Quote :

"Not sure where you get that idea that Jesus did not want to propagate his message/teachings until the end of time."

He did. It's just that the end of time was taken to be fairly soon.

10/22/2013 1:18:18 PM

Quote :

" if he tries to claim that God does not exist, then, he, too, must provide evidence"

I had no idea this was one of you people's tactics. holy cow.

10/22/2013 10:19:02 PM

Quote :

"But the idea that there's this jewish ghost from 2000 years ago that you need to supplicate to to be forgiven for the sins of our ancestors and when you die you somehow continue to exist are not compatible with science. Scientists whom believe this stuff are compartmentalizing their theistic beliefs away from their scientific inquiry."

I beg to disagree. Now, if you pigeonhole Christianity to meet a convenient, man of straw definition, then sure. Otherwise, I'm going to specifically request scientifically valid proof for your claim.

Quote :

" I mean, according to Jesus the world was going to end in the life of his very own followers."

Again, I disagree. Maybe I'm forgetting stuff, but I don't recall Jesus ever saying when the world was going to end. I think he actually said "Only Daddy knows when it will end".

10/22/2013 11:55:31 PM

Quote :

"" I mean, according to Jesus the world was going to end in the life of his very own followers." Again, I disagree. Maybe I'm forgetting stuff, but I don't recall Jesus ever saying when the world was going to end. I think he actually said "Only Daddy knows when it will end". "

You are not familiar with the Bible, only what preachers claim about the bible to make it fit with reality:

We studied this in a class i took once, but i took this from wikipedia:
"One account supporting the interpretation of Jesus' apocalypticism is at the crucifixion. After there is no apocalypse upon his crucifixion as he believed there would be, he asks on the Cross, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" The disciples then have to change their interpretation of Jesus' message as portrayed in Acts of the Apostles.[2]
The preaching of John was, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Mat. 3:2), and Jesus also taught this same message (Mat 4:17; Mark 1:15). Additionally, Jesus spoke of the signs of "the close of the age" in the Olivet Discourse in Mat 24 (and parallels), near the end of which he said, "[T]his generation will not pass away until all these things take place" (v. 34). Interpreters have understood this phrase in a variety of ways, some saying that most of what he described was in fact fulfilled in the destruction of the Temple in the Roman Siege of Jerusalem (see Preterism), and some that "generation" should be understood instead to mean "race" (see NIV marginal note on Mat 24:34) among other explanations."

Big surprise, there's many ways to interpret a book that's thousands of years old, written by hundred of people. But it very clearly says the world was suppose to end during Jesus' time, then when this didn't happen, parts were revised to imply "real soon now"™.

10/23/2013 1:16:35 AM

Quote :

"But it very clearly says the world was suppose to end during Jesus' time, then when this didn't happen, parts were revised to imply "real soon now"™."

It's more than just that. The real convincing argument is that many biblical scholars support this theory, via the historical method. Sure, you may find disagreement (that's the point of scholarship), so it might not be called consensus, but it's considerably strong and I personally find the arguments compelling.

The biblical tradition had different mediums and languages of transmission over time. But oral tradition is particularly easy to whitewash. Jesus died like 34 AD and the bible was written like 90 AD. That means it was basically written down right after the original witnesses died. Not only that, but we can see the "trajectory" of some scriptures because different books wrote down the same thing at different times. Obviously the earliest version written was the most honest.

There was whitewashing of different players (such as the Roman Empire) at different times, and the thinking goes that the end-of-times stuff was possibly the greatest whitewashing of all. The basic case is that the line about the world ending was written down because Jesus actually said it, not because they wanted to write it down. It's really bizarre that generation A was told that the world would end in their lifetime, and they didn't get a permanent record taken. Then only after A was gone did B write down the stuff. Perhaps generation A wasn't as concerned with preserving the bible for 2000 years?

The rest of it relies on actual history. Good read here:

http://www.quora.com/Jesus/Was-Jesus-an-apocalyptic-Preacher

Real history is much more granular than what we're usually exposed to. It took over 300 years for Christianity to catch on big-time. But the gospels were preserved around 90 AD, which gives more authentic credibility to them. Of course, many churches use gospels written long after that, which reeks of bull shit to me. Why are you not still writing gospels? The people between 90 - 300 AD were no angels. They were just as political as we are today.

Of course, the real politics that defined Christianity were from 34-90 AD, which is quite fascinating. I think there were a lot of teachings of Jesus that they didn't want to write down, but they grudgingly did so anyway. You know... out of obligation to God. There were quite a lot of factors putting pressure on those early early Christians. Ultimately Jesus had a stubbornly appealing message, and that's what always kept it alive.

10/23/2013 8:16:14 AM

Quote :

"I beg to disagree. Now, if you pigeonhole Christianity to meet a convenient, man of straw definition, then sure."

What's your definition of christianity? Heaven? Ever-lasting life?

10/23/2013 9:18:13 AM

Money making machine

10/23/2013 9:19:59 AM

Quote :

"I beg to disagree. Now, if you pigeonhole Christianity to meet a convenient, man of straw definition, then sure. Otherwise, I'm going to specifically request scientifically valid proof for your claim."

A)The definition I provided wasn't a strawman. "Believe Jesus is your savior" is the core tenant of every Christian denomination.

B)What claim do I need scientifically valid proof for exactly? That there is no afterlife? Are you joking? Neuroscience has proved conclusively that every aspect of our identity is emergent from our physical brains. Identity cannot persist without the brain. The idea that you're going to be a person who can talk and recognize your dead loved ones without a brain is idiotic and childish.

Evidence of a fearful primate who can't deal with its mortality and nothing more.

10/23/2013 9:40:30 AM

Quote :

"Neuroscience has proved conclusively that every aspect of our identity is emergent from our physical brains. Identity cannot persist without the brain."

Isn't this completely ridiculous since science doesn't have an defensible definition of "identity" in the first place?

You're using science to describe something, but you don't know what your describing. Sure, there's the phenomenon of consciousness that we think exists and needs an explanation, but very primitive skepticism reveals the entire notion doesn't meet any scientific requirements. I'll claim that consciousness isn't a thing. Now what? Are you going to refute me? How?

Science can't even define what life is. All we have is a vague prediction that at some point.. eventually.. we'll have a scientific definition for life. But we're pretty sure it'll have blurry lines. By scientific standards, this is pretty terrible.

10/23/2013 10:09:20 AM

We have an entire field of science dedicated to life. It's not a simple definition and it's descriptive, but we know scientifically what a living thing is as opposed to a non-living thing and in fact we know that at a fundamental physical level there's not much difference.

No, we don't need an unequivocal definition of consciousness to know that it's emergent completely from the brain and not some unobservable, unfalsifiable protoplasm ancient bigoted scrolls talk about.

The moment we figured out we could completely change a person's personality by physically damaging and modifying the brain we settled the mind-body duality question, IMO.

[Edited on October 23, 2013 at 10:31 AM. Reason : less snark, not enough sleep last night ]

10/23/2013 10:17:34 AM

Quote :

"The moment we figured out we could completely change a person's personality (uh-oh we don't have a simple definition for that word I guess we can't talk about it either) by physically damaging and modifying the brain we settled the mind-body duality question, IMO."

What? That "moment", as in sometime around 1850?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

Or maybe that moment refers to 7,000 BC, when people cut out parts of their friend's skull bone, did something, and then successfully have them keep living? Soft tissue isn't preserved over that time frame, so we can't know what was done to the brain itself, but considering that this practice is well documented multiple times in the ancient world, I would think this happened. I also suspect they observed a behavior change. So this criteria you've set was satisfied by the time of the ancient Egyptians.

10/23/2013 10:37:45 AM

Quote :

"So this criteria you've set was satisfied by the time of the ancient Egyptians."

So it was. Almost nobody may have realized it at the time and certainly many people still don't realize it. Or deny it outright in favor of their wishful thinking fictions. I definitely had Gage on the mind as well, though.

[Edited on October 23, 2013 at 11:15 AM. Reason : .]

10/23/2013 10:54:56 AM

I'm a huge athiest but I don't enjoy Richard Dawkins. Motherfucker is just this guy on my team that's all. He's pretty fucking rude if you ask me. I mean, I am too but I'm just some fuckstar on the intarweb, he's like a public figure.

I MUCH MUCH prefer Carl Sagan. He is so much more focused on awe of nature and joy of possibilities.

10/23/2013 11:28:29 AM

There was some youtube video where Dawkins was debating with other people, and Craig Venter suggested that the tree of life is really more like a bush than a tree. Dawkins just about had a heart attack.

The dude is just dated and unremarkable these days.

10/23/2013 11:50:48 AM

^^It's clear you haven't read anything by Richard Dawkins nor really watched a volume of his public speaking. He wrote a children's book called The Magic of Reality for fuck's sake. If you read or hear his words about evolutionary biology and don't get "awe" and "joy" then you're deliberately misreading or mis-hearing him.

I'm not in love with the guy but characterizing him as "pretty fucking rude" is ridiculous.

[Edited on October 23, 2013 at 11:52 AM. Reason : .]

10/23/2013 11:52:27 AM

I do enjoy it a little bit when he makes other people upset.

10/23/2013 11:55:12 AM

atheists are terrible marketers

10/23/2013 12:03:11 PM

you mean "many atheist who try to market atheism are terrible marketers"

10/23/2013 12:07:04 PM

all of the people who try to market atheism are terrible marketers

[Edited on October 23, 2013 at 12:09 PM. Reason : ..]

10/23/2013 12:08:27 PM

Given the power of indoctrination and the fear of death/existentialist dilemma, I'd say atheism's marketing has been astoundingly successful in the past few years. At least in traditionally Christian-dominated markets.

[Edited on October 23, 2013 at 12:17 PM. Reason : .]

10/23/2013 12:13:00 PM

If you count all discussion about a concept between people as marketing sure, but those bus ads sure aren't doing shit other than upsetting everyone's grandma.

10/23/2013 12:18:41 PM

eh, maybe. But at least they're not being arrogant and bluntly stating there is no god. They're at least saying that there probably is no god.... but what's a better way to market atheism?

10/23/2013 12:37:20 PM

The exodus from religion is pure demographics.

Back in the day, they built you a goddam barn when you moved into the community. People traveled hours to get to church because they were substance early American farmers and it was their only human interaction outside family and maybe a neighbor or two.

The further back you go, the more relevant the church is. They used to be the basic unit of human organization (btw, Pillars of the Earth is awesome). For many parts of history, education didn't exist aside from the church, and belief in a bearded man in the sky was the only thing that kept poor farmers sending their kids to classes (sometimes even learning to read ), which was otherwise a completely irrational decision. That influence of the church was strong until we started our national system of compulsory education.

I have a favorable view of religion in history because I enjoy being able to read (with the possible exception of ddd).

10/23/2013 12:37:35 PM

and what about all the churches in towns and villages?

10/23/2013 12:43:10 PM

Quote :

"I have a favorable view of religion in history because I enjoy being able to read (with the possible exception of adultswim)."

i have no idea what this means

god damnit i got got

[Edited on October 23, 2013 at 12:50 PM. Reason : v]

10/23/2013 12:48:17 PM

(for some reason he decided to throw some script in there)

10/23/2013 12:50:17 PM

A while back as i was waiting in line to check out at Dollar General because I am poor. There was a sweet old lady in front me checking out making conversation with the cashier. I didn't really pay attention until the sweet old lady says something like "Boy things sure are gettin bad out there." The cashier responded with a polite agreement of some sort. Here comes the crazy.
The sweet old lady then says "Preacher says any day now all the muslims are gonna jump out from behind rocks and trees and shoot us all down." She even turned to me and made little guns with her hands. Wide-eyed I took several steps back, terrified of this little old lady. People like her and her preacher scare the living fuck out of me and that's why I'm not religious. People too often just take the crazy words of their preacher literally instead of putting any thought into it themselves.

I would love for some aliens to land and be like "Hey you know all those religions you came up with over all those thousands of years, yeah those were all wrong. You guys totally screwed yourselves for nothin."

Oh and churches are basically only about money now, they are the biggest small business in the county I live in. I could easily start my own and be making a good living, it happens here all the time. The pastors here all make very good money. But I could never live with myself, lying to all those people every week.


[Edited on October 23, 2013 at 1:13 PM. Reason : money money money, money!]

10/23/2013 1:09:47 PM

Quote :

"I would love for some aliens to land and be like "Hey you know all those religions you came up with over all those thousands of years, yeah those were all wrong. You guys totally screwed yourselves for nothin.""

If Evolution by way of Natural Selection didn't convince them that they're not special, aliens won't do shit. They'll believe it's either a test or SpaceJesus™

10/23/2013 2:32:42 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2hZQZ4GwFw

What an asshole.

10/24/2013 11:26:13 AM

Quote :

"The definition I provided wasn't a strawman. "Believe Jesus is your savior" is the core tenant of every Christian denomination. "

Sure. But that is in no way completely at odds with any and every scientific endeavor. Thus, you must have more of a definition that you're leaving out.

Quote :

"What claim do I need scientifically valid proof for exactly?"

Maybe your blanket statement that absolutely everything about Christianity is 100% wrong, not to mention being 100% at odds with everything related to science. That'd be a good start.

10/25/2013 1:02:52 AM

Quote :

"Sure. But that is in no way completely at odds with any and every scientific endeavor. Thus, you must have more of a definition that you're leaving out."

I was explicit about exactly which Christian belief (jewish ghost forgiving you for ancestral sins) is at odds with science. "Jesus is your savior" *is* at odds with any and every scientific endeavor.

That someone who may have not even existed died 2000 years ago, was resurrected, is the son and the embodiment of an omnipotent being, has non-demonstrable connection to people today is completely at odds with scientific inquiry in more ways than I can count.

Quote :

"Maybe your blanket statement that absolutely everything about Christianity is 100% wrong, not to mention being 100% at odds with everything related to science. That'd be a good start."

That's odd, Mr-call-everything-a-strawman. I don't remember saying that at all. Can you remind me where I said anything to that effect?

10/25/2013 8:58:06 AM

Quote :

"non-demonstrable connection to people today is completely at odds with scientific inquiry in more ways than I can count."

If it doesn't make empirical statements of any type, then it's not science by definition, but that doesn't make it at odds with science. The empirical basis of science demands falsifiability and testability in order to have something admitted into science, but it doesn't actually make any statement about ideas that don't fit into this framework.

There do exist people who advocate a scientific way of life. That certainly can give a framework for decision making. But science never demanded this. You can go about your personal life however you want and believe whatever you want. Just don't put it in your publications and science itself doesn't give a crap. This comes from its very foundation.

According to science, these prediction-less claims are Jesus are "meaningless", but they should really be called "scientifically meaningless".

10/25/2013 9:47:42 AM

If someone claims they feel something or that it has any effect on reality in any way, then it's a scientific question. How they came to believe this is also a scientific question.

Non-overlapping magisterium is a cop out, IMO.

[Edited on October 25, 2013 at 10:19 AM. Reason : .]

10/25/2013 10:18:23 AM

Feeling something generally relates to a conspiracy of reality.

Those who were touched by the spirit would prefer to think of it as some flowing waterfall of spirit energy, but "conspiracy" is a more accurate scientific term. The proposition is that under normal conditions the universe follows extremely consistent and knowable laws, but another reality can be revealed by a certain set of actions, which are usually particularly cult-ish. It is interesting to talk about this worldview, because the flowing waterfall of spirit energy can't actually be physically foundational because of the nature of being a conspiracy. i.e. laws have to be consistent until the holy ghost is consulted. Those views revert to essentially Deism, unless you count the mental state of the religious as a physical phenomenon.

This is all vaguely consistent with the Simulation Argument. Because the machines used to simulate our reality must be imperfect by nature, but they also have the ability to rewrite history at will so that our experience never shows an inconsistency with the ostensible physical laws, which would require an infinitely powerful computer to produce accurately... almost as if to tempt us. But this theory is self-defeating because the conspiracy of nature would be essentially perfect, and any memory of a supernatural event could be erased very easily. Our gods could intentionally decide to tell us they exist, but this would seem to defeat the point of simulating us in the first place.

Actual religious theory on the subject is, of course, hilariously bad. Such as the PEAR lab.

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/

The idea goes that human observation affects the outcome of "random" experiments, because a sufficiently randomized process is subject to 'supernatural' statistical biases on the quantum mechanical level. It's hard to come up with a theory worse than this, because it defeats the entire point of a conspiracy. Whatever QM statistics arise from (multiple universes, existential crisis, etc), there is no value in God using it to talk to us. It makes the universe harder to simulate, not easier.

Technically, what PEAR claims was that the supernatural bobbed in and out of testability. It might be testable when one true believer does the experiment and never writes down the results. But the reproducibility declines with the number of heretics paying attention to the work. Although hilarious, it's a very cute attempt to expand untestable things happening in one person's head to untestable things mutually verifiable in a community. It's still basically consistent with conspiracy theories, although fucking the Copernican principle in the ass pretty hard.

[Edited on October 25, 2013 at 11:28 AM. Reason : ]

10/25/2013 11:28:26 AM

Quote :

"If someone claims they feel something or that it has any effect on reality in any way, then it's a scientific question. How they came to believe this is also a scientific question."

Speaking of scientific unknowns--when you have personal, anecdotal evidence that leads you to a certain belief, it's not contradictory to put some weight behind it.

Specifically, though, I think putting your weight behind one religion and claiming all other religions are definitely false IS contradictory and absurd.

[Edited on October 25, 2013 at 11:58 AM. Reason : .]

10/25/2013 11:56:15 AM

shut up stu i have read this guy and gould as well. i dont like either of them. Dawkins does address everything that comes his way but he's constantly ridiculing the people he's hoping to educate. Gould bends and ignores facts to suit our agenda and makes us look just as retarded as the godfags.

i like straight shooters like Watson and Feynman and people like that. People that don't put the conflict at the center and just talk past the stupidity.

10/26/2013 1:36:12 AM

The New Pope is trying to act like we're on his team, lol.

“[W]e also sense our closeness to all those men and women who, although not identifying themselves as followers of any religious tradition, are nonetheless searching for truth, goodness and beauty, the truth, goodness and beauty of God. They are our valued allies in the commitment to defending human dignity, in building a peaceful coexistence between peoples and in safeguarding and caring for creation.”

So you think you're cool because you take the class out of Catholicism? Well sorry, the evangelicals beat you to it. They have ZERO class

10/26/2013 2:12:56 AM

Quote :

"when you have personal, anecdotal evidence that leads you to a certain belief, it's not contradictory to put some weight behind it."

And it is contradictory to believe that you'll convince other people.

I mean, this is really what the religious argument boils down to, and it's the point that almost everyone misses trying to refute them. When the LDS guys are trying to sell their stuff to you, again, this is the correct response.

The religion could be absolutely compelling for the people in it. From a rational outsider's perspective, that should be recognized. Just like it should be recognized by the religious that the non-believers only have a flawed, dispassionate, argument in favor of God. If that God is substantiated via personal experience (Jesus nuts, I'm looking at you), then you're betraying your own message by arguing to people that they should convert. The only reasonable way to get someone to convert (by their own logic) is for Jesus go to touch them with his own holy ghost power.

10/26/2013 4:42:16 PM

Quote :

"I was explicit about exactly which Christian belief (jewish ghost forgiving you for ancestral sins) is at odds with science. "Jesus is your savior" *is* at odds with any and every scientific endeavor."

then he says:

Quote :

"That's odd, Mr-call-everything-a-strawman. I don't remember saying that at all. Can you remind me where I said anything to that effect? [that Christianity is entirely at odds with everything scientific]"

Granted, that's in the same post, but it's obvious that's the point you were making, even if unspoken. You just happened to speak it explicitly in the same post where you said you never said anything like that. Anyway, I'd still like for you to suggest HOW belief in Jesus is "at odds with any and every scientific endeavor."

10/26/2013 11:58:07 PM

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/computer-scientists-prove-god-exists/story?id=20678984

10/27/2013 4:12:36 PM

Quote :

"in essence the Austrian was arguing that, by definition, God is that for which no greater can be conceived."

10/27/2013 4:46:34 PM

Quote :

" The only reasonable way to get someone to convert (by their own logic) is for Jesus go to touch them with his own holy ghost power."

That's their goal, though.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dan

10/27/2013 7:06:18 PM

Quote :

"Granted, that's in the same post, but it's obvious that's the point you were making, even if unspoken. You just happened to speak it explicitly in the same post where you said you never said anything like that. Anyway, I'd still like for you to suggest HOW belief in Jesus is "at odds with any and every scientific endeavor.""

I'm going to give you one more chance. I'm talking about belief in Jesus as your savior, not "the entirety of Christianity being at odds with 100% of scientific endeavor." Quit putting words in my mouth and address what I'm saying.

As for how the belief that the Jesus narrative in the NT is accurate defies scientific endeavor is that it includes a large number of impossible and unverified claims. Believing that God can just suspend the natural order whenever he feels like completely undermines methodological naturalism which is required for experimentation to be trusted.

If you'd like me to list out the various supernatural claims and miracles you have to accept as factually true in order to believe the Jesus narrative I can but do I really need to? The common response to any of this is "well God could do as he pleases" which brings us back to the point above.

There are facets of Christianity which are not at odds with science because they're not claiming that a god is committing miracles. But Jesus's life, the Resurrection and the ascension and subsequent magic relationship with every human being are completely at odds with science.

Quote :

"http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/computer-scientists-prove-god-exists/story?id=20678984"

garbage in, garbage out.

[Edited on October 28, 2013 at 9:06 AM. Reason : .]

10/28/2013 8:54:01 AM

everything real becomes more elegant with further investigation. everything bullshit becomes more complex.


Psychology: bullshit
Religion: bullshit
Tax law: bullshit
terms of service: bullshit

10/29/2013 2:24:13 AM