument and as I stated previously, it's the people who are evil that's the cause of all violence. If people decide to interpret their beliefs using a pessimistic evil view, then it is themselves that are to blame, not the religion. It's like how some people commit a crime and say that they are instructed by their god or are fulfilling the will of a divine being.
How do YOU know they weren't instructed by their god? Interesting example, I guess we have someone who knows what god does and does not do.
First you guys are saying noone can know what god's will is, then you are saying you know it's not gods will when someone does something that doesn't make sense for the religion.
How do YOU know they weren't instructed by their god? Interesting example, I guess we have someone who knows what god does and does not do.
First you guys are saying noone can know what god's will is, then you are saying you know it's not gods will when someone does something that doesn't make sense for the religion.
It was not me who said we don't know what god's will is. I'm an atheist, but unlike the dawkins kind, I do not think that all religious people are irrational and that all religions are to corrupt the human mind. I'm also not a skeptic, but I am always open to new views that could possibly occur.
So since I'm an atheist, I would think that people who use religion as an excuse to commit crimes are the true evil, and not instructed by a non-existent supernatural being.
It was not me who said we don't know what god's will is. I'm an atheist, but unlike the dawkins kind, I do not think that all religious people are irrational and that all religions are to corrupt the human mind. I'm also not a skeptic, but I am always open to new views that could possibly occur.
So since I'm an atheist, I would think that people who use religion as an excuse to commit crimes are the true evil, and not instructed by a non-existent supernatural being.
I would hardly saw you've interpreted Richard Dawkins properly, I think you're on the Hitchen's point of view, which I support.
I guess the way I see it is: Good people are good people, regardless of whether or not they have religion. Thus, religion isn't necessary to promote good, thus when religion is used to promote violence, hatred, and or biggotry it is dangerous and not necessary in our society. You're right not all religious people are awful people, but would the good religious people turn evil if religion wasnt there? I don't think so.
I've known a couple of religious people who have explicitly said that they would see no point in acting morally without the expectation of reward in an afterlife.
On the other hand, I think wackjobs would always be able to find some excuse for being wackjobs.
Actually, if people thought they only had one life to live maybe it would give them more incentive to be nice while they're around. I'm personally living my life expecting nothing afterwards, so I don't want to spend the one life I have in jail, or watching my back.
That shows how sad and pathetic their morals are, that their entire life is based on something they can't even see or feel-- that they'd be assholes if it weren't for religion.
True, wackjobs will always have excuses, but it'll give them one less main stream excuse.
Do you remember George Bush saying god told him to invade Iraq? Awesome main stream excuse, and noone even mentioned it.
To be fair, Bush could have said the devil made him do it and still would have been re-elected by pro-lifers.
But I can see your point about socially accepted/protected excuses. I suspect that people with no socially accepted excuse would only be more prone to grandstanding, though; by the time they're pushed into action, they've accepted that there will be consequences.
Jerry Falwell accused the purple teletubby of having an homosexual agenda, and people still took him seriously, people who believed in him in the first place.
Stuff like that just makes it really hard to swallow for me. Some christians would accuse him of being an extremist, but for an extermist he was pretty well accepted by a large majority of people, not a tiny minority.
Nazism is used as an instrument and as I stated previously, it's the people who are evil that's the cause of all violence. If people decide to interpret their beliefs using a pessimistic evil view, then it is themselves that are to blame, not Nazism.
The content of the beliefs is important, and if it were anything other than religious beliefs at issue everyone would readily admit this. I don't hear anyone saying "it's not racism's fault that people like the KKK are around, they just use it to justify their actions."
And before anyone jumps down my throat for making a direct comparison between religion and racism, let me remind you that the eternal tortures of hell as taught in Christianity make a simple lynching insignificant in comparison. Believing that someone should suffer forever after they die is morally worse than believing they should die. And as history shows us many denominations of several major religions teach both.
Using nazism is actually a really bad example of blaming the people and not the beliefs (surprise surprise, hitler was christian).
A lot of the people in nazi germany were not even racist or bad people, nazism was able to rally them into unrealistic beliefs, and inspired them to commit the awful acts. You can read the accounts of people who committed the acts and how they were swept into it.
Humans are easily swayed, religion, and belief systems that are as big as it can convince people into believing things they wouldn't want to normally, or that they don't want to.
^ This is exactly my point. I don't think we disagree at all here. ^
To reiterate just in case, I'm saying that the content of the beliefs matters. As you say, everyone in Nazi Germany wouldn't have been a murderer or torturer anyway. It's not as if several million heartless killers all just happened to be living in Germany at the same time and decided to use National Socialism as a justification for their actions. Of course the actual beliefs inherent to the political movement were important, including and especially its religious roots. When religion itself is at issue however, things are completely different for some reason.
... But as usual we seem to be on the same page anyway.
And before anyone jumps down my throat for making a direct comparison between religion and racism, let me remind you that the eternal tortures of hell as taught in Christianity make a simple lynching insignificant in comparison. Believing that someone should suffer forever after they die is morally worse than believing they should die. And as history shows us many denominations of several major religions teach both.
So you think that its worse to believe that there is a punishment for doing evil than it is to hang someone because of their race?
The content of the beliefs is important, and if it were anything other than religious beliefs at issue everyone would readily admit this. I don't hear anyone saying "it's not racism's fault that people like the KKK are around, they just use it to justify their actions."
No one stated the content of beliefs are not important. The content of beliefs are created by people. Whether the content is good or bad will depend on whether the person is good or evil.
The goodness and badness of a religion depends on how the followers make of it, and not by default, a good or bad religion. After all, who the hell would follow a religion that is bad. Followers believe that their religion is good, and how they act in the name of religion would reflect what they believe is good or bad. But of course there are followers who "borrow" the name of religion to "get rid of evil", while in the process manipulating others to join them into thinking that the religion is good.
So you think that its worse to believe that there is a punishment for doing evil than it is to hang someone because of their race?
No, I think jail is fine and dandy as a treatment for criminals. But the Christian and Muslim hells aren't just for criminals, they're for unbelievers and believers of the wrong stuff.
Christianity explicitly states that "works" don't matter, so a really faithful serial rapist is going to get in to heaven just fine; the atheist organ donor soup kitchen volunteering cancer researcher is going to burn forever. The belief that people with different beliefs deserve eternal torment is morally worse than believing people who don't share your race merely deserve to die.
You may point out that it isn't possible to actually eternally torture someone so the killing is worse. I would remind you that a) That isn't the issue, it's the beliefs we're discussing not their results and b) People do plenty of killing over religion too.
And to save IVT the trouble I'm preemptively quoting his inevitable response:
IVT said:
lol I'm an ignorant shithead who didn't even read your entire post let alone the fucking bible but here's two sentences expressing my total incomprehension of your argument.
brb gotta go finish coloring in the pictures in the only bible I have ever even opened.
As for this:
Shi2;48769 said:
a totally incomprehensible paragraph.
I'm feeling a little slow today, can you streamline this a bit so I can be sure I'm understanding you correctly?
No one stated the content of beliefs are not important. The content of beliefs are created by people. Whether the content is good or bad will depend on whether the person is good or evil.
The goodness and badness of a religion depends on how the followers make of it, and not by default, a good or bad religion. After all, who the hell would follow a religion that is bad. Followers believe that their religion is good, and how they act in the name of religion would reflect what they believe is good or bad. But of course there are followers who "borrow" the name of religion to "get rid of evil", while in the process manipulating others to join them into thinking that the religion is good.
I'm sorry, I'm trying to be fair but what you're saying really doesn't make sense.
Are you using the world religion and beliefs interchangably? Religion is not a subjective experience by all accounts of the concept. Religion spells out what is right, right is wrong, and how its followers should behave. They have no wiggle room. It has nothing to do with how its followers think it should be by definition.
Are you saying nothing can be good or bad?
It looks as if you're going as far as saying all morals are subjective.
You're also now claiming to know how people think. You think all religious people believe because they think its good? Have you seen teen or children jehovas or mormons? Or closeted homosexual teens strugging with religion?
Christianity explicitly states that "works" don't matter, so a really faithful serial rapist is going to get in to heaven just fine; the atheist organ donor soup kitchen volunteering cancer researcher is going to burn forever.
James chapter 2
14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
Ah yes, these two passages completely invalidate the doctrine of Sola Fide that is a cornerstone of many modern evangelical denominations.
It's almost as if there's a scriptural basis for both beliefs and the supposedly inerrant book from which they stem is actually internally contradictory and maleable enough to fit almost any agenda!
But even if you're of one of the denominations that treats hell as some kind of court mandated punishment, you can get slapped with eternal torment for things like sodomy, idolatry, blasphemy, perjury, suicide, alcoholism, and masturbation. This nice list also includes things like "despairing in hope" and "unfair wagers".
The notable ones are the ones that automatically condemn members of other religions to hell. The one about idolatry easily throws all Hindus into the lake of fire, and to be honest probably the Catholics as well. Blasphemy also seems to be an unfair standard to judge unbelievers other denominations by. And sodomy? I think we can safely say that eternal torment goes well beyond the worst gaybashing. Suicide is another nasty one- I guess all those people whose depression or schizophrenia became too much for them just should have known better huh?
Point being, even if works are important biblical law prescribes eternal torment for both minor crimes and things that aren't crimes at all by any reasonable standard; performing oral sex on your boyfriend or girlfriend to whom you aren't married is enough to land you in hell twice for instance. And of course there is the only sin you can't even be forgiven for if you confess: Denying the holy spirit.
There is no possible moral justification for even the most watered-down biblical version of hell.
For the record: I, Ferrous Wheel, deny the holy spirit.
I'm sorry, I'm trying to be fair but what you're saying really doesn't make sense.
Are you using the world religion and beliefs interchangably? Religion is not a subjective experience by all accounts of the concept. Religion spells out what is right, right is wrong, and how its followers should behave. They have no wiggle room. It has nothing to do with how its followers think it should be by definition.
Are you saying nothing can be good or bad?
It looks as if you're going as far as saying all morals are subjective.
Religion is a subjective experience. You can just ask a group of people of religious people and they will have slightly varying beliefs. And by beliefs, I am talking about religious beliefs. Religious people will interpret the religion that they're following differently to suit their life. For instance, some christians are convinced by evolution, but they also do not want to throw away what the bible says, so they combine them and say it is god who steers evolution. Other christians who are not convinced by evolution would not do that and maintain their view about god creating everything the way it is. Or in another example, buddhism really started as just a way of thinking and living, but there are people now who portray the buddha as a god to worship, while others do not portray buddha as a god and just live life according to the scriptures.
I would think that people use their own reasons to justify their actions. Even if there is objective morality, people's justification for their actions changes that fact and makes it a subjective matter very often.
And of course these things are just what I think. There wouldn't be a purpose to debate if all these things are facts.
Comments
my hunch is that you aren't after any explanations per se (and your reply confirmed my suspicions) but empirical evidence to show you that paranormal creatures do exist and like i said.. we can't offer you that.. that was the central point of my post and yet you completely took it out of context...
as requested... i'm merely telling/explaining why i believe in what i do about paranormal things and that is because i've experienced them.. i have essentially answered your question and fulfilled the purpose of this thread..
and the last sentence there was just lighthearted humour.. it wasn't meant to be taken seriously.. =P
First you guys are saying noone can know what god's will is, then you are saying you know it's not gods will when someone does something that doesn't make sense for the religion.
LOL COGS
So since I'm an atheist, I would think that people who use religion as an excuse to commit crimes are the true evil, and not instructed by a non-existent supernatural being.
I guess the way I see it is: Good people are good people, regardless of whether or not they have religion. Thus, religion isn't necessary to promote good, thus when religion is used to promote violence, hatred, and or biggotry it is dangerous and not necessary in our society. You're right not all religious people are awful people, but would the good religious people turn evil if religion wasnt there? I don't think so.
On the other hand, I think wackjobs would always be able to find some excuse for being wackjobs.
That shows how sad and pathetic their morals are, that their entire life is based on something they can't even see or feel-- that they'd be assholes if it weren't for religion.
True, wackjobs will always have excuses, but it'll give them one less main stream excuse.
Do you remember George Bush saying god told him to invade Iraq? Awesome main stream excuse, and noone even mentioned it.
But I can see your point about socially accepted/protected excuses. I suspect that people with no socially accepted excuse would only be more prone to grandstanding, though; by the time they're pushed into action, they've accepted that there will be consequences.
Stuff like that just makes it really hard to swallow for me. Some christians would accuse him of being an extremist, but for an extermist he was pretty well accepted by a large majority of people, not a tiny minority.
And before anyone jumps down my throat for making a direct comparison between religion and racism, let me remind you that the eternal tortures of hell as taught in Christianity make a simple lynching insignificant in comparison. Believing that someone should suffer forever after they die is morally worse than believing they should die. And as history shows us many denominations of several major religions teach both.
A lot of the people in nazi germany were not even racist or bad people, nazism was able to rally them into unrealistic beliefs, and inspired them to commit the awful acts. You can read the accounts of people who committed the acts and how they were swept into it.
Humans are easily swayed, religion, and belief systems that are as big as it can convince people into believing things they wouldn't want to normally, or that they don't want to.
To reiterate just in case, I'm saying that the content of the beliefs matters. As you say, everyone in Nazi Germany wouldn't have been a murderer or torturer anyway. It's not as if several million heartless killers all just happened to be living in Germany at the same time and decided to use National Socialism as a justification for their actions. Of course the actual beliefs inherent to the political movement were important, including and especially its religious roots. When religion itself is at issue however, things are completely different for some reason.
... But as usual we seem to be on the same page anyway.
Racist much?
The goodness and badness of a religion depends on how the followers make of it, and not by default, a good or bad religion. After all, who the hell would follow a religion that is bad. Followers believe that their religion is good, and how they act in the name of religion would reflect what they believe is good or bad. But of course there are followers who "borrow" the name of religion to "get rid of evil", while in the process manipulating others to join them into thinking that the religion is good.
Christianity explicitly states that "works" don't matter, so a really faithful serial rapist is going to get in to heaven just fine; the atheist organ donor soup kitchen volunteering cancer researcher is going to burn forever. The belief that people with different beliefs deserve eternal torment is morally worse than believing people who don't share your race merely deserve to die.
You may point out that it isn't possible to actually eternally torture someone so the killing is worse. I would remind you that a) That isn't the issue, it's the beliefs we're discussing not their results and b) People do plenty of killing over religion too.
And to save IVT the trouble I'm preemptively quoting his inevitable response: As for this: I'm feeling a little slow today, can you streamline this a bit so I can be sure I'm understanding you correctly?
Edit: fixed tags
Are you using the world religion and beliefs interchangably? Religion is not a subjective experience by all accounts of the concept. Religion spells out what is right, right is wrong, and how its followers should behave. They have no wiggle room. It has nothing to do with how its followers think it should be by definition.
Are you saying nothing can be good or bad?
It looks as if you're going as far as saying all morals are subjective.
You're also now claiming to know how people think. You think all religious people believe because they think its good? Have you seen teen or children jehovas or mormons? Or closeted homosexual teens strugging with religion?
You're making leaps and bounds with your logic.
:confused:
14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds."
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
Edit: Wow, this thread grows fast, or maybe I left this tab open.
It's almost as if there's a scriptural basis for both beliefs and the supposedly inerrant book from which they stem is actually internally contradictory and maleable enough to fit almost any agenda!
But even if you're of one of the denominations that treats hell as some kind of court mandated punishment, you can get slapped with eternal torment for things like sodomy, idolatry, blasphemy, perjury, suicide, alcoholism, and masturbation. This nice list also includes things like "despairing in hope" and "unfair wagers".
The notable ones are the ones that automatically condemn members of other religions to hell. The one about idolatry easily throws all Hindus into
the lake of fire, and to be honest probably the Catholics as well. Blasphemy also seems to be an unfair standard to judge unbelievers other denominations by. And sodomy? I think we can safely say that eternal torment goes well beyond the worst gaybashing. Suicide is another nasty one- I guess all those people whose depression or schizophrenia became too much for them just should have known better huh?
Point being, even if works are important biblical law prescribes eternal torment for both minor crimes and things that aren't crimes at all by any reasonable standard; performing oral sex on your boyfriend or girlfriend to whom you aren't married is enough to land you in hell twice for instance. And of course there is the only sin you can't even be forgiven for if you confess: Denying the holy spirit.
There is no possible moral justification for even the most watered-down biblical version of hell.
For the record: I, Ferrous Wheel, deny the holy spirit.
I love violent pornography, choking chicks and sodomy.
I would think that people use their own reasons to justify their actions. Even if there is objective morality, people's justification for their actions changes that fact and makes it a subjective matter very often.
And of course these things are just what I think. There wouldn't be a purpose to debate if all these things are facts.