Agnosticism IS the most dishonest position

[The Grand Nudger]

This keeps taking harder and harder turns for the douche. Leaving the bit about any non muslim being a thought criminal aside, you seem to be having trouble understanding a secular moral framework, Kloro.

Spend some time googling it. The position of moral realism is open to anyone who would contend that moral facts exist, and that reference to these moral facts makes a given thing right or wrong. It's a proposition that's true or false regardless of any god's existence.

What do you think makes a thing good or bad? True facts about the act itself, or true facts about gods?

[The Architect Of Fate]

This keeps taking harder and harder turns for the douche.  Leaving the bit about any non muslim being a thought criminal aside, you seem to be having trouble understanding a secular moral framework, Kloro.  

Spend some time googling it.  The position of moral realism is open to anyone who would contend that moral facts exist, and that reference to these moral facts makes a given thing right or wrong.  No gods necessary.

Is brain is so filled with god juice no actual moral argument will fit

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I recall when no one will even admit there are interesting definitions of God and uninteresting ones, they hate the fact that thinking unbiasedly about definitions leads to forced results like God absolutely not existing or having already revealed himself. For them, all theology is red herring, simply because their christianity turned out to be red herring, and they see no problem in generalizing their childhood trauma to all religions.

Nonsense psychobabble 

The first ten years I lived in Japan I went everywhere by bicycle, because the city is compact and a good size. The city I'm in, however, is notorious for aggressive and inconsiderate drivers, and eventually I had to give up. It's dangerous, but more disturbing for my peace of mind was the fact that I was getting really angry at people. 

No one cares 

It seemed to me that it was easy to identify people who, in my personal judgment, deserved to be scolded. But once I picked out who I could get angry at I was in danger of going overboard. All the anger I had pent up about other things found an outlet in the inconsiderate drivers. 

No one cares 

My guess is that something similar is going on here. If people want to demonstrate the falseness of religion or persuade people to change their minds, they wouldn't type what they do. If they are in any way trying to make the world a better place, they would go about things differently. It seems more likely that they choose you and other people with differing metaphysical beliefs as targets for their negative feelings, just because they want targe

Thn you guess is as wrong as all the other nonsense you spew

Part of the problem is the whole New Atheist thing. Dawkins and Hitchens and those guys began with the a priori belief that theology must be so stupid that you don't have to know anything about it to criticize it. They were not bothered by the fact that their books contain numerous factual errors, and neither were their fans. We're well into the second generation of such thinking by now.

And this is rubbish as well

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I recall when no one will even admit there are interesting definitions of God and uninteresting ones, they hate the fact that thinking unbiasedly about definitions leads to forced results like God absolutely not existing or having already revealed himself. For them, all theology is red herring, simply because their christianity turned out to be red herring, and they see no problem in generalizing their childhood trauma to all religions.


The first ten years I lived in Japan I went everywhere by bicycle, because the city is compact and a good size. The city I'm in, however, is notorious for aggressive and inconsiderate drivers, and eventually I had to give up. It's dangerous, but more disturbing for my peace of mind was the fact that I was getting really angry at people. 

It seemed to me that it was easy to identify people who, in my personal judgment, deserved to be scolded. But once I picked out who I could get angry at I was in danger of going overboard. All the anger I had pent up about other things found an outlet in the inconsiderate drivers. 

My guess is that something similar is going on here. If people want to demonstrate the falseness of religion or persuade people to change their minds, they wouldn't type what they do. If they are in any way trying to make the world a better place, they would go about things differently. It seems more likely that they choose you and other people with differing metaphysical beliefs as targets for their negative feelings, just because they want targets. 

WOW!

Of all things, I really thought that you understood where the burden of proof lies.

Part of the problem is the whole New Atheist thing. Dawkins and Hitchens and those guys began with the a priori belief that theology must be so stupid that you don't have to know anything about it to criticize it. They were not bothered by the fact that their books contain numerous factual errors, and neither were their fans. We're well into the second generation of such thinking by now.

Dawkins was a theist until he was about 16. Hitchens, I'm not sure about.

But, even so, you are wrong on another level.

It doesn't matter if Dawkins' and Hitchens' books contained theological errors. There is no reason to worry about theological errors, until such a time when the existence of a god or gods has been demonstrate. Once that is done, then one can start to debate which theology best describes said god. Your criticism is sort of putting the cart before the horse.

Gotta love his attempts to tell other people why they think or do something or how hey should think or do something .Arrogance much .....

[Simon Moon]

Gotta love his attempts to tell other people why they think or do something or how hey should think or do something .Arrogance much .....

Maybe a bit of projecting, me thinks...

[The Architect Of Fate]

Gotta love his attempts to tell other people why they think or do something or how hey should think or do something .Arrogance much .....

Maybe a bit of projecting, me thinks...

Maybe or he's just forging a comforting lie so he can feel superior

[Belacqua]

Of all things, I really thought that you understood where the burden of proof lies. 

But if they just post snark, they are not addressing arguments. 

It doesn't matter if Dawkins' and Hitchens' books contained theological errors. 

That's why I didn't say they wrote theological errors. Those are arguable.

I said they wrote factual errors. For example, they said something like "Mr. X said Y," when in fact Mr. X never said anything like that. Hitchens was particularly egregious with mixing up dates and things like that.

[The Grand Nudger]

I would be surprised if Kloro was incapable of a moral argument. In the realist view, moral failure (and disagreement) is the product of information asymmetry more often than an absence of moral agency.

Seeing as how Kloro has repeatedly demonstrated that he's wholly unaware of what moral realism entails, it's conceivable that supplying him with those facts will resolve his confusion.

[The Architect Of Fate]

But if they just post snark, they are not addressing arguments

You call it snark the rest of us call it stating facts irreverently 

That's why I didn't say they wrote theological errors. Those are arguable.

I said they wrote factual errors. For example, they said something like "Mr. X said Y," when in fact Mr. X never said anything like that. Hitchens was particularly egregious with mixing up dates and things like that.

So nitpicking

[R00tKiT]

I have a perfectly rational basis for my morality, based on the objective facts of the universe, and the goal of well being.

Okay. Based on your so called rational basis, what makes a human life more worth it than that of a bacteria's?

We all know people who will surely be more unsettled by witnessing animals hurt/tortured than humans torturing each other. But they all agree that they're more worth to continue to exist than any other life. And if it all comes down to the survival instinct, that is, each and every person should simply avoid his extinction with all he has, then the problem of eugenics and basing morality on darwinin stuff kicks in, and clearly nobody accepts that.

Part of the problem is the whole New Atheist thing. Dawkins and Hitchens and those guys began with the a priori belief that theology must be so stupid that you don't have to know anything about it to criticize it. They were not bothered by the fact that their books contain numerous factual errors, and neither were their fans. We're well into the second generation of such thinking by now. 

So there's a disconnect between people who want to exchange reasons and talk about things, and people who feel it's fine just to vent.

And neither Dawkins nor Hitchens are professional philosophers. That partly explains why they either address the weakest form of a standard argument, or strawman directly a particular religion, like Hitchens thinking that God in Islam condemns people for "thought crimes", but it is well known that the verse mentioning that[2:284] was abrogated by the following verses [2:285/286]. The abrogated verse then simply says that God knows what people think about, but it's made clear He won't judge them on that unless they act upon it. 

This is basic Qur'an stuff known to any Muslim. But Hitchens didn't know about it, and more importantly, he didn't bother getting his stories about Islam straight.

Another widespread strawman they usually present is that non Muslims necessarily go to Hell according to the Islamic doctrine. This is absolutely false, only those who rejected Islam while being convinced of its truth/high likelihood are the ones who deserve any kind of hereafter punishment.

The word kafirun' is wrongly translated into disbelievers in all major translations of the Qur'an. This is a huge mistake, it's almost a dishonest translation, the word kufr' is much more than mere disbelief, it literaly means knowingly denying truth.

While it is true, that this is a stronger statement than I have previously read by Hawking, he is not making a scientific claim. You do notice the phrase "for me", right? He is stating an opinion based on his scientific knowledge.

And no, he is not making "retarded, nonsensical shit about god", his position is based on the lack of: demonstrable evidence, reasoned argument, and, valid and sound logic to support the claim a god exists.

His position/opinion is ridiculous, and you really should try and acknowledge that. Also, he wrote a book about it, it's not like he said that in a Tweet or something, so it does count, as such, as evidence that he is a very poor theologian.

[Simon Moon]

Of all things, I really thought that you understood where the burden of proof lies. 

But if they just post snark, they are not addressing arguments. 

But most of us have heard all the arguments, and have addressed them.

Kalam, teleological, ontological, TAG, presup arguments all contain fallacies and flaws.

Sometimes the snark is the written word version of a forehead slap.

It doesn't matter if Dawkins' and Hitchens' books contained theological errors. 

That's why I didn't say they wrote theological errors. Those are arguable.

I said they wrote factual errors. For example, they said something like "Mr. X said Y," when in fact Mr. X never said anything like that. Hitchens was particularly egregious with mixing up dates and things like that.

Ah...

I'd would appreciate some examples. And do these factual errors effect the validity of the argument being made?

[R00tKiT]

Spend some time googling it.  The position of moral realism is open to anyone who would contend that moral facts exist, and that reference to these moral facts makes a given thing right or wrong.  It's a proposition that's true or false regardless of any god's existence.  

What do you think makes a thing good or bad?  True facts about the act itself, or true facts about gods?

I am currently looking into your so called moral realism. Meanwhile, to me, what makes an act good or bad is never the act itself. The act itself is a pure mechanical event in materialistic world, good and bad are undefined.

Deism/theism makes talking about "good" and "bad" possible.