Science, Atheism, Theory, Fact - Definitions, Meanings, and More

[Sum1sgruj]

By that logic, wouldn't it be a Pagan holiday regardless of how it was corrupted by Christians? I mean, if how the holiday is portrayed today cannot change its Christian core, certainly it would stand to reason that how the holiday is/was portrayed by Christians wouldn't change its Pagan core.

Christians 'graduated' from Judaism when Jesus died. It's not as if it was 'stolen'. The pagan holiday was eventually extinguished by Jews and replaced with Jesus by Christianity. This occurred around 300 AD. Santa Claus and trees are just fun counterparts they decided to keep and is not deemed a requirement by Christians to celebrate.
Saying that it's pagan origin defines it as a pagan holiday today would be to say that Christians should be considered Jews because of their origin.

 

[der Astronom]

Christians 'graduated' from Judaism when Jesus died. It's not as if it was 'stolen'. The pagan holiday was eventually extinguished by Jews and replaced with Jesus by Christianity. This occurred around 300 AD. Santa Claus and trees are just fun counterparts they decided to keep and is not deemed a requirement by Christians to celebrate.
Saying that it's pagan origin defines it as a pagan holiday today would be to say that Christians should be considered Jews because of their origin.

And it's not a requirement to worship Jesus when celebrating Christmas.

 

[Sum1sgruj]

And I just explained why this whole notion of calling pagan holidays false is absurd; if you're going to call a pagan holiday false, and replace it with something else that's not any less false, why do you believe there's a good reason for doing so?

It's an affair between theists, it's as simple as that. The scientific authentication of it is completely irrelevant, as I stated earlier.

And it's not just annoying; it's logically inconsistent and intolerant of other religions.
But anyways, do you support what they did? Do you support the fact that they disrespected another religion by replacing their holidays with their own, despite the fact that they had no basis whatsoever for claiming falsehoods in other people's religions without looking at the falsehoods in their own?

Their esteemed savior was maimed, tortured, and nailed to a cross by the Jews. I don't think it really matters what they did with the forgotten holiday.
And nonetheless, this is theism, not science. There is no need to keep bringing on the concept of falsehood.



As far as gnostic goes, I don't really need to assert what it means. I thought this was common knowledge, but for the sake of argument, Google it and you won't even have to locate a source- a million will likely just explode right in front of you.

EDIT: I am not trying to be brash, but gnosticism was constructed in a school of spiritual philosophy and my definition of belief stands quite well on the term agnosticism. I believe in no ultimatum of belief, as uncertainty is a fundamental aspect I feel that everyone should accept.
I will admit that I do take the argument on gnosticism a little personal, but this is due to my strong logic on what it presents.

 

[der Astronom]

And I just explained why this whole notion of calling pagan holidays false is absurd; if you're going to call a pagan holiday false, and replace it with something else that's not any less false, why do you believe there's a good reason for doing so?

It's an affair between theists, it's as simple as that. The scientific authentication of it is completely irrelevant, as I stated earlier.

So you're basically admitting that religion is irrational and has no consistency. Which matters to me because I care about the truth, and hand waving it away by saying it's theism changes nothing. It's special pleading, and if you're not accepting the inconsistency here simply because it's theism, then there's nothing more to say about it.

And it's not just annoying; it's logically inconsistent and intolerant of other religions.
But anyways, do you support what they did? Do you support the fact that they disrespected another religion by replacing their holidays with their own, despite the fact that they had no basis whatsoever for claiming falsehoods in other people's religions without looking at the falsehoods in their own?

Their esteemed savior was maimed, tortured, and nailed to a cross by the Jews. I don't think it really matters what they did with the forgotten holiday.

And that still doesn't address the fact that the context under which all this happened has not a shred of evidence--so Jesus was sacrificed because god willed it? Where's the evidence this god exists? It's not any less spurious than evidence of pagan deities, and any given religion can make no claims about other religions because they are based on faith, and none of them are capable of validating their own claims, let alone any other claims of any other philosophy, be it religion, science or other ideas. I don't care if you think this is okay to you because it's theism; it's got nothing to do with whether or not this is a theism issue; it's got to do with a religion discriminating on another religion for being false for no good reason.

And nonetheless, this is theism, not science. There is no need to keep bringing on the concept of falsehood.

It's not only about the falsehood; it's about Christianity being a dick to other religions.
Think about it this way--some guy rear ends your car in the traffic, and you try to tell the cops what happened; the cop has no idea what happened because he didn't see it, and he can't trust your story completely either because you have no evidence the other guy rear ended your car. However, the other guy says you're lying, and that you rear ended into his car; he has no evidence to back up his claims, and yet he still says you're a liar. If the cop believed him, how would you feel?

As far as gnostic goes, I don't really need to assert what it means. I thought this was common knowledge, but for the sake of argument, Google it and you won't even have to locate a source- a million will likely just explode right in front of you.

And I'm saying we're not concerning ourselves with that definition of gnostic when speaking of gnostic atheists or gnostic theists. If there's a particular reason why we need to discuss the set of knowledge that is gnosticism, please explain it. Until then, I see no problem with talking about gnostic atheists or gnostic theists.

 

[CassinoChips]

The pagan holiday was eventually extinguished by Jews and replaced with Jesus by Christianity.

Er.... what? There wasn't just one Pagan holiday that Christmas borrowed from, and there's no evidence that the Jews "extinguished" anything. Most of the Pagan holidays/festivals that shaped Christianity were based in areas that were occupied by the Roman Empire. The Romans, while tolerant (relatively speaking) of Jews, still subjugated them. So if anyone "extinguished" the Pagan traditions, it was the Romans, and specifically the Roman Christians. The Jews were second-class citizens, and would not have had enough power to dictate a cultural change.

Santa Claus and trees are just fun counterparts they decided to keep and is not deemed a requirement by Christians to celebrate.

Explain how, if Christmas was established as a Christian feast around 300 AD, they "kept around" the tradition of Santa Claus, when St. Nicholas, who the tradition is based on, lived between 280 and 342.

Also saying they just "decided to keep" them is an oversimplification. It's easier to assimilate a culture, and the conqueror is less likely to face a rebellion, if you allow them to keep many of their traditions intact, such as holidays. Along those lines, the Christian church at the time allowed the Pagan peoples in the Roman Empire to blend in their traditions to the new holiday.

Saying that it's pagan origin defines it as a pagan holiday today would be to say that Christians should be considered Jews because of their origin.

I know. Just like saying its Christian origin defines it as a Christian holiday today would be saying the same thing.

 

[Sum1sgruj]

So you're basically admitting that religion is irrational and has no consistency. Which matters to me because I care about the truth, and hand waving it away by saying it's theism changes nothing. It's special pleading, and if you're not accepting the inconsistency here simply because it's theism, then there's nothing more to say about it.

And that still doesn't address the fact that the context under which all this happened has not a shred of evidence--so Jesus was sacrificed because god willed it? Where's the evidence this god exists? It's not any less spurious than evidence of pagan deities, and any given religion can make no claims about other religions because they are based on faith, and none of them are capable of validating their own claims, let alone any other claims of any other philosophy, be it religion, science or other ideas. I don't care if you think this is okay to you because it's theism; it's got nothing to do with whether or not this is a theism issue; it's got to do with a religion discriminating on another religion for being false for no good reason.

I'm not admitting anything at all. I have my reasons for not taking much of proclaimed science to heart, as it is more theory than fact. I have many posts on this within the thread that you can quote and debate further if you wish, but I am not going to retell my entire argument.

It's not only about the falsehood; it's about Christianity being a dick to other religions.
Think about it this way--some guy rear ends your car in the traffic, and you try to tell the cops what happened; the cop has no idea what happened because he didn't see it, and he can't trust your story completely either because you have no evidence the other guy rear ended your car. However, the other guy says you're lying, and that you rear ended into his car; he has no evidence to back up his claims, and yet he still says you're a liar. If the cop believed him, how would you feel?

And so it is still an affair between theists. Christians have crusaded with indigenous countries, yes, but of all the things they can be discounted for, Christmas is simply not one of them.

You cannot fight this concept with science. If their enemies were atheists, that would be different. But their enemies were of the same theistic nature, so science is obsolete in this matter.

The Jews persecuted Jesus and his followers. Christians took their holiday. It's called holy war and it's nothing new.

 

[der Astronom]

I'm not admitting anything at all. I have my reasons for not taking much of proclaimed science to heart, as it is more theory than fact. I have many posts on this within the thread that you can quote and debate further if you wish, but I am not going to retell my entire argument.

Okay, but by using the excuse that this is a theism issue, you are trying to wave away the issue of a religion making assertions about another religion, in which it has no sound basis for. The fact that you say it's theism does not in anyway address the issue, and that's why I said it was special pleading. And if all theism is like this, then that means that all theistic ideas are not concerned with whether or not they are true or false, and are potentially illogical and inconsistent. That's basically what you are saying when you use special pleading to say logical consistency doesn't apply to theism. It doesn't change the fact that they're still logically inconsistent just because you apply a special label to them; you've just decided to ignore it.
I'm not concerned about your view about whether or not science works, as frankly, logical consistency and reasoning are not exactly the same as science; science does make use of logical consistency, but it is by no means the only field that does that. If you have a specific problem with considering logical consistency, then please explain it.

And so it is still an affair between theists. Christians have crusaded with indigenous countries, yes, but of all the things they can be discounted for, Christmas is simply not one of them.

And it doesn't matter whose affairs these are; it's still a blatant pot calling the kettle black fallacy, it's wrong, and you don't need to be a theist to see that.

You cannot fight this concept with science. If their enemies were atheists, that would be different. But their enemies were of the same theistic nature, so science is obsolete in this matter.

Actually, it seems to me more like you're unwilling to explain how it isn't wrong for a group of people to accuse another group of people for being wrong for no good reason, and to replace their ideas with another ideology that is no more correct. Because that's exactly what they did, if you are asserting that the Old Testament says pagan worship is false, and that's the reason it was replaced. And this is a general issue; not a theism specific one. If it were, I couldn't have provided you that example with the cops.

The Jews persecuted Jesus and his followers. Christians took their holiday. It's called holy war and it's nothing new.

And do you support such a notion? Do you think it's right for a group of religious people to take the holidays of another religious group, say they're wrong and replace it with their own?

 

[Sum1sgruj]

The Bible has a very complex morality construct. It is extremely fair, so much so that it's actually too hard for most people to take in. The eye for eye concept only scratches the surface. Words do in fact kill, and this is in fact a statement within the Bible. Stoning someone to death for blasphemy seems horrible, but it's better that one man dies instead of a potential war because of his words.
Take Hitler for example. His words alone killed millions of people and nearly damned the world into Nazism.
The fact is, nurtured morals and grade school quotes do not amount to anything. You will see how 'moral' this secular age is if police and militia all took a day off.

But was it still right for Christians to stampede over another belief?
Not really,,
But let's put this to light: What do atheists do with theism?
If Christmas has become secular, it's because of atheists. Do see how this is unfolding? Christmas is itching to be replaced again.

The entirety of your debate seems to be based on a concept that religion is wrong and science is right.
I see flaws that riddle science in every avenue that opposes the Bible, and yet I do not proclaim the Bible is right. I am a shining example of a true agnostic. It's going to take more than basing that assumption to get the ball rolling with me.

 

[der Astronom]

The Bible has a very complex morality construct. It is extremely fair, so much so that it's actually too hard for most people to take in.

Personally, I think fairness doesn't need to be complex, and in fact, I often find the opposite to be true. However, I am not convinced that just because it's too complex that it's too hard to be understood is any explanation for it's fairness; you'll have to be more specific.

The eye for eye concept only scratches the surface. Words do in fact kill, and this is in fact a statement within the Bible. Stoning someone to death for blasphemy seems horrible, but it's better that one man dies instead of a potential war because of his words.

And Jesus said to turn the other cheek. So do you, or do you not fight tooth and nail, or do you let go of it if someone attacks you?
I am not aware of any heathen, on account of his being a heathen who has started a war. And even if they did, what you are advocating is simply just a combination of censorship and might makes right; it is wrong, it is abhorrent, and it's not something we do in society today--are you saying we're worse off now because blasphemers are going to start a war over something because they're not being stoned? We have less barbaric ways of dealing with people insulting or offending others, and they work.
You see, this is an example of where saying the bible is so complicated that people can't understand how it's being fair fails. Not only have you not demonstrated that stoning people is fair; you have just demonstrated that you think it's okay to silence someone by killing them simply because they offended you.

Take Hitler for example. His words alone killed millions of people and nearly damned the world into Nazism.

And I doubt people would have considered it the best solution to have killed or silenced him simply because the majority of us find his ideas abhorrent. The only reason we might have considered capital punishment on him is for crimes he actually committed; not simply for expressing his ideas, which is not a crime.

The fact is, nurtured morals and grade school quotes do not amount to anything. You will see how 'moral' this secular age is if police and militia all took a day off.

But it is more moral than the Dark Ages, when the people then most likely followed the bible more closely than in just about any other time period. And you call that fair when women are given no rights, no one condemns slavery, free speech doesn't exist, and heathens are tortured? Or how about I decide to stone you simply because I don't like what you're saying? Would you like that? Of course not. And I would never do anything of the sort, no matter what you say. The thing is, there is a logical pathway leading from the bible to these atrocities. The fact that you wave this all off because the bible is too complicated for a typical person to understand means the bible is not practical for morality. A complicated bible that can be interpreted badly is just as good as a bible that has no good morals.

But was it still right for Christians to stampede over another belief?
Not really,,
But let's put this to light: What do atheists do with theism?

Nothing. What you are probably trying to get at is what anti-theists do to theism, and if they are doing so on a rational basis, I see no problem. However, that specific example I provided of what Christians did to pagans has no rational basis, and you concede as much.

If Christmas has become secular, it's because of atheists. Do see how this is unfolding? Christmas is itching to be replaced again.

Christmas becoming secular has nothing to do with believing Christmas as a Christian tradition is wrong. It happened because there is no clear distinction between pagan elements and Christian elements in Christmas, and the confusion has caused people not to care about the difference. I think consumerism was on the rise then as well, so it might as well have happened for secular reasons, and whether or not you think it's right or wrong doesn't matter; it's got nothing to do with atheism itself anyways.

The entirety of your debate seems to be based on a concept that religion is wrong and science is right.

No, it's that religion can tell us nothing useful or true, and here's why. You've just admitted that the bible is too complicated for people to understand, and yet when people read it, they don't understand it the same way you think it should be understood, and when such ambiguity occurs, it's not practical to use the bible because you don't know which interpretation of the bible should be used. And that's evidenced already by the hundreds of Christian denominations that exist. They can't seem to agree on what it says. Secondly, because the bible is written like subjective literature and not objective literature, it is not falsifiable, and fails the basic properties of things to which we can determine are likely true or not true.
I don't think science is always right in every single case. It just happens to have a very good method for discerning truth from falsehoods; we just happen to be wrong about it sometimes in the process. I also happen to believe that there is no other means of discerning truth from falsehood that works with absolute certainty; science is reasonable about this, given our limited resources and our limited senses. Religion is not. Religion is simply an attempt to explain the unexplainable, regardless of whether or not the explanation is even remotely true.

I see flaws that riddle science in every avenue that opposes the Bible, and yet I do not proclaim the Bible is right. I am a shining example of a true agnostic. It's going to take more than basing that assumption to get the ball rolling with me.

And I see equally as many flaws in the bible, but instead of owning up to the errors, people have decided they'd like to twist and complicate the definition of the bible so that it matches with what seems to be right. And that's also why it's not falsifiable. If it seems to be wrong, you can just change the meaning to match what you want it to. The problem here was that you hadn't known it was wrong in the first place; you needed something else to show you it was wrong.
And if you do not believe the bible is right, why do you think there is anything in there worth reading, and under what criteria do you use to determine where it's right and where it isn't?

 

[Sum1sgruj]

Atheists seem to discount religion without taking into consideration their own gambits. They aren't necessarily the beacon of morality to be riding a pale horse over religious belief.
The entire reasoning for even projecting it doesn't have anything to do with morality on the large scale. They simply just want to shove an idea that their is no God- which is honestly quite foolish when taking into account that we can never know where this reality came from.



I don't understand where you get the idea that I've 'demonstrated' this or 'admitted' that.. this tactic will fail any and every time you do so. Agnosticism requires a whole hell of a lot more thought than atheism and religion, and it doesn't have to take much thinking to realize that.

The Bible is only 'complicated' because people can't bear to spend a little bit of time interpreting it. I'm telling you, I could sit here and paint the most elegant damn picture of morality in the Bible and as soon as it is read it will either miraculously turn phantom or be dismissed with irrelevancy.
A lot of what you have argued in your post is explained extremely well in the Bible, to a point where it's practically infallible. This is a great way of putting it actually, because you are trying to tell me the sky is green. Pun intended.
It's really easy to dismiss something you refuse to understand. This is an attribute of both atheism and religion. These things can be argued between them all day, but agnostics are the ones that wield both swords so to speak and eventually prevail.

The rationale is simple: we accept the truth.

Both science and religion ultimately fail to show any proof of how or why this reality is here. I simply tango with them to help people realize where these beliefs ultimately lead up to-- and admittingly, to get people off the many scientific lies/assumptions that stray people.



Theists do not twist the Bible. It is a holy text and isn't clear-cut like a science textbook. It takes an exceptional amount of intuition and much, much analyzing and interpreting to understand the depths of it. People have spent their entire lives doing just this.
If anyone twists the Bible, it is most definitely atheists.

Nonetheless, when I say I don't know if the Bible is right, I'm not speaking on the wisdom within it. I'm strictly speaking of God.
As for it's history, I am not fully convinced, yet I do know that science does little to exclude it.

 

[der Astronom]

Atheists seem to discount religion without taking into consideration their own gambits. They aren't necessarily the beacon of morality to be riding a pale horse over religious belief.

And they don't have to be the beacon of morality in order to point out the flaws of the morality in a religious belief system. My morality, or the morality of any other atheist doesn't in any way invalidate any criticism we make of religion; it still stands that the bible contains no verses about condemning slavery, for example, and regardless of what I believe, or what my morals are (and if you're wondering, I condemn slavery. Whether or not all atheists condemn slavery is a non issue and helps your argument in no way), it is still immoral for the bible not to condemn it and instead, describes how people should be treated as slaves.

The entire reasoning for even projecting it doesn't have anything to do with morality on the large scale. They simply just want to shove an idea that their is no God- which is honestly quite foolish when taking into account that we can never know where this reality came from.

No agnostic atheist I know of would do that, and if they did, there is no compelling reason from simply being an atheist to do so. I am not advocating that people must believe there is no god, only that I have no good reason for believing so, and if you want to assert that god exists, I would like to hear your justification for it. There is nothing preventing you or anyone else from believing that a god or gods exist for no good reason, but there are also people who won't believe in god unless there is a very good reason for it, and that's precisely why they're atheists.
However, criticizing flaws in arguments that attempt to prove that god exists is not the same as forcing people to believe that god does not exist, and this is typically what atheists do. We don't go around telling people that they have to stop believing in god; we might be curious why they do, and hope they have a good reason for it. More often than not, it seems most of them don't; it's usually just faith.

I don't understand where you get the idea that I've 'demonstrated' this or 'admitted' that.. this tactic will fail any and every time you do so. Agnosticism requires a whole hell of a lot more thought than atheism and religion, and it doesn't have to take much thinking to realize that.

It's in your arguments. I am putting back to you the arguments you posted, and showing you what I find wrong about them. If you are not in the interest of demonstrating your arguments, then you are effectively not debating, and shouldn't be posting here.
I am presuming you are referring to the agnosticism in which it is impossible to know anything (eg, whether or not god exists), in which case you have no argument; if you are asserting agnosticism as truth, perhaps you will have to explain that assertion. Otherwise, you're basically saying we can't know anything for sure, so why bother speculating at all?

The Bible is only 'complicated' because people can't bear to spend a little bit of time interpreting it. I'm telling you, I could sit here and paint the most elegant damn picture of morality in the Bible and as soon as it is read it will either miraculously turn phantom or be dismissed with irrelevancy.

And I could ask you why your version of the bible must necessarily be the only way to read the bible. Just because you think it's the most beautiful way of reading the bible doesn't mean that's how it should be read, and it doesn't change the fact that it has no bearing on truth. I still can't imagine how you can wave away the verses about slavery though.

A lot of what you have argued in your post is explained extremely well in the Bible, to a point where it's practically infallible. This is a great way of putting it actually, because you are trying to tell me the sky is green. Pun intended.

If it's so well explained in the bible, why don't you explain it? Is it too much trouble to bother with it? Once again, if you cannot present an argument that demonstrates your point, I remain unconvinced.

It's really easy to dismiss something you refuse to understand. This is an attribute of both atheism and religion. These things can be argued between them all day, but agnostics are the ones that wield both swords so to speak and eventually prevail.

Actually, agnosticism says the opposite. It says you don't understand anything, and you don't know anything, so you're not in any position to say anything about what either atheism or religion say. However, if I dismiss something that I don't quite understand, I might effectively be making a strawman argument, and if I am, I would like you to point it out, instead of making generalizing statements that don't prove your point. If you think you know so much about how this all works, and you think you understand it all (and ironically, that doesn't make you agnostic, that makes you gnostic), then it should be easy for you to point out where I'm making this strawman fallacy.
And actually, I think my position as an atheist agnostic is pretty justified. I agree with you that we don't know if god exists, or even that anything we know about him is even remotely true. However, we still need to decide what we believe--do we believe he exists, or do we believe he doesn't? This is different from whether or not you know he exists. Based on the fact that we don't know if he exists, I think it's reasonable to say we don't believe he exists; I see no good reason to do so. If you believe that god exists while not knowing if he does, I would like to know why you have decided the Christian god exists, while other gods from other religions don't.

The rationale is simple: we accept the truth.

You can't accept anything as truth if you don't know anything.

Both science and religion ultimately fail to show any proof of how or why this reality is here. I simply tango with them to help people realize where these beliefs ultimately lead up to-- and admittingly, to get people off the many scientific lies/assumptions that stray people.

And that displays your ignorance of science. First, science makes no attempt at absolute proof. That you expect it to is absurd. Science doesn't concern itself with the philosophical questions of why this reality exists; only how it works. Secondly, science doesn't lie. We just make mistakes. We never say that the things we find in science are absolutely true, and we make no attempt at hiding it. Nowhere in scientific literature do you find any assertions about facts that are absolutely true.
I hope people aren't fooled by your ignorance of science. They don't need to realize anything about it other than the success it has based on our current technology, and if they studied the method at all, they would realize that it's the best thing we currently have for discerning physical reality from falsehoods. If you have a better method for discerning truth from falsehoods, I'd like to hear it. I think it would do the scientific community and everyone else a great favor if it actually works.

Theists do not twist the Bible. It is a holy text and isn't clear-cut like a science textbook. It takes an exceptional amount of intuition and much, much analyzing and interpreting to understand the depths of it. People have spent their entire lives doing just this.
If anyone twists the Bible, it is most definitely atheists.

And under what standard are we using to interpret the bible? I do not believe in appeal to authority, so I have no reason to believe that any given theist interpretation of the bible is necessarily correct, or any more meaningful than an atheist one, and even theists do not agree on them.
And current theist interpretations of the bible are vastly different from interpretations of the bible centuries ago, due to scientific advances and discoveries; no one who reads the bible now thinks it is referring to a flat Earth, or a sun that revolves around the Earth; such interpretations are only possible before science has discovered what most likely happened. So how can you be sure that the modern theist's interpretation of the bible got it right?

Nonetheless, when I say I don't know if the Bible is right, I'm not speaking on the wisdom within it. I'm strictly speaking of God.

Yet that wisdom derives from god himself, so if you are unsure about god, how can you be sure about the context of the wisdom in the bible?

As for it's history, I am not fully convinced, yet I do know that science does little to exclude it.

Not true at all. If any of the events in the bible happened, and are not merely mythology, then there should be physical evidence that verifies the claims in the bible. But there is no evidence of a global flood, and no ark has been found; previous ones are just hoaxes. You cannot consider the bible in exclusion of science if they speak of things within the realms of science (ie, things that are real and tangible). The reason we find science a more reasonable indicator of truth in this case is because its methods for discerning truth are more sound than that of religion.

 

[Sum1sgruj]

And they don't have to be the beacon of morality in order to point out the flaws of the morality in a religious belief system. My morality, or the morality of any other atheist doesn't in any way invalidate any criticism we make of religion; it still stands that the bible contains no verses about condemning slavery, for example, and regardless of what I believe, or what my morals are (and if you're wondering, I condemn slavery. Whether or not all atheists condemn slavery is a non issue and helps your argument in no way), it is still immoral for the bible not to condemn it and instead, describes how people should be treated as slaves.

Did you ever think about the reasoning behind the laws by God that limits slavery? This will serve as a good example in lieu of Bible morals. A slave can only serve for 7 years before being set free or paid for further service.
God never commanded that there be slaves, He just saw that this was an inevitability and decided to set a standard for it. Back then, a slave was either a criminal or a poor individual with no other way to go anyways. God saw the actions of the Egyptians and decided to free the Isrealites.
There is a balance with this. God didn't dispatch slavery altogether because it would have led to just as much, if not more, trouble.

//And you are basically saying that atheists are hypocrites as well, which kind of enforces what I stated earlier.

I am presuming you are referring to the agnosticism in which it is impossible to know anything (eg, whether or not god exists), in which case you have no argument; if you are asserting agnosticism as truth, perhaps you will have to explain that assertion. Otherwise, you're basically saying we can't know anything for sure, so why bother speculating at all?

No, no, no.. no agnostic believes you can't know anything. Any agnostic who says that is not agnostic,, they are a moron.
The conception of agnosticism is that you can know anything within our realm of reality, nothing more, nothing less. Theism and atheism both try to account for where that singularity, that existed for a trillionth of a second before exploding (the singularity we live in) came from. If that is in fact how the universe started (which doesn't really matter)

Bible Morals 101

Vanity> Lucifer is cast from Heaven along with 1/3 of the angels> Eve is tempted
Temptation> Eve disobeys God> Eve tempts Adam to do the same
Shame> they realize they are naked
Fear> they hide from God

God casts them from Eden, as they had cursed man to have this forbidden knowledge

Vanity> Cain becomes jealous of Abel
Temptation> Cain is tempted to kill Abel
Shame> Cain has killed Abel
Fear> Cain tries to hide his sin

God spares Cain and declares that nobody punishes him.
Cain becomes the direct ancestor of Babylonian rule

Vanity is the crux of sin.
Vanity is taught in every aspect of secular morality.
Suffering just becomes more directive

The beginning story of the Bible alone is enough to explain how any bad situation on Earth ensues.Every sin creates another. This is why it is referred to as a plague.

And so blasphemy becomes punishable by death, as it leads to uprising.

Nonetheless, God sees that man simply does not obey (even though His wisdom is exact). He sends Jesus to pay for our sins. Blasphemy is no longer punishable by death to stop uprisings, the ill are no longer cast out of the village to keep infection from growing, etc.
He practically gives man the easy way out for their dismissal of wisdom, though man must reap what he sows, which is no less a penalty when taking in the full context of all this.

There is a pattern inside sin and benevolence, they are not just 'standards' or 'demands' by God, but a way to maintain purity and love.

You do not have to be religious to heed this wisdom. It's practically the chaos theory within the social constructs of man, and should not be taken as an obsolete concept.
It should be a damn guideline to be honest

 

[der Astronom]

Did you ever think about the reasoning behind the laws by God that limits slavery? This will serve as a good example in lieu of Bible morals. A slave can only serve for 7 years before being set free or paid for further service.

Yes, I have read those, and you seem to neglect that it also mentions that if the slave has a family, and if he is released before his family, but doesn't want to leave them behind, he has to stay with them as a slave forever. That's just cruel and unjust, and I don't see any good reason for having this extra condition. Additionally, masters can beat their slaves, and if they die as a result (which is effectively murder), the master receives no punishment for it.

God never commanded that there be slaves, He just saw that this was an inevitability and decided to set a standard for it. Back then, a slave was either a criminal or a poor individual with no other way to go anyways. God saw the actions of the Egyptians and decided to free the Isrealites.
There is a balance with this. God didn't dispatch slavery altogether because it would have led to just as much, if not more, trouble.

Like what sort of trouble? We've abolished slavery, and I think we're better off without it. Either way, we do not treat criminals or poor people as slaves because we recognize them as human beings, and as human beings, we do not treat them as property. In the bible, slaves are treated as no more than the property of other people. It is immoral to treat other people like property, and if you support it, then you are immoral.

//And you are basically saying that atheists are hypocrites as well, which kind of enforces what I stated earlier.

No they are not; the only way an atheist can call himself a hypocrite would be if he worshipped a god or gods while claiming not to believe in any gods--and this is not a universal trait of atheism. Atheism makes no claims about morality, and contains no doctrines or codes of any kind; it is just a position regarding the belief in a god or gods, and that's exactly the same reason why I don't consider all theists immoral; being a theist only tells me what people's positions on their belief in god is. However, if you support the biblical notion of slavery, that is, that you believe it is okay (or was okay) for people to own other people as property, regardless of whether or not you are an atheist or theist, then I believe you are immoral.

No, no, no.. no agnostic believes you can't know anything. Any agnostic who says that is not agnostic,, they are a moron.
The conception of agnosticism is that you can know anything within our realm of reality, nothing more, nothing less.

Actually, what you have just described pretty much matches the definition of gnosticism (eg, gnostic theism or gnostic atheism), which is that you can know anything with a definite amount of certainty. If you have a source somewhere that verifies your claims about agnosticism, I'd like to see it.
Either way, it doesn't matter what you call your position on knowledge, all that matters is that you believe you can know anything, and because you do, any assertion you make must still be supported by evidence. If you can claim knowledge of god's existence or the wisdom from the bible, the burden of proof is on you, and you must prove it, or provide a reasonable argument for it. None of this beating around the bush and providing vague answers that don't explain anything.

Theism and atheism both try to account for where that singularity, that existed for a trillionth of a second before exploding (the singularity we live in) came from. If that is in fact how the universe started (which doesn't really matter)

No it doesn't; theism and atheism are not positions related to knowledge, but positions related to belief; one of them just happens to be the label we apply for the lack of a specific belief, just as we have the word darkness to describe the lack of light. Theism and atheism in and of themselves make no claims to truth. They are just positions held by people, regardless of whether or not they are sure of their knowledge. Hence why I explained the positions for a/gnostic a/theism.

Bible Morals 101

Vanity> Lucifer is cast from Heaven along with 1/3 of the angels> Eve is tempted
Temptation> Eve disobeys God> Eve tempts Adam to do the same
Shame> they realize they are naked
Fear> they hide from God

God casts them from Eden, as they had cursed man to have this forbidden knowledge

Vanity> Cain becomes jealous of Abel
Temptation> Cain is tempted to kill Abel
Shame> Cain has killed Abel
Fear> Cain tries to hide his sin

God spares Cain and declares that nobody punishes him.
Cain becomes the direct ancestor of Babylonian rule

Vanity is the crux of sin.
Vanity is taught in every aspect of secular morality.
Suffering just becomes more directive

The beginning story of the Bible alone is enough to explain how any bad situation on Earth ensues.Every sin creates another. This is why it is referred to as a plague.

I have several problems with this. First, if god is omniscient, why was there a need to test Eve? He knew it was going to happen. Secondly, this explains a model for how the Earth exists, but there's no evidence that it is the real model as reflected in reality. If you have any evidence that this actually happened, please provide it. Otherwise, I have no reason to believe sin exists as you say it does anymore than Zeus with his thunderbolts exists.

And so blasphemy becomes punishable by death, as it leads to uprising.

And you agree with that? That people, no matter how nice they are, are still blasphemers because they don't believe, or because they're homosexuals, and they deserve death or eternal punishment?

Nonetheless, God sees that man simply does not obey (even though His wisdom is exact). He sends Jesus to pay for our sins. Blasphemy is no longer punishable by death to stop uprisings, the ill are no longer cast out of the village to keep infection from growing, etc.

Yes, and it's something called scapegoating. Basically, this just says that you can load all your wrongdoings on someone else, and then you're absolved of all your problems. But in reality, if you do something wrong, and someone is always there to take the responsibility from you, they have done you no favor at all because you're still wrong, and you'll never learn that it's wrong. And I don't see why Jesus is a special case just because god willed it; that's special pleading.
Furthermore, the punishment isn't death; it's eternal hell, which is infinitely worse.

He practically gives man the easy way out for their dismissal of wisdom, though man must reap what he sows, which is no less a penalty when taking in the full context of all this.

What, and you agree with this? That if I come by and smash your car headlights, and your neighbor decides to pay for it instead of having me pay for the damages I caused, I'm immediately excused? I'd still be wrong you know.

There is a pattern inside sin and benevolence, they are not just 'standards' or 'demands' by God, but a way to maintain purity and love.

No, it's a pathway to ignorance and narrow-mindedness; by allowing a singular person to be the scapegoat of everything we do wrong, we are in no way discouraged from committing wrongdoings on other people, and it encourages no purity or love; instead, all it's doing is causing people to love the thing that takes away all their responsibilities, despite the fact that this person may not even exist, and it does society no good. If Jesus is the only person who receives this love, I don't see any good reason why it might ever be considered a good thing.

You do not have to be religious to heed this wisdom. It's practically the chaos theory within the social constructs of man, and should not be taken as an obsolete concept.
It should be a damn guideline to be honest

And being honest means not scapegoating someone for anything you do wrong. If I do something wrong, I should take responsibility for it; not shove it onto some other person, real or fake, regardless of whether or not he's willing to take on all responsibility. I understand that people are encouraged and feel better by believing that someone can solve all their problems, even if that person isn't real, but that's precisely why it works; by believing there exist a person who can take on anyone's responsibilities, and not caring if he exists, they've just thrown away all their responsibilities, and are being dishonest with themselves (because face it, they still have to do something about it themselves). If you want a guideline for honesty, it's that you should take your own responsibility for the things that you have caused. If you do something to other people, you are responsible for your actions, regardless of whether or not the outcome is good or bad. You don't get to blame it on someone else so that you don't have to do anything about it. That's not how you build a good society, and that's not how you become more honest.

 

[Sum1sgruj]

Actually, what you have just described pretty much matches the definition of gnosticism (eg, gnostic theism or gnostic atheism), which is that you can know anything with a definite amount of certainty. If you have a source somewhere that verifies your claims about agnosticism, I'd like to see it.

You can know the workings of reality. You cannot know what it is, how it came about, or why it is there. Therefore, I stomp on the idea of gnosticism. There is no need for a source, as I feel you have the depth to understand that and maybe I should have been more clear as it is a very specific term.

Yes, I have read those, and you seem to neglect that it also mentions that if the slave has a family, and if he is released before his family, but doesn't want to leave them behind, he has to stay with them as a slave forever. That's just cruel and unjust, and I don't see any good reason for having this extra condition. Additionally, masters can beat their slaves, and if they die as a result (which is effectively murder), the master receives no punishment for it.

It's hard to see the good in it no doubt, but it is still explainable.
The slave could not die within the same day they were beaten, otherwise it was punishable, by death nonetheless.
That, by extension, means most slaves were never beaten to death. Think about it..
And if their eyes or teeth became damaged, they were to be set free>> The book of Leviticus is practically an instruction manual for the Isrealites following the Exodus. It includes the idea of 'eye for eye, tooth for tooth'.
There is a much greater message in this, which you can bridge on your free time if you want, but I've already spoken my piece on the Bible's fundamental aspects of morality and am not going to exhaust myself diving into the depths of what He decided for his chosen people.
To point you in the right direction, think about the eye for eye concept and how Babylon was of the direct genealogy of Cain (as Abel to the Isrealites and Jesus)

All I will say is that those times were extremely brutal. God was actually giving more humane ways of treating slaves. And overall, He did not support slavery. Extending what I said before, He had two choices: tone down the inevitable, or purge the Earth all over again.

But above all: God did not support slavery. This is a truth that needs to be concreted.

Like what sort of trouble? We've abolished slavery, and I think we're better off without it.

I do not support slavery neither.

But if you think that slavery ended out of a sudden hard on for good morals, you are sadly mistaken.
The only reason it became abolished is because of it's increased lack of necessity. After industrializing, a nation no longer needs slaves.
This is fully relevant with America: The north wanted the south to industrialize as they had, and felt it only necessary to abolish slavery to make this happen.

the only way an atheist can call himself a hypocrite would be if he worshipped a god or gods while claiming not to believe in any gods--and this is not a universal trait of atheism. Atheism makes no claims about morality, and contains no doctrines or codes of any kind

I would have to disagree with the entirety of this. Atheists seem to have a very strong claim on morality, which is based on the doctrine of atheism itself:
Vanity.
Which is extremely ironic to me
This in itself is hypocritical, as they proclaim that everything is permitted, and yet argue morality.

I have several problems with this. First, if god is omniscient, why was there a need to test Eve? He knew it was going to happen. Secondly, this explains a model for how the Earth exists, but there's no evidence that it is the real model as reflected in reality.

He gave man free will. We we're to be living beings, not empty vessels.
Omniscience obviously only goes so far. There are many instances in the Bible where God shows sorrow, regret, anger, and even relief.

And being honest means not scapegoating someone for anything you do wrong. If I do something wrong, I should take responsibility for it; not shove it onto some other person, real or fake, regardless of whether or not he's willing to take on all responsibility.

God sent Jesus to die for our sins. I hardly find this a concept of scapegoating. This is God's will we're talking about here..
And to add to it, He did not say to discount His laws, he simply said it is now tolerable because of the sacrifice, so long as we believe in it.

And just a side note:
You have to understand the idea of sacrifice. God did not sacrifice Jesus, man did,, unintentionally. He tricked the Jews into paying their blood price.
God had to jump through a few loopholes to be able to bring balance.
Jesus was a blasphemer and a political dissident. His death was technically God's law at the time. He made grace without sin, which is something that should be carefully thought about before making direct assumptions of the Jesus incident.

 

[unadulteratedawesome]

Omniscience obviously only goes so far.

So... you're saying God isn't all-knowing or understanding. Even if He exists, where does His authority come from? Simply the authority of a parent/creator? A pretty cruddy one at that. I'm not sure I'd support a father who genocides his own descendants.

 

[der Astronom]

You can know the workings of reality. You cannot know what it is, how it came about, or why it is there. Therefore, I stomp on the idea of gnosticism. There is no need for a source, as I feel you have the depth to understand that and maybe I should have been more clear as it is a very specific term.

Yes, I agree agnosticism is a specific term, but it's much simpler than you make it out to be--in fact, I don't think it even includes knowing the workings of reality; it's just simply not knowing anything with any degree of certainty (or the alternate definition, which is that you can't know anything at all); nowhere in the definition of agnosticism that I'm aware of does it include anything about knowing how reality works. However, I'd be pressed to know why you think that gives you a better position than atheists and theists, since they're not even compatible, nor can I see why that's a better position against gnostics, if we're relying on your definition of agnosticism, since they claim to know the workings of reality as well.

It's hard to see the good in it no doubt, but it is still explainable.
The slave could not die within the same day they were beaten, otherwise it was punishable, by death nonetheless.

And two wrongs don't make a right.

That, by extension, means most slaves were never beaten to death. Think about it..

And that's even worse. In theory, that means you can beat a slave everyday, so long as he lives.

And if their eyes or teeth became damaged, they were to be set free>> The book of Leviticus is practically an instruction manual for the Isrealites following the Exodus. It includes the idea of 'eye for eye, tooth for tooth'.

And might makes right along with righting a wrong with another wrong are not things we uphold in modern society, and for good reason.

To point you in the right direction, think about the eye for eye concept and how Babylon was of the direct genealogy of Cain (as Abel to the Isrealites and Jesus)

The whole notion of branding someone evil because of their ancestors is absurd. That all of Babylon somehow resembles Cain in anyway is simply absurd. And I find it hard to believe that Babylon historically descended from only one lineage, and if there is any evil that is attributed to Babylonians simply because the bible says Babylon resulted from the lineage of one man, I find that to be completely unfair. Not to mention I see nothing wrong with a thriving civilization which had advanced technology and counting methods.

All I will say is that those times were extremely brutal. God was actually giving more humane ways of treating slaves. And overall, He did not support slavery. Extending what I said before, He had two choices: tone down the inevitable, or purge the Earth all over again.

What I actually find so amusing about all this is the conditions under which slaves are freed:

-after 7 years (and only if you're okay with leaving your family)
-having your eye(s) or teeth knocked out

The conditions under which slaves are freed are not pleasant at all, and any benevolent being who did not support slavery would not impose such ridiculous conditions; he would just abolish slavery then and there. If god can punish people for not worshipping him, he can punish people for having slaves. He is not humane, and there is no evidence that he does not support slavery.

But above all: God did not support slavery. This is a truth that needs to be concreted.

But you have failed to demonstrate that he did not support slavery, and there is no other evidence I know of that shows he did not. And anyone who did not support slavery would not have rules about keeping slaves.

I do not support slavery neither.

Then do you think slaves should be set free unconditionally?

But if you think that slavery ended out of a sudden hard on for good morals, you are sadly mistaken.
The only reason it became abolished is because of it's increased lack of necessity. After industrializing, a nation no longer needs slaves.
This is fully relevant with America: The north wanted the south to industrialize as they had, and felt it only necessary to abolish slavery to make this happen.

Just because they didn't need them anymore isn't any reason to completely abolish them; they might still exist, but not to as great a degree as before. In order to demand abolishment of slavery, in which the owning of another person as property is illegal (and not simply unpopular) people would need to see it as unjust and cruel before anything should be done about it, which people have done in the form of anti-slavery movements.

I would have to disagree with the entirety of this. Atheists seem to have a very strong claim on morality, which is based on the doctrine of atheism itself:
Vanity.
Which is extremely ironic to me

Vanity has nothing to do with atheism. You have all your definitions wrong. Being an atheist does not amount to vanity; once again, it is only a position regarding the belief in god, and nothing more. Until you can demonstrate that lacking a belief in god is equivalent with vanity, I have nothing more to say to you about this matter.

This in itself is hypocritical, as they proclaim that everything is permitted, and yet argue morality.

Not everything, but anything, and there is a difference. That is, as an atheist, I can choose to follow whichever morals I wish; morality doesn't even have anything to do with my beliefs regarding god, as any atheist can choose to follow morals in the bible and still not believe in god; he just follows these morals under different contexts, and other atheists can decide these morals in the bible are wrong, and would rather follow humanist ones. Either way you look at it, there is no doctrine or code that atheists follow, and there is therefore, no hypocrisy with regards to their morality because they are completely independent issues. It would be as absurd as saying everyone who's a vegetarian is a jew hater simply because Hitler was a vegetarian.

He gave man free will. We we're to be living beings, not empty vessels.
Omniscience obviously only goes so far. There are many instances in the Bible where God shows sorrow, regret, anger, and even relief.

And that's precisely why he isn't a perfect being. A perfect being is not capable of feelings, and he already has what he wants. God, on the other hand, is consistently unhappy with his creations, something a perfect being would not feel, and he's consistently a jackass towards them, including an instance of hardening the Pharoah's heart (I can't call that free will).
Additionally, demanding conditional love or else suffer eternal punishment, and at the same time having free will is tantamount with being blackmailed (sure, you have the freedom to choose to accept the blackmailer's terms or to reject them, but the fact that there are consequences invalidates the free will)

God sent Jesus to die for our sins. I hardly find this a concept of scapegoating.

Of course you don't, because you find the concept of sinning too sacred to be considered like any other secular concept, and you've just committed the special pleading fallacy.

This is God's will we're talking about here..
And to add to it, He did not say to discount His laws, he simply said it is now tolerable because of the sacrifice, so long as we believe in it.

And I see no good reason why I have to give special consideration to god's will.

And just a side note:
You have to understand the idea of sacrifice. God did not sacrifice Jesus, man did,, unintentionally. He tricked the Jews into paying their blood price.
God had to jump through a few loopholes to be able to bring balance.
Jesus was a blasphemer and a political dissident. His death was technically God's law at the time. He made grace without sin, which is something that should be carefully thought about before making direct assumptions of the Jesus incident.

This sounds an awful lot like god giving a useless free will to people.
You say god didn't sacrifice Jesus, but he willed it anyways; how is that any different from Hitler not killing a single Jew directly, but commanding their deaths anyways? And if you have to jump through loopholes to get order, god is not powerful at all. He hasn't done a good job of governing people, and he's done a lot of dickish things when he doesn't like what people are doing. And if he tricked the Jews, either god is incredibly stupid, or he knew the Jews would end up being scapegoated for Jesus' death, and that's an incredibly cruel thing to do to a race of people who probably didn't deserve it.
And it's not much of a sacrifice if Jesus still exists.

 

[Sum1sgruj]

So... you're saying God isn't all-knowing or understanding. Even if He exists, where does His authority come from? Simply the authority of a parent/creator? A pretty cruddy one at that. I'm not sure I'd support a father who genocides his own descendants.

What.. the hell?
No, I am saying that He simply would not have made man if He thought they would make statements such as that ^
Undermining the entirety of the work that's been put into this thread with such a shallow and uneducated statement. I am forced to imply:

He did not genocide anyone. Man did. It's pretty ironic that we've been currently bringing up scapegoating, and an atheist comes and kills it.

If I assume God is real:
-He is omnipresent and knows all
-He cannot see the future
Being omnipresent and knowing all, however, He can see a little further down the road.

 

[Jquestionmark]

Alright, lets do this.

Let's dig into the concepts of of everything I have posted. I have aknowledged many specific ideas of evolution, compared and contrasted them, and brought on an ample idea that they conflict, contradict, and and mass unto each other resulting in general inaccuracy and unrealistic declarations.
And I have insulted every scientist and atheist because of this?

I never said that. What have you even been reading? I said:

"lets not resort to insulting dead people" (Darwin - an individual)
"Insulting an entire group of people by saying {evolutionists} are fabricating information is a bit much" (I was not aware all evolutionists were scientists and atheists)
"You are claiming that everyone in this thread is less open minded than you and insulting them to make yourself look superior (and by extension, your argument look superior)" (this was referring to people in this thread, and not all scientists/atheists everywhere)

You were using one of the most base fallacies, and I called you out on it. So you attempted to deflect your insults and make it look like I was putting words in your mouth. In reality, you tried to put words in my mouth (by saying "And I have insulted every scientist and atheist because of this?"). Well, good luck deflecting it this time.

You actually achieved nothing with the points you made about evolution, and have failed to answer (or at least answer in any satisfying or correct way) most of the questions posted requesting you to explain yourself.

I'm not admitting anything at all. I have my reasons for not taking much of proclaimed science to heart, as it is more theory than fact. I have many posts on this within the thread that you can quote and debate further if you wish, but I am not going to retell my entire argument.

I have to cover this, even though the conversation has gone a ways since here. Typically, an argument of any worth occurs when you support your claims with evidence (good reasoning is a type of evidence). All of the evidence you have provided (rare as it is for all the claims you make) has been terribly misguided. Your interpretations of the Bible seem to be exclusively _your_ interpretations, and have no basis in reality beyond you liking to think of it that way (similar to your interpretation of chaos theory, since you stated that a quote out of a textbook had it wrong). Your understanding of science was shown to be a full on misunderstanding (I'm still wondering where you got the idea that we date individual atoms, or some of the crazy things you were saying about evolution).

You haven't been making an argument, you've been making CLAIMS, refusing to back them up, or backing them up with poor logic/bad information that other people are being so kind as to point out.

The Bible has a very complex morality construct. It is extremely fair, so much so that it's actually too hard for most people to take in. The eye for eye concept only scratches the surface.

The Bible has a fair morality construct? I was not aware that stoning people to death for saying words, turning people to salt for looking over their shoulder, killing men for spilling semen on the ground, making women subservient to men, and a whole additional list of absolutely beautiful examples of injustice were fair acts. If there's some magical complexity to these things I've listed, I'd love to know what it is. If you can't provide that, I'm going to be forced to assume that you're just saying words, and not making an argument.

For something so complex, you seem to have interpreted it just fine, so why not enlighten us. To me, it seems like the Bible provides a morality that is anything other than fair. It seems downright barbaric (stoning to death for anything, allowing for slavery), arbitrary (killing men for spilling semen), and a fantastic reason to avoid religion in general. You think I'm wrong? You think the Bible offers amazing life lessons? Show me. Show me how slavery is fair. Show me how killing people for simply speaking their mind is fair. I want to see your reasoning for this. Show it to me.

Words do in fact kill, and this is in fact a statement within the Bible. Stoning someone to death for blasphemy seems horrible, but it's better that one man dies instead of a potential war because of his words.
Take Hitler for example. His words alone killed millions of people and nearly damned the world into Nazism.

In the example you give, people are being killed for speaking out against a potentially false (you have not directly claimed that religion is true, which means it is at least potentially false in your eyes, unless you wish to claim otherwise) idea by other people that believe in that idea. I say, if a religion tells people to kill others for disagreeing with it, that religion is barbaric and self-serving, and not in the least shred useful. I further make the claim that the Bible is not presenting a general life lesson about people creating unrest with their words and the need to silence them (not that that would even be a good life lesson), but is instead instructing followers of the text to kill people that disagree with the religion presented in the text. If you have evidence of people other than yourself who think this is actually a general lesson about the danger of words, or a good reason for this interpretation, please present it here. Though, saying "if you just think about it, it's obvious" is not a valid reason. Provide your reasoning if not your source.

In the Bible, the only people killed "by words" are the ones brave enough to utter them, killed by barbaric and irrational "believers." This is a terrifying idea, a world where free speech is anathema and killing is exalted. Are you actually supporting this?

The fact is, nurtured morals and grade school quotes do not amount to anything. You will see how 'moral' this secular age is if police and militia all took a day off.

Because Biblical times were better? The Dark Ages saw Christianity wielding incredible social power - how great were things then?

I see flaws that riddle science in every avenue that opposes the Bible, and yet I do not proclaim the Bible is right. I am a shining example of a true agnostic. It's going to take more than basing that assumption to get the ball rolling with me.

Your claim: science is flawed in every avenue that opposes the Bible
My response: Genesis 30:37-39

But wait, the Bible isn't a science book, you say? Then, sir, you contradict yourself wholesale.

Atheists seem to discount religion without taking into consideration their own gambits. They aren't necessarily the beacon of morality to be riding a pale horse over religious belief.

Atheist gambits? Like encouraging reason? Standing up against moral systems that encourage barbarism? What terrible immoral things have atheists been doing?

The entire reasoning for even projecting it doesn't have anything to do with morality on the large scale. They simply just want to shove an idea that their is no God- which is honestly quite foolish when taking into account that we can never know where this reality came from.

Is it not foolish to assume that there is a god? You say "we can never know where this reality came from," so why how is assuming a god any less foolish?

Also, that's an assertion. You are making a claim to absolute knowledge ("we can NEVER know" - caps added for emphasis). Can you back up this claim? Either way, making a claim to an absolute is not a good example of agnosticism (which you claim to be the pinnacle of).

I don't understand where you get the idea that I've 'demonstrated' this or 'admitted' that.. this tactic will fail any and every time you do so. Agnosticism requires a whole hell of a lot more thought than atheism and religion, and it doesn't have to take much thinking to realize that.

Fun fact: saying "it doesn't have to take much thinking to realize that" is not an argument. If you think that agnosticism requires more thought than atheism or religion (which, by the way, lie on a different axis, as they are about belief and agnosticism is about knowledge), explain why.

The Bible is only 'complicated' because people can't bear to spend a little bit of time interpreting it. I'm telling you, I could sit here and paint the most elegant damn picture of morality in the Bible and as soon as it is read it will either miraculously turn phantom or be dismissed with irrelevancy.

The last time you posted an example of morality in the Bible, it wasn't just dismissed on the grounds that it was common sense, and not a complex moral code, but because it was made up. The picture you painted was certainly that - a picture that did not appear in the original work. You failed to explain how the original sin was vanity, or how Lucifer was the serpent, and so on. You were not actually talking about something out of the Bible, but a story you constructed using the Bible and various other elements.

A lot of what you have argued in your post is explained extremely well in the Bible, to a point where it's practically infallible. This is a great way of putting it actually, because you are trying to tell me the sky is green. Pun intended.
It's really easy to dismiss something you refuse to understand. This is an attribute of both atheism and religion. These things can be argued between them all day, but agnostics are the ones that wield both swords so to speak and eventually prevail.

The rationale is simple: we accept the truth.

Agnosticism is about not knowing what the truth is. But, you know what, I'll let that slide for the moment, as I'm most interested in the answer to this question: what is the truth?

Both science and religion ultimately fail to show any proof of how or why this reality is here. I simply tango with them to help people realize where these beliefs ultimately lead up to-- and admittingly, to get people off the many scientific lies/assumptions that stray people.

Scientific lies/assumptions? Like the effective technologies built off of science? Or sound theories that you are unable to show genuine flaws in?

You go on and on about the incredible intuition required to interpret religious text, but are you willing to apply your brain power to understanding science? The things you've posted so far imply not. You talk of refusing to understand things and the ease of dismissing them. When DragonByte Tech explained how you were misunderstanding evolution, you did not make an effort to understand it (so far as I could see), you simply made an effort to point out other things your thought were issues. You are your own worst enemy, you do not understand evolution or dating techniques, so you dismiss them. You don't even understand what science is trying to achieve. By misrepresent science, you are not helping anyone avoid your perceived issues with it, you are simply confusing people.

Theists do not twist the Bible. It is a holy text and isn't clear-cut like a science textbook. It takes an exceptional amount of intuition and much, much analyzing and interpreting to understand the depths of it. People have spent their entire lives doing just this.
If anyone twists the Bible, it is most definitely atheists.

If you're saying interpreting, analyzing, and intuition are the key, I will gladly take any book (fictional or non) and interpret, analyze, and apply intuition to get whatever I want out of it if I take it far enough (a new religion included). The theists do not agree on the Bible's meaning. If they do not twist it, please explain how all of them are simultaneously correct (and if you think they're not twisting it, and all correct, does this mean you believe in god?).

Nonetheless, when I say I don't know if the Bible is right, I'm not speaking on the wisdom within it. I'm strictly speaking of God.
As for it's history, I am not fully convinced, yet I do know that science does little to exclude it.

There's another thread on how you're mistaken about the historic validity of the Bible, so I'm not going to talk about it here.

Did you ever think about the reasoning behind the laws by God that limits slavery? This will serve as a good example in lieu of Bible morals. A slave can only serve for 7 years before being set free or paid for further service.
God never commanded that there be slaves, He just saw that this was an inevitability and decided to set a standard for it. Back then, a slave was either a criminal or a poor individual with no other way to go anyways. God saw the actions of the Egyptians and decided to free the Isrealites.
There is a balance with this. God didn't dispatch slavery altogether because it would have led to just as much, if not more, trouble.

So let me see if I'm getting this right. God is powerful enough to create everything, but not powerful enough to prevent slavery? This does not make any sense.

But better yet - it's okay to make people slaves as long as it's temporary?

No, no, no.. no agnostic believes you can't know anything. Any agnostic who says that is not agnostic,, they are a moron.
The conception of agnosticism is that you can know anything within our realm of reality, nothing more, nothing less. Theism and atheism both try to account for where that singularity, that existed for a trillionth of a second before exploding (the singularity we live in) came from. If that is in fact how the universe started (which doesn't really matter)

You need to provide a source for this bizarre claim. That is certainly not the idea behind agnosticism, and I imagine you'd be hard pressed to find an agnostic that thinks that's a great definition.

Bible Morals 101

Vanity> Lucifer is cast from Heaven along with 1/3 of the angels> Eve is tempted
Temptation> Eve disobeys God> Eve tempts Adam to do the same
Shame> they realize they are naked
Fear> they hide from God

God casts them from Eden, as they had cursed man to have this forbidden knowledge

Vanity> Cain becomes jealous of Abel
Temptation> Cain is tempted to kill Abel
Shame> Cain has killed Abel
Fear> Cain tries to hide his sin

God spares Cain and declares that nobody punishes him.
Cain becomes the direct ancestor of Babylonian rule

Vanity is the crux of sin.
Vanity is taught in every aspect of secular morality.
Suffering just becomes more directive

The beginning story of the Bible alone is enough to explain how any bad situation on Earth ensues.Every sin creates another. This is why it is referred to as a plague.

And so blasphemy becomes punishable by death, as it leads to uprising.

Nice storytelling, but this isn't from the Bible. This is you making things up. You need to provide evidence for Lucifer being the serpent, or (even better) how the moral of the garden story is about vanity, and not god being a jealous ass.

This is a good example of morality to you? Suppressing free speech with murder? You actually think this is right and moral?

Nonetheless, God sees that man simply does not obey (even though His wisdom is exact). He sends Jesus to pay for our sins. Blasphemy is no longer punishable by death to stop uprisings, the ill are no longer cast out of the village to keep infection from growing, etc.
He practically gives man the easy way out for their dismissal of wisdom, though man must reap what he sows, which is no less a penalty when taking in the full context of all this.

Good morality is letting others take the blame for you? Even the Bible doesn't think that's the case: "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin." (Deuteronomy 24:16).

There is a pattern inside sin and benevolence, they are not just 'standards' or 'demands' by God, but a way to maintain purity and love.

You do not have to be religious to heed this wisdom. It's practically the chaos theory within the social constructs of man, and should not be taken as an obsolete concept.
It should be a damn guideline to be honest

Sin is a biblical concept, and not a moral one, so no, it doesn't make a good guideline for anyone that doesn't base their morality off of a book that encourages barbaric acts.

You can know the workings of reality. You cannot know what it is, how it came about, or why it is there. Therefore, I stomp on the idea of gnosticism. There is no need for a source, as I feel you have the depth to understand that and maybe I should have been more clear as it is a very specific term.

When someone asks you for a source, it means there's a need for a source. You can't deflect it by simply saying "I feel you have the depth to understand." Provide a source or show all of your reasoning for saying that agnostics believe everything in "this reality" is explainable. I'd love to see the group of agnostics saying that.

It's hard to see the good in it no doubt, but it is still explainable.
The slave could not die within the same day they were beaten, otherwise it was punishable, by death nonetheless.
That, by extension, means most slaves were never beaten to death. Think about it..
And if their eyes or teeth became damaged, they were to be set free>> The book of Leviticus is practically an instruction manual for the Isrealites following the Exodus. It includes the idea of 'eye for eye, tooth for tooth'.

Or maybe, most slaves weren't beaten to death because buying new slaves is expensive? Or because the master would be punished for it? Not that you've even shown that most slaves were never beaten to death or that Isrealites were not beating them to death because the Bible said so instead of financial or social reasons.

But most importantly: how is slavery good? What could possibly make you think slavery is good under any restrictions? The alternative you've claimed (social unrest due to god's lacking power) could debatably be worse (not that I think it is), but that does not make slavery good.

There is a much greater message in this, which you can bridge on your free time if you want, but I've already spoken my piece on the Bible's fundamental aspects of morality and am not going to exhaust myself diving into the depths of what He decided for his chosen people.
To point you in the right direction, think about the eye for eye concept and how Babylon was of the direct genealogy of Cain (as Abel to the Isrealites and Jesus)

You claim there is a greater message. Don't point us in the right direction, say what you think it is. I'm not going to put words in your mouth.

All I will say is that those times were extremely brutal. God was actually giving more humane ways of treating slaves. And overall, He did not support slavery. Extending what I said before, He had two choices: tone down the inevitable, or purge the Earth all over again.

As I said before, encouraging a less terrible thing is not good. It's still terrible, just less than other things. This implies that God was weak, certainly weaker than would be required to flood the entire world. Or maybe it implies that he's a fictional being used to enforce the idea behind social practices.

But above all: God did not support slavery. This is a truth that needs to be concreted.

So you speak for God now? His chosen interpreter? A lot of theists (who you yourself have said do not twist the Bible) seem to have disagreed, and over a very long period of time. What makes your version of the information in the Bible right instead of theirs?

I do not support slavery neither.

Thank goodness for that. The way you were talking seemed to imply otherwise. After all, you were arguing that slavery with restrictions was better than abolishing slavery. That seemed like support, but I'm glad to see it wasn't.

But if you think that slavery ended out of a sudden hard on for good morals, you are sadly mistaken.
The only reason it became abolished is because of it's increased lack of necessity. After industrializing, a nation no longer needs slaves.
This is fully relevant with America: The north wanted the south to industrialize as they had, and felt it only necessary to abolish slavery to make this happen.

So slaves are necessary in pre-industrialized nations? I disagree.

Also, slavery was abolished as a political/military tactic. It had nothing to do with forcing industrialization. Unless you have some historian saying otherwise, I have to disagree.

I would have to disagree with the entirety of this. Atheists seem to have a very strong claim on morality, which is based on the doctrine of atheism itself:
Vanity.
Which is extremely ironic to me
This in itself is hypocritical, as they proclaim that everything is permitted, and yet argue morality.

The doctrine of atheism is vanity?

Atheists say everything is permitted and argue morality? (they're not even a unified group, just people that don't believe in god(s))

Please tell me, where did you get this information? I fear you are critically misinformed.

He gave man free will. We we're to be living beings, not empty vessels.
Omniscience obviously only goes so far. There are many instances in the Bible where God shows sorrow, regret, anger, and even relief.

Omniscience only goes so far? Are you familiar with the definition of omniscience?

"infinite knowledge" is an okay definition, and will work for the moment. The thing here is, there is no limit on infinity, that's the entire point. If you're using a different definition of omniscience, please state it. If you are reassigning values to the Christian God beyond what normal Christianity asserts, please explain them. You are once again contradicting yourself, and this time in the space of a single sentence.

God sent Jesus to die for our sins. I hardly find this a concept of scapegoating. This is God's will we're talking about here..
And to add to it, He did not say to discount His laws, he simply said it is now tolerable because of the sacrifice, so long as we believe in it.

This is definitely scapegoating. Saying that people can get away with something (or it's tolerable) because someone else made a sacrifice is scapegoating. Period.

And just a side note:
You have to understand the idea of sacrifice. God did not sacrifice Jesus, man did,, unintentionally. He tricked the Jews into paying their blood price.
God had to jump through a few loopholes to be able to bring balance.
Jesus was a blasphemer and a political dissident. His death was technically God's law at the time. He made grace without sin, which is something that should be carefully thought about before making direct assumptions of the Jesus incident.

I don't have anything to say about this beyond: it is internally inconsistent.

What.. the hell?
No, I am saying that He simply would not have made man if He thought they would make statements such as that ^
Undermining the entirety of the work that's been put into this thread with such a shallow and uneducated statement.

Actually, the Bible supports the idea of God committing genocide (see below).

And stop using ad hominem, there's no need to answer legitimate argument with insults. It just makes you look bad.

I am forced to imply:

He did not genocide anyone. Man did. It's pretty ironic that we've been currently bringing up scapegoating, and an atheist comes and kills it.

I believe the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah make good examples of God committing genocide. So no, that's not scapegoating. That's God killing a lot of people.

If I assume God is real:
-He is omnipresent and knows all
-He cannot see the future
Being omnipresent and knowing all, however, He can see a little further down the road.

He knows all, but not the future? That doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. Please provide logically consistent arguments, and stop using ad hominem.

 

[unadulteratedawesome]

He did not genocide anyone. Man did. It's pretty ironic that we've been currently bringing up scapegoating, and an atheist comes and kills it.

God orders the Israelites to kill and slaughter many times and also rewards them for doing so. He himself kills fleeing Ammonites with a hail of stones, destroys Sodom and Gomorrah himself, sends the plagues against Egypt, among other murders.

You're causing me to begin to doubt you've ever read the Bible.

If I assume God is real:
-He is omnipresent and knows all
-He cannot see the future
Being omnipresent and knowing all, however, He can see a little further down the road.

You're saying he knows everything and is present everywhere, but he is still unable to predict events accurately enough that he can actually stop or change them for the better? If we consider the Bible and your view to be accurate, God is not only an immoral murderer but ineffectual and incompetent to boot.

You claim to be agnostic in that you don't believe completely in either science or the Bible, but you've held the Bible's statements over those of science in every case. You may want to reconsider your beliefs, as your arguments make you appear to be a theist, perhaps even a creationist Christian.

 

[Sum1sgruj]

God orders the Israelites to kill and slaughter many times and also rewards them for doing so. He himself kills fleeing Ammonites with a hail of stones, destroys Sodom and Gomorrah himself, sends the plagues against Egypt, among other murders.

You're causing me to begin to doubt you've ever read the Bible.


You're saying he knows everything and is present everywhere, but he is still unable to predict events accurately enough that he can actually stop or change them for the better? If we consider the Bible and your view to be accurate, God is not only an immoral murderer but ineffectual and incompetent to boot.

You claim to be agnostic in that you don't believe completely in either science or the Bible, but you've held the Bible's statements over those of science in every case. You may want to reconsider your beliefs, as your arguments make you appear to be a theist, perhaps even a creationist Christian.

Ha, you doubt I've read the Bible? That's laughable.
Personally, I feel you are too biased to be on this thread, but since I have no control over that, I will just say that you have never read the Bible because if you did, you wouldn't be saying God is immoral, a murderer, ineffective and incompetant, and you definitely wouldn't be saying it was wrong to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah-
..What the hell is the matter with you

Therefore, I will not answer any of your inquiries from here on out. I explained my rationale in extreme detail and what you have posted is just a cheap way of attacking the Bible and my agnostic beliefs, which you also know nothing about.

"lets not resort to insulting dead people" (Darwin - an individual)
"Insulting an entire group of people by saying {evolutionists} are fabricating information is a bit much" (I was not aware all evolutionists were scientists and atheists)

And what is this? I insulted a dead person because I said that Darwin's theory was only correct in it's basic view of natural selection? Well if that is the case, I guess so...
Evolutionists are fabricating information? Nope, never said that. I simply stated that they try to make their theories seem more than what they are,, theories built on theories.

I have to cover this, even though the conversation has gone a ways since here. Typically, an argument of any worth occurs when you support your claims with evidence

Alright, this is just stupid. I practically post an entire 10 page essay, and I am suppossed to do it again instead of just telling them to READ THE THREAD BEFORE THEY START POSTING?

The Bible has a fair morality construct? I was not aware that stoning people to death for saying words, turning people to salt for looking over their shoulder, killing men for spilling semen on the ground, making women subservient to men, and a whole additional list of absolutely beautiful examples of injustice were fair acts. If there's some magical complexity to these things I've listed, I'd love to know what it is. If you can't provide that, I'm going to be forced to assume that you're just saying words, and not making an argument.

HOW IS IT THAT YOU QUOTE ME AND THEN RESPOND AS IF YOU NEVER READ MY RATIONALE? I am no longer answering the same questions over and over again simply because you want to be argumentative.

Jquestionmark, I find your lack of intuition disturbing. Every single shred of what you have posted has already been brought up and amply discussed. I have explained all this. If you have nothing more to add that is actually worth posting, then stop with the snarling please.
I find it ironic that you want everything to be peachy on this thread, and yet you are the main one being overly dramatic and refusing to explore any subject with an intuitive mindset.