patrick.net

marcus says

Now I get it. You don't gracefully lose an argument you just adjust your position to something you can defend.

I am most willing to change my position should a logical argument or new information warrant doing so. However, I have not changed my position in this thread because no one has given me a descent reason to do so.

There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the girl's letter in the original post. You're arguments that she's a secret atheist who killed herself to promote some global atheist agenda is stupid and has no foundation in reality.

It is also the case that this particular girl's motive, although illustrative of the negative consequences of the afterlife lie, are not necessary to demonstrate the fact that the afterlife lie makes killing oneself and others a perfectly rational and moral decision.

Neither you nor anyone else has even addressed the fact that if the Christian afterlife were real, then killing babies before they could sin is a moral imperative. The contradiction between accepting the premise and rejecting the necessary conclusion of the premise remains unchallenged.

Nonetheless, there is nothing ungraceful about changing one's position should greater understanding or knowledge of a subject matter come to light. The fact that arguments are to you about who is right rather than what is right is your weakness, not mine. I've always held the position that the messenger is irrelevant.

marcus says

In my opinion these are closer to philosophy than religion

Well then I let you argue with Reality on his thesis below, and as to why societies in the east didn't collapse:

Reality says

Without a religion promising the reward and punishment in afterlife, and give people a sense to police oneself and feel good about it, human societies fall apart rather quickly.

Heraclitusstudent says

BS. Shintoism has no such systematic punishment promises about afterlife.

Taoism doesn't either.

Zen Buddhism (like Taoism) rejects duality and looking for 'good' by opposition to evil is one aspect of duality. Thus escaping the cycle of reincarnations is not based on a level of morality or respects of laws. It is based on a level of spiritual achievement and transcendence of duality.

Like in genesis, the knowledge of good and evil pretty much excludes you from paradise.

You are confusing the theoretical tenets with the marketing points to the masses. In fact, most successful religions have two versions: one is marketed to the masses to make them behave, then another set of tenets marketed to the inner circle of rulers so they are prepared to break the rules.

Heraclitusstudent says

Science, infrastructure, laws, medicines, life expectancies, etc. etc. are all brought to you fundamentally by the market place.

Yeah, it's well known that all Leonardo, Michelangelo, Copernicus, Bach, Descartes, Newton, Mozart and even Einstein did was all driven by the market place and its requirements.

They all made huge profits out of it.

They were all paid to do what they excelled at because the thriving market place allowed them to be freed from being a self-sufficient farmers working their ass off on their plots of family farms! Even more importantly, the society had to be advanced and sophisticated enough to have enough leisure people to enjoy and promote what they created!

It's just like, haven't you wondered why there had never been great baseball players, great soccer players, great basketball players or great football players before the mid-19th to early 20th century? It's not because people couldn't run or jump before then, but because the market place had not developed enough to enable professional sports!

Reality says

I had seen that video before.

I doubt you are telling the truth base on your response. I also doubt that you watched the global warming video based on your response to that which completely ignored the plethora of physical evidence showing that global warming is man made.

You don't strike me as a person who actually critically reviews opposing evidence.

Reality says

Nope. I never said Atheism is an evil philosophy. What I did say was that religious is not the (sole) reason why people do evil. Even those without religion, such as Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, are quite capable of evil.

1. Remember these words?
Reality says

There were plenty atheistic "fucking greats," like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.. In fact, they were the biggest mass murderers in human history!

They strongly imply that atheism is responsible for the "biggest mass murders" in history.

2. No one has ever argued that atheists are incapable of being evil. Atheists are free on one of the greatest causes of evil, religion, but that does not imply that they are free of all causes of evil. Thus your argument is a Straw Man.

3. As I have proven beyond any doubt, atheism is not the cause of the evils of Stalin, Mao, or Pol anymore than mustaches are.

4. The evil done by people who are coincidentally atheists does not mitigate the evil done directly in the name of religion. To argue that is equivalent to saying that rape should be condone because some people who drive red cars drive drunk. You are trying to relate to irrelevant things.

5. Although atheists are capable of evil, they are far less likely to commit evil. This has been statistically proven by prison populations. Atheism is also very strongly related to intelligence, education, and empathy, all of which are strongly negatively correlated with violence.

Reality says

No they did not. Only a correlation was shown between CO2 level and global warming . . . and if you look more closely than what was presented in your links, you'd notice temperature rise came before CO2 rise.

Watch the fucking video.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/gIUN5ziSfNc

Don't bother commenting until you've watch the entire thing.

Heraclitusstudent says

Reality says

It took a seriously prosperous society to build them. Universities like Paris and Oxford were built established around that time too.

No it took societies sacrificing everything they had to build cathedrals.

That's ridiculous. Before the rise of the modern state, the government's and the church's ability to tax was quite limited. Market places thrived in the 9th and 10th century. Those big cathedrals were built in big market towns.

What was taught during dark ages was severely limited to what the church would allow i.e. not much. Many ideas were simply forbidden by religious authorities.

He who pays the bills calls the tunes. The very fact that so many young men could have the leisure time to be "educated" and trained to be essentially bureaucrats (in the church hirarchy, then often also government hirarchy as managers to assist hereditory owners) was indication that the economy was booming. Of course, having too many of them would bring bust later (in the 13-14th century), but that's a different story at a different time.

Dan8267 says

Watch the fucking video.

I'm not going to waste my time watching stupid video. The signal-to-noise ratio is simply too low in video format. Education by video produces morons (yes, I know you love that format; that's why you are a coding monkey instead of becoming a real engineer). If you have the transcript or screen play, I will read it; would take much less time.

Dan8267 says

I had seen that video before.

I doubt you are telling the truth base on your response. I also doubt that you watched the global warming video based on your response to that which completely ignored the plethora of physical evidence showing that global warming is man made.

You don't strike me as a person who actually critically reviews opposing evidence.

The video being discussed in that particular instance was on religion's link to terrorism, not AGW nonsense. I do critically evaluate evidence. I'm not gullible like you.

Dan8267 says

Reality says

Nope. I never said Atheism is an evil philosophy. What I did say was that religious is not the (sole) reason why people do evil. Even those without religion, such as Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, are quite capable of evil.

1. Remember these words?

Reality says

There were plenty atheistic "fucking greats," like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.. In fact, they were the biggest mass murderers in human history!

They strongly imply that atheism is responsible for the "biggest mass murders" in history.

No they do not.
However, not having a counter-balancing force such as an independent church, the mass murdering governments did managed to proceed in their mass murdering ways much further without restraint.

Dan8267 says

2. No one has ever argued that atheists are incapable of being evil. Atheists are free on one of the greatest causes of evil, religion, but that does not imply that they are free of all causes of evil. Thus your argument is a Straw Man.

Then your argument religion causes evil falls apart. If people can do great evil without religion then what's the point of blaming religion?

3. As I have proven beyond any doubt, atheism is not the cause of the evils of Stalin, Mao, or Pol anymore than mustaches are.

Only in your own imagination. The Atheism promoted by those mass murderers removed a usual counter-balancing force from the society that would normally present as the alternative moral voice (like MLKJ's reliance on religion to combat unjust government enforced discrimination). Furthermore, relying on official Atheism to remove all existing religions enabled the promoulgation of personality cults, which was very much a driving force behind those biggest mass murders in human history.

4. The evil done by people who are coincidentally atheists does not mitigate the evil done directly in the name of religion. To argue that is equivalent to saying that rape should be condone because some people who drive red cars drive drunk. You are trying to relate to irrelevant things.

It has nothing to do with condoning. It just so happens that the blackest name in religiously based persecution, the Spanish Inquisition, involved the murder of less than 2,000 people over 100 years, whereas the atheistic mass murderers managed to kill 50,000,000+ in a decade or so!

5. Although atheists are capable of evil, they are far less likely to commit evil. This has been statistically proven by prison populations. Atheism is also very strongly related to intelligence, education, and empathy, all of which are strongly negatively correlated with violence.

Perhaps in a mostly religious society due to self-selection to be different (I doubt your statement even then). When Atheism is mainstream in a country, the morons and criminals are atheists too.

Heraclitusstudent says

marcus says

In my opinion these are closer to philosophy than religion

Well then I let you argue with Reality on his thesis below, and as to why societies in the east didn't collapse:

Reality says

Without a religion promising the reward and punishment in afterlife, and give people a sense to police oneself and feel good about it, human societies fall apart rather quickly.

Because the theoretical philosophy is not what's marketed to the masses. The masses were fed ancestral worship, reincarnation on good/bad behavior, etc. etc. There was a reason why much of the eastern religions were not in written scripture forms, but simply traditions.

Dan8267 says

Neither you nor anyone else has even addressed the fact that if the Christian afterlife were real, then killing babies before they could sin is a moral imperative. The contradiction between accepting the premise and rejecting the necessary conclusion of the premise remains unchallenged.

That's a ridiculous deduction. Who gave you the authority to carry out pre-crime judge/jury/executioner duty? Most people's sins do not warrant death penalty. Even if you know someone will grow up to be a murderer apriori, it would still be morally questionable for you to kill him at birth.

Reality says

That's what they taught in the public schools in the mid-20th century. Then it was recognized/discovered that large cities and market towns came into being in the 9th and 10th century.

Check out Bryan Ward-Perkins, who is taking on this revisionist reassessment comparing the Classical Era to the Dark Ages in terms of Economic Development, Population, etc.

The Book is "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization."

Bristol has 20,000 people in the 13th Century, it's the second largest city in England.
In comparison, modern Augusta, Maine has 19,000. Rome has half a million around 100AD, but only 20-40,000 in the 13th Century. In 100AD, Cologne (Colonia Augusta) is a frontier military city of the Roman Empire of 40,000 people. In the 13th Century, it's still the largest city in Germany, and only has 5000 more people. It's aqueducts and sewers still function, which probably explains it.

The Parthenon and other Pagan or Roman/Greek Public Sites like the Collesseum or the Circus of Constantinople, all built before the Collapse (hell, Parthenon is from the BC era), are immense and dwarf any Dark Age building in Western Europe. .

Then there's this.

We won't see any complexes like 16 waterwheels, emplaced in solid stone and fed by a multi-mile concrete aqueduct until the 1600s at least. This was built around 300AD towards the end of the Roman Empire in Arles, France.

Dan8267 says

You're arguments that she's a secret atheist who killed herself to promote some global atheist agenda is stupid and has no foundation in reality.

This was an afterthought on one post and not serious, and you know that.

Dan8267 says

The fact that arguments are to you about who is right rather than what is right is your weakness, not mine. I've always held the position that the messenger is irrelevant.

Right...

Project much ?

I'll admit to be bothered by the person who so obviously continues to argue after they realize they are wrong. That is I take issue with the person in this case, because I so can not relate to either the emotion, the ego, or perhaps it's the immaturity that goes with such behavior.

And I want to say, "C'mon Man ! You're better than this."

thunderlips11 says

Bristol has 20,000 people in the 13th Century, it's the second largest city in England.

In comparison, modern Augusta, Maine has 19,000. Rome has half a million around 100AD, but only 20-40,000 in the 13th Century.

20,000 people was a huge number for a town/city without aqueduct, simply due to sanitation problems rising with population density. Even London during Roman time only had about 35,000 people. Rome was the imperial capital of the entire western world during 100AD, but only a regional concern in the 13th century.

thunderlips11 says

In 100AD, Cologne (Colonia Augusta) is a frontier military city of the Roman Empire of 40,000 people. In the 13th Century, it's still the largest city in Germany, and only has 5000 more people. It's aqueducts and sewers still function, which probably explains it.

It may well have had much less people during some of the time in between. It would be a huge mistake to linearize history.

thunderlips11 says

The Parthenon and other Pagan or Roman/Greek Public Sites like the Collesseum or the Circus of Constantinople, all built before the Collapse (hell, Parthenon is from the BC era), are immense and dwarf any Dark Age building in Western Europe. .

Wrong. The Lincoln Cathedral in England (construction starting in the 11th century) was the tallest building in the world after taking over the title from the Great Pyramid of Giza, before losing the title to some other Cathedral in Europe.

BTW, if big tall building is your standard for civilization, can we then conclude that the Ancient Greek and Roman era was in the dark age between 2500BC Pyramid and the 11th century Lincoln Cathedral?

You are obviously oblivious to what is going on around you.
* The speed of light has been broken.
* A bubble of space where no parity exists has been created.

The laws of physics are constantly changing. The bigger question is, why aren't you?

Heraclitusstudent says

SoftShell says

Regarding the laws of physics, they are being violated all the time.

You are obviously not conscious of what you are saying.

Here is what I meant to say.

"The laws of physics as we understand them, are being violated all the time."

That's what happens when you type this shit on a cellphone...

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

Regarding the laws of physics, they are being violated all the time.

The laws of nature, by definition, are not violated. That is precisely why we call them natural laws.

Human understanding of these laws are constantly being improved,

Reality says

Education by video produces morons

Yeah, that's a great reason to reject information from the Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Research Council, the Goddard Space Flight Center, Earth Systems Research Laboratory, the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, the Hadley Meteorological Center, the International Panel on Climate Change, the Japanese Meteorological Agency, the National Academy of Science, NASA, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, the National Climate Data Center, the National Hurricane Center, the National Research Council, and many other well respected scientific institutions.

They're no Wikipedia. How dare they use digital video and other 21st century technologies to inform the public. Anything not written on stone tablets is invalid.

You got some pretty fucked up criteria for acceptable information sources.

SoftShell says

The speed of light has been broken.

Nope!

http://torontostandard.com/industry/oops-scientists-did-not-break-the-speed-of-light-blame-bad-connection/

SoftShell says

A bubble of space where no parity exists has been created.

Maybe so or maybe they need to do a better job of cleaning their fiber optic cables.

SoftShell says

The laws of physics are constantly changing.

No the laws of physics are not changing. Not at all. What might be changing is our MODELS of how those laws work.

Or maybe we just need to do a better job of validating the results.

Ok.
Tell us how consciousness occurs.

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

Energy cannot be destroyed. Your brain runs on energy. Obviously the cells contained in the physical body "die" as humans describe it, but the energy contained within is simply transformed.

Yes, but energy isn't consciousness.

Reality says

The video being discussed in that particular instance was on religion's link to terrorism, not AGW nonsense. I do critically evaluate evidence. I'm not gullible like you.

That man wasn't a terrorist. The video demonstrates the irrationality that religious beliefs impose on people. You should watch it and learn.

Sorry. Your material is dated.....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8901001/Speed-of-light-broken-again-as-scientists-test-neutrino-result.html

who you gonna believe? Our allies across the pond, or the frozen fucks up north who designed the ACA website??

New Renter says

SoftShell says

The speed of light has been broken.

Nope!

http://torontostandard.com/industry/oops-scientists-did-not-break-the-speed-of-light-blame-bad-connection/

Reality says

However, not having a counter-balancing force such as an independent church, the mass murdering governments did managed to proceed in their mass murdering ways much further without restraint.

Throughout history, religious hierarchies have been purveyors of violence including state-sponsored violence. The church did a great job of counter-balancing evil during the Dark and Middle Ages. </sarcasm>

already corrected my cell phone antics above...

New Renter says

SoftShell says

The laws of physics are constantly changing.

No the laws of physics are not changing. Not at all.

Here, I'll help you.
You can't.

SoftShell says

Ok.

Tell us how consciousness occurs.

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

Energy cannot be destroyed. Your brain runs on energy. Obviously the cells contained in the physical body "die" as humans describe it, but the energy contained within is simply transformed.

Yes, but energy isn't consciousness.

Dan8267 says

Yeah, that's a great reason to reject information from the Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Research Council, the Goddard Space Flight Center, Earth Systems Research Laboratory, the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, the Hadley Meteorological Center, the International Panel on Climate Change, the Japanese Meteorological Agency, the National Academy of Science, NASA, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, the National Climate Data Center, the National Hurricane Center, the National Research Council, and many other well respected scientific institutions.

They're no Wikipedia. How dare they use digital video and other 21st century technologies to inform the public. Anything not written on stone tablets is invalid.

You got some pretty fucked up criteria for acceptable information sources.

I did end up watching it at the end of the evening when I had time. Just as I expected, it's full of crap put together by a bunch of bureaucrats and coding monkeys. I had to pause the video a few times to verify that the charts don't even confirm what the script reader was saying.

The conclusion of the video? "90% chance" Yeah, that would cover the asses of the propagandists while sending the coding monkeys off to make fools of themselves.

Dan8267 says

Reality says

The video being discussed in that particular instance was on religion's link to terrorism, not AGW nonsense. I do critically evaluate evidence. I'm not gullible like you.

That man wasn't a terrorist. The video demonstrates the irrationality that religious beliefs impose on people. You should watch it and learn.

I doesn't. Much of what the guy spouted has nothing to do with religion but traditional patriarchal society value. The funny thing is that, I used to be a believer in woman's ability to think independently and judiciously . . . however after witnessing what a pregnancy does to a woman's thought process first-hand recently, I'm not so sure anymore. It seems to me that fetuses are quite capable of doing to a woman what certain fungus does to an ant's brain . . . perhaps it's no different from what a pair of soft female breasts and a tight female body does to a man's thought process . . . making it utterly muddled!

bgamall4 says

Reality says

Christianity replacing the old Roman religion managed to extend the life span of East Roman Empire by about a thousand years!

Christ said his kingdom was not of this world. So how is Constantinianism and Augustinianism remotely understood to be Christianity?

Othodox Christianity became the state religion of what remained of the Roman Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) from the 3rd century to the 14th century.

Dan8267 says

Reality says

However, not having a counter-balancing force such as an independent church, the mass murdering governments did managed to proceed in their mass murdering ways much further without restraint.

Throughout history, religious hierarchies have been purveyors of violence including state-sponsored violence. The church did a great job of counter-balancing evil during the Dark and Middle Ages.

Throughout history, the state/government hierarchies have been purveyors of violence. In fact, monopoly on violence and threat of violence is what defines a state / government.

During the Dark Ages and Middle Ages, the church was a moderating influence, as evidenced by the less martial aspects of "Chivalry" that the church promoted.

Reality says

Dan8267 says

2. No one has ever argued that atheists are incapable of being evil. Atheists are free on one of the greatest causes of evil, religion, but that does not imply that they are free of all causes of evil. Thus your argument is a Straw Man.

Then your argument religion causes evil falls apart. If people can do great evil without religion then what's the point of blaming religion?

This is the type of shit logic that I expect from Marcus. Being ran over by a train can cause death. Therefore, being shot in the head cannot cause death because we know that death is caused by being run over by a train.

Do I really need to dumb this down further for you?

Reality says

The Atheism promoted by those mass murderers removed a usual counter-balancing force from the society that would normally present as the alternative moral voice

Bullshit. The Bible promotes slavery, rape, murder, torture. Even the "good" New Testament is pro-slavery.

Furthermore, it is utter bullshit that atheism in anyway detracts from morality. It's quite the opposite. Being good out of fear of being punished isn't being moral; it's covering one's ass. Atheists are good for the sake of being good, not for some selfish motive to get into heaven. Furthermore, the elimination of religion allows for adult and scientific discussion of morality and ethics which furthers the field of morality and allows us to deal with moral issues that we are not currently dealing with including, but not limited to, human cloning, the rights of other sentient beings (dolphins, whales, AIs, extra-terrestrials), the morality of complex systems like globalization of economics, the morality of environmental management, genetic engineering, domestic spying, and much more.

It is religion and superstition that keeps mankind's understanding of morality limited to a Bronze Age worldview. The rejection of superstition would be the greatest advancement of morality in human history. It is the atheistic scientist who studies the morality of non-human animals on Earth. Scientists like Richard Dawkins and Matt Ridley. You should read every book written by these two authors to dispel all the falsehoods you believe.

Reality says

It just so happens that the blackest name in religiously based persecution, the Spanish Inquisition, involved the murder of less than 2,000 people over 100 years, whereas the atheistic mass murderers managed to kill 50,000,000+ in a decade or so!

1. Attempting to minimize the vileness of the Spanish Inquisition is a pretty weak position.
2. Christianity is responsible for a multitude of genocides including the Holocaust and dozens of North American genocides.
3. There is no such thing as an "atheistic" mass murder in all of human history. Do I have to post more topless pictures of Tom Selleck? 'Cause I totally will.
4. You keep contradicting yourself. You just said
Reality says

Nope. I never said Atheism is an evil philosophy.

and now you are again stating that atheism advocates mass murder, which is totally bullshit, has no historical basis, and completely contradicts your previous statement.

Please try to get your lies straight. Contradicting sets of lies are easily dismissed.

Reality says

When Atheism is mainstream in a country, the morons and criminals are atheists too.

When literacy is mainstream, the morons and criminals are literate too. And that's a good thing as the morons are less moronic and the criminals are more easily rehabilitated. In any case, superstition being mainstream has never produced positive results that cannot be produced more reliably with intelligence and empathy.

Reality says

Dan8267 says

Neither you nor anyone else has even addressed the fact that if the Christian afterlife were real, then killing babies before they could sin is a moral imperative. The contradiction between accepting the premise and rejecting the necessary conclusion of the premise remains unchallenged.

That's a ridiculous deduction. Who gave you the authority to carry out pre-crime judge/jury/executioner duty? Most people's sins do not warrant death penalty. Even if you know someone will grow up to be a murderer apriori, it would still be morally questionable for you to kill him at birth.

Do you actually read posts before responding to them or do you just skim them while masturbating? You really need to pay more attention to the words and the sentences they form.

The argument is that if the Christian afterlife is not a lie, then it is a moral imperative to murder babies before they are old enough to sin and risk their immortal souls to an eternity of torture and the loss of an eternity in paradise. This is self-evident as a mere 100-year Earthly life infinitely pales in comparison to an eternity of either horrific suffering or unimaginable euphoria. To allow any child to be placed in harms way of going to hell or losing heaven is possibly the most immoral thing one could do whether through action or inaction.

Therefore, if the Christian afterlife is not a lie, then it is a moral imperative to kill babies and thus send them directly to heaven bypassing any chance they will suffer for all eternity in hell. The premise of the Christian afterlife necessitates the conclusion that we are morally obligated to kill babies. If you reject the conclusion, you must logically reject the premise that inevitably leads to that conclusion. Proof by contradiction.

1. This has nothing to do with me personally. The messenger is irrelevant.
2. This has nothing to do with pre-crime or judging a person or having authority.
3. This has nothing to do with the knowledge that a person will grow up to be evil. It is a moral duty to make sure the babies are not in jeopardy. Allowing any baby to live would be more immoral than locking the baby in a car on a freezing winter night because the risk and damages would be so much greater in the former scenario. Of course, that's based on the assumption that the Christian afterlife is not a lie.

Quite frankly, if you cannot understand this argument, then you're really dumb. It's not rocket science. It's simply following the logical conclusion of the afterlife premise to it's ridiculous and unacceptable end. Countless other people understand this argument, even if they hate the fact that it's right.

The multiple problems with this line of thought are:
1- The creation of consciousness, and how it functions cannot be explained to the acceptance of the majority.
2- The few who denied the earth was flat some centuries ago were eventually proven right as our knowledge advanced. Since the creation and function of consciousness is not understood, as was the earth's shape, it is not out of the question that future knowledge can impart a different definition of what consciousness really is.
3- We are nowhere near understanding the laws of nature in their entirety. We are trying to understand the novel with only one chapter in hand.

To submit definitive answers to questions that require more knowledge than we currently possess, is to ...well....demonstrate a common human trait.
A trait that fundamentalists and atheists alike possess in spades.

The need to 'know for sure'.

The fundamentalist uses religion, ancient books and god figures to sate this itch.

The atheist will spout facts from the known world to wrap thing up nice and tidy, while consciously ignoring the elephant in the room, that they are operating from an extremely limited knowledge base when compared to "all that therer is to know".

The open-minded intellectually honest amoung us have somehow developed the ability to state the obvious:
"I don't know".

Dan8267 says

This is the 21st century. At this point, anyone who denies that the brain is entirely responsible for our mind is like someone who denies that Earth is round and the sun is a star.

If this is your argument then you lose.
Christine doctrine states everyone is born with 'original sin'.
There are no innocent babies.

Dan8267 says

The argument is that if the Christian afterlife is not a lie, then it is a moral imperative to murder babies before they are old enough to sin and risk their immortal souls to an eternity of torture and the loss of an eternity in paradise.

Dan8267 says

This is the type of shit logic that I expect from Marcus. Being ran over by a train can cause death. Therefore, being shot in the head cannot cause death because we know that death is caused by being run over by a train.

Do I really need to dumb this down further for you?

Do tell us then do you suggest calling trains evil?

Dan8267 says

The Atheism promoted by those mass murderers removed a usual counter-balancing force from the society that would normally present as the alternative moral voice

Bullshit. The Bible promotes slavery, rape, murder, torture. Even the "good" New Testament is pro-slavery.

Yet, just like most other "good book" the Bible also has enough passages expressing the counter-point to be quoted by adherents of the opposite positions. The point of having a separate power center in the society is not so that they are saints, but rather avoiding concentration of power.

Dan8267 says

Furthermore, it is utter bullshit that atheism in anyway detracts from morality. It's quite the opposite. Being good out of fear of being punished isn't being moral; it's covering one's ass.

That's all you can ask of a certain percentage of the people. Let's say, 20% of the population are selfish twits who would rather kill your pet in order to have some meat for dinner that night; 80% of them can be convinced on some religious ground that it's a bad thing to do and they will suffer punishment from divinity even if the secular law enforcement can only catch 20% of all criminals. With religion, you are now dealing with 4% becoming criminal and 3% will be ale to do so with impunity; without religion, you have to deal with 20% becoming criminal and 16% will be able to do so with impunity. A society may be able to live with 3% of the population committing crimes with impunity, but at 16% it will fall apart.

Atheists are good for the sake of being good, not for some selfish motive to get into heaven.

It's not the good people that a functional society has to worry about.

Furthermore, the elimination of religion allows for adult and scientific discussion of morality and ethics which furthers the field of morality and allows us to deal with moral issues that we are not currently dealing with including, but not limited to, human cloning, the rights of other sentient beings (dolphins, whales, AIs, extra-terrestrials), the morality of complex systems like globalization of economics, the morality of environmental management, genetic engineering, domestic spying, and much more.

I don't see these topics having much to do with religion. The religious leaders making some noises on these issues is not a bad thing, as an alternative voice to the secular leaders setting agendas in the society.

marcus says

Dan8267 says

You're arguments that she's a secret atheist who killed herself to promote some global atheist agenda is stupid and has no foundation in reality.

This was an afterthought on one post and not serious, and you know that.

Oh, I think you were being quite serious, but are now backtracking since you realize how stupid of an argument it was. Now if only you could realize that your other arguments are just as stupid and largely for the same reasons.

marcus says

Project much ?

Conclusion based on a multitude of postings is not projection. You always turn an argument into "who said that" rather than "was what said justifiable". Search your posts. You know it to be true.

marcus says

I'll admit to be bothered by the person who so obviously continues to argue after they realize they are wrong.

1. I am not wrong. There is no reason to reach that conclusion based on this thread in which I specifically address every argument you made, but you dodge or drop every argument I made.

2. Even if I were wrong, I most certainly do not "realize I am wrong".

3. Because if I realized I was wrong, I would gladly and immediately change my position. As I've said repeatedly, I have no problem flip flopping on an issue if new evidence or understanding comes to being, and I'm willing to believe anything even that Carrot Top is god if and only if evidence and reasoning supports it.

In this way, I am far more open-minded than you could ever be. However, I insist on being convinced with evidence and sound reasoning. That is unlike you who cannot be convinced of something you do not already accept. Want me to believe in your god? Have him show up at my next tea party. I'm damn easy to convince of any truth no matter how absurd. I only require evidence or reasoning.

Finally, try to realize that repeating a lie ad nauseam like Fox News does not turn the lie into a truth. Your post history consists entirely of the pattern of
- make assertion
- ignore opposition to that assertion
- repeat assertion
- insult opposition
- ignore evidence disproving assertion
- repeat assertion

And yet you claim victory in the debate? Are you honestly that dumb? One cannot win a debate in which one ignores and avoids the opposition's arguments.

In contrast, I'll drive head first directly into the opposition thesis and show why it leads to conclusions that no one, even the thesis's proponents, are willing to accept. It's not a subtle tactic, but it works.

Instead of whining like a child at me, you should learn from me.

marcus says

That is I take issue with the person in this case, because I so can not relate to either the emotion, the ego, or perhaps it's the immaturity that goes with such behavior.

And I want to say, "C'mon Man ! You're better than this."

Talk about the pot calling the iPod black. And you realize that iPods are white. (Well, the original ones anyway.)

All I can say is that the atheistic view is the humblest. It removes man completely from the center of the universe and admits that our very existence is arbitrary and that we're damn lucky to be here. If the asteroid hadn't killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, we wouldn't be here. If it wasn't for a multitude of events, we wouldn't be here. We're not special. We're just lucky.

In contrast, your views, Marcus, are quite arrogant. Man created in god's image. More like god created in man's image. Man the Stone Age tool maker thinks the universe had to be made by a tool maker just like him. That human-centric paradigm is far more arrogant than the Straw Man you call atheists. And that makes you, Marcus, a hypocrite.

Dan8267 says

When literacy is mainstream, the morons and criminals are literate too. And that's a good thing as the morons are less moronic and the criminals are more easily rehabilitated. In any case, superstition being mainstream has never produced positive results that cannot be produced more reliably with intelligence and empathy.

Intelligence and empathy do not result from converting someone from religious to atheistic. On the contrary, an unintelligent person is far more prone to fall for some personality cult or the government cult (like you may well have) in the absence of influence from traditional religion. A person lacking empathy to begin with may well become a criminal when not restrained by religion.

Reality says

Wrong. The Lincoln Cathedral in England (construction starting in the 11th century) was the tallest building in the world after taking over the title from the Great Pyramid of Giza, before losing the title to some other Cathedral in Germany.

I just threw out the Parthenon. I'll see your Lincoln Cathedral and raise you the Pantheon, the largest Dome in the World until the 1400s, the tail end of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the Renaissance, and was made with 5000 tons of concrete. Largest concrete dome in the world until, wait for it, 1881. It didn't take anything like 100-200 years to build, it took about a decade. It was made out of imported Egyptian Granite from thousands of miles away.

Lincoln Cathedral took centuries to complete, and made out of local stone. The Pantheon and Parthenon were built in a decade. Ba'albek is even more shocking, the Temple of Jupiter alone having columns 70+ feet straight up, 7 feet in diameter, weighing 60 tons each.

Where are all the straight Middle Age paved roads? Straight as arrows?

Where are the uniformed, regular armies with standardized equipment? The Steel Gladius is standard issue to a Roman Legionary But it's the mark of an unusually wealthy Viking or Frankish warlord. Almost all Dark Ages combatants make due with plain iron for weapons.

The tunnels bored through solid stone to pipe water as part of a multi-mile aqueduct system?

The standardized pottery of the Roman era, so common pieces of them are found in lowly soldier's quarters on Hadrian's Wall and even in the homes of slaves? Or the homemade low grade pottery that is actually worse in quality and more porous than pre-Roman Britain used in England by 500AD?

Where's the concrete forts, bridges, aqueducts? Where is the imported multi-ton imported stone, marble and granite, used to make grand edifices and plazas across medieval Europe?

Where is the regular import of liquids from across the sea, enough to make an artificial hill hundreds of feet high from the broken amphorae? Countless tons of grain imported from far across the sea on a regular basis, counted and distributed by a central authority?

Reality, the Romans supported a city of at least half a million importing Grain from Egypt, at the end of the Med! For centuries!

They built enormous pleasure boats, 70 meters long, with plumbing for the occupants! The English Galleons that fought against the Spanish Armada were only 24 meters in length!

How about Commerce? How much wine was shipped to Italy from Spain in the Middle Ages? Enough to build a hundred foot artificial hill just out of broken amphorae?

How about Coinage? Hundreds of Copper coins are all over Hadrian's Wall, along the Rhine, everywhere the Roman Writ Ruled. Used for petty purchases, a beer here and lodging there. Non-existent in the Dark Ages and most of the Middle Ages.

It's not just about the fact that there is little writing. There's also not much tech going on, either.

Horse Collar is an Ox Collar with one extra strap. Stirrup is from Asia. Three-field rotation was used in the Empire, just not in the Northern provinces as it was too cold (Medieval Warm Period allowed it to be used there later).

Those Dark Ages were Dark.

Reality says

They were all paid to do what they excelled at because the thriving market place allowed them to be freed from being a self-sufficient farmers working their ass off on their plots of family farms! Even more importantly, the society had to be advanced and sophisticated enough to have enough leisure people to enjoy and promote what they created!

So why didn't that happen during the dark ages since you are telling us the market place was thriving during this time. You defeated one of your own argument.

During the dark ages religious authorities were excommunicating people for heresy - when not just burning them - for researching independent ideas. And they were generally discouraging any beliefs that would even lead you to investigate ideas with a free mind.

Your consumerist, tea party type, view of the market + religion as the root of civilization just doesn't hold water.