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"Only God can judge me!" Religious debates rerun

ecco

Veteran Member
RE: Religion is irrational

Evidence, please.

One piece of evidence is that you do not believe in supernatural faries but you do believe in a supernatural god. That is irrational.

Another piece of evidence is that over the generations humans have created many different gods. All people believe their version of god is the correct one. That is irrational.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
If you think saying, "I disagree, but let's not debate that" as an excuse, have a blast.
Actually you said...
I explicitly said that I could debate what you said and implied that I will not debate it. Instead I explained to you the situation regarding banning hijabs.

...then you made the excuse that you don't debate with ignorant people. You can look up your past comments as easily as I can. So, why do you feel it necessary to change them?
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
RE: Religion is irrational



One piece of evidence is that you do not believe in supernatural faries but you do believe in a supernatural god. That is irrational.

Another piece of evidence is that over the generations humans have created many different gods. All people believe their version of god is the correct one. That is irrational.

P1: I believe in a God.
Conclusion: That is irrational

The conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. It is not a valid deduction.
 

Samantha Rinne

Resident Genderfluid Writer/Artist
That's because secularism is never neutral. I'm pretty sure it is impossible to be culturally neutral, as what we label "religion" is inexorably bound up with culture. I once came across the interesting perspective that secularism, in reality, serves to establish what a culture believes "religion" looks like. Put another way, it is one of the things we use to create the artifice called "religion" as some distinct thing separate from ways of life as a whole. Things that fall outside of that artifice are subject to little or no scrutiny or regulation.

It is perfectly possible to be neutral. America did it for nearly 200 years...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

Then some jackasses decided that beyond basic religious tolerance (including of atheism) we need to now be "sensitive" to other religions, meaning we need to put aside our beliefs or get fired for wishing people Merry Christmas.

Whitney Cummings Says She Was Reported to HR for Saying ‘Merry Christmas'

Florida Woman Claims She Was Fired for Refusing to Say 'Happy Holidays'

Or that people assumed freedom of religion equaled freedom from religion, and suddenly schools were told that teachers, students, or the like couldn't pray in school because it might convert someone. As if religion were something we need protection from.

Religious neutrality works like this. I get to pray in school, church, or in a park. If you aren't feeling very religious, you can sit in a corner away from all the religious people and go play quietly on your Switch or whatever. You get to celebrate Atheist Winter Vacation instead of Christmas. Whatever. Just don't bother the rest of the population about what they believe.

Religious neutrality is not only possible, but easy. But only if you actually have the ability to give other people the same consideration as yourself.
 

Rise

Well-Known Member
I don't think secularism argues that law does not come from the moral beliefs of the majority.

You are misrepresenting what I said and as a result missed the point.
I never said secularists would necessarily reject the idea that moral beliefs lead to law.

I pointed out that they reject religion as a legitimate basis for deriving your morals.

Which, as I pointed out, is an impossible expectation and would never actually work.

Because if you live in a society where people are expected to advocate for laws based on what they think is moral then you will necessarily get people advocating for morality based on what they believe.

What a secularist is really demanding is that people stop believing in the morals of their religion. Because that's the only way they can expect you to not advocate for laws based on your religiously derived sense of morality. So ultimately what the true secularist wants to be the arbiter of deciding what is a legitimate basis for your morals and what isn't.

What it argues is that you can't compel or force people to believe in a religion. So for example if the majority of folks in a society were Muslim it could be that the law would forbid listening to music, but it could not forbid people from converting away from Islam AND be secular.

First of all I'm not an atheist FYI, I'm a liberal monotheist. Second of all imposing law on people is not the same as imposing a worldview on people. You don't have to believe in a law to follow it, so long as that law does not directly interfere with freedom of conscience.

I have no doubt that is what you believe the definition of secular is. However, your definition would not be historically correct.

Secular:
Not relating to religion or to a religious body; nonreligious.

The society you described, with it's morals based on islam, is not non-religious in any practical sense of the word; therefore it is not secular by definition.

Historically the idea of a secular society (a nonreligious society) is not something we see in English common law or US constitutional thought.

The US did indeed establish a society where you were free to not be compelled to worship a certain way. However, the US never established a secular nation. There was every expectation that laws and morality would continue to be derived from people's commonly held Protestant Christian beliefs.

That idea of a secular society in western anglo-saxon countries is a relatively modern one that crept in during the 20th century through the influence of the academic systems.

It is an idea we don't see appear in more modern western society until the "enlightenment" of the French revolution or marxism. Only there do you see the idea embraced that society should have it's laws, morals, and values derived from an entirely secular basis. Which is why they conclude that religion must be expunged from society as counterproductive to their goal.

The problem in the US today is we've had several generations of the university system tightly controlled by either outright communists or it's sympathizers, so they have taught an entire generation a lie - the lie that the US was founded on enlightenment/marxist style secularism. By willfully distorting the plain meaning and historical intent by the 1st amendment, and ignoring every other contemporary writing that contradicts their belief in a secular founding of the US.

Whoever told you secular states are only communist was ignorant. What about secular states such as Australia or various places in Europe such as Sweden?

As I pointed out above, your definition of secularism was not accurate to begin with.

So you'd need to re-evaluate your position in light of a more accurate definition of secularism.

The reason all truly secular societies repress the expression of religious ideas (as seen in communism and the French terror) is because you cannot achieve a secular society by definition without a rejection of the idea that religious ideas have a place at the table and a say in what should happen.
To do so would by definition prevent you from being fully secular.

However, we do see increasing levels of persecution against Christians in the western world as secularism increasingly takes hold. But they haven't gone full secular yet. They couldn't get away with it. But there are many who are pushing for that day to happen.

I don't recall arguing that somones moral beliefs shouldn't be allowed to influence what policies they advocate for on behalf of society.

By attacking the video you posted, it implies you disagree with the argument he is making.
And the main argument I saw him making was simply that muslims should not reject the morality of their religion, but should feel free to advocate for that to become law.

You also had this statement:

If you believe that telling people music is haram will prevent violent society of course I will laugh at you, but it is completely within the scope of secular society for you to say that.
What is not within the scope of secular society is enshrining within law compulsion on people to follow your religion.

Some people would try to define forcing someone to not listen to music as an example of forcing someone to follow your religion, if that law is derived from religious morals.

Which, based on your disagreement with the original video you posted, would seem to suggest you were one of those people.

If that does describe you then you absolutely would be advocating for the idea that people should not let their religious based morals influence what they advocate should be law for society.

Because I've seen a lot of secularists who do think that way. They act as though it's illegitimate to advocate for any kind of law based on morals derived from religion, as though that were forcing them to abide by your religion.

Evolution and natural selection are not an "atheistic" idea, they are a scientific idea followed by many believers and non believers.

I can support my statement as true, but that would require getting into a debate over the nature of the evolutionary hypothesis.

Evolution and natural selection as the mechanism for the creation of life and humanity is absolutely a religious belief and not science by definition.

I will explain why:

Science is observable, testable, and repeatable.
Neither of those can be done to establish either the abiogenesis of inorganic matter into organic matter, explain how the information in DNA was created, nor can it establish the idea of one kind of animal transforming into another kind.

Although we do observe elements of adapation and natural selection in flipping the switches on already existing genetic codes - we never see the creation of new genetic code that would allow one kind of animal to turn into another kind. So you cannot use that adapation via natural selection as support for belief in the idea of inorganic minerals evolving into mankind. Logically they are not connected. They would have to be completely different mechanisms of action. And we haven't observed that the other mechanisms even could exist.

So to take one type of evolution and then claim that proves another type of evolution, when there is no logical connection between the two, is a fallacy of equivocation and bait and switch.

The belief that such a thing happened is based on worldview assumption they start with. They start with an a priori belief in a materialistic deterministic universe and an a priori belief in the idea that the spiritual realm doesn't exist. Meaning, they just assume those things are true without the need to prove they are true.

The only reason they assert that minerals to man transformations happened is because they assume it must have, because they can't think of any other mechanism by which life and man could appear. Not because they have any actual evidence of it happening. They believe it because they must. Because as atheists they have no choice. The alternative is special creation, which would violate their atheistic assumptions and worldview.

Their belief in that type of transformation is therefore an opinion more akin to a religious belief than science. Because it's a belief based on an unproven worldview they have. It's not a belief formed from observation of evidence and testing.

There is a lot more diversity in the left than what the right believes there is. I do not believe in letting people in who are opposed to free speech for example.

...

I haven't argued for "unchecked Muslim migration".
I wasn't trying to claim you were. As I would have no way of knowing what you believe on the subject.
I was merely trying to point out how modern leftist ideas about secularism ends up being a contradiction with itself when applied to practical reality. Because the people who are advocating for secularism are usually also the people advocating for open borders and multi-culturalism. Which is an outright contradiction.

Because on the one hand they don't want people with religious ideas telling them how society should be structured, but on the other hand they are told it's racist and/or bigoted to either try to put restrictions on who can enter your country or that it's wrong to try to assimilate those people to be more like their adopted country's culture.
You can't have it both ways. But they try to.

I think highlighting this contradiction in how many secularists think is an important point to make to recognize that practically speaking all law is derived from people's worldview and you can't expect otherwise to happen.
 
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danieldemol

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I have no doubt that is what you believe the definition of secular is. However, your definition would not be historically correct.

Secular:
Not relating to religion or to a religious body; nonreligious.

The society you described, with it's morals based on islam, is not non-religious in any practical sense of the word; therefore it is not secular by definition.
Ok, I think I can see my error here, as @Jayhawker Soule pointed out in post #10 '"Secularism" has a broad range of meaning.' So it looks to me like you are arguing based on one definition, whilst I am arguing based on a different definition. Its a shame there is not two different words to denote the different secularisms. But I think you are not correct to say my definition is not "historically correct" as that would be to deny the history of Australia.

As I pointed out above, your definition of secularism was not accurate to begin with.
My definition was taken from Google, perhaps you could take it up with them, however I suggest you read post#10 first.

By attacking the video you posted, it implies you disagree with the argument he is making.
Or I could have simply misunderstood the argument on the basis that he may have been using an alternative meaning of the term secular. But then what is a secular Muslim? Unless you are a liberal, you can't be non-religious and a Muslim, so perhaps he was not using your definition of secular either? In fact personally I think it would have been helpful to define what he meant by secular since that was the word he used. Personally I think he was trying to attack liberals for not being orthodox which is possibly just singing to the choir.

I can support my statement as true, but that would require getting into a debate over the nature of the evolutionary hypothesis.
Great start another thread for it, because this thread is not really about creation vs evolution, for all we know the author of the video may believe in evolution or not, but we don't know that.

I wasn't trying to claim you were. As I would have no way of knowing what you believe on the subject.
I was merely trying to point out how modern leftist ideas about secularism ends up being a contradiction with itself when applied to practical reality. Because the people who are advocating for secularism are usually also the people advocating for open borders...
I'm a modern leftist, I'm just pointing out that there is more diversity in the left than what you are addressing.

I think highlighting this contradiction in how many secularists think is an important point to make to recognize that practically speaking all law is derived from people's worldview and you can't expect otherwise to happen.
Fair enough, but I think that western society seems to be drifting away from religion, and as such it is natural that our laws will drift away from their religious basis as the moral beliefs of the people drift away from religion, and to be honest, I see that as a good thing.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
P1: I believe in a God.
Conclusion: That is irrational

The conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. It is not a valid deduction.


Since you found it necessary to re-rewrite the premise to get the results you wanted, I guess that makes you believe your thought process is correct.

However, believing some supernatural things are real and other supernatural things are not real, is irrational.




Apparently you could not create a strawman version of...
Another piece of evidence is that over the generations humans have created many different gods. All people believe their version of god is the correct one. That is irrational.
...to "attack".

Care to try?
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Since you found it necessary to re-rewrite the premise to get the results you wanted, I guess that makes you believe your thought process is correct.

However, believing some supernatural things are real and other supernatural things are not real, is irrational.




Apparently you could not create a strawman version of...

...to "attack".

Care to try?

Well, I don't believe any of them are real. I just believe in one of them and not the rest. Real I leave to believers in real and I am not a believer in real.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
If you aren't feeling very religious, you can sit in a corner away from all the religious people and go play quietly on your Switch or whatever.
It should not be on school time-table. That will not be secular. Those who want to pray should come early, pray, and then join the teaching. Why should those who do not want to pray be asked to sit in a corner? In India usually the prayers in schools are for welfare of the nation and unity among its people. The poem was written in Urdu by the National Poet of Pakistan, Allama Mohammad Iqbal.

Sāre jahāṉ se acchā, Hindositāṉ hamārā
Ham bulbuleṉ haiṉ is kī, yih gulsitāṉ hamārā
Maẕhab nahīṉ sikhātā āpas meṉ bair rakhnā
Hindī haiṉ ham, wat̤an hai Hindositāṉ hamārā

Better than the entire world, is our Hind,
We are its nightingales, and it (is) our garden abode
Religion does not teach us to bear animosity among ourselves
We are of Hind, our homeland is Hindustan.
Sare Jahan se Accha - Wikipedia

 

Rise

Well-Known Member
Ok, I think I can see my error here, as @Jayhawker Soule pointed out in post #10 '"Secularism" has a broad range of meaning.' So it looks to me like you are arguing based on one definition, whilst I am arguing based on a different definition.
Its a shame there is not two different words to denote the different secularisms.

There actually aren't two definitions. The definition I gave you earlier is from a dictionary and that definition is consistent with how I used the word. Secular meaning "without religion".

Your definition of secular isn't how it's defined in the dictionary and isn't how the term was used historically.

Your definition doesn't exist. It's made up. I don't think you made it up. I think the people who told it to you made it up and you just took for granted that was the real meaning of "secular".

What you are describing is actually a bait and switch lie you've been told about what the real definition of secular is.
You've been told that secular means "we don't force people to follow a certain religion". But that is not the true definition.

Why have you been lied to about the definition of secular? I believe it's because those in academia and the media have an agenda to see the full secularization of western society, and so they are trying to gradually get people use to the idea of marxist style secularism by connecting what they currently think is moral (to not force people to believe a certain way) with a term that means something else (secularism). If they can get you to believe that secularism is automatically good and just, then later they can start bringing out the full definition of secular and try to get you to accept that the removal of religion from public expression is somehow inherently a good thing just because it's called secularism.

But I think you are not correct to say my definition is not "historically correct" as that would be to deny the history of Australia.

The history of Australia traces it's roots back to English common law the same as the USA.
You won't find any basis for that justice system in secularism.
Secularism as defined by being nonreligious in it's moral foundation and judgments.

My definition was taken from Google, perhaps you could take it up with them, however I suggest you read post#10 first.

Google doesn't even support your claim about the definition of secular:

(wordnik)
sec•u•lar sĕk′yə-lər

  • adj.
    Worldly rather than spiritual.
  • adj.
    Not relating to religion or to a religious body; nonreligious.


(Google)
denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis.
  1. denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis.
    "secular buildings"

    Similar:
    nonreligious
    , lay, nonchurch, temporal, worldly, earthly, profane, unsanctified, unconsecrated, unhallowed, laic

    Opposite:
    holy, religious, sacred

  2. CHRISTIAN CHURCH
    (of clergy) not subject to or bound by religious rule; not belonging to or living in a monastic or other order.

(Webster)
Definition of secular
(Entry 1 of 2)
1a: of or relating to the worldly or temporalsecular concerns
b: not overtly or specifically religioussecular music
c: not ecclesiastical or clericalsecular courtssecular landowners
2: not bound by monastic vows or rulesspecifically : of, relating to, or forming clergy not belonging to a religious order or congregationa secular priest
3a: occurring once in an age or a century
b: existing or continuing through ages or centuries
c: of or relating to a long term of indefinite durationsecular inflation

Definition of secular (Entry 2 of 2)
1: an ecclesiastic (such as a diocesan priest) not bound by monastic vows or rules : a member of the secular clergy
2: LAYMAN


(Dictionary.com)
secular
[ sek-yuh-ler ]
SEE SYNONYMS FOR secular ON THESAURUS.COM
adjective
of or relating to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal:secular interests.
not pertaining to or connected with religion (opposed to sacred):secular music.
(of education, a school, etc.) concerned with nonreligious subjects.
(of members of the clergy) not belonging to a religious order; not bound by monastic vows (opposed to regular).
 
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Rise

Well-Known Member
Or I could have simply misunderstood the argument on the basis that he may have been using an alternative meaning of the term secular. But then what is a secular Muslim? Unless you are a liberal, you can't be non-religious and a Muslim, so perhaps he was not using your definition of secular either? In fact personally I think it would have been helpful to define what he meant by secular since that was the word he used. Personally I think he was trying to attack liberals for not being orthodox which is possibly just singing to the choir.,

He tried to make more than one point. But the one point I was commenting on was the fact that he believes you can't be a genuine muslim and be secular at the same time.
And in that sense I think he's logically, objectively, correct.

However, he falls into the trap of trying to have it both ways too.

He actually does represent a secularization of islam. Just not a full secularization of it.

I don't believe you can successfully make a case that the islam we see of ISIS doesn't represent a true historical representation of what islam was or how it was practiced, or that it isn't a true representation of what the writings of islam actually command.
I believe ISIS could make an effective case that what they are doing does represent islam as written without the need to distort what is written (as opposed to some sects of Christianity or Judaism that must distort what is written in their texts in order to justify a way of life that clearly does not line up with what is written).

So he really has no logical, textual, or historical basis for claiming that his version of islam represents the "true islam" but those terrorists have got it all wrong.

He wants to be able to have a form of islam that doesn't look like that but still isn't fully secular.
And at that point he's really just picking and choosing what he wants to follow based on what he thinks is best.

That to me seems like he's getting into secular-religious syncretism. Which is not uncommon in Christianity and Judaism either. It's when people want to embrace what their society believes but still want to be considered part of a particular religion as well.
It's not usually an intellectually honest position for them to take regardless of what religion you're talking about. Because usually they have no historical or textual basis for claiming that their new way of following their religion represents a genuine representation of what the religion has historically required.

In some cases new religious movements can represent a more genuine return to what the roots of the religion was originally; such as with the protestant reformation or various spirit filled revivals in the USA. In these cases, though, their conclusions are in line with what we see in history and Scripture. As opposed to other more leftwing corruptions of Christianity where what they practice and believe is directly at odds with history and Scripture. And they only think they can get away with this because they reject both Christian history and Scripture as not valid or true enough to base their beliefs on. So they let the world decide for them what is true and then just try plug the parts of Christianity they like into that secular worldview while rejecting everything that doesn't fit.

Great start another thread for it, because this thread is not really about creation vs evolution, for all we know the author of the video may believe in evolution or not, but we don't know that.

You statement is more applicable to yourself than to me. Because I was merely responding to your attempt to challenge my statement about atheism.

If you want to challenge my statement about atheism then you have to expect a counter response, which means you are the one trying to start a debate about that topic in this thread.

If you didn't want to debate it in this thread then you shouldn't have tried to challenge it in this thread.

I gave valid reasons to establish my conclusion that atheism has an unproven worldview not unlike most religions, and how it has drawn moral conclusions from that worldview, which have then been used to justify among the worst atrocities of the 20th century.

I'm a modern leftist, I'm just pointing out that there is more diversity in the left than what you are addressing.
Your statement is not relevant to what I said.

Which is that you commonly find people who advocate for secularism today also advocating that there should be no restrictions on immigration for any reason.

The reason I pointed that out is to demonstrate that people often don't think clearly about the implications of how or why they think secularism should be applied to society. Because they can't even recognize the obvious contradictions with their other policies.

Whether or not everyone falls into that illogical trap of ignorance is not relevant to the point I was making.

Fair enough, but I think that western society seems to be drifting away from religion, and as such it is natural that our laws will drift away from their religious basis as the moral beliefs of the people drift away from religion, and to be honest, I see that as a good thing.

Why do you see that as a good thing?

The truth is, a bad atheistic worldview will result in immoral conclusions and atrocities just as much as a bad religious worldview (if not moreso).

It was an atheistic worldview based on unproven minerals to man evolution and natural selection that led people in the 19th and 20th century to conclude the following things were right and moral:
1. That some people are genetically inferior because of their race and ethnicity.
2. That people who come from families with a history of crime are genetically inferior.
3. That genetically inferior people should be sterilized or killed for the good of the species.
4. That old or infirm people should be euthanized when they are no longer deemed useful to society, because the individual has no inherent value but only what they can do to advance the species matters (And you define advancement by economic productivity).
5. That preborn life has no inherent value, and therefore you can make judgements about whether or not to kill a preborn child if you deem it to be beneficial to your life in terms of money or time.
6. That there's nothing wrong with doing whatever it takes to advance your family at the expense of others, because the only thing that nature judges success or failure by is who is the most prolific at spreading their genes and ensuring the supremacy of their descendants.
7. That the only thing that matters is what is best for overall species survival and the individual is irrelevant. Therefore, killing off 95% of the people is seen as justified if you think it's necessary for the betterment of the species.

You cannot logically make a moral case against any of those conclusions from an atheistic viewpoint. There is nothing objective about the atheistic worldview that can be used to prove that any of those things are inherently wrong and therefore ought not to be done even if it seems advantageous to you to do them.

As far as evolutionary theory is objectively concerned, nothing is wrong unless it lowers the chances of your genes becoming more dominant. You could even argue that things are wrong simply because they fail to help your genes become more dominant.

An atheistic might believe it's wrong, and might also try to truthfully claim it's wrong, but they can't tell us why it's wrong if they operate from an atheistic worldview. And it's precisely because they can't tell anyone why it's wrong that society becomes vulnerable to people deciding it's not actually wrong and then acting upon it.
 
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danieldemol

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
The history of Australia traces it's roots back to English common law the same as the USA.
You won't find any basis for that justice system in secularism.
Secularism as defined by being nonreligious in it's moral foundation and judgments.
I don't think the roots of Australian history matter if it has progressed beyond it's roots historically. You can see a list of self described secular states at wikipedia, australia is on the list: Secular state - Wikipedia


Google doesn't even support your claim about the definition of secular:

...(Google)
denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis.
  1. denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis.
    "secular buildings"

    Similar:
    nonreligious
    , lay, nonchurch, temporal, worldly, earthly, profane, unsanctified, unconsecrated, unhallowed, laic

    Opposite:
    holy, religious, sacred

  2. CHRISTIAN CHURCH
    (of clergy) not subject to or bound by religious rule; not belonging to or living in a monastic or other order....

My definition in the OP came from "secularism" whether I understood that definition well or not.
'the principle of separation of the state from religious institutions.
"he believes that secularism means no discrimination against anybody in the name of religion"' 1
1 https://www.google.com/search?sourc...hUKEwjtkY-246HrAhWx7XMBHXe3CNkQ4dUDCAk&uact=5

I think that we manage freedom of religion well enough in Australia. Its not perfect perhaps, but I don't see how adding a state religion would help us.
 

danieldemol

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
You statement is more applicable to yourself than to me. Because I was merely responding to your attempt to challenge my statement about atheism.
Well I thought it might help you to understand that large numbers of Christians and other theists believe in evolution too, but when I saw you start trying to disprove evolution by disproving things which even if false would still not disprove evolution such as abiogenesis, I realised you need a seperate thread to provide you with sufficient focus on one issue to straighten your views on it.

Why do you see that as a good thing?
Well for starters because certain religious people don't seem very good at thinking outside boxes of prepackaged beliefs. We are not all either Christian/right wing/religious or nonreligious/left/communist/nazi, and legislating on that basis would condemn large swathes of the nonreligious population without even understanding them, all on the basis of right wing fear and smear.

The truth is, a bad atheistic worldview will result in immoral conclusions and atrocities just as much as a bad religious worldview ....
Precisely, a bad atheist worldview as opposed to an atheist or non-religious worldview based in compassion which is good will result in attrocities, but numerous atheists and or non-religious people have worldviews based in compassion and tolerance and are as good as religions based on compassion and tolerance.

It was an atheistic worldview based on unproven minerals to man evolution and natural selection that led people in the 19th and 20th century to conclude the following things were right and moral:
1. That some people are genetically inferior because of their race and ethnicity.
2. That people who come from families with a history of crime are genetically inferior.
3. That genetically inferior people should be sterilized or killed for the good of the species.
4. That old or infirm people should be euthanized when they are no longer deemed useful to society, because the individual has no inherent value but only what they can do to advance the species matters (And you define advancement by economic productivity).
5. That preborn life has no inherent value, and therefore you can make judgements about whether or not to kill a preborn child if you deem it to be beneficial to your life in terms of money or time.
6. That there's nothing wrong with doing whatever it takes to advance your family at the expense of others, because the only thing that nature judges success or failure by is who is the most prolific at spreading their genes and ensuring the supremacy of their descendants.
7. That the only thing that matters is what is best for overall species survival and the individual is irrelevant. Therefore, killing off 95% of the people is seen as justified if you think it's necessary for the betterment of the species.
Actually it was based on Eugenics, and one need not believe in Eugenics to believe in natural selection/evolution.

You cannot logically make a moral case against any of those conclusions from an atheistic viewpoint.
Well i'll let the atheists speak for themselves on that but I think that many atheists can argue against that if their worldviews are based on compassion and reciprocity.

As far as evolutionary theory is objectively concerned, nothing is wrong unless it lowers the chances of your genes becoming more dominant. You could even argue that things are wrong simply because they fail to help your genes become more dominant.
Humans became more dominant precisely because they evolved as a social compassionate species, if we gave away our virtues we would become inferior genetically to animals, I'll see if I can dig up a good article on this for you.
Try this one if you have the time;
The Biological Basis of Morality It gets really interesting from under the title "The Origin of Moral Instincts"
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
It was an atheistic worldview based on unproven minerals to man evolution and natural selection that led people in the 19th and 20th century to conclude the following things were right and moral:

With all due respect, being a theist myself I just wish to point out that the theory of evolution does not begin or end with "minerals to man". There are some people who try to mix it together, but its flawed in knowledge.

The theory of evolution begins with life, not with minerals. You have mixed abiogenesis to evolution and Atheists as a whole cannot be blamed for one person who you may have encountered with this wrong notion.
 

danieldemol

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Even if they were — which they're not — you wouldn't be able to know that for certain, but I doubt that would stop you from blindly believing in it.
Yes we can know for certain that the world views of certain atheists are based in compassion by asking them and observing their actions to see if there is any discrepancy between what they profess and their deeds
 

Rise

Well-Known Member
Well I thought it might help you to understand that large numbers of Christians and other theists believe in evolution too,

Which might be a valid point if not for the fact that you can't be a believer in the Bible and also a believer in minerals to man evolution.

It strikes against very core foundational aspects in both the old and new testament which clearly show that:
a) Death did not originally exist.
b) Death entered into the world by sin.
c) God, as Jesus, rescued us by sacrificing Himself in our place, so that we may have eternal life again.
d) One day death will cease to exist.

You can't get any more foundational than that. It is the reason everything exists. It is the reason why we do what we do. It is the reason why God does what He does. It sums up all of mankind's history from beginning to end as far as our temporary mortal existence goes. You cannot remove that from your worldview and theology without ceasing to be a Christian by any meaningful definition of the word. You'd cease to believe in anything that would Biblicly or historically define you as a Christian.

To say that death always existed, and to even make death the hero of the story by asserting that mankind came into being thanks to death (ie. the unproven hypothesis of natural selection causing simple organisms to supposedly evolve into mankind), is fundamentally and absolutely incompatible with the most basic and important message of the Bible.

Which is why minerals to man evolution is an inherently atheistic theology in the context of the western world where you had people who were atheists pushing the idea of evolution as a counter explanation for the creation of mankind in opposition to a Biblical worldview.

but when I saw you start trying to disprove evolution by disproving things which even if false would still not disprove evolution such as abiogenesis,

Your statement is not only demonstrably false, but also guilty of commiting the fallacies of "strawman" and "argument by assertion".

A strawman because it's not an accurate representation of what I actually argued.

1. I didn't only bring up abiogenesis of inorganic matter to organic organisms as proof that minerals to man evolution is unproven.
2. I also pointed out that there is no evidence for, and no known mechanism by which the informational coding language of DNA could arise out of nothing by random chance.
3. Further, I pointed out that you have no evidence of one kind of animal transforming into another kind, with new coding information being created.


Then your statement is is an assertion fallacy because you merely assert that my point about abiogenesis can't disprove the minerals to man evolution hypothesis without giving any reasons why that would be the case. Your claim isn't true just because you assert it is.


And finally, your statement isn't even true.
Because, by definition, if abiogenesis is not true then the evolutionary theology of minerals to man evolution is entirely impossible because you don't have a mechanism by which inorganic minerals and first turn into living organisms so that then natural selection can supposedly take over to produce more complex organisms.

Because you have no mechanism by which mankind could arise from nothing by chance you are then forced to have a special creation event at some point to explain the emergence of life.

Now, it's true to say that disproving abiogenesis doesn't disprove the claim that fish can transform into man. But that's not the only issue I was addressing, which was minerals to man evolutionary theology as a whole.

But even then your point still is invalid because I also pointed out that you have no observational evidence that would allow you to say it's possible for fish to transform into a man.

The mere existence of man becomes the only evidence advocates for abiogenesis have to prove it happened because they assume God doesn't exist and therefore they proclaim "well, if God didn't create man, then abiogenesis must have happened somehow, even though we can't explain how it would happen".

So they embrace abiogenesis for no other reason than they have no alternative. It is purely a religious belief on their part. An atheistic religious belief by definition. Because it assumes they know God doesn't exist. That's the only way they can conclude abiogenesis must have happened.

And they aren't even unaware of this problem. Which is why Dawkins is willing to speculate that maybe life was seeded on this planet by aliens from somewhere else.
But all that does is move the question of how life originated off one planet and onto another, hoping that maybe other planets will provide evidence for abiogenesis because you know full well you can't find that evidence on earth.


I realised you need a seperate thread... to straighten your views on it.

Your statement implies that what you assume what you believe is true and assume that what I believe is false.
An arrogant position to take considering you're the only one between the two of us that hasn't produced a single valid argument in support of your belief about evolution.

I can state now that you would never be able to provide valid arguments or evidence to disprove what I said because your claim that anything I said was in error isn't true.

I welcome you attempting to - even if you have to start a new thread for it.

Well for starters because certain religious people don't seem very good at thinking outside boxes of prepackaged beliefs. We are not all either Christian/right wing/religious or nonreligious/left/communist/nazi, and legislating on that basis would condemn large swathes of the nonreligious population without even understanding them, all on the basis of right wing fear and smear.

I don't understand what you are trying to say. I think the issue is that you're using a lot of terms with implied meanings and assumptions behind them.

I'd like to understand why you think western society would be better off "drifting away from religion" as the basis for it's morals. But I can't understand what you mean by your latest statement without understanding the meanings and definitions behind what you're saying.

If you could answer these questions then I believe I'd have a much better understanding of what you're saying:

Legislating what exactly?
And on what basis exactly are you saying something is legislated?
And how would legislating on that basis condemn anyone?
What do you even mean by the word condemn? What happens to them?
What do you mean by understanding them?
Why does that change the equation?
What exactly is "right wing fear and smear", and how is that relevent to the equation?
How does "thinking outside the box" relate to all this?
And why do you think a Christian would have that problem but an atheist wouldn't?


Precisely, a bad atheist worldview as opposed to an atheist or non-religious worldview based in compassion which is good will result in attrocities, but numerous atheists and or non-religious people have worldviews based in compassion and tolerance and are as good as religions based on compassion and tolerance.

The premise of your statement is untrue. Ie: The implied claim that the difference between a "good religious worldview" and a bad one is "compassion and tolerance".

By definition, tolerance and compassion are not automatically good.
It depends entirely on what you advocate tolerating and having compassion towards.

For example:
I think we can agree that tolerating the random murder of innocent children is not good for society.

So it's false to just claim that tolerance is a virtue.

Quite the opposite actually: tolerance is actually a bad thing if what you're tolerating is evil and injustice.

In fact, in the Bible we see God condemn Israel for their tolerance of injustice and evil in their midst. For which judgement comes upon them to wipe away the evil of their society, righting the wrongs that they have been tolerating for too long.

The fact is, you can't even talk about whether or not tolerance and compassion are a virtue or a vice in any instance without first being able to make a moral judgement about whether or not a given activity is objectively right or wrong.

Actually it was based on Eugenics, and one need not believe in Eugenics to believe in natural selection/evolution.

Your statement is a fallacy of "irrelevant conclusion". What you are stating is not relevant to disproving what I said.

I didn't say you needed to believe in eugenics if you believed in natural selection.
I said you needed to believe in natural selection to believe in eugenics.
You got them reversed.

Belief in natural selection as the origin of man is a necessary prerequisite for eugenics. Which by it's very definition uses natural selection as it's basis for claiming that humanity can be improved by killing off those deemed weaker or undesirable.

In fact, it's hard to say you don't believe in eugenics by default if you really believe in natural selection as the origin of life and are an atheist too. Because even if you don't belief in it in the sense of wanting to do it or thinking it's good (because your natural moral predispositions are repulsed by it) - logically you can't deny the concept is valid from a logical standpoint if your only moral compass in life is atheistic natural selection. Eugenics is one of the natural logical conclusions of your worldview. And as an atheist you would have no moral basis though for telling others they would be morally wrong to follow that worldview to it's natural conclusion like the nazis did.


Well i'll let the atheists speak for themselves on that but I think that many atheists can argue against that if their worldviews are based on compassion and reciprocity.
And I would be able to show why they have no logical basis for any of the moral positions they try to hold to.

Even well known public atheist figures like Hitchens couldn't do it.
I guarantee you that whatever atheists you met couldn't either, when properly challenged to support their conclusions with valid reasons.

Humans became more dominant precisely because they evolved as a social compassionate species, if we gave away our virtues we would become inferior genetically to animals, I'll see if I can dig up a good article on this for you.
Try this one if you have the time;
The Biological Basis of Morality It gets really interesting from under the title "The Origin of Moral Instincts"

Your statement and article is irrelevant to the point you were responding to.

The point I made was that natural selection can't make value judgements - it can only measure the success or failure of an organism to procreate.

But I could name a lot of things that results in increased procreation or a reduction in your competition that you absolutely would not agree is a moral thing to do.
Like murdering all those of an opposing race like the nazis did, or forcibly inseminating a huge swath of the Asian continent like Gengis Khan is believed to have done.

So that proves your belief is in contradiction with itself. Since natural selection can only measure the success of passing on your genes relative to others, and since not every activity that fits that definition is something you would agree qualifies as morally good.

That is why all kinds of evil results from a worldview based in natural selection as the origin of life. Especially when combined with atheism because then your worldview allows you to really throw off any sense of moral restraint other than what makes you more successful at eliminating competition and procreating more.

Ideas have consequences. We act based on what we believe.
 
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Rise

Well-Known Member
With all due respect, being a theist myself I just wish to point out that the theory of evolution does not begin or end with "minerals to man". There are some people who try to mix it together, but its flawed in knowledge.

The theory of evolution begins with life, not with minerals. You have mixed abiogenesis to evolution and Atheists as a whole cannot be blamed for one person who you may have encountered with this wrong notion.

I didn't mix anything up, and your statement doesn't disprove any of my points. Look at the quote you are responding to and you'll see why.
Whether or not abiogeneis and kind to kind evolution are the same or not is not relevant in any way to what you were responding to.

For my example I specifically made reference to an atheistic worldview that believed in both abiogenesis and kind to kind evolution. Meaning they combined both atheism with a belief in minerals to man evolution.

There was nothing wrong with me stating that as the conditions of my example. And nothing in your post points to any error with me doing that.
Instead you seem to misunderstand what I said, which results in your response being irrelevant to what you quoted.




On a related note, I'd like to point out:
By definition any atheist today is going to have to embrace abiogenesis followed by kind to kind evolution as theology, without proof, because they have no alternative option but special creation.

That's not to say you couldn't be a type of theist who believes in abiogenesis and kind to kind evolution, if you think that's how God set up the conditions of the universe to work; but it is to say that to be an atheist requires you believe in abiogenesis and kind to kind evolution. Because you literally have no logical alternative but to believe in it - unless you're prepared to say you just don't know how life appeared and are comfortable with not knowing that.
But I've never seen any atheist that felt the need to take the position that they just don't know how life arose and don't feel the need to give an answer for it. They've always believed abiogenesis and kind to kind evolution is an established fact without any evidence other than it's what the high priests of academia have told them is true. It doesn't help the average person's lack of critical thinking in this area when academics who don't hold to this dogma are professionally burned at the stake and excommunicated.
 
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