Christians celebrate rape, torture, slavery and genocide.

[John V]

http://atheistforums.org/thread-15610-po...#pid362336

Where you first make the claim that I cannot give you a compelling reason for a subjective opinion.

Yes, and you still haven’t.

http://atheistforums.org/thread-15610-po...#pid362377

Where you acknowledge that my reason was in fact compelling..though again, as if by magic, you decide my opinion is no longer objective.

It’s not magic. It’s quite objective to dislike things that make you sick.

I did invite you, here
http://atheistforums.org/thread-15610-po...#pid362860
to elaborate upon this miracle. You declined. Par for the course.

That’s where you tried to limit the focus to “compelling” as you knew you had lost the battle on “subjective.”

And of course, your last post would be the second time you've decided to characterize my responses to you as desperation for reasons you are incapable of or unwilling to establish.

Incorrect. I explained that red herrings, being diversions, often indicate desperation.

I mean don't get me wrong John, I'll concede the argument to you if you're willing to state...in no uncertain terms.... that my opinion that vanilla is better than chocolate is an objective one.

I’ll state…in no uncertain terms…that it’s objective to dislike things that make you sick.

I just want to see my opinions about some fucking ice-cream elevated to objectivity one more time

Your position on chocolate isn’t an opinion. It’s quite objective to dislike things that make you sick.

while you call me a liar.

I’ve shown clearly that you’ve lied about my past statements.

It's extremely satisfying.

Likewise. I don’t even need to give you the rope. You just grab it and hang yourself with it.

Saying it’s subjective to dislike things that make you sick is just ridiculous, and it’s amusing for me to watch you stick to it.

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@ Ryantology:

First, note that I said confirmation bias, not just bias. Confirmation bias isn't about misinterpreting facts, it's about correctly identifying facts, but only those that support your view.

Plain old bias is also an issue.

What if I said that mainstream American medicine is a net evil because it's the third leading cause of death in America?

The third leading cause of death part is a fact (or at least was, about ten years ago, and to my knowledge nothing significant has changed since then) and was reported in the JAMA.

However, my assertion that this shows mainstream medicine to be a net evil is faulty.

To claim a net effect, I obviously need to compare the deaths caused to the lifes saved. If I'm neutral re: mainstream medicine, failure to do this was sloppy on my part. If I was already against it, then it may be confirmation bias. I looked for the bad, but didn't look for the good.

You could further argue that some of those deaths would have happened anyway, and so should be removed or discounted. Of course, you should also note that some of the lifes saved may have recovered anyway.

You might also argue that some of the deaths (e.g. incorrect drug administered) was due to misapplication of medicine, and so shouldn't count against medicine per se.

Same thing with Christianity.

The first point is that you need to also consider the benefits of religion and weigh them against the evils in order to get a net effect.

Second, for both the good and the bad, you have to determine the likelihood that they would have been accomplished anyway. To what extent did political and economic factors cause wars that you attribute solely to Christianity? To what extent would social welfare have been provided without Christian charity?

There's just no way you can quantify all this.

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"Good" (empathic and morally sound) people are going to be good regardless of their religious opinion. The same is true for "evil" (sociopathic and morally unsound) people. The only difference that religion makes is that it drives good people to commit evil deeds for unproven good ends.

As you have it written, your first sentence above contradicts the third sentence. Religion can't drive good people to commit evil deeds if good people are good regardless of their religious opinion.