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Who Cares What Jesus Would Do?
Theocracy? No Thanks
Atheism and Marriage
Petition to the gods
Christianity and the Death of Civilization
Does God Bless America?
Kill the Puppy Dogs
Debate Unlimited is Bigger Than Jesus
Blinding Faith
The Future Does Not Suck
The Devil Hypothesis
I don't know what the average IQ of an American Christian is but they don't exactly inspire me with confidence. These people have got the vote in a nation that has more weapons than the rest of the world put together and they are shaping the way the world is run. It's frightening. The following is apparently from "matthew greendwood", looking at his email address I would guess he is twenty years my junior.
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Postulating the nonexistence of God, atheism Do you have infinite knowledge that there is no being Ill bet you will not post this. Or maybe you are not atheist. Because there are no Thanks for your time Whats that? no response? To busy? Or just scared? |
Absolute what?
Human morality is largely innate, we simply know without really being able to describe how we know what is moral and what is not. We have evolved a working model of morality, and much of it seems clearly to chime in with animal behaviour. When people invent gods they get them to spout morality as if they had invented it, when that morality feels right many people are inclined to believe them.
Looking at so called Christian morality much of it doesn't seem to be based on anything that Jesus said. Likewise much of what Jesus did say has been conveniently forgotten or distinctly downplayed because people thought it was a bit crazy, the blessing given to auto-castration springs to mind here.
I have adopted my morality from the society around me. Most of my moral principles, if I could tease them out, would be claimed by Christianity, but stealing morality is what religions do, we don't have to believe their claims of ownership. My views on sex for example owe little to Christianity. The Jews continued to allow polygamy until several centuries after Christianity emerged, it was Roman law which imposed monogamy, as it had for centuries, the Bible is silent on the matter but monogamous marriage was the norm throughout Europe.
The Bible on Monogamy
Whats that? no response? To busy? Or just scared?
1] I don't live in your time zone. I sleep.
2] I now have to go to work.
3] I have more important and smarter people to deal with.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
1. I never said anything about christia believes. You 2. You said human morality is largly inate. Kinda 3. IF what Jesus said has been conviently forgotten 4. You still havnt awnserd my question. Do you or do 5. Your not as smart as I hoped you would be. Using Thanks, Matthew |
The rest of morality, that which is not innate, comes from society. Religious people try to insist that societal morals and codes come from religion even when the claim is tenuous in the extreme, e.g. so called Muslim dress has nothing to do with any teachings of Islam, it is cultural, and much of it is Saudi-Arabian fashion, the Koran simply requires women to dress modestly with no mention of veils, hiding the face and hair and being completely anonymous, sexless and formless.
What religion does introduce is taboos, prohibitions and impositions such as fasting, Sabbath observance (with death as the penalty for breaking it) circumcision (religious overlay over culture again) and idiotic prohibitions on mentioning the name of the god or drawing pictures of animals in case somebody might be tempted to worship them and make the god jealous. Nobody needs a god to tell them that stealing, murdering and cheating is wrong. The stuff that isn't obvious tends to be the crazy shit such as defining which animals are OK to eat and which ones should be killed and cremated for the olfactory pleasure of the all-wise god.
There is lots of stuff in the Bible that Christians don't want you to dwell on any longer, it doesn't suit Benny Hinn to be emphasizing auto-castration or rich men not being able to enter the kingdom of heaven or the meek inheriting the Earth. The stuff is still there, he just skips over those bits.
Absolute truth? It is like absolute zero, a theoretical state, the absence of error. I don't believe in truth with a capital T or in truth as a positive thing or a substance. Truth is a property of statements not a thing.
I don't do cut and paste debates. It was glaringly obvious that your second email contained stolen material because it was written in much better English than anything you had written.
I do not have to demonstrate anything in order to express an opinion about my own beliefs. I don't believe that gods exist, or could exist. That is a belief statement. I do not suggest that there are no gods, I state boldly that I do not believe there are any. I don't have to prove anything in order to make that statement, I only need to be able to know my own mind. I also refuse to see my beliefs characterized by making them a statement about your god. I make no exceptions for your god. I do not rule out the possibility that a creator god might exist. I do think it is extremely unlikely that the creator of the universe would create the universe and wait around for teens of billions of years and then get really involved in our sex lives or would make the universe appear to be old when it really was very young and magicked up into existence so he could have a pet tribe. Yes, I am agnostic. I don't know. But I have some strong opinions and I am prepared to air them.
I may decide to post this correspondence, so please try to up your game a bit. Air molecules? Where did you go to school? If you paid for your education I'd consider asking for a refund.
Have a nice day.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
However, This is where I must make one thing clear. Sincerly |
Repentance is not enough. Go away and sin no more.
So as we continue to talk about morals I have a few For example in order to have a good sense of morals 1. How do you keep your ship afloat? 2. How do you keep your ship from bumping into other However the third and most important question can 3. Why are the ships out to sea in the first place. The potential for immorality is just As we continue to talk about values and ethics I 1) If my happiness is a right and the ultimate goal of Thanks again for your time |
How does believing in a god myth help? Do you exist to obey? Are you satisfied with this explanation? God made you therefore you owe him everything, and he holds you responsible for the sin of Adam and his suffering and death on the cross is also your fault. Does that make sense to you?
Why was there a god rather than nothing? Who decided it would be right to have a god rather than nothing? And why? And for that matter when?
The god theory does not give any real answers or explanations but god believers are not allowed to ask the really big questions because it is part of the package that the god answers are found to be satisfying. If you are not satisfied you are not trying hard enough to believe, therefore you are bad, if you're not satisfied it's your fault.
Who says happiness is a right? I am not aware of anybody who makes such a claim. How can you be happy if you make other people suffer? The best quality of happiness requires you not to be troubled by conscience. The pursuit of happiness is claimed to be a right, not the achievement of it.
People have always had morality no matter what kind of superstitious ideas they have had, the Greeks and the Celts and the Germanic and Norse people all had pantheons of gods who did not make laws and morals for the people, yet still those people had morals, codes and laws, as did their gods. As do primitive people and many animals too.
Of course over time morality has tended to become better, but religion is not the only or even the major driver of this change. Don't be confused by the fact that many moral crusaders were religious men into thinking that religion was the driver. The abolition of slavery was a moral battle but because it was conducted by Christians (against the resistance of other Christians) it has been portrayed as a religious battle, a crusade. That is not a fair assessment. The activists saw everything they did through the filter of religion and so would be incapable of doing anything on the political or public level without believing that their faith was behind it. Slavery was considered normal and natural by all Jews including Jesus. So was polygamy. It was Rome that forbade polygamy not Christianity or Judaism. It was banned in Rome because it was bad for military discipline. I saw some nonsense on a Christian website that suggested because the ten commandments mentioned coveting thy neighbour's wife, singular, that this was proof that you should only have one wife. Pathetic. Were Jews forbidden to have more than one field, manservant, maidservant, ox and ass too?
If you heard the voice of god telling you to rape your neighbour's daughter would you obey that voice? I suggest you would say no, because that doesn't seem right. But if God says it why isn't it right? Of course the real explanation is that you don't refrain from rape because God says it is wrong (it's probably somewhere in the small print, although I can't give you chapter and verse) but because you know that it is wrong, because you wouldn't be happy to be assaulted and raped or have anybody you love experience that situation and you would resent your territory and property being violated and you would resent the shame of being disrespected in that way and you don't want the world to look upon you as a man who would do such a thing and you don't want to be such a man yourself. Do you really believe that the only thing that keeps you on the straight and narrow, the only thing which stops you being an amoral monster, is your fear of God? Do you honestly expect me to believe that you have no morality at all of your own and only do the right thing because you are scared of being tortured in hell if you disobey the rules of the surveillance camera operator in the sky? You might swallow that lie yourself but it doesn't work with me.
I do the right thing by my definition because I want to be a man who
does the right thing. I want to be able to be comfortable with myself
and I want to be respected by the people whose opinions I respect, so
to that extent my morality is also shaped by the country, community,
class and friendship groups I belong to. My morality has a decent grounding
in selfishness, it is rational, it serves my interests. It is also not
based on hypocrisy or fear or a lie that has been taught to me to make
me pliant.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
Your morality is completly selfish. Everything you God in a box doesnt work. I dont believe the sky If your not clear as to what LOVE is, LOVE=Sacrifice. Religion is all about your self. Nothing about God.
Here is the secret. If I am wrong i have not lost NOthingness does not exist. It has never been "The bestquality of happiness requires you not to "If you heard the voice of god telling you to rape If you heard the truth would you believe it? I Either way I have already gotten you to admit that Sincerly, |
Who says you have to be an atheist or an agnostic? Only people who don't understand one or other definition. I fit both definitions. I don't believe in any gods but I do not know. Gnostics know, it is what the word means, I don't know.
What does "God in a box" mean? It sounds like a meaningless jibe designed to discourage anybody from defining "God" on the basis of that which cannot be defined can never be disproved. Defining God is for those who believe in him not for those who don't and those who define him always ensure he has enough wiggle room to escape, by definition.
Read some more of my site. You need to get up to speed. I am not impressed by ellipses, Pascal's Wager or the prospect of hell. I don't believe I am a soul, your fears have no hold over me.
If you used to be an atheist you couldn't have been a very good one could you?
Explain spirituality. I don't get it at all. Explain it as if to somebody who hasn't a clue what it is, what it does, what it's for or what it feels like.
What the fuck is "The law of Nieche"? Is that some reference
to nature or Nietzsche or some hare-brained cross between the two in
your confused mind? Nietzsche means nothing to me, I have never read
anything by him or much about him.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
What no response to my other reply? |
I have a life.
| You use the words " I dont know alot". For such an Here you go Atheist: a person who denies or disbelieves the Agnostic: 1. a person who holds that the existence You my friend would fit under number 4. Either way thats niether here nor there. And what the fuck are Gnostics? Its called proof Appearently your a big follower of Bertrand Russell's To believe in the nonexistence of God would be Science just does not have the knowledge of the One of my favorite responses to this is when Stanley ON the topic of morals you stated that the basis for Matthew Greenwood |
You don't even know where the bodies are buried do you? If you don't
know who the Gnostics were you should get yourself educated.
I don't take lectures on proofreading from a man who can't spell his own name, isn't safe to be around inverted commas and can't cope with single capital letters.
You use the words " I dont know alot". For such an
intellect your pretty clueless.
That should have read You use the words "I don't know" a lot. For such an intellect you're pretty clueless.
I am not a follower of anybody. I don't do following.
You appear to be living proof of the maxim that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Who are your neighbours? To most of humanity that has been easily answered, the people in your own band or tribe. That was the answer given by the ancient Hebrews, looking at Israeli foreign policy that still seems to be the case. Cannibalism takes two forms, one involves eating enemies and the other involves eating the respected dead, tribes either eat only their own or never their own. Christianity teaches that all should be treated as neighbours, you don't have to believe in the divinity (or even the existence) of Jesus to recognize sound teaching. If accepting some wisdom from the past meant endorsing the entire world view of the person or people who originated that idea, and all claims made about them, the world would be significantly poorer. I am comfortable with that notion, I don't have to pretend Plato and Socrates would have shared my beliefs if they had had the chance in the way Christians do. I am very happy to be post-Christian, I do not regard Christianity as the source of all evil in the world. I am not anti-Christian I simply don't have a belief in magic.
If you want my definition of my agnosticism read my site. It's not hidden.
I am not prepared to debate any further with a shadow. You don't know what I believe because you haven't read what I have written, published and repeatedly pointed you towards. I don't know what you believe because you won't reveal it.
How about answering some of my questions for a change? Explain spirituality. I don't think the Emperor is wearing anything, please explain to me what spirituality is, what it means, how you recognize it and what it has to do with spirits.
I would also appreciate your explanation for why you think people are not simply mortal. I would also appreciate an explanation for human justice, does sending somebody to prison save them from hell, if so is human punishment a mercy? What happens when the innocent are punished? What happens when the innocent volunteer to be punished? If you are punished by an illegitimate power does that count for remission of hell or not? How do you know?
And what is "The law of Nieche"?
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org
| If you want to know what i believe all you have to Teaching spirituality to a "Nonbeliever" is like Explain to me where the first element the hydrogen This debate is circular. By definition this would be What your explaining in your moral theory is more like "I would also appreciate an explanation for The bible never teaches about not paying the The Bible states several times that the only thing I also believe that both of us have intelects that How does anyone know what lies ahead into the vast Matthew Greenwood |
You are wrong. I haven't learned anything from you at all. I have had dozens of Christians give the same stuff over the nearly nine years I have been debating my beliefs on the internet. You don't even make the top twenty.
You have not explained spirituality. The same evasion as always "if you have to ask you'll never know", frankly that makes me more suspicious than ever that there is absolutely nothing to it except self-deception.
The idea that reading the Bible would enable me to understand what you believe is absolutely farcical. The Bible covers a huge range of beliefs, many of which are in direct contradiction to each other. Do I deduce from that that you are primitive, superstitious and schizophrenic? Oh, and Jewish.
If your god has created the entire universe you can't get away with pretending he is not responsible for hell. Is he following some other rules apart from his own will? If so why call him God? The whole edifice of Christianity is based on the idea that there are external rules that God has to follow which must never be admitted to or discussed. If God was all there was in what way are his hands tied? If he can do magic why are there things he can't do? The plot and backstory of this superhero is inferior to that of Batman and Superman.
Religion attempts to explain everything, probably in the first place entirely innocently and sincerely, later as a means to maintain existing power structures. Because life, the universe and everything is a little too big to explain straight it was necessary quite early on to introduce quite a few "enough of these foolish questions child!" tactics and to cross reference them to each other to explain away logical gaps. Mystery and faith as being good things are particularly cute, as is the use of ritual and theatre to make the absurdities seem less of a problem. Take a few moments to contemplate faith and mystery and how ridiculous it is to make out that they are somehow good and vital parts of understanding what really is. Imagine what your response would be to finding mystery and faith used as vital parts of any other part of modern life, what would you say to a mechanic who told you that the ways of the engine are a mystery and you need to have faith?
And I still want to know what "The law of Nieche" is, apart from the title of the page I post your sorry effort to.
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Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
I guess my effort, Is no more sorry than yours. You I have posted your sorry efforts as well. Good luck. matthew |
Why do I have to explain anything? I don't know where the first particle came from. I am not a scientist. Even scientists do not know where the first particle came from for the rather obvious reason that back at the beginning of space and time things were not the same as they are now. Claiming that you know something you cannot know is not a virtue except to those who have to believe that faith in socially acceptable absurdities is a virtue. Acknowledging the extent of your own ignorance is the first step towards wisdom, but it usually is a life's work.
You don't know what happened at the beginning of time either. You simply assume that the traditional myths of a tribe you are not a member of are infallibly true because your religion requires you to believe that, and you go along with that because you think that doing so says something good about you. All it says about you is that you will meekly believe what you think is in your best interests to believe and you like so many other people today have a weird, dangerous and fucked up idea of the importance of Jews.
In what way is admitting that I don't know an example of faith? You suggest it takes faith to admit to not knowing something? That surely makes the concept of faith rather meaningless. Believing in something requires faith, believing in something else requires faith, believing that you don't know apparently also requires faith, which is for some reason a virtue to you and a sin for me.
What is the difference between your faith which I assume you think is good and puts you in a favourable light and the faith you accuse me of? How come one is good and the other is bad? You believe in something absurd and self-contradictory and that makes you good, I withhold judgement until I have seen the evidence and that is somehow both bad because it is not your faith and bad because it is faith, which it isn't, which is bad.
I don't know why there is anything rather than nothing, I don't even have a few hypotheses and I don't think I would be able to recognize a good explanation even if I had it laid out before me. The reason for this is that I have no reason at all to expect the ultimate question or answer to life, the universe and everything to feel any different to an incorrect explanation. I can see no reason why the human body would be equipped with a device or organ to appreciate ultimate truth, such an organ or device would not help man to feed or breed and the lack of such a device would not cause man to stop being able to feed or breed. Even if the human body was endowed with a soul by a creator there is no reason for it not to be evolved away like any other redundant and useless organ to make way for some more evolutionarily useful protoplasm such as a bigger testicles or a brain that made a person more liable to go along with whatever crazy ideas seem popular in the community around them. That of course is a flight of fancy, there is no evidence for the existence of a soul or a truth-feeling organ inside the human chest. These are just hang-ups from a pre-scientific era.
You don't know why there is God but you assume this isn't a problem you need an answer to.
You cannot explain what spirituality is or even demonstrate that you have any. It is an empty claim. The emperor has got no clothes.
You do not have permission to publish my words, doing so is a violation
of my copyright.*
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
* You can only send email to me after visiting a page which clearly states that I reserve the right to publish any material that is sent to me. If you wish to send me email and withhold permission for me to publish there is an excellent chance I won't bother to reply to you. The emails I send out are covered by my copyright by default, as are all emails which are not covered by any specific agreement, you do not have my permission to publish my words without my express consent. In the case of Matthew Greenwood I have expressly refused permission to publish.