patrick.net

The Christianity vs. Islam vs Judaism argument is like
"Well, Stalin killed 30 Bazillion People, so Hitler and Franco's murderous binges don't count."

thunderlips11 says

The Christianity vs. Islam vs Judaism argument is like

"Well, Stalin killed 30 Bazillion People, so Hitler and Franco's murderous binges don't count."

When the numbers are something like 1000 to 1 and you have to go back 4 centuries to document Christianity's worst atrocities compared to Commie or Islam's atrocities a few decades ago.........I think it is germane.

socal2 says

thunderlips11 says

The Christianity vs. Islam vs Judaism argument is like

"Well, Stalin killed 30 Bazillion People, so Hitler and Franco's murderous binges don't count."

When the numbers are something like 1000 to 1 and you have to go back 4 centuries to document Christianity's worst atrocities compared to Commie or Islam's atrocities a few decades ago.........I think it is germane.

So Son of Sam killing people 40 years ago isn't important, because some Son of Sam Junior killed a few more people last year. Got it.

You know why Christianity doesn't kill people like they used to? The Enlightenment, and God is Dead. That's why. The West has gloriously moved past barbarian superstition.

Of course, in Eastern Europe about 60-70 years ago, there were plenty of people who killed for religious reasons. Go look at who donated to Jon Demanjuk's several decades of appeals, hearings, and trials. Way beyond the capacity of a "retired autoworker" to pay by himself. Hint: Mel Gibson's Dad.

Oh, and in Spain too. It wasn't just anti-communism, Franco was leading a "Crusade"

Viva Christo Rey!

Can't we all get along?

The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are all disgusting outgrowths of the same putrid origin.

Just keep that in your mind, and you can't go wrong.

Peter P says

Can't wait for Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt to come out:

That will be funny, for an episode or two. Then you'll get bored of how she remains so eternally innocent.

Dan is right on. I grew up going to church regularly, sat quietly, but very little of it made any sense to me. God loves you, but murders babies every day. God listens to you, but capriciously decides which prayers do and don't get answered. God is all-powerful, and once chose to part the Red Sea, but he's been taking a nap from those duties for a while...

God is a complete psycho!

thunderlips11 says

So Son of Sam killing people 40 years ago isn't important, because some Son of Sam Junior killed a few more people last year. Got it.

Sure, going back decades is relevant. Comparing numbers from Bronze age man..........not so much.

For the record, all man made organizations (religion, political parties, unions) are capable of violence and greed.

I just don't think atheists can feel so smug when they have the horrible record of Communism to deal with in terms of human rights atrocities.

socal2 says

I just don't think atheists can feel so smug when they have the horrible record of Communism to deal with

Uhh ... there are plenty of atheists who are neither Bolsheviks nor Stalinists.

(Since 99.9% of all humans aren't Stalinists, this really isn't much of a claim.)

HydroCabron says

Uhh ... there are plenty of atheists who are neither Bolsheviks nor Stalinists.

And lots of Christians (and Muslims) who aren't crusaders or jihadis.

thunderlips11 says

The Christianity vs. Islam vs Judaism argument is like

"Well, Stalin killed 30 Bazillion People, so Hitler and Franco's murderous binges don't count."

Exactly. They are all bad and for the same reasons. The only difference is degree, and even that is a function of time.

So unenlightened man conjours up a skydaddie to assuage his fears of mortality, and you call this disgusting and putrid?
Why do you hate evolution?

HydroCabron says

The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are all disgusting outgrowths of the same putrid origin.

socal2 says

And lots of Christians (and Muslims) who aren't crusaders or jihadis.

There is no atheist handbook which advocates labor camps in the Taiga, mass executions, terror, or centralized government control of the means of production.

The scriptures of all three Abrahamic religions have passages which can be, and have been, interpreted to call for violent action against outsiders.

socal2 says

you have to go back 4 centuries

How long ago it was is irrelevant. What matters is what has changed to reign in Christianity in the modern world. The answer to that is a weakening of the religion, a stripping of its power and influence over the state, and a rebuttal of its truthfulness by vocal atheists. That is why Christianity is less of a threat today than it was during the Middle Ages. It has nothing to do with age.

thunderlips11 says

So Son of Sam killing people 40 years ago isn't important, because some Son of Sam Junior killed a few more people last year. Got it.

Well put.

SoftShell says

Why do you hate evolution?

Evolution is an explanation, not a justification.

The problem with almost all religions is they eventually become more about control then spirituality. The religion becomes at odds with your freedom of self, of thought, of action, etc. It ends up becoming more limiting then freeing.

Also: If you can have your own sense of spirituality (which everyone is capable of having), why do you need a religion?

Indiana Jones says

The problem with almost all religions is they eventually become more about control then spirituality.

Religions have many problems including the one you mentioned. But spirituality, faith, superstition, or whatever you want to call it is in itself bad.

If a person says god is talking to him, we consider him crazy. If a person talks to god, our society considers him "spiritual". A delusion, no matter how socially accepted, is still a delusion. The nature of the madness does not change because it becomes culturally acceptable. If our culture welcomed all nutcases who thought they were Napoléon and that aliens were stealing their thoughts, it would not make those nutcases any less dysfunctional.

There is no such thing as spirituality. At best, you mean emotional when you use that term. At worse, you are talking about falsehoods as if they are truths. And if you make any decision based on those falsehoods, you're decision making is bad. If you choose one career over another because you think that's what your fictitious god wants you to do, then you have made a decision for the wrong reason. The best you can hope for is that you arrived at the correct conclusion despite your mistake. Unfortunately, most of the time that won't be true. Misinformation rarely leads to the best choice.

And that's hardly the only problem with the lie of spirituality. For example, classifying morality as a spiritual matter prevents a rational, scientific discussion of the issue of morality. Spirituality's monopoly on discussing issues of morality has held back the subject matter for thousands of years, and with dire consequences. Many ethical, economic, and environmental issues are essentially morality issues that are unresolved because of the blight of spirituality.

In particular, the monotheistic religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have affected events so that we are, to this day, torturing and murdering non-human persons, non-human sentient beings like whales. And why? Because our stupid spiritual beliefs revolve around human beings having souls and other animals not. Well, in reality, the soul doesn't exist. It's just a lame Bronze Age myth. What is real is that a pod of whales split into two groups, adult males and mother/calves, in order to fool humans chasing them and save their families from a slaughter. Although this attempt failed solely because the humans had a helicopter and manage to spot the second group containing the calves, the effort took planning, communication, coordination, and self-sacrifice on the same level as anything man has ever done. But we've never discussed the "humanity" for lack of a better word of whales because of our misguided attempts to frame morality in spiritual terms instead of in natural terms.

Morality comes from evolution and nature, not some fictitious spirit world.

I am not going to try to convince an athiest that there is anything in this world that exists that they can't see with their eyes.

People thinking they are Napoleon has nothing to do with spirituality.

I don't mean emotional. I mean spiritual. Spirituality is not bad. In fact, it is the most amazing thing in this world that one can experience. Note, I am not saying religion here. And I am not saying morality. Those are completely different things.

I look at spirituality in its basic form as a connection with your Self, and through that link is a connection with all else that exists in our universe. So defined this way, we may think more alike than it seems.

Dan8267 says

Religions have many problems including the one you mentioned. But spirituality, faith, superstition, or whatever you want to call it is in itself bad.

sbh says

Strategist says

A high school teacher once told me "You are lazy, useless and will never amount to anything"

The same teacher told my mom "I was one of the smartest students she ever had"

Did you ever find out which one lied to you?

I think it would be my mom. Her little angel was incapable of being bad.

Indiana Jones says

I am not going to try to convince an athiest that there is anything in this world that exists that they can't see with their eyes.

There are plenty of things I know exist that I cannot see with my eyes.
1. Atoms
2. Protons
3. Neutrons
4. Electrons
5. Quarks
6. About several dozen other particles
7. Black holes
8. X-rays
9. Gamma rays
10. Time dilation
11. Frame dragging
12. Prime numbers

Just to name a few.

Where you and I disagree is that I don't believe in things without reason. And I apply that principle without bigotry to all things whereas you are very selective about which gods you take seriously and which ones you consider a joke, and that is a form of bigotry.

Indiana Jones says

People thinking they are Napoleon has nothing to do with spirituality.

A psychologist is talking with a patient in a mental hospital. The patient says that he is Napoleon. The doctor asks, "How do you know you are Napoleon?". The patient says, "God told me.". The patient's roommate retorts, "I said no such thing.".

Someone claiming to be the reincarnation of Napoleon's soul has as much credibility as any other person making a "spiritual" claim.

Indiana Jones says

I don't mean emotional. I mean spiritual.

Define the difference. Most people's "spiritual experiences" are simply emotional ones that exist only inside the circuitry of their brains. Nothing supernatural about that no matter how moving the emotions are.

Indiana Jones says

I look at spirituality in its basic form as a connection with your Self, and through that link is a connection with all else that exists in our universe.

That is a meaningless description. One can simply say that "a connection with your 'self'" is a psychological thing as it exists entirely within the natural functioning of your brain. It would be hard to find a connection with yourself if your brain is dead. Every thought, every feeling, every artsy-fartsy connection you have with the universe or yourself exists entirely in your brain.

Strategist says

A high school teacher once told me "You are lazy, useless and will never amount to anything"

The same teacher told my mom "I was one of the smartest students she ever had"

You do realize those statements you keep repeating aren't mutually exclusive, right?

You could be the smartest student she ever had and still be a lazy, useless moron who never amounted to anything. It doesn't paint a pretty picture of her other students, but it's not a logical contradiction.

And smartest of a group does not imply smart.

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

A high school teacher once told me "You are lazy, useless and will never amount to anything"

The same teacher told my mom "I was one of the smartest students she ever had"

You do realize those statements you keep repeating aren't mutually exclusive, right?

You could be the smartest student she ever had and still be a lazy, useless moron who never amounted to anything. It doesn't paint a pretty picture of her other students, but it's not a logical contradiction.

And smartest of a group does not imply smart.

Well, that teacher was just so boring. "If music be the food of love, pray, play on" That sentence she kept repeating would still put me to sleep. Who cared for Shakespeare? I was more interested in lust like a normal teenager, not love.

If the soul doesn't exist, would you consent to be killed if you'd be immediately replaced with a genetically identical copy with your memories?
Would you say, "Go ahead and pull that trigger, I'll be back!"
Would the copy be you?
If a human being is only the sum of their physicality and memories, murder should be legal when scientists perfect a way to copy memories into a clone.

Overcompensating for his statements on Bill Maher?

"Liberals have really failed on the topic of theocracy...the...they'll criticize white theocracy, they'll criticize Christians. They'll still get agitated over the abortion clinic bombing that happened in 1984, but when you want to talk about the treatment of women, homosexuals, free thinkers, public intellectuals in the Muslim world, I would argue liberals have failed us...Islam is the motherload of bad ideas"

Sam Harris

lakermania says

Overcompensating for his statements on Bill Maher?

"Liberals have really failed on the topic of theocracy...the...they'll criticize white theocracy, they'll criticize Christians. They'll still get agitated over the abortion clinic bombing that happened in 1984, but when you want to talk about the treatment of women, homosexuals, free thinkers, public intellectuals in the Muslim world, I would argue liberals have failed us...Islam is the motherload of bad ideas"

Sam Harris

It's pretty safe to take a swing at a religion whose major tenet is "turn the other cheek."
Not so safe to criticize one that will send five camel jockeys to your office to kill you and all your coworkers.
Guess which route American atheists take?
Pussies...

Quigley says

It's pretty safe to take a swing at a religion whose major tenet is "turn the other cheek."

Not so safe to criticize one that will send five camel jockeys to your office to kill you and all your coworkers.

Guess which route American atheists take?

Pussies...

But.....but......but Dan says Christianity is "Particularly" vile, evil and dangerous.

Also reminds me of all those smugly libs driving around with their COEXIST bumper stickers. So brave!

Exactly which religious group or culture is refusing to coexist with the others around the planet today?

Quigley says

If the soul doesn't exist, would you consent to be killed if you'd be immediately replaced with a genetically identical copy with your memories?

It's a good question but I don't believe the conclusion follows. For example, suppose an arsonist set fire to your house. destroying your wife's wedding dress, which she might have been saving for a daughter's wedding. Insurance could write you a check for the cost of a new dress, you might even buy an identical dress to the one you remember and it would match the photos, but it would not be the same dress. That doesn't mean the dress has a soul, or that the arsonist should avoid prosecution. It means only that we get attached to things, including ourselves.

A news report today reminded me of this thread and why I disagree with the OP singling out Christianity. In any country that has a Christian majority, at least in living memory, we can have a thread like this and nobody worries for their safety. That would not be true in even some "allied" countries with Muslim majorities, for example Egypt. Many Muslim countries remind me of North Korea: the people are so terrified of their government and official prophet that they kill their own children, literally practicing child sacrifice. The desperate protests over a cartoon remind me of North Koreans who actually cried and became frantic when they saw a display in South Korea that might be considered unpatriotic, and who go bonkers in their desperately effusive praise of their dear leader / great leader / fat leader whatever. You can say that hundreds of years ago, before the reformation and enlightenment, some Christian countries were despicably intolerant, and you can even say that some people today pine for that era, but today there is only one major religion that still practices that level of intolerance. From Pakistan to Boko Haram to ISIL, the pattern recurs, and much of it (as Joe Biden pointed out) results from our "allies" in Saudi Arabia. To say that Christianity was equally bad hundreds of years ago means only that Islam might continue on the same path for probably the rest of our lifetimes and those of everyone we know.

Quigley says

lakermania says

Overcompensating for his statements on Bill Maher?

"Liberals have really failed on the topic of theocracy...the...they'll criticize white theocracy, they'll criticize Christians. They'll still get agitated over the abortion clinic bombing that happened in 1984, but when you want to talk about the treatment of women, homosexuals, free thinkers, public intellectuals in the Muslim world, I would argue liberals have failed us...Islam is the motherload of bad ideas"

Sam Harris

It's pretty safe to take a swing at a religion whose major tenet is "turn the other cheek."

Not so safe to criticize one that will send five camel jockeys to your office to kill you and all your coworkers.

Guess which route American atheists take?

Pussies...

Hardly. Larry Krauss, Hitchens, Dawkins, etc. have all taken on Islamic Scholars in debates. Harris, Hitch and Dawkins in particular (were) are anti-Islam, and never shut up about it.

Hitch in particular loathed Islam above all - here's just one bit. He attacked any leftist who defended Islamic violence.

http://www.9F8vgwBiKl0

Edit: See that Lakermania already brought up Harris.

Quigley says

If the soul doesn't exist, would you consent to be killed if you'd be immediately replaced with a genetically identical copy with your memories?

Would you say, "Go ahead and pull that trigger, I'll be back!"

Would the copy be you?

The soul does not exist, and I would not consent.

Quigley says

If a human being is only the sum of their physicality and memories, murder should be legal when scientists perfect a way to copy memories into a clone.

No it should not be legal. As all Christians go to heaven, should it be legal to murder them, because they continue to live in heaven?
These are just desperate attempts by the Church to fight back against it's greatest enemy - Science.

lakermania says

Overcompensating for his statements on Bill Maher?

Sam Harris has been consistent and accurate in his assessment of religions. He has given convincing and rational reasons for his judgements backed up by indisputable logic and historical fact. Sam Harris never said that Islam was the only terrible religion, nor does he make a false equalization between modern Christianity and modern Islam in the Middle East. Nor did Sam Harris ever say that Western Muslims were mostly terrorists.

socal2 says

But.....but......but Dan says Christianity is "Particularly" vile, evil and dangerous.

But.....but......but you're statement is an outright lie as I have previously shown. The fact that I explained in detail why you are wrong and you stick to that statement is clear indication that you are lying, not simply making a mistake.

He who has to lie to make his point does not have a credible point.

Dan8267 says

One can simply say that "a connection with your 'self'" is a psychological thing as it exists entirely within the natural functioning of your brain. It would be hard to find a connection with yourself if your brain is dead. Every thought, every feeling, every artsy-fartsy connection you have with the universe or yourself exists entirely in your brain.

Fine.
Call it psychology. Call it your brain. I don't care what you call it, it doesn't take away from the fact it exists.

I am not here to prove the unprovable.

The argument to prove or disprove "God" already exists, for eons-- check out Wikipedia.

Here is an interesting quote from it:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God

"Søren Kierkegaard argued that objective knowledge, such as 1+1=2, is unimportant to existence. If God could rationally be proven, his existence would be unimportant to humans.[citation needed] It is because God cannot rationally be proven that his existence is important to us."

From same article:
"Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow state in their book The Grand Design that it is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. In this view, it is accepted that some entity exists that needs no creator, and that entity is called God. This is known as the first-cause argument for the existence of God. Both authors claim however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings.[51] Some Christian philosophers disagree."

Indiana Jones says

From same article:

"Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow state in their book The Grand Design that it is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. In this view, it is accepted that some entity exists that needs no creator, and that entity is called God. This is known as the first-cause argument for the existence of God. Both authors claim however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings.[51] Some Christian philosophers disagree."

I have heard an argument from Dennis Prager........You cannot get something from nothing. He believes God made everything. Did God come from nothing, or did he come from something?

Quigley says

If the soul doesn't exist, would you consent to be killed if you'd be immediately replaced with a genetically identical copy with your memories?

Would you say, "Go ahead and pull that trigger, I'll be back!"

Would the copy be you?

If a human being is only the sum of their physicality and memories, murder should be legal when scientists perfect a way to copy memories into a clone.

If the soul actually did exist, it could be deconstructed and copied in whole or in piecemeal just like your body could.

If I replace every atom in your body, did I just kill you and replace you with a copy? If I take half of the atoms from your body and make a new identical body out of them and other atoms and then take the other half of the atoms in your body and combine them with other atoms to form a second body, which copy is you? If I move around all the atoms of each element with others in your body so that your body still has the exact same configuration but all the atoms have been randomized withing their elements, did I just kill you and create a new person?

The answer to all of these things is that the question is meaningless.

A stream at instance T0 is not the same stream at instance T1. You are not the same person at T0 as you are at T1. You are a mostly similar person, but not the exact same person.

Replicating you at the atomic level would essential be spawning multiple instances of you. There is no distinction between "original" and "copy". All are copies of each other. None is an original in any real sense.

Everything I have said above about bodies and persons would apply equally so to souls if they actually existed.

It also applies to human beings whose minds have been digitized and are running in virtual neural networks. Such minds could be easily copied or backed up. A person who replaced his organic brain with a virtual neural network that could be uploaded into a computer or robot would have the ability to spawn as many instances of himself as he likes.

He could also synchronize those instances every day allowing him to live a single life, but living every day eight or eighty times concurrently. All active instances of him would be original. And they would all be the same person at the moment of complete synchronization.

Of course, the instances could also asynchronously synchronize themselves which means that no more than two instances would ever be identical, but the instances would still have the advantages of being the same person as well as distinct persons.

Yes, this would be highly inconvenient for law and our puny politicians and lawyers could not handle it, so they would outlaw it. But that doesn't change the validity of the concept.

Let's say I'm a digitized human existing in a virtual neural network running on a computer inside a robot. I back myself up daily. One day I get into an argument with some asshole and kill him. I'm sentence to death. What's the legal ramifications of restoring myself from backup, which could be done automatically if my robotic body does not report in?

Does the state execute the instance restored from backup? What if the backup was taken before the other instance murdered the victim? Does that matter to the state? What if there are two or a hundred other instances of me running concurrently when one instance murders someone? Do you hold all instances accountable, even the 99 innocent ones? If not, what if the instance that murdered synchronizes with an instance that has not murdered?

Again, our puny legal system isn't equip to handle such dilemmas because no one in it ever bothers to think outside the box. Such questions get to the heart of why we have laws and punishment in the first place. Is the purpose of sentencing to "punish" people or to prevent crimes? If the former, why should we respect the legal system. Isn't it just about revenge and bloodlust? If the later, then punishment is at best a means to an end. If that end is not served by the means, then the means should cease.

I've actually pondered such issues and I would gladly create a destructive copy of my brain, assuming the copy was accurate and in sufficient detail to be effectively me, and upload that copy into one or more robotic shells. Yeah, it would be nice if the copy didn't have to be destructive so that the organic instance of me could continue to live, but that would be a minor consideration. An identical copy of me is equivalent to me. An inorganic copy of me that is effectively equivalent to my mind but without the obvious fallbacks of not being able to backup and restore and not being able to spawn multiple instances would be the best kind of immortality. I'd take that deal in a nanosecond.

Even if your current instance of consciousness isn't the instance that would continue? After all, identical twins have been proven to be actually quite different people. Thy have genetically disposed similarities, but they often wind up making significantly different choices, even possessing significantly different personalities.
I continue to believe that the most obvious answer is correct: we all possess a piece of God which returns to the infinite deity when we die. Try as you might, you'll never disprove this. And only a true sociopath would try.

Quigley says

After all, identical twins have been proven to be actually quite different people.

Identical twins have identical genetic code, not identical brains. The information needed to fully encode a brain is many order of magnitudes greater than the number of bits in your DNA. Your genetic code only gives a general blueprint of how to construct the brain, not what exactly to construct. Thus, the same exact DNA, when played out to produce a baby 10 million times will produce 10 million different brains.

In contrast, making an atom-for-atom copy of a human body would result in exactly identical brains. The two persons would be identical in mind at the point of the creation of the copies. They would then diverge as individuals.

Similarly, copying a virtual neural network of a human mind would result in a perfect copy of that person's mind, which is really all a person is. The body is just a peripheral.

Quigley says

I continue to believe that the most obvious answer is correct: we all possess a piece of God which returns to the infinite deity when we die. Try as you might, you'll never disprove this. And only a true sociopath would try.

Equally...try as you might, you could never prove this.
Nevertheless, it's your belief, and as long as you don't hurt anyone, I have no problem with it.

Quigley says

we all possess a piece of God which returns to the infinite deity when we die. Try as you might, you'll never disprove this.

Your statement is meaningless since your god doesn't exist. This has been proved. Whether or not you are rational and honest enough to accept that is another story.

Quigley says

And only a true sociopath would try.

Translation: Please don't try to refute my baseless assertion. I'm scared.

Dan8267 says

This has been proved.

Dan thinks he's proven that God doesn't exist.

Of course to do this he takes a straw man fundamentalist or childs version of what God is. Even then, it's silly.

I still say this. Being an atheist is beyond understandable. I respect atheists, and would never try to convert them. But those who crusade against all types of belief, even pantheism or panentheism, are basically stuck in an adolescent stage in their development.

There's an arrogance to it. That is, having the position that others need to be like them, for the their own good, and for the good of the world. Sound familiar ?

Get over it man ! Be an atheist. But move on.

Depends on your definition of 'god'.
some view nature/energy as 'god'
don't go running to the dictionary now...word definitions are under constant evolutionary forces.

Dan8267 says

Quigley says

we all possess a piece of God which returns to the infinite deity when we die. Try as you might, you'll never disprove this.

Your statement is meaningless since your god doesn't exist.