Every time some atheist prick tries to disprove the existence of god with

[Elphenor]

Originally Posted by scottytheoneand

often true.

but doctrine does have an impact. Hatred of Jews, for instance, is rooted in Christian doctrine. it's something that needs to be taught. It's a big part of the story of the killing of Christ. It isn't as if antisemitism exists outside of Christianity and nearly 2000 years of Jewish persecution was just because people used the Christian bible to reinforce their prejudices.




.

I'm not entirely sure about that. I think hatred for Jews comes from the general racism people have towards minority groups that are different than them and also the political use of them as scapegoats by leaders.

Like if you ask a Christian about their view of homosexuality you'll get plenty of people who are totally okay with it, but then you get Christians who say that they believe it to be evil because of the bible and it's like no, you're just a fucking bigot.

[Elphenor]

I feel the same way about Islam. The extreme views come from the political environment they live in and have very little to do with an old book.

[Elijah Moon]

Originally Posted by Elphenor

Like if you ask a Christian about their view of homosexuality you'll get plenty of people who are totally okay with it, but then you get Christians who say that they believe it to be evil because of the bible and it's like no, you're just a fucking bigot.

But, hang on... The Old Testament does, in fact, prohibit homosexuality, doesn't it? (It's hard to get a clear answer because the Bible contradicts itself so much (just like an all-knowing god would, of course)).

It's like I was saying -- the laws in holy books are set in stone (quite literally in the Bible) and religious moderates are only "moderate" thorugh discarding the parts of the books they don't like and reinterpreting texts to keep pace with social change.

[Elphenor]

I think The Bible is such a mess that you can interpret it to mean different things.

Religion has almost Zero affect on people's beliefs really. People worship in the way that already aligns with their morals. Just look at religious conservatives. Worshiping Capitalism and Jesus at the same time is the biggest contradiction I can think of.

[Elijah Moon]

Originally Posted by Elphenor

Worshiping Capitalism and Jesus at the same time is the biggest contradiction I can think of.

Tru dat. You see it with hip-hop stars, flashing expensive bling crosses and crucifixes, etc. sort of missing the point. There are many rappers around who are different, but a lot of mainstream hip-hop is a celebration of capitalism and has been for many years.

[Elijah Moon]

Then again, who am I to say those people shouldn't live how they like? What's the viable alternative to capitalism, anyway? Communism is basically on its knees as a valid system, and it will be a long time before we get a "techno-democracy" where we all serve as nodes with a voice, or anarcho-libertarianism, with is... unlikely.

[Elphenor]

Don't know why you would bring up Hip-hop but yeah exactly. Dude will rap about murdering someone and then attend church the same day.

I really think most people are just on auto-pilot running almost exclusively on instinct. And instinct says follow with whatever everybody else believes because then you'll fit in and have a higher chance of getting laid.

[Elphenor]

Originally Posted by Elijah Moon

Then again, who am I to say those people shouldn't live how they like? What's the viable alternative to capitalism, anyway? Communism is basically on its knees as a valid system, and it will be a long time before we get a "techno-democracy" where we all serve as nodes with a voice, or anarcho-libertarianism, with is... unlikely.

Whole lot of dumb going on this post bro

[Elijah Moon]

I was just thinking out loud, really, trying to see things from perspectives other than mine. I got slightly confused in what I was trying to put across, though.

[Elphenor]

There's a difference between worshiping Capitalism and acknowledging its flaws and being like well it's the best we can do for now let's try to make it not suck too hard

[Elijah Moon]

Yeah, that's true. I only brought up hip-hop because I always thought rappers were giving poor people the message that money is the most important thing ever. And, sadly, most kids in the poor area of town, living in poverty, aren't going to make it as rappers, etc.

I am not in my element here, as you may have noticed, and I oppose virtually all censorship (you know, like at one time politicians wanted to ban gangsta rap), but as a hip-hop fan myself, I'm glad it has become easier to get hold of more sub-genres of hip-hop not concerned with violence, money and misogyny. Anyway, I'm tired, so sorry if I'm not making much sense.

[Trotskilicious]

thread's still goin huh

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by scottytheoneand

I don't agree.

I think we should respect a person's right to their beliefs. But thats different than respecting the belief itself.

Should I show respect for someone advocating slavery, subjugation of women, abuse of children, etc? All of these things have been part of relious belief from the beginning.

i love the dawkins parrots that constantly blame religion for the fact that humans are horrible dicks

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by bye june

I don't think humans can ever prove or disprove the existence of a creator, God, divine being or presence. For a person to be so certain of an answer seems ridiculous to me. There's no way a human can know. I admit that I don't know and I'm ok with that.

ultimately when people say shit like this it means:

1) the universe has no order
2) we are incapable of understanding anything
3) logic and reason are pointless
4) the universe is supernatural
5) Ghosts and unicorns are real
6) "god" is probable, as the universe does not work on a math equation that never even really ends then there must be some kind of force that keeps in control, keeps us from spiraling into the heavens at a moment's notice, keeps things from turning into blobs of matter (or godstuff, since in this world where we don't know anything atoms and such don't actually exist), forces us and every "living" thing to born and to die, instead of popping into existence at random
7) you don't understand what the scientific method is, what science has proven, and what it has shown consistently. like luke said, religion has zero predictive power. science does.

[Trotskilicious]

UNICORNS R REEL U GUYZ!!!11!!!!11!!1!!

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by duovamp

I truly don't get how certainty can be an issue here. It's a totally ridiculous, unsubstantiated and untestable claim. Not hard to position yourself firmly on the right side.

yet on the other hand, science has explained a lot of things. like lightning. it doesn't come from a god in the sky after all u guys

but in the world where science can't explain anything and there could be a perfectly viable explanation that ghosts having ghost sex causes thunder and lightning. i mean anything i can make up goes because i just have to believe in it hard enough

i mean is this what the whole "respect each sides viewpoint" has gotten us, the generation after us is now like "hey supernatural stuff could be real, there's no proof but that's okay, it could be invisible or move between dimensions. Like unicorns!"

[Elijah Moon]

Fucking magnets, how do they work?
And I don't wanna talk to a scientist
Y'all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by scottytheoneand

that's silly

you can't disprove unicorns, bigfoot, the existence of Zeus or that the Universe is ruled by Xenu. But you don't organize your life and tailor your beliefs as if all of those things are true. In fact, in practicing any one religion you discount all the others. Yet none of them can be proven empirically.

Again: "SHOW ME BIGFOOT'S DROPPINGS OR SHUT UP"

like people have been looking for a 8 foot tall ape man for years and haven't even found its crap. that basically proves it doesn't exist unless it's really neat. even the guy who lived in the maine woods all that time was found

mothman, the jersey devil, transdimensional shapeshifting lizard people infiltrating the highest level of government...all these things could be real since i don't need any proof to validate the claim

i could say that poor people eat their young, i mean sure you might have "facts" to bring to bear or whatever but you know ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

seriously u guys. i know there's the coelacanth and certain crypto zoology that has come correct but never anything like Bigfoot, loch ness monster, certainly not unicorns. I mean by that logic cyclopes could be roaming a lost continent we can't see with satellite coverage. or some thing

[Trotskilicious]

i don't care if you believe in god or not

this stuff about how it's perfectly valid because we "can't prove it doesn't exist" is such completely stupid bullshit if you think about it harder

[Trotskilicious]

dr who is a documentary. i am sure of this because i believe it to be so.

[D.]

I can prove Frankenstein is real because it says so in Frankenstein. So there.

[MyOneAndOnly]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

i love the dawkins parrots that constantly blame religion for the fact that humans are horrible dicks

that's not what i said.

people have tendencies towards a lot of bad behavior and destructive things. I'm not blaming it all on religion. I'm saying there's some pretty fucked up and negative shit that's fundamentally part of religion and religious dogma.

blaming all the failings of humanity on religion isn't logically any different than saying that religion isn't responsible for any of it. As though somehow religion is benign and it's the failings of imperfect humans that create all the bad in the world. Neither absolute is correct.

[Trotskilicious]

i think you sound like an intolerant asshole every single time you talk about religion

[MyOneAndOnly]

you sound like an intolerant asshole talking about everything

[MyOneAndOnly]

[vixnix]

Either the universe is a deliberately created place or it isn't - we don't know where to look for evidence either way, so there's know way of altering the odds from 50/50...is there?

"Because science, so the odds of a creator are 0" isn't actually a sensible answer...

[Lucky Day Spa]

no, but “because science, so the probability of a creator is unlikely to be 0.5” is

[MyOneAndOnly]

Originally Posted by vixnix

Either the universe is a deliberately created place or it isn't - we don't know where to look for evidence either way, so there's know way of altering the odds from 50/50...is there?

"Because science, so the odds of a creator are 0" isn't actually a sensible answer...

the difference is that all the evidence we've seen suggests there is no "creator". That's not 50/50.

unless you accept the notion that magic invisible sky god made a 14 billion year old universe and intentionally constructed it so that it looks exactly like he doesn't exist.

[vixnix]

That's a matter of opinion though isn't it...

[Lucky Day Spa]

what we can infer from the observable universe is that any creator would've just had to set the starting conditions and leave it alone from there

meanwhile there is plenty of theory in physical cosmology that lays out how existence could conceivably have arisen spontaneously