Don't tell me there's any proof for creationism.

Joe Nation wrote:

What quote of mine did I clip?

The first sentence of the following , you 'restated'. The second part you clipped so you could ignore my question about it.

Joe Nation wrote:

The belief that a supernatural being speaks to them.

That belief then underpins any action taken in order to be in compliance with the words of the supernatural being and greater respect is demanded for those actions even when those actions are clearly unethical.

I had asked:

real life wrote:

Upon what basis you claim ANYONE'S actions to be 'unethical' since you believe that moral decisions are individually determined, not universal or absolute?

You simply mean that their opinion differs from yours, right?

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real life wrote:

Setanta wrote:
.....this remark of yours is clear evidence either of your confusion about the meaning of straightforward remarks in English, or your willingness to willfully deceive.

Joe's remark was: One thing some of us have learned through experience is that any words following the phrase "God tells us .... ." will be false, because those first three words are a lie.

And my response to his claim that his 'experience' is somehow authoritative was:

Quote:
You cite your 'experience' as your authority.

Is anything that you personally (or you and those you handpick) have not experienced then ruled fictitious?

Why are your experiences valid, while the experiences of others who differ are not?

Setanta wrote:
So, whether or not Joe believes there is a god, this statement is simply that he does not believe that anyone knows what "god" tells us.

Implied also was Joe's atheism. So I challenged him on it. But, relax, I don't expect him to be able to defend it.

Unless an atheist can show they are omniscient, any claim stemming from a belief that God doesn't exist, is simply that -- a belief.

This is typical "real life" bullshit. If you get away with crap like this with your religionist friends, it simply implies that they are incredibly stupid.

In the first place, i quoted your remark about Joe's putative atheism, so i was pointing out that the statement he made is not a basis upon which one can even infer that he were atheist. So you're just making **** up again.

In the second place, there is no need for an atheist to defend skepticism about the horseshit claims of the bible thumpers. If one of them claims to know what "god" tells us, the burden of proof for that extraordinary claim is on the holy roller--no one is obliged to disprove fairly tales.

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real life wrote:

Joe Nation wrote:

What quote of mine did I clip?

The first sentence of the following , you 'restated'. The second part you clipped so you could ignore my question about it.

Joe Nation wrote:
The belief that a supernatural being speaks to them.

That belief then underpins any action taken in order to be in compliance with the words of the supernatural being and greater respect is demanded for those actions even when those actions are clearly unethical.

I had asked:

real life wrote:
Upon what basis you claim ANYONE'S actions to be 'unethical' since you believe that moral decisions are individually determined, not universal or absolute?

You simply mean that their opinion differs from yours, right?

Regards the clipping.... No, I didn't.

And ya'll ought to stop making stuff up about me.

I don't, repeat, don't believe that moral decisions are individually determined and I gave the Little Prince as an example of the only person I've ever heard of who might believe that.

The rest of us, living together on this green Earth, have determined what is moral and what is ethical, sometimes forming whole frameworks of law and behavior without connecting them to any supernatural or absolute source, but sometimes we have failed as humans and had to resort to clinging to a notion of a thing outside of our existence which delivers unto us (or at least to the folks calling themselves priests) a holy book.

The experience of mankind has been that the second group unfailingly tries to kill the first group and any other group who entertains the idea that they actually have the real voice of god in their ears.

But you say we cannot use our experience as authority.
Wow. Really?

No less a figure than Christ Himself said "By their fruits you shall know them." so I guess he thought we could use experience as a guide and authority. Right?

So when I say the most dangerous idea held by fundamentalists is the one where they claim to be in communication with God Himself, I am basing that claim on the experience, the fruits, which holding that idea has brought down onto humankind.

It hasn't been a pretty picture.

You asked for a dangerous idea.
I've given it to you twice.
You avert your eyes.

Shame on you.

BTW, one of the best things our brains do is recall experience. It's one of the tools we use in first discerning what is real and then making changes to react to that reality. It's part of the process of living called.....evolution.

Joe(no one's whispering in my ear.)Nation

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RL - Morals and ethics are not one and the same. Moral relativists can certainly make judgements on ethics.

T
K
O

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Joe Nation wrote:

real life wrote:
Joe Nation wrote:

What quote of mine did I clip?

The first sentence of the following , you 'restated'. The second part you clipped so you could ignore my question about it.

Joe Nation wrote:
The belief that a supernatural being speaks to them.

That belief then underpins any action taken in order to be in compliance with the words of the supernatural being and greater respect is demanded for those actions even when those actions are clearly unethical.

I had asked:

real life wrote:
Upon what basis you claim ANYONE'S actions to be 'unethical' since you believe that moral decisions are individually determined, not universal or absolute?

You simply mean that their opinion differs from yours, right?

Regards the clipping.... No, I didn't.

And ya'll ought to stop making stuff up about me.

I don't, repeat, don't believe that moral decisions are individually determined and I gave the Little Prince as an example of the only person I've ever heard of who might believe that.

The rest of us, living together on this green Earth, have determined what is moral and what is ethical, sometimes forming whole frameworks of law and behavior without connecting them to any supernatural or absolute source, but sometimes we have failed as humans and had to resort to clinging to a notion of a thing outside of our existence which delivers unto us (or at least to the folks calling themselves priests) a holy book.

The experience of mankind has been that the second group unfailingly tries to kill the first group and any other group who entertains the idea that they actually have the real voice of god in their ears.

But you say we cannot use our experience as authority.
Wow. Really?

No less a figure than Christ Himself said "By their fruits you shall know them." so I guess he thought we could use experience as a guide and authority. Right?

So when I say the most dangerous idea held by fundamentalists is the one where they claim to be in communication with God Himself, I am basing that claim on the experience, the fruits, which holding that idea has brought down onto humankind.

It hasn't been a pretty picture.

You asked for a dangerous idea.
I've given it to you twice.
You avert your eyes.

Shame on you.

BTW, one of the best things our brains do is recall experience. It's one of the tools we use in first discerning what is real and then making changes to react to that reality. It's part of the process of living called.....evolution.

Joe(no one's whispering in my ear.)Nation

So, is what is right and wrong simply determined by what the majority of people think at any given point in time?

By this, something could be 'wrong' today and then 'right' tomorrow and then 'wrong' again the day after that.

If you are NOT saying that right and wrong are determined by the majority, then just WHO is the privileged group ( I assume that you are included) that will instruct the rest of us shmoes as to what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' ?

--------------------------

Also, very clever how you attempt to change the context of my remark on the validity of 'experience' as authoritative by misapplying the words of Christ.

The quote has nothing to do with your point regarding determining what is and is not real.

Reading the NT, one cannot reasonably come away with the conclusion that Christ thought it impossible to communicate with God.

But that is the conclusion you are trying to support by misapplying His words.

More than just a bit silly, it's downright dishonest, Joe.

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Don't get confused, or more confused, RL, I was only pointing out that Christ said, unlike you, we could learn through our experience. I'm sure Jesus thought he was hearing from God too, so even he can be wrong about some things, but I think he's right about knowing by the fruits.

Quote:

So, is what is right and wrong simply determined by what the majority of people think at any given point in time?
By this, something could be 'wrong' today and then 'right' tomorrow and then 'wrong' again the day after that.

What planet are you on, RL? Surely not Earth.
It's not quite as fast as all that but, here in the democratic republic known as the United States, the majority view once held that slavery was Constitutional, that women, although citizens, could not vote in elections and further, were forbidden to seek out or use any form of birth control.
All three positions, by the way, were promoted and supported by people who believed fervently that they were hearing and doing the will of God.

Some god: one who commands less freedom through racism and the subjugation of a whole sex. Luckily, this is not a government of majority rule, unlike the high school you are in, so change can come over time.

As for the rest of your post, just so I don't get mistakenly accused of clipping anything:

Quote:

If you are NOT saying that right and wrong are determined by the majority, then just WHO is the privileged group ( I assume that you are included) that will instruct the rest of us shmoes as to what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' ?

There are privileged groups everywhere who determine what's right and wrong, what is legal and what is punishable by death. Not all hearing the voice of God, but a lot of them. You might ask the women of the Afghani-Pakistan Tribal Areas whose theirs are. Or the children in Darfur or Gaza or Jerusalem or Baghdad, ask if their fathers have been hearing any of god's voices lately. I bet they answer yes.

I bet they answer that their god and nobody else's created the heaven and the earth, which is what this thread is supposed to be about, and that that fact is unmistakably right because God told them so. And that they are perfectly happy to kill you if you disrespect this idea.

You have yet to say anything about how dangerous the idea that God speaks to people is. It's a form of mental illness, you know.

Joe(Europe burned for three hundred years while Christians of various sects put each other to the sword in the name of the God of Love.)Nation

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Joe Nation wrote:

Don't get confused, or more confused, RL, I was only pointing out that Christ said, unlike you, we could learn through our experience. I'm sure Jesus thought he was hearing from God too, so even he can be wrong about some things, but I think he's right about knowing by the fruits.

Quote:
So, is what is right and wrong simply determined by what the majority of people think at any given point in time?
By this, something could be 'wrong' today and then 'right' tomorrow and then 'wrong' again the day after that.

What planet are you on, RL? Surely not Earth.
It's not quite as fast as all that but, here in the democratic republic known as the United States, the majority view once held that slavery was Constitutional, that women, although citizens, could not vote in elections and further, were forbidden to seek out or use any form of birth control.
All three positions, by the way, were promoted and supported by people who believed fervently that they were hearing and doing the will of God.

Some god: one who commands less freedom through racism and the subjugation of a whole sex. Luckily, this is not a government of majority rule, unlike the high school you are in, so change can come over time.

As for the rest of your post, just so I don't get mistakenly accused of clipping anything:
Quote:
If you are NOT saying that right and wrong are determined by the majority, then just WHO is the privileged group ( I assume that you are included) that will instruct the rest of us shmoes as to what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' ?

There are privileged groups everywhere who determine what's right and wrong, what is legal and what is punishable by death. Not all hearing the voice of God, but a lot of them. You might ask the women of the Afghani-Pakistan Tribal Areas whose theirs are. Or the children in Darfur or Gaza or Jerusalem or Baghdad, ask if their fathers have been hearing any of god's voices lately. I bet they answer yes.

I bet they answer that their god and nobody else's created the heaven and the earth, which is what this thread is supposed to be about, and that that fact is unmistakably right because God told them so. And that they are perfectly happy to kill you if you disrespect this idea.

You have yet to say anything about how dangerous the idea that God speaks to people is. It's a form of mental illness, you know.

Joe(Europe burned for three hundred years while Christians of various sects put each other to the sword in the name of the God of Love.)Nation

Let's keep in mind that we're discussing what is right and wrong, not what is legal and illegal.

Don't try the ol' bait and switch. You're very good at it. Just not good enough.

Your slavery example is a fine one.

When slavery was legal and approved by majority opinion in the US, was it right....

.......or was it wrong?

If right and wrong are determined by majority opinion, slavery must've been right at the time, right?

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Tell you what, give an opinion on my answer to your question which I have now answered twice and I will answer your next question.
We'll do it that way.
You ask a question.
I answer it.
You comment.
Then I get to ask you a question about your answer which you answer.

Okay.

Quote:

You have yet to say anything about how dangerous the idea that God speaks to people is.

Go.

Joe(waiting)Nation

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You have given no evidence that such a belief is inherently dangerous.

Just your assertion that it is so, plus an abortive attempt to show that it can lead to 'unethical' conduct, (which claim you were unable to substantiate, due largely to your inability to provide a consistent definition of your usage of 'unethical'.)

In addition, you have given no evidence that such a thing cannot be true, just your assumption that it cannot be.

Are you omniscient, and so can verify that no one has ever communicated with God?

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real life wrote:

Your slavery example is a fine one.

When slavery was legal and approved by majority opinion in the US, was it right....

.......or was it wrong?

Approved by the moajority of white land owning males you mean.

It was not approved by the majority.

It was wrong.

T
K
O

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Do you really want to talk about slavery real life?

The bible has numerous passages talking about how slavery is just fine.

Is the bible really your moral compass if you think slavery is wrong now and has always been wrong?

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Quote:

What specific belief of 'Fundamentalism' do you consider 'dangerous'?

Hmmm. Do you see the word 'inherently' in that question? I don't.
And I didn't say that hearing voices was always dangerous either, if you have been hearing voices lately maybe you should check out the Hearing Voices Network (no kidding) it's an organization promoting the understanding of people who hear voices in their heads. Sometimes the voices are just voices, sometimes it's psychosis.

The dangerous voice hearers are the ones who believe they are hearing the Voice of God directing them to do something or affirming what they are already doing. That gives them, entitles them, to act or continue acting, without any restraint. So, for example, they can strap on a bomb and blow themselves (and 50 innocent people) up in a Haifa supermarket. They can kill physicians who they believe are acting unethically. They can revenge the death of one voice hearer, David Koresh, with a truck bomb in downtown Oklahoma City, but wait....that's right, you didn't ask for any examples for some reason. Pardon me.

I guess the problem is really God, real life, he just does not pay attention to whom he is speaking. One moment it's Rilke, the poet, or Joan d'Arc, the next it's Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atta. Hearers of the Word, all of them.

And, by the way, since you asked, were the slaveholders of the US South, especially in the 1850's when pressures were building from England and elsewhere to end the practice "right" to resist? You betcha they were because they were hearers of the Word too. How dare you imply that those sincere followers of the Christian Bible might have been wrong!! Shame on you to judge their faith! You're showing a little of that omniscience you keep asking me if I have.

You know who else was right? The witch torturers. Absolutely right about ferreting out the evil within those women even if they had to strip each one naked and prod their genitals with hot irons until they confessed their evil. Right on, holy brethren.

They were following the spoken word of God and if you condemn their actions as wrong you condemn them to the fires of hell. Do you condemn them to the fires of hell?

I've left out the book-burners, the kidnappers of Jewish babies, the drowners of homosexuals and the various other wild-eyed Word of God recipients.

If, as you say, people really do hear the Voice of God then I think it would be a really good thing for humanity at large if God would just keep his big mouth shut for a generation or two.

Joe(at least until I am dead.)Nation

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Well, I dreamed I saw the knights
In armor coming,
Saying something about a queen.
There were peasants singing and
Drummers drumming
And the archer split the tree.
There was a fanfare blowing
To the sun
That was floating on the breeze . . .

I was lying in a burned out basement
With the full moon in my eyes.
I was hoping for replacement
When the sun burst thru the sky.
There was a band playing in my head
And I felt like getting high.
I was thinking about what a
Friend had said
I was hoping it was a lie . . .

Well, I dreamed I saw the silver
Space ships flying
In the yellow haze of the sun,
There were children crying
And colors flying
All around the chosen ones.
All in a dream, all in a dream
The loading had begun.
They were flying Mother Nature's
Silver seed to a new home in the sun.

I heerd voices in my head once't . . . but ever' time one a them holy rollers come to the door with their line of bullshit, i blew a hole in 'em with the 12-gauge over and under, and then buried the trash in the back yard. After a couple, two-three months, the voices went away.

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Joe Nation wrote:

Quote:
What specific belief of 'Fundamentalism' do you consider 'dangerous'?

Hmmm. Do you see the word 'inherently' in that question? I don't. And I didn't say that hearing voices was always dangerous either........

I knew it wouldn't take long for you to seek to selectively apply your argument.

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real life wrote:

I knew it wouldn't take long for you to seek to selectively apply your argument.

Oh, the irony.

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real life wrote:

Joe Nation wrote:
Quote:
What specific belief of 'Fundamentalism' do you consider 'dangerous'?

Hmmm. Do you see the word 'inherently' in that question? I don't. And I didn't say that hearing voices was always dangerous either........

I knew it wouldn't take long for you to seek to selectively apply your argument.

Okay. Now answer my question.

Joe(that was the deal)Nation

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My town is so small that our "Welcome to Quarryville " sign is printed on both sides.

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Do you take turns being the village idiot?

RL, I didn't qualify your question. You tried to qualify my answer by adding the word "inherently" after the fact.

Now answer my question.

That was the deal.

Joe(we all live in Quarryville)Nation

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I think RL ran outa rope to hang himself.

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anton bonnier wrote:

I think RL ran outa rope to hang himself.

I have some rope he can use. Wink

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Don't tell me there's any proof for creationism.

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