My Imaginary GF posted:

The idea of hell exists as an attempt to explain statistics and probability in an age before the appropriate mathematic concepts were developed.

Get a fever and die? You'll go to a good afterlife as long as you have the appropriate cultural rituals conducted. Don't have anyone to conduct the rituals? Clearly, you're evil and did something to deserve it, so you won't go to a good afterlife and the whole community gets whatever property you had without need to send for extended family or potential heirs. Its an effective method to force homogeneity amongst a geographic region before the political development of state institutions independent from patrilineal practices.


When you make it one god, you make it an argument over which understanding of that god is acceptable. Monotheism requires developed state institutions beholden to an independent judicial code in order to remain stable as a belief and not descend into paganistic practices.

CommieGIR posted:

Through things that cannot be reproduced or confirmed via evidence.

My Imaginary GF posted:

Tell me more about how incorrect I am without presenting an alternative methodology to explain incremental development in cultural practices.

When you hold that its within reason that a creator entity would try to reveal itself to humans, you assign several anthropomorphic aspects to such an entity and lower it from 'divine' to 'human' and invite that anyone else who claims to have revelations must be taken at face value. An appropriate structure is necessary to channel just claims of revelation in order to avoid a, 'Cleanse the unbeliever' movement.

CommieGIR posted:

Because everything in this world, so far as we can tell, obeys a natural process. Everything.

The thing about miracles, is that they either tend not to exist, or have an actual natural explanation. This has happened time and time again, there has never been a 'verified' miracle.

Its about as bad as getting a hearth transplant and claiming that all the work of all the surgeons and nurses was simply a miracle of god.

CommieGIR posted:

Claiming that I just failed to understand does not invalidate my argument.

You are claiming miracles are real things and god reveals himself to people, but you have neither the evidence nor the history to back these claims.


Its too provincial. Its another ethnocentrism: We're super important, that a single diety relates personally to us. It makes no sense in the scale of both reality and the universe at large.

CommieGIR posted:

Its too provincial. Its another ethnocentrism: We're super important, that a single diety relates personally to us. It makes no sense in the scale of both reality and the universe at large.

CommieGIR posted:

Based on...?

CommieGIR posted:

I think you don't understand why its an ethnocentrism.

Why is Earth so important? Why is it just 'People' that are important? Why only this planet and its provincial state?

Also, based on your posting history, I'm going to assume you like making bad faith arguments.

Paul MaudDib posted:

What God really is to a lot of people is a blank slate upon which they can project all their fears and uncertainty and negative circumstances, and gain reassurance, meaning, etc.

Argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy.

CommieGIR posted:

You just don't UNDERSTAND, maaaan

My Imaginary GF posted:

By assigning distinctly human characteristics and concepts like 'focus' and "pay[ing] attention" you are implicity degrading that which is divine by making it comprehensible.

CommieGIR posted:

And yet based on the faiths that uphold the idea of a 'god', that is exactly what is going on.

CommieGIR posted:

By calling people stupid. Philosopher of the year, right here.

My Imaginary GF posted:

You're arguing that you can discern the nature of god. His argument is that he cannot understand god, and therefore you must follow some limitations on human freedom in order to avoid political conflicts over something which is impossible to perceive.

CommieGIR posted:

Based entirely upon your 'wonderful' debating skills and your post history, neither do you.

Go read Genesis. The Bible, among other books, specifically emphasizes the focus upon ONLY the Earth, and the creation of life upon ONLY the Earth.


Philosopher of the CENTURY!

emfive posted:

What's the philosophical framework that leads to Christianity (or any faith) being something that must be disproven as opposed to being demonstrated as factual?

I'm just asking questions here.

CommieGIR posted:

You know we have telescopes, right? That we are well aware that there is an external history outside of Earth that makes it pretty clear that the Earth bound religions have very little grasp on the actual nature of nature, and for that matter reality.


"You can't DISPROVE god, godless liberal"

What, did you watch 'God's Not Dead' before posting here?

emfive posted:

OK, well in what way is that not a circular argument? Are you saying people are born with inherent faith, and that that faith means something? Or are you saying that the onset of faith is a manifestation of the existence of a supernatural power?

My Imaginary GF posted:

Who said I was disproving god? I'm saying you're contemptable by presuming yourself special enough to discern the nature of the divine realm, and you're saying "gently caress you maybe I can who are you to say I can't."

The most appropriate way to honor god is to respect god's place as incomprehensible to human perception. To attempt anything else, has bad implications for political development and social order.

CommieGIR posted:

Miltank posted:

Wanting to factually prove God completely misses the point.

CommieGIR posted:

Then why expect any god at all?

Oh, right, faith.

emfive posted:

I agree; true absence of evidence isn't evidence of anything.

I repeat the question: in what sense is the existence of faith, or the fact that some people profess their faith, a state of affairs that makes the object of faith - something without any other tangible nature - a body of assertions that requires no other evidence to be supposed true unless proven false?

CommieGIR posted:

However, that does not make your argument nor your premise solid. Yes, we cannot disprove god.

However, no more can we disprove him than you can prove him. Its a null.

But YOU came in hear screaming about 'God is real' and then god uppity when we suggested that faith is not sufficient evidence.


They are based on faith. They are non-falsifiable.

emfive posted:

Yes, that's what I meant when I said "I don't understand." I asked how the reasoning works around faith being the reason that the object(s) of faith are to be taken as true unless proven otherwise. I asked only because that's what drilldo squirt said; maybe I misunderstood that too, but his laconic answers didn't provide a lot of information.

[edit] maybe the answer is "because that's the definition of the word faith", and I accept that, but I don't know what that means for people who don't have the same faith.

Rodatose posted:

Having a testable basis for material action. "Render unto caesar what's caesar's" and all that: don't base material policy on immaterial things. You can follow and wholeheartedly subscribe unproveable abstract things in your private life but once you start asking material things of others, you need to prove there will be a fair, equitable reward for them and their loved ones. If you can't prove it, you're writing people a blank check and relying on psychological coercion.

CommieGIR posted:

Here's the root of the problem in this debate:

Drilldo Squirt entered the debate and declared


And then called people stupid for DARING to question the reality of his god outside of his personal faith.

Arguments created by the movie God is not Dead actually don't hold much water.

emfive posted:

Well I can understand why it must seem like that, but please consider that the reliance on faith seems pretty robotic to those who don't have it.

[edit] I do agree with your point that using evidence from radio telescopes and deep-sea probes and core samples as a way of dissuading you (or anybody) from serious faith is, well, a little rude and probably pointless.

emfive posted:

To be fair, in my experience lots of religious people have negative views of the irreligious that distort their perceptions as well.

I don't think that the impulse of an atheist to "convert" a Christian is meaningfully different from a Christian's attempt to convert an atheist, in other words.

CommieGIR posted:

Its almost like there's not reason for them to have a negative view of most religions

CommieGIR posted:

Did I call you a sheep? No. I asked you why you are calling us stupid for not accepting your premise without your personal faith.


EXPLOSIONS! God is real! EXPLOSIONS!

down with slavery posted:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3681766&userid=102030

CommieGIR posted:

"God is Real. Deal with it DnD" is still his opening salvo.

And we're stupid for not accepting it. Right.


Man, if only we had your FAITH

down with slavery posted:

I took the time to explain to you a few times why what you're doing is stupid. It was a joke post, obviously tongue in cheek, probably for the sole purpose of dragging idiots like you out of the wordwork.


Well isn't that a nice way of saying "I was wrong, but let me redefine the word to make myself right"

Rodatose posted:

What side would jesus christ take on the gamer gate issue

ThirdPartyView posted:

D&D truly is the easiest forum to troll.

CommieGIR posted:

Truly, I guess we all showed up under the assumption that someone actually wanted to debate and discuss...