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Post by The Herald Erjen on Nov 22, 2018 23:27:53 GMT
That ought to keep the mix stirred up. Nice work, Aj. Now you can be proud of yourself. Badly formed arguments should be examined. It doesn't matter who makes them. I remember an atheist on old boards called "Wash repair clothes-man" who made terrible argument that religion has never helped anyone. I called him out for his stupidity.
The argument that I cited in my OP is pretty stupid. Even you should readily recognise that it made little sense and is promoting belief for the sake of believing. Add to that it makes many unwarranted assumptions.
What's so badly formed about it?
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Post by Cody™ on Nov 23, 2018 0:02:42 GMT
This guy explains it well. Starting at 33:40 minute mark into the video. No, he really doesn't, I've heard Peterson's inane Chopra-esque dribble before. Perhaps I'll watch, but it will almost certainly be the same useless word soup that goes nowhere. BTW Peterson won't even take on the label of "Christian" so I dunno why you're even bothering to use him as some sort of authority figure on the subject.
Watch from the 33:40 mark into the video. It’s virtually the last 5 minutes. And it’s not Peterson making the argument.
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Post by lowtacks86 on Nov 23, 2018 0:24:10 GMT
No, he really doesn't, I've heard Peterson's inane Chopra-esque dribble before. Perhaps I'll watch, but it will almost certainly be the same useless word soup that goes nowhere. BTW Peterson won't even take on the label of "Christian" so I dunno why you're even bothering to use him as some sort of authority figure on the subject.
Watch from the 33:40 mark into the video. It’s virtually the last 5 minutes. And it’s not Peterson making the argument. Several problems:
1. He says atheism "Doesn't value the universe", which is just a flat out lie, despite what him (and presumubly you) want to believe, atheism is not a belief system, it says absolutely nothing about how one perceives the universe and life. It's the same half assesed theist argument of trying to conflate atheism with nihilsim. Do you really think secular humanists that donate to charity and help people in third world nations "believe in nothing"? It's just a false dichotomy (either your an atheist or you perceive value in the universe)
2. He seems to believe you need "God" to have value, but never really delves exactly why, just presents it as some sort of intrinsic, obvious truth, doesn't really extrapolate beyond that.
3. He cites the problem people have with Pascals Wagers (there's many different religions/Gods), cites that Christianity is the correct one. Besides the obvious problem (even with Christianity there's many different sects/churches/conceptions of God), he doesn't really seem to delve specifically on the why the Christian god is correct, but rather that Christians somehow intrinsictly creates "value" (doesn't really elaborate on how, how Christianity creates anymore value than other religions, or what he even really means by "value")
4. Even if what he said was true (atheists don't value the universe, Christians do), at best that's just an argument for believing in God, that has absolutely no bearing on weather or not God actually exists. Let's say I believe in some magical leprechaun that tells me to donate to charity and feed the poor, you could argue "Well yeah it's riddiculous but it makes him a good person, so it's better he believes even if it is a delusion", but that obviously doesn't some how prove the actual existence of an altruistic leprechaun.
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Post by Aj_June on Nov 23, 2018 0:39:53 GMT
Badly formed arguments should be examined. It doesn't matter who makes them. I remember an atheist on old boards called "Wash repair clothes-man" who made terrible argument that religion has never helped anyone. I called him out for his stupidity.
The argument that I cited in my OP is pretty stupid. Even you should readily recognise that it made little sense and is promoting belief for the sake of believing. Add to that it makes many unwarranted assumptions.
What's so badly formed about it? "Better to believe in something than nothing. If Zoroastrianism is false and there is no God, the Parsis have lost nothing. If Zoroastrianism is true and there is a God, then non-Parsis have lost everything."
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Post by Aj_June on Nov 23, 2018 1:00:45 GMT
Believing, because you're afraid of not believing, is not believing. Believing is faith. Faith is not a fear of not believing. How cute of you to say that advocate.
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Post by Aj_June on Nov 23, 2018 1:04:13 GMT
How cute of you to say that advocate. I hope that's a compliment because I'm basically agreeing with you that the argument in your OP is stupid. Yeah...that was a compliment, advocate. Your pics lately have been deserving of compliments like "cuteness" than anything else.
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Post by The Herald Erjen on Nov 23, 2018 1:12:06 GMT
What's so badly formed about it? "Better to believe in something than nothing. If Zoroastrianism is false and there is no God, the Parsis have lost nothing. If Zoroastrianism is true and there is a God, then non-Parsis have lost everything." If
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Post by Aj_June on Nov 23, 2018 1:14:04 GMT
"Better to believe in something than nothing. If Zoroastrianism is false and there is no God, the Parsis have lost nothing. If Zoroastrianism is true and there is a God, then non-Parsis have lost everything." IfIf so? You can have "if" and make the same argument for any religion/belief. So how is the argument sound?
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Post by The Herald Erjen on Nov 23, 2018 1:19:45 GMT
If so? You can have "if" and make the same argument for any religion/belief. So how is the argument sound? Because one chance of being right is better than no chance at all.
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Post by Aj_June on Nov 23, 2018 1:24:12 GMT
If so? You can have "if" and make the same argument for any religion/belief. So how is the argument sound? Because one chance of being right is better than no chance at all.
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Post by amyghost on Nov 23, 2018 1:35:50 GMT
In short, as long as everyone accepts and is happy with the choices they make religiously or non-religiously, then it's good at least for as long as they are alive. I agree with that part. And since there is no afterlife the bolded part could be dropped. Problems arise when people try to push their beliefs onto others. That's pretty much my feeling. Believe as you choose, as long as you don't attempt to force your beliefs on others in the form of manipulating secular law. Sadly, that often seems to be a favorite preoccupation of the religious, quite possibly one reason why atheism is on the rise throughout the West.
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Post by CoolJGS☺ on Nov 23, 2018 1:38:46 GMT
I agree with that part. And since there is no afterlife the bolded part could be dropped. Problems arise when people try to push their beliefs onto others. That's pretty much my feeling. Believe as you choose, as long as you don't attempt to force your beliefs on others in the form of manipulating secular law. Sadly, that often seems to be a favorite preoccupation of the religious, quite possibly one reason why atheism is on the rise throughout the West. Hogwash. Most religious people are fine with secular law and it's silly to suggest otherwise.
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Post by amyghost on Nov 23, 2018 1:44:37 GMT
Someone on the world wide web came up with this gem: "Better to believe in something than nothing. If Christianity is false and there is no God, the Christians have lost nothing. If Christianity is true and there is a God, then atheists have lost everything." Pascal's wager is a stupid argument filled with several stupid assumptions. First off, it's not a matter of being a Christian but rather being a Catholic, the largest Christian church and the one Pascal belonged to. Here's what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: "The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it.... This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in (subsistit in) in) the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him." The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism explains: "For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, that we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the People of God." So according to this official document of the RCC, Protestants go to Hell along with Jews, Hindus, Atheists and all others who reject The One True Church. Anyway, it may be that God has different criteria for entry to Heaven than what Christian believers want. It may be That God hates people who pray to Him constantly. It could be that He'll send all or some pious worshippers to Hell Eternal. God may consider believers to be shit and who am I to disagree with Him? You can laugh and say that God wouldn't be that vicious and I agree with you. But what if you're wrong? What if your prayers are doing nothing other than pissing off the Omnipotent Being? I've always felt that if god in fact does exist, the attempt to worship him/her/it is peculiarly pointless, if we're to believe that he/she/it is as utterly mysterious and unknowable as Christian scripture claims deity to be. How on earth can one know how such a being is to be properly worshiped, or if it seeks worship at all? There are already contradictions aplenty in Christian religious sects as to just this--whether petitionary prayer (as opposed to contemplative prayer) is wrong, for just one example. As always, there's the tang of trying to have one's cake and eat it too, insofar as Christianity wants to claim complete unknowability for god and his ways, while maintaining that it is possible for the believer to know exactly what it is that god 'wants' of us, in order to set the rules.
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Post by amyghost on Nov 23, 2018 1:45:43 GMT
That's pretty much my feeling. Believe as you choose, as long as you don't attempt to force your beliefs on others in the form of manipulating secular law. Sadly, that often seems to be a favorite preoccupation of the religious, quite possibly one reason why atheism is on the rise throughout the West. Hogwash. Most religious people are fine with secular law and it's silly to suggest otherwise. Really? How do you explain the frequent attempts to bend secular law to the wishes of believers, if that's so? Although this piece is speaking specifically of Australian social policies, I find much in this article that's very pertinent to the situation in the US currently: jme.bmj.com/content/28/4/215
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2018 3:04:47 GMT
So out of all the countless (more if you count different sects) religions, you somehow bet your chips on the right religion and it also happens to be the one you were mostly likely raised and indoctrinated into? Gotcha. This guy explains it well. Starting at 33:40 minute mark into the video. So he is pretty much explaining that it is better to live a life with value than none at all and then compares that concept to Pascal's wager. The concept might be similar depending on how you define value, but there's nothing that indicates that Christianity is a necessity when making one's life meaningful or adding value into your life. He's also making the assumption that atheists don't believe in the concept of value or that life has any value or meaning. Atheists don't believe in "nothing" as he keeps referring to it and they can still have their own abstract idea of value. He's comparing Christianity and atheism to the statement "Either there is meaning to this life or there isn't." As if atheism automatically means there is no value. His argument only makes sense for the people who truly don't believe there is any value and that can be anyone. I don't agree with the wager argument because I believe it implies that you should believe in God in order to get something out of it, and this can be seen as either a selfish or superstitious thought process because you're either living in a way you think you have to live to avoid punishment from a supernatural being or you're only living a certain way for the sake of yourself. I think this concept loses its purpose of believing in what the general concept of God really is.
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Post by The Herald Erjen on Nov 23, 2018 3:26:12 GMT
Because one chance of being right is better than no chance at all. The laughing boy face. Wow. Learned that one from your comrade, Cinemachinery, did you? Hey, at least he would write something to go with his.
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Post by goz on Nov 23, 2018 4:16:19 GMT
Believing, because you're afraid of not believing, is not believing. Believing is faith. Faith is not a fear of not believing. It also applies for non-belief. Non-belief has no fear of nonbelieving, because it is the most logical explanation of the meaning of life. 'Faith' is just a waste of time and energy. An atheist secular humanist can have as many 'morals' be a better, more intuitive, empathetic individual than a theist, especially if they are not bound by outdated rigid bigotries which are often endemic in formalised religions to exert power of the masses or 'believers'.
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Post by rizdek on Nov 23, 2018 12:33:47 GMT
Sounds like a clumsy rewording of Pascals Wager (which was already a bad argument to begin with) Pascal’s wager was right. Pascal was Roman Catholic, wasn't he? So was he right to be Roman Catholic? And are Protestants wrong to be Protestants?
Besides, in Matthew, Jesus said there are some who will say "Lord Lord" believing themselves to be believing correctly but he will say depart from me I never knew you because, despite their "belief" that they believed in the Lord, they will not have been pleasing to Jesus. The upshot being that Pascal could be wrong about being right. He could lose everything by believing...believing (and doing) the wrong things.
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Post by Cody™ on Nov 23, 2018 12:42:03 GMT
Pascal’s wager was right. Pascal was Roman Catholic, wasn't he? So was he right to be Roman Catholic? And are Protestants wrong to be Protestants?
Besides, in Matthew, Jesus said there are some who will say "Lord Lord" believing themselves to be believing correctly but he will say depart from me I never knew you because, despite their "belief" that they believed in the Lord, they will not have been pleasing to Jesus. The upshot being that Pascal could be wrong about being right. He could lose everything by believing...believing (and doing) the wrong things.
Pascal believed in the only true God of the bible.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2018 12:46:00 GMT
Someone on the world wide web came up with this gem:
"Better to believe in something than nothing. If Christianity is false and there is no God, the Christians have lost nothing. If Christianity is true and there is a God, then atheists have lost everything."
There's so much wrong with that, it's hard to know where to begin. Atheists rarely "believe in nothing". If christianity is false, christians have lost nothing - this isn't true. On a practical level, they've lost all the time, effort and money they put into their false religion. On a more abstract level, I value truth; if I were a christian and christianity were false, I would have lost all those years of having beliefs that were truthful. If christianity is true, then atheists have lost everything. This presumes that the christian god punishes people for atheism, which is far from certain. It also presents a false dichotomy, that the choices are atheism or christianity. What if there is a god, but it's the muslim one? Your christianity would suddenly seem pretty silly when you stood in front of allah, right? What if it's zeus? What if it's odin, and he'll be wanting to know about the battles you won? In short, every single aspect of that statement is nonsensical.
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