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vessbot posted:Then how can God exhibit emotions, reactions, intentions, and speech acts like the ones produced by our nervous system, without something significantly like it? You realize you're talking about a supernatural entity right.
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Feb 12, 2015 02:20
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Miltank posted:I can't tell if you are under thinking it or over thinking it I can tell you're underthinking it. Berke Negri posted:You realize you're talking about a supernatural entity right. Of course, yes.
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Feb 12, 2015 02:23
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I don't understand. What is happening?
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Feb 12, 2015 02:35
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vessbot posted:I can tell you're underthinking it. I don't think you understand the fundamentals of anything your talking about if you don't get why the god is an ape thing is stupid. Like it's not that hard to understand.
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Feb 12, 2015 02:36
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Miltank posted:I don't understand. What is happening? He's mad his super good burn is actually dumb.
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Feb 12, 2015 02:37
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drilldo squirt posted:I don't think you understand the fundamentals of anything your talking about if you don't get why the god is an ape thing is stupid. Like it's not that hard to understand. What's your objection? State your case.
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Feb 12, 2015 02:51
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vessbot posted:What's your objection? State your case. E: One look at the animal kingdom will show you that mammalian biology is not the only thing that can produce fairly intelligent creatures. America Inc. fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 03:17
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Jastiger posted:I am I am! I'm going to attend a meeting about education to combat the religious fundamentalists influencing the policy Good luck brother! I guard against their influence up here  Berke Negri posted:I think he probably was a mountain. More like you climbed the mountain if you wanted to
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Feb 12, 2015 03:29
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Black Bones posted:Good luck brother! I guard against their influence up here It went pretty well. A lot of creationists that think climate change is fake and evolution is evil.
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Feb 12, 2015 03:56
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Miltank posted:I don't understand. What is happening? Why are you asking us, when God has all the answers? Just pray!
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Feb 12, 2015 04:33
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Black Bones posted:]More like you climbed the mountain if you wanted to No I mean an actual mountain. Well, the spirit of the mountain. Or of mountains. Were already probably getting way to out there for vessbot at this point.
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Feb 12, 2015 04:57
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LookingGodIntheEye posted:We only have a sample size of 1 when it comes to knowing what an intelligent, emotional, being could be like so it seems like a really big assumption to claim that human biology is the only thing that can produce intellect and emotions similar to ours. Our intelligence and emotions are products of our neurology fed with inputs from our physical and social environment. On the contrary, we have a huge sample size of those things; we see a host of different behaviors (giving us a glimpse into different emotions and intellectual devices) in the animal kingdom. And each one is slightly different. Even you yourself edited in your own reference to the animal kingdom to show that other beings could develop intelligence. But you're treating intelligence as an either/or thing, it either exists or doesn't. It's not like that at all though. Every animal has its own different (sometimes vastly different) inclinations based on their neurologies and environments. If God was based on a black widow spider, there'd be a lot of stuff in the Bible about eating your husband. If it was a dog or a shark, it would surely talk about smelling. If it was a salmon, theologians would be pondering the divine mystery of swimming up the cosmic river. But we don't see any of that. We see crushing your enemies and raping their women on one end, and loving your fellow man as a brother on the other: straight out of largely human pursuits. Human intelligence and emotions are quite different from other animals (close evolutionary ancestors notwithstanding) so it's a well-founded assumption that "human biology is the only thing that can produce intellect and emotions similar to ours."
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Feb 12, 2015 05:17
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Berke Negri posted:No I mean an actual mountain. Well, the spirit of the mountain. Or of mountains. Were already probably getting way to out there for vessbot at this point. My God is the spirit of a basket of dandelions.
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Feb 12, 2015 05:25
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vessbot posted:
no its not.
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Feb 12, 2015 05:31
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Al Harrington posted:My God is the spirit of a basket of dandelions. Dying flowers picked by sadistic humans?
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Feb 12, 2015 05:39
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Miltank posted:no its not. Argument, please.
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Feb 12, 2015 05:42
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vessbot posted:Argument, please. You're just going to have to take it on faith. That's how it works.
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Feb 12, 2015 06:25
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vessbot posted:Human intelligence and emotions are quite different from other animals (close evolutionary ancestors notwithstanding) so it's a well-founded assumption that "human biology is the only thing that can produce intellect and emotions similar to ours." That's getting hypothetical, but here's something more concrete: quote:We see crushing your enemies and raping their women on one end, and loving your fellow man as a brother on the other: straight out of largely human pursuits. E: I'm not religious, I just find the argument "God must be a human" to be specious. vessbot posted:e: still trying to figure out why "robot" and "computer" are supposed to be insults in a setting dedicated to logical examination of arguments and not writing poetry or exchanging valentines? What do you think the standards of the "debate" in "debate and discussion" should be? America Inc. fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 06:34
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vessbot posted:Human intelligence and emotions are quite different from other animals (close evolutionary ancestors notwithstanding) so it's a well-founded assumption that "human biology is the only thing that can produce intellect and emotions similar to ours." It's also not a very good argument even if you do establish its relevance but I don't think that even matters.
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Feb 12, 2015 07:53
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13th Century Theologians have done the hard work for you all. If you don't believe in god, this kind of theory is not usually of overwhelming interest to you. I only have reason to care because I've studied a lot of medieval philosophy. It's also not entirely accessible without a good knowledge of a long tradition of thought including Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and Plotinus. Obviously, the argument is mounted upon assumptions that no atheist would make (e.g. God as prime mover). But it's pretty stupid to say, as I'm sure someone will 'hey look, those Christians are in disarray about God because they're wrong about God being the prime mover!'. Well yeah. I think the whole point of atheism is pointing out that the predicate is wrong. The whole point about theology is trying to theorise around certain very fixed points to make the best sense of things possible, which is what doctrines about the simplicity of God do for this question. There is also a foundational mistake in this argument, demonstrated by Aquinas here: quote:Reply to Objection 2. Man is said to be after the image of God, not as regards his body, but as regards that whereby he excels other animals. Hence, when it is said, "Let us make man to our image and likeness", it is added, "And let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea" (Genesis 1:26). Now man excels all animals by his reason and intelligence; hence it is according to his intelligence and reason, which are incorporeal, that man is said to be according to the image of God. That is, you're assuming [traditionally doctrinal] Christians believe that all human faculties are non-supernatural, which is of course a bit of a mistake when you're dealing with people who believe in souls. Re: God being angry: quote:Reply to Objection 2. Anger and the like are attributed to God on account of a similitude of effect. Thus, because to punish is properly the act of an angry man, God's punishment is metaphorically spoken of as His anger. This is 1274. There aren't really many new arguments to be had on this topic. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 11:25 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 11:21
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Disinterested posted:Brandor this is my routine reminder that you should learn to speak English. There are fundamental problems with the way that you write that move beyond the stylistic. I think I've identified another big part my problem, the passive voice. I can write clear: subject, verb, object sentences. I just have to slow my rear end way down to remember to do it. I'm also writing here as I would think. Even when I'm not doing the passive voice thing, the subject of my sentences can be unclear for half a dozen different reasons. Paper writing is another beast. I can do all the crap: structure the paper organization around the thesis, have clear topic sentences, blah, blah, and blah. I can identify the things that make me hard to read. The pronouns where the referenced noun is unclear, etc. But I'm not trying for form when I write here. I'm trying to communicate me, to give my immediately experienced reality. But where the poor style choices gets in the way of that, I should do something about it. And every once in a while, I do vomit forth something polished. In the near term it's probably going to get a bit worse for a while. I have significantly the less time now. Less time means I will end up more unfiltered Disinterested posted:Obviously, the argument is mounted upon assumptions that no atheist would make (e.g. God as prime mover). Not always. Sometimes it's as prime mover. Sometimes it's as abyssal ground of reality and some atheists do make that particular assumption. Usually the assumptions of theologians are responses to the ideas of the philosophers. An example: Christians talk about the spiritual because they are responding to Plotinus. Basically I think you've got it backwards. The assumptions come from the outside. Theology is usually apologetic, responding. It's an attempt to reconcile the Christian's experience of Jesus, with those other things from the outside. Disinterested posted:The whole point about theology is trying to theorise around certain very fixed points If it's good, it talks about a single and very specific fixed point. The one the thread title is referencing. And that's actually how to figure most of it out. It's specific people or groups in their particular contexts coming to methodically reached conclusions, starting from their experience of the fixed point (Jesus). The particular conclusions are usually more dependent on the contexts (e.g. God as a prime mover is more dependent on thought at the time it comes from) than on Jesus. And in our context they (the conclusions) are often false. But I find that the immediate Christian experience of Jesus, still comes through what they have to say.
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Feb 12, 2015 17:40
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What if religion is some sort of necessary prerequisite to the formation of civilized society, but also something to be discarded once we reach a certain point in our development? Kinda like how many animals that walked on land for the first time retained the ability to breath underwater, but then lost it as they became more finely tuned to their evolutionary niche. It's stupid to argue against the brilliance of Aquinas or Mendel or al-Khwarizmi, but maybe that system is holding people back today?
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Feb 12, 2015 17:43
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BrandorKP posted:Not always. Sometimes it's as prime mover. Sometimes it's as abyssal ground of reality and some atheists do make that particular assumption. Usually the assumptions of theologians are responses to the ideas of the philosophers. An example: Christians talk about the spiritual because they are responding to Plotinus. Basically I think you've got it backwards. The assumptions come from the outside. Theology is usually apologetic, responding. It's an attempt to reconcile the Christian's experience of Jesus, with those other things from the outside. Either way, it's a hermeneutic, which seems to be what people have trouble with. Radbot posted:What if religion is some sort of necessary prerequisite to the formation of civilized society, but also something to be discarded once we reach a certain point in our development? Kinda like how many animals that walked on land for the first time retained the ability to breath underwater, but then lost it as they became more finely tuned to their evolutionary niche. That's a kind of semi-Marxist attitude to it, and one I have sympathy with. Although there has always been something like a secular or sceptical tradition of value throughout the history of European religious life. And sometimes, a syncretist one. But you can't entirely abandon understanding the internal logic of religion if you want to talk about it in its own terms, which is a bad habit of a lot of r/atheists. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 17:44
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Radbot posted:It's stupid to argue against the brilliance of Aquinas or Mendel or al-Khwarizmi, but maybe that system is holding people back today? I have seen little evidence that well thought out theistic beliefs lead to any worse conclusions with regards to morality than atheism. On some issues, like ethics surrounding war and peace, Catholic Just War traditions or Anabaptist pacifist traditions are far better thought out than their secular counterparts. Really we only have to look at the most outspoken New Atheists to confirm that morality does not conflate with "enlightened" non-belief. Hitchens supported torture for years and was gleeful about the Iraq war, Harris has argued that there are some religious beliefs that justify killing those that believe them, Dawkins is terrible on women's issues. Many religious figures likewise have abhorrent views, but its hard to claim that lack of grounding in religious traditions makes anyone a better person. The idea that atheism is some kind of moral progress on religious belief is not only self-congratulatory but dangerous. If you have a room with a diehard atheist empiricist and a devout Thomist you wouldn't know based on their philosophical starting place who was more moral. Barlow fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 18:36
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Barlow posted:Really we only have to look at the most outspoken New Atheists to confirm that morality does not conflate with "enlightened" non-belief. Hitchens supported torture for years and was gleeful about the Iraq war, Harris has argued that there are some religious beliefs that justify killing those that believe them, Dawkins is terrible on women's issues. Many religious figures likewise have abhorrent views, but its hard to claim that lack of grounding in religious traditions makes anyone a better person.. I think we've already established Hitchens and Dawkins have some pretty abhorrent views, but if you are judging the entire Athiest/Humanist/Secular community based on them, you are going to be disappointed. Dawkins and Hitchens got publicly called out for their views on Women during a conference, and multiple Secular groups have called them out on their Islamaphobia. I mean, if we're going to judge the Secular community by their most vocal and controversial leaders, Christianity, Islam, Bhuddism, and all the other religions are going to shock you to the core. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 18:43
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Barlow posted:I have seen little evidence that well thought out theistic beliefs lead to any worse conclusions with regards to morality than atheism. Well, maybe, but if you're starting from a questionable assumption (there is a god who supplies objective moral values) you can more liable to fall into the hazard, or believe the right thing for the wrong reason. I don't, for example, believe that a good reason to support the abolition of slavery is belief that slaves cannot go to heaven, an argument made by lots of evangelical abolitionists, even though I welcome their historical contribution. Barlow posted:On some issues, like ethics surrounding war and peace, Catholic Just War traditions or Anabaptist pacifist traditions are far better thought out than their secular counterparts. I'm not so sure. People are always quite nice about Quaker pacifism or Gandhi's non-resistance, but in both instances you have people claiming that fighting the Nazis is immoral and arguing that it is morally preferable to be slaughtered by fascists than fight them, which I regard as highly suspect. Just war is alright, although some people may have reason to question the Augustinian/classical hypothesis that 'peace is the only thing worth fighting for' as being in some sense a paradox. I don't think anyone has any answers to this question that are shown to work in reality. Barlow posted:Really we only have to look at the most outspoken New Atheists to confirm that morality does not conflate with "enlightened" non-belief. Yeah, this is a real tangle, particularly since a lot of them claim that they're not espousing moral values while simultaneously doing just that. Barlow posted:Hitchens supported torture for years and was gleeful about the Iraq war Right only on the second count. He was rather outspoken in opposition to waterboarding after trying it out on himself. He was consistently opposed to torture and CIA adventures in doing it for decades. Hitchens could also be quite misogynistic (while simultaneously espousing largely feminist beliefs - he was a bit of a discombobulated person). Barlow posted:Harris has argued that there are some religious beliefs that justify killing those that believe them, And worse. But he is also, ironically, more open to some religious spiritual claims than Hitchens was or Dennet and Dawkins are, including some concept of an afterlife. Barlow posted:Dawkins is terrible on women's issues. Many religious figures likewise have abhorrent views, but its hard to claim that lack of grounding in religious traditions makes anyone a better person. No, but if you were trying to develop a system of morality today, it's still quite firmly arguable that religion would be a poor place to begin. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 18:52
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Disinterested posted:Either way, it's a hermeneutic, which seems to be what people have trouble with. Well it's kind of a shocker to most people that Christianity is radical interpretation of reality. Even if one pares it down to the barest bones of: Jesus probably said this list of things and was probably crucified.
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Feb 12, 2015 18:55
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CommieGIR posted:I think we've already established Hitchens and Dawkins have some pretty abhorrent views, but if you are judging the entire Athiest/Humanist/Secular community based on them, you are going to be disappointed. Who counts as a valid enough atheist to judge the community based on if not the most known and respected people within it? Would you allow Christians to simply disassociate themselves from any figure they have condemned? CommieGIR posted:I mean, if we're going to judge the Secular community by their most vocal and controversial leaders, Christianity, Islam, Bhuddism, and all the other religions are going to shock you to the core. I'd pretty easily say that Pope Francis and Dali Lama, both leaders of the largest Christian and Buddhist groups in the world, seem like fairly moral people. I won't argue they are perfect, but certainly they don't seem any less moral than these atheist leaders.
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Feb 12, 2015 19:03
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Barlow posted:I'd pretty easily say that Pope Francis and Dali Lama, both leaders of the largest Christian and Buddhist groups in the world, seem like fairly moral people. I won't argue they are perfect, but certainly they don't seem any less moral than these atheist leaders. Pope Francis is pretty progressive, but he refuses to deal with underlying issues that directly relate to things he wants to tackle like Poverty: He refuses to push updating the Church's stance on contraception, which is a HUGE issue considering their work in Africa, and he is adamantly against Gay Marriage, despite his stance on that we should accept and be kind to gays. Basically, he is okay with you being Gay....as long as you do not be Gay. And while the Dali Lama is a great person, there are a lot of extremist Buddhist sects that basically deny him as the leader of the Buddhist religion. Barlow posted:It seems a bit bizarre to say that you can't judge organized atheism but it's leaders. The entire New Atheist movement was based around these guys and Daniel Dennett (who as far as I know is an okay person). There are maybe a tiny number of other leaders in nonbelief movements other than this, folks like Greg Epstein or Randian George H. Smith, but I don't know of any who would have widespread recognition. Dawkins is an excellent Evolutionary Biologist, but he is simply the most vocal, a defacto leader maybe, but that does not make him the 'Prophet' of the atheist movement. The idea that atheism is an organized movement is kind of bizarre, you are trying to organize the movement like a church and that doesn't work, there are not prophets, just vocal proponents. Carl Sagan was a fairly vocal agnostic athiest, why was he not listed? Or Neil Degrasse Tyson? Or Bill Nye? This is like saying if someone popped up tomorrow who was more vocal than Pope Francis that you'd make them the leader of the Catholic Church. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 19:12
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CommieGIR posted:The idea that atheism is an organized movement is kind of bizarre, you are trying to organize the movement like a church and that doesn't work, there are not prophets, just vocal proponents. Carl Sagan was a fairly vocal agnostic athiest, why was he not listed? Or Neil Degrasse Tyson? Or Bill Nye? In fairness you can say Disinterested fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 19:15
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Disinterested posted:In fairness you can say the something similar about Islam. True, very true. You bring up an excellent point, especially given the US viewing Islam in almost only the light of the Extremist/Terrorist groups that claim it as a religion. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 19:16
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CommieGIR posted:Pope Francis is pretty progressive, but he refuses to deal with underlying issues that directly relate to things he wants to tackle like Poverty: He refuses to push updating the Church's stance on contraception, which is a HUGE issue considering their work in Africa, and he is adamantly against Gay Marriage, despite his stance on that we should accept and be kind to gays. Basically, he is okay with you being Gay....as long as you do not be Gay. Atheism in of itself is not a movement, secularism and antitheism is. Assuming the default state of a human is non-belief, then somebody who is an atheist is merely someone who remains at their default. Somebody who actively campaigns to push others to return to their defaults is constructing a wider movement with a goal.
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Feb 12, 2015 19:22
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CommieGIR posted:The idea that atheism is an organized movement is kind of bizarre, you are trying to organize the movement like a church and that doesn't work, there are not prophets, just vocal proponents. Carl Sagan was a fairly vocal agnostic athiest, why was he not listed? Or Neil Degrasse Tyson? Or Bill Nye? As for your list of people, to my knowledge all these people denied being atheists and proclaimed their agnosticism, I think it would be in pretty poor taste to ignore their statement on these matter. I excluded writing about Bertrand Russell and Robert G. Ingersoll for the same reason. I think it's in just as poor taste for atheists to claim people who deny the label as it is for Christians to claim secret conversions among people like Lincoln or Darwin.
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Feb 12, 2015 19:23
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Barlow posted:Well if people simply proclaimed a non-belief in God there would be little to discuss here. The issue is that there is an organized community or movement (usually labeled the New Atheists) that suggests that religious belief is regressive and bad, and that community has clear leaders. These people hold conferences and belong to a number of organizations, how is that not a movement? I said Agnostic Atheist. Based on things Carl Sagan said, he fits that term, as he believed God was simply the laws of the universe. This is not outside that definition. I did not however call him a straight up atheist.
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Feb 12, 2015 19:26
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CommieGIR posted:I said Agnostic Atheist. Based on things Carl Sagan said, he fits that term, as he believed God was simply the laws of the universe. This is not outside that definition. I did not however call him a straight up atheist. Sagan himself and his wife refused to classify himself as an atheist (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/achenblog/wp/2014/07/10/carl-sagan-denied-being-an-atheist-so-what-did-he-believe-part-1/) and (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/kathyschiffer/2014/11/wait-what-carl-sagan-was-not-an-atheist/). Again I think you have to take someones own proclamations about their faith seriously. Not even atheists get to claim people after there dead. Sagan was a thoughtful guy, he knew what he believed and doesn't need your help in "correcting" him. To quote Sagan in 1996 "I am not an atheist."
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Feb 12, 2015 19:40
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Barlow posted:Sagan himself and his wife refused to classify himself as an atheist (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/achenblog/wp/2014/07/10/carl-sagan-denied-being-an-atheist-so-what-did-he-believe-part-1/) and (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/kathyschiffer/2014/11/wait-what-carl-sagan-was-not-an-atheist/). Fine Agnostic in his words. However, you are being nitpicky, he was pretty clear that he also doesn't buy into the idea of gods as beings, more that 'God' was simply the natural laws, nothing more. This does not align with theism at all, it aligns more with pantheism . Panthiesm is identical to atheism, especially agnostic atheism, as it does not identify with any anthropomorphism or supernatural beings. It was a way to imply a strong spiritual quality without the need for attachment to theistic ideals. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 19:52
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CommieGIR posted:Fine Agnostic in his words. However, you are being nitpicky, he was pretty clear that he also doesn't buy into the idea of gods as beings, more that 'God' was simply the natural laws, nothing more. This does not align with theism at all, it aligns more with pantheism . Panthiesm is identical to atheism, especially agnostic atheism, as it does not identify with any anthropomorphism or supernatural beings. What the gently caress are you talking about? We don't have all these different words to pull tricks on people, you know.
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Feb 12, 2015 19:53
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CommieGIR posted:Panthiesm is identical to atheism, especially agnostic atheism, as it does not identify with any anthropomorphism or supernatural beings. No, pantheism is its own system of belief which is why it was called a different thing than atheism. Spinoza was not an atheist for instance and clearly elicidated his views on it. Many Hindus are pantheists and they are not identical to "agnostic atheism" and they don't exclude beliefs in supernatural beings. Besides Sagan said he was an agnostic, not a pantheist, and I think you have to respect his own views on his religious beliefs. Remember this chain of argument started when you said that Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris didn't represent authentic atheist views. Now you are saying that Sagan, a guy who claimed not to be an atheist does. That doesn't make much sense. Barlow fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 20:00
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Barlow posted:Besides Sagan said he was an agnostic, not a pantheist, and I think you have to respect his own views on his religious beliefs. You are correct. I've reconsidered my position.
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Feb 12, 2015 20:01
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CommieGIR posted:You are correct. I've reconsidered my position. Admirable, it takes intellectual courage to be flexible and thoughtful enough to reconsider ones points.
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Feb 12, 2015 20:05
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