Atheists Who Celebrate All The Good That God Causes.

So why bring up the Andromeda galaxy, if it doesn't address the issue? It seems to me that the issue of location is not in either side's favour, nor is it a good simile to the argument atheists are making. It seems to me like a red herring in a debate that's already all over the place.

Well, point me to this atheist then. I didn't ask you to proclaim that you've seen it, I asked you to point me to it.

 

■ It was never really a debate.
■ It was always a "post past" each other on
the way to composing the next "post past."
■ And whatever it was, me thinks its about over.
■ A red herring can be better than nothing at all.
■ Also its not easy to have a red herring in
a "debate" that isn't really a debate and
never was one.

My view is that your days of "interviewing" atheists regarding
my 1 -14 and all my other "red herrings" and other issues
have come to an end.

Best.

JAG

``

 

A red herring is always worse - they are disruptions of logic, their mere existance being an impediment to sound decision making.

I'm glad to see you now view your 1-14 as a red herring.

 

You are wrong.
Wrong.
I do NOT view my 1 -14 as a "red herring."
You misinterpreted what I wrote , , as usual.

JAG Wrote:
■ It was never really a debate.
■ It was always a "post past" each other on
the way to composing the next "post past."
■ And whatever it was, me thinks its about over.
■ A red herring can be better than nothing at all.
■ Also its not easy to have a red herring in
a "debate" that isn't really a debate and
never was one.

My view is that your days of "interviewing" atheists regarding
my 1 -14 and all my other "red herrings" and other issues
have come to an end.

Best.

JAG
_____________

How I meant that was like this:

{1} My 1 -14

{2} "red herrings' In quote marks
■ did you miss the quote marks or just did not want to see them?
■ quote marks can mean that you are using the phrase is a way that is not usual {and I was doing that}

{3} other issues

The point, WillReadMore, was that the {1} and the {2} and the {3} were SEPERATE from each other and NOT all the same.
So?
So I do NOT view my 1 -14 as a "red herring."

JAG



``

 

So is Certain-Coming-For-You , , , Aging and Death.

Quote For Today:

”Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe,
no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain
for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms
inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to
arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a
by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how
can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting
a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will
give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own
thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading
to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an
Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God,
I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use
thought to disbelieve in God.”

—C.S. Lewis


```

 

Speaking of atheists, what is your opinions or comments on this
quote below? --- if you have a minute?

”Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe,
no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain
for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms
inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to
arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a
by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how
can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting
a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will
give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own
thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading
to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an
Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God,
I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use
thought to disbelieve in God.”

—C.S. Lewis



``

 

I like some of his sifi.

But, this comment doesn't work for me.

Yes, I don't have any "reason" to be an atheist - in the sense of some significant philosophical argument that repudiates the possibility of a god.

Surely the need for significant argument lies with the notion of a supernatural intelligence of the properties and actions claimed by one of the numerous religions that hold that there is such a being.

By no means have I ignored that topic. The issue here isn't negligene on my part.

 

Me too.

Okay.
That's reasonable.
I understand.

Well that's good to know.
I'm glad to hear that.

Yeah , , extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidences, right?
/Big Grin
{that's what Christians always hear said)

Christianity you mean?
You still study Christianity?

Yoiu meant negligence.
So you still study religions?

JAG

``

 

The major religious family of belief in America is fundamentally Christian.

So, undersanding that religion becomes at least somewhat of an issue for everyone.

 

Absolutely. Especially when the believers seek to push said religion in forming laws, make special treatment (such as tax exempt status and publicly funded catholic schools where I live), or use said religion to form views that indirectly lead to other laws (such as homosexual marriage taking so long to become a thing).

The beliefs of religious people matter to non-believers, and they should.

 

As an Atheist, on what basis do you say that bone cancer is evil?

 

While that may have been true at one time, it seems to me that at the root of many of the disagreements we see throughout society, is the argument over whether Free will is real or only apparent.

 

That's a pretty good point. Our system of government is built on the thesis that the purpose of government is to secure individual rights and that sovereignty resides not in government, but in the people who lend their sovereignty to government within the confines of what duties are spelled out in the Constitution or Charter for the government to handle.

i) Government should only infringe on our Liberty when they have a compelling need to do so in order to fulfill a task we transferred to them via Constitution.

ii) When the test for i) is met, then the means by which the government accomplishes that task, must be the least intrusive possible.

 

Amen.

And, by this measure what the federal troops do when they roam around Portland assaulting civililans, reporters, and onlookers is absolutely a criminal offense.

And, according to Trump he plans to invade other cities, too.

 

I am neither an atheist, nor would I say that bone cancer is evil. I think evil requires intent, and if there is no one carrying responsibility for bone cancer appearing, then it is not evil, merely unfortunate.

 

First and foremost, yes, we know that human thinking is not perfect. Not only are there aspects of reality that humans are categorically bad at (like general relativity), we also routinely fail to do even bits of thinking that we should be able to do (like mental maths). Politics, religion, ideology etc. divides the world, and while we can't use this line of logic to say which one is right, we can be pretty sure that the vast majority has failed in their thinking in some way. It would seem to me, any idea that proposes that our thinking is fundamentally trustworthy is simply not true to reality.

The MVP in this discussion is of course evolution. It seems to me that if our thinking is subject to evolution, then we have an evolutionary pressure to develop thinking that is capable of correctly assessing some parts of reality. If the proto-human who was better at predicting where food or danger would be became better at surviving, if the one who knew that attaching things together could make a decent shelter survived better, then we have a reason to believe that our thinking should at least approach truth. Of course, the best way of doing this is not to evolve a piece of brain that thinks about shelter and another piece that thinks about food, but to have a versatile brain that can think correctly, and even abstractly, about many things. With abstraction, we're also able to construct ideas like "trust but verify", which gives us additional ways to assess whether our thinking is right. We have a long way to go to get to truth (indeed, I am of the opinion that there is no evolutionary pressure to "perfect" our thinking, so potentially, we have stopped progressing in that sense), but evolution allows us to reject the idea that our thinking is unrelated to truth, and lets us consider the idea that our brains are capable of at least some truth.

So it seems to me, our imperfect thinking is more consistent with an imperfect natural explanation, than with God.

We should also consider the alternative. If our minds were created by a god, what reason have we to believe that that god would give us trustworthy thinking? Certainly the God of the Bible doesn't show much concern to the concept getting things right (other than when it comes to his own glorification, the right-ness of which is arguable). If our thinking is in question, then maybe the Greek gods are true (just as an example), would we expect reliable thinking if designed by them? Again, it seems that theists have taken a hard question, pushed it into the black box called "God" and pretended that that solves the problem, when it really just adds another layer of uncertainty.

 

I mean, I was having one. I was posting specifically about the things you said, and challenged them. I wasn't bringing up Andromeda galaxies into issues that were by their nature not related to position or merely repeated posts instead of meeting the objections.

Does that mean that your days of making assumptions about what atheists believe have come to an end? Or your days of voting? Or do you intend to keep going, just avoiding the accountability?

 

That makes sense. If it's the result of a happenstance of DNA combination - not evil. If it's the result of illegal chemical dumping - evil.

Without free-will, what is the basis for holding someone to account for evil acts?

 

Without free will, we aren't making that decision, so we don't have to justify it. Free will, and the illusion thereof, is weird to think about.

 

None and it is going to become interesting in the next few years as we discover more of how the mind works. There are a lot of moral debates to be had.

 

I figured that had to be the case, and you're right, I think this is what lurks at the base of a lot of the disagreements over social policy and criminal justice.

 

I'm not sure I'm following you correctly.

To the question: i) Without Free Will, what is the basis of holding someone accountable for their evil actions,

Your answer is that since we aren't using free will, to hold them accountable, we don't have to justify holding them accountable?

 

Nah. You took my very simple Opening Post into
The Land Of Oz and into a maze jungle of
discombobulated confusion and kept it there. Its all
back there in the thread. I can go get it.

I was posting specifically about the things you said and was
challenging them. We zoooomed on past each other, page
after page --of course this is the Internet. I don't see it as a
problem.

You were constantly bringing up stuff that was "out past"
Andromeda, so to speak . And that had NOTHING to do
with my Opening Post. And you still are doing that. Its
all back there in the thread. I can go get it.

Totally justified.
My points were consistently ignored and you consistently
re-stated your points. So I repeated my points too. And
a HUGE number of your points had nothing to do with
what my Opening Post actually said and actually
requested.

You say I did not.
I say I did.

What is the name of the Organization that I have to give
account to? And where are they located?

JAG

 

Swensson, thank you for taking the time to reply to my question about the C.S. Lewis quote.
I read what you wrote carefully.
Interesting perspective.

JAG

 

Needless to say, what your imaginary atheists says is not really interesting unless you can link it to what actual atheists say. I have asked you for a reference to that, but you can't seem to give one.

When I wrote it, I wasn't looking in the fridge though. I was far from my fridge, I didn't "2+2=4" know that I hadn't been robbed, or the fridge had blown up. I was still pretty confident, but hardly like 2+2=4. This shows that the word "know" can be used for other things than 2+2=4 level certainty, and so, if someone uses the word "know", you're not justified in assuming that level of certainty.