Cracked Posted December 18, 2006 Share Posted December 18, 2006 It's people like this that make this world a bad place to live in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7xcL0rezTc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eponymic Posted December 18, 2006 Share Posted December 18, 2006 It's people like this that make this world a bad place to live in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7xcL0rezTc That's not as bad as the scary guy in God Exists Atheists are in Error 4. (I wish there was an icon to express extreme shuddering. This is the closest I could find) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llwellyn Posted December 18, 2006 Share Posted December 18, 2006 Actually, although I am not a Christian, I believe that the author of the YouTube video has a point that Atheists do not have an answer for: If there are no moral duties, and no metaphysical realities of right and wrong, then the conflict between Christianity and the world is just a battle of the wills, with neither having any grounds to claim primacy. Atheism has no proper way of invoking the "should" word. Christianity invokes the "should" word based on the irrational ideas of Biblical authority and divine vengeance. I am a Pagan -- a Platonist -- so I don't get caught by the problems of Christianity and Atheism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlessgrrl Posted December 18, 2006 Share Posted December 18, 2006 Hm. Some of the responses indicate he's been spamming people's inboxes with his vid. Some of the responses are also pretty damn funny, and make good points of their own. Dude. YouTube is awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotBlinded Posted December 18, 2006 Share Posted December 18, 2006 Actually, although I am not a Christian, I believe that the author of the YouTube video has a point that Atheists do not have an answer for: If there are no moral duties, and no metaphysical realities of right and wrong, then the conflict between Christianity and the world is just a battle of the wills, with neither having any grounds to claim primacy. Atheism has no proper way of invoking the "should" word. Christianity invokes the "should" word based on the irrational ideas of Biblical authority and divine vengeance. I am a Pagan -- a Platonist -- so I don't get caught by the problems of Christianity and Atheism. Sure...atheists do just as they do. They invoke the should word by what they deem appropriate to their society. Christians (et al) may say it comes from God, but it actually comes from a book written by humans. Atheists just don't claim that their "should's" come from somewhere else. But, when you get to the bottom of it, both are coming from the same place...people. One just tries to use the morals of an ancient society and apply them to today's time. I wonder who is more realistic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AgnosticBob AtheistPants Posted December 18, 2006 Share Posted December 18, 2006 This guy was your typical run of the mill average joe christian. He was completely unsure of himself, digging for answers, spouting jibberish about things he doesn't understand at all. He reminded me of ME when I was defending Christianity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llwellyn Posted December 18, 2006 Share Posted December 18, 2006 The thing I noticed was that his eyes have that vacant look in them of a person who is not fully engaged with reality. Not Blinded says: "One just tries to use the morals of an ancient society and apply them to today's time. I wonder who is more realistic?" Here, you are appealing to a standard of judging social programs according to a measure of "realistic-ness." Yet you have not described or defended this criteria for evaluation. Where does it come from, and why is a social program "better" if it is realistic rather than brutal? I know this mode of arguing brings back bad memories of Christian apologetics, but it is also a part of Platonist apologetics as against Atheism. Be advised, though, Platonists do not imagine that there are any prizes for believing in God or any penalties for not. We can all agree that the Bible is a chain letter and Yahweh's vengeance an absurdity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotBlinded Posted December 18, 2006 Share Posted December 18, 2006 Not Blinded says: "One just tries to use the morals of an ancient society and apply them to today's time. I wonder who is more realistic?" Here, you are appealing to a standard of judging social programs according to a measure of "realistic-ness." Yet you have not described or defended this criteria for evaluation. Where does it come from, and why is a social program "better" if it is realistic rather than brutal? I know this mode of arguing brings back bad memories of Christian apologetics, but it is also a part of Platonist apologetics as against Atheism. Be advised, though, Platonists do not imagine that there are any prizes for believing in God or any penalties for not. We can all agree that the Bible is a chain letter and Yahweh's vengeance an absurdity. Well, it comes from me of course. I'm not an atheist but I'm arguing as such because I feel that all morals come from people and change over time according to what works best in that time and place. I think it would be better if it causes the least harm to others that may include barbaric acts in order to cause the least amount of harm. If the assignation of Hitler would have prevented millions from being killed, I would call that good. We can now take that even further and say that the capture and imprisonment of Hitler would have been a greater good that caused even less harm. Honestly, I don't really like to argue morals because I go in circles. But anyway...I believe all morals come from people. It would seem that we have an innate sense to understand what is good or not. If so and it is innate, then we could say that God is the source (for believers) or that it is already in our brains as a function of such that evolved over time. The rules made are only rules dictated by the society of the time, which is written by people that live in those societies. I was reading something the other day about consciousness and the brian development at a time about 3000 years ago. Maybe much of the Old Testament was written at a time when these people didn't understand the voices they heard and attributed them to God. I can't remember what they called it or I would google it again to find it for you. Bicameral??? Something...I'll try to find it. Yes..that's it (although controversial). Here is wiki's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of..._Bicameral_Mind Here is a little more on the post-conscious mind: "Early in our history we humans lived by instinct enhanced by a uniquely efficient conscious mind, a faculty which we used to our benefit in simple ways. In the attempt to explain our reality we took things such as the sun and moon to be gods, and worshipped them. We took the movements of the stars and planets as portents of our destiny. As our conscious minds developed they presented thoughts to us which we saw ourselves as unable and untrustworthy to have originated - as beyond our right, or capacity to think - so we 'heard' these thoughts as the words of our gods. At Delphi, in ancient civilised Greece, these words were attributed to The Oracle. In the course of time the Oracle was abandoned, and humans came to recognise their thoughts as theirs alone, coming from their own minds (although still confused by concepts of 'god'). At this point the human race, in its thought and action, came to be represented by its FULL CONSCIOUS MIND. It was a step further than the old Oracle, but still a big step short of fulfilment in that it again failed to recognise part of its mind, this time the major, utterly unique part, the postconscious, describable as the silent oracle because it is normally unheard excepting for its conscience. Ever since that time we have heard the voice of conscience, although we have largely rejected it, but other than that we have remained deaf and blind to the huge capacity of the postconscious." From: http://www.humantruth.org/opentr1.htm It's the next chapter that mentions the bicameral mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YDOAPS Posted December 18, 2006 Share Posted December 18, 2006 Atheists do not have an answer for: If there are no moral duties, and no metaphysical realities of right and wrong, then the conflict between Christianity and the world is just a battle of the wills, with neither having any grounds to claim primacy.Good thing Atheism doesn't necessitate a lack of morals, eh? Atheism has no proper way of invoking the "should" word.That is not true at all. Atheists, have morals. Atheists just know morality has nothing to do with god(s) and is all about suffering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heschel Posted December 18, 2006 Share Posted December 18, 2006 Atheism has no proper way of invoking the "should" word. You are every bit as thoughtlessly wrong as the youtube nincumpoop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cracked Posted December 19, 2006 Author Share Posted December 19, 2006 This guy was your typical run of the mill average joe christian. He was completely unsure of himself, digging for answers, spouting jibberish about things he doesn't understand at all. That means we have a lot of lunatics running around out there. Shit if this is a average christian then we are not to far away from christians becoming just as bad as terrorists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JP Posted December 19, 2006 Share Posted December 19, 2006 I've heard of Christians saying, "If not for my being a Christian, I would kill you where you stand!" That is so fallacious. And it really lets you know who the really evil people are in this world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Noogatiger Posted December 19, 2006 Share Posted December 19, 2006 Llwellyn, If there are no moral duties, and no metaphysical realities of right and wrong, then the conflict between Christianity and the world is just a battle of the wills, with neither having any grounds to claim primacy. You are totally correct; it is a battle of wills. There is no "source"; there is no "authority", other than the will of the human mind, even now, because religion itself is a man made thing. I suppose you could say that the source of any of our morals is our will, our minds. If all religion, (pagan or otherwise), were completely erased from the earth, we humans would still find a way to determine what we consider to be right and wrong, based on nothing more than the stage of enlightenment of our society at the time, perhaps. Our morals would simply be determined by the society we live in, and thus they would be different from region to region, and from time period to time period. When you think about it, it is that way now. Some people just believe that this comes from some higher power, when it doesn’t. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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