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The Tangent Topic (Currently: Homosexuality and Religion)

Good question. And I don't know. But what I do know is this: 1) Even if he said it was okay, I most likely still wouldn't do it. 2) He wouldn't say that.
You've admitted that God's rule isn't absolute when it come to morality because you would deny a direct command given from God himself if you yourself felt it was morally wrong. Why not extend that to every facet of your life? If homosexuality isn't harmful at all, then why follow that command?


Let me explain. If you were to bring something into existence that was previously nonexistent, then by the legal principles of the world, it belongs to you. You can do with it as you please.
Mothers own their children? They brought them into the world from nonexistence, so do they have the right to beat them and starve them? No, the act of creation has nothing to do with how you treat an autonomous individual. People should be treated as people, independent agents, regardless of their origin.

Now that doesn't mean you necessarily should. You CAN tell something what to do, but you shouldn't give it commands that it physically or mentally is incapable of, or abusive.
Commanding people to ignore their own sexuality is not mentally abusive?

But the thing is, no one would be born with homosexual tendencies. That's just it.
You seem to be ignoring that we people are born as homosexuals now. A god willing to harm anyone and everyone by condemning their sexuality is an immoral God by definition. Even creating all of humanity doesn't excuse harming your creation, especially when your creation is sentient.

And remember, this is coming from a bisexual.
And a Christian, yes.
 

Maedar

Banned
Tell me something Spock.

Do you believe mortals have free will?
 

Aegiscalibur

Add Witty Title Here
Decent example, but there are a few things here. 1) Are you an all-powerful being that created the universe AND humans? 2) So, lets say that those things that, in your opinion, are wrong about the Bible, are excessive. When weighed in with the benefits, does it really matter? You are being offered the chance to life forever on an earth with no war, disease, famine, death, suffering, pain, etc. etc. And you would throw that away, because, you believe that to guys should be able to have sex even if they do not have the desire to, and because god acted in a way that in your opinion, could have been handled differently.
So according to you, we should act based on what gives us the greatest personal benefit (in the afterlife, in this case). There's a name for that: moral egoism. Let's just grab as much for ourselves as possible and ignore the sufferings of others; such moral virtue.

Now, secondly. It has not so much to do with might, but more, legal principles. Let me explain. If you were to bring something into existence that was previously nonexistent, then by the legal principles of the world, it belongs to you. You can do with it as you please. Now that doesn't mean you necessarily should. You CAN tell something what to do, but you shouldn't give it commands that it physically or mentally is incapable of, or abusive.
What exactly are these so-called legal principles of the world? If they are distinct from morality, in what sense do they exist and on what grounds do you infer them? Are they descriptive, normative, or what? And if they are distinct from morality, why should we follow them?

But the thing is, no one would be born with homosexual tendencies. That's just it. And perhaps god will lift the law because just plain no one will care, but I can't say that for certain now can I? All, I'm saying is, that it simply won't even be an issue then. And you would still be willing to fight for it? Doesn't seem like something worth bothering with to me. And remember, this is coming from a bisexual.
Morality is universal, so stop appealing to contingent situations. If homosexuality is good or evil, it is so at a universal level. The moral evaluation doesn't depend on what God happens to think, what kind of people God's society happens to contain, or whether you happen to be bisexual or not. Even if you by sheer luck happen to be in a situation where there aren't homosexuals, it makes no difference to whether it should be universally forbidden.
 

The CollecTorr

Squad Admiral
Right. Wrong. Good. Evil...

Such tautologies of one another should not be thrown around so lightly. It is impossible to judge the value of an action until later on. The Bible lists 10 commandments. Do not murder. Do not rape etc. But if these were to hold universally true like the Bible proposes, then it would completely contradict our concept of modern physics. An act always has consequences that can change the current, ever so slightly or profoundly, in the flow of time.

Is good something that is good for humans, or good for God? Because in a situation where a man held a detonator which would destroy the human population by means of nuclear extinction, and requested that the other man brutally rape and murder his own daughter to save the 10 billion lives on the planet, then I'm sorry, but no matter what logic you try to use, it can only be good for humans to do so. This is my stance, and I can only take an extreme example because no one can give an objective non-tautologous definition and description of good.

Yes. I believe 'good' is good for humans and not some supernatural celestial being. Some of you speak of distortions, which granted, information is almost invariably distorted when relayed from one source to another. I could appeal to history, here, but I think the Chinese whispers analogy serves well. This is because we are not perfectly rational agents like modern day scientific systems presuppose. Science does this because it is founded on 2 overarching principles: Logic and observation. It is not meant to be arbitrary or whimsical like humans are.

So yes, even the original texts written from God to man may have been distorted. Perhaps information from God to man is always distorted because of the difference in being trying to communicate in humanly terms. Perhaps we have no 'legal free-will' and it is all an elaborate ploy by 'God' who happens to be a more intelligent race who controls us. There always exists the God paradox; the paradox of omnipotence, and this is a direct result of the linguistic systems we have created through our evolution.

We have no metaphysical free-will, all is consequences of influence by things other than the collection of ideas we call 'self' and 'consciousness'. It is what separates us from animals, though. And yes I could get into an animal morality debate here, which albeit would be more productive than speculations on non-observable things; it's practical. And that's exactly what this discussion isn't. There will always exists reasons we can fabricate, but it is when we act on our superstitions and such that 'real' things die and get destroyed. I'm agnostic, so I don't profess true atheism. What I believe in is acting on atheistic principles; that which we can observe. We are not wise beings, we are only intelligent by definition. And there are some things that we can perhaps never know nor ever change.
 
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Navin

MALDREAD
Tell me something Spock.

Do you believe mortals have free will?

I'm not Spock, but my opinion is that we have a mix of free will and fatalism. I believe that our past shapes our present which shapes our future. Karma.
 

Grei

not the color
Right. Wrong. Good. Evil...

Such tautologies of one another should not be thrown around so lightly. It is impossible to judge the value of an action until later on. The Bible lists 10 commandments. Do not murder. Do not rape etc. But if these were to hold universally true like the Bible proposes, then it would completely contradict our concept of modern physics. An act always has consequences that can change the current, ever so slightly or profoundly, in the flow of time.

Is good something that is good for humans, or good for God? Because in a situation where a man held a detonator which would destroy the human population by means of nuclear extinction, and requested that the other man brutally rape and murder his own daughter to save the 10 billion lives on the planet, then I'm sorry, but no matter what logic you try to use, it can only be good for humans to do so. This is my stance, and I can only take an extreme example because no one can give an objective non-tautologous definition and description of good.

Yes. I believe 'good' is good for humans and not some supernatural celestial being. Some of you speak of distortions, which granted, information is almost invariably distorted when relayed from one source to another. I could appeal to history, here, but I think the Chinese whispers analogy serves well. This is because we are not perfectly rational agents like modern day scientific systems presuppose. Science does this because it is founded on 2 overarching principles: Logic and observation. It is not meant to be arbitrary or whimsical like humans are.

So yes, even the original texts written from God to man may have been distorted. Perhaps information from God to man is always distorted because of the difference in being trying to communicate in humanly terms. Perhaps we have no 'legal free-will' and it is all an elaborate ploy by 'God' who happens to be a more intelligent race who controls us. There always exists the God paradox; the paradox of omnipotence, and this is a direct result of the linguistic systems we have created through our evolution.

We have no metaphysical free-will, all is consequences of influence by things other than the collection of ideas we call 'self' and 'consciousness'. It is what separates us from animals, though. And yes I could get into an animal morality debate here, which albeit would be more productive than speculations on non-observable things; it's practical. And that's exactly what this discussion isn't. There will always exists reasons we can fabricate, but it is when we act on our superstitions and such that 'real' things die and get destroyed. I'm agnostic, so I don't profess true atheism. What I believe in is acting on atheistic principles; that which we can observe. We are not wise beings, we are only intelligent by definition. And there are some things that we can perhaps never know nor ever change.
I understand that this is the Tangent topic, but are you actually saying anything about the debate? Or at all?
 
The problem in American in politics is too much money in campaign finance, allowing our politicians to be corrupted, forming what looks more like an oligarchy rather than a functioning democracy

No. That's not really the problem. The problem is human greed and selfishness. It will always exist regardless of how much money is poured into our elections. Therefore the unlimited pouring of money into our elections isn't a problem worth addressing.
There is no thread where this could be addressed on topic, so I decided to post here.

I don't think that you touched on any reasonable refutation of the claim in italics. You can say that avarice and other fundamental human vices will exist regardless of how we address them, but isn't that the same thing as ignoring the problem? What about removing money from politics could be seen as less than noble or unnecessary? Looking at the big picture, why isn't this a priority?

For those with any respect for the constitution, I would assume it to be quite clear that any perversion of politics is a problem to be addressed, especially when it leads down a path to oligarchy. We may have started off as a country lead by those with the money and the power both, but it was the goal of those same people that our political system be as pure as possible. Today, we understand that that means we ought to remove uncapped, anonymous campaign contributions.
 
I think you misunderstood me. My response to what was in italics was supposed to be seen as a ridiculous answer. I was trying to draw parallels to help people see more clearly how saying the problems with religion "are just human problems" is nonsense. Maybe I could have done that in a better way, apologies for the confusion.
 
I think you misunderstood me. My response to what was in italics was supposed to be seen as a ridiculous answer. I was trying to draw parallels to help people see more clearly how saying the problems with religion "are just human problems" is nonsense. Maybe I could have done that in a better way, apologies for the confusion.
Making a lot more sense now, reading it in that light. Thanks for the clarification. Thought I was going to be able to bring some life to the TT, haha.
 

Sedaheht

Member
2) "It can't be chance" argument.

Why can't it be chance? If we had been unlucky and the laws of physics in our universe or conditions on Earth did not support humans evolving, we wouldn't be here today. There would be no one wondering about why we are here or making up religions. Do you see intelligent beings on Venus or Mars following their own religious dogma? No. Why? Because conditions were such that no intelligent life appeared. You can't be wondering about the reason of your existence if you don't exist.

Therefore, if we know that a person exists, there is a 100 % chance that conditions had been suitable for his existence.

Say you have a lottery. It is unlikely for any one person to win it, but it is very likely that someone does. And when that person does win, we know with a 100 % certainty that he won. Sure, someone else could have won, but they didn't. This is no proof of the lottery being rigged; it could have just been chance. Again, simple statistics.
This is a neat perspective but a bit lackluster, considering that it does not explain WHY the universe has the ideal conditions that it does. It just accepts it, which is not an explanation and doesn't rule out God.

Sure, we know from the theory of evolution that complex life can result from blind natural forces working over billions of years in the right conditions, we know from astronomy that there are plenty of solar systems in the universe for those right conditions to appear on, and we know from cosmology that the large scale structure and evolution of the universe is very likely the result of a very dense, compact, highly-ordered initial state of being which underwent an inflationary expansion and subsequent standard-big-bang-model expansion, perhaps with a mysterious cosmological constant accelerating the expansion somewhat once the density of the universe became small enough for the outward push of the cosmological constant to manifest itself. But the question still remains as to WHY the initial set of conditions -- the highly ordered, near-uniform collection of stuff with the ability to expand into a universe like ours -- existed in the first place, and with the precise fine tuning that it possessed. Obviously we know that there IS an explanation since our existence is the result of it, but accepting that an explanation exists is not the same as figuring out what it is. And merely accepting that there is an explanation also does not even narrow down the list of possible explanations. You might as well just believe in God if you don't care about the explanation of our existence.

(Actually, God is not an explanation at all, as I'm sure you agree. Who created God? Did he always exist? If a God can exist without being created, then why not skip a step and state that the universe itself just exists without being created?)
 

Steampunk

One Truth Prevails
(Actually, God is not an explanation at all, as I'm sure you agree. Who created God? Did he always exist? If a God can exist without being created, then why not skip a step and state that the universe itself just exists without being created?)
See the problem is though, that science has pointed out that the universe did indeed have a beginning, so we cant assume that it just existed, because there was indeed a time when it didn't.
 
Yes, the universe had a beginning, but that's still no reason to assume that an intelligent force initiated it.
 
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Steampunk

One Truth Prevails
Let me ask you a question. You come across a house in a barren wasteland, do you assume that it had an intelligent designer? Or that it came into existence by chance?

And yet think how much more vastly complex and detailed the universe is compared to that house.
 
Something being seemingly counter intuitive isn't an argument. There are many counter intuitive truths out there. Like the total energy of the universe being zero, or that the earth is round and not flat. The point being, there is not one single shred of evidence that suggests the universe is designed, even if on the surface it may seem that way.
 

Steampunk

One Truth Prevails
Something being seemingly counter intuitive isn't an argument. There are many counter intuitive truths out there. Like the total energy of the universe being zero, or that the earth is round and not flat. The point being, there is not one single shred of evidence that suggests the universe is designed, even if on the surface it may seem that way.

The problem with that is, there is the assumption that it is counter intuitive, and that assumption is not backed up with evidence. You pretty much concede that it "seems that way" but that there would be another explanation, but really what basis do you have to assume that?

Like the example with the house in the wasteland, the logical explanation is that there was intelligence involved. So I ask the question: On what basis should we believe that the universe did not have a designer?
 
I honestly don't even know what you're saying.

The universe may appear to us like it was designed, but as far as science can show, it's not. Since all the forces and mechanisms that we know of that form the universe as we know it are unintelligent, we must conclude that the universe was brought about by unintelligent means until further evidence presents itself.
 
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Steampunk

One Truth Prevails
The universe may appear to us like it was designed, but as far as science can show, it's not.
That's what I'm asking: What does science show to prove that there was no intelligent design?

Since all the forces and mechanisms that we know of that form the universe as we know it are unintelligent, we must conclude that the universe was brought about by unintelligent means until further evidence presents itself.
That's not really evidence. Its an assumption. And, is it a logical assumption?

In my opinion, no. Heck, if someone were to see a ring of stones on the ground, they wouldn't say "Wow, what are the odds of that happening" they would say "There was another human(ie. source of intelligence) here"

In my opinion, science simply assumes that there is no designer because they have already "proven" that god is not scientific, basically by using this reasoning:

God does not exist (Therefore ->) God is not scientific
God is not scientific (Therefore ->) God does not exist

They simply used a logical fallacy to "disprove" god and therefore come to the "assumption" that the universe had no intelligent designer.
 
That's what I'm asking: What does science show to prove that there was no intelligent design?

By refuting every single argument that was ever made in favor of it. From irreducable complexity to anthropic principle. These knock down refutations are widely available on the internet.

That's not really evidence. Its an assumption. And, is it a logical assumption?

In my opinion, no. Heck, if someone were to see a ring of stones on the ground, they wouldn't say "Wow, what are the odds of that happening" they would say "There was another human(ie. source of intelligence) here"

In my opinion, science simply assumes that there is no designer because they have already "proven" that god is not scientific, basically by using this reasoning:

God does not exist (Therefore ->) God is not scientific
God is not scientific (Therefore ->) God does not exist

They simply used a logical fallacy to "disprove" god and therefore come to the "assumption" that the universe had no intelligent designer.

I don't get what your argument is though. All it seems like you're saying is "If it looks like it was intelligently made, then it must be intelligently made" if you can't figure out why that's silly, then there's nothing I can do to help you. Sorry.
 

Profesco

gone gently
I'll just pop in to give a brief answer.

Mr. Spock above makes an effort to employ the Big Bang as evidence, so let's start by assuming he grants us all of the science of that bang.

What we know, then, is that there was this single thing which exploded, and that explosion marks the "beginning" of time and space and matter. Since that explosion, we know that natural laws of physics have been the mechanism that caused things to work the way they do and arrange themselves the way they have. In other words, the same science that let us know there was a Big Bang also let us know that, since the Big Bang, everything has come to pass without needing an intelligent hand to guide it (disclaimer: there logically could have been such a hand, but the science works anyway without assuming it).

Thanks to everyday experience (and science too) we know that houses cannot arrange themselves without intelligent guidance. Thanks to science (the science Mr. Spock grants us when he uses the existence of the Big Bang as evidence), we know that the universe can arrange itself, post-Big Bang, without intelligent guidance. Houses and the universe do not analogize perfectly, who knew? (Perhaps we'd like to switch to answering the question, "Where did the wood from which the house was constructed come from?")



As far as the Big Bang signifying the "beginning" of the universe, let me clarify. The Big Bang is an event horizon - we can't see past it (we can hardly conceive of what "past it" would even logically mean). It is the "beginning" of the universe in the same way that, from your vantage point at the top of a mountain, the horizon is the "beginning" of the Earth: it is the most distant thing we can see. Indeed, some have used the analogy that "before the Big Bang" is like "north of the North Pole." It is logically possible that nothing existed before the Big Bang, and it is logically possible that something existed before the Big Bang. We can't see into the "before," so we can't be sure one way or the other. And, indeed, there are plausible models of the universe that operate without a "beginning" in the typical sense.
 
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