|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Stevie_B
Joined: 14 May 2008
|
 Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 11:27 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| flakfizer wrote: |
| Omkara wrote: |
| Quote: |
| The point the guy made is that Jesus expects things of us (slavery!). What does he expect? Love God, |
I will not love god. It is an absurd expectation in our day and age. In a tribal society, maybe. But not now, not knowing what we do, not needing to know so much more than we do.
| Quote: |
| love your neighbor as yourself. |
Christ verbalized this, modeled this wonderfully. For this I respect the man. But, what truth and wisdom there is in the statement is not true because Christ verbalized it. The truth is independent of Jesus. But, much falsehood is dependent on him.
| Quote: |
| What reason do you have to love? |
Peace. Happiness. Growth. Knowledge.
| Quote: |
| According to this guy, whatever that reason is, it's enslaving you. |
No, it's not. Ignorance is, both mine and that institutionalized.
| Quote: |
| Of course, the govenrment also enslaves because it also has expectations of us and we will be in "very, very big trouble" if we break some of its rules too. |
Read my avatar.
| Quote: |
| So? We are born with expectations on us. Big deal. This guy just has daddy issues. |
I miss your point. Who is "this guy"? Dawkins? You don't know him, if so. You dismiss him too quickly. The truth is harder won. |
Since I was talking about the comments the guy in the video made, I was clearly talking about the guy who made the video. I don't see how your avatar is important. The fact is, we are born with expectations on us whether video guy likes it or not.
You do not wish to love God, so don't. No one is forcing you to. Please explain to me how I am enslaved by choosing to do so, and why it should matter at all to you or video guy. Please don't fall back on some stupid comment about theists forcing things on you. One quick look at these boards shows clearly which group is much more forceful than the other. I have yet to start a thread on these sorts of issues. They are almost always started by people like you, MM2, Justin Hale and other atheists. |
Say what you like, but I don't think I've ever met a Christian (or a Muslim or a Jew or Buddhist or any religious person for that matter) who was not also deep down terrified by the contingencies of life and using their religion as a security blanket. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 11:30 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Stevie_B wrote: |
Say what you like, but I don't think I've ever met a Christian (or a Muslim or a Jew or Buddhist or any religious person for that matter) who was not also deep down terrified by the contingencies of life and using their religion as a security blanket. |
And how exactly were able to perceive this? Sounds a lot like projection. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Stevie_B
Joined: 14 May 2008
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 11:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| flakfizer wrote: |
| Stevie_B wrote: |
Say what you like, but I don't think I've ever met a Christian (or a Muslim or a Jew or Buddhist or any religious person for that matter) who was not also deep down terrified by the contingencies of life and using their religion as a security blanket. |
And how exactly were able to perceive this? Sounds a lot like projection. |
I'm a very perceptive person. As you clearly aren't. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Underwaterbob
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Location: In Cognito
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:15 am Post subject: |
|
|
| flakfizer wrote: |
Since I was talking about the comments the guy in the video made, I was clearly talking about the guy who made the video. I don't see how your avatar is important. The fact is, we are born with expectations on us whether video guy likes it or not.
You do not wish to love God, so don't. No one is forcing you to. Please explain to me how I am enslaved by choosing to do so, and why it should matter at all to you or video guy. Please don't fall back on some stupid comment about theists forcing things on you. One quick look at these boards shows clearly which group is much more forceful than the other. I have yet to start a thread on these sorts of issues. They are almost always started by people like you, MM2, Justin Hale and other atheists. |
The granddaddy of them all was started by RTeacher:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=59990 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:37 am Post subject: |
|
|
Doesn't it ever strike it strange for theists that whenever religion and science clash it is always science that prevails.
Surely if churches were being inspired by god he would have let them in on the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun, that the Earth is millions not thousands of years old, and that man and apes descended from a common ancestor.
Also if the bible is the inspired word of god why bother with the Adam and Eve genesis story? Why not just tell it as it happened in the first place and not have your followers looking silly when it turns out that's not what really happened? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:43 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Omkara wrote: |
Mithrates Wrote:
| Quote: |
| Focus dude, stay on topic. |
I have no problem focusing. I stay on topic. Every remark was in direct response to your claims.
| Quote: |
| That's why Dawkins' method doesn't work in the battle against religion. |
First, it does work. However, it will not change the deeply devout. Dawkins admits this. He is more aimed at people sitting on the fence, at those who are open to reason and are not emotionally attached to a doctrine.
The quest for knowledge demands that we be willing to change our position when offered sufficient evidence to the contrary. Thus, he offers his arguments to knowledge seekers in the true sense of the quest: those who are willing to honestly question God's existence will be moved by his book. Those who are honest thinkers will take is seriously.
But those who only think in order to justify their fantasies and mask their insecurities, they will not be moved. Another kind of methodology and rhetoric must be used. Perhaps some writer moved by Dawkins will write that book.
| Quote: |
| Do you seriously believe the way to fight Christianity is through the OT? |
What is this "OT"?
| Quote: |
Anyone who knows anything about Christianity will know that this one will be refuted with "Jesus brought in a whole new law, blah blah blah".
|
Refuted only in the minds of weak thinkers. They confuse definitions of law.
| Quote: |
| Number of smug atheists crossing their arms and nodding after a diatribe against the OT: a few million. Number of new atheists: 0. |
Crossing their arms: an expression of non-receptiveness. Fair enough. They care not for truth.
| Quote: |
| Maybe none of his books, maybe all of them. |
I take this as a "no."
| Quote: |
| Why does writing outside my own field invalidate my opinion? |
You criticise his style and approach, so your reading of him depends on your having read him.
| Omkara wrote: |
| Writing outside of his field does not mean his arguments are not valid. |
My comment here is about arguments. Knowing the arguments is a necessary condition for an evaluation of them. Not title.
| Quote: |
| And no appeals to authority with "Yes but Dawkins is a super-duper genius and you're not" please. |
I have made no such claim. Re-read my posts and show me where I have implied this.
Demanding, on the other hand, that he be a specialist in theology is a kind of appeal to authority; an appeal to the validity and content of his arguments is not. |
Not much time right now so I'll just write two things:
OT means Old Testament.
Next important point I want to make is this: when arguing with fundamentalist Christians (or those that have been highly influenced by fundamentalism) Dawkins won't cut it. Put down the Dawkins and get this book or another like it:
http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060738170
Dawkins doesn't work because it's mostly just an angry diatribe against religion as a whole and that doesn't win people over at all. Oh, and people can cross their arms in self-satisfaction by the way. This book Misquoting Jesus however is about how the Bible is not infallible as the sola scriptura advocates claim, but has been changed over the centuries, and it goes into great detail on this. I consider a sola scriptura fundamentalist to be as bad for human society as a whole as a Dawkins-style militant atheist, and using books like this at worst the person will become an atheist (in which case there's no real difference in my mind), and at best a theist or agnostic that understands religion that much better.
Since you're a big fan of the book (which I've read, so stop asking), let me know what extra content there is in the book on Dawkins' views of religion that can't be found in any of these videos (each of which I've seen besides the silly ones):
http://kr.youtube.com/results?search_query=richard+dawkins&search_type=&aq=f
Because I think it's rather silly to demand someone purchase and read a book by your favourite author when there are a bazillion videos out there of them saying the same thing. Anything missing in the above? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:55 am Post subject: |
|
|
Although I am a huge fan of Dawkins I agree with mithridates that his approach will never win over theists. He doesn't seem to be making enough allowance for the fact that our brains have evolved to predispose us to believe in a god, in the same way it predisposes us to think that the Earth is flat, that it is stationary and that time always passes at the same rate everywhere in the universe. Given the fact that not believing in a god is counterintuitive I think it would be better if Dawkins were to take a less adversarial approach when making his arguments.
Having said that though The God Delusion is a great book and Omarka is right when he says that it will sway those who are undecided and who read it with an open mind. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:58 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Grimalkin wrote: |
Also if the bible is the inspired word of god why bother with the Adam and Eve genesis story? Why not just tell it as it happened in the first place and not have your followers looking silly when it turns out that's not what really happened? |
The story of Adam and Eve explains who we are and why we are. Science does a great job of explaining how we are and what we are.
Confusion results when the religious try to make Adam and Eve signify how we are and what we are, or when anti-theists (note I didn't say scientists!) try to bend science to explain who we are and why we are. Just because confusion by the religious is more dangerous and leads to more problems does not mean that anti-theists' corresponding mistakes should be allowed to pass. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 2:49 am Post subject: |
|
|
Flackfitzer Wrote:
| Quote: |
| I don't see how your avatar is important. |
Look at American money. It says,"In God We Trust." Every child, every morning, has to put his or her hand over her heart and say, "One nation, under God . . . ." Legislation is being proposed to this very day that would have Creationism given equal time in the science classroom, though it does not feel that is should have to go through the same steps as any other theory in science. Christians are very politically organized in America. They put Bush in office. They want to change the constitution to bar gays from marrying. They want to change a woman's legal right to choose. They want to have the Ten Commandments on public property, outside of courthouses, symbolizing that God's Law is both the source of Constitutional Law and is superior to it, and so on.
Hence, we are a growing and active faction of society working to counter this tyrant. Be involved, or be governed by inferiors.
Inferior? In thinking, there is no doubt that Christians have an inferior epistemology. Upon their inferior claims of knowledge, they make all kinds of moral and political claims. Hence, they threaten freedom, knowledge and justice.
| Quote: |
| The fact is, we are born with expectations on us whether video guy likes it or not. |
I have high expectations and standards. Much higher than any Christian would have. My ethical demands lead me to reject the claims of Christianity because they threaten justice and peace.
| Quote: |
| You do not wish to love God, so don't. No one is forcing you to. |
No; they are threatening me with superstitious laws.
| Quote: |
| Please explain to me how I am enslaved. |
I'm not sure which video you are talking about.
I'm not sure if you are a slave or not. I am more concerned with preserving the rights of those who do not choose to believe in a cosmic superhero.
| Quote: |
| Please don't fall back on some stupid comment about theists forcing things on you. |
Only that they would legislate according to superstition; only that they use superstition as a criterion for their voting choices; hence, many honest thinkers don't stand a chance at political office.
| Quote: |
| One quick look at these boards shows clearly which group is much more forceful than the other. |
Only with our reasoning. We've got a lot of work to do.
| Quote: |
| They are almost always started by people like you, MM2, Justin Hale and other atheists. |
We just want to wake people up and point out that superstition is a great threat to justice and peace in this world. We want to see knowledge forwarded, no more hindered, in the progress of humanity and civilization. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 3:09 am Post subject: |
|
|
Mithrates:
This video about does it:
http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc6rKi7Kyv0
Thanks for pointing out that book.
That there are a billion videos, as you point out, contradicts your claim that Dawkins's work makes no headway.
In which direction do you think the work needs to be done. You and I can agree that there is a great deal of ignorance around this issue. But, where to you think this argument needs to lead? Where do you and I disagree, and where can we find common ground? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 3:13 am Post subject: |
|
|
Kuros Wrote:
| Quote: |
| The story of Adam and Eve explains who we are and why we are. Science does a great job of explaining how we are and what we are. |
I'll agree that Adam and Eve are interesting stories; I think that they are among the most interesting of genres. I think that a comparative method between versions can teach us much. But, moreover, the accepted two versions, both in the book of genesis, affords great psychological insight.
But, how do you mean this? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 4:39 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Omkara wrote: |
Mithrates:
This video about does it:
http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc6rKi7Kyv0
Thanks for pointing out that book.
That there are a billion videos, as you point out, contradicts your claim that Dawkins's work makes no headway.
In which direction do you think the work needs to be done. You and I can agree that there is a great deal of ignorance around this issue. But, where to you think this argument needs to lead? Where do you and I disagree, and where can we find common ground? |
Actually I remember an article about two years ago about the advent of satellite and internet technology and how it has served to isolate people in some ways more than before, where most think the opposite would be the case. It mentioned that Arabs in Israel choose to watch satellite tv from Arab nations, Tatars in Russia (I think it was them) subscribe to channels where they can hear their own language and so on, so I don't think I would conclude that a lot of videos = making headway. It could just mean a pumped-up base (like Ron Paul for example, very popular on the internet but ignored everywhere else and he didn't get the nomination). I don't remember the link though.
I think there's a lot of common ground. I suspect atheists would be happier with the original Christianity than the one we have now, and it's a better one too. The Orthodox view of hell for example is that everybody goes to the same place (the presence of God) but that for some it feels like hell (read The Great Divorce for a story about that subject). Sure it's still about the afterlife but I think an atheist would prefer that kind of Christianity. And no sola scriptura (that the Bible is 100% true, and also only the Bible is 100% true), and no creationism. The Orthodox church has a lot more emphasis on tradition than just parsing quotes from the Bible and pretending that they can be applied to everything. Once again that's still religion, but I think the average atheist would prefer that to the Christianity you usually find. At the same time I think those types of Christians should get used to atheists living the way they like, raising their families they way they want and so on, and shouldn't be opposed to voting for somebody simply because of a lack of belief in God.
Getting rid of the one nation under God bit I don't know, that might be a bit too sensitive. I do the slight bow to the gods at the gate of the temple near my house like everybody else when I go and I don't mind. I thought it was ridiculous when the Korean church organization tried to get rid of the twelve Buddhist animal statues at Incheon Airport too. Too much secularism is a bit dry to me. Maybe even my avatar has too much Jedi connotation (that's kind of like a religion too) and makes people feel uncomfortable. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:33 am Post subject: |
|
|
Kuros
| Quote: |
| The story of Adam and Eve explains who we are and why we are. Science does a great job of explaining how we are and what we are. |
Either one accepts the theory of evolution or christianity but not both, they are mutually exclusive.
Christianity is predicated on the idea that man brought death and disease into the world by his sin thus necessitating Christ's incarnation and death to redeem mankind.
The theory of evolution tells us that death existed long before the advent of man.
People who claim to accept both the teachings of Christianity and the theory are being dishonest. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 3:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Mithrades wrote:
| Quote: |
| I think there's a lot of common ground. I suspect atheists would be happier with the original Christianity than the one we have now, and it's a better one too. |
You may be right here. The new-atheist criticism is owing to the political activities of religion. They are tired of the ignorant policies affecting education, the progress of science and knowledge, and social policy. The institutionalized Christianity, based on a kind of reading, a kind creed, faith and dogma, has become a danger to the advancement of civilization and the reduction of suffering.
It occurs to me, for example, that a fundamentalist, who rejects evolution, cannot be a proper medical doctor; or, at least, the medicine is hindered in important ways. Without accepting evolution as a sound basis for medical research, the problems of, say, the human back cannot be properly understood, since, to understand the structure of the back requires understanding also that at a time we did not walk upright.
The story of Adam and Eve threaten proper medical research; ignorant parents prevent bright children from learning proper science and we all pay a price for the lost researchers, to name but one problemed area.
The consequences are real.
As for the original Christianity, I'd probably find much interesting in it. I find religion interesting and not empty of wisdom. I only lament that the structure of the religions has no mechanism by which we may integrate new knowledge.
| Quote: |
| And no sola scriptura (that the Bible is 100% true, and also only the Bible is 100% true), and no creationism. |
Right. Anything follows from a contradiction. To assume that the bible is true in every statement leads to. . . what we have: a serious and grave mess.
| Quote: |
| The Orthodox church has a lot more emphasis on tradition than just parsing quotes from the Bible and pretending that they can be applied to everything. |
Since anything follows from a contradiction, we can apply it to anything.
| Quote: |
| Getting rid of the one nation under God bit I don't know, that might be a bit too sensitive. |
If we're only sensitive, we're impotent. Rational pressure should be applied.
| Quote: |
| I do the slight bow to the gods at the gate of the temple near my house like everybody else when I go and I don't mind. |
These gods don't pose a direct political threat to your or your freedom. I'd bow to them, too.
| Quote: |
| I thought it was ridiculous when the Korean church organization tried to get rid of the twelve Buddhist animal statues at Incheon Airport too. |
This is the filthy political head of Christianity rising up to show its fangs.
| Quote: |
| Too much secularism is a bit dry to me. |
Culture is plenty rich; why need we have such metaphysics? Aren't there other stories, literature, music and art to sustain us? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:52 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Omkara wrote: |
| Quote: |
| The Orthodox church has a lot more emphasis on tradition than just parsing quotes from the Bible and pretending that they can be applied to everything. |
Since anything follows from a contradiction, we can apply it to anything. |
What does that mean? A little bit vague here.
Hey, interesting anecdote: I just noticed that the Orthodox Church and Dawkins happen to agree on this point that he always brings up:
http://www.orthodoxengland.org.uk/brorthoc.htm
| Quote: |
| Let us define our terms by talking of a number of words which are used in this context. First, there is the useless phrase 'born Orthodox'. This does not exist. Nobody is 'born Orthodox', we are all born pagans. That is why we first exorcise and then baptise. More acceptable are the terms, 'born to an Orthodox family' and 'cradle Orthodox'. It is interesting that people who condescendingly use terms such as 'born Orthodox' call the children of 'converts', 'converts'. In fact of course in their incorrect language, the children of 'converts' are 'born Orthodox'! |
Remember how he always objects to children being 'Catholic children', 'Protestant children' and so on? Well, so do they. I hope that your point above was not that all churches are the same; they're not.
So once again there we have some religious terms (oh yuck!) but there's also more common ground there, like I said. It's like Ron Paul; I always tell Democrats that even if they don't like Ron Paul (opposition to abortion, privatization of almost everything), they should prefer him as an opponent (opposition to Iraq War, no calling people flip-floppers or terrorist sympathizers, engages in issues only and no character assassination).
Oh, and it's not spelled Mithrades. This will help you remember:
| Quote: |
Mithridates or Mithradates (in Greek, Mιθριδάτης or Mιθράδάτης) is the Hellenistic form of an Iranian theophoric name meaning "given by Mithra", being thus a Greek historiographic adaption of Old Iranian *Mithradata-:
1) First element from Indo-European mitros, Proto-Indo-Iranian *mitras, an Indo-Iranian divinity. Pokorny refined Meillet's mei- as "to bind." Combining PIE zero-grade mi- with the "tool suffix" -tro- "that which [causes] ..." (also found in man-tra-, "that which causes to think"), then literally means "that which binds" and thus "covenant, treaty, agreement, promise, oath" etc; cf. Gk. Hom. μίτρη �Gurt; head fascia, Withra�; doubtful μίτος �Einschlagfaden�; Ltv. m�emuri, meimuri �Femerstricke�. Pokorny's interpretation links it with PIE root mei-, "to fasten, strengthen", which may be found in Latin moenia "city wall, fortification", and in an antonymic form, Old English (ge)maere "border, boundary-post".
2) Second element from participle of dō-, "give"; compare participle Lat. datus �bestowed� = falisk. datu �given, delivered, given up, surrendered �,vest. data � been delivered, given up, surrendered �, p�l. datas � been delivered, given up, surrendered" (: Gk. δοτός); compare also Ind. participle dit�-ḥ (uncovered), secondary datt�-ḥ, zero grade in ā̈-t-t�-ḥ, pr�-t-ta-ḥ �devoted�; BUT, ablaut. in tvā-dāta-ḥ � you gave from", Av. dāta-. Therefore translated as the general IE zero-grade dat�s.
Hence MIE Mitrod�tos, "given by Mitra (promise, oath)". |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
