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lol, ive spelt "Angels" "Angles"
opps.
arguements still vaild though.
|   | Subject: Reading/Read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins?
Posted Jun 14, 2007 by  Random Mood
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26 new posts in the last 3 hours! 
| | Subject: Reading/Read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins?
Posted Jun 14, 2007 by Xanatic
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Omnibenevolent? Thatīs a new word. Besides God has already told his followers to do rather awful things in the past, no reason he couldnīt do it again.
| | Subject: Reading/Read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins?
Posted Jun 14, 2007 by Random Mood
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..... and I've just speed read them!
| | Subject: Reading/Read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins?
Posted Jun 14, 2007 by taliesin
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>why would an all powerfull being CARE what you think?<
>God is Omnibenelovent<
You seem quite well versed in divine character traits.
Care to provide slightly less contradictory, and more detailed description of your god?
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Ah, Gloaming...you seem sometimes miss the intention of throwaway remarks. Correct, I wasn't quoting Aquinas correctly. I was boiling down his 'proof' to the absurdity that it is. It's a tautology. "Let's invent this thing called God. If there's a God, He must be the biggest, bestest, firstest thing there is. Therefore...nothing's bigger, better or...er...firster than God." Can you *really* not see the chink in the argument?
And I really can't let you get away with:
>>Yet in a truely Atheistic Society what place would the ill, disabled and weak have? they would be seen as drains of resources at best, corruption of the genepool at worst. (Hitlers final solution) the strongest and the smartest would prevail, yet i dont see how the idiotic weak could surive. The strong would make the laws, as they help preserve power. But i doubt they would want to build hospitals (bar private use) as they would be seen as a waste and a weakness.
*Leaving aside* that (arguably) Hitler and (definitely) most Nazis believed that they derived their morality from Christianity (as, equally, did anti-Figures figures such as Hans and Sophie Scholl; Helmuth Hubener; Dietrich Bonhoeffer)...
...as I say, leaving that aside. It's an *enormous* leap of faulty reasoning - presumably based on your own prejudgement that all morality has to come from religion and only religion. (Did people think it was OK to murder one another, until Moses told them otherwise? ).
Please remember that Atheism is not a belief system, not a moral code. Atheists can be good or bad (same with the religious, but I'll not labour that point). But the sincere, moral Atheist would argue that morality cannot sensibly start with religion: something else is needed. Humanism is frequently associated with Atheism. Humanism holds that we must value one another's rights on the basis that we are human. It makes perfect sense - each one of us wants others to value our own rights. Put at its most atavistic it's 'I won't kill you if you won't kill me'. Or how about "If I get sick, I'd really like to be looked after. In fact - Hey! - here's a good idea! Why don't we all club together and build hospitals in case any one of us gets sick?" Or how about "I'm not the strongest person around. I'm worried about being beaten up by the big guys. Hey! Why don't we have things called laws, supported by courts, police forces and the like, to make sure that the strongest don't get to push the weakest around?"
So you see...we really *don't* need gods for a decent society, do we? In fact, I am willing to put up a strong case that religious morality is largely based on these Humanist principles...but with the addition of some unfortunate and nonsensical baggage aimed largely at the oppression of women and pathological dislike of healthy sexuality. Humanism isn't watered down religion. Religion is Humanism gone wrong.
Anyone calls me immoral, I'll punch them in the face.
>>>God is Omnibenelovent<
I was talking with my wife earlier this evening about a university friend of hers, a devout Methodist, who met her husband at church, and 48 hours later he'd proposed. She consulted the Bible for guidance, and a randomly selected verse told her what she should do. Apparently she often used this method of guidance (Christian I Ching?). They've ended up very happy. They think that God is looking after them, his faithful servants.
Isn't that a disgusting belief? How arrogant of them to think that god has singled them out as being especially worthy of tender loving care. Have they not thought out what it implies for the may who lead lives of misery? Presumably god loves them less. Maybe that's because they don't love and worship god as much as a nice Christian couple do.
If god *did* exist, and if this was what god was like...I'd want nothing to do with him.
(They're decent people, I have to say. I'm sure they think their decency is a reflection of their faith. I'd say their faith tarnishes their decency)
| | Subject: Reading/Read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins?
Posted Jun 15, 2007 by taliesin
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| | Post: 228
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>Anyone calls me immoral, I'll punch them in the face.<
Everlasting torment* awaits! You violent, amoral atheist** you! 
* Courtesy of Almighty Omnibenevolence
** Yes, I'm aware of the redundancy...
| | Subject: Reading/Read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins?
Posted Jun 15, 2007 by Hoovooloo
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"STEADY! this is ment to be a debate, not a name calling contest."
Is it? And yet here you come, apparently seriously suggesting that the evidence for the existence of the queen is as flimsy and ludicrous as that for your choice of god.
"Diplomacy is obviously not youre strong suit."
I'm very diplomatic with people i judge to be half as intelligent as me or better.
""I ask again - do you people really believe this stuff?"
yes. most people do."
See, that's what amazes me. It just does. But then again, half of USAians think the world is only 6,000 years old and there were dinosaurs on the ark. The evidence is very clear that most peole are credulous superstitious dullards.
"" From this response alone I feel like you'd struggle in a battle of wits with a pitted plant..."
yet i notice you have no arguement and have to resort to childish responsese?"
I have excellent arguments. I have employed them repeatedly over the years in coversations with people like you. However, repeated exposure to the brainless responses that get trotted out (e.g. "god doesn't need to prove his existence to YOU", see below) has tried my patience to the point that now I just give people one chance to show they're brighter than a ficus, and you used that up.
"How do you know that an experiance of God can't be arranged?"
Because, as I already pointed out if you had the wit to pay attention, IF it were possible to simply say "Go to London Bridge on July 1st at 10:00, God's going to be there", there would be no atheists, or at least none who were not mentally ill.
"maybe God dosn't value your opinion enough to prove his existance to you."
Really? That's your BEST explanation? Is your all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipresent Creator of the universe really that petty-minded, that SADISTIC, in fact, that he would conceal his existence from me out of pique? Doesn't that strike you as the sort of explanation a six-year-old might come up with?
How old are you? (Your spelling is consistent with my hypothesis that you're six...)
"And if I die... I'm DEAD. And since I, that is to say, my consciousness, is a pattern of electrical activity which will cease upon my death, once dead, I know nothing, of gods or anything else."
How do you know this? die?"
Guess again.
"Think about this: if YOU die, how does that confirm the existence a god, TO ME?"
why on earth would your personal belief effect Gods existance?"
Um... obviously you don't understand.
Here's a question for you. Why on earth would YOUR personal belief effect Gods existence? As in, why do you think that because you believe, he exists?
"why do you assume that there is a need for you to know?"
I don't assume need. I simply assume that if something exists, there would be a scrap of evidence. There isn't.
"If everyone stopped beliving in Gods existance it wouldent make a jolt of diffrence."
And if everyone started believing the earth is flat, that wouldn't either. However, the evidence, if bother looking at it, points to a round earth and no gods.
"why would an all powerfull being CARE what you think?"
Don't ask me. Explain why people pray, if that's what you think.
"unless your God i doubt your whiney statements would be accounted."
No idea what this means. Please try to stick to English. Mistakes in my posts (e.g. "pitted plant") I blame on my broken hand. What's your excuse?
"You seem to assume that you know the truth."
YOU are the one who claims revealed truth, not me.
"how? you cant have been told it"
Why not?
"and by the sounds of it you're unlikely to be into the platonic forms theory."
Most amusing.
"try again with a coherent arguement that focuses on rational debate and try to avoid calling most of the worlds population stupid."
Do you realise 50% of the world's population is of below average intelligence? Of course you don't, you're one of that 50%.
I on the other hand have objective, independently measured evidence that my IQ is higher than that of at least 99.5% of the population. I therefore find people like you and your ill-thought out and worthless opinions depressing.
Does it ever occur to you that you are simply not bright enough to have an opinion worth anything? I am quite content with the idea that I simply don't know enough to have an opinion on, say, the best treatment for throat cancer or the likely proprties of the Higgs boson. Do you even comprehend the limits and consequences of your ignorance?
SoRB
Och, he's right, SoRB. Diplomacy *isn't* your strong point. 
These days, my own prefered tactic - and I don't claim to be any good at sticking to it - is to speak calm truths. Those truths may contain barbs...but all the more effective if you hide them in cotton wool.
Also - as Rationalists, we have to remember to stick with the Rationalist project. It's not enough to say "That's silly!". We are obliged to say (something like) "Obviously that's not right, BECAUSE..." Becauses are important in an evidence-based worldview.
>>I on the other hand have objective, independently measured evidence that my IQ is higher than that of at least 99.5% of the population.
Is that high enough to realise that a) IQ tests are a pile of shite and b) They say nothing about the validity or objectivity of your opinions?
Time for a telling off: Resorting to "I'm cleverer than you" is the most inane, childish debating tactic out there. I mean...If you're so 'kin clever, why aren't you running the world instead of making chocolate?
(Actually, there *are* psychological tests for objsctivity, of a sort - eg the Watson-Glaser Test for Critical Reasoning. Since they too are flawed, I'll refrain from telling you my score. )
| | Subject: Reading/Read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins?
Posted Jun 15, 2007 by taliesin
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| | Post: 232
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Did someone mention chocolate?  
I mean, fer cryin'out loud, I'm taller than 97.5% of the UK population. Does *that* make me a better person?
| | Subject: Reading/Read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins?
Posted Jun 15, 2007 by taliesin
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Definitely not.
Now where's the chocolate? 
I've put it on a high shelf, where the inferior 97.5% can't reach it. 
| | Subject: Reading/Read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins?
Posted Jun 15, 2007 by Hoovooloo
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| | Post: 236
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"If you're so 'kin clever, why aren't you running the world instead of making chocolate?"
Two points:
1. I don't make chocolate any more. For nearly two years I've been making polytetrafluoroethylene.
2. Running the world is not a fit job for an intelligent person.
Scott "Dilbert" Adams has astutely observed that the majority of people are simply not equipped to judge the life choices of the highly intelligent. Hence the "if you're so smart..." argument is fallacious.
And yes, resorting to "I'm cleverer than you" is an abdication of the high ground akin to a parent saying "because i say so". But honestly, I find it hard to maintain any patience in the face of such wilful, even self-satisfied, self-righteous pig-ignorance. I'm all for interesting debate with a quality interlocutor. But seriously - "how do you know the queen exists"? "what if i lived ion africa?" "why should god prove anything to you?". These are the bleatings of a slow but defiant child, not arguments.
SoRB
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| | Subject: Reading/Read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins?
Posted Jun 15, 2007 by taliesin
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| | Post: 237
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*sets up ladder...*
~~~~~~~~~~
On a more thread relevant note... I've been reading some of the entries at Science Blogs: http://scienceblogs.com/?utm_source...m_medium=link&utm_content=topmodule
Particularly this one: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/
Well...that's you told anyway, SoRB. Maybe now start applying your obvious talents to making effective arguments? That would be more interesting for the rest of us.
| | Subject: Reading/Read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins?
Posted Jun 15, 2007 by Hoovooloo
This is a reply to this Posting.
| | Post: 239
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"I'm taller than 97.5% of the UK population. Does *that* make me a better person?"
No. But it makes you better qualified to reach objects on high shelves, like the chocolate spread, for example.
Understanding of simple logic and what "evidence" means are objects on a shelf that I can reach, as can you. Gloaming can see the shelf, but can't reach it. He can only reach the bottom shelf (and that barely) where the motor oil is kept. Not his fault.
What IS his fault is that he's spreading motor oil on his bread and insisting it's chocolate spread. He's pretending to himself that he can reach the high shelf. The only person he's fooling is himself.
SoRB
If you've nothing nice to say...was it really a matter of patience or impatience? Sometimes its better to just close your browser window and be done with it.
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