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So why do you care about things like morality? If we have no more inherent worth than any other animal?
What I think is absolutely hilarious about this statement is that animals have better morality than a sizeable number of human beings.
And they don't have religions.
I really don't know why you keep harping on this issue of morality when I've explained to you at least three times in one thread where our morality comes from and why we have it.
Question asked and answered, your honor.
Now you're belaboring the point and bashing that poor dead horse into its constituent sub-atomic particles.
And on ... and on ... and on ... and on ... and on ... and on ...
Speaking of that tea in china ....
One of the biggest problems with human beings -- the very thing that caused religion in the first place -- is that we too often over-think things. And I do mean ... WAY over-think.
What, BF, does this stuff about morality and eating meat have to do, as you say, with the price of tea?, because this Ark (the topic in case you'd forgotten) couldn't float, let alone ferry the best Oolong back from China.
Trying to trip us up on morality is futile, just as if you tried to trip us up on evolution -theory. It is what we have and on the latter we don't know everything about what was so, and on the former, we can't solve everything about what we had to contrive to live together.
Either way, as Prof, Hawkins said "God. Is. Not. Ne-ccer- Sarry."
The morality debate is long gone. Find something else.
Yep
Like I told him, the question was asked and answered.
Unless this return trip down Morality Lane is a deliberate attempt to get this thread closed -- considering the last big morality debate was way off topic and it was closed as well.
I don't trust these people any further than I could move one by blowing on them. They would do something like that.
May I ask Theists here if they were granted one hundred million dollars to be placed for one of these three purposes, with the hindsight of how the A.E. is having some problems, and knowing God and Noah are major animal lovers (dinosaurs too), what would you choose?
Think of how many poor, sick, and needy people with inadequate insurance -- or no insurance at all -- could have been treated with a hundred million dollars?
How many apartment buildings and single person homesteads could have been built for the homeless, with no need for them to pay a mortgage or excessive rent?
The point is, that kind of money could have been put to far better use -- and if these ridiculous strutting apologists were even one-tenth the Christians they claim to be, they would be using the money for just such an altruistic purpose.
Instead, they use it to blindside the American people with complete and utter ignorance of science, building one of the biggest wastes of property ever devised by a human being. Instead, they have to build a monument to right-wing religious propaganda that spews lies and misconceptions around every corner. I bet even the toilets in that place are somehow deceitful, saying, "You don't really have to pee like a Russian race horse. No ... no you don't ... go in your pants. Do you think dinosaurs had toilets? They couldn't stop to use the bathroom when Jesus was riding them, you know."
Practically everything in that museum runs contrary to proven, demonstrable reality.
And to make matters worse, I have no doubt they profit from that monstrosity one way or the other. They get to "lie for Jesus" and get paid at the same time.
I can only hope that I live long enough to see that ark become a mecca for urban explorers, ghost hunters, and groups of partying teens with a couple of six packs and a can of spray paint.
But, by all means, if that's what you were saying, go ahead and say "That's what I was saying!" I try not to step on toes or steal thunder if I can help it.
Plus, I really didn't get a chance to read all the posts in this thread. I just saw Goldie's quote and I thought eeeek! I have to put away some misconceptions contained therein.
I wasn't thinking of "Hey she's just pinching my ideas'. It was more that you were making me think more and develop on some ideas I'd had before, but it would have been sheer insolence for me to appropriate your post for any dissertaition of mine.
But, by all means, if that's what you were saying, go ahead and say "That's what I was saying!" I try not to step on toes or steal thunder if I can help it.
Plus, I really didn't get a chance to read all the posts in this thread. I just saw Goldie's quote and I thought eeeek! I have to put away some misconceptions contained therein.
Sure, and he can tacity approve of global Islam because if that's the way it becomes, that's how things will be. I'm not really sure why, but Goldie tends to have a rather cavalier attitude toward religious oppression and terror while attacking atheism with a gusto that says, "The lady dost protest too much, me thinks."
Because it's woefully easy to make atheists your target when you believe you are sitting safe and comfy, far away from any kind of religious tyranny. But what he apparenly doesn't seem to know is that tyranny backed by fundevangelist religion is right around the corner. And I'm not exaggerating or hyperolizing. I only wish I were being a Chicken Little.
As one author wrote, and I'm paraphrasing just a bit, "The Founders expected the possibility of a tyrannical president and they compensated for that with our three-branch system of checks and balances. They even anticipated foreign meddling by other world powers hoping to influence the results of our elections -- one of the very reasons for the electoral college. BUT, what the Founders never anticipated and therefore never safeguarded against was a tyrannical president and an apathetic congress that went along with him. The Founders believed that there would be enough members of congress to prevent there ever being a majority that would side with tyranny. It took 240 years to reveal their mistake."
Given the business Goldie is in, he should realize that he would be targeted as one of the first subversives of the New Religious Order; he wouldn't just lose his business, he would most assuredly also lose his freedom and, quite possibly, his life. Give religious die-hards any real power and they will exploit it to the hilt, and using terror as a weapon is built right into their religious paradigm: The Hellthreat.
As I've said before, one of the worst things to have ever happened to America was coming out of WWII unscathed and with such a comparatively small number of wartime deaths -- less than half a million (Russia lost 27 million just to compare).
Far too many Americans saw our colossal good fortune as a divine blessing and mandate to create a Pax Americana. The money poured in, there were more jobs than people, our standard of living reached epic proportions (if you were white, at least), and we took our place as the "good" superpower arrayed against the "evil" superpower, the USSR. Yes, yes, it was all God's will dontch'ya know, it was God who planted his flag firmly in the Ozarks of Arkansas and said, "Here, I will stay!" Americans became the new Chosen of God, the new Israelites, and this "American exceptionalism" still exists even today when massive amounts of religiosity is causing our nation and culture to circle the drain like a turd in a flushing toilet. And of course the turd has lipstick on it ... because religion has been selling us lies forever, but it's horrific right now.
And so, because our cities were never bombed, our streets never saw the marching of jack-booted fascists, no swastikas flew over our state capitals. There were no Holocausts here, no "Night and Fog" policies carried out by the Gestapo. Nor did we have rampaging Russian soldiers raping and looting everything in sight -- nor did we have Japanese savages committing the Rape of Los Angeles instead of the Rape of Nanking (the Rape of Nanking was so violent and barbaric that even the Nazis were horrified and tried to send an envoy to negotiate an end to the bloodletting; Japan refused).
Perhaps if we had had some or all of those things happen to us, we would not take our freedom so much for granted as we do. There wouldn't be this resurgence of fascism and authoritarianism -- as if any of those people have any conception of what being ruled in that fashion really means. The result of this is that a significant number of Christians - tens of millions of them I would estimate -- have decided to figuratively sell their souls to the devil in the hopes of being able to ramrod their barbarism down the throats of every American alive regardless of what each individual believes (and they aren't very big on individualism anyhow -- except where money is concerned when it becomes "survival of the fittest" -- conformity is the name of the game).
And Goldie would be standing shoulder to shoulder *with* me instead of taking the opposite stance against me. Having a theocratic tyranny for a government is not at all a "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" prospect. Life in these United States will be very different, one predicated on fear, paranoia, superstition, and ratting out one's neighbor and co-worker to the secret police in order to secure a promotion or to settle a property dispute. This happened all the time with the Gestapo (Nazis), the Kempeitai (Imperial Japan), the NKVD (Stalinist Russia), the OVRA (Mussolini's Italy), the Ustaše (Croatia), and any number of other authoritarian secret police units around the world.
I don't think he does either or I would be schellacking him on a routine basis.
I get the feeling that he simply enjoys matching wits with atheists more so than the fundamentalists and evangelicals on this board -- and can you blame him, really? Especially when the fundies ignore your posts, quote your whole post and then leave a one-line snipe, or mash the "report post" button -- yes I *know* you cowards are doing that -- until their left click button on their computer mouse finally breaks from overuse. They just want us to sit down and shut up -- even on this forum, that's what they want, so imagine what it's like in the real world.
Like when you have an Alabama supreme court judge claiming the 1st Amendment is only for Christians. How can we even trust our judicial branch and our court system if the fundamentalists, evangelicals, Dominionists, and theocratic fascists have infiltrated even the highest positions of power? Or when a sitting president says he's not sure if atheists are American citizens and they certainly aren't patriots because this is a nation under God, by golly!
It's as if the people (no, not ALL of them) south of the Mason-Dixon line just can't be happy unless they are oppressing, bullying, scapegoating, subjugating, enslaving, or discriminating against one minority group or another.
This is why this issue isn't a joke anymore -- nor is it merely an academic debate. This is as real as it gets and I don't think enough people are awake to this fact.
Perhaps that's part of it, too, I dunnae. Although is he really "beating" them down? I'm not so sure about that. And, as I intimated earlier, I generally leave him alone despite his incessant atheist-bashing, but I've also said that could change if the bashing goes too far. I think, and I could be wrong, but I think he may have been somehow convinced to become a patheist -- because it seems to me that, a loooong time ago, Goldie said he was an atheist, too, or perhaps an agnostic. My memory is usually pretty friggin' good, but I don't trust it quite as much as I used to.
Anyhow, another long post from me ... and one that the fundies, evangelicals, and those with 10 second attention spans can just ignore. If they can control their impulses, that is.
So I'll leave you with the last words written in Malcom Nance's book: The Plot to Destroy Democracy:
"Stop reading now. Get out there and save democracy."
I think you're right. And maybe Goldie jerks our chain so much because it's like a game for him. This is no game, (or rather it is -but not just that) and I fret because I'm doing what I can and wondering whether it's enough. Goldie is not dumb- he's pretty smart and he knows where the flaws are in his theory. It has to be a wind -up. And I wonder why. it may look like we are paranoid about nothing and most people think that nothing will change. Let em put creationism in the schools. Who cares? Let the Police take their orders from the Bible rather than the law, that won't alter anything.
I don't know. What was looking good seems to be derailing. Not just the US, but Muslim -phobia might lead to a huge right -wing reaction, in Europe. At least that.
I would love to know the true numbers of your success rate on someone not believing/atheist to theist as apposed to someone who already believes and just looking for a new church.
I would like the success rate of conversions via message board posts.
HA... good catch! Indeed, I thought better of that phrasing immediately after posting (but not before you quoted me), and went back and edited that to "...endowed with...," but that also sounds more creationist than intended.
How about.... "I am comfortable accepting that we humans ended up with certain evolutionary advantages (aforementioned brain, tongue and hands), which we have exploited....?"
The point is, that kind of money could have been put to far better use
Yes, I'm inclined to agree! I can see how a Theist might take a stance that it is an investment in bringing the Gospel to people, bettering their afterlife, etc. Yet the afterlife should be free (no admission fee) and the best things in life (earthly existence) are often free. So if you combine the two, would a Theist not agree that the best way to bring the Gospel to people would be free of tangible earthly currency, buildings, expensive exhibits, etc. and better brought by love, understanding, enlightenment, good deeds, and other avenues that have nothing to do with spending money?
Leave the physical, tangible, earthly currency for physical, tangible, earthly problems...
I personally feel the money would go further with cancer research, or research in parasitology/disease/viruses so the population will not fall victim to a pandemic. And if that Woolly Mammoth's activities in the modern day Arctic can reverse Global Warming??
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
I would like the success rate of conversions via message board posts.
So why do you care about things like morality? If we have no more inherent worth than any other animal?
Sorry, but that is a non-sequitur for me. I don't see why being inherently worth more than any other animal (if I thought that was true) would lead me to moral behavior, or vice versa.
Or, to quote you: "What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?"
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