Helping others is socialism!

CaptainFargle

"Because God says so" is NEVER an acceptable reason for ANYTHING. You can claim your invisible friend in the sky says it's wrong all you like but that doesn't make your claim any more valid than my (or anyone else's) claim that MY invisible friend in the sky says the exact opposite. "Because God says so" is an EMPTY statement, worth even less than the thin air it materialised from. 

Who ever said it was make-believe?  Can you prove that it's make-believe?

I do, and there's a hell of a lot of evidence to back me up. 

Vorpy

Do it salmon. Come on Fargle, let's see it now.

CaptainFargle

Salmon? I'm sorry, is that a joke that I'm missing the meaning of? What do salmon have to do with this? 

Vorpy

Ah, point Evasion?

Let's see your proof.

CaptainFargle

Most certainly, you do however have to give me a little time to type all this up. It's going to be a long post.

Tnu1138

Right "because god says so" agaizn not everyone shares your religion andy  our precious book is not objective. morality in and of itself is a subjective individual measure. God tels you to restrict peoples freedom and in my book that is truely evil.

CaptainFargle

You know what? I was going to write up an essay on all this, but screw it. For the purposes of this conversation it would take too long - i.e: Providing a comprehensive and adequately sourced article would take me at the very least several days, by which point you'll all be fed up waiting. As such, I am just going to very quickly list a lot of the problems and errors in the Bible and if you want to know more about any of them specifically you can either look them up for yourself or ask me to elaborate further. Fair enough?

Okay, here goes:

1: Young-Earth Creation

The Bible claims that the world was made in a week, no more than 10,000 years ago. This is, of course, sheer bollocks and has been disproved at one point or another by just about every branch of Science there is. As Richard Dawkins so eloquently put it: "It is the same as claiming that the width of North America is eight yards". Hell even humanity, let alone the rest of the universe, has been proven to be older than that. There are human fossils from Ethiopia that go back 195,000 years. 

2: The Great Flood.

The fact that enough water to cover the entire Earth would take triple the volume of all the oceans combined? 

The fact that having enough moisture in the air to sustain 40 days of rain over the whole world would cause you to drown just by breathing? Of course that's assuming you could live long enough to try breathing considering that would also increase the atmospheric pressure to the point that you would be crushed instantly...

The fact that the geological and fossil records make such an event a complete impossibility? What about fragile rock formations that would be destroyed in such an event yet are clearly still standing?

How about the numerous ancient Civilisations that were clearly never wiped out by a flood? Egypt has a continuous written history going all the way back to 3100 BC and has archaeological evidence of continuous habitation all the way back to 9000 BC. 

What about all the species of aquatic life that weren't wiped out owing to the massive destruction of aquatic habitats? Noah very clearly did not take aquatic species aboard the Ark. Think about it at the most basic level for a moment, was this supposed Flood freshwater or salinated?  If it was freshwater, how did all the fish that need salt water survive and vice versa? And this isn't even taking into account things like the GIGANTIC changes in water pressure etc..

How about the fact the Ark was, by vast orders of magnitude, far too small to carry a breeding pair of every animal on Earth?

How did far flung species even get to the Ark in first place? Are you going to tell me that a pair of Koalas walked all the way from Australia, across several oceans, to get onto a boat that was sitting in dry dock in the middle of Israel? How would Penguins, or Polar Bears even survive in that climate? 

How the hell did he even manage to feed that many animals? What about the carnivores that would need to eat meat? Are you telling me that Noah butchered enough meat to feed all of them for month beforehand, stored it on a boat that was too small to begin with, for a month, in the days before refrigeration?  

What about the shit that so many animals would crap out? What would he do with it?

What in the hell did they all eat when the damn flood was over? You've just wiped out all life on Earth with a giant god-damn flood. What in the hell were they supposed to eat? Particularly when you've just ended up at the top of THIS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Agry(ararat)_view_from_plane_under_naxcivan_sharur.jpg ?

How the hell do you then account for the repopulation of the Earth when apparently there only EIGHT people left alive in 2349 BC? Especially when only 6 of them supposedly had any more children? The population of the Earth in 2000 BC was around 27 million. How do you explain 27 million people in 350 years when you're starting with only 6?  How do you account for the resulting genetic bottleneck?  Which leads on to our next problem with Bible:

3: The Tower of Babel

The  Tower of Babel supposedly took place 100 years after the Great Flood. It was apparently large enough to threaten God (Which if he really was Omnipotent and Omniscient, which we shall come to later, should not have even fazed him) which means that it has to have been larger than the Great Pyramid of Khufu (The largest and most famous of the Pyramids), which is very clearly still standing. The Pyramid of Khufu took 30,000 people to build. How the hell do you propose that Noah's family managed to breed more than 30,000 people in a hundred years?

If the Tower of Babel was so tall that it threatened God, how come we haven't been smited for putting Neil Armstrong on the Moon? Or Voyager 1 which, as of May 9th 2011, is 10,876,944,888 miles from Earth?

What about the fact that the Bible never mentions the Tower being destroyed? If it was never destroyed why have we never found it or it's remains? It was apparently large enough to threaten an omnipotent super-being, you'd think that would be pretty hard to miss. 

4: The Mutual Exclusivity of Omnipotence and Omniscience

Since I brought it up in the last point I shall address this now. Omnipotence and Omniscience are mutually exclusive concepts. If something knows everything, everything that is, everything that was, everything that ever will be that means that something knows everything it shall ever do before it does it. Therefore that something cannot ever, by definition, change it's mind and do something different because it already knows everything it will ever do before it does it. Thus, because there is something it cannot do, it is not Omnipotent etc etc. Of course this also brings up the interesting assertion that nothing can ever be truly Omnipotent because it cannot make itself Omniscient without violating it's Omnipotence and therefore there is always something it cannot do... but that's a debate for another time. 

CaptainFargle

5: The Exodus

It takes the Israelites 40 years to make the 10 day hike from Egypt to Canaan. That's ONE HELL of a lot of walking in stupidly tiny circles. 

God apparently leads them around the lands of the Philistines, even though the Philistines wouldn't be present in the area until hundreds of years later.

Later, when giving dietary restrictions, God apparently says that Hares chew the cud and that Bats are birds. He also mentions that any bird that walks on four legs is an abomination. I don't suppose any of you out there can offer me any explanation for this? God made all these animals right? God is supposed to Omniscient isn't he? So then how would he get these wrong? Hares don't chew cud, Bats most certainly are NOT birds and there sure as hell aren't any birds with four legs. Therefore either A: God is wrong or The Bible is wrong. Either way, information along the line has been seriously fucked up and therefore should obviously not be trusted. 

God later sends a flock of Quails to feed his people. Numbers 11:31  "And there went forth a wind from the LORD, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth." Do you realise just how many damn quails that is? Quails are pretty small birds and we're talking about enough of them to apparently fill an area that's one day's journey square, and roughly two metres high. The Skeptics Annotated Bible did a calculation on this, assuming that a days journey is 30 kilometres, and it results in SIX TRILLION QUAILS. That's nearly a thousand times the entire human population of the Earth as it is today. It would be extraordinarily massive overkill for feeding today's population, but it's even stupidly more so when you're just trying to feed one single ancient tribe. Especially when they have no way of refrigerating meat. 

Right, that's a start. I need to get some sleep now, I'll continue this later. 

Turtle

You seem to be interpreting all of those passages in the worst possible way, and making a lot of assumptions about the text that you aren't meant to make.

Skeptics Annotated Bible
Oh, that explains it.

Forzare

This got ignored, but I think this is a really important point.

"God says "don't allow this" it's probably a good idea to not allow it."

That's
all well and good for Christians, but to an atheist, or a Buddhist, or
anyone who doesn't believe in the Christian God, that's like saying you
better be good because Santa said so.

Chagen

Mein Gott....

First of all:

"Because God says so" is NEVER an acceptable reason for ANYTHING. You can claim your invisible friend in the sky says it's wrong all you like but that doesn't make your claim any more valid than my (or anyone else's) claim that MY invisible friend in the sky says the exact opposite. "Because God says so" is an EMPTY statement, worth even less than the thin air it materialised from. "

Only to you. To the theist, it is extremely important. God may be a space fairy to you, but to me and Turtle, he is the ultimate arbiter of truth. You're viewpoint is no more objectively correct that ours.

Now, Turtle, I have this to say to you:

You scare the living fuck out of me.

It's people like you who destroy the reputation of Christianity and religion. I'm ashamed to worship the same god as yoy (even though I don't worship him, it's more "acknowledge" and "respect". There are many secuar reasons not to commit crimes lime theft and rape--because they harm society and other's happiness. Most humans aren't dicks. We don't enjoy making others suffer. Which is why we don't commit crimes. Atheists don't commit any more crimes that Christians. And Christianity has much blood on its hands as well.

But overall: People are naturally and without any assistance from a diety inclined towards good, and not evil.

Tnu1138

Turtle I have a question did you suppor the PATRIOT act?

CaptainFargle

@Turtle: You don't get to write me off that easily. I'm not making silly assumptions that aren't there, I'm taking exactly what's written and pointing out the holes and problems therein. There a LOT of holes. 

I used to be very like you, you know? When I was a child I was the most devout little Bible thumper you could find. I'm not some idiot, blindly lashing out at what he can't understand. I understand all too well, no-one understands a religion better than an apostate. 

Prepare for Round 2. 

All Nines

"You're viewpoint is no more objectively correct that ours."

This exactly. I didn't get to make my point because I was too busy refuting somewhat-tangential arguments, but what I would have said was: actions can't be justified objectively, and so no motivation for acting is better than any other. Including religion.

Turtle

First off, you're not taking exactly what was written.  You're taking what was written and twisting its meaning so that it seems illogical.

Secondly, as much as I'd love to keep talking about this... actually, no, I wouldn't.  Having to debate against pretty much the whole forum is not doing my mental and emotional health any favors.  Now, if humans were open-minded, then it might be for a reason.  But the simple fact is that no matter what I say, I'm never going to convince anyone here that I'm right.  God Himself could come down from heaven and back me up here but it wouldn't matter.  But then, it's just in a man's nature to want to make himself his own god.

All Nines

"I'm never going to convince anyone here that I'm right."

Because that's not how morality works.

Also, see my point above. I think that sums up what we've been trying to say adequately.

CaptainFargle

First: God himself coming down from Heaven most definitely would convince me. I'm a Rationalist, I believe in evidence. God coming down, at least in a fashion which clearly showed that he was who he claimed to be, and backing you up would be perfect and very, very convincing evidence. 

Second: I am twisting nothing. I am taking exactly what the Bible says. You know why it comes off as illogical? BECAUSE IT IS. The Bible is an illogical book. 

Third: Now that Turtle has left in a huff, does anyone still want me to continue? I have a hell of a lot more of this. 

LouieW

CaptainFargle,
Third: Now that Turtle has left in a huff, does anyone still want me to continue?

I find this stuff somewhat interesting, so sure I would like you to continue if that is what you want to do. Do you have criticisms of parts of the Qur'an as well?

On the original subject, I agree that socialism is used as a buzzword decently frequently in American political discourse, but I wonder if the negative reaction against it is explained more by a distaste for large government than anything else. I am not sure though since I am not an expert on public opinion on such topics.

glennmagusharvey

I need to read the Bible sometime.  But it's rather thick.

Same goes for the Quran and the Book of Mormon, since I also have them on hand.  I just don't have things like the Talmud or other stuff.

Komodin

Um, can someone please explain to me as to what is going on here? I'm a bit confused.

Forzare

Now, if humans were open-minded, then it might be for a reason.



Open minded =/= instantly changing our morality systems to agree with you



God Himself could come down from heaven and back me up here but it wouldn't matter.



Actually, that probably would convince me.



But then, it's just in a man's nature to want to make himself his own god.



Atheism =/= making yourself/humanity a god



Why am I still here?

All Nines

^^ Turtle was (poorly) arguing that religion (specifically, Christianity) provides the only logical justification for behaving well. Naturally, everyone was saying he was wrong and trying to explain it, only for him to dig himself in deeper by presenting himself as a grade-A creep.

glennmagusharvey

Y'know, I think I might have an explanation for why suburbs tend to be less progressive/liberal or more conservative than urban areas.

People in urban areas are more used to sharing resources and getting along with their peers.  If you live close to your neighbors, you kinda hafta do that.

Discuss.

LouieW

Glennmagusharvey,

Y'know, I think I might have an explanation for why suburbs tend to be
less progressive/liberal or more conservative than urban areas.

People
in urban areas are more used to sharing resources and getting along
with their peers.  If you live close to your neighbors, you kinda hafta
do that.

Discuss.

I think that might be true for suburbs, but I do not think that really explains why rural areas and small towns tend to be less liberal/progressive than urban areas. My understanding is that many small towns are vary close-knit and people feel free to share things with each other in them. One example I can think of is a neighbor coming over to ask to borrow some flour or something like that.

That might be a somewhat outdated view of rural areas, but I also think that some people believe that those in urban areas (such as Paris and New York City) are too impersonal and rude. I am not sure what that means for ideology though.

Chagen

"Second: I am twisting nothing. I am taking exactly what the Bible says. You know why it comes off as illogical? BECAUSE IT IS. The Bible is an illogical book. "

I have to object to this. First of all, half the bible is allegory in tye first place. Allegory makes little sense taken literally.

Forzare

But the problem is that a lot of people do take it literally.

Komodin

Turtle was (poorly) arguing that religion (specifically, Christianity) provides the only logical justification for behaving well. Naturally, everyone was saying he was wrong and trying to explain it, only for him to dig himself in deeper by presenting himself as a grade-A creep.

Ah, gotcha. At least this thread can cool down now.

CaptainFargle

And how do you determine which bits are meant as allegory and which bits are meant to be taken literally? What about the stuff that's just plain wrong?

@LouieW: http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/ Try that link. I haven't studied the Qu'ran yet, but they have Skeptics annotated one on there that will probably provide a lot of what you're looking for. 

Chagen

The Bible is old as fuck. It was also written by falliable humans.

I'd advocate that the Bible should'nt be basis of Christianity. It can have some good things, yes, but you can't simply get the word of an ultimate diety down into writing. Too many things have been lost in translation.

Tnu1138

if your going for Christianity I'd gof or Christian Gnosticism.