The Nightstar Zoo

_________________
Fandemonium 2010 -- No Boundaries.
http://www.fandemonium.org
Friday - Sunday, August 6th - 8th, 2010
Nampa Civic Center - Nampa, Idaho (Only 20 minutes from the airport!)
(Idaho: It ain't just potatoes anymore.)

_________________
Living in a state free from the burdens of privacy and democracy since 2008-06-18.

Thanks, Ogre. I copied and posted this on another forum and, man, that was fun. Major pee fight.
I've even found a replacement for Jerm as a stalking horse.

Quick question for you - which religion actually believes in thousands of gods? (I know the answer, I wonder if you do?)
Anyway, Christians deny the existance of all those "gods" because the Bible (which we hold as infallible) teaches that they do not exist. We believe in our God, and when He tells us "no one else like Me up here" we take His word for it.
Atheists, otoh, just disbelieve because they disbelieve.



Dirt and the "breath of life" from God. I think the important point here is that the evolution theories implicity deny that people have souls.
(The two ideas, being descended from animals, and being unlike those animals in having an immortal soul, are not in fact logically contradictory at all - proving either true wouldn't prove the other false, but many people think they are contradictory)


Not the same thing. And (again probably unlike you) I have actually met, and discussed religious matters with, real live polytheists, and I can honestly say I've never laughed at them for it.




"atrocities attributed to Allah"?
When has 'Allah' ever done anything? Anything at all? The Koran does contain open-ended commands for muslims to kill anyone not a believer in their religion, but that is all 100% human beings doing it. Did 'Allah' ever help directly by, say, making the walls of a besieged city fall down, or dropping meteors on the enemy army? Nope!

As for the stuff in Joshua - warfare back in the 14th century BC was hardly ruled by the Geneva Conventions. Its unfair to judge it by modern standards. Those other tribes would have done the same back.
(Think of World War 2, and the firebombing of the city of Dresden. Horrible? But remember that the Nazis had done the same to Birmingham, and were carpet-bombing London flat out.)



your fictional fundamentalist seems to be relying heavily on the "argument from ridicule". But since he's a creature of your own mind, perhaps that's no surprise.
Pretending not to understand the difference between Christian belief in God (the Creator of all things) and ancient Greek belief in their various "gods" is a standard Atheist tactic.


The scientifically "established" age of the Earth changes every so often, did you know that? In the early 20th century it was 2.3 billion years, then they doubled it to 4.6 billion. And lets not get started here about all the variations of the Big Bang theories.

And nowhere does the Bible itself set a date for creation.



"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whomsover believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."



How about if that "idiot" is YOU, and you hadn't gone to that meeting intending to do anything of the sort? (I've seen this happen to people)

As for "modern science" somehow being an argument against Christianity, that is typical atheist rhetoric. It crumbles as soon as you press for specifics.



All you'd need to ONE case of something happening that definately would not have happened if you hadn't prayed.
In any case, God is not a coin-in-the-slot machine.



Plenty of Christians who don't read the Bible as much as they should - and also plenty of atheists who seem to read the Bible rather more than one would expect. But that doesn't invalidate each person's claim as to what they believe.

Wow, we got us a live one!
Sorry, FrankNorman, but I'm about to get a little rude here.

I dunno. Shinto has 8 million and Hindu, if I recall, has 500 million. Most of the Western religions have only a few hundred gods.
This is exactly the point the original post is making. You assume that your holy book is somehow more accurate than all the others, apparently just because you've been told to.

I've never heard any evolutionist mention souls. It has no bearing on the theory one way or another.

You're right. Unlike polytheism, the Trinity is logically inconsistent- it claims the impossible, that God has exactly one and at the same time more than one identity.

I agree with you here. Ancient extremists and modern ones are alike in their lack or respect for life. However, few Christians condemn the acts of their predecessors based on their different outlook.


What is the difference?

Yeah. But many Christians still believe the earth is only a few thousand years old, which is wrong by any modern empirical standard. The early scholars estimated the age of the world based on the best information they had. That information has now greatly improved, allowing increasingly accurate estimates, but many steadfastly hold to the old figures out of tradition, completely invalidating the point of trying to calculate it in the first place.

Meanwhile, the other 5.5 billion are screwed? That's a very loving guy.

Such as?

And no such known case exists.

Yeah.

Finally, some action in this forum! Hot damn.



Does this even matter? There wouldn't need to be one religion with thousands of gods; a thousand other religions with one god each would still suffice for his point. Polytheistic religions can have up to dozens of gods. And if you count various denominations of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and all the other religions, you can come up with a lot more gods, which are the same in name but not the same in theological details. The point of that comment is that there are thousands of other god concepts that exist and have existed and both Christians and atheists deny a vast majority of them. (I said god concept, not god, mind you.)



As The General pointed out, most other monotheistic religions have the same tenet. What makes your Holy Book special?



Yeah, that's it. Do you really have any idea why atheists don't believe in God, or do you prefer to think of us all as "just stubborn folks who disbelieve because they want to"?



What, precisely, is the "breath of life"? There's no special magic that makes living things alive. Is the breath of life adenosine triphosphate, maybe?



Lots of theists reconcile souls and evolution just fine. I don't agree with them, not being a theist, but the point remains that a lot of people think you're wrong. What's so bad about not having a soul, anyway? (And how do you know we have one? How would you know if you had a soul or not? Do you know what it's like to not have one?)



Only because of semantic manipulation and a big dose of poor logic. The Father is equal to the Son is equal to the Spirit, but they're also all different, and they're all equal to the whole. Is that about right? Did I miss something? I know I missed the part where it made any coherent sense, perhaps you can fill us in on that.



And pretending there is a difference is a standard Christian tactic.



How was the age of 2.3 billion years determined, and by who, and why was it later rejected with the advent of better dating techniques? Do you know any of those answers? And you seem to have forgotten that dating techniques improve as new things are discovered and invented. Surely this couldn't have anything to do with the discovery of radioactive decay and the discovery that it could be used as a dating technique? Lord Kelvin estimated the earth's age at a few hundred million years, based on a study of the Earth's internal temperature, because he didn't know about radioactive decay and based his argument on other heat sources. Later scientists who did know about radiation found that his results were incorrect because they did not incorporate heat from radiation, and so corrected him.

Why is it that some people consider it a bad thing that science corrects itself as new evidence comes in?



What variations are you talking about, and why would the existence of competing hypotheses about details of the Big Bang negate everything known about Big Bang cosmology as a whole? Most of the variations still agree on basic points, like the age of the universe, that the observable universe was once very small and dense, and that the universe has expanded.



Hahaha.

1) If God so loves the world, why does he still send those who don't believe in him to Hell? What's wrong with a system of do-overs, like reincarnation, or a temporary purgatory instead of eternal Hell? Indeed, why bother with the whole mess at all? Punishing children for a misdeed is one thing, but punishment is behavior modification to prevent future bad behavior. There is no second chance after Hell; how can it be punishment? Even if you spent twenty years in hell and changed your ways for good, you'd have no way of showing it. How can a finite sin by a limited being against an infinite unlimited being require an eternal unending torment? It's the ultimate hubris to assert that the finite misdeeds of a temporary life are noticed at all by an ultra powerful creator of the universe. "I'm so special that the creator of the universe is hurt deeply when I think about girls and touch myself!"

2) Why would an omnipotent deity need to "give his only son" to do anything? Oh, right, I forgot, omnipotence is just a religious plot device. Is there any logically coherent reason why God had to sacrifice anyone to change his own mind about the rules of Hell? Is there some Organization of Deities that has bylaws about sacrifices being necessary to atone for sin? Does God just have weird whims? Is there any reason why God didn't get his mind right the first time around? Why not send Jesus as soon as Adam and Eve chomped on that fruit and nip the mess in the bud?

Right, right, "God works in mysterious ways", "his thoughts are not our thoughts", and all the other stock phrases meaning essentially "look, we didn't think about the ramifications of an unlimited all-powerful all-knowing deity before we started believing in one, cut us some slack".

3) What's the big deal about sending his only son, anyway? Jesus sacrificed nothing. He died on the cross, but he spent a few hours being tortured: some crucifixion victims hung for days. Then he's dead for three days -- where he spends these three days is unclear; some verses say he went to Hell, but he tells the thief in Luke that that day they will be together in Paradise. If he spends it in Hell, there's still people who died and spent longer than three days in Hell. Then Jesus comes back to life, returns in glory, gets worshipped for millennia, and will eventually rule the universe. And he went to the cross knowing all this. How is it a sacrifice if you know with perfect knowledge that you'll get back everything you lost, and then get so much more besides? It sounds like a two-man con, to me. "Believe in me, I'm suffering!" "I love you, and to prove it, my son is suffering! Love me back!" Then they run off to heaven and rule the universe while people love and believe in them.

4) Why does a transcendent superbeing just happen to have human emotions? Human emotions are social behaviors -- the social behaviors of limited beings who we can't control and whose thoughts we can't know, to be precise. Does God socialize with other deities? Does God have any reason to experience love, or are theists just projecting?



I've seen it too. It was freaky at the time but in retrospect it's nothing special. People get caught up in religious fervor. Or possibly a lot of people need CAT scans. People doing weird things in religious contexts is nothing new.



So press for specifics and we'll see. Just out of curiosity, what sort of arguments are you thinking of in this case? Could you give some examples?



Would you mind explaining how one would do this? Do you have any such cases?



If you pray for something and it happens, it was God.
It you pray for something and it doesn't happen, God is not a slot machine.
Looks like you've got your bases covered! Just like psychics!
If a psychic predicts something and it happens, it was their psychic powers.
If a psychic predicts something and it doesn't happen, well, their powers don't work all the time.
I bet I could found a religion based on the same unfalsifiable idea.
If you pray to me for something and it happens, it was me.
If you pray to me for something and it doesn't happen, I'm not a slot machine.
I wonder if I can get any followers this way.

_________________
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, grab es tief unten im Keller ein.
Später dann graben es andere aus, und nennen dein Haus das Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, leg auch ihre weißen Schädel hinein.
Mit Beton gießt du es aus, das Fundament vom Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, da ist noch Platz, da paßt noch wer rein.
Hier tobte sich der Teufel aus, unten im Keller im Knochenhaus.

The Church of Joe Pesci was founded on this principle. Except it has a higher success rate for prayer, because "Joe Pesci looks like a guy who can get things done."

Hmmm...The Bible. What an interesting thought. The Word of God as written by Man (where's woman when you need her?). I once heard that Man is not perfect. As such, how could something vreated by man be perfect?

But hey, Praise be to Jerry Falwell!

http://blog.au.org/2006/12/falwells_flub_j.html

And a quote for the moment...


"The people who make themselves rich in the name of God or Allah are fair game, as are the people who pretend to speak for Krishna or Y*HW*H -- usually to their own advantage. YOU may say that God said, 'touch not the apple of mine eye' -- but until God sends us the memo, you're fair game, bud."

Robert Darden, editor in chief of the religious satire magazine the Wittenburg Door

Wanna really piss off the religious types, keep going.

"And never mind the fact that he created girls, created horniness, and gave me arms just the right length...but it's all my fault I jerk it, can't possibly be yet another setup by God!"

Then there's speaking in tongues.

Speaking in TONGUES is speaking in such a way that everybody can understand exactly what you said, as if you said it in their own native language. Go on, look it up. Sure, it gets a lot easier if the entire crowd speaks only English and Bad English, but most 'speaking in tongues' people can't even do that once they get going.

Rolling your eyes and chanting nonsense that is not coherent sentences in any known language is not speaking in tongues. It's gibbering. A person who is doing it is not becoming the channel for a religious miracle, he's having a seizure. Or an orgasm. Considering how much fundies want to insist that sex is evil, I doubt they'd know the difference.

Everything necessarily has to end up back in God's lap. In the eyes of theists, though, free will is like some magical wand that will solve any atheist's question about God's behavior. Free will is apparently like kryptonite to God. It really is funny when you think about it. God is the all-powerful creator of the universe, according to these people. He can summon a universe into existence from nothing. He is transcendent, beyond space and time and yet occupying them both at all points. He knows the behavior of every particle at every second throughout the entire history of existence. He has a plan, carefully designed by his all-knowing mind to execute and glorify his divine will. And yet, somehow, the will of this divine being can be thwarted by a minute and temporary species of carbon-based life that can't even make a taco ex nihilo and, far from being all-knowing, have been known to forget the name of the sitcom they just finished watching five minutes ago.

_________________
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, grab es tief unten im Keller ein.
Später dann graben es andere aus, und nennen dein Haus das Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, leg auch ihre weißen Schädel hinein.
Mit Beton gießt du es aus, das Fundament vom Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, da ist noch Platz, da paßt noch wer rein.
Hier tobte sich der Teufel aus, unten im Keller im Knochenhaus.

I think you scared him off, Jerm. Come join me in this forum... it will be no suprise to you that I've found a replacement for all of this.

http://forums.achaea.com/index.php?showtopic=21424

I use a different nick on there, see if you can guess which.

It's a Pronto!

((And thus my annual visit is made. Off-topic, as well. ))

EDIT: Great thread. Gave me more than a few chuckles and perhaps some pointers on how to counter RHJunior next time he stirrs up a flamewar over at #DnD.

_________________
It's the real me, I swear!

I can't tell. I only read the first eight pages or so though.



Bring him over here, this forum needs some life.

I promise not to make too many insanely huge posts.

_________________
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, grab es tief unten im Keller ein.
Später dann graben es andere aus, und nennen dein Haus das Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, leg auch ihre weißen Schädel hinein.
Mit Beton gießt du es aus, das Fundament vom Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, da ist noch Platz, da paßt noch wer rein.
Hier tobte sich der Teufel aus, unten im Keller im Knochenhaus.

Over the years, I have compiled a list of verses from the Bible where God does not care about free will. Most of the verses are of the following categories:

- God unduly influencing the mind (i.e. heart) of a person. Most of the Old Testament verses are like this, with a lot of verses from Exodus when God hardens Pharaoh's heart so he won't let the people go.

- Statements that salvation occurs at God's whim, or statements that certain people are being prevented from knowing salvation by God's whim. Most of the ones from the New Testament are this category. If salvation occurs solely according to God's will, humanity's free will must necessarily be taking a back seat.

- Statements of God's foreknowledge and predestination, both of which negate human free will: if God already knows what you'll do, you have no other alternative than to do it.

Here we go! It's a long one.

_________________
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, grab es tief unten im Keller ein.
Später dann graben es andere aus, und nennen dein Haus das Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, leg auch ihre weißen Schädel hinein.
Mit Beton gießt du es aus, das Fundament vom Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, da ist noch Platz, da paßt noch wer rein.
Hier tobte sich der Teufel aus, unten im Keller im Knochenhaus.

While it is certainly tempting, doubly so coming from a moderator, I'm squeamish about doing it. This would, in essence, be provoking a flamewar and would make me a troll. I do not desire that unpleasant title to pertain me, and thus I politely decline.

_________________
It's the real me, I swear!

How, exactly, would having a religion discussion in a religion forum be considered a flamewar? Are you and RHJunior really that sassy when you debate?

_________________
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, grab es tief unten im Keller ein.
Später dann graben es andere aus, und nennen dein Haus das Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, leg auch ihre weißen Schädel hinein.
Mit Beton gießt du es aus, das Fundament vom Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, da ist noch Platz, da paßt noch wer rein.
Hier tobte sich der Teufel aus, unten im Keller im Knochenhaus.

Most theists claim that predestination doesn't actually preclude free will. None of them can explain exactly how, though.

No, not me. I try to stay out of it, because most of the stuff is too convoluted for me to understand and actually debate successfully. Now, RH, on the other hand, has already been banned twice for his ad hominem.

_________________
It's the real me, I swear!

Well, if he gets cranky, I'll tell him to knock it off.

_________________
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, grab es tief unten im Keller ein.
Später dann graben es andere aus, und nennen dein Haus das Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, leg auch ihre weißen Schädel hinein.
Mit Beton gießt du es aus, das Fundament vom Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, da ist noch Platz, da paßt noch wer rein.
Hier tobte sich der Teufel aus, unten im Keller im Knochenhaus.

Circular reasoning - see: reasoning, circular

Reasoning, circular - see: circular reasoning



Whos' pretending? I, for one, was raised neither Christian nor polytheist. Assume I don't understand the difference. Explain the difference. Both the Greek and Christian cases are of nonhuman supernatural entities causing human pregnancies resulting in half-human, half-deity children.

BTW, I'm pretty sure I remember (but I may be wrong) that Ogre is a Unitarian Universalist.



What's established is that it's a hell of a lot longer than 10 millennia.





Give an example.

BTW, someone being "miraculously" cured of cancer doesn't count. Cancer goes into remission unexpectedly all the time, in people of all faiths or lack thereof.

(Yeah, I know I'm piling on a little late here)

You have to look hard, but it's there. I did it once, and I'm too lazy to do it again.

But the rough outline of the story is this.

I had a friend who was an ultra-fundamentalist, trained well in the ways of the Southern Baptist. She absolutely, completely, totally believed that the Earth was a mere 4000 years old, because "it says so in the Bible". She seriously believed that every word of the Bible was absolute literal truth, with no room for people making analogies or parables or anything like that. She believed that it never rained before Adam & Eve got kicked out of Eden, because the Bible never mentions it raining.

Seriously.

Anyway, I sat down with her one day, and we went through the Bible, and I noticed in all those really damn boring parts where "Zack begat Fred begat George begat Charles begat WHOTHEFUCKCARES", there are actually clues as to the timing of these begats.

So we traced things down, from Adam and Eve right at the beginning, up to Jesus Christ's death. And all Christians, no matter how looney fundie, agree on when Christ died.

The only thing that really stopped us was not knowing how long the Jews were slaves in Egypt. We guessed it at about a thousand years.

And the Bible "proves" that the world is at least 8000 years old.


On a side note, this friend has since matured in her faith, and no longer finds a conflict between what the Bible tells you is the age of the Earth, and what the scientists tell you...



---------------------------

OK, here's what I wanna know. How the hell do you go about converting people to your religion when the only thing you can offer to show your religion is true is a book that, not being of your religion, your target audience doesn't accept as truth?

Kissing Hank's Ass. It makes no sense.

And the big thing. I *know* as a fundie, you believe that anyone who doesn't share your beliefs is in for an eternity of torment and suffering. And I *know* you think it's your duty as a good person (as defined by your religion) to save as many people from this suffering as you possibly can. But goddamnit, why do you have to be so in-your-face and downright ANNOYING about it?

Convert people by living your life to the utmost, and being the best darn Christian you can possibly be! Live with honor, do your very best to live up to all the standards Jesus Christ himself set for you, and if you're right, God's going to look favorably upon you. And then other people will look favorably upon you. "Gee, you see that Jack? What a truly wonderful person! I'd like to be more like him. Well, he's Christian isn't he? His faith probably helps him quite a bit to be such a great person. Hmmm..." and so on.

This will probably be far more effective than the fire and brimstone "BELIEVE AS I BELIEVE OR ELSE!!!" approach. And it has the side benefit that even if someone isn't converted by you, you're at least being a truly decent human being, instead of a really annoying git.

_________________
Fandemonium 2010 -- No Boundaries.
http://www.fandemonium.org
Friday - Sunday, August 6th - 8th, 2010
Nampa Civic Center - Nampa, Idaho (Only 20 minutes from the airport!)
(Idaho: It ain't just potatoes anymore.)

Ogre: If you're interested in how the 6000 years thing was reached, there's an article here about the first man to come up with it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology

Your guess for the captivity in Egypt seems really high: apparently orthodox Jews and Christians hold it at around 450 years or so.

_________________
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, grab es tief unten im Keller ein.
Später dann graben es andere aus, und nennen dein Haus das Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, leg auch ihre weißen Schädel hinein.
Mit Beton gießt du es aus, das Fundament vom Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, da ist noch Platz, da paßt noch wer rein.
Hier tobte sich der Teufel aus, unten im Keller im Knochenhaus.