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If god is real and he really hates butt sex to the point that he will make poeple who do it suffer for eternity, then the people trying to make others not have butt sex by any means necesary are right and should be seen as heroes. He's not, so they are actually wrong to do this. The fundamental difference in how the world works is the crux of the issue here though and you can't really argue around it without adressing the belief itself. Personally I do think religious people who keep it to themselves and don't force their beliefs on others are fine and I don't go around engaging them, though I do feel that in a way they are not really being... honest? About it. Like I don't get people who genuinelly think I'm going to hell and just shrug, though this is preferable to them trying to save me or whatever.
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Mar 7, 2017 10:03
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Yea folks with non-harmfull beliefs are not a problem. They are wrong all the same but I don't feel the need to correct someone who believes in reincarnation or horoscopes or a nice god that does not really care what you do, if said belief is not doing any harm. For religions that do hold actively harmfull beliefs that they try to force on others, I do think the real argument for opposing them is the belief itself being wrong or unfounded in reality and other arguments are just kind of playing along with said delusion. If someone were to kill a bunch of people claiming they did it because god told them to we would not engage with that belief either, but when some people try to use the same argument to opress homosexuals we let it slide, to me that's just weird.
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Mar 7, 2017 11:15
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No, the actions themselves would be good, but the person doing them only out of fear definitely isn't.
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Mar 7, 2017 16:02
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We probably need to define what being hostile even means in this context. Few people would want religion banned even if they might think its rubbish we could do without. Most non religious people don't want religion anywhere near politics but don't mind letting people practice on their own time. Is that hostile?
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Mar 8, 2017 16:59
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In that case am I also being hostile against vegetarians when I don't care what you eat as long as you leave me and others to eat meat whenever we want?
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Mar 8, 2017 18:17
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Patrick Spens posted:If you insist that vegetarian restaurants must cater for e.g. a hunting club or be sued out of business then you are being hostile to vegetarians. I don't think a restaurant should get to deny service to someone because they are member of a hunting club, but they would still get to serve them as per their menu, so that hunter is getting a salad rather than a burger just like anyone else.  But yea I see the point being made.
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Mar 8, 2017 18:46
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Who What Now posted:Also, being a hunter is a choice, unlike being gay or a black person, which is the parallel you're trying to make here. I think the point is that forcing them to cater to blacks or gays is also hostile, though I'm actually happy to be hostile towards racists and bigots so no problem there.
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Mar 8, 2017 19:14
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Not sure if that should make a difference for this argument but I do think the hostility from the left is mainly in response and push back against some initial hostility (in the restaurant example it would be baseless discrimination) coming from the religious side.
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Mar 8, 2017 19:35
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Brainiac Five posted:I'm talking about twodot's claim that every religious person is delusional and must be corrected. Not sure how you can argue religion is not a delusion of sorts, belief in something without proof is the whole point of faith, it's the definition of both. But to be fair delusions like that are not at all limited to the religious, I have known atheists who nevertheless believe in fate, good luck charms, ghosts, or yea, even aliens (as in actual visitors). 
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Mar 8, 2017 21:52
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Brainiac Five posted:The point is that the scientific attitude towards the existence of things which are unproven is ideally an agnostic one, and that dismissing it out of hand is not scientific. Agnostic in this case shouldn't mean, "maybe witches/god/fairies could be real, there's no proof they aren't" but "they aren't real, but if we get evidence to the contrary I'll be willing to reassess my stance".
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Mar 9, 2017 07:33
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Who's calling for religious delusions to be treated? We don't treat most delusions outside of extreme cases where some danger is imminent.
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Mar 9, 2017 16:55
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Something along the lines that if you support some cause or favor a particular outcome but aren't putting 100% effort into making it happen you are a hypocrite, probably? 
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Mar 9, 2017 18:56
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Brainiac Five posted:Right. I disagree with the notion that religion is a mental illness or ought to be treated as such, mind. What would you call believing things that aren't real, then?
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Mar 9, 2017 20:05
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We don't have to make it about religion - hopefully I don't have to prove Hogwarts isn't real, we can just accept that it obviously isn't, right? How would you classify someone's belief that Hogwarts is real?
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Mar 9, 2017 20:15
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Who What Now posted:You can't say they aren't real, just that they aren't rational positions. And being irrational isn't an illness, that's the default human response. I did call them delusions instead, for the record. And yea I myself brought up that this is in no way limited to religion so no argument there. That said, why can't I say god isn't real in the same way I would say horoscopes/hogwarts etc aren't real? Or are you saying I shouldn't be saying the later either?
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Mar 9, 2017 20:57
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I'm not going to try disprove "religion" because I think people much better equipped to do that have already argued the point convincingly countless times before me. I don't understand why assuming something isn't real unless proven otherwise should not be default position? Especially if being unprovable is often conveniently a trait attributed to the thing I'm being asked to disprove. I get that you are arguing that the sensible thing would be to remain agnostic, but by that argument should I also be agnostic about the already mentioned Hogwards exists statement, which seems... silly to even consider?
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Mar 9, 2017 21:23
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Liquid Communism posted:You're stepping in the poo poo. Do not let Brainiac put you in the position of trying to prove the negative of an unfalsifiable belief. Yea, probably. Though I heard similar arguments from actually religious people who I'm positive were genuine and not trolling too, so some benefit of doubt was given.
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Mar 9, 2017 22:38
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Main Paineframe posted:What's silly about it? It's very difficult to categorically prove with evidence that something doesn't exist. It's silly to argue that since we can't prove Hogwarts isn't real, we should remain agnostic rather than just saying of course it's not real.
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Mar 9, 2017 22:56
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Avalerion posted:What would you call believing things that aren't real, then? I did bring it up (using the above as my definition for delusion in this context) to be fair. Irrational probably would have been a better term in hindsight if delusion has too much baggage attached to it.
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Mar 10, 2017 00:20
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At first it did seem like Francis might change the church's tune - he came across as (relatively) supportive of women and gays untill pretty much backtracking and saying that no the church is not budging on this after all. And yea that on a personal level he comes off a nice old guy helps. Avalerion fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Mar 10, 2017 |
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Mar 10, 2017 13:13
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On a personal level we can't deny that it makes a lot of people happy either.
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Mar 10, 2017 19:26
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One shouldn't need religion to know that charity and giving to the poor is good, those are things that are generally seen as positive and encouraged even by atheists and other secular groups. The twist is that religion also encourages things like bashing gays and picketing clinics, and it does that by convincing the people that doing those things is also good and necessary.
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Mar 11, 2017 08:09
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Cingulate posted:Yes, that is true - but what I was asking is if you can think of any good acts that were up to that person's religion. It does come back to the "science vs religion" thing again, religion does motivate some, maybe even a lot of good, but it does so on the basic of dogma or divine decree rather than arriving at it's conclusions logically. Someone giving to charity because god says so is good, but doing so because you rationalize that it's the right thing to do or good for society would be, in my opinion, even better.
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Mar 11, 2017 13:12
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Cingulate posted:Surely you can imagine there are Christians who have been motivated into charitable acts not so much because of the promised rewards or because of doctrine, but because e.g. Mhm, my argument is that you don't need this kind of motivation, the good things currently accomplished by religion could and in many ways already are being accomplished by other means also. But the other side to this is that religion can also motivate those same otherwise good people into supporting bad things. There's no rational argument to ban gay marriage, if you remove the religious motivation here the right won't have much else left. Cingulate posted:Don't you think this kind of thought - forcing people not only to abstain from damaging the community, but forcing people to actively contribute to the good of society, has a really bad track record? Isn't that just taxes? 
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Mar 11, 2017 19:56
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OwlFancier posted:Mm, the problem with religion is not the believing in god part, it's the lovely political part, so it seems weird to conflate the two when they're manifestly capable of being independent. It is part of it though. When someone holds wrong views about a topic you can generally reason with and educate them into being a better person, but if said views are rooted in an irrational belief you'll just hit a wall going with that approach. To go with the running example, if someone is opposed to gay marriage because they think we'll then all turn gay and the human race will die out you can easily disprove that with facts. If they are against gay marriage because god thinks it's icky that's not going to work.
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Mar 11, 2017 21:04
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OwlFancier posted:"Wrong views rooted in an irrational belief" is not even remotely limited to religion, I'd wager it's probably not even majority represented by religion. Yea, not saying religion is the root of all evil in the world or anything of the sorts. I do think it's responsible for a lot of it though, and if we didn't have it, a lot (but obviously not all) of it would go away.
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Mar 11, 2017 21:12
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Bates posted:Some people take atheism to mean rational, anti-theistic or anti-religious but it's simply wrong. Yea, no argument here, you can definitely be irrational even without religion, but - I think you can't be rational and religious and that's pretty much the crux of my issue with it on the whole. Avalerion fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Mar 11, 2017 |
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Mar 11, 2017 21:25
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People believing all kinds of cooky things in general do annoy me, though most of those believes are harmless so I just shrug past them whereas the harm done by religion is a lot more visible. But yea, all good arguments so I have to concede that point, it's not as simple as rational vs irrational.
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Mar 11, 2017 22:01
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Shbobdb posted:She's actively enabling the Republican regime. That's not everybody. Just evil people. That particular example would be down to ignorance more than anything I think.
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Mar 11, 2017 22:43
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Cingulate posted:I think passages such as "love your neighbor as you love yourself" are very hard to reconcile with slavery for us. It's certainly possible, but if you took just the Golden Rule as your moral foundations, wouldn't you have to go into some extreme mental contortions to arrive at slavery? It explicitly says love thy neighbor, I read that as people who are part of your community, not some randos living on the other side of the mountain. Presumably they were free to hate those others.
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Mar 12, 2017 22:30
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Actually rounding up and killing people, yea no what's wrong with you. But if it's more of a natural selection kind of thing? Like if in the far future natural mixing results in the races blending to the point you can no longer say "that guy is white", or a religion becomes historical because none believes it anymore, I would not consider those scenarios a loss.
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Mar 13, 2017 09:23
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NikkolasKing posted:But that's not my point. I was asking what in human society or culture defines good and evil since our ideas of those two things have changed constantly throughout history? You can arrive at a good moral framework with basic empathy - i would not wish to be murdered, therefore murder is wrong. I would enjoy getting help if ever in need of it, therefore charity is good. And so on.
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Mar 14, 2017 10:00
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Bolocko posted:Is it possible for one's emotions and intuition to be poisoned — as by, for example, addiction, depression, disease, or social pressure —so that this moral framework cannot be validly constructed? If you base it on emotions and feelings then yes, obviously. Which is why we should use logical rational arguments rather than feelings. You can feel that something is right or wrong but need an actuall argument to back up your stance if you want to make it a law for example.
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Mar 14, 2017 10:51
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Ideally women in a free society would get to wear what they want. While it's probably true a lot of the women wearing burkas do so because they are forced to, either directly or by social pressure, forcing them not to wear them kind of seems like fighting a wrong with another wrong - you are still forcing them to do something. I think this is similar to prostitution, where some women do it only because they have no other choice, but rather than making it illegal and creating even more trouble for them we should instead combat the symptoms that lead to this being their only choice to begin with. Also in both cases it's the women themselves who are being punished.
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Mar 22, 2017 20:14
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Soldier jumping on a grenade to save his mates is a good dude, a soldier jumping on a grenade just to prove that he's willing to do it is an idiot (and if he knows he'll somehow just resurrect afterwards - he's just a showoff). What exactly is god/Jesus dying supposed to have accomplished instead of proving something? Personally I'd be more willing to buy into his love if he spend that energy on curing cancer or ending world hunger.
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Apr 6, 2017 23:12
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Which goes back to why did he have to do it this way rather than just... waving his hand or something (or maybe not tainting us for what our ancestors supposedly did to begin with).
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Apr 7, 2017 10:35
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