Subject:
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Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap in California)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 15 Oct 2003 17:11:04 GMT
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Viewed:
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639 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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The fact is that we as a society need to draw the line (legally) somewhere.
Perhaps you would care to defend someone’s “right” to marry their sister or
brother?
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Absolutely, if they’re both legally consenting adults. If the problems inherent
in genetic problems inbreeding can be overcome, I don’t even know why they
shouldn’t be allowed to have children.
Aside from these genetic issues, on what basis would you prevent brother/sister
marriages?
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You may believe that, but it’s hardly a fact. Great atrocity also comes
from religion, as Hop-Frog has already aptly shown from the actual text of
actual scripture.
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So what do you conclude about that? That religion is bad or evil? Shoot the
messenger, not the message.
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I’m talking about early OT stuff, like God immolating priests who used the wrong
incense. That’s not God’s followers misinterpreting His Word; that’s God
Himself acting immorally.
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I am 100% atheist; do you therefore assert that it is impossible
for me to have non-religion-based morality?
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Eventually, yes. I believe that there is no compelling reason to be good
without God.
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I would go further and say that there is no transcendent “good” or “evil.”
That’s not to say that these concepts are wholly arbitrary, but I argue that
they are artifacts of our evolution as social organisms.
The compelling reason to be “good,” in the sense that you describe, is societal
pressure consistent with evolutionary pressures.
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God is holy, mysterious, and good. Characterizations of God other than that
are at best inaccurate.
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Without being (particularly) dense, I’m not sure exactly what “holy” means.
However, I’ve said before that if God (or the Deity of one’s choice) is beyond
human comprehension, then there is no way to assess His goodness or holiness,
and He’s only mysterious if He actually exists. And, if He does exist, then
He could be transcendently vile, cruel, and evil, but if He convincingly
pretends to be good, how would you know?
In short, there’s no way, short of a pure leap of faith, to conclude that God
has any particular characteristic (except mysteriousness).
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“Derived from” does not mean “wholly beholden to.” I think we as a society
will have made real progress once we can divorce ourselves from the fiction
that selective quotiation of 2000+-year-old myths are the best foundation
for morality, society, or law.
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How is this possible without the wholesale erradication of religion? Or do
you feel that this would be a Good Thing®? I believe that religion keeps man
from the brink of chaos and gives us meaning in life.
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I absolutely think that the eradication of religion (and the willingness to
believe in other unsubstantiated fictions, such as astrology, Jon Edward, or
trickle-down economics) would be incredibly beneficial to humanity.
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Without (religion), we are lost and doomed to self-destruction.
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But which religion?
Besides which, there is no evidence that we, like countless species before us,
are not ultimately “doomed” to extinction. I find great comfort in that, in
fact; we likely won’t ever be powerful enough to do any real damage to the
universe at large!
If religion makes people feel better, that’s swell. But that doesn’t mean it’s
correct. An uncomfortable truth is better than a comforting falsehood.
Dave!
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