Gimme your best argument for god???

[NewBoss]

I want to hear the most convincing argument for god. It can be one you believe in or just something you came across that made you think.
Keep in mind that I am a militant atheist. So make your case well.
Also please define what you mean by god when you post. As this "energy" or "society" thing won't fly. I'm talking about a thinking creator here.

Lets see the best there is in the year 2013!:crying:

[Blake's Baby]

Why not ask religious people? Asking atheists for their best arguments for the existence of a 'thinking creator' is like announcing that you've shot all the invisible fish in a barrel that doesn't exist.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Why not ask religious people? Asking atheists for their best arguments for the existence of a 'thinking creator' is like announcing that you've shot all the invisible fish in a barrel that doesn't exist.
He did put it in Opposing Ideologies...

[Eleutheromaniac]

The only irrefutable argument for a deity of any kind is that you cannot show that he/she/they do not exist. It's utter nonsense, though. I also cannot show that Santa Claus doesn't exist, but he was created by otherwise reliable adults to make children behave (sound familiar?). The fact of the matter is that there is much more credible evidence against there being a divine creator of space, time, etc. People judge, alienate and often times kill each other over whose imaginary ruler(s) are the true creator and/or savior of the world. It's perturbing and, frankly, detrimental to human progress to just say "it's all [insert divine thing]'s plan".

[Blake's Baby]

D'oh! I was just looking down the list of 'latest posts' - didn't look to see which forum it was posted in.

In which case, OP, carry on with no more sarcastic objections from me. Sorry.

[SoMarks]

- The existence of primordial matter, the seed of Bing-Bang, the theory of a previous univers ended by a Big-Crunch just pushing away the problem (like panspermy). The colision of theoretical spontaneous particles that give birth to Univers(es) didn't seem solid either; nothing just pop up into existence from nothingness. I can not respond to your condition of defining god, in this case.

[Philosophos]

You can't yet believe if there is or there isn't a god because noone even has a clue. The religious people have faith, the atheists assumptions. Until scientists find a way to communicate or discover god you can't say god exists. At the same time you can't say that god doesn't exist because he hasn't spoken to us or anything like that...

Yeah scientists discovered the whole big bang theory but again you don't know if god made the world with the big bang or the universe created itself by accident. Just think that if god exists he's propably a lot smarter than we are...

It's a never ending question that at least the people that are alive NOW will never find out.

[brigadista]

he created the world we live in in just 6 days ....:D:D:D

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I don't really feel like arguing for a god or gods per se, but I'd put forward that the impulse to conclusively "disprove" gods speaks to the same insecurity and fear of the unknown. Probably all concerned would be happier and better adjusted if they got over their need for the answer.

[Decolonize The Left]

I want to hear the most convincing argument for god. It can be one you believe in or just something you came across that made you think.
Keep in mind that I am a militant atheist. So make your case well.
Also please define what you mean by god when you post. As this "energy" or "society" thing won't fly. I'm talking about a thinking creator here.

Lets see the best there is in the year 2013!:crying:

Your question is unfair as there can be no argument for god. There is no way to prove or disprove the existence of a 'perfect being' so you can't argue in its favor.

Religious people rely on faith, not reason and logic, for their beliefs and to ask them to formulate an argument over why they have faith is rather silly.

[Red Banana]

You can't yet believe if there is or there isn't a god because noone even has a clue. The religious people have faith, the atheists assumptions. Until scientists find a way to communicate or discover god you can't say god exists. At the same time you can't say that god doesn't exist because he hasn't spoken to us or anything like that...

Yeah scientists discovered the whole big bang theory but again you don't know if god made the world with the big bang or the universe created itself by accident. Just think that if god exists he's propably a lot smarter than we are...

It's a never ending question that at least the people that are alive NOW will never find out.

I think you're confusing the words "know" and "believe". Sure, no one can know if there is or isn't a god(s), but anyone can believe that there is or isn't a god(s). Likewise, I don't know if leprechauns do or do not exist (after all, you can't prove they do or don't), but I believe that they don't exist because there isn't enough or any empirical evidence otherwise to convince me they do exist. Agnosticism is dodging the question.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I've not been able to find it again, but on this forum someone called "spiltteeth" once brought up a version of the Kalam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kal%C4%81m_cosmological_argument) cosmological argument that was rather frustrating, because I suspected that it had a huge flaw but could not put my finger on exactly why.

The classic argument goes like this:

1. Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence;

2. The universe has a beginning of its existence;

Therefore:

3. The universe has a cause of its existence.

But I don't see how that's an argument for a personal creator of the universe, much less any particular religious variant.

I wish I could find that discussion, as it's good to read over old debates and see where one could have done better.

[NewBoss]

I am aware of this argument. The Kalam Cosmological argument is a deductive argument. Therefore if it is not true the problem must be found in one or both of the premises.

The premise that doesn't hold up is the first one.
"1. Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence;"

The problem is not obvious. So I will elaborate. The failing of this argument hinges on the concept of "beginning of its existence". These words are used to conflate real world experiences with abstract concepts in the hopes that we deceive ourselves into applying our personal experience to a non analogous concept.

For instance we have real world experience with things beginning to exist, in that previous components (say metal) are rearranged and a new item (say a car) is created. However each component of the car existed before the car was created. When a car comes into existence (items rearranged) it is clearly not analogous to the universe (in which presumably items were not rearranged but wholly came into being without previous components.) The "beginning to exist" of the universe is therefore wholly separate from our day to day notions and understanding of items "coming into existence" (like cars). Given this obvious separation between what is meant by "beginning to exist" in a daily sense and "beginning to exist" when talking about the universe itself the first premise is unsupported and the argument fails.

[NewBoss]

The problem is the first premise

1. Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence;

We have no direct experience with things beginning to exist in the way the universe may have sprung into existence from nothing. We do have experience with things coming into existence (like cars) from by new arrangements of previous matter (metal and plastic).
The first premise tries to equate the two. Therefore the first premise has no support and the argument fails.

[Zostrianos]

I will give you my personal stance, which is by no means solid (because I don't know for sure if God exists, but being a spiritual person I'm very open to the idea and I find it to be a useful concept regardless). The very existence of something instead of nothing has something very mysterious about it. Why is there something (matter, energy, space) and not nothing? That's always been the dilemma that troubled me. Sure, 99.99999....% of the universe is a desolate, lifeless abyss, but why does it exist? Why do we - sentient, conscious beings, who can contemplate their own existence - exist? Yes, we know all the mechanisms of evolution, how basic molecules evolved over billions of years into what we and other animals are today, but regardless: the fact that we came to be on this earth in an otherwise (as far as we know) lifeless void is quite extraordinary. Now, all this could be just my primate brain seeing meaning where there is nothing, but what if it's not?

[Astarte]

I largely agree with Poimandres. I would just like to add, my perspective is rather plain; there is night, and there is day. There is male and there is female, there is dry and there is wet, there is life and there is death. Why shouldn't this binary extend into what humans can perceive of reality with their senses and their sensual instruments and what they cannot, or cannot yet perceive?

[Yuppie Grinder]

If there were no god, everything would be permitted.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

"Why is there something instead of nothing" strikes me as one of those questions that seems profound at first, but which upon careful consideration falls apart and reveals itself to be rather banal.

A complex universe is a pre-requisite for intelligent life. But intelligent life is not a pre-requisite for a complex universe, which appeared first. If there was "nothing" then the universe (such as it would be in this case) would not be complex enough to support intelligences like ourselves.

I fail to see how it's a dilemma at all - the reason that there is something instead of nothing is because if there was nothing, the question could not be asked in the first place. Either the universe is complex enough to support intelligence, or it isn't. Yet it is. So that's why.


I largely agree with Poimandres. I would just like to add, my perspective is rather plain; there is night, and there is day. There is male and there is female, there is dry and there is wet, there is life and there is death. Why shouldn't this binary extend into what humans can perceive of reality with their senses and their sensual instruments and what they cannot, or cannot yet perceive?

Because such apparent dualities are in fact more complex than they may at first appear:

Night and day? A natural consequence of planetary rotation. There are tidally-locked planets which always keep one side facing their stellar parent, such that if one were to stand on the surface the sun would never rise or set. What about those planets that form in deep space, far from any star? Night and day is merely a contingent accident of the formation of planetary systems.

Male and female? Again, reality is more messy and complicated than idealistic duality - there are transsexuals, there are intersex individuals, XX males, XY females and so on. Biology is one of those cussed sciences that refuses to be stuck into neat little boxes. It's why taxonomy is such a contentious field.

Dry and wet? It turns out that a lot of things on the surface of the Earth, especially organic objects, contain a surprising amount of water. A large proportion of human mass is thanks to the ubiquitous presence of water. A human might feel dry on the outside, but we're all sodden on the inside.

Life and death? Well, as life is a process and death is the breakdown and cessation of that process, I don't see how they can be counterposed as opposites except in the purely poetic or rhetorical sense. Is a rock dead or alive? It can't be alive, but neither can it be dead since it was never alive in the first place.

That's precisely why I look askance at dialectical materialism - the idea that reality has some kind of dual nature comes from a human tendency to (over)simplify things, rather than anything inherent to existence.

[Astarte]

The purpose of my mentioning of several binaries wasn't really so you could define them for us, since we all know that there are planets that do not experience night (funnily enough though, in the case of those planets I suppose one side would be illuminated and one side would be constantly in darkness...) or rocks that contain some water particles, or whatever etc - my second point actually, which you illustrated for me, is that this "known/unknown" aspect of reality is actually quite interconnected - occult and the known go hand in hand - how can we know anything at all, or keep making discoveries about reality in the first place if everything about reality is known? You apparently seek to deny that there is any binary to epistemology whatsoever (but do so via the dialectic of the interpenetration of those opposites), as if science has told us all there is to know - but there will always be what is known and what is unknown, and the process of the revealing and discovery of the unknown, and making it subjectively known to one self, or as spiritual people call it, in relation to metaphysics, "enlightenment" is just that - it is the interpenetration of the "reality" and the "metareality" in one's own subjective consciousness.

Also, I am not sure why, after illustrating the dialectic of the interpenetration of opposites, you would say you "look askance from dialectical materialism" after invoking it.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The purpose of my mentioning of several binaries wasn't really so you could define them for us, since we all know that there are planets that do not experience night (funnily enough though, in the case of those planets I suppose one side would be illuminated and one side would be constantly in darkness...) or rocks that contain some water particles, or whatever etc - my second point actually, which you illustrated for me, is that this "known/unknown" aspect of reality is actually quite interconnected - occult and the known go hand in hand - how can we know anything at all, or keep making discoveries about reality in the first place if everything about reality is known?

But my point is precisely that the universe is more complicated than it may first appear - in common experience, male and female are natural opposites so long as one is unaware of transsexual individuals, intersex individuals and so on.


You apparently seek to deny that there is any binary to epistemology whatsoever (but do so via the dialectic of the interpenetration of those opposites), as if science has told us all there is to know

But science hasn't told us everything - if it had, there would be no point in continuing it because there would be nothing more to learn.


- but there will always be what is known and what is unknown, and the process of the revealing and discovery of the unknown, and making it subjectively known to one self, or as spiritual people call it, in relation to metaphysics, "enlightenment" is just that - it is the interpenetration of the "reality" and the "metareality" in one's own subjective consciousness.

I'm afraid that I don't actually understand you here - could you rephrase?


Also, I am not sure why, after illustrating the dialectic of the interpenetration of opposites, you would say you "look askance from dialectical materialism" after invoking it.

I'm not sure how anything I've said invokes "interpenetration" except perhaps when discussing day and night - one could argue that dawn and twilight represent two different interpenetrations of day and night, but I must ask - are not dawn and twilight their own unique states, and thus as much deserving of epistemological consideration as day and night? Would that not make for a fourfold rather than twofold phenomenon, with a complete planetary rotation embodying the four states of dawn, day, twilight and night?

[Sea]

Try a more mainstream forum, NewBoss. Just because we have OI doesn't mean that religious people flock to it.
I want to hear the most convincing argument for god. It can be one you believe in or just something you came across that made you think.
Keep in mind that I am a militant atheist. So make your case well.
Also please define what you mean by god when you post. As this "energy" or "society" thing won't fly. I'm talking about a thinking creator here.

Lets see the best there is in the year 2013!:crying:Fragment (consider revising)


The purpose of my mentioning of several binaries wasn't really so you could define them for us, since we all know that there are planets that do not experience night (funnily enough though, in the case of those planets I suppose one side would be illuminated and one side would be constantly in darkness...) or rocks that contain some water particles, or whatever etc - my second point actually, which you illustrated for me, is that this "known/unknown" aspect of reality is actually quite interconnected - occult and the known go hand in hand - how can we know anything at all, or keep making discoveries about reality in the first place if everything about reality is known?
The question of knowing doesn't imply anything supernatural. You merely phrase it as such, and to do so you must call into mind the arguments used by those who think knowledge and supernatural power are inseparable.

[Astarte]

I'm not sure how anything I've said invokes "interpenetration" except perhaps when discussing day and night - one could argue that dawn and twilight represent two different interpenetrations of day and night, but I must ask - are not dawn and twilight their own unique states, and thus as much deserving of epistemological consideration as day and night?
Well, seeing as though at dawn the phenomenon is literally caused since the sun is partly below the Eastern horizon and partly above it ... I would say that would be a pretty clear illustration of the apparent interpenetration of light and darkness from our vantage point on Earth. Likewise, twilight is caused by the same phenomenon on the Western horizon, when the sun sets.


Would that not make for a fourfold rather than twofold phenomenon, with a complete planetary rotation embodying the four states of dawn, day, twilight and night? What about Marshes? Where dry land meets wet? How can you possibly argue that this is not the literal dialectic of the interpenetration of opposites in the material world...? I would say that Twilight and Dawn are transitional phases between day and night in which "light" and "dark" are mixed - they are qualitatively different from day and night precisely because they are quantitatively much shorter in duration and clearly are only transitional phases. Also the sun is not completely over the horizon, nor completely under it.

As for other times you invoked the dialectical concept of interpenetration of opposites besides day/night ...


Male and female? Again, reality is more messy and complicated than idealistic duality - there are transsexuals, there are intersex individuals, XX males, XY females and so on. Biology is one of those cussed sciences that refuses to be stuck into neat little boxes. It's why taxonomy is such a contentious field.

In the case of an XY female you mentioned the gender identification of female would be found along side the biological XY chromosome - mainstream Western society would regard this person as having characteristics of both "male" and "female" at the same time, hence once again, the interpenetration of opposites is quite apparent. Likewise with transsexual people who have not undergone SRS but have taken hormones. A male to female transsexual who has taken estrogen hormones and has not, or perhaps does not even want to undergo srs surgery would of course also display, physically female and male characteristics at the same time - that is fuller hips and breasts and also male genitalia - thus, once again, the interpenetration of opposites, by way of male and female is evident. Again, the same is so with hermaphroditic people whose sex organs display characteristics of male and female at the same time.


Dry and wet? It turns out that a lot of things on the surface of the Earth, especially organic objects, contain a surprising amount of water. A large proportion of human mass is thanks to the ubiquitous presence of water. A human might feel dry on the outside, but we're all sodden on the inside.
Interpenetration between "wet and dry" in this case would be that humans are usually dry to the appearance and touch, though, as you mention contain a large proportion of water throughout their systems ... you even admit it yourself - "a human might feel dry ... sodden on the inside" - all interpenetration of opposites means is the unity and synthesis of the opposites into a third form, in which at times one component part may be more visible than the other, they both may be visible or they both may be obscure, or they might negate each other and yield a completely new form ... you are starting to make me believe you do not have a grasp of the basics of dialectical materialism.

As for the Life/Death question you yourself beautifully illustrated how they are physically inter-connected, I hardly see why I need to go on...


The question of knowing doesn't imply anything supernatural. You merely phrase it as such, and to do so you must call into mind the arguments used by those who think knowledge and supernatural power are inseparable.
How did I phrase it as supernatural exactly? Does the word 'occult' automatically imply "supernatural" to you? Or is whatever I say in terms of reality immediately considered "super-natural". If its the latter, I thank you for attributing me with such abilities, but I in no way meant to imply the super-natural, but only what is currently hidden and unknown to human epistemology.

[Prometeo liberado]

If there were no god then my wedding vows would have been null and void thus I would have no obligation for a divorce lawyer and all the money that goes with the divorce nonsense. But here I am deeply in debt from all that came with those "vows". There must be a god, a cruel and money driven vengeful hating little man.

[skitty]

I forgot to take my meds:(
I am God:D:D:D!
Therefore God exists.

[sixdollarchampagne]

Briefly, since I have written about this before, and I don't want to annoy anyone: Late one evening, I was crossing a street, where I used to live; a car some distance away suddenly increased its speed and landed close enough to me on the side of the street to which I was crossing, to leave dirt from raised letters on the car's tire, on my pants leg. I have 3 atheists, my friends, as witnesses that it happened that way. If the car had landed just a few inches to the right, I would not be here tonight.

* * *

Another time, on a Saturday night, at a big intersection, I was crossing in the pedestrian crosswalk, under a red light, and, suddenly, a car turned onto the pedestrian crosswalk, and, moving slowly, hit me. I fell forward onto the car's hood. I thought I was going to die, and then I thought that I would soon know whether atheists or theists were right. What happened was that the car stopped, and I slid off the hood, shouting curses at the driver. If I had fallen backwards, rather than forward, I probably would not be here tonight.

* * *

On a lovely spring day, I was walking home from downtown in a light rain. Suddenly, some yards in front of me, a bolt of lightning hit the sidewalk. It looked like a giant yellow sheet, and it made a very loud noise. If I had been in a hurry, I might well have been struck by the lightning.

* * *

All of the above convinces me that we are, ultimately, not alone in the universe. There is something out there that looks after us, at least some of us, some of the time, I believe.

[Jason]

Probably the best argument is that we cannot prove he doesn't exist. But I won't get into any opinions about religions as it isn't the topic of the thread. Also, some religious people argue that life is too ordered to have spontaneously arisen.

[Red Enemy]

God made everything.

Science discovers the wonders of god. From the law of gravity, to the big bang. From evolution to anti-matter.

God does not bend to the laws of nature, for god made them. Science serves to, as I said, discover god's wonders.

God is everything - god is nothing. He has no divine laws. there is no afterlife, no hell, no heaven.

God is not sentient, god knows all and does all.

God does not interfere, what is is. What is not, is not. No miracles, no holy books, prayer does nothing for he does not hear nor answer. He does not care if one is a savior of 1000 lives, or a murderer and rapist.

Also, I'm an atheist. I was just putting out there something unfalsifiable.

[JPSartre12]

A professor that I had under my early years as an evolutionary biology undergraduate student told me that he had converted from being a hard-core atheism to a sort of vaguely agnostic, questioning Christian after having done research on the evolution of the eye, because there's no evolutionary justification for the way that it's structured. There's no fossil record, molecular data, gene sequencing, etc of any of the various pre-human species that has given any evidence that the eye "evolved". There's no answer in the scientific community as to how something so complex developed; thus, my professor turned to God for answers.

[sixdollarchampagne]

... there's no evolutionary justification for the way that it's structured. There's no fossil record, molecular data, gene sequencing, etc of any of the various pre-human species that has given any evidence that the eye "evolved". There's no answer in the scientific community as to how something so complex developed; thus, my professor turned to God for answers.

Thanks to JPS for an elegant post, from which I learned a lot. Certainly the God hypothesis remains unproven; when I tried to think of other unproven hypotheses we live with, it seemed to me that the possibility of successful proletarian revolutions in advanced capitalist societies is just such an unproven hypothesis, and, just like religious faith, it has certainly enriched my life.

One could even say that the persistence of the left, in the absence of big breakthroughs, while it witnesses the disappearance of post-capitalist societies, like the (former) USSR, its satellites, and the PRC (where capitalist restoration is taking place before our eyes, I think) is evidence of a kind of secular "faith," on the far left, so that believers are not the only people whose lives are lived with unproven hypotheses.

[zoot_allures]

Your question is unfair as there can be no argument for god. There is no way to prove or disprove the existence of a 'perfect being' so you can't argue in its favor.

Religious people rely on faith, not reason and logic, for their beliefs and to ask them to formulate an argument over why they have faith is rather silly.
Actually, there are plenty of arguments for god. Some of them are fairly complex and depend on sophisticated forms of logic. It requires some degree of training in logic and philosophy to even understand many modern arguments for god, let alone figure out how to respond to them effectively (for example, would a pure layperson reading Godel's ontological argument (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/#GodOntArg), without any supplementary explanation, have even the slightest clue what's going on in it?)

Different religious people base their belief on different things. Throughout history, all sorts of religious beliefs have been subjected to reason and logic, and literature of that sort is still being produced today.

[zoot_allures]

I think you're confusing the words "know" and "believe". Sure, no one can know if there is or isn't a god(s), but anyone can believe that there is or isn't a god(s). Likewise, I don't know if leprechauns do or do not exist (after all, you can't prove they do or don't), but I believe that they don't exist because there isn't enough or any empirical evidence otherwise to convince me they do exist. Agnosticism is dodging the question.
I'd say that I know there are no gods. I'd also say I know there are no leprechauns. Proof has nothing to do with it. In my opinion, empirical claims aren't provable period, only provisionally verifiable in lieu of falsification (although note that there are plenty of purported proofs of the existence or non-existence of god - see my above post for one example).

So what does matter? I accept the standard (well, maybe not so standard in modern epistemology) "justified true belief" account of knowledge (and I'm pretty liberal regarding what counts as justification). Well, (1) I believe there are no gods, (2) I think it's true that there are no gods, and (3) I think that my belief that there are no gods is justified. Naturally, my confidence in this knowledge varies depending on just how we're defining "god".

In my experience, many atheists would be happy to say things like "I know my car is parked outside" or "I know I have x amount of money in the bank" or whatever, but they're much less comfortable claiming knowledge about gods. Even atheists who've thought about the topic very much, and who have what seem to me to be good justifications for their belief, often claim that they don't know that there are no gods.

I sometimes wonder if maybe people are using relatively lax standards of knowledge for their "everyday" beliefs, but when they consider theological claims, the standards of knowledge become much more strict. Personally, I see no reason to grant theological claims such a privilege. I suspect that if most atheists were a bit more consistent, they'd either be denying that they don't know that their car's parked outside, or they'd be claiming that do know that there are no gods.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

All of the above convinces me that we are, ultimately, not alone in the universe. There is something out there that looks after us, at least some of us, some of the time, I believe.

Funny how the universe seems to favour the rich and powerful, since they are less likely to die young and in poverty.

If there's something looking after us, they're not doing a very good job of it.

[JPSartre12]

One could even say that the persistence of the left, in the absence of big breakthroughs, while it witnesses the disappearance of post-capitalist societies, like the (former) USSR, its satellites, and the PRC (where capitalist restoration is taking place before our eyes, I think) is evidence of a kind of secular "faith," on the far left, so that believers are not the only people whose lives are lived with unproven hypotheses.

For what it's worth, I am a born-again Christian, of the anti-denominational liberation theology kind. I think that the religious right distorts an overwhelming majority of what Jesus said - abandoning material possessions, common ownership, universal solidarity, limitless compassion, railing against the anti-progressive Pharisees of the times, etc. He was outstandingly revolutionary. There is nothing "conservative" about Christianity, when you actually look at its legitimate teachings.

[Ocean Seal]

I want to hear the most convincing argument for god. It can be one you believe in or just something you came across that made you think.
Keep in mind that I am a militant atheist. So make your case well.
Also please define what you mean by god when you post. As this "energy" or "society" thing won't fly. I'm talking about a thinking creator here.

Lets see the best there is in the year 2013!:crying:
You are probably asking the wrong people, but IIRC Zeronowhere or Zanthorous posted a series of compelling arguments. The Christian Leftists group also had some pretty good arguments.

[LOLseph Stalin]

I've got nothing. I used to be religious up until very recently. Now I realize there's really no good arguments in favour of God, at least not an interventionist god.

[Klaatu]

OK you asked for opinions, so here is mine.

1) "god" = nature (analogy: car = automobile; or person = human)

2) science is the study of nature

3) science is based upon fact, while religion is based upon opinion and superstition

4) therefore science is far closer to "god" than religion is

5) therefore religion is absolutely useless, a waste of time, and downright silly


For what it's worth, I am a born-again Christian, of the anti-denominational liberation theology kind. I think that the religious right distorts an overwhelming majority of what Jesus said - abandoning material possessions, common ownership, universal solidarity, limitless compassion, railing against the anti-progressive Pharisees of the times, etc. He was outstandingly revolutionary. There is nothing "conservative" about Christianity, when you actually look at its legitimate teachings.

I agree. Jesus had no use for religion, believe it or not. He actually despised the religious leaders of his time. And BTW, he was not a "god." Like I said, "god" is nature. There is no personal god anymore than there is no personal electrical, magnetic, radioactive, gravity, or any other force in nature. These are things, not persons. Sorry but I have given an argument against god, not for god (oops)

[sixdollarchampagne]

For what it's worth, I am a born-again Christian, of the anti-denominational liberation theology kind. I think that the religious right distorts an overwhelming majority of what Jesus said - abandoning material possessions, common ownership, universal solidarity, limitless compassion, railing against the anti-progressive Pharisees of the times, etc. He was outstandingly revolutionary. There is nothing "conservative" about Christianity, when you actually look at its legitimate teachings.

I just re-read JP Sartre's post (quoted above), and what struck me was what an interesting combination being born again and embracing liberation theology, which, I believe, is open to socialism, is.

And I certainly agree that right-wingers have misunderstood the New Testament, which is, indeed, a radical text in many ways. To take a random example, in Acts, one reads about primitive Christian communism, in a couple of places: "All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.... They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.... (Acts 2:44-45, 46)

And

"All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.... There were no needy persons among them. For, from time to time, those who owned houses or lands sold them, brought the money from the sales ... and it was distributed to anyone as he had need." (Acts 4:32, 34, 35).

[Klaatu]

Even though I despise religion, I do think the Bible has some advice worth noting:

"...it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven”

Matthew 19:24

[Astarte]

OK you asked for opinions, so here is mine.

1) "god" = nature (analogy: car = automobile; or person = human)

2) science is the study of nature

3) science is based upon fact, while religion is based upon opinion and superstition

4) therefore science is far closer to "god" than religion is

5) therefore religion is absolutely useless, a waste of time, and downright silly



I agree. Jesus had no use for religion, believe it or not. He actually despised the religious leaders of his time. And BTW, he was not a "god." Like I said, "god" is nature. There is no personal god anymore than there is no personal electrical, magnetic, radioactive, gravity, or any other force in nature. These are things, not persons. Sorry but I have given an argument against god, not for god (oops)

To me your post sounds more like you were saying that the entire reality is god, and that science is actually a pathway to understanding "god". Often times, I find there are some breeds of atheists who do not so much have a problem with the notion that there is a supraphysical "force" that is so subtle that it is undetectable yet omnipresent and at the same time also so central to reality that it holds it all together, but rather have trouble instead with the word "god" on account of the historical baggage it brings.

[BIXX]

I find the god debate to be a useless exercise in one group trying to say it is morally better than another, and the other group trying to say it is smarter than the other. I think we have better things to worry about.
So I think at most we should just try to not offend one another about our beliefs and move on with my life.
I am an atheist, and in my town, that is the norm. The Theists here get particularly violent about their beliefs in some cases, or absurdly quiet about it in others, possibly due to being uncomfortable speaking their thoughts when the average atheist here is very loud and constantly critical of Theists. I only argue with them about it if they confront me and are rude about it to me, because it's not worth my time to deal with it.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

*sings off-key*
For the Bible tells meeee sooooOOooooooooOooo *deep breath*
Arrrrrrrrrmeeeeeeeeen

[jstrodel]

Because you can't understand any morality without God, and if you make something up, you are no better than the fascists.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Because you can't understand any morality without God,

Prove it.


and if you make something up, you are no better than the fascists.

Surely that depends on how one behaves?

[jstrodel]

Before you insist that you have disproved God's existence, read something by someone who actually knows what they are talking about. Don't argue against the philosophy of religion of a senile old woman, unless your ego is so small you need to pump yourself up.

Buy a book that actually deals with the problems of belief in God.
I suggest Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantiga or books by William Lane Craig


I would say the most persuasive argument is this
1. You must postulate some sort of justification for your ethics. What is it that makes murder wrong. Etc.
2. The probability that there is no ethical ground to actions seems to me to be very low. If that is true, there is absolutely no reason to be involved in politics or care about other people.
3. What is the most likely ground of ethics.
4. Classical theism - Does this fit the evidence the best way (e.g. the universe seems to have a beginning and a creator - the cosmological argument, it seems to have a sense of design, the teleological arguvement, the universe seems fine-tuned to accept life)
5. What have the majority of people throughout history believed? What are the concepts of God that are most significant to different people throughout history?
6. You do not need to be absolutely certain to believe in God. Just say - maybe Christianity is true.
7. You should want so badly to know what is going on, to know that God exists and that he is real, you should keep it at the front of your mind. If you really, really want to know, seek and you will find (Matthew). Jesus Christ is real, I know he is real, he will reveal himself to the person who looks at themselves and realizes they don't know everything and maybe he exists, those who don't mock him and ignore him and those who accept the possibility that he may exist and if he does exist, he is worth caring more about than anything else.

God reveals himself more and more you seek him. He is a God who hides himself, to test peoples hearts. He doesn't want people to relate to him on the basis of self interest, just seeking what they can, he wants people to accept him on the basis of recognizing the moral worth of Jesus Christ who died on the cross.

[jstrodel]

Prove it.


Ok, if you have a certain statement such as "people deserve to make a fair wage". What do those words refer to? What is it that makes that statement true. Is there an eternal ethical law that declares this? If the only thing that exists is the physical world, where do you find evidence for this in the physical world.

Words must refer to something. If you have a statement that is true, based on some sort of authority, that is called an argument from authority. The argument from authority is only a reliable argument if you know ahead of time the person is reliable.

But if you have a statement of morality, it cannot only be someones opinion. If one person believes that the statement "people deserve to make a fair wage" is true because of their belief it is true, another person could believe the statement "it doesn't matter whether people make a fair wage or not".

Now, without relying on the argument from the first person as an authority, because you like him better, what could you possible know that tells you that people deserve to make a fair wage? Where does the knowledge come from? Is it something that is known empirically - through sense experience? But when would you discover in sense experience that some people deserve to make more than others? What possible situation could alert you to the possibility that one deserved more than another.


The problem is impossible to solve for naturalists, so they make up their silly authorities and invoke them. This is how the Marxists talk, they constantly quote Marx because they can't think for themselves. They are intellectual infants. And they have no answers, what is the source of knowledge of justice. The answer is, Marx just made it up and his followers are too scare to subject his theories to the level of rigor they subject their enemies.

[Astarte]

Before you insist that you have disproved God's existence, read something by someone who actually knows what they are talking about. Don't argue against the philosophy of religion of a senile old woman, unless your ego is so small you need to pump yourself up.

Buy a book that actually deals with the problems of belief in God.
I suggest Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantiga or books by William Lane Craig


I would say the most persuasive argument is this
1. You must postulate some sort of justification for your ethics. What is it that makes murder wrong. Etc.
2. The probability that there is no ethical ground to actions seems to me to be very low. If that is true, there is absolutely no reason to be involved in politics or care about other people.
3. What is the most likely ground of ethics.
4. Classical theism - Does this fit the evidence the best way (e.g. the universe seems to have a beginning and a creator - the cosmological argument, it seems to have a sense of design, the teleological arguvement, the universe seems fine-tuned to accept life)
5. What have the majority of people throughout history believed? What are the concepts of God that are most significant to different people throughout history?
6. You do not need to be absolutely certain to believe in God. Just say - maybe Christianity is true.
7. You should want so badly to know what is going on, to know that God exists and that he is real, you should keep it at the front of your mind. If you really, really want to know, seek and you will find (Matthew). Jesus Christ is real, I know he is real, he will reveal himself to the person who looks at themselves and realizes they don't know everything and maybe he exists, those who don't mock him and ignore him and those who accept the possibility that he may exist and if he does exist, he is worth caring more about than anything else.

God reveals himself more and more you seek him. He is a God who hides himself, to test peoples hearts. He doesn't want people to relate to him on the basis of self interest, just seeking what they can, he wants people to accept him on the basis of recognizing the moral worth of Jesus Christ who died on the cross.

My questions to you are two-fold:

A. How the eff can you identify yourself as a "Christian" and also a 'Republican' as you stated in your introductory post on this forum. Private property is contrary to Christianity.
and
B. Where do you get off calling yourself a "Mystic" when you admit you are a "a born again Christian" who essentially cleaves unto the status quo.

[jstrodel]

Surely that depends on how one behaves?


The act of making up a false authority and demanding adherence to a false authority is the same arbitrary nationalistic process the Fascists use. They create a made up religion, then they enforce it on others.

They say Christianity is unscientific, but they don't subject their beliefs to serious philosophical scrutiny. They are fascists at heart, the Marxist philosopher is a irrational nationalist at heart. He won't prove the methods he uses. He is afraid of real philosophy.

[Red Banana]

I thought it was funny how your statement could so easily be applied to your own beliefs:


The problem is impossible to solve for theists, so they make up their silly authorities and invoke them. This is how the theists talk, they constantly quote scripture because they can't think for themselves. They are intellectual infants. And they have no answers, what is the source of knowledge of justice. The answer is, gods are just made up, and their followers are too scared to subject their own theories to the level of rigor they subject their enemies.

[Fourth Internationalist]

What is it that makes murder wrong. Etc.

Morality was created by evolution. Cooperating with other organisms was essential for survival, so morality came into being to say, "Hey bro! You wanna survive, right? You'll be better of with that person helping you, so I'm gonna make you feel like you shouldn't kill him." Because people did not know about evolution, religion explained this and many other things that people just couldn't at the time.

[Klaatu]

Before you insist that you have disproved God's existence

I would say the onus is upon the theist to prove that God exists (since you folks are usually the ones doing all the preaching)



The problem is impossible to solve for naturalists, so they make up their silly authorities and invoke them.
This is how the Marxists talk, they constantly quote Marx because they can't think for themselves.
They are intellectual infants. And they have no answers, what is the source of knowledge of justice.
The answer is, Marx just made it up and his followers are too scare to subject his theories to the level
of rigor they subject their enemies.

I think you have this backwards. The "intellectual infants" are those that are afraid to think for themselves,
(such as theists) because they are taught to not question authority (or else--- hell fire and brimstone)
In my point of view, I would say that Marx had some balls to stand up to the tyrannical superstition
of organized religion.
Furthermore, I do think for myself. And I am proud to have that freedom.


The act of making up a false authority and demanding adherence to a false authority is the same arbitrary nationalistic process the Fascists use. They create a made up religion, then they enforce it on others.


WOW isn't this the exact same thing the organized religions do: "make up false authorities" and "create a made up religion, then they enforce it on others" Do you realize what you are saying here? You are describing the M.O. of all of the worlds religions! :rolleyes:

[jstrodel]

My questions to you are two-fold:

A. How the eff can you identify yourself as a "Christian" and also a 'Republican' as you stated in your introductory post on this forum. Private property is contrary to Christianity.
and
B. Where do you get off calling yourself a "Mystic" when you admit you are a "a born again Christian" who essentially cleaves unto the status quo.


A. Private property is not contrary to Christianity. If you want to post something I can refute it.
B. I am a mystic because I have supernatural experiences that demonstrate the reality of God. I do not think that born again Christians cleave to the status quo - born again Christians are working very hard to protect the rights of the unborn. The left, in its desire to attract feminists, has decided that a fetus is not the person. It is who has cleaved to the status quo of interest group politics and ideology trumping facts and love. It is true that some Christian groups are more conservative, but they are hardly capitalist. Christian culture is not the culture of Wall Street, it is community based, a culture of generosity, simplicity and resistance to corporate greed. Christianity is very much opposed to materialism and illegitimate authority and born again Christians are a fine example of this. Born again Christians are also working to abolish the sex trade.

[jstrodel]

Morality was created by evolution. Cooperating with other organisms was essential for survival, so morality came into being to say, "Hey bro! You wanna survive, right? You'll be better of with that person helping you, so I'm gonna make you feel like you shouldn't kill him." Because people did not know about evolution, religion explained this and many other things that people just couldn't at the time.

User Name I do not think the theory of evolution conflicts with religion. But the sort of morality that evolution proposes is the morality of individual self interest. Evolution was used by social Darwinist to advocate very individualistic and competitive unequal distributions of wealth. The concept of survival of the fittest does not fit in well with a community of people all working for each others good.

The sort of morality you are proposing is a nihilistic hyper-individualism that looks exactly like the excesses of capitalism you are against.

Also, ultimately at the core of the morality, there is no duty, other than the duty to survive. And even to suggest that there is this duty, implies that there is some higher process behind evolution. You cannot derive any absolute morals from merely looking at the fact that some survive and others do not. Why should survival be taken as the chief end of evolutionary processes? How does evolution explain that to survive is more important than to die, if there is no end of evolution, it is just a meaningless chemical reaction?

So your argument fails in several ways.

[Zostrianos]

B. I am a mystic because I have supernatural experiences that demonstrate the reality of God.

A mystic is someone who seeks and pursues an experiential knowledge of God, through meditation, ritual, esoteric or occult practices, etc. What you describe doesn't make you a mystic, it simply makes you someone who had an experience. Organized Christianity, especially the born-again Evangelical kind you claim to represent are usually violently opposed to most forms of mysticism (the Catholic and Orthodox churches are more open to it, but with strong restrictions). Unless you count speaking in tongues, and convulsing around in an auditorium as "mystical". I don't.

[jstrodel]

I thought it was funny how your statement could so easily be applied to your own beliefs:

Wrong, Red Banana. Theology and Christian life is not based on acceptance of authority, it is based on the unfolding of the knowledge of God. As people mature in the knowledge of God, they develop a supernatural history. They have a record of all the miracles that God has done. They remember the times that God has spoken to them in the Bible and then they have received prophetic words saying exactly the same words and voices.

Mature Christians do not doubt that God exists. God is very real to the mature believer. Theology is not a matter of acceptance of different authorities, it starts out like this, just like learning about science starts out with accepting the theories and beliefs of different figures on faith. As someone progresses in their knowledge of science, they are able to confirm the arguments from authority with experience.

This is different from revolutionary Marxism. Revolutionary Marxism teaches that you must ignore the evidence from history, which is that Marxism doesn't work and produces the most dysfunction and evil societies on the face of the earth, and you must bury yourself in more Marxist theory.

At the end of the day, Marxists do not prove their concepts in any rigorous way. They use sleigh of hand and propaganda to speak to peoples emotions. They don't use real philosophy and they don't argue for the authority of their conclusions, because they know that they don't have authority, because they are nihilists.

[jstrodel]

I would say the onus is upon the theist to prove that God exists (since you folks are usually the ones doing all the preaching)


There is very much written and many solid arguments for the existence of God. They are not all easy to summary in 10 minutes. A thoughtful and honest person will give the question sustained meditation. A "free thinking leftist" will typically rely on anti-religious propaganda and never read a single book in his whole life arguing for religion.

I would suggest books written by Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, Alasdair McGraph or CS Lewis or NT Wright. I have written one approach that is convincing to me, but their are many many books on the existence of God. Read a few books, this is what you will do if you have a fiber of honesty in you.

And I would say that the existence of 2000 years of tradition makes the organized Christian church an authority that has stood the test of time and created the most prosperous societies on earth. While this does not prove that Christianity is true, it proves that people should at least take it seriously who really are as independently minded as they think they are.




I think you have this backwards. The "intellectual infants" are those that are afraid to think for themselves,
(such as theists) because they are taught to not question authority (or else--- hell fire and brimstone)
In my point of view, I would say that Marx had some balls to stand up to the tyrannical superstition
of organized religion.
Furthermore, I do think for myself. And I am proud to have that freedom.


Theism has created the greatest philosophical ferment in world history and is at the center of the Enlightenment, the scientific revolution and also the Medieval intellectual tradition. Christianity is not against thinking for yourself, but it recognizes the role that authority plays in teaching accurately.



WOW isn't this the exact same thing the organized religions do: "make up false authorities" and "create a made up religion, then they enforce it on others" Do you realize what you are saying here? You are describing the M.O. of all of the worlds religions! :rolleyes:


I applied to this on another page.

[jstrodel]

A mystic is someone who seeks and pursues an experiential knowledge of God, through meditation, ritual, esoteric or occult practices, etc. What you describe doesn't make you a mystic, it simply makes you someone who had an experience. Organized Christianity, especially the born-again Evangelical kind you claim to represent are usually violently opposed to most forms of mysticism (the Catholic and Orthodox churches are more open to it, but with strong restrictions). Unless you count speaking in tongues, and convulsing around in an auditorium as "mystical". I don't.


I have seen images of my entire life, revelations of the glory of God, spirits come to me and show me many things about God's nature and then confirm them by people that I do not know prophesy to me. I prayed and asked God to show me His glory and God did.

[MarxSchmarx]

Pascal's wager. It is not ironclad but it is probably the best argument out there. It's not so much an argument for god as it as an argument for belief in god, but frankly I don't quite see the difference.

[Astarte]

A. Private property is not contrary to Christianity. If you want to post something I can refute it.
B. I am a mystic because I have supernatural experiences that demonstrate the reality of God. I do not think that born again Christians cleave to the status quo - born again Christians are working very hard to protect the rights of the unborn. The left, in its desire to attract feminists, has decided that a fetus is not the person. It is who has cleaved to the status quo of interest group politics and ideology trumping facts and love.
A.

ACTS
2:44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common;

2:45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

Not to mention, Christianity does not speak kindly of those of worldly renown:

Matthew 20:16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.
and
Mark 10:25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."


It is true that some Christian groups are more conservative, but they are hardly capitalist. Christian culture is not the culture of Wall Street, it is community based, a culture of generosity, simplicity and resistance to corporate greed. Christianity is very much opposed to materialism and illegitimate authority and born again Christians are a fine example of this. Born again Christians are also working to abolish the sex trade.

The kind of Christians you identify with: Republican "born again" types absolutely uphold capitalism as a kind of sacred virtue. You should be aware of what you are supporting; please check out "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" by Max Weber - it is clear that the entire Protestant reformation came into being alongside the rise of capitalism as a mode and the notion that if one was Elect one would be economically successful was/is quite the mainstream notion. You already declared yourself a supporter of Republicans - how can you possibly hope for anyone to actually be so naive to believe your brand of "Christianity" has anything whatsoever to do with being against corporate greed? It seems to me that "born again Christians" are among the most abusive sects of Christianity who seek the appellation of "Christian" in an authoritatively illegitimate way - they are not spiritually opposed to "materialism" at all but horde wealth, capital and privilege and deem the accumulation of these sorts of things as some kind of divine sign from God that they are among the Elect. I am sure there are quite a few born agains with good intentions, but what exactly have they honestly done in so far as they are supporters of capitalism as a mode to end any of its abused whatsoever?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Ok, if you have a certain statement such as "people deserve to make a fair wage". What do those words refer to? What is it that makes that statement true. Is there an eternal ethical law that declares this? If the only thing that exists is the physical world, where do you find evidence for this in the physical world.

The facts of the physical world don't justify anything, which is why appeals to nature are a fallacy. Morality is normative, not descriptive.


Words must refer to something. If you have a statement that is true, based on some sort of authority, that is called an argument from authority. The argument from authority is only a reliable argument if you know ahead of time the person is reliable.

But if you have a statement of morality, it cannot only be someones opinion. If one person believes that the statement "people deserve to make a fair wage" is true because of their belief it is true, another person could believe the statement "it doesn't matter whether people make a fair wage or not".

Now, without relying on the argument from the first person as an authority, because you like him better, what could you possible know that tells you that people deserve to make a fair wage? Where does the knowledge come from? Is it something that is known empirically - through sense experience?

Through logic. I could be in favour of an unequal society if I was certain to be one of those at the top. However, since there are about seven billion people on this planet and the gaps in wealth and political power are enormous, my chances of "making it" are slim.

Also the empathy aspect - I know what it's like to be poor and powerless, it fucking sucks, although as a white male living in a wealthy country I don't get the worst of it.


But when would you discover in sense experience that some people deserve to make more than others? What possible situation could alert you to the possibility that one deserved more than another.

I think a more pressing question is why shouldn't everyone be guaranteed food, clothing, shelter, education and entertainment?

Also, deserve more what?


The problem is impossible to solve for naturalists, so they make up their silly authorities and invoke them. This is how the Marxists talk, they constantly quote Marx because they can't think for themselves. They are intellectual infants. And they have no answers, what is the source of knowledge of justice. The answer is, Marx just made it up and his followers are too scare to subject his theories to the level of rigor they subject their enemies.

What unmitigated bollocks.


The act of making up a false authority and demanding adherence to a false authority is the same arbitrary nationalistic process the Fascists use. They create a made up religion, then they enforce it on others.

They say Christianity is unscientific, but they don't subject their beliefs to serious philosophical scrutiny. They are fascists at heart, the Marxist philosopher is a irrational nationalist at heart. He won't prove the methods he uses. He is afraid of real philosophy.

Marxism is but a part of my philosophical world-view, but thanks for the hasty generalisations.

[Astarte]

I have seen images of my entire life, revelations of the glory of God, spirits come to me and show me many things about God's nature and then confirm them by people that I do not know prophesy to me. I prayed and asked God to show me His glory and God did.

Pharaoh's sorcerer's too created snakes from rods. Are you sure you know the identity of the alledged beings whose influence you are under? It seems to me that you are an ardent supporter of the state, capitalism, and oppression all around. It seems to me that if you are under the influence of anything supernatural at all it is something rather servile, chthonic and Earthbound.

[jstrodel]

Pharaoh's sorcerer's too created snakes from rods. Are you sure you know the identity of the alledged beings whose influence you are under? It seems to me that you are an ardent supporter of the state, capitalism, and oppression all around. It seems to me that if you are under the influence of anything supernatural at all it is something rather servile, chthonic and Earthbound.

Astarte it is true that there are demonic spirits in the world.

Astarte I trust the Holy Spirit I am in contact with. They reveal their moral character to me and I know that it is good. I know that it is good because they changed me from the selfish, arrogant, narrow minded leftist who used drugs and took advantage of people to the much better although still flawed person I am now. I know they are supernatural and I know that they are good.

I am not a supporter of any of these things, but I live in the real world of adults and not the make believe world. You are the people who are the oppressors, what the Soviet Union did was oppression. It is not oppression to pay someone $33,000 a year. You are the oppressor.

[Astarte]

Astarte it is true that there are demonic spirits in the world.

Astarte I trust the Holy Spirit I am in contact with. They reveal their moral character to me and I know that it is good. I know that it is good because they changed me from the selfish, arrogant, narrow minded leftist who used drugs and took advantage of people to the much better although still flawed person I am now. I know they are supernatural and I know that they are good.

I am not a supporter of any of these things, but I live in the real world of adults and not the make believe world. You are the people who are the oppressors, what the Soviet Union did was oppression. It is not oppression to pay someone $33,000 a year. You are the oppressor.

It IS oppression to only pay someone $33k a year when living expenses are grossly higher than that, or they are left without healthcare benefits and have to go into debt just to have access to those benefits, or are denied care altogether for having a "pre-existing condition" like your Republican "Christians" so much would have liked to have remained legal. The USSR has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation. You are a supporter and servant of MAMMON. You are under demonic influence. Keep digging. Peel back another layer.

This is the reality of your "angelic" system:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zQhf-9Udsxk/Tbnk2k_qyFI/AAAAAAAAAGk/Mpl5fswJrxQ/s1600/productivityandrealwages%2B-%2BRichard%2BWolff.jpg

See this video for an elaboration on the graph:
OcA1v2n7WW4

[jstrodel]

The facts of the physical world don't justify anything, which is why appeals to nature are a fallacy. Morality is normative, not descriptive.


If morality is descriptive, how can you justify your ethical principles? Where do your normative statements come from?




Through logic. I could be in favour of an unequal society if I was certain to be one of those at the top. However, since there are about seven billion people on this planet and the gaps in wealth and political power are enormous, my chances of "making it" are slim.

Also the empathy aspect - I know what it's like to be poor and powerless, it fucking sucks, although as a white male living in a wealthy country I don't get the worst of it.
You are not using logic. Do you even know what a conditional is? Do you even know what logic is? You didn't make a single argument. Why could you be in favor of an unequal society is.

I hope you don't think empathy is logic. Why should you take any of your feelings seriously? What is it that gives your feelings any authority. They can have authority if they are designed. Maybe your faculty of empathy is designed to provide knowledge of good and evil and lead people in the right direction. That is what I believe, that people have empathy and that is part of human cognitive faculties that are designed for moral reasoning.

But none of that exists if you are a naturalist. There is no reason to regard empathy as having any more significance morally than rage. The desire to kill is no more moral than the desire to save. The desire for wealth by exploitation is no more moral than the desire to.

If you have any real courage inside of you, you will stop whatever you are doing until you reach the end of this problem. I would be happy to go back and forth with you. But you will probably go back to your psuedo-intellectual Marxist fantasy world and think that watching Fox News makes you a balanced intellectual.

But your belief system can't deal with this, so you cover it up with empty words. Marxists are psuedo-intellectuals. That is why in the Universities, there are no Marxist economists, few Marxists in political science, few in philosophy, they are all concentrated in Humanities. They are a bunch of idiots, that is why. Marxism is the philosophy of the mediocre bourgouis 24 year old.

Of course this evil nihilistic philosophy is the reason that communism is the worst atrocity in human history, far outstripping any other. Even Zizek said that Stalin was worst than Hitler. Anyone who holds nihilistic philosophical views is a dangerous and wicked person. They will decieve others.

They are stupid, foolish, ignorant, brutish people. So foolish. So foolish.



I think a more pressing question is why shouldn't everyone be guaranteed food, clothing, shelter, education and entertainment?

Also, deserve more what?
This shows your heart, you are a weak willed, weak hearted, fool. You have no understanding of real policy, or real philosophy. You cannot even get beyond your vague self righteous sentimentality. How old are you, 23? A more pressing question, you don't even care that your philosophy is totally vacuous.



What unmitigated bollocks.
You havn't made a single argument yet. You are about as gifted as the Marxists in humanities. Look how smart I am, I am a revolutionary who is teaching English because I'm not smart enough to actually think out the details of what I am saying. Weak willed, foolish, deceived person.

If you had any moral fiber in you, you would take philosophical details seriously. But Marxists aren't real philosophers. They don't follow the argument where ever it goes. They are like the Soviet propaganda scientists.

Marxism isn't a philosophy, it is a propaganda tool. As such, debate about Marxism must proceed according to propagandistic, non-rational, authoritarian lines.
[/QUOTE]

[sixdollarchampagne]

What Herr Strodel writes is un-Christian, because it is unkind and insulting. And many of his assertions are simply not true. For instance, the following:


Private property is not contrary to Christianity. Oh, but it is. Jesus said that he had no place to lay his head, and he insisted that you could get a camel through the eye of a needle more quickly than you could sneak a rich man into heaven. Also, as reflected in the Acts of the Apostles, the earliest Christian churches practiced an extreme form of sharing of their wealth, so that no one went without. It is recorded in the New Testament that, in the Jerusalem church, no man dared call his belongings his own.


I do not think that born again Christians cleave to the status quo. Not true. The "born again" are a big part of right-wing, reactionary politics, which is, in turn, an important part of the texture of the status quo.


Christian groups are hardly capitalist. On the contrary, the churches use their enormous, tax-exempt wealth to make investments, which are traded on Wall Street, the heart of the capitalist system.


Christianity is very much opposed to materialism. Oh, really? Is that why the churches are pushing the utterly un-biblical prosperity gospel and the exaltation of private ownership of the means of production? Is that why Chuck Swindoll owned several houses, in a country where homelessness persists?


Revolutionary Marxism teaches that you ignore the evidence from history. No, the opposite is true. Anyone who has even looked at a translation of the first volume of Marx' Capital, knows that Marx made extensive references to the sources that he used. Marx' notes that list his sources go on for many pages in Capital. Marx' historical writing is strictly fact-based and well-researched.


Marxists can't think for themselves. They are intellectual infants. That particular insult from Herr Strodel is remarkably un-Christian. Christians are supposed to be loving people. Insulting strangers is no part of Christianity. Plus, the statement is false. Marx, Trotsky, Lenin, Lukacs, Luxemburg, etc. were intellectual giants.


You are the people who are the oppressors. Another (utterly un-Christian) insult.


Marx just made it up. That is completely untrue. Marx devoted years of his life to discovering the facts about how capitalism actually works. What Marx wrote was verifiable and strictly factual.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

If morality is descriptive, how can you justify your ethical principles? Where do your normative statements come from?

From at least two sources - my own reasoning and my empathy. There may be others.


You are not using logic. Do you even know what a conditional is?

Why is that relevant?


Do you even know what logic is? You didn't make a single argument.

So what's actually wrong with my statements concerning global population and disparities in wealth and political power?


Why could you be in favor of an unequal society is.

Please rephrase, I don't understand.


I hope you don't think empathy is logic.

No, logic and empathy are two different motivations of mine.


Why should you take any of your feelings seriously? What is it that gives your feelings any authority.

I don't need authority. What I have is a realisation that others are like me in that they generally try to avoid suffering. People who economically and politically enfranchised are less likely to trample on others (and me) to serve themselves.


They can have authority if they are designed. Maybe your faculty of empathy is designed to provide knowledge of good and evil and lead people in the right direction. That is what I believe, that people have empathy and that is part of human cognitive faculties that are designed for moral reasoning.

Do you know why we were designed with dodgy knees and bad backs, among other bone-headed design decisions?


But none of that exists if you are a naturalist. There is no reason to regard empathy as having any more significance morally than rage.

Rage can be moral. For example, rage at injustice.


The desire to kill is no more moral than the desire to save. The desire for wealth by exploitation is no more moral than the desire to.

Being killed or exploited isn't pleasant. Isn't it in my direct self-interest to live in a society with as little chance of that happening as possible?


If you have any real courage inside of you, you will stop whatever you are doing until you reach the end of this problem. I would be happy to go back and forth with you. But you will probably go back to your psuedo-intellectual Marxist fantasy world and think that watching Fox News makes you a balanced intellectual.

I don't watch Fox News, actually.


But your belief system can't deal with this, so you cover it up with empty words. Marxists are psuedo-intellectuals. That is why in the Universities, there are no Marxist economists, few Marxists in political science, few in philosophy, they are all concentrated in Humanities. They are a bunch of idiots, that is why. Marxism is the philosophy of the mediocre bourgouis 24 year old.

Yeah, "psuedo-intellectual", right. Also, you're generalising. Again.


Of course this evil nihilistic philosophy is the reason that communism is the worst atrocity in human history, far outstripping any other. Even Zizek said that Stalin was worst than Hitler. Anyone who holds nihilistic philosophical views is a dangerous and wicked person. They will decieve others.

Stalin isn't communism, silly.


They are stupid, foolish, ignorant, brutish people. So foolish. So foolish.

Screaming "Stalin!" at non-Stalinists is a waste of everyone's time.


This shows your heart, you are a weak willed, weak hearted, fool.

And you're a pompous arrogant ass. So what.


You have no understanding of real policy, or real philosophy. You cannot even get beyond your vague self righteous sentimentality.

Try me.


How old are you, 23? A more pressing question, you don't even care that your philosophy is totally vacuous.

Do you even know what it is?


You havn't made a single argument yet. You are about as gifted as the Marxists in humanities. Look how smart I am, I am a revolutionary who is teaching English because I'm not smart enough to actually think out the details of what I am saying. Weak willed, foolish, deceived person.

Do you have an actual point to make? Or are you just going to keep insulting me and calling me names?


If you had any moral fiber in you, you would take philosophical details seriously.

I do. You got anything you wanna bring to the table?


But Marxists aren't real philosophers. They don't follow the argument where ever it goes. They are like the Soviet propaganda scientists.

Marxism isn't a philosophy, it is a propaganda tool. As such, debate about Marxism must proceed according to propagandistic, non-rational, authoritarian lines.

Apart from rubbish like this. Do you deny that society is divided into classes of a political, social and/or economic nature? Do you deny that workers are alienated from the products of their labour? Do you deny that the value of labour is appropriated by non-productive elements? These aren't all of Marx's ideas, but if you think Marxism is crap, let's start somewhere shall we?


What a bunch of little girls.

Less of that, please.

[jstrodel]

It IS oppression to only pay someone $33k a year when living expenses are grossly higher than that, or they are left without healthcare benefits and have to go into debt just to have access to those benefits, or are denied care altogether for having a "pre-existing condition" like your Republican "Christians" so much would have liked to have remained legal. The USSR has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation. You are a supporter and servant of MAMMON. You are under demonic influence. Keep digging. Peel back another layer.


How old are you? Have you ever owned a house? How many jobs have you had in your life? Have you ever even made $33k?

[jstrodel]

What Herr Strodel writes is un-Christian, because it is unkind and insulting. And many of his assertions are simply not true. For instance, the following:


Communism killed 100 million people around the world. You gotta be kidding me. You are eating up all that left wing propaganda about kindness? Mao killed 30 million alone. Would the nice thing to do be to sit back and take no position?


I write with anger, because I was a leftist. It ruined my life. Leftists lie about the church. They tell people it ok to do whatever they want. They go after the teens. So yes, I am aggressive. But it is not insulting.

Here is something to think about. You are a victim of propaganda. The fact that you are concerned with me being "insulting" shows that your brain has been so dumb-ed down by propaganda that you can't even see the crimes of the left.

I would die for what I believe. And I would kill for it. That is a very Chrisitan attitude, like David. What Che Gevera would want to be like.

Marxism has been discredited. How many economics departments take Marxism seriously. None. It is not falsifiable. It is not science.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

How old are you? Have you ever owned a house? How many jobs have you had in your life? Have you ever even made $33k?

Spoken like someone who knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

[Astarte]

How old are you? Have you ever owned a house? How many jobs have you had in your life? Have you ever even made $33k?

All of that information is completely irrelevant to the argument at hand.

You should address the FACTS presented in the graph above and lecture by professor Richard Wolff.

[DoCt SPARTAN]

There is no argument there is no god

[sixdollarchampagne]

Herr Strodel wrote (emphasis added):


I would die for what I believe. And I would kill for it. That is a very Chrisitan attitude, like David. What Che Gevera would want to be like.
One of my graduate degrees is in New Testament, and, based on that background, I can assure Herr Strodel that killing is not permitted to Christians. In fact, anyone who attentively reads Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, chapters 5-7) will come away with the impression that the Christian religion, in spite of its very bloody history, demanded absolute non-violence, from the beginning. Christians were not even permitted (by the church) to join the Roman imperial army until CE 133; that is, a century had to pass before Jesus' own pacifism could be successfully ignored, pushed aside.

Just a few quotations from Matthew, Chapter 5, will make the point:

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca' [an Aramaic term of contempt] is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool' will be in danger of the fire of hell." "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also...." and so on.

[Karl Renegade]

A God knows everything. a man does not know everything and so isn't a God. If that man is not a God then he cannot honestly say that he is totally sure there is no god just yet since even if he is sure that he isn't god, he cannot be sure that there is not a being somewhere who knows everything and is in fact, a god and is separate from him. Sorry if this sounds confused, I came up with this argument myself, I don't know much about philosophy.:)

[rylasasin]

Communism killed 100 million people around the world. You gotta be kidding me. You are eating up all that left wing propaganda about kindness? Mao killed 30 million alone. Would the nice thing to do be to sit back and take no position?

Getting your numbers from the black book of communism pretty much automatically makes you lose any credibility.

... then again, so does being banned.

[Klaatu]

"Read a few books, this is what you will do if you have a fiber of honesty in you."

Buddy, I do read books - and yes I have read the high-minded "Christian" books as well. I am not arguing that there is no god. I am arguing that this "god" you speak of is in actuality our own familiar "mother-nature." And this phenomenon is right there in front of you (have you noticed? just look for it)

I am saying there is no personal governing-style god (my opinion) but as well, your idea of a "big-and-powerful-dictator-god" is nothing but silly superstition, fantasy and laughable conjecture.

There is no scientific proof of a 'Christian God' (or any sort of fill-in-the-blank religious god, for that matter.)
Hence this is all one-hundred percent opinion. And you are certainly entitled to your opinion.
But until you can legally and scientifically prove there is a 'personal Christian God,' complete with reliable and unbiased empirical evidence,
please go away.


I write with anger, because I was a leftist. It ruined my life. Leftists lie about the church.
I would die for what I believe. And I would kill for it. That is a very Chrisitan attitude, like David.
You sir, are a fool.