No one lets go of their food and water without dying for it. When the US takes conflicted areas, they will still be conflicted. No empire can stop that kind of desperation. If you want to discuss it in detail, though, we should make a new topic for it.
Are atheists discriminatory towards theists?
- Thread starter S.A.M.
- Start date
Right, we should. But I'm not that interested in discussing the bloody domination of the world by a modern day Rome posessing advanced weapons technology. SKind of sckens me.baumgarten said:
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
"Capital punishment" is nothing more than a fancy name for institutionalized revenge. And revenge is evil. It is one of the most uncivilized of human emotions. It is hurting someone because they hurt you and that accomplishes nothing except to increase the total amount of pain in the world.samcdkey said:
When you kill people you don't punish them. They are dead. They feel nothing. No pain, no regret, no humiliation. Nothing. To the extent that many sociopaths are in a deep pain that drives them to madness, killing them actually is a relief. Do they deserve that?
On the other hand, even sociopaths have children, spouses, parents, siblings, priests, therapists, old friends who have stuck by them since childhood hoping to help them heal. When you kill the sociopath you cause pain to everyone who loved him. They know he's a sociopath but love is not logical, love is hopeful, and you destroy the hope of people who have done nothing wrong except to hold irrational hope. Do they deserve that?
What about those children? If you put the sociopath in prison, his children visit him, and as they grow up they learn by talking to him why he is there. That personal understanding might help them grow up to be decent men. If you kill the sociopath, all his children know is that you're the bastard who killed their daddy. You do that enough times and some of those children will become so enraged from their grief that they'll vow to kill you to punish you for what they see as your "crime". They're kids, what do they know of justice?
After a few generations of this, you have a place where people are killing each other over things that happened hundreds of years ago, things they don't understand well enough to even explain articulately. A place where civilization has collapsed because of people giving in to the uncivilized emotion of revenge.
As a practical matter, of course, we have to consider the chances of a sociopath being turned loose to repeat his crimes. There's always a chance. The prison could be struck by a meteor. The government could run out of money and turn the prisoners loose and shut the prisons down. Politics could change and people who believe sociopaths are just misunderstood baby boys could come into power. The Mafia could need them for a mission and bust them out. So in the case of people who have absolutely no chance of reforming, I regrettably may opt for capital punishment as the lesser of two evils. I hate to bereave their families but I really don't want even the smallest statistical chance of them getting out. This applies to child molesters, serial killers, and rapists (not date rapists, many of them are dumb macho kids who can be saved).
And it applies to terrorists for a special reason. Their buddies will kidnap a bunch of your people and tell you they'll kill them if you don't give their buddy back. So not only do you end up turning the sociopath loose, but a bunch of your people have been traumatized already before he even gets his suicide bomber equipment back from the prison bailiff.
So I would execute terrorists, but still with great regret, because even terrorists have families who love them and children who do not understand why the are executed. In fact, I am contributing to the death spiral by being the bastard who killed their daddy and taking the risk that they will one day seek revenge. But it's of more immediate importance to eliminate all risk of the terrorist getting out, which is a much higher risk than that of a "normal" serial killer who doesn't have a network behind him.
BTW: Atheism is neither a religion nor a community. Notwithstanding some of the prior postings, we have almost nothing in common except the single belief represented by the word itself: We do not believe in a supreme being.
We are not all rational. We do not all reject everything supernatural. When you get into complex issues like abortion and immigration, we differ from one another as much as any population.
I suspect the opinions you're getting here are more representative of the SciForums community than of atheists in general. Don't go off thinking you understand all of us just because you got to know this particular crowd.
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DeeCee said:
So they are irrational just becuase you say they are? Hmmmm Interesting.
When they act like Atheists and try to control anothers belief.
Again becuase you say so. Hmmmmm.
Seems you are having doubts.
Hmmmm. I was never forced to pick the same morals. Encouraged yes, but then again society has an influence no matter what.
Interesting you seem to encourage rewarding violent behavior. Hmmmm
Thanks Fraggle Rocker; let me say at the outset that I completely agree with all the sentiments you have presented here. I often feel after reading your posts that if I was half as eloquent as you are and as good as marshalling my thoughts and presenting them in an organized and comprehensible way, I would die happy.
That said, I do not believe the atheists at sciforums represent their community; that would be akin to saying the terrorists represent Muslims . No what struck me here is that you can identify the fears of so many people here ( with very rare exceptions ) by examining what they say to other people. Most people don't even need an opportunity to pick a fight, others provoke it and still others have no idea how to deal with it and resort to flames.
What's even more interseting is that on many occasions, there is really nothing to disagree about, both parties my actually agree on a whole lot of stuff but they have to wade through a lot of personal issues before it becomes evident and some of them lose patience and give up halfway.
I was just presenting them with an outlet to vent their feelings, that's all.
If I thought all atheists were like the ones on this forum, I'd lose all hope for humanity ; and that would never do.
That said, I do not believe the atheists at sciforums represent their community; that would be akin to saying the terrorists represent Muslims
. No what struck me here is that you can identify the fears of so many people here ( with very rare exceptions ) by examining what they say to other people. Most people don't even need an opportunity to pick a fight, others provoke it and still others have no idea how to deal with it and resort to flames. What's even more interseting is that on many occasions, there is really nothing to disagree about, both parties my actually agree on a whole lot of stuff but they have to wade through a lot of personal issues before it becomes evident and some of them lose patience and give up halfway.
I was just presenting them with an outlet to vent their feelings, that's all.
If I thought all atheists were like the ones on this forum, I'd lose all hope for humanity
; and that would never do.
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samcdkey:
How else can you judge a person's rationality?
Or are you saying it is wrong to make a judgment about whether a person is rational or irrational?
Since when have atheists denied the religious the freedom to practice their beliefs?
Yes.
This is one possible atheist point of view. I agree it is invalid.
I would like to echo an earlier comment here.
Athiests only have in common that they don't believe in God. They can have different opinions on all kinds of other things, such as the issues you mention here. There's no Athiest Creed which all atheists are supposed to adhere to.
Different atheists would no doubt go about this in different ways.
---
My personal views on the topics you mention are no secret to readers of this forum.
1. Abortion : I am pro-choice.
2. Homosexuality and Gay marriage : I have no issues with homosexuality, and see no reason not to support gay marriage.
3. Capital Punishment : I am against this.
4. Immigration : Too wide a topic to comment. What issues, in particular?
5. Ideal social system ( capitalism, socialism, etc) : This is also a big topic. Are we talking method of government, social justice, welfare, freedoms, or what?
How else can you judge a person's rationality?
Or are you saying it is wrong to make a judgment about whether a person is rational or irrational?
Since when have atheists denied the religious the freedom to practice their beliefs?
Yes.
This is one possible atheist point of view. I agree it is invalid.
I would like to echo an earlier comment here.
Athiests only have in common that they don't believe in God. They can have different opinions on all kinds of other things, such as the issues you mention here. There's no Athiest Creed which all atheists are supposed to adhere to.
Different atheists would no doubt go about this in different ways.
---
My personal views on the topics you mention are no secret to readers of this forum.
1. Abortion : I am pro-choice.
2. Homosexuality and Gay marriage : I have no issues with homosexuality, and see no reason not to support gay marriage.
3. Capital Punishment : I am against this.
4. Immigration : Too wide a topic to comment. What issues, in particular?
5. Ideal social system ( capitalism, socialism, etc) : This is also a big topic. Are we talking method of government, social justice, welfare, freedoms, or what?
Yes, what's the problem with that? By what else should I judge you? Personal discrimination isn't institutional discrimination. Religious people are more organized, so they pose a threat to mostly disorganized atheists. On an internet forum, I can't really force you to do anything, so you can consider my anti-religious statements or ignore them.
I think atheism is only slightly superior to theism, we are both blind to the realities of existence, but I am somewhat less so. I think moral values are relative to the culture of a society.
1. Abortion should be the mother's choice.
2. Homosexuality and gay marriage are a personal choice.
3. Capitol punishment should be allowed, but only by the victim of the crime.
4. There should be no national borders.
5. The only ideal social system is an ant colony.
James R said:
I should have specified religious beliefs, or do you also believe that all theists are irrational?
This is my inference from the double talk I encounter on this forum: that everyone is free to follow their religious beliefs, however all theists are irrational and have no credibility whatsoever seeing as they believe in ( not God, no!) sky daddies, fairies, pink unicorns and what was it? oh yes flying unicorns.
Does this sound like freedom for belief to you? Sounds like freedom from belief to me.
I completely agree and this is also true for theists; they believe in God (several, in fact) but they too have opinions which differ from person to person. They are not one big lump of immorality.
Well, this is also in response to some postings which equate religon with government policy; I am curious to know if atheists believe in a particular form of government as immune to the generation of social inequalities.
sam,
There is no atheist position on these things. An atheist is defined as one who lacks belief in gods. What other things an atheist considers or believes has little to do with atheism.
An atheist could be the worst serial killer and another might be the perfect altruist imaginable.
You cannot categorize atheists for anything other than their lack of belief in gods.
There is no atheist position on these things. An atheist is defined as one who lacks belief in gods. What other things an atheist considers or believes has little to do with atheism.
An atheist could be the worst serial killer and another might be the perfect altruist imaginable.
You cannot categorize atheists for anything other than their lack of belief in gods.
Cris said:
then why does there seem to be a consensus amongst atheists that what the world needs to improve is strong leadership by atheists - if atheists are not characterised by anything particularly outstanding (apart from their before mentioned qualities of a disbelief in god) what is their qualification to being thrust to the forefront of world management?
(PS I would contend that an atheist could be the greatest altruist in the world - they tend to lack the ability to make great sacrifices due to a narrower vision of worth - at the very least your statement cannot be verified by any evidence)
Try to imagine, you wake up one day. Everyone around you stopped believing in the One God Allah and started believing that the Moon was God. I mean EVERYONE. Everyday people prayed 10 times to the Moon God. They would scorn you for your belief in Allah.samcdkey said:
"No no no – the Moon God is the True God!!"
Say some other people started to pray to the Sun.
Wars broke out.
Moon worshipping people killed Sun worshipping people.
How would you feel? You would probably say to yourself - "This is crazy". The Moon is not a God nor is the Sun.
You get the picture.
Well, that’s how I feel sometimes. I used to believe in Jesus et.al. (well the blue eyed blond haired one that iconicly looked kind of like me
One day, while I was walking to my grad building, I had an epiphany. Figuratively, I suppose you could say, I realized everyone was worshipping either the moon or the sun.Thus there is a desire to engage in debate.
Why?
I suppose it’s part of being social.
Encoded in our DNA like everything else.
I also find debate is a good way to learn and can be kind of fun.
I agree.samcdkey said:
Although, I think most Atheists recognize that Theists are rational in all things except their belief. That is the really interesting part.
If a person were irrational in all things, then debate wouldn’t be possible.
A Muslim student of mind said he likes to think of opening doors to new ideas and that we should be open minded in regards to religion. I jokingly asked if he was seriously considering Atheism. His face soured so quickly I laughed out loud! He said –that’s not what I meant, I mean there is one God and so we should all get along – like I think even Jews will go to heaven.
Haa! I Quote: “Even Jews will go to Heaven”.
I didn’t say anything, nodded and went back to it.
Huss knows I’m Atheist, he just finds it’s perplexing because it doesn’t fit into his World view. Which is OK. He can do some good work in the lab and that’s why he’s here. So I don’t think Huss is irrational. I think he believes as he was taught to and that’s that. Religion and Religious history is not so interesting to him. He believes in the True God, his Imam assures him he will be in Heaven, he loves his Mother and she taught him to love Allah. They will be able to see one another in Heaven. So he is happy and fine with that. Thus, there is nothing for either of us to debate.
(He may be right after all!)
I had the fortune of staying at a Temple for 3 months while in Japan. I think my hosts were great people. I mentioned I was Atheist. The Priest said I may be right. I guess he is supposed to say that because I am not a Buddhist, do not understand Buddhist doctrine and hence there is no need to engage in a debate on the topic. AKA: Maybe he is being nice
And I guess with the Karma cycle maybe it ultimately doesn’t matter. (not to mention I can not speak Japanese so well). This is how I like to think as well.
Can you see the similarity with the two stories?
None!samcdkey said:
I know some Atheists that are as fanatical in their belief as some Theists. Perhaps it is part of the human psyche? The need to have an answer. The need to think: “I am right”. From A comes B?
A -> B damn it!!!
It’s obviously encoded in our DNA. Thus, Type II errors abound
Ironically enough, for me, the more I have learned - the more I realize I don’t know anything!
Yes. But when a person comes to a Science forum in the religion section it’s kind of understood that they are there to debate Religion from a scientific point of view.samcdkey said:
Well, do you think it is OK to teach a child to believe in One God or Many Gods or Buddha or to be an Atheist?
Teaching a child to believe in a particular religion is similar to teaching a child to speak in a particular language. The child has no choice in which religion/language. And once learned, it’s almost impossible not to think within that religion/language.
Morals/ethics are individual. For example, it used to be moral/ethic to own Slaves. Now most people think it is wrong. It is morally/ethically acceptiable to have multiple wives in some countries. It is morally/ethically unacceptle in AU/USA/Euope/China/Japan etc... It is immoral for a women to show a lot of flesh in KSA it is perfectly fine to sunbake topless at a beach in Sydney (that’s where I live).samcdkey said:
SO morals and ethics are relative to the individual.
These are my personal views:samcdkey said:
1) Abortion – I am a man so I can not say, I will never have an abortion. But, I support women to make their own moral/ethical choice. 8/10 fertilized eggs spontaneously abort.
2) Homosexuality and Gay marriage – Perfectly OK, I support men and women whom are gay to make their own moral/ethically choice on the topic. Sexuality has a gradient from classic male to classic female with all the greyness in-between. Some people are born phenotypically having both sexes – I suppose to be fair we should have at least a third category then.
3) Capital Punishment – Some heinous crimes can be dealt with using Capitol punishment. Child molesters come to mind.
4) Immigration – I have migrated from the USA to AU. I support immigration. I would like to see a day when people can immigrate anywhere. I know how much I hated it when I didn’t have citizenship here in AU, and I could be forced to leave at someone’s whim.
5) Ideal social system. Great question. I have no idea. Capitalism is pretty OK, but I think we should have free (a) medical (b) grade-high school (c) support for the disabled and elderly (d) minimum wage. People in their 20-40 should not be given to much social support. This is the most productive times of our lives. Most animals push their young out of the nest/pack at this age. We are animals - we should do the same! It’s good for them anyway.
As a Muslim perhaps you were once told of how the Qur’an is miraculous book, more so than the others – which have been corrupted over time. Did you ever wonder who wrote it? What year was it finished? Who canonized it? What of the day of its completion? Surely that would be known? If not then at least the month? The year?samcdkey said:
As "evidence" maybe you were told of the healing properties of Honey? That’s always a good one to point to. It’s often presented as evidence of God inspired revelation given to Mohammed from Allah via an Angle during a dream …
Maybe you were not told that honey was commonly used by solders in ancient Rome all the way over to ancient China. Honey has been used as healing agent in the ME for millennia, (certainly 1000s of years pre-Islam).
You get the point.
Think back to the religion/language.
samcdkey, did you really have a choice in your belief. There are 1000+1000+1000+1000x1000+1000+1000+1000 of religions if we take all time and space. I bet your parents happen to be closely aligned to your and/or societies belief? Surely your parents wouldn't believe in the Shinto Gods …… do they?!?!?! for you are not Japanese. If they did, I would be greatly surprised!!!
You get the point…. If I have guessed your parents as Muslim, and if all religions are to be taken as equally probably, I must be psychic!
(Sorry about that…. On to the question….)
So to answer your last question. My personal opinion is that Religious Archaeology should be taught in school. The connections with past religions should be made. In this way people will understand that most stories in Judaism Xianity and Islam are plagiarized works from earlier religions. The stories were not corrupted over time – they were incorporated by the new religious upstarts.
- The similarities between Mythranic belief and Xianity for example.
- Arab Nature worship and Islam.
- Sumerian epics copied verbatum into Judaism.
- Zoroastrian stories taken into Xianity and Islam.
Etc…
Hope that helps,
Michael
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Thankssamcdkey said:
Also I have written somewhere about the origin and development of the Quran. You'll have to hunt it I'm afraid; I don't remember which thread it was.
But, I wanted to know your opinion as well!
What do you think?
Michael II
samcdkey:most that I agree with, has been said already, however I do have one issue.
I personal am of the belief, that all atheist have good sense, thus I believe, that there is a common morality amongst atheist, which is to not kill, as this life is all we have, it's therefore sacred, as is humanity.
I disagree totally with Cris, that a an atheist could be the worst serial killer, as that would irrational in the extreme, but I do agree that one could be, if not all the perfect altruist/s imaginable.
I personal am of the belief, that all atheist have good sense, thus I believe, that there is a common morality amongst atheist, which is to not kill, as this life is all we have, it's therefore sacred, as is humanity.
I disagree totally with Cris, that a an atheist could be the worst serial killer, as that would irrational in the extreme, but I do agree that one could be, if not all the perfect altruist/s imaginable.
1. The issue of abortion is the ugliest issue I've had to decide on; in fact, I'm still sorta on the fence on this issue. I can see both sides of the argument. However, I do say that abortion should be allowed up to a certain point in the pregnancy, because a mere bundle of cells is a far cry from a self-sufficient, living organism, both of which occur in the uterus.samcdkey said:
2. Absolutely nothing wrong with either. Love is love. Bottom line.
3. It's barbaric. There's justice, and then there's vengeance. Simple.
4. People should be allowed to live in whichever area of the world they choose. The concept of a country is a social construct.
5. My opinions of the economy aren't quite firmly established. I agree that the fundamental concept of communism, "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need", is a noble idea — but I also know that pure communism is so hard to make work. It's also not very adaptable to the changing wants and needs of society. Capitalism is economic freedom, and it adapts swiftly to the wants and needs of the people. Everything in economics has its time, and to me, it's just a matter of deciding correctly when that time is.
I would treat any terrorist — and only the terrorist — as a criminal, and I would do my best to focus all efforts solely on them and catch them. By no means would I go bomb the shit out of an entire country (or two or ten), nor would I treat people who shared a few mere physical characteristics with the terrorist with suspicion. By no means is terrorism unique to one religion, or indeed one group of any type.samcdkey said:
James R said:
Maybe its a contentious consensus then - I have caught that thread more than once or twice on these forums, even if you are not personally possessed of it.