More tolerant christians



/hot as hell

Christianity... Islam... My two least favorite religions. You know who started that shiat? The JEWS! Damn Jews, always causing trouble.

vertiaset: Altruism is the genesis of morality but it is not morality. Only humans, with their ability to see themselves as separate and distinct from the rest of creation and hence with free will, can be moral or immoral.

But what makes you think that this ability of ours is not also granted purely by our biology? It seems to be to be a product of the ability for abstract thought, something that is due to our unusually large association cortex.


vertiaset: There is no such thing as an immoral chimpanzee or dolphin. That is just plain silly and I cannot believe that anyone of even moderate intelligence would make such a claim.

Are you so sure that a dolphin or a gorilla is unable to see itself as an individual free agent? I think we have not plumbed the depths of dolphin intelligence sufficiently to say this for certain. Gorillas that have been taught how to communicate via sign language, such as Coco, have made limited expressions of abstract thought and expressed compassion and empathy for other animals.

Perhaps this isn't enough, but the dividing line is not a particularly clear one, and your patronizing tone towards those who consider the question is not warranted. Considering the number of characteristics that we once considered "purely human" that seem to show up in other animals, we may not be quite as unique as you believe. The difference between a human and a dolphin may be large, but it is a question of degree, not quality. Dolphins have an association cortex in their brains too. If it evolves to be a bit larger we might be obligated to start negotiating with them for tuna rights ;)

beoswulf: Replace Muslim with fundamentalist Christian, line these up leading to South Carolina...sign I can agree with.

So now you're upset with the policy that Mecca is for Muslims only--so much so that you're threadjacking an Atheism thread with some obtuse mention of South Carolina? Lots of places in the world are off-limits to many humans outside of a group. Why do you care?

Mordant: I think we're seeing the game come to an end here, unless someone is just really cranky today.

Huh? WTF does that mean?

Ding Dong Seven: A significant portion of vegetarians are assholes. But I've never had one call me a militant meat eater.

Then you don't know that many of them. I do and I have been. No one is calling atheists inherently Fundamentalist. Its when they start telling others they're absolutely irrational or sub-human or complete slobbering idiots just because they happen not to agree with atheism. That earns an F-bomb, regardless of your ideology.

Gawdzila: vertiaset: Altruism is the genesis of morality but it is not morality. Only humans, with their ability to see themselves as separate and distinct from the rest of creation and hence with free will, can be moral or immoral.

But what makes you think that this ability of ours is not also granted purely by our biology? It seems to be to be a product of the ability for abstract thought, something that is due to our unusually large association cortex.


vertiaset: There is no such thing as an immoral chimpanzee or dolphin. That is just plain silly and I cannot believe that anyone of even moderate intelligence would make such a claim.

Are you so sure that a dolphin or a gorilla is unable to see itself as an individual free agent? I think we have not plumbed the depths of dolphin intelligence sufficiently to say this for certain. Gorillas that have been taught how to communicate via sign language, such as Coco, have made limited expressions of abstract thought and expressed compassion and empathy for other animals.

Perhaps this isn't enough, but the dividing line is not a particularly clear one, and your patronizing tone towards those who consider the question is not warranted. Considering the number of characteristics that we once considered "purely human" that seem to show up in other animals, we may not be quite as unique as you believe. The difference between a human and a dolphin may be large, but it is a question of degree, not quality. Dolphins have an association cortex in their brains too. If it evolves to be a bit larger we might be obligated to start negotiating with them for tuna rights ;)

Elephants and African Grey Parrots understand the concept of self (ESPECIALLY THE LATTER), we should really be working on uplifting the grey parrots to full sentience by selective breeding.

crazy_gaijin: Brainmeat: letrole: MorganFreeman: My point is that apart from God the God I believe in

So substitute whatever deity or religion you choose. You end up with somebody saying "because I said so". Either that, or it's each man deciding for himself if murder is murder.

Reality is ruled by majority.

So, back when mostly everyone believed the earth was flat, the center of the solar system, et al, it was actually so?

For intensive purposes, it was. If you disagreed with it, without proof, you were considered dim-witted, ignorant, or insane.

Nothing really is, until it is proven. An example would be global warming. Some say it is, some say it isn't. Which is true? The majority controls the truth until proof is made otherwise.

I'm sick of these atheists pushing their godless ideology down our throats. If you want to go to hell, fine, but keep it to yourself.

The Icelander: You'd like this song (^)

I prefer Down, Down, Down To Mephisto's Cafe

Farkshower1972: letrole: Atheism is a Religion.

Calling 'Atheism' a religion is like calling 'Bald' a hair color.

One of the stupidest attampts at an aphorism I ever read. If bald had NOTHING to do with hair at all I might have some reason to agree with the analogy. It almost sounds smart until you realize how stupid an argument it is.

Let's not use any analogies so they don't confuse the issue.

Not believing in any god is NOT THE SAME as believing there is no god. NO ONE CAN PROVE god exists or does not exist (not in this world).

Atheism IS a religion. They are trying to create converts just like any other faith-based group (faith defined as belief without proof).

letrole: You think murder is murder, theft is theft, whatever, only because you were brought up in a Judeo Christian society.

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. (new window)

Also, you might be interested to know Aristotle was no monotheist, but nonetheless devised a significant branch of ethics completely divorced from religion. Kantian ethics does not rely on a "god" and neither does Utilitarianism. For someone who likes to talk a big intellectual game and make sweeping claims about morality, you haven't done any of your homework. Of course, for you that's par for the course. I've never seen you act otherwise. And finally, there is no such thing as a "Judeo-Christian" society in the U.S. Jews been about 2% of the American population and not much more since the beginning. The Talmud is not a major influence on American culture as a whole.

MaxRebo: Atheism IS a religion. They are trying to create converts just like any other faith-based group (faith defined as belief without proof).

Atheism is many things, but cannot possibly be a religion. Simply saying "NO!" is not an ethos of any kind. Furthermore, all religions have rituals and a symbolic language. Even non-religious ideologies, like Freudian psychoanalysis and American nationalism have rituals and a symbolic language. Atheism doesn't. It has no positive content. Secular Humanism is a better candidate for your argument but has no rituals either.

Ding Dong Seven: don't listen to the dude in the big pointy hat

I'd listen to this broad in this pointy hat.


/pointy

MaxRebo: Farkshower1972: letrole: Atheism is a Religion.

Calling 'Atheism' a religion is like calling 'Bald' a hair color.

One of the stupidest attampts at an aphorism I ever read. If bald had NOTHING to do with hair at all I might have some reason to agree with the analogy. It almost sounds smart until you realize how stupid an argument it is.

Let's not use any analogies so they don't confuse the issue.

Not believing in any god is NOT THE SAME as believing there is no god. NO ONE CAN PROVE god exists or does not exist (not in this world).

Atheism IS a religion. They are trying to create converts just like any other faith-based group (faith defined as belief without proof).

There is no God. Atheism is not a religion. Believe what you like. I won't convert anyone, nor encourage anyone to convert to atheism. Atheist don't allow themselves the benefit of relief given by religion that comes from an ultimate forgiveness and final positive end. My proof for not believing in God, is human history. All of it. All good, all bad, all love, all death. All the same. With or without a God.

JQPublic

I'll have you know that is my current favorite religion-topic comic. I have a copy on my office door.

MaxRebo: Farkshower1972: letrole: Atheism is a Religion.

Calling 'Atheism' a religion is like calling 'Bald' a hair color.

One of the stupidest attampts at an aphorism I ever read. If bald had NOTHING to do with hair at all I might have some reason to agree with the analogy. It almost sounds smart until you realize how stupid an argument it is.

Let's not use any analogies so they don't confuse the issue.

Not believing in any god is NOT THE SAME as believing there is no god. NO ONE CAN PROVE god exists or does not exist (not in this world).

Atheism IS a religion. They are trying to create converts just like any other faith-based group (faith defined as belief without proof).

So not believing in stuff that doesn't exist is a religion?
Unicorns?
Leprechauns?
1+1=3?
Flat Earth?
Geocentrism?

Those must be religions too.

Agreed. I'm so sick of that stupid argument. There's no dogma, tenets, holy book, deity to worship, etc. It's like calling not believing in aliens a religion, and it's stupid.

vertiaset: No, it comes from the fact that we're social animals. Other social animals demonstrate morality as well. Dolphins will protect swimmers from sharks and save shipwrecked sailors. Female wolves will raise abandoned human children as their own.


Don't be silly. Ants are social animals as are bees. There is no morality in nature beyond man and you know it.

Ants and bees are not animals stupid, the degree of social conscience depends on the degree of neurological complexity.

Somacandra: JQPublic

I'll have you know that is my current favorite religion-topic comic. I have a copy on my office door.

I have several on my computer. I try to collect real good ones. I've even made a few myself and shown some of my friends. One of my best skewers astrology. A 'psychic' says to an atheist, "I'm an Aries" to which the atheist wryly replies "So was Hitler".

Brainmeat: For intensive purposes, it was.

I disagree. What about tides and gravity?
Those things affect you, and neither would work if the Earth were flat.


Brainmeat: Nothing really is, until it is proven.

Not really. I think it is useful to make a distinction between what "actually is" and what society treats as correct (which is what you seem to hold up as "what is"). How you're treated by society is dependent on the latter, but everything else depends on the latter.

vertiaset: A human will react at first instinctively, then will reprocess the sensory information against a catalog of previous events and compare and contrast. Then a human can PROJECT this thought, now removed from actual experience but substituting for it into the future and avoid situations where danger is present and disregard situations where the rustling is just the wind in the leaves.

I've got a sneaking suspicion that in a decade or two, with improved brain scan technology, we will know a lot more about this. Until then, its pretty much pure speculation, albeit educated.

Given that, its probably better to take some certainty out of your proclamations. You simply don't know. Neither do I. Neither does anyone.

Somacandra: Atheism is many things, but cannot possibly be a religion. Simply saying "NO!" is not an ethos of any kind. Furthermore, all religions have rituals and a symbolic language. Even non-religious ideologies, like Freudian psychoanalysis and American nationalism have rituals and a symbolic language. Atheism doesn't. It has no positive content. Secular Humanism is a better candidate for your argument but has no rituals either.

Saving this for posterity.

detfrost1:
Elephants and African Grey Parrots understand the concept of self (ESPECIALLY THE LATTER), we should really be working on uplifting the grey parrots to full sentience by selective breeding.

I would love to have a sentient gray parrot for a sidekick when the post-apocalypse comes around.

vertiaset: The Icelander

vertiaset: I get my ethical grounding from a lifetime of study of ethics starting from the pre-Socratics,

But if you need Jesus to have ethics, how could the pre-Socratics have ethics?

\This thinking lead to the destruction of quite a bit of knowledge

Two things Sport, first you need to switch gears when you go from replying to letrole to me, the simplistic atheist spiel you use with him does not serve you well in a more sophisticated discussion.

Second, if you are going to make statements about what you contend are my beliefs then do me the courtesy of reading my posts in this thread. If you had read them, you would realize that I have stated many times over, starting with my original comment in this thread, that one does not need religion to be moral.

Do these things out of simple courtesy and I will be happy to converse with you.

Well, to refresh, it all started when you posed the "innocent" question of how is is possible for someone to be moral without God.

That's like asking "How is it possible for a black man to be a physicist? I'm not saying it's impossible, mind you, I'm just asking a question."
It implies, primae facie, that there would be some reason to think otherwise.
Why would the question of how an atheist can be a moral being be any more valid than asking how a baseball player can be a moral being? Unless you are asserting that morality and the concept of "god" are somehow intrinsically related - a principle for which you have offered no supporting data.
The question itself rests upon an unsupported, and to a nonbeliever, insulting premise - just as the question of "how" a black man could be a physicist would be unsupported, and insulting to a black man.
You asked: "So, all of you "moral" atheists. Where does your sense of morality come from anyway?"
Who says it "comes from" anywhere? Or that, if it does, it comes from anywhere other than where yours comes from?
When and how did you establish that an "atheist's" morality issues from any other source than your own? Do you think that it does? The question would seem to imply so - but you don't say.
The question is intrinsically dishonest and insulting - and intellectually cowardly.

Subtrul: Ants and bees are not animals stupid

...someone needs to re-take highschool biology.

vertiaset: RevMercutio


vertiaset: I personally like this billboard. It is less a advertisement for atheism than an appeal to atheists to adhere to a moral system. I think this is a good idea.

If you require a religion to make you "good" and give you "morals", you're not a good person.

Do something because it is right, not because you're scared of your deity.


If you are directing that comment to me then clearly you have not been paying attention.

It's more a general statement. You've explained and explored the background behind your morality. Many don't.

vertiaset: They do not have a sense of self in the way that humans do for the same reason that I cannot play World of Warcraft on my IBM AT. They do not have the hardware to run the software.

Our neocortex serves as its primary function providing us with the ability to think abstractly. It evolved initially as a second line of defense against danger. When confronted with a rustle in the bushes a gazelle will simply run, partly through instinct and partly though remembered experience. A human will react at first instinctively, then will reprocess the sensory information against a catalog of previous events and compare and contrast. Then a human can PROJECT this thought, now removed from actual experience but substituting for it into the future and avoid situations where danger is present and disregard situations where the rustling is just the wind in the leaves.

Right, except the discussion was about gorillas and dolphins which do have the hardware, and display signs of differentiating self all the time. Nice try at the misdirect.

Reposting this for clarification. Darwin was not averse to religion, and did not automatically assert that natural selection theory interfered with a religious interpretation of the world. Also, its funny this billboard defines atheism this way because one of the key differences between Christianity and its surrounding ancient religions was the Christian insistence on "Creation ex Nihilo." Or "creation of the universe out of nothing." The surrounding Roman Pagans and most others saw this as sheer theological lunacy, and took it for granted that the world was fashioned by the Gods out of pre-existing base material.

JQPublic: MaxRebo: Farkshower1972: letrole: Atheism is a Religion.

Calling 'Atheism' a religion is like calling 'Bald' a hair color.

One of the stupidest attampts at an aphorism I ever read. If bald had NOTHING to do with hair at all I might have some reason to agree with the analogy. It almost sounds smart until you realize how stupid an argument it is.

Let's not use any analogies so they don't confuse the issue.

Not believing in any god is NOT THE SAME as believing there is no god. NO ONE CAN PROVE god exists or does not exist (not in this world).

Atheism IS a religion. They are trying to create converts just like any other faith-based group (faith defined as belief without proof).

So not believing in stuff that doesn't exist is a religion?
Unicorns?
Leprechauns?
1+1=3?
Flat Earth?
Geocentrism?

Those must be religions too.

Not believing is not the same as believing not (read and understand my post before responding next time). Try again. I don't believe in any of those things either, but I don't waste ANY time telling others not to believe in them, or get all pissy about it when I don't get my way.

letrole: If you're an Atheist, then there is no moral difference between killing a man and blowing out a candle.

Incorrect; I have a higher level of mutual information with the man than the candle.

letrole: There is no right and wrong, there are only results.

If your choice results in you no longer existing, it was the wrong choice.

letrole: If by killing and stealing you are able to succeed, then you win.

However, these usually have long term drawbacks that make them losing tactics overall.
And you have to remember that THE GAME never ends.

letrole: Survival of the fittest.

However, fitness is tested at levels of society as well as individual. (Actually, since a human is a society of cells, and a cell a society of molecules, the idea that an "individual" can be tested may be Not Even Wrong.)

Khanmots: Well, one could perform a test to see if there is indeed a califlower occupying one's cranial cavity. One might even suspect that the existance of such a califlower would create observable side-affects on one's external behavior...

Very close. The former suggests the sense of "test" as "experiment", which suggests need to take the validity of the experimental method as a primary assumption; let's avoid that. The latter is closer yet by suggesting the sense of competitive testing of an existing data set for the criterion of minimum description length. (The latter is the one I favor.) While again too large to take as a primary, it can be broken down to more basic propositions that are substantially harder to argue with.

Khanmots: How do you know that those don't exist?

Testing by Minimum Description Length Induction again indicates that the formal descriptions for the extant evidence which include such are longer than the conventional alternative describing same; ergo, a unicorn description is not the one most probably correct.

This inference rests on the validity of the Robbins Axioms (or other boolean-constructing equivalent) for inference, self-consistency of the ZF axioms (independent of Choice, and possibly Power Set) or similar, and the assumption that reality and evidence relate by a pattern (recognizable at some ordinal level of hypercomputation). While these premises themselves do rest on nothing but Faith, this is the sum of the Faith required.

Khanmots: I don't believe that either, but again, I have no way of knowing.

The limited endorsement of "one most probably correct" is (as best I can tell) the strongest such endorsement possible within these constraints... which is to say, the furthest we can be said to "know" anything about the "real world".

Including about the cauliflower, never mind the unicorns.

Khanmots: In short, to believe or disbelieve in something whose existence is unknowable requires faith.

Correct.

However, under the least premises of Faith to have the existence of Cauliflower minimally knowable and testable, the existence of God is knowable and testable to the same degree.

Minsky: What leads you to believe that there are people reading your text? Or even that you're posting at all?

That's the current Minimum Description Length hypothesis.

letrole: I find it most amusing that the natural state of man is assumed to be a cooperative form of social altruism. It's not. We are cruel and violent and savage.

The reality is somewhere in between. The altruism of FAIR has limits from INGROUP. When it doesn't, Fark's queue gets submissions about PETA's complaining that Obama really would hurt a fly after all.

theorellior: If this is not the case, then do other species carry these universal characteristics?

HARM (in a slightly different sense than Haidt's) may be universal to life; FAIR and INGROUP are widely observed in the animal kingdom. Something akin to AUTHORITY crops up in numerous mammal species; it would be interesting to survey which. If I recall, however, one of Haidt's articles indicated PURITY/DISGUST is only in the primates, and possibly just humans.

MorganFreeman: Agreed. I'm so sick of that stupid argument. There's no dogma, tenets, holy book, deity to worship, etc. It's like calling not believing in aliens a religion, and it's stupid.

it all depends on the level of fanaticism (and ignorance)of the individual. At what point does a "non-belief" become the equivalent of a "belief".
- when you insist you're right in a non-falsifiable debate from either side?
- when you discuss it in forums on the internet with other 'non-believers'?
- when you organize around it?
- when you have representation of your non-belief?
- when you seek to 'convert' (for lack of a better word) as many as possible to your philosophical view?
- when some people whom you share this philosophical view (non-belief, insistence in philosophical materialism and naturalism, etc.) want a symbol so they can identify themselves with other people who share the same non-belief?

yeah, you're right, it's a stupid argument. unless the person behind the non-belief is a fanatic (or evangelical) about it. Especially if they think they've got some moral imperative, or elitist mentality around it.

Why people deny that is equally stupid. Just admit they can be as annoying as any religious fanatic and move on. With all due respect and semantic bullshiat by certain people who can't admit that aside....

Gawdzila: Not really. I think it is useful to make a distinction between what "actually is" and what society treats as correct (which is what you seem to hold up as "what is"). How you're treated by society is dependent on the latter, but everything else depends on the latter.

Actually, yes, as seen through the lens of quantum physics, nothing really is, until it is chosen. So reality is a bleeding edge of consciousness sort of thing, that evolves every microsecond. Or not.

Somacandra: -snip- Atheism doesn't. It has no positive content. -snip-

This.

jso2897: Well, to refresh, it all started when you posed the "innocent" question of how is is possible for someone to be moral without God.

That's like asking "How is it possible for a black man to be a physicist? I'm not saying it's impossible, mind you, I'm just asking a question."
It implies, primae facie, that there would be some reason to think otherwise.
Why would the question of how an atheist can be a moral being be any more valid than asking how a baseball player can be a moral being? Unless you are asserting that morality and the concept of "god" are somehow intrinsically related - a principle for which you have offered no supporting data.
The question itself rests upon an unsupported, and to a nonbeliever, insulting premise - just as the question of "how" a black man could be a physicist would be unsupported, and insulting to a black man.
You asked: "So, all of you "moral" atheists. Where does your sense of morality come from anyway?"
Who says it "comes from" anywhere? Or that, if it does, it comes from anywhere other than where yours comes from?
When and how did you establish that an "atheist's" morality issues from any other source than your own? Do you think that it does? The question would seem to imply so - but you don't say.
The question is intrinsically dishonest and insulting - and intellectually cowardly.

Militant Atheists is the term used by religious idiots when they can't win a debate against a smart Atheist.

letrole: If you're an Atheist, then there is no moral difference between killing a man and blowing out a candle.

There is no right and wrong, there are only results. If by killing and stealing you are able to succeed, then you win. The law of the tooth and claw. Survival of the fittest.

wow it is sad how small and limited your intellect is.

heap: Earguy: /actual picture of Big Mama

who charred santa?

I lol'd, thanks for that.

MaxRebo: JQPublic: MaxRebo: Farkshower1972: letrole: Atheism is a Religion.

Calling 'Atheism' a religion is like calling 'Bald' a hair color.

One of the stupidest attampts at an aphorism I ever read. If bald had NOTHING to do with hair at all I might have some reason to agree with the analogy. It almost sounds smart until you realize how stupid an argument it is.

Let's not use any analogies so they don't confuse the issue.

Not believing in any god is NOT THE SAME as believing there is no god. NO ONE CAN PROVE god exists or does not exist (not in this world).

Atheism IS a religion. They are trying to create converts just like any other faith-based group (faith defined as belief without proof).

So not believing in stuff that doesn't exist is a religion?
Unicorns?
Leprechauns?
1+1=3?
Flat Earth?
Geocentrism?

Those must be religions too.

Not believing is not the same as believing not (read and understand my post before responding next time). Try again. I don't believe in any of those things either, but I don't waste ANY time telling others not to believe in them, or get all pissy about it when I don't get my way.

I don't believe any of those things either. And I don't consider my disbelief to be a religion, either. I can't turn a blind eye when a large segment of our population wants to legislate their instruction in public schools as "teaching the controversy" and mandating school children to take a daily loyalty oath to them, or grant billions of dollars per year into groups of people that believe those, etc. Call it being pissy.

Example of Christchuckers forcing their religion down someone's throat. This time an person in the military, an ATHEIST in the military. (new window)

kerpal32: MorganFreeman: Agreed. I'm so sick of that stupid argument. There's no dogma, tenets, holy book, deity to worship, etc. It's like calling not believing in aliens a religion, and it's stupid.

it all depends on the level of fanaticism (and ignorance)of the individual. At what point does a "non-belief" become the equivalent of a "belief".
- when you insist you're right in a non-falsifiable debate from either side?
- when you discuss it in forums on the internet with other 'non-believers'?
- when you organize around it?
- when you have representation of your non-belief?
- when you seek to 'convert' (for lack of a better word) as many as possible to your philosophical view?
- when some people whom you share this philosophical view (non-belief, insistence in philosophical materialism and naturalism, etc.) want a symbol so they can identify themselves with other people who share the same non-belief?

yeah, you're right, it's a stupid argument. unless the person behind the non-belief is a fanatic (or evangelical) about it. Especially if they think they've got some moral imperative, or elitist mentality around it.

Why people deny that is equally stupid. Just admit they can be as annoying as any religious fanatic and move on. With all due respect and semantic bullshiat by certain people who can't admit that aside....

I agree, but the requirements posted are misleading. Do people organize around atheism? Sure, people with shared ideas of any sort organize around them. They discuss them on internet forums. But I don't know any that want a particular symbol or are seeking "converts" per se. It's just not something non-believers are known for doing. I like discussing this stuff, but I'm not particularly invested in other people walking away from it totally agreeing with me.

letrole: If you're an Atheist, then there is no moral difference between killing a man and blowing out a candle.

A troll by any other name would smell as rank...

detfrost1: Christchuckers

Really? Christ-chucker?

MorganFreeman: I like discussing this stuff, but I'm not particularly invested in other people walking away from it totally agreeing with me.

madblader: Militant Atheists is the term used by religious idiots when they can't win a debate against a smart Atheist.

Oh snap!

Hindmost: Why would an atheist pay money for an ad? I sure as fark wouldn't bother.

What about the tooth fairy? Also not real, but sure as shiat not paying to broadcast that to the commoners. wtf?

I'm not aware of anyone killing anyone else over the tooth fairy. To say nothing of the lesser trespasses on the individual's rights.

Cornelius Dribble: letrole: If you're an Atheist, then there is no moral difference between killing a man and blowing out a candle.

A troll by any other name would smell as rank...

What if one puts the man and the candle into the box with Schrodinger's Cat?

/fine line between science and homicide. Who would know?

Jeffrey.Rodriguez: I'm not aware of anyone killing anyone else over the tooth fairy.

You've never met small children.