Queen of Swords

Originally posted by Cthulhu
And I challenge you to a duel, sir. I choose pistols at dawn.

I almost never post in this forum, but I am glad I decided to browse it, because this reply made me laugh out loud for the first time today.

Thanks. I needed cheering up.

JCS

Tell you what, bring god over to my house around 6pm tuesday and I'll debate with him. If he wins the debate I'll turn in my atheist card and join a fundy church, deal?
PS-make sure you tell him that the burning bush deal is out of the question, I'm really sensitive to smoke.

Butters

Slamanamp was trying to use the Transendental arguement for God. The problem is, is that he stated it exactly how it works, in plain english. To give this argument any bite, you have to dress it up in pseudo logic constructs, large, important sounding words, and a large dose of sticking your fingers in your ears yelling I CAN'T HEAR YOU!, that way you can at least argue for a little while, until you come back to- If we assume God exists, God exists.


Emotional, I have a car that runs on water, are you interested in buying the patent?

sourdough

[QUOTE]Originally posted by slamanamp
Does God Exist?
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only in your mind.
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[quote] What happens when we die?
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you decompose
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shifterknob

You assume a state of maximum entropy. In other words, you assume room temperature...

wally

This may be off on a tangent, but just how/where did the Judeo-Christian God become developed i.e fleshed out with all his powers and commandments?

Has anyone written a comprehensive treatment on how "God" evolved.

Because I am human can sort of understand love, life, pleasure and loss, it seems to me HE evolved in some respects to help us "handle" life.

And there was some stuff thrown in the way of rules to help keep people safe from inbreeding, undercooked pork, warfare, farming family relationships, etc. I know it is all made up, but for (mostly) good reasons.

Am I making any sense here?
Wally

orac

You know, things would be so much better if more people actually understood how science works.

One of the most important things to remember is that scientists don't have authorities.

Nope, not one. There is absolutely no scientist who has ever been considered an authority based on previous accuracy.

You see, no matter how many times a scientist is right, every last claim that a person makes must be evaluated on its own merits, not on the merits of the person who makes the claim.

If you discover a new element, and other people can independantly verify that it exists, that's science. It is not, however, a grant of infallability, and no successful discoveries guarantee that everything you claim to have discovered will be real.

This is not a "foul game". This is demanding that everyone, no matter what their credentials, must always and invariably be held to the same high standard.

Oddly, this means that no scientist who claims creationism is wrong, regardless of their credentials, will be listend to on the basis of irrelevant research. No doubt you'ld be happier if we listened to people dismiss creationism without requiring any evidence of their claims, though. After all, demanding that experts provide evidence for their claims is a foul game and a double standard, right?

Marcel

Many of such rules and commandments had been developed after the Hebrew people found ways to survive in the desert. Moses's nomadic tribe was in need of rules and a god, so Moses supplied his people with that.

From the Middle East to India there is a host of seminal law-givers (Moses, Manu and others), to whom religious powers were ascribed, and of whom present-day theologians and historians think that they might have been one and the same person (cf. books by Holger Kersten).

Sigmund Freud has written down some fascinating facts and theories on the psychological and anthropological origins of the Judeo-Christian religion. For example, he argues that, while 'trekking' from Gosen to Kanaän, Moses adopted a local vulcan god, later known as JHWH, to use him as a tool to hold his people together. According to earlier myths the vulcan god manifested himself through spectacular pyrotechnical gadgets, and Mozes had mastered the art of working with brimstone and other firecracking techniques. Once he mounted Mount Sinai and hurt himself, while he attempted to impress the people by 'being in touch with' the vulcan god. This is why he, in the book of Exodus, came down the mountain with a band aid on his face, and why the god in Exodus likes to play with fire and why Moses had protuberation thunderbolts springing from his head. (cf. Sigmund Freud: The Man Moses).

Freud also argues that the accumulation of rules, do's and don'ts that are characteristic to the Judeo-Christian creeds, have a psychological origin that borders a state of neurosis. Obsessive behaviour such as abiding by self-imposed rules for eating, sitting, thinking, having sex (or not), cherishing memories of a deceased beloved one, etc also have these irrational roots. Making up obsessive rules and taboos originate from an infantile emotional world. (Freud: Totem and Taboo).

Also, present-day anthropologists have found that the origin of gods stems from the cults that began to revolve around deceased tribe leaders; tribe leaders who had died were idealised and talked about with the greatest caution. At night the spirit would visit them or leave signs, leads, etc. His influence would increase...

Anthropologist René Girard even asserts that in most religions this semi-divine creatures had been sacrificed to serve as a scapegoat. Girard argues that if we turn to the anthropological record, which is largely the record of existing cultures resolving crises of the kind that had to have been resolved for culture itself to have emerged in the first instance, we find rituals of blood sacrifice and myths that tell of primordial killings and dismemberments — the myths and rituals of primitive religion. The gods of these religions are those whose violent death and dismemberment coincided with the transformation of a terrifying crisis into a period of relative cultural harmony. Because it was unanimous and contagiously intense, and because it brought peace to a prior situation of uncontrollable violence, the collective violence that transformed all that chaos into social solidarity was experienced religiously.

Best regards, Marcel.

SULPHUR

Could you try and attack an agnostic through the same arguements? It is the only logical position.

John Page

I think an agnostic can be accused of clearly having considered the matter and believing one thing or the other (either on evidence or faith of some kind). This being the case, hypocrisy could be evident.

To be more reasonable, I think one can be in two minds abotu something - for example situations where you feel something is wrong but rationally you know its right.

I think agnostics are just confused. I should know...I used to be one.

Cheers, John