Discussion Thread from the Funny Anti-Religious Pictures thread.

[Kulindahr]

Wow, this thread is a mess!

I see the thrust of pushing the claim that "your religion has been insulted" as a way of silencing others who don't share your religious view under the guise of outrage. Religions are belief systems, set of ideas, and they ought to be challenged if they run contrary to common sense or common decency. Throughout history the power of the religious classes meant any challenge to their privilege is met with persecution, and it still goes on today. Blasphemy is an outrage to the freedom of human life and enquiry and preserves the privilege of institutions that use their might to crush anyone who challenges those ideas.

Criticisms about the ideas a religion contains is not to be taken as an insult, but as a way to change the fundamentally bad ideas in those sets of ideas that pervade and get protected because they're a part of that religion. For example, we don't use the bible to justify slavery anymore, because it is a bad idea even though the good book says you can keep slaves so long as you treat them well. Unlike challenging ideas, racism maligns people for being something they can't change even if they want to, and thus it is fundamentally flawed to compare racist acts deeds and words with criticism of religion. People can choose which faith they belong to, but not their own dna.

The problem is not insults to a religion, but that a great deal of the insulting is done on the basis of erroneous information about a particular religion. Such "critique" is in actuality a statement about the one making it, namely that they don't care about accuracy or honesty.

More recently the problem has been pointed out that it is not legitimate to claim a contradiction in a system of thought by bringing in outside rules -- that's a mistake in very basic logic, and it makes any "argument" thus based invalid.

So "criticisms about the ideas a religion contains" is not the issue -- the issue is that criticism is being made repeatedly on the basis of things the religion in question does not actually maintain. I cut a great deal of slack when the criticism is based on something people claiming that religion do in fact hold to, though I also occasionally point out when their belief is obviously at odds with the actual content of their religion, e.g such as when supposed Christians maintain that taking away support for people in need is proper, or when supposed Christians claim that wealth is a mark of God's favor. I would point out the same if supposed Christians tried to support racism as Christian (which has been done), since it is flat out contrary to the Bible.

Indeed some of the best actual humor in the FARIP thread has been that pointing out the obvious contradictions between what supposed Christian leaders support and the Bible they allege as the basis of their belief. While that humor may be insulting to the religion, it is both valid and excellent humor because it is based on actual accurate information.

 

[zoltanspawn]

That's just repeating the error people are making: imposing an outside system on something different.

Why do you find a repetition of an error to be something worth posting?

Stop importing your ideas onto my system of thought!

 

[Kulindahr]

I have never understood the problem that many people have with the Trinity. It's merely a set of grade-school arithmetic operations appropriate to the topic.

 

[Kulindahr]

Stop importing your ideas onto my system of thought!

I didn't -- I made an objective observation about your system of thought, based on what you presented about your system of thought. The only way that can constitute "importing" is if irrationality is an unstated tenet of your system of thought -- in which case no criticism on the basis of logic is possible, since it has been excluded by your rules.

 

[zoltanspawn]

If you mean that zoltan just demonstrated the intellectual bankruptcy most people here are displaying, yes -- he showed the idiocy of criticizing a system by using the rules of a different one.

No, that's not what star-warrior meant.

How idiotic. What, can't you read? You deserve an F. What's wrong with you? So on and so forth.

 

[zoltanspawn]

I didn't -- I made an objective observation about your system of thought, based on what you presented about your system of thought. The only way that can constitute "importing" is if irrationality is an unstated tenet of your system of thought -- in which case no criticism on the basis of logic is possible, since it has been excluded by your rules.

You don't understand the rules of my system of thought.

 

[Kulindahr]

The problem is that very little of the 'law' in the Old Testament is about morals. People who think it is haven't read most of the Bible, or at least didn't pay attention when they were reading the prophets.

 

[Kulindahr]

You don't understand the rules of my system of thought.

This was your proposed system of thought:

"Well, according to my "system of thought" :
a) a unicorn is born
b) every time I fart.

I just farted.

Therefore a unicorn was born.

Work with that "system" or admit you're making noise"

I pointed out that your final assertion merely continues the error of demanding that other people's system of thought conforms to one's own rules. I made no comment at all about your system of thought. And in fact from your stated system of thought, you have no place to complain, for the very reason that I didn't say anything about it at all.

 

[Kulindahr]

No, that's not what star-warrior meant.

How idiotic. What, can't you read? You deserve an F. What's wrong with you? So on and so forth.

Mimicking the other person without substance to it is not argument.

There was no context to his statement. In the context of the discussion, he was calling your statement a "reductio ad absurdam". Logically, my statement was a reasonable interpretation of his leaning.

 

[star-warrior]

By the definition of being dead that applies to humans in the Bible, Satan is already dead -- or, from another perspective, was never alive, as he has no material body (as ancient rabbis noted, that's why he had to borrow the snake to talk to Eve).

Satan being alive or dead is irrelevant, the act of taking a life is deemed evil enough to be a commandment or prohibition, so by that measure, what Satan did to cause the death of Job's family by tacit approval by God, is evil. And God not prohibiting their deaths means he's a complicit in that evil.

An act of evil is still evil, despite the nature of the actor.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Mimicking the other person without substance to it is not argument.

To be fair, there's not much "argument" to be had with someone who is as objective as you.

As you admit, it's a problem.

Anyway, the substance in my post is plain as day.

 

[star-warrior]

WRT Kuli's systems of thought and zoltan's lampooning of it using a reductio ad absurdum example, I think we've reach a point where even my eyes are aching with all the rolling.

 

[Kulindahr]

Satan being alive or dead is irrelevant, the act of taking a life is deemed evil enough to be a commandment or prohibition, so by that measure, what Satan did to cause the death of Job's family by tacit approval by God, is evil. And God not prohibiting their deaths means he's a complicit in that evil.

An act of evil is still evil, despite the nature of the actor.

That has always been troublesome about the Job story. The only answer I've encountered that is at all satisfying is the Calvinist one, that the pot can't complain about what the potter does with it -- but that isn't much more satisfying than his position that God created some for the purpose of damning them, which as far as I'm concerned is contrary to several points of the New Testament, foremost among them the statement that God is Love.

OTOH the assertion that "An act of evil is still evil, despite the nature of the actor", is arguably only true only if there is equivalency between actors.

 

[Kulindahr]

WRT Kuli's systems of thought and zoltan's lampooning of it using a reductio ad absurdum example, I think we've reach a point where even my eyes are aching with all the rolling.

THe problem with this being that what zoltan lampooned was not what I've been arguing, but its opposite.

 

[Spensed]

No, it doesn't. "If" is a word that serves a number of grammatical functions. In the case above, it was introducing a proposition in a given system of thought. Any conclusion which follows must function within that system of thought.

This is why doctoral dissertations get written on the functions of the smallest words in a language -- they do not have a single narrow meaning.

But words aren't there to be ignored. "If God himself was not able to render human nature sinless, what right had he to punish men for not being sinless" is a wholly coherent contingent statement.

To pursue your departure from the point in question, your use of the scalding illustration indicates that you regard all humans as children incapable of learning.

It's the illustration you introduced.

As for slavery, there's only "pro-slavery garbage" if you take things out of context. That's a favorite of fundamentalists, and should be beneath you. Early Christians recognized that slavery was contrary to the Bible, and that recognition continued as demonstrated by numerous decrees by popes, patriarchs, and councils banning slavery as incompatible with Christianity. Historically, the first indication of tolerance of slavery by Christians came after the Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, which resulted in multitudes of Christians-of-convenience who treated their new religion the same as they'd treated the old: something to honor in social terms and ignore in the rest of their lives.

"Anti-women"? Jesus and Paul were radical feminists for their day. Jesus dared to treat women as social equals, and Paul instructed all women to comport themselves as nobles (that's what the veiling business in Corinth was about; a bare-faced woman was considered common, a veiled woman was a woman of status), appointed women as deacons and elders, and even listed some as apostles.

The Bible both condones slavery and denigrates women. Sure the New Testament evidences some historical progress on these issues, but that begs the question of why, as the word of God, it got it wrong in the first place. That's a comical inconsistency to some people. As is, e.g., recording different days for Christ's death and so on.

If I am peevish, it is because consistently in the FARIP thread and now here ignorance has been exalted and objective critique dismissed, responses to my statements being based on prejudice and subjectivity. The hypocrisy of that is immense, since the existence of the FARIP thread was sanctimoniously defended as it being critical examination of religion, when posts based on false information and thus ignorance abounded -- and "discussion" based on false information is not critical examination, it isn't examination at all.

And the hypocrisy of the system was demonstrated when I supplied parallel examples of the exact thing being done in many FARIP images, except with race instead of religion involved, and those got deleted, thus establishing firmly that the moderators approve of insults to religion despite the Code of Conduct. We never even got to find out whether I was correct in asserting that people who think it's fine to trash religion based on false information and prejudice would object to the same exact thing being done on the basis of race.

The difference between race and religious has been dealt with in previous posts. Race is immutable. Religion is a choice. Anti-religious criticism and humor maybe can rise to the level of hate speech, but it is not automatically so. Racist views get there sooner. It's really not as hard to discern the difference.

 

[Spensed]

When a post is presented as criticism of a system of thought, based on that system of thought, it doesn't get to drag in external rules -- that's the problem. This began with exactly that sort of post, which claimed to be showing an internal contradiction to a particular religion. No appeal to any other consistency is valid at that point, as the criticism is supposedly entirely based on the religion in question.

So I do apply to my thinking the same thing I apply to those: I don't get to drag in my own rules, and they don't either. If they're going to maintain that a system is illogical, they have to argue from the premises of that system. My "external thinking" is irrelevant. And that, as I have repeatedly pointed out, is why I have little to say about images concerning other religions: I don't know as much about them. I'm in the position of an astronomer in a discussion of science when the topic of evolution comes up: the astronomer, not being trained in evolutionary science, is going to have little to offer, though when astronomy is discussed he will have a great deal to say.

At any rate, no, they don't get "stars for internal validity" when what they're doing is based on a supposed contradiction in the system they're criticizing. Nor do they get such stars when images are based on false information or illogic -- unless, of course, ignorance/falsehood and illogic are considered virtues in their system.

There is no golden rule proscribing that one has to analyze things in their own terms or that, if one does that, that one doesn't get to apply external terms or contemporary morality.

 

[Kulindahr]

But words aren't there to be ignored. "If God himself was not able to render human nature sinless, what right had he to punish men for not being sinless" is a wholly coherent contingent statement.

That's beside the point. The "if" there introduces a proposition from a given system of thought. Indeed if it doesn't, then the statement is meaningless, because it has no context. Nor am I ignoring it, I'm dealing with it within the grammar of the statement.

It's the illustration you introduced.

Yes -- to make a single point. That you try to use it for something else demonstrates a failure to get the point.

The Bible both condones slavery and denigrates women. Sure the New Testament evidences some historical progress on these issues, but that begs the question of why, as the word of God, it got it wrong in the first place. That's a comical inconsistency to some people. As is, e.g., recording different days for Christ's death and so on.

No, the Bible doesn't condone slavery. You can only make a case for that by picking and choosing the sections you want.

As to why the Word of God "got it wrong in the first place", you're making an unwarranted assumption about the Word of God -- namely, that everything in it is meant to convey some eternal truth in the surface details. All one has to do to know that is false is to read the prophets -- or for that matter pay attention to the time the so-called Ten Commandments were given, where God gives what are taken to be absolute commandments and then turns around and violates them almost immediately, thus demonstrating that they are not meant as eternally absolute moral decrees. A good deal of the Old Testament is devoted to making clear that treating the "law" as eternally absolute moral decrees is an error, and much of the New Testament is devoted to the same thing.

BTW, the apparent discrepancy on the matter of the day of Christ's death is part of the strength of the New Testament: it's exactly what one would expect from a set of eyewitnesses reporting independently, with one of the reports from memory a fair number of decades later. Indeed if there was perfect agreement, that's when one should suspect there's a conspiracy of collusion going on.

The difference between race and religious has been dealt with in previous posts. Race is immutable. Religion is a choice. Anti-religious criticism and humor maybe can rise to the level of hate speech, but it is not automatically so. Racist views get there sooner. It's really not as hard to discern the difference.

Once again, this is irrelevant. Insults based on erroneous statements are either not humor, or the joke is on the one telling it, or they're just slurs -- or any combination thereof. The Code of Conduct does not say that there's a double standard, it lists religion and race in the same breath. Further, if your claim were true then the anti-Jewish humor I posted would not have been deleted -- it's a religion.

Maybe in theory racist views come sooner to a line that shouldn't be crossed. But in practice that makes for a double standard.

 

[Kulindahr]

There is no golden rule proscribing that one has to analyze things in their own terms or that, if one does that, that one doesn't get to apply external terms or contemporary morality.

If your claim is to be showing a contradiction in something, the only possible option is to analyze a thing on its own terms -- anything else isn't addressing a contradiction in that thing, but between that thing and some arbitrary outside standard. That is not only not rational argument, it's empty stringing of words.

If one wishes to make criticism on the basis of an outside standard, then do so -- but don't pretend to be showing a contradiction in the system being criticized.

 

[Spensed]

That's beside the point. The "if" there introduces a proposition from a given system of thought. Indeed if it doesn't, then the statement is meaningless, because it has no context. Nor am I ignoring it, I'm dealing with it within the grammar of the statement.

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.

Yes -- to make a single point. That you try to use it for something else demonstrates a failure to get the point.

I drew out the nonsense inherent in your original metaphor.

No, the Bible doesn't condone slavery. You can only make a case for that by picking and choosing the sections you want.

As to why the Word of God "got it wrong in the first place", you're making an unwarranted assumption about the Word of God -- namely, that everything in it is meant to convey some eternal truth in the surface details. All one has to do to know that is false is to read the prophets -- or for that matter pay attention to the time the so-called Ten Commandments were given, where God gives what are taken to be absolute commandments and then turns around and violates them almost immediately, thus demonstrating that they are not meant as eternally absolute moral decrees. A good deal of the Old Testament is devoted to making clear that treating the "law" as eternally absolute moral decrees is an error, and much of the New Testament is devoted to the same thing.

BTW, the apparent discrepancy on the matter of the day of Christ's death is part of the strength of the New Testament: it's exactly what one would expect from a set of eyewitnesses reporting independently, with one of the reports from memory a fair number of decades later. Indeed if there was perfect agreement, that's when one should suspect there's a conspiracy of collusion going on.

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.

Once again, this is irrelevant. Insults based on erroneous statements are either not humor, or the joke is on the one telling it, or they're just slurs -- or any combination thereof. The Code of Conduct does not say that there's a double standard, it lists religion and race in the same breath. Further, if your claim were true then the anti-Jewish humor I posted would not have been deleted -- it's a religion.

Maybe in theory racist views come sooner to a line that shouldn't be crossed. But in practice that makes for a double standard.

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

 

[Spensed]

If your claim is to be showing a contradiction in something, the only possible option is to analyze a thing on its own terms -- anything else isn't addressing a contradiction in that thing, but between that thing and some arbitrary outside standard. That is not only not rational argument, it's empty stringing of words.

If one wishes to make criticism on the basis of an outside standard, then do so -- but don't pretend to be showing a contradiction in the system being criticized.

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.