Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

The issue may be tangential to you Mr S. but we have been discussing classrooms for years. If you say that's off topic you're saying the thread's off topic. And it's another argument.

The Dover case was about classrooms and so also were most of wande's gleanings from wherever he gleans from.

Nobody knows, knows I mean, anything about theism or deism. They are "unnatural concepts" and thus beyond our capacities.

We bring them to semblences of life in religious ceremonies. The more effective, usually meaning the most expensive, the ceremonies are the more these unnatural things are felt and the more religious those who feel them most are. And the State is an unnatural thing and we have ceremonies to bring that into a feeling system.

Hence ritual. Ritual serves to do this. But it doesn't work with everybody. But even the ones who it doesn't work with have to answer the question, before they start campaigning, "can we do without them?"

And if we do what replaces them.

And the growth of the security industry, which is a real irony in the lands of plenty, measures the weakening of the moral compass which it is the prime purpose of education maintain.

We could cut out pilfering with 20 strokes of the birch on first offence and serious **** on No2. Or 24hr surveillance.

And even if the system doesn't work with 2 out of 3, as c.i. claims, should we give up on the 1.

You have been getting away with answering that sort of question in relation to murder and stuff. To make it easy for yourselves.

And you're projecting with the "troll". You're the troll. You have bust in here taking us back to the beginning. You're a walking, talking, finger-jabbing ad hominem. You're AUTHORITY!

A Scheisskopf.

spendi wrote: And even if the system doesn't work with 2 out of 3, as c.i. claims, should we give up on the 1.

Can you be more specific as to what my claims are?

You said, c.i., that-



That 2 out of 3 isn't it?

Do you wish to make it 3 out of 3?

Kayyam wrote on the Dimensions thread-



That's the argument from consequences validated isn't it?

spendi, Number 1 has no merit; it can't prove any benefit for mankind. How does one measure "benefit" when crimes against all animals forms with or without the christian religion are constant?

How many children were molested or raped by priests, and their lives ruined forever, because the heads of the church did everything they could to hide their "sins?"

How many were killed by the Inquisition?

How about the religiously based wars in Ireland, Iraq, and elsewhere?

How many did they kill in the name of their religion?

I see no benefit to morality or anything else from religion or christianity.

Well c.i.

Once you have defined Christianity as immoral, as you have, it is understandable that you see no benefit to mankind.

But Christianity is our moral basis and when people do immoral acts in its name it only discredits them and not the morality. It does not provide a reason to cease to aim for it in the face of human weakness or what some would say are necessary evils.

The only thing I know for sure about the Inquisition, and it's the only thing you know too, is that a lot of words have been woven around it for various reasons.

I have explained that the problem in America with priests is one of recruitment and training.

What makes you think these wars are religious wars and not economic ones. Weren't the Trojan wars fought over a tart.

Religion is just a flag like the Stars and Stripes. A unifying idea.

Those kinds of things you mention are highly complex matters which cannot be dealt with with a few virtuous phrases.

Your statement that religion is a "unifying" idea is a silly one; look at Israel today. In the name of "unity," they have taken away all human rights to self-determination for the Palestinians, jobs, freedom of movement, and the loss of their property.

They see themselves as having no choice c.i.

That it's a necessary evil. They have been repeatedly threatened with being driven into the sea and from where they sit that is not to be taken lightly.

The alternative seems to be relocation, mostly to the US. I understood the state was set up in the first place to prevent that.

"It's a necessary evil" pretty much summarizes relgion to a "t."

Looks like you started replying before reading the whole thing. That's a bad policy, spendius. The issue is tangential both to the topic which is, after all, about Intelligent Design, and is also a loaded question, making it entirely tangential to legitimate discussion.



You're right, they were about classrooms, to the extent that it was about what was mandated to be said in them. Intelligent Design has to do with media campaigns and lies, so you won't mind if I start a line of questioning about Chinese communism, will you? It's certainly on-topic!



This is one of those sentences where you need context. Are you an agnostic theist?



So now it's about patriotism? You jump around a lot. I believe I pointed out that theism has no foundation for morality and as such your question was loaded. Apparently you have no defense of that.

Seeing as I don't agree with your unsupported assertions about theism and Christianity in specific leading to all your favorite things, it's hard to see how your'e going to argue for the loaded question now.



Campaigning?



What?



Ah, now we have the underlying assertion, finally. You think the primary purpose of public education is to maintain a society's "moral compass". That certainly isn't the case in the U.S., perhaps it's more so in Britain where you have religion/ethics classes far more often. Even then it still has a major component of producing educated citizens who will then be competent enough to vote somewhat intelligently and perform in jobs requiring those levels of education.

And your single piece of evidence isn't a great one: fear and cheaper technology also explain the security industry's expansion, neither of which are dependent on actual increases in crime. I'm fairly sure that people became more paranoid in the U.S. as crime rates fell in the near past, although I'm feeling a bit too lazy to trawl up some statistics.

Or perhaps you're thinking of the CCTV systems? Those introduce the even more relevant factors of government control and the eagerness of law enforcement groups to increase their ability to catch crime with less risk.



What does punishment for offenses have to do with theism implicitly having a legitimate foundation as a "moral compass"?



Given your response to c.i.'s question, I think I see how you're trying to tie this to theism: you think 20 lashes and more serious punishments require theism. I'm happy to inform you that such a thing is not true nor is it the only way to prevent such things.

Or are you actually pretending that society would fall apart and people would simply stop acting ethically without Christianity, such that corporal punishment is the only thing in the 'atheist's toolbox'? I guess I'll have to remind you that for both everything you've listed explicitly and implicitly, you've listed no or very little support.



I haven't been talking about murder at all.



I've already explained my use of ad hominem, you were tellingly silent after the explanation. (psst, it's not fallacious)

And you haven't denied my reasons for simplifying the descriptions (troll) of your actions, either. Instead I get yet another unoriginal "no, you!" from spendius, backed up by nothing.



Kannst du denn Deutsch?

Or better yet, why should we accept his conclusions if he doesn't have anything more than empty rhetoric?



Very few, but still too many. I think we've found that spendius will start getting into an argument about 'ends justifies the means', though, as he's already started trying to compare amounts of good/bad done. Hilarious concerning Christianity, I must say.



Surprisingly few compared to some other religious wars and atrocities. The Inquisition is known for its brutality, the severity of torture, and the religious and political goals tied up in maintaining the Catholic hegemony. If you want some nasty, terrible war supported by religious conflict, check out the Thirty Years' War. It was so violent and pervasive that it dragged most of the countries of Europe into it, as you probably know.

Oh look, another unsupported assertion that Christianity is "our" moral basis. That's your entire point after all, spendius, and it's the one being challenged. Invoking it to prove your point is begging the question.

There are also various ideals in Christianity (the sects vary) which are quite abhorrent. We've already gone over your irrational valuing of small balls of human cells, but finding biblical support for one's bigotry against homosexuals is also very easy.



Nice attempt at brushing aside the Inquisition. We both know it was atrocious.

As for priests, it's good to see that you're starting to actually have rationalizations for your ideas that depend on external facts. Then again, you didn't provide support for your rationalization and just ignored one of the most, if not the most disturbing part of the scandal, at least in the public's eye, which is that catholic authorities didn't just neglect to turn in the priests and kick them out, but in fact simply reshuffled them (covering it up).

Thanks, moral authorities!



"Religion" is an incredibly vague word. It can manifest both in an extremely divisive manner with clear 'in' and 'out' groups, with the 'in' group praised and the 'out' group hated to some extent. It can also manifest in a general acceptance and unity. So far as I can tell, most religions fall into the first category on some level. Heck, just look at how atheists are vilified in the U.S, one of the most 'out' of the outgroups in the nation. Not only are they not good Christians, they're not even theists! Burn the witch!



Neither can most of the topics you only pay "a few virtuous phrases" to.



A huge oversimplification of the issues in Israel and Palestine. Have you forgotten that the Zionists pushing for Israel had it "bestowed" to them and that broken treaties mirroring the American treatment of American Indians were made with the Palestinians, the best land taken at gunpoint? This is not merely an issue of self-defense on the side of the Israelis. Their country is less than 60 years old and was a terrible, religiously-motivated idea from the outset, rife with injustice imposed by the new Israelis on the Palestinians. This is something those with kneejerk defenses of Israel usually conveniently forget. This isn't to say they were the only parties acting violently, but the implicit innocence of them only defending themselves is fallacious.



Then I think we see the strength of religion shining right here, don't we? What better place to put a people with a history of persecution than in the middle of the Holy Land of at least three major religions. Oh, and don't just put them there while going through a decent political process for transitioning power and keeping the current residents happy, no. Send in the militants with assault rifles. For the promised land!

spendi, Give it up, old boy. It isn't christianity that provides the moral basis for humans. It's called "laws of the land" established by men for men to control crimes or through tyrannical force.

As much reading you seem to have accomplished, you seem unable to translate those "learnings" into real life lessons.

Actually, in a period of 350 years, the Inquisition in Spain killed about 3000 people. That pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of men and women (mostly women, and mostly old, lonely women) who were murdered for allegedly being witches by the Protestants at roughly the same time. By comparison, the French revolutionary government of the Committee for Public Safety murdered about 5000 people in less than three years. That's about five people a day--but the mullahs in Persia put them to shame; at one period in the Iranian revolution, they were executing from 50 to 150 people a day. The reasons for such slaughter can be secular or religious.

However, your remarks about the Thirty Years War show that you are a prey to popular myth posing as history. The initial casus belli was religious, but even then, it had more to do with the ambitions of the incredibly drunken King of Denmark, who was probably the richest man in Europe, if not the world, on the eve of the war. The opposing parties lined up along religious lines, but even then, it didn't imply unity. Lutherans despised and mistrusted the German Reformed churchman, which sentiments were cordially returned. Everyone mistrusted the Calvinists, and everyone absolutely hated the Anabaptists. (Incredible as it may seem, given the modern image of Baptists, they were accused of communal living and "free love," among other enormities.)

The little princelings of Germany had largely lined up with the religious sentiments of the people of their region, for obvious and pragmatic reasons. After the wars of the Reformation conducted by the lunatic Catholic fanatic, Charles V (King Carlos of Spain--the German electors never repeated the mistake of electing a Spaniard Holy Roman Emperor, no matter how large the bribes), Protestants had tended to flee to the north, and Catholics to the south, to avoid persecution.

Matthias, the HRE at the beginning of the war, was as mad as a hatter. He probably did want to fight for purely religious regions--and drunken King Christian of Denmark was more than happy to accomodate him. His successors, Ferdinand II and Ferdinand III, were more venal, more sane, but probably no less devout. None of that trio were particularly competent. Ferdinand II, after a decade of Catholic victories, attempted to reverse the settlement of the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, when Charles V (a devout catholic almost to madness, but a very competent ruler and military commander) had recognized the inevitable, and acquiesced to the Protestant Reformation. This assured that a war which had almost been won by the Catholic League would drag on for two more decades, even thought the Danes had been knocked out of the war.

The great Bohemian (read: Czech) commander, Wallenstein, was contracted to raise and command an army to sweep away all resistance in northern Germany. Ferdinand had run himself broke, and couldn't pry any more money out of the Pope, or out of Spain, which was busy with the Dutch rebellion and a war with France (France and Spain were at war off an on from about 1500 to the definitive defeat of Spain in 1643). So he hired Wallenstein, who stipulated that he (Wallenstein), would have the management of any funds given him, and the rights of plunder and ransom. Starting with about 30,000 men, his army eventually swelled to about 100,000 including wives and children and camp followers. Since he was paying the costs of his operation out the looting and kidnapping he practiced, he made Germany howl. This is the origin of the legend about how horrible the Thirty Years War was--Anhalt and Saxony suffered in particular, being identified with Protestant military resistance.

He didn't last long, at first. He was contracted in 1625, and by 1630, the advisers around Ferdinand had become alarmed, and convinced him to fire the best commander he had.

At this precise time, and possibly in response to Ferdinand's attempt to reverse the 1555 settlement, the young Swedish King Gustav Adolf (known to history as Gustavus Adolphus) showed up, and established a base in northern Germany. He was to inadvertently create a Swedish empire on the shore of the Baltic which would not long survive him--mad King Charles XII managed to squander it by 1710. First he met and defeated the regular imperial commander, the Count of Tilly, near Leipsic in 1631, and then he ranged across Saxony and northwestern Germany, and lead an expedition into southwest Germany. Ferdinand wised up, and had brought back Wallenstein, about the only man in Europe then capable of dealing with the Swedes. Gustav was considered by the Germans to be the great savior of German Protestants. He was dead within a year, in another battle near Leipsic, where he rode out of the fog with his Life Guard into a line of Imperial arquebusiers who promptly shot him down--he was just 36 years of age. He was succeeded by his six year old daughter, Christina, for whom a regency council acted.

But Gustav was no holy warrior. He had been pursuing a political solution all through the summer 1632, and it was the need for another decisive victory (which he posthumously achieved) which lead him to Lutzen and his death. He would have been satisfied to see the terms of the Peace of Augsburg re-established. He had no desire to impose Protestantism on the souther Germans or the Austrians. In fact, his greatest motive was probably the realpolitik of his Vasa dynasty. His brilliant grandfather, Gustav Vasa, who had founded the dynasty, had largely established it upon the adherence of the bonde, or commoners and peasants, for whom he guaranteed the right to practice the Lutheran religion. Gustav Adolph had fought long against his cousin Sigismund, who had accepted election to the throne of Poland, on the condition that he convert to Catholicism. The Swedes feared that Sigismund would attempt to take the Swedish throne and force the Catholic faith on the Swedes, which is how Gustav Adolf had come to the throne in the first place. He was acting on behalf of the German Protestants largely because he wanted to preserve the religious, economic and military status quo ante which had existed before the drunken Danish King got that wild hair up his rectum.

With Gustav dead, much of foreign policy and the conduct of the Swedish-German armies in Germany fell to his right hand man, Oxenstiern. He was immensely competent, and was as much a devotee of realpolitik as was his wily counterpart, the Cardinal de Richelieu.
Which brings us to the point that politics always trumps religion in any such context. The French Catholics were fighting the Spanish Catholics, and had long mistrusted the Austrian Catholics, because they feared encirclement. King Carlos of Spain had been elected the Holy Roman Emperor because his grandfather had been an Austrian Hapsburg. Francis I of France absolutely hated and obsessed over Charles, and that was a source of the ruinous Italian campaigns the French fought with the Spanish. One unintended consequence of that warfare was the survival of the German Protestants in the 16th century thanks to the embittered warfare of two Catholic monarchs.

Roughly the same thing happened in the 17th century. Richelieu, that master of European politics, was as much a prey to the traditional French paranoia toward encirclement by Spain and Austria, and he negotiated and paid subsidies to the Swedes to keep them in the war. By 1643, the fighting was largely over, and in that year, when Louis XIII died, and just two weeks after the King's death, the Prince de Condé defeated the Spanish at Rocroi, and paved the way for the successful negotiation of a settlement for all of western Europe. That was finally achieved with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, at which time the Dutch were also able to successfully conclude their 80+ year war of rebellion against the Spanish (i won't both to explain to you why the Dutch were rebelling against the Spanish).

Politics had definitely trumped religion when Catholic France allied itself with Protestant Sweden to defeat Catholic Austria. As for the alleged horrors of the Thirty Years War, modern historians and modern historical research shows that much of it was a horror of perception rather than of actuality. The main Imperial commander was the Count of Tilly (whom we would think of as a Belgian), and although he was affectionately know to his men as "Father Tilly," he was a stern disciplinarian, and no friend of the looter. There was certainly looting in the train of his army, but they had to keep it down to a dull roar, because if old Father Tilly caught looters, he had them hung out of hand. Most of the horror stories arise because of Wallenstein's original contract, in which he stipulated a right to loot and ransom. Although his largest army is accounted to have been 100,000, of those, no more than 50,000 would actually have been soldiers, and probably only about 40,000. The rest would have been wives and children (it was very common in those days for a family to accompany their mercenary father on the campaign) and camp followers.

The economic dislocation lead to wide-spread famine, but that would have happened whatever the cause of such a war. Modern historians largely have concluded that sweeping change in economic systems was already underway in 1618 when the war began, and that all the war likely did was to briefly intensify and accelerate the process.

More than anything else, however, the great grim reaper of most of the history of warfare was responsible--disease. Most military deaths, never mind civilian deaths, were the result of disease. And this was not unique to that war. As late as two centuries later, when the United States went to war with Mexico, of the more than 13,000 American deaths, over 9,000 were the result of disease, more than two thirds. Most of those Americans who died of disease on campaign in fact had never heard a shot fired in anger. Until quite recently in human history, disease and famine had been the causes of the horrors suffered both by soldiers and by non-combatants. Even today, the petty wars in "out of the way" places in the world do the most damage through starvation and sickness.

The Thirty Years War became a boogey man of European history, but it was not much different in it's effect than most other wars in history. It would be a mistake to attempt to lay at the feet of any religious sentiment the responsibility for the miseries of the German people. Ultimately, like all other wars, it was about politics, not religion.

Setanta: quite an informative post!

I think I may have misspoken, though. When I said that the Thirty Years' War was supported by religious conflict, I didn't mean exclusively nor as the major force, and on rereading it that looks exactly like what I was saying. It was a war which was furthered by religious conflict, and you note that yourself. I agree that politics usually trumps religion, but the two are entirely intertwined at many points as well.

As for myths about the Thirty Years' War, what do you think of the often-cited statistic of a 30% reduction in the population of what we now call Germany during that period?

Mr S. wrote-



The "heads of the Church" in America were also subject to the recruitment and training problems and obviously displayed weakness. Such things are no argument about the teachings of the Church. The Church doesn't do flavour of the month or opinion polls.



I refer you to Setanta's post on that. Severity of torture was routine for all manner of activities. Life itself was torture.

And fm used the ends justifies the means argument.

The odd thing is that I didn't. I merely said people did that. And still do.

I'm cutting the ping-pong.

Mr S wrote-


Not at all. Feel free.




I'm a well evolved microbe. Did you not know?




I have already conceded your correctness in all matters past, present and future. Do you not remember?




Yes.



Is that so?



Nothing.

spendius wrote:
And even if the system doesn't work with 2 out of 3, as c.i. claims, should we give up on the 1.



It never entered my head.




What is in the "toolbox" then? Ref-pilfering.!




It isn't intended to be to the man appealed to.

I believe that that is currently considered to be too high. Let me see what i can come up with.

It's obvious.




Not for me. They can do what they like as long as nobody else is involved as far as I'm concerned. I think it's mainly fear of women but I accept that some men are born a bit feminine and some women are born, and often brought, up a bit masculine.




In the same way Gitmo and Rendition are--yes.




They were not moral authorities. You just thought they were.

BTW Mr S-

Is English your first language?

Are you a victim of bigotry?