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>> Don't let the trolls bother you.
>> People that do good things are good, just like Jesus is good.
>> People that do bad things are evil, just like the devil who has
>> done bad things since the beginning.
>> That's why Jesus came: to destroy the devil's works.
>> When someone has love in his heart, he wants to do good
>> things, but when someone has angry hatred inside, he wants
>> to do evil things. That's why God sent Jesus, because he
>> loves us, and that love frees us from the bonds of hate and
>> death.
>
> You should have left off with the first sentence. The rest is just
> argument ad hominem. I.e., the, entirely unsupported, and false,
> assertion, in contradiction, to all evidence, that people like Samuel
> Clemens, lacking belief in a god, must, in nearly all cases, be "evil",
> while the dozens of priests in Ireland, recently found to have beaten
> and molested kids, but believing in god, must be automatically more
> likely to be "good". Sorry, but... belief doesn't make people good. On
> the contrary, it simply gives evil people a holy book they can quote
> mine to find bits and pieces to use to "justify" being evil, while still
> imagining that "god" wants them to do it. Non-believers have a much more
> direct excuse, they tend to imagine themselves untouchable, too smart to
> be stopped, and don't give a frack about other people. They don't try to
> excuse their actions by claiming someone "else" told them to do it. It
> is a whole hell of a lot easier to see the insanity and lack of
> compassion in such people, without the mask of "religious conviction" to
> hide the fact that it has jack to do with what any god or devil wants,
> and ***everything*** to do with what *they* want.
>
> After all, even in "good" people, god always seems to want them to do
> "precisely" what they intended to do anyway, even when "other" good
> people think what they chose to do was inappropriate, wrong, or less
> godly that what "they" would have done. Odd how that works...
I didn't say that belief in God makes you good. I said that good
people do good things, and that love motivates you to do good things.
The devil believes in God, why is it suprising that some evil people
believe? They are motivated by wrath and lust, and when caught
doing evil things they blame God, but they were doing what they
wanted to do. They have no love in thier hearts.
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On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:17:59 -0700, Tim Attwood wrote:
> I didn't say that belief in God makes you good. I said that good people
> do good things, and that love motivates you to do good things.
Well, I think Patrick might've been saying that the rest of you wrote
just feeds the trolls.
But I don't think love motivates you to do good things. I think
selflessness does. Love comes with the baggage of some sort of
expectation for your efforts.
But I guess that also depends on how you define "love".
Jim
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Tim Attwood wrote:
> I didn't say that belief in God makes you good. I said that good
> people do good things, and that love motivates you to do good things.
>
> The devil believes in God, why is it suprising that some evil people
> believe? They are motivated by wrath and lust, and when caught
> doing evil things they blame God, but they were doing what they wanted
> to do. They have no love in thier hearts.
Go back a little over 2,000 years and you will find people already
shooting holes in this idea that "god" has anything to do with piety,
love, or other such things. Even then "some" of them where able to
figure out that either god's ideas where arbitrary, and therefor
claiming that good came from them was absurd, or that good existed
without them, and therefor all the gods where really doing was stealing
it, then claiming that they made up the whole idea themselves. You are
not proving to anyone by such assertions that love, never mind justice,
or other similar concepts *only* exist do to any god, instead of all the
other "reasonable" explanations that exist, most of which can be pointed
out to exist in "any" social animal, simply because, well, its "social".
So, sorry, but if you are actually claiming that you "must" have a god
for love to exist somehow, and that good derives from that, then you
**are** in fact claiming on some level, that belief in something "godly"
makes you good, even if you are willing to waffle a lot more than most
theists about if you have to believe in Mr. Robes too.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:17:59 -0700, Tim Attwood wrote:
>
>> I didn't say that belief in God makes you good. I said that good people
>> do good things, and that love motivates you to do good things.
>
> Well, I think Patrick might've been saying that the rest of you wrote
> just feeds the trolls.
>
> But I don't think love motivates you to do good things. I think
> selflessness does. Love comes with the baggage of some sort of
> expectation for your efforts.
>
> But I guess that also depends on how you define "love".
>
> Jim
Ultimately, all acts are selfish ones. The people that say otherwise are
in denial, or have been taught to say otherwise, and almost manage to
believe it. The difference between good and evil is how "inclusive" you
are of others in your view of what serves "you" best. Those that find
other people an inconvenience, want the world to give them everything,
imagine they are owned for existing, and see other people as merely an
ends to a means, are "evil", whether they are the nice church lady who
never would hurt a fly physically, but is *always* managing to get
people do fix her house, mow her yard, give her things, and looking to
marry rich, because people are just "means" by which she gets the things
she imagines she needs, or some insane political leader, who imagines
themselves "saving the world" from capitalism, or otherwise making the
world "better" for themselves, with no clue, conscience, or
understanding of the people they step on to get there. Stalin or Pol Pot
are what the poor church lady becomes when they "convince" themselves
that they know what is right for the entire rest of the world, and they
have both the political power, and the military strength, to kill people
to get it.
That is what evil is. Blind need to serve "self", without regard for the
rest of the tribe, or, to a lesser, but no less despicable degree, those
"in the other tribe". Good is realizing that you need to give something
up, sometimes, to get most of what you want, and that the cost of
getting "everything" might lose you more in the long run than you either
a) imagine, b) can predict, or c) can reasonably comprehend. It requires
a willingness to look at *why* you make choices, not just what "seems"
like the best one at the time, and, not confusing, "because its always
been this way", with, "its right to keep doing it that way, even we you
can 'see' some people are injured by it", which is one of the *biggest*
problems many religious followers have when confronted with new things.
They look at "past" solutions, even when they don't apply, or never did,
but where easier to overlook, and commit evil anyway, because its
"traditional".
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:34:53 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Ultimately, all acts are selfish ones.
I disagree. Talk to anyone who has gone into a burning building to save
others - no amount of money compensates for that.
> The people that say otherwise are
> in denial, or have been taught to say otherwise, and almost manage to
> believe it.
"Either you agree with me or you're stupid"?
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:34:53 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Ultimately, all acts are selfish ones.
>
> I disagree. Talk to anyone who has gone into a burning building to save
> others - no amount of money compensates for that.
This is a debate that has been around since before Shakespeare. Would you do
it if it didn't make you feel good to have succeeded? Would you give money
to the poor if you didn't get a glow out of helping the poor? Etc.
> "Either you agree with me or you're stupid"?
You know, I was wondering what that fallacy is called. There has to be a
name for "if only you agreed with me, you'd see that I'm right."
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!
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On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:30:05 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:34:53 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>>> Ultimately, all acts are selfish ones.
>>
>> I disagree. Talk to anyone who has gone into a burning building to
>> save others - no amount of money compensates for that.
>
> This is a debate that has been around since before Shakespeare. Would
> you do it if it didn't make you feel good to have succeeded? Would you
> give money to the poor if you didn't get a glow out of helping the poor?
> Etc.
Fair point, for firefighters reportedly there is a bit of a "rush" - but
I wonder how many of those who went into the towers on 9/11 (and I hate
using 9/11 as an example) went in knowing they were probably not coming
out.
>> "Either you agree with me or you're stupid"?
>
> You know, I was wondering what that fallacy is called. There has to be
> a name for "if only you agreed with me, you'd see that I'm right."
There does....Whatever it's called, taking that approach
overemotionalizes the issue and attempts to conflate facts with
opinions. It's almost gotta be a kind of baiting, kinda like "no one has
a relevant challenge? Guess it would be like challenging the Sun." - the
implication being that if nobody has "a relevant challenge", then "I must
be right".
It's a common trolling tactic, but I have to admit to being surprised to
see Patrick use it - I don't often see his posts as falling in that
category.
Jim
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alphaQuad wrote:
> Experience I have the
> power to show other worthy people unlike yourself. All of us handed tools of
> experimentation, that admittedly some like monkeys, could not figure out how to
> use. Stay in denial, you will not get the chance to know, my little prophecy.
>
And, this lies at the true heart of every religious argument I have ever
heard. Anyone that disagrees is not so much missing tangible,
reproducible, non-personal evidence, they are a) too stupid to see the
truth of the spiritual world view, and b) can't grasp the "tools" that
got other people there.
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2009/06/the_psychology_of_crankery.php
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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gregjohn wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcable com> wrote:
>> alphaQuad wrote:
>>> OK, on to the relevance then. Beliefs are just that, something you want to
>>> believe but for which you have no personal experience that would justify it.
>>>
>>> What's greater then belief? When you KNOW from experience, you do in fact
>>> actually know something. Belief is more like a faerie tale.
>>>
>>> An atheist has beliefs and doesn't know anything. I am particularly interested
>>> in these people, because of what I could show them. Call me vulnerable, or just
>>> crazy, but if you only KNEW!!!!!!
>>>
>> This is vastly ironic, coming from someone that, probably, like most,
>> lump atheists into some homogeneous group that all agree with each other
>> on "beliefs". Its also even more ironic in that you have
>>
>> a) Belief that the Bible actual describes something that happened.
>> Evidence to support it - your belief that you experienced god. The
>> evidence of any of it really happening though... Hmm..
>>
>> b) Belief that such belief makes you better. Ok.. then explain why it is
>> that, other than a few exceptions, nearly all wars are religiously
>> motivated, and some of the most vile evil people today "mask" themselves
>> in your religion. There isn't a lot of evidence than believing in god
>> does anything more than provide justification for those that are "sure"
>> they are good, to do the things they want, certain in their own minds
>> that everything they do is also what god wants. Too bad no one else
>> would agree with all their choices, when made based on that criteria.
>>
>> c) And this one is part and parcel of the denial of science in this
>> country. The abject refusal, despite diseases like Alzheimer's, despite
>> nearly half the population having to have glasses, despite people losing
>> their hearing, despite the known effects of drugs on the mind, despite
>> blindingly obvious cases of people seeing things, despite the known
>> effects of fasting, which includes hallucinations, despite head injuries
>> changing people's personalities, despite "several diseases" that are
>> known to induce false religious experiences, and none of which even
>> "gets to" the neurological evidence we have now... despite "all" of
>> these things, people like alphaQuad imagine that "religious" experiences
>> are in some "special" category, for which their "personal" direct
>> experiencing of them is 100% infallible, and always right, and
>> constitutes 100% undeniable *evidence* of the existence of the main
>> character of their favorite faerie tale.
>>
>> The argument holds about as much water, based on, "knowing from
>> experience", as the fools looking for how DNA works by comparing it to
>> Chinese language characters. Its pure gibberish. The brain is not
>> reliable at telling if its "own" experiences are accurate, and even some
>> *Christian* philosophers, and members of the church, over the last 2000
>> years, including both Fancis Bacon, and St. Thomas Aquinas, managed to
>> figure that out (or at least almost do so). Why is it that, especially
>> in the US, there seems to be an absolute outbreak of people that *can't*?
>>
>
>
> I think the problem is that you WERE involved in a false religion, and
> mistakenly presume it is THE responsible elucidation of the text. There is
> not anything that is so stupid or wacky or evil that it cannot be said, by some
> idiot, to be taken from the bible or the life's work of ML King Jr., or Lincoln
> or a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
>
Show me a "true religion" that doesn't have most of its members
practicing the same silly BS too, just on less "serious" issues than the
ones you insist on claiming are "not true Scot..", or sorry, "Not true
Christians", then you can talk. I didn't reach this conclusion by being
"in" one of the crazy assed cults that I hear about all the time, I
reached my conclusions from the realization that the **only difference**
between those cults and your cult is how many subjects their members
decide to be assholes about, and to what length they are willing to go
to "punish" people for not agreeing with them. The basic failure at
common decency between some churchy that doesn't like Darwin, so breaks
into the local library to steal books, and burn them, and some fracking
nut case that blows up a building, because they don't like "America", is
the same. The only barrier between one and the other is how "strongly"
they believe in their version of justice, and whether they can get past
the minor inconvenience of convincing themselves that there are "proper"
times to kill someone. And both are driven by the idea that there is an
infallible, perfect, thing, which they both follow, which will "accept"
this action, because in their case, they are doing it for "its" cause.
The ones that don't believe this, read maybe 1/2 of the NT, gloss over
the rest, where Jesus does something nuts, insist that Revelations isn't
literal, and ignore 90% of the OT, unless they need some excuse to go
after some group, like gays, in which case they cherry pick the lines
they want to use to support them.
Truth is, there isn't a "nice" liberal Christian alive that doesn't
fundamentally deny nearly 100% of the OT, and gloss over parts of the
NT. And there isn't one extremist who doesn't expound with great glee
and excitement, as justification for their bigotry, on the very things
that the "nice" ones reject. So, the good people ignore it, the bad
people think it should be taken literally, and love to quote it, and
none of them seem to really be paying any attention to any sort of
"god", when looking for advice or justifications. What use is "either"
the holy text, or the invisible magic man behind it, then?
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:34:53 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Ultimately, all acts are selfish ones.
>
> I disagree. Talk to anyone who has gone into a burning building to save
> others - no amount of money compensates for that.
>
>> The people that say otherwise are
>> in denial, or have been taught to say otherwise, and almost manage to
>> believe it.
>
> "Either you agree with me or you're stupid"?
>
> Jim
Statement of where the evidence leads. If you can show evidence
otherwise, I will be happy to change my position. Not so sure about the
person it was directed towards.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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