Theists Need Love Too(moved to Atheist vs. Theist)
Offline So, I understand a lot of folks here are impatient with theists, especially fundies. I hear ya, but if you didn't grow up in that environment, it can be hard to comprehend.
My family of origin came from SERIOUSLY messed up families--childhoods that I'm learning were *totally fuct*. Fundyism was a crutch--they could have run to drugs, other religions, etc. So, in reality, they are mentally ill, just not organic brain trauma like schizophrenia, etc. And since lots of people would fall into that category (loss of spouse, family, need more meaning), why not tolerate them? We don't mock people w/ schizophrenia, right?
I understand the whole schools/politics etc agenda fundies have and that whole issue, but are they really gonna take over? doubt it.
However, yeah, if a JW comes to my door, expect a slam in yer face. Hare Krishna approaches? You'll be lucky to not get yelled at.
Thoughts?
EDUCATION! EDUCATION! EDUCATION!
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Abstinence is unnatural, and always doomed to failure as a policy. It can only work on some individuals. Never a society. Christians have consistantly failed even at getting their own followers to abstain from sex before marriage. They are in no position to be trusted to convey such a message any further than their own congregation.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Exactly. There are theists who know how to leave their beliefs out of public law and public policy and understand the concept of neutrality. I do get sick of people accusing all atheists of wanting to create some sort of Hitler type facist state.
The entire reason for "Jefferson's wall" was to do just that. Prevent any religion from corupting government and ergo society.
Our constitution does not stem from any holy book or atheism for that matter. It stems from empathy, the concept that the individual should be free from goverment corsion or goverment threat to submit to a religion and free to think for one's self.
Societies problems stem from lack of focus. Dems and repubs spend way to much playing morality police by pandering to the Christian label that real problems such as hunger, desease, disaster, education and crime dont get a priority. Insted, they seem to care more about protecting ONLY Christianity.
Maybe if they'd stop worrying about what I believe and focus on problem solving without slapping a religious label on it, maybe something could get done.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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To add to what I said earlier, I do not divide my worldview in terms of supernatural and natural. You seem to think I have, but that is not the case. I see the world as, things discovered and things yet undiscovered. However, unlike you, I have decided to keep the God card on the table. You have taken it off.
I do not think suggesting that humans have a soul is a "supernatural explanation". It is a hypothesis that cannot currently be proven by the scientific method. (Has Darwin's theory been sufficiently proven via the scientific method?) It is a hypothesis supported by my own observations and others. (Isn't that how Darwin developed his theory...by observing?)
Perhaps because the deck was stacked with god cards? In many good card games, cards are removed from circulation because of problems they create within the game.
Then you could provide a 'natural' explanation for this idea of a 'soul'?
Yet again the misunderstanding behind theory and hypothesis rears its head. I'll try this time. Theories have facts supporting them, hypotheses are speculative and are supposed to give ways that they can be tested. The idea of a 'soul' is nothing more than a construct within imagination since no means are given for its experimentation/testability other than dying.
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I admit that the analogy I used was not the best one, but it was late... Anyways, condoms are not a short-term solution, they are as foolproof as you can get when they are A)used every time during sex, and B)are used properly(i.e. make sure they're put on right, dont reuse them, etc.) No, not 100% foolproof, but 97% is better than the horrid track record monogamy and abstinence have had since the beginning of time. As the saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting different results.
Hope you're feeling OK.
"The powerful have always created false images of the weak."
I understand the absolute nature of abstinence.
Exactly my point, humans are animals and as such we have the same evolutionary drive to procreate as much of the animal kingdom. One difference being we have a conscious mind. This does NOT mean the natural drive to procreate doesn't override our ability to know "apparent" right from wrong or cause humans to take on unnessacary risks. It is part of nature and you can observe many species risking their lives to procreate and many actually die in the process of trying to achieve this task.
I am surprised you concede this but thank you.
Many christians like to call the aids epidemic a curse for such behaviors. That is unfair because when their loved ones get cancer, heart disease, or other potentially deadly diseases it is not inferred that those are some kind of punishment for the loved ones sinful acts.
If a christian charity truly wants to help the people in a starving, disease ridden country they need to put aside dogma and work towards saving lives. This is the group who claims, "every life is precious". When the disease and starvation have been mostly overcome then there will be time to work on converting non-believers and teaching dogma.
I'm not an evolutionist. What a surprise, right?
But, I believe that Common Design would still explain this oddity, and I agree that you are right in this instance. We just used different methods to arrive at the same conclusion.
I'm not unreasonable. Sheesh.
When something happens that is terrible, I don't ever think of it as a curse or a punishment from God. Some Christians do, and that is very unfortunate. I consider things like that tests from God, giving us an opportunity to be salt and light to the world, or to look like holier-than-thou assholes. I hope I'm not coming off as the second option, since I strive so hard for the first option. But if I am coming off in a bad way, it is best I know now so I can change--quickly!--for the better.
Finally, we have achieved common ground!
I will then state that God used you teach me that. You won't believe that. But, no amount of unbelief will make it fiction. And thus starts a new debate...
(BTW - I'm not trying to start a new debate; I'm just trying to be funny. My sense of humor is really quirky sometimes.)
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei
I got the humor, that was funny!
Your honesty is appreciated.
In response to the OP, I think that they have ideas that are dangerous to the future of mankind, and this must be opposed. Not with love, or indeed hate, but solid, persistant and never-ending reason.
I dislike intensely the preconception of the religious that the bible is fully correct and that they are absolutely right. This leads to telling people in Africa that using condoms will send you to hell. This imposes a moral standard coming from a stone-age text which a growing number of people do not agree with. To do this to these people means that the religious are killing them just as surely as putting a shotgun to their heads and pulling the trigger.
The preconception that a soul exists and enters a zygote at the moment of conception is an idea that grows more and more ridiculous with the march of time. By denying people treatments that would undoubtedly arise from experimentation on these non-sentient entites, the religious are killing people just as surely as the debilitating conditions that are eating their bones, thier muscles and their minds.
Why must religion be held as infallable and true? To the extent that everyone's political life is dictated by it?
No, religion (not even necessarily theism) must be fought, but fought with reason. For every mind that is taken by religion, many must be saved by that reason.
Religion is the ultimate con-job. It cons the conned, and it cons the conner.
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Abstaining from sex means that you are NOT exposing yourself to potential infection, and that NO pregnancy could possibly occur. Teaching abstinance and practicing abstinence are, admittedly, much different animals. The failures you mention are humans being humans and having sex regardless of the risk. Inability to practice self-control is one of the hallmarks of our species. That doesn't mean that the system is flawed, it just means that people are.
The abstinence only policies are only failures in relation to, y'know, the real world. The best solution is to “stay the course” and hope for a sweeping and inexplicable change in the human sex drive. GOOD SOLUTION.
That isn't a revelation; the Bible teaches that as much as history teaches that, and my personal experience has DEFINATELY taught me that.
MAKES PERFECT SENSE.
I'm not comfortable at all with the idea of condemning anyone to death.
Unless the choice is between a living, thinking, feeling individual and a cluster of cells 1000x fewer than those in the brain of a housefly. Or those darn darkies who can't keep their hands off each other in plague-riddled Africa.
People, both in this thread and in general, think that Christians want to laugh our asses off while the rest of you burn in hell. This couldn't be farther from the truth, though I much doubt that you're actually going to believe me. I think that hell is the worst fate for anyone to suffer, and I don't want to see anyone suffer it that doesn't have to.
Who cares?
I'm here as an apologist hoping that my thoughts make enough sense to you so that you're willing to make the commitment to Christ, and avoid that fate.
You smell like french fries.
As a Christian, I'm supposed to be salt (preservative) and light (guide) to the world. Not judge, jury, and executioner as so many atheists paint us.
That's a glittering generalization. You don't speak for the majority, just your bearded self.
One would have supply an entirely new moral code for abstinence to work. Abstinence until marriage, then remain faithful after marriage. In the long run, those ideas are much better than just handing them condoms; although I will concede that that would be a good short term solution.
Oh, you concede that something proven to work works, as opposed to your solution that would require the sweeping inexplicable change we talked about earlier. What a load off my mind.
Yeah, I have thoughts on that, too. I doubt that we (theists) are ever going to take over politics. In fact, despite our fights to prevent it, I foresee[...]
Why do I believe this? Bible prophecy friends.
What the hell are you talking about? Refer to the second post in the thread. Our “lively” debate on stem cell research began because I complained about the inordinate dogma-addled influence of religious nincompoops on the policies we all must endure in the real world. Real research that may bear cures for devastating diseases is being hobbled in the US exclusively because of a modern interpretation of the definition of “life at conception” as outlined by iron age texts written in the twilight of fearful ignorance.
Real people in AIDS-devastated areas of Africa are offered unworkable solutions, having nothing to do with the real world, by Christian ideologues. While you blather on about how the solution is simply to fundamentally change the way everything works, people are losing their immune systems to the disease. Not spirits, not fairy dust, not swamp gas, not villainous odors, not demonic possession, just a terrible disease. And we know this because of real horse-before-the-cart science. When there is finally a cure, it will be because of science and nature. All you guys can do is trail behind the progress of the secular world, and try not to become completely irrelevant to people who know better too fast.
Biblical prophecy? Sure, if you don't mind making more unwarranted assumptions. Firstly, your persecution/marginalization premise falls apart when you consider the level of hatred trained on atheists in comparison with Christians, or worse, the aforementioned political power exercised by fundies that's blocking good research and getting pseudo-scientific camouflaged religious ideology foisted on students. Secondly, there's nothing to suggest a wain in the popularity of your religion has significance beyond the obvious. For example, the ire of parents whose kids have been indoctrinated with ID, kids molested by priests, or people who suffer from, or know someone suffering from, the diseases stem cell research hopes to address. Every generation of religious nuts thinks the “end times” are near. They have always been, and will continue to be, blithering idiots with nothing to contribute to the public discourse.
So much bitterness toward religion. Your anti-testimony must be fascinating reading. The fact that this will be my only answer to you is undoubtedly infuriating. I hope you find whatever it is you're really searching for. God bless you!
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei
Why are people so opposed to practicing self-control and discipline? It annoys the manager in me, AND the apologist in me.
I know that's supposed to be an insult.
Let the record show that YOU said that, not me.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster. He is angered and demands a meatball sacrifice.
No sarcastic remark is going to both be funny and capture the stupidity of your remark, while simultaneously conveying the immaturity it exudes and the intelligence it lacks. So I'm not going to bother.
In what regard? Christians ARE supposed to be salt and light, and we're NOT supposed to judge. I speak for what should be the case.
I'm glad to know that I have enabled you to put what little brainpower you have to other uses than worrying about my opinions.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei
>Moderator Hat ON
Hi, I just wanted to step in here and remind everyone to try to keep the conversation civil. From first-hand experience, I know how difficult that can be. After all, we're talking about one of the big three hot-button issues. FSM knows I've been miffed during some of these discussions.
Even so, let's try to refrain from personal attacks during this debate.
>Moderator Hat OFF
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I don't think most people are against self control and discipline. The problem is that your religion judges others on it's own standards. You can't walk into a third world country and just tell them to stop having sex. They have a fraction of the knowledge our society does. A fraction of the social progress. You're expecting them to act like you, and that's an unreasonable expectation. You don't just flip a switch and a society changes. It takes time. Usually generations of it. And every society forms due to it's internal progress, not external progress. Every example of an attempt to bring civillization to the uncivillized has met with not only failure, but catastrophic failure. And the churches never learn. Neither do the super powers to be fair(US, Russia, Britain, Rome, Etc), but that's another debate.
Heh heh heh.
This is the biggest problem with moderate theists. Instead of preaching the real message to your own congregations that don't recognize it, you preach it to us, who don't believe it because your congregations don't believe it and follow it.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
I am a proponent of self-control and discipline. Where we might differ is what things we should control ourselves against. Sex with multiple partners is not wrong in itself. The fact that your belief-system disagrees with this is irrelevent; you cannot expect other people to follow your standards if they don't agree with them.
Thus, by promoting abstinence-only education in an area with high rates of HIV, you are saying that they have to change their culture rather than giving them an option which would allow them to live as they want while protecting the vast majority of them from infection.
Your rules, which come from your book, are not my rules. I do not accept your rules, and you have no standard that I accept that allows your rules to over-rule my rules. So please live your life in control the way you want to and the way you believe is right. I, being a polyamorous person who has had many sexual partners in my life am comfortable living this way while practicing safe-sex. If Africa were taught what I was taught, they would live their lives the way they want (call it sin if you want, I call it fun), and the rates of infection would significantly drop.
Shaun
I'll fight for a person's right to speak so long as that person will, in return, fight to allow me to challenge their opinions and ridicule them as the content of their ideas merit.
In what regard? Christians ARE supposed to be salt and light, and we're NOT supposed to judge. I speak for what should be the case. [...]
Why are people so opposed to practicing self-control and discipline? It annoys the manager in me, AND the apologist in me.
Well, golly, Cory, there are a lot of SHOULD BEs and SUPPOSED TOs in your view of the world. I guess I'm a little more interested in address WHAT IS using WHAT WORKS or has a snowball's chance in “hell” of working. Sorry, unlike you I don't have the patience to keep banging my head against the wall, rationalizing why questionable solutions consistently fail, hanging onto a benighted ideology as I wait until everything fundamentally changes to suit a dogmatic world view.
I'm glad to know that I have enabled you to put what little brainpower you have to other uses than worrying about my opinions.
At least now that you're being hostile it's something honest -- as opposed to that, “Gosh, I heard life is defined by scientists as... there's a school of thought that says...” insincere hypothetical nonsense. You won't stand up and just say you don't want stem cell research because you believe research based on blastocysts destined for the dustbin is murder. Instead, you try to muddy the waters, and pretend you're bringing up these tough questions based on scientific views; but they're not, they're just shambling adaptations of dogma that should have been disregarded ages ago. If you would have just SAID WHAT YOU MEANT I wouldn't have lost every last bit of respect for you.
So much bitterness toward religion. Your anti-testimony must be fascinating reading. The fact that this will be my only answer to you is undoubtedly infuriating. I hope you find whatever it is you're really searching for.
It must be hard for you to conceptualize, but I'm not searching for anything, Cory. I just want dogmatists to either come up with a reasonable explanation of why their views should affect us all, or to step out of the way of secular progress.
God bless you!
Burma shave.
How can one possibly equate sex outside of marriage with prostitution? And besides that...what about sex within marriage? Lets just say one partner has HIV, but has never been tested...hence, said HIV spreads to partner 2...the couple have children together...and so on and so forth. EDUCATION is the key to fighting the disease, not ministering. The proof is in the pudding. Look at the US. Look at the rate of teenage pregnancy. Where they not "taught" abstinence? It doesn't work! We're animals. There's no way around it. Our hormones scream "MATE!"
Science seeks naturalistic explanations for phenomena. Supernatural explanations cannot be falsified, or tested properly - therefore, they are not science. Whether you like it or not, there exists a schism between naturalism (what is real, what can be observed in and of itself, what can be tested and falsified) and the supernatural (what is make believe, based on ancient, incomplete knowledge of the cosmos, or at best an ignorant inferrence - i.e. "Wow, that was weird and I can't explain it. This must be evidence of a soul created by the baby Jesus that was inserted into my zygote at the moment of conception."
If you want to believe that God made a soul for you, you are totally free to do so - but that is not science - its not even a good inferrence and it is intellectually dishonest to say that the construct of the soul is not supernatural. We have a mind that is the product of natural and material process in our brains ... I suggest you start using yours ...
Also, I have taken God off the table for many reasons. The first is the same reason you've taken Baal, Zeus, Mithras, Osiris, the Great JuJu, Vishnu, Wotan and Allah - there is no evidence that gods exists. But I also look for naturalistic explanations for the the same reason theists who actually respect science do - envoking God explains nothing.
Let's look at two phenomena: lightning and the behavior of an ant. You kow lightning doesn't come from God - sure, to you, God made everything in the whole unvierse so at the very very very beginning, yes, God is responsible for lightning ... but the bolt of lightning that I heard 35 minutes ago is the result of a natural event, positive and negative charges in the clouds rubbing together and creating electricity, etc. Envoking God can't tell us how it happened. go ahead, ask god why an ant crawls up a blade of grass, falls off and does it all over again, for days on end ... I could say, "God's doing that ..." but that wouldn't explain that actually there is a tiny parasite in the ants brain that needs to get in to the stomach of a goat, so its making the ant climb the blade of grass over and over again so a sheep might come by and eat the blade of grass with the ant on it ...
Even theistic evolutionists understand this.
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