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Not true. Anything that counts as evidence is factual and verifiable. That is the antithesis of worthless.
It may be that you mean people in this forum may find your purported evidence to be worthless, but that is exactly the opposite of your statement.
You were the person who made a statement in support of slavery and then tried to wiggle out of it by insulting atheists. Don’t you feel any obligation to defend your stance?
In addition to people I've met in real life, I've observed the discussions on this forum. The things they take as "evidence" are worthless. So no, I don't think any evidence will convince you. I don't think you would accept my evidence. It doesn't match your belief system.
You have also tried to insult by saying that I support slavery, because I've told you that you benefit from slavery.
I'll just leave you in your little cell and you can believe what you want to believe. But your belief system is nonsense to me.
In addition to people I've met in real life, I've observed the discussions on this forum. The things they take as "evidence" are worthless. So no, I don't think any evidence will convince you. I don't think you would accept my evidence. It doesn't match your belief system.
If your evidence is non-factual, then you are correct. It doesn’t match my belief system. But then it should be admitted that non-factual evidence doesn’t match reality either.
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You have also tried to insult by saying that I support slavery, because I've told you that you benefit from slavery.
You said that EVERYBODY benefitted from slavery. I asked you if that included the slaves themselves, and you have gone silent on that matter.
As to everybody benefitting, I don’t think that is clear. Your argument probably goes along the lines of modern people all benefit from slavery because of the work slaves did in helping to create the country. That is a pretty complex claim. As a counter to this, I throw out some things to think about:
Without slavery, maybe more voluntary immigrants would have earned money, reducing poverty, increasing prosperity, and building the country faster.
Without slavery, maybe there would not have been a civil war, which cost many thousands of lives and I don’t know how much economic destruction.
Without slavery, maybe the south would have focused on industry as the north did, and become more economically prosperous.
Without slavery, maybe we would not have such racial animosity today, included a society that has some institutionally racist policies. Maybe 80% (or whatever the number is) of African American males would not be incarcerated or otherwise in the justice system.
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I'll just leave you in your little cell and you can believe what you want to believe. But your belief system is nonsense to me.
Ok. But I don’t understand what a person who frequents discussion forums doesn’t want to discuss things.
You said that EVERYBODY benefitted from slavery. I asked you if that included the slaves themselves, and you have gone silent on that matter.
He clearly meant 'all white people'. Not intentionally, I would guess - his thoughts on society of that time just didn't include non-whites. Did slavery benefit the slave regularly raped by her master? The slaves whose children were sold off down river? Of course not. Did slavery benefit the Indians? Ooops, I forgot, they're non-white and so they didn't really matter, either. But how about the poor Irish immigrants living in New York tenements? The New England fishermen? Farmers in Michigan? Please. The idea is ludicrous.
The bottom line is that he is trying to minimize Christianity's complicity in slavery by pointing out 'all the good' in slavery. It's a heinous thing to do, but Confederate apologists do it all the time. He's just stealing their talking points.
He clearly meant 'all white people'. Not intentionally, I would guess - his thoughts on society of that time just didn't include non-whites. Did slavery benefit the slave regularly raped by her master? The slaves whose children were sold off down river? Of course not. Did slavery benefit the Indians? Ooops, I forgot, they're non-white and so they didn't really matter, either. But how about the poor Irish immigrants living in New York tenements? The New England fishermen? Farmers in Michigan? Please. The idea is ludicrous.
The bottom line is that he is trying to minimize Christianity's complicity in slavery by pointing out 'all the good' in slavery. It's a heinous thing to do, but Confederate apologists do it all the time. He's just stealing their talking points.
Of course you are right. I was thinking of many of those groups when I wrote my response. I had hoped that simply mentioning the slaves themselves would be enough for Ozzy to acknowledge that slavery wasn’t a universally beneficial institution.
I am also not convinced that slavery was a net good for society as a whole, as Ozzy probably believes. That is an incredibly problematic statement, but at least is arguable, if only because of the complexity.
Anything that would count as "evidence" to people on this forum is basically worthless.
So essentially you are making a claim and saying that anything that anyone else might accept as evidence is worthless. What would YOU accept as evidence? So far only that most people in the world are religious.
I'll tell you what I've been seeing on the boards and that is those willing to go in to bat for religion or Godfaith make assertions, dismiss any evidence as not worth a damn and seem apparently to say that what they think is all the evidence they need.
Of course you are right. I was thinking of many of those groups when I wrote my response. I had hoped that simply mentioning the slaves themselves would be enough for Ozzy to acknowledge that slavery wasn’t a universally beneficial institution.
I am also not convinced that slavery was a net good for society as a whole, as Ozzy probably believes. That is an incredibly problematic statement, but at least is arguable, if only because of the complexity.
I would say that it absolutely was not.
Even if a person excludes blacks/slaves from society (for which there is no justification, but that won't stop them) there are still these facts:
*the institution of slavery retarded the development of the South
*attachment to that institution led directly to secession (we know this because the legislatures of the seceding states produced manifestos detailing their reasons for secession, and preserving slavery was front and center in those declarations), which led to a war (which the South wrongly thought would not happen and then wrongly thought that they would win easily), which led to the physical destruction of the South
*it is well-established that coerced labor is not as productive as labor produced for positive incentives, such as pay
*even given the deficiencies of coerced labor, it still meant that enslavement was more profitable for a plantation owner than hiring a poor local white worker, meaning that slavery undercut the wages of poor whites, showing that it hardly demonstrated them
Slavery benefited only a small minority of white people in those states comprising a minority population of the country, where it allowed the theft of labor from slaves to enrich that small minority of a minority region of the United States.
Yet OzzyRules has sunk himself in this logical and moral quagmire all due to a reflexive impulse to excuse slavery in order to rationalize Christianity's support for it. I suppose he'll be along shortly to alternately state that he never said what he demonstrably did say and to complain that we're responding to what he wrote rather than what he wishes he'd written instead. That's the playbook, right?
Any Atheist who tries to say that their belief system is somehow more good or more moral than that of typical religious believers, is living in a dream world. Their entire existence is sustained by religious people. They don't seem to have a clue, honestly.
Once again we need to explain to Ozzy.
Atheism is simply not believing in gods. How can not believing in something have a morality?
And our existence is sustained by religious AND none religious people alike. Did you forget the last time we explained this?
You don't seem to have a clue, honestly.
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Originally Posted by OzzyRules
They tell each other these myths, and believe they are winning arguments. Which is no different than religious people who do the same. No difference.
Once again, someone who comes in here and finds themselves outmatched so they claim things about us, declare we will never understand, then flounce out thinking they 'won'.
Ozzy sounds more like jeffbase every day. Too bad.
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in slavery. It's a heinous thing to do, but Confederate apologists do it all the time. He's just stealing their talking points.
