Yes I am not disagreeing with August, as I mentioned earlier in the thread in my opinion some of those morals are inferior and/or dangerous, and as such the whole work should be treated with great care especially with children whose minds are so impressionable.

Good question. I would say it doesn't, but it certainly gets it, just not from me.

Maybe there is a believer who can answer that.

People are taking piss on religious people through this whole thread.
Does being called ignorant atheist on that specific issue(im one of them too actually)hurts your feelings?
Do you really think that you have the tools to judge this whole subject by quoting some lines but being ignorant about the theological debates behind them?

MH, I was not offended, seriously. I am used to it, it is a standard ad hominem that often indicates that the opposing view has no case, especially when it is coming from a religious person. Similar to 'you're just like the creationists' from August - I don't take offense there either but it does seem to me that you're conceding the argument with no case of your own.

And yes I believe a mind well versed in critical thinking (not implying I am or anything - I live and learn) has all the tools it will ever need to make the most accurate judgements about anything as far as we currently know. I have not 'taken a piss on religion' just called it how I see it.

If you want to debate what I have stated so far, go ahead.

Blaming the bible is like blaming the gun. In both cases it take a human to actually commit the ugliness.

As far as I'm concerned the religious have been pissing on everybody from day one, including themselves. It's what happens when you think your world view is the only righteous one and is backed by holy words that must not be called into question. Where questioning those words is made a high crime with high punishment. In other words be a sheep in the flock and hope your not getting herded into the abbattoir.

Do what you want Skybird. I don't think the worlds religions will take it as any great loss if they fail to convert you. There is way too much hatred and anger in your heart.

What is the importance of those theological debates? Either they< are run by historians by academic standards, then that is what you should call them: history studies. You go and look if you can find evidence for historic events, and when somebody has lived and where, and what the influence of his written work was in the politics of this or that country. for example. Or you understand "theology" as a discussion of the nature of supernatural messages and deities who are taken for real. Then I would say you are dealing with a profession that probably and most likely has no object, and all you need to run that debate is a vivid fantasy indeed, and your discussion is pretty much what psychoanalysts call "free association".

http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/7...cereligion.jpg

Science gets things done.

Hitchens nailed it on top best: "I'm not an atheist because it is cool. I'm not an atheist because religious extremism or oppression in some depraved corners of the world. I'm not an atheist because I don'T think evil can exist in a world with a god. I am not an atheist because I think science can disprove god. I am an atheist because of one simple fact: THE BURDEN OF PROOF LIES ON RELIGION. If you propose the existence of something, you must follow the scientific method in your defense of its existence. Otherwise, I have no reason to listen to you."

And Dawkins said this: "What worries me about religion is that it teaches people to be satisfied with not knowing. (...) Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not."

Maybe we should have a thread to discuss the rational-scientific aspects of astrology, to separate the reason from the myth, the science in it from the cheap esoteric? Makes about as much sense like discussing the science in creationism.

And as being said earlier: it already has been done so many times before. Not a single argument by creationism there seems to be that has not already been rebutted and falsified a thousand times. But like the march of the lemmings, the same old stories comes marching for your position, on and on.

How could one endlessly react to that with a serious and sober mind when a serious and sober mind is what gets blatantly ignored by it?

I react with acid mockery, therefore. And I refuse to pay respect and tributes to those who believe in this stuff. Because they never consider what an insult it is to my intellect and reason that they come to me with this old stuff time and again and expect me to treat it reasonably as if it were of any intellectual or scientific or academic standard. Expecting people of my thinking to just play by their rules is an insult for sure! That is why I react to it like I do. With mockery, ridicule and laughter, all three well-deserved.

What about ethics and humanism?

Says the man who can never let a religious thread pass by without finding something to about it get outraged over.

Call it ethics and humanism.

Theology of the non-historic type I described, is about propagating dogma.

Yes, but strangely I recall you do blame films and computer games for violence, rather than the humans instigating it. Why not the book that has a godly amount of violence in it?

No it ia about establishing ethical guidelines based on belief that we are held responsible and judged by our deeds later on.
You can reverse it off course to your liking i also don't say that it is not done the way you describe but then science or some ideologies had been used this way as well.
All you need is just bunch of people who think that buying some idea makes them as cleaver as the seller.

Interesting. When you say 'later on' do you mean in an imagined unknowable realm outside physical reality, or simply later on like in the courts of law?

Because if it is the former, then in my opinion it is no more than a pipe dream (however comforting) and not really worth further consideration.

I'm fine with that thinking only for many the held responsible later part is preempted by the outrage of the pious who make it their job to implement Gods will on Earth as they define it. They will say that God is working through them as a means to justify their actions. It gets all so messy and convoluted.

People showed ethical behaviour long before the first written scriptures of religious dogmas were around. Altruism already can be observed in the behavior patterns of some bird, gorillas, dolphins and orcas, and chimps.

Whereas religion is the prime cause in human history to make people going mad and leaving all ethics and tolerance behind and turn against each other in bloodthirsty rage and unspeakable cruelty.

No, you do not need religion to teach ethics. Not at all. The stronger you believe in a dogma, the more dogmatic you become, and the more dogmatism replaces humanism.

What humane acting is about, is not in the teachings of some long-.since rotting man, may it be Jesus, may it be Buddha. It is in looking at the world not just with your eyes, but your heart. The heart that has learned to see, needs no hypocritica,l powermongering moralists' preachings. And to see with your heart is something you cannot be taught, but must discover yourself. Life's ways may mean it well with you and provide you with opportunities where you can realise how to do it. But do not be mistaken. You mean nothing to life, and it may as well not care for your fate at all. Whether it does or not, is just you attributing your hopes and fears to situations.

What? Hitchens participates in GT debates? I finally turned into a believer: you just convinced me there is an afterlife!

:rotfl2: Score one for Skybird

:hmph: Fine, you win the gun debate August.

If Hitchens is posting here in GT, I'll be convinced of the afterlife myself.

Well aren't you an eager beaver...

Don't let your hatred of me blind you to who you are agreeing with.