First of all, all religion is based on faith. That's why it's called a belief-system. Faith as in believing. I did not claim otherwise. It has nothing to do with what I was saying.
If you were reffering to only the mainstream ones you should have said so in the beginning. Regardless, even those religions have different ideas. Hence they are different religions.
You still didn't explain how faith (religious or not) on its own is evil.
And, no the basic concept isn't enough for you to make a judgement about a certain religion, let alone make bold claims of it being evil. Not studying the context and meaning of things you're talking about is a shallow approach. And in no way is it a straw man. You seem to love accusing me of fallacies you commit. Evident in the last thread and our conversations, without even elaborating.
Also, I never said you rely only on subjective experience. I merely repeated what you yourself said. Or are you denying it now? So it's neither a straw-man nor exagaration. Your words alone.
As for the next paragraph, you didn't provide any valid sources so far. You continued to throw around empty statements and made up definitions disregarding the real ones, ignoring the religious scriptures wich you selectively quote, disregarding one side's arguments while favouring another, without any elaboration.
And you are mentioning the RCC stuff for the third time. I already refuted it in that thread and in out conversation but you repeat it non-the-less. As I said, blaming AIDS outbreak on RCC is illogical. RCC declares all *** wich is not for the purpose of reproduction sinful. By extent, all methods wich derail *** from reproduction are deemed sinful.
If you're a Catholic and you choose to break the rule of having *** solely for reproduction, you're already eliminating all responsibility of RCC, as you decided to act against it. Not using protection methods at this point is your own decision, your own fault. It makes no sense to break a more important rule while trying to stay true to the less important one.
On the other hand, if you're not a Catholic, then RCC right there has nothing to do with you, so you not using protection and exposing yourself to risk is, again, not the problem of RCC. Clear as day. I've already mentioned this but I guess it doesn't matter to you.
Wether someone deems it as an unrealistic expectation or not is irellevant. You either go by the law or you don't. No between.
I have also already adressed the position of women in RCC, to wich you so sophistically replied "You're full of sh!t".
I'll say it once again. Women have their seperate role in the Church just as how the men have a seperate role of their own. Just as how women can't become priests, men can't become nuns. The separation is necessarry for organisational purposes. Women's role in the Church is a precious one, as they are a huge aid in spreading charity and education.
Things wich are rarely done by priests. Also, things like abortion aren't exclusevly opposed by RCC. You have people of all worldviews arguing both for and against it. As for the pope's statement, it actually goes to show exactly how wrong you are. ^^
"
if objective blame [for offenses against the dignity of women], especially in particular historical contexts, has belonged to not just a few members of the Church, for this
I am truly sorry. May this regret be transformed, on the part of the whole Church, into a renewed commitment of fidelity to the gospel vision"
Right there the highest ranking official of RCC expresses his sorrow for low tratment of women, calling it opposite of what the gospels teach. Here comes to play you twisting other people's statements out of context trying to back your claims up. Funny how you accuse me for that. n.n
"I did that for the same reasons that I again noticed in this reply. Using strawmen arguments and insisting on continuing to repeat the same weak points based on those strawmen. "
Who's crazy here? You or me? ^_o
This is litterally all you. I elaborated all my statements clearly and pointed out why you haven't done the same with yours. If you think different point out the ones you're talking about and I'll elaborate (if it hasn't already been done).
As for the last paragraph in the first part, you betray yourself right there. You're selectively reading my posts and are making them into something they're not. I didn't use it as an argument. Not once. I explicitlly stated that it's not an argument. Hence: "
Now, is any of this relevant? As an argument no, its not supposed to be an argument, but rather insight for why debating with OP is a waste of time."
Then you proceed to call my reading comprehension poor.
Also, wether you think you're proven wrong or not is irellevant. If you think you're not, then give some arguments instead of going in circles and blaming your circular reasoning on others. Same goes for our posts. Wether or not you think they were too long is none of my concern. We gave detailed arguments, wich you dismiss and are yet again calling them straw-mans for no specific reason.
As for you contradicting yourself, you clearly listed definitions wich contradict your made-up definition of faith without evidence. The one you pointed out went with faith without proof. A difference wich you call purely semantic and dismiss on the grounds of your language not containing a separate word for it.
1) Actually reflects life says who? Dawkings? You? What are those great stats wich show how most of the religious people are unreasonable?
And how does people growing up in different enviroments go along your point? You, yet again, are making empty statements.
Second, I never said you claimed that religion is dependant on brainwashing (despite you heavily implying that before and right now), but rather that the argument assumes that.
And again you are claiming that being raised into something means people will stick to it. This completely ignores all the converts all the people who changed worldviews during various points of their lives, all the people who joined and left religion due to their own conclusions.
To claim that people are defined by how they have been brought up is ignorant. And those videos you post show only the people who don't argue reasonably while ignoring the ones who do. The mere fact that me and Kobak are arguing in a constructive manner by laying out valid arguments is a proof that your argument is invalid, as it is necessarry to simply find one person who doesn't object to reason, for it to sink. That has already been done, regardless of what you may think of me, or the arguments presented to you.
2) What you're talking about yet again is a religon. A specific one at that point. What is being talked about here is faith. Not religion specific, but faith. And you're again pulling out arguments wich I have already refuted in the past thread. Age of scriputer and wether it's scientifically accurate or not is irellevant here.
Now as Aim64C said (if you read his posts) without faith you're not left with anything. Faith is a fundamental aspect in our lives, as it means trusting in someone or something, believing it to be true. Basic human relationships and mere contact is based on trust to work. If we're going to believe things wich are a 100% accurate, we won't have anything to believe in at all. For instance, the chance that we exist is very unlikely. There is a lot better chance of us being illusionarry products of Boltzman's brains rather than actual existing humans going through various experiences.
It requires faith, based on no evidence, to believe we exist. But this means nothing to you, as you stubboringly claim faith is evil, despite not being consistent on the weight of your statements yourself.
3) Look above? Where exactly?
"You also didn't even mention most of my other points"
Now it just seems like you're just bouncing anything I say back at me. The difference being I give reasons for such a claim, while you just leave it around. What points?
4) You are wrong. You're pointing out quotes whose context you don't know, while quoting Dawkins who is just as ignorant of the basic concepts of the doctrine and nature of Jesus' sacrifice.
This is especially evident when he talks as if Adam and Eve were actual people and not metaphorical figures, completely unaware of the different nature of various books and documents composing the Bible, just as how I explained in the thread above.
As for the morality, you're promoting quotes with wrong context while ignoring the quotes on wich the morality of Christianity is actually based on. That's why I said you do in fact need to study the individual religions, so you wouldn't be making such ignorant claims.
I have already explained why faith is necessarry for even the most basic things like warranting one's mere existence, but it appears you're conciously swapping terms faith and religion as you deem fitting to try to come out on top.
5) Again, you're ignoring the context of those quotes to try to back-up your point. They aren't proposing blind faith as believing in something for no actual reason, but trusting in God without looking for more than He has provided. The very people who wrote this witnessed God's miracle, Jesus' life and have themselves performed miracles. On numerious places they have called for giving arguments for your faith such as:
"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have."
They have debated on numerious occasions as did Jesus himself, so the context is vastly different from what you're making it out to be. You don't decide the meaning by looking at one paragraph but by analyzing the entirety of the message. Thus again, it is needed to analyze religion before making remarks about it.
As for differences in science and faith, you're again going for science vs religion debate, despite claiming you did not.
Religion (atleast not Judeo-Christian and Buddhism and Hinduism) doesn't strive to answer the same questions as science. While science is a great thing if you wanna find out what happens when you mix 2 different elements or why the sun is necesarry for life and a billion other things, the deep philosophical questions are out of its reach as it is tied down to empirical procedures.
Religion answers these questions and provides a purpose in one's life, an end-goal.
6) You are logically inconsistent. Over the course of the last debate you repeatedly switched your positions on what you mean by faith being unreasonable. This is also evident in the next statement in wich you use the word proof instead of evidence. You're constantly switching phrases as if they had the same meanings. Specify what you mean instead of jumping around.
As for the straw-mans, you just made one. Having faith in no way surrenders your thinking to a third party, where are you getting this? You're again labeling random attributes to a word wich is clearly defined as something that contradicts your deginition.
And "asserting that wich is not evidently true" like what? Elaborate.
Throw in sources to where it says homosexual unions are qualified to raise children. Causes for homosexual behaviour are unknown, thus calling a behaviour whose origin and influence we don't yet understand a legal right (that's not even a part of the constitution as far as I know) isn't backed up with anything. Causes for opposition are different views on what marriage is and what is it's purpose, thus you have atheists who oppose it as well.
If we're going here for evidence, there is absolutely none that homosexuality is a healthy act wich is to be promoted. And promoting and encouraging it is exactly what accepting it as a legal right means. The issue goes beyond "if they want it give it to them".
A rational thing to do in this case is to examine what homosexual behaviour is at it's core and only then make judgement on wether it should be legalized or not. A thing we are not yet capable of doing.
9) I already explained how faith is necessarry and when you say religion isn't neccesarry explain, necesarry for what? Wich religion? What is this necessity?
10) Already explained. If you insist on impossible assertions then specify them.
You are continuously showing that you don't know what a straw man is (
You must be registered for see links
) and are just bouncing anything I say right back at me as if you made a point, while changing the context of your statements as you deem fitting and the sources you provide are biased, coming exclusively from atheist sources. (Planned parenthood really?)
For a source to be valid one of the requirements is that it is objective. It means it must not be tied down to one perspective only. So linking atheists criticizing religion instead of objective overview of criticizm of religion doesn't serve as a valid source.
As for the fallacies in general, you still don't understand that as an atheist you have no right to use the terms evil and good (assuming that evil=morally wrong and good=morally right) as it implies objective morality wich is a self destructive statement for the position you're arguing seeing how a requirement for objective morality is God.
Also, independant of any of the points discussed above, you still don't have any argument as for why faith is unreasonable, or as you so contradictivelly put it evil.
