Defence Of Catholic Teaching

[Guest]

Another consistent theme that merits sympathy for the atheists is their lack of appreciation for anything religious.

 

They deny everything in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism etc. and miss so much beauty within them.

 

Just because the whole is not credible, in the context in which it is sold, doesn't mean that there aren't significant truths within certain constituent parts thereof.

 

It's like the atheist denies the possibility of wonder and mystery in nature, because their scientists can't explain it.

[Guest]

 

Fear plays a part in your assertion that their is some force too. What you are doing is filling the gaps with it might not be god but it is something.

A kind of namby pampy agnosticism of sitting on the fence. "I don't quite think there is a god but if there is something I don't want to dismiss it when I die"

Not that agnosticism isn't namby pamby to begin with of course. It's lazy thinking to fill in the gaps because deep down you actually hope that one side is right and you kind of hope it's the believers.

 

You could not be more wrong if you tried. You also could not demonstrate any further simplicity of mind.

 

What did you think of Sapolsky's assertions re the role of science in that video?

 

Do you recognise the genius of his work? Stanford have the best academics in the US. Their psychology department is world-best.

[fatjim]

 

You could not be more wrong if you tried. You also could not demonstrate any further simplicity of mind.

 

What did you think of Sapolsky's assertions re the role of science in that video?

 

Do you recognise the genius of his work? Stanford have the best academics in the US. Their psychology department is world-best.

 

 

To be honest I couldn't watch it at work and haven't watched it yet. It's a bit long for my attention span.

 

I was misdiagnosed with ADHD as a child but the reality was I just wasn't interested.

[Guest]

 

 

To be honest I couldn't watch it at work and haven't watched it yet. It's a bit long for my attention span.

 

I was misdiagnosed with ADHD as a child but the reality was I just wasn't interested.

 

Try three of four minutes only around the time I directed. Think it was 30 or possibly 40 minutes in.

 

Nihilism seems to be a common trait within you. Do you know from where it comes? Nature or nurture?

 

Edit: It was 40. At 30 minutes, the Jerusalem syndrome is hilarious, and real, a must-see for any atheist.

[Ke1t]

I like religions where they make it up as they go along. like scientology and the church of England.

 

That's every religion.

 

The basic principles of many of the old Eastern religions are simple codas that are intended to marshall populations in a way that wouldn't ordinarily be possible without a sophisticated government and comprehensive civil infrastructure. This is why we have things like 'The Ten Commandments'.. which may or may not have existed in the ancient world, but serves as a handy frame of reference for the point I'm making.

 

Let's assume the Ten Commandments were around at the time of the alleged Moses. What you have is a society which has no permanent infrastructure, no significant governmental apparatus outside of the rule of the elder or the rule of the strong. How do you prevent a tribe of half-savages from raping and murdering each other just for the hell of it?

 

One way is via divine mandate.

 

Half-savage they were, but even moreso they were superstitious half-savages. They have no fucking idea what thunder and lightning is... the common cold is likely to kill half of them... blind luck is the most common way of reaching adulthood... given the complete and absolute lack of science they're going to try to explain the world around them in ways that uneducated, crude, half-savages can understand.

 

'gods' are a reasonable explanation to anyone who walked through a massive thunderstorm, scared shitless and with no way of comprehending even something as simple as bad weather.

 

Shamans and druids pop up, explaining that, "Shit, Nigger in the sky be PISSED, son!" which automatically makes the lying fucker with the bone in his nose and a pretendy 'direct line to the noumenal' the 'smartest' motherfucker in the room.. or in this case, desert.

 

The next logical step is to lay down laws that prevent people from shitting on one another. Maybe eating pork is a fucking bad idea given the lack of refrigeration. So rape and eating pork.. that's out. And how do you enforce the no rape no pork policy?

 

God demands it.

 

Don;t want people stealing each other's shit and causing strife in the tribe?

 

God says, "No stealing shit."

 

...fuck, I better start writing this down, says the shaman.

 

Ten Commandments, or more likely a list of divine commands, are set down.

 

The Ten Commandments, one of the most basic foundations of the entire Christian faith, is nothing more than common sense instructions, intended to bring order to those who are inherently without the infrastructure to otherwise enforce the rule of law. Nothing enforces the rule of law for a primitive like the thought of an angry god giving you a cold.

 

And what if some of your tribe happens to worship BAAL from the next tribe over? Those guys are allowed to eat all the pork they want... they steal and fuck each other's wives, and it's causing unrest amongst your own people.

 

Monotheism.

 

Stick in an addendum, "Thou shalt have no god but ME', and if you disagree then the priests have a means of dealing with dissent, and it involves rocks to the head.

 

You don't need a god to come up with common sense principles like the Ten Commandments, but you DO need some way of enforcing those principles.

 

gods are a fantastic way of enforcing those principles, and one god is better than many.

[Guest]

Actually, the fear of death seems to be a common projection upon which religion do their dirties.

 

The need to provide a box and compartmentalise one's mortality is something they all attempt to deal with, and lie about mostly.

 

Personally, I have never feared death. I can't control when it will happen and worrying about factors outwith our control is an exercise in futility.

[fatjim]

Ha ha I jumped to 39 minutes and laughed at the word apotemnophilia on the white board. That is a totally fucked up paraphilia that one.

Must be the only situation where it is justified to laugh at a cripple.

[Guest]

One of the most callous uses of religion and Islam and Hinduism in particular is the suppression of women.

 

The caste system enshrined in many religions and orders, both of the whole population and of the administration/officers of the religion are equally patent.

 

No-one other than CS seems to be discussing that organised religion is a pile of shite.

 

ironically, catholicism appears particularly evil and see through too, with some horribly contrived devices included.

 

It's the vociferousness of atheists that I find interesting. Like they know it all cos they've got science. Idiots.

[Ke1t]

An impossible situation. If he's imaginary he's not real.

 

No proof required.

 

This is one of the simple demonstrations of the failure of logic that you'll see from the theists.

 

In the States any time the religious right doesn't get everything its own way, like not being allowed to stick up a sign advocating their superstitions in every single government building, you get the same old, "Y'all are KILLING GAWD!"

 

And the reason for things like 911 is "Y'all are bringing this on yossels by reeeejectin GAWD!"

 

Killing god?

 

If god exists then, by the very 'powers' attributed to god by those who believe in it, you can't kill god. He's omnipotent. The creator of ife, the Universe, and everything can't be killed.

 

If god doesn't exist then by the nature of not existing he can't be killed.

 

You can't kill what's all-powerful, and you can't kill what doesn't exist.

 

Rational thought often finds itself suspended in religious debate, and almost exclusively on the same side of the debate every single time.

[Guest]

The most stupid waste of time is to debate with a fool.

 

Anyone who's passionate position is fuelled by the certainty that he does or does not exist, is not worth debating with.

[fatjim]

 

Try three of four minutes only around the time I directed. Think it was 30 or possibly 40 minutes in.

 

Nihilism seems to be a common trait within you. Do you know from where it comes? Nature or nurture?

 

Edit: It was 40. At 30 minutes, the Jerusalem syndrome is hilarious, and real, a must-see for any atheist.

 

He actually gets his description of apotemnophilia slightly wrong. He says that it is the sexual desire of amputees or some such but in fact it is the sexual desire to become an amputee. Basically wanting your limbs removed.

[Guest]

 

He actually gets his description of apotemnophilia slightly wrong. He says that it is the sexual desire of amputees or some such but in fact it is the sexual desire to become an amputee. Basically wanting your limbs removed.

 

He said that too. Maybe you didn't hear enough of that section of the lecture. Or maybe he was "slightly wrong", if that's possible.

 

Edit: I'm sure that you didn't listen closely enough. This one was the desire to be an amputee. The other condition he discussed was sexual desire of amputees. I think you got confused. Where do you get your definition from? Wiki?

 

http://cbc.ucsd.edu/pdf/apotem.pdf

[amancalledbuck]

I'm enjoying this.

 

I used to be vehemently atheist.

 

Now?

 

I really haven't got a clue.

[caledonia]

ok i will make it simple then i am oot of this farce

 

I do not believe in God and I despise religion (two different things)

 

The world is mostly the way it is now because of religious wars etc

[fatjim]

The most stupid waste of time is to debate with a fool.

 

Anyone who's passionate position is fuelled by the certainty that he does or does not exist, is not worth debating with.

So have you got evidence of this force you speak of?

[Ke1t]

ok i will make it simple then i am oot of this farce

 

I do not believe in God and I despise religion (two different things)

 

The world is mostly the way it is now because of religious wars etc

 

I don't think they are, to be honest.

 

People say this a lot... "Hate religion, love god" kind of thing, when in actuality it appears that gods are the construct of religion.

 

The stern sky-daddy you MUST obey, who (coincidentally) is an exact representation of the values and prejudices of the believer.

 

How lucky is that?

 

EDIT: I will modify this a little, though.

 

I think Religion can be seperated from religion in one aspect.

 

Take Christianity, for example. You can have people who are 'Biblical Scholars', who are genuinely experts in what the Bible has contained within it's pages... though their own interpretations of what the Bible means is to be questioned. Take C_S, for example... if he were a Biblical Scholar his interpretation of swathes of text are likely to vary wildly from the interpretation of, say, Ian Paisley's interpretation.

 

To the extent that you can memorize and (to limited value) interpret the Bible, you can be an 'expert'. Thiough when someone tries to tell you what is analogy and what is literal, those people are to be more or less ignored, because all they are giving is their opinion, not some objective, factual iteration. The fact that there are over 20,000 subsects of the Christian Cult alone will tell you all you need to know about the value of subjective interpretation.

 

If anyone claims to be an expert of 'god' however, if that someone wants to tell you what's in 'god's' mind, how 'god' wants you to act... those people are in no way experts, but are in fact entirely full of shite. They are of absolutely no value to the discussion... that is, unless they can somehow prove they have a direct link that allows them to connect directly to the unknowable.

 

And that I would be interested to see proven to say the least.

[fatjim]

 

He said that too. Maybe you didn't hear enough of that section of the lecture. Or maybe he was "slightly wrong", if that's possible.

 

Edit: I'm sure that you didn't listen closely enough. This one was the desire to be an amputee. The other condition he discussed was sexual desire of amputees. I think you got confused. Where do you get your definition from? Wiki?

 

http://cbc.ucsd.edu/pdf/apotem.pdf

He does mention it but he actually gets the two written on the board the wrong way round. Acrotomophilia is the desire for amputees and apotemnophilia is the desire to be an amputee. 33mins 16 seconds. Look for yourself.

I have actually read books about paraphilias mainly as research for you guessed it comedy. I did have an idea for a comic novel based around a group of apotemnophiles and coprophiles becoming super heroes though. Well I drew some pictures of cripples in capes and people in Lycra covered in shit. Just for some kicks.

[fatjim]

 

I don't think they are, to be honest.

 

People say this a lot... "Hate religion, love god" kind of thing, when in actuality it appears that gods are the construct of religion.

 

The stern sky-daddy you MUST obey, who (coincidentally) is an exact representation of the values and prejudices of the believer.

 

How lucky is that?

Buddhism doesn't have a deity though does it?

[Ke1t]

Buddhism doesn't have a deity though does it?

 

Buddhism has 'The Buddha', which is the source of their teaching. I'm sure like any other religion the teaching of its purported central figure is open to interpretation.

 

As far as Im aware The Buddha wasn't a god, though.

[fatjim]

Buddha was a sage.

 

Like most religions though I don't have the thyme for it.

[amancalledbuck]

Buddha was a sage.

 

Like most religions though I don't have the thyme for it.

Are you not wowed by the fact that Jesus rose, Mary had a virgin birth?

 

Although, the marjoram of the stories can be taken with a pinch of salt.

[gla5gowdon]

I'm enjoying this.

 

I used to be vehemently atheist.

 

Now?

 

I really haven't got a clue.

 

Exactly.

 

if

"I believe there is a God" is a claim...

and

"I don't believe there is a God" can be re-written as "I believe there is no God"...

then

"I believe there is no God" is a claim.

 

BURDEN OF PROOF!!!1111!1111!11one

 

Lazy and cheap get out of justifying their own conclusion by the semantics of language.

 

If I was accused of a crime, I would do my best to prove myself innocent and not depend on the evidence against me being weak.

 

When it comes to this, nobody really has a verifiable answer. Failure to acknowledge this is absurd.

[The Macca Show]

 

So what is atheism? Is it a conclusion?

 

 

bollocks how can not believing in something be a belief

 

If atheism is a belief, then not playing tennis is a hobby.

[The Boofon]

 

not playing tennis is a hobby.

 

 

I'm the best in Scotland at that.

[The Hulk]

I don't believe in the human manifestation of God, nor the "God made man in his own image" stuff, inspired in modern thinking with much thanks to the Thor-like image that was created by Michaelangelo or Dante, commissioned no less by the Roman Catholic Church in the Sistine Chapel (?).

 

I believe in the God of the "God particle", the thing that gave life that CERN is trying to find.

 

 

It's not a belief it's a disbelief in an extraordinary claim.

 

If I said I had an imaginary friend that was real and you didn't believe me you wouldn't have to prove that I didn't have an imaginary friend.

The burden of proof would be on me because I would be the one making that extraordinary claim.

 

If the definition of real is that the friend is not manifested in a physical form, as most people would tend to agree, then no, it's not real. But if it exists in your mind, then it is real to you in your own mind. Spirits in a material world.

 

Take a dead close relative for example. They are physically gone. But their memory and effect on you even in their passing is still very much real.

 

Once upon a time I might have said I was atheist or agnostic but I wouldn't say that now at all. It took the passing of a close relative for me to think about things in a different way. This person had such a profound effect on me that while she is dead, she lives on in my mind, probably helped on by the reading at the funeral of this poem (which I recall someone posted here very recently):

 

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there, I did not die.

Physically and materially dead. Spiritually very much alive and well.

[fatjim]

Living in your memory isn't spiritual in my opinion.

 

If I ate an amazing sandwich and flushed away the shit after it passed through me but I remembered how much I enjoyed the sandwich and how much pain the bowel movement gave me then all I have is a memory of that. Proportioning spirituality to it is just filling in the gaps.

[The Boofon]

What kind of sandwich was it?

[fatjim]

I can't remember.

[Guest]

I don't believe in the human manifestation of God, nor the "God made man in his own image" stuff, inspired in modern thinking with much thanks to the Thor-like image that was created by Michaelangelo or Dante, commissioned no less by the Roman Catholic Church in the Sistine Chapel (?).

 

I believe in the God of the "God particle", the thing that gave life that CERN is trying to find.

 

 

If the definition of real is that the friend is not manifested in a physical form, as most people would tend to agree, then no, it's not real. But if it exists in your mind, then it is real to you in your own mind. Spirits in a material world.

 

Take a dead close relative for example. They are physically gone. But their memory and effect on you even in their passing is still very much real.

 

Once upon a time I might have said I was atheist or agnostic but I wouldn't say that now at all. It took the passing of a close relative for me to think about things in a different way. This person had such a profound effect on me that while she is dead, she lives on in my mind, probably helped on by the reading at the funeral of this poem (which I recall someone posted here very recently):

 

Physically and materially dead. Spiritually very much alive and well.

 

Great post The Hulk min. You're the only one on here who I suspect is closest to my own approach to this subject. I used to describe myself as atheist in my teens and early 20's, then I thought I was agnostic and for the last 20 years or so, I don't fit under any label. Religion, in terms of the dictionary definition of the word, must be personal. A set of beliefs will only match exactly with another if it's prescribed, dogma that is swallowed without question nor critical thinking.

 

Even though you and I accord in our philosophical approach to this subject, I am surprised that you believe in the Higgs Boson and that you therefore, I presume, consider the work of CERN to be scientifically valid. I suspect their building of the LHC to be possibly the biggest folly in human history.

 

I'm all for research and development and would always err on the side of spend for the vast majority of academic pursuits but I just don't get this research. I don't see any difference between the basis of this and the basis of organised religion, if it's purporting to explain the origin of the universe and everything. Actually, I think I'm in danger of contradicting myself here. I would far rather they had a go and failed than never had a go at all and given the billions it cost, relative to the billions that are stolen by the corporatocracy and the industrial war machine, whilst people continue to starve and are denied medicine, it's just another misuse of public funds.

 

When it fails, I hope Hawking et al and brought to account. It's a fucking mindwank that will NEVER bear fruit according to this particular rocket scientist who never was, shut down by the authorities before he began for criminal thoughts towards authority and a bad attitude.

[The Hulk]

 

Even though you and I accord in our philosophical approach to this subject, I am surprised that you believe in the Higgs Boson and that you therefore, I presume, consider the work of CERN to be scientifically valid.

 

The comment you refer to (my CERN one) doesn't go far enough and was made deliberately short for the extremely mundane reason that I had someone turning up early for an appointment and I wanted to finish my post!!! So I was a bit fast and loose and inarticulate with that particular sentence and will re-phrase it.

 

I don't profess to know that much at all about Higgs-Boson, dark matter, CERN or the LHC. But what intrigues me, is that these scientists are looking for their holy grail, and that they ultimately conclude that what they are looking for is the "building block of the universe", or what is sometimes called the "God particle". Why do they call it the God particle? Is it because they believe it will disprove organised religion and turn the whole world on its head? Well, it might, but not necessarily for anti-religious reasons.

 

Put another way, the religions claim to have the monopoly over the word "God". The semantics of it this mean to them that it is a deity, something or somebody that is worshipped, and that this is what the world has come to understand as "God". I believe in God, but I don't believe in the Judeo-Christian, Islamic, Rastafarian whatever God that is to be worshipped. I believe "God" to be the ultimate creative force that set in motion the series of events that made the universe. I don't don't know what that manifests itself as, but it is something.

 

So, to conclude, in my haste to say I believed in Higgs-Boson, what I intended to say was that I believe in the idea that a mysterious force created the universe, and in the sense that it is described as the search for the "God particle", it can be considered to be the search for the creative force. It is however dangerous for them to conclude that they already know what they are looking for, when they may in fact find something different.....