Discussion Thread from the Funny Anti-Religious Pictures thread.

[Kulindahr]

Be honest -- what you mean is evidence that you're willing to accept. Your case is very simple because you exclude anything that doesn't help it.

 

[AcquiredTaste]

Whoa.... I never thought of it that way before...

 

[AcquiredTaste]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

I've been drinking a lot tonight, but it sound like God himself commit 7 deadly sins...

 

[AcquiredTaste]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

hahahahha!!!!! that kinda has to be true...

 

[AcquiredTaste]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

Sharia Law and old school Christian Law bad. People must be free to choose for themselves.

 

[AcquiredTaste]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

Years ago, I started reading the Bible and got hung up over Esau's wives in Genesis. It didn't add up. I happen to have a biblical encyclopedia set at home and it admitted there was inconsistencies with Esau's wives. I was taught the bible was infallible word of God, but...

This and the fact that I find guys kinda cute caused me to stumble in my faith....

 

[AcquiredTaste]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

That is christianity in it's simplest terms...

 

[AcquiredTaste]

I won't lie i've been drinking a lot tonight, but the more you try to justify christian beliefs, the more an atheistic approach makes sense. Or at least an agnostic approach "I don't know". Scriptures as messed up, logistically speaking.

 

[Kulindahr]

If you were, you'd understand that it was a conditional premise, the truth of which one doesn't need to accept, which leads to the observation being made. To me it seems that you just don't like the observation that God asks man what he can't do himself. So you just ignore and/or attack the contingency on which it is based. Lazy and defensive thinking.

So what you're saying is that it has nothing to do with any actual religion, it's just a sheer hypothetical spun out of thin air.

If it's dealing with a specific religion, then I can't find the religion it deals with -- it certainly isn't one associated with the Bible. If it's attempting to address the Bible, then the original premise is false.

So once again you're supporting argument based on falsehood, without any concern for the rules of logic.

I drew out the nonsense inherent in your original metaphor.

No, you departed from the point of discussion. A metaphor has one point of comparison; twisting it to try to do something else is not legitimate.

So inconsistent eye witness accounts prove the truth of what what witness? Piffle. More of the endless apologias for obvious mistakes, inconsistencies and things that don't make sense.

It's no apology -- that's how eye-witness accounts are evaluated. It basic criminology: when accounts match perfectly, they're suspect. A set of accounts which agree substantially but not on every detail are more likely to be actual eyewitness accounts than a set of accounts which are in perfect agreement.

There's a book by an investigator who became a Christian after setting out to apply the modern methods of investigation to make a case against Christianity. His unwanted result was that the Gospels have all the marks looked for in a courtroom of solid eyewitness testimony, and he was forced to conclude that in a modern court of law the case for the Resurrection is stronger than most cases proved in courts. It sets out the criteria for sound eyewitness testimony, and shows how he had to admit that the Gospels fit them. I'm just relating one of those criteria.

For that matter, it's also a principle in assessing the reliability of ancient documents as approached by historians: people engaged in a conspiracy to put over some take strive to make it all look as good as possible, so when things are all rosily consistent and there are no flaws in any of the characters presented, the accounts are suspect.

A different standard because one is dealing with different issues, immutability/choice, etc.

But a double standard because it allows for free insult to religion. People here get away with slurs against religion that wouldn't be tolerated for anything else.

 

[Kulindahr]

I won't lie i've been drinking a lot tonight, but the more you try to justify christian beliefs, the more an atheistic approach makes sense. Or at least an agnostic approach "I don't know". Scriptures as messed up, logistically speaking.

I have not anywhere in this thread tried to justify any Christian beliefs. All I am doing is insisting on accuracy and logic. I do the same thing for science, politics, etc., regardless of whether I support someone or some religion or not.

I have also pounced on inaccuracies in insults to Islam.

And logically speaking (I presume that's what you meant) the Christian scriptures are a consistent whole. They just have to be read in their entirety instead of, as a great number of the attacks on them do, picking and choosing.

 

[Kulindahr]

Your thinking just doesn't hold up. Antisemitism in Shylock can be analyzed both within the apparent values of the play and by external moral principles. OK one shouldn't pretend to be doing one thing while doing the other. But the two approaches aren't mutually exclusive. The one can, and should, supplement the other. In the case of religious writings, they can be both internally contradictory and reprehensible by any reasonable or scientific outside standard. Or not as the case may be.

"My" thinking is just the rules of logical critical thought. That's all I have argued for here and in the FARIP thread before it was given special status.

And since most of your paragraph above actually describes my thinking, you plainly don't disagree with it.

 

[Spensed]

Be honest -- what you mean is evidence that you're willing to accept. Your case is very simple because you exclude anything that doesn't help it.

And I suspect you include everything that you would never accept to prove anything else. Much of theism is faith based so the better response to the picture would seem to be that faith isn't based on evidence. Most folk get it that there is more out there than one can prove or figure out.

 

[Kulindahr]

That is christianity in it's simplest terms...

No, it isn't -- it's a total caricature. While it's a caricature based on some examples of what some Christians preach, it is not what's in the Bible.

When addressed to most fundamentalists, or at least the very common strain of them who get a kick out of thinking God looks forward to inflicting torture on people, it's a good cartoon --no humor about it, but the point in that case is sound. But fundamentalists by their very nature cannot understand the Bible correctly, because they begin with a set of propositions that are alien to it. It's predictable that such people, when Christians, will end up with such a caricature, but when it is used to criticize Christianity itself it merely shows that the one doing it has no better understanding than the fundamentalists.

 

[AcquiredTaste]

I have not anywhere in this thread tried to justify any Christian beliefs. All I am doing is insisting on accuracy and logic. I do the same thing for science, politics, etc., regardless of whether I support someone or some religion or not.

I have also pounced on inaccuracies in insults to Islam.

And logically speaking (I presume that's what you meant) the Christian scriptures are a consistent whole. They just have to be read in their entirety instead of, as a great number of the attacks on them do, picking and choosing.

Again, sorry my comment not directed at you personally. I did not word it well. I just meant in general the more I read this thread (all posts), the more problems I find with christian scriptures, etc. Many things do not hold up to scrutiny. I'm sure the same with Islam.

 

[Kulindahr]

And I suspect you include everything that you would never accept to prove anything else. Much of theism is faith based so the better response to the picture would seem to be that faith isn't based on evidence. Most folk get it that there is more out there than one can prove or figure out.

Faith is based on evidence, at least the faith the Bible talks about. The whole point of Paul's writings in the New Testament is that the whole thing rests on evidence.

That's why the great Creeds of Christianity all give historical events: the entire thing rests on evidence. And it's strong evidence, enough to convince professionals in the fields of investigation and history in every generation who have set out to prove it wrong that it isn't wrong after all. As a French historian in the eighteenth century put it, the evidence unavoidably 'convicts' Jesus of having risen from the dead -- a historian who started as an atheist who set out to prove it was all nonsense.

 

[Spensed]

"My" thinking is just the rules of logical critical thought. That's all I have argued for here and in the FARIP thread before it was given special status.

And since most of your paragraph above actually describes my thinking, you plainly don't disagree with it.

I'm not sure any folk bothering with this thread would agree that you were saying the same thing as me. But OK.

 

[Spensed]

Faith is based on evidence, at least the faith the Bible talks about. The whole point of Paul's writings in the New Testament is that the whole thing rests on evidence.

That's why the great Creeds of Christianity all give historical events: the entire thing rests on evidence. And it's strong evidence, enough to convince professionals in the fields of investigation and history in every generation who have set out to prove it wrong that it isn't wrong after all. As a French historian in the eighteenth century put it, the evidence unavoidably 'convicts' Jesus of having risen from the dead -- a historian who started as an atheist who set out to prove it was all nonsense.

The other view, as I say, is that faith is a gift of God (as stated in the Bible) and not reliant on temporal evidence, which can be constructed and manipulated. Have you forgotten Doubting Thomas? Paul, like all of us, was a creature of his time and is hardly an uncontroversial evidence provider. One's subjective conviction about the "evidence" is itself an act of faith. The evidence may prove phony or completely true, but wrong. As you know, there was a long tradition of charismatic prophets around in Christ's day. Who know whether the resurrection was staged or whether Christ revived because he appeared dead, but wasn't? A lot to load on a single factual event centuries ago, when one can't even be sure of much more recent events. So no, I don't think faith need be based on evidence and I'm don't know that the Bible says it should be. Au contraire.

 

[Spensed]

So what you're saying is that it has nothing to do with any actual religion, it's just a sheer hypothetical spun out of thin air.

If it's dealing with a specific religion, then I can't find the religion it deals with -- it certainly isn't one associated with the Bible. If it's attempting to address the Bible, then the original premise is false.

So once again you're supporting argument based on falsehood, without any concern for the rules of logic.

The statement under discussion is introduced by conditional assumption. The rest of the sentence takes that assumption to a logical conclusion. You ignore the assumption to challenge a conclusion that doesn't fit in with your pro-Bible views. If you're looking for illogicality, try the mirror.

No, you departed from the point of discussion. A metaphor has one point of comparison; twisting it to try to do something else is not legitimate.

Of course it is. Testing the metaphor (a mother allowing her child to scald itself) shows how absurd the original notion is.

It's no apology -- that's how eye-witness accounts are evaluated. It basic criminology: when accounts match perfectly, they're suspect. A set of accounts which agree substantially but not on every detail are more likely to be actual eyewitness accounts than a set of accounts which are in perfect agreement.

There's a book by an investigator who became a Christian after setting out to apply the modern methods of investigation to make a case against Christianity. His unwanted result was that the Gospels have all the marks looked for in a courtroom of solid eyewitness testimony, and he was forced to conclude that in a modern court of law the case for the Resurrection is stronger than most cases proved in courts. It sets out the criteria for sound eyewitness testimony, and shows how he had to admit that the Gospels fit them. I'm just relating one of those criteria.

For that matter, it's also a principle in assessing the reliability of ancient documents as approached by historians: people engaged in a conspiracy to put over some take strive to make it all look as good as possible, so when things are all rosily consistent and there are no flaws in any of the characters presented, the accounts are suspect.

And, on your argument, it would never occur to anyone to include discrepancies in eye witness statements to make them seem more authentic? Ask any criminal lawyer. Eye witness statement can be completely unreliable.

But a double standard because it allows for free insult to religion. People here get away with slurs against religion that wouldn't be tolerated for anything else.

That may, or may not, be true. But it's not a double standard. Racism triggers the hate speech test more immediately than anti-religious slurs. As I keep saying, race is immutable. Religion is a choice about which people can differ.

 

[HoodedRat]

https://i.imgflip.com/orgf3.jpg

 

[star-warrior]

With respect to the discussion about the pbs server images that don't show up on JUB, that discussion has now been shifted into this thread.

I noted the same a while back in one of the cartoon threads in the politics forum.

My solution was to right click on broken image icon, select View Image, and it should show.

If it doesn't then, I have no remedy for that, sorry.

For folks who are getting images which begin with pbs . twimg . com in the picture's url, this is not your fault, but perhaps something to do with the original site not allowing hot-linking of images, though that is just a guess.