When has religion irked you personally and why?

:wink:

Here's your answer:



So you're finally going to bring me the heroes of secularism?



That's not getting focused, man. That's getting off our discussion.



So... since you cannot come up with names either, you start questioning the "real motives" of my examples? Ahhhh... Taking the easy path... :wink:

Read again the couple of examples I brought (however known to Catholics they may be, they were unknown to you...). See again how freely did they lived their lives and deaths.



I've claimed muuuuch more. I claim that true secularists are incapable of giving their most valuable "good" (their lives) generously for others. Either as a final gift (dying for somebody else - St. Max Kolbe) or as a life-long commitment involving sacrifice and self-denial (Mother Teresa and her anonymous followers).

Isn't it telling that Secular Humanists cannot be humanitarian?

I disagree with your thesis, wholly, and think you are pigeonholing the argument by obsessive definitions. However, I will mull it over and let others speak first.

That's your right. Of course, it would be more interesting if you were able to go beyond a statement of disagreement and argue in favor of your position (whatever it is).



And I think you're avoiding searching and finding counterexamples that would prove my claims wrong.

What is an "obsessive definition"??????

:wink:

maliagar - stay over in yer catholic village.
thanks!

And you are...??? :wink:

Maliagar already conceded that there are thousands of unsung heroes. Humanists that do not have name recognition.

His attempt to play celebrity humanist is something that plays into the Catholic hands. Other denominations don't churn out celebrities (for good or bad reasons) like the Catholic church does.

Secularists worship their humanists even less and it's pointless to name names. We all know that there are unsung heroes. Finding sung ones is of no relevance to anything other than the criteria for celebrity in social groupings.

As to Maliagar ducking the arguments that he can't refute this goes all the way back to when he decleared homosexuality wrong and refused to answer my repeated questions about his naturalistic fallacy.

I haven't taken him seriously since. He's more John the Baptist than scholar.

I would take him no more seriously than a preacher in a park. His soapbox, however, has Brillo clearly labeled on it's side.

Another couple of questions come to mind for me here:

1. Would Mother Theresa (and others like her) have done the things they did, if they had different religious beliefs? Did their actions spring from who they are, or from a mission they charged themselves with (and is there a difference between the two)?

2. Are many of the charitable actions taken by the famous examples (M. Theresa and others sited above), made possible through support of the organizations they are affiliated with. After all, someone can't physically offer 100% of their attention to helping others unless someone else assists them (the catholic church is a wealthy organization). Given this, then is it possible that volunteers of charitable organizations, like the peace corps, and the red cross etc, are also self sacrificing, but within the level supported by the wealth of their organizations, and also the degree to which the organization spreads its assistance?

Is it better to have one or two super-saints per generation, or to have thousands of smaller contributors all doing their little personal part to help?

Regards,

Well maliagar - in my Christian faith I do not have a need for praying to a
Mother Teresa, or St. this or St. that, nor do I have to repent my sins and do a hail-mary to a priest that might be a pervert - cause he cannot have a normal sexual relationship with a woman, err or maybe he can but they only recruit the weakest?

My burden was layed down on the cross - once and for all, for past present and future.

I don't need anyone other than Jesus Christ on my behalf. And please I don't need any rubish on your twisting the Scripture for your Catholic - exclusionistic purposes.

Hey, Enlightened....

You were suspiciously silent... Waiting for someone else's wave to surf???

Think about "celebrity" if you are a do good organization you are going to want: to represent you?
a. Mother Teresa
b. Mike Tyson
c. Gore Vidal
d. Kurt Vonnegut Jr
e. Jane Fonda

So you jump and fall and dance and tithe to a zillionaire evangelist that might be a pervert???

slice and dice as you wish - just like you do with the Scripture - you are not well off - I might think you should seek a Priest for some R& R or mental health shaping.

If there's a wave, you're sinking under it, maliagar. Glug, glug, glug...

No, Craven...

In the past, when you made a good point, I did not deny it.

But now, you've made no point. You've just avoided providing support for your opinions.

You made a bold claim and then:

(1) tried to go backwards by saying that "Christian" criteria should not be applicable to non-Christians (it remains to be seen if committing your life to others is a uniquely Christian value), and

(2) avoided having to bring evidence in support of your claim by introducing an unverifiable ad hoc hypothesis: "Secular heroes are unobservable because they haven't been observed..."

I gave you a hint: Try the "independent" Nobel Institute (Nobel Peace Prize) and the perfectly secular media (BBC, CNN). To no avail.

You even said you knew "thousands" of cases. I would have taken your word for it, had you brought one of those cases for our consideration. You brought nothing.

You even persist in the false notion that we know of Mother Teresa and other Catholic heroes just because Catholics exhalt them (ignoring the secular media's interest in such people - and the interest showed by Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, etc.). I had even mentioned Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi (which were not Catholics), but you didn't get it.

We can argue and speculate all we want. The real test is to bring the evidence when appropriate. Some people fail that test miserably despite their speculative abilities.



By the number of lines you wrote inspired by my views, it certainly doesn't look like it. :wink:

In any case, if that's what you prefer, I won't take you seriously from now on.

I did say I would let others speak first, and this is the 'why religion irks you' thread, so, please continue.

How long did it take to build the wall of China?

When are you going to address the naturalist fallacy question then? You did indeed type words after I made a point but they addressed the point in only as loose of a definition so as to include the mere fact that they were precipitated by my post to qualify.



I made no bold claim. I stated things that are simple and avoided playing Celebrity Humanist with you.

I state that there are many eleemosynary persons of both religious and secular nature that are never recognized and even more that never attain celebrity. The humanists that reach the lofty Household Name status are even fewer and since charity isn't a sport where there are clear winners and losers I have argued that the criteria for acheiving the status of Celebrity Humanist is not necessarily indicative of one's moral piety.

There are thousands of non-religious NPOs that have thousands of secular and religious humanists who dedicate their lives to charitable aims.

There are many whole careers of such dedicated individuals.

Counselors, social workers, they all accept a pittance for the boon they are to a society and they are the secular equivalent for the moral support that religious clergy are to their ministry.

Just as the religious one uses the ministry as a means of support gaining from it the ability to dedicate one's self entirely to the mission the social worker who accepts a paltry salary that enables them to stay alive and help others.

There have been millions of humanists Maliagar, I make no bold statement. You do.

You are trying to assert a benchmark of comparitive morality along religious and secular lines and posit conclusions based on the most unscientific and anecdotal type of evidence that can be put forward in a debate.

The criteria of acheiving name brand status is a shoddy one to use if your assertion is one so vast as to the moral nature of the religious vs. the secular.

You have conceded that there are many unsug humanists yet still push for names. What convoluted logic is that? What does the name recognition of an individual have to do with it?

Your assertion is a bold one. And you are asking for a game of name dropping and wish us to take it seriously?





I went nowhere. You made an assertion that I refuted. Of course Christian criteria is non applicable for non-Christians.

If your criteria is how many times one prays every day then you can easily posit that Christians are more moral than the heathen.

If we are to acknowledge the social work by the religious (e.g. Mother T. helping the sick) then many humanists are in the running for your game. Religious Celebrity is just not a fair criteria for humanism. which is not a religious value.



Read up. I claimed to have observed them personally. You are playing fast and loose with my words and while you are indeed "typing after i am" you are not addressing what I say nearly as much as what you invent.

I said that secular humanists do not lend themselves to celebrity as much as religious (and specifically the icon obsessed Catholics) people do.

Therefore celebrity is not a fair measure of one's charitable contribution and an even more absurd criteria to establish the comparitive morality conclusions you ahve made here.



When will you finally read that I am not going to play name dropping Maliagar? You have already said that many nameless humanists exist in our society. What is the purpose of the celebrity game?



Maliagar, are you seriously trying to assert that there have not been two thousand secular people throughout history who dedicated their lives to charity? Yes, I know of thousands of people who have dedicated their lives to charity. many are personal aquaintances. Many are religious, many were once religious and many never were.

Because the fact that I don't play name game with you has nothing to do with what you are trying to assert.

Skip the whole name game. i am not going to name 2 thousand names in order to qualify a logomachy over "thousands".

Do you really mean to assert that there have not been at least 2,000 secular humanists?



I DO get it. Very much so. I get that you persist in trying to force everyone to use celebrity as a criteria for the comparitive morality of secularists versus the religious.

My comments about the religious use of symbolism and their propensity to follow leaders speaks of religious criteria for celebrity but in no way makes your desire to use celebrity as a criteria any less absurd.



Sure, use numbers. don't play celebrity. i am all for using evidence. I simply think that anecdotal celebrity evidence is a pitiful attempt at science.



I write about all kinds of stupid stuff. Again this would be a poor criteria to determine what I take seriously. You sure know how to pick 'em bud. I seem to take humor and frivolity very seriously based upon the volume of text that I generate on those subjects.



The best advice I could ever give you is to do precisely that.

Can we put some music to the name dropping? Say "Drop That Name" from "Bells Are Ringing?" The Catholic Hall of Fame, an opera in one act featuring a one-trick-pony that was beaten to death.

Okay, maliagar, here's the deal: for every catholic saint you can name, I'll show you ten priests found guilty of pedophilia. Those ten priests probably averaged ruining at the very least one child. Does that make up for the thousands that Mother T may have helped? You tell me. c.i.