Here is a thread for you to attack atheism and atheists.

reply to post by adjensen


You wrote:

["No you haven't. The conditions that you set for Bob can be met by an omnipotent being in a fashion that does not require you to be able to testify that you saw him. All you have "proven" is that you do not believe that you saw him. That's evidence about you, not evidence about Bob."]

Here, as in other posts on this thread, you fall back on 'higher magic', when you move out of the areas of objectivity and logic (as they are formally defined and in context with the systematic methodologies they use).

The problem with 'higher magic' is, that ANYTHING can be 'proved' (or for that sake 'disproved'), ranging from Thor, Shiva, Zeus to the flying spaghetti monster, as soon as the above mentioned frames of reference are disregarded.

IMO one of the, if not THE, central question(s) here is the establishment of 'burden of proof', ESPECIALLY when positivistic absolutes are claimed. Science/logic have presented their 'burden of proof' methodologies, part of which includes a definition of the frame they work inside (i.e. without positivistic absolute claims). A challenge of that belongs to epistemology.

I know from your posts, that you normally aren't amongst the claimants of 'positivistic absolutes' (as seen from an objective/logic perspective), so it's an enigma to me, why you follow a line of reasoning leading directly to this. It looks, as if you're back in the gray zone between science/logic and subjective assumptions (without a 'grand unifying theory'), where you for some reason appear to both: a/ turn Golden Boy's 'objective' position into an absolute and b/ keeping your theistic absolutes a respectable option.

Quote: ["You cannot prove the nonexistence of a supernatural being. Period."]

Presently NOTHING can be 'proved' or disproved' ultimately. Which is why the wise person doesn't claim any positivistic absolute systematic methodologies OR any positivistic absolute answers. Things RELATE.

Contemporary science and logic are aware of that. Abrahamic religionists usually ignore it.

Originally posted by mysticnoon
reply to post by madnessinmysoul

 

We know that the mind is a product of the brain.

The mind needs the brain in order to function and interact consciously in this material reality.

There is a strong relationship between mind and brain, but there is currently no falsifiable theory that mind is a product of brain.

"Is there a ghost in the machine, or a machine in the ghost?"

Being a metaphysicist myself, this question is one of the few areas, where I disagree with Madness. But as experience has shown on a recent thread he authored, the metaphysical procedures (and consequently claims) appear very weak and confused.

So even if I don't acknowledge Madness' position as an 'ultimate answer', the mind-question is for the duration a subject, which would need much more observation, examination and experimentation, before it even can reach working-hypothesis level.

(Such a research not necessarily on exclusive conditions of science/logic. There are epistemological considerations to heed).

But to put the question in the hands of religionists is for me unthinkable. They usually turn this kind of speculation into extensions of their predetermined doctrinal 'answers', where the unavoidable fringe of fanatics (which every ideology contains), will get into fascist elitism and sometimes blood-frenzy, based as it is on the psychology of 'mindsets' rather than an honest will for knowledge (or gnosis, as it may be).

And as feeding, childcaring, housing etc. is at least as relevant as abstract questions on the unseen, separate and much more mundane approaches have to be constructed, apart from methaphysics/theology/religion. Thus introducing a very down-to-earth perspective in the more lofty debate on 'life, the universe and everything'. This mundane perspective actually having a say in the overall situation.

reply to post by eight bits


You wrote:

["As to your losing, you are losing because you wiggled onto the hook for an insupportable part of your buddy's empty boast. Since then, you just keep digging in deeper and deeper on a point you cannot win, which wasn't worth making in the first place."]

Strange how you guys often feel it necessary to point out, that you are 'winners' and/or your opponents 'losers'. (which ofcourse doesn't make it so). I suspect, that this is a result of the extremist christian mindset operating in hierarchial structures, where 'authority' counts heavily.

Could you, as a conterpoint to your claims, present your own systematic methodology, by which you validate christian doctrines. As it is now, you appear to believe, that scholastic is logic, and that rhetoric is sound 'general semantics'.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
Well, the U.S. Supreme Court was wrong on that. Also, how does American Constitutional law have any bearing on what is or is not truth?

in the USA they happen to be right. the church of atheism is a tax exempt religious institution, that must say something about american atheism.

A lack of belief is not belief.

it is still a belief, but more like a statement really.

It doesn't.

gay-pride and black-power groups do not deal with deities or lack of belief, this is why they are not religious institutions but atheism deals directly with deities and more specifically the God of christianity. This is why the courts have recognized it as a religious right and it is protected under freedom of speech in the USA, in contrast -- so is satanism.

So people can have private legal secular marriages. And not all atheists belong to this 'church'.

well that's not the only thing ministers can do, they get the same privileges as other churches, even legal access to prison inmates, ect. Have you read the faq at the first church of atheism website ?

Can atheism really have a church? A church is defined as an association of people who share a particular belief system. So yes, a church of atheism can really exist.

What do I have to do to start my own congregation? Once you become an ordained minister, you can begin preaching to a congregation immediately.

Will I be a minister in the eyes of the law? Yes, you will be a legally ordained minister. You will be able to perform every task that a clergy member can perform.

Are there any privileges of being a minister? Ministers command a level of respect from the general public. Some parking lots have reserved parking for clergy. You will have clergy level access to prisons and hospitals. You will also have the ability to form your own congregation.

so can someone explain the difference to me again ?

reply to post by eight bits


Please, demonstrate this straw man. You're claiming that what I am addressing and Vicky's argument are two different things. Just use some damn quotes to show it.

You keep asserting the same thing, but you didn't bother to back it up.

reply to post by SisyphusRide

Originally posted by SisyphusRide

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
Well, the U.S. Supreme Court was wrong on that. Also, how does American Constitutional law have any bearing on what is or is not truth?

in the USA they happen to be right.

Ah, ethnocentric arrogance combined with ignoranec! My favorite!

I'd have to point out that the Supreme Court only rules on issues of constitutionality, not on issues of fact. Please, take a basic civics class.

Atheism is a single lack of belief, it is a single statement: "I do not believe in any deity"

I'd also like to point out that everyone on the Supreme Court since its founding was a declared religious individual, either Christian or Jewish.

the church of atheism is a tax exempt religious institution, that must say something about american atheism.

That some atheists (and this "Church of Atheism" doesn't have any statistically significant membership numbers, so it really is just 'some') want to have a community organization that is tax-exempt.

A lack of belief is not belief.

it is still a belief, but more like a statement really.

How is it a belief? The opposite of a belief cannot be a belief. And yes, it is a statement, the statement being a lack of belief in any deity.

It doesn't.

gay-pride and black-power groups do not deal with deities or lack of belief, this is why they are not religious institutions

And neither is atheism. It's a non-prophet organization.

but atheism deals directly with deities and more specifically the God of christianity.

Hey, look! It's more ignorance. Atheism doesn't deal with deities, it deals with not believing in any deity at all. The Christian deity known as "Yahweh", "Jesus", "Elohim", "God", etc is on par with Ganesh and Apollo in the eyes of any atheist in terms of the proof for their existence.

That is, none.

This is why the courts have recognized it as a religious right and it is protected under freedom of speech in the USA,

It's protected as freedom of religion. Why? Because that freedom extends to the right of individuals to pick "None of the above".

Atheists are those who pick "None of the above", it's not the same as a religion.

in contrast -- so is satanism.

Satanism is opposition theism.

So people can have private legal secular marriages. And not all atheists belong to this 'church'.

well that's not the only thing ministers can do, they get the same privileges as other churches, even legal access to prison inmates, ect. Have you read the faq at the first church of atheism website ?

Did you bother posting a citation?

Can atheism really have a church? A church is defined as an association of people who share a particular belief system. So yes, a church of atheism can really exist.

Huh, these people must be mistaken. Atheism isn't a belief system. They're wrong. Atheism is a lack of belief in deities.

What do I have to do to start my own congregation? Once you become an ordained minister, you can begin preaching to a congregation immediately.

You know, this smells of parody rather than straight faced question answering...
If it isn't parody, they're wrong. There is nothing to preach in atheism.

Will I be a minister in the eyes of the law? Yes, you will be a legally ordained minister. You will be able to perform every task that a clergy member can perform.

Yes, this is to make sure that those with no religion have all the rights of those who have religion. Putting 'legally ordained minister' in bold doesn't mean anything. You do realize that the law has no bearing on reality, right?

Are there any privileges of being a minister? Ministers command a level of respect from the general public. Some parking lots have reserved parking for clergy. You will have clergy level access to prisons and hospitals. You will also have the ability to form your own congregation.

Those are legal rights, they don't pertain to atheism.

I'd also like to point out something: these people, if they're being serious, are mistaken individuals, possibly idiots, who don't speak for all atheists in the world.

so can someone explain the difference to me again ?

I did. You didn't listen.

Atheism is a lack of belief in any deity, it is not a reigion.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by SisyphusRide

 

Disgruntled? How is a frankly refined and well-spoken Oxford scholar disgruntled?

I will not go into his personal life at the moment, lets just say it has to do with a failed marriage and the schooling of his child.

Militant? How is he militant?

I have a general idea of what Steven Weinberg is hinting at here in this video, so I guess it is for the audience to decide ?

it is a great video by the way, notice how Dawkins keeps bringing up religion and not theistic belief systems all throughout the video, even when the subject is not being discussed. It is strange this dvd is available from Dawkins website too, but it makes perfect sense, especially the splice-in edit which I believe was at the end of part 4.

here you go if you missed it, Dawkins getting totally owned by someone worth their weight.

I recommend you watch all 8 parts, this guy even has Dawkins agreeing with him about evolution not being rock-solid !

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
Ah, ethnocentric arrogance combined with ignoranec! My favorite!

ha! what a sore loser. Is this your rational and professional opening? you almost sound as smug as Dawkins himself

decorum mr madness, decorum...

bogomil

Strange how you guys often feel it necessary to point out, that you are 'winners' and/or your opponents 'losers'.

What guys did you have in mind? The principals are Vicky (who, I'm guessing, is not a guy) and awake_and_aware. Madness entered the lists in support of his buddy, a_and_a. I entered because madness defamed another member while trying to help his buddy out of the jam.

Lose = keep digging a hole to nowhere deeper and deeper. Win = admit a mistake and move on. And while I observed that madness was pursuing a losing strategy, I never described anybody else as a "winner." We all lose when defamation replaces the decorum that is promoted as the distinctive quality of this site.

Could you, as a conterpoint to your claims, present your own systematic methodology, by which you validate christian doctrines. As it is now, you appear to believe, that scholastic is logic, and that rhetoric is sound 'general semantics'.

Show me where I have posted in furtherance of a Christian doctrine, and I will be happy to discuss with you the basis of any claim I have made.

madness

I have already answered you. For the third time, then:

Vicky didn't make a fallacious argumentum ad populum. You falsely said she did.

What she was posted was admissible rebuttal to the claim of obviousness. Obvious describes the speaker's expectation of widespread interpersonal agreement. No such widespread interpersonal agreement exists, and so the claim of obviousness is imperiled.

By discussing an argument which Vicky did not make, as if you were rebutting the argument she actually did make, you rebutted a straw man.

That is all. Any further inquiries on this point will be answered, if they are answered, by a link to this post.

reply to post by SisyphusRide


Dawkins is an acomplished evolutionary (micro) biologist. But he's humble enough to admit that Physics attempts to rationalise the fundamentals of reality whereas Dawkins studies are more an attempt to rationalise the complexity of reality, specifically....life. He is humble enough in that video to that he is just a "mere" biologist in comparison to the acomplished Physicist.

Dawkin's work and studies are brilliant, he's showed that the fundamental idea of evolution IS a fact, and provable with DNA. Evolution has flaws and some evidence is hard to explain, but the fundamental theory of evolution is TRUE - Just see madness's avatar.

Read one of his books.

Both scientists agree in that video that GOd can only be used as a metaphor as you cannot "define" God. You can only take the Pantheism stance. Nature is God. Obviously is more complex than what we currently understand. But Supernatural attributations seem to disppear as science discovers more truth.

reply to post by eight bits


First of all I must apologize, that I prematurely categorized you in narrow black/white terms. So you are ofcourse not expected to present a christian systematic methodology, as I asked earlier.

But then: To me it's obvious, why it isn't obvious to Vicky, what was obvious to Aware_and_awake.

As Madness pointed out, 'obvious' is a word with a broad meaning, and when you for some reason choose to center on this word as a central part of your argument, I feel you're carrying the subject to un-necessary general semantics extremes. The original problem could have been solved, if Awake_and_aware had been asked to clarify 'obvious'.

It's this kind of nitpicking sidetracks, which disturbs a tread no end. Maybe half of the readers are left behind, because they don't want to use the time on following up the implications and for people like me, who will use the time and eventually can understand this sidetrack, it appears to be a superfluous exercise of demonstrating philosophical knowledge for its own sake.

If Awake_and_aware gets a chance, he can with a few simple words clarify his initial intentions, making Madness' responses legitimate even to you, and I could have saved a few posts on the subject of practically nothing myself.

Switch.

Quote: [" And while I observed that madness was pursuing a losing strategy, I never described anybody else as a "winner." "]

Let your own words answer:

You wrote 18/2 05:49 AM to Madness

Quote: ["Since that was all Vicky claimed, and you offer no actual rebuttal, she's ahead on points just at the moment."]

You wrote 18/2 11:55 AM to Madness

Quote: ["That's why she's winning this round."]

All of this is ofcourse pettiness on my part, and shouldn't have caused much comment. Except that you elsewhere mention to Madness:

Quote: ["In that rhetoric course you took, did your instructor just give you lists of names, and not tell you what they were?"]

in my opinion making a snide-remark below the level you pretend to be on.

Switch.

To return to a more constructive direction I would like to end with another quote of yours, which is relevant both to the thread and to your own reference to Duhem.

Quote: [" The only operational test for obviousness is the readiness of test subjects to see the light when the supposed-to-be-obvious thing is explained to them."]

Following Duhem's line, systematic methodologies, epistemology or even just opinions on any given subject will eventually suffer from restrictions of various kinds (as e.g. science does from empirical requests). So the 'perspectives' used will be self-containing methodologies adapted to the subject under study/observation/experimentation; CENTERING on and useful for the subject, but very little outside that. Science has presently very small claims on transmundane ground. Theist methodology is mostly useless on 'objective'/logic ground.

It is 'obvious' to me, that these two methodological perspectives only are valid on homeground. Any claims made across bounderies are just claims, and this is examplified by the difference between theology/epinoia(='higher magic')-experiences and religion. While this distinction is quite a subject by itself, it's at least directly applicable as an example in this context: The perspective used must relate directly to the subject itself in a meaningful way. Again my beloved 'relative realities' (which is NOT relativism).

(A similar methodological dichotomy is observable between hard science/society, and between theology/society).

... and when you for some reason choose to center on this word as a central part of your argument, ...

The reason was that that was what a&a claimed, that was what Vicky disputed and rebutted, and that was what madness unfairly criticized Vicky for. So, all in all, the choice seemed fairly ... you should pardon the expression ... obvious.

The original problem could have been solved, if Awake_and_aware had been asked to clarify 'obvious'.

Why? Vicky gave an excellent reason to think that what he said was false. If seeing that, a&a or madness felt that Vicky had misunderstood, then they ... obviously ... know how to make posts around here. They didn't. Good thing, too, since obvious isn't such a hard vocabulary word. Vicky understood the word just fine, as did I. A&a chose the word with confidence that his meaning would be understood. What surprised him was that his snarky boast didn't pass unaswered.

It's this kind of nitpicking sidetracks, which disturbs a tread no end.

Then call a moderator.

reply to post by SisyphusRide


Soooo...screw common forum etiquette, watch an 8 part video?

I've seen the video before, Dawkins holds his weight. You do realize that Dawkins tends to not have much of a problem with the idea of general theism as a personal belief, right? He argues against religion for a specific reason: it hurts people.

Now, I just pointed out that you were engaging in an ignorant personal attack. Any personal issues or faults of Dawkins may have do nothing to the validity of his points. Arguments are to be judged on their own merits, not on the merits of those presenting them.

Of course, I like how you side-stepped the point about atheism being a religion or a 'belief' once you realized that you were wrong. Hell, you even threw in an 8-part video series to distract me. Good show, very ninja.

reply to post by SisyphusRide

Originally posted by SisyphusRide

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
Ah, ethnocentric arrogance combined with ignoranec! My favorite!

ha! what a sore loser.

So because I pointed out that you were being arrogant in an ethnocentric manner (US law has no bearing on the rest of the world) and ignorant (Constitutional rulings in the US Supreme Court do not constitute rulings on facts), I'm a sore loser?

Is this your rational and professional opening?

Rational? Yes. Professional? Come on, this is a forum on the internet, nobody is meant to be professional unless its in the debate forum or the 'research' forum.

you almost sound as smug as Dawkins himself

Argumentum ad hominem. Attack arguments, not people.

decorum mr madness, decorum...

Again, argumentum ad hominem. Please, address my arguments rather than a single line.

wow! we've turned this into quite a legthy discussion now haven't we. i had to wait to respond till i had the appropriate time this discussion deserved.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by stuncrazy

 

And I'd say...you don't. But they're both founded in reason, so you argue philosophy with reason.

agreed.

Not entirely. We know that the mind is a product of the brain.

true, but what is the purpose? evolution is a product of necessity. what was the necessity?

even more so how did the mind create it's own reality?

which came first the mind or the universe?

...that wasn't my point. I'm saying that a computer can play a movie, something we as humans are unable to do. Our mind is also unable to store the amount of information that a computer can store. We cannot run algorithmic functions at anywhere near the speed of a computer.

We also cannot process visual images perfectly. The majority of visual information at any given moment is actually ignored, hence why we can watch a video of people passing a basketball around and not notice the guy in a gorilla costume walking by.

Our brain is amazing, but computers have overtaken us in some key areas.

maybe the conscience mind, but mostly because we have been so dumbed down by society, and everything it clings to.

subconsciously though, there is no comparison. our minds know things without being taught. at birth our minds understand the laws of physics. we understand kinetics. the processing speed of our minds is unbelievable. decision making will never be mimicked by a computer, at least not literally. it may act like it is making a decision, a computer will always simply do what it's told to do.

...You can prove philosophy, it's the entire basis of the field of logic. You can prove certain assertions. Of course, you can't prove them all, but you can point out logical holes to disprove some assertions.

ok then use reason and sound reason to question the morality of the book. find it's teachings good or bad.


ok.

Slavery is wrong. Commanding a slave to remain subservient to a master is wrong. Commanding women to stay silent and not teach men is wrong. The concept of eternally punishing individuals for finite crimes is wrong.

yes forced slavery is wrong.

in response to your women comment i'll say this. What is the most important part of society from a philosophical standpoint? what is the most pivotal part of society? what is the greatest determinant of future behavior?

Philosophy is a man made word too. In fact, all words are man made. Or woman made, don't want to exclude the great women of history.

i meant it is a label used to cause the deception of difference.

philosophy

1. Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.

*snip*
source



I italicized the part you seem to be missing.

no i understand that part. i like to think i am a man of intellect.

You do realize that definition 9 (and wow, going down to 9 means it's one of the least used versions) is the metaphoric definition of 'spiritual' correct? It's the same way that an a-spiritualist would speak of the 'soul'. I don't believe in a soul, but I understand the use of the term as a metaphor.

what is your definition of a soul? what do you consider consciousness?

Except that we are physical beings in a physical world. We have evidence of the physical and no evidence of anything beyond the physical.

no we are beings of the conscience. if we didn't perceive the reality, then this discussion wouldn't matter. in fact nothing would matter. what is a universe if there is nothing to perceive it? does reality exist without the realization of it?

Where is the philosophy of the Bible? I've yet to see any systematic practice of reason in the scriptures. I've yet to see any intellectual practice in the Bible. I've read the thing a few times over and see no philosophy, merely religion.

firstly because you are trying to see the religion in it. once again Jesus battled religion (religion and the established order of things are the same. the only difference is religion states it can hurt you even after death.)

secondly it's every where

Psalm 1 1Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

Scripture: Luke 7:40-50

40 And Jesus answering said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." And he answered, "What is it, Teacher?" 41 "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?" 43 Simon answered, "The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more." And he said to him, "You have judged rightly." 44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little." 48 And he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." 49 Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, "Who is this, who even forgives sins?" 50 And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

Scripture: Luke 14:1, 7-14

1 One sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him. 7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he marked how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8 "When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, `Give place to this man,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, `Friend, go up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." 12 He said also to the man who had invited him, "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just."

The word you are looking for isn't 'know', it's 'believe'. Unless you have any evidence for it, you cannot know it.

And how would a perfect being write a text that has demonstrable flaw?

i have seen no flaw.

Well, 'on a drunken bender' would be the only explanation for how flawed, inconsistent, and frankly vindictive it sounds.

beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

Because 'infinity' is an abstract concept of our own imagining. We imagined an idea greater than our ability to comprehend, isn't that kinky?

although true, infinity is still a reality.

Direct me to the philosophy contained within the Bible.

Scripture: Matthew 9:14-17 (Mark 2:21 f.; Luke 5:36-39)

14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" 15 And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 And no one puts a piece of unsprung cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; if it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved."

if you need an explanation of these please ask.

So your deity, who claims to give us free will, is allowed to violate free will now? That's moronic.

oh the free will part. gotcha. you are completely ignoring the fact that there is the other side. you can't blame God for the devil's work.

God simply stopped whispering in his ear and allowed him to make a decision without the intervention of his spirit. which hardened his heart.

you know i truly believe it's like the good angel and the bad angel on your shoulder kind of thing. except there was no good angel on the pharaoh's shoulder.

So that excuses mass rape and genocide?

don't blame God for the folly of man.

Please, back up this claim with some sort of argument, because I'd like to see how you derived this conclusion from the Biblical texts.

You didn't seem to address this query, as the quote remained unaddressed...

romans 12

3For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. 4For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: 5So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

Except they are different in subtle and frankly unsubstantial ways. Any job that a man can do a woman can do either as good as or sometimes better than a man.

i said man is no greater than women but different and should play a different role.

man should care for and harvest the land

and women should care for and harvest man(kind)

Of course, the Bible preaches such hateful things as:

Matthew 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

Apparently only men can file for divorce.

God hates divorce.

14Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
15And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.
16For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.

marriage is a covenant between man and women

in your stated quote he is warning man not to force a women into commit adultery for that sin lies on the hand of the man.

as a christian, the sin of the world is your responsibility. you know better they don't. dying on the cross Jesus plead. forgive them father for they know not what they do.

Luke 2:23 (As it is written in the law of the LORD, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord

1 Corinthians 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
11:4 Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.
11:5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
11:6 For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.
11:7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
11:8 For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man.
11:9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.

...
14:34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.
14:35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

Paul really has some horrible things to say about women. Now, if women aren't supposed to teach...well...that's silly. I would go to quite lengthy extremes to have a lesson in science from Madame Curie or Jane Goodall.

it is quite a new phenomena, what is called the equality of women. everything was created for it's purpose. (we'll have the creation evolution discussion another time.)

it has always been culturally accepted that the man was the head. one can argue whether women doing the jobs that man should be doing is a good thing or a bad thing. it's all a matter of perspective.

i for one say the family is far more important than the mother father or any child. thus the best alternative for the whole should be the route taken.

so for the sake of family value i agree with these said statements.

again women is the glory of man. meaning a women is a gift to man. a much cherished gift. something that is worked for and earned. something that is honored and because she is honored she glorifies the man.

Um...how does the rib not make her of lesser value?
And we know the 'Adam' and 'Eve' didn't exist..

take it as a metaphor. it was taken from the middle not the upper portion and not the lower portion. (we're not debating the science of creation right now)

Le sigh...not this sexist crap again.

family centered thinking is not sexist.

So what about all of the contributions to society from working women? Should we just forsake them? Man, we'd have been set back decades if Marie Curie hadn't studied radiation (she was the greater scientist in her relationship).

you believe knowledge of this world brings happiness.

happiness should be the most seeked of all prizes. everlasting happiness not momentary pleasure. chasing after the world is a chasing after the wind. you'll never catch it.

the more questions you answer the more questions are asked. while it helps progression it leaves no depth. no depth of life. depth is internal, why search external things for internal matters?

what does this world have to give me? inside me everything that i need. (except substinance(s/p?))

As do men. Hell, in some species the males are the primary care givers of young.

i'm not saying men are incapable, but women are better suited. stop making it sound as though i down or the bible down women.

to me there is nothing greater than being a father and doing my job as a father. my calling as a father is far more important to me than my calling in this world. to love, provide, and guide my children is my #1 priority.

and it is my stance that the family is priority #1.

“Sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord, children, a reward… Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons… Happy is the man who has filled his quiver with them” (Psalm 127:3-5).

“Now if anyone does not provide for his own relatives, and especially for his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8).

if you can keep to this then do what you will to provide for the rest of the world.

mark 2:17

When Jesus heard [it], he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Citation needed.

family centered thinking

And what about scientific instincts? Achievement instincts? What about the women that actually want to do more with their life than act as reproductive services and care givers? Do women not have an equal right to create, to explore, to live?

you are taking the stance that the individual is more important then the whole. it's not. what is best for the greater good is best for the individual.

this is why to follow Christ is to take up your cross. self-sacrifice. you do what is best for your brother/sister not what is best for yourself.

why? because if everyone did it bam utopia

See above. And I can provide more, as those are just in reference to women.

not in my eyes.

I've thought all sorts of horrible things that I never acted upon. I've been wronged before and wished to do much harm on others. Instead of rejecting that I even had those thoughts I did the healthy thing and came to terms with the fact that I had unhealthy thoughts and that it is better to simply reason out that those actions are destructive rather than constructive.

Jesus claimed that to think of a sin is to have sinned, when it really isn't. Unless you're in an Orwellian dystopia.

do you believed you will be punished for this sin? it is simply the judgment of oneself. you determine you don't want to have those thoughts. make the choice not to have those thoughts.

self-restraint is not a bad thing.

So it's a utilitarian document? The greatest good for the greatest number? How is the greatest good defined here?

if all did the greatest good, there would be no greatest number for that number would encompass all.

Really? Please, show me where it says that.

we are all the body of Christ. i don't need to cite my reference that is too common of a theme in the new testament.

So your argument forms a complete circle. There's no end point and no conclusion, merely a circular statement. How about explaining how that is.

what that the individual makes up the whole?

Yes, it's a redundant statement. It is what it is.

Except that is not a logical conclusion based upon the words in the Bible. Please, show me a citation in the original Hebrew text of the Bible that allows you to make this translation.

ok from our understanding God is Everywhere at every time and he knows all. to be everywhere he would have to be everything.

God proclaims himself to be the light of the world.

everything is made of light Everything.

if God is light. He is everything. He is all that he is. everything is a part of the whole.

not only is he the collective he is so intricate he is the singularity as well.

every individual reality makes the whole reality. you cannot have one without the other.

1-4 are unnecessary and 10 or 9-10 depending on your tradition isn't actually a bad thing. Coveting is the basis for improving the self.

coveting is wanting. as in to win the most coveted prize. or the most wanted.

To preach rather than to discuss. To talk at rather than talk to.

i thought we were discussing.

No, Josephus mentions "Kristos", the anointed one. Jesus isn't the only person ever anointed. The other issue is that there was a Jesus who was anointed who was a chief priest.

And here's the crazy thing, Josephus isn't contemporaneous with the life of Jesus. If Jesus were a real character, then Josephus would have been born ~5 years after the death of this character.

yea most of the historians that mentioned what is to believed to be Christ. mention something along those lines.

source

And he told people to abandon their families after doing so...which meant a family was going to become destitute.

you also have to understand it was as in the days of noah. the corruption of man had reached horrible levels. the much needed task was the reestablishment of morals in society.

He spoke out against the establishment...to call the Jewish religion a 'church' is to use a term that hadn't been invented yet and is slightly misrepresentative. And yes, he had some seedy friends, which is one of the things I don't have a problem with. Jesus said some fine things, he just wasn't perfect (and nobody is).

what do you consider perfect?

the roman catholic church is the establishment as well. we fight against the principalities and powers.

Ah, the old 'My assumed religious beliefs are shown to be true because you're arguing against them' con. And yes, it's a con.

I don't hate the truth. I just think that Jesus and the New Testament as a whole espouse some demonstrably immoral teachings.

Now, if you want this to be a philosophical debate, how about you bother to demonstrate how the teachings of Jesus are moral?

this would take up a lot more room and time. i'm quite exhausted at this point as it is.

No clue. Got any numbers?

how much has poverty grown?

It shrank. There may be more poor people now, but that's only because there are more people. The percentage of the world that is poor is much smaller than it used to be. The global economy is uplifting people.

what about sickness?

Sickness? I'm sorry, but we're healthier than we've ever been. Sure, we have a couple of incredibly dangerous diseases that we didn't used to have like AIDS, but people in the developed world don't die of dysentery anymore. The flu isn't a near death sentence. Infant mortality is down. Polio is nearly eradicated, smallpox is eradicated.

We're healthier than we've ever been, all we have to do is spread this health to the developing world.

STD's?

Well, STDs aren't as big of a problem as they used to be due to better understanding of medicine.

i'll just let this whole section go.

This passage:

1Timothy 2:12
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

*note: this is said in Utopian ideology*
men are the head. if we are to disagree on our points of view let it be on this.

Because the deity in question guided them to being selfish. Choosing one small tribal group out of all of the world and telling them that they are the chosen people of the creator of the universe and that they can go and commit genocide against a whole slew of city-states is always going to backfire.

it back-fired because they made it back-fire. once again you have taken satan out of the discussion. they were his chosen ones. satan wanted to make sure they didn't do as he said.

underneath it all is a battle of good and evil. this ultimately is just a show and proof that God's law and perfect adherence to it is the only way to true happiness.

Then the opposite: infinite reward for finite good deeds.

it's not a reward. leading a life of self-sacrifice and self-restraint makes it possible for you to dwell in heaven. if you were the king of a utopian society would you allow someone in that was gonna mess it up for everyone else?

it takes only one bad seed to ruin the bunch.

Be mindful, but not punished.

who exactly is doing the punishment? it is for your own sake that you follow said rules. if i am wronged but i let it go it is not i who suffers but he who wronged me.

Of course, even if all of the moral lessons of the Bible were true, it wouldn't speak to the validity of the claim of whether or not a deity exists.

it would to me. because book that was written over a span of 2000 thousand years by over 60 writers work so fluently together.

So because I pointed out that you were being arrogant in an ethnocentric manner (US law has no bearing on the rest of the world) ...

The United States Supreme Court does, however, comprise members in good standing of the worldwide English speaking community. How they use English words provides bona fide attested instances of usage.

Attested instances are the only basis for discussing natural language word meaning. Human beings finding or not finding a proposition obvious is the only test of obviousness. Do you see a pattern in why your objections in this thread consistently miss their mark?

... you were being arrogant ...and ignorant

And, of course, when you are unable to persuade, there is always argumentum ad hominem, something which that course of yours taught you only too well. And, as you remind us without ceasing, in Latin, too. But you do much better in English:

Attack arguments, not people.

Good advice. You should consider taking it as well as giving it.

Note to community: See the difference between telling someone that he is in the process of losing an argument on a specific point because his arguments are ill-framed, inadmissible or contrary to the standards he demands from others, versus calling that person a loser.

-

reply to post by eight bits


Note to community: See the difference between telling someone that he is in the process of losing an argument on a specific point, because his arguments are scholastic instead of based on logic, and rhetoric instead of resting on sound general semantics, versus calling that person a loser.

This rephrasing of your words refers to my recent posts to you.

I must admit, that your approach on ATS often baffles me. You appear to be using quite a lot of deflectionary tactics. Maybe you just like to derail threads or you have a hidden agenda, because in spite of your showing-off 'philosophy' you don't seem to acchieve anything constructive.

And no, I'm NOT continuing further in your scholastic direction.

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
reply to post by SisyphusRide

 

Dawkins is an acomplished evolutionary (micro) biologist. But he's humble enough to admit that Physics attempts to rationalise the fundamentals of reality whereas Dawkins studies are more an attempt to rationalise the complexity of reality, specifically....life. He is humble enough in that video to that he is just a "mere" biologist in comparison to the acomplished Physicist.

well I think he should stay in his own field least he pursue a new degree.

Dawkin's work and studies are brilliant, he's showed that the fundamental idea of evolution IS a fact, and provable with DNA. Evolution has flaws and some evidence is hard to explain, but the fundamental theory of evolution is TRUE - Just see madness's avatar.

so is this a thread where we get to attack atheists or one where atheists get to defend their stance using their number 1 tool/weapon as I have heard it said... (evolution)

Read one of his books.

actually I live in a country where my freedom of expression can be exercised on the national lawn, I would rather burn one of his books to protest his gawd awful attitude and pompous nature, for that alone I am not even interested in what he has to say, not that I have not seen enough of his attitude in videos.

Both scientists agree in that video that GOd can only be used as a metaphor as you cannot "define" God. You can only take the Pantheism stance. Nature is God. Obviously is more complex than what we currently understand. But Supernatural attributations seem to disppear as science discovers more truth.

actually the "physicist" in that video stated that most physicist believe in the God of order, or Einstein's God. This God sounds very familiar to me and this God of order they speak of does not reside in the universe like pantheism's god(s) do, but that is a topic for another debate imo.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
Again, argumentum ad hominem. Please, address my arguments rather than a single line.

actually it is much more enjoyable watching you get upset and repeat the same ole lines when people do not address you or that which you demand they address.

maybe you like Dawkins need to learn better tone ?

reply to post by stuncrazy

Originally posted by stuncrazy

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
Not entirely. We know that the mind is a product of the brain.

true, but what is the purpose? evolution is a product of necessity. what was the necessity?

Evolution isn't a product of necessity, evolution is a product of population genetics. The conscious mind was a development due to the survivability of a sentient communal species. We further developed our own intellects through self-education.

even more so how did the mind create it's own reality?

...it didn't.

which came first the mind or the universe?

The universe.

Our brain is amazing, but computers have overtaken us in some key areas.

maybe the conscience mind, but mostly because we have been so dumbed down by society, and everything it clings to.

Unsupported assertion.

subconsciously though, there is no comparison. our minds know things without being taught.

No, it doesn't.

at birth our minds understand the laws of physics. we understand kinetics.

Yet we don't manage object permanence for quite a while? I'm sorry, but our minds don't understand the laws of physics at birth. We wouldn't have needed Newton and Einstein if they did.

the processing speed of our minds is unbelievable.

What is the processing speed of a human mind? Care to share how you determined that?

decision making will never be mimicked by a computer, at least not literally. it may act like it is making a decision, a computer will always simply do what it's told to do.

If you have an algorithmic rather than a heuristically programmed machine.

Slavery is wrong. Commanding a slave to remain subservient to a master is wrong. Commanding women to stay silent and not teach men is wrong. The concept of eternally punishing individuals for finite crimes is wrong.

yes forced slavery is wrong.

Then why does the Bible teach that it is moral and outline the practice for it?

in response to your women comment i'll say this. What is the most important part of society from a philosophical standpoint?

That's an arguable point. I'd argue that a society's collective opinion on the betterment of the self through effort would be pivotal.

what is the most pivotal part of society? what is the greatest determinant of future behavior?

No one thing. If you're going to say the mother, then why the hell does the Bible treat women like feces?

Philosophy is a man made word too. In fact, all words are man made. Or woman made, don't want to exclude the great women of history.

i meant it is a label used to cause the deception of difference.

There is a difference. Unless you can show that there isn't a difference...

philosophy

1. Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.

*snip*
source

I italicized the part you seem to be missing.

no i understand that part. i like to think i am a man of intellect.

Alright, and by 'intellectual means' it means reasoning.

You do realize that definition 9 (and wow, going down to 9 means it's one of the least used versions) is the metaphoric definition of 'spiritual' correct? It's the same way that an a-spiritualist would speak of the 'soul'. I don't believe in a soul, but I understand the use of the term as a metaphor.

what is your definition of a soul? what do you consider consciousness?

Soul? Soul is a metaphorical term used by societies that didn't have any understanding of anatomy. Consciousness? Well, I don't subscribe to the idea of a unified consciousness. There is no permanent item in the body that can be referred to as 'soul' or 'consciousness'. Our mind is constantly changing, each new experience, even a simply keystroke, irreversibly alters the mind.

Except that we are physical beings in a physical world. We have evidence of the physical and no evidence of anything beyond the physical.

no we are beings of the conscience.

No, we're beings of flesh.

if we didn't perceive the reality, then this discussion wouldn't matter. in fact nothing would matter. what is a universe if there is nothing to perceive it? does reality exist without the realization of it?

Yes, it does. And how do we perceive reality? Physically. Physical reactions occur which send physical signals to a physical processing center in a physical body.

Where is the philosophy of the Bible? I've yet to see any systematic practice of reason in the scriptures. I've yet to see any intellectual practice in the Bible. I've read the thing a few times over and see no philosophy, merely religion.

firstly because you are trying to see the religion in it.

No, I'm trying to see it objectively.

once again Jesus battled religion (religion and the established order of things are the same. the only difference is religion states it can hurt you even after death.)

Jesus battled the religious institution of the time, not the concept of religion. He established a religion of his own. He established his own teachings. Hell, he didn't have any problem with the documents of the establishment, merely with the establishment's interpretation.

secondly it's every where

Psalm 1 1Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

I'm sorry, but this is a statement of religious opinion, not a philosophical statement. Where is the reasoning in it? It calls people 'blessed' for action, yet it doesn't explain why these actions bestow blessing. It doesn't rationally prove the ethics of the statements.

Scripture: Luke 7:40-50

40 And Jesus answering said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." And he answered, "What is it, Teacher?" 41 "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?" 43 Simon answered, "The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more." And he said to him, "You have judged rightly." 44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little." 48 And he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." 49 Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, "Who is this, who even forgives sins?" 50 And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

So a statement taken as fact without any rational basis is philosophical? I'm sorry, but this is a statement to be taken on authority, not a statement of reason. Please, show me the reason in Jesus words. Hell, the concept of 'sin' is an unreasonable enough concept...

Scripture: Luke 14:1, 7-14

1 One sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him. 7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he marked how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8 "When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, `Give place to this man,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, `Friend, go up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." 12 He said also to the man who had invited him, "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just."

So be humble (not much of a philosophical message) and invite poor people to your parties so you get an eternal reward? I'm sorry, but this isn't an ethical statement. He's saying not to invite rich people because they can repay you but then his incentive for the command to invite the poor is infinite repayment.

Jesus contradicts himself.

The word you are looking for isn't 'know', it's 'believe'. Unless you have any evidence for it, you cannot know it.

And how would a perfect being write a text that has demonstrable flaw?

i have seen no flaw.

You haven't looked very hard.

Well, 'on a drunken bender' would be the only explanation for how flawed, inconsistent, and frankly vindictive it sounds.

beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

Well, from a literary standpoint, none of the Bible is all that beautiful. It's poorly written, badly plotted, rambling, spends ages randomly going over lineages, has some random songs thrown in, etc.

Because 'infinity' is an abstract concept of our own imagining. We imagined an idea greater than our ability to comprehend, isn't that kinky?

although true, infinity is still a reality.

Citation needed. Can you demonstrate to me something in the physical world that is infinite? Infinity is a concept we abstracted from the idea of the biggest possible number. Infinity is unending in number.

Dire ct me to the philosophy contained within the Bible.

Scripture: Matthew 9:14-17 (Mark 2:21 f.; Luke 5:36-39)

14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" 15 And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 And no one puts a piece of unsprung cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; if it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved."

if you need an explanation of these please ask.

I don't see how this is philosophy. I'd like you to explain how this is a philosophical rather than a statement to be taken on the authority of Jesus.

So your deity, who claims to give us free will, is allowed to violate free will now? That's moronic.

oh the free will part. gotcha. you are completely ignoring the fact that there is the other side. you can't blame God for the devil's work.

I'm sorry, but Exodus clearly states that God hardened Pharaoh's heart.

Take note that God is speaking in the following quotes:

Exodus 4:21
And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

Exodus 7:3
And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

Exodus 14:4
And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I [am] the LORD. And they did so.

Exodus 14:17
And I, behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them: and I will get me honour upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen.

God simply stopped whispering in his ear and allowed him to make a decision without the intervention of his spirit. which hardened his heart.

Nope, God directly hardens the hearts in the above statements. There's no ambiguity. "I will harden his heart" doesn't mean "I'm going to stop 'whispering in his ear' so his heart will be hardened".

you know i truly believe it's like the good angel and the bad angel on your shoulder kind of thing. except there was no good angel on the pharaoh's shoulder.

Except that's not what the story says. Go ahead and rationalize it all you want, but the story says what it says.

So that excuses mass rape and genocide?

don't blame God for the folly of man.

I'm sorry, but the stories clearly show that these genocides and mass rapes were God-ordained. In fact, God doesn't seem to have too much of a problem with women being raped. Hell, Lot was considered a great man for allowing a crowd to gang-rape his daughters.

romans 12

3For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. 4For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: 5So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

Ok, but this is one passage...you don't derive the meaning of a quite lengthy book for a handful of words within it.

Except they are different in subtle and frankly unsubstantial ways. Any job that a man can do a woman can do either as good as or sometimes better than a man.

i said man is no greater than women but different and should play a different role.

Except men get to choose their roles and women are forced into a single role. Hell, men get the roles that allow for all sorts of freedoms whilst women get the role of servitude.

man should care for and harvest the land

Yeah, let's go back to an agrarian lifestyle, we'll only have to sacrifice a few billion people to starvation...

And where's the philosophical basis for this claim?

and women should care for and harvest man(kind)

Or we could just allow men and women to do whatever job they want.

Of course, the Bible preaches such hateful things as:

Matthew 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

Apparently only men can file for divorce.

God hates divorce.

Saving for the case of fornication. Jesus said that a man can put away his wife for the cause of fornication.

14Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
15And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.
16For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.

marriage is a covenant between man and women

Marriage, at the time of Jesus, was a social contract between a man and at least one woman (possibly more). Polygamy was allowed in the early Church except for in the case of Bishops (they were to be devoted to the church).

So Jesus is clearly contradicting himself if fornication is a divorce worthy offense (if the man initiates the divorce) but is not allowed in other instances.

in your stated quote he is warning man not to force a women into commit adultery for that sin lies on the hand of the man.

In my quote Jesus says no such thing. He says that you shouldn't get a divorce...unless a woman commits sexual infidelity.

as a christian, the sin of the world is your responsibility. you know better they don't. dying on the cross Jesus plead. forgive them father for they know not what they do.

And God didn't seem to know what he was doing either. God could have pointed his metaphoric finger at the world and done the exact same thing with magic that he did with the torture and death of a dude (who probably didn't exist as a historical figure).

Paul really has some horrible things to say about women. Now, if women aren't supposed to teach...well...that's silly. I would go to quite lengthy extremes to have a lesson in science from Madame Curie or Jane Goodall.

it is quite a new phenomena, what is called the equality of women.

Not really. Have you not heard of early matriarchal societies? There are historical societies in which women were either equal or superior to men.

And I like how you're excusing the insanely sexist comments.

everything was created for it's purpose. (we'll have the creation evolution discussion another time.)

Le sigh...I guess I'll just have to lay the smackdown on you later then.

it has always been culturally accepted that the man was the head.

Sure, if you're ignorant of culture. It's only in patriarchal societies that this is true. Please, study up on anthropology.

one can argue whether women doing the jobs that man should be doing is a good thing or a bad thing. it's all a matter of perspective.

No, it's a matter of fact. Marie Curie was one of the greatest scientists of her time (arguably the greatest experimental scientist), how the hell is it a bad thing that she actually practiced science rather than wasting her life stuck in a house as a reproduction factory?

i for one say the family is far more important than the mother father or any child. thus the best alternative for the whole should be the route taken.

so for the sake of family value i agree with these said statements.

For the sake of the family? The family is a social construct. Families come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. You're referring to the Anglo-American nuclear family.

again women is the glory of man. meaning a women is a gift to man. a much cherished gift. something that is worked for and earned. something that is honored and because she is honored she glorifies the man.

I'm sorry, but how the hell did you derive this insanely stupid objectification of women as something good? Women aren't objects, they aren't there to glorify men. They're people, they are deserving of equal respect and treatment and are glorifications unto themselves. Women are grand without men.

Um...how does the rib not make her of lesser value?
And we know the 'Adam' and 'Eve' didn't exist..

take it as a metaphor. it was taken from the middle not the upper portion and not the lower portion. (we're not debating the science of creation right now)

Well, why didn't God take an eyeball? A brain cell? Part of the heart? Why the rib?

Well, there's no science in creation, of course we're not going to debate something that's demonstrably nonexistent.

Le sigh...not this sexist crap again.

family centered thinking is not sexist.

You can have a family without the indentured servitude of women. And again, your thinking is centered around a narrowly defined recent concept of the nuclear family.

So what about all of the contributions to society from working women? Should we just forsake them? Man, we'd have been set back decades if Marie Curie hadn't studied radiation (she was the greater scientist in her relationship).

you believe knowledge of this world brings happiness.

No, I believe it brings tangible benefits. Marie Curie's studies are what helped us understand radiation, and her studies actually caused her to die from radiation poisoning. Hell, more people would have died of radiation sickness had she not furthered the understanding of radiation and we wouldn't be able to use radiation for medical therapy without her work.

Knowledge of the world allows us to live healthier lives in the world. From the time that Marie Curie died (1930s) to the modern day we have added 20 years to the human lifespan.

happiness should be the most seeked of all prizes.

Hedonism?

everlasting happiness not momentary pleasure.

I'm sorry, but everlasting happiness? I'm sorry, but you're postulating everlasting happiness without providing any evidence that it exists.

chasing after the world is a chasing after the wind. you'll never catch it.

Well, we've caught a hell of a lot. More knowledge of this world is contained in a first year college physics book than Isaac Newton had access to in his whole lifetime.

the more questions you answer the more questions are asked.

But they become smaller questions. In science we answer a big question and we might be left with three or four smaller questions, but those questions together aren't equivalent in magnitude. We gain more understanding.

while it helps progression it leaves no depth. no depth of life. depth is internal, why search external things for internal matters?

This is an incomplete statement. You just jumped to the idea of depth being internal without proving it and you simply stated outright that human progress leaves no depth. I'm sorry, but I disagree with you. Understanding that the atoms that our bodies are made of were synthesized in the hearts of long dead stars is something that adds great depth to my life.

what does this world have to give me? inside me everything that i need. (except substinance(s/p?))

Understanding. Think of Plato's allegory of the cave. Without the external world you're stuck in a cave watching shadow puppets.

As do men. Hell, in some species the males are the primary care givers of young.

i'm not saying men are incapable, but women are better suited.

Well, you're saying it, but you don't seem to have any evidence for it.

stop making it sound as though i down or the bible down women.

The Bible clearly does. I showed it to you in quotes. Or is the forced shaving of a woman's head when she refuses to cover it a good thing? Or is it a good thing to force women to be silent where men can talk?

to me there is nothing greater than being a father and doing my job as a father. my calling as a father is far more important to me than my calling in this world. to love, provide, and guide my children is my #1 priority.

and it is my stance that the family is priority #1.

Your stance is that the Anglo-American conception of the nuclear family most present in 1950's America is the #1 priority. A family can exist in a healthy manner without the indentured servitude of the mother.

“Sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord, children, a reward… Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons… Happy is the man who has filled his quiver with them” (Psalm 127:3-5).

Sons are heritage, children are a reward. Boy children are better. Hmm...

“Now if anyone does not provide for his own relatives, and especially for his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8).

if you can keep to this then do what you will to provide for the rest of the world.

Proof or at the very least philosophical reasoning needed.

mark 2:17

When Jesus heard [it], he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

I'm sorry, but don't bring up Jesus and physicians. Jesus has clearly stated that sin is a cause of illness, something we can see in today's world is not the case.

Citation needed.

family centered thinking

That's not a citation, it's an unfounded personal opinion that covers up the slavery of women with prettier language.

And what about scientific instincts? Achievement instincts? What about the women that actually want to do more with their life than act as reproductive services and care givers? Do women not have an equal right to create, to explore, to live?

you are taking the stance that the individual is more important then the whole. it's not. what is best for the greater good is best for the individual.

I'm saying what's best for the individual can be tempered to give what's best for the whole. What was best for Marie Curie was best for humanity. What was best for Jane Goodall was best for humanity.

You do realize that there are women right now who are actively bettering the world through means beyond being shackled to their household as a caregiver, right? They are bettering things for more than themselves, but for others. These women (arguably) bettered the world, they did great things for the whole.

These women are doing more for the world too.

As are these.

this is why to follow Christ is to take up your cross. self-sacrifice. you do what is best for your brother/sister not what is best for yourself.

why? because if everyone did it bam utopia

And you do realize that forcing women into an arbitrary gender role that doesn't allow them basic human freedom is a situation that creates a medieval world rather than a utopia, right? We've seen it across the board. More education and freedom from women, less of a forced societal tether to the family, better the society.

Where's your evidence that women being forced into what amounts to slavery is what is best for the world?

See above. And I can provide more, as those are just in reference to women.

not in my eyes.

Then you're blind. And a misogynist.

Jesus claimed that to think of a sin is to have sinned, when it really isn't. Unless you're in an Orwellian dystopia.

do you believed you will be punished for this sin?

Well, I'm an atheist...

it is simply the judgment of oneself. you determine you don't want to have those thoughts. make the choice not to have those thoughts.

Except that you can't. We're still living creatures with evolutionary instincts. We still have the instinct to mate, the instinct to fight, the instinct to cowardice. We cannot simply make a decision to no longer feel lust, as lust is something that has kept sexually reproductive life going for eons.

self-restraint is not a bad thing.

I never said that it was. I said the punishment of the individual for their thoughts is a bad thing. All humans will have sexual urges, sexual repression isn't the answer.

So it's a utilitarian document? The greatest good for the greatest number? How is the greatest good defined here?

if all did the greatest good, there would be no greatest number for that number would encompass all.

But the greatest good automatically requires greater sacrifice from one group. In your dystopian view of the world, women must sacrifice their freedom for the proposed (but unproven) betterment of society.

Really? Please, show me where it says that.

we are all the body of Christ. i don't need to cite my reference that is too common of a theme in the new testament.

Too bad, you're playing in adult world. You do have to cite your references.

[sarcasm]I mean, I don't have to cite where the New Testament says that anally raping newborn infants is the gateway to heaven, it's all too common a theme in the book. [/sarcasm]

If you can make claims about the New Testament without evidence, I'll start to make claims about the New Testament without evidence.

So your argument forms a complete circle. There's no end point and no conclusion, merely a circular statement. How about explaining how that is.

what that the individual makes up the whole?

No, your proof was that God is the collective whole...

"Yes he is an actual being but he is a being that is everything that he is God is the collective whole "

Your argument has no proof, it's a declaration. Please, prove your statements.

Yes, it's a redundant statement. It is what it is.

Except that is not a logical conclusion based upon the words in the Bible. Please, show me a citation in the original Hebrew text of the Bible that allows you to make this translation.

ok from our understanding God is Everywhere at every time and he knows all. to be everywhere he would have to be everything.

You cited the name "YHVH" from the Old Testament and used a translation, I'd like you to prove your definition of the term is correct.

God proclaims himself to be the light of the world.

everything is made of light Everything.

Incorrect. Light is made of photons, I'm not made of photons. Everything is not made of light.

if God is light. He is everything. He is all that he is. everything is a part of the whole.

Well, "if God is light" is an unsupported assertion and everything isn't light. So this is a false statement.

not only is he the collective he is so intricate he is the singularity as well.

...a singularity is the opposite of intricacy, it's simplicity.

every individual reality makes the whole reality. you cannot have one without the other.

So a string of unsupported statements makes your argument? You might want to think about taking some philosophy classes.

1-4 are unnecessary and 10 or 9-10 depending on your tradition isn't actually a bad thing. Coveting is the basis for improving the self.

coveting is wanting. as in to win the most coveted prize. or the most wanted.

Yes, and if I want my neighbor's wife (note, in the 10 commandments women are spoken of in the same breath as property and wanting your neighbor's husband is never mentioned), it's a product of natural sexual urges. Acting upon it is bad, wanting isn't.

To preach rather than to discuss. To talk at rather than talk to.

i thought we were discussing.

You seem to be trying to, but you seem to be failing at putting forth a cogent argument.

No, Josephus mentions "Kristos", the anointed one. Jesus isn't the only person ever anointed. The other issue is that there was a Jesus who was anointed who was a chief priest.

And here's the crazy thing, Josephus isn't contemporaneous with the life of Jesus. If Jesus were a real character, then Josephus would have been born ~5 years after the death of this character.

yea most of the historians that mentioned what is to believed to be Christ. mention something along those lines.

source

And none of them actually reference the same dude that's mentioned in the Bible. And none of them lived at the same time, Josephus being the earliest external mention of 'Kristos' and he was born 5 years after Jesus supposedly died. Please, how could someone making such a commotion not be mentioned by any of his contemporaries?

And he told people to abandon their families after doing so...which meant a family was going to become destitute.

you also have to understand it was as in the days of noah. the corruption of man had reached horrible levels. the much needed task was the reestablishment of morals in society.

What? It was in the time of Jesus.

...and Noah didn't exist.

He spoke out against the establishment...to call the Jewish religion a 'church' is to use a term that hadn't been invented yet and is slightly misrepresentative. And yes, he had some seedy friends, which is one of the things I don't have a problem with. Jesus said some fine things, he just wasn't perfect (and nobody is).

what do you consider perfect?

Without flaw.

the roman catholic church is the establishment as well. we fight against the principalities and powers.

It's an establishment. There are many establishments. Christianity is a nebulous establishment.

Ah, the old 'My assumed religious beliefs are shown to be true because you're arguing against them' con. And yes, it's a con.

I don't hate the truth. I just think that Jesus and the New Testament as a whole espouse some demonstrably immoral teachings.

Now, if you want this to be a philosophical debate, how about you bother to demonstrate how the teachings of Jesus are moral?

this would take up a lot more room and time. i'm quite exhausted at this point as it is.

Well, take your time with it. You don't have to do everything at once. I used to shy the hell away from the sort of response I'm giving now because it's incredibly time consuming and draining. I've gained stamina.

No clue. Got any numbers?

how much has poverty grown?

It shrank. There may be more poor people now, but that's only because there are more people. The percentage of the world that is poor is much smaller than it used to be. The global economy is uplifting people.

what about sickness?

Sickness? I'm sorry, but we're healthier than we've ever been. Sure, we have a couple of incredibly dangerous diseases that we didn't used to have like AIDS, but people in the developed world don't die of dysentery anymore. The flu isn't a near death sentence. Infant mortality is down. Polio is nearly eradicated, smallpox is eradicated.

We're healthier than we've ever been, all we have to do is spread this health to the developing world.

STD's?

Well, STDs aren't as big of a problem as they used to be due to better understanding of medicine.

i'll just let this whole section go.


Because you're wrong on these points.

This passage:

1Timothy 2:12
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

*note: this is said in Utopian ideology*
men are the head. if we are to disagree on our points of view let it be on this.


What's "Utopian" about the oppression of women? And men are not the head, men are people. Women are people. Your ideology is purely dystopian.

In fact, the logical conclusions of such a world are examined in Margaret Atwood's brilliant work "A Handmaid's Tale"

Because the deity in question guided them to being selfish. Choosing one small tribal group out of all of the world and telling them that they are the chosen people of the creator of the universe and that they can go and commit genocide against a whole slew of city-states is always going to backfire.

it back-fired because they made it back-fire.

It backfired because it's idiotic. An all-knowing being should have seen the idiocy in not simply revealing itself to the whole world rather than to a fraction of a percent of the worldwide population.

once again you have taken satan out of the discussion. they were his chosen ones. satan wanted to make sure they didn't do as he said.

Citation needed.

underneath it all is a battle of good and evil. this ultimately is just a show and proof that God's law and perfect adherence to it is the only way to true happiness.

Yes, adherence to the oppression, silencing and battery of women, adherence to unrestrained homophobia, adherence to slavery, adherence to genocide.

Great ideas.

I'm sorry, but 'the Jews messed up' isn't a proof of anything. You made such an insane and extraordinary claim that you're going to need an insane and extraordinary amount of evidence to back it up.

Then the opposite: infinite reward for finite good deeds.

it's not a reward. leading a life of self-sacrifice and self-restraint makes it possible for you to dwell in heaven.

...this is the textbook definition of reward. A reward is something positive given for an action or several actions. In this case, you self-sacrifice (unless you're a man) and restrain yourself and then you get the reward of heaven.

if you were the king of a utopian society would you allow someone in that was gonna mess it up for everyone else?

I'd make it so that people were punished according to their crimes and rewarded according to their deeds. Infinite reward and infinite punishment are both unjust.

it takes only one bad seed to ruin the bunch.

Then why doesn't your deity soften the hearts of bad seeds? He's got a thing for hardening hearts, never softening them.

Be mindful, but not punished.

who exactly is doing the punishment? it is for your own sake that you follow said rules. if i am wronged but i let it go it is not i who suffers but he who wronged me.

The rules themselves are immoral.

Of course, even if all of the moral lessons of the Bible were true, it wouldn't speak to the validity of the claim of whether or not a deity exists.

it would to me.

Um...well, that must mean you have no understanding of basic logical principles.

because book that was written over a span of 2000 thousand years by over 60 writers work so fluently together.

Citation needed on the span of time the book was written over and the number of authors. I'd also like you to prove that it works fluently, as I can actually ask you a single question that deals with the validity of that claim:

Did Judas die out of remorse or was he punished by a deity for his action?