[sigtau]

Well, the entire point of me trying to stay moderate throughout was to not force beliefs down people's throats, and since the only debate tactic I would have left right about now would be to do just that, I'll end my side of the debate (or whatever it may have been) here.

Good post, though, structured argument throughout.

Religion is subjective, flawed, and in many cases, corrupt.  I won't deny that.  My apologies for opening up about it.

(P.S.  I'm normally afraid to talk about these sort of things, especially on here, since the general consensus among Hard-Light members is to persecute Christians--assholes or not--about as bad as the WBC Christians would do so to nonbelievers.  At least, it seems to me that we're generally all hated because we're apparently all full of **** and we all want to convert the world.

I know that wasn't your argument.  I just want to avert that entirely.)

[General Battuta]

The best way to become a 'good atheist' with a commitment to improving rational thought, rather than an atheist defined by what is essentially a religion of antireligion, is to start recognizing and isolating the cognitive systems that produce belief. They are fundamental to the brain and shared across personality types, and they can't really be turned off, but they will help you understand why humans are basically giant self-confirmation engines.

I suggest R. Scott Bakker and Overcoming Bias as populist sources, but honestly immersion in psychology literature is the best way and I wouldn't completely trust either of those not to have their own angle. (Neither would they, I hope.)

The big takeaway is that nobody is immune. Everyone shares a set of blind spots and tendencies with very real consequences. For instance, as soon as you publicly endorse a belief, it becomes very hard for you to shake it - it's essentially now a tenet of your own idiosyncratic minireligion. The more opposition you hit (and the more it strikes at you directly rather than the belief), the more hardened your defense will be. You'll also seek out confirming evidence and agreeable sorts of people over the opposites, pushing yourself deeper into the hole. In this way the most ardently nondevout sorts still manage to treat various topics with the same behaviors we see in the religious. It even works on your perception of your own attractiveness, popularity, driving skill, so on.

The only way out of this kind of affective spiral is to constantly question your assertions and beliefs. You'll fail at it, but it's worth a try. The only things ultimately worth a damn in terms of thought are solid statistics and experimental data.

On that note this post may well be bull****.

[karajorma]

(P.S.  I'm normally afraid to talk about these sort of things, especially on here, since the general consensus among Hard-Light members is to persecute Christians--assholes or not--about as bad as the WBC Christians would do so to nonbelievers.  At least, it seems to me that we're generally all hated because we're apparently all full of **** and we all want to convert the world.

I WILL ban anyone I see doing that sort of ****.

You might have noticed that no one else has jumped on the bandwagon and pretty much all the atheists who have posted have pretty much come out in your defence.

As a sound-minded Christian, do you stay away from things like eating shell-fish(abomination, the same word the bible uses about homosexuality), or wearing clothes of mixed fabrics? If you don't, how can you claim to be sound-minded, or a "real" Christian in light of John 2:4?

2:4 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.

[Snail]

Ezekiel 25:17

[SypheDMar]

****ers like these make the sound-minded Christians (yes, sound-minded ones exist--I'm one of them--also, inb4 "all religious people are fail because I said so/they reject reality/they persecute everybody") want to cry.

I'm curious - What exactly makes other Christians "sound-minded" as opposed to the WBC? Both the wrong and the sound-minded ones are Christians, so they're both delusional, only one group takes their delusion more seriously, and focuses much more on staging protests in order to share their views, or otherwise fulfill their duties to God as they perceive him. Where is the line? It seems like whenever people talk about how the WBC are wrong or otherwise not in the right, it all boils down to "I don't like what they say". Some people do some minimal bible-searching and pull out stuff like John 3:16 to say how God doesn't hate the world, and the WBC will come right back at them by telling them to read John 3:18.

As a sound-minded Christian, do you stay away from things like eating shell-fish(abomination, the same word the bible uses about homosexuality), or wearing clothes of mixed fabrics? If you don't, how can you claim to be sound-minded, or a "real" Christian in light of John 2:4?

Oh look. A delusional not-sound-minded atheist. As for Westboro, I pretty much is as disgusted with them as those that think Muslim Americans aren't Americans.

[Beskargam]

uhhh that was rather harsh. the religion might be flawed yes but so are many things belief or non belief. i consider myself agnostic but i go to a catholic highschool and most of my friends are all catholic. yet they are all pretty good people. not very big on the insane or delusional bit. i dont believe but im willing to stand up for those that do. i would more than like to, just cant. I think the religious views are more a reflection of the individual rather than the belief system itself. as for fundamentalist? nobody in my grade takes the bible as the literal truth. nor do they act on every passage in it,centuriyet they are still good christains, and dare i say it, still good people. we are taught that the bible has been mistranslated and out of context and time. that its stories that in essence are true but in literal word are not.

btw proud to be a member of indiana who bans funeral protesters.

while i think the SC was right to uphold the first amendment, i dont approve of westborrow. honestly their actions are disgusting and appaling

[Mars]

Religion bugs me on principle because I think that it's usually brought about by a willingness to not think about what one believes. . . that said I do not think that all religion is the same.

The Westboro crew is a rare breed.

[BloodEagle]

Religion bugs me on principle because I think that it's usually brought about by a willingness to not think about what one believes. . .

I feel the same way about political organizations.

[Scotty]

Religion bugs me on principle because I think that it's usually brought about by a willingness to not think about what one believes. . .

I feel the same way about political organizations.

I feel the same way about sweeping generalizations.

[Mongoose]

I feel the same way about quote chains.

[Dark RevenantX]

You can't really define religion because it is open for interpretation.  I consider myself Christian but I doubt many of my peers would consider me a Christian if I explained my beliefs to them.

Personally, I consider religion to be a method of comprehension; a way to rationalize the unknown and to better view oneself.  The former is why I feel religion has to change as technology moves forward and culture shifts.  Of course, few view religion even partially as I do, which saddens me.


Most of the time, it's just abused as a locus of intolerance.  I wonder how the authors of the Holy Bible would feel if they saw what was going on today...

[Bobboau]

they would feel shocked and terrified to see people tapping on a tablet in front of a bizarre living tapestry of fire, riding around in great beasts of metal, and talking to people in little boxes that they hold up to their head.

[Nemesis6]

Maybe sound-minded Christians aren't retarded fundamentalists who believe the Bible is literal truth that should be taken as an itemized guide to day-to-day existence?

I think the difference between a sound-minded Christian and the WBC is pretty ****ing clear, the sound-minded Christian interprets their faith in a way that does not force itself on others or create imperatives to inflict harm and distress. If you don't believe faith is open to interpretation then you don't understand it; you actually take it as revealed truth from God rather than a human construct and therefore execute your own argument on the spot.

You know, the WBC don't see it as inflicting harm and distress, they see it as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, as the bible tells them to.

It's not like any of us atheists are any different. The fact that you haven't killed yourself indicates that you subscribe to a belief system every bit as delusional and baseless as Christianity - you believe that your existence in the world has some sort of value or meaning that will last beyond the extinction of your tiny organic consciousness. There is no point whatsoever in accumulating memories, having pleasant experiences or attempting to help others, because any possible meaning that can be derived from these behaviors will die with you. A rational actor, recognizing this, would either reduce its predictive threshold (if it maintained a fundamental, baseless belief that existence was preferable to nonexistence) or kill itself. We do the former; we live from day to day, seeking positive experiences, because we are unable to acknowledge the paralyzing truth of our own eventual annihilation. Ultimately we all need to fixate on something irrational to survive, even if it's something as basic as 'survival is good'.

No problem with any of this.

You're also reading the Bible directly, taking its wording at face value, rather than recognizing that this is an ancient document which has been translated numerous times. That's the behavior of a true believer, not a critical thinker; picking out inconsistencies in a work that is obviously rife with them is easy, but it doesn't speak to the actual flaws of Christianity, which have far more to do with the behavior of its leaders and followers than with tenets of the religion itself. I suspect you are a deeply religious man, without any of the cognitive values of a secular humanist; you define your faith as a negative, and lash out at those who don't share it, but you fundamentally think the same way they do. Like the Westboro Church, you try to force your values on others rather than recognizing that they're just a way to guide your own behavior. You proselytize and attack.

Well, I am, and I'm not. I realize that there are people who do and don't, but I see the ones who practice it as it's written to be more "real" than the ones who don't, because liberal interpretation of the bible usually ends up in nonsense: Like people saying that God doesn't hate anyone. I have seen more consistent doctrine from the literalists than from the Sunday Christians, so to speak. Also, what right do you have to dismiss literalism? Maybe that's the way God intended the bible to be read? We cannot possibly know. Now, if we ignore the obvious facts like the bible being more a collection of books by different authors, and follow the message and the general idea of the bible, the literalist position makes more sense given the contents. For example, these people really believed that sprinkling a doves blood on lepers would cure them, and yet we can skip around that and say well that this obviously has no greater meaning... but the word of God is supposed to be perfect, so this must have some meaning. Either it works, or it's an analogy, parable, or metaphore or whatever. Maybe they were just making stuff up to fill pages? In any case, we've skipped past something we don't like. If, say, a Muslim does this, the Qur'an says that they will burn in the lowest depths of hell. Is that a metaphore, too? Picking and choosing will make them feel bad inside? The waters of religion are so incredibly murky as far as actual message go, sure, but you make it seem like it's all a big nebulous cloud that can mean whatever. Now, don't try to align me with the WBC - I'm not by any stretch trying to proselytize. Playing devil's advocate more like. The reason I ask questions about Sigtau's behavior is because I wanted to see what his position would be in the face of a direct biblical condemnation of his own behavior. I am supposed to be the delusional one, calling out blatant hypocrisy? You can dismiss my arguments because you dismiss literalism, but I don't see how you can dismiss clear statements like the ones I brought to the table. That's why I chose those two references -- I can't see how people can weasel around them.

So yeah, they're obnoxious, evil, and cruel, but they're no less Christian than the other Christians. There's room for liberal interpretation, but in a lot of places, the bible is very clear on what it demands from its followers.

@Kara -- Sorry, that was supposed to have been 1 John 2:4 -- "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him."

[General Battuta]

Your entire argument is built on a fundamentalist position, that there is some worth to the literal truth of scripture. But the vast majority of the religious see their faith as a form of guidance to produce good, moral behavior. They trust in the benevolence and compassion of God - this is a fundamental of both Christianity and Islam. To act compassionately is a higher imperative than to obey some archaic scriptural dictum.

Religion isn't treated as a set of rules like a board game manual which need to be adhered to in order to play correctly; it's a behavioral philosophy that must be made compatible with everyday life. If you're honestly an atheist, then what matters to you is the outcomes produced by religion, and you need to judge the religious based on those outcomes. If, on the other hand, you're a member of another religion, you can pick at apparent contradictions or obsolete dicta for as long as you like, but you won't be making any actual headway in attacking the religion because those dicta are not part of the faith most believers hold.

So

I am supposed to be the delusional one, calling out blatant hypocrisy? You can dismiss my arguments because you dismiss literalism, but I don't see how you can dismiss clear statements like the ones I brought to the table. That's why I chose those two references -- I can't see how people can weasel around them.

I don't see any weaseling or hypocrisy necessary to disregard statements like these. People believe in a God of these religions who is compassionate and merciful, who rewards faith and good conduct. Many of them experience a personal relationship with God, one of trust and understanding. They do not believe in a lawyer God who demands strict adherence to every tenet of an ancient document. Faith is by its very nature about belief, setting aside the rational.

In the case of Christians, for example, all things are forgiven in Jesus. He represents, essentially, a patch on the Old Testament, offering salvation through a very simple path that bypasses the need for a complex behavioral code in favor of a few basic rituals and a number of admonishments to be a good Communist.

In the hierarchy of religious belief, a relationship with a compassionate, understanding God comes before a line-item knowledge of scripture for most believers. There is no way to go past that without introducing your own belief, which you've done: you value literalist religion higher because you see it as more consistent and you claim that I go against God's will by interpreting it differently.

Then you go on to say 'we cannot possibly know.'

If you don't see a contradiction there you're not looking. In the meantime, believers believe they can know, because in many cases they relate directly to God rather than through a scriptural intermediary.

You know, the WBC don't see it as inflicting harm and distress, they see it as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, as the bible tells them to.

This is irrelevant. We determine their moral station; they do not. It's tyranny of the majority.

So yeah, they're obnoxious, evil, and cruel, but they're no less Christian than the other Christians.

Christianity calls on its followers to be compassionate, to turn the other cheek in case of slight, and to refrain from casting stones until they are themselves without sin. I think any given Christian has plenty of reason to reject the WBC. To say otherwise is to either to demonstrate ignorance of the tenets of the religion or to embrace a fundamentalist view that most Christians do not share.

You persist in introducing illusionary objective standards to measure membership in a system defined by belief. You're not even attacking the right problem - if evangelical ultraconservative religion is your problem, you should be worrying about charismatic preachers, who rely on rhetorical appeal and selective quotation rather than any kind of comprehensive knowledge of scripture.

Religion is obviously rife with contradictions, because it is a mythology constructed by humans over many years. But for believers, who see their system as revealed truth from God, the clear imperative is to understand God's will as it applies to their lives - which, most of them believe, does not include slavish devotion to archaic tenets of scripture.

[karajorma]

@Kara -- Sorry, that was supposed to have been 1 John 2:4 -- "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him."

None of the stuff you mentioned is actually a commandment though.

[Nemesis6]

@Battuda - I guess you're right that I argue from the fundamentalist position. Religion, though, I feel has been dragged to the point it's at now, kicking and screaming all the way. In a sense, we've redefined it not by changing it, which we have done, too, though, but by changing the emphasis. Protestants for example focus on God as a guidance, and all the love stuff, whereas you'll see certain Catholics like Mother Theresa admitting that suffering gets you closer to Jesus, and encouraging it. We can pick out anything we want from it, and that's fine if you really want to believe in some God; better than actually reading what it says. I would argue that the evil in the Old and the New Testament -- far outweigh the positive, and I am very glad that people have decided to put a human face on religion, or at least try to synchronize them by focusing on the good parts as I mentioned.

But I understand that "Christianity" in its current form, is more positive than it was back then, but I see that as an achievement of humanity.

[General Battuta]

I don't necessarily disagree with you. And my personal thanks, this has been a more rewarding and level-headed discussion than I'd expected.

Mother Theresa was kind of a dick sometimes.