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Philosophy/religion

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YEC 2

999 replies

Januarymadness · 24/04/2013 21:05

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

OP posts:
EllieArroway · 09/05/2013 09:07

That is true but it does not address the problem of the impossible odds of him winning the money

The odds are not impossible, that's the point. You'll need to better than that, Best.

Januarymadness · 09/05/2013 09:45

Something I have newly come across in various church denominations is the concept of tithing. To me it is another check in the box of things I dont believe in but I would really like to hear others views on it.

OP posts:
SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 09/05/2013 10:25

Snorbs The book that you believe to be literally true presents you with a dilemma - either the stories of your god deliberately murdering children as an act of terror are untrue, or your god is deeply immoral.

YY - totally agree.

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 09/05/2013 10:50

Best Miracles temporarily suspend the laws of physics which God created and is not bound by. Walking on water is not "logically" impossible. It is only "physically" for us. But God cannot break the laws of logic. They are an expression of His nature.

That all sounds a bit made up to me.

A truly omnipotent god could do anything and wouldn't need to be bound by any laws of physics or logic. A truly omnipotent god and creator is thus illogical to me, personally. I recognise that this is not the case for others. The bible: Great reading - especially the OT - very bloodthirsty. A book of considerable historical importance, but just stories. Not a code of morality that one should live their life by.

Jewcy · 09/05/2013 15:04

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by Mumsnet for breaking our Talk Guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

Jewcy · 09/05/2013 15:09

Snorbs, I apologise profusely. I did not mean you; I meant SGB.

Brass! I'm astonished at your slavish devotion to Hitchens Shock

Jewcy · 09/05/2013 15:39

Just watching Hitchens I am struck by his worship of language, upon which he has based his whole life and without which I think he would be wretched. He is the ultimate narcissist. I am mesmerised by him...

Jewcy · 09/05/2013 15:42

...he is tedious after a while, though - there's just no joy in the man.

infamouspoo · 09/05/2013 15:43

not getting yourpoint Best. You seem to think athiest cant be moral. I disagree.

Jewcy · 09/05/2013 16:00

Ellie, I am still waiting to hear whether or not you are glad that Hitler is dead.

BackOnlyBriefly · 09/05/2013 16:13

Jewcy while you are waiting I can tell you that I am not 'glad' Hitler is dead. Not in the sense of gloating which you seemed to imply. If he was going to go on ordering the deaths of other people then I approve of him being dead, but there isn't any pleasure in it as such.

Also to put it in perspective, Hitler ordered the deaths of millions while Hitchens merely held a different opinion to you.

Which is worse btw?

Jewcy · 09/05/2013 16:19

BoB, they're both the anti-Christ so both of their deaths are okay by me.

..and I was only interested in Ellie's answer but I can see you need to scratch an itch.

Jewcy · 09/05/2013 16:29

I've finished watching now. Is it true Newton believed the Catholic Church is the anti-Christ? Can anyone explain his view further, please?

EllieArroway · 09/05/2013 16:37

Hitler was directly responsible for the deaths of over 6 million people. He wiped out generations of families & caused suffering of the type that you and I cannot even begin to conceive of. I'm glad he's no longer with us. If his death was required to stop his atrocities and save, potentially, millions of inncocent lives, then so be it.

Hitchens held a different worldview to you. That's it. He never hurt anyone or condoned hurting anyone.

If you think it's alright, or even decent, to crow about the death of someone you just didn't like that much then I think you must be a deeply unpleasant person - or a very troubled one.

SGB tried to treat you with decency last night, and you sneered back at her. I suspect she's right & all of this is prompted by difficulties that you're facing - but you are derailing a thread that most of us are enjoying & learning from.

You didn't like Hitchens? So fucking what. Go tell someone who gives a shit.

Januarymadness · 09/05/2013 16:57

You must think there are an awful lot of anti-christs in the world. Thats a whole lot of hate.

I said I found your view from other threads fascinating because I just dont understand how you reach your conclusions.

Essentially I think we had reached a happy place where we could all debate our pov without putting each other down.

Here we may not agree with each other but we can hold a grown up discussion.

OP posts:
SolidGoldBrass · 09/05/2013 17:01

Well, belief in gods is irrational, so it could be said that everyone who does so is a bit mentally ill, but then the same could be said of everyone who supports a constantly-losing sports team or engages in odd but harmless rituals like always stirring their tea with their left hand and feeling anxious if they don't. Getting all squealy and aggressive about the superiority of your particular imaginary friend and being unable to cope with the idea that there's the same amount of actual evidence for its existence as there is for the difference of all the other imaginary friends, from Allah to Zeus to Mr Hanky the Christmas Poo - fuck all - well that suggests a few problems.

Jewcy · 09/05/2013 17:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Jewcy · 09/05/2013 17:09

...I tell a lie: I was crowing.

SolidGoldBrass · 09/05/2013 17:12

Go for it Jewcy! Remind us rational people of our innate superiority to the superstitious, because you're doing really, really well so far.

Jewcy · 09/05/2013 17:14

I am sorry, Ellie, that was awful of me and I apologise. I am going to ask Mumsnet to remove that post. I also was wrong for celebrating Hitchens' death. I feel bloody awful. Really, really sorry. I will leave you all in peace.

Jewcy · 09/05/2013 17:16

X-posted there, SGB. I've been terrible to you, too. Uncalled-for and I hope you'll forgive me. I have much to learn about being a tolerant human being, it seems Sad

infamouspoo · 09/05/2013 17:28

bloody hell. How's that for an example of christian love and tolerance. I might disagree with everything Best has said but he at least is polite.

Januarymadness · 09/05/2013 19:32

just in case you forgot to report your post I did it too.

OP posts:
SolidGoldBrass · 09/05/2013 21:52

Jewcy: Nothing to forgive. I wish you peace of mind.

BestValue · 09/05/2013 22:53

"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")."

Yes, you can detect design. (Check out the book "The Design Inference" by William Dembski.) If SETI were to get the prime numbers coming through space (as in the movie Contact), they would immediately conclude the signal was coming from an intelligent source. We immediately recognize the four faces of the U.S. Presidents on Mount Rushmore were done by a sculpture and not the product of natural processes like erosion. When an archaeologist finds a carved stone and determines it is an arrowhead, he is detecting design. If you saw, "John love Mary" written in the sand on the beach you would know immediately it wasn't done my the waves but that someone put it there intentionally.

My argument is not based on what we DON'T know but based on what we DO know. So far as we know, everything that begins to exist has a cause and that cause is always greater than its effect. We also know information always comes from a mind. And we know life always comes from life. So to claim that maybe the universe is the first thing to arise without a cause or that maybe DNA contains the first information to arise without a mind or that maybe, just once, life arose from non-living material through undirected processes is to make an argument from ignorance. I call it a Darwin-of-the-gaps argument.

"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?"

I understand that it COULD but we have no good evidence that it DOES. And until such time as we do, it is more rational to base or arguments on what we actually know and have observed. If you look back, every single one of my arguments is based on what we've actually observed. That's good science. And that's why I don't like fudging with the word "fact" and prefer to reserve it for things that can be tested and verified scientifically. By that definition, I would not even claim that it is a "fact" that God exists. It's an inference to the best explanation.

"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."

They do. I quoted them. Here it is again:

Alexander Vilinkin said, "It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176)."

"How pathetic of you. Most suicide bombers are actually theists, as you well know . . . 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."

Yes, but the Tamil Tigers are atheists who invented suicide bombing. I don't claim anyone does anything in the name of atheism because I accept the recent redefining of atheism as "a lack of belief." It is anti-theism which is dangerous and has killed millions.

"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?"

It served my point. You said you wouldn't torture a baby for any reason and I found a scenario where you would. That's why I add in "for fun" because everyone agree that is wrong and thus we have at least one objective moral. That's all we need to infer the existence of God.

By the way, I don't think I could bring myself to torture the baby - even for ten seconds. There are those who will say I am immoral for not saving the lives of a million but I did not kill them. The terrorist did. Two wrongs don't make a right and you don't stop one evil by committing another.

"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?"

I would not steal the milk. It's a false dichotomy. There are other ways to get money to buy the milk. And if I did steal the milk, I would not make excuses and I would admit that it was wrong.

"You seem to be operating under the very odd assumption that if morality cannot be objective, then it can't exist at all."

No, I don't say that. That would be silly.

"Culture CAN explain morality, along with social and biological evolution . . ."

Yes they can. Just not satisfactorily. Do you appeal more to culture or to evolution? I've said repeatedly that I would ultimately have to appeal to evolution for morality if I were an atheist.

"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."

I find it beautiful and elegant. And I find the basis for atheism selfish and arrogant. But we can still get along. Smile

"And, the 10 Commandments tell us we should not kill."

Kill means "murder" in this context. Murder is the killing of an innocent person by a guilty person. God never killed anyone who was innocent.

"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")."

Yup. Totally consistent. One kills an innocent person the other kills a guilty person.

"Man, you would really argue that black is white and down is up given half a chance, wouldn't you."

Pot meet kettle. Wink

"Lack of belief in god and disbelief in God is the same thing."

No they aren't. "Lack" is passive while "dis" is active. (Think of DISrespect). You mean UNbelief. Atheists who do not have an active disbelief in God should really call themselves non-theists.

"I am one of the few atheists on this thread that doesn't just lack belief in a god (in other words, I am unconvinced by theist arguments) I actively believe there is no god & I take the burden of proof upon myself by saying that."

That's what I lappreciate about you, Ellie. You take responsibility for your beliefs and attempt to defend them. Many atheists (and theists too) refuse to do that.

"Why are you so desperate for Einstein not to be an atheist?"

I'm not. I strive for accuracy. When the man's own writings say he was not an atheist, I take him at his word. The problem come in when we re-define words to make them suit our agenda. To Einstein, atheism was an active disbelief which he did not have. He was born Jewish but not practicing. So if Hitler was Catholic then Einstein was Jewish.

"NOT THAT IT MATTERS because I don't believe he did anything because he was a Christian or in the name of Christianity - he had other reasons."

Yes, good. His other reasons were hatred of religion (especially Christianity and Judaism) and a desire to breed the master race based on a bastardization of the theory of evolution.