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Posts found: 401 to 425 of 1,277
407 2014-01-03 07:31:54
Re: V for Vendetta (59 replies, posted in Episodes)
Funniest. Commentary. Ever.
Laughing all the way through my chores today whilst listening to this.
409 2014-01-03 02:31:22
Re: Is there a God and why? (373 replies, posted in Off Topic)
It's still a common belief that religion gets the credit for our morality.
The revolution in humanitarian rights (democracy, equality, welfare, abolition, education for all, etc) came out of the Enlightenment: mainly free-thinkers, deists, secularists, etc. Paine, Voltaire, Mill, Hobbes, Hume, Locke, Spinoza, Diderot, etc.
Of course, you can cherry-pick the Bible for the good-bits and ignore the bad bits, but in doing so you're already applying a pre-existing value system that does the filtering. It's reversing cause and effect. You could do the same filtering with a Tolkien book.
But bizarrely religion gets the credit, even though it's been the cause of holding back moral progress for many centuries (slavery, racism, monarchy, misogyny, homophobia, cruel punishments, etc). Studied closely, the Bible has an Iron Age moral code that has no place today. The fact that even religious people regularly dismiss large tracts of it is telling. And the further we progress (e.g. gay rights in the 21st century), the greater the parts of the Bible that have to be swept under the carpet as embarrassing to believers.
410 2014-01-02 19:11:36
Re: Is there a God and why? (373 replies, posted in Off Topic)
Okay, water behaves weirdly. What argument are you resting on this fact? That science doesn't know everything? That's fine. We've all conceded that.
Our knowledge is limited and fallible and some parts of it will most likely be corrected in the future.
But that doesn't mean that ANY OTHER way of knowing is better. What are the alternatives?
1. I have a hunch?
2. God told me in a dream ?
3. That's what we've always been taught?
4. The Pope/Ayatollah/Rabbi/Holy Man told me?
412 2014-01-02 18:53:32
Re: Is there a God and why? (373 replies, posted in Off Topic)
One thing that's apparent after years of these conversations is that the human brain can rationalize just about any position. Human language is vague enough that one can get any conclusion from any premise ,if you've already decided a priori that's where you want to arrive at. And a few seconds Googling can provide anyone with extra arguments to back up just about any point.
Maybe it's like different people's metabolism. Some people just put on weight easier than others, given the same calories. Likewise, given the same arguments, and evidence, some people just gravitate towards a religious conclusion whilst others arrive at an atheist conclusion.
Reminds me of a secular proverb (which I don't think is quite accurate): You can't reason a person out of a position that they didn't use reason to enter into.
413 2014-01-02 18:40:19
Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug (95 replies, posted in Off Topic)
I just saw Martin Freeman in the new Sherlock Holmes TV show and his acting is good, but for some reason I just don't get his Hobbit performance. It's really annoying me - because Peter Jackson did such a good job in getting great performances out of mediocre actors like Sean Astin - who just knocked it out of the park.
Freeman's Bilbo, by contrast, is opaque. I don't understand his motivations for anything he does. Sometimes he appears to be a dick, other times he's indecisive, and then a coward, and then brave, and then stupid, and then homesick, and then curious, and then obstinate, and then smart. And so on. Therefore's no consistency and there's no transparency.
414 2014-01-02 18:18:03
Re: Is there a God and why? (373 replies, posted in Off Topic)
It's true that science doesn't know everything. It may even be true that science WILL NEVER know everything.
No one claims these things.
But that doesn't mean any other means at attaining knowledge (revelation, intuition, authority, tradition) is therefore superior.
The scientific method is not just the best way at attaining knowledge, but it's the only way. It's got a self-correcting mechanism built in and admits its ignorance and has achieved more in the last 400 years than any other superstition has in 6000 years.
We're just going to have to get used to admitting we don't know how the universe began. We've got to be comfortable with uncertainty, rather than placing some Creator there.
And even if you had to insert a 'first cause' there (Deism), how do you get from there to a personal God that answers prayers, cares about your personal failures, resurrects homo sapiens, punishes and rewards, etc?
Posts found: 401 to 425 of 1,277
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