Revisiting Steven Weinberg's assertion

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2Dbunk
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Revisiting Steven Weinberg's assertion

Post #1

Post by 2Dbunk »

JAG television series (CBS’ “Judge Advocate Corps� by Donald P. Bellisario, Executive Producer – Ninth Season, Disc #5, entitled “Fighting Words,� (one hour)

IS--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the BEST DRAMATIC PORTRAYAL OF STEVEN WEINBERG’S ASSERTION:
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.�

Rarely are very good examples given in asserting an argument, but when presented they win the day. “Fighting Words� fits that description as the series’ protagonists Commander Harmon Rabb goes nose to nose with prosecuting attorney, USMC Colonel Sarah MacKenzie (the former defending an over-zealous two star Marine Corps general who, in military uniform, disparages Islam from the pulpit of his church’s congregation). The Colonel wins, and the general gets his hands slapped.

This is the best example that I’ve seen on screen of a good man inadvertently trying to destroy the notion that our Constitution is sincere in protecting all religious belief.

Yes, the “unmatched wisdom� of our current president has muddied the waters a bit
when he insinuates that there are “good Nazis� as well as bad; and that white supremacists might make for good neighbors. If that is the case, what was WW II all about?

Was the court decision wrong in this case? If so, can you put forward an example to counter Weinberg’s assertion? OR, another example that supports Weinberg’s assertion?

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Re: Revisiting Steven Weinberg's assertion

Post #11

Post by JehovahsWitness »

Divine Insight wrote: The very concept of morality is a useless concept. It has no practical value at all. All that is required is logic. Period.
Don't tell me, tell Z he bought it up.

Zzyzx wrote:
The primary evil-producers are, in my opinion, greed / profit / egotism / lust for power





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Post #12

Post by Willum »

Folks you've been segued by JW to a different subject, I know, I know, how unlike him, but the subject is not people are greedy and evil and such, but it takes religion to have good people do evil deeds.

So stop talking about evil people doing evil stuff, and start talking about this abhorrent deity and religion making good people do abhorrent stuff.

Or is it simple a forgone conclusion with no possible defence?

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Re: Revisiting Steven Weinberg's assertion

Post #13

Post by Divine Insight »

JehovahsWitness wrote:
Divine Insight wrote: The very concept of morality is a useless concept. It has no practical value at all. All that is required is logic. Period.
Don't tell me, tell Z he bought it up.

Zzyzx wrote:
The primary evil-producers are, in my opinion, greed / profit / egotism / lust for power
Secularists use the concept of "evil" too. For them it simply refers to things that are typically deemed to be undesirable by most humans. This isn't a judgement of anyone's character like religious people use the concept of morality to mean.

The religious concept of morality is nothing more than finger-pointing and name calling. It has no useful purpose at all. Calling someone immoral does no one any good.

In fact, look at Weinberg's statement. He's not even judging the religious people to be "bad people". To the contrary he's suggesting that they are actually "good people" who are doing bad things for all the wrong reasons.

It is true that Weinberg also acknowledges that there are people who do bad thing even potentially knowing that what they are doing is "bad". But calling those people "immoral" serves no useful purpose. What's the difference what we call them? They're going to continue to do what they do anyway.

So the whole idea of trying to label people as being immoral is a totally useless concept. It serves no useful purpose. Other than perhaps to make religious people convince themselves that they are somehow better than everyone else.
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Re: Revisiting Steven Weinberg's assertion

Post #14

Post by bjs »

2Dbunk wrote: the BEST DRAMATIC PORTRAYAL OF STEVEN WEINBERG’S ASSERTION:
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.�
The obvious counter to this which comes to my mind is the events in the USSR and the People’s Republic of China. Millions of religious people were persecuted, imprisoned, intentionally starved to death, or outright murdered in order to decrease religious faith in increase atheism in these nations. Millions of non-theists actively took part in these purges, and millions more passively gave consent and support to such actions. These historical facts seem to destroy the idea that for good people to do bad things takes religion.
Understand that you might believe. Believe that you might understand. –Augustine of Hippo

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Re: Revisiting Steven Weinberg's assertion

Post #15

Post by JehovahsWitness »

Divine Insight wrote:
JehovahsWitness wrote:
Divine Insight wrote: The very concept of morality is a useless concept. It has no practical value at all. All that is required is logic. Period.
Don't tell me, tell Z he bought it up.

Zzyzx wrote:
The primary evil-producers are, in my opinion, greed / profit / egotism / lust for power
Secularists use the concept of "evil" too.
Well I think that was what Zz was talking about, so we're good. Anything else?
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Re: Revisiting Steven Weinberg's assertion

Post #16

Post by Willum »

bjs wrote:
2Dbunk wrote: the BEST DRAMATIC PORTRAYAL OF STEVEN WEINBERG’S ASSERTION:
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.�
The obvious counter to this which comes to my mind is the events in the USSR and the People’s Republic of China. Millions of religious people were persecuted, imprisoned, intentionally starved to death, or outright murdered in order to decrease religious faith in increase atheism in these nations. Millions of non-theists actively took part in these purges, and millions more passively gave consent and support to such actions. These historical facts seem to destroy the idea that for good people to do bad things takes religion.
But that was arguably not a bad thing. Removing a bunch of people who had so recently murdered millions of other people; Aboriginals, Jews, others for other God-inspired reasons, basically a being they could not even prove exist, could easily be interpreted as doing a good thing. Getting rid of people who would do evil for no reason at all.
I am certain it was promoted that way.

And a people so foolish as to be willing to die and kill for a creature they can not even begin to show is real, being rid of them may not have been interpreted as evil, either.

More as Darwinism.

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Re: Revisiting Steven Weinberg's assertion

Post #17

Post by 1213 »

Divine Insight wrote:Well, Christianity is a ridiculous religion. Jesus is the one who taught that principle.
Ok, so you think it is ridiculous to love others, good to know. Why don’t you want to live by that principle? What makes it ridiculous?
Divine Insight wrote:Not only this but this principle goes directly against the directives and commandments of the God of the Old Testament.
The same principle is also in Lev. 19:18. And I think it is obvious also in that we should not murder, steal or lie…

I have read the Bible and there is really no contradiction, if it is understood correctly and nothing is ignored, and no own meanings added. One reason why I believe what the Bible tells is that no one has been able to show real error or contradiction in it. If it would be purely from people, it would have many mistakes.

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Re: Revisiting Steven Weinberg's assertion

Post #18

Post by Willum »

[Replying to post 17 by 1213]

I, for one, think it is ridiculous to state that a person is making a claim they are not, in the place of the ones they did make; Love was not one of DI’s claims.

Please re-examine what was claimed - you will find no room for ridiculous.
I will never understand how someone who claims to know the ultimate truth, of God, believes they deserve respect, when they cannot distinguish it from a fairy-tale.

You know, science and logic are hard: Religion and fairy tales might be more your speed.

To continue to argue for the Hebrew invention of God is actually an insult to the very concept of a God. - Divine Insight

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Re: Revisiting Steven Weinberg's assertion

Post #19

Post by Clownboat »

1213 wrote:
2Dbunk wrote: ...
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.�...
I think that depends much of what the religion teaches. If the teaching is as in the Bible, love your neighbor as yourself and even love your enemies, I don’t see how it can be accused of making people evil and bad.
Consider the idea that your neighbor is a homosexual or a Muslim.
Now that I have been set free from my religious beliefs, I can truely be Christ like and love my neighbors as myself. Even if they are homosexual or belong to another religion.

As a Christian, I could only claim to love them. It is an empty claim when you also believe that they deserve eternal torture for being who/what they are.

Love your neighbor is just an empty religious platitude for most IMO.
You can give a man a fish and he will be fed for a day, or you can teach a man to pray for fish and he will starve to death.

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Re: Revisiting Steven Weinberg's assertion

Post #20

Post by Divine Insight »

1213 wrote: Ok, so you think it is ridiculous to love others, good to know. Why don’t you want to live by that principle?
What a hateful thing to say to someone. Why would you do that? :-k

Of course I don't think it's ridiculous to love others. How in the world did you ever come up with such twisted nonsense?

Christian theists must be so convinced that their theology is impossible to defend that they only tactic they can come up with in debates is to try to insult and belittle their debate opponents.

Christianity cannot be based on Jesus. Because Jesus himself is nothing if not the Son of Yahweh, and Yahweh was most certainly not about loving anyone. Yahweh was a hateful God who cursed his enemies to crawl on their bellies and eat dirt for the rest of their days. There's nothing loving about that.

Jesus can't make up for Yahweh. So Christians are in a real pickle. You can't toss Yahweh out and try to pretend that Jesus is God. That cannot be made to work in Christianity. Jesus is nothing if not the demigod Son of Yahweh. That's the only thing that supposedly gives Jesus any clout at all. Jesus has no feet of his own to stand on. If he doesn't sit on the shoulders of Yahweh he's nothing.

And besides, Jesus preached hatred too. You don't seem to be willing to acknowledge this. Jesus preached that people should hate their own parents. Are you going to condone that? If not, then why are you wasting your time defending a hateful Jesus?
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