INDISPUTABLE Rational Proof That God Exists (Or Existed)

Ouroboros · May 11, 2013

SkepticThinker said:
The rest of this is just political garbage, fantasy and wishful thinking. Everybody loves the good old days, until they finally realize that they werent all that good after all. The 1950s were great if you were a white male. But thats about it. The good old days fantasy is just an illusion.

It reminds me of Socrates when he complained about the youth:
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

Every generation believes things were better in the past.

SkepticThinker · May 11, 2013

1robin said:
None of this was on my list and my list whether you liked it or not was the context my statement was in.

It’s on my list.

1robin said:
That is like telling a child when asked why did you spank me, the ballistics of the belt. Or when a prisoner asks what am I doing in jail explaining the rigidity coefficients and tensile strength of the steel bars. Don't think that I am claiming that any disease is a specific punishment on any one. I claim that nature was perfect until it fell and God stopped sustaining it. All of creation is broken and we through rebellion are now almost always at natures blind mercy. My claims are very general and not applied to any one person.

No. It’s like telling a child who was spanked the actual reason why he was spanked.
“I spanked you because you were putting your hand on the hot burner when I asked you not to and I didn’t want you to burn yourself.” VERSUS “You were spanked because Santa Claus is upset with you.”

It’s like telling a prisoner in jail why he’s in jail.
“You’re in jail because you robbed a bank and stole all the money from the vault.” VERSUS “You’re in jail because your brother murdered someone.”

How about we’re at nature’s mercy because this is the planet we live on and these are the conditions we have to deal with? That’s all the reason you need.

Why are we supposedly responsible for the actions of people we’ve never met who existed long before we ever came along? It’s absurd.

1robin said:
Where did the flood come from? Did I mention it? There is quite a lot of evidence for a flood. However I am leaning towards a symbolic understanding of the story in the last few years. The Pentateuch is in my opinion by far the least understood (interpreted reliably) of any of the Bible. It is very hard to determine what is literal and what is symbolic because there is no written history to corroborate it with. I usually only draw general conclusion from these book unless the interpretation is obvious.

That’s nice to hear.

1robin said:
God did not make planet before light. Is this really what you think is an argument. If you allow that God could both produce plants and produce suns is it really an argument to suggest he is bound by photosynthesis. Not that that is even a problem as the light (not the sun) was created on day one. The exact same light that will light heaven for eternity. The sun nor even the oceans will be needed on the new earth. This is of course shocking to our finite limited minds but is it really too hard for a God that invented nuclear fusion or love and created Canis Majoris?

Of course not. God is magic and can do whatever he wants. What a great way to get around any quandary.

I guess since he doesn’t put an end to human suffering, that must mean he wants us to suffer. He can do anything, remember.

1robin said:
That is the worst comeback for this I have ever heard or is even possible I think.

Why? Humans are curious, by nature.

1robin said:
I never said they did it all, I said they are very disproportionately represented in the big issues in scientific history. BTW Islam only made progress because they kept alive Greek teachings and added a little to them. They were also good in medicine. It however is less than imagined because the Catholics were going the opposite direct for many years.

The ancient Greeks weren’t Christians either, so I don’t know what’s the point in pointing that out.

1robin said:
That certainly explains a lot. I am in defense technology and am not allowed or at least warned not to be specific but I see science in all its glory and miserable failure every single day.
Actually aliens may very well exist. I know of nothing that prevents them from existing. When I speak negatively about them I mean any roll they have had with Earth and humanity. BY the way what is it you think about my personal testimony and that of billions of other Christians that claim to have experienced God. Are we all lying? If dear to your heart that should be of vital importance. Well Book two volume thirty seven in the bank. Next.

I don’t think you’re all lying.

I wrote this a while book and will repost it here because I think it helps addresses what you’re asking me:

This is a tiny bit off on a tangent, but I think it pertains to what we’re talking about. Every now and then, I’ll have a little nap in the afternoon on the weekend. There have been occasions where I’ve thought I was awake, but I couldn’t move my body, and then suddenly I feel like I’m falling or spinning very fast or vibrating, and there is a very loud whooshing noise and I see what appear to be spinning lights swirling around. Sometimes I also feel like there is a presence in the room, though it’s undefinable. And sometimes, I even feel like I’m outside my body trying to crawl back inside it. Then suddenly it all stops and I can move again, and I’m in my bed and I’m fine. Given these experiences, I can understand how someone could believe that they had been abducted by aliens or that demons or something had been in their room, had they experienced something similar. The spinning lights kind of seem like something you might see on a UFO, it feels like there’s a presence in the room (Alien? Demon? Ghost?), you can’t move, etc. Turns out though, there is a much more simple explanation for all this and it’s known as sleep paralysis. When we are in REM sleep, our bodies produce neurotransmitters that paralyze our major muscles, which keeps us from acting out our dreams. When we wake up before the REM cycle has finished, our body hasn’t yet had a chance to catch up (i.e. our mind is awake while our body is not), hence we still can’t move or speak, which is obviously frightening to us because we don’t know what is going on. We know from sleep studies that activity increases in the temporal lobe during sleep paralysis which can cause auditory hallucinations (the whooshing noise I heard in my ears) and the visual cortex is also active which accounts for the visual hallucinations I experienced (the feeling that something or someone else was in the room with me). We know all this from identifying the experience/issue and investigating possible causes. We don’t learn anything from it if we just assume it’s aliens abducting us or ghosts haunting us and leaving it at that.

SkepticThinker · May 11, 2013

Ouroboros said:
It reminds me of Socrates when he complained about the youth:
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

Every generation believes things were better in the past.

Exactly.

1robin · May 13, 2013

SkepticThinker said:
p. 107
Gay people are gay. That is who they are. Gayness isnt just a practice people take up now and then just for fun. (If you think it is, then think about whether you could change your sexuality on a whim and one day decided youre going to be attracted to people of the opposite sex.) Sexuality is an integral part of every human being.

There is no proof that homosexuality is biological. The fact that thousands have repented of it and never looked back is proof. In our day no one likes accoutability. Everything is societie's, our gene's, or a religion's fault and data is invented to justify the claims.

From my favorite poem "The atheists creed":
We believe in sex before, during and after marriage. We believe in the therapy of sin, that adultery is fun and we believe that taboos are taboo.
We believe that everything is getting better despite evidence to the contrary. Evidence must be investigated and you can prove anything with evidence.

I guess you just did.

Have you ever seen film of a Gay rights parade. It is like watching something from "the inferno" of " eyes wide shut".

Im just calling it like I see it. Sorry. If youve never met a gay person you didnt like, then whats your problem?

That wasn't the point and you know it.

I think attributing all of these things to mere secularism is folly. Especially when there are obviously more complex factors at play.

I knew that was coming because the facts are incontrovertable so the cause is instead contended. Two things have varied proportunately: Secularism and immorality and misery.

Opiate use was out of control during the 19th century. Do you think people living in the 19th century were more secular or less secular than people living in the 1950s or 2013?

You are overcomplicating the argument. Actually opiate use was far worse in China during the opiate wars. What I claims is that when God was a part of society (teh 40's and 50's) the use of drugs was less than currently. This is also another example of proving (or attempting to claim) one factor (opiates) out of dozens (alchohol, weed, acid, extasy, Hash, nicotine, cocaine, meth, even bath soap, etc) and dismiss teh entire point.

Ive already shown you that teen pregnancy is NOT worse not than it was in the 1950s and 1960s.

Tell you what I will give you that one and instead substitute another.

1robin · May 13, 2013

You havent show this.

Cant find a graph that goes that far back. Try a vilence on instead.

How are you correlating this with secularism? If your argument is going to hinge on the assertion that secularism causes all these terrible things to occur, then you have to demonstrate that the 19th century or the early 20th century was more secular in the past than it is today.

I am tired of looking for graphs. There are very few on this; Try this one.

It is no the numbers as much as it is the activity and policy that is the problem. Christians have become more nominal and non-theists more active.

I mean, in the 19th century, Native Americans were being slaughtered left and right by the military. In the 1920s and 1930s there was a huge wave of gun violence thanks to organized crime and prohibition. In 1927 some guy blew up a school killing 38 children, 6 adults and injuring 58 others in what some describe as the worst mass shooting ever to occur in the US. I realize all of this occurred prior to the fantastical 1950s world you imagine, but again, if you want to show that secularism is responsible for these things you need to demonstrate that the US was more secular then, than it is today.

I am an Indian (Cherokee) and I see you have been warped by the secular re-education camps called the Public education system. You have no idea what the Indians did. I would like to stop everything else and discuss them alone.

How does this relate to secularism?

Secularism devalues the family unit, has made early sexual activity more acceptable, and has left teachers with far less control in classrooms. Liberalism is probably more attributable to this but liberalism is an symptom of secularism in most cases.

If youre going to attribute this to secularism, then you need to explain why all the other countries around the world that fare far better than US students in educational standards are considerably more secular than the US.

No I do not. What may be true in one country may not be of another. For example true socialism and Nazi socialism are two different things. In this one secularism and declining standards have occured simultaneosly.

I dont recall you demonstrating this either.

I am currently graphed out. If you simply look at two weeks of TV programing from the 40's and today everything I claim is evident. Leave it to Beaver became sex in the city.

How is this a secular problem? Do you think secularism advocates broken families?

YES, they validate the issue that come with broken families. The loss of shame is just one.

How do you write a jeremiad for an age that does not know the meaning of the word? Twitchells brisk account of how we got from Adam and Eve covering their nakedness to Madonna hawking hers sounds the alarm about the state of contemporary American society, where we are more chagrined to be caught smoking than committing adultery. We have banished the age-old sentiment of shame in favor of an all-enveloping self-indulgence. Why feel guilty when you can feel good? Because, Twitchell argues, unless we understand and recover the social protections of shame, we shall pay a terrible price.
The Wilson Quarterly: FOR SHAME: The Loss of Common Decency in American Culture. by James M. Morris
But shame is becoming increasingly foreign in our culture. We hear of the way teens act these dayswith 13 year old girls propositioning their male friends and dispensing sexual favors on the school bus; with men and boys alike proudly discussing just how much pornography they consume; with the sexual preferences of movie stars being discussed in the evening news; with commercials for sexual enhancers constantly playing on television. Where has shame gone?
The Death of Shame | Challies Dot Com

You havent given any statistics or demonstrated your assertions on any of these claims.

Gee, and here you thought I was obsessed with slavery. Seems youre obsessed with abortion, mentioning it in practically every post.

Abortion rates have increased because its now a safe and legal medical procedure as opposed to 1950 when it wasnt and in fact, you were much more likely to die after having an abortion in the 1950s than you are today. Furthermore, it appears that abortion was only illegal (until the 4th month of pregnancy) in the US starting around the last third of the 19th century, so again I have to ask, do you believe the US of the late 19th century to be more secular than it currently is? (Im not sure how you could make such a claim.) And finally, according to the Guttmacher Institute, thirty-seven percent of women obtaining abortions identify as Protestant, 28% as Catholic and 18% of abortions identify as Evangelical/born again. So it appears that the majority of women having abortions currently in the US identify with some form or another of the Christian religion.So once again, I dont know how youre blaming this on secularism.

I mention slavery because it is so absolute. Or at least is is so absolute in a morally sane persons mind. I think I am going to save a copy of this reply because I have seen in at least twenty times. In a country where 80% of the population is Christian it is easy to see that the percentages are higher in secular groups even though they are too high in Chrsitian ones.

The groups that were the most likely to have an abortion were those affiliated with "other" religions or no religion at all, with abortion rates of 31 and 30 per 1,000 women, respectively.
FactCheck.org : Abortions: Comparing Catholic and Protestant Women
I do not understand where they get 37% from 37 per 1000 or any of their other numbers. 37 or 17 per 1000 is 3.7% and 1.7%. It does not matter for what we are discussing but something is flaky in their math.

All of these points are negated by the fact that most of them are less prevalent in countries which are considerably more secular than the US.

This is a gross missuse of statistics. I wil list some factors you are not including.

Most countries are far less liberal and freethinking about these issues.
Many poor countries do not accurately keep stats.
Abortion is only legal in 27% of countries.
In the stats of nations with the highest abortion rates we are 29th. Percentage of pregnancies aborted by country (listed by percentage)
In 1940 the abortion rate was .02 in 2008 it was 22.2%
WW2 killed 50 million and we condemn it as a great evil. Abortion has killed over 1 billion (known) and we call it progress. Summary of registered abortions worldwide
The US as a whole has been influenced by liberal secularists. Even when a Christian does something in many cases it is because they are not a strong Christian and have adopted liberal ideas that the Bible does not condone.
The two countries having more abortions than all others combined are Russia and China (two atheistic utopias). Summary of registered abortions worldwide

1robin · May 13, 2013

SkepticThinker said:
And thats the fault of the gay men and not the heterosexual men????

You do not seem to understand. A combat battalion is not 4th grade. There is no time for the liberalist agenda when phosphorous bits hotter than the sun are splattering all over the lines. Who cares what is fair or what rights someone claims from no known source. It makes no difference it was only the heterosexual folks at fault. Unit cohesion is a necessity and whatever compromises it (no matter whose fault in this context) must be eliminated. Screw up the work place, city parks, give preference at times, even brainwash children about homosexual acceptance but for God's sake do not compromise national defense any more than liberalism already does time and time again.

I understand that were all human beings, and that should be enough to produce unit cohesion.

You ever been in a combat zone?

They gay men didnt choose their sexuality any more than the heterosexual men did. The gay men are there to serve their country in the exact same way that they heterosexual men are there.

That is an excuse, another effort to blame our faults on anything and everything but ourselves. If our genes were responsible for a fraction of what they are blamed for they should be condemned to the gallows. Drunkenness, addictions of every kind, now homosexuality is biologys fault. Tomorrow it will be espionage that's genetic. What is far more genetically of evolutionarily explainable is distrust of something so fundamentally against nature as homosexuality in humanity. What ever happen to the good old days when the most grotesque human faults brought shame and it was the acts not their critics that were condemned? In this brave new work the murder of a billion Baby's is a right, a physical act that is so unnatural it causes damage to the body is now celebrated and its critics condemned, shame is an enemy, and a rolodex of morality must be consulted daily to see what is wrong or right on this day. This never has nor ever will end well.

Of course there have always been gay men in the military.

As well as murderers (a bunch), thieves, practices of sorcery, tyrants, and drunks. The only one that is no longer thought wrong is yours. Morality is not determined by a Washington lobby (or should not be).

Then I would suggest that you express the same respect and admiration for gay men who wish to serve their country for the same reasons and in the same capacity as their fellow heterosexual men. Thats where my flippant attitude comes from. Youre diminishing the sacrifice and dedication of the gay men because some straight men simply dont agree with their sexual orientation and think theyre icky or something.

If you suggest the acts of homosexuals and the damage they cause is not icky then I will post some of the abhorrent medical results from the practice. I am not being flippant. I am being practical. The military is the one place experimentation has already caused millions of deaths, there is no need for more, neither is there any moral reason there should be.

So? As soon as you realize who the gay men are then right off the bat you know whose suffering from the medical issues youve mentioned. Maybe the doctors should stop blabbing and take their jobs more seriously.

Nothing that happens in the military (personally) is secret. Maybe you can call off the next battle and squeal at the God that you do not believe is there that things are not as you would have them. The rest of us must accept things as they are and fight for your right to squeal. That is why it causes so much trouble. If a man is as base and undisciplined as to practice a shameful act so unnatural it literally injures him severely in the most embarrassing manner how can I trust him in a foxhole.

Then maybe the straight men need to wise up and realize theyre all human beings and theyre all there for the same reason, whether gay or straight. Are they under the impression gay men are there just to get dates or something?

No, they are under the impression they do not trust anyone willing to compromise themselves in such a devastating manner. Trust is based in commonality not in perversion.

What? You mean the rights they are their defending??

No soldier I ever met claimed to be defending gay rights. They do not exist in nature nor in the Bill of rights. Actually I have no idea what you meant.

Its not an experiment at this point. Its been done with no issues in most of the rest of the free world.

That is not true but even if it was it only matters what works for our military.
Continued below:

1robin · May 13, 2013

So I guess no male pilots have ever crashed planes? Dont be silly.

That was not my point. I said one of the first two women did so. I even went on to say that is not grounds for terminating women pilots. Instead the massive increase of sexual assault cases might be as well as the millions spent to prosecute them, plus the additional facilities required, plus inequality. On my ship over 30% of the women that went to sea became pregnant. I heard all sorts of reasons why including they did not want to be stuck on a ship. A hot shot friend of mine drank too much and simply got lost and wondered into a women's birthing compartment. He was charge with (indecency or something and lost two ranks). We had a very small school of hull technicians on my base. All but one got pregnant on purpose without being married, two I knew said they made much more money having a child, they did not have to go to sea, and they were on the top of the list for housing. The military has become another social program.

My great aunt flew supply planes during WWII and lived to tell about it (there werent enough men for the job). So theres an anecdote that contradicts your anecdote. You said one anecdote is enough. So now what?

A started to type out some of those medical stories I remember and got so disgusted I deleted them. Where did you aunt fly?

How do you know? Youre not a doctor too, are you?
Rectal cancer only results from gay activity? Then maybe you could explain how 66,494 women were diagnosed with it in 2009.

Let me clarify. The chances of getting it are massively increased but it can be gotten without that activity. I do not have access to my Navy doctor friend currently and so can't be more specific.

I dont know what killing babies has to do with this. I guess you just had to throw in your obligatory reference to abortion.

My response was to statistics in general.

What does this have to do with homosexuality or secularism? This goes on regardless of either.

This is more closely associated with liberalism and liberalism is an component of secularism or a derivative of it. Conservative means to conserve (keep traditional values), liberalism as secularism means anything goes.

I dont know what youre talking about unless youre engaging in unprotected sex. Theres no gay disease.

Diseases once unheard of are now daily realities thanks to homosexuality. I made a small problem into an epidemic.

Is this supposed to change the fact that all the answers you provided had to do with how you may or may not be personally inconvenienced by someone elses sexual orientation.

In my view inconvenience is the Byproduct of sin. I believe Homosexuality is a sin because the Bible says so. I argue for it being so with secular people by illustrating it's consequences but that is not why I believe it wrong.

They all appear to be property.
I dont need Biblical Hermeneutics to read text. This is the old bogus argument wherein you state it has to be read in a certain context or under a certain interpretation to understand its meaning. BS. It says what it says.

The heck you do not experience to comprehend the Bible. It is 750,000 of the most ominous, apocalyptic, prophetic, and symbolic words on the most complex and profound issues ever written about. Our own school system was began to enable partial comprehension over it. Differencing interpretations have started wars. No subjects in human history have been as hotly contended, entire college programs exist, fields of study created, and lifetimes spent to properly understand the Bible. However maybe you are the sage of the ages and should enlighten us all. I will not bet on it. The subject of that verse is things envied, it is not in any way a statement on what is or is not property. That's absurd. I will bet John Wesley has a better handle on these verses than you do:
Wesley's Notes
20:17 Thou shalt not covet - The foregoing commands implicitly forbid all desire of doing that which will be an injury to our neighbor, this forbids all inordinate desire of having that which will be a gratification to ourselves. O that such a man's house were mine! such a man's wife mine! such a man's estate mine! This is certainly the language of discontent at our own lot, and envy at our neighbors, and these are the sins principally forbidden here. God give us all to see our face in the glass of this law, and to lay our hearts under the government of it!
You can find six of the most respected commentaries in existence at that site and not one equates women with property. That is plain silly. I thought you had been debating very well or I very poorly in the last few posts but this one revokes all such sentiments.

Or theyll read them 100 years in the future and imagine how brilliant we were.

In a hundred years time and as one sided as we both are they should dig one of us up and say "told you so". I fact Christ said he would do so.

SkepticThinker · May 13, 2013

1robin said:
The groups that were the most likely to have an abortion were those affiliated with "other" religions or no religion at all, with abortion rates of 31 and 30 per 1,000 women, respectively.
FactCheck.org : Abortions: Comparing Catholic and Protestant Women
I do not understand where they get 37% from 37 per 1000 or any of their other numbers. 37 or 17 per 1000 is 3.7% and 1.7%. It does not matter for what we are discussing but something is flaky in their math.

The one sentence you posted from the end contradicts the previous two paragraphs:

"The survey, the latest conducted by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, was completed by more than 10,000 women. Staffers in hospitals, clinics and physicians offices where abortions are performed distributed the questionnaire. The Guttmacher Institute, which researches sexual and reproductive health worldwide, says it used the survey data along with data on the number of abortions performed nationally to estimate abortion rates and the size of certain demographic groups. The institute found that more Protestant women obtained abortions than Catholics: Forty-three percent of women over age 17 in the 2000-2001 survey said they were Protestant, while 27 percent said they were Catholic. But Catholics were more likely to get an abortion: The abortion rate for Catholic women was 22 per 1,000 women; the rate for Protestants was 18 per 1,000 women, according to study author Rachel K. Jones.

Overall, 78 percent of women said they had a religious affiliation. (Besides those who marked that they were "Catholic" and "Protestant," 8 percent said they belonged to other religions.) And the remaining 22 percent said they had no religious affiliation. Guttmacher also reported that 13 percent said they were evangelical or born-again, and three-fourths of those had identified themselves as Protestant. Those who said they were Jewish were too small in number for analysis and were grouped with the other category, Jones says.

The groups that were the most likely to have an abortion were those affiliated with "other" religions or no religion at all, with abortion rates of 31 and 30 per 1,000 women, respectively."

Skeptisch · May 13, 2013

1robin said:
Let me clarify.

In reality, the most secular countries, those with the highest proportion of atheists and agnostics, are among the most stable, peaceful, free, wealthy, and healthy societies. And the most religious nations, wherein worship of God is in abundance, are among the most unstable, violent, oppressive, poor, and destitute.
Council for Secular Humanism

SkepticThinker · May 13, 2013

1robin said:
There is no proof that homosexuality is biological. The fact that thousands have repented of it and never looked back is proof. In our day no one likes accoutability. Everything is societie's, our gene's, or a religion's fault and data is invented to justify the claims.

The same proof that indicates that heterosexuality is biological shows us that homosexuality is biological.

These “thousands that have repented” that you speak of haven’t fundamentally changed their biological makeup. They’ve simply been taught to convince themselves that they aren’t gay, shouldn’t be gay, and that they must repress their sexual urges because they’re wrong. There is absolutely no proof that reparative therapy works at all. Think about it … could you be convinced that you’re actually homosexual? I doubt it.

1robin said:
From my favorite poem "The atheists creed":
We believe in sex before, during and after marriage. We believe in the therapy of sin, that adultery is fun and we believe that taboos are taboo.
We believe that everything is getting better despite evidence to the contrary. Evidence must be investigated and you can prove anything with evidence.

Where did you get this, what does it have to do with anything, and why do you think it applies to all atheists?

1robin said:
Have you ever seen film of a Gay rights parade. It is like watching something from "the inferno" of " eyes wide shut".
That wasn't the point and you know it.

I’ve been to a gay rights parade and had a blast. It reminded me of a Carnival type of celebration.

1robin said:
I knew that was coming because the facts are incontrovertable so the cause is instead contended. Two things have varied proportunately: Secularism and immorality and misery.

The facts are not incontrovertible that secularism is responsible for all the ills of society. When are you going to show that correlation equals causation? I could show that eating breakfast correlates with success in school but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that eating breakfast causes kids to be better learners.

1robin said:
You are overcomplicating the argument. Actually opiate use was far worse in China during the opiate wars. What I claims is that when God was a part of society (teh 40's and 50's) the use of drugs was less than currently. This is also another example of proving (or attempting to claim) one factor (opiates) out of dozens (alchohol, weed, acid, extasy, Hash, nicotine, cocaine, meth, even bath soap, etc) and dismiss teh entire point.

I chose one drug out of many because I didn’t feel like spending the entire day looking up every single drug when I’m not even the one making the assertion. Rather, I decided to make a point instead.

If your argument is going to be that having god in society results in less drug use, than you have a problem because I would argue that god was an even greater part of society during the Victorian era, for example and yet drug use was still a problem. In fact, drug abuse has always been a problem, as well as addiction. It most likely always will be. Furthermore, some of the drugs you mentioned like acid, ecstasy or bath salts weren’t even around in the 1950s or weren’t available for recreational use yet, so there’s no comparison to be made there.

1robin said:
Tell you what I will give you that one and instead substitute another.

So you want to change the subject now.

Okay. Why is having a child outside of marriage immoral? Does this chart include couples in long-term relationships who aren’t technically married but are still committed to each other? I have many friends and family members who fall into that category and even though they aren’t officially married they behave as though they are and still constitute a family unit, in my opinion.

Dan4reason · May 14, 2013

1robin said:
That was not my point. I said one of the first two women did so. I even went on to say that is not grounds for terminating women pilots. Instead the massive increase of sexual assault cases might be as well as the millions spent to prosecute them, plus the additional facilities required, plus inequality. On my ship over 30% of the women that went to sea became pregnant. I heard all sorts of reasons why including they did not want to be stuck on a ship. A hot shot friend of mine drank too much and simply got lost and wondered into a women's birthing compartment. He was charge with (indecency or something and lost two ranks). We had a very small school of hull technicians on my base. All but one got pregnant on purpose without being married, two I knew said they made much more money having a child, they did not have to go to sea, and they were on the top of the list for housing. The military has become another social program.
A started to type out some of those medical stories I remember and got so disgusted I deleted them. Where did you aunt fly?
Let me clarify. The chances of getting it are massively increased but it can be gotten without that activity. I do not have access to my Navy doctor friend currently and so can't be more specific.
My response was to statistics in general.
This is more closely associated with liberalism and liberalism is an component of secularism or a derivative of it. Conservative means to conserve (keep traditional values), liberalism as secularism means anything goes.
Diseases once unheard of are now daily realities thanks to homosexuality. I made a small problem into an epidemic.
In my view inconvenience is the Byproduct of sin. I believe Homosexuality is a sin because the Bible says so. I argue for it being so with secular people by illustrating it's consequences but that is not why I believe it wrong.
The heck you do not experience to comprehend the Bible. It is 750,000 of the most ominous, apocalyptic, prophetic, and symbolic words on the most complex and profound issues ever written about. Our own school system was began to enable partial comprehension over it. Differencing interpretations have started wars. No subjects in human history have been as hotly contended, entire college programs exist, fields of study created, and lifetimes spent to properly understand the Bible. However maybe you are the sage of the ages and should enlighten us all. I will not bet on it. The subject of that verse is things envied, it is not in any way a statement on what is or is not property. That's absurd. I will bet John Wesley has a better handle on these verses than you do:
Wesley's Notes
20:17 Thou shalt not covet - The foregoing commands implicitly forbid all desire of doing that which will be an injury to our neighbor, this forbids all inordinate desire of having that which will be a gratification to ourselves. O that such a man's house were mine! such a man's wife mine! such a man's estate mine! This is certainly the language of discontent at our own lot, and envy at our neighbors, and these are the sins principally forbidden here. God give us all to see our face in the glass of this law, and to lay our hearts under the government of it!
You can find six of the most respected commentaries in existence at that site and not one equates women with property. That is plain silly. I thought you had been debating very well or I very poorly in the last few posts but this one revokes all such sentiments.
In a hundred years time and as one sided as we both are they should dig one of us up and say "told you so". I fact Christ said he would do so.

If being gay was not genetic, then we should expect that gay people to be physically attracted to the opposite sex although they may make out with the same sex. This is not the case. Gay people are physically attracted to the same sex.

1robin · May 14, 2013

Dan4reason said:
If being gay was not genetic, then we should expect that gay people to be physically attracted to the opposite sex although they may make out with the same sex. This is not the case. Gay people are physically attracted to the same sex.

You lost me here. If people can be completely free from homosexual desires, as thousands that repent and are never troubled again by it have been how is what you said true?

1robin · May 14, 2013

SkepticThinker said:
While it might not have been done consistently given the poor conditions found on the battlefield, it certainly wasnt unheard of.

I see you are still beating horses into stains on the ground. It makes no difference if it was done on occasion. The whole point is that the simple and basic sanitations needed to save tens of thousands in a single war were unknown (Or unlearned) by the science of the day as it was generally practiced in a military medical tent.

This website which I posted before, goes into detail discussing the various papers and work done by various doctors and chemists on sanitation, antiseptics, antibiotics, and general medical information prior to and during the Civil War. They may not have known much about germs, but they knew a thing or two about basic sanitation.
Myths About Antiseptics and Camp Life George Wunderlich | Civil War Scholars The experience of the war-torn northern Shenandoah Valley

I have already (at least 5 times) said that sanitation was on it's way and actually established by 1863. I in fact was the first to point this out. The eventual re-learning of something in the 1800's known to "ignorant" men 4000 years earlier is no flag to be waved for science.

Your whole thing about ancient Hebrews knowing more about sanitation than modern doctors is a bit of a silly comparison, especially considering that distinction. Had the ancient Hebrews been operating on people and using antiseptics and sterilization methods, you might have a chance with that argument. But washing up is a far cry from disinfectants and antiseptics in the case of surgery and amputations on a battlefield.

Then why didn't the doctor's even wash up then? Playing down what the Hebrews (who very well might have performed surgery) knew only makes what the 19th century men of science had unlearned even worse. By all means keep it up.

It appears they knew more than the Ancient Hebrews.

I would hope so they only had 400 years and millions of test cases killed in the process to learn things by.

What did the ancient Hebrews know about iodine, bromide, ventilation, chlorinated water or the disinfectant properties of UV irradiation?

Again your making it worse. Why did they kill so many even though they had all this new stuff to use?

You view that version of slavery as the most benevolent of its kind on Earth because its the only way to wrap your brain around the fact that your god condones slavery in your holy book. You really have no idea how benevolent or malevolent it really was.

That or that it is a demonstrable fact of history. I even gave the evidence. Produce any that counters my claim. Instead the mere word "translated slavery" being PC kryptonite, is driving your entire argument made for effect and devoid of historical context and results.

So you really cant tell me what they were they doing that would have been beyond the knowledge of Bronze Age desert dwellers? I submit that they werent doing anything above and beyond what anyone else of the time (or earlier) had known or could have known.

You may look at the 600 laws your self. I will post a few facts.

When dealing with disease, clothes and body should be washed under running water (Leviticus 15:13). For centuries people naively washed in standing water. Today we recognize the need to wash away germs with fresh water.

Sanitation industry birthed (Deuteronomy 23:12-13). Some 3,500 years ago God commanded His people to have a place outside the camp where they could relieve themselves. They were to each carry a shovel so that they could dig a hole (latrine) and cover their waste. Up until World War I, more soldiers died from disease than war because they did not isolate human waste

Oceans contain springs (Job 38:16).

There are mountains on the bottom of the ocean floor (Jonah 2:5-6).

Our bodies are made from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7; 3:19). Scientists have discovered that the human body is comprised of some 28 base and trace elements all of which are found in the earth.

The universe had a beginning (Genesis 1:1; Hebrews 1:10-12).

Ocean currents anticipated (Psalm 8:8). Three thousand years ago the Bible described the paths of the seas. In the 19th century Matthew Maury the father of oceanography after reading Psalm 8, researched and discovered ocean currents that follow specific paths through the seas! Utilizing Maurys data, marine navigators have since reduced by many days the time required to traverse the seas.
http://www.eternal-productions.org/101science.html
A hundred more at that site available for your obscural.

Notice how there was a question mark at the end of my sentence, like this one? That means I was asking you a question, rather than stating what you said.
Its obvious how they learned not to eat rotten pork. They watched some guy eat some pork that had been lying around for a while and noticed it made him sick. So they decided that eating pork makes you sick and stopped eating it. Its called conditioned taste aversion. See how simple that is? God need not be inserted anywhere in that scenario.

No, according to your side of the bench all sickness and death is thought (by believers) to be a supernatural event caused by God so this theory is out.

I get that most people were Christian during a fair amount of human history and so it only makes sense that a lot of scientists would have been Christians.

There has never been a time when most people were Christian, but there has been times when most science was.

Muslims had contributed a lot to science too. As had the ancient Greeks. So what?

The Greeks were famous for asking the right questions, not getting the right answers. Please see was Muhammad great thread for what the Muslims actually did in science.

Sorry, I think its pretty obvious how morality formed during the course of human history.

No it isn't and a vast number of atheist scholars are at least willing to admit it.

1robin · May 14, 2013

SkepticThinker said:
The one sentence you posted from the end contradicts the previous two paragraphs:

I made those numbers up as an example. Why do they claim 37 out of 1000 is 37%. However this statement is from that very poll.

The groups that were the most likely to have an abortion were those affiliated with "other" religions or no religion at all, with abortion rates of 31 and 30 per 1,000 women, respectively."

Click to expand...

I think you are missing the math here. Theists get more total abortions because there are vastly more theists (in US). Also because secularism has watered down theology but that is a different issue. However non-theists get a higher percentage of abortions per-capita, which is the telling statistic.

Skeptisch · May 14, 2013

1robin said:
When you argue against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.
― C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis and how the acceptance of gay sex leads to the eradication of friendship.
LifeSiteNews Mobile | C.S. Lewis and how the acceptance of gay sex leads to the eradication of friendship

No wonder our feathered friend appears intellectually challenged!

SkepticThinker · May 14, 2013

1robin said:
I made those numbers up as an example. Why do they claim 37 out of 1000 is 37%. However this statement is from that very poll.

I think you are missing the math here. Theists get more total abortions because there are vastly more theists (in US). Also because secularism has watered down theology but that is a different issue. However non-theists get a higher percentage of abortions per-capita, which is the telling statistic.

Sure. So how does that support your claims?

1robin · May 14, 2013

SkepticThinker said:
Sure. So how does that support your claims?

First let me say I apologize as I think I have skipped some of your posts. You may be typing too fast to notice but I just do not have time to keep up. As for this, which is more condemning given that we can first even agree that killing babies is wrong.

If there are 100 people on Earth and 90 of them are Christians and 10 are atheists and if there were 60 abortions by the Christians and 9 by the atheists. That means 66% of Christians have killed babies and 90% of atheists have. Which rate is more condemning of the world view? Even un-calibrated it is clear however let me warn you statistics are pliable things. I took three semesters in them and that was all I learned. What effect of the secularization of even Christian morals is there? What portion of those that answer surveys as believers actually believe? With Christians but not Scotsman there is an absolute line of demarcation as to identity. Is an act against a moral code an indictment of those morals? Etc....

Dan4reason · May 14, 2013

1robin said:
You lost me here. If people can be completely free from homosexual desires, as thousands that repent and are never troubled again by it have been how is what you said true?

I know a girl who is a lesbian relationship and is actually engaged to her partner. She opened up to me and told me that she is actually not attracted to women. It was a little hard for her to engage in lesbian sex at first but eventually it became easier for her. The relationship is exists mostly because of their very high personal and emotional bond. She does say that her partner is attractive to her now that she is used to lesbian sex but that took experience. She is not psychologically troubled at all and is very popular and very attractive. She did have boyfriends in the past.

A lot of homosexuals who were able to switch over either gained their homosexuality only through experience or had lower levels of homosexual impulse to begin with. Those homosexuals who have a high level of homosexual impulse cannot remove it without castration. My question to you is, would you be able to remove your attraction to the opposite sex without some kind of medication or surgery? The answer is no because sexual attraction is biological and is created by processes outside of our mental control.

1robin · May 14, 2013

Dan4reason said:
I know a girl who is a lesbian relationship and is actually engaged to her partner. She opened up to me and told me that she is actually not attracted to women. It was a little hard for her to engage in lesbian sex at first but eventually it became easier for her. The relationship is exists mostly because of their very high personal and emotional bond. She does say that her partner is attractive to her now that she is used to lesbian sex but that took experience. She is not psychologically troubled at all and is very popular and very attractive. She did have boyfriends in the past.

I am not quite sure what you believe this proves. Sounds like biology had nothing to do with it. She simply desired something and gained a taste for it. In fact this seems to prove my claims.

A lot of homosexuals who were able to switch over either gained their homosexuality only through experience or had lower levels of homosexual impulse to begin with.

Again this consistent with is being a preference and a desire not some biological necessity.

Those homosexuals who have a high level of homosexual impulse cannot remove it without castration.

You could not possibly know this even if true. What homosexual scale is there to measure this by?

My question to you is, would you be able to remove your attraction to the opposite sex without some kind of medication or surgery?

Let's for the sake or argumentation say no. I believe God can do all things but just for fun let's go with your claim. By this logic we should determine theft, drug abuse, and any other crime that anyone, anywhere never lost the desire to commit, as now morally correct. In fact we are well on our way to doing so as secularism advances less and less is wrong. Having a desire to do something is not the same as it being right to do. In my case I served on board Navy combat ships for months and you had better believe that my desires had to be held in check. In fact thousands of people have denied themselves all sexuality for the sake of God.

The answer is no because sexual attraction is biological and is created by processes outside of our mental control.

I admit that it is biologically dependent but then so is murder. If I have a thought of any kind or a desire to practice any wicked thing I can choose to act or not act upon it. It is a wonder at the myriad ways that non-theists have of making right no longer right and wrong no longer wrong.

Let me ask what I ask constantly and not once have I been given a valid answer. prove that murdering everything that lives is actually wrong without God or the transcendent. Not prove you prefer it, not prove it is a common notion, nor that it is consistent with human optimality but rather that there is anything actually wrong with it.

SkepticThinker · May 14, 2013

1robin said:
Great but I can't remember what it was now.

LOL I cant either!

1robin said:
That is not objective value and it says nothing about why taking that value away is wrong. It also says nothing about why I would not even want to take a value only you value away. I am quite certain you understand what I am saying by now but will not allow yourself to admit it.

I understand what youre saying and I think youre wrong.

It is objective. It tells you that taking away someones life is wrong, because they wont exist any longer. If anything matters at all it is existence. If we dont exist we dont have morals, or anything else for that matter. Existence, and the well-being of those in existence is where morality begins.

1robin said:
An individual can only actually be arbiter of preference and nevr of objective morality.

You basically just re-stated what I said.

1robin said:
This might explain why X is desirable. It says nothing about whether X is wrong or right. I have always granted this for atheism so we are still circling the same drain.

It tells us whether something is good or bad. I.e.: right or wrong.

1robin said:
I know what you are saying and if the Bible said do not kill that would be true but it says to not murder. Murder is never right. Opinions change over time not morals (in fact that shows why we are not a good source for what is right or wrong).

We are the only known source of morality. We care if we live or die, suffer or thrive. Thats why morality starts with us. There is some objective basis to it, which is how we determine that sociopaths and psychopaths are abnormal, in comparison to the rest of the population.

Play all the semantic games you want here. The fact of the matter is we consider the taking of another human life acceptable under some circumstances and unacceptable under others. So as I keep saying, moral pronouncements are subject to the parameters of a given situation. This is why there is so much discussion about morality in the first place. You admit as much here, so I dont know how you can argue against that. And if you still dont get it, consider the following scenarios, commonly used in discussions of morality:

1) A runaway trolley is headed toward 5 people on a track. The only way you can prevent their death is to switch the trolley onto another track, where it will kill one person. Would it be right to pull the switch?
2) Youre standing on a footbridge overlooking a trolley track. A runaway trolley is headed toward 5 people on a track. The only way you can prevent their death is to push a heavy-set stranger off the footbridge and onto the track so that hell block the trolley. Would it be right to push him?
3) You and 6 other people are on a lifeboat in icy waters, but its overcrowded and starting to sink. If you push one of the people off the boat, the boat will stop sinking and the rest of you will survive. Would it be right to push someone off?
4) Youre a surgeon, and 5 of your patients will die soon unless they get organ transplants. Each needs the transplant of a different organ. You havent been able to find organ donors for any of them. Then you realize you have a visitor in the waiting room that has exactly the same tissue types as all 5 of your patients. Would it be right to kill the visitor in order to use his organs to save the 5 other people?

What would you say are the objective moral decisions to make in each scenario?

And if you think some morals dont change over time then explain why slavery was once thought to be moral. Explain why interracial marriage was once thought to be immoral. Explain why we dont think its moral to kill disobedient children.

Also, we know from studies of the human brain that certain brain areas like the amygdala and/or the prefrontal cortex which regulate emotion, play a major role in our moral decision-making process and that if those areas are damaged, an individuals ability to make moral decisions is severely impaired because theyre unable to consider how the outcome of any consequences will make them feel. I.e.: They make poor decisions because they are unable to generate the feelings that guide adaptive decision-making in healthy individuals. (Greene JD. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Moral Judgment. In: Gazzaniga MS The Cognitive Neurosciences 4th Ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2009.) So if you think emotions dont play a role in morality, Im not sure what youre talking about.

1robin said:
It is wrong to kill a baby even if our modern society is so sick that to do so one day before birth is a sacred right and one day after it is murder.

Who says that?

1robin said:
That is moral insanity and exactly what atheism results in in thousands of instances.

How many atheists have aborted 9 month old babies?

1robin said:
Nietzsche said (I like Nietzsche because he knew what the stakes were) that since secular thinkers killed God in the 1800's that the 19th century would be the bloodiest on record and that a universal madness would reign. He was an atheistic prophet it seems because the 19th century saw more blood than the previous 18 put together and not only is secularism spreading moral insanity but Nietzsche went quite mad himself.

I dont know how true that is. Human history is pretty violent and bloody.

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