Discussion Thread from the Funny Anti-Religious Pictures thread.

[star-warrior]

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.

When you say some people are created Him to be damned, then he has already chosen the purpose of their existence. There is no free will involved, just a path towards damnation, and to have them suffer for eternity because they were created for the purpose of damnation is still 'unsatisfactory'.

The equivalence of actors argument is just a get out clause. It does not address the nature of the evil acts that has already happened.

 

[Kulindahr]

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.

I remember doing that as well, and it always worked.

What puzzled me is that one day when I dropped in on the FARIP thread I could see all the images so I wondered what the problem was, then the next day I couldn't see a bunch, but the next I could again.

Maybe JUB is haunted.

 

[Kulindahr]

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.

"Doubting Thomas" shows that evidence goes before faith. That does not contradict the idea that faith is a gift.

By ordinary historical standards, conspiracy theories about the Resurrection all fail with one exception: that the hoax was carried out without the knowledge of anyone who knew Jesus before. And the "maybe He wasn't actually dead" one fails because any Roman soldier who told his commander a crucified criminal was dead and it turned out not to be so risked not just a whipping with that lovely Roman flail with broken glass and such tied into it but possibly taking the place of the condemned man he'd allowed to live. Roman soldiers didn't risk it -- that's why, as was done in many other cases for the same reason, they stuck Jesus with a spear: that action would reveal any remaining life while guaranteeing it wouldn't last long.

Yes, the Bible says that faith depends on evidence: in both the Old and New, the theme is to look at what has happened, at what God has done; only then is the invitation to believe given. And Paul flatly states that if the evidence is false, there's nothing at all there.

In fact the Greek word itself points to the essential nature of evidence: it means "trust", and always takes an object, i.e. the thing or person being trusted. We say "trust" or "trust in", but the Greek standard is "trust into", a very definite placing of trust personally "into" the object of faith.

 

[Kulindahr]

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.

I don't ignore the assumption -- in terms of the Bible, it's false. So if you want to abuse the grammar and make it an isolated conditional statement, then it isn't about Christianity, it's about someone's daydream. So either way, te conclusion has nothing to do with the Bible or Christianity.

Pretending to criticize something by stuffing it with a belief that isn't part of that thing is a form of lying.

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

That's not how metaphors work -- they have on point of comparison. A mother allowing a child to scald itself wouldn't be called "punishment", and that's the point.

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.

There's no evidence in any ancient literature that anyone ever thought of that.

As for your criminal lawyer point, yes --a single eyewitness statement about a very narrow event can be completely unreliable. But combined eyewitness testimony about broad events is very reliable about the broad event.

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.

Of course its a double standard, if you allow insults to one that you wouldn't allow to the other. You may have a reason justifying the double standard, but it remains a double standard.

And since the Code of Conduct says nothing about mutability or choice, that thing you keep repeating is still irrelevant.

 

[Kulindahr]

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

Absolute pure and unadulterated bullshit. I say nothing here that is not common among Christians, nothing that cannot be found by someone with any interest at all about actually knowing something about Christianity.

Of course you won't find such information among fundamentalists, because they don't approve of scholarship WRT the Bible in the first place; their preference is ignorance and thus reading it according to their own prejudices -- and when you don't actually study it, all you have is your own prejudices. The amazing thing is that supposedly-critically-thinking atheists sound so very, very much like the fundamentalists.

 

[Kulindahr]

The equivalence of actors argument is just a get out clause. It does not address the nature of the evil acts that has already happened.

Great example of inserting your conclusion into your argument. The acts are only evil if your equivalence is valid.

 

[johaninsc]

...

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.

maybe Jesus is hacking the thread again

 

[Kulindahr]

maybe Jesus is hacking the thread again

That's not Jesus -- that's Clint, the guy down the hall when I went to college!

The fan was aimed at the computer to keep bad vibrations coming at him over the internet.

 

[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.

Simply not true. One can indicate what standard one is using, although this may be obvious, but there's nothing to say that one can't analyze something by outside standards to show an internal contradiction. E.g. with Nazism, one isn't constrained by internal Nazi dogma to point out the contradiction between master race notions and the fact that those notions lack humanity and compassion. You yourself have no problem in trying to external rules of evidence to explain the Bible's inconsistency on what day the crucifixion occurred.

 

[Spensed]

"Doubting Thomas" shows that evidence goes before faith. That does not contradict the idea that faith is a gift.

By ordinary historical standards, conspiracy theories about the Resurrection all fail with one exception: that the hoax was carried out without the knowledge of anyone who knew Jesus before. And the "maybe He wasn't actually dead" one fails because any Roman soldier who told his commander a crucified criminal was dead and it turned out not to be so risked not just a whipping with that lovely Roman flail with broken glass and such tied into it but possibly taking the place of the condemned man he'd allowed to live. Roman soldiers didn't risk it -- that's why, as was done in many other cases for the same reason, they stuck Jesus with a spear: that action would reveal any remaining life while guaranteeing it wouldn't last long.

Yes, the Bible says that faith depends on evidence: in both the Old and New, the theme is to look at what has happened, at what God has done; only then is the invitation to believe given. And Paul flatly states that if the evidence is false, there's nothing at all there.

In fact the Greek word itself points to the essential nature of evidence: it means "trust", and always takes an object, i.e. the thing or person being trusted. We say "trust" or "trust in", but the Greek standard is "trust into", a very definite placing of trust personally "into" the object of faith.

If I remember correctly, the point of the doubting Thomas story is that Thomas should have had faith without proof and, not as you suggest, that Thomas was right in doubting his faith in Jesus without evidence.

I don't know what happened around the crucifixion and resurrection and neither do you. As I understand it, the "evidence" was not recorded for decades or centuries and then not necessarily by unimpeachable sources with an objective agenda. Who knows whether the spear wound was ultimately fatal or not. Seems to me that skepticism and doubt trump wishful thinking and subjective apologias.

The Bibles says that faith is a gift of God. Paul's views have the limitation of being Paul's views. Your Greek language point doesn't show what you think it does. People often have faith or place trust in asserted or fantasy objects, e.g. the classical gods. Faith or trust need not contingent be on the truth.

 

[Spensed]

I don't ignore the assumption -- in terms of the Bible, it's false. So if you want to abuse the grammar and make it an isolated conditional statement, then it isn't about Christianity, it's about someone's daydream. So either way, te conclusion has nothing to do with the Bible or Christianity.

Of course it does, if the contingency applies to the Biblical God.

Pretending to criticize something by stuffing it with a belief that isn't part of that thing is a form of lying.

Seems to me that that's what you do in your criticisms of the anti-religious pix. If one doesn't import any faith-based animus, some the pix are amusing.

That's not how metaphors work -- they have on point of comparison. A mother allowing a child to scald itself wouldn't be called "punishment"....

Of course, it would.

There's no evidence in any ancient literature that anyone ever thought of that.

As for your criminal lawyer point, yes --a single eyewitness statement about a very narrow event can be completely unreliable. But combined eyewitness testimony about broad events is very reliable about the broad event.

Nor is there any evidence that at least some of the "ancient literature" wasn't produced by folk with an agenda. Combined eyewitness statements may, or may not be, very reliable, e.g. the absurd devil worship abuse cases, cult testimonies.

Of course its a double standard, if you allow insults to one that you wouldn't allow to the other. You may have a reason justifying the double standard, but it remains a double standard.

And since the Code of Conduct says nothing about mutability or choice, that thing you keep repeating is still irrelevant.

The prohibition is about hate speech. As you've already agreed, one get to racist hate speech with more immediacy than with religious criticism. Saying that someone's religious belief is nonsense need not be hate speech.

 

[Spensed]

Of course you won't find such information among fundamentalists, because they don't approve of scholarship WRT the Bible in the first place; their preference is ignorance and thus reading it according to their own prejudices -- and when you don't actually study it, all you have is your own prejudices. The amazing thing is that supposedly-critically-thinking atheists sound so very, very much like the fundamentalists.

As do Bible scholars, who can't see the wood for the trees, and accept mistakes and inconsistencies, they would never do with other texts or without their own convictions or wishful thinking.

 

[star-warrior]

Nor is there any evidence that at least some of the "ancient literature" wasn't produced by folk with an agenda. Combined eyewitness statements may, or may not be, very reliable, e.g. the absurd devil worship abuse cases, cult testimonies.

The "historical truth" is the version of events usually written by the conquerors to inflate their own standing, and the vanquished may write other versions from their own viewpoint, if they survived the purges.

 

[Kulindahr]

Of course it does, if the contingency applies to the Biblical God.

It doesn't -- that's the point.

Seems to me that that's what you do in your criticisms of the anti-religious pix. If one doesn't import any faith-based animus, some the pix are amusing.

I don[t import anything. And yes, many of the images are funny, regardless of whether they're offensive. But most of the ones that are nothing but attacks on religion aren't any funnier than they would be if they were attacks on race, and ones based on incorrect information are a joke on the ones making them.

Of course, it would.

Um, no, it would be called abuse.

Nor is there any evidence that at least some of the "ancient literature" wasn't produced by folk with an agenda. Combined eyewitness statements may, or may not be, very reliable, e.g. the absurd devil worship abuse cases, cult testimonies.

When dealing with literature that falls into the category of biography, eyewitness accounts that agree are judged to be reliable -- that's one of the ways historians decide what's accurate and what isn't. If the standard procedures fr assessing historical reliability are used, the Gospels come out highly reliable.

The prohibition is about hate speech. As you've already agreed, one get to racist hate speech with more immediacy than with religious criticism. Saying that someone's religious belief is nonsense need not be hate speech.

No, it isn't about hate speech, it specifically says slurs. Any attack based on inaccuracies is a slur.

 

[Kulindahr]

As do Bible scholars, who can't see the wood for the trees, and accept mistakes and inconsistencies, they would never do with other texts or without their own convictions or wishful thinking.

That's a very warped view of Bible scholars. Indeed, any who proceed as you say are not likely to hold any significant academic positions or get published in any important journals.

 

[Kulindahr]

The "historical truth" is the version of events usually written by the conquerors to inflate their own standing, and the vanquished may write other versions from their own viewpoint, if they survived the purges.

That's irrelevant in the case of the Bible, as none of it was written by "conquerors" -- even the most liberal scholars know that everything in the New Testament was finished before Christianity was anything resembling a "conqueror".

 

[Spensed]

It doesn't -- that's the point.

"If God himself was not able to render human nature sinless, what right had he to punish men for not being sinless?" One doesn't know whether or not that applies to the Biblical God, that's the point.

Um, no, it would be called abuse.

OK, a God who treats mankind like a mother giving her child the choice of scalding itself is abusive and not punishing. A difference without a distinction. The metaphor still sucks.

When dealing with literature that falls into the category of biography, eyewitness accounts that agree are judged to be reliable -- that's one of the ways historians decide what's accurate and what isn't. If the standard procedures fr assessing historical reliability are used, the Gospels come out highly reliable.

Not true. The reliability of the Gospels is not universally accepted. The accounts postdate the events by decades or centuries, etc., etc.

No, it isn't about hate speech, it specifically says slurs. Any attack based on inaccuracies is a slur.

Try looking up the meaning of "slur". You may not like it, but it's not insulting or derogatory to assert inaccuracies. Cartoons can be inaccurate or exaggerations to comic or other purpose.

 

[Spensed]

....Indeed, any who proceed as you say are not likely to hold any significant academic positions or get published in any important journals.

One can but hope.

 

[Spensed]

That's irrelevant in the case of the Bible, as none of it was written by "conquerors" -- even the most liberal scholars know that everything in the New Testament was finished before Christianity was anything resembling a "conqueror".

The point is that its writers have their own limitations and predispositions. One can't just take what they say as Gospel.

 

[star-warrior]

That's irrelevant in the case of the Bible, as none of it was written by "conquerors" -- even the most liberal scholars know that everything in the New Testament was finished before Christianity was anything resembling a "conqueror".

Religious evangelicals have been replacing the indigenous cultures and religious practices of people worldwide. These people whose old customs have been supplanted by those brought in from european heritages have been taught that the old ways are frowned upon because God of the old testament is a jealous god. Converts then go on support the new faith and shun the old. Why should one trust accounts written about the old ways by those who consider the old ways heretical?

That was what I was getting at. We should not trust the evidence of the people documenting what they percieved without question, as their outlook will always be coloured or tainted by their own beliefs or world outlook.

The point is that its writers have their own limitations and predispositions. One can't just take what they say as Gospel.

Hear, hear!