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Author Topic: Atheism 3.0
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 Date Posted: 10/30 2:23pm Subject: Atheism 3.0 - Date Edited: 10/30 2:36pm (4 edits total) Edited By: DorkmanScott
Darth-Ghost posted:
Something can be subjective and still considered a good reason for that person. But of couse not for anyone else, I'm just talking about for that person.

And you may disagree with even that, but that person feels it is a good reason.

Yes. But their feeling is wrong.

Darth-Ghost posted:
Of course they are. And so is our (current) understanding of God.

In other words, all of these things are imaginary as far as we can demonstrate. They are all made up.

Darth-Ghost posted:
But believing in something without proof doesn't make it wrong. And by "know," I've already said I meant subjective "know" = think/feel/believe.

Then use the words think/feel/believe. There's a reason those words exist, and conflating them with "knowledge," as though there is some alternate "subjective" definition, is absurd and fallacious. There is no such thing as "subjective knowledge."

I you had simply used the word "believe" at the beginning of this we would have had very little argument, at least on this angle of the topic.

Darth-Ghost posted:
Yes, you can know things that way, they just won't have any objective proof of it. If a man living 10 thousand years ago believed the Earth was round and went around the sun, he knows it, even if he can't prove it.

No, he didn't know it. He believed it, and he happened to be correct. That's not knowledge, it's lucky guessing. He did not know it because he couldn't prove it and he was not basing it on observation or evidence (if he was, it doesn't count among the type of knowledge you're trying to promote). He was pulling it completely out of his butt and he happened upon something that later turned out to be true.

It's like a psychic making a hundred random guesses as to what is going to happen this year, and one of them comes true. She didn't "know" that would happen -- she made stuff up and it HAPPENED to correlate with reality.

Darth-Ghost posted:
And of course these people can still know things and have a means to distinguish true beliefs from false ones, that is what science and objective evdience and rational thinking is for. What do you think I'm trying to argue, that people should never use those things?????? I'm just saying there are areas of life that exist outside of objective knowledge and scientific testing.

Yes, they're called "imagination" and "fantasy." Otherwise known as "making stuff up."

Are you even listening to yourself. This is what you just said:

-The way to tell true beliefs from false ones is by objective evidence and rational thinking.
-There are some beliefs that people hold that "exist outside" of objective evidence and rational thinking.

In other words, the beliefs asserted in the second premise have NO MECHANISM by which true beliefs can be distinguished from false ones. You wish to argue that such beliefs are as valid as beliefs formed by objective evidence and rational thinking, and you are wrong. They are not. Because there is no way to distinguish true from false in this paradigm.

Darth-Ghost posted:
That believing in something without proof or objectively knowing it ISN'T wrong or invalid or making stuff up.

I understand that this is the point you are arguing. What you seem not to understand is that you are wrong. Believing something without having a good reason to do so, without basing it on objective reality or observation, is making stuff up. It is an invalid form of obtaining knowledge if you have any desire to hold as many true and as few false beliefs as possible.

I accept that people do this and think that they are justified in doing so. That doesn't change the fact that they are wrong to think they are so justified.

It's about getting in the habit of rational thinking. I have had arguments with people with whose conclusion I agree, but the method they used to reach it was irrational and needed to be corrected, because while they accidently found their way to a sensible conclusion on that occasion, the bad practices would not be likely to lead to a similar result the next time.

 

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Date Posted: 10/30 2:24pm Subject: Atheism 3.0
I don't see what the big deal is about the so called "gnostic gospels". Several of the epistles all but say that there were men claiming to be apostles, sending "inspired" letters, and teaching false doctrine. The fact that there was dissent does nothing to weaken the Scriptures. It could have very well been just that, dissent and departure from truth.

Also, to just say that a bunch of old men decided a few hundred years after the fact what was "canon" and what wasn't is highly incomplete.

First of all, the idea that the Council of Nicea decided what was authentic would be equivalent to me deciding to include/exclude songs from a Michael Jackson compilation. It's an exercise in organization we have to go through, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that our vote changes anything. If an epistle is inspired, it is inspired, whether I choose to recognize it or not.

Second, each epistle didn't stand or fall on its own. They didn't even just look at them in groups that were consistent with each other, though that was part of it. When they were trying to decide whether to recognize a book as inspired, they also had the whole of the Old Testament to consider and compare against. Even if this new epistle or gospel was internally consistent, was it consistent with what was already accepted as being inspired of God?

Third, often overlooked is the role of spiritual gifts in the first century, specifically the gift of the discernment of spirits. One with such a gift would be able to tell whether a writing was valid or not, making confirming of the "canon" a bit more simple. Even though the spiritual gifts were not there past the first century, such would have gone a long ways to the establishment of certainty in Christians' minds going forward.

Obviously, most of this would be seen as rubbish in this thread, i.e., inspiration, spiritual gifts, however to ignore it in the discussion of "lost gospels" is to ignore an important piece of the puzzle.

 

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Date Posted: 10/30 2:37pm Subject: Atheism 3.0
DarthDogbert posted:
Obviously, most of this would be seen as rubbish in this thread, i.e., inspiration, spiritual gifts, however to ignore it in the discussion of "lost gospels" is to ignore an important piece of the puzzle.


Well, it's 'important' insofar as one cares about the specifics of believers' "goddidit" rationale for picking some books over others.

But from an outsider's perspective trying to find the most likely accurate portrayal of history, spiritual concerns are worthless.

 

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Date Posted: 10/30 2:42pm Subject: Atheism 3.0
That Gospel stuff is excellent material for the Christianity thread. In here, it's like Jehovah's witnesses at the door.

 
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Date Posted: 10/30 3:13pm Subject: Atheism 3.0
Actually, it's part of the reasons I became an atheist. But, I'll copy the post to the Christianity thread.

Darthdogbert,

There were several political and social reasons why the gnostic gospels were declared heretical. Until the discovery at Nag Hammadi, all biblical scholars knew about the gnostic gospels was what the orthodox church elders said about them. We didn't have any extant copies of the manuscripts themselves.

There's one other thing in the Gnostic Gospels that makes me go "???" and that is that Jesus told his disciples he spoke in parables for the masses of people who came to hear him speak, "So that they would not understand, for if they understood, they would turn from their sin and find forgiveness..."

 

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 Date Posted: 10/30 3:17pm Subject: Atheism 3.0
Lady_Sami_J_Kenobi posted:
There's one other thing in the Gnostic Gospels that makes me go "???" and that is that Jesus told his disciples he spoke in parables for the masses of people who came to hear him speak, "So that they would not understand, for if they understood, they would turn from their sin and find forgiveness..."

Which is probably a contributing factor in their being deemed heretical.

To an extent it's really no different from George Lucas declaring fan fiction "non-canon."

 

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Date Posted: 10/30 3:19pm Subject: Atheism 3.0
Except that we know the Star Wars idea originated with Lucas.

It's more like two guys rescued from a plane crash arguing over whose idea it was to kill and eat the third guy.

 

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Date Posted: 10/31 1:06am Subject: Atheism 3.0
Has anyone read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail? I've just finished it. Very interesting book.












 

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Date Posted: 10/31 6:21am Subject: Atheism 3.0 - Date Edited: 10/31 6:45am (1 edits total) Edited By: VadersLaMent
Looks like Da vinci Code non-fiction. Never heard of it before.

EDIT: Chick Tract:It isn't your fault

Jesus isn't playing games.

shock

 

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 Date Posted: 10/31 9:51am Subject: Atheism 3.0 - Date Edited: 10/31 10:01am (2 edits total) Edited By: DorkmanScott
VadersLaMent posted:
Looks like Da vinci Code non-fiction.

The authors thought so too. It's basically the poorly-researched nonfiction book that Dan Brown turned into a poorly-written thriller.

VadersLaMent posted:
EDIT: Chick Tract:It isn't your fault

Jesus isn't playing games.

shock

That's probably the least insane Chick tract I've ever seen. It actually focuses mostly on a positive message, one of forgiveness. It gets a little muddled where the argument becomes "loving someone is the best way to hate them and make sure they go to Hell" but considering his, ahem, tract record, I give him points for effort.

This serves to strengthen my suspicion that Jack Chick doesn't actually believe all the stuff he asserts in his tracts, he's just catering each one to what he perceives as a particular audience. He has one tract that's all about how evil Halloween and trick-or-treating are, and another tract where the kids are trick-or-treating just as a background detail and the tract doesn't seem to have a problem with that. This one is probably geared toward the liberal Christians.

I wonder if people actually buy his tracts, enough such that he actually makes his living doing this.

 

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Date Posted: 10/31 3:50pm Subject: Atheism 3.0
I really do think that most of the religious higher-ups, the folks in charge as it were, really don't believe what they spout off.

 

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Date Posted: 10/31 4:18pm Subject: Atheism 3.0
Folks I'll be reading some Genesis before bedtime...
By Robert Crumb.

 
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Date Posted: 10/31 4:40pm Subject: Atheism 3.0
laugh I just flipped through that in a B&N today.

 

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Date Posted: 10/31 6:03pm Subject: Atheism 3.0
DorkmanScott posted:
He has one tract that's all about how evil Halloween and trick-or-treating are, and another tract where the kids are trick-or-treating just as a background detail and the tract doesn't seem to have a problem with that. This one is probably geared toward the liberal Christians.

I wonder if people actually buy his tracts, enough such that he actually makes his living doing this.


People do actually pay money for them, sadly, and then distribute them as they see fit. As for whether or not Chick is on the level, I've always found this one quote from his only interview rather interesting:

Jack Chick posted:
“Fifteen,” he corrected. “I think it will help a lot of pastors. It should get a lot of people sold—uh, saved.”
- Source

As the interview itself notes - Freudian slip?
tongue

 

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Date Posted: 11/1 3:15am Subject: Atheism 3.0
VadersLaMent posted:
I really do think that most of the religious higher-ups, the folks in charge as it were, really don't believe what they spout off.

Hence why they like to break the rules they so strongly preach.

 

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