Ye Religion Thread

[Whirlingdervish]

God fucked up 4 times before he made people, who still suck.

God is a fuckup.

 

[Arm0r]

explain this picture without evolution.

in this picture, you can only find 2 of these today...where are the other 3?

[quadz]

in this picture, you can only find 2 of these today...where are the other 3?

Indeed.  Of all the species that have ever lived, 99.9% are extinct. ^[1]

Some design!

[deft]

Christopher Hitchens rules.

[[BTF]DeathStalker]

I have just watched one of the most amazing and interesting debates of my adult life.
Christopher Hitchens vs Al Sharpton on Atheism and God

It doesn't matter if you are Religious, Atheist, or believe we came from Mars, I strongly incourage any and all to watch this debate.
It's a full hour and a half long so get ready for the long haul, but i can certainly say it is well worth the time spent to watch it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=891776135764757633

[FYATroll]

If only the man on the other side of the debate was someone other than the good reverand...I can't stand to listen to that man speak

[deft]

Al Sharpton looked dumb the whole time :<

[quadz]

It's a full hour and a half long so get ready for the long haul, but i can certainly say it is well worth the time spent to watch it.

I went ahead and watched it again just now. 

Unfortunately, I don't think Sharpton was very much a part of the debate.

He kept claiming that he didn't want to defend religion or scripture in any way, instead insisting that he was only there to argue against the title of Hitchens' book, "God Is Not Great".

He even went as far as to try to take Hitchens to task for writing a book entitled God Is Not Great, wherein the contents of the book were primarily focused on religious notions of god.  Sharpton hammered this point over and over, to the extent that one began to wonder if he were genuinely confused, or engaging in pure sophistry. 

Sharpton's hang-ups about the title of Hitchens' book were inane for several reasons.  First of all, the title "God Is Not Great", it should have been obvious, does indeed direct part of its meaning at a religious concept of god.  After all, the title is a play on Allāhu Akbar ("God is great").  Second, Sharpton conveniently ignores the subtitle of the book, the full title being: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.  So it was fairly inane for Sharpton to repeatedly blather on about how Hitchens' book was misnamed because it talks about a religious concept of god.

So I wish Sharpton would have just engaged in the debate a bit more.

But it was indeed interesting the way Sharpton refused to defend scripture.

Sharpton's main ideas seemed to boil down to:

  - I have had personal experiences that have convinced me of the existence of God
  - My personal experiences supercede scripture, which are simply some other person's attempt to interpret their own experiences
  - I believe God created the universe and invested it with divine order
  - Without divine supervision, morality would be an arbitrary concept; "everything" would become moral

In his own words:

Sharpton: Many people, in our own lives, have had experiences
that make me believe that there is a God, and make me believe
that by seeking God, and seeking the guidance of a supreme
being--is real to me.  I'm not going by Moses, I'm not going
by Peter, I'm not going by the man that you said was allegedly
Jesus of Nazareth.  I'm talking about in people's personal
experiences, with their interaction, through their own faith
in God, can say that.  That you, or no one else can tell me,
that did not exist.  If I was only sitting up here arguing
with you over scriptures, then you would have points that I would
consider valid to this discussion.  But I'm not here to defend
scriptures.  I didn't write those scriptures.  I lived *my* life.
And in my life, the existence of God has been confirmed to *me*,
in my own personal dealings.  And my own faith being vindicated
and validated, that had absolutely nothing to do with scriptures,
whether they were right or wrong.
 
And again, I pose the question: When you raise the issue of
_morality_, if there is no supervisory being, then what do we
base morality on?  Is it based on who has the might at any given
time?  Who's in power?  What is morality based on?  If there _is_
no order to the universe (and therefore some being--some force
that ordered it) then who determines what is right and wrong?
What is moral and immoral?  You use very religious terms
interchangeably while you attack the idea of a god.  There is
nothing immoral, if there's nothing 'in charge'.  Because,
everything becomes moral, if in fact these species as we are
is all there is.

Sharpton's argument completely collapses on itself in the above, and I wish Hitchens had called him more directly on it.

I was going to elaborate, but I see numerous bloggers made the same observation, so I'll just quote:

http://nogodzone.blogspot.com/2007/05/doing-sharpton-shuffle.html

The issue for Rev. Al is then where does this morality get revealed to man. If there is no right or wrong without a god how do we know what this deity says is right and wrong? Outside of religious scriptures what other source do we have?

Sharpton might argue that it is the heart of each man where right and wrong is revealed. But isn’t that just another version of the scriptural problem of each man “doing what was right in his own heart”? Thus we still have no definable right or wrong merely the opinions of billions of people. If god is the only source of morality then he must reveal that morality somehow.

If Sharpton dismisses scripture for the evil deeds then how can he appeal to it for the “good” morality? And if we don’t use a scripture then what is the source for this revelation?

Any other source doesn’t prove a deity. In the hearts of men for morality is precisely what we would expect in a natural world without a deity. If the source is found in nature the answer is still what you would expect in a godless world. What source exists which is inherently divine and not natural?

Regards,

[[BTF]DeathStalker]

Personally for me I learned alot about both of them and the answer to a few other questions aswell.
The one thing that got me though was the fact that niether really ever seemed to actually answer the questions asked by the guests. It seemed they always went off somewhere else.
But I do believe that Al did answer the last question to the best of anyone's ability to aswer a question such as that one.

[haunted]

Not the greatest of arguements

so... you're saying that all living things don't evolve?

[Arm0r]

Not to  here but I just wanted to point out something that kind of pissed me off today.     

So im in line at a convenient store waiting to get some smokes when the lady in front of me finishes her sale and just says to the clerk "thank you, god bless you"...to which this clerk proceeds to go ape shit on her saying shit like "why would you say that, fake blessings from a fake god mean nothing" etc etc etc...she proceeded to appologize and when she left the look on her face was sad....do any of you strong nay sayers to religion think this woman got what she deserved for simply saying something meant to be very kind to someone?   

Again im not arguing for either side, but I just thought it was kinda fucked up.

[metaL]

if they ever get sick of their cash saying "IN GOD WE TRUST" i'll be happy to take it off their hands.

[quadz]

So im in line at a convenient store waiting to get some smokes when the lady in front of me finishes her sale and just says to the clerk "thank you, god bless you"...to which this clerk proceeds to go ape shit on her saying shit like "why would you say that, fake blessings from a fake god mean nothing" etc etc etc...she proceeded to appologize and when she left the look on her face was sad....do any of you strong nay sayers to religion think this woman got what she deserved for simply saying something meant to be very kind to someone?   

No, that's lame.

I'd say: Have some empathy, have some grace, recognize this stranger's good intentions, accept that this person is (we presume) offering sincere thanks and good wishes to you.  Translate it as, "thank you, and may fortune smile upon you" or something similar.

(Indeed, it came as a bit of a shock the other day to be confronted with the fact that apparently jagermonsta thinks i'm the sort who would act like that clerk...   )


Regards,

[FYATroll]

Not the greatest of arguements

so... you're saying that all living things don't evolve?

I'm just saying that when your arguement is "everything evolves end of story" that isn't really going to convince someone who does not believe in evolution...just saying

Also, Al Sharpton is not the greatest theological mind walking the Earth and quite frankly it would be nice to see someone else debate Hitchens

[metaL]

after Noah and the great flood, since there was only one male and one female for each "kind" of animal... exactly what processes must have have taken place for so much diversity to exist in the animal kingdom today? baffling