Francois Tremblay Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 True, offensiveness is somewhat subjective, but let's agree that trivializing someone's unjustified death is pretty offensive ? Not talking about humour or other peripherial ways to talk about it, but seriously trivializing someone's suffering. Christianity trivializes everyone's suffering. We're supposed to believe that an all-good being ordained everything. Created, started, is responsible for everything. I wonder how the people who survived the Holocaust feel about that belief ? That their suffering was ordained for good purposes ? Are mothers offended that this good being is supposed to have created their baby with a horrible deformity ? I wonder how people who suffer of flesh-eating bacteria feel about God's goodness ? And don't give me the Free Will excuse - if you build a defective bridge, and it crumbles, blaming the wind in court won't get you anywhere. I'm not arguing the Problem of Evil anyway. Even if God existed, it would still be offensive. It should be morally repugnant to any thinking person, just like karma. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asimov Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 Franc, you're preachin to the choir It always makes me wonder how an all-knowing God could have created the entire universe, and called it all Good, and then have it run to shit the next day by one of his creations...makes no sense. If Adam was created perfect, how was it that he failed? Bad design on God's part, I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francois Tremblay Posted April 17, 2005 Author Share Posted April 17, 2005 Well, you see, my point is not that evil should not exist, but that Christian belief itself is inherently offensive. If I was suffering or victim of a disaster, I would be offended that there are people who believe that what happened to me was the product of a good being. It's the believers that I would hate ! In a way, they are exploiting people's suffering for money and power. They are no better than Holocaust deniers, and we jail those. (I don't think the government should have the power to jail people for their opinions, but that's another matter) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merlinfmct87 Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 It can be damned insulting. I have a particular distaste for the idea that suffering is "good" and gets you "closer to God." Someone else told me something else can get me closer to God... Merlin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asimov Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 Well, you see, my point is not that evil should not exist, but that Christian belief itself is inherently offensive. If I was suffering or victim of a disaster, I would be offended that there are people who believe that what happened to me was the product of a good being. It's the believers that I would hate ! In a way, they are exploiting people's suffering for money and power. They are no better than Holocaust deniers, and we jail those. (I don't think the government should have the power to jail people for their opinions, but that's another matter) I don't think that evil exists. I think blaming or attributing natural disasters or how shitty ones life is is a sad excuse for either not accepting that shit happens, or to deny responsibility of your own life. They are exploiting people, because not only do they say that it is due to sin (homosexuals!!) but that the cure is the God who visits those bad things upon people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francois Tremblay Posted April 17, 2005 Author Share Posted April 17, 2005 Moral responsibility is the first thing that drops off when you become religious. That's the whole point of religion : to not have to acknowledge your responsibility for your own actions, to not have to think. That's why religious extremists are a public danger. You can't expect them to follow their own doctrines - they will rationalize a lot in order to pursue their pet hatreds - but you can expect them to be a constant menace. God-belief should be considered a mental disorder, and in fact schizophrenia is often involved. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
- AUB - Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 Moral responsibility is the first thing that drops off when you become religious. Exactly what I've been saying for years, yet no theist here has challenged me on this, they have no defence at all. I knew you'd be good here, now its in stereo. The negation of responsiblity serves two purposes, 1. It gives the sheeple a "clean slate" or continual forgivness so the guilt drummed into them is removed, which is why many who feel guilt from indirect exposer to theistic contamination join these churches. And 2. it creates an army of mindless, conscienceless, amoral drones, with no pity or empathy, able to defend that faith by any means and historicaly gather crusading hordes to wipe whole civilisations off the map. This one of course is what all tryannies do, from the red army to the Hitler Youth, but I find the xtian and Muslim brands the most effective. How else do you get clinic bombers in an otherwise civilised county, or Al Qaeda members in moderate communities? It took 10 years of national brainwashing to create enough stormtroopers in Germany, 1 month in a pro life group in the US and your shouting things like "when bricks bleed then I'll care" while you set the timers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Neil Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 One of the more ironic things I catch Christians doing is when they try to argue Christian morality over humanism by making it appear that Christian morality appear more humanistically appealing. In other words, the "objective moral value" that Christians claim to have is "better" (again, their claim) because it supposedly has a better system for preserving human life, and preserving human life is a good thing. Basically, using humanism to argue against humanism. I used to catch Jesus Freak on that all the time, and he'd chase his tail until he got tired. God-belief should be considered a mental disorder, and in fact schizophrenia is often involved. Have I mentioned lately that God tells jokes to Jason Gastrich? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francois Tremblay Posted April 17, 2005 Author Share Posted April 17, 2005 Well, I'm not a fan of humanism OR Christianity, but I'll have to admit that at least humanism is not completely subjective and self-refuting. The fact is, on what standard can the Christians possibly judge their own moral principles ? If they invoke facts of reality, as you said, they are implicitly adopting an atheistic standard. And yes, I remember you mentioning that Gastrich thinks God tells him jokes. He must be schizophrenic. No other way to explain it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Neil Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 I know. The Gastrich/God joke thing is sort of a running gag that I come back to periodically because it's always good for a laugh. I still can't believe he said it. I normally don't use it twice in the same day... or even in the same month for that matter. Anyway, carry on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francois Tremblay Posted April 17, 2005 Author Share Posted April 17, 2005 No no, hey ! You know Gastrich is on our guest list for the show. Uh, but now I'm not so sure now that I know he's actually insane. Maybe we should change approaches and treat him more like a crackpot : humour him, indulge him, and laugh about it afterwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Neil Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 As long as you have him on, I'm tuned in. I've lightly prodded Reggie to have him back on, to which Reg politely declined. I just can't get enough of the guy. Didn't mean to take over your topic though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francois Tremblay Posted April 17, 2005 Author Share Posted April 17, 2005 No no, not at all. In fact, if you have suggestions for things to ask Gastrich, that would be great. It won't be for a while (our next guest will be Zachary Moore), but I'll use them when the time comes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Neil Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 Okay, if I do that, I'll either email you or start a new topic about it or something. Anyway, I've noticed that there are some holes in humanism. I'm not a super whiz at philosophy, but I do catch Christians tip-toing outside of their theology to employ atheistic standards in a vane attempt to make Chistian standards appear good. It's fun to make them run in circles. One of the things I was getting to, and kinda forgot to mention, was that Christianity is probably the best example of cognative dissonance one could point to. Christians want to promote their religion as something good, yet they recognize the things that are inherently bad, which is why they trivialize them. They don't realize it, but they're actually trying to make religious morality more like atheistic morality. Again, I'm not much a philosopher, but I know irony when i see it. I'm glad I'm not the kind of person who would spend hours upon hours trying to convince people that immoral acts in the Bible are moral by coming up with "3,000/4,000 answers to tough questions about the Bible". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francois Tremblay Posted April 17, 2005 Author Share Posted April 17, 2005 You mean his answers to assumed Biblical contradictions ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Neil Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 Yeah. I love the fact that he harmonizes things that don't need to be harmonized. Jason Gastrich is a victim of the very thing I'm talking about. He sees a vial act in the Bible, recognizes that it's vial, and decides that the words on the page can't literally mean what they say, because that would be bad, and the Bible can't be bad. So he corrects the Bible and trivializes pillaging and plundering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francois Tremblay Posted April 17, 2005 Author Share Posted April 17, 2005 Don't you like it when they scream "context", when there is no ideology more context-less than Christianity, and their use of "context" in Bible reading is "anything that makes you align your interpretation with mine". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Neil Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 The website gastrich.org has the absolute best quote in reference to that. "This stance - any answer will do, so long as it adheres to the inerrancy principle - is frequently found in fundamentalist scholarship." - Kathleen C. Boone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francois Tremblay Posted April 17, 2005 Author Share Posted April 17, 2005 I didn't know about that site. Looks like great fodder here. Thanks a lot ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sokudo Ningyou Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 Moral responsibility is the first thing that drops off when you become religious. That's the whole point of religion : to not have to acknowledge your responsibility for your own actions, to not have to think. That's why religious extremists are a public danger. You can't expect them to follow their own doctrines - they will rationalize a lot in order to pursue their pet hatreds - but you can expect them to be a constant menace. God-belief should be considered a mental disorder, and in fact schizophrenia is often involved. Isn't that true. The Shiavo case is a good point. The Christian Moral Majority felt it was their duty to break the law and picket and basically make the rest of us miserable because we had to watch a pack of idiots slathering over a person's right to die. To die, mind you, instead of living in possible pain and veggie state for the rest of her life, which is inherently offensive to watch. We can put our loving pets to sleep once they're old and in pain, to spare them suffering, but - and I do realize people see humans differently on this - not our parents, or sister, or son, or whoever who otherwise gets to spend untold years on a tube. I even saw letters in the local paper screaming that it was "God's decision" whether or not she dies that day or tomorrow, even though God technically made that decision by putting her in a state where she couldn't physically take care of herself. Genius. And then to make it worse, they call in the conservatives, who suddenly have an interest in this one woman's cause, even enacting new laws just for her to stop "murder" from happening. Yet these same conservatives have no problem whatsoever bombing countries full of civilians - and pregnant mothers with babies; technically, forced abortions - cutting health care and in effect causing the decline of anyone who can't afford proper health, putting more guns in the hands of people who shouldn't have them to begin with, and threatening "liberals" and "the homosexual agenda" with death and all sorts of marvelous threats because they don't believe in Jesus and God. Because those are their morals: not to have any. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
- AUB - Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 I've noticed that there are some holes in humanism. That's fighting talk Neil. Shall we take it outside, to another thread? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Neil Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 Well, at least in my uses of it, I've run into a few difficulties, which is why I don't use it much anymore. The most annoying thing that Christians do to stop humanist arguments in its tracks is to say, "Well, how does humanism apply to animals? Is it wrong to kill animals?", to which I sigh in annoyance. Then I have to go off on a whole other tangent to explain that, and it's just a big bother, because it really has nothing to do with explaining why Christian morality is bankrupt. What it does is it opens the door for them to argue red herrings, which makes the argument very tedious, and I don't like tedious things. I like efficiant arguments. If I can shut them up in two sentences as opposed to ten paragraphs, I'll do it. So I've stopped trying to argue counter morality systems with believers. Now, whenever Christians try to get by with howlers such as "we can't have morality without God", I ask them to demonstrate how this shows the truth of God's existence. In other words, is the truth of God's existence somehow directly tied to their need to have a perfect morality system? That seems to be what they're arguing. Even if it was true that atheistic morality wasn't perfect, does that mean *poof!* God exists? I've asked that question a number of times of guys like Jesus Freak and Mad Gerbil, and they never ever ever ever answer it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reach Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 Moral responsibility is the first thing that drops off when you become religious. That's the whole point of religion : to not have to acknowledge your responsibility for your own actions, to not have to think. Franc, I believe you are using too broad of a brush here. Did you mean to say religious fundamentalists or religious zealots? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Totallyatpeace Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 I don't believe I fall into either one of those categories but I do know that I take responsibility for my actions. That was a very broad stroke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reach Posted April 17, 2005 Share Posted April 17, 2005 I don't believe I fall into either one of those categories but I do know that I take responsibility for my actions. That was a very broad stroke. I didn't fall into those groups either, when I was a committed Christian. Also, I agree with Neil that there are some holes in humanism. Another thread to discuss that would be a good idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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