Canada Kicks Ass
"Why I am Not a Christian"

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Tricks @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:32 pm

lily lily:
Sure. That's why I commented on Tricks' claim that someone could "pretend" to be a Christian.

I don't think even you, using your brain, could fool God. :D
Hence why Pascal's wager is flawed. It's used to convince people to believe in God. So even if they convince themselves they do, they are doing it out of greed.

$1:
My guess is he either misunderstood my post or he was trying to make a point.

He can tell you that though.
YOU brought up the wager, not me.

Do you even know what it is?

   



Durandal @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:37 pm

lily lily:
If you're right and there's no afterlife, then neither of us has lost anything.


Hum yes... the Atheist has devoted his life to a fake God instead of fully profiting of all the fun things of this world (aka orgies, gang-bangs, various drugs, and much more).

   



Tricks @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:45 pm

lily lily:
The whole flaw in your argument is your assumption that I'm trying to convince anyone to believe as I do, using either fear or greed as a motive.
I never said you want us to believe in anything. But you are quoting pascal's wager as a reason to. And that IS fear. You clearly have no idea what I'm talking about.

$1:
Calling my faith silly and saying believers don't use their brains seems more argumentative than anything I've had to say. So really.... who is trying to convince who here?
Again, you don't understand at all. Sad really. The definition of faith states that there is no thought or logic involved.
$1:
I respect your beliefs, whatever they may be. Unless you're a JW or a Scientologist, in which case I reserve the right to heap scorn on you. :D
I respect beliefs too, doesn't mean I can't make fun of em.

   



Ruxpercnd @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:52 pm

I am proud to call myself a heretic!

   



Durandal @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:56 pm

lily lily:
Faith in any god isn't what makes someone a good person.


:arrow: Faith in the true Messiah is the only way to ensure your salvation after the death of your flesh.

:arrow: Obedience to the one & only God is the best way to make you a good person.

   



Durandal @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:05 pm

lily lily:
Calling my faith silly and saying believers don't use their brains seems more argumentative than anything I've had to say. So really.... who is trying to convince who here?


C'mon. Realise that even if the atheists/agnotics are enthusiastic at pointing the finger at the dirty recruiting/controlling tactics of various religions, they are not afrait to bully and intimidate in order to advance their own belief system. :wink:

   



Durandal @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:08 pm

Ruxpercnd Ruxpercnd:
I am proud to call myself a heretic!


Congratulations. :roll:

   



Blue_Nose @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:14 pm

lily lily:
My beliefs are based on a combination of faith and logic. I don't see it as a fairy tale, and for someone to say so and then imply that I believers don't use their brains, i.e. they're stupid, is silly, and contrary to Blue_Nose's claim, it's not complimentary, it's insulting.
I didn't say you were stupid at all, actually,

Faith is not in any way compatible with reason - if you have to resort to faith, it's because you've failed to convince yourself there's a rational explanation for your beliefs. Anything else is not faith.

I equated not using reason to not using your brain - I know your brain is otherwise capable of deciding what's rational and logical - you're also capable of turning your brain off and calling it "faith".

lily lily:
For him to continue and say that I'm being smug smacks of irony.
I said you were gloating, however lighthearted it may have been.

I've never pretended to have anything but contempt for blind faith - you, on the other hand, are the one claiming you respect the beliefs of others.

   



Joe_Stalin @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:24 pm

Anyone who does not convert to the new religion of Global Warming deserves to have their wives coveted by neighbours.

   



Blue_Nose @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:24 pm

Durandal Durandal:
lily lily:
If you're right and there's no afterlife, then neither of us has lost anything.


Hum yes... the Atheist has devoted his life to a fake God instead of fully profiting of all the fun things of this world (aka orgies, gang-bangs, various drugs, and much more).
Is that what I'm supposed to have devoted my life to? Gee, I've been missing out. Thanks, Durandal!

I want to hear about the "much more", though - what other "Fake Gods" need my attention?

   



Durandal @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:02 pm

Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:
I want to hear about the "much more", though - what other "Fake Gods" need my attention?


You are confused sir, the much more means a long list of the temporal pleasures from which humans should abstain. Forget the Wiccas and the Raelians.

Much more = all the crap of the pop culture. Quite vast.

   



Durandal @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:06 pm

As for global warming... I don't think it's a religion. Atheism is the religion, but a very poor one, so it associates with other causes/ideologies --- i.e. collectivism and/or radical environmentalism.

   



Joe_Stalin @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:07 pm

"If the glove don't fit you must acquit and switch"
Johnny Cochran to Monica ..... 8O :wink:


$1:
The atheists who came in from the cold

By Dinesh D'Souza
Monday, November 19, 2007

Imagine if one of the world's leading Christians--say C.S. Lewis a generation ago, or Billy Graham now--were to reject his religious beliefs and become a atheist. It would be big news! The New York Times would be all over it, for sure, and the question would be why a man who has devoted his life to God would now turn against Him? In sum, the focus would be on what were the reasons for the conversion and on what's so bad about Christianity.

Contrast this with the New York Times' approach to the conversion of philosopher Anthony Flew. Flew has been, for the past half-century, the world's leading advocate of atheism. His works such as Theology and Falsification and The Presumption of Atheism were considered classics of theist thought. No one has so relentlessly espoused the atheist cause, and no one has been more anthologized and eulogized by the atheist community. Other twentieth-century philosophers, such as Martin Heidegger and Bertrand Russell, were unbelievers but they did not make atheism central to their philosophical work as did Flew. Flew's atheism long precedes that of latecomers like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens.

Now, in his early eighties, Flew has rejected atheism and said he believes that God exists. He does not espouse the Christian God, but calls himself a Deist. He says he has a lifelong commitment to following the evidence where it leads, and that new advances in the sciences have shown him that materialism and Darwinism simply cannot account for the world as it is and life as it is. Examining the fine-tuning of the universe and the mind-boggling complexity of the cell (a compexity that evolution presumes but cannot explain), Flew now believes that the design of the universe requires a designer. He gives his reasons in a new book There Is a God which is co-authored with Roy Abraham Varghese.

In the book, Flew uses simple analogies to expose atheist illogic. For instance, leading atheists seek to prove that the mind is no more than the brain. If the brain is destroyed, they say, we can't use our minds. Therefore there is nothing to minds excerpt circuits and neurons. Flew gives the example of a child raised on a remote island who finds a satellite phone. Voices come out of the machine. The child recognizes these voices as human and is thrilled by the discovery that she has found a way to interact with other humans. Perhaps there is life outside the island!

Then the elders of the tribe (if I may embellish Flew's account, let's call them Big Chief Dawkins, Grand Pooh Bah Dennett, and Witch Doctor Pinker) scorn the child and say, "Look, when we damage the instrument, the voices stop. So they're obviously nothing more than sounds produced by the unique combination of metals and circuit boards. Forget about learning about other humans. From all the evidence we have, we are the only living creatures on earth. So go back to making sandcastles." Who are the real dummies here?

When a major figure like Flew switches sides, the New York TImes goes into mafia-style intellectual hit mode. They selected Mark Oppenheimer of Yale, who visited Flew in England and wrote a long article in the November 4, 2007 New York Times Magazine suggesting that Flew converted because he is, well, senile. The basic idea is that Flew has lost his mind and can't remember anything, and when Christian apologists like Varghese were nice to him Flew basically surrendered to them and let them write his book.

The only evidence that Flew has lost his mind is that he's 84 years old. A man of 84 naturally loses some of his memory, especially for names, but this does not mean he has lost his marbles. Flew's own writings of the past few years are all entirely coherent and employ sophisticated philosophical vocabulary. While Flew seems to have asked his collaborator Varghese to write a draft of his life story, it was Flew who reviewed and approved the final contents. There is nothing in the Times' article that shows Flew to be incapable of a reasoned change of mind and heart.

I realize that atheists--including those at the New York Times--are embarassed at having to surrender one of their most stalwart champions to theism. Maybe they too should consider following the evidence where it leads? Too closed-minded to consider Flew's arguments, these fellows would much rather belittle the intellectual capacity of the man they once revered. Hell hath no fury like an atheist scorned.

Source

Bestselling author Dinesh D'Souza's new book What's So Great About Christianity has just been released. His book The Enemy at Home will be published in paperback in February.

   



Blue_Nose @ Tue Feb 12, 2008 6:21 am

lily lily:
I do respect the beliefs of others. I don't ridicule anyone for their faith (or lack thereof) nor do I try to convince anyone that they should believe as I do.
Of course - when you were gloating over your having Atheists "beat", I could sense just how much you respect those beliefs.

lily lily:
I don't "have to" resort to faith. And your use of the words "resort" as well as "failed" and "turning your brain off" is implying I'm stupid... or that my faith is. Either way, it doesn't bother me. My faith is personal, and as I've said, it's based on both faith and logic.
You need to resort to faith like everyone else who believes things they can't prove.

lily lily:
It's immaterial to me whether you agree with me at all. You're free to have your own definition of faith, as I'm free to have mine.
Faith: Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.

Why would you oppose my interpretation of faith and then turn around and say I'm free to have my own definition? There is no logical proof or material evidence of the supernatural, so my definition necessary fits your faith.

   



Blue_Nose @ Tue Feb 12, 2008 6:37 am

$1:
In the book, Flew uses simple analogies to expose atheist illogic. For instance, leading atheists seek to prove that the mind is no more than the brain. If the brain is destroyed, they say, we can't use our minds. Therefore there is nothing to minds excerpt circuits and neurons. Flew gives the example of a child raised on a remote island who finds a satellite phone. Voices come out of the machine. The child recognizes these voices as human and is thrilled by the discovery that she has found a way to interact with other humans. Perhaps there is life outside the island!

Then the elders of the tribe (if I may embellish Flew's account, let's call them Big Chief Dawkins, Grand Pooh Bah Dennett, and Witch Doctor Pinker) scorn the child and say, "Look, when we damage the instrument, the voices stop. So they're obviously nothing more than sounds produced by the unique combination of metals and circuit boards. Forget about learning about other humans. From all the evidence we have, we are the only living creatures on earth. So go back to making sandcastles." Who are the real dummies here?
Not exactly a great analogy - voices coming from a radio are going to be recognized as voices, which are known to exist and come from an existing source - namely people.

Compare that to the argument that we're all just big fleshy radios, which is apparently what Flew is suggesting - we have no evidence of our voices are coming from some other source known to exist, and therefore no reason to assume something must necessarily be broadcasting a signal to us. That's akin to saying a rock isn't really a rock, it's just a projector that sends a "rock signal" from the real rock up in heaven. Why would that be considered a useful hypothesis at all?

Flew is still the "dummy".

   



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