comprehensive compilation of various religious debates available on the internet -

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=50

Mass debates.

Heh. I get it.

Mass debates.

Heh.

Lol

burn

"When you understand why you dismiss all other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours"

Kind of a sad title they use there, one that is completely ignorant of what Christians believe, and based on logic so poorly thought out that it could only be repeated by people who will believe anything.

Christians don't believe there are no other gods, we only choose to WORSHIP one God.
It's a result of confusing belief with worship and taking the concept of monotheism too literally.

Also Christians don't reject Islam for the same reason Muslims reject Christianity, to think they do shows a very deep fundemental flaw of the understanding of both religions.

To clarify, Christians believe in the literal existance of multiple supernatural beings that are worshipped by human beings. By every standard athiest hold, that's a god. We just don't choose to worship any of them but One.



So if that's the title, the standard of intelligance that this site chooses, I guess I have to say I hold their level of value quite low.

This is stupid and you're an idiot even when you are drunk and/or trolling.

with the exception of a group that literally worships satan this is obviously false. in fact i've never in my life heard
a christian make this excuse before. too many jager shots?

Wow, really? You are saying you believe that Ganesh and Krishna exist, you just choose not to worship them?

I am honestly baffled by this. Really?? We need to check what is in those cigars.

Saying we believe in more than one supernatural being doesn't mean we believe in all of them.

Satan is a supernatural being, with abilities that extend beyond natural law. By most definitions this would be a god, lower G.

If you are going to apply a silly standard that says any excuse that dismisses a religion is equal to any other excuse, add in the notion that all religions are of equal value and have no difference in definition, then you must also allow that simplistic stupidity is an answer to your simplistically stupid statement.



Here's another example. If a person asks us for directions to the Great Wall of China, we could give these answers;

A. Take a boat and launch from Chicago, sail north for 3 days then look to your left.

B. Take a rickshaw from San Diego and head south for 5 days, asking for a man named Pedro to give you a new rake.

C. Take an airplane to China, pay for a tour.

Now if you choose to not believe in a Great Wall, than you could apply that above statement here as you make fun of someone who answered C.

"When you understand why you dismiss all other possible directions, you will understand why I dismiss yours"

It would make you think you are smart, make you feel pride in your smartness, and allow you to pretend that you are right, all while making you look like blind followers of bad logic.

The only way this notion that Stephens penned and athiest flock too is accurate is if there are no religions that are correct. The minute you introduce the idea that one could be correct, you reveal the strawman argument and closed minded thinking that is required to make that statement.

so which gods of other religions (other than satan) do you think are actual lesser supernational beings, and why do you think those specific ones exist but others don't?

except people believe in different mutually exclusive religions for the exact same reasons. so it doesn't matter if one might happen to be right or not because nobody has any way to distinguish between the real one and the false.

So then you don't believe in Ganesh? If not, why not?

If you don't, you must be using some logic or thought to make that decision, and that is the point of that title you quoted.

For this point to be irrelevant, you would have to be someone who accepts all supernatural beliefs. If you dismiss any of them, then you are familiar with the rejection process.

I hold that you can't get to the Great Wall on a rickshaw heading south into Mexico, I do not have to grant this set of directions any weight just because someone calls it directions.

Let's not pretend that the above quote wasn't an attempt to pretend that there is some remote backdoor truth to the idea that disbelieving one religion means you have a better view point of how all religions are false.

No one is saying that all religions are true, except some wacko leftists, anymore than all directions lead you to a certain address. Pretending that your side doesn't think this is a 'slam dunk in your face Christians are ignorant group' statement is disengenious

To be honest I couldn't understand what you were getting at with the Great Wall thing, so I've given it another read and you seem to be saying something like:

"In situations where there is only one right answer, dismissing the wrong answers does not show the decider that there is no answer. "

Which I can agree with to some extent, but the problem is that each of these religions (or sets of directions) claims to be the right answer using very similar if not identical reasons. So if you heard all sets of directions there must have been something about the false ones that revealed themselves as false.

More importantly, once you take the stance that they are false you must have the same relationship with their claims, prophesies, sacred texts, etc. that I have with yours.

But again, IF one of those religions is right, and they are the real true religion, then this line of reasoning is of no value at all.

You are basing your arguement that the process of dismissing direction A is somehow an allowance to apply the exact same process to dismissing directions B and C.

You are holding to this notion that my dismissal of scientology because their own writings claim that they were discovered in a secret underground vault placed in earth hundreds of millions of years ago after an intergalactis battle somehow is the exact process with which you dismiss Christianity. If it is, then you are shallow in your dismissal.

I hold that the Bible is true, therefore a religion that claims things contrary to the Bible would be false.

You guys hold that all religions are false, therefore anything that is a religion must be false.

But what should I expect from a movement that also pretends a flying spaghetti monster is deserving of equal reflection as the Creator of the universe?

Strawman arguments don't support your positions, they reveal them to be as shallow as they really are.

you fail to grasp that to someone who doesn't believe in the bible it is no less ludicrous than the claims of scientology. suffering from tunnel vision there.

that's not your only reason for dismissing other religions. at least i hope not, because it would make
you definitionally crazy.



false. us guys hold that the pattern of evidence indicates that all religions are likely to be false. we are always
open to evidence that might indicate a religion is true if someone wants to present any.

The whole point of the FSM is that not all ideas are deserving of equal reflection.

If you are right, then you are right, yes. But your argument to show that you are right cannot start with the assumption that you are right.



The reasons why you dismiss Scientology are not shallow. I'm sure you noticed that there was insufficient evidence to support the claim that an extraterrestrial blew up a volcano full of souls which now make up human beings. There is nothing shallow about that reasoning at all.



Sure, again, if you start with the assumption that you are right then there is no discussion about these issues at all. We are talking about the process of deciding what is true, which must start from a position of not knowing, otherwise it is worthless.



Speaking of straw men...



But the FSM is the Creator of the Universe. Duh.

If you already know that all religions are false, than you have a point, because otherwise you are just showing bias while pretending you are openminded.

Call me crazy then





I'm sure saying this allows you guys to be so dismissive and pretend you are open minded, but it doesn't make it true.

Actually it is the exact opposite of that

I can see your point.





So unless you know the answer, you assume the answer is not true?

My bias is clear, I'm just trying to help you guys realize that yours is equally clear, and help you guys quit pretending that you're not as open minded as you tell yourselves.

Yes!

Until there is sufficient evidence to support that answer, you assume it is not true.

You can call it a bias, but it's really the only strategy that doesn't lead to madness. The alternative is to assume everything everyone says is true and spend all of your time trying to prove that there is no Shiva, Xenu, or Flying Saucers.

Really, so assuming your hypothosis is true and therefore merits research is crazy? Government grants are going to dry up I can tell you.

We assume things are true all the time and proceed with this assumption. I can agree that once presented with evidence that your hypothisis is not true a healthy person then declares it not true, but let's not make the 'We've done that with Christianity and you won't admit it's not true" statement pretending that it's true, cause it's not.

If someone says they think 'God must have created the universe because of the order, balance and physical laws that random chance doesn't adequately explain'....that's not the same as 'Haley Bop is a galatic taxicab, bring your own shoes.'

But the statement in question tries to make them equal, because it's a poorly thought out statement, which is the foundational headline for the site linked in the OP.

It would surely be bad science. You can decide your hypothesis is worth testing but in fact you always set up your experiment assuming that your hypothesis is not true, and looking for evidence that moves you from this position.



I disagree, they are both hypotheses which cannot be tested -- they cannot be falsified by evidence.

And why is 'Hale Bop is a taxicab' any less absurd than 'the carpenter died and came back to life three days later'.

See, it's like a guy from Boston with a lisp: "mass... debates".

Heh.

I get it.

Also, all this "assuming" is totally undermines the whole venture of finding out what the truth is.

The first definition I come across of this word is "take to be the case or to be true; accept without verification or proof".

we make probability judgements based on evidence.



the statement you're referring to is NOT meant to compare beliefs such as in a generic universal designer of some kind based (right or wrong) on one's objective interpretation of empirical evidence. that's not a religion in the sense that is meant. it IS meant to refer to specific human religious belief such as fundamentalist christianity - faith-based belief that the bible is literal history/god's word etc. those are two entirely different things.

the former is worthy of debate, while to a non-believer the later certainly is no different than belief in galactic taxi cabs.

While you entertain the notion that there is no distinctions between the two, we can't really have a discussion about the latter now can we?

I think you are trying to pretend you are willing to entertain the notion that a Creator's existance is somethign to consider. I would argue that you are not even remotely willing to allow for this possibility. Maybe .00000001%, but that puts you squarely in the FSM camp of closed minded people.

Trying to micro manage the notions of this catchphrase to give it validity only makes you look defensive. Which I know is your new thing to pretend, that your just defending yourself, while going to internet places to tell people they are wrong about their worldview.

We all know what this phrase is supposed to mean, you all have used it to pretend you are righteous in your dismissal of all things supernatural, and it is based on poorly thought out conclussions with predetermined beliefs, not logic or common sense. But that's atheism in a nutshell in my mind.

you cannot point to a single post of mine in this entire forum that would back that up. this whole rant of yours is just a straw man to avoid the real point of the "phrase" (which is that fundamentalist christian beliefs are no less silly and illogical than any other human religious belief).




and still more ranting about straw men to avoid the issue. yawn.

Why not? And how are they different? Just that you believe in one and not the other, is that what you mean?

They are different for many reasons, pretending that any random phrase is equal in validity to the Bible and the Judeo-Christian faith makes me think you either want to be difficult for being difficults sake, which is my deal, or you are playing with me, which is also my deal.

you cannot point to a single post of mine in this entire forum that would back that up. this whole rant of yours is just a straw man to avoid the real point of the "phrase" (which is that fundamentalist christian beliefs are no less silly and illogical than any other human religious belief).







That was the first hit with search function, I guess I could look more but that one was so easy that I thought I would leave it at that.

Here's is where you pretend your qualifier gets you off the hook.

I'm not trying to be difficult, but I suspect we may have a misunderstanding. ( Also, you seem somewhat less jovial than normal so I hope everything is OK with you? )

"Any random phrase is equal in validity to the JC faith"

Of course you know that I think many statements are plenty more valid that those of the JC faith since I believe most of the JC claims to be false. But my point is that any statement is on the same ground in terms of requiring evidence to accept it. No statement is privileged in this regard.

And in the case of a claim that defies the rest of the evidence about nature, even more evidence is needed. Really what is the difference between a UFO cult's supernatural claims and those of Christianity? Just that more people believe Christianity? There are older books claiming it to be true? From the point of view of evidence why are the supernatural claims made by Christianity in any better position than those made by Ghost Hunters?

To claim that a wafer changes in your mouth into the body of a man dead for 2000 years is a pretty extreme supernatural claim, which to me calls for the same amount of skepticism as the claim about a UFO anal probing. And both are equally gross, too.

P.S. I know transubstantiation is not necessarily a claim you believe in, but that is why I picked it.

obviously the qualifyer is there because it's what i meant. it's not an excuse to "get me off the hook" for whatever kind of irrational bias you're insinuating.

your smoke screen isn't working. try again.

Yea..long two weeks of work..18 hour days etc. but glad for the work. Sorry if grumpy...I'm getting too old etc...

Making the case that you find things to disagree with about JC faith is different in my mind than saying all things are equal when talking about metaphysical things.

You can make the arguments for individual items in the JC faith, but to group the whole faith as equal to any phrase that contains any religious tag places this statment in the catagory of simplistic to the point of being ridiculous.

says you

Remember the good old days when you weren't embarrassed to admit you have a goal of seeing all religions gone and living in a world where there were no religions?

instead of trying to make this about my motives you should be at least attempting to argue that christianity IS distinguished from other
religious belief. that's the only possible way you could counter the argument, and it's what a loyal apologist would be doing right now

It's already been proven many times that Christianity is different from other religions, why should I repeat what has already been proven?

i meant distinguished by supporting objective evidence.

You guys are so ridiculous.

How many times can you crush an argument, point out its stupidity (nicely for some reason), see the same stupid ass fallacies phrased differently, on different points, over and over and over and over... and still continue on as if you are having some sort of discussion?

The only good point BG makes in this entire section of the forum is that people will suffer fools kindly.

Unfortunately it is tangential and accidental, as he doesn't mean to make this point. He just happens to do so by being suffered.

He makes some good jokes occasionally, elsewhere, and I think you are letting that affect how you treat his ignorance here.

His red herring, missing the point, argument from authority, begging the question, pitifully misdirected high-horse bullshit cult-speak should be treated as the superstitious fucktardism that it really is -- regardless of how cool you otherwise think the guy may be -- whenever it presents itself.

Stop legitimizing compartmentalized stupidity by being amiable with it.

:-/

The FSM is a parody. It's supposed to be clear that it is stupid.

The Pastafarians perceive the argument for teaching intelligent design in biology is that teaching should be balanced among the viewpoints; to do otherwise is biased. So they invent the FSM (which is absurd) to demonstrate that educators have to make a choice on which viewpoints to present. Giving equal weight to every viewpoint is silly and impossible.

Yes but BG thinks the parody fails because all these beliefs are clearly not equal, so its easy to choose. He thinks Christianity is a much better idea than FSM, presumably because his imaginary supernatural creature is not made of noodles.

But He did make noodles.

Or the ability to enjoy them, which is not an evolved trait as is proven by common sense.