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Mad Poster
#551 Old 16th Aug 2013 at 6:33 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
The thing is that it's difficult to discuss atheism without bringing up theism. Atheism is pretty much the opposite to theism, and touches upon whether you believe or not belive a deity, so without bringing up religion there is no real point in the discussion unless you stumble over some interesting bits.

I agree - there isn't much to debate about atheism alone or Christianity alone. Separately they're more off topic discussions. So if the topic of Christianity is in the Debate Room, you would have to expect to actually have to debate whoever wants to debate, be they another Christian or an atheist. And if someone can't do that in a non-insulting manner, that's a separate issue.

Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
As for using quote tags, it's a whole lot better than having to look for the tiny little line in a long text... If you are quoting somebody on something, that's why the quote tag is there, isn't it?


Well, it didn't say 'don't use them'; it just said use them 'sparingly'.
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Theorist
#552 Old 16th Aug 2013 at 7:47 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Shoosh Malooka
Are you done? What set you off, the arrogant grandiose attitude in my posts or was it the shot at the Pope?

I didn't get "Shoosh is being arrogant." I got "I so don't know what I'm talking about that I'm obviously not even knowing how silly and stupid some of the things coming out of my mouth sound." It's not offensive so much for content, but the very suggestion of expertise: It's as if you'd never seen a child before, nor knew anything about medical care, but given a consideration of a child with a rash you shamelessly rushed forward to suggest everyone boil the baby and dip it in bleach. And then, to compound the utter, devastatingly dense wrongness of what you were about, you then claimed something on the order of "And I know I know nothing about child care, but I've played with fire and modern sanitation is bullshit. Don't wash your hands, because germs are fake."

It's ignorance heaped upon ignorance that's offensive. And really, that's not a problem particularly specific to Christians in general (though they have more than their fair share oftentimes) but it's absolutely currently a specific issue with you.

Quote: Originally posted by Shoosh Malooka
The line by line excoriations that were directed at Christians? 4/100. It's the kind of post that Christians suspect is right under the hood of an "angry, hateful atheist."

Again again again, holy fuck: Did you even read it? Christians?
Christianity is alright. It's morons who go "I'm absolutely a Christian, even though I'm absolutely not intent on following anything that was presumably important in my holy text. But hey, it's not like I study that thing or anything - Did I mention that the stars are painted on the roof of Heaven?"

BTW: All of these words I'm putting into your mouth? They're payback for this sonuvabitch of an out of context stupid quotation fail:

Quote: Originally posted by Shoosh Malooka
Quote: Originally posted by Mistermook
things might get better if you'd just die

I hope you're not saying that I should end my life. But if I were going to kill myself I would have done it already before the world was created, because omniscience.

Which was really:
Quote: Originally posted by Mistermook, who knows how to quote from context
You've obviously not been in very many trailer parks. Trailer parks are where poor people live, and the poor are almost always well represented with religious views. Why shouldn't they be? If you strip away the nonsense about Professor Shoosh's fucked up failure of omniscience/omnipotence religion does present some people with a modicum of basic ethics that's probably not present in a lot of their home environments (because they're poor.) And then there's hope, because when it's absolutely apparent that your life on this planet is an utter failure and won't ever get better because rich people are complete asswipes thinking things might get better if you'd just die probably seems kinda nice.

And you turned a declaration of the desolate refuge of religion in trailer parks into something about you. Good job.

Seriously, I don't even care if you ever read the Bible from here on out... Because after that little gem I'm pretty sure we're never going to reach a point where I'm giving you an A for your Reading Comprehension. No wonder it sounds like you're just one of those people saying "The Bible is just what I say it means, and what it says absolutely explicitly except for the other stuff I'm dead set on stuffing into it..." Because it's looking like you could read a warning label on your oven cleaner and turn it into a suggestion that you make a pie out of the stuff.

Quote: Originally posted by Shoosh MyEarsAreStillStuffed
Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent - you keep yelling that at me like I'm deaf. You say it makes God at fault for everything, he can't get mad, and he made sin. But he is infinitely powerful. He created everything, and made Adam and Eve because he is the Creator.

Infinite power in the context of the universe means all power. It cannot merely be limitless or endless because that's not actually infinite (endless being definitionally opposed to infinite because it acknowledges an end), it must be everything, or else it's limited.

Personally, if I were going for a god I'd made in my backyard I'd go for something with a little less responsibility, but I'm speaking for the logic of Christianity as it's most often presented. And I'm "yelling" at you because I just explained this to Galen in a lengthy post which presumably drove him off to find some wise council webpage to devastate my logic with Bible quotes and earnest passages from that religion of his's prominent scholars or something. And then you started off with omniscience and totally fucked it up. Again, probably because of those problems with reading comprehension I mentioned.

And hey? If that's because you're not a native speaker? That's well and grand for you practicing to order your meal or ask for the bathroom and such, but if you're going to wade into things even handed and start pitching definitions and pronouncements? You need to do better. There's a reason I don't have deep conversations with people in ASL even though I've still got some fluency left even after years - because I'd suck at it.

Quote: Originally posted by Shoosh Malooka
It is highly possible that he created 'selective omniscience and blindness' for himself to prevent himself from going against himself

No. It's not. If he's definitionally omniscient and/or omnipotent then what you're saying is that he's so awesome that he can be and not be. Which of course sounds awesome because of Shakespeare and all that, but you're not talking about Danish people here - an unrestricted, everpresent, allpowerful deity with restrictions isn't just a cool philosophical question or a neat paradox in a Blue Box, it forces a terrible theological presentation upon you guys: Essentially it makes us atheists right. Because if he's "selective" and has done so then he's not god, he's Superman even he's Superman by choice. "I was all-powerful, but I never was all-powerful because I chose to not be." The sole function of your god's omnipotence in that logical array would be to demote him to the "guy who could have acted like a deity, but presumptuously removed it all, destroying the immovable object with the unstoppable force, which all had to happen at the moment such a being came into creation, which essentially establishes that there never was and never will be an omnipotent, omniscient god.

And seriously, you guys keep pushing this for this sort of logic?

Quote: Originally posted by Shoosh Malooka
If he were to go against himself then he would become the opposite of himself, which would be a Nega-God.

That's not how infinity works though, not philosophically, logically, or mathematically. "Nega-god" isn't an opposite of god. It's just another example of you making god masturbate, playing some sort of silly game with himself. A negative god is just more god, and what's the point of sticking his hand in the metaphorical sock any more than you've got him doing already with "Creation" and "free will?"

"Pay no attention to the god behind the curtain! I'm totally a different god than that other god!"

Why can't you just allow your god to be a responsible entity? What is so terrible and impossible to you guys that you can't just go "with the good comes the ill," so be it? You folks are the ones trying to establish this entity. You could have imagined your god as...Well, some nice Norse or Greek sort of god... Where being god was important shit, but if you wanted to knock up someone on earth you still had to come down and rape her as a swan and stuff. As presented though, this is what you get. No swans for you guys, or if there are swans then you have to accept that it's god raping itself for some reason.

Quote: Originally posted by Shoosh Malooka
That is what is going to happen after the final judgement when he decends to Earth with intent to consume the wicked who will burn in his presence.


Are you sure about that chief? Because there's nothing like that in Revelations. God never descends to earth in Revelations. Why should he, since presumably better scholars than you realized that there's nowhere to "descend" from when he's presumably everywhere. No, it's all angels in Revelations. Mountains and stars descend in Revelations, Jerusalem comes down with electric lights and a tabernacle I guess... and there's really nothing about what's supposed to come afterward. I mean, I know you guys are all "end of the Earth!" but that's really not what's described.

What's described is a bunch of punishments for some specific people (I see those folks still holding to the Doctrines of Balaam are worked up with egg on their face...finally!) and then finally when the flying city of Jerusalem comes down for its landing everything's pretty much settled and despite everything there's still nations and everything...which is pretty cool considering Revelations 16 with the angels doing the stuff you're attributing to your god (which, again, presumably he is if he's omnipotent, but he's also flogging himself since he made all of those people liars and made Balac to screw with the Jews and all that)

The one you're thinking of is the fourth angel, btw. If you're reread it though, he's got a terribly fucked up task - he's burning people with fire to get them to blaspheme. Essentially the fire angel is the one that's supposed to get people to say "goddammit," not the one that's actually there to kill people with some awesome D&D fireballs or something.

I like Revelations btw. It's not as cool as Ragnarok (nor does it have a deliciously awesome soundtrack from Wagner to go with) but it's absolutely the most Summer Blockbuster part of the Bible outside of some of the short stories.

Quote: Originally posted by Shoosh Malooka
God is not evil but this act of killing everyone is his unusual act as the Nega-God. Sin will be consumed, as well as the Nega-force and God will return to his benevolent state.

I didn't say he was evil. You guys keep saying he's evil.

I'm saying that you've posited an entity and described it in technical terms and you come out with something that's entirely at odds with what you present of those technical terms. Either your moralized presentation of god is correct or your technical appreciation is correct, but both cannot be correct, or at the least you must appreciate that your moral presentation is a limited view of a the omnipotent being you've described. Which would mean that most parts of Christianity were written inside your god's navel, gazing about and describing him as a hole, when there was a universe of description apart from what you professed as all-powerful. You either have to make him the swan, fitting neatly into your theology, or let him be everything as you present as your tautology.

One is entirely neutral. "God as the universe" is all things, good and bad. "God as some dude with a beard" is Zeus, and he gets to be just like Zeus: Some powerful person for a bunch of flawed, limited worshippers to paint their personalities on.

Religious people want their gods to be powerful, because it establishes authority for whatever thing you're saying everyone else should do so that they comply with whatever essential politics they're suggesting is involved in worship. Like say if you were "no homo, icky!" you'd be "And sayeth the lord, no dude shall humpeth another dude" and when you're anti-science you're all "But the Bible never changes," except for all the translations and radically different interpretations and foci that have passed by over the years. It's not about Jesus, or the Bible, it all becomes about you guys and whatever hang-ups you've all got collectively or separately.

But the god you describe when attempting to establish its authority? That sort of god has to be completely different. You want the swan rapist god, but what you're describing is some universal spirit that you're all quite blandly waving at his Divine Armpit and declaring that you know the entire Divine Body. And then ignoring most of the quite credible philosophical issues of your own holy texts in favor of tossing them out for continuous radical reinterpretations of that text.

The book of the Bible isn't so bad, but it's entirely ruined by its fanbase.

You can parse that as "Oh man, Mistermook wants me to kill myself and he's so fucking mean" all you like, but honestly I don't have anything personally against any of you guys here and the suggestion that I somehow do because you think I pissed in your favorite cereal is just jackassery. You said something that's logically wrong, then followed up with some more doubling down. Theologically I don't have a horse in your race except for the continuous incredulity at the credulous and wondering which shoe will drop at any given moment for the religious to suddenly decide for a heretical purge or something.

You guys are a majority in a lot of places, so you're all more than a little dangerous. I'd jump down your throat if we were talking regular politics and you suggested that "What was good enough for Julius Ceasar is good enough for anyone," or "The continual struggle against oppression means gingers must be aborted at birth." Because the first is fucking stupid and wrong on every level, and the second is offensive not only because of the thought itself but because it's an example of someone trying to shove something that's not there at all in any rational conversation about a subject (and certainly not in any important textbook on the subject) but simply an example of how when people get some cultural bullshit into their head they want everything to be about that bullshit. And that's almost certainly including anything about religion, because that's almost certainly the point of a lot of religions from a structural point and organizationally-wise: It's not really about religion per say, it's about having something vague and important sounding available to interpret as you see fit so you can shit on your fellow man.

BUT

Religion itself isn't actually like that. Religious people tend to be like that a lot of the time. Religion is Spider-Man. It's morality plays. It's Harry Potter and Ulysses and all that stuff. Mythology isn't merely important and interesting because it's cool and has special effects and magic, it's because it's a window into the creators of the mythology's mindset and they're all clever moral and ethical presentations too. Moses could be from Krypton for all that the specifics matter, but the plot line is pure. And anyone who reads the New Testament and "gets" that it's about caring for your fellow man, tending the poor, being fair in business, letting people worship and think as they feel fit? That's fine by me. But eventually most religious people get exclusionary instead: "Verily, anyone who believes in Jar Jar shall not enter the Gates of Alderaan." And eventually that morphs into "To protect the Jar Jar-ites from their heresy, that they might condemn themselves, let us put them to the stake and fire to cleanse their soul" or "Protect the sanctity of our Sacred Ways by keeping the Jar Jars from corrupting our world with their filthy unholy beliefs."

I don't really expect you to read that correctly anymore, but I hope someone else who's reading does. That people worship doesn't concern me, but it does concern me that people worship in ways that impact other people (like by thrusting science denial into the Bible, or deciding to interpret very small, vague bits of it as such utter pronouncements against homosexuality that they justify hundreds of years of religion supported political action and violence against people.) And on a personal level it offends me when people say something is that isn't, like trying to parse omnipotence into "not really omnipotence." Corrupting definitions, whether it's because someone's willfully wrong or educationally challenged, it always bad mojo.

And maybe, just maybe someone will read it all and go "Holy cow, I get it." That the point is slopping thinking is bullshit, whether it's for religion or not. If you're going to be religious for everyone's sake read your books for the kernel of plot instead trying to argue with people on the Truth As Authority or whatever flavor of that everyone else is going for: All religions are like good literature, there's important, good things for people to learn from exposing themselves to them. But you can't read Moby Dick for automobile care tips, and if you read Titus Andronicus as some sort of recipe for revenge all you're doing is establishing that you've entirely missed the point.

And the Bible? If you're reading the Bible to see what goatherders thought was important two thousand years ago, it's okay for that and it's pretty okay as a narrow, broken historical narrative for a broken, ill-documented time period and region? It's up there with tomb scrawls, but sanskrit tax records would be better. But as morality plays? Some of it's okay, as long as you don't read something like the New Testament and somehow get that the point of Jesus was to bomb an abortion clinic, shoot some doctors, fly planes into buildings, strap a bomb onto your chest, or kill some homosexuals. Because fuck that. You have to be an imbecile to read the New Testament and just come away with that. "Well, according to Moby Dick, I need to render my engine for fat, and that should fix the flat tire."

What I want is for people to be good people, and I can agree that most religions' initial readings are trying to aim for that goal (with varying degrees of achievement) even as much as I dismiss most religious organizations as political tools to pervert and control such things.

I've read your Bible. Go out and read some of my science textbooks. I've read your Bible. Branch out and read the holy texts of others, and expose yourself to the beliefs of others. Don't be dumb, either by accident or on purpose. Don't be evil, whether it's in the name of religion or otherwise.

And yeah, that includes getting your head out of your ass about science, Shoosh. You're not allowed to be anti-science when you're chatting people up on the Internet, using a computer... That's like yelling at the guy underneath you for being a homosexual as you mount him. It's not just bad, it's ridiculously, offensively hypocritical.
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retired moderator
#553 Old 16th Aug 2013 at 7:58 PM


Holy hell wtf happened in here?

This thread is why we can't have nice things. Locked for the time being. Possibly for quite a while longer.

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