Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Doug Shaver · 01-07-2012, 01:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

"you can't prove it DIDN'T happen" is not a convincing argument.

It's effective enough.

It is psychologically effective for many people that a belief cannot be proven false. Logically, it is worthless as a proof that the belief is true.

sotto voce · 01-07-2012, 02:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mageth

Invoking Mr. Twain, are we? Well then, let's note that he also said: "[The Bible] is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies."

Seems pertinent, considering the zombies.

Another Twain quote which is a favorite of mine.

"Faith is believing what you know ain't so."

So is atheism so destitute that it must rely on wisecracks?

Diogenes the Cynic · 01-07-2012, 09:27 AM

Destitute of what? Atheism is, by definition, simply an absence of a particular belief. It's not an ideology. It has no content.

Toto · 01-07-2012, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Another Twain quote which is a favorite of mine.

"Faith is believing what you know ain't so."

So is atheism so destitute that it must rely on wisecracks?

... says the poster who specializes in one line posts that he seems to think are zingers, who first introduced a "witticism" from Twain, but who has now downgraded Twain to a wisecracker ...

sotto voce · 01-07-2012, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

So is atheism so destitute that it must rely on wisecracks?

... says the poster who specializes in one line posts that he seems to think are zingers, who first introduced a "witticism" from Twain

Twain is not witty? How very unfair. The best of American literature is from its humorists, surely.

Quote:

but who has now downgraded Twain to a wisecracker

When he talks out of his hat, yes. Most people do so when they think fit to talk about what they are not qualified in.

So is atheism so destitute that it must rely on wisecracks from people who don't really know what they are talking about? Surely not?

And why has there been no confession about the rumour?

sotto voce · 01-07-2012, 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Destitute of what? Atheism is, by definition, simply an absence of a particular belief.

Like agnosticism!

Brian63 · 01-07-2012, 11:07 AM

sotto, you would probably be better received here if you cut down the volume of threads that you were participating in, and instead focused more of your attention on giving more depth to your responses in the remaining threads that you do participate in (and cutting down your own use of the attempted wisecracks that you are criticizing others for).

Brian

Toto · 01-07-2012, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

...

So is atheism so destitute that it must rely on wisecracks from people who don't really know what they are talking about? Surely not?

Are you so destitute that you borrow a bon mot from Mark Twain, then turn on a dime to claim he didn't know what he was talking about when it suits you?

It appears so.

Twain knew whereof he wrote, much better than you.

Quote:

And why has there been no confession about the rumour?

At this point, you've sown enough confusion. You owe it to the discussion to explain more fully what you mean by "confession about the rumor."

PhilosopherJay · 01-07-2012, 01:35 PM

Hi sotto voce,

Regarding Blaise Pascal:

Louis the Fourteenth and the Writers of his Age”.

By Rev. J.F. Astie, Boston, John P. Jewett and Company, 1855, pg. 69

Quote:

In 1654 having gone one day to ride on the bridge of Neurilly, in a carriage drawn by four or six horses, the two leaders took the bit in their teeth, and rushing to a part of the bridge which was unprotected by a raling, they plunged into the river.
Happily, the harness broke, leaving the carriage on the edge. This accident made so great an impression on M. Pascal that he resolved to give up these riding parties, and lead a more retired life.”
The enemies of Christianity made the most of this circumstance, in trying to throw discredit on the piety of Pascal. Starting on the axiom that a weak mind is necessary to make a faithful Christian, Voltaire wrote to Condorcet: “My friend, repeat it constantly, that since the accident of Neuilly bridge, Pascal’s brain has been deranged.”

Pascal does seem to have been a religious ascetic and Jansenist, a sect condemned by the Pope and Louis XIV, before his accident.

As for Goethe, the whole passage from his autobiography on pg. 409 (Thanks No Robots) his memoirs, suggests that he read the Bible with a humanist view towards understanding its traditions and literary development and not as the word of any particular God.

Quote:

I also devoted part of my time to a more profound study of the sacred books. l was induced to engage in this course of reading by the perusal of the life of Luther, whose enterprises made so distinguished a ﬁgure in the sixteenth century.
My vanity was ﬂattered by this occupation of searching in the collection of the sacred books for the traces of their slow and successive production; for I was persuaded, contrary to the general opinion, and to that of my friends, that they had been revised at different periods. l also took a peculiar view of the contradictions we meet with in the Scriptures. People generally endeavour to remove them by taking the most important and clearest passages as a rule, and harmonizing with them such as seem contradictory or less easily understood. I, on the contrary, sought to distinguish those parts which best expressed the general sense of the book, and rejected the rest as apocryphal.
I was already attached to the method I am about to explain, as the basis of my belief. Traditions, and especially written traditions, are the foundation of the Bible. These determine its spirit, sense, and intention; and it is there that we must look for all that is primitive, divine, inﬂuential on our destiny, and invulnerable in the sacred Scriptures. No external action or consideration can alter the primitive essence of the
work, any more than a bodily disorder can affect a strong mind. As to the language, dialect mode of expression, style, in short to the writing, considered as a work of the mind, all these outward forms have undoubtedly a very intimate connection with the essence of the work, but they are exposed tn alterations and injuries of a thousand kinds. In fact, the nature of things does not admit of transmitting a tradition in perfect
purity. The insufficiency and imperfection of him who must necessarily be its organ, preclude this possibility. Even supposing that the relation of facts remained unaltered, it must in time cease to be perfectly intelligible: and in this sense it may be truly affirmed that no translation faithfully represents the original it professes to
make us acquainted with, on account of the difference of times, places, and above all, of the faculties and opinions of men.
If we yield to the critics a few external forms which have no influence on our souls, and which may give rise to doubts; if they accordingly decompose the work and pull it to pieces, they will not he able to destroy its essential character, to annihilate the immense perspective of the future which it presents, to shake a confidence ﬁrmly established, or to deprive us, in short, of the principal foundations of our faith. It is this belief, the fruit of deep meditation, which has served as the guide of my moral and literary life: l have found it a capital safely invested and richly productive in interest, although I have sometimes made but a bad use of it. It was this manner of considering the Bible that opened to me the knowledge of it. The religious education which is given to protestants had led me to read it through several times. I had been delighted with the wild but natural style of the
Old Testament, and the ingenuous sensibility that pervades the New. Hitherto, indeed, the whole had not entirely satisﬁed me; but the variety of characters that distinguishes its different parts now no longer led me into error.

As for the others you listed, the four philosophers should not be on the list, if we are looking for smart people who endorse the the inerrancy or supernatural nature of the Bible.

Søren Kierkegaard wrote against contemporary Christianity and although his beloved father was a preacher, near the end of his life, Soren denied being a Christian. He noted that the only Christian died on the Cross at Calvary.

A.N. Whitehead is famous for his "Process Philosophy" which promotes an evolutionary view of God and the Universe, hardly Christian.

JS Mill was noted for his utilitarianism a moral theory in direct opposition to Christian teachings. It suggests our actions should be judged by how much happiness it brings to the greatest number. This has nothing to do with pleasing or following any God and certainly not the God/s in the Bible.

William of Occam was condemned as a heretic in 1326. He was considered a nominalist or conceptualist when it came to Plato's universals. This was in direct opposition to Christians like Saint Augustine who regarded them as real. His denial of supernatural explanations as the best explanations helped to lead to empiricism and modern science.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Hi Sotto Voce,

Blaise Pascal was no doubt brilliant, but we should remember that he came from a religious family in a religious time and culture.

He was a heretic, as far as the Vatican was concerned. Very independently minded.

No timidity about that judgement, anyway.

Quote:

I have never seen the quote by Goethe before.

Try Michael Faraday? Charles Wesley? Charles Dickens? Robert Boyle? Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Søren Kierkegaard? Benjamin Disraeli? John Wyclif? AN Whitehead? TS Eliot? CS Lewis? Thomas Wolsey? Paul of Tarsus? William of Occam? JS Mill? FF Bruce? John Stott? Max Planck? James Irwin? Jimmy Carter? Isaac Newton? Isaac Watts? James Clerk Maxwell?

sotto voce · 01-07-2012, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlogan

500 zombies prowling around.

“One of the most striking differences between a cat and a rumour is that a cat has only nine lives.”— borrowed from Mark Twain

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01-07-2012, 09:27 AM	#113
Diogenes the Cynic Moderator - Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota Posts: 4,639	Destitute of what? Atheism is, by definition, simply an absence of a particular belief. It's not an ideology. It has no content.

01-07-2012, 11:07 AM	#117
Brian63 Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: My own little fantasy world Posts: 8,911	sotto, you would probably be better received here if you cut down the volume of threads that you were participating in, and instead focused more of your attention on giving more depth to your responses in the remaining threads that you do participate in (and cutting down your own use of the attempted wisecracks that you are criticizing others for). Brian

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