Official delusional religionist thread

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I only added the last part of the Catholics and Jehovah's Witnesses *because* conservative Christians would argue that they are different religions. Whether or not they are viewed as completely different religions depends on who you talk to. Same with the different splits of Judaism and Islam (which incidentally enough had its own major split of Shi'ite and Sunni which they consider to be different religions but "we" do not).

Ike was going all the way back to ancient tribal theocracies, which did in fact predate Christian thought. Christian theology, realistically speaking, can not be regarded as predating Jesus. There may have been some prior groups with similar beliefs, but that is irrelevant to the discussion at hand and so can be disregarded. Christianity shares some background with Judaism, but again, the discussion was about Christianity in particular and thus should focus on those aspects unique to Christianity, which did not and could not exist before Christ.

I'm taking AG's side. That hasn't happened in a while. It's a lot easier than the alternative though, and in this case it's actually correct to do so.

I only added the last part of the Catholics and Jehovah's Witnesses *because* conservative Christians would argue that they are different religions. Whether or not they are viewed as completely different religions depends on who you talk to. Same with the different splits of Judaism and Islam (which incidentally enough had its own major split of Shi'ite and Sunni which they consider to be different religions but "we" do not).

The Shi'a and Sunni don't consider the other sect to be outside the fold of Islam. The Shi'a call the Sunni "Nasibi", which means "one who rejects", in this case, the authority of ahl-ul-bayt, the prophet's family. The Sunni accuse the Shi'a of committing shirk, which is associating partners with God, in this case, the prophet's family. Each accuses the other of evil innovations. Only the Wahaabi and followers of Qutb accuse the Shi'a of being outside the fold of Islam.

Peace.

Actually it can depending on what views you are looking at. Messianic views do predate Jesus. If Christianity is correct then Jesus's existence was predicted before his birth and so Christian belief predated his birth. If you include John the Baptist who, according to the New Testament was born before Jesus to proclaim his arrival, then the beginnings of Christianity would predate Jesus.

All depends on what you are looking at.

so it still depends on who you talk to, but my original remark was inaccurate (as to the Sunni and Shi'ites believing the other is a separate belief).

thank you for the clarification.

This is technically true but also irrelevant. Of course, the argument has been off topic on this discussion for long enough that any relevance has ceased to exist. And the original point of the thread was completely forgotten before page two. If you wish to see the worst example of off-topic arguing known to recent PPR memory, check the Obama lamenting lack of socialism thread. It is an epic battle of wills between myself and AG. The unstoppable force meeting the immovable object, if you will. He will eventually win. Unless I manage to summon enough fortitude to persevere until the end of the wrongplanet.

what is technically true is often irrelevant in everyday conversation. So says my husband when I try to use the dictionary definition while other people use colloquial definitions.

I just ignore people who begin to bore me. Arguments are not won by who can yell the loudest or get in the last word, even though people think they are. You can be the last man standing and still be wrong.

So you do find AG interesting?

so far it occupies me. while I watch TV and write lesson plans.

I did not say it was. Evidence of the body preparing to go about an activity before you think you have made a decision one way or the other is proof that the decision was already arrived at, by the brain, before "you" had anything to do with it consciously. And the unconscious decision is based on data already held, ( whether genetically determined predispositions/perceptions, chemical state at the time, eg; diet, and memories/conditioning, etc, etc ).

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You're most welcome. ^^

Peace.

I believe it also depends on who you are talking to (among christians) In my view, it all comes to interpretation because of this, given different point of views and beliefs about it. As you stated, if Christianity is true, according to a given interpretation, then it predates Jesus, which it can be viewed in that perspective.

The problem I see with this, is that Christianity as we currently define it, is directly related to this character named Jesus, born somewhere between 16-4 BC I believe, usually, if a person doesn't consider this character the son of God they wouldn't be considered christians. This indicates that Christianity, not the ideas but as a seperate new religion, could not existed before the existence of Jesus, because it is based on him, even if the idea existed before.

One issue is that of Early Christianity (1 CE) which is also stated as Judeo-Christianity, because still had some values from Judaism, which didn't change that much, other than changing and abolishing many of Moses laws, like circumsicion for example, although some of the things were still preserved, like the Sabbath for example. Although those changes might have been seen as radical and as heresy to jews.

Anyway, given this, it can be said that the movement was separating itself from Judaism, gradually not instanstly, evolving, if you will, with other sects emergin like gnosticism, until the rise of Roman Catholicism, but it can be argued that that gradual change might have take place more noticeable after Jesus' death, which the idea might have existed before his birth, if that's the case, but it may have evolved or be different by that time than when it was originally conceived, and yes, it can be said that messianic views predated his birth, but that doesn't seem to make a succesful case for arguing in favor of the existence of Christianity before Jesus' birth.

But then, we are making assumptions and speculation about the character of Jesus, not about his physycal existence but about his central role in Christianity, historically speaking. I believe some have argued that the Essenes were somehow responsable for the birth of Christianity.

I could say that AG and Orwell positions on this, are the most accepted among scholars and historians.

That's actually not true of Mormonism either. My mother is Mormon and I was baptized in that church once upon a time... long time ago... and while there are some significant and interesting differences between Mormonism and the rest of Christianity, it is still a dominantly Christian religion, so most of the beliefs are the same. They have basically the same opinion of homosexuality for example as Baptists. For that matter, their thoughts about baptism are similar to those of baptists. The trinity (although they call it the "god head"), etc. Yes, there are a lot of differences, but the bulk of the religion still came from Christianity. I suspect the same is true of Calvinism.

Christianity as a whole has had two-thousand years to differentiate itself from Judaism, with every passing year producing slightly different attitudes as a result of both internal politics and external influences. As a result, Christianity has differentiated itself quite a lot from Judaism, whereas Mormonism has been around for a much shorter period of time and has differentiated itself a bit less. There's also the issue that Christianity actually wanted to differentiate itself from Judaism whereas the Mormon church seeks to be accepted amongst the group that people describe as "Chritian religions". So there's apt to be a wider or more distinct differentiation between Christianity and Judaism simply because it was their desire to distance themselves.

But distancing is not the same thing as starting over from scratch. Obama distanced himself from Blagojevich - he didn't become a Republican or a Libertarian to do that. Jesus (the prophet in question) similarly never actually stated anything that I'm aware of about the formation of a new church. As a matter of fact, to this day the parable of the Good Samaritan points out that it isn't necessary to be a Jew to go to heaven (which is generally glossed over or just not discussed when that parable is discussed with children in Sunday school). And a lot of the basics have still stayed the same between Judaism and Christianity. The ten commandments (which were never actually ten in number) came over from Mosaic law, but they dropped some of the cooking instructions. Mormons then decided to reincorporate cooking instructions into their doctrine.

So that's my notion... By the time Christianity came around, they still had this notion left over from likely as far back as prehistory that they could keep people in line by banishing them. Hence the kind of "spiritual attack" on a given kingdom when they're not doing what the church wants. They try and bring that kingdom back in line by saying "straighten up and do what we want or you won't get into heaven". Pope isn't doing that anymore because after a couple centuries they've realized it's not an effective political tool anymore. But it may still be effective with some individuals on a personal level. If the person in question is really afraid of the power of the church, then yeah, it could keep them in line. Although it doesn't have quite the zing it used to -- not everyone is terrified of the thought of being excommunicated anymore. I did meet a woman once who was excommunicated from the Mormon church for adultery and was then trying to get back in their graces. I don't know what's involved, but apparently you can be re-communicated... heh...

So you're saying that it's impossible that "thou shalt not kill" might have been an idea that Christianity brought forward from its Judaic roots? That it's impossible for any prior Mosaic law (or more to my point prior thinking) to have had any bearing whatsoever on that being a commandment in the Christian religions? That "though shalt not kill" with regard to Christianity is a wholly new concept, invented by the Christian religion?

I'm still not buying it... If I'm thinking about climbing a ladder, there are all sorts of preparatory actions my body can take that may or may not reach fruition. It can generate adrenaline in preparation for the climb and then I can change my mind because I realized that I need to do something else first. And that can all happen whether I think I've made the decision to climb or not.

Moreover, supporting a theory doesn't actually mean finding evidence that is in favor of the theory, it means ruling out alternative theories. So in order to say that free will is an illusion you have to provide evidence that it's never possible for people to make their own decisions, not merely that the brain gets a head start on certain things. That's called confirmation bias (which is at least partly responsible for people believing that vaccinations cause Autism). Check out the "Wason selection task".

But lets say for argument's sake that I did buy it, it would be a really crappy thing to propagate that idea.

It invalidates any sense of self-respect, esteem (self or otherwise) or pride in ones work or actions. You could never say "good job" to yourself or anyone else with any sincerity because, well, whatever they've done, it's not really their doing. They're just a robot after all, following the logical, deterministic course of what they've been programmed to do. So there's no reason to give anyone any praise for anything ever. No more Nobel laurettes, etc...

It invalidates any form of social justice at all, absolving people of responsibility for their actions... If a random stranger were to walk up to you and punch you in the face with no cause or provocation, the most you could say about that event is "well, he was destined to do that because of his conditioning". He could have no culpability or responsibility for his actions.

In 1982 President Reagan wrote a letter to Roger Pearson to thank him for publishing the works of "scholars" who uphold the "ideals and principles that we value at home and abroad." This involved such works as The Bell Curve which asserted through pseudo-science that money in public education should be shifted away from any kind of education for black children so that our money wouldn't be wasted and could instead be spent on white children. According to Reagan the "ideals and principals that we value" include to some great extent racism. The Bell Curve is just a recent installment in a much longer history of this sort of thing. The Nazis had previously perverted the work of behaviorists to their advantage by using the theory that people could only learn through conditioning as evidence to support their eugenics. And like a lot of other widely held "facts" of science, along with the impossibility of "spooky action at a distance", that theory's been overturned in recent years.

And no, I'm not just "hitlering the thread", this is relevant context and in fact Roger Pearson is known to be an organizer of current neo-Nazi groups on both the American and European continents. I know that Amanda Baggs has talked about eugenics. If we had proof that free will is an illusion (which I'm still not convinced we have), I'm sure more than one government would consider that carte blanche to perform whatever eugenics they like, either on the basis of race or on the basis of expected behavior for other reasons. And they would say "well gee, it's not their fault that they behave badly... any more than it's our fault that we kill/enslave/abuse them... that's just our lot in life, given our genetics and conditioning."

Reagan, Pearson, Racism & Eugenics
http://chss.montclair.edu/English/furr/steverbc.html

Amanda Baggs
http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?page_id=2

I'm generally not in favor of giving people any more excuses to abuse people... especially based on the kind of weak evidence offered here. It begs the question "what if you're wrong?" If you're wrong and everyone believes it anyway, what happens? People suffer abuse because of a misconception.

Or for that matter, "what if you're right?" ... Nothing good comes from it... as far as I can tell. Which isn't even to mention the kind of massive "self-fulfilling prophecies" that are guaranteed to result from it and guaranteed to cripple people who would not have been so crippled by believing in free will. Check out Martin Seligman's research into "learned optimism".

Believing in the idea that free will is an illusion is a lose-lose situation. It's bad if you're right, and it's even worse if you're wrong.

Last edited by ike on 25 Dec 2008, 10:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.