I promise it's this one this time. I'm running around getting ready to go out of town and apparently need to take more ranks in Profession: Multitasker. 2 Sam 12:18-23. I'll quote it this time.
18 On the seventh day the child died. David’s attendants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, “While the child was still living, he wouldn’t listen to us when we spoke to him. How can we now tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate.”
19 David noticed that his attendants were whispering among themselves, and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked.
“Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.”
20 Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.
21 His attendants asked him, “Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!”
22 He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let the child live.’
23 But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”
David saying he'll go to him is his way of saying they'll be reunited in heaven.
Using your system of morality it's wrong for you to hit others on the head because you don't like getting hit on the head. In theory if absolutely everyone everywhere at all times didn't like getting hit on the head, it could maybe work as a basis. However, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that some people do like getting hit on the head due to whatever reasons they have. Would it be wrong for them to hit others? They get enjoyment when people do it to them after all.
David saying he'll go to him is his way of saying they'll be reunited in heaven
Or that he was fasting and praying to god "pretty please let the kid live, look, i'm fasting" God said no, so he went back to living normally.
Bugleyman claimed earlier that he was "well read" on the topic. If that's true, then none of the definitions I've used should be unknown to him.
I guess I misunderstood what "well read" means. Maybe he uses it to mean he's read some wikipedia articles.
You remind me of something else I read once:
a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
I even copied it from Wikipedia, just for you. :)
Have you guys ever met my friend, Salman Rushdie, Internet Troll?
Say hello, Salman!
Come on guys, less chatter more splatter.
IIRC it was pretty much church which fought to improve child labor laws. Some of the horrors committed in the Bible by/for God are heinous and inexcusable, but over the past 2000 years, which institution has led the way in improving human tights?
Organized religion has been both for and against human rights. There's a very good reason for this: its because religion is so vague and diverse that it says what you want it to say. If you think all people are equal and slavery is wrong then you can find verses to support you. If you think that slavery is the natural condition for some people then you can find that as well.
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I am amazed at the lengths you will go to try to take us off topic. Just admit you don't know much about the topic.
I'm sorry, man, but pedantry and megalomania are serious conditions, and I care too much to be an enabler.
Come on guys, less chatter more splatter.
Sorry BNW, but I made several genuine attempts to engage in a conversation, and you saw where they led.
I promise I'll be good now. :)
*wanders off to read the third-grade section of Wikipedia*
You-know-who can have the last word
You know who's last words were Avada Kedavra. It didn't do him much good.
IIRC it was pretty much church which fought to improve child labor laws. Some of the horrors committed in the Bible by/for God are heinous and inexcusable, but over the past 2000 years, which institution has led the way in improving human tights?Organized religion has been both for and against human rights. There's a very good reason for this: its because religion is so vague and diverse that it says what you want it to say. If you think all people are equal and slavery is wrong then you can find verses to support you. If you think that slavery is the natural condition for some people then you can find that as well.
The Catholic Church and the Ancient Church were absolutely instrumental in the rise of human rights, though, to the point it would be almost impossible to imagine them existing otherwise in the same way they do.
As one author whose name I cannot help myself recall once wrote "For as much as the Enlightment swore to erradicate the Church from all but the tiniest spheres of life, it would never escape the looming fact of its very roots being deeply buried in it"
Take every single human rights issue we have achieved (ex. the end of slavery, woman's suffrage, child labor laws, etc.) and you will find that religion was deeply involved in it
Lets do exactly that. You'll find that it was used on every issue... On BOTH sides. That's the problem. You can't argue for the moral authority of the bible based on the good causes it has supported without ignoring that the bible is equally good at arguing for the wrong side on all of these issues.
Richard Furman Exposition of the Views of the Baptists Relative to the Coloured Population...
These sentiments, the Convention, on whose behalf I address your Excellency, cannot think just, or well founded; for the right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were directed to purchase their bond-men and bond-maids of the Heathen nations; except they were of the Canaanites, for these were to be destroyed. And it is declared, that the persons purchased were to be their bond-men forever;" and an "inheritance for them and their children." They were nor to go out free in the year of jubilee, as the Hebrews, who had been purchased, were; the line being clearly drawn between them. In example, they are presented to our view as existing in the families of the Hebrews as servants, or slaves, born in the house, or bought with money: so that the children born of slaves are here considered slaves as well as their parents. And to this well known state of things, as to its reason and order, as well as to special privileges, St. Paul appears to refer, when he says, "But I was free born."
The catholic encyclopedia discusses the women movement.
I beleive (or at least certainly HOPE) this is froma version contemporary to when the issue was being debated
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15687b.htm
Currently, one of the worst violators of child labor laws are the Amish. I'll see if i can find some 19th century opinions on child labor.
You seem to want to look at some of the interpretations we consider more heinous
First, Knock off the mind reading. If you can't put up an argument then don't pretend that this is one. Secondly i already acknowledged that its on both sides of the issue, both for and against progress.
Instead, look at the debate and struggle. Look at the end result
I HAVE. What i see is that the further we stick religion back into the closet along all the other mythologies the better off we get. We let the church run society and it became known as the dark ages.
absolute moral conviction scares me - no matter if it's coming from atheists or theists
And what absolute moral conviction are you seeing from atheists?
I said earlier, the largest social institution whose primary purpose is that debate is religion.
When you set people on fire for disagreeing with you you've gone well past the "debate" stage.
I'm less interested in how long the church has been doing its job with how well its been doing its job. I'd give them a worse letter than F if i could in that regard.
The Catholic Church and the Ancient Church were absolutely instrumental in the rise of human rights, though, to the point it would be almost impossible to imagine them existing otherwise in the same way they do.
And again, they were also absolutely instrumental in the repression of human rights.
An organization with that kind of track record simply cannot command the kind of blind obedience to their ideology that they would like to. They simply don't have any credence for being an authority and an appeal to authority is mostly what they use.
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BNW, it wouldn't be much of a debate if it didn't have at least two opposite views.
You seem to want religion (if it's going to have value) to a priori have a position which is 100% right 100% of the time. But I'm sure you allow for science to make mistakes, why not religion?
Without speaking for another board member, I'd say it's because religion (generally speaking) comports itself as infallible.
Science is expected to have margins for error, to be self-correcting, to change and evolve. QM is interesting math, but it's incomplete; entanglement action at a distance doesn't actually occur; infinite inflation will ultimately freeze out every star...until new research and observational data show us how QM is more than fun math games, and is fundamental to understanding how the universe works; spooky AAD does happen (and wouldn't that solve all our telecom issues?); inflation won't freeze us out...but I'm ready to learn more on each one and that new-new evidence shows something entirely different.
Generally speaking, religion, on the other hand, doesn't allow for divine 'mistakes' or --at least in the Abrahamic system-- God humbling himself and admitting one of His ideas maybe wasn't so great after all; or God and Satan coming together to reconcile professional differences and coauthor a paper combining ideas...
BNW, it wouldn't be much of a debate if it didn't have at least two opposite views.
And its not much of a debate if you're going to ignore points being made in favor of saying ' you're making all of those points because you're biased'
You seem to want religion
Ok, one more of those and I'm going to invite stegmutt over for a game of put out the darkwing.
Listen, you cannot simply dismiss a conclusion, especially one that I'm providing evidence and a rational for, as a product of my wants. You are accusing me of skewing an argument to meet my desires and ignoring the evidence to do so.
There's a reason i have my conclusions. They're based in facts. Blithely dismissing them out of hand as the result of my feelings is insulting, disingenuous, and utterly nonsensical given that you are neither a mind reader nor capable of producing an argument against my position that is so convincing that the only possible explanation is dishonesty on my part.
to a priori have a position which is 100% right 100% of the time. But I'm sure you allow for science to make mistakes, why not religion?
Science has a mechanism for proving itself. Religion does not. When science comes up with something its very explicit in HOW it reached that conclusion from the available evidence and how it tried everything it possibly could to prove or disprove the idea. So when science gets around to stamping something with a seal of approval i know its damned good even if i don't know that its 100%.
If religion is arguing for something what is its basis? That religion is right because it always backs both horses in the race? Its completely useless on moral questioin both because its too open to manipulation by people on both side of the argument.
Religion ACTS as though it were a pipeline to the author and creator of morality. It acts as though its somehow better at figuring out whats right than anyone else. That arrogance DOES set it to a higher standard of moral authority that it does not meet.
Science DOES meet that level of authority for physical matters.
If you want to use religion as a guide you have to prove that its a GOOD one. That the religion is leading people to being a better person rather than people getting better are pulling their religion along behind them. What's the cart, whats the horse? Religion appears to me to be a very heavy cart.
What causes biblical interpretations to change? Science changes when it gets new information, but with the bible you've got the same bible for thousands of years. It can't lead a change, it has to follow something. That something is what people already feel is right or wrong.
Are any assertions about morality testable in the scientific sense? No.
There are some. For example "Is waterboarding torture" could be answered by waterboarding the person asking it. Or you could waterboard a statistically signifigant number of people and ask them.
Hmm hold this towel...
So does that make society's debates about morality pointless? When we had slavery, was it pointless for anyone to have argued that we shouldn't have had it? No. So, if debates about morality stuff that can't be proven in the scientific sense aren't pointless, then religion isn't pointless.
The idea that because science doesn't deal with ought questions doesn't mean that religion should. Those aren't our only options. Religion has done an absolutely sucky job of supporting progress: overall i think its effects are negative on morality because it allows people to circumvent reasoning and rational thought and appeal to emotion. All of religions best ideas are behind it: it looks to the past for all of its answers instead of the future.
Bringing religion into a moral question is just a waste of time.
It's simply not true that religion claims infallibility, those damn fools do.
Religion does claim infailability. And when it decides that eastasia is no longer a friend it declares that it has always been at war with eastasia.
"Is waterboarding torture" is not a question of morality. "Is torture ever acceptable for any reason?" is a question of morality.
Fair enough.
That's the kind of question that should be debated. If an institution offers space for that debate, that doesn't mean that institution has failed.
Religion doesn't offer space. It wants a voice at the microphone. It often insists that its THE voice at the microphone.
You claim that all of religion's best contributions to moral questions are in the past.
No. I claim that religions SOURCE for moral claims is in the past, ie the bible or Qur'an or other holy book.
That's a statement of faith on your part.
Trying to insult my rationale like this is getting old.
I believe that the fact that it had good contributions in the past means it can probably make good contributions now.
But if it had equally good and bad contributions in the past doesn't mean that it will have equally good and bad contributions now? If its had an overall negative effect in the past doesn't that mean it has an overall negative effect now?
Saying that religion has had good ideas before is like saying that people have won money in vegas before, therefore a trip to vegas is a good investment. Its true some of the time, its wrong most of the time.
Religion doesn't claim infallibility. If it did, it wouldn't have such a rich history of reform.
Religion both claims infallibility now and has changed in the past. Its claims aren't SENSIBLE, but it makes them anyway.
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Actually, fMRI research is increasingly demonstrating that morality can be measured (uh-oh, Physicalism is rearing its ugly head once again!), that there are very distinct, repeatable, and predictable neurobiological events whenever morality is considered, whenever a moral choice is made.
While I think this has more immediate bearing on the development of Chinese Room-proof AI systems, there's definitively a practical application: by understanding what's going on in the brain when we're thinking morally, we should be able to quantify morality and enhance our collective ability to make right, moral decisions, regardless of culture (or religion).
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Let's make this real simple. Tell me in what way religion claims infallibility. I'm not asking you how religious people claim infallibility. I'm not asking you how some religious book claims infallibility. I want to know how religion (which is a gestalt which has included people on both or more sides of fundamental debates) claims infallibility. Once again, to make it...
[mean stuff edited out]
Naturally, when most of us say religion we mean religion in terms of scriptures and adherents, not in terms of the concept of religion itself. Conceptually, however, religion is inherently infalliable, whether, once specified, its strictures and ceremonies, trappings and interpretations change and evolve with the social system it serves, or not.Religion (conceptually) demands infallibility (of itself) for the religious, just as reason demands infallibility for the rationalist--my equations and theories may be wrong, but the concept of reason, which leads me to build those equations and theories cannot be wrong. For the religious, my understanding of God and His commands may be wrong, but God --the necessary fount of the religious concept (p and not p, even if you argue that God and cenceptual religion are interchangable) cannot be wrong.
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Religion claims infallibility by claiming to come directly from God. God is perfect, so anything from him has to be perfect. God knows better than you do, so shut up and listen to him.
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It's a fact that religion has reached both good and bad conclussions in the past. It's also a fact that science has reached good and bad conclusions (eugenics, phrenology, etc.) in the past.
It's a fact that every advancement in human rights that we've made in history has had religion deeply involved. Likewise, it's a fact that every advancement in technology we've had has had science deeply involved.
Each has it's own way of working out it's own conclussions. For science, it's the scientific method. For religion, it's debate.
You kind of neglect that for every advancement in human rights, religion has also been deeply involved against them. Pope Gregory XIV condemned slavery at the same time the American Catholic Church continued supporting it. Which shows that the religion is meaningless in the debate as it is indistinguishable from the opinion of the people involved. The same thing applies now with liberal Christians generally supporting 'gay marriage' and conservative christians opposing it. Both are Christian but they disagree on pretty much everything so how can there be a 'christian position' to inject into the debate?
Also, if religion does not have claims of infallibility, which certain sections still claim (although I won't disagree with your assessment of the people who do make that claim), then what's the point? How does a religion which is not the literal word of god provide a better guide to morals than my opinion? As shown over slavery, the positions of the church depends on the positions of the people, not the other way round.
1.) most religions don't have a God
Most religions have at least one, and in my society (america) the vast majority of people are christian of some sort .
2.) most religions that do have a God (I can think of no exceptions, but they're probably out there) assert that the religion, itself, is limited by man's ability to understand God's gift
That they do... until they want to use their religion to demonstrate something that they believe in, at which point that gets left aside.
You're assuming i think that people are consistent and rational. I'm not. I've met people.
It simply makes no sense at all to claim that religion asserts it's own infallibility.
No, it just makes no sense at all for religion to assert its own infallibility. That doesn't mean that they don't do something that makes no sense.
Listen, people DO argue on the basis of their religion: abortion, evolution, slavery, women's rights etc. What makes that basis hold any weight?
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...Most religions are either animist (such as Taoism) or animetist (IIRC Houdou falls in this category and Shinto definitely does).
Then there are religions such as Buddhism which treat the gods as irrelevant (except for Folk Buddhism where the so-called gods lare more animaetist in nature).
Monotheism (religions that believe in God) are very rare.As for your point 2, who is "they" - people who assert that religion isinfallible? That's not relevant to whether religion claims it is infallible.
Actually, all absolutely correct.
I'd say I'm falling into the trap of thinking only about Western culture and Islam, but I'm a westerner, and I think it's arguable that all of us are really discussing western religious influences, so Thai phii and Buddhist corner-spirits and Kurdish kiyiy just aren't relevant to the thrust of the discussion. I'm no adherent of Jung, so I'll not even try a true universal defining process.
From a western POV (and I dare say, Islamic POV), religion is generally accepted as the unified, public system derived from the divine and in and of itself infalliable: God's word cannot be wrong (my understanding of it may be flawed, but God transcends and is perfect).
It's a fact that religion has reached both good and bad conclussions in the past. It's also a fact that science has reached good and bad conclusions (eugenics, phrenology, etc.) in the past.
It's a fact that every advancement in human rights that we've made in history has had religion deeply involved. Likewise, it's a fact that every advancement in technology we've had has had science deeply involved.
Each has it's own way of working out it's own conclussions. For science, it's the scientific method. For religion, it's debate.
To claim that eugenics is a 'bad conclusion of science' is pretty hard to back up. Eugenics is not science.
It is a social movement(an one that had arisen independantly of science at several points in history), which even at its inception as what we will call psudoscientific eugenics, only gave a passing glance to primitive evolutionary biology, and diverged rapidly from there. By the time you get to its death rattle and worst excesses in Nazi Germany, Eugenics has more in common with biblical geneology, than the primitive forms of evolutionary biology, and was so outside of the findings of that times cutting edge evolutionary biology, as to be accurately labels psudo-science.
However, lets just pretend that your right about eugenics being science and science having brought use good and bad.
There is a major difference between science and religion. Science is reality based.
The strand of eugenics that can be linked to science came into being between 1860 and 1870. It was effectively discredited in its virulent form by 1950. In short, it's virulent forms almost exclusively lasted less than 100 years. Science showed the idea to be bunkum and destroyed its creditability. It was possible for science to do this, because Eugenics at least claimed to be naturalistic.
By contrast, the virulent forms of belief in 'witchcraft' have been around from pre-history to the present. Now we all know that it is absurdly stupid and evil there are still literal witch-hunts taking place in the modern day, almost as bad as corrective rape, but unfortunately such practices are much harder to get rid of than eugenics, because they are built on magical thinking, rather than naturalism, and in fact teach people to reject ideas such as naturalism and evidence. They have no reality check on them, to limit their life span, or their worst extremes when people simple realises they don't work.
Science teaches people to think in a way that limits harm of bad ideas.
Faith teaches people to think in a way that removes those limits.
Yes, some people (again, damn fools) argue issues of morality on the basis of their religion. Hey, half the population is of below average intelligence. But that's not the same as saying that the religion claims infallibility.
Religion does not exist except in the minds and ideas of its believers. If a religions adherents are arguing for something on the basis of that religion (and the quotes above show that they indeed, are) then thats the same as religion arguing for something.
You're bogging down in pedantic minutia.
It might be different for folks in china and india. I don't know. But in the west the bible is often seen as the ultimate authority, ie, Gospel truth. That's why people have appeal to it.
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...It's a fact that religion has reached both good and bad conclussions in the past. It's also a fact that science has reached good and bad conclusions (eugenics, phrenology, etc.) in the past.
It's a fact that every advancement in human rights that we've made in history has had religion deeply involved. Likewise, it's a fact that every advancement in technology we've had has had science deeply involved.
Each has it's own way of working out it's own conclussions. For science, it's the scientific method. For religion, it's debate.
To claim that eugenics is a 'bad conclusion of science' is pretty hard to back up. Eugenics is not science.
It is a social movement(an one that had arisen independantly of science at several points in history), which even at its inception as what we will call psudoscientific eugenics, only gave a passing glance to primitive evolutionary biology, and diverged rapidly from there. By the time you get to its death rattle and worst excesses in Nazi Germany, Eugenics has more in common with biblical geneology, than the primitive forms of evolutionary biology, and was so outside of the findings of that times cutting edge evolutionary biology, as to be accurately labels psudo-science.
However, lets just pretend that your right about eugenics being science and science having brought use good and bad.
There is a major difference between science and religion. Science is reality based.
The strand of eugenics that can be linked to science came into being between 1860 and 1870. It was effectively discredited in its virulent form by 1950. In short, it's virulent forms almost exclusively lasted less than 100 years. Science showed the idea to be bunkum and destroyed its creditability. It was possible for science to do this, because Eugenics at least claimed to be naturalistic.
By contrast, the virulent forms of belief in 'witchcraft' have been around from pre-history to the present. Now we all know that it is
Nooo.... the score after one round stands at...
Science: less than one hundred years to discredit, and almost entirely eliminate a harmful idea it is only loosely associated with the creation off.
Religion: all of human history, to not eliminate and discredit a harmful idea, it is fundimentally responsible for creating.
Round 2:
Phranology: Mildly damaging at best, left behind by science within about 100 year, because it was demonstrably not true.
Execution of woman for adultery on religious grounds: Deeply harmful over the short, medium and long term. Has not been solved by religion, still practiced in numerous theocracies, and advocated by would be theocrats in many countries, including the US. Religion has had all of human history and hasn't gotten rid of this junk idea.
Shall we move onto round 3? Do you have a 'bad result of science' in mind?