There is one thing that doesn't matter, and that is Jesus Christ

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > There is one thing that doesn't matter, and that is Jesus Christ

Sinnlos: Sep 5, 2011; Ask me about believing in magical rainbow gold

Slavery argument is stupid as gently caress. Everyone kept slaves, does not matter what religion was predominant.

Bad things happen because humans are poo poo, regardless of faith or the lack thereof.

Jesus matters because he is responsible for the last two millennia of Western thought, and all the good and bad that comes with it.

Gas thread, ban OP for this worthless poo poo.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2015 17:17

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 16:16

Sinnlos: Sep 5, 2011; Ask me about believing in magical rainbow gold

CommieGIR posted:

An eloquent response. Well done.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah, the adoption of Platonism into Christianity has nothing to do with it. Man, I want some of what you are smoking.

I am only putting in the effort this thread deserves.

Christianity, being a religion based partly upon the philosophy and teaching of Jesus, has had a significant impact on world history. Yes or no?

# ¿ Feb 6, 2015 17:22

Sinnlos: Sep 5, 2011; Ask me about believing in magical rainbow gold

CommieGIR posted:

The difference between having an impact on world history and

Is that plenty of history did not involve him at all. Just because someone used their religion as a rallying cry or a call to arms does not make Jesus the motivator.

By that same token, you could arguing that Hitler had a significant impact on World History and the Western world. Guess we better give him his due.

So, you dislike the No True Scotsman not because it ISN'T a logical fallacy, but because you want to be able to use it to make an argument. Nice.

Its a logical fallacy.

Hitler did and we should.

Ignoring the impact of Jesus as a figure is ignoring the impact of Christianity, as the two are entwined.

Ignoring the impact of Hitler as a figure is ignoring the impact of Facism, as the two are entwined.

I do not see how this is in any way contentious.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2015 17:30

Sinnlos: Sep 5, 2011; Ask me about believing in magical rainbow gold

CommieGIR posted:

Fair enough, you're right! But considering Western thought has been far more influenced by political aspirations dressed in the clothes of religion, shouldn't we actually focus on the direct impact of the individuals that utilized his teachings and not Jesus and his 2000+ year political agenda?

Christianity was used to justify the Crusades, which was literally only for the purpose of material gain. Lot of religions have been used to do that.

So Jesus does matter to the modern day through his direct and indirect influence on Western thought and history.

Thread solved. Please close.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2015 17:40

Sinnlos: Sep 5, 2011; Ask me about believing in magical rainbow gold

CommieGIR posted:

I don't think anyone was arguing that religion does not influence peoples decisions.

The argument is whether it can be used to justify bad moral decisions as well as good ones.

ikanreed posted:

The core thesis I'm making is that the solid majority of moral imperatives set down in the bible are either meaningless in the modern era, or now viewed as actively immoral.

Jesus' words don't really matter to the modern world, and have to be stretched extraordinarily to fit much of anything.

The argument is that the words and teaching of Jesus do not matter in the modern world. This is demonstrably false, due the historic impact his existence and words have had.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2015 17:45

Sinnlos: Sep 5, 2011; Ask me about believing in magical rainbow gold

I can almost see the goalposts... moving!

The thread is over. The question behind the premise of the thread answered. I'm out.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2015 17:49

Sinnlos: Sep 5, 2011; Ask me about believing in magical rainbow gold

vessbot posted:

Well no that's complete bullshit, because Christianity professes a whole host of things it claims to know about God. On one hand the burden of proof is on me to provide those things, but on the other, I'm getting tired and they are trivially easy to look up, and are also ingrained in Western culture. Only someone under delusion, or not arguing in good faith, would claim otherwise in the face of so many overwhelmingly easy to recall examples.

Christianity encompasses an incredibly broad range of beliefs. Your arguments may carry water with regards to groups that subscribe to literal readings of the Bible, such as Baptists or Pentecostals. However, the largest single denomination in the world, Catholics, do not subscribe to this idea. Arguing that God is necessarily anthropomorphic does not work with Catholics as Catholicism views significant amounts of the Bible through the lens of metaphor.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2015 22:20

Sinnlos: Sep 5, 2011; Ask me about believing in magical rainbow gold

vessbot posted:

Neither the Bible nor the largest church in the world agrees with you. You are not presenting a mainstream interpretation. There is no one in this thread, heck, maybe in this world for all I know, who believes the way you present.

God does not have human thoughts. He may not have thoughts at all. That is our way of describing Him because we don't know any better.

The thoughts that God is said to have are unarguably human. There are two reasons why your objections fail.

First, they don't really contradict the specifically human basis of all the things that God is said to think and do. The first passage just waxes poetic about how awesome and above everything he is. The second passage is literally nonsense at best, and a load of poo poo at worst. What's "incomprehensible" and "inexpressible" here as a backpedal, is daily comprehended and expressed to mean idiotic things like that because of God we can't wear condoms and only carriers of Y chromosomes (who, as membes of previous sect, were required to cut off pieces of their penises but not anymore because of a rule change) are allowed to lead ceremonies where human-processed products of grape and wheat plants are said to literally become the body and blood of another Y-chromosome carrier who died 2000 year ago and was God at the same time.

Second, even if they did contradict the multitude of other Bible passages and other teachings where God cleraly displayed human cognitive processes, you still have not gone an inch in showing that people don't actually believe that. All you've shown is that one part of one teaching contradicts that, which means nothing. (If Christianity was a coherent system where contradictions meant that one of the claims had to be dropped, then you might actually be getting somewhere.)

And a third one, for the nonreligious here who are making the same argument against mine (not sure if that includes you): By your own premise, God's thoughts are plot elements in a human mythical story, so it's only possible that God's thoughts are projections of literal humans' thoughts! I'm frankly stunned at how a holder of that premise can go on to claim that these things are not human-based. Then what are they?

Examples of unmistakably human acts of God:
- Communication acts (and not grand revelatory visions of the origin of reality or some such that a cosmic AI-type disembodied intelligence might implant into our brains, but rather things like:

- Anger
- Jealousy
- Love
- Familial relationships
- Desires
- Advice

Oh and as long as we're quoting the CCC, here's the passage just before yours:

You keep on banging on this drum like you are going to convince everyone suddenly that God is just a really big dude up in the sky who has nothing better to do than start an ant farm.

Lemme put it this way, a child drawing the Mona Lisa with a crayon is in the image of the Mona Lisa, but obviously is gonna look like poo poo next to the real thing, right?

Furthermore, humans are not the only things capable of cognition, right? Octopi and dolphins are both pretty bright,but humans are smarter than them. What if God is something smarter than humans? Doesn't mean he looks like one.

Catholic teaching is that God is utterly beyond the ability of man to comprehend, so we use metaphors and analogies to approximate as best we can.

Furthermore, on the issue of transubstantiation, this kinda sorts works to explain the thought behind it.

Sinnlos fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Feb 26, 2015

# ¿ Feb 25, 2015 20:24

Sinnlos: Sep 5, 2011; Ask me about believing in magical rainbow gold

Vessbot, perhaps it is the tendency of the human brain to anthropomorphize things? Perhaps the intelligence of God is not ape based at all, but OUR intelligence makes it easier to process by understanding God as something he is not, i.e. as something sort of human?

# ¿ Feb 26, 2015 04:59

Sinnlos: Sep 5, 2011; Ask me about believing in magical rainbow gold

CommieGIR posted:

I'm sorry, I didn't know 'harm' had to be quantifiable in large numbers to count.

The point is that they are dying out as people leave them.

Also, please keep in mind that the anti-vaccine movement is more rooted in secular reasons (vaccines cause autism) than religious ones (using medicine is equivalent to playing God) .

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 21:29

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 16:16

Sinnlos: Sep 5, 2011; Ask me about believing in magical rainbow gold

CommieGIR posted:

I'm not claiming the entire anti-vax movement is due to religion, however we had specific cases that were tied to religious groups who refused vaccinations.

You are putting words in my mouth to justify your point. Well done Fishmech.

Your wording made it seem as if you were assigning blame specifically to religious groups.

CommieGIR posted:

Christian Science. And all those whackadoodle groups that rejected vaccines and helped spur a measles breakout.

Once again, the majority of the anti-vaccine movement is not predicated on religious beliefs. To blame religion in this case is absurd.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 21:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > There is one thing that doesn't matter, and that is Jesus Christ