YEC 2

[Januarymadness]

Right I am going to bite. I shouldnt have looked at the facebook but I did.

Mr Ruggles you have made some horrible accusations. You have claimed everyone who disagreed with you was an atheist who lacked logic and reasoning. You were wrong on ALL counts. Many people told you they were Christian or Theists, they just didn't agree with you. The thread was also full of valid scientific arguments which were well worded and full of logic and reasoning.

You have also accused us all of being bullies. Something I saw no evidence of. Not agreeing with someone is not bullying.

So please do feel free to justify your off board comments here as speaking behind peoples backs is really not on.

Please could someone link to the old thread. Thanks

My theological argument:

My Evidence:

Personal: I have very slight bi-polar personality issues. There are the vast vast majority of normal days (like today - phew), there are rare depressive days when I know in my body, mind and soul that I am hated. The Universe hates me and would destroy me if it wasn't more fun to make me suffer. I have much much rarer manic days when I know in my body, mind and soul that I am loved. That the Universe is looking out for me and my soul will live forever.

Observational: 1. That in the history of humanity we have constantly ascribed the unknowable to mystical agents and that day by day more and more of those unknowable things become known - by which I mean that we can explain them as event caused by nature/chance/coincidence and can be described by a predictive theory of natural science.

1. That a decent gamma ray burst anywhere near here would wipe out all life on earth.
2. That a substantial number of other people believe in a higher power all of the time.
3. That you can make any atheist believe in God transiently by zapping the correct area of the brain with the right sort of electromagnetic signal.
4. That there is a genetic component to faith with identical twins having faith levels that are more correlated than those of fraternal twins.

My Conclusion: That the universe is a cold an uncaring one that will kill us without noticing (because of the GRB's). That everything will one day be explained by a predictive theory of natural science (because we heading so fast in that direction - it is only a matter of time before the remaining holes are plugged). That people believe in God because of their brain biochemistry, rather than because God exists (because my own brain does it sometimes and the rest of the time the whole idea seems nuts to me, and because you can externally alter the brain to reproduce the effect, and because it is only a matter of time before we isolate the genes responsible for faith).

Occams razor and this debate -2 competing theories.

Best - The universe is 6000 yrs old

The rest of the people here- The universe is older than that.

To reach your conclusion you have to start with several presumptions. To reach our conclusions we dont have to start with any presumptions. We look at the evidence as it is given. Even you admit that the evidence points our way unless you presume.

Baring in mind the above you HAVE to reject Occams Razor or the only logical conclusion would be ours. As you reject Occams razor in your basic argument you cannot therefore use it to support parts of that argument.

Now we can give it a rest thanks.

You do indeed seem to be making the claim that you need God to be moral.

To make ourselves feel better that some times the bad guy gets away on earth is NOT a reason in itself to argue for eternal retribution.

I see the foundation of morality as being empathy. I think the very vast majority of people have empathy and it is the reason for doing good things and rejecting bad. There is no need for fear of eternal retribution in this equation.

People can be naturally, socially, biologically or chemically conditioned to lack empathy. Our question should be not "why are most people good" but "why aren't some people good".

I think I found my answer regarding who first made the argument against morality being based on fear of punishment or hope of reward. It was Albert Einstein, although I would not be a bit surprised if he was merely echoing the words of some of the ancient Greek philosophers. (It sounds like something Socrates might say.)

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. ..."

• Albert Einstein, quoted in: All the Questions You Ever Wanted to Ask American Atheists, by Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Incidentally, Einstein was not an atheist but he was also not a theist either.

"Evolution can explain a lot about human morality but it has a tougher time explaining phenomena like altruism."

No it really doesn't - altruism can make absolute genetic sense if you evolved in a society in which you are (relatively) closely related to those around you. Humans did evolve in close societies, so also evolved advantageous and complex social mechanisms to enable them to live together cooperatively (in the main).

You see it in other societal animal groups too. Anyway I won't go into a huge amount of detail, I'm sure you've read The Selfish Gene eagerly from cover to cover yourself

Does the Bible explain altruism? Or does it just tell you to be altruistic?

The claim that slavery is not approved of in the bible can be dealt with quickly and simply.

It is a lie.

A desperate lie intended for those who don't read the bible, but might be willing to believe an authority.

We can point to all the places where the bible says slavery is good, but it won't help because to save their religion people will just deny it over and over.

This is why yesterday I once again posted on a thread that people should read the bible. What I get is Christians saying "oh no! it's much too hard. Just ask an 'expert' to tell you what it says".

I posted about Elisha and the bears the other day and someone pointed me to a site that tries to justify butchering a bunch of children. Apparently "it was really REALLY insulting in those days to call someone baldy!".

Pick the vilest, sickest atrocity you can imagine and somewhere there'll be a Christian (or a Muslim) willing to condone it to protect their faith. That's one of the dangers of 'faith'.

We see an argument now that atheists can't criticise the atrocities without agreeing there is an objective morality imposed by the gods.

I'll post some more about that in a bit, but for now I'll say that what (they claim) god ordered in the bible doesn't have to be objectively immoral. It's sufficient that I (and millions like me) wouldn't want someone who condoned it near our children. You can't argue that specific acts like murder, abuse and slavery are fine and at the same time claim to have a moral compass. Or rather you can, but it's pointing in the wrong direction.

It's important to remember that not all Christians who say "it's much too hard. Just ask an 'expert' to tell you what it says" are evil. As I've said before I regard most religious people as victims themselves of the same insidious indoctrination. I am not immune to it either. I have to constantly reexamine what I think about things and try and weed out the "because everybody says so" items. It's probably impossible to get them all.

'I'm not sugarcoating anything. Realize that, to an atheist, slavery is not objectively wrong any way, so it's really quite humorous when an atheist talks about ANYTHING being wrong. And recall that those who spoke out loudest and put an end to slavery were all Christians. Atheists who oppose slavery do so typically because they were raised in a Christian society.'

So not true Best.
And who said I was an athiest?

"Atheists who oppose slavery do so typically because they were raised in a Christian society."

What about atheists who were raised in a Buddhist society? Or Buddhists themselves? Or Muslims?

To claim that Christianity has somehow saved the world from slavery is patent nonsense.

hmm it was actually reading Terry Pratchett that crystallised my ideas on slavery...

He wrote something about evil starting with treating people as things. I think this is pretty much universally true.

Thinking of people be it men, women or children as possessions is definitely a bad start....and it is all over the bible (as it would be if you believe it to be written by men 2000 years ago, although of course I would NOT expect it to if it had been written by a benevolent God).

'your woman'...'your wife'...'your household', 'your neighbours wife' etc etc.

And of course modern society is rife with it too....I mean how can anyone justify chopping the genitals of another human being? Are they yours? NO! then leave them the fuck alone.

An apparently more benign manifestation being ear piercings in babies. Again, how could you justify putting holes in someone else's ears unless you are under the mistaken impression that they 'belong' to you?

In the centuries to come when people look back at this time, they will be as agog with disapproval over treating children as parents possessions as we are over the slavery in the past.

Incidentally, Einstein was not an atheist but he was also not a theist either

If you don't believe in a god (ie: you are not a theist) then you are, by definition, an atheist. Pantheism IS atheism. Einstein was an atheist.

the bible condones slavery because it was written by men in a time when slavery was ok. We've moved on since.

I might be being overly simplistic about this but there is one thing I can't help thinking about the whole objective morality and the Abrahamic god thing, particularly when allied with a literal reading of the Bible. My thoughts go like this:

I believe that most standards of morality would say that specifically targeting children to kill as a means of persuading someone to acquiesce to your demands is Wrong.

Yet that is exactly what the Abrahamic god is said to have done as the grand finale of a series of acts of terrorism against Pharaoh to get him to release the children of Israel.

So, again with my possibly overly simplistic view, if it was moral for the Abrahamic god to kill Egypt's firstborn but not moral for us to do so, either morality cannot be objective or that god is immoral.

Now factor in the allegation that this god deliberately hardened Pharaoh's heart to prevent him from acquiescing to Moses' demands. Where's the morality in that?

none snorbs

Best, you said a few pages back that your imaginary friend can't, actually, do everything it wants to do. Why not? I thought that gods were supposed to be omnipotent ie they can do whatever they want.

I think we both know what I'm talking about and why I say it (Fine tuning)

I'd like to discuss it with you, but I don't want to talk at cross purposes. Please tell me what you mean by "fine-tuning" and what constants you're referring to.

The Anthropic Principle is a philosophy about the fine-tuning of the physical constants

No, it's a "philosophical consideration" about the physical universe, it's properties and how life like us must be compatible with it. Fine tuning is, for some people (not all) part of that. It is misleading to call your argument "The Anthropic Principle". A very common mistake which suggests to me that you don't know as much about it as you'd like people to believe. But we shall see.

But that IS the argument. You say the design is an illusion. I say it's real. So why would I abandon the argument?

You can't base a logical argument on a premise that is that debatable - if your premise is unsound then so is your argument. You CAN'T actually see design, you're just invoking yet another Argument from Ignorance to get you there ("I can't personally see how something as complex as the eye could have evolved naturally, therefore it didn't, therefore it was designed").

The multi-verse is relevant because the fine-tuning requires an explanation. The atheist's explanation is either the multi-verse or the Weak Anthropic Principle. The theist's explanation is Intelligent Design

Erm, no. That's why you need to define what you mean by fine tuning - giving me exactly the constants you're referring to. Don't make me embarrass you by demolishing your argument before you've even had the chance to make it.

I never said anything "requires a beginning." But what has a beginning requires a cause. The universe had a beginning - just like the Bible claimed

You've completely ignored every single word I said about "causes" within our universe and the fallacy of trying to apply this to a "time" before there even was a universe. If relativity breaks down at the quantum level, why don't you understand that causality could too? Why aren't physicists (even Christian ones) trying to use this argument to demonstrate a beginning? Because it's a BAD argument, Best - that's why.

Oh really? Here's a little scenario. A Tamil Tiger - an atheist suicide bomber - tells you to torture a baby for 10 seconds. If you don't, he will blow up himself, you and a million other people including the baby. If you do it, the baby will live - and so will you and the other million people. The terrorist will go to jail. What would you do?

How pathetic of you. Most suicide bombers are actually theists, as you well know - and who says a Tamil Tiger is automatically an atheist? They may not be fighting for any god on this occasion, it doesn't mean that they don't have one. Is this Tamil Tiger fighting "in the name of atheism"? No. So your aside is sly and irrelevant. But since you're one of those historically ignorant people who thinks that Stalin killed people "in the name of atheism" I am not remotely surprised.

I'd torture the baby for 10 seconds. I'd be sobbing as I did it, but I'd do it. What a stupid conundrum. Can't you think of a better one?

Would YOU, by the way, let a baby starve to DEATH if there was milk behind a Tesco shop window that you could steal in order to save it?

No, I am not. I would never put myself above God. (Incidentally, Satan thought he was better than God too. When I hear someone talk like that, I hear nothing but pure evil.)

To be honest, when I hear someone start talking about Satan & subtly accusing me of being "pure evil" I become fearful for their mental health. And I mean that.

Says who? Is that just your opinion? What if someone who is not a psychopath doesn't share your view? Are they wrong? Why?

Obviously, if I don't share a view with someone, whatever it is or whoever they are, it is because I think they are wrong. If I shared their view, I would think they were right and change my mind. Obviously. And I am open to changing my mind, but currently, I see absolutely no good reason to believe that there's any such thing as "objective morality" and hundreds of reasons why the morality that we have is subjective. Human beings are remarkably similar in our thought patterns and experience of the world so the sense of morality we have is similar enough that it works across the board (usually).

You seem to be operating under the very odd assumption that if morality cannot be objective, then it can't exist at all. Why? Culture CAN explain morality, along with social and biological evolution, and a few other things as well.

I wouldn't despise you. Christianity teaches to "love the sinner but hate the sin." That's just one of the many reasons Christian morality is superior to atheist morality. (I know you're not an atheist, so you have even less of an excuse than they do.)

Er...I am an atheist. Have you been at the cooking sherry, Best?

I can't think of many things more immoral than a doctrine that teaches us that it's a sin to be born a human being, that we start to pay for the crimes of someone who ate some fruit they shouldn't have done from the moment we are born, and ought to be grateful that someone was tortured to death on our behalf. I find the basis of Christianity to be sickening, quite honestly.

Why would evolution care about us living a long time? As long as we live to pass on our genes, right? I recently read some articles where scientists were trying to give an evolutionary explanation for the existence of grandmothers. Theoretically women should just die after having children. Their conclusion was that women must live longer so they can babysit the grand kids so the adults can get busy making more kids. How quaint

Yes, quaint. And probably true. It's modern medicine, by the way, and better diets that has us living longer. There are still parts of the world where people can't expect to make it out of their forties.

Evolution can explain a lot about human morality but it has a tougher time explaining phenomena like altruism

Indeed. That's why no one thinks that biological evolution is the only explanation.

So, again with my possibly overly simplistic view, if it was moral for the Abrahamic god to kill Egypt's firstborn but not moral for us to do so, either morality cannot be objective or that god is immoral

Yes.

And, the 10 Commandments tell us we should not kill. If this is an immutable, objective moral absolute, then what's Yahweh up to devising a plan to have us torture and kill him in the most appalling way possible in order to save us from the effects of sin? In other words, we have to sin in order to be saved from our sins. If we'd refused to kill him, his "great sacrifice" would not have been possible.

In parts of America, most conservative Christians hold two views....abortion is wrong (because of the commandment not to kill) but capital punishment is OK (because Jesus says "An eye for an eye").

They prove, just by holding both of these views, that "Thou Shall Not Kill" cannot be considered an objective moral absolute even for Christians. Circumstances have to be taken into account.

Pick the vilest, sickest atrocity you can imagine and somewhere there'll be a Christian (or a Muslim) willing to condone it to protect their faith. That's one of the dangers of 'faith'

Exactly.

And that's where the Koran and the Bible excel - they support whatever view you want to hold.

Want to be an intolerant, racist, homophobic bigot? Hey - go for it. The Bible/Koran has got your back since there's plenty of verses you can find to reassure you that that your god is on your side.

Want to be a kindly soul who just wants to help people out? Again - bits of the Bible/Koran can be found to tell you that that's what Jesus wants too. (Just ignore the instructions to murder, maim and rape - 'cos that's just metaphor. And anyway those people were REALLY bad. Some of them put their penises in places that no penis was meant to go so all their babies and children had to be killed to pay for it. Yahweh really hates gays, you know, but I love them. I just don't think they should be gay.)

Oh man.........

.......bits of the Bible/Koran can be found to tell you that that's what Jesus wants too

Other prophets are available.

which Prophet is it who calls down the wrath of god on those children taking the piss out of his bald head. God promptly sends a couple of bears to tear them into small peices.
Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice

here is a quick game to show how differently we can interperet things when information (such as vowels) is missing and the effect that can have on the overall meaning.

what does this say:

sn t b tw

who are you, or we, to judge the authors intent when it is not a litteral translation.

"If you don't believe in a god (ie: you are not a theist) then you are, by definition, an atheist. Pantheism IS atheism. Einstein was an atheist."

Einstein said, "In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

There is another quote where he specifically says he is not an atheist but it is disputed so I don't use it. By your definition, even an agnostic who doesn't have a positive belief in God would be classified as an atheist. But to me that's just wordplay. I prefer to let people define themselves the way they want to. (But then I ask them to be logically consistent and hold them accountable for their views.)

"Er...I am an atheist. Have you been at the cooking sherry, Best?"

Sorry, Ellie. I tend to get you and January confused sometimes for some reason. My apologies. It's easy to get mixed up with all these "insane mummies" around. ;^)

That was just a little inside joke, folks. :^)

*"This is very clear, break my rules and you will be punished."

"Again, punishment for breaking the rules and significant reward for following them. This isn't even in a bizarre, mistakable part of the bible. It's the 10 commandments."

I see these an analogous to a parent telling a child not to run out into the street or not to touch the hot stove or they will get a spanking. Or telling them if they are on their best behaviour at the supermarket they will get a cookie when they get home. But as January mentioned, a parent is trying to teach her child to do right for the right reasons.

"Actually I'm fortunate enough not to have had to punish my son yet. He's only 2."

I'm glad to hear that. I'd say give it a while. ;^)

"But being a parent, I don't understand what you call "god's love" at all, because quite clearly god 'loves' by threatening punishment."

Only if you think of it very superficially. I think a parent better than anyone should understand God's love for His children. In fact, I might be so bold as to suggest that this is one of the main reasons God encourages us to have children - to better understand His love. That's also why He encourages us to study science - to better appreciate His power and the amazing universe He has made.