patrick.net

Dan8267 says

For example, if a hundred people all independently reach the same conclusion to the question, "What is the one billionth prime number?", then they are probably right.

Dan! You are smarter than that. You don't need a hundred people with their "conclusion". You don't need even one. You just run a computer program that gives you your "one billionth prime number?" Just quickly wrote one, most of the time spent on cleaning my disk space. Run it to 300,000th, which is 4,256,249. Why would i need one hundred people for this?

Dan8267 says

all gods including the Christian one was made up by assholes trying to gain power, wealth, and pussy.

Yea, sure, and Dan has a proof of this scientific statement.

Dan8267 says

Atheism is simply a conclusion, not a premise like religion. If evidence or reasoning pointed to a god or multiple gods or a giant blue penis creating the universe, then the rational person would accept that.

Stop playing an idiot! Your "rational person" would simply call it a delusion. Would too many people witness such an evidence, he would try to isolate them, if necessary torture them to tell they've seen nothing, and kill those who would not agree.

Dan8267 says

leo707 says

michaelsch says

I wanted to completely exit this BS discussion

OK, um...

...thanks for letting us know?

I assure you that he's not the only one who wants him to completely exit this discussion.

Could not help but "liking" this. It's hard to define Dan's goals better.

Or maybe this is also good:

Dan8267 says

Bridge building is engineering based on science, but not science itself. Same for morality. Yes, bridge building does yield interesting physics, but it's still mechanical engineering. Same for morality. It's based on biology and game theory, but is a kind of engineering, most closely related to software engineering.

That's a very important difference between Dan and people like Sam Harris. Unlike them, Dan has no interest in science but only in social engineering.

michaelsch says

The next step would be discovering that kids being killed suffer less than adults, so it's less immoral to kill kids.

I don't know if that would be the next step or not, but sure--testing this is an eventuality in your slippery slope. However, I doubt that one could come to a measurable conclusion that killing kids suffer less than adults.

And of course you are first assuming that it is moral to kill adults and kids to satisfy this curiosity.michaelsch says

The most interesting in the article is the author's need to have a scientific universal foundation for morality.

Well, as he wrote:
"...someone else will be free to say that morality depends upon worshipping the gods of the Aztecs and that well-being entails always having a terrified person locked in one's basement, waiting to be sacrificed."

If moral "truths" are to be had I would prefer them from a more objective source. Morality based on the religion du jour (or interpretation du jour) is much less preferable to me. Just about anything can be justified through religion.

Hitler did not murder male sodomites BECAUSE they were male sodomites, he murdered them DESPITE the fact they were male sodomites, unless they were fem-male sodomites. THe fem-male sodomites were looked upon as less than human. The masculine sodomite was revered by the Nazi.

The Jews that survived the camps left a record too. Shall we trust their records of Hitler and Nazi behavior?

You guys are pretty smart. How much easier can it be then to create a law against an activity that is unseen, and then make it a habit to collect and murder those accused of that activity? The Nazi used fake laws to round up and murder lots of Hebrews. If getting the Germans to accept it by wrapping it with anti-sodomite titles, that was just the order of the day. The Nazi were pro-male/male sodomites. And Pro is an operative word here.

michaelsch says

Stop playing an idiot! Your "rational person" would simply call it a delusion. Would too many people witness such an evidence, he would try to isolate them, if necessary torture them to tell they've seen nothing, and kill those who would not agree.

Hmmmm...interesting...you mean torture and kill people who disagree? Like during the inquisition?

I think that you may be misunderstanding evidence (Hint: your belief is not evidence). If an atheist had access to actual real evidence that a god or gods exist, what motivation is there to cover it up?

You are making a very basic mistake often made by a believer when thinking of an atheist mentality. You seem to be assuming that the atheist actually secretly believes in god, but is working for the devil and will do anything to undermine the work of gods.

I am assuming you are Christian, right? Lets do a little thought experiment practicing empathy. Pretend for a moment that you acquire irrefutable evidence that Hindu gods are real and are the only gods in existence. You know that your fortune in this life, and your experience after death is directly correlated with your worship, and daily rituals desired by these gods. What do you do?

1. Deny the existence of the Hindu pantheon, torture and kill followers of gods you know to be real?

2. Accept the truth and convert?

Bap33 says

If getting the Germans to accept it by wrapping it with anti-sodomite titles, that was just the order of the day.

Right, I am glad we finally agree the Nazi's official platform was anti-gay.

It is just a bonus that we also seem to agree that an anti-gay platform is a good political tool to get people to go along with the most abhorrent of human behaviors.

An anti-gay platform got you on board with the idea of a Mormon president, right? How abhorrent is the idea of a Mormon president to you?

But of course, wanting children to go to church, and have certain ideas drummed in their head about Jewish Carpenters and the beliefs of Bronze Age Goatroasters isn't social engineering, right?

LOL.

If this is immoral, then I'm for immorality

bdrasin says

If this is immoral, then I'm for immorality

Actually that example illustrates an obvious flaw in Bap's pseudo-morality. Dan is better with the vocabulary of logical arguments, and I think he would call it "reductio ad absurdum." That is, if a purported "moral" rule leads to a conclusion that the video is immoral, then the purported rule itself is obviously absurd and wrong.

If watchin' girls lovin' girls is wrong, I don't want to be right!

http://www.youtube.com/embed/ExG7Ut6DJ1E

leo707 says

Right, I am glad we finally agree the Nazi's official platform was anti-gay.

no, their platform was domination of mankind, extermination of Hebrews, and Obama/Holder style rule. They mounted other males, sometime for fun, sometime by force. THat is a historical FACT. And they did this as an expression of what made them a NAZI. Like, a Christian would be seen going to church, praying, staying sober, and not cussing out the milkman. The actions of both have certian expectations. For Nazi, it was male/male coupling. If you suggest that is not "gay behavior", then you need to give me the correct vocabulary to use.

Bap33 says

their platform was domination of mankind, extermination of Hebrews...

Right, but to sell this platform they "wrapped" it in anti-gay, just like Romney, the GOP and right-wing christian groups do to sell their platforms.

Just as you said:
Bap33 says

If getting the Germans to accept [Nazism] by wrapping it with anti-sodomite titles, that was just the order of the day.

Bap33 says

They mounted other males, sometime for fun, sometime by force. THat is a historical FACT.

*Ahem*, bap...I hate to be the one to break it to you, but those "historical records" you are getting all hot-and-bothered watching might not be as "historical" as you think. Hint: they did not have color video in the 1930-40s, and Nazis did not wear tear-a-way uniforms.

Bap33 says

Like, a Christian would be seen going to church, praying, staying sober, and not cussing out the milkman. The actions of both have certian expectations. For Nazi, it was male/male coupling.

So, you are saying that by the very nature of being a Nazi fills one with an irresistible desire for man-on-man action?

Leo, you are arguing with a troll who is a total waste of time. He knows nothing about morality and can only repeat (and attempt to validate) the doctrine that has imprisoned him. Just like Larry Craig, he has sacrificed the life to which he was naturally inclined, upon the altar of a false doctrine, and having made that wasteful sacrifice he cannot go back. You might as well argue with the ghost of Michael Jackson, who at least had talent, or a bull that has been burnt on an altar.

But color video did exist in the 1930s, see The Wizard of Oz (1939). [Corrected - see below - I hadn't distinguished between video and film.]

As for the troll, the only solution is to deny recognition. Having given him enough rope to make a fool of himself, which he has amply done, there is nothing further to see here.

After numerous attempts to move the conversation from male gay sex to female gay sex, I can help but wonder what baps fascination is with male gay sex. Let's focus on female gay sex,,,id like to hear what the bloody hell is wrong with two hot, naked, sweaty and ready, dripping wet females getting it on with eachother in the privacy of my bedroom?

...i stand corrected and yield to errc, who has pointed out that there may be something further to see here.

curious2 says

Leo, you are arguing with a troll who is a total waste of time...Having given him enough rope to make a fool of himself, which he has amply done, there is nothing further to see here.

*Sigh* Yeah, you are right. OK, no more rope.

curious2 says

But color video did exist in the 1930s, see The Wizard of Oz (1939).

The Wizard of Oz (1939) was shot on film. Video technology was not invented until the 1950's. I probably should not have said color at all, just video.

michaelsch says

Dan! You are smarter than that. You don't need a hundred people with their "conclusion". You don't need even one. You just run a computer program that gives you your "one billionth prime number?"

You just completely missed the point of what I was saying. Hint: I wasn't talking about prime numbers.

michaelsch says

Dan8267 says

all gods including the Christian one was made up by assholes trying to gain power, wealth, and pussy.

Yea, sure, and Dan has a proof of this scientific statement.

Jesus was not a white guy. He was brown.

Jesus was not born on December 25th. This myth was created to trick pagans who celebrated the Winter Solstice into replacing it with Christmas.

Jesus was not born of a virgin. That myth was stolen from many pagan god-virgin-offspring myths.

The Christian patron saints were created as substitutes for Roman house gods.

There is as much reason to believe in Christian mythology as to believe in Islamic mythology or Hindu mythology. Anyone who says that one set of myths is more likely true than another is simply prejudice. They are all equally ridiculous and unsupported.

michaelsch says

Stop playing an idiot! Your "rational person" would simply call it a delusion. Would too many people witness such an evidence, he would try to isolate them, if necessary torture them to tell they've seen nothing, and kill those who would not agree.

Once again, you entirely miss the point. And it wasn't a hard point to understand.

michaelsch says

That's a very important difference between Dan and people like Sam Harris. Unlike them, Dan has no interest in science but only in social engineering.

Dude, you have no idea what interests I have, and your comments prove it. I suspect that Sam Harris and I agree on most things and that you disagree with most of what he believes.

leo707 says

You seem to be assuming that the atheist actually secretly believes in god, but is working for the devil and will do anything to undermine the work of gods.

Such a person would, of course, not be an atheist, but rather a monotheist.

liberal intollerance rears it's ugly head again .... this time including name calling and sexual diviant references. Color me suprized.

Bap33 says

liberal intollerance rears it's ugly head again .... this time including name calling and sexual diviant references. Color me suprized.

Perhaps you would find this thread more enlightening:
http://patrick.net/?p=1219196

leo707 says

So, you are saying that by the very nature of being a Nazi fills one with an irresistible desire for man-on-man action?

Leo, there are times when I think Bap is beyond hope. You, I, and the rest of the world sees this

And Bap sees this

A person using that kind of filtered view on history cannot be persuaded with facts.

Bap33 says

liberal intollerance rears it's ugly head again .... this time including name calling and sexual diviant references. Color me suprized.

Sorry, mom, didn't mean to offend you,,,,but you better not be calling me liberal or intollerant,,,,thems is fighting words.

Back to the matter at hand, what is wrong with two consenting, smoking hot, dripping wet females having their way with one another in the privacy of my bedroom? Try not to think about male+male gay butt sex coupling, because I agree with you, that sounds pretty gross. Let's focus on the other side of homosexuality. I'm interested to know what's so wrong with something that just feels so right?

Because if we were to attribute something to Gods work, id top the list with the beauty of a woman. Now times it by two and parlay it with multiple squirting orgasms, biting, clawing, moaning and licking,,,,,

Just to put the whole gay Nazi thing to rest, if anyone believes that crap, just read The History of the Gay Male and Lesbian Experience during World War II. There's a reason why the pink triangle is a symbol of the gay rights movement today. It's origins are much uglier.

I find that pretty girls kissing and doing stuff to each other is amazing. Like I can't stop watching and at that moment everything in the world is good and right.

I also find that when two men have sex with each other, one or the other is gonna wind up with a stinky pee pee.

That is all.

dodgerfanjohn says

I find that pretty girls kissing and doing stuff to each other is amazing. Like I can't stop watching and at that moment everything in the world is good and right.

I also find that when two men have sex with each other, one or the other is gonna wind up with a stinky pee pee.

That is all.

Oh, I'm right there with you. But I don't pretend my own tastes in "yummy" vs "ick" is the difference between moral and immoral.

There is something wholly unnatural about being turned off by hot lesbian sex, no?

Dan8267 says

Jesus was not a white guy. He was brown.

Jesus was not born on December 25th. This myth was created to trick pagans who celebrated the Winter Solstice into replacing it with Christmas.

Jesus was not born of a virgin. That myth was stolen from many pagan god-virgin-offspring myths.

I agreed with most of what you said within this thread, but when someone tries to convince others that they know so much about the details of Jesus, I need to second guess everything I've agreed with up to now, lol.

BayArea says

so much about the details....

The color surprised me too. There isn't proof of actual human existence, and there is considerable evidence against, so where did the color come from?

BayArea says

I agreed with most of what you said within this thread, but when someone tries to convince others that they know so much about the details of Jesus, I need to second guess everything I've agreed with up to now, lol.

There's nothing I've said that can't be confirmed with a simple Google search. Feel free to search for things like:

When was Jesus born?
Christmas and the Winter Solstice
pagan virgin birth myths

Just make sure to skip over Wikipedia crap.

As for why I know so much about Christian history despite being an atheist, I went to Christian schools for the first 18 years of my life and had to study that shit in great detail. There is no more boring course in the world than Church History.

errc says

After numerous attempts to move the conversation from male gay sex to female gay sex, I can help but wonder what baps fascination is with male gay sex. Let's focus on female gay sex,,,id like to hear what the bloody hell is wrong with two hot, naked, sweaty and ready, dripping wet females getting it on with eachother in the privacy of my bedroom?

The only thing that could be wrong with this is not being in the middle ;)

curious2 says

BayArea says

so much about the details....

The color surprised me too. There isn't proof of actual human existence, and there is considerable evidence against, so where did the color come from?

None of those comments surprised me. Yes, there is no proof of actual human existence, but! if he did exist then he was most likely brown. Just like everyone else from the area at that time.

It is widely known that the "true" birth date of Jesus is not in December, and the Christmas celebration is pagan in origin. It is one of the reasons that Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Christmas.

Yes, the virgin birth is a common myth, and if Jesus was an actual person he was not born of a virgin.

I would not call any of Dan's comments "details", but rather assumptions based on general knowledge of middle eastern heritage 2000 years ago, origins of Christian holidays, and biology.

BayArea says

I agreed with most of what you said within this thread, but when someone tries to convince others that they know so much about the details of Jesus, I need to second guess everything I've agreed with up to now, lol.

All our sources for Jesus are not contemporaneous with his life, have biased authorship, and come from outside Palestine. Even the author's names are uncertain; the earliest Gospels do not say "Gospel by Mark", the are unsigned and remain unsigned for almost a century after the crucifixion. It's more likely that they are simply several Gospel narratives based on oral tradition and given names to differentiate them.

If we apply the same standards that we do for Caesar, Hercules, Justinian, Zeus, Romulus and Remus, Plato and Pythagoras, then Jesus is likely a mostly mythological figure. Whereas Caesar has authorship of books, reports by his friends AND his enemies, coinage, and tons of inscriptions, monuments, etc.

In fact the coinage of Caesar is amazing. He's reported to be in Asia at a given time, and sure enough! We have dozens of coins with his picture, name, and date on them, correlating to the written reports of his locations during his lifetime. Not so with Jewish Carpenter.

PS We have more evidence for Pontus Pilate and John the Baptist than we do for Jesus. For the former, inscriptions (Hallmark Card/1800 Flowers of the Day) in Israel attesting to his appointment. For the latter, Josephus. For the Jewish Carpenter, nothing.

thunderlips11 says

If we apply the same standards that we do for Caesar, Hercules, Justinian, Zeus, Romulus and Remus, Plato and Pythagoras, then Jesus is likely a mostly mythological figure.

That's true. And the myth was very loosely based on a real guy, but that man certainly wasn't a white guy with blue eyes. That cartoon was made to make Christianity more palatable to Europeans.

http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/11-14.htm

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?

thunderlips11 says

http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/11-14.htm

New Living Translation (©2007)

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)

Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?

One could argue that this is entirely consistent with Jesus' teachings...

Luke 14:26

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

What better way to demonstrate your own self-loathing than to display your shame for all to see. Jesus was just teaching by example.

Dan8267 says

Dude, you have no idea what interests I have, and your comments prove it. I suspect that Sam Harris and I agree on most things and that you disagree with most of what he believes.

It does not matter what people agree or disagree, what matters is how they approach problems within their ideology and how they process new information. Based on his article I can definitely say that Sam Harris is able to see the problem that existence of the universal morality creates within his atheist ideology, or any other non-theist one, (i do not know much about what exactly it is). He tries to address it as a scientist and it is very interesting.

Based on your posts, and I've seen plenty of them, your method is ignoring the problem. There are many atheists I met in my live whom I appreciate very much. My father was an atheist for most of his life somehow softening to call himself agnostic only in his last 15 years, mostly because of atheist atrocities he has witnessed.

What I do not appreciate is your ostrich position and the dogmatism of your atheism.

Also, I despise your method of trying to offend your opponents, even though I understand that you may be just a product of the internet culture and in real life you know better how to interact with people.

Frankly, I do not want to put you on ignore, because many of your posts, especially on politics, seam interesting or at least informative.

michaelsch says

Based on your posts, and I've seen plenty of them, your method is ignoring the problem.

What method and what problem?

michaelsch says

What I do not appreciate is your ostrich position and the dogmatism of your atheism.

The only thing I'm "dogmatic" about is not accepting any argument that contradicts itself or facts. I'm perfectly willing to accept that a giant blue dick created the universe, if the facts supports that conclusion. Similarly, I'm willing to accept any god, even a giant blue dick god, if the facts support it.

The only assumption I make is that there are no contradictions in mathematics, and that is exactly what makes the universe intelligible. Feel free to disprove me on this one, and I'll gladly admit that I cannot know anything and that the entire universe is nonsensical. And there's an infinite number of ways you could prove that, if it were true.

Here's one. Prove that the square root of two can be represented as the ratio of two integers. I've already seen proofs that this is impossible. So, if you can provide a proof that it can be done, or if you can provide an example of two integers that do that, then everything I believe is wrong and my paradigm collapses. Till then, my way of thinking is superior to yours, and that has nothing to do with me.

P.S., don't even bother trying to use Russell's Paradox as an example. First off, it's not a paradox. Second, it's not a contradiction.

michaelsch says

Also, I despise your method of trying to offend your opponents, even though I understand that you may be just a product of the internet culture and in real life you know better how to interact with people.

That's a bad assumption on your part. I never try to offend my opponents until they turn into trolls. Then the gloves come off. But before that, my counter-arguments always attack the argument, not the arguer. The messenger is irrelevant -- I've said that before, right?

Dan8267 says

But before that, my counter-arguments always attack the argument, not the arguer.

would you agree that there are times when the subject matter is such that it is difficult to seperate/differentiate the arguement from the arguer?