duszek wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2017 5:29 pm
Hi Lacewing !
I thought you planned spending the rest of your life in a solitary cabin in the woods of northern Canada ?
Are you back to idle chit-chat ?
I didn't intend to stay for this long (almost a week, yikes!), but then I started having fun. Wasn't successful in riling up Bob to curse at me, nor get Gustav to answer questions. Tired of talking to DAM. I was just preparing to leave when I spotted IC's absurdity, and I felt I needed to comment.
thedoc wrote:
I believe this is incorrect, IC has certainly stated that Atheism is probably irrational, but I do not recall him singling any particular Atheist or group of Atheists and calling them irrational
Right again, thedoc.
Atheism is irrational. The people who believe in it (i.e. "Atheists) may be, in other ways, rational to one degree or another -- outside of their Atheism, of course. In that area, they remain manifestly irrational.
lmao! There you go thedoc, now you have evidence for a recall and a demonstration of a contradiction to boot.
thedoc wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2017 5:42 pm
As has been stated There is no reason to believe that an Atheist would not be a moral person, on that IC and I have agreed repeatedly. The statement is that there is no basis in Atheism on which to base this morality. In fact it is possible that some Atheists are more moral than some Christians, or someone who holds to another religion, but whereas the religious person has the religion (and personal integrity) on which to base the morality, the Atheist must base their morality on something other than Atheism.
thedoc wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2017 5:42 pm
The statement is that there is no basis in Atheism on which to base this morality.
So what is the purpose of trying to define/categorize it like this?
If you already acknowledge that atheists can be moral, even more moral than Christians, what value/purpose is there in identifying some random and/or specific thing as a "basis"? If religion is the basis for Christians to be moral, and yet so many of them are not, it's not really much of a basis. This is all made up... and it doesn't really mean as much as some want to claim it does.
And will you please answer my questions this time if you're going to engage me?
Walker wrote:The scientific theory of epigenics indicates that raping is inherent, that is, in the genes. The genetic tendency to rape is passed on to the next generation, and increases the odds for propagation of the species. ...
Not quite, the argument is that 'rape' would be a trait that the idea of 'natural selection' could support not that evidence has been found that there is a gene for it(if you use the natural selection argument it's also not about the propagation of the species but an individuals line as arguably it won't be the same species). One could also argue that it could be negative compared to other methods of winning a mate as there is danger of injury that could harm one's future reproductive chances, the females may identify and flee/hide from the 'rapist male', etc, etc. Also one could wonder that if this was a successful method why so many species don't practice it? There's also the problem that a large chunk of the epigenome is wiped each time with reproduction and we have no evidence, so far, that a behaviour like rape is one of the epigenes(or even has one) that is transferred.
LaceWing: Anytime you want to engage in a good-faith Q&A of my fine person, and provided you act half normal and, if possible, don't 'dance' or 'spin' too dizzyingly, just let me know.
The effects of epigenetics has been shown to exist in future generations. Even factors such as nutrition during certain months of pregnancy can affect a person's weight, not just for the new born, but for their descendants as well. That's one of the interesting things about this area of research, an environmental factor can turn on or off a gene, and this can be passed onto future generations. Regardless, this does not show that evolution did not occur as someone here claimed it did.
The problem with IC's position, and his allies is that they cannot state that atheists are moral people without conceding that their Christian Bible is wrong, since the Bible clearly describes atheists as morally evil people, whom Christians should never even marry. This is a perfect example of what I stated previously --- religion has nothing to do with morality, and one reason we know this is because religious people cherry pick which passages from the Bible they accept or ignore. This cherry picking shows that morality is independent of religion and that religious belief is dependent on a person's sense of morality. This is why we can scrap religion without having to worry about people behaving immorally.
It's one thing for a theist to simply assert that atheists are irrational and quite another for a theist to prove it. Theists believe in a god without any credible evidence for this assertion. That makes theists irrational. Atheists don't believe in god because the evidence for such a claim is lacking. That is perfectly rational.
People who believe in pregnant virgins, zombies, talking snakes and donkeys, are hardly rational.
Gustav Bjornstrand wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2017 6:12 pm
LaceWing: Anytime you want to engage in a good-faith Q&A of my fine person, and provided you act half normal and, if possible, don't 'dance' or 'spin' too dizzyingly, just let me know.
Do you consider yourself to be a shining example of "normal"?
Here (below) are the questions I didn't see your answers to... (they seem like perfectly fine, non-dizzying, non-spinning questions to me). If you need for me to rephrase them using different words, I will be happy to. These questions were in response to you suggesting that my sense of natural spirituality was actually influenced by religion whether I believed it or not.
Do you think that everything must be learned or influenced? Aren't these learnings and influences manmade? The angelic realm you look toward is not manmade, is it? Doesn't it seem more likely that spirituality is naturally in all life -- and possibly obscured or tainted by human noise rather than delivered by it?
Here is the thing about Gustav, he is advocating for a self-refuting position. He claims to have one Jewish parent, while also advocating for Nazism. In Nazi Germany, if a person had two Jewish grandparents, then they were subjected to extermination. If they had only one Jewish grandparent, then they could live, but they would be sterilized to prevent them from having children. If Gustav has one Jewish parent, there is a good chance he has two Jewish grandparents. So, if Gustav were right, and Nazism was the way to go, then this means that Gustav would be so scummy, that he should either be executed or prevented from having children. In other words, if he's right in his political beliefs, then all he is establishing is that he is basically worthless as a human being.
It's amazing how someone can be so mindless as to advocate for such hateful ideology, and incomprehensible how someone with a Jewish parent could do so.
thedoc wrote:
I believe this is incorrect, IC has certainly stated that Atheism is probably irrational, but I do not recall him singling any particular Atheist or group of Atheists and calling them irrational
Right again, thedoc.
Atheism is irrational. The people who believe in it (i.e. "Atheists) may be, in other ways, rational to one degree or another -- outside of their Atheism, of course. In that area, they remain manifestly irrational.
lmao! There you go thedoc, now you have evidence for a recall and a demonstration of a contradiction to boot.
Where and what is the contradiction that you see in IC's post?
