Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The Bible is Psychotic

Luke 19:27 Jesus Christ said to His disciples: "But those, mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. (KJV)

Ahh, dearest loving Jesus must have been having a bad day.

***

I am here to put forth a theory. It's a very unpopular theory, to be sure. But it needs to be said.

The Bible is psychotic. Absolutely flaming psychotic. That's my theory. And I can back it up.

Think about it, really think.

***

psy·cho·sis
[sahy-koh-sis] Show IPA
noun, plural -ses  [-seez] Show IPA.
1.
a mental disorder characterized by symptoms, such as delusions or hallucinations, that indicate impaired contact with reality.
2.
any severe form of mental disorder, as schizophrenia or paranoia.

schizophrenia
[skit-suh-free-nee-uh, -freen-yuh]   Origin
schiz·o·phre·ni·a
[skit-suh-free-nee-uh, -freen-yuh] Show IPA
noun
1.
Psychiatry. Also called dementia praecox. a severe mental disorder characterized by some, but not necessarily all, of the following features: emotional blunting, intellectual deterioration, social isolation, disorganized speech and behavior, delusions, and hallucinations.
2.
a state characterized by the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements.

***

If the Bible were a person, holding *all* of the many beliefs found within its pathological pages, they'd be a raving psychotic, a complete lunatic, because the Bible is in two halves, one of which is diametrically opposed in tone and direction and even philosophy to the other half, *and also* let us not forget that the Bible contains *many* other individual instances of self-contradiction within its pages. Even the four gospels do not agree on many important points, so 'gospel' meaning 'truth' begs the question 'which truth?'

The Bible tells us that it is the Word of God Himself, so we Must Believe in All Of It At Once. Or we're bad and evil and will go to hell after we die. And so we have Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild, with His Father Yahweh in Heaven who is never, ever meek and mild, is absolutely always *incredibly* strict and authoritarian, but you have to believe that really, they're one thing, one being, one God. And if that isn't enough to finish the job of dissolving your mind, we even have a terrible Revenge Jesus in Revelations at the very end of the book. Just in case you weren't fucked up enough up to that point.

This is the very definition of (forced) schizophrenia. To firmly believe in contrary things at the same time, is mental illness. There is no doubt about it. It's just a fact. The Bible is 'committing schizophrenia' on its readers. On its victims.

The Bible causes schizophrenia. The more literally you take it, the more sick you become. It's really that simple. And just because it's group schizophrenia doesn't excuse it. Actually it makes it far more horrifying. In fact, when you really think about it (and you have to really think about it,) you come to realize that it is entirely possible, even likely, that the Bible is the root cause of much of the mental illness present in Western (and Islamic) society. It is the Rotten Tree from which all the diseased branches grew. It is the Official Alternative to Reality.

I can't think of a better training program to produce schizophrenia. There just isn't one. The Bible, over and over again, presents sets of things which self-contradict, and yet *demands* that the reader believe in every last word of *both* of the pair of things presented, perhaps even with other differing things thrown in that contradict those two things, demands you believe absolutely all of it, all together, the whole mishmash, *or else God will fuck you up forever* (because He loves you!)

It's not possible to believe in the bible literally and not be a psychotic, a schizophrenic basket case. It demands, on pain of damnation, that the reader hold contrary beliefs in their head at the same time, permanently. And not just contrary *beliefs,* but even contrary *moral convictions!*

Or else.

Isn't coercive morality fun?

So go forth and do unto others as you would have them do unto you and love thy neighbor, while of course taking an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth along the way. Just remember to take the eye from them *lovingly.* Remember that God loves you more than anything, which is why He demands strict obedience or else He will torture and burn you forever.

So have fun, boys and girls! God loves you! (But it's a fearfully horrific kind of love, hope you don't mind...)

I want to end on a cheery note. So let me inform the gentle reader that, according to the Bible, practically all Christians are *absolutely* damned to hell anyhow. For how many Christians, what percent, believe in *all* of Leviticus? How many Christians would kill their son if he came home drunk and rebellious? Heck, how many Christians do at least some sort of work on the Sabbath? (Which incidentally, in the Bible, is on Saturday, so there's that too...) They think little of ignoring those parts; indeed they think little of ignoring whichever parts of the Bible they find just too offensive (or too nice!) for their bent and fractured belief system, hence, they're eternally damned by Biblical definition, period. The Bible says so. It's a Biblical Fact. So get used to it, Christians! God is going to love you all the way to hell. Take comfort in that, and remember to bring the ice.

(It was cheery to me)

1,636 comments:

  1. Of course it's drivel, but it is layered in meaning by those who wish it were layered in meaning.

    Some clergy I heard discussing some state of affairs they were in, trying to find 'God's Will' in it or 'God's Plan' in it, a woman nodded sagely and said, "It's the metaphor, it's the metaphor."

    But you can twist anything by claiming it's a metaphor.

    "Daddy beat us all every night when he got home!"

    "It's a metaphor, he recognised the evil in the World and protected you the only way he knew how, to make you fear it."

    Using the idea of a figure of speech we can add or remove meaning, add or dismiss suffering etc. as we please, after all, we're simply embellishing a story.

    We can read the Bible and it becomes clear that God is a personality, metaphorised or no, the stories are meant to affect us, and this is where the whole mish-mash breaks down and here's why.

    The stories are set in the intersubjective morals and values of the writers.

    The moral of each O.T. story, "You just shouldn't have ought to have done that, God is going to 'get you' for that."

    This intersubjective morality passes down to the Hebrews and the rest of the World is deemed 'evil' through their eyes.

    To us it's hypocrisy, "They had slaves and many wives and saw the world through, 'Expect no mercy!' Yahweh lens.", is not compatible with our intersubjective moral values today!

    But to cut through the bullshit, they're still EXACTLY LIKE THAT! Their hypocrisy isn't that they don't have those same values, it's just that they claim not to have those values.

    The hypocrisy is that they claim the high moral ground yet define the high moral ground as a double standard.

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  2. I really have come to believe, or at least to seriously think, that like 80 percent of the world's insanity can be traced back to this one book. It sounds silly even, to the christian ear. And I remember having one of those. I remember as a kid trying to reconcile those opposites in my head, and it didn't work. The best I could do was to sort-of 'blur' the whole thing into one largely emotional 'picture' in my head. I think that's how most christians accomplish their belief as well, just blurring it all together, not even aware really which parts they're downplaying and which they're making prominent in their minds.
    This path does lead to insanity. The only way to not go completely bonkers, is to ignore a good portion of the book, and that's specifically prohibited right there IN the book.

    Islam is so potentially harmful, for the exact same reason. It too comes from the same schizophrenic root. Islam isn't that different from the protestant rebellion against catholicism. A reaction to insanity by the already-insane which (of course) goes to the other side of insanity and never seems to even touch reality in the process.

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  3. But to cut through the bullshit, they're still EXACTLY LIKE THAT! Their hypocrisy isn't that they don't have those same values, it's just that they claim not to have those values.
    -------------
    A perceptive statement. Very true.

    Except, they still don't truck much with Leviticus, do they?

    They claim it's merely a product of the tough times in which it was written, of the severely restrictive early beliefs, and so is not relevant today...

    BUT....

    That means that one can judge and dismiss any other part that doesn't seem to fit the times. No other way to interpret that.

    But they're on both sides of that one, too. They find ways to dismiss or change the parts they do not like, one way or the other.

    Like I said, they're all quite specifically damned to hell. No other way to see it.

    That's if, of course, that book is really the Un-Alterable Word of God. Which is what it claims to be. And what they all say that it is.

    I saw someone on MSNBC the other day, I think it was Lawrence O'Donnell, calling someone 'hypochristians.'

    I want my cut, dammit! That's mine!

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  4. Let's dissect the definition of schizophrenia:

    emotional blunting,
    -No love for the poor or downtrodden, no empathy.

    intellectual deterioration,
    -Do I really even have to give an example?

    social isolation,
    -This is not readily apparent BECAUSE they are all shcizophrenic *together* and agree upon their delusions, so they're only isolated from the non-believers, which is STILL JUST AS VALID.

    disorganized speech and behavior,
    -Again, too obvious to bother giving examples. they're everywhere you look.

    delusions, and hallucinations.
    -BORN-AGAIN!!!

    And so forth.

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  5. And as for the number 2 definition, why that's even closer to the bone, isn't it?

    2.
    a state characterized by the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements.

    I've already given those examples in my post, haven't I?


    If this were not so laden with the emotional-belief-biases of the conditioned christian, it would be laughably obvious to the whole world. They're conditioned NOT to see it, of course, and here's the kicker. So are we all. We're all a product at one level or another, of two thousand years of christian conditioning. We're all, at best, recovering schizophrenics or children of such. At worst, we're Mike or MI or (maybe?) Eric.

    This shit is fucking OBVIOUS. Those who scoff, do so in kneejerk fashion without any real *thought.*

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  6. I particularly enjoyed Eric's dancing around on that other site recently.

    Having explained that we had no right to dismiss his bullshit without dedicating years to learning all the ins and outs of his religion/philosophy, he goes ahead and demands that we(one or two of the commenters on that blog) summarize Scientology or any other religion, in a blog comment, for him to thoroughly debunk, no doubt.

    Bit of a double standard there, no?

    I don't imagine that EricRC was anything less than smug at that point, basically saying, "You're not allowed to summarize and dismiss my religion, but if you like, you could summarize some other religion for me to dismiss.

    And I loved the part where he dismissed anyone who considered him simply a debater or word-magician or words to that effect.

    "When it comes to MY religion, it's complicated, it's carefully parsed, it's 'precious'. When it comes to someone else's religion, jot in down on a piece of bum-scrub so it'll be of use when I've scoffed at it!"

    So, you haven't prejudged everyone elses' religion/lack thereof, while asking us to at least not prejudge yours then?

    I don't think EricRC accidentally boxed his religion out of brief consideration while lumping other religions into that box.

    And this, this isn't word games at all, no.

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  7. Eric is the stupidest smart man I've ever spoken with. Next to Dinesh, I mean.

    The stupid is more appalling on top of the smart. It's stealthier.

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  8. I like Newt Gingrich's wife. She's got that Adam's Family look. Is she an albino, the poor thing?

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  9. No, she's a living doll... as in, glass eyes and plastic skin, and the hair is polyester. I think she's from Stepford.

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  10. Either that or she's literally made out of white bread.

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  11. Her name is Callista, which means 'the most beautiful.' And his name is Newt, which means 'the most amphibious.'

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  12. Now that he's in the spotlight, guess we have to hash through what an asshole his was, is and ever will be.

    This is all a silly side-show. Your fellow citizens have already decided, or the rich have already decided for them, that there is no way that government is for 'the people', unless they're just being 'funny' and they're the only 'people' who count.

    Best case, we all are so grateful that Obama gets back in and gets totally blocked by a Rep. Congress, a Rep. Senate, a Rep. Supreme Court and mostly Rep. State govts.

    Worst case scenario, They get on with the business of completely dismantling your economy and changing your Constitution to say what they think it should have said all along.

    Christian Nation. Life begins at fertilization, bad times to be a woman. Money is speech. Speech is free as long as you pay for it. Legality of anything but Christian Conservatism called into question. Wall around state and established Christianity.

    School books to be burned and replaced with Palin, Bachmann and O'Reilly and that other moron creationist, I forget his name.

    Freedom redefined something like torture, you're free as long as we don't get around to killing you.

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  13. "I particularly enjoyed Eric's dancing around on that other site recently.
    Having explained that we had no right to dismiss his bullshit without dedicating years to learning all the ins and outs of his religion/philosophy, he goes ahead and demands that we(one or two of the commenters on that blog) summarize Scientology or any other religion, in a blog comment, for him to thoroughly debunk, no doubt.
    Bit of a double standard there, no?"

    Let me copy and paste my usual response to a Pboyfloyd post:

    "You missed the point."

    There.

    Floyd, if I say that I'm applying standards X,Y and Z, to P, and someone comes along and claims that Q can also be maintained on those standards, then *he* is *obligated* to defend that claim. That's not controversial at all, Floyd. If I claim that evolution can be supported via scientific standards of evidence, and a fundamentalist who wants to dismiss the effectiveness of science comes along and claims that astrology could be supported by scientific standards of evidence, then the onus is on him to defend that claim, and it's a perfectly legitimate move on my part to ask him to show me how it can be done.

    Now this is *precisely* what Articulett did: I laid out certain basic principles, and she claimed that a scientologist could use those principles to defend Scientology. Isn't it obvious that she must first know that a Scientologist could defend his beliefs with those same principles before claiming that he could? And if so, she must be able to show me how it could be done. She couldn't.

    "And I loved the part where he dismissed anyone who considered him simply a debater or word-magician or words to that effect.
    "'When it comes to MY religion, it's complicated, it's carefully parsed, it's 'precious'. When it comes to someone else's religion, jot in down on a piece of bum-scrub so it'll be of use when I've scoffed at it!'"

    Now you're either missing the point or straight out lying. *I provided an example of what I was looking for.* All I asked for was an argument for Scientology that's of comparable strength with the KCA, a moderately strong argument for the existence of god. Nice try, Floyd.

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  14. I so enjoy reading your blog Brian especially when you write about Biblical doctrine of which you know nothing about.
    Let me help you through the basic teachings of Christianity.
    Man was created in the likeness of God without sin.
    Man was given a commandment but rejected Gods law knowing full well the consequence of his action.
    Man defiled himself which caused him to fall from the happy and Holy state in which he was created.
    Man was helpless, powerless and unable to redeem himself from sin.
    God provided for himself a sacrifice “JESUS” that can redeem man from his sin.
    God commands man to repent of sin and believe for the salvation of his everlasting soul.
    God rejects any and all works of man in the redemption plan for salvation including good deeds.
    God created hell for satan and his angels as everlasting punishment for their rebellion against God.
    God has once again provided man with another choice, Heaven or Hell….
    It’s Gods will that all come to repentance but He wont force His will upon one.

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  15. If I claim that evolution can be supported via scientific standards of evidence, and a fundamentalist who wants to dismiss the effectiveness of science comes along and claims that astrology could be supported by scientific standards of evidence, then the onus is on him to defend that claim, and it's a perfectly legitimate move on my part to ask him to show me how it can be done.
    -----------
    Sounds good, but as usual it's all silliness. Anything you can say about your religion, you can find a variant of in support of others. They're all based on non-evidentiary claims. One is much like the other. Yours is more complex because it needed to control the western world for two millennia, so it kept on adding in wrinkles. Yours isn't even the first one with a 'savior.' Not even the first one that claimed said savior was born in Dec. 25th. Yours IS one of the very first ones to completely deny the feminine side of god though, so I hope you're happy with your misogynist ways.

    And astrology for a fundy? How neatly you sidestep even the possibility of direct mention of any real total crap issue that the fundies actually do believe in. You had to pick an outside issue so as not to offend your faithful followers, your cheerleaders. You know, the wide-eyed nuts that will someday buy your books.

    I'm glad you're here though. I no longer wish you to go away. You are interesting. Not necessarily a compliment as you know, but still... We live in 'interesting times' like the chinese curse, and it's all people like you that are perpetuating said times through their multiform lies.

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  16. God rejects any and all works of man in the redemption plan for salvation including good deeds.
    --------
    Mike does it really SAY that in the Bible?

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  17. Mike, you didn't read my posts. I speak from both personal experience as an ex-christian and from speaking with many, many christians of all stripes over the years, plus of course reading their comments and articles. They are pathological. You are pathological. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you.
    And you see Mike, that little clause about not needing to do good deeds, makes your religion totally SELFISH, in addition to being a recipe for psychosis.

    You are schizophrenic, Mike. I mean, I love you, but that's what you are. And schizophrenic people ALWAYS think that they are not, and have elaborate explanations to justify that.

    So with your explanation, trying to prove me wrong, you have instead proven me right.

    Well done, sir!

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  18. Wow, so the Koch brother commercial must be right then? When Scott Walker cut taxes on millionaires it turns out it was the government workers unions that caused the deficit in Wisconsin.

    Guess if we reduced taxes to zero, everyone would be glad to work for nothing?

    Surely someone would be willing to throw Scott Walker and his guys a bone though, you think?

    If this holds up in Wisconsin and spreads, there won't be much extra cash in peoples' pockets to throw at local pastors though.

    Not sure that the clergy are thinking this through when they back the rich bitches.

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  19. It’s Gods will that all come to repentance but He wont force His will upon one.
    ----------------
    I had NO IDEA that god didn't force his will on us. I thought you went to hell if you didn't believe. Just goes to show you, how little I know.
    What a relief! I should have known though... I mean, any religion that threatens something like eternal torture unless you believe in it, is patently evil on the face of it.

    PHEW!

    Thank you, Mike!

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  20. "Anything you can say about your religion, you can find a variant of in support of others."

    Again, this is a claim you cannot defend.

    Take the KCA: It can be used to defend the notion that one immaterial, eternal and plausibly personal creator god exists. As such, it can be used only by monotheistic religions that posit an immaterial and eternal creator, such as Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

    So, what argument can *you* adduce to defend one of the basic claims of Scientology, or Greek or Norse mythology, or whatever religion that isn't premised on the sort of god (one, immaterial, eternal, personal, creator) Jews, Muslims and Christians believe in, and that's as strong as the KCA, a moderately strong argument? I've put this challenge to more atheists than I can remember, and no one has ever met it.

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  21. "All I asked for was an argument for Scientology that's of comparable strength with the KCA.."

    Didn't see any mention of KCA in that series of comments Eric.

    I have heard you say here that it's not an argument you particularly like yourself, in this blog, though.

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  22. Good Sir Eric, I'm afraid that I do not see the KCA as even a remotely valid argument, so it goes well with all the other utterly false and misleading arguments of all the other faiths. You must see that at least, mustn't you? YOU claim it's moderately strong, but all I can get out of it that's moderately strong, is the smell. It stinks. Now stop trying to pretend that it's a good argument. It's so bad, it's stupid. One of it's initial premises is totally wrong. We have actual evidence of causeless things. We do. So, don't take it too personally, but take your KCA, and get bent.

    In fact, I'd say that some other religions have more convincing 'arguments,' such as their tenets and their works in the world, like say, the Baha'i faith. Their tenets are far superior to christianity's. Night and day. To me, that's a good argument, at least for their not being evil like your faith is. And that's a great start. Other than that sort of thing, of course no religion has ANY argument that satisfies more than water vapor to a man dying from thirst. Especially not yours.

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  23. "Take the KCA: It can be used to defend the notion that one immaterial, eternal and plausibly personal creator god exists. As such, it can be used only by monotheistic religions that posit an immaterial and eternal creator, such as Islam, Christianity and Judaism."

    It can be used by anyone who likes the argument to defend any amount of gods they like, they don't have to be immaterial, just 'not of this Universe' and they don't even have to be eternal.

    As for astrology, the idea is that the events unfolding on Earth are a reflection of events unfolding in Heaven. You know, the Heaven that Jesus rose up to for no good reason. "I just wanted to be with my dad, who is me."

    Now we all know that God/the gods work in mysterious ways so why not most things continue along in an orderly fashion, being under control of the Zodiac Sign du jour except for the odd combination of events influenced by the planets?

    This is how it works Eric. I tell some things about your sign, you tell me where and when you were born and as many circumstances of your life as you can, THEN I point to all the influences of the planets and tell YOU all the circumstances of your life.

    That's when you give me a few hundred bucks for giving a crap about your life!

    Ah, God/the gods work in mysterious ways, don't they?

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  24. Eric, I do have a question, and it's not even a 'gotcha.' I'm just curious.

    Mike has put forth that in his religion, in his faith, good works in the world are not necessary and aren't what gets you into heaven.

    That wasn't what I was taught as a kid in the catholic religion.

    So what's the stand on that from the church?

    Do you guys agree that you don't even have to be good people, like Mike thinks?

    Or do you see that kind of thing as pathetic, as sad as I do?

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  25. Then there's the tiny factoid that Heaven, which isn't 'the sky' anymore, wasn't population:- one God, isn't that right?

    Isn't that right Eric?

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  26. Pboy makes a great point. The KCA is not only a terribly flawed argument, but what it argues for is not your god, it is 'generic god.' And so of course it could also be used for 'generic goddess' or 'generic gods' as long as they are creator-gods. Of course it could.

    You can see that much, right? I need to keep asking, because it never ceases to amaze me how little you can see that is not in agreement with what you believe.

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  27. I mean, after all, the KCA posits one creator god, but there's nothing in it that limits it to that number. It could have been a team effort amongst immortal gods, or it could be the Goddess for that matter. Or hey, it might have been one initial god, but it created other gods first, and then the team created the rest of everything. So it could mean Brahma, and then he created Vishnu and Shiva and Kali and the rest of the Hindu pantheon, who all went on to create the universe.

    (Sigh- Talking about this stuff as if it were real makes me feel like a kindergarten teacher trying to not have the kids cry)

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  28. The *bible* is not a book.

    *It* certainly wasn't divided into two parts by any of the tens if not hundreds of writers *represented,* many of whom came from disparate backgrounds with different senses of right and wrong.

    I don't mean to offend Bri but I think down deep you still believe the same as the Xtians, that there really is a *bible.*

    There isn't.

    The claim for *its* existence is almost as tenuous as the one for a deity.

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  29. I'll accept that Harry, but as a difference that makes no difference.

    I didn't bother getting into that, even though I was thinking it.

    The editors of the bible made it into what it is, with two parts etc. The OT and NT. But as I stated, the contradictions go way beyond just that.

    Of course they were all different authors with different views. Imagine how different the ones that weren't included in it, didn't make the cut, must have been, huh?

    The romans put it all together like it is for a reason. For control of the masses. They were geniuses at it, too. Machiavellian geniuses. They made not only an evil book, but a book of lasting evil, a book that perpetuates it's evil forever and ever.

    Amen.

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  30. There were HUNDREDS of gospels circulating at the time of Nicea and before... Over two hundred, by most estimates.

    We only got the four.


    I'd like to read the other 196, wouldn't you?

    And that's only the gospels!!!

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  31. Or rather, I should have said that the editors made the NT what it is, and tried their darnedest to make it fit with the preceding OT.

    They were nothing alike, really. Two separate religions, practically. They fused a cult onto a previously existing major religion to make a new one.

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  32. I recall the story of a young student getting an 'F' on her paper which denied Objective moral values.

    This is almost as bad a joke as one where God is hiding behind some mountain from 'the scientists'.

    Wonder if, since Eric was the one who brought up this little story, if Eric will agree that there is such a thing as intersubjective moral values that we can agree on, or at least that most people agree with?

    And would he agree that there is a giant difference between Objective moral values meaning that and moral values existing completely apart from anyone's ideas?

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  33. What if part of the Job deal (or some other deal) was God let Satan have the rights to publish a book, which he did, and it was his influence that we have the results called the bible taking into account his influence in choosing what writings went into the finished product. Makes more sense than it supposedly being the word of God. God on the other hand is banking on the innate goodness of mankind to triumph in the end.

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  34. I think God works at Wall St. doesn't he?

    Seems that the lastest 'love' being spread around has a Biblical ring to it, don't you think?

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  35. "Wonder if, since Eric was the one who brought up this little story, if Eric will agree that there is such a thing as intersubjective moral values that we can agree on, or at least that most people agree with?
    And would he agree that there is a giant difference between Objective moral values meaning that and moral values existing completely apart from anyone's ideas?"

    My answers to your questions are (in order) yes, yes, yes and yes.

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  36. In that case you agree that there is really no moral argument for any god since we agree that we have perfectly servicable intersubjective moral values?

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  37. "My answers to your questions are (in order) yes, yes, yes and yes."

    Thanks for keeping your answers 'in order'.

    Saved me no end of head-scratching.

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  38. "In that case you agree that there is really no moral argument for any god since we agree that we have perfectly servicable intersubjective moral values?"

    No, because intersubjective values are not objective. On such a conception of morality, there are no moral facts, and it's the reality of moral facts that the moral argument for god's existence is premised upon.

    No one denies that we can 'intersubjectively' agree that X is right or wrong, but that doesn't make the proposition, "X is right/wrong" true or false.

    The fact that we agree on certain moral principles is irrelevant. If tomorrow we all decided that women were inferior and should be subjugated, would the fact that we agreed make any difference as far as the moral rightness or wrongness of the act? No, it wouldn't.

    So here's the issue: If some things are really right and wrong, then a key premise of the moral argument is maintained, and if nothing is really right or wrong, then you have to concede that the moral status of the most heinous act you can imagine is a matter of intersubjective preference, and if it's wrong today, it could, with sufficient PR, be right tomorrow. Now that's a damn high price to pay for rejecting moral realism, which is why most people are moral realists.

    Here's your best bet: Stop focusing on the 'moral facts' premise, because it's a losing battle, and instead find out what non-theistic account of moral facts (a consequentialist account, a contractarian account, etc.) you find most plausible, and use that to attack the premise that moral facts must be grounded in a transcendent god.

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  39. "If tomorrow we all decided that women were inferior and should be subjugated, would the fact that we agreed make any difference as far as the moral rightness or wrongness of the act? No, it wouldn't."

    How would you know this Eric, since women are subjugated?

    "If some things are really right and wrong, then a key premise of the moral argument is maintained, and if nothing is really right or wrong, then you have to concede that the moral status of the most heinous act you can imagine is a matter of intersubjective preference, and if it's wrong today, it could, with sufficient PR, be right tomorrow."

    You mean like flooding the entire planet and killing most of the life on it?

    Or how about some people bragging that they killed entire populations of people because they imagined that their god told them to??

    That kind of thing?

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  40. "..and if nothing is really right or wrong, then you have to concede that the moral status of the most heinous act you can imagine is a matter of intersubjective preference.."

    Well that wouldn't be up to me, it would be up to the society I grew up in.

    For example it might be fine for us to go on a trip and pillage and rape and stuff, if that's what everyone else we grew up with did.

    Or it might behoove us to read about magic in a book and go around looking for old crones to shake and bake?

    "Now that's a damn high price to pay for rejecting moral realism, which is why most people are moral realists."

    Is it okay to hate gays and try to discriminate against them?

    In your country it's kind of 50/50, isn't it? Isn't it okay to despise, ridicule, bully and try to crimimalize gays, if that's what your intersubjective morals tell you?

    Or do all Christians really know, really really know that the 'gay-bashers' are just assholes?

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  41. Don't you think that it's kind of weasely to imagine that there are Objective moral values to produce an argument for God, then use that premise to say that being gay is evil?

    And don't you think it's kind of weasely to say that there are Objective moral values and from this we can argue for God. Then from this premise we can argue for genocide when it suits us, genocide being one of the more likely arguments for Objective moral values in THE FIRST PLACE?

    Even 'with God', especially 'with God', according to your Holy Bookies, the Godly can become convinced that genocide is perfectly moral, even Godly, under certain circumstances, no?

    You're just saying that you think your values are right all along, aren't you?

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  42. Or maybe you're just saying that since God is God, HE can change 'facts' to suit HIMSELF, so fuck you!?

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  43. I was talking about Vikings with the raping and pillaging, but what about just 200 years ago, seems like a long time now.

    But it was okay-dokey to go out and hunt some Indians and come home and brag about it in California then.

    Did they all know that that was REALLY wrong, REALLY murder?

    Is that what you're saying?

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  44. I hate it when Eric suddenly finds himself awfully busy at a point like this.

    I, for one am dying to find out if the Californians a couple of hundred years ago were Objectively moral then as we NOT killing Indians are now?

    And the gay-despising thing? If something's bad 'cos God says so and you're using what you 'know' is bad to argue 'for God' then aren't you biting your own tail there?

    Not if you compartmentalize it 'appropriately' I'm guessing.

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  45. I hate it when Eric suddenly finds himself awfully busy at a point like this.
    -----------------
    It takes a while to construct such elegant deceptions as is the norm with Eric. He's quite the Viking. A good tapestry takes time to weave.

    Your line of question is excellent in it's penetrative-ness, if I can be forgiven the awkward construction.

    I wait on the sidelines.

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  46. I have to, at some level, admire Eric his complexity.

    His defense of the irrational is almost fractal-like.

    He overwhelms. I think it's his strategy almost. He's like a meteor shower of disputable points; taken together the opponent is consumed with the realization that to refute them all would sap his very vitality. He banks on us just giving up. On us surrendering to the inexorable tide of his hydra-like defense pattern.

    I'm starting to love this guy.

    I think he might be "Legion." How cool is that?

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  47. Eric, if I were to rhythmically intone 'Venite Mephisto' six hundred and sixty-six times, would you appear in front of me?

    Sometimes I wonder that...

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  48. Eric said then you have to concede that the moral status of the most heinous act you can imagine is a matter of intersubjective preference, and if it's wrong today, it could, with sufficient PR, be right tomorrow.

    And yet this is what we see occur in reality, time and again.

    When Eric says "that's a damn high price to pay" I think he thinks that we think the snapshot of western values (does such a thing even exist???) that exists today is the ideal.

    It's true, I think there are things, from a moral perspective, that could get better (or worse), but I know there are people who disagree with me completely. I'm not arrogant enough to think that my view of morality is the one that's in line with the universe's set of morals (the morality constant? How do you measure that?). It's all in our heads, which is not to say it's not real.

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  49. About the 'causeless things.' This is yet another area in which the church had made its stand on an idea, an idea which in the course of time science has caught up with and 'filled that gap' in our knowledge. We now know of causeless things. Virtual particles, vacuum fluctuations, et al. Aquinas essentially bet on another geocentrism, and it only took him a while to lose the bet.

    And I agree with pboy and ryan vis a vis morality being subjective or objective. It's actually silly to think there's some universal moral code 'out there' somewhere. Um, nope. Silly people pin their religious hopes on such things, nothing more.

    It's the psychosis speaking. They can't help themselves, poor things.

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  50. When Eric says "that's a damn high price to pay" I think he thinks that we think the snapshot of western values (does such a thing even exist???) that exists today is the ideal.
    ---------------
    I hadn't really thought that out. Interesting. This is the 'ideal' to him/ Reeeeally?

    This is a rather immoral, un-empathetic, non-humble, ego-driven, shallow moral ideal to aspire to, Eric. We have much room for improvement... after we get rid of the drag of religion of course. Lol... too funny... you think this is an ideal. Too funny. Have you no vision, no imagination, sir? Our morality sucks, and it's mostly religion's fault. Your religion, specifically... All the lies, Eric. All the lies. That's not morality. It's pretending it's morality to feel good. Why do you do that? Why do you think we're at some peak of morality here? Or is it sometime in the past where it reached a zenith and now it's falling toward nadir? Like maybe in slavery times, it was better? Huh? Were those your good old days?

    The Bible is not only psychotic, it is also highly immoral, so you can't be meaning somehow that christianity provided the IDEAL morality for us, can you? Can you be that silly, sir Eric?

    That's claiming the turd is a diamond again. Stop polishing the turd. It's not getting any prettier, and you're getting shit all over you in the process.

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  51. Eric, if god wanted to hand down to us an ideal set of moral codes, he would have done it when we first met him waaaay back in genesis or thereabouts. Instead he gave us the illogical punishment of the descendants of the sinners for the original sin, a more stupid thing than which is difficult to conceive of. God gives us our first moral code, unfairness!! Way to go yahweh!

    So what else were we given? Ahh yes, LEVITICUS again!

    I'm sure you must agree that Leviticus is the very height of morality, right? Isn't that so? You have to, if you claim that god gives us our morality and it's an ideal, right? Or what, did god get more moral later on? Changed his mind? What, Eric?

    And, do I really want to hear your lying answer, is another good question... lol.... okay, why not?

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  52. Now, is Eric really going to post responses to a blogpost about how the bible is psychotic and has produced much of the world's insanity, by showing off his delusions to us and once again insisting they're real?

    (yawn)

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  53. I mean, that's what Mike did.... Rather well, I thought.

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  54. Your god told us which slaves we could take. Delineated the 'rules' for a good slave-master relationship. Makes me sick.
    How can this have anything to do with morality today? It's completely the reverse of it, and if god were real and had wanted us to be moral then he wouldn't have approved of slavery, now would he have? And he seemed to love the Israelites and pretty much loathe all other men.... Plus the jealousy and the wrath of course, and his gambling problem...
    So god himself is not moral! That's the conclusion, now tell me how the fuck I can be wrong about that.
    And if Jesus were moral then he wouldn't have said that quote I started my blogpost with. 'Bring them before me and slay them?' It's in the fucking evil bible, Eric. A very immoral book sprinkled with some good stuff just for the frosting, the bait, the lure. It can't LOOK as evil as it really IS, now can it? Nobody would join up.

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  55. I'm sure those boy-buggering-bastards at the RCC have thought up a reason why the bible is so immoral, some excuse to make it the very height of morality. After all, they obviously wear their moral hat ass-backwards, so to them, it likely is!

    I bet Aquinas did it too. They all did, back then. It was a boy whorehouse. What we see today is the lingering aftereffects of a cultural norm that existed for millennia. They only got caught because when it's been going on that long, it's very hard to pull the plug in less than like a hundred years, and the law moves a bit faster than that.

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  56. Ya know, the recipe to make a boy-bugger priest is you take a kid, and abuse the hell out of him, and tell him it's a good and godly thing. Voila!

    So they replenish their buggery ranks from the process. Priests abusing boys makes more priests that abuse boys. A self-perpetuating process.

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  57. Let's go to the roman centurion and his boy-slave. The boy-slave was sick unto death, and the centurion had faith in Jesus so Jesus cured the boy-slave and complimented the centurion on his faith.

    Now I forget the exact word used for the boy-slave ('puer' perhaps?) but most ancient language experts seem to think it meant 'boy-sex-slave.' Of course, the church denies this vehemently. Of course they do. And yet, that centurion was awfully invested in the life of that little boy-slave, wasn't he? Almost like a beloved wife....
    Just makes you think, is all. If you have the ability to think, it makes you do it.

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  58. Now what's worse:

    A book that aspires to being the Absolute Rule Book of All Humanity, that has an EVIL central character, an 'Evil Jesus' that never acts in a good manner, is always evil...

    OR

    A very, very good central character, who every now and then, acts totally evil? Just every now and then?


    The second one of course. People wouldn't follow the first one, but would be drawn to the second one, and the second one has EXCEPTIONS to his 'good-rule.' So be that good man, and when/if you really need to, you can also be evil. Just when it calls for it of course.

    That's the problem. This shit is subtle. Most people can't see it. And that was the plan, of course.

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  59. Eric said then you have to concede that the moral status of the most heinous act you can imagine is a matter of intersubjective preference, and if it's wrong today, it could, with sufficient PR, be right tomorrow.
    --------------
    I concede that. Can you, Eric?

    Let me explain, as distasteful to me as it is. Let's use the past instead of the future, since it makes no difference.


    Let's take the pederast culture of the church in the past. An institutional culture of child-rape as a norm. Heinous to us now, but then?
    Let's postulate that it was a total culture, hypothetically if it was not, truthfully if it was. A total closed culture of child rape as the norm. Now let's say that the men loved the boys or thought they did, and the boys loved the men, or thought they did, because they *didn't know anything else.* And let's say that the abused boys didn't actually have their lives ruined by it, because really, today the 'ruination' of their lives is due to the fact that child-sex is known to destroy the sexuality of the child and confuse them for life, plus other traumas. In that culture, wouldn't the boys NOT be confused, because their future path was always being explained to them and it all was accepted in their world. So their trauma would be less, and all their adult role models would be happy with them, and they would come to be happy with the adult role models being happy with them, and derive self-worth from it all, and even likely choose the path to the priesthood themselves if it were open to them... Everybody they knew, would not find it offensive, would actually find it acceptable and even a good thing. The boys would have *no way* of judging their own situation! Nothing different to compare it to! So even the boys conceivably would find a path to a sort of happiness, and since it's really a closed system, have no way to tell they've been 'abused' at all! All parties would be happy with it. The pain of the rape itself might be likened to a 'passage' or something like a circumcision, a bit of discomfort, but hey, afterwards you get to be a part of our society... so no big deal... and less trauma to the boys because they'll never be able to tell how twisted it all is. They'd be happy in their way, in that system, at that time.
    So one could ACTUALLY say that at that time, in that closed system, it was moral. Nobody saw it as immoral, everyone was happy with it, so it was moral. At the time. In that place. With those people. Only to them.

    To us it's abomination, but to them at the time, completely and utterly moral in every way.

    Now tell me please, that you can see the logic of that. Even if you disagree with the idea of the RCC once being a whorehouse like that, in a different hypothetical like that, say farther in the past or far in the future, it would be MORAL.

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  60. Aztec priests cut the hearts out of people to appease their gods.

    The people, were volunteers.

    That was their morality. We can criticize it, but they really believed in their gods and the necessity of providing such appeasement.

    Now, on a slightly different tack, I can see a path to a real set of relatively objective morality. A 'harm-none' philosophy based in total empathy, feeling what others feel, would trend toward a morality where everyone was happier over time. That surely must be considered some kind of 'ideal.'
    You couldn't do anything to anyone that they didn't want you to do.
    You couldn't touch children because they're too young to make decisions like that. Empathy, remembering what it is like to be such a child, would take care of the problem. No slaves, because people don't like to be owned. And so on. But it would never be absolute. Just better than all the alternatives.

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  61. Eric:
    "Now that's a damn high price to pay for rejecting moral realism, which is why most people are moral realists."
    If one recognizes that so-called "Moral Values" are a concept that has no meaning in the abscence of any interpersonal relationships, it makes eminent good sense to recognize that all such values are relative to the society within which they may be applied. If, as you say, most people are "moral realists", it is because they are unwilling to accept the reality of the above. Many of us, religionists in particular, seem to need to convince themselves that we are somehow "better" than our obvious "beastly" natures. To this end, all religious conviction asserts that there is some "higher power" that dictates that we modify our innate behavior, "or else".
    The only "price" we pay by rejecting moral realism is the loss of the comfort we may derive from admitting that we are no different than any other living creature; our only "reason" for existance is to reproduce and to nurture any such offspring until they can do so, in turn.

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  62. Is it considered moral for a soldier to lay down his life for his buddies on the battlefield?

    Of course it is. It is considered the highest kind of morality, to sacrifice one's self for others.

    No different from the Aztec people volunteering for sacrifice, in that society where all believed it necessary. It was the very highest form of morality, in that milieu.

    Someday perhaps future peoples will be appalled at the very idea that we thought a soldier sacrificing their life for others was moral, as we are at the very idea of a person volunteering to have their heart cut out.

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  63. Oh, and btw Eric,

    Believing that there exists absolute objective moral values dictated by your god, is one of the delusions that typify the psychosis that is the subject of this blogpost. Like most of them, they are induced delusions, done to the people by the religion on purpose to more closely bind them to the idea of god. It's just more programming, dude.
    Why not step out of the vicious circle and see reality as it is rather than as you've been conditioned to? It's liberating, I assure you. Best thing I ever did for myself.

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  64. I'm refining this in my head. Simplifying it.

    So here:

    1. God is the author of all morality and it is objectively perfect morality because it is from God.

    2. God is eternal and unchanging because he is and was already perfect all along.

    3. (conclusion) God's moral code is a constant, therefore we find it perfect, in the bible, then as it is today, regardless of the time in which it was written.

    Problem: It isn't. The morality of bible times, which was approved of by God and even expounded upon with considerable divine authority attached in Leviticus and other places, is demonstrably inferior to ours today if you measure it by our modern standards of decency. It's not merely less moral; it's heinously immoral in all ways by our standards. It's evil. Today, it's evil.

    If god is eternal and perfect and all-knowing, and we can agree that, then as today, slavery was immoral, and killing one's son as well, and so forth, then his moral code he left to us in that book should have been DIFFERENT than what passed as the common agreed-upon morality of the times back then. When an apologist says that we can't consider the slavery thing or the harshness of Leviticus today as a measure of the morality of God because it was just the times, they're literally calling God imperfect and even ignorant of his own perfect moral system he supposedly holds in his mind.

    A real perfect all-knowing God would have told us to CHANGE and WHY, and not just have allowed the old ways to stand. I mean, that's what His book was supposedly for, right? To teach us His ways, to guide us, to make us better in His eyes.

    Unless Eric, are you saying that God is okay with slavery and murdering your disobedient son, that such a thing was a PART of His perfect code and therefore still is, and we've strayed from it today because we no longer find those things acceptable? Is that our problem, Eric?

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  65. (Of course all this is academic and basically mental masturbation because an eternal *being* is far less probable, far less likely, than an eternal *process* like the universe is. It's invoking a ridiculously ornate solution where there isn't even really a problem)

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  66. Eric:
    "Now that's a damn high price to pay for rejecting moral realism, which is why most people are moral realists."
    ----------------
    How does the 'price' we pay for recognizing the truth have any effect on whether we accept it or not? Shouldn't we pursue the real truth regardless of how it makes us *feel?* And worse, considering the 'price' as a FACTOR in the decision-making process of whether it's even truth or not, is illogical in the extreme. How it *feels* is irrelevant.

    You're better than this, Eric.

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  67. To deny even considering an idea as truth due to emotional factors, due to discomfort with it, due to it being unappealing to us, is religion, not logic.
    You're mixing them up again. Is that on purpose?

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  68. All throughout history, one can see that whenever a new truth is revealed by science, what are the people already believing?
    The old 'truths' of course. Which were wrong. The process goes like this: One person or a very few people discover the new truth, and then introduce it to the rest, who tend to reject it for the old false truths.

    So appealing to number, saying that 'most people believe this, so it's more likely to be true' is utter hogwash. It always has been. It's the OPPOSITE of what really happens. It means nothing.

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  69. In fact, I would go so far as to introduce it as a RULE:

    The people that are on the cutting edge of truth, the people that in reality have the best handle on what is really true and what is really false, have always been in the MINORITY.

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  70. For many years I have wondered if those living in large cities were not getting enough commune time with nature for balanced mental activity. This is the first article that shows what I suspected is probably true. People who live in large cities do not get enough time to commune with their roots, their basc nature. This link is about this problem.

    Your brain on greenery

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  71. I feel as if Eric is daring us to look at our real selves believing that we cannot bear it.

    He offers warped 'moral facts' as a scab over a wound that is too deep for most to contemplate.

    "If tomorrow we all decided that women were inferior and should be subjugated, would the fact that we agreed make any difference as far as the moral rightness or wrongness of the act? No, it wouldn't."

    Compare:-

    Moral fact/ All men are equal.

    Real fact/ The richer you are, the more important you are.

    Moral fact/ The "men" in "All men are equal" refers to 'mankind', 'humans'.

    Real fact/ 'Ideals' are not 'truth'.

    ""If tomorrow we all decided that women were inferior and should be subjugated.."

    We can't just change our ideals as if changing the clock to Daylight Savings Time.

    We CAN and DO have ideals that we don't live up to, that we pretend to live up to, that it may be unbearable to even imagine that we don't live up to even while failing miserably.

    This then would be Eric's 'moral facts', simply societal ideals that even the most wicked, selfish, childish among us can pretend to or rationalize away.

    I think that Eric is trying to appeal to 'the virtuous' in us. He's appealing to those who imagine that they are virtuous and 'slip' every now and then, those who are willing to delude themselves, to be deluded for the sake of their self-image.

    He's appealing to peoples' pride.

    Once again Eric is doing his philosophy backwards, he assumes moral facts and he is willing to equivocate on the real meaning of objective moral values to further his agenda.

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  72. He's appealing to peoples' pride.
    ------------------
    Without appeals to pride, religion would not even be possible. It's the core selling point. You get to feel better than others. You get to look down at all the unfaithful. You know, like Mike does when he comes here, telling us how wrong and stupid we all are, 'schoolin' us all on the 'right' way to read the bible. He's been artificially inflated. And he wouldn't give that up in a million years. It is part of his definition of himself. His personality is based upon it.

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  73. Jerry, I tend to agree with that. I need recharging sometimes, so I must get out in nature. In the woods, I feel at home.

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  74. Do you have a way to get into nature nearby or do you have to go out of your way to get to some place to really get into nature?

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  75. Mike is such an obvious case that shows the silliness of objective moral values.

    His, "Why should anyone be forced to share?", attitude, imagining that pieces of paper have some absolute value related to how hard someone worked.

    This attitude that everything is absolute, not just money and work but the 'forcing' thing too.

    If I make 10,000 simoleons and I pay 30% tax, that's 3000 simoleons that I have paid to the government.

    If Mike makes 100,000 simoleons and pays 30% tax, he feels that he has more of a share in government since he paid 30,000 simoleons to the government.

    Not only that, he MUST NECESSARILLY have worked 10 times harder than me, everything is absolute.

    Nevermind that the government prints money with ZERO work intrinsic in it.

    Was it a billion dollars or 25 billion dollars that the Bush Administration sent over to Iraq and the U.S.Army just lost it?

    I remember when the Canadian government told everyone that they had just lost a billion dollars and everyone was astounded because we tend to think of dollars as absolutely worth something.

    But that is childish. As we grow older and notice the price of things going up due to inflation, we are noticing that money doesn't have an absolute intrinsic value, the more there is of it, the less it is worth.

    Surely Mike cannot imagine some banker having so much money he could buy the entire planet and all it's contents?

    The bankers are playing games, tricking the markets to take value from others and give it to themselves. It's a game to them with winners(them) and losers(everyone else) and it's fixed like that.

    The game isn't to win or lose now, it's a competition between the winners for how much they can 'win'.

    The benchmark for how much of a winner you are is how poor the average person is compared to you.

    How much tastier is some food that most people cannot afford to eat? How sweeter is it to drive a car that most people cannot afford to drive?

    And so on.

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  76. The difference between me and Mike is in what we imagine the function of government to be.

    I think that government's job is to collect taxes and hire police, garbagemen, firemen, the armed forces, food safety inspectors etc. to benefit us all.

    Mike, it seems, thinks that government's job should be to help transfer the country's wealth(say oil) to some individual or corporation so that they can be wealthier, so that they can use that money to influence the peoples' vote, influence who gets elected to further transfer the country's wealth to themselves.

    But government isn't only transfering wealth through stealing the peoples' natural resources, it's involves in tangling the laws to make taking average peoples' wealth and transfering that to the bankers easier.

    And none of that is moral, none of it is 'right'. No-one works hard enough, in Mike's absolute scenario to earn a million dollars or 100 million dollars.

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  77. One potential problem with the historical debate about morality is what effect evolution has had on the behaviors that are governed by or moralistic labels.

    If certain behaviors (largely governed by neurochemical processes that are subject to natural selection) confer a survival advantage, it's not too hard to imagine that such traits would be common place in populations leading to a sense of universality.

    A conjecture might be that the establishment of social democracy and republican government meant that more people had a say in establishing social norms resulting in a tendency toward the middle. Kings and despots can skew the cultural norms more strongly than would likely be the case with consensus. This last paragraph is pure conjecture of course.

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  78. It gets worse. Not only are legislators free to trade in ways that would put a civilian in handcuffs, congressional staffers and lobbyists are also exempt from insider-trading regulations.

    I did not know this, but this article includes this info.

    Congressional insider trading: The story sticks.

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  79. If certain behaviors (largely governed by neurochemical processes that are subject to natural selection) confer a survival advantage, it's not too hard to imagine that such traits would be common place in populations leading to a sense of universality.
    -------------
    Brilliant. Yes, of course.

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  80. "I, for one am dying to find out if the Californians a couple of hundred years ago were Objectively moral then as we NOT killing Indians are now?"

    Flolyd, every time we have this discussion you trade on the same confusion, viz. between moral epistemology and moral ontology. The fact that people disagree about what is and isn't a moral fact is an epistemic issue, not an ontic one. This is a very basic confusion that any ethics 101 course covers in the first couple of weeks.

    Think about it: how in the world could the fact that we disagree about the nature/content of X entail that X isn't real? Our disagreement and X's nature/content are entirely separate issues. It's remarkably easy to see this:

    (1) People disagree about X's nature/content.
    (2) Hence, X doesn't exist.

    That argument is just obviously invalid, isn't it? What's needed to make it valid is a premise along the following lines:

    (P) If X existed, no one would disagree about it's nature/content.

    Now seriously, do you think that this premise can be defended? If not, then you must concede that your argument is invalid; if yes, then you must provide a robust defense of it, since it seems to be obviously false: All sorts of things exist that reach wrong conclusions about regarding their nature/content *all the time*.

    So, your position is either supported by an obviously invalid argument, or it's supported by a valid argument that uses an obviously false premise. Either way, it obviously fails, which is why this sort of error rarely survives the first two weeks of an introductory ethics course.

    Ryan commits the same basic error here:

    "It's true, I think there are things, from a moral perspective, that could get better (or worse), but I know there are people who disagree with me completely."

    So what? Disagreement about what is and isn't a moral fact, or even about whether there are moral facts, says nothing about whether there are indeed moral facts. Again, this is a blatant confusion of epistemology and ontology.

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  81. "We now know of causeless things. Virtual particles, vacuum fluctuations, et al. Aquinas essentially bet on another geocentrism, and it only took him a while to lose the bet."

    No, this is simply false. Virtual particles, for example, have a material cause, viz. the quantum vacuum, which is decidedly not nothing. (Craig himself raises a number of further and decisive objections to this supposed counterexample, but we need not get into that here). What you've done here is confuse our inability to assign an efficient cause to X with the notion that X lacks *any* cause.

    "It's actually silly to think there's some universal moral code 'out there' somewhere."

    No, it's not at all silly. As Louise Antony, a moral realist and atheist philosopher at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) has said (echoing Aristotle), any argument against the existence of moral facts will be composed of premises that are each less plausibly true than the reality of moral facts itself; hence, no such argument can succeed. That's a strong, rigorous and logical objection, my friend. Do you have such an argument at your disposal? If not, then moral realism is anything but silly.

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  82. "If one recognizes that so-called "Moral Values" are a concept that has no meaning in the absence of any interpersonal relationships, it makes eminent good sense to recognize that all such values are relative to the society within which they may be applied."

    I disagree. Imagine a person who is alone on an island -- that is, he's in a situation in which there is a complete absence of any interpersonal relationships. Let's call him Jones. Now imagine that Smith is alone on another island.

    If what you're saying is true -- ""Moral Values" are a concept that has no meaning in the absence of any interpersonal relationships" -- then there is no possible set of circumstances in which Smith lives a morally better or worse life than Jones, right? But I think we can clearly imagine ways in which this does happen.

    Say Jones spends all his time torturing small animals, and the thing he's most upset about concerning his being stranded is that he's not sure if he'll ever get a chance to live out his dream of kidnapping, torturing, raping and murdering a child. He vows that if he ever gets off the island, that's the first thing he'll do (i.e. he intends to do it), and he spends all his time planning how to do it and fantasizing about doing it. However, he never in fact gets off the island.

    Now take Smith: He spends his time on the island much like Tom Hanks did that movie (the name of which I can't recall), but unlike Hanks, he never gets back home.

    In fact, keep that movie (with the altered ending -- I know, it's not as entertaining, but entertainment isn't the issue here) in mind, and now imagine that another movie is made portraying Jones's time on his island. Let's say you watch both movies.

    Do you think, after you watch them, that Jones was no better nor worse, morally, than Smith?

    Of course not. (The idea here is that your gut level, intuitive and pre-theoretical response to watching Jones and Smith reveals something about the moral nature of their respective acts.) When you watch the movies, you like Smith and hate Jones. Why? If they're in situations devoid of interpersonal relationships, then their respective actions are morally meaningless on your theory -- but clearly, that's not true. You do imbue their actions with moral significance as you watch them and think about them, about the kind of people they are.

    And it's here that the Catholic natural law theory has the resources to explain *why* we make this judgment: Jones is acting in a way that fails to actualize his final end as a human being -- indeed, it thwarts his actualizing his end -- whereas Jones does not. That is, Smith is a better representation of what a human being should be, given what it is to be a human being, than Jones is. And that, fundamentally, is what morality is about -- living in a way that accords with and promotes our final cause as human beings.

    That's enough for now.

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  83. Correction: Jones is acting in a way that fails to actualize his final end as a human being -- indeed, it thwarts his actualizing his end -- whereas *Smith does not.

    ReplyDelete
  84. LOL

    Eric, Eric, Eric.

    I asked you a few questions and you didn't answer them, now did you?

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  85. "I asked you a few questions and you didn't answer them, now did you?"

    Why bother to answer questions that are premised on an obviously false position when I can simply demonstrate (as I did) that the position is obviously flawed?

    But I'll tell you what: Choose one question, the best one you have, and I'll respond to it.

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  86. "Flolyd, every time we have this discussion you trade on the same confusion.."

    That's just a blatant diversion. I'm not at all limited by what's going on in your head.

    We are talking about Objective moral values which you say exist as moral facts and I'm actually trying to corner you, to force you to admit that there obviously aren't 'moral facts'.

    I take it this little 'you're no philosopher' schtick is the best diversion you can come up with?

    Call 'em out then Eric.

    Let's hear some moral facts that have always been, are now and always will be.

    Something you think I might actually agree with you right now would be good.

    No murder? Nope, not without redefining what a person is.

    No rape? Every schoolboy knows 'no' means 'yes' and the courts have largely agreed through time.

    No theft? Really. come on! "Let's redefine the law to not include us taking their stuff! There, that ought to do it!" Ring a bell?

    No genocide, that one ought to be easy, right?

    Not so fast buster, not unless your 'all good GOD' gets to change facts when it suits HIM.

    How about no controversy over what moral facts are NOW? There's that gay thing now.

    These are simple posers where Eric the Great philosopher must not dither no, he must say, "Fuck gays, they are bad!", or, "Fuck those who say, 'Fuck gays, they are bad!', for it is a moral fact that they are the assholes.

    You say that there are moral facts and give examples. I say that you are full of shit, and give examples.

    I'm not confused at all, now am I?

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  87. "I take it this little 'you're no philosopher' schtick is the best diversion you can come up with?"

    What?!?!

    I *presented arguments*, you goofball. I *critiqued arguments*, you goofball.

    What in the world are you talking about?

    "I'm not confused at all, now am I?"

    Is that meant to be understood ironically? That post was without question one of the most confused pieces of crap I've ever read.

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  88. Well, keep up the diversion, Eric.

    You maintain, you assert that there are moral facts, and give examples

    I call bullshit, and give examples.

    This bullshit philosophical 'confusion' that I'm supposedly in, you now arguing about what the argument is, is simply a diversion.

    I refuted your examples, I gave my own.

    The ball is in your court pal.

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  89. "goofball" etc.

    LOL

    diversion.

    A fact is a fact Eric. Genocide is genocide no matter who dun it, right?

    But is a moral fact a moral fact no matter who dun it?

    Because if 'genocide is wrong' is a moral fact no matter who dun it, no matter who 'commanded' it, no matter when they did it, well, you see where that is going don't you?

    Try to focus Eric. Try.

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  90. "Flolyd, every time we have this discussion you trade on the same confusion, viz. between moral epistemology and moral ontology."

    That must mean, "You must be confused if you imagine that I'm going give you a simple, straightforword answer that answers the questions you asked me."

    LOL

    goofball?

    I'll have to try that with my wife, "Listen honey, you're confusing epistemology with ontology here. Can't you see that?"(IOW,"I will not admit I spent the rent in the bar.")

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  91. "When a lawyer has the fact on his side he argues the facts. When the lawyer doesn't have the facts on his side, he argues the law. When that lawyer has neither the facts nor the law on his side, he bangs on the table and shouts insults at his opponent."

    I don't know which wise man said this, who knows, perhaps it was Thomas of Aquino?

    You think? No, old Tommy boy was more a 'law' arguer like you Eric.

    Saying that I'm confused over some philosophical point or other is EXACTLY the same as trying to argue the law over the facts, isn't it?

    I know exactly what I mean, so does Brian, Harvey, Jerry, Pliny, Harry and I strongly suspect you do too.

    Mike and MI, I'm thinking are a little bit fucked in the head, toys in the attic, porch light flickering, a few sandwiches short of a picnic, all the lights are on, but nobody is home, so I don't know.

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  92. About this 'confusion' I supposedly have between moral epistemology(knowledge about particular moral facts) and moral ontology(whether there are moral facts at all), obviously I cannot be confused here since there are no moral facts.

    What's the argument between us here, then? You say, "Are too!", and I say, "Are not!"

    Bullshit. You are the one deliberately being confusing about this. Since you said, "Are too!", and gave the example of 'subjugating women', I said, "Are not!" and gave examples.

    It IS just a silly diversion to argue that I'm confusing, "Are there moral facts.", with, "What moral facts are there?"

    You're just being a smug asshole and avoiding questions you don't have a straightforward answer for.

    That's it then? Anyone try to talk to a Christian about supposed moral facts, zing them with the old 'moral epistemology vs. moral ontology' gibberish.

    Seems all you Christians have objective moral values that are no different than intersubjective moral values, blah, blah, blah.

    Fuck it. You're a twat.

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  93. "Why harrumph, if you were half the philosopher that I am, you'd realise that, "I know you are but what am I!", goes a long way to divert the obvious inconsistency of our assertion that there are moral facts and the fact that we just cannot pin any actual moral facts down. What you really need to do is sit down for four years and study philosophical jargon then have your head inserted up your anus and pulled out through your mouth!"

    Craig claims that moral arguments for God work better than cosmological arguments to convert people and of course I believe that this is because they are confusing supposed moral facts with intersubjective moral values of one's local culture.

    Recall the 'no subjugating women' thing? Seems to me that everyone in the 'west', even atheists, notices that Islam is notorious for subjugating women and there's plenty of 'them'.

    Of course since they believe in moral facts too, just one of them being that men are the bosses(as if Christians don't believe that, HAH) then Eric can pretend that they do and they can pretend that they don't.

    Jehova Witnesses don't seem to think it's so bad though, they just don't call it 'subjugation', you know, like killing Indians wasn't 'murder' at one time.

    Redefining 'subjugating' as 'honoring' is distasteful at the very least, don't you think?

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  94. Rich Galen, "I wish someone would pay me 25 grand a month.."

    What an asshole. Why is Gingrich denying he was a lobbyist if it's just so nice to be paid then?

    The G.O.P.

    Stands for the "Ghave yOur cake and eat it tooP".

    Honestly, has anyone ever heard a bunch of Dems. argue that the Rep. POTUS was moving too quickly, too slowly, in the wrong direction, on the wrong horse, shoulda been driving, it's just sad that he's the POTUS, ALL AT THE SAME TIME, "Why don't we compromise but never agree on anything at all, fuck the country!!"???

    What a bunch of assholes.

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  95. The U.S. Congress defines pizza as a vegetable?

    Here I'd have thought the Teabagger Congresspeople would define themselves as vegetables, but what do I know?

    Wonder if they're confusing moral epistemological pizza(the knowing that some pizza has veggies on it) with moral ontological pizza(the knowing that pizza containing veggies actually exists)?

    Eat your veggies!!! I like mine 'meatmarket'!

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  96. "And it's here that the Catholic natural law theory has the resources to explain *why* we make this judgment: Jones is acting in a way that fails to actualize his final end as a human being -- indeed, it thwarts his actualizing his end -- whereas Jones does not."

    What a big, steaming pile of horse-shit.

    It really doesn't matter what the 'bad guy' is thinking or doing all on his lonesome on that island, no.

    What on Earth are you thinking you nincompoop.

    The 'bad guy' could be eating the legs off kittens all day long and it doesn't matter how disgusted we are by this, it has nothing to do with moral facts.

    Hey joker, would it matter what kind of torture he was using? Waterboarding? Some of the old Enhanced Interrogation Techniques?

    LMAO

    And as for his thought crimes?

    I'm thinking of eating your brains with some fava beans right now you dipshit!

    Only CATHOLICS should be tortured for thought crimes! They think they deserve it, right?

    That must be what 'counts'.

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  97. "Virtual particles, for example, have a material cause, viz. the quantum vacuum, which is decidedly not nothing."

    This is incredible. The brain is apparently not the material cause of the mind, but 'nothing', a vacuum is 'decidedly not nothing'.

    Enjoying that cake Eric? Oh look, it's still there.

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  98. "I have to, at some level, admire Eric his complexity.

    His defense of the irrational is almost fractal-like.

    He overwhelms. I think it's his strategy almost."

    Old Eric is just practicing his debating on us, like he's done from the D'Souza days.

    We could argue D'Souza's smug points all day long and then Eric would do his, "You're confusing philosophical points here, you're not understand what complete assholes we are."

    Cavilling Ray Two-truths must be his fucking hero.

    What a joke he turned into when I asked to argue the point straight with me, no tricks. He couldn't wait to try out a couple of word-games and pronounce me 'beaten', but the thing was, he 'beat' himself with his 'answer me this riddle' bullshit.

    His triumphant, "I have tricked you with the framing of my question, I win! You are no 'debater' at all, all to easy!", kind of soured if anyone were following along and noticed that I had asked for no word-games.

    Eric is just a nasty asshole Brian. There's absolutely on reason not to answer a question concerning moral epistemology simply because he has decided to limit his responses to moral ontology, especially since I'm denying the existence of moral facts.

    He's just a snide fuck with a superior attitude sharpening his debating skills.

    All my comments were noting the variations in the morals-du-jour which I'm guessing Eric will have to avoid as if they have been liberally coated in santorum.

    But much like the 'bad man' alone on the island torturing animals and dreaming of torturing children, Eric is just sickening, perhaps dangerous, and as you imply in the title of this post, likely psychotic.

    He just gets to imply that 'bad' is 'good' when he feels like it, in other words, a Republican, a fucking good liar.

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  99. "Why bother to answer questions that are premised on an obviously false position when I can simply demonstrate (as I did) that the position is obviously flawed?"

    See what I mean? Makes me want to memorise it and say it to Jehova Witnesses just to see the dismay on their faces!

    They'd be like, "What? When did that happen?", as they're walking away, and I'd be shouting after them, "COME ON ASSHOLES, just say fuckin' 'moral ontology' and I'm coming for you with a bat, I swear! Now RUN, fuckers, RUN!! That's IT, get me my shotgun Emma!"

    LOL

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  100. "All my comments were noting the variations in the morals-du-jour which I'm guessing Eric will have to avoid as if they have been liberally coated in santorum."


    Yes! *ALL* your comments were noting variations -- i.e. *DISAGREEMENTS* -- about what is and isn't moral, which concerns (drum roll please) *MORAL EPISTEMOLOGY*.

    Look at my argument again, you goofball:

    "Think about it: how in the world could the fact that we disagree about the nature/content of X entail that X isn't real? Our disagreement and X's nature/content are entirely separate issues. It's remarkably easy to see this:

    "(1) People disagree about X's nature/content.
    (2) Hence, X doesn't exist.

    "That argument is just obviously invalid, isn't it? What's needed to make it valid is a premise along the following lines:

    "(P) If X existed, no one would disagree about it's nature/content.

    "Now seriously, do you think that this premise can be defended? If not, then you must concede that your argument is invalid; if yes, then you must provide a robust defense of it, since it seems to be obviously false: All sorts of things exist that reach wrong conclusions about regarding their nature/content *all the time*.

    "So, your position is either supported by an obviously invalid argument, or it's supported by a valid argument that uses an obviously false premise. Either way, it obviously fails, which is why this sort of error rarely survives the first two weeks of an introductory ethics course."

    In other words, I've already dealt *decisively* with the "variations in the morals-du-jour" which you concede that all your comments subsequent to my dealing with were noting! So the distinction *is* relevant, and *isn't* a distraction, or some wordplay, or whatever other nonsense goofballs like you come up with to avoid the hard work of dealing with actual arguments! But I suppose it's easier to continue confusing epistemology with ontology, law with morality (another confusion you're guilty of here), word games with logical analysis, and so on.

    As I told Ed before, stop pretending to be dealing with these issues on some serious intellectual level and just admit that reason and argumentation don't mean a damn thing to you. If you're going to dismiss every argument with a conclusion you want to reject as 'wordplay' or as a 'diversion,' then honestly, what's the point -- not just for me, but for you? What do you get out of learning absolutely nothing about issues that apparently interest you enough to discuss them almost daily (that one *really* confuses the hell out of me)?

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  101. Do you think, after you watch them, that Jones was no better nor worse, morally, than Smith?

    If we're watching them and comparing them, then that's not an absence of any interpersonal relationships.

    Nice try though.

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  102. Eric:

    "If what you're saying is true -- ""Moral Values" are a concept that has no meaning in the absence of any interpersonal relationships" -- then there is no possible set of circumstances in which Smith lives a morally better or worse life than Jones, right? But I think we can clearly imagine ways in which this does happen"
    ".) When you watch the movies, you like Smith and hate Jones. Why? If they're in situations devoid of interpersonal relationships, then their respective actions are morally meaningless on your theory -- but clearly, that's not true. You do imbue their actions with moral significance as you watch them and think about them, about the kind of people they are."

    These statements on your part seem to entirely support my belief that "morals values" exist only as they may pertain to interpersonal relationships. N.B."You do imbue their actions with moral significance as you watch them and think about them, about the kind of people they are."
    In this construct, my impression (my interpersonal reaction) to Smith and Jones' behavior is what matters, not those behaviors. If one harbors heinous thoughts or intentions, but never is able to either act upon them or somehow transmit those thoughts to any other person, 1) No person has been harmed in any way and
    2)unless you believe that there is some "supreme being" who is not only aware of these "immoral" thoughts, but can somehow harm the individual in question (i.e. damn him eternally), not even the "evil" person is harmed.
    "Catholic natural law theory has the resources to explain *why* we make this judgment: Jones is acting in a way that fails to actualize his final end as a human being -- indeed, it thwarts his actualizing his end -- whereas Jones does not. That is, Smith is a better representation of what a human being should be"
    If one does not presuppose that there is a deity who can demand that we "realize our potential as human beings", (i.e. religious beliefs) this last statement has no meaning. In your efforts to rationalize your vision of reality (Godidit), you need to "prove" that we are "better" than other animals, in this case because of "moral truths". I submit that you (and all of your references) have failed to "prove" that the Universe, as we now know that it exists, requires any mythical explanation for reality.

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  103. ""Think about it: how in the world could the fact that we disagree about the nature/content of X entail that X isn't real?"

    Same damn way we all talk about God and we all know HE isn't real.

    What's wrong with your head Eric, you fuckin' psycho!

    (sorry, just getting in the spirit of the post)

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  104. I can't read Eric anymore... I'll have to try later. I skimmed a couple of his responses to you and to me... It's depressing. He's so insistent, nothing sways him, he's not stupid, and yet he's, well...

    I think he's kinda retarded. Like a brain injury or something. Of course I guess that's just the delusion. But it seems like a mental disability. He needs to prove god, not seek what is true. Which makes him eminently dismissible. And kinda sickening. And pitiable.

    So, what else is new, peeb? Today, I can finally tell you, we (the wyfe and meself) just refinanced our home that we bought a year ago. We *had* a private mortgage.... for a year. It just ended, and so if the FHA note hadn't come through we'd pretty much be forced to up that note again for a year, but it might well have made that elusive FHA loan impossible to get *next* year to repay the private loans... basically we could have lost our new house. So we've been, shall I say, nervous.... I don't talk about such things till they are resolved. Superstitious, in a way. So now I can! We are NOT going to lose this house. Everything has finally resolved itself. We even got more money out than we'd planned for a few improvements.... VERY RELIEVED HERE!!!

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  105. "Catholic natural law theory
    ----------------
    AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

    OMG, is it Eric, or Mike talking? It's like Mike with his "Biblical Fact!"

    Catholic natural law theory? Is that how it's just natural to stick your weenie into someone teeny? Yeah, that's it.

    They make a mockery out of intellect itself.

    SHAME on you, Eric. SHAME.

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  106. If you're going to dismiss every argument with a conclusion you want to reject as 'wordplay' or as a 'diversion,' then honestly, what's the point -- not just for me, but for you? What do you get out of learning absolutely nothing about issues that apparently interest you enough to discuss them almost daily (that one *really* confuses the hell out of me)?
    -------------
    Eric, Eric, Eric... Of course we dismiss your wordplay. And of course we know you're full of shit. And of course we know we can learn nothing new from you about anything important. Of course!

    But we can learn about your *delusion.*

    And that my friend, is fascinating.

    Now tell us all again, about catholic natural law theory. Oh Please Do! This is good stuff!

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  107. CATHOLICS:

    A more defective bunch of people have never believed they're less defective.

    So I guess that's.... something to be proud of?

    Hell, you'll be proud regardless, right? So whatever...

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  108. I'm going for the statistical proof of 'no god.'

    I can't draw the graph, so bear with me.

    Two lines, one for what Christianity insisted was their TRUTH, and another one for sciences' revelations of what is actually true over the years.

    The horizontal axis is 'time.'

    So the christian line starts way back when they knew ALL the 'truth' there was to know. So it is at the top left of the graph. And at the same time, science starts with zip.... nada... they're just starting off. So they're at the bottom left.

    Hundreds of years go by...

    And now it looks like a perfect "X."

    As science has revealed, christianity has ceded ground, because it HAD TO. In order to not look obviously retarded to all. Even Augustine saw the danger of this... so they had to cede ground or else be seen for what they are.

    In the beginning (of the graph, not the world) it was all religion. And now it's *almost* all science. Religion has been forced to retreat from the whole fucking world, the whole shebang, to a divine finger at the beginning of time creating some hydrogen or something... maybe now, it's not even the hydrogen, it's the 'quantum foam!'

    That "X" is now drawn smack dab over the face of Yahweh.

    My condolences, Eric.

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  109. Eric, are you quantum foaming at the mouth yet?

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  110. "Same damn way we all talk about God and we all know HE isn't real."

    Floyd, you seem to be taking me to say that if we can talk about something, it's real. (How you take me to be saying that I have no idea.) That's obviously not what I said, though. What I said was the fact that we can disagree about something -- about its existence or nature or content -- doesn't entail that it's not real.

    Re: the movie examples and morality, Ryan has confused the requirement that we be there to make a moral judgment with whether there is a 'real' judgment to be made.

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  111. "Virtual particles, for example, have a material cause, viz. the quantum vacuum, which is decidedly not nothing.
    -----------------
    Actually, if that's not nothing, then nothing is nothing. It's a fucking vacuum, dude.

    We have found that when there's absolutely nothing, it cries out for something, and something appears, and this you say to me, is not really nothing because it produces something and we can see that? Wow. We gave it a name, the quantum vacuum, and so it's something now?

    Hey, by that measure, "nothing" is something. See the quotes around it? It has a name... so it's something! And thus, God is real because as 'we' all know, once upon a time there was a 'real' nothing, much more 'nothing' that the quantum vacuum... Why? Because of course, there had to be in order for god to be real, and as we all know, since god is real, there had to be nothing, and it didn't have a fancy name because that would have made it something. It's the 'ineffable nothing.'

    Eric, do you like Hot Wheels? Or is Hello Kitty more your speed?

    This is fun! What else you got, Eric?

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  112. "Think about it: how in the world could the fact that we disagree about the nature/content of X entail that X isn't real?
    --------------
    Well, by itself of course it doesn't, HOWEVER, when one of the sides has all the *real* argumentation and the other side must resort to fantasy and *desperate* wishful thinking dressed up in pseudologic, it reveals to the other side that they're full of crap. Then of course, the 'full of crap' side says that the mere fact that the two sides are arguing proves nothing, ignoring the difference in 'reality content' between the two side's arguments! Of course they do! This works just as well for unicorns.
    That's the situation here. Hope that clarifies it for ya.

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  113. Here's a question for you, Eric:

    What's the reason that all of your arguments for God do not as well apply to the possible existence of this universe as a mind? As a 'big brain' kind of thing? That takes care of the First Mover thing neatly... if the natural state of the universe is that of a vast communal dream or mind, that negates the need for any deity. It answers your arguments just fine.
    So there's science, and if you can't agree to that, then there's yet something else it can be, and still not be God.

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  114. Why does God get to ignore all those neat-o 'moral facts' at his will? If they're universal, wouldn't he need to follow them too, or be immoral himself? What, is that only God gets the 'privilege' of being able to murder and destroy innocent life at his whim? That's IDENTICAL to the abused child that sees his father beat the crap out of him, all the while saying 'do as I say, goddammit, not as I do!' (slap!)
    That's what I've talked about as 'The Ultimate Bad Father Archetype' that Yahweh represents to the believers. It's part of the moral mindfuck. 'Kids' often grow up to emulate their father, and so the faithful grow to unconsciously emulate the Bad Dad in the Sky. Even when Dad says 'do as I say, not as I do,' those kids grow up emulating not his words, but his actions. This is basic human psychology.

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  115. The primitive mind sees power as an end unto itself, and admires the use of it, worships it even. So it's no surprise that many christians think, and even say, that it's God's 'privilege' to be able to SMITE SHIT. To kill, to break the commandments at will, is God's privilege and God's alone. Like it's something to be envied. And they do envy it, they're awed by the very idea of one being having all that raw power, the super-est of all superheros, who can just do what the fuck he wants. They come to envy even his license to kill, as it were. This makes murder a divine privilege, and we wonder why so many people like the idea of just killing off whomever they disagree with? It's all a part of the mass mindfuck that is Christianity.

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  116. "I've already dealt *decisively* with the "variations in the morals-du-jour" which you concede that all your comments subsequent to my dealing with were noting!"

    Yea? Well this decisive dealing must be another one of those things that you imagine exist, there IS getting to be quite a lot of them, isn't there?

    Unlike 'moral facts' which I 'dealt with' by explaining why they don't exist, then using the only method we can, discussing any evidence(a.k.a. moral epistemology) you feel you have for your case.

    " So the distinction *is* relevant.."

    No, no it's not, not unless you think we're discussing the possibility of there being moral facts, which we're not because there aren't such things.

    We discussed that and, fuck you, you psycho, over-fucking-ruled. NOW we moved on to the epistemology part where you either defend your notion or create a diversion. I guess you 'chose' 'b'.

    "law with morality (another confusion you're guilty of here.."

    I'm thinking the correct response is, "Blow me you fucktard!"? Hey, you seem to think I don't know the 'rulz' 'officer Eric'.

    Do I have to send my explanation concerning the similarity 'entre tus 'reglas' y la ley'?

    "If you're going to dismiss every argument with a conclusion you want to reject as 'wordplay' or as a 'diversion,' then honestly, what's the point -- not just for me, but for you?"

    Well, very simply Eric, I cannot have the idea that God flooded the World killing most people, in my head at the same time as imagining that there are 'moral facts', once again, because genocide seems to come up as one of the 'moral facts' that we're all so sure of, though no believer points to 'The Flood' with it's resulting magical appearance of the Rainbow as an indication that there occurred indeed the most horrible genocide ever, seemingly designed to explain how we can have darkies pick our cotton and shit.

    At the very least it's a story Christians use to indoctrinate young minds rendering them psycho, or Republican if they're not smart enough to see through it or if they're smart enough to see that they can make mucho dinero off of it from the other estupidos, no?

    What? It's a metaphor for God being pissed so in a cruel twist of irony HE actually pissed?

    Now it's not your serious answer that I'm not 'taking seriously' here, it's those Gawdawful Kerstians who copy/paste on facebook, "Leave our Christian holiday ALONE!" that's hard to take seriously, and The Flood of course and supposed Antedeluvian organizations which think they're being serious calling themselves that and so on and so forth.

    Very seriously now, if genocide is a moral fact then why isn't The Flood describing a genocide by definition making your 'all good God' a homicidal psycho? Saying HE can alter 'facts' to suit himself is NOT a serious answer, really now, is it?

    The whole idea of moral facts falls apart if one believes that God caused a horrible genocide yet it's compatible with the idea that God is 'all good', that is simply a fact, isn't it?

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  117. The fact that people disagree about what is and isn't a moral fact is an epistemic issue, not an ontic one.
    -----------
    Your own bible proves you wrong because what your God told the people about morals in the beginning of it isn't even the same as what God told the people at the end of it, and is even more different from what we all consider universally moral today in our society. You simply can't have that cake AND eat it too, dude. Not possible, no matter how much you wish it were.
    I mentioned this and expounded upon it at length. You've ignored this. I can only think because you haven't got a good answer to it.

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  118. What we tend to consider 'universally moral' today is vastly different from what the bible tells us is universally moral, and the bible can't even agree with itself on that from one part to the other.
    If there were universal morals, and they were created by the god of the bible, then the bible necessarily has to reflect that. It doesn't.

    Buh-bye. Next!

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  119. "Re: the movie examples and morality, Ryan has confused the requirement that we be there..."

    Obviously, as a movie or even a thought experiment, we're obviously REQUIRED to make a decision on it.

    Glad you brought that up Eric, I was going to ask you how you imagine wild animals dying?

    Likely alone and in agony no matter what or who the cause. You don't imagine a little lizard or whatnot looking into the 'bad guy's' eyes and wondering, "Why are you being such a bastard?", as he tortures it, as per your movie of the week?

    Nono, only we'd do that, we'd think that, it's not 'out there' written in the stars, no. It doesn't matter to the lizard at all, the how of it.

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  120. If 'thou shalt not kill' is a moral fact, then how does Jesus get away with that quote I started my blog post off with, the one about 'bring them before me and slay them?'
    Was the word 'slay' metaphorical? A euphemism, perhaps?
    Maybe they were going to beat the crap out of them at chess?
    Keep in mind that it's not god here doing the slaying. It's god ordering the people to do it, against their 'moral fact' commandment.
    Thus teaching the faithful that while all morals are absolutes, they're also not absolute absolutes. There are loopholes. If god tells you to kill, it's okay. And how does god speak to the faithful? Why, in their minds of course. Not out loud. IN their minds.
    This creates the lovely situation wherein it's forbidden to kill unless you're convinced that it's something god would want you to do. So if it's really god talking, or your schizophrenia acting up, no way to tell, best kill the fucker just to be safe.

    Great.

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  121. "What I said was the fact that we can disagree about something -- about its existence or nature or content -- doesn't entail that it's not real."

    But there's nothing there to dither over Eric. You yourself give your example about subjugating women.

    I countered with 'honoring women' by any other name, by treating them as inferior IS subjugating them, and if I were a good Christian I'd be on about how Adam came from Eve and how it's all explained, in metaphor of course, that it's all 'cool' just so long as we don't call a spade a spade.

    :o)

    Isn't that right? Well I did read a bishops letter to that effect anyways, so, word to the wise and all that jazz.

    What the HELL good would moral facts be since we can just reword them to suit us?

    No torturing? Piffle! It's Enhance Interrogation Technique NOW, but not for those Japanese prisoners executed for waterboarding, you see?

    So according to that standard a moral fact becomes a moral opinion which can be changed with enough PR. Just as you say, Eric, just as you say.

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  122. Questions I asked my parents as a little boy, part 1:

    Why if God commands us not to kill, do we kill people in a war?

    -Well Brian, it's okay to kill people if the country is at war!

    Um, why is it okay?

    -That's just the way it is.

    That doesn't make any sense.

    -God's mysterious ways...

    ------------
    Um nope, schizophrenia's unmysterious ways. Everything about the religion is about having your cake and eating it too. So they're always holding contrary and opposing ideas in their heads at the same time.

    Mental illness... it isn't pretty.

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  123. Pboy, the flood story reiterates a very common biblical theme. Or meme.

    -A few people were chosen to do something by God, or instructed by God, or interacted with God.

    -A whole bunch of other people didn't believe them and scoffed at them.

    -God killed off all the scoffers in really nasty ways. (YEAH!!!)

    This sets the stage for the control mechanisms of 'unbelievers will be dealt with by God in horrible ways,' and also 'since God wants that to happen, God wouldn't mind too much if you do it for Him' and also 'No matter how the others scoff at you, stay true to your belief and you'll get to dance on their graves.' A three-fer. Plus it gives the believers the sheer fun of all that schadenfreude to sustain their faith.

    They're waiting around right now as we speak, for God to come down and punish/destroy/damn all of us unbelievers so they can say the loudest "I TOLD YOU SO!!!" ever uttered.

    It's still working.

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  124. Can't we all just agree that it is logically inconsistent for a creator-being to create other lesser beings and design them in such a way that they are likely to doubt His existence without any evidence for it, and also to not provide that evidence, and then to punish any of his beings who dare to not believe in Him because they used the very minds He designed for them in the way that He designed them?

    Well, can't we?

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  125. I think the idea is that they're thinking, "Wouldn't it be fantastic if all the people in the World were honest and kind and generous, I'd be a king in that World, they'd never see me coming!"

    But they'd SAY, "Why there must be moral facts mustn't there? Relax and let me tell you what they are 'in context'(meaning it's this when it suits me and the opposite when that benefits me, of course).

    Did you know that coffins containing American soldiers, being returned from a war zone is NOT news these days Eric?

    Why it's a political fact that! News, apparently is being disgusted that 'the lame-stream media's' expose of right wing hypocrisy may ruin your front-runner's chances of getting elected'. But not that war is horror, no.

    Thing about political facts is that they inevitably benefit the speaker and help him get re-elected, much like religious facts(aka moral facts) tend to benefit the religion of the speaker of those facts.

    So, we can have these moral facts along side moral atrocities and as long as the Sun doesn't shine on the atrocities everything is hunky-dory.

    No sooner is a photon of light shed on the atrocities when they're spun into 'facts' such as blaming the 'lame-stream media'.

    As the old Irish Bishop said, "Those kids, they get over it.", so as time goes by, according to an old time 'officer' of your faith, moral fact becomes moral factoid tending towards moral opinion, no doubt tending towards 'it's all been overblown really'.

    One child buggered by a 'man of God' is an atrocity, an atrocity 'pshawed' away as a tiny percentage of 'men of God' who stand tall for those Godly moral facts.

    This is equivalent to saying, "While diseases can be horrible in their effects, we have to look through a powerful microscope to see them, so it's not THAT bad."

    But surely, since they are 'men of God', they too feel that moral facts are really a question of scale, no?

    And I suppose this is the same deal as The Flood, "Why God is so BIG compared to our tiny planet, genocide to us is as nothing but a pat on the bum to HIM!"

    Let's call that the 'Scalar Defense', but who is it that is supposed to have scales over their eyes here, us or the 'men of God'?

    Seems to me that moral facts, with enough PR can be entinified by the supposedly most Godly of men.

    What are the rest of us to do given that example?

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  126. Some of those christians waiting around for God to come back and smite all of us unbelievers are getting impatient for their 'I TOLD YOU SO!!!.' So they're doing what they can, doing God's Work, to bring about the end of the world for Him. After all, God will surely come and end the world, but since He's a bit tardy, if we start the ball rolling He'll show up as planned for the finish...

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  127. Another thing that just kills me is how every fucking good thing that Jesus ever said *conveniently* has another statement somewhere in the bible that defuses it, negates it. Mostly written by someone else, like Luke, not Jesus. And yet, instead of doing the fucking obvious thing and rejecting the words that Jesus didn't say for those that he did, they instead use the negating statement not as an absolute negation, but as a modifier to the Jesus saying so that it creates a loophole, claiming that it doesn't matter that Jesus never said that; it's in the bible too, and EVERYTHING in the bible is equally true, so we have to give it equal weight!

    This is insane.

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  128. I mean, "Judge not lest ye be judged" is pretty ironclad. Hard to find a loophole in that. No way Jesus meant us to find one in it. No way he meant us to find a way to negate that at all. It's simple, basic, and to-the-point.

    But shit, it's definitely been negated. What percentage of christians follow that one?



    I googled a bit and found these:
    ---------------------------------

    "The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment." (Psa 37:30)

    "With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth." (Psa 119:13)

    "Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy." (Prov 31:9)

    Jesus commended Simon, "Thou hast rightly judged." (Luke 7:43)

    "Now, thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? yea, thou shalt show her all her abominations." (Ezek 22:2)

    "But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man." (1 Cor 2:15)

    "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?" (1 Cor 6:2)

    "Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?" (1 Cor 6:3)

    There are many other passages and verses in the Bible about judging. While God is our ultimate Judge, He has also commanded us to judge according to the Word of God.

    According to the Webster’s Dictionary, to judge means "to discern, to distinguish, to form an opinion, to compare facts or ideas, and perceive their agreement or disagreement, and thus to distinguish truth from falsehood." Therefore, when you say that your neighbor is a "good person," you are passing a judgment (forming an opinion) just as much as when you say that the thief is a "bad person."
    --------------------------------
    Talk about missing the whole fucking point!

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  129. Religion, Christianity, is why the republican debates are a circus freak show of stupidity and ignorance.

    It's shameful.

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  130. Why, some 22 year old guy who has a history of calling Obama 'the antichrist' and 'the devil' was just arrested for shooting the window of the White House, trying (he claims!) to kill Obama.

    More of this is to be expected, especially, ESPECIALLY, if Obama wins a second term.

    Psychotics on parade.

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  131. the movie examples and morality, Ryan has confused the requirement that we be there to make a moral judgment with whether there is a 'real' judgment to be made.

    No, I really haven't. You need to demonstrate that there is a 'real' judgment to being made in the absence of any observation.

    You are simply assuming that, in the absence of any actual observing (and judging people) that someone (god) is always still observing (and judging).

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  132. Oh and Eric:

    -Pederast closed culture in far past or far future?

    -Aztecs cutting out the hearts of volunteers?


    Nothing, huh?

    Can't spin it, can't answer it?

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  133. Oh, I guess those are two more examples where you would say that just because there wasn't anyone (from 2011 with 2011 morals in place) to see it, that doesn't mean it wasn't immoral. Or perhaps as Ryan says, you assume that there's a God to see it? Is this really that silly now?

    All I would have to do, is to show you that there are things in our moral code of ideals, here and now, that in the future quite possibly will be seen as immoral and atrocities.

    War. The willingness to wage it.

    God and religion in general. The denial of reality for belief, causing strife.

    The punishment of people for victimless crimes.

    Already we can see that considering homosexuality immoral is on the way out. We're starting to see that quite the contrary, attempting to prohibit that and punish people for it is the real immorality in the equation.

    Things change, including morality. Only religion attempts to stay the same and force reality to do so as well. Only religion, is that stupid. And you're it's agent. Congrats with that, Oh Agent of Sameness.

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  134. Me: No, I really haven't. You need to demonstrate that there is a 'real' judgment to being made in the absence of any observation.

    I would imagine, but could be wrong, that anything Eric could present to demonstrate that there is any sort of 'real' judgment to being made in the absence of any observation would involve imagining that we are observing a situation that requires moral judgment.

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  135. Isn't that just saying that our present set of moral ideals in this time, are the ideal ones that god created, and not those in the past we are judging now?

    Like I said, there's any number of things that are considered the very height of morality now that in the future will likely be considered immoral. It's not that hard to see that if one has an imagination.

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  136. We can say that today we consider cutting a man's heart out immoral and so those Aztecs were sure barbarians for thinking it very moral indeed, but what we *cannot* say today is that if we were there back then, raised as an Aztec in that milieu, we would have thought that they were barbaric or immoral. Of course we wouldn't have.

    So there's no way to tell if what we consider today as the height of morality won't someday be thought of as heinously immoral. That's how history is. It keeps changing. Hopefully for the better, but not if religion has anything to say about it.

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  137. Cine thing that I think needs taken into account concerning the antiquated thinking Christians do. It is obvious that religion is evolving, and the religionist of today, for the most part, is several hundred years behind the curve. The thing I have to wonder about if they (the religionist) were to quite organized religion and the belief system that goes with is, what would they be into? They show where they are in evolution by there lack of understanding on morals or ethics, so lacking that any guide outside of the religious law they have no guidance. That would worry me if they were to quite their religions cold.

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  138. "Actually, if that's not nothing, then nothing is nothing. It's a fucking vacuum, dude.
    "We have found that when there's absolutely nothing, it cries out for something, and something appears, and this you say to me, is not really nothing because it produces something and we can see that?"

    First, i did not say that it's not nothing because it produces something. I said, simply, that it's not nothing.

    Are you under the impression that a quantum vacuum is *literally* nothing?

    That's cute.

    Frank Close, Professor of Physics at Oxford University, on pages 99 - 100 of his book, "Nothing: A Very Short Introduction":

    "Imagine a region of vacuum, for example a cubic metre of outer space with all the hydrogen and other particles removed. Can it really be devoid of matter and energy? In the quantum universe, the answer is no...You may remove all matter and mass, but quantum uncertainty says there exists energy: energy cannot also be zero. To assert that there is a void, containing nothing of these, violates the uncertainty principle. There is a minimum amount known as zero-point energy, but this is the best you can do."

    Anything else you need to know about science, Brian?

    "Eric, do you like Hot Wheels? Or is Hello Kitty more your speed?
    This is fun! What else you got, Eric?"

    See, next time make sure you actually understand the science before getting cocky about it, for now you just look really silly.

    "Well, by itself of course it doesn't, HOWEVER, when one of the sides has all the *real* argumentation and the other side must resort to fantasy and *desperate* wishful thinking dressed up in pseudologic, it reveals to the other side that they're full of crap."

    First, what real arguments? All Floyd -- or anyone here, as far as I can see -- has offered so far is the diversity of opinion argument for moral anti-realism, which I've already decisively refuted. Please, let me know what those "real arguments" are.

    Second, you seem to be under the impression that moral realists are all theists relying on "wishful thinking" and "pseudologic."

    Not even close.

    Many moral realists are outspoken atheists who defend the existence of moral facts on grounds that are entirely religiously neutral. I could name a number of them off the top of my head, but I know how much you guys hate that.

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  139. "What's the reason that all of your arguments for God do not as well apply to the possible existence of this universe as a mind?"

    We'd have to look at each argument individually, but the case is very clear each time.

    For example, take the argument from contingency that concludes that a necessary being must exist. Well, this necessary being can't be the universe, and hence can't be the universe conceived as a mind, for the universe exists contingently: It came into being, changes, depends for its existence on precise physical constants and initial conditions, etc. Note, this is not an argument for the existence of god, bu an argument against the notion that my arguments for god can instead be used to defend the conclusion that the universe itself is a mind.

    We could do the same sort of thing with each argument for god's existence (e.g. the KCA concludes that the universe has a cause, and that that cause has many of the properties that the god of classical theism has, but a thing can't be the cause of itself, so the universe can't be identified with the cause of the universe; so, even if the universe is conceived of as a mind, the KCA can't be used to support that notion. And so on with the many other arguments for the existence of god.)

    "Unlike 'moral facts' which I 'dealt with' by explaining why they don't exist"

    You did? You *explained why* they don't exist?! Where? All I saw was an argument from the diversity of moral opinion, which I've already demolished. What other explanation have you provided? And if you took the argument from the diversity of moral opinion to be that argument, then how do you deal with my objections?

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  140. "The whole idea of moral facts falls apart if one believes that God caused a horrible genocide yet it's compatible with the idea that God is 'all good', that is simply a fact, isn't it?"

    As always, you confuse yourself by conflating a host of issues: Biblical literalism with Biblical inerrancy, issues of Biblical interpretation with issues of moral ontology, issues of Biblical interpretation with issues concerning the relationship between god and morality, and, of course, moral epistemology with moral ontology.

    I'm not about to get into all of them, so I hope this suffices: Catholics are under no obligation to read the account of Noah literally, which means we're free to let the findings of modern science, our reading of the Church Fathers, our knowledge of the Biblical languages, our knowledge of Near Eastern literary conventions, our understanding of literary theory, etc. guide how we read the text. Like many scientific literate Catholics, I do not think that the text can be read literally: At most (IMHO), the narrative contains an element of historical truth that's been handed down and embellished with symbolic and poetical language and imagery. Now all scripture is multivalent: the same passage can communicate historical, moral, spiritual, etc. truths, and can do so to one degree or another. So that's my brief take on the Biblical issue.

    Now a brief take on god and moral obligation: Strictly speaking, god has no moral obligations. (I can't get into the reasons here.) But aside from that, my life is an unmerited gift from god, and I have no claim on it. Hence, he can take my life in any way and at any time and violate no obligation (assuming he had any in the first place). But then the same is true of every life.

    So, even if I were a Biblical literalist, your argument would have no purchase, for to speak about god committing 'genocide' is literally meaningless (since he has no moral obligations, and since he has no obligations to me as far as my life is concerned).

    (A further problem with your criticism, on my view, is that your flawed, univocal application of the moral term 'goodness' to god implies a theistic personalist god, and not the god of classical theism, but that's another complicated matter that I won't get into here. If you're struggling to see the obvious flaws in the diversity of moral opinion argument, you're definitely not ready for the subtle and complex arguments about god's nature.)

    "No, I really haven't. You need to demonstrate that there is a 'real' judgment to being made in the absence of any observation.
    You are simply assuming that, in the absence of any actual observing (and judging people) that someone (god) is always still observing (and judging)."

    That's so bad it's not worth addressing, but...

    If there's no one to observe X, couldn't the same skeptical argument be run for any X?

    Ryan, meet Berkeley -- you're now an idealist.

    "Things change, including morality."

    Moral diversity argument....hmmm, where have I heard that before...Boy, I better find a way to deal with it...what to do, what to do, what to do...

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  141. "We are NOT going to lose this house. Everything has finally resolved itself. We even got more money out than we'd planned for a few improvements.... VERY RELIEVED HERE!!!"

    Good stuff Brian.

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  142. hey show where they are in evolution by there lack of understanding on morals or ethics, so lacking that any guide outside of the religious law they have no guidance. That would worry me if they were to quite their religions cold.
    ---------------------
    They only know the fake morality that puts them in the center of the universe, not real morality that is based on the love of others and not of self. They have no real morality, just the substitute. So that's why you always hear christians either imply or say outright that if people lost their faith in god they'd be just going around raping and pillaging and murdering all the time and society would come apart. Tripe. That's because they have no emotions that tell them to be good to others for the love that it perpetuates and that you feel in return, they have fear of the consequences of not doing what they're told, and a list to go by. That makes it mental and not emotional, and as I've said many times, emotions are far stronger motivators than thoughts are. So they *feel* no compulsion to be moral other than their fear of God, and so must assume that we're like them, only without that fear. If they were us, they believe, why, they'd just go wild without God to hold them back.

    Um, not so. The lack of the fear, helps to bring out the ability to love others, and loving others is the basis of real morality that does no harm.

    Fear and self-interest do not morality make. But they, the deceived, cannot perceive that. They think as ill of us as they would act without the fear holding them in check.

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  143. " Catholics are under no obligation to read the account of Noah literally.."

    Are you telling me that Catholic children don't go to Sunday School and learn that Noah gathered all the animals two by two and put them on a big boat because God commanded him to?

    Nono, I see, all you're saying is that you're not obligated to believe it, while you ARE obligated to believe it's inerrant.

    Your explanation is bullshit to me Eric. I'm not 'learning to be a Catholic' here.

    Recall the 'Scalar Defense' I mentioned? How many Catholics, what percentage of Catholics, Eric, do you imagine, see their religion, their interpretation of Biblical events and so on, through some kind of similar philosophical lens as yourself, do you imagine?

    How 'bout those IRA guys? You imagine maybe that they were discussing moral ontology versus moral epistemology while they were making some IEDs to send them Protestants to HELL?

    To easy to dispute whether that's a land claim as opposed to a religious conflict, ala D'Souza?

    Well, okay then Henry the Eighth, Oliver Cromwell, Bonnie Prince Charlie and all of them, were THEY up all night discussing moral epistemology/moral ontology while plotting to demolish Catholic churches, force their subjects to believe as they do and so on and so forth?

    You're here to discuss the truth versus what your church tells you you're free to decide for yourself and what is doctrine?

    Me:- There are no gods, not even the one.

    How does that match up then?

    Hey, that's my properly basic belief.

    You seem to be saying, "Yes, yes, but lets suppose that Catholic doctrine as I understand it is really what everyone believes and you(that's me) can see how wrong you(that's me) are."

    I'm thinking that a very small percentage of actual Catholics believe what you believe in the way you believe it. I'm guessing that if asked, the vast majority of Catholics would say that The Flood happened EXACTLY as told in the story, EXACTLY.

    Now, briefly, your other point about how you view God's obligation/lack of obligation to you.

    So what? Might as well be talking to a Muslim who is saying, "But Allah isn't like that.", or a Hindu saying, "But Shiva isn't like that."

    There's the bare facts of the stories which makes God a genocidal maniac, which makes the Hebrews genocidal maniacs and the Christians too, to paraphrase one Pope, "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out!", right?

    Seems to me that believing that there are moral facts ought to have affected history itself for the better, but nope, nosirree.

    The supposed, or even purported Godliest people were in there like dirty shirts bragging they they gave not one shit for any moral fact, they, the moral facts simply didn't exist.

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  144. "You seem to be saying, "Yes, yes, but lets suppose that Catholic doctrine as I understand it is really what everyone believes and you(that's me) can see how wrong you(that's me) are.""

    This is ridiculous. No sane person who read what I wrote could come to any such conclusion.

    I swear, I sometimes think that you guys are playing a big joke on me, that you all got together behind the scenes and agreed to respond to my comments with the most inane ripostes you could concoct, and that each week you have a contest for 'stupidest response Eric took seriously.'

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  145. "This is ridiculous. No sane person who read what I wrote could come to any such conclusion."

    Really Eric? Oh well, can YOU tell ME what you seem to be saying to me?

    I'm dying to know from you what I think.

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  146. Eric,

    Whereas peeb did, Ryan DIDN'T confuse *ontology* (I really dislike that word) and epistemology.

    Remember that being a sanctimonious twat isn't the same as knowing whether someone's right or wrong.

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  147. "Whereas peeb did, Ryan DIDN'T confuse *ontology* (I really dislike that word) and epistemology."

    Harry, as I reread Ryan's post, I see that his remarks are ambiguous, and may not (on one reading) commit him to that confusion. So I agree with you, (on the basis of that ambiguity) my claim was not justified.

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  148. My post was two-fold, to point out your error and make a bad joke about it at your expense.

    You got the correction but not the humor.

    Unsurprising.

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  149. "My post was two-fold, to point out your error and make a bad joke about it at your expense.
    You got the correction but not the humor.
    Unsurprising."

    I got the humor; I just didn't comment on it.

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  150. Harry Remember that being a sanctimonious twat isn't the same as knowing whether someone's right or wrong.

    Absolutely perfect.

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  151. "I got the humor; I just didn't comment on it."

    If you did fine, but I wasn't implying a lack of intellectual fortitude on your part by not getting it, just a lack of *heart* (or whatever that translates into in cognitive terms).

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  152. If there's no one to observe X, couldn't the same skeptical argument be run for any X?

    I really don't see how you addressed my point. But I take the above to be saying that since an unobserved triangle is still a triangle then unobserved moral actions are still moral actions.

    If that's what you are saying, then I think it's a category error as you still need to demonstrate that moral facts actually exist and then demonstrate that they exist independent of our minds as universals. I mean seriously, start at square one...

    If it's not what you are saying, please feel free to clarify as I have no interest in looking up this Berkeley guy (or school, or whatever).

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  153. Jerry said,
    Cine thing that I think needs taken into account concerning the antiquated thinking Christians do. It is obvious that religion is evolving, and the religionist of today, for the most part, is several hundred years behind the curve. The thing I have to wonder about if they (the religionist) were to quite organized religion and the belief system that goes with is, what would they be into? They show where they are in evolution by there lack of understanding on morals or ethics, so lacking that any guide outside of the religious law they have no guidance. That would worry me if they were to quite their religions cold.
    -----------------------------
    The thing that worries me is that they might all end up as you.
    All mixed up and set harder than concrete.
    You have made claim to having a spiritual relationship with God and at the same time deny the sacrifice by which it was made possible. Your modernized thinking and rejection of the antiquated truths recorded in the Bible has resulted in spiritual bankruptcy in your case. You know of God from what you have heard about Him from the Bible yet you don’t know Him for yourself. But there is still hope for you.

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  154. "If you did fine, but I wasn't implying a lack of intellectual fortitude on your part by not getting it, just a lack of *heart* (or whatever that translates into in cognitive terms)."

    Wait a minute -- that's that "make a point/make a joke" thing again, right? ;)

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  155. I knew you would take a swipe at the metaphorical language.

    Ha.

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  156. Observant,
    You have made claim to having a spiritual relationship with God and at the same time deny the sacrifice by which it was made possible.

    I never said I have a relationship with god. I have said I do not know if there is a god, but I have faith there is. I also said I have been born again and am aware of the spiritual level of life that Jesus talked about. Every day thousands of children around the world experience death simply because lack of the necessity of life. When this made up god you worship starts taking care of the REAL sacrifice let me know. On the answer you sent me, other than one part of one line, about denying a sacrifice, you should look in the mirror and read it to your self. It is an accurate description of you.

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  157. "Now a brief take on god and moral obligation: Strictly speaking, god has no moral obligations."

    (sigh) Now a brief take on the Nazis and moral obligation: Strictly speaking, the Nazis have no moral obligations.

    (sigh) Now a brief take on the Hebrews and moral obligation: Strictly speaking, the Hebrews have no moral obligations.

    (sigh) Now a brief take on the early Californian settlers(vis a vis the Indians) and moral obligation: Strictly speaking, the early Californian settlers have no moral obligations (viz a viz the Indians).

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  158. "But aside from that, my life is an unmerited gift from god, and I have no claim on it. Hence, he can take my life in any way and at any time and violate no obligation (assuming he had any in the first place). But then the same is true of every life."

    Okay then. No life has moral obligation to other life.

    We may have some intersubjective moral values concerning torturing animals, as per your 'movie', but I think everyone who agrees with me, agrees because there is something wrong with the person who would do such a thing.

    Of course if one were on one's own on an island with a variety of animals, one's social life would certainly 'be at stake', as it were.

    But someone stuck on their own on an island has no social obligations.

    Imagine your scenario with one more character on the island with the animal torturer. Suddenly the dynamics change. The other person is going to judge animal torturing behaviour and the guy inclined to engage in 'artistic' ways to put animals in pain would know, he'd know that the other person might be thinking, "Sheesh, there's something wrong with this guy!", much as you imagine the man ought to think that when we are 'replacing' some 'written in the stars' rule when he's on his own. IOW there'd be social pressure to not torture animals.

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  159. I don't know if you're even willing to admit, Eric, that at least some of your replies, some of your reasoning boils down to, "Ian, you are SO wrong, because you don't have my Catholic reasoning backing you up as I do."

    Why should I care what you imagine God's obligation or lack thereof to you, is?

    I'd be of the opinion that I ought to fear someone or something that feels no obligation towards me.

    Maybe a bear or a cougar.

    I'd be of the opinion that a person who loved me WOULD feel they have an obligation towards me, and if they didn't, then it would drain any meaning out of 'love' for me in that case.

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  160. "But aside from that, my life is an unmerited gift from god, and I have no claim on it."

    But what you're trying to tell me here is not clear to me.

    You do believe that only your physical presence on this good ol' planet is what is taken from you when you 'die', right? Lots of room for equivocation there, right?(just noting that)

    Just saying that you can rip off something steeped in Catholic philosophy then honey-coated in Catholic doctrine, not mentioning that that's the case and present it as an 'everybody can see this is obvious' statement, simply taking for granted that much like moral facts we're all supposed to just know, there's your facts which we're all supposed to realise the origins of.

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  161. "Imagine a region of vacuum, for example a cubic metre of outer space with all the hydrogen and other particles removed. Can it really be devoid of matter and energy? In the quantum universe, the answer is no...You may remove all matter and mass, but quantum uncertainty says there exists energy: energy cannot also be zero. To assert that there is a void, containing nothing of these, violates the uncertainty principle. There is a minimum amount known as zero-point energy, but this is the best you can do."

    Anything else you need to know about science, Brian?
    ------------
    No, I know about zero-point energy, I've read both of Brian Greene's books. It's still the only vacuum there is, unless you postulate that there can be a pre-geometric non-dimensional energy-free void and if that were the case, if that was what science thought existed before the Big Bang, then how on earth would physicists have postulated the Big Bang as a vacuum fluctuation? Such a void would not fluctuate. Nothing could pop into it.

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  162. I'm not a physicist but I can say that either science says that that the vacuum the Big Bang came out into was still filled with zero-point (or slightly more) energy, or, the other possibility is that the Big Bang wasn't technically a vacuum fluctuation at all but more properly would have been called a 'void fluctuation.' And I don't think an absolute pregeometric nondimensional void can interact with anything or have anything suddenly appear within it. It has no 'within.' It's pregeometric.

    And another thing. If and when you come up with science that I am not aware of or that I do not know correctly, that's wonderful for you however it still doesn't prove anything about you versus me as people, as much as you want to have a dick contest about it. Care to have me try for science that you're not familiar with? I feel up to the task. Science is large enough for me to not know all of it and not feel bad about that.

    And since, while I don't like to engage in ego-penis-comparisons, you're the one that believes in fairy tales, in spite of whatever science you may know, I must ask myself what good any knowledge of it does you at all in the first place.
    When you learn things, you don't learn them dispassionately, you learn them as tools to further your religious agenda.

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  163. I would look even Francis Crick right in the face and tell him he's stupid. He's a brilliant scientist, which is what makes him REALLY stupid. He knows a lot of science and has subjugated all that he has learned to his religion. Like you do. He has to, there's no other way to reconcile the two. People like him are cowards, who are too afraid to give up on heaven and too scared of hell to let the idea go. One can know all the science in the world and if one cannot overcome one's belief system, the science will always still take a back seat to that, even if, even if, had the person seriously thought about what they knew in a neutral manner, really 'looked' at what's in their own heads, it would have disproven their beliefs to them.

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  164. I'm thinking that a very small percentage of actual Catholics believe what you believe in the way you believe it. I'm guessing that if asked, the vast majority of Catholics would say that The Flood happened EXACTLY as told in the story, EXACTLY.
    ---------------
    I've told him this before; he didn't answer. Oh, something about 'vatican 2' but not a real, honest answer. The fact is, he's nowhere near the typical catholic. The typical catholic, is as much of an idiot as the typical protestant is. MI is more typical than Eric. So all his pretty words, aren't even what most catholics believe. It's just the last-ditch line of defense against logic and reason, the shock troops, who learn that pseudointellectual idiocy.

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  165. Eric, I have a grudge against you. Against all the apologists. Against Thomas Aquinas. Against this whole body of knowledge that you draw upon.

    Why isn't it SHARED with all catholics? Why wasn't it? Why did they not get educated beyond the moronic? Sure it's all false bullshit, but at least it teaches the mind to reason even if falsely. My parents, my family, had no ability to reason. Their religion, over many generations, removed any such thing from their entire line. They could have used something at least, something more than 'believe it or else.' They thought the bible was literally true, or that most of it probably was at the least. And they had no problem holding two, or three, or even more contradictory mutually-negating concepts in their minds and had no problem with it whatsoever. They are insane. Because of your faith, and the FACT that as long as the faithful in question already believe, LET THEM ALONE. No need to teach them anything whatsoever, they're already CAUGHT.
    This is obvious to me. Your faith is all about the membership, and doesn't care a marmoset's twat about the people that believe in it.

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  166. Oh, the church sent us lots of literature.

    It all went something like this:

    Please contribute to our fund drive to build a new wing on the parish; here's the self-addressed envelope for your check.

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  167. Eric said it was due to 'vatican 2.'

    No excuse, Eric!

    Where is the effort to educate people that have fallen through that vatican 2 crack, Eric? You have a zillion believers out there that don't even believe what you believe, not even close, but you still number them among the faithful catholics. They need re-education, Eric. Where's that effort? How's it going?

    You're just a huge pile of fairly eloquent bullshit, Eric.

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  168. Brian said, "Anything you can say about your religion, you can find a variant of in support of others."

    Eric replied, "Again, this is a claim you cannot defend.

    Take the KCA: It can be used to defend the notion that one immaterial, eternal and plausibly personal creator god exists. As such, it can be used only by monotheistic religions that posit an immaterial and eternal creator, such as Islam, Christianity and Judaism."


    The KCA can be used to defend the three great, mutually antagonistic, monotheistic religions; the ones that collectively claim to have as supporters some 80-85% of the world's population, roughly half of which already possess nuclear weapons in sufficient quantity to roast the planet several times over, and the other half wishing they had the weapons to touch off Armageddon.

    Nice, nice, very nice...

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  169. Ed, usually aren't most pantheons of gods in polytheistic religions all created by earlier father and/or mother gods, and so aren't they also predicated upon one single god creating the world *and* other gods, or perhaps other gods first, then our worlds.... so even the polytheistic religions seem often rely on one (or maybe two) original creator gods, and so then, please tell me why the KCM or a variant of it cannot apply to such polytheistic faiths as well? I can't see it.

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  170. .. and where the Hell did all the angels and whatnot come from, and when did they get 'created' and 'WHY?'

    God is already 3 in 1 and can see all, smell all, taste all, or whatever, WTF does he need angels for, nevermind a frickin' ARMY of angels who split into TWO ARMIES of angels and blah blah blah.

    Wonder if Catholics are 'required' to believe THAT drivel too?

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  171. That's absolutely true! Christianity (and Judaism, it's source) is a polytheistic faith with the names changed to protect the morons.

    Same fucking thing.

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  172. Kind of gets on my nerves that Eric treats this as if it were a philosophy debate.

    We can see he does that from his responses. "You're confusing moral ontology with moral epistemology, HAH!"

    WTF?

    I'm discussing whatever comes to mind, it's not as though moral ontology and moral epistemology aren't about morals and his moral facts and my 'there's no fuckin' moral facts.

    Where's that blog he was challenging you to go on and, I guess, stick a golfball in your mouth and pretend you're a philosopher, again?

    What would be the use of arguing with sarcastic assholes like that?

    There really is no argument, there are no gods and that's that.

    They can all harrumph about cosmology, ontology, teleology, epistemology and on and on all they want as if that'll conjure up a being who isn't.

    That's the exact definition of God according to the KCA, when the Universe wasn't God was, no time, no space, no energy, nothing, "Ah, but God was, um, I hesitate to say 'there', what would it mean to say 'there'?

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  173. Guess that is the 'magic' that they're willing to swallow. I'd have to be able to believe in 'nothing', not even a matterless void, which I'm supposing that we can't believe is actually nothing.

    To believe in God, I have to imagine that there couldn't always have been at least a matterless void, but it's okay to believe that aside from THAT nothing there WAS Heaven and God sitting on his throne and HE is Jesus but Jesus sits next to God and there's angels and 'later'(HAH) Satan and fallen angels and all that but that's all outside time and space, right?

    Ouch, I think I almost cracked my mind in half! LOL

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  174. "..and, I guess, stick a golfball in your mouth and pretend you're a philosopher, again?"

    Who do I think I'm kidding, we know where you have to stick the golf ball, really now, don't we?

    The mouth one is 'optional'.

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  175. "Supernatural revelation has its origin in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and is made available through the teaching of the prophets, summed up in Holy Scripture, and transmitted by the Magisterium, the sum of which is called "Tradition"."

    Here we have the word-magic of Thomas himself.

    Eric being a Thomist, cannot help but use a special religious meaning of 'tradition' itself!!

    If he mentions 'traditional belief' we imagine one thing while he is 'saying' something completely different than we would think.

    Here I thought 'tradition' was old stories, rituals and practices passed down through generations.

    "The female villagers traditionally wore fedoras, black jackets and paisley pattern skirts."

    "It was our tradition to stay up 'til midnight and toast in the New Year."

    "They" have been tying words up in knots for such a long time now, we might say it's 'traditional'.

    I think the idea was to not be able to communicate without at least 'accidentally' invoking their god.

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  176. Did you know Thomas of Aquino was a saint, Brian?

    The miracles he performed which allowed him to be canonized?

    Well, put it this way, if Thomas can be a saint, one day Eric could be too!

    Shit, D'Souza might be well on his way to becoming a saint!

    You know how mothers say that babies are their miracles? By Thomas's standard (the bar they set for him) they're absolutely right!

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  177. "Origen explained in De Principiis that sometimes spiritual teachings could be gleaned from historical events, and sometimes the lessons could only be taught through stories that, taken literally, would "seem incapable of containing truth.""

    Think of a Bible story. Doesn't sound likely? Never fear, just imagine it's a lesson explaining some hidden truth about our relationship to the supernatural!

    This is as ridiculous as, "Sure prayer works, God says yes, no or maybe! Works 100% of the time!"

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  178. "For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally." - Origen

    It's like he got SO close, so close to calling 'bullshit', then went with this 'appearance' shit.

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  179. Origen:- "..who is so foolish .."

    Me:- "Um, Mike and MI."

    LOL

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  180. Origen:- "..who is so foolish .."

    Me:- "Um, Mike and MI."
    -------------
    That's true though. Mike or MI would believe that, no problem. They don't think at all about what they believe in, they just follow the leader and parrot the faith.
    Poor Origen can't see that much dumbness being real, even. His vision was limited in scope (of human ignorance.)

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  181. Did you know Thomas of Aquino was a saint, Brian?
    -----------------
    Why yes I did, Pboy, and he's an inspirational figure to me.

    He, and others like him, are what inspired me to call myself a Saint.

    Because if just any old amoral lying buggering asshole can be one, I'm definitely safe with the title since by comparison, never mind Saint, I'm almost Jesus, so I'm sure they'll let it slide.

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  182. Of course at the time of Origen, wasn't imagining denominations dedicated to making their flock at odds with plain sense from a doctrinal standpoint.

    To be a Southern Baptist, you basically have to vow that you believe the Biblical account, flat Earth with firmament dome, stars pinned on and the whole schmeer.

    Then you have to go to school and learn about the vast universe, the Sun as a yellow dwarf star, hardly significant in the Universe, stars being so far away that they seem equidistant(the dome of the night sky), the day sky (dome) being an illusion of scattered light and so forth.

    When these two truths crash together, it's the old square peg in the round hole, something has 'got to give'.

    I cannot imagine how Eric and his kind think they are 'helping' at all since 'cracked minds' such as MI(who doesn't KNOW the subtle philosophical debate point that Eric has 'won' and is just happy to cheer him on) and Mike(who'd likely be happy to denounce Eric as unAmerican and unChristian as any atheist or Muslim or gay).

    Even if there WERE moral facts, supernaturally constructed Objective Moral Values, 99% of followers would be quite willing to tout the exact opposite as equally morally factual given the slightest persuasion.

    Eric is willing to set the mish-mash of beliefs(interpretations?) that Christianity is, aside, to argue his brand, which I believe is as much at odds with the actual beliefs of most Christians as atheism is.

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  183. "Take the KCA: It can be used to defend the notion that one immaterial, eternal and plausibly personal creator god exists. As such, it can be used only by monotheistic religions that posit an immaterial and eternal creator, such as Islam, Christianity and Judaism."

    Psalm 82.1

    "1 A Psalm of Asaph. God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods."


    And for Mike and MI, "2 How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.
    3 Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.
    4 Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked."

    Mike's response, "This is no time for turning no other cheek, no time for defending the poor, or delivering no poor and needy. We ought to be concentrating on the government 'robbing' the rich of some of that 'hard earned billions'."

    Just the idea that someone can be 'working hard' and earn some millions of dollars a year doesn't work for me.

    Weird how this ties in with the moral facts thingy.

    Eric and Mike likely imagine that the Bible is a great source of moral facts, if not the best.

    But if something is quoted to them and it's not agreeing with them, the answer seems to be, "Who are you, an atheist to tell me what MY Bible tells me!", as if everyone's Bible is private to them in particular, or at least private to 'themselves' as to the denomination they're in.

    If there's no 'out of context' or other 'you're just reading it wrong' shit, we're simply reduced to the pig ignorance which doesn't even allow us, "Yea, well I don't give a shit about that part of the Bible!", which is what they're saying with silence.

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  184. "1 A Psalm of Asaph. God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods."
    --------------------
    Logically that quotation means that the Bible acknowledges the existence and validity of 'other gods!'

    How can it be read otherwise?

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  185. How can it be read otherwise?

    EXACTAFUCKINGLY!!!!

    Now reread Genesis in Hebrew with that in mind.

    Mike won't do it, obviously...

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  186. ...and Eric won't admit that he recognizes that it means anything.

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  187. If there were one, or a couple, of such discrepancies in the bible, then an apologist like Eric would have a chance.

    When they're everywhere you look, almost one to every sentence, then things get a bit more difficult for him. He can't see that; he can't see the situation. The errors *glare out* of those pages, and he pretends them to be allegorical when he must, or something else, different explanations for different things... It's that way with his whole explication of the faith itself. There's too many holes, Eric. It's not that you can't plug them all; your kind has had two millennia to think of answers to all of them, so you have the answers right there in your rolodex. It's that you're forced to ignore, and are therefore attempting to force us to ignore, the sheer number and frequency of the errors, the bad logic, the contradictions, the hypocrisy. If you try to apologize a paragraph you can seem to pull it off fairly well, but when it's a whole book-full of malarkey you just look silly and desperate.

    You're telling us that roses do not have thorns, presenting us with a thornless rosebush and saying 'see!' while hiding your bleeding fingertips.

    Give it up and look for honest work, dude.

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  188. You have to evaluate the religion based on the bible. Without the bible, there'd be no religion. So it's totally dependent on the bible being trustworthy.

    So you look for errors. That's what you do.


    Shit, they're everywhere you look!

    This is allegory, that is a parable, that is metaphor.... and yet, there's nowhere in the book that tells which stories ARE NOT parables or allegories or metaphor. So we, the readers, have to decide that. There is not one shred of evidence in that book that it's not ALL or MOSTLY just not true, just parables taught to explain the world or to teach morality or obedience to God. There's hardly any corroborating evidence for any of it outside of that one book itself. There's no part of it that one can point to and say 'that is surely true as written.' There just isn't!

    That should be enough to end this silliness forever, to end the religion. If it were a perfect world with people that were all capable of independent thought, it would.

    But NOOOO, send in the clowns, er, apologists!

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  189. The whole power of the bible rests on self-authentication.

    This is the word of god and it is all true and you can't doubt or change a word of it, not a letter. It's the word of god because it says so, right in the book. We can't doubt the word of god, now can we? Well, it's in that book. It says so right here....

    How insane do you have to be to buy that?

    People are fucking stupid. This shit should have gone bye-bye two centuries ago. We should have to go to museums to see what the inside of a church used to look like.

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  190. Plus as noted, it's not as if christians even believe in all of the bible, no, they pick and choose. That's against what the bible tells us to do. That's a sin. You have to believe in all of it, as written. That's how it used to be everywhere, before science. So those who do not believe in all of it, do not practice all of it, are acknowledging that science, is winning.

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  191. Just noticed that the tail end of a Nova special was on... I watched the last fifteen minutes. (I recorded it and a subsequent one so that I could see it in full)

    It was Brian Greene on Quantum Physics. Cool.


    And at the end credit roll, this:

    "Funded in part by the David H. Koch fund for science."

    HUH?????????

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  192. I know Brian, are there OTHER rich Kochs??

    Anyways, I saw a bit of one of them, seems some physicists think that our three D universe may be a projection of a two D reality.

    WTF?

    Sheesh! They're starting to sound like you!

    j/k

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  193. I know, huh?

    Where do you think I get my ideas from?

    That double-slit thing really got me to thinking.

    When I'm on salvia, I can feel, can directly sense, that I am not one me. I am a superimposition of many, many "me's." The only thing is, it could be all in my head, right? So I keep thinking, and experimenting.

    I did another experiment a while back, one in which I tried to gain a certain outcome from reality by 'magical' means.

    It was a somewhat unlikely event, considering the economic climate and our credit rating.

    Yes, the loan we just got. Chalk up another one in the 'win' column.


    ---


    You know, when Einstein said 'God does not throw dice' he should have realized that God has a well-documented gambling problem, and shut up...

    ---


    The quantum physics stuff is really mind-blowing, isn't it? Brian Greene is a pretty good communicator for the science team. Glad you are watching it. Maybe you won't think I'm so crazy after this.

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  194. You actually LIKE his commentary?

    Maybe he's stuck with the script or something but I love to HATE that guy, I feel like he's, and not just him, that silly bitch who seems to have drank too many Redbulls and chased them with pots of coffee.

    By the end of the shows I feel like I'm 'long suffering'.

    The 2D to 3D thing also seems to raise more questions than it, well it doesn't even seem to be answering any question either, puzzling.

    Seems they're all a bit nuts

    One demo where they pour red goo on a clear flat 'ceiling" to show how Solar wind 'catches up with itself' and causes a 'wave' which makes the plasma(is it?) glow.

    Where is this glow, I don't see it?

    And (hold your breath) might THAT not be responsible for the microwave background radiation we detect all around, right off the top of my head there?

    "Go towards the light, towards the light!"

    You get there and all your relatives, friends, people you don't know all packed on to a two D surface.

    "Yea God, don't ask, he's just the projectionist."

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  195. Here's a good one.

    What amazes me more than anything viz a viz 'the tiny', is that physicists seem to have been expecting 'little marbles'.

    "You mean protons and neutrons AREN'T little marbles, considering we know that our experience of solid, liquid and gas, plasma and radiant energy are wholly to do with the electron cloud interplay with radiating energy, electro-magnetic forces.

    So why surmise 'some kind of marbles' at the next level down?

    There seems to be a deep down prejudice to the 'tiny marble' "theory".

    I have an idea that the pattern we're seeing through a double slit experiment is showing us what the electron looks like in a way. Like a little wave on a pond, large(heh) at the middle and tapering off toward the edges.

    It seems to 'fit'. A quanta IS a 'packet'.

    Maybe it's fractal and basic 'particles' are galaxies in the tiny dimension and our galaxy is just a basic particle in an enormous dimension.

    On the many 'yous' thing, I don't need any kind of mind altering stuff in me to imagine thinking of the 'basic me' and sort of reflecting on it, realising that there must be a more basic me doing the reflecting then reflecting on that more 'basic me' and so on.

    Not trying to burst any balloons or anything, it is, (hate to say it) fascinating.(is the word that pops to mind)

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  196. Wonder what the difference in jigawatts/jumanjijoules(whatever, didn't like that silly movie anyways) there is between the force popping an electron out of a neutron and the force keeping the electron nearby(relatively)?

    It's all very strange, the different forces, the electon clouds being the lowest energy possible, then in neutron stars, gravity saying, "Fuck you, in you go!" and the neutrons screaming, "But we WANT to be regular atoms!", and God saying, "STFU, you're all giving me a splitting headache!"

    Then there's the positrons with their anti-protons going, "Yo, what up?", and giving gang signs which makes the regular particles roll their eyes, much to the delight of Scotty, who is dreaming of that test where the lizard-man was outwitted by Kirk when Kirk gave him a drink 'laced' with ground glass and arsenic.

    "Here pal, why can't we all just get along? Have a shot!"

    "Nice bouquet, slightly presumptuous, but eminently palatable! I love the smell of burnt almonds in the morning. HEY? What's this sand doing in my drink?"

    That's when a frickin' snake shows up and fucks everything up.

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  197. Lizard-man:- Yellow and black'll break your mother's back.

    Kirk:- Nono, yellow and red, kiss your ass you're dead.

    Snake:- You don't know how much I HATE these deux ex machina bits, nobody knows the trouble I seen. Always ends the same way, sliding on my belly for punishment instead of biting my tail and rolling along like any self-respecting snake.

    Lizard-man:- Yellow and white, your pants you will shite?

    Kirk:- I GOT IT! Tartan and blue, WTF, it's Q!

    Snake:- Shazbot! You have, Agatha Christie like deduced my I.D. from my colour scheme. I would also have accepted, 'Blue and tartan, Junior Luther King Martin'.

    (It's an allegory PEOPLE!)

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  198. Should be - Junior King Luther Martin, boy do I feel stoopid NOW!

    Guess it was an agellory.

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  199. The trouble with the claim that the Bible stories that just don't turn out to make sense to us are allegories is that one can allegorize any story at all!

    Three blind mice
    (Father, Son and Holy Ghost)

    See how they run
    (natural theology)

    They all run after the farmer's wife
    (represents the archtype uneducated woman who has too much chores to do to reflect on life's 'whys' but is of course the staunchest of believers)

    Who cut off their tails with a carving Knife
    (Actually makes such a dog's breakfast out of her so called 'reasons for believing', it's enough to make a theologian commit suicide.)

    Three blind mice
    (They have to be blind, they're going to have to 'let her in, after all, she's been praying, "Our father, who art in Heaven, Harold be thy name..", along with the actual Lord's Prayer all her life.

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