Ye Religion Thread

[|iR|Focalor]

Try as hard as you can to imagine yourself actually imploring the most Great and Holy Easter Bunny to deliver you safe from harm.  Could you do it?

 
Do they still issue those personal morphine injection things to marines? If I were in a foxhole and the weather forecaster had predicted a 90% chance of a mortar shower right on top of me, perhaps I'd go ahead and inject myself. I'm sure I'd be talking to little purple bunnies and pink elephants at that point.

Honestly, debating and waxing semantical (I made that word up, I'm so awesome) about that phrase is pretty ridiculous. I personally know a few guys who served in the military and saw combat. Someone shooting at them never convinced them of their need for Christ, just their need for kevlar.

[[BTF]DeathStalker]

Honestly, debating about that phrase is pretty ridiculous.

Exactly, thats why I said what I did.
Over years of war not ALL athiests but alot of atheists have been witnessed praying to God for their lives.
A few smart asses coined that term in an effort to be sarcastic or to try and prove a point in a sarcastic manner.
It's not to be takin literally at all. Of coarse there ARE athiests in fox holes.

"there are no athiest's in foxholes"

There is only one meaning this statement has.
It's only sayed because people in those dire situations and being scared for their lives alot of athiests have been witnessed praying to God for their lived. Thats it, nothing more.

From my point of view, "that's it, nothing more" doesn't quite cut it.

For example:

"There are no terminally ill atheists who won't convert to Christianity their deathbed."	It's only said because people who claimed to not believe in god have been witnessed on their deathbed praying to God for their life. That's it, nothing more.
"There are no priests who aren't child molesters."	It's only said because priests have been witnessed to be child molesters. That's it, nothing more.
"There are no Christians who wouldn't kill employees at an abortion clinic."	It's only said because Christians have been witnessed to kill staff at abortion clinics. That's it, nothing more.

...Riiiiight? 

Ok so let me get this right. You believe that when someone says these things that they are NOT saying them for the reasons that you listed but that they say those things because they really believe that and that they are NOT saying them to simply be sarcastic ???

NONE of those phrases should ever be said or takin literally, EVER.
That said arguing over whether or not there are atheists in fox holes or whether or not there are priests that aren’t child molesters simply because someone popped off some lame remark is just crazy.

I've never been in a foxhole, thankfully.  But consider the testimony of the atheists who have.  Can you imagine yourself in a dire situation suddenly pleading for the Easter Bunny to save you?  Try as hard as you can to imagine yourself actually imploring the most Great and Holy Easter Bunny to deliver you safe from harm.  Could you do it?

1.   The Easter Bunny is written and promoted as fiction.
2.   The Bible and all other works pertaining to God as Christians know him was written and promoted as non-fiction and believed to be true.
3.   The Easter Bunny is believed by the majority of people to be fiction.
4.   God is believed by 70 some odd % of the population to be fact.
5.   The Easter bunny (that I know of) has never been known to be great and holy.

So clearly your analogy is impossible to be a fair analogy and cannot be considered for actual consideration.

[quadz]

A few smart asses coined that term in an effort to be sarcastic or to try and prove a point in a sarcastic manner.

That is the problem.  The context I typicially hear it used is where someone thinks they have offered a profound insight (i.e. thinks they have 'proved' a point.) 

Ok so let me get this right. You believe that when someone says these things that they are NOT saying them for the reasons that you listed but that they say those things because they really believe that and that they are NOT saying them to simply be sarcastic ???

No, I'm attempting to illustrate that saying, "There are no Christians who wouldn't kill employees at an abortion clinic." is just about as true, and proves just about as much of a point as saying, "There are no atheists in foxholes."

1.   The Easter Bunny is written and promoted as fiction.
2.   The Bible and all other works pertaining to God as Christians know him was written and promoted as non-fiction and believed to be true.
3.   The Easter Bunny is believed by the majority of people to be fiction.
4.   God is believed by 70 some odd % of the population to be fact.
5.   The Easter bunny (that I know of) has never been known to be great and holy.

So clearly your analogy is impossible to be a fair analogy and cannot be considered for actual consideration.

Sorry, you appear to have missed what I was driving at.

I'm attempting to convey by example what it feels like as an atheist to invoke a personal god for protection.

A little background on the Easter Bunny reference:

Folks who approach the question of the existence of god from a scientific standpoint realize they technically cannot be atheists.  There's no way to scientifically disprove the existence of god.  For that reason, those so inclined technically have to be agnostic about the question.

However, because various people wrongly believe the term agnostic evaluates to belief a 50/50 chance in the existence or non-existence of god, some of the aforementioned scientifically minded folk--even though technically agnostic--have been wary of using the term agnostic to refer to their outlook, out of concern of being misunderstood to mean 50/50 agnostic.

So the phrase "tooth fairy agnostic" was coined to better express the near-atheist level of agnosticism entertained by those folks who are comitted to a scientific approach and thus cannot claim to be certain atheists.

As you may have inferred, "tooth fairy agnostic" means one who would estimate, considering the extraordinary lack of evidence for god, that the existence of a supernatural god is about as likely as the existence of the tooth fairy (which also cannot be disproved scientifically.)

I count myself as one such tooth fairy agnostic.  Or easter bunny agnostic, etc.

Now, again, the point of the exercise was to help communicate what it feels like for a tooth fairy agnostic to contemplate petitioning a supernatural god for assistance.

I know you don't believe in the Easter Bunny.  I'm asking you to try anyway to seriously contemplate what it feels like for you to invoke the Easter Bunny with pleas for help.

If you really try, you might get a sense of what it feels like for a tooth fairy agnostic to call upon "god".

"Oh great and holy tooth fairy, please get me out of this jam and I'll never sin again!"  <-- think about it... what would that feel like?


As an aside, citing the popularity of a belief has little bearing on its truth value.

As Galileo was told:

1.   Heliocentrism is written and promoted as fiction.
2.   The Bible and all other works pertaining to geocentrism as Christians know it were written and promoted as non-fiction and believed to be true.
3.   Heliocentrism  is believed by the majority of people to be fiction.
4.   Geocentrism is believed by 99 some odd % of the population to be fact.

How persuasive do we imagine those arguments were to Galileo?  (Or to any of us today?)

Here's another thought experiment.  Consider travelling back in time to when the majority believed the sun revolved around the earth.  Consider trying to impel yourself to believe in geocentrism "like the majority of people do."

Think you could do it?  If not, why not?  And what did it feel like?


Regards,

quadz

[[BTF]DeathStalker]

oh i fully understand you using that analagy and why. Not trying to debate really.
My main thing with all this was people taking someone spitting that phrase out too literal when it is clear that anyone saying that is being far from factual.

But i do agree with this though.

A few smart asses coined that term in an effort to be sarcastic or to try and prove a point in a sarcastic manner.

That is the problem.  The context I typicially hear it used is where someone thinks they have offered a profound insight (i.e. thinks they have 'proved' a point.) 

Anyone trying to use a phrase meant to be sarcastic to actually prove a point is opening themselves up for some serious idiocy checks.

[quadz]

oh i fully understand you using that analagy and why. Not trying to debate really.

But then, do you still claim: "clearly your analogy is impossible to be a fair analogy and cannot be considered for actual consideration."

Because I assure you, if you would like to try to empathize with my viewpoint for a moment, it is most assuredly a fair analogy and must be considered for actual consideration.

[[BTF]DeathStalker]

oh i fully understand you using that analagy and why. Not trying to debate really.

But then, do you still claim: "clearly your analogy is impossible to be a fair analogy and cannot be considered for actual consideration."

Because I assure you, if you would like to try to empathize with my viewpoint for a moment, it is most assuredly a fair analogy and must be considered for actual consideration.

Yes I do.
A more fair analogy would have used a character of some form of deity that has some sort of possibilty of existance that would have to be based on faith such as Zeus or even Di-cang since nothing has "proved" that they don't exist, same as God.
The Easter Bunny can be traced to it's fictional roots.

But yes i still know what your getting at, it's really tough for an athiest to suddenly believe in something that he believes in his heart doesn't exist, such as I believe in my heart the easter bunny doesn't exist.

[quadz]

oh i fully understand you using that analagy and why. Not trying to debate really.

But then, do you still claim: "clearly your analogy is impossible to be a fair analogy and cannot be considered for actual consideration."

Yes I do.
A more fair analogy would have used a character of some form of deity that has some sort of possibilty of existance that would have to be based on faith such as Zeus or even Di-cang since nothing has "proved" that they don't exist, same as God.
The Easter Bunny can be traced to it's fictional roots.

Well damn.  I had begun to type a post that began as follows:

Because I assure you, if you would like to try to empathize with my viewpoint for a moment, it is most assuredly a fair analogy and must be considered for actual consideration.

Hmm.  I may have to take this back. 

...and I went back to playing Q2, planning to finish it later.  (And then you posted ahead of me.........!!!! )

But yeah, I reflected on my claims about equivalency of those ideas and reached similar conclusions.  I still have vivid memories of imploring god to help me in a couple dire situations as a kid, as I was raised to believe in such.  (So I'm trying to use my memories of past and my experience of present to come up with an analogy that really does feel similar to me.)

Rather than fall back to Zeus or Thor or whatever, I was going to suggest a modified analogy -- one that upon reflection truly feels pretty similar to me right now:

"O Tooth Fairy, please leave a quarter under my pillow tonight."

(Adjust for inflation as necessary!)

But yes i still know what your getting at, it's really tough for an athiest to suddenly believe in something that he believes in his heart doesn't exist, such as I believe in my heart the easter bunny doesn't exist.

Yup.

(I might quibble with the phrase "believe in my heart", as I'm open to evidence that god (or the easter bunny) exists.  But anyway, close enough...)


Regards,

quadz

[reaper]

"there are no athiest in foxholes"

If everyone in the world was athiest, the world wouldn't of worked out the way it did, Hitler would of taken over etc.  At least that seems to me what the people saying the quote are trying to convey. 

To say there is no truth to that quote would be intellectually dishonest.  Then someone said "there are no athiest suicide bombers", so I pointed out what I thought to be fundamental differences between the ideas, so they wouldn't negate each other.

There's no way to scientifically disprove the existence of god.  For that reason, those so inclined technically have to be agnostic about the question.

I've never really understood why athiests are angry about religious people saying they have to disprove their god.  An alternate explanation would be fine for 99 percent of religious people.  They don't agree with your explanation, so right off the bat they are crazy because you can't disprove their god.

[deft]

How do you manage to make yourself look that dumb every time?

[reaper]

practice

[quadz]

[QuakeDuke]

No boddy luvs me, ever boddy hates me, I'm gonna go eat worms.........

Now how am I supposed to live my life. There's no hope - reason only produced a negative and faith, well, I'm still not sure about that one....

I LOVE it Quadz... Is that from a real grocer shelf?

Hmm... on looking again, it appears to be faith is there and it's so good, we can't believe it's not what it tastes like but it's still so close to the real deal we can hardly tell the difference and reason and hope are both name plays based on faith... hmmm...

I still think it'd make a bang up commercial...

QD

[quadz]

I LOVE it Quadz... Is that from a real grocer shelf?

It appears faith and reason occupied the same shelf... Hope looks to have been spliced on.

Hmm... on looking again, it appears to be faith is there and it's so good, we can't believe it's not what it tastes like but it's still so close to the real deal we can hardly tell the difference and reason and hope are both name plays based on faith... hmmm...

Well... whether the product is in reality "so good, we can't believe it's not what it tastes like" is an open question, in my view.  Those messages are of course merely ideas they would like to sell us about their product.  From the point of view of what they are trying to sell us, 'reason' is the only one sticking to the facts.

[QuakeDuke]

It appears faith and reason occupied the same shelf... Hope looks to have been spliced on.

Good point.

It's NOT butter - "butter it's not" - but by the statement of "butter it's not" (reason)  isn't denying butter exists - it's saying what is presented as being so close to butter it fools a lot of people "I can't believe it's not butter" (faith) isn't the real deal. By "reasoning" what is presented as butter "I can't believe it's not butter"  (faith) is NOT butter, the statement itself it acknowledges butter "true faith?" exists.... hmmmm... interesting...

Well... whether the product is in reality "so good, we can't believe it's not what it tastes like" is an open question, in my view.  Those messages are of course merely ideas they would like to sell us about their product.  From the point of view of what they are trying to sell us, 'reason' is the only one sticking to the facts.

You're probably right - perhaps I should re-phrase and say a lot of people are fooled by / accept / and present counterfeit articles as the real deal while missing the truth.... however, that doesn't mean the "real deal" doesn't exist.

My brain hurts... I need to sleep

QD

[Xcessive]

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able, and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?