Faith-based beliefs

[William]

There seems to have been a misunderstanding as to the purpose of my first thread on this subject due to the nature of some members making personal comments about other members in their posts, comments which were not directly related to the thread topic, and as a result the thread was locked.

I was using a disclaimer another member often uses, as a means of example - which is not contrary to any of the forum rules - not as a means of personal attack - which is contrary to the forum rules.

Certainly - as can be clearly seen, the OP does not make any such thing as a personal comment/attack or debate against any individual member.

The way I see it, debating is a form of schooling, in which the participants are both teaching and learning, whereas proselytizing clearly has no intention of learning, and in that is not teaching so much as preaching.

Is it fair that individuals use such a platform as a debate forum to preach from, when it is clear that their intention is not to debate at all, but to consistently spam the forum with their particular brand of organised religious indoctrination?

It is clear that the forum rules allow for some proselytizing to occur as a matter of 'par for the course', but when it is clear that individuals are not interested in any actual debate - especially in regard to their own particular sect - and even go to lengths to make disclaimers in order to avoid having to. Does this contravene the rules sufficiently to be dealt with in the same manner as any other type of rule breaking is dealt with?

Faith-based beliefs...Are they debatable?

What do you think?

PS - please don't use the OP question as an opportunity to make personal unrelated comments against other members. Just answer the question the OP is asking.

Thanks.

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 59 by mrhagerty]

Quote:
You don't come to accept talking donkeys and living inside fish etc. through logic and reason.


Lewis did. Martin Luther did. Josh McDowell does. Neither of these men are slouches with respect to logic and reason.

Please explain the logic and reasoning that leads one to accept that donkeys and serpents may talk, someone may live in a large fish for three days, and so on.

Intelligence does not immunise anyone against foolish beliefs, particularly those that were inculcated from an early age. Some manage to slough off the ridiculous, but for others cognitive dissonance is too powerful a deterrent.

[Deleted]

"Replying to post 56 by brunumb"

Could you please supply the data source from which you were able to establish your sweeping claim. If it is just a gut feeling or based on a handful of people, don't bother.

No, there are some definitions being coined. And linguistically there is a commitment in the label.

First, the Gk: atheos from which atheist is derived, directly translates without high-powered interpretation of any kind to: without god.

Hence, the very label under which you organize yourself, makes a claim, not a belief, about reality. The reality of the world is that it exists without god.
American Atheist summarize the proposition of atheists " It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. This logically demands that they accept the assertion that there are no gods. You cant logically reject an assertion that there are gods if you have made no prior conclusion that gods dont exist.

Lex Bayer and John Figdor are Standford grads and have written a new assessment of the defining precepts of atheists. Here are seven of them:

I. The world is real, and our desire to understand the world is the basis for belief.
II. We can perceive the world only through our human senses.
III. We use rational thought and language as tools for understanding the world.
IV. All truth is proportional to the evidence.
V. There is no God.
VI. We all strive to live a happy life. We pursue things that make us happy and avoid things that do not.
VII. There is no universal moral truth. Our experiences and preferences shape our sense of how to behave.

But as to a handful of quotes, here are some of interest.

Darwin believed that atheists in his time were people making a claim: In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. (Charles Darwin)

In refuting the idea that atheism is a religion, the American Atheists site repeats a quip that makes a logical error: If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Here they are conflating a statement about reality (a religion) with a statement about behavior. Being a religion requires a state of mind that believes certain things about reality. Choosing not to do an activity does not require a state of mind about reality, merely a choice not to act.

Einstein rejected atheism because of their denial of god: "Einstein renounced atheism, because he never considered his denial of a personal God, as a denial of God. Ergo, he did not take it as a belief but a claim about the existence of God.

Asa Gray, the eminent botanist: In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.

Albert Camus knew the distinction between atheism and agnosticism I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.


Emmett Fields - Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist. . . Atheism is an attitude, a frame of mind

Asimov unknowingly proves hes agnostic - "Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

Steven Hawking: I believe the simplest explanation is, there is no God."
Again an atheist making a claim

[Tcg]

MANY folks of faith HAVE to understand that we say "There is no God" ...

And there it is, tcg. Your agreement with a claim that atheists state "There is no God." Yet you think me wrong when I say that atheists profess this as a fact.

As I have already pointed out to you once before, it is "Tcg".

A much more important correction is that the words you have assigned to me aren't mine.

[Tcg]

tcg: MANY folks of faith HAVE to understand that we say "There is no God" ...

mrhagerty: "And there it is, tcg. Your agreement with a claim that atheists state "There is no God."

Not what tcg was implying at all. Note the word "HAVE". Replace it with "NEED" and you will perhaps have a better understanding of what tcg meant.

As I've pointed to mrhagerty, these aren't my words, they are from StuartJ.

Here is what he said:

MANY folks of faith HAVE to understand that we say "There is no God" ...

Otherwise, their position crumbles ...

He's not making a claim about himself, or any atheist for that matter, he is referring to others assigning that conclusion to us even though that isn't our position.

It's quite telling that mrhagerty did the very thing StuartJ was addressing. In this, I am not referring to his careless miss assignment of a quote, but rather his haste to assign something to the author that was never intended.

[StuartJ]

[Replying to post 55 by mrhagerty]

Genuine Christian faith places the believer on the receiving end of a transfer of knowledge from God.

Wow ...!!!

I need to put on my Hat of Sacerdotal Perception to see into THAT one ...

GENUINE Christian faith smacks of the No TRUE Scotsman ...

Spoken of with a folding of the arms, a furrowing of the brow and the adopting of a tone of great asseveration.

I see the "genuinely faithful Christian" exhibiting ostentatious sanctimony and supercilious hubris as the possessor of this knowledge that has been transferred to THEM from "God".

And the Hat of Sacerdotal Perception is telling me that the genuinely faithful Christian will write reams and reams of bloated text to impress "ordinary" Christians who have not been at the outlet of the divine orifice that delivers the knowledge to the genuinely faithful ones, and the sin-soaked atheists and agnostics - be they weak or strong or confused or just annoying smartasses who should simply believe what they are told to believe by those "genuine" persons who have received the transfer of knowledge from "God"

But wait a moment ...

The Christian version/s of "God" are NOT God.

We've had a number of threads on that.

The Christian versions of "God" are not God.

But even if we pretend (some folks are REALLY good at pretending) that the mythological deity Yahweh IS God with a capital-G ...

No one EVER offers a shred of the necessary to demonstrate that so much as a verse of "scripture"/propaganda DID come from Yahweh, or the possibly fictional Jesus, or the nebulous Holy Ghost.

So, I suggest, that if "Genuine Christian faith" has genuinely faithful Christians on the "receiving end of a transfer of knowledge" ...

The "knowledge" is coming from the human propaganda ...

And things to do with "God" are only happening their imaginations ... I suggest.

Because - as Member Wootah helpfully informed us recently - certain Christians DO imagine thing about Jesus

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 64 by Tcg]

As I've pointed to mrhagerty, these aren't my words, they are from StuartJ.

My apologies for perpetuating the error by quoting mrhagerty. Also for referring to you as tcg by taking it from his post without due care.

[Tcg]

[Replying to post 64 by Tcg]

As I've pointed to mrhagerty, these aren't my words, they are from StuartJ.

My apologies for perpetuating the error by quoting mrhagerty. Also for referring to you as tcg by taking it from his post without due care.

Not a problem, brunumb, I can understand the confusion his post caused.

Thank-you for addressing this though, I do appreciate it.

[brunumb]

"Replying to post 56 by brunumb"

Could you please supply the data source from which you were able to establish your sweeping claim. If it is just a gut feeling or based on a handful of people, don't bother.

No, there are some definitions being coined. And linguistically there is a commitment in the label.

First, the Gk: atheos from which atheist is derived, directly translates without high-powered interpretation of any kind to: without god.

Hence, the very label under which you organize yourself, makes a claim, not a belief, about reality. The reality of the world is that it exists without god.
American Atheist summarize the proposition of atheists " It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. This logically demands that they accept the assertion that there are no gods. You cant logically reject an assertion that there are gods if you have made no prior conclusion that gods dont exist.

Lex Bayer and John Figdor are Standford grads and have written a new assessment of the defining precepts of atheists. Here are seven of them:

I. The world is real, and our desire to understand the world is the basis for belief.
II. We can perceive the world only through our human senses.
III. We use rational thought and language as tools for understanding the world.
IV. All truth is proportional to the evidence.
V. There is no God.
VI. We all strive to live a happy life. We pursue things that make us happy and avoid things that do not.
VII. There is no universal moral truth. Our experiences and preferences shape our sense of how to behave.

But as to a handful of quotes, here are some of interest.

Darwin believed that atheists in his time were people making a claim: In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. (Charles Darwin)

In refuting the idea that atheism is a religion, the American Atheists site repeats a quip that makes a logical error: If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Here they are conflating a statement about reality (a religion) with a statement about behavior. Being a religion requires a state of mind that believes certain things about reality. Choosing not to do an activity does not require a state of mind about reality, merely a choice not to act.

Einstein rejected atheism because of their denial of god: "Einstein renounced atheism, because he never considered his denial of a personal God, as a denial of God. Ergo, he did not take it as a belief but a claim about the existence of God.

Asa Gray, the eminent botanist: In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.

Albert Camus knew the distinction between atheism and agnosticism I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.


Emmett Fields - Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist. . . Atheism is an attitude, a frame of mind

Asimov unknowingly proves hes agnostic - "Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

Steven Hawking: I believe the simplest explanation is, there is no God."
Again an atheist making a claim

In Post#54 you made the claim: "Very few atheists, if any, say they merely believe there is no god, or they have no belief that there are gods. The rest proclaim with verve that there is no god."

Your response quoted above is not support for that claim, particularly the parts now in bold. You also commit the fallacy of appealing to authority. The opinions of a few intellectuals are not evidence of the truth of a claim.

[StuartJ]

[Replying to post 64 by Tcg]

MANY folks of faith HAVE to understand that we say "There is no God" ...

Otherwise, their position crumbles ...

Yep ...

I said that.

I also suggest that certain folks of faith DELIBERATELY distort what is said by Atheists

No matter HOW many timeS we tell them

I'm not saying "God" doesn't exist, I simply LACK BELIEF in ANYONE'S version of "God".

And that ESPECIALLY includes the Christian versions of the mythological Middle East deities and god-man they worship.

What I see as the willful and deliberate distortion of the stance of most Atheists is but one of the reasons I do not trust people of faith when it comes to matters of faith.

[Tcg]

Darwin believed that atheists in his time were people making a claim: In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. (Charles Darwin)

Asa Gray, the eminent botanist: In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.

I found it odd that both Charles Darwin and Asa Gray would say exactly the same thing, so I did a little digging. I found this letter written by Darwin:

Edited to add this description per the University of Cambridge's request to cite as:

Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter no. 12041, accessed on 11 January 2019,

https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/ ... -12041.xml

In it, he does state what has been quoted above. He also states this, "It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist." He then refers to Asa Gray is an example of such a man.

While it may be that Asa Gray said the same thing as Darwin, I can find no evidence of it. It would be rather odd for him to do so however, given that he was a Christian and a faithful believer who encouraged Darwin to return to his faith.

Perhaps mrhagerty read the same letter I found and applied Darwin's statement to both Darwin and Asa Gray.

In any case, neither the quote nor the letter support the assertion that, "Darwin believed that atheists in his time were people making a claim:". Darwin was simply stating that his own position has never been that of "denying the existence of a God". He speaks only for himself and makes absolutely no reference to, "atheists in his time".