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Old 04-09-2018, 06:08 AM
 
Location: Germany
16,619 posts, read 4,901,942 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OzzyRules View Post
If you are able to argue something out of existence, it's as good as convincing yourself that it doesn't exist.
Straw man number 2, or posted in the wrong conversation?
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Old 04-09-2018, 06:10 AM
 
Location: Germany
16,619 posts, read 4,901,942 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by expatCA View Post
You mean self proclaimed intellectuals. Real ones believe in God.
Real intellectuals need logical fallacies, fake science and invented scripture?
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Old 04-09-2018, 10:00 AM
 
18,172 posts, read 16,304,803 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes View Post
Real intellectuals need logical fallacies, fake science and invented scripture?
Real intellectuals see the falsehoods and recognize the truth. Unfortunately not many real intellectuals around. Pseudo ones for sure. Fallacies, fake science and misuse or understanding of scripture plus ... invented scripture like 1 John 5:7, fit pseudo standards.
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Old 04-09-2018, 03:37 PM
 
28,432 posts, read 11,508,730 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes View Post
Real intellectuals need logical fallacies, fake science and invented scripture?
the only people that need logical fallacies are ones that don't know how commonsense and reason work. I would go sa far to say that people using logical fallacies flat don't know what they don't know.
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Old 04-09-2018, 04:59 PM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,082 posts, read 20,556,241 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OzzyRules View Post
If you are able to argue something out of existence, it's as good as convincing yourself that it doesn't exist.
Yes, but you are falling into the trap of the 'believe...or not' fallacy. Deciding whether something is so or not is (correctly) a matter of assessing probability based on validated evidence and sound logic.

To 'convince yourself' on that basis is valid and indeed praiseworthy. To convince yourself on Faith and then use fiddled evidence and wave away valid evidence to support the faith is not valid or creditable.

Quote:
Originally Posted by expatCA View Post
The Love of money causes all sorts of problems.
Complex society causes all sorts of problems. Merely existing causes all sorts of problems. Just saying 'we ought to do away with the desire for things (including money), society and even existence' is futile and (I would argue) more harmful than chasing money.

Quote:
Originally Posted by expatCA View Post
You mean self proclaimed intellectuals. Real ones believe in God.
Matthew 11.25. At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

Christianity has never had but an uneasy relationship with Intellectuals; they tend to ask too many questions and have too many doubts. That's why the emphasis is on Faith and not the intellect. Therefore one has to doubt whether your observation is a valid one.

It sounds similar to the old claim that scientists believe in God. This claim has been shown to be dubious in programs like Project Steve showing that far, far more scientists believed in Evolution than doubted it (apart from many who signed up were tricked into it and their request to be taken off the list was ignored).

There are also references to scientists who were believers, but it turns out that what happens is that the "Intellectual" thinking is kept quite separate from the God -belief thinking. We also get reference to old time intellectuals when Goddunnit -creation was the only theory on the board. If they didn't believe in religion, they still took Creation as the only theory there was.

And with all that, doesn't it look likely that your definition of an "Intellectual" is one who believes in God, (even if we suppose that she or he is also an intellectual) and those who do not are excluded as not being "Real" intellectuals? It looks as though you are springing a variant of the 'No true scotsman' fallacy.

Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 04-09-2018 at 05:17 PM..
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Old 04-09-2018, 05:10 PM
 
18,897 posts, read 6,906,717 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mensaguy View Post
Considering that the prison population has a greater percentage of Christians than the population of the country as a whole, that theory seems to have a huge hole in it.
The question is really, how one comes to that conclusion? How do we define Christian? Were they Christians before or after they entered the prison system? Were they simply born into a Christian home so therefore identify as such?

After that, I believe the poster you responded to had it wrong. I don't know of any Christian that avoids sin because we fear God's punishment. That's not why we avoid sin. We avoid sin because we love God and we are grateful. The Bible tells us that there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ. So no--we will NOT be punished for our sin.
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Old 04-09-2018, 05:42 PM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,082 posts, read 20,556,241 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BaptistFundie View Post
The question is really, how one comes to that conclusion? How do we define Christian? Were they Christians before or after they entered the prison system? Were they simply born into a Christian home so therefore identify as such?
It is a debatable matter, as one may claim they were mainly atheist criminals when they went into prison and either converted there or pretended they did to get advantages (such as early release). That at least is a more creditable explanation than simply throwing out and Christians who have let the side down.

As they say, the church is the only army that shoots it's own wounded.

Quote:
After that, I believe the poster you responded to had it wrong. I don't know of any Christian that avoids sin because we fear God's punishment. That's not why we avoid sin. We avoid sin because we love God and we are grateful. The Bible tells us that there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ. So no--we will NOT be punished for our sin.
That sounds as close to being grateful that Godfaith will get you into heaven despite sinning as makes no difference.

However, let's suppose that Forgiveness means that you don't need to worry about sinning because you are forgiven. Let's also say that Some Christians don't in fact take advantage of that by thinking they are safe anyway. Let's also say that, despite that, they in fact don't sin because as you say, you love God and are grateful.

That means that you are claiming to avoid sinning, not to get into heaven, but out of gratitude to God.

Well then, the non -believer also avoids sin despite getting into heaven not being a relevant factor. You have a reason of gratitude, and we have a reason of responsibility to society. You could say that we are grateful to society providing us with a far better and safer way of life than we could expect in former centuries.

So the altruism of the avoidance of sin is (or so you claim) the same, but what we are grateful to we know exists and what you are grateful to we don't know.

And again, if you should lose faith and have no reason to be grateful, wouldn't you see no reason not to sin?

Well probably not because in fact you respect society just as atheists do.

But there's another side. Suppose your dogma instructed you to sin to please God? That is go against gratitude to society? Getting into heaven by not offending God would then be a factor which is easy to ignore when you are not being asked to do wrong.

But aren't you? The long programme of resisting human rights is 'sin' - except that doing what society says is wrong is right according to some Christians. Add to that the campaign to teach rubbish in schools and deny citizens the right to hold political office if they don'r believe in a god, is a sin in society, but not a sin in Christianity, and that has effect in America, but not elsewhere.

The upshot is that, even if you evade the 'you only do good to avoid hell' accusation, a religious -based morality still has a lot more problems; more than a secular morality does.
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Old 04-09-2018, 06:36 PM
 
12,918 posts, read 16,801,694 times
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When it comes to understanding "sin" no one explained it better than Paul in the letter to the Romans. Sin is a mental state born out of depression, otherwise known as spiritual death. When a person is in a state of sin (such as a criminal in prison) he is likely to commit any in the list of sins as listed in Paul's list. Murder. Adultery. Theft. Etc. Or even the Ten Commandments list. In his heart he is guilty of all of the sins anyway.

He also said that the Gentile (nonbeliever) shows that he understands God's law and is in fact a law unto himself. This means that if an Atheist doesn't commit sin, he is following God's law anyway.
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Old 04-10-2018, 12:00 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,082 posts, read 20,556,241 times
Reputation: 5927
That simply means that Paul in his day could not tell human morality from God given morality, but he saw clearly that people did not always keep to the rules of the moral codes
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Old 04-10-2018, 03:59 AM
 
Location: Top of the South, NZ
22,216 posts, read 21,560,870 times
Reputation: 7608
I wish my atheism was the result of wealth, but alas, I think I was just born that way.
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