The Religion Discussion

[ruffneck_12]

Just 6 more pages and we shall reach the holy number of the TRUE lord and savior

HAIL SATAN

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

Science may have disproved some religions, not Christianity.

science does not set out to disprove any religion. People may take scientific fact and use it to show why a religious belief may not be reproducible, true or logical. But then too they may also take their blind faith in their own beliefs to claim that the beliefs of others' may not be reproducible, true or logical.

[Slartibartfast]

Section 1
It seems we have reached an impasse here for now. We have presented all that we could present and have each failed to convince the other person. I will be able to present more on this section if you give and honest and straightforward answer for section 2 and section 4.

Section 2
That is not what I meant. What I mean is,
Do you agree with the following statements that makes no reference to religion, theism, atheism or God.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of existence"
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"
If no, please state why not, if yes, then no further justification is needed and we could close off this section.

Section 3
Sorry if this sounds like I am repeating myself, I just want to be certain. Are you saying that there cannot possibly be any physical or empirical evidence for God (and by extension that is why he is only proven through your logic and philosophy)? If no, please state how I misrepresented what you said.

Section 4
In my example I was illustrating that intelligent input was not needed in order to produce what may seem like a organised system. I was not arguing the origin of the energy in the ball. Just the fact that it is a closed system with no energy input/output and that if observed at the right time it would appear to be organised by colour (won't quote the rest of the argument a I will try to keep this short). Do you disagree with this statement? (only considering the closed system with no energy input/output, not considering the source of the system for now.) If you disagree state why.

Matter can never organise itself into a regulated system. In your horrible example, you released the ball to gravity. A ball at rest will stay at rest. Matter at rest will stay at rest. Matter doesn't jump up by acting on itself and forms systems.

In my example, who would have organised the balls by colour?

Yes I would have given it the initial energy to get everything moving, but once I let it go I had no further input. In this section, I am not arguing about the origin of the energy in the system. I agree with Newton's first law of motion.

[Slartibartfast]

Hahahaha.
It good for yuh Slarti.

I know, Habit has organised his response. Now we can move the conversation forward.... I must have missed the joke

[nareshseep]

[meccalli]

1. Idk, maybe they should have? The black death wouldn't have occurred if they just read leviticus. In fact, the principles outlined therein are utilized today in diagnostics and isolation. That's about 3500 year old advice from a quibble flabble.
2. Flesh is mortal.

[Habit7]

Section 1
It seems we have reached an impasse here for now. We have presented all that we could present and have each failed to convince the other person. I will be able to present more on this section if you give and honest and straightforward answer for section 2 and section 4.

Section 2
That is not what I meant. What I mean is,
Do you agree with the following statements that makes no reference to religion, theism, atheism or God.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of existence"
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"
If no, please state why not, if yes, then no further justification is needed and we could close off this section.

Section 3
Sorry if this sounds like I am repeating myself, I just want to be certain. Are you saying that there cannot possibly be any physical or empirical evidence for God (and by extension that is why he is only proven through your logic and philosophy)? If no, please state how I misrepresented what you said.

Section 4
In my example I was illustrating that intelligent input was not needed in order to produce what may seem like a organised system. I was not arguing the origin of the energy in the ball. Just the fact that it is a closed system with no energy input/output and that if observed at the right time it would appear to be organised by colour (won't quote the rest of the argument a I will try to keep this short). Do you disagree with this statement? (only considering the closed system with no energy input/output, not considering the source of the system for now.) If you disagree state why.

Matter can never organise itself into a regulated system. In your horrible example, you released the ball to gravity. A ball at rest will stay at rest. Matter at rest will stay at rest. Matter doesn't jump up by acting on itself and forms systems.

In my example, who would have organised the balls by colour?

Yes I would have given it the initial energy to get everything moving, but once I let it go I had no further input. In this section, I am not arguing about the origin of the energy in the system. I agree with Newton's first law of motion.

Section 1
My motive is not just to convince you, but to refute you. I want to leave you with no leg to stand on. If you choose to be belligerent, that is your choice. But I would have refuted all your arguments in this section which mostly arise from your ignorance of the Bible. My answers for section 2 and 4 are very straightforward and directly addresses your point, you just dont like it.

Section 2
If you believe it makes no reference to religion, theism, atheism or God...then why did you first use it in reference to God?

Now that I have shown that absence of evidence is not evidence of existence (or absence), the only way to settle this argument is for you to prove that your God exists.

Nevertheless, yes agree with those statements esp. how it makes irrational the absolute claim that someone doesnt exist because I lack the evidence. (I tried not to reference atheism there, I hope you are plz)

Section 3
God is a supernatural being that directly created nature. Physical and empirical objects are natural. Any physical and empirical evidence for God would be indirect. Direct evidence for God would be supernatural. You have no direct access to the supernatural.

We assess all things by logic. Science is only understood by engaging the laws of logic. God is proven through all aspects of His creation.

Section 4
Well you are disregarding source of the cause, the source of the matter and the source of the laws that govern those balls and that because at a snapshot, there appears order. The problem is that aside from that one snapshot, its mostly disorder. However in nature (again disregarding all the sources) we don't see a snapshot order we see a history of order, in fact in some cases the order gets more complex.

Also at your zenith, all the balls, at a snapshot, organised by colour, serves the wonderful function of...nada. However, we see ordered systems functioning seamlessly. Your zenith serves no greater purpose than the balls randomised.

[quote=Slartibartfast]I know, Habit has organised his response.[/quote]My responses haven't changed. My initial posts are as good as my last. You are the one bouncing from pillar to post changing your questions.

[Slartibartfast]

Section 1
Patience habit.. patience.

Section 2
Right so you agree with the statement
The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence... therefore, the absence of scientific evidence for God is not evidence of the absence of God.

You also agreed with absence of evidence is not evidence of existence... therefore, the absence of scientific evidence for God is not evidence of the existence of God.

Am I going alright so far. Note that I am only talking about direct, concrete evidence in this section. Section 3 already deals with indirect evidence and the supernatural and such.

Section 3
Ok so what links the natural and the supernatural? You said all evidence for God will be indirect and would have to somehow bridge that gap between natural and supernatural. Also you have to prove that the supernatural exists?

Section 4

Also at your zenith, all the balls, at a snapshot, organised by colour, serves the wonderful function of...nada.

Precisely. So agree that it is possible to get what looks like an organised system (i.e. the system looks like it is regulated according to colour) with no intelligent input.

Again, I realise our arguments go full circle so I'm trying to meet you halfway by trying to fully understand what you are trying to say and what you believe. It may seem like I am asking some stupid questions but I just want to make certain that I am thinking along the same lines as you.

[Habit7]

Section 1
K

Section 2
Get to your point, (are we back to referencing God? Or are you making this up as you go along?)

Section 3
What links? Law of causality, supernatural is the cause, nature is the effect.

Section 4
Systems function, not at snapshots. Horrible example still horrible. (Quote that for circular reasoning)

[Slartibartfast]

Section 1
On hold

Section 2
I'm building my argument piece by piece and giving you the opportunity to refute me at each step. I need to know if there is anything that you disagree with in my last argument. It's a very simple question.

Section 3
Is this the absolute only thing that links it? (Not arguing if this is wrong or right, still getting to understand your view)

Section 4
This is a red herring falacy. I am not talking about the functioning of the system. I am talking about a snapshot of the functioning system. You can take snapshots of a functioning system. I agree that after that snapshot it will revert to chaos. And at one of those snapshots "it is possible to get what looks like an organised system (i.e. the system looks like it is regulated according to colour) with no intelligent input."

Where exactly is this reasoning circular and what about it don't you agree with.

[Habit7]

Section 1
Refuted

Section 2

Nevertheless, yes agree with those statements

Section 3

What links?

Who says it has to be linked or is linked? It is true.

Section 4

I am not talking about the functioning of the system. I am talking about a snapshot of the functioning system.

Bouncing balls arranged by colour is not a function system at a snapshot because it is not functioning.

In nature we dont see systems functioning at a snapshot, we see systems functioning from conception for extreme lengths of time. If you are saying that systems only appear ordered in a snapshot why do empirical science? Who is to know that the snapshot we see now could change next Tuesday?

You are saying that a dead clock functions because twice a day, at one second, it tells the correct time. However, time coincides with the dead clock, not the clock maintaining time. Likewise, non-functional randomised bouncing balls coincide with colour categorisation, not the balls bouncing by colour categorisation.

Com'on really?

[Slartibartfast]

Section 1
On hold

Section 2 - Re: Empirical/ Physical Evidence For and Against God (Agreed by Habit and Slarti)

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence... therefore, the absence of scientific evidence for God is not evidence of the absence of God.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of existence... therefore, the absence of scientific evidence for God is not evidence of the existence of God.

Now that this has been established it can be used as a premise for future arguments between the two of us.


Section 3
That is what I am asking you, because as a non-believer I cannot answer that questions. From an argumentative standpoint, yes God must be linked to our physical world in some way in your argument. That's how proofs work. So again I am asking you
"Is this the absolute only thing that links it? (Not arguing if this is wrong or right, still getting to understand your view)"

Section 4

Likewise, non-functional randomised bouncing balls coincide with colour categorisation, not the balls bouncing by colour categorisation.

Good so you agree with the following.

So agree that it is possible to get what looks like an organised system (i.e. the system looks like it is regulated according to colour) with no intelligent input.

I did not mention the system functioning. To refute this you must prove refute one of the following
1. It is impossible for the balls to come to that arrangement (albeit for a split second) randomly or
2. There was intelligent input that organised the balls by colour.

EDIT: trying to meet you halfway so that you can also build your argument.

You are saying that a dead clock appears to function because twice a day, at one second, it tells the correct time. However, time coincides with the dead clock, not the clock maintaining time.

If the change in red is made then I agree with this statement. Is the change made in red agreeable with you?

Habit I don't know if you know how arguments work. But basically they are over when the arguing parties agree. So to move forward (i.e. get over some parts of our argument) I am trying to make sure that we agree before moving forward. That way we do not end up back where we started as happened earlier. To do this I am breaking up my arguments and working through them step by step with you. I agree it is tedious but you cannot deny it has helped us move forward. Look, we agreed on Section 2.

[Habit7]

Section 1
Refuted

Section 2
Atheism refuted

Section 3

The God of the Bible is transcendent, you can't go to God, He must come to you. He has given you a complex and ordered world for you to know that He as Creator far more complex and He has His laws for us. We have arguments that prove God, based on our God-given logic. Thus it all comes back to your innate knowledge of God, which you affirmed earlier. God wants you to humble yourself before His mighty power, if you come shaking your fist at Him, He will continue to cast you out like the rebel you are.

For though the Lord is exalted,
Yet He regards the lowly,
But the haughty He knows from afar.
Psalm 138:6

Section 4
Systems are not observed as snapshots. I will not enter your fairy tale world of snapshots. You can't want repeatable evidence for God, but not want your fantasy system to be repeated.



We don't have agree to move on. I can rubbish your arguments to move on. You are just dead but refusing to lie down.

[RBphoto]

You know, if it was just Adam and Steve, they would have just been too busy wanking off each other to worry about any tree of life and all that foolishness.

[Slartibartfast]

Section 1
On Hold

Section 2
Agreed premises for future arguments

Section 3
None of that makes sense to me. Hence the reason why I am asking you a simple direct question to get your direct answer. If there are other things that link God (or his supernatural attributes) with out natural world other than "the law of causality" please list them below.

Section 4
Wait what? How do you think systems are understood in science? They are broken down into the properties that make them up. If the system is time dependent it is broken down into snapshots of time. Some functions can also be displayed graphically using points related to (you guessed it) fixed points in time a.k.a. snapshots. The fact that I am observing this system in snapshots is proof that systems can be observed in snapshots. But I digress...

Please state what about my argument is false or what about my argument you do not agree with an why. You are clearly avoiding the argument because you are afraid of being refuted.

[Habit7]

I'm going to take a break now. You just pawned yourself by affirming Section 2 of your argument. If absence of evidence is no evidence of absence, you have no basis to say God doesn't exist thus no basis for atheism. So I don't know what other conclusion you want us to reach.

[Slartibartfast]

The absence of evidence is not evidence of existence

You are clearly avoiding the argument because you are afraid of being refuted.

You are clearly not a stupid person. It looks like you finally see how I am going to refute your arguments and you are tired of sidestepping so you are calling it quits to save face.

[Slartibartfast]

Anyway, should you wish to pick up where we left off, feel free to reply to the sections below.

Section 1
On Hold - No response needed as yet. Included below just to summarise where we reached.

... science disproves religion, as religious texts make a lot of assertions about reality that have been proven false....
...I never said religion is God or vice versa....

Science may have disproved some religions, not Christianity. There is no empirical scientific fact that runs counter to Christianity...
...God is impossible to disprove because He is possible to prove. For instance I have done so already in this series of posts using the Law of causality

It seems we have reached an impasse here for now. We have presented all that we could present and have each failed to convince the other person...

Section 2
Agreed premises for future arguments - No further response required. However, the premises below can be used for future arguments.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence... therefore, the absence of scientific evidence for God is not evidence of the absence of God.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of existence... therefore, the absence of scientific evidence for God is not evidence of the existence of God.

Section 3

Ok so what links the natural and the supernatural? You said all evidence for God will be indirect and would have to somehow bridge that gap between natural and supernatural. Also you have to prove that the supernatural exists?

What links? Law of causality, supernatural is the cause, nature is the effect.

Is this the absolute only thing that links it? (Not arguing if this is wrong or right, still getting to understand your view)

Section 4

Likewise, non-functional randomised bouncing balls coincide with colour categorisation, not the balls bouncing by colour categorisation.

Good so you agree with the following.

So agree that it is possible to get what looks like an organised system (i.e. the system looks like it is regulated according to colour) with no intelligent input.

I did not mention the system functioning. To refute this you must prove refute one of the following
1. It is impossible for the balls to come to that arrangement (albeit for a split second) randomly or
2. There was intelligent input that organised the balls by colour.

Trying to meet you halfway so that you can also build your argument.

You are saying that a dead clock appears to function twice a day, because at one second, it tells the correct time. However, time coincides with the dead clock, not the clock maintaining time.

If the change in red is made then I agree with this statement. Is the change made in red agreeable with you?

[RBphoto]

Adam and Steve would be friends right through... none of this once a month emotional BS.

[Slartibartfast]

What if Steve is just an emotional guy?

[Habit7]

The God Wars
To hardline atheists, it is now unreasonable and “dramatically peculiar” to argue that religion is not altogether evil. How did such intolerance become acceptable to tolerant minds?


BY BRYAN APPLEYARD PUBLISHED 28 FEBRUARY, 2012 - 17:28



Two atheists - John Gray and Alain de Botton - and two agnostics - Nassim Nicholas Taleb and I - meet for dinner at a Greek restaurant in Bayswater, London. The talk is genial, friendly and then, suddenly, intense when neo-atheism comes up. Three of us, including both atheists, have suffered abuse at the hands of this cult. Only Taleb seems to have escaped unscathed and this, we conclude, must be because he can do maths and people are afraid of maths.

De Botton is the most recent and, consequently, the most shocked victim. He has just produced a book, Religion for Atheists: a Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion, mildly suggesting that atheists like himself have much to learn from religion and that, in fact, religion is too important to be left to believers. He has also proposed an atheists' temple, a place where non-believers can partake of the consolations of silence and meditation.

This has been enough to bring the full force of a neo-atheist fatwa crashing down on his head. The temple idea in particular made them reach for their best books of curses.

“I am rolling my eyes so hard that it hurts," wrote the American biologist and neo-atheist blogger P Z Myers. "You may take a moment to retch. I hope you have buckets handy." Myers has a vivid but limited prose palette.

There have been threats of violence. De Botton has been told he will be beaten up and his guts taken out of him. One email simply said, "You have betrayed Atheism. Go over to the other side and die."

De Botton finds it bewildering, the unexpected appearance in the culture of a tyrannical sect, content to whip up a mob mentality. "To say something along the lines of 'I'm an atheist; I think religions are not all bad' has become a dramatically peculiar thing to say and if you do say it on the internet you will get savage messages calling you a fascist, an idiot or a fool. This is a very odd moment in our culture. Why has this happened?"

First, a definition. By "neo-atheism", I mean a tripartite belief system founded on the conviction that science provides the only road to truth and that all religions are deluded, irrational and destructive.

Atheism is just one-third of this exotic ideological cocktail. Secularism, the political wing of the movement, is another third. Neo-atheists often assume that the two are the same thing; in fact, atheism is a metaphysical position and secularism is a view of how society should be organised. So a Christian can easily be a secularist - indeed, even Christ was being one when he said, "Render unto Caesar" - and an atheist can be anti-secularist if he happens to believe that religious views should be taken into account. But, in some muddled way, the two ideas have been combined by the cultists.

The third leg of neo-atheism is Darwinism, the AK-47 of neo-atheist shock troops. Alone among scientists, and perhaps because of the enormous influence of Richard Dawkins, Darwin has been embraced as the final conclusive proof not only that God does not exist but also that religion as a whole is a uniquely dangerous threat to scientific rationality.

“There is this strange supposition," says the American philosopher Jerry Fodor, "that if you're a Darwinian you have to be an atheist. In my case, I'm an anti-Darwinian and I'm an atheist. But people are so incoherent on these issues that it's hard for me to figure out what is driving them."

The neo-atheist cause has been gathering strength for roughly two decades and recently exploded into very public view. Sayeeda Warsi, co-chairman of the Conservative Party, was in the headlines for making a speech at the Vatican warning of the dangers of secular fundamentalism, which aims to prevent religions from having a public voice or role. Warsi, a Muslim, subdivides propagators of this anti-religious impulse into two categories. First, there are the well-meaning liberal elite, who want to suppress religion in order not to cause offence to anybody. Second, there is the "perverse kind of secular" believer, who wants to "wipe religion from the public sphere" on principle.

“Why," she asks me, "are the followers of reason so unreasonable?"

As Warsi was on her way to catch her flight to Rome she heard Dawkins, the supreme prophet of neo-atheism, on Radio 4's Today programme. He was attempting to celebrate a survey that proved, at least to his satisfaction, that supposedly Christian Britain was a fraud. People who said they were Christians did not go to church and knew little of the faith. Giles Fraser, a priest of the Church of England, then challenged Dawkins to give the full title of Darwin's Origin of Species. Falling into confusion, he failed. Fraser's point was that Dawkins was therefore, by his own criterion, not a Darwinian. Becoming even more confused, Dawkins exclaimed in his response: "Oh, God!"

“Immediately he was out of control, he said, 'Oh, God!'" Warsi recalls, "so even the most self-confessed secular fundamentalist at this moment of need needed to turn to the Almighty. It kind of defeats his own argument that only people who go to church have a faith."

De Botton finds Dawkins a psychologically troubling figure.

“He has taken a very strange position. He's unusual, in that he came from an elite British Anglican family with all its privileges and then he had this extraordinary career, and now he stands at the head of what can really be called a cult . . . I think what happened was that he has been frightened by the militancy of religious people he has met on his travels and it has driven him to the other side.

“It smacks of a sort of psychological collapse in him, a collapse in those resources of maturity that would keep someone on an even keel. There is what psychoanalysts would call a deep rigidity in him."

I ask Fraser what he thinks are the roots of this ideological rigidity among the neo-atheists. “It coincides with post-9/11," he says. "The enemy is Islam for them. That was true about [Christopher] Hitchens in an obvious way and Dawkins said something like 'it was the most evil religion in the world'.

“With Hitchens, it was bound up with liberal interventionism. It is also clearly an Americanisation. It has come over from their culture wars . . . People are pissed off with Dawkins because there is a feeling that we don't do that over here."

For me, the events of 9/11 were certainly a catalyst, the new ingredient that turned the already bubbling mix of anti-religious feeling into an explosive concoction. Coming from a scientific family, I had accepted the common-sense orthodoxy that religion and science were two separate but complementary and non-conflicting entities, or what the great evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould called "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA). I first became aware of my own complacency in this regard when I interviewed Stephen Hawking just before the publication of A Brief History of Time (1988). He had become - it was his then wife who told me this - vehemently anti-religious. And in my presence he was contemptuously anti-philosophical.

There had always been an anti-religious strain in science, a strain that had been present since Galileo and which, indeed, had grown stronger after Darwin. In the postwar period, both Francis Crick and James Watson conceded that one of their main motivations in unravelling the molecular structure of DNA was to undermine religion. It was strengthened even further in the popular imagination when Dawkins expounded the outlines of the neo-Darwinian synthesis in his fine book The Selfish Gene (1976). In the 1990s it became routine to hear scientists - notably in this country Peter Atkins and Lewis Wolpert - pouring scorn on the claims of philosophy and religion. They were, for entirely non-scientific reasons, in a triumph­ant mood. The sales of A Brief History of Time had sent publishing advances for popular science books soaring, and the more astounding the claims, the better the money.

While observing this, I became aware that the ground had shifted beneath my own cosy orthodoxy. Scientistic thinkers were no longer prepared to accept NOMA, the separate, complementary, non-conflicting realms. In the early 1990s I was engaged in a debate with Dawkins at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He said, to much applause, that the existence of God was a scientific issue. If, in effect, God could not live up to the standards of scientific proof, then He must be declared dead. There were no longer two magisteria, but just one, before which we must all bow.

After the September 2001 attacks, all the dams of reticence burst and neo-atheism became a full-blooded ideology, informed by books such as Dawkins's The God Delusion, Sam Harris's The End of Faith, Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell and Christoper Hitchens's God Is Not Great.

These authors became known as the Four Horsemen of the New Atheism. It was no accident that their books appeared not just after the 9/11 attacks, but also at a time of neo-Darwinian triumphalism. The Human Genome Project, combined with the popularisation of the latest Darwinian thinking, was presented as an announcement that science had cracked the problem of human life. Furthermore, the rise of evolutionary psychology - an analysis of human behaviour based on the tracing of evolved traits - seemed to suggest that the human mind, too, would soon succumb to the logic of neo-atheism.

It was in the midst of this that Fodor and the cognitive scientist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini published What Darwin Got Wrong, a highly sophisticated analysis of Darwinian thought which concluded that the theory of natural selection could not be stated coherently. All hell broke loose. Such was the abuse that Fodor vowed never to read a blog again. Myers the provocateur announced that he had no intention of reading the book but spent 3,000 words trashing it anyway, a remarkably frank statement of intellectual tyranny.

Fodor now chuckles at the memory. "I said we should write back saying we had no intention of reading his review but we thought it was all wrong anyway."

For him, evolutionary psychology plays a large part in this mindset with its loathing of religion. "I think the story is that we are supposed to
understand why there is religion on Darwinian grounds without having to raise the question as to whether it's true. But these are just fabricated stories. If you found something with two heads and a horn in the middle you could cook up some story from evolution saying it was just dandy to have two heads with a horn in the middle. It's just sloppy thinking."

Ultimately, the problem with militant neo-atheism is that it represents a profound category error. Explaining religion - or, indeed, the human experience - in scientific terms is futile. "It would be as bizarre as to launch a scientific investigation into the truth of Anna Karenina or love," de Botton says. "It's a symptom of the misplaced confidence of science . . . It's a kind of category error. It's a fatally wrong question and the more you ask it, the more you come up with bizarre and odd answers."

The project is also curiously pointless. A couple of years ago I hired a car at Los Angeles Airport. The radio was tuned to a religious station. Too terrified to attempt simultaneously to change the channel and drive on the I-405, the scariest road in the world, in a strange car, I heard to my astonishment that Christopher Hitchens was the next guest on a Christian chat show.

In his finest fruity tones and deploying $100 words, Hitchens took the poor presenter apart. Then he was asked if this would be a better world if we disposed of all religions. "No," he replied. I almost crashed the car.

The answer demonstrates the futility of the neo-atheist project. Religion is not going to go away. It is a natural and legitimate response to the human condition, to human consciousness and to human ignorance. One of the most striking things revealed by the progress of science has been the revelation of how little we know and how easily what we do know can be overthrown. Furthermore, as Hitchens in effect acknowledged and as the neo-atheists demonstrate by their ideological rigidity and savagery, absence of religion does not guarantee that the demonic side of our natures will be eliminated. People should have learned this from the catastrophic failed atheist project of communism, but too many didn't.

Happily, the backlash against neo-atheism has begun, inspired by the cult's own intolerance. In the Christmas issue of this magazine, Dawkins interviewed Hitchens. Halfway through, Dawkins asked: "Do you ever worry that if we win and, so to speak, destroy Christianity, that vacuum would be filled by Islam?" At dinner at the restaurant in Bayswater we all laughed at this, but our laughter was uneasy. The history of attempts to destroy religion is littered with the corpses of believers and unbelievers alike. There are many roads to truth, but cultish intolerance is not one of them.

http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/20 ... ts-dawkins

[RBphoto]

What if Steve is just an emotional guy?

Adam will cut orf his "Eness"... then he will be Stev

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

^ in every religion, in every belief system, in every human there are nuances and personal perceptions that make each different.

I once read "if there are 2 billion Christians, there are probably 2 billion forms of Christianity" but even you know that despite what people claim and believe, it does not change what the actual thing is.

Simply not believing what another person believes is not intolerance. What is intolerant is saying ONLY my way is right and I will rewarded by God and your way is so wrong that you will be punished by God and be tortured by the devil, you heathen, infidel, sinner.

[RBphoto]

http://pbfcomics.com/271/

Just click the link.

[Habit7]

Simply not believing what another person believes is not intolerance. What is intolerant is saying ONLY my way is right and I will rewarded by God and your way is so wrong that you will be punished by God and be tortured by the devil, you heathen, infidel, sinner.

That just postmodern ideology. How can you call yourself tolerant if you don't disagree with someone?

Muslims believe I am going to Hell and Dawkinists believe that I am deluded that doesn't mean I issue a fatwah on their head (at least Christians don't). I just think they are wrong.

I am sure reading this you are disagreeing with me but that doesn't mean we must merge black and white views into a grey soup. In a world with multiple religions, either all are wrong or one is right and all are wrong.

Intolerance is silencing opposing view, not disagreeing with them.

[Slartibartfast]

Thank goodness we have Habit7 then so that we may know the way, the truth and the light... even if he must duck out an argument early to avoid being refuted.

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

Simply not believing what another person believes is not intolerance. What is intolerant is saying ONLY my way is right and I will rewarded by God and your way is so wrong that you will be punished by God and be tortured by the devil, you heathen, infidel, sinner.

That just postmodern ideology. How can you call yourself tolerant if you don't disagree with someone?

Muslims believe I am going to Hell and Dawkinists believe that I am deluded that doesn't mean I issue a fatwah on their head (at least Christians don't). I just think they are wrong.

I am sure reading this you are disagreeing with me but that doesn't mean we must merge black and white views into a grey soup. In a world with multiple religions, either all are wrong or one is right and all are wrong.

Intolerance is silencing opposing view, not disagreeing with them.

what's a Dawkinist?

But you believe Muslims and Hindus are going to hell. Given the concept of what hell is, that's a bit stronger than saying "I just think they are wrong."

[Habit7]

My belief sends no one to hell, a Muslim's belief sends no one to Hell and a Hindu's belief doesn't determine another's state when they reincarnate.

Christianity teaches God's standard is perfection, a measure no one meets. We have all lied, stolen, disobeyed our parents, hated people and all of these sins show our rebellion against the good God who created us. God is just in sending us all to Hell.

But God being rich in mercy, chose to send His Son as a man to live the life we failed to live. Christ paid for the sins of those who would believe in Him bearing their sin while He endured the just wrath of God during the cross. He died and rose again to new life just as those who put their faith in Him have a new life in Him. Therefore God is just and the justifier of those who repent and put the faith in His Son in that God justly punishes sinners, while God justly punishes Christ in the place of Christians who have received the prefect sinless life of Christ.

I believe that exclusive message of the gospel is right, which would mean all others wrong. I tolerate the other messages and even what they say about my eternal destiny. I believe they are wrong, they believe I am wrong. Either, one of us is correct or we are all wrong.

[Slartibartfast]

...God is just in sending us all to Hell.

But God being rich in mercy...

This right here is proof that Christianity is an emotionally abusive religion. Imagine if my kids had to see me the same way, I would consider myself a failure of a father. Habit, you want a hug bro... you look like you could use a hug. It must be tiring to constantly live like this

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

My belief sends no one to hell, a Muslim's belief sends no one to Hell and a Hindu's belief doesn't determine another's state when they reincarnate.

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. - is this not your belief?

Christianity teaches God's standard is perfection, a measure no one meets. We have all lied, stolen, disobeyed our parents, hated people and all of these sins show our rebellion against the good God who created us. God is just in sending us all to Hell.

the God you believe in.

But God being rich in mercy, chose to send His Son as a man to live the life we failed to live. Christ paid for the sins of those who would believe in Him bearing their sin while He endured the just wrath of God during the cross. He died and rose again to new life just as those who put their faith in Him have a new life in Him. Therefore God is just and the justifier of those who repent and put the faith in His Son in that God justly punishes sinners, while God justly punishes Christ in the place of Christians who have received the prefect sinless life of Christ.

what of Muslims who do not believe Jesus is Christ,nor did he die on the cross or save the world of sin? They "shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone"?

I believe that exclusive message of the gospel is right, which would mean all others wrong. I tolerate the other messages and even what they say about my eternal destiny. I believe they are wrong, they believe I am wrong. Either, one of us is correct or we are all wrong.

well they surely can't all be right.

"maybe we are all wrong" seems a pretty agnostic statement to make.