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RE: An unanswerable question
February 15, 2014 at 11:26 am
(February 9, 2014 at 9:26 pm)Stimbo Wrote: I've seen (heard?) a xtian caller on TAE who said, with very little prompting and zero irony, that if xtians today behaved like their biblical counterparts, they'd all be locked up.
That probably explains why there are so many Christians in our prisons. 
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
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RE: An unanswerable question
February 15, 2014 at 11:48 am
Why you atheists are even bothered about that ? You dont believe in God. Doesnt matter to you anyway.
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RE: An unanswerable question
February 15, 2014 at 11:52 am
You are going to have to be more specific khan.
'The more I learn about people the more I like my dog'- Mark Twain
'You can have all the faith you want in spirits, and the afterlife, and heaven and hell, but when it comes to this world, don't be an idiot. Cause you can tell me you put your faith in God to put you through the day, but when it comes time to cross the road, I know you look both ways.' - Dr House
“Young earth creationism is essentially the position that all of modern science, 90% of living scientists and 98% of living biologists, all major university biology departments, every major science journal, the American Academy of Sciences, and every major science organization in the world, are all wrong regarding the origins and development of life….but one particular tribe of uneducated, bronze aged, goat herders got it exactly right.” - Chuck Easttom
"If my good friend Doctor Gasparri speaks badly of my mother, he can expect to get punched.....You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others. There is a limit." - Pope Francis on freedom of speech
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RE: An unanswerable question
February 15, 2014 at 12:55 pm
(This post was last modified: February 15, 2014 at 1:01 pm by Whateverist.)
(February 14, 2014 at 10:49 pm)Stimbo Wrote: And how does a "fundamentalist atheist" work? Not only do I not believe in a god, I disbelieve fundamentally? Or is it a term plucked from someone's fundament?
Probably with their own teeth while they were rummaging around with their head up there.
(February 15, 2014 at 6:33 am)fr0d0 Wrote: (February 9, 2014 at 9:02 pm)Shep Wrote: I often ask theists if god told them to, would they jump off a bridge ... or if god told them to, would they kill a baby ...
No
Maybe that shows the weakness of my faith. Maybe I can't imagine how such a strong directive would ever be given. Just interested to answer you though. Don't shoot me
I'd like to think you also wouldn't do it because you recognize that your ability to recognize the difference between a dictate of God and a stray thought or hallucination is imperfect. It is all well and good to believe in gods without constantly looking out to them for directives. Just maybe they've assigned the decisions in your life to you. If I were god I would certainly delegate, delegate, delegate.
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RE: An unanswerable question
February 15, 2014 at 1:11 pm
(February 15, 2014 at 11:48 am)khan4036 Wrote: Why you atheists are even bothered about that ? You dont believe in God. Doesnt matter to you anyway.
On its own, it doesn't matter. If people start passing laws and punishing others for not following what they follow, then it does matter. Simple as that. You can believe what you want. Pray to your god before breakfast and bed all you like. Just don't tell me I'm a bad person if I don't.
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RE: An unanswerable question
February 15, 2014 at 1:41 pm
(This post was last modified: February 15, 2014 at 1:42 pm by fr0d0.)
(February 15, 2014 at 12:55 pm)whateverist Wrote: I'd like to think you also wouldn't do it because you recognize that your ability to recognize the difference between a dictate of God and a stray thought or hallucination is imperfect. It is all well and good to believe in gods without constantly looking out to them for directives. Just maybe they've assigned the decisions in your life to you. If I were god I would certainly delegate, delegate, delegate.
Absolutely. It would be impossible in reality to know for sure. There's the trust in the agent telling you and then your own trust that this is the agent and that there is a wider good at play. The acts certainly fly in the face of the basic concept.
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RE: An unanswerable question
February 15, 2014 at 2:47 pm
How do you distinguish between a directive that seems compelling, regardless of source (delusion), and one which seems compelling from a supernatural source? I'm not sure there's any way to distinguish the two, so if a deity instructed someone to kill, it would seem there's no way to conclude the person is anything but deluded. It seems this question in some sense trades on the contempt we have for delusional people, that being deluded is in some sense worthy of mockery and contempt. Is this the case?
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RE: An unanswerable question
February 15, 2014 at 2:53 pm
In Christianity you're supposed to cross check and test for authenticity from biblical precedent. I often think that biblical conclusions are drawn after an event.
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RE: An unanswerable question
February 15, 2014 at 3:00 pm
(February 15, 2014 at 2:47 pm)rasetsu Wrote:
How do you distinguish between a directive that seems compelling, regardless of source (delusion), and one which seems compelling from a supernatural source? I'm not sure there's any way to distinguish the two, so if a deity instructed someone to kill, it would seem there's no way to conclude the person is anything but deluded. It seems this question in some sense trades on the contempt we have for delusional people, that being deluded is in some sense worthy of mockery and contempt. Is this the case?
Well that gets at something deeper than theism. How do we know who we are and want to do? The only thing worse than experiencing a well spring of conflicting impulses is not feeling any impulses at all. There is at some level a need to trust something. I guess we are all trying to make ourselves happy without knowing for certain what will work.
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RE: An unanswerable question
February 16, 2014 at 12:39 am
(February 15, 2014 at 12:05 am)Chad32 Wrote: (February 14, 2014 at 11:54 pm)Drich Wrote: I've got a question that I ask when atheist ask a stupid question like this.
If your girlfriend told you the she was prego, and you had to pay for 18 years of child support or pay for an abortion (just FYI it's the same as killing a baby) which would you choose?
Somehow God is a monster for ordering the deaths of say 100? 1000 ? A million? people total?? but 'we' are justified to have killed a billion plus babies, (since 1980) and the number still is climbing. all in the name of a woman's right to choose..
We are told to judge not LEST we can be judged using that very same measure. If your swing the baby killer sword at God know it is double edged, especially if you are a pro choicer.
Most abortions are done before the fetus has a fully functional brain. Yahweh killed countless people because they weren't paying attention to him enough. Because when two people disobeyed him, he decided to curse the whole species. He's big on disproportionate retribution, punishing people who had nothing to do with what he was mad about, which was often just not worshiping him.
Personally I'd rather be a dad or pay child support, but I also know that before a certain time, you're not really killing a person. It literally has no functioning brain, which is what makes the individual.
There have been 1.2 billion abortions since 1980 http://www.numberofabortions.com
if by "most" you mean only one or two percent are considered late term you still will have supported the deaths of millions of Babies with fully functional brains. So tell me some more about your high horse, Mr... How do you pronounce that name again? Hypo..crisis hippo... Campus... No. Hypocrite! that's it Mr hypocrite! Tell me more about this high horse.
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