The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should insist on the need to engage in a meaningful debate on the entire issue of the truth or falsity (or probability or improbability) of religious tenets, without being subject to accusations of impiety, immorality, impoliteness, or any of the other smokescreens used by the pious to deflect attention from the central issues at hand.
S.T. JoshiTag: truth atheist fallacy debate libel agnostic secular red-herring
To leave a man's ego bigger, retweet him. To leave his faculty of reasoning better, challenge his tweet.
Mokokoma MokhonoanaTag: thinking reason logic rationality argument challenge ego agreement disagreement debate self-development consensus improvement unanimity social-networking twitter tweet social-networks
After debating with a religious scholar you leave the room but suddenly you are pushed and about to hit the ground.
If you fall and hit the ground; they will tell you, you saw the power of God he made you fall and now you are on the ground.
If you fall but not hit the ground; they will tell you he just gave you a warning, he pushed you but later stopped you from hitting to ground to prove you his power.
If you fall but not hurt; they will tell you, he hit you to the ground and as he is kind he didn’t let you to be hurt.
If you fall and hurt; they will tell you, you saw the power of God, how he teaches the hypocrites, he just punished you by hitting you to the ground.
If you even didn’t fall and walked away; they will tell everyone, God will show him one day his power; and certainly we all fall one day or another.
The foundation of religion is on misbelieve and misunderstanding of the reality of nature and physics; it is not the God that changes things, but the one who takes the credit.
Tag: atheism religious fall debate scholar god-game
Does giving your piece of mind, bring a peace of mind? Or is it better to be silent and let the war inside subside?
Anthony LiccioneTag: words rage peace mind fight tongue calm complain quiet conflict controversy disagreement talk argue debate regrets misunderstanding dispute accept forgive quarrel condemn discuss foot-in-mouth whitewash piece-of-mind rag remain-silent row subside
Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years.
Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks 'That's enough of that. It's time to intervene,' and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person.
Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so. Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either.
It even manages to pollute the central question, the word I just employed, the most important word of all: the word love, by making love compulsory, by saying you MUST love. You must love your neighbour as yourself, something you can't actually do. You'll always fall short, so you can always be found guilty. By saying you must love someone who you also must fear. That's to say a supreme being, an eternal father, someone of whom you must be afraid, but you must love him, too. If you fail in this duty, you're again a wretched sinner. This is not mentally or morally or intellectually healthy.
And that brings me to the final objection - I'll condense it, Dr. Orlafsky - which is, this is a totalitarian system. If there was a God who could do these things and demand these things of us, and he was eternal and unchanging, we'd be living under a dictatorship from which there is no appeal, and one that can never change and one that knows our thoughts and can convict us of thought crime, and condemn us to eternal punishment for actions that we are condemned in advance to be taking. All this in the round, and I could say more, it's an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true.
Tag: fear truth love reason morality ethics belief indifference atheism health myth atheist guilt dictatorship responsibility crime totalitarianism intellect evidence homo-sapiens redemption richard-dawkins debate christopher-hitchens hitchens supreme-being wishful-thinking dawkins human-sacrifice eternal-father love-your-neighbor atheist-argument ancient-myth christianity-is-immoral compulsory divine-dictatorship eternal-punishment great-atheist-argument hitchslap immoral-christianity
There is a presumption in favor of every existing institution. Many of these (we will suppose the majority) may be susceptible of alteration for the better; but still the "Burden of proof" lies with him who proposes an alteration; simply, on the ground that since a change is not a good in itself, he who demands a change should show cause for it. No one is called on . . . to defend an existing institution, till some argument is adduced against it; and that argument ought in fairness to prove, not merely an actual inconvenience, but the possibility of a change for the better.
David Stone PotterTag: debate rhetoric innocent-until-proven-guilty
People need to learn the art of making an argument. Often there is no right or wrong. It's just your opinion vs someone else's opinion. How you deliver that opinion could make the difference between opening a mind, changing an opinion or shutting the door. Sometimes folk just don't know when they've "argued" enough. Learn when to shut up.
J'son M. LeeTag: advice advice-for-daily-living debate arguments shut-up
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