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Humans started out with nothing, but they realized more efficient ways. For example, I’m sure humans originally hunted by hand, but they saw that it was inefficient and made spears (or something). The point is that apes still hunt by hand, jaguars still hunt by hand. Humans have never seemed to like the status quo and have tried for bigger and better things.
Rome doesn’t seem to be the best example because everyone knows about it and that it exists and accepts its existence. Let me try another example. If you are traveling through America and you are in the Midwest. You need food and water. You stop at a gas station and ask for directions because you don’t have a map of your own. He says that the next town is some small town that you don’t know about. The man lives around there. Do you assume that the man is wrong because it is a stretch of the imagination to be traveling to town that you aren’t sure of and can’t prove, but can assume is there? I would take the man’s word and go in that direction.
The Catholic teaching is that there are two kinds of Baptism (actually three but the third is irrelevant here): Baptism of Water, traditional Baptism, and Baptism of Desire, which is when someone who, if they knew Christianity, they would have been Baptized or if they were going to be Baptized and couldn’t be (death). I believe most Buddhists are going to heaven, because they are peaceful and try to do good. As for atheists I believe that a lot of atheists are going to heaven. An early Church saint called Socrates a Christian because he spent his life seeking the truth and if Christ is the truth then him and a lot of atheists are going to heaven.
I don’t know what reasons for religion you have been given but I think the main reasons for religion are hope, salvation, and spirituality. Salvation and spirituality are not temporal which makes them nearly negligible unless you believe. I think hope for eternal love and life is what is given. Religion will always exist, right or wrong, because people need something to give them hope. Life is not enough for some people and the thought of this being it is almost inconceivable.
You said “Yet they existed and to some extent still exist today. Is this what these people are doing with the souls the Catholic God supposedly gave them?” My point was that if the soul exists then this is not its function.
So what do you say about apes and birds that use tools; apes, big cats, wolves etc. that communicate and cooperate during the hunt? None of the abilities that humans have appeared all that suddenly or completely.
Your example of the gas station is no different from the Rome example. You know that the man lives in the area, because he runs a business he has a motivation not to lie to people. And the next town is also plausible.
This is not comparable to following a path in the direction of something that is both implausible and 100% unproven. Your example seems to me the equivalent of walking aimlessly.
The picture you paint of who gets into heaven is somewhat more benevolent than the versions I normally heard as a child. My problem with this vision is not its mildness, but rather the fact that it is not based on any sort of evidence. Also, although it’s beside the point, I have no desire to exist without my personality, relationships and things. So if I can’t take them with me, I’d just as soon not exist.
I have no need of anything to give me hope and spirituality as I already have these, though perhaps is a more realistic version (realistic = not in conflict with science – I suspect you would deny my spirituality is really spirituality), and as mentioned above, I don’t see the point of salvation. But I’m sure you are familiar with many of the bizarre things people hope to get from religion.
My view of religion is that it was born of weakness among people who wanted an easy answer for all of the things about life they didn’t like or couldn’t understand. I can see how such a motivation could perpetuate religion, but I can’t help thinking that people who aren’t indoctrinated as children and who have the strength to face the facts of life are stronger and have a fuller understanding of life. I think it builds character to learn to face facts, such as death. It disturbs me that children should be taught to believe something of which they can’t in any way confirm the existence. How do they then learn to accept anything about life they don’t like? How do they then avoid living in an imaginary world where they just have to believe something to make it true?
And regarding the function of the soul, do you at this point expect me to accept the existence of the soul on the basis of your comments and also that you know what its purpose is? Being who I am, how could I believe such a thing? I think we need to address the issue of faith itself if we are to resolve this discussion, though it would not seem that one or the other will be convinced of anything. I think we need to address the issue of faith itself if we are to resolve this discussion, though it would not seem that either of us will be convinced of anything new.
And by the way, what drew you to a web site such as this one?
Oops, no edit function for my duplicate sentence. Choose whichever one you like.
You seem to be missing me on the soul issue. You don’t need to believe it. But if there is soul then it doesn’t do what you said it did.
My analogy about the road has nothing to do with wandering aimlessly. The old man who lives in the area represents the Catholic Church. It is close to God, if he exists, and knows the way to him. You can’t find the town (God) on your own. You need the guidance of the Church. Most atheists that have fallen away from faith seem to not have a complete understanding of the religion side, but they have a full understanding of the science side. I’m sure you don’t know everything that you do about science from trying to rationalize it. You have studied and read things, but you seem to make an assumption about God by rationalization and without understanding the teachings on God from the Church. Isn’t that being unfair and not being open fully to the possibility of God.
Animals that use tools make bowls or nests or something. They aren’t rational and don’t invent new tools because they aren’t satisfied with the efficiency of it. It was instinct. Their tools and our tools seem incomparable. And helping each other in the hunt is also negligible. Simply being able to relay facts takes no reasoning capabilities whatsoever.
My point on the soul issue is that you seem to be claiming knowledge of the purpose of the soul (if one exists). If a soul existed, I would not necessarily concede to you superior knowledge of its purpose without evidence.
I see the argument you are making about directions to the next town. My point was purely from an atheistic perspective. For one who considers the existence of god to be one of the least likely things in existence, you are moving in the direction of something that does not exist, hence “aimless”.
I don’t think I have to be a Scientologist to criticize Scientology. Assuming you do not believe in the Scientology tenets, would you refrain from criticizing because you are not completely familiar with it?
For me, religion has failed to in any way provide a justification for its taking up my time. I would require at least a tiny piece of scientifically verifiable evidence before I would devote any effort to learning more. This tiny piece of evidence is still missing for me. You may call my conclusions rationalization, but I consider them merely skeptical. Many people have tried to convert me, even with the threat of hell, but none have yet provided that tiny shred of evidence necessary to motivate me to learn more about what they are talking about. I assume they all used their best arguments.
In short, I don’t find it at all necessary to know anything about religion or the Church to criticize its lack of a rational basis.
You are correct that I am not open to the possibility of gods, but I don’t consider this to be at all unfair given the lack of evidence that such things exist and the improbability of their existence.
You are making assumptions about animals that seem to come from a religious point of view. Where I see the rudiments of human development, you write it off with a claim it is all instinct, or negligible. I am sure it was not negligible when humans first figured these things out. You seem to underestimate the complexity of other animals and overestimate the reasoning capability of early humans.
There is no point arguing the purpose of the soul if you don’t believe in it.
You don’t have to be a Scientologist to criticize it, but you need to know something about it. I was always taught that Scientology was weird, but I never made any true criticisms of it until I studied and learned about it. You can’t come up with an informed opinion about any scientific principle without looking at the evidence for and against it. It is not fair. Most people use the ” You’re going to hell” argument but a few people have an understanding of why God exists.
If humans evolved from animals that already had these simple capabilities. It was instinct for humans. Humans can reason, study philosophy, and the gap between humans and apes on the evolutionary chain has to be much larger than the gap between apes and the species lower than it.
Also, just out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on the Lord, Liar, Lunatic Argument
I’m not arguing that I know the purpose of the soul (which I don’t believe in). I suppose my point is that you are making a claim to knowing the purpose of the soul (or at least what its purpose is not). If a soul existed, I would not concede to you that you are in a better position to know its purpose. As long as the soul doesn’t exist, therefore, you can be as much of an authority on it as you like. But if it should happen to exist, then it belongs also to my realm, qualifying me to argue as to its purpose.
And while we are on the subject of the point of making arguments, there is no point in suggesting that you have a more accurate “understanding of why God exists” since it it is impossible to prove that there are gods anyway.
I need to know only one disqualifying thing about anything to reject it. Knowing about the absurd Xenu story in Scientology is sufficient for me to reject Scientology. If Scientologists integrate something so absurd into a system, I can reject it for that reason alone.
Similar disqualifiers exist for religion, the largest being the inclusion of the concept of the supernatural. The existence of a god would fly in the face of everything we know through science. This, coupled with the total lack of evidence to support it is a disqualifier. I don’t need to know more to reject it. How do you consider that to be unfair?
Back to the nature of animals again. I am not denying that humans are now by far the most advanced of animals in things intellectual. But again, human intellectual capability developed over a period of countless years. There are many plausible theories on the development of these capabilities, but none of the plausible ones argue that humans got this capacity suddenly. The argument that it happened suddenly seems to already contain the unprovable assertion that there was a god to give humans the capability suddenly. For this reason (among others) I can’t buy your argument.
The lord liar lunatic argument is another word game used by the religious to try to trick unwary non-believers with semantics. However, like all other semantic tricks, it is not effective against anyone who carefully examines its assumptions before replying. From what I have read, no one really knows much about the historical Jesus anyway, there is even some doubt as to whether he really existed. If he did exist, I suspect he was much like the many other supposed prophets at the time.
It may interest you to know, though you will likely find it absurd, that I consider my own wisdom to be at least equal if not superior to any supposed wisdom in the bible (though I am certainly not calling myself the wisest man on earth). I assume you disagree, but I challenge you to demonstrate that I am wrong.
What is your position on morals and atheism? Does morality come from religion in your view?
If you don’t believe in the soul then we can’t argue its purpose. It is like me saying you have to prove that God doesn’t exist. I am not going to argue if the soul exists so I can’t argue its purpose. I could but for now I am not going to.
I was once reading something that had an almost airtight argument. I couldn’t find any flaws in it. So I assumed that there were right. Then a day or two later I saw the opposition and it made sense and made the other argument seem extremely flimsy. This is essentially your argument. “I have heard my side of the argument so there is no need to look at anything that might discredit it.” You say that it seems absurd to believe in God because your argument seems airtight, but how can you say you are right without looking at it from someone who know might know how to defeat it.
There were various Jewish historians that not only talked about Jesus, but they also said that he said he was the Son of God. The Roman historian Tacitus said it as well. There is plenty of historical evidence to say that Jesus existed and he was not misquoted in the Bible. What do you mean caught up in semantics?
Humans were always above apes by nature of themselves. If they evolved from apes then what apes already knew was instinct for humans. Humans have always had more reasoning capabilities than other animals. Humans now just have more to work with. I am sure some of the smartest people in the world came thousands of years before us. The Ancient Greeks had just as much reasoning capabilities as you and I, but they couldn’t make an atomic bomb. Di this mean their reason was lower than yours or did it mean that they lived 2500 years before you?
What do you mean by saying that your intelligence is equal to that of the Bible?
I think, ultimately morals come from religion. There are things that we are taught from birth, about morals, that are just part of our culture. Western society has certain values that you understand by being immersed in the culture. These morals are things that we take for granted, but, when Western society was trying to form itself, there was Christianity, and Christianity played a key role in integrating its morals into culture. The roots of Western morals and values are deeply rooted in Christianity because Christianity help form those roots.
Regarding the purpose of the soul, that was not my point. See my previous post.
And you have my next argument exactly backwards. I am not talking about airtight arguments against religion; I am saying that an argument with a visible fatal flaw can be dismissed without further ado. (Does it contradict reason / science? Is there any evidence supporting it?)
There are few if any direct accounts of Jesus. Even biblical scholars acknowledge that almost none of the quotes attributed to Jesus in the bible can be confirmed by direct accounts. This, coupled with the fact that many impossible things were attributed to Jesus does not speak for the accuracy of the accounts of him. Personally, I think it is likely that there was a man named Jesus, but I find the likelihood of his being a miracle-working son of God to be nil.
My use of the word semantics was later, in my comments about the lord liar lunatic argument. In my experience, nearly all of the supposed proofs for the existence of god are semantic tricks. (Do you believe x? If you believe x then you must believe y, and if you believe y then God must be real. That kind of thing.) One thing they all have in common, however, is that they are unscientific.
And I am sorry if I am not able to accept your statements about humans and animals. “Humans have always had more reasoning capabilities than other animals” and the like have no scientific basis that I can detect and seem to stem from your prior conclusion that humans have their abilities because they are in some way connected to God. I don’t believe most anthropologists would accept your statements, either. The ancient Greeks were not that long ago in terms of the time it took to evolve. As Homo sapiens they were genetically virtually identical to us and therefore had virtually identical intellectual capacity. The rise of intellect as the most powerful survival characteristic came in slow steps. As we can see, intellect was so successful that humans now have time to devote to things not directly connected with survival. Such as philosophy, religion and television, the latter swallowing by far the most time for the average person.
I didn’t say that my intelligence was equal to that of the bible. I said I consider my wisdom to be at least a match for the wisdom set forth in the bible. This was a challenge to you, actually, to find something in the bible (a book I am not completely familiar with) that I don’t know from my own experience, and to defend the parts of the bible that I would attack as absurd. Personally, I think someone looking for good advice on how to live life is better off asking me than they are reading the bible, though I may not have *all* the answers. Indirectly, my point is: what do we need the bible for?
I am sure it will not surprise you to learn that I think the idea that morals come from religion is completely absurd. For me, the logic of morals is crystal clear. If the concept of morals had not existed previously, it would be discovered spontaneously because morals are a necessary foundation of every society. I can also perfectly understand why people do things considered to be immoral. After all, the system of moral behavior is not the only system that works, though it does have many advantages. The fact that most people in most societies have a moral code is simply a testament to the fact that moral behavior works efficiently.
I think that buddhist moral codes are more moral than the Christian ones, and they are also older. (By the way, buddhism started out as just a philosophy, not a religion.) Problems I see with western moral codes include inequality of the sexes, making sex taboo, condemnation of homosexual behavior, and the many bloody and immoral things in the old testament. (I’m very glad the old testament is not used as the basis of modern society!)
One thing that really frightens me is people who say they don’t kill only because it says so in the bible. I hope they don’t lose their religion!
Does religion really contradict reason and science? I would call them paradoxical.
Doesn’t it make more sense that their are only a few direct accounts of Jesus? He the son of a carpenter who lived in the far east of the Roman Empire. He was probably one of the most insignificant people in the known world. Anybody who was anybody lived in Rome. Why would anybody write about an individual in Judea, especially some carpenter. A few accounts of Jesus is proportional to a multitude of accounts of Augustine.
I don’t see how this is just semantics. If the premises make sense and a conclusion follows logically then I don’t see what the problem is. Here is a quote by a historian who wrote a history of the Jews.
“At that time lived Jesus, a wise man, if he may be called a man; for he performed many wonderful works. He was a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him many Jews and Gentiles. This was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the instigation of the chief men among us, had condemned him to the cross, they who before had conceived an affection for him did not cease to adhere to him.”
This man was a Jew calling Jesus Christ and saying he performed many works. I think Jesus claimed to be God.
Western moral codes do not make the sexes unequal. In China, if a couple has a daughter then they will kill her because they think men are superior so they want a son. Tabooing sex outside of marriage makes sense even in a secular context. I am pro- gay marriage. There is no legal basis for homosexuals to not be allowed to marry. I disagree with homosexual acts, but so have all societies from the beginning. Christianity is not the basis of looking down on homosexuality. Societies have always functioned heterosexually. Homosexuality has always been looked down upon, and Christianity’s belief on homosexuality is less harsh than most beliefs. The problems you see with the Western moral code seem to be invalid.
What parts pf the Bible would you find as absurd? I think, looking through Christian eyes, all parts of the Bible can make sense.
If anything contradicts reason and science, it is religion. For me, paradoxical gives religion too much credit for making sense. When one considers religion’s premise, that there is a god/creator, it vigorously flies in the face of reason and science for reasons discussed several times above.
Yes, it would make sense that there are few (if any) direct accounts of Jesus. Of course, that also limits the amount of information on him and the chance to confirm any facts with different accounts. And a story can also be embellished, as stories of Jesus must certainly were, especially considering the gospels that were not selected for inclusion in the bible that, as I understand it, contradict other gospels. All in all, not much can be said for sure about Jesus.
Are you talking about the lord liar lunatic argument when you mention semantics? What premises are you referring to and what are the conclusions? What is the point of your quote?
Many western moral codes do make the sexes unequal. Until 100 years or so ago there was still a number of countries where women could not own property, or were considered the property of their husbands. Have we become more Christian since that time or just more logical/moral? Obviously, there are many moral codes in the western world, and many of them display the aspects that I have problems with mentioned in my last post. Furthermore, western morals do not come only from Christianity. That other moral codes are are more prejudiced than western ones is no argument, and your own views, while interesting, are not relevant to my argument. I fail to detect the invalidity of my point. Homosexuality was not always looked down on, incidentally. Check out the history of the ancient Greeks.
There are entire web sites devoted to the bizarre and immoral practices in the old testament. The new testament is also chock-full of ideas that were not so absurd at the time but are absurd now from a scientific perspective. (Noah’s ark, for example, was a genetic impossibility – one pair of any species does not possess enough genes to save the species – but they didn’t know that back then when the story was written. Adam’s rib? Garden of Eden? Believable back then, perhaps, but today?)
Can you really seriously claim that “because the bible says so” is a good reason for moral behavior? Would it not be better in many ways to understand the benefits of moral behavior and the pitfalls of immoral behavior? (keeping in mind that “moral” is quite subjective)
Sorry it has been so long but I’ve been busy.
My point wasn’t that stories of Jesus weren’t embellished which we are pretty sure they weren’t. My point was that if anyone chose to write about this poor carpenter from Judea then that seems to me to be the equivalent of hundreds writing about the emperor Augustus. Any writing of Jesus proves that he existed. The canonical gospels were written written before 68 A.D, thirty years after Jesus supposedly died. We are pretty sure of this because the Acts of the Apostles has no mention of the destruction of the temple and the diaspora. This would have effected the Apostles in such a drastic way that Luke (author of Acts) would have almost had to have mentioned it. So we know Acts was written before 70 A.D. We also know that the gospels were written before Acts, so this probably means that they were written around or before 68 A.D. All of the other gospels were written 100- 200 years after Jesus died. The further one gets from the actual event the more embellished the story becomes. People would have written anything that mentioned Jesus to get fame. The canonical gospels were the ones always used by the Christians. They were used before the canon was outlined, but when someone asked the question what about this book/gospel/epistle the canon had to be explicitly outlined. The excluded gospels were so far from the time of Jesus when Christianity was becoming popular that writing a new gospel would give them fame. It was always understood, before it was defined by the Catholic Church and these gospels were excluded that public revelation (Scripture) ended with the death of St. John the Evangelist. These gospels weren’t introduced when people accepted a general practice of excluding what wasn’t there already.
The point of the quote was that a Jewish historian writing 30 years or so after Jesus died claimed that he performed miracles and called him God. He was still a Jew when he wrote this. The Jews hated Jesus. 30 years is a short time when it comes to history and a writing that close to Jesus must have plenty of validity especially being by someone who was instructed to think that Jesus was wrong from birth. It says that he performed miracles. Why would anyone say something like this, especially when Christianity was condemned, unless it was true?
The lord, liar, lunatic argument basically states that Jesus was either the greatest liar on the face of the earth and deserved to die for his blasphemy, he was crazy, or he was actually God. The point is he couldn’t have just been a good man with good teachings because he actually spoke the greatest and most unholy blasphemy, claiming that he was God. He was a Jew and Jews were instructed from birth to treat the name of God with respect. No Jew in his right mind would ever make such a claim knowing he was under penalty of death. It just doesn’t seem worth it. Which leads to the next point. He was out of his mind psycho. This probably wasn’t the case either. If you look at his teachings, they seem to make sense. They are compassionate, logical, and sane. Treat others as yourself, turn the other cheek, try to treat your enemies with respect and not to just ostracize them. His teachings were revolutionary and drastically different from the common practice, but in the same way made perfect sense. Jesus knew what he was saying and was fully responsible for it. This means that Jesus must have been God because nothing else makes sense.
There are things in the old Testament that aren’t taken literally. There didn’t have to be a garden of Eden. Or even the rib thing. The point is man and wife and there was a first sin. There has been evidence that there could have been a flood in that Mediterranean/ Black Sea are which was the world to them. There could have been a worldwide flood within their little world. And there is a deeper point. Same with Job, Maccabees (if you are Catholic), etc. There is a point to the story and then the actual story can be translated as literally as reality would allow.
Men have always been seen as superior to women. Men are physically stronger so women were pushed down as simply the child bearers (except in Minoan society). My point was that the West has given women more freedom than they have ever had. The Catholic Church has always taught that women are equal to men, but not always acted upon it. I think people acted upon what they already knew by giving women equality. The reason I said that your point was invalid was because you said that Western moral codes had things in them that you said were fine, but that do have non religious reasons for being bad too. I was actually aware of the ancient Greek practice. I was hoping you wouldn’t know or bring it up. The point of Greek homosexuality was that the admiration of the male strength and beauty was raised from respect and admiration to lust. For society to continue the formula should be man+woman=child. Society cannot continue without this and it seems illogical to have it any other way.
In response to your last point the bible, interpreted with a Christian mindset always works as a good moral guide. You saying that morality is subjective is wrong. Morality is objective because it is part of absolute truth. Once you say that morality is subjective then you have become a relativist and illogical.
Hi again.
I can see the argument you are trying to make regarding accounts of Jesus. However, I don’t see how we can be at all sure that the stories weren’t embellished, or that they contained any fact at all, especially since the miracles claimed remain unconfirmed and implausible. And Jesus wouldn’t have been the only man around claiming to be a prophet, or claiming to have performed miracles. Accounts of a few people who thought Jesus claimed to be the son of God and that he performed miracles would be considered absurdly unreliable by any but Christians.
As for the lord liar lunatic scenario, this is indeed a semantic trap. The three possibilities are far too restrictive, and once one of them has been chosen, the trap closes. One scenario I consider likely: Jesus was a fanatic who was willing to risk or sacrifice his own life for his beliefs and/or his followers. This is not one of the possibilities given. Jesus had to be God because nothing else makes sense? Please.
Indeed, there are those like yourself who don’t need to literally believe every story in the bible. But even if these are only stories with a moral, it doesn’t save the bible from that fact that it is a mere book, relatively old, and no more wise than many other books with some moral content.
Once again, from a non-Christian perspective, the bible is just a book, and it is unwise, perhaps even dangerous, to take your moral code from just a book. Any thinking person will develop a moral code on his own. People who don’t kill only because it is forbidden by the bible frighten me. And morality is not an absolute truth except for absolutists. Relativism is not necessary illogical, in fact, it is normally quite logical.
Another thing that disturbs me about the church and its arbitrary and superstitious rules regarding things like homosexuality is that it sets down rules that all should follow. For homosexuals, it makes absolutely no sense to live an unfulfilled life just because a book is against homosexual behavior.
I disagree with what you describe as the point of Greek homosexuality. First, it is pretty well proven that homosexuality is not chosen out of, for example, “admiration of the male strength and beauty”. Rather, it seems to be genetic. It is true that it was not frowned upon, and I don’t believe that there were fewer homosexuals then than now. Homosexual behavior was probably more prominent because it was not taboo and anyone with an interest had no reason not to indulge. Homosexual behavior has always existed alongside heterosexual behavior. I do not see any danger of its driving out heterosexual behavior. There are many animals (including humans of course) that apparently are bisexual when it comes to their sexual behavior. But bisexuals can also reproduce. Even homosexuals can (and do) marry heterosexually and produce children.
I think in your two most recent posts you have relied on arguments that for the most part can only work on avowed Christians. Your earlier posts contained arguments that were, while for me unconvincing, at least based on reasoning not dependent on religion.
You may want to look back on your original intention to convince me that Catholic teachings (on homosexuality or otherwise) are not based on myth. You won’t make much progress with arguments that assume the truth of religion.
“I don’t think that any animals have the reasoning, intellectual, and loving capacities that humans do. ”
I once saw a crowd of cows standing on the highway around a cow that had been knocked dead by a truck. Most of the cows had streaks such as made by tears under their eyes. Just because animals dont have brocas convolution in their brains to allow them speech to express their emotions and thoughts dont assume that they dont have intellectual, reasoning and loving capacities.
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In all situations, one must always ask the pertinent question:
“What would Hitler do?”