How could you not believe in religion?
Religion and science can coexist.
The word of the Bible is not supposed to be taken literally. The creation story was used to explain creation before science was invented.
What happened before the Big Bang?
You can have theories, but what happened before that? And before that? At some point the answer must be God.
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The word of the Bible is not supposed to be taken literally.
There are many Christians who would disagree with you on that point.
You can have theories, but what happened before that? And before that? At some point the answer must be God.
Then where did God come from? And before that and before that? Just because we don't know the answer doesn't mean that it must be god.
Then what do you think it was?
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What happened before the Big Bang?
You can have theories, but what happened before that? And before that? At some point the answer must be God.
Why? A lot of creationists claim that infinite regress is impossible, and then stop there. You need to explain why infinite regress is impossible, you can't simply assert it.
Additionally, in some sense, asking what happened "before" the big bang is a nonsensical question. The word "before" requires a temporal series of events, and time itself, as we understand things, began with the big bang. From that view, there isn't any "before" the big bang.
What happened before the Big Bang?
You can have theories, but what happened before that? And before that? At some point the answer must be God.
Why? A lot of creationists claim that infinite regress is impossible, and then stop there. You need to explain why infinite regress is impossible, you can't simply assert it.
Additionally, in some sense, asking what happened "before" the big bang is a nonsensical question. The word "before" requires a temporal series of events, and time itself, as we understand things, began with the big bang. From that view, there isn't any "before" the big bang.
Well then how is infinite regress possible? What started it?
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The word of the Bible is not supposed to be taken literally.
How do you know?
In the mean time I'll answer your argument.
Your argument is basically this:
NOTHING could have ALWAYS existed. However, this would create an infinite regress, which is impossible. Therefore, SOMETHING must have ALWAYS existed after all.
This isn't even a circular argument... It's more like a serpent eating its own tail. The argument destroys itself.
What happened before the Big Bang?
You can have theories, but what happened before that? And before that? At some point the answer must be God.
Why? A lot of creationists claim that infinite regress is impossible, and then stop there. You need to explain why infinite regress is impossible, you can't simply assert it.
Additionally, in some sense, asking what happened "before" the big bang is a nonsensical question. The word "before" requires a temporal series of events, and time itself, as we understand things, began with the big bang. From that view, there isn't any "before" the big bang.
Well then how is infinite regress possible? What started it?
If there is an infinite regress (and I'm not asserting that there is), then by definition nothing started it.
The word of the Bible is not supposed to be taken literally.
There are many Christians who would disagree with you on that point.
You can have theories, but what happened before that? And before that? At some point the answer must be God.
Then where did God come from? And before that and before that? Just because we don't know the answer doesn't mean that it must be god.
Then what do you think it was?
Just to chime on this point, but you don't need to know the answer to doubt a possible answer. In fact, not knowing the answer means you should doubt every possible answer, because you don't know. One cannot infer from a lack of knowledge on something, knowledge of that something.
What happened before the Big Bang?
You can have theories, but what happened before that? And before that? At some point the answer must be God.
Why? A lot of creationists claim that infinite regress is impossible, and then stop there. You need to explain why infinite regress is impossible, you can't simply assert it.
Additionally, in some sense, asking what happened "before" the big bang is a nonsensical question. The word "before" requires a temporal series of events, and time itself, as we understand things, began with the big bang. From that view, there isn't any "before" the big bang.
Well then how is infinite regress possible? What started it?
If there is an infinite regress (and I'm not asserting that there is), then by definition nothing started it.
Fair enough
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We are talking about two separate things. Agnosticism, as properly used (it isn't properly used in common vernacular) is a term used in Epistemology to describe acceptance of the fact that you don't know something. It isn't purely religious in nature. I can be agnostic toward things that have nothing to do with religion. Atheism is the statement that you don't believe in God, while theism is that you do. You can be an agnostic theist, which would basically mean I believe or have faith in God but I admit that I don't know. This is what some people mean to say, when they say they are religious but whom don't take the Bible literally. Church goers who are willing to admit what they don't know are to some extent agnostic theists. I would venture to guess that most atheists are agnostic atheists meaning that they admit they cannot prove there is no God, but there's no evidence that points to the existence of God (*no real scientific evidence at least) so they lean toward atheism. In this sense, I think most people on these sorts of forums agree that it cannot be proven either way, they merely differ in what way they lean. This is self-selection bias hard at work as I think anyone who would take the time to post in a forum such as this is someone who has thought about things and is willing to admit what they don't know. Gnostic theists, people who CLAIM to KNOW that there is a God probably wouldn't bother to post in a forum such as this. I also think some people are conflicted or confused about the labels applied to them. There are some church goers who would be offended to be called an agnostic theist but when pressed would admit they don't really KNOW but take it as a matter of faith. Their faith may be strong, but they are still agnostic theists.
Personally, I came from a very religious background then when I left home I went to many different religions. I have tried to go to at least one service of every major religion. I came to realize they are all equally unlikely so I stopped going to church. I would describe myself as an agnostic/deist/buddhist if you wrap your mind around all that. I am agnostic in the sense that I admit I cannot know the unprovable. I think if there is a Creator it is more like the Deist Creator believed in by the 18th century deists rather than a violently angry bearded man who will send me to hell if I don't worship him, which is the depiction of many mainstream Christian faiths. I am Buddhist in the sense that while I admit I don't think any religion is "true" in a literal metaphysical sense, if a religion does good things for you or others then it's worth following. For me that's Buddhism.
The only thing that makes Christianity unappealing to me is how screwed up some of the crap in the bible is. I actually believe in God AND Jesus, but I feel the good book makes some crazy acquisitions that turn most people off to it.
For me, it's just...life...that made me decide that Christianity wasn't for me.
I was born into an observant Baptist family. We weren't SOUTHERN Baptists, so we didn't think that civil rights were just about a bunch of uppity black folk not knowing their place, but we were pretty conservative. My folks were very stern, 'spare the rod, spoil the child' believers who never hesitated to exact their pound of flesh for whatever youthful indiscretion I might commit. I still have scars to this day - I'm approaching 40 - from those early days of regular beatings and Bible study. They were also the sort who never let me watch things like HE-MAN or even THUNDERCATS because of the 'occult influences!' that might corrupt me and make me turn to Satan.
To make matters worse, I knew from a very early age that I was gay...and I also knew that being gay was the worst thing a person could be. AIDS was just becoming a big deal when I was in Junior High, and I heard regularly from pastors and clergy (but never my family itself, thankfully) about how it was 'a punishment from God', or that being gay meant I just wasn't praying hard enough, or the right way. This constant barrage of 'sin!', 'punishment!', 'Eternal HELLFIRE!!!' and so on wore me down to the point where I had tried to end my life twice by the time I was 13, once with pills, once by hanging. I was TERRIFIED of being sent to a 're-education camp' - which were just starting to get widely publicized in terms of their 'theraputic practices'. I KNEW I was a disgusting abomination to God, that my 'urges' were going to lead me to hell anyway, so I may as well put a capper on things by way of suicide - since I was going to Hell in the first place - and remove the stress of having a '*******' for a son from my family. Obviously, that didn't work out, because here I am.
When I entered high school, I was sent to a private Christian school run by members of my family's church. While I didn't suffer from the stereotypical hazing and abuse that seem to be common among gay teenagers at the time, that was because I was smart enough to align myself with the prettiest girls at school - the ones the jocks all fought for...which meant that they also looked out for me, to impress the girls. So while my PERSONAL experience in high school wasn't terrible, I was becoming more and more aware that there was something DEEPLY wrong with the state of the faith. We were taught in science class that the world was 6000 years old, which was easily proven by studying the accumulation of dust on the moon. This 'theory' (I use the term generously) was disproven in the 70's, yet was being taught as FACT in the early 90's by Christians. We were ALSO told that we were being groomed for a war in which we, as Christians, would stealthily insert ourselves into positions of authority - school boards, medical facilities, military, and politics, particularly - so that we could ensure that America came to heel and served God OUR way.
Torture? LIES being taught as fact to impressionable minds? Infiltration and coercion? Conquest by deceit and conspiracy? Even as a teenager, that seemed to be...very counter to the teachings of the man whose teachings we supposedly followed. So I started doing some reading. I read the Bible...I read apologetics. And I read critics. What struck me most during that period of questioning was how often the CRITICS of Christianity understood the TENETS of Christianity FAR better than the people clumsily trying to defend the errors and contradictions with bad and/or lazy argument styles. I studied debate, and through that, discovered still MORE ways that Christian apologetics and fundamentalists muddied the water about EVERYTHING. Science, sexuality, evolution, abortion...EVERYTHING they stood against...they stood against because of BAD arguments and defended those arguments with lies and distortions.
I finally quit going to church at 16, preferring to spend more time with my aging grandparents and great aunts because I couldn't pretend to follow the teachings of a church I no longer believed in. Over the years, I've gone from indifferent about Christianity, to angry about it, to indifferent again. There's a lot to LIKE about the teachings of Christ as a philosopher, but I simply cannot believe in the more...mystical mumbo-jumbo that comes with it. And I cannot STAND the fundamentalist Christian who ignores reality in favor of a corruption of faith that he's blind to, because it gives him permission to hate the people he doesn't understand.
All of this is a long way of explaining that I became aware of the corruption in the faith a long time ago. What might once have been a faith of, by and for the downtrodden and neglected has become the faith that steps on the downtrodden and neglects the 'undesirable'. It's ceased to be a religion of love and hope and become a religion of hate and fear, stoking a civil war the likes of which we've seen before - in Iran, most specifically, where religious zealots turned a swinging, modern place like 60's-70's Baghdad into the repressed hellhole we're all more familiar with today. The religions may be different, but the goals are the same - everything will come under OUR rule, and everything that doesn't learn it's place in the new age is sinful and must be destroyed.
That said, there are MANY people of faith who do NOT fall for this deceit, and so, while I dislike Christianity as a whole because of what the fundamentalist extremists have turned it into, I do not hold anyone's faith against them outright. Then, I'd be no better than the people I can't stand.
"What makes Christianity unappealing or unacceptable to you?"
Varied reason, but I get to the most pressing ones first. I'm not just going to 'spat' on 'minor' things for the sake of such. Nor am I going to get into the problems of Christianity that other plenty of other religions, beliefs, philosophies also have (Example: Minor inconsistency form one book to the other, that happens all the time.). Nor scientific evidence that makes the Bible's history likely wrong (That a whole other talk right there.). May I do these things one day? Maybe, but right now, I got other things to worry about then making a group that's about two billion strong angry.
1)Blind Faith: The first major problem is expecting a two thousand year old set of books (which itself was cobbled together form a lot of older books and scrolls), Created by a mix of Roman Senators and what would become the Catholic Church, would actually have all the right answers (Or even have the goal in mind of helping the common man.). This in itself is pretty questionable that people give up everything and just believe in something that was made by a wanton and chaotic compromise between Old roman and at the time new Christian values.
2) Major Moral Hypocrisy: Before you go about calling me a hypocrite as well, I said I wasn't going to take Minor inconsistency, like when two books put someones birthday at two different dates. What I mean is by a Major Hypocrisy is something underlining (and breaking) the whole message of the book. One example of this is Christianity calling itself a religion of peace while, while at the same time having "just wars" (Basically, this war is righteous because our enemy doesn't hold are faith.) Another is saying all people are 'equal but separate', The slogan of many racist and or sexist laws; a subversion of Equal Rights Laws. And lets not get started on the Christian/Abrahamic god moral whiplashs.
3)Black and White outlook: Christians, no matter how 'good' they are, have this idea stuck in their head that 'Bad' men only do 'bad' thing, while 'Good' men can only do 'good' things. This is problematic due too all the times that really bad men do good things and really good men do bad things. I could list really, really, horrifying men doing good things for there people, but to not invoke godwin law and sound like I that I like them (I don't), I list times that good people do some really Horrifying things.
Andrew Jackson- 7th president of United states: Hero of the battle of New Orleans, Served the biggest piece of cheese till that time, and stopped the national debt, A georgian bada**, and created the trail of tears
António Egas Moniz-Neurologist and politician: Informally, a 'wunderkind'. Inventor of Cerebral angiography (basically, a X ray scan of a brain's blood vessels) and was given the Nobel Peace Prize for Co-creating Lobotomy
An fictional and form MTG lore would be Uzra, for the longest time he might have been MTG first hero, but many of things are at best questionable and if it weren't the Phyrexians, we would call him a Villain.
There's a reason why Fredrick Nietzsche said "Beyond good and evil" and it wasn't because he was some sad libertarian teenage. He said that because he notice 'Good' people do 'bad' things all the time and 'Bad' people do 'good' things. Some say things like 'necessary evil', 'Net good' or 'it for the greater good', but is it really? Also the fact that one person good is another bad, and vise versa.
That stated, I see an animalistic urge to be irrational in humans. And I mean ALL Humans, Me, you, our friends, families, enemies, ect. We call ourselves rational, but when you look at another humans choices, there almost anything but; we even have a hard time proving other exist as 'sleeves'. And before you go all solipsism and state 'I'm the real and rational self', there many already like this, and trust me, they aren't; and seeing how we as humans are made out of the mostly the same matter, it almost more unlikely than there being a god that you or me are either. What this means about meaning? I do not know and only you can answer that for yourself.
It seems however that joining the biggest mass of people, no matter how insane their beliefs, seems to be a trait in humans.
One example of this is Christianity calling itself a religion of peace while, while at the same time having "just wars" (Basically, this war is righteous because our enemy doesn't hold are faith.)
While just war doctrine is certainly a longstanding part of Christian thought, its source is Saint Augustine, not the Bible. Furthermore, before calling it "hypocrisy", maybe examine its underpinnings in greater depth. In modern legal practice we punish murder but excuse killing in self-defense. Is this hypocrisy? No, because once you get past the superficial appearance and look at the reasoning for it, the distinction makes sense.
3)Black and White outlook: Christians, no matter how 'good' they are, have this idea stuck in their head that 'Bad' men only do 'bad' thing, while 'Good' men can only do 'good' things.
This assertion is directly contrary to one of the central tenets of Christianity, that everyone has original sin and does bad things, and everyone is redeemed by Christ.
There's a reason why Fredrick Nietzsche said "Beyond good and evil" and it wasn't because he was some sad libertarian teenage. He said that because he notice 'Good' people do 'bad' things all the time and 'Bad' people do 'good' things. Some say things like 'necessary evil', 'Net good' or 'it for the greater good', but is it really? Also the fact that one person good is another bad, and vise versa.
Bluntly: have you read Beyond Good and Evil, or just read the title? Nietzsche rejects Christian morality, yes, but it's not because he thinks good and bad are relative or subjective or nonexistent. He has very definite ideas about what's good and bad. He just thinks Christianity has got them mostly backwards. If you go around preaching humility and service to others, Nietzsche will not be indifferent -- he will say you are a bad person. (This is more or less the "thus" of Thus Spake Zarathustra.)
@Blinking Spirit: I had a counter argument setted up, but then I saw that you're a mod, and if I argue with you and the staff, that an easily bannable offence for what I was about to say. Unless I get permission to say such things without getting banned or warnings, I'll not say such things. It would be arguing with an on duty-police officer who just happens to be a flat earther; Not worth it.
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I will however talk about Old Gunpowder head: Friedrich Nietzsche. While I haven't been able to read Beyond Good and Evil to it fullest, I have read The Birth of Tragedy, Ecce Homo, Human, All Too Human, and On the Genealogy of Morals, and read up on the people that influenced him (William Shakespeare, Wolfgang Von Goethe, Schopenhauer, Baruch Spinoza, ect.). I read his works of Free Will, Ethics, Christianity, Art, Determinism, Science, ect. He is not my hero, but he not a person to be ignore either.
He was many things, to the point that almost no-one can be sure of what he WAS, but on things he wasn't; he not a mere 'Reverse Moralist'. He stated Christianity was not merely backwards, but flat out wrong on most accounts. He was a anti-moralist because he doubted and criticized ALL morals. All 'morals' were in his work, are just subjective values we or others had place on behaviors and things depending how they affected either the individual(The 'master morality', the creator of morals) or the community(The "herd's morality", the reaction to the master morality). Just because he hated 'The herd's' Morality doesn't mean he didn't criticize the 'Master's' Morality that caused it; only seen it as less of a problem compare to slave morality at the time and needing revaluation just as badly. Both were self-serving, Bias to wants, and do not help when figuring out if something was really 'good' or 'bad'/'evil'.
He also denounce anything that can be called "Absolute Truths". Truths (including moral truths), at least before he went insane, were at best subjective. He even criticizes his earlier works (Like the The Birth of Tragedy and Thus Spake Zarathustra) because of idealism of 'truth'.
@Blinking Spirit: I had a counter argument setted up, but then I saw that you're a mod, and if I argue with you and the staff, that an easily bannable offence for what I was about to say. Unless I get permission to say such things without getting banned or warnings, I'll not say such things. It would be arguing with an on duty-police officer who just happens to be a flat earther; Not worth it.
Are you seriously refusing to debate someone participating in a thread in the debate forum just because they have "Moderator" under their name?
@Blinking Spirit: I had a counter argument setted up, but then I saw that you're a mod, and if I argue with you and the staff, that an easily bannable offence for what I was about to say. Unless I get permission to say such things without getting banned or warnings, I'll not say such things. It would be arguing with an on duty-police officer who just happens to be a flat earther; Not worth it.
Are you seriously refusing to debate someone participating in a thread in the debate forum just because they have "Moderator" under their name?
As a former Admin of this site, I want to reiterate this. You will not get any warnings and infractions just for disagreeing with a staff member whatever level they hold in the staff.
Instead we care about how you conduct yourself in the forum.
If you can debate in a calm and reasonable manner you will be fine even if you disagree, but if you behave like an arse you will get the appriopriate warnings and infractions even if you are on the same side of the argument as the mod.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
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I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
@Blinking Spirit: I had a counter argument setted up, but then I saw that you're a mod, and if I argue with you and the staff, that an easily bannable offence for what I was about to say. Unless I get permission to say such things without getting banned or warnings, I'll not say such things. It would be arguing with an on duty-police officer who just happens to be a flat earther; Not worth it.
Are you seriously refusing to debate someone participating in a thread in the debate forum just because they have "Moderator" under their name?
Kind of but not quite. I just re-joined a few days back; I'll rather not JUST get a warning right away for something that could be taken up as an offence. If I was here for a few months or years, knew the person, sure, I'll debate a mod. But I already went to forums (not this one, others) where arguing with the Mods is at best frowned upon, and could easily get you perma-banned. I barely know Spirit here, much less what he or the mods takes as offence. I could think myself making a clear and calm argument and get told off as "A jerk" due to not knowing something about the mod.
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They tend to reveal themselves as proselytizing and the bearing of testimony is one of the elements of radical Christianity.
Religion and science can coexist.
The word of the Bible is not supposed to be taken literally. The creation story was used to explain creation before science was invented.
What happened before the Big Bang?
You can have theories, but what happened before that? And before that? At some point the answer must be God.
There are many Christians who would disagree with you on that point.
Then where did God come from? And before that and before that? Just because we don't know the answer doesn't mean that it must be god.
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Then what do you think it was?
Additionally, in some sense, asking what happened "before" the big bang is a nonsensical question. The word "before" requires a temporal series of events, and time itself, as we understand things, began with the big bang. From that view, there isn't any "before" the big bang.
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Well then how is infinite regress possible? What started it?
In the mean time I'll answer your argument.
Your argument is basically this:
NOTHING could have ALWAYS existed. However, this would create an infinite regress, which is impossible. Therefore, SOMETHING must have ALWAYS existed after all.
This isn't even a circular argument... It's more like a serpent eating its own tail. The argument destroys itself.
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Thank you.
Personally I don't think it was God, but that's just my opinion.
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Just to chime on this point, but you don't need to know the answer to doubt a possible answer. In fact, not knowing the answer means you should doubt every possible answer, because you don't know. One cannot infer from a lack of knowledge on something, knowledge of that something.
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Fair enough
I would rather give credit to myself and my family for what I have. A faith is just not necessary for me.
Personally, I came from a very religious background then when I left home I went to many different religions. I have tried to go to at least one service of every major religion. I came to realize they are all equally unlikely so I stopped going to church. I would describe myself as an agnostic/deist/buddhist if you wrap your mind around all that. I am agnostic in the sense that I admit I cannot know the unprovable. I think if there is a Creator it is more like the Deist Creator believed in by the 18th century deists rather than a violently angry bearded man who will send me to hell if I don't worship him, which is the depiction of many mainstream Christian faiths. I am Buddhist in the sense that while I admit I don't think any religion is "true" in a literal metaphysical sense, if a religion does good things for you or others then it's worth following. For me that's Buddhism.
I was born into an observant Baptist family. We weren't SOUTHERN Baptists, so we didn't think that civil rights were just about a bunch of uppity black folk not knowing their place, but we were pretty conservative. My folks were very stern, 'spare the rod, spoil the child' believers who never hesitated to exact their pound of flesh for whatever youthful indiscretion I might commit. I still have scars to this day - I'm approaching 40 - from those early days of regular beatings and Bible study. They were also the sort who never let me watch things like HE-MAN or even THUNDERCATS because of the 'occult influences!' that might corrupt me and make me turn to Satan.
To make matters worse, I knew from a very early age that I was gay...and I also knew that being gay was the worst thing a person could be. AIDS was just becoming a big deal when I was in Junior High, and I heard regularly from pastors and clergy (but never my family itself, thankfully) about how it was 'a punishment from God', or that being gay meant I just wasn't praying hard enough, or the right way. This constant barrage of 'sin!', 'punishment!', 'Eternal HELLFIRE!!!' and so on wore me down to the point where I had tried to end my life twice by the time I was 13, once with pills, once by hanging. I was TERRIFIED of being sent to a 're-education camp' - which were just starting to get widely publicized in terms of their 'theraputic practices'. I KNEW I was a disgusting abomination to God, that my 'urges' were going to lead me to hell anyway, so I may as well put a capper on things by way of suicide - since I was going to Hell in the first place - and remove the stress of having a '*******' for a son from my family. Obviously, that didn't work out, because here I am.
When I entered high school, I was sent to a private Christian school run by members of my family's church. While I didn't suffer from the stereotypical hazing and abuse that seem to be common among gay teenagers at the time, that was because I was smart enough to align myself with the prettiest girls at school - the ones the jocks all fought for...which meant that they also looked out for me, to impress the girls. So while my PERSONAL experience in high school wasn't terrible, I was becoming more and more aware that there was something DEEPLY wrong with the state of the faith. We were taught in science class that the world was 6000 years old, which was easily proven by studying the accumulation of dust on the moon. This 'theory' (I use the term generously) was disproven in the 70's, yet was being taught as FACT in the early 90's by Christians. We were ALSO told that we were being groomed for a war in which we, as Christians, would stealthily insert ourselves into positions of authority - school boards, medical facilities, military, and politics, particularly - so that we could ensure that America came to heel and served God OUR way.
Torture? LIES being taught as fact to impressionable minds? Infiltration and coercion? Conquest by deceit and conspiracy? Even as a teenager, that seemed to be...very counter to the teachings of the man whose teachings we supposedly followed. So I started doing some reading. I read the Bible...I read apologetics. And I read critics. What struck me most during that period of questioning was how often the CRITICS of Christianity understood the TENETS of Christianity FAR better than the people clumsily trying to defend the errors and contradictions with bad and/or lazy argument styles. I studied debate, and through that, discovered still MORE ways that Christian apologetics and fundamentalists muddied the water about EVERYTHING. Science, sexuality, evolution, abortion...EVERYTHING they stood against...they stood against because of BAD arguments and defended those arguments with lies and distortions.
I finally quit going to church at 16, preferring to spend more time with my aging grandparents and great aunts because I couldn't pretend to follow the teachings of a church I no longer believed in. Over the years, I've gone from indifferent about Christianity, to angry about it, to indifferent again. There's a lot to LIKE about the teachings of Christ as a philosopher, but I simply cannot believe in the more...mystical mumbo-jumbo that comes with it. And I cannot STAND the fundamentalist Christian who ignores reality in favor of a corruption of faith that he's blind to, because it gives him permission to hate the people he doesn't understand.
All of this is a long way of explaining that I became aware of the corruption in the faith a long time ago. What might once have been a faith of, by and for the downtrodden and neglected has become the faith that steps on the downtrodden and neglects the 'undesirable'. It's ceased to be a religion of love and hope and become a religion of hate and fear, stoking a civil war the likes of which we've seen before - in Iran, most specifically, where religious zealots turned a swinging, modern place like 60's-70's Baghdad into the repressed hellhole we're all more familiar with today. The religions may be different, but the goals are the same - everything will come under OUR rule, and everything that doesn't learn it's place in the new age is sinful and must be destroyed.
That said, there are MANY people of faith who do NOT fall for this deceit, and so, while I dislike Christianity as a whole because of what the fundamentalist extremists have turned it into, I do not hold anyone's faith against them outright. Then, I'd be no better than the people I can't stand.
Varied reason, but I get to the most pressing ones first. I'm not just going to 'spat' on 'minor' things for the sake of such. Nor am I going to get into the problems of Christianity that other plenty of other religions, beliefs, philosophies also have (Example: Minor inconsistency form one book to the other, that happens all the time.). Nor scientific evidence that makes the Bible's history likely wrong (That a whole other talk right there.). May I do these things one day? Maybe, but right now, I got other things to worry about then making a group that's about two billion strong angry.
1)Blind Faith: The first major problem is expecting a two thousand year old set of books (which itself was cobbled together form a lot of older books and scrolls), Created by a mix of Roman Senators and what would become the Catholic Church, would actually have all the right answers (Or even have the goal in mind of helping the common man.). This in itself is pretty questionable that people give up everything and just believe in something that was made by a wanton and chaotic compromise between Old roman and at the time new Christian values.
2) Major Moral Hypocrisy: Before you go about calling me a hypocrite as well, I said I wasn't going to take Minor inconsistency, like when two books put someones birthday at two different dates. What I mean is by a Major Hypocrisy is something underlining (and breaking) the whole message of the book. One example of this is Christianity calling itself a religion of peace while, while at the same time having "just wars" (Basically, this war is righteous because our enemy doesn't hold are faith.) Another is saying all people are 'equal but separate', The slogan of many racist and or sexist laws; a subversion of Equal Rights Laws. And lets not get started on the Christian/Abrahamic god moral whiplashs.
3)Black and White outlook: Christians, no matter how 'good' they are, have this idea stuck in their head that 'Bad' men only do 'bad' thing, while 'Good' men can only do 'good' things. This is problematic due too all the times that really bad men do good things and really good men do bad things. I could list really, really, horrifying men doing good things for there people, but to not invoke godwin law and sound like I that I like them (I don't), I list times that good people do some really Horrifying things.
There's a reason why Fredrick Nietzsche said "Beyond good and evil" and it wasn't because he was some sad libertarian teenage. He said that because he notice 'Good' people do 'bad' things all the time and 'Bad' people do 'good' things. Some say things like 'necessary evil', 'Net good' or 'it for the greater good', but is it really? Also the fact that one person good is another bad, and vise versa.
That stated, I see an animalistic urge to be irrational in humans. And I mean ALL Humans, Me, you, our friends, families, enemies, ect. We call ourselves rational, but when you look at another humans choices, there almost anything but; we even have a hard time proving other exist as 'sleeves'. And before you go all solipsism and state 'I'm the real and rational self', there many already like this, and trust me, they aren't; and seeing how we as humans are made out of the mostly the same matter, it almost more unlikely than there being a god that you or me are either. What this means about meaning? I do not know and only you can answer that for yourself.
It seems however that joining the biggest mass of people, no matter how insane their beliefs, seems to be a trait in humans.
"Separate but equal" is historical American legal doctrine and has literally nothing to do with Christianity.
This assertion is directly contrary to one of the central tenets of Christianity, that everyone has original sin and does bad things, and everyone is redeemed by Christ.
Bluntly: have you read Beyond Good and Evil, or just read the title? Nietzsche rejects Christian morality, yes, but it's not because he thinks good and bad are relative or subjective or nonexistent. He has very definite ideas about what's good and bad. He just thinks Christianity has got them mostly backwards. If you go around preaching humility and service to others, Nietzsche will not be indifferent -- he will say you are a bad person. (This is more or less the "thus" of Thus Spake Zarathustra.)
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
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I will however talk about Old Gunpowder head: Friedrich Nietzsche. While I haven't been able to read Beyond Good and Evil to it fullest, I have read The Birth of Tragedy, Ecce Homo, Human, All Too Human, and On the Genealogy of Morals, and read up on the people that influenced him (William Shakespeare, Wolfgang Von Goethe, Schopenhauer, Baruch Spinoza, ect.). I read his works of Free Will, Ethics, Christianity, Art, Determinism, Science, ect. He is not my hero, but he not a person to be ignore either.
He was many things, to the point that almost no-one can be sure of what he WAS, but on things he wasn't; he not a mere 'Reverse Moralist'. He stated Christianity was not merely backwards, but flat out wrong on most accounts. He was a anti-moralist because he doubted and criticized ALL morals. All 'morals' were in his work, are just subjective values we or others had place on behaviors and things depending how they affected either the individual(The 'master morality', the creator of morals) or the community(The "herd's morality", the reaction to the master morality). Just because he hated 'The herd's' Morality doesn't mean he didn't criticize the 'Master's' Morality that caused it; only seen it as less of a problem compare to slave morality at the time and needing revaluation just as badly. Both were self-serving, Bias to wants, and do not help when figuring out if something was really 'good' or 'bad'/'evil'.
He also denounce anything that can be called "Absolute Truths". Truths (including moral truths), at least before he went insane, were at best subjective. He even criticizes his earlier works (Like the The Birth of Tragedy and Thus Spake Zarathustra) because of idealism of 'truth'.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
As a former Admin of this site, I want to reiterate this. You will not get any warnings and infractions just for disagreeing with a staff member whatever level they hold in the staff.
Instead we care about how you conduct yourself in the forum.
If you can debate in a calm and reasonable manner you will be fine even if you disagree, but if you behave like an arse you will get the appriopriate warnings and infractions even if you are on the same side of the argument as the mod.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Kind of but not quite. I just re-joined a few days back; I'll rather not JUST get a warning right away for something that could be taken up as an offence. If I was here for a few months or years, knew the person, sure, I'll debate a mod. But I already went to forums (not this one, others) where arguing with the Mods is at best frowned upon, and could easily get you perma-banned. I barely know Spirit here, much less what he or the mods takes as offence. I could think myself making a clear and calm argument and get told off as "A jerk" due to not knowing something about the mod.