Faith is one of the world's great evils

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Hawker

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Nope I don't need to provide you with evidence. When I already claimed you have no evidence providing that god doesn't exist. You are basically no different than me in this regard. You think not believing in him without evidence means you cannot be questioned. When in reality you can be. What you seek is evidence right? Than go look for it. Why are you asking others who are already satisfied with this belief?
Again argument from ignorance.

"Belief in proposition X is justified because you can't prove it's not true," are based on the premise that belief in something is justified until sufficient evidence refutes its existence (i.e. argument from ignorance). In this case, the theist is asserting that belief in God is justified even without evidence. While this view may seem reasonable to those who already accept the existence of God, this approach to belief merely represents a form of compartmentalization. If we were to broadly accept the general premise (i.e., "belief is warranted because you can't prove a negative"), we would be unable to develop any useful picture of reality because every claim would be necessarily accepted as true until it was disproved. This is a burden that is impossible to meet when dealing with supernatural claims. The theist is compartmentalizing his or her supernatural beliefs and applying standards different from those applied to other beliefs. To put it more bluntly, a rational person does not seriously claim that leprechauns or unicorns must be assumed to exist because we have not disproved their existence. "

You can be satisfied with your belief all you want but don't come spewing that "you can't prove he doesn't exist" to me if you just wanna be left alone and not proven ignorant and irrational.

First of all, even if you refute a piece of evidence, it's still called evidence for a reason. Even if an argument is fallacious, it's still an argument. Just a bad one. So you saying it doesn't count as evidence doesn't refute the definition given in the dictionaries.

With the same effort, you also can't prove that the universe is eternal or it popped into existence from nothing, so until you do, it's just your opinion. Your premise of the thread was flawed on the very part that you use the words inconsistently.

Fact still remains that the philosophical burden of proof also lies on you, and that your science can't prove everything with 100% certainty either, and that science also created evil things. Or that RD wrote that in the end there is no good or evil.You can keep dodging these issues.
No it was not evidence yet. It was your premise which when accepted would be counted as evidence. But don't you see that arguments aren't evidences?

You're right I can't prove it. But I'm not the one saying something is eternal like you are. So the burden falls on you.

Science can prove 100% more than religion can.That's the point. Ofcourse science doesn't prove everything with 100%. We're just on our way. What's the point of this argument when religion can't prove anything?

Science is inherently neither potential for good or evil. It is potential for a man to use it as he likes.

Faith however for the reasons I already listed in this thread is inherently more bad than good when used as a basis for life.


Would you finally answer me is Earth and the universe the creation of God? Yes or no.
 

Your Creepy Stalker

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Interesting sort of thought. I don't mind if you go in-depth on it. I would like to know your version of god.



Nope I don't need to provide you with evidence. When I already claimed you have no evidence providing that god doesn't exist. You are basically no different than me in this regard. You think not believing in him without evidence means you cannot be questioned. When in reality you can be. What you seek is evidence right? Than go look for it. Why are you asking others who are already satisfied with this belief?
If you do not have evidence either for or against a claim (That their is a god), then you should not assume the claim is true until you have evidence. That's just basic logic.
 

Natsu Shazneel

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Again argument from ignorance.
You can be satisfied with your belief all you want but don't come spewing that "you can't prove he doesn't exist" to me if you just wanna be left alone and not proven ignorant and irrational.
Lol You know how to give labels and dodge questions very easily. If you can't prove he doesn't exist than you are just as flawed as me. Your thinking by itself is very flawed actually. If you need to see God's penis to believe he is real. xD

Save the tough act. You are not fooling anyone. You are Hawker the Talker.

If you do not have evidence either for or against a claim (That their is a god), then you should not assume the claim is true until you have evidence. That's just basic logic.
I don't need the same amount of evidence as another seeks. I am very satisfied with my beliefs thanks.
 

Hawker

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Lol You know how to give labels and dodge questions very easily. If you can't prove he doesn't exist than you are just as flawed as me. Your thinking by itself is very flawed actually. If you need to see God's penis to believe he is real. xD

Save the tough act. You are not fooling anyone. You are Hawker the Talker.



I don't need the same amount of evidence as another seeks. I am very satisfied with my beliefs thanks.
I'm done with you. You don't understand basic logic.
 

Dark Sonic

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You believe something without evidence. I don't. Case closed.
I thought it was without proof since evidence is something to support a claim with providing. The word faith can go on many meanings but it seems you've picked religious faith instead of faith altogether.
 

Natsu Shazneel

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I thought it was without proof since evidence is something to support a claim with providing. The word faith can go on many meanings but it seems you've picked religious faith instead of faith altogether.
He is searching for answers about life. He wants to become religious. That is why he seeks evidence on the existence of God.
 
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Scooby Doo

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No it was not evidence yet. It was your premise which when accepted would be counted as evidence. But don't you see that arguments aren't evidences?
: A premise or premiss is a statement that an argument claims will induce or justify a conclusion.

:Evidence, broadly construed, is anything presented in support of an assertion.

:a ​statement that you ​strongly ​believe is ​true

_____
So...a premise is a statement. Evidence is anything presented in support of an assertion. Assertion is a statement, as in a premise. So evidence is what supports the premise. Not a premise that is accepted by you.



You're right I can't prove it. But I'm not the one saying something is eternal like you are. So the burden falls on you.
Me saying that God is eternal, as I actually told another guy yesterday, is to avoid infinite regression. That is, to avoid asking who created the creator of the creator etc. So I say that the infinite regression stops at God. He is eternal. If He wasn't eternal, then He would have a beginning, and then you coudl ask who created God..etc. To avoid that, I say God is eternal. The only thing you could possibly argue for, is that the infinite regression stops right at the universe, but then you have to prove the universe is eternal.

Also, again, the philosophical burden of proof also lies on you. Don't you read the links I give?

When two parties are in a discussion and one asserts a claim that the other disputes, the one who asserts has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim. An argument from ignorance occurs when either a proposition is assumed to be true because it has not yet been proved false or a proposition is assumed to be false because it has not yet been proved true.


I never said I can prove to you that God exists. I never said it's undisputable truth (you may ask why bet my life on it, then, but that's my problem), so I didn't argue from ignorance. On the other hand, if you say God doesn't exist, you have to give evidence too, or else you're being ignorat here. Or do you admit that God may exist? Are you an agnostic, it's just that you don't wanna join a religion without 100% certainty? Good for you, but let others be.

Science can prove 100% more than religion can.That's the point. Ofcourse science doesn't prove everything with 100%. We're just on our way. What's the point of this argument when religion can't prove anything?
Because apparently the purpose of religion is different than that of science.

Politics can't prove anything. So what's the point of having politics?

Science is inherently neither potential for good or evil. It is potential for a man to use it as he likes.
But unless something is 100% proved, according to you, then it's just faith, and faith, according to you is evil.

So you either admit that you used evidence and proof inconsistently, or you have to admit science also relies on faith (as Aim64C and others also pointed out).

Faith however for the reasons I already listed in this thread is inherently more bad than good when used as a basis for life.
Interesting, because you still haven't explained how can an abstract concept like faith be evil on a naturalistic worldview, especially that even Dawkins wrote that in the bottom line, there is no evil or good. Keep dodging that.

Also in the 20th century wars, waged by weapons created by science, more people died than in any previous war fought in the name of religion. Especially that most of these wars were at least as much about politics as religion, so apparently politics is also the root of evil.

Politics (from Greek: πολιτικός politikos, definition "of, for, or relating to citizens") is the practice and theory of influencing other people


Wow, influencing people. Sounds liek a source of evil to me.

Would you finally answer me is Earth and the universe the creation of God? Yes or no.
I'm not gonna play your little game of subtly introducing new topics by smuggling in red herrings. Your premise has fundamentally been refuted by the dictionaries, and you keep dodging my questions too.
 
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Dark Sonic

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He is searching for answers about life. He wants to become religious. That is why he seeks evidence on the existence of God.
I agree with the third sentence. The first two however, I don't see that of being possible until otherwise.

In the end of the day, conclusions to ourselves isn't a fact. Maybe a fact to us but it isn't objective. There is no winner or loser but rather a reach of understanding. Isn't that ironically what Naruto taught us in this manga while on this forum?
 

Natsu Shazneel

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I agree with the third sentence. The first two however, I don't see that of being possible until otherwise.

In the end of the day, conclusions to ourselves isn't a fact. Maybe a fact to us but it isn't objective. There is no winner or loser but rather a reach of understanding. Isn't that ironically what Naruto taught us in this manga while on this forum?
Since when did you start sounding like Albert Einstein all of a sudden?
 

Dark Sonic

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Since when did you start sounding like Albert Einstein all of a sudden?
I'm serious when I need to be. I think you mean philosophical (but to some extent).

Edit: According to from your Wikipedia Hawker, I searched what you've quoted and I found this.

You must be registered for see images
 
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Hawker

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So Kobak you are using as evidence a premise that which destroys it's own logic. So there's nothing left of that premise. Universum exists -- > everyhting that exists has a cause -- > I believe it's God.

God however in your mind is --> eternal

Therefore God should be taken out of that equation which you constructed with cause --> existence logic


I understand what evidence is. I understand you using universum as evidence.

You have an assertion. You have a half assed premise. But you do not have evidence that support that premise since they use different logic. The logic which created your premise in the first place.

You saying you explaing eternal god is just to avoid me questioning it's origins is not a logical reason to argue that god is eternal. It's not my problem your original logic stumbles.

Also you said:
When two parties are in a discussion and one asserts a claim that the other disputes, the one who asserts has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim
You asserted the claim of eternal god. How is it my burden?

Nevertheless, everything else I will reply to tomorrow. I'll have to go to get some sleep. But on this break you can think how weak your stance on this is when all that is needed from me to destroy the hypothesis of god is for you to answer 'yes' for my question that is Earth the Creation of the Creator. If you ever answer that question it will be glorious.

I'm serious when I need to be. I think you mean philosophical (but to some extent).

Edit: According to from your Wikipedia Hawker, I searched what you've quoted and I found this.

You must be registered for see images
What's your point? Are you attacking me or defending me or what?
 
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Dark Sonic

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What's your point? Are you attacking me or defending me or what?
Neither. I want to know where in Wikipedia you got that quote. The reason why I posted that image is because the google search I did part of the quote lead to an article called "Blind Reasoning", which makes me think this is highly subjective.

Religious people can use logic just as any non religious person. It's not a personal perspective either so it's possible to provide evidence regardless how one does it. In short words, evidence can vary, hence why I said it supports a claim by providing something from my earlier post.
 

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So Kobak you are using as evidence a premise that which destroys it's own logic.
Wut? ._. Again, a premise is not an evidence. Evidence is what supports the premise.

I'll copy+paste it again so you can read, re-read, and re-read it again till it sinks in.

A is a statement. is anything presented in support of an assertion. is a statement, as in a premise. So evidence is what supports the premise. Not a premise that is accepted by you.


I understand what evidence is.
Apparently you don't. You confused it with premise, again. See the above.

Just like you confuse evidence and proof. Your whole thread is based on a fallacy.

False equivalence is a logical fallacy which describes a situation where there is a logical and apparent equivalence, but when in fact there is none. This fallacy is categorized as a fallacy of inconsistency.A common way for this fallacy to be perpetuated is one shared trait between two subjects is assumed to show equivalence, especially in order of magnitude, when equivalence is not necessarily the logical result. False equivalence is a common result when an anecdotal similarity is pointed out as equal, but the claim of equivalence doesn't bear because the similarity is based on oversimplification or ignorance of additional factors.


You saying that evidence and proof are the same in your language, is an anecdotal similarity, creating the illsuion that proof and evidence are the same.

Your thread was based on a definition, it has been refuted by dictionaries.The premise of your thread is fallacious, so 6 pages of debate were spent on you trying to deny it.

The logic which created your premise in the first place.
My premise was that the universe exists, and that it has a beginning, as you agree. So it's not just my logic that created the universe and its beginning, but God ;)

You saying you explaing eternal god is just to avoid me questioning it's origins is not a logical reason to argue that god is eternal. It's not my problem your original logic stumbles.
How can something eternal have an origin? ._. The point is that infinite regression has to stop, so it's either God is eternal, or the universe is. If you say God doesn't exist, then you have to substantiate that claim, as the philosophical burden of prood also lies on you.

An argument from ignorance occurs when either a proposition is assumed to be true because it has not yet been proved false or a proposition is assumed to be false because it has not yet been proved true.

If you assume that God doesn't exist just because I can't prove it, then yes, that's an argument from ignorance, from your part. While I never said I can prove it, so I was not arguing from ignorance. All I said is I have evidence. I presented that inference, and you saying it's 'half ass' doesn't render it any less of an evidence. Especially that you confused evidence and premise, just as you confused evidence and proof and made a whole thread on that false premise. At this point you just keep spouting random sentences without giving much thought to the definitions of the words I gave. Yesterday I started to take you seriously and commended you for putting thought in it, I may take it back. Go and buy an English dictionary and memorize the definitions precisely, then come back. Until then, the premise of your thread is worthless, as its based on a semantic fallacy. That was my point here, not that I can prove that God exists.

So if you don't wanna argue from ignorance, either show that the universe is eternal or it popped into existence from nothing. You can use the same methods, which actually grant you evidence. You won't be able to prove it, as science hasn't proved it either, but you can have evidence- another example of the difference between evidence and proof.

Or you can say that you don't state neither that God doesn't exist, nor that He does, but then, my friend, you are an agnostic, which is also a kind of faith.

Then you ignore that science can't prove everything either, and that science also relies on some kind of a faith. You ignore that science can also be used for bad things, yet you cherrypick religious faith as 'inherently evil', ignoring that weapons created by science are also inherently evil, because obviously a bomb or an AK47 are meant to cause harm or at least serve as a threat. And you ignore how these were used in two world wars and the cold war, even by atheist states, for politcial reasons- which lead us to the point that politics, by your logic, is also inherently evil. So we could just reach the conclusion, instead of cherrypicking, that it's humans who choose to do good or bad things, humans who choose to blindly follow an ideology or obey an authority. There are religions that don't believe in deities (f.e branches of buddhism), and not all religions have holy books either, but even if they have, holy books don't force themselves on the readers. It's the humans. There is nothing much to debate about it.

You can keep claiming how you "won and owned", but even if you don't grasp English, I'm sure that at least you can visually confirm the different or identical shapes of those signs called letters in the links and definitions I gave.

Other than that, keep believing that you won, your faith is evil- a concept that according to your man Richard, doesn't exist. "...at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference" [ ]

Salam.
 
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Aim64C

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Since some form of voodoo seems to be afoot with regard to my posts, as of late....

Let's try this again.

Faith means believing something without evidence. Because if you believe something without evidence, then that justifies anything. You are no longer vulnerable to somebody coming back at you and saying: hang on a minute let me argue the case. If you believe it without evidence which is what faith is, then you don't argue the case. You say no, I'm not arguing the case. This is my faith, it is mine, it is private, I don't descent from it, I don't retreat from it. You are just going go have to accept that. <---- tell me which religion doesn't demand that kind of faith from it's supporters.
What -belief- is taken except by faith?

Why is a belief in a religious pretense treated differently than the belief in any given moral pretense? What evidence is there to support one's choice in humanist or atheist ethical standpoints?

1.Faith is an assertion of unreasonable conviction, which is assumed without reason, and defended against all reason.
Assumed without reason meaning most muslims and christians are born that whey. They are just products of their culture. Like Richard Dawkins says: you happened to be brought up in the Christian faith. You know what it's like to not believe in a particular faith because you're not a Muslim. You're not a Hindu. Why aren't you a Hindu? Because you happen to have been brought up in America, not in India. If you had of been brought up in India, you'd be a Hindu. If you had been brought up in Denmark in the time of the Vikings you'd be believing in Wotan and Thor. If you were brought up in classical Greece you'd be believing in, in Zeus. If you were brought up in central Africa you'd be believing in the great Juju up the mountain. There's no particular reason to pick on the Judeo-Christian god, in which by the sheerest accident you happen to have been brought up. So why so confident in your faith?
Part of the problem with this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what religion is.

A religion has competed against other philosophical ideas and understandings... and earned dominance in a region for one or more reasons.



Make of that what you will. To argue that people accept religion without evidence is just as ridiculous as to say that they reject religion without cause. While religions are cultural - I've taken the time to study them, and have found a number of remarkably similar themes and contexts contained within the majority of religions.

Religions exist as both a record of history, an explanation of both earthly and human origins (many of them interestingly focused on celestial phenomena), as well as lessons regarding the structuring of human society. They are not simply claims of spaghetti monsters and while they may argue the case for a spaghetti monster, the reason people believe in them is for the practical yields in life lessons and, occasionally, for the works of prophetic wisdom.

2. Faith has never answered anything of significance.
Or has it? Tell me an example if you think it has. I can tell you what science has answered. The advantage of science is that new evidence changes ideas, allowing the advancement of human knowledge, something religion does not allow.
Does the fact that the spin state of a photon is a property decided spontaneously upon measurement of said spin state destroy the notion of objective reality?

Get back to me once you have learned of the appropriate sections of physics that ends up dealing as much with philosophy as it does with math (since interpreting the results of experiments in QM is quite an art in and of itself).

3. Faith has caused more bad things than good:
For example when it comes to Catholic church here are some of their accomplishments:
Crusades, inquisition, the persecution of the jewish people, injustice towards women (that's half of the population righ there) and the force conversion of indigenious people, especially in South-America, African slave trade. They've institutionalized the raping of children.

Then there's the case of Islam: terrorism, sharia law, genitale mutilation (90% of Egyptian women have had their genitals mutilated), stoning of homosexuals and unfaithful wifes, oppression of women.

Now compare those with the achievements of science. Lightbulp. Electricity. Vaccines. Phone. Computers. Medication. Organ transplants. Prosthate legs. Condoms.
Actually, those are things that are a coincidence - a fluke in human history brought about by the plagues. The plagues in Europe are directly responsible for a collapse of the caste systems and forced trade knowledge outside of castes (which exist naturally in virtually every other part of the world). The West arose from the shadows of Rome with innovations like the printing press and the plagues meant the human being of society had to be self-sufficient and diversified in his (and her) talents. This gave rise to the western concepts of individualism, egalitarianism, and enlightenment.

Also, there is a reason why Christendom gravitated toward the enlightenment and inherited many of the lost technologies/capabilities of Rome. Contrary to fanciful depictions of history, the religion of Christianity was directly responsible for promoting an increase in reading. The protestant reformation was driven by the expansion of the printing press and the Bible was one of the key driving books that made publishing a practical economic endeavor.

The roots of enlightenment - the idea that mankind is supposed to explore and understand the universe around them is very much a value that is instilled in a culture by religion.

4. Faith as in religion instills warped morality into people. Their morales come from the book or the teachings of their religion. Thus they don't do things based on rationalisation, but based on the fear of god. They fear they go to hell or heaven. That is inherently warped.
Argument ad absurdem.

Religion teaches that there are consequences for behavior that is unethical - consequences that are unpleasant.

Further - by what objective measure do you consider this "warped?"

How is it any different than stimulus response? How warped the world must be for subjecting you to pain when you set your hand on a hot plate - making you fear the imposing burn of a consequence you can nigh escape....

For example the holy books of christianity
Stop.

What holy books?

There are scriptures authored by people. Some of whom are believed to be prophets, others of whom are believed to have been inspired by or witness to divine events.

have examples of this warped morality: Old Testament instructs believers to kill any friend or family member who favours serving other gods,
You would be referring to Deuteronomy 17:

" 2 If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the Lord gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God in violation of his covenant, 3 and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, 4 and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, 5 take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death. 6 On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. 7 The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you. "

Deuteronomy is referring to the establishment of the state of Israel - the state of Israel that was destroyed as prophesied by Isaiah. It is an interesting point - given:

" 8 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” "


That is from John 8 - the New Testament that reveres the "Jesus" in question.

There are numerous discussions about this particular scene as described. It's not part of the original gospel of John, but it is a widely documented story that was in circulation at the time of its writing - so while it may not be a scene that can be given accurate scholarly credits, it is generally understood to have been an event that occurred and fit within the context of Jesus' teachings.

So - the man who Christians revere as the savior of mankind already effectively rendered the law moot.

As a discussion of it describes:

This story raises very significant pastoral issues. The first issue is the nature of the commandments of Scripture. We see Jesus upholding the law's teaching that adultery is sin while also setting aside the specific regulations concerning the community's enforcement of that law. The implication is that the law contains revelation of right and wrong, which is true throughout history, as well as commandments for embodying that revelation in the community of God's people, which are not true for all times and places. To understand this distinction we must understand that the law as revelation of right and wrong is not an arbitrary set of rules that God made up to test our obedience. Rather, the law is the transposition into human society of patterns of relationship that reflect God's own character. Adultery is wrong because it violates relationships of faithfulness, and such violation is wrong, ultimately, because God himself is characterized by faithfulness. The morality of Scripture is a pattern of life that reflects God's own life. This aspect of the law is unchanging, but the law's prescription for how the community is to embody and enforce the revealed vision of relationships may vary.

and Numbers 31 where Moses, angered at the mercy his victorious forces show in taking women and children captive, instructs them to kill all save virgin girls, who are to be taken as slaves.
Surely, you can do better than this.

" 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.

15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

19 “Anyone who has killed someone or touched someone who was killed must stay outside the camp seven days. On the third and seventh days you must purify yourselves and your captives. 20 Purify every garment as well as everything made of leather, goat hair or wood.”

21 Then Eleazar the priest said to the soldiers who had gone into battle, “This is what is required by the law that the Lord gave Moses: 22 Gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, lead 23 and anything else that can withstand fire must be put through the fire, and then it will be clean. But it must also be purified with the water of cleansing. And whatever cannot withstand fire must be put through that water. 24 On the seventh day wash your clothes and you will be clean. Then you may come into the camp.” "


Quite obviously, there were concerns about a plague, and part of the argument for war, here, stems from a plague - presumably an STD. The idea, here, is that women who can carry this disease should be killed, and the women remaining are to be taken as plunder, as well.

Now - it is here I have to ask you: "Why do you care?"

Scientifically, a population that can destroy competition and out-breed its competitors succeeds. I don't need faith to support this assertion. It is by virtue of the records the Hebrews took down that we even know about this other culture that existed. It was literally destroyed and eroded by the sands of time. Case in point. The highest performing ideology, objectively, was selected.

And you have the audacity to suggest that their behavior was wrong?

Upon what grounds? What evidence do you have that what they did was wrong?

Where would those women have gone after their culture was destroyed? How would the Hebrews have fared if they did not eliminate the source of a plague afflicting them?

I can see you there, stamping your foot, and saying: "But it's wrooo~oong!"

To which I simply say: "Prove it."

You don't even understand the faith that is at play in your life.

New testament: St Paul's nasty sadomasochistic doctrine that Jesus had to be hideously tortured and killed so that we might be redeemed – the doctrine of atonement for original sin – and asks "if God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them? Who is God trying to impress?" He says that modern science demonstrates that the alleged perpetrators Adam and Eve never even existed, undermining St Paul's doctrine."
Paul's ideas are crucial to understanding how the early Church developed and how the Church evolved over time. Few people who have actually studied the scripture give much credence to Paul's assertion that Jesus was necessary as a sacrificial penance.

Though this was a very easy way to 'explain' Jesus at the time. Many religions made use of animal sacrifices - by making the simple analogy that God essentially gave himself as a sacrifice before humanity, it made it a glaring contrast to religions where sacrifices of one's own wealth were made to appease God(s).

The reality is that Paul's message and methods are what resonated with populations outside of Judea and were, ultimately, the most successful at spreading the notion of Jesus as a man of divine wisdom and impact.

Once again - you argue that this is somehow wrong... upon what grounds? Prove that it is wrong to do this.

5. Faith is the process of non-thinking which is not a way of understanding the world, but instead stands in fundamental opposition to modern science and the scientific method, and is divisive and dangerous. cience involves a process of constantly testing and revising theories in the light of new evidence, while faith makes a virtue out of believing unprovable and often improbable propositions. For an example of faith, the infallible doctrine of the Assumption, which Pope Pius XII declared in 1950 by relying upon tradition. When contrasted this with science, which works as a system whereby working assumptions may be falsified by recourse to reason and evidence.
That's cool. I'm Protestant. The Pope can talk all he wants to. He's yet to give me much scriptural evidence for his existence and relevance.

But, see... he does have power and he does have influence. The Catholic Church does, indeed, command power over those willing to align with it. See my posts from before... what is wrong with this? The ideology that can defeat opposition and gain superior numbers is the superior ideology and has the most empirical evidence to support it as being the correct ideology - that which is most functional.

On the other hand, because I have faith in a designed purpose to the world and in the ability of various scriptures and religions to be capable of revealing what this purpose is... something like the papacy stands out as a trifling affair of human ego that will ultimately end up slapped to the ground like a tower of babel. Thus, I don't see much point in revering it's power, as its power is fleeting and will ultimately be nothing.

Examples from most familiar scriptures from western society:

-John 20:29 “how blessed are they who have not seen but yet believe.”
-Romans 14:22 “The faith which you have, have as your own conviction-”
-2 Corinthians 4:18 “We look not at things seen, but at things not seen.”
-2 Corinthians 5:7 “for we walk by faith, not by sight.”
-Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
-Romans 1:20 “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood from the things that are made.”
I fail to understand the point, much less the relevance.

Nowhere in there is there a condemnation of regarding the mechanics of the world for what they obviously are. The context of many of those verses is with regard to the existence of God or the fulfillment of a promise.



Examples given in Hebrews 11 are Noah, Abraham, Moses - all people who took giant leaps of faith that they were doing what was right for their families or for their tribes. Those stand, the author argues, as evidence that God fulfills his promises, but that these great acts were taken upon faith - that the fulfillment of the promise would come after the life and passing of the people who first made that leap of faith.

It is a philosophical lesson.

There is a difference between faith and deliberate ignorance. To deny the theories underpinning Chemistry on the basis of some variety of "Faith" would be ridiculous, true - but that is not the variety of faith that is being discussed, here.

6. Faith at it's core is surrendering. It is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other animals. It's our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Out of all the virtues, all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated
Someone who has yielded a critical mind to become a complacent one has no real faith.

To have faith means that you must continue to believe in something despite the fact that it can't be proven. Note that this is not the same as believing in something that has been experimentally tested and rendered false. It doesn't take faith to believe that a ball will fall down after it has been thrown into the air. The law of gravity is remarkably consistent and fair in its upholding of equal opportunity (unless we are dealing with galaxies... then we need to break the universe several times over to make known laws of gravitation work to explain what is observed... speaking of Faith... ever hear of Dark Matter? ... That's a fanciful thing that any well educated man insists must exist... but all experiments performed to find it have turned up nothing... yet those performed to determine its distribution within a galaxy show it must be spherical in nature and very evenly distributed.... which basically means the laws of gravity as we understand them don't apply to galaxies... but give the religion of science a few maoist revolutions, and I'm sure they'll eventually get it figured out).

If something is a fact, or perceived as a fact, then it really isn't faith upon which one operates - it is simply a conditioned response.

True faith can only be brought about by the understanding of the act of faith. Anyone would jump out onto a railed walkway they can see to cross a ravine. That doesn't take any faith. A leap of faith can only be performed when one understands that there is no guarantee of not falling - that failure is a possibility - that you may just be wrong about being able to make it across.

7. Faith is literally a matter of make-believe, convincing yourself of whatever you want to believe. That’s why the faithful have a practice to ‘reaffirm’ their faith. Faith is neither virtuous nor moral; it’s a matter of self-deception and manipulation of the masses. It is already dishonest to assert as fact that which is not evidently true, but that’s what all religions do. Worse, they also post a statement of faith wherein they admit, (as if this were something to be proud of) that they will automatically and thoughtlessly reject any and all evidence that seems to challenge their preconceived notions, which must be defended a-priori. Because of this, faith is fundamentally fallacious and inherently dishonest. An example of this is homosexual marriages. It's a well known fact that all muslims think of it as a sin. They won't allow it. Many christians won't allow gay marriages because it's not "how god intended it".
Red Herring.

Also, not sure how this is any different than any other point you attempt to make.

Homosexual marriages have been over and over again rationally argued to something that gays should have the right to have. There's no logical way to deny it. Gay parents have been proven to be as safe and good if not even better than heterosexual parents. Even the National psychiatric organisation in US agrees with this. Same with the National Psychologist Association in Finland. It's the consensus all over the world. Yet Christians object it due to their faith. Not to talk about muslims who are even further behind in progress.
It's a red herring, but it is also not true.

Homosexuals have far higher rates of domestic violence as well as a much higher rate of engaging in pedophilia. This is likely because, among homosexuals, as many as 50% are known to have been victims of sexual abuse by a family member and it is well documented in psychology that those who are abused as children often end up repeating that offense against their own children.

Also, let's consider the fact that women cannot produce children with women and men cannot produce children with men. A society that can beat out competitors for resources and produce the most numerous and prosperous of citizens is, objectively, the superior society with the superior ideology. Why would a society aiming to be the most proper society offer much leeway in the case of homosexual behavior?

If you are going to argue that economic and numerical superiority is not the relevant metric of a society's propriety - then dare I ask you to prove that anything else is a superior metric. If you can only give evidence to suggest it is an equally valid metric - then I ask from where you derive your own ideas.... could it be culture? Faith?

8. Faith has always only ever served to impede, retard, or reverse progress in whatever socio-political medical, educational, economic or environmental application it has ever touched.
I've yet to see any evidence that you're somehow free from faith.

Fact of the matter is that the world was doing just fine until Stalin/Lenin, Mao, and the Nazis came along. All of them had a penchant against religion. The Nazis viewed religion as a tool and actually sought to convert Germany to Islam as it was a conquerors religion - but they ultimately realized it as a means merely through which to establish empathy with a population. Their goals were entirely secular - both nationalist and humanist in agenda.

9.If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits.
And how do you know I even exist?

By extension, the particles that make up who I am only have their properties determined when they are observed. Debates abound on exactly what an observer is... but allow me to boil it down to the essential question burning into the back of the minds of those who realize the implications of macroscopic Quantum Mechanical phenomena...

I only exist in your world because you have observed my existence - properties determined seemingly at random... or are they?

Perhaps you are a God trapped within his own creation, my own existence merely a fleeting thought produced by a fragment of your intelligence here to serve as some element of lesson... or victory... for your core intelligence.

In essence - prove that I'm not a figment of your imagination and that this world isn't all here just for you. By what objective measure do you accept the lives of others as actual sentient beings?

If the implications of this do not disturb you, then you don't truly understand the quandary of QM.

10. Religion demands faith when it proposes impossible and irrational thoughs as real. For example Christian creed:
To live unto the Law, is to die unto God. To die unto the Law, is to live unto God. These two propositions go against reason.When we pay attention to reason, God seems to propose impossible matters in the Christian Creed. To reason it seems absurd that Christ should offer His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper; that Baptism should be the washing of regeneration; that the dead shall rise; that Christ the Son of God was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, etc. Reason shouts that all this is preposterous.
Reason shouts that there is allegory and euphemism at play in those words. Or did autism become a prerequisite to be an intellectual, these days?

Who here thinks that faith is the source for good?
Faith is simply the source of human precepts of ideology.

The very fact that you have attempted to discern between "Good" and "Wrong" suggests that you already take upon faith sets of moral pretense.

Most of yours are Western and come from Christian values. Your focus upon the treatment of individuals gives you away, here. Many other cultures do not have this reverence for the individual, even among the atheists within. Japanese are very authoritarian in their behavior - there are designated authorities who are to be followed. They accept this system on faith because it is part of their culture. If the doctor says to do something - you do it because Sempai said so. Korea and China are very similar. Figures of authority mean a lot to them - but are diddly squat to westerners.

Faith is simply at the core of how we all operate. It is incapable of being, as a concept, a source of good or evil.
 

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Since some form of voodoo seems to be afoot with regard to my posts, as of late....

Let's try this again.



What -belief- is taken except by faith?

Why is a belief in a religious pretense treated differently than the belief in any given moral pretense? What evidence is there to support one's choice in humanist or atheist ethical standpoints?



Part of the problem with this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what religion is.

A religion has competed against other philosophical ideas and understandings... and earned dominance in a region for one or more reasons.



Make of that what you will. To argue that people accept religion without evidence is just as ridiculous as to say that they reject religion without cause. While religions are cultural - I've taken the time to study them, and have found a number of remarkably similar themes and contexts contained within the majority of religions.

Religions exist as both a record of history, an explanation of both earthly and human origins (many of them interestingly focused on celestial phenomena), as well as lessons regarding the structuring of human society. They are not simply claims of spaghetti monsters and while they may argue the case for a spaghetti monster, the reason people believe in them is for the practical yields in life lessons and, occasionally, for the works of prophetic wisdom.



Does the fact that the spin state of a photon is a property decided spontaneously upon measurement of said spin state destroy the notion of objective reality?

Get back to me once you have learned of the appropriate sections of physics that ends up dealing as much with philosophy as it does with math (since interpreting the results of experiments in QM is quite an art in and of itself).



Actually, those are things that are a coincidence - a fluke in human history brought about by the plagues. The plagues in Europe are directly responsible for a collapse of the caste systems and forced trade knowledge outside of castes (which exist naturally in virtually every other part of the world). The West arose from the shadows of Rome with innovations like the printing press and the plagues meant the human being of society had to be self-sufficient and diversified in his (and her) talents. This gave rise to the western concepts of individualism, egalitarianism, and enlightenment.

Also, there is a reason why Christendom gravitated toward the enlightenment and inherited many of the lost technologies/capabilities of Rome. Contrary to fanciful depictions of history, the religion of Christianity was directly responsible for promoting an increase in reading. The protestant reformation was driven by the expansion of the printing press and the Bible was one of the key driving books that made publishing a practical economic endeavor.

The roots of enlightenment - the idea that mankind is supposed to explore and understand the universe around them is very much a value that is instilled in a culture by religion.



Argument ad absurdem.

Religion teaches that there are consequences for behavior that is unethical - consequences that are unpleasant.

Further - by what objective measure do you consider this "warped?"

How is it any different than stimulus response? How warped the world must be for subjecting you to pain when you set your hand on a hot plate - making you fear the imposing burn of a consequence you can nigh escape....



Stop.

What holy books?

There are scriptures authored by people. Some of whom are believed to be prophets, others of whom are believed to have been inspired by or witness to divine events.



You would be referring to Deuteronomy 17:

" 2 If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the Lord gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God in violation of his covenant, 3 and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, 4 and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, 5 take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death. 6 On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. 7 The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you. "

Deuteronomy is referring to the establishment of the state of Israel - the state of Israel that was destroyed as prophesied by Isaiah. It is an interesting point - given:

" 8 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” "


That is from John 8 - the New Testament that reveres the "Jesus" in question.

There are numerous discussions about this particular scene as described. It's not part of the original gospel of John, but it is a widely documented story that was in circulation at the time of its writing - so while it may not be a scene that can be given accurate scholarly credits, it is generally understood to have been an event that occurred and fit within the context of Jesus' teachings.

So - the man who Christians revere as the savior of mankind already effectively rendered the law moot.

As a discussion of it describes:

This story raises very significant pastoral issues. The first issue is the nature of the commandments of Scripture. We see Jesus upholding the law's teaching that adultery is sin while also setting aside the specific regulations concerning the community's enforcement of that law. The implication is that the law contains revelation of right and wrong, which is true throughout history, as well as commandments for embodying that revelation in the community of God's people, which are not true for all times and places. To understand this distinction we must understand that the law as revelation of right and wrong is not an arbitrary set of rules that God made up to test our obedience. Rather, the law is the transposition into human society of patterns of relationship that reflect God's own character. Adultery is wrong because it violates relationships of faithfulness, and such violation is wrong, ultimately, because God himself is characterized by faithfulness. The morality of Scripture is a pattern of life that reflects God's own life. This aspect of the law is unchanging, but the law's prescription for how the community is to embody and enforce the revealed vision of relationships may vary.



Surely, you can do better than this.

" 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.

15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

19 “Anyone who has killed someone or touched someone who was killed must stay outside the camp seven days. On the third and seventh days you must purify yourselves and your captives. 20 Purify every garment as well as everything made of leather, goat hair or wood.”

21 Then Eleazar the priest said to the soldiers who had gone into battle, “This is what is required by the law that the Lord gave Moses: 22 Gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, lead 23 and anything else that can withstand fire must be put through the fire, and then it will be clean. But it must also be purified with the water of cleansing. And whatever cannot withstand fire must be put through that water. 24 On the seventh day wash your clothes and you will be clean. Then you may come into the camp.” "


Quite obviously, there were concerns about a plague, and part of the argument for war, here, stems from a plague - presumably an STD. The idea, here, is that women who can carry this disease should be killed, and the women remaining are to be taken as plunder, as well.

Now - it is here I have to ask you: "Why do you care?"

Scientifically, a population that can destroy competition and out-breed its competitors succeeds. I don't need faith to support this assertion. It is by virtue of the records the Hebrews took down that we even know about this other culture that existed. It was literally destroyed and eroded by the sands of time. Case in point. The highest performing ideology, objectively, was selected.

And you have the audacity to suggest that their behavior was wrong?

Upon what grounds? What evidence do you have that what they did was wrong?

Where would those women have gone after their culture was destroyed? How would the Hebrews have fared if they did not eliminate the source of a plague afflicting them?

I can see you there, stamping your foot, and saying: "But it's wrooo~oong!"

To which I simply say: "Prove it."

You don't even understand the faith that is at play in your life.



Paul's ideas are crucial to understanding how the early Church developed and how the Church evolved over time. Few people who have actually studied the scripture give much credence to Paul's assertion that Jesus was necessary as a sacrificial penance.

Though this was a very easy way to 'explain' Jesus at the time. Many religions made use of animal sacrifices - by making the simple analogy that God essentially gave himself as a sacrifice before humanity, it made it a glaring contrast to religions where sacrifices of one's own wealth were made to appease God(s).

The reality is that Paul's message and methods are what resonated with populations outside of Judea and were, ultimately, the most successful at spreading the notion of Jesus as a man of divine wisdom and impact.

Once again - you argue that this is somehow wrong... upon what grounds? Prove that it is wrong to do this.



That's cool. I'm Protestant. The Pope can talk all he wants to. He's yet to give me much scriptural evidence for his existence and relevance.

But, see... he does have power and he does have influence. The Catholic Church does, indeed, command power over those willing to align with it. See my posts from before... what is wrong with this? The ideology that can defeat opposition and gain superior numbers is the superior ideology and has the most empirical evidence to support it as being the correct ideology - that which is most functional.

On the other hand, because I have faith in a designed purpose to the world and in the ability of various scriptures and religions to be capable of revealing what this purpose is... something like the papacy stands out as a trifling affair of human ego that will ultimately end up slapped to the ground like a tower of babel. Thus, I don't see much point in revering it's power, as its power is fleeting and will ultimately be nothing.



I fail to understand the point, much less the relevance.

Nowhere in there is there a condemnation of regarding the mechanics of the world for what they obviously are. The context of many of those verses is with regard to the existence of God or the fulfillment of a promise.



Examples given in Hebrews 11 are Noah, Abraham, Moses - all people who took giant leaps of faith that they were doing what was right for their families or for their tribes. Those stand, the author argues, as evidence that God fulfills his promises, but that these great acts were taken upon faith - that the fulfillment of the promise would come after the life and passing of the people who first made that leap of faith.

It is a philosophical lesson.

There is a difference between faith and deliberate ignorance. To deny the theories underpinning Chemistry on the basis of some variety of "Faith" would be ridiculous, true - but that is not the variety of faith that is being discussed, here.



Someone who has yielded a critical mind to become a complacent one has no real faith.

To have faith means that you must continue to believe in something despite the fact that it can't be proven. Note that this is not the same as believing in something that has been experimentally tested and rendered false. It doesn't take faith to believe that a ball will fall down after it has been thrown into the air. The law of gravity is remarkably consistent and fair in its upholding of equal opportunity (unless we are dealing with galaxies... then we need to break the universe several times over to make known laws of gravitation work to explain what is observed... speaking of Faith... ever hear of Dark Matter? ... That's a fanciful thing that any well educated man insists must exist... but all experiments performed to find it have turned up nothing... yet those performed to determine its distribution within a galaxy show it must be spherical in nature and very evenly distributed.... which basically means the laws of gravity as we understand them don't apply to galaxies... but give the religion of science a few maoist revolutions, and I'm sure they'll eventually get it figured out).

If something is a fact, or perceived as a fact, then it really isn't faith upon which one operates - it is simply a conditioned response.

True faith can only be brought about by the understanding of the act of faith. Anyone would jump out onto a railed walkway they can see to cross a ravine. That doesn't take any faith. A leap of faith can only be performed when one understands that there is no guarantee of not falling - that failure is a possibility - that you may just be wrong about being able to make it across.



Red Herring.

Also, not sure how this is any different than any other point you attempt to make.



It's a red herring, but it is also not true.

Homosexuals have far higher rates of domestic violence as well as a much higher rate of engaging in pedophilia. This is likely because, among homosexuals, as many as 50% are known to have been victims of sexual abuse by a family member and it is well documented in psychology that those who are abused as children often end up repeating that offense against their own children.

Also, let's consider the fact that women cannot produce children with women and men cannot produce children with men. A society that can beat out competitors for resources and produce the most numerous and prosperous of citizens is, objectively, the superior society with the superior ideology. Why would a society aiming to be the most proper society offer much leeway in the case of homosexual behavior?

If you are going to argue that economic and numerical superiority is not the relevant metric of a society's propriety - then dare I ask you to prove that anything else is a superior metric. If you can only give evidence to suggest it is an equally valid metric - then I ask from where you derive your own ideas.... could it be culture? Faith?



I've yet to see any evidence that you're somehow free from faith.

Fact of the matter is that the world was doing just fine until Stalin/Lenin, Mao, and the Nazis came along. All of them had a penchant against religion. The Nazis viewed religion as a tool and actually sought to convert Germany to Islam as it was a conquerors religion - but they ultimately realized it as a means merely through which to establish empathy with a population. Their goals were entirely secular - both nationalist and humanist in agenda.



And how do you know I even exist?

By extension, the particles that make up who I am only have their properties determined when they are observed. Debates abound on exactly what an observer is... but allow me to boil it down to the essential question burning into the back of the minds of those who realize the implications of macroscopic Quantum Mechanical phenomena...

I only exist in your world because you have observed my existence - properties determined seemingly at random... or are they?

Perhaps you are a God trapped within his own creation, my own existence merely a fleeting thought produced by a fragment of your intelligence here to serve as some element of lesson... or victory... for your core intelligence.

In essence - prove that I'm not a figment of your imagination and that this world isn't all here just for you. By what objective measure do you accept the lives of others as actual sentient beings?

If the implications of this do not disturb you, then you don't truly understand the quandary of QM.



Reason shouts that there is allegory and euphemism at play in those words. Or did autism become a prerequisite to be an intellectual, these days?



Faith is simply the source of human precepts of ideology.

The very fact that you have attempted to discern between "Good" and "Wrong" suggests that you already take upon faith sets of moral pretense.

Most of yours are Western and come from Christian values. Your focus upon the treatment of individuals gives you away, here. Many other cultures do not have this reverence for the individual, even among the atheists within. Japanese are very authoritarian in their behavior - there are designated authorities who are to be followed. They accept this system on faith because it is part of their culture. If the doctor says to do something - you do it because Sempai said so. Korea and China are very similar. Figures of authority mean a lot to them - but are diddly squat to westerners.

Faith is simply at the core of how we all operate. It is incapable of being, as a concept, a source of good or evil.
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And here I thought I can type. Good one, Aim, I'm sure you two will have some more fun coming. Looking forward to reading it, albeit I myself am out of this maze built by randomly scrambled letters the cement being the lube of imported red herrings- as you also pointed it out.
 
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Wut? ._. Again, a premise is not an evidence. Evidence is what supports the premise.

I'll copy+paste it again so you can read, re-read, and re-read it again till it sinks in.

A is a statement. is anything presented in support of an assertion. is a statement, as in a premise. So evidence is what supports the premise. Not a premise that is accepted by you.



Apparently you don't. You confused it with premise, again. See the above.

Just like you confuse evidence and proof. Your whole thread is based on a fallacy.

False equivalence is a logical fallacy which describes a situation where there is a logical and apparent equivalence, but when in fact there is none. This fallacy is categorized as a fallacy of inconsistency.A common way for this fallacy to be perpetuated is one shared trait between two subjects is assumed to show equivalence, especially in order of magnitude, when equivalence is not necessarily the logical result. False equivalence is a common result when an anecdotal similarity is pointed out as equal, but the claim of equivalence doesn't bear because the similarity is based on oversimplification or ignorance of additional factors.


You saying that evidence and proof are the same in your language, is an anecdotal similarity, creating the illsuion that proof and evidence are the same.

Your thread was based on a definition, it has been refuted by dictionaries.The premise of your thread is fallacious, so 6 pages of debate were spent on you trying to deny it.


My premise was that the universe exists, and that it has a beginning, as you agree. So it's not just my logic that created the universe and its beginning, but God ;)


How can something eternal have an origin? ._. The point is that infinite regression has to stop, so it's either God is eternal, or the universe is. If you say God doesn't exist, then you have to substantiate that claim, as the philosophical burden of prood also lies on you.

An argument from ignorance occurs when either a proposition is assumed to be true because it has not yet been proved false or a proposition is assumed to be false because it has not yet been proved true.

If you assume that God doesn't exist just because I can't prove it, then yes, that's an argument from ignorance, from your part. While I never said I can prove it, so I was not arguing from ignorance. All I said is I have evidence. I presented that inference, and you saying it's 'half ass' doesn't render it any less of an evidence. Especially that you confused evidence and premise, just as you confused evidence and proof and made a whole thread on that false premise. At this point you just keep spouting random sentences without giving much thought to the definitions of the words I gave. Yesterday I started to take you seriously and commended you for putting thought in it, I may take it back. Go and buy an English dictionary and memorize the definitions precisely, then come back. Until then, the premise of your thread is worthless, as its based on a semantic fallacy. That was my point here, not that I can prove that God exists.

So if you don't wanna argue from ignorance, either show that the universe is eternal or it popped into existence from nothing. You can use the same methods, which actually grant you evidence. You won't be able to prove it, as science hasn't proved it either, but you can have evidence- another example of the difference between evidence and proof.

Or you can say that you don't state neither that God doesn't exist, nor that He does, but then, my friend, you are an agnostic, which is also a kind of faith.

Then you ignore that science can't prove everything either, and that science also relies on some kind of a faith. You ignore that science can also be used for bad things, yet you cherrypick religious faith as 'inherently evil', ignoring that weapons created by science are also inherently evil, because obviously a bomb or an AK47 are meant to cause harm or at least serve as a threat. And you ignore how these were used in two world wars and the cold war, even by atheist states, for politcial reasons- which lead us to the point that politics, by your logic, is also inherently evil. So we could just reach the conclusion, instead of cherrypicking, that it's humans who choose to do good or bad things, humans who choose to blindly follow an ideology or obey an authority. There are religions that don't believe in deities (f.e branches of buddhism), and not all religions have holy books either, but even if they have, holy books don't force themselves on the readers. It's the humans. There is nothing much to debate about it.

You can keep claiming how you "won and owned", but even if you don't grasp English, I'm sure that at least you can visually confirm the different or identical shapes of those signs called letters in the links and definitions I gave.

Other than that, keep believing that you won, your faith is evil- a concept that according to your man Richard, doesn't exist. "...at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference" [ ]

Salam.
Look I understand what you mean by evidence. Granted I maybe used the world lighty in the op and more or les meant scientific evidence. When the hell have I last talk about ownage or that I've won? I lastly talked trannztx or whatever losing because his argument on homosexuality was based on the dangers of **** *** and the fact that homosexuality is not needed. He completely ignored lesbians and the fact that anything he said is not a basis to deny them marriage. It's just a weak argument. There's no rational reason to deny them marriage as it is their right.

"My premise was that the universe exists, and that it has a beginning," I agree with this and with the logic you come with that conclusion, but at the same time saying god is eternal well geez, we just go into circles.

I never said I assume your assertion of god being evil false. I just said, you asserted it you prove it. Till then your evidence is half assed. And we come back to the fact atheist can't say god doesn't exist. And religious people can't say he does. But granted I guess you have circumstancial evidence, but with many many question marks to follow.

But I will edit my op. Good job on your part.
 
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