The Watchmaker: my fav argument

[R00tKiT]

Religion fight! Place your bets now!

I put $250 on John 

Bets on atheism are not recommended

[The Architect Of Fate]

Your right because it's not competing because it's not a religion and it's already won everything

[R00tKiT]

Your right because it's not competing because it's not a religion and it's already won everything

Worldviews that avoid competition should raise eyebrows

[arewethereyet]

. Sorry I don't fit neatly into your villinization of Christianity lol.

What vilinization ? Some elements of christianity really are vile. I am not trying to just spread anti christian polemics, but some texts in the Old Testament are simply undefendable, morally speaking. It's true that Islam didn't condemn slavery either, but at least Islamic sources don't have passages like this;

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ersion=NIV

How fun...the Christian and the Muslim are going to argue whose holy book contains the worst stuff.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Worldviews that avoid competition should raise eyebrows 

I said it wasn't competing as a religion because it isn't one. It doesn't compete as a worldview because it isn't one. Nor does it need to compete because its opponents defeat themselves.

[John 6IX Breezy]

What vilinization ? Some elements of christianity really are vile. I am not trying to just spread anti christian polemics, but some texts in the Old Testament are simply undefendable, morally speaking. It's true that Islam didn't condemn slavery either, but at least Islamic sources don't have passages like this;

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ersion=NIV

I see things differently and I'll use two basic models to illustrate: Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning and Baumrind's parenting styles.

1. Christianity is a conversation; a dialogue between God and man. It is not authoritarian or permissive, it is authoritative (these are parenting styles). Evidence for open communication is sprinkled throughout Scripture. You have Abraham interceding for Lot and God agreeing; Moses interceding for Israel and God doing as Moses asked; you have Jonah running away because he wanted Nineveh to be destroyed and God explaining to him why mercy is warranted. Clearly, I'm allowed to disagree with God, challenge him, wrestle with him as Jacob did. Moses even asked to be blotted out of heaven if God punished Israel. So I think I'm in good company if I ever disagree with the Bible.

2. As for what I think about certain aspects of the Old Testament: I see a lot of similarity between God's interactions with humanity, and Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning (these are developmental stages). Scripture progresses as if God is working with humanity, walking them through it. From pre-conventional moral reasoning in which reward and punishment are the primary justifications. Through post-conventional reasoning in which abstract things like justice and love are important. The shift is clear as you progress through the Bible, perhaps with the OT and NT marking the strongest shift. Clearly, I'm allowed to look back and feel that something is wrong or at the very least note how things have developed. Evidence for this comes from stories like John wanting to rain fire on people (like Elijah in the old testament), and Jesus rebuking him for it. I think there's more than statistical truth to Steven Pinker's "Better Angels of our Nature" in which he argues that violence is in decline.

[R00tKiT]

How fun...the Christian and the Muslim are going to argue whose holy book contains the worst stuff.

You seem to have forgotten that Pol Pot and Mao Zedong were atheists, and found good reasons for their crimes by their atheism.

So both christians and muslims stand in awe of atheism when it comes to the worst stuff.

Concrete consequences of atheism :

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I see things differently and I'll use two basic models to illustrate: Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning and Baumrind's parenting styles.

1. Christianity is a conversation; a dialogue between God and man. It is not authoritarian or permissive, it is authoritative (these are parenting styles). Evidence for open communication is sprinkled throughout Scripture. You have Abraham interceding for Lot and God agreeing; Moses interceding for Israel and God doing as Moses asked; you have Jonah running away because he wanted Nineveh to be destroyed and God explaining to him why mercy is warranted. Clearly, I'm allowed to disagree with God, challenge him, wrestle with him as Jacob did.

That's a good point. But the difference is, Abraham, Jacob and Lot are prophets, we aren't. So we can't really receive a message from God which directly addresses our disagreements with scripture.

2. As for what I think about certain aspects of the Old Testament: I see a lot of similarity between God's interactions with humanity, and Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning. These are developmental stages; as if God is working with humanity, walking them through them. From pre-conventional moral reasoning in which reward and punishment are the primary justifications. Through post-conventional reasoning in which abstract things like justice and love are important. The shift is clear as you progress through the Bible, perhaps with the OT and NT marking the strongest shift. Clearly, I'm allowed to look back and feel that something is wrong or at the very least note how things have developed. Evidence for comes from stories like James and John wanting to rain fire on people like Elijah and Jesus rebuked them for it.

Well, some would argue that divine scripture should contain unchanging moral sentences. If you concede that some parts of scripture belong to developmental stages, then you somehow already acknowledged that this scripture is not divine. I am no expert of christian theology, however. And I am going to stop here because these atheist fools are trying to take the moral higher ground, when they have none.

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More effects of atheism on humanity :

[arewethereyet]

Oh, Khlorophorm...don't take yourself so seriously. I doubt many people here do.

[The Grand Nudger]

Strange. I'm also an atheist, and for some reason, I've never wanted to go full on pol pot. In fact, I never hear anyone but theists imagining that it must.... somehow..... be so?

[The Architect Of Fate]

Funny how as a nonbeliever I don't hold Stalin, Pol Pot, or Mao as moral authority to be emulated or admired. It's almost as if their actions were a failing of themselves and their individual views rather than an issue with nonbelief. And just about every religious "relationship" is either toxic authoritarianism or absenteeism.