ex-preacher

Using luvluv's definition, I hereby nominate Ralph Nader for sainthood.

ELECTROGOD

luvluv (if you haven't left for good yet): What is your point? You keep arguing but are you trying to convince us all that we are wrong? Do you want us to convert to one of the thousands of religions out there?
You have come with a loaded question that you already have your answers for which don't allow for any other conclusion than your own.
You must remember that science is just a tool and not a belief system. I have a feeling that you don't look at it this way so your premise is wrong to start with.
You ask us what the test of morality is if it is not purely helping people. Well, if you know ANYTHING about the Christian church then you know that ALL preachers state very clearly that good works alone are not enough to get into the kingdom of god. If you were an Atheist then you would know just how vilified you are in churches regardless of ANY good works (helping the poor) you do or may be capable of. Religion and "morality" are not dependent on one another just like sex and love are also not dependent on one another.
You did mentioned "sleeping around" in a negative way in your 5th post as if the natural act of sex was somehow not befiting of humans (I am assuming that you only consider humans in this regard)...at least not unless other humans say it's ok under their rules and with a signed piece of human-made paper. You also made no mention of the number of partners (or times with the same partner) that would define "sleeping around". My brother the fundi would say that my having sex with my one girlfriend would be enough do define that but maybe it's 5 or 10 or 100. Could you enlighten us with your clear grasp of morality and could you tell us if it has always been this way?

Here is what you seem to be arguing: I own more cars than you do, therefore I can show you a better example of what a car is.
I'm not so sure that this is about the content of your supposed question but rather the premise.

How do you view the morality and good works of Martin Luther? (not MLK)



[ March 11, 2002: Message edited by: ELECTROGOD ]</p>

luvluv

First, I do apologize to you Micheal for falsely accusing you of attacking MLK. I had you confused with some other posters at the begining of the thread. There's no excuse for it, I should have been more careful before I started throwing accusations around, and again I apologize.

Some examples of Saints:

Moses
Paul
Jesus
Muhammad
Confucious
Gautma Buddha
Gandhi
MLK
Martin Luther
Mandella
Socrates (on further consideration)

I think a Saint needs a personal example and a personal teaching to go along with leading or responding to a Great historical movement which changes the lives of great masses of people both during and after their lifetime. I use the term Saint not as a denotation of their personal purity but to describe the great positive effect that had on mankind. When I say personal example above, I mean that the Saint personally contributed, I.E. was on the front lines of their movements, and risking their own lives. Saints tend to combine their attack on social injustices with a moral philosophy that can not only be used against a temporal injustice but in all avenues of life (i.e. satyagraha, non-violence, the way of heaven, etc)

I think you can see how this discludes folks like Emerson, Lincoln, Einstein, Henry Ford, Thoreau, Paine, Dubois, and Jefferson because while they wrote influentially or led from afar, they were not on the front lines. They did not lead by their personal example. Though some of them had political philosophies, most did not have moral philosophies applicable in a person's everyday life.

I don't think folks like Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, Booker T. Washington, or Churchill have had a lasting effect on how human beings treat each other. In fairness, it will be extremely difficult for a politician to be a Saint.

Folks like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Dorothy Day, Margaret Sanger, and Eleanor Roosevelt fail on the merits of stature, as I think you will agree if you look at my above list. But I think Day and Roosevelt are close.

ex-preacher if Nader could get elected and actually change the U.S. attitude about our wasteful consumption and our lackadasical concern for the life of foreigners (particularly Muslims) then he would actually qualify. But as for now, he fails the criteria of stature. Again, it will be awfully hard for a politician to make this list.

[ March 11, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

Mageth

Lincoln

How was Lincoln not on the front lines? He was assassinated precisely because of his actions against slavery and the south.

Vorkosigan

Wow! Your definition of Sainthood is more restrictive than the Church's!

And it seems to be largely a matter of your personal taste. Is that all we've been discussing?

Nor do I see why it includes figures who are largely mythical, like Moses, Buddha and Jesus, and maybe Confucius. The Jewish book of Law was written much later. I suggest a gander at Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible?

Michael

ZDover

I'll begin by quoting luvluv:


Yes it is fair, because by defintion most of the Saints were persecuted because their beliefs were in advance of their fellows, regardless of the beliefs of their fellows. Most of the Saints died, or at least had their lives endangered, because of their beliefs. Atheists don't get a pass on this one, because the beliefs of all the Saints were "illegal and socially unacceptable". It is not a coincidence that most of the Saints are martyred.


I call your attention to Hypatia.
Socrates was condemned to death for impiety and corrupting the youth. There are examples of atheists who risked their lives and their safety by simply not believing in God. And these beliefs were most certainly socially unacceptable. So it's unclear how the cases of the atheists are different than the cases of the religious.

You accuse people here of smearing Mother Teresa. This is indeed an eccentric usage of the
term "smear," since she is being smeared by what appears to be true. If by "smear" you
mean "to discredit," then yes, people are "smearing" her. If by "smear" you mean
"attacking her character on insufficient grounds for attacking her character," then no one
is smearing her. Reports of her behavior are being presented, which reports stand in
contradiction to the popular view of her character.


Really folks, if you are going to be so silly as to scrounge through VOLUMES of the lives
of great, self-sacrificing people to find one shred evidence with which to smear them, if
the very fact that a man has religion compels you to therefore have to find some mark on
his name that you may assure yourself that all religion is wrong all the time (a statement
emphatically unsupportable by reason) in short if you are going to be that silly... you
might as well join organized religion.


I count 50,501 words in Luther's work "Von den Juden und Ihren Lugen." If this is, as you
say, a "shred of evidence" used to smear someone, I must judge it as being a hefty shred,
and a shred to which quite a bit of time was given, and a shred that is representative of
Luther's beliefs about the Jews. I am in no way compelled by Luther's having had religion to
"find some mark on his name" that will allow me to assure myself that all religion is
incorrect. I do, however, observe, that his having had religion in no way prevented him
from hating the Jews, and that his having had religion did nothing to compel him to
pursue your ideal of bringing people together.


It is a personal insult to me, as an African American, to have anyone kick dirt on the name
of MLK.


If you consider an airing of the facts of MLK's life to constitute "kicking dirt," tough luck. To claim that revealing the facts of Martin
Luther's life constitutes an insult to you "as an African American" seems an insult to African Americans. I'm an Irish American, and I can find no way in which an airing of the facts of Charles Parnell's marital infidelity constitutes a personal insult to me. This ad hominem against turtonm is a particularly dirty trick, and that you have employed such a tactic makes your arguments seem dishonest.

As I look over these three instances (Luther, Mother Teresa, MLK), I notice that they have something in common. Each of them involves some piece of information that is detrimental to your contention that only the religious are capable of a certain level of moral goodness, and in each instance you wish to somehow prevent that piece of information from being entered into the conversation.

I notice also that several times you fault science for supporting slavery and at the same time you maintain that "true Christianity" did not ever support slavery. I'd like to point out that a similar tactic can save science from charges that it supported slavery. "If someone is doing something immoral in the name of religion, he is not practicing relgion" is analogous to "If one forwards a putatively scientific view that is either unfalsifiable or backed up by insufficient evidence one is engaging not in science, but in pseudoscience." In this way, all unfounded theories of race superiority can be dismissed as unscientific, and science gets away as cleanly as does religion in your interpretation.

Finally, so as to escape charges that I have ignored your question, I will return to the subject of whether atheism can produce saints. I answer that it depends on what you mean by "saints." If by saint is meant "one recognized after one's death and beatificaion by the Catholic Church for great deeds," then the answer is in the negative. If by "saints," one means "benefactors of humanity, or morally excellent people," the answer is indisputably in the affirmative.

[ March 12, 2002: Message edited by: Zac ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

Since you apparently believe the myth, I guess the next question might be: "Do the Midianites get to vote on this?"

[ March 12, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

JL

luvluv,

You say that a saint must advance mankind morally. Advancement requires movement towards some sort of goal. Towards what are we progressing, and how do you arrive at this?

Also, how much good must we do to overshadow our sins enough that we may be considered good or a saint? And does our allowance of sins increase in proportion to the amount of good we bring to the world?

Malaclypse the Younger

Zac

Science gets away much more cleanly, since one can exclude pseudoscientific assertions without regard to their objectionable conclusions but only by examining their methodology against a (reasonably) objective standard.

However, there is no such objective definition of "true christian" that does not reference its conclusions. Essentially luvluv is claiming that a "true christian" is one who follows the authority of her personal interpretation of religion.

And since luvluv's version of "true christianity" apparently leads to intellectual dishonesty and an abrasive, self-righteous personality, both of which I consider moral and character flaws, the thesis is false on its face.

Bill Snedden

Bravo! Well said.

I would say that it's not "religion" per se, but a strongly-held moral framework, be it religious or not, that increases "morality". People who subscribe wholeheartedly to an ethical code will tend to behave in an ethical manner. People who don't understand the need for an ethical code will tend to behave unethically. Religion has merely been the predominant "package" in which ethics has been delivered. However, IMO this "packaging" is not only unnecessary, but is in fact detrimental to humanity's long-term ethical development.

I must say that I agree with Steven Weinberg:

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Regards,

Bill Snedden