WrongPlanet.net an anti-christian site?

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DW, I do not recall ever having seen you enter the explicitely religious fray prior to this discussion, much less use religion to justify your beliefs. However, there are people that do so, both here on WP and in the world at large; likewise, we freethinkers are constantly deluged (again, here and elsewhere) by believers saying that atheists are immoral and/or that atheism 'takes more faith' than theism. I, personally, find those statements to be hurtful - but I don't generally say so, because my feelings have no weight in a debate. They might convince someone to shut up, but they will not win an argument and they will not change any minds.

I have no problem with the structures of your arguments, or with their tone; I have never found you to be irrational or deluded. However, there are more people on the PPR than you.

The reason that many of us rejected theism for atheism, or whatever, is because we examined the evidence and found it irrational. When we cast off religion, we felt like we were casting off a delusion. If we use the terms 'irrational' or 'deluded,' it is because those words most completely fit what we think and how we feel; while it is perfectly valid to ask people not to be a**holes (otherwise known as 'being PC'), one of the signs of Asperger's is a tendency to be perceived as an a**hole by the people around you. Is WP a place where Aspies can go and let their aspieness loose, or is it a place where we can go to learn how to get along with people better? It probably varies from member to member. In either case, you will probably get your best reaction with, 'you are not likely to get people to listen to you if you impugn their intelligence,' rather than with, 'you hurt my feelings when you say that.'

You'll never hear me say that atheists are immoral, and I know I don't come here much ... but a part of the reason I don't, and the reason others don't, is that we do feel our intelligence is under attack the minute we admit we actually hold faith.

I'm fine if you say, "to me it felt irrational" instead of "it is irrational." One leaves room for me to still be sane, the other doesn't.

Christian is a tough thing to be on the Wrong Planet.

Thanks for agreeing to try a little to be sensitive to it.

I speak only for myself.

I don't equate being religious with being stupid. A philosophically minded friend of mine is religious, and deeply intelligent. I mightn't agree with what they believe, I might think it's stupid, but many intelligent people have held beliefs have believed silly stuff at one point or another.

Being Christian is tough, everywhere you go ... even in a church. If you don't toe the party line, then you are not a True Christian.

The irrationality I object to is subjective validation; that is, when a person cites his or her own personal beliefs as sufficient proof for a claim. This is a special case of Circular Reasoning, which is also known as Begging The Question, Assuming The Answer, or Tautology -- The thing to be proved is used as one of the assumptions; such as when a person believes that a miracle has occurred, and that their belief is sufficient evidence that a miracle has occurred.

"It's a miracle ... because I believe it's a miracle ... because it's a miracle ... because I believe it's a miracle ... because it's a miracle ... because I believe it's a miracle ... because it's a miracle ... because I believe it's a miracle ... because it's a miracle ... because I believe it's a miracle ... because it's a miracle ... ", et cetera, ad infinitum.

A more rational form would be to accept that a miracle may have occurred, but that unless the event was actually contrary to How Things Work, then it may not have been a miracle.

For instance: A child has a case of "Flesh-Eating Bacteria" that defied medical treatments for two months, and then the tests come back one day showing that all the bacteria has died, so the child is likely to recover. Miracle? Not likely. Medical treatments have been known to cure even the toughest of infections.

What if Granny got her entire church to pray night and day for the child to be healed; wouldn't that prove a miracle? Again, not likely. Correlation does not imply causation; meaning that just because prayer ran concurrently with medical treatment, it is much more likely that the medical treatment itself cured the infection.

What if there was no medical treatment, and the child got well anyway? Well ... maybe ... people do sometimes get better without treatment, but in the case of "Flesh-Eating Bacteria", such a recovery is extremely unlikely, so maybe a miracle would have been involved, if such a recovery had also occurred (which it didn't).

My point is that what usually passes for a "miracle" is no more than yet another case of Subjective Validation - someone believes that the recovery was miraculous, so 'obviously' a miracle must have occurred. Never mind the round-the-clock medical treatments by skilled medical professionals; it was all the result of Granny and her friends faithfully mumbling to the floor or ceiling hundreds of miles away.

If I might butt in ...

Those words I have highlighted -- found, felt, think and feel -- each mean or represent different things to (or get used differently by) different people, but they all really add up to nothing beyond mere opinion (and not any actual "finding" (factual discovery)). All of that is fine, of course ...

... and nobody can complain if/when those kinds of "findings", feelings or thoughts are then used following the word "we" ...

"We found/felt/thought/believed all of whatever to be irrational for us ..."
"We felt like we had been delusional while (or if/when) believing those things we have since found/felt/thought/surmised to be irrational for us ..."

Nobody can ever fairly find fault with anyone else for sharing their own actual experience related to themselves.

As silly as this might sound, many people here would do well take take a look at the basic "interaction principles" presented in the chapter "Working With Others" in "Alcoholics Anonymous", the book. As one extracted example:

"Your prospect (the other person) may ... wonder how you can add anything to what he (at least thinks he) already knows ...
"Let him see that you are not there to instruct him ...
"Perhaps your (own personal experience) will (simply) help him see ..."


Not when we are not doing ass-hole things.


There you go ...

"Let him see that you are not there to instruct (or to try to change) him ...
"Perhaps your (own personal experience) will (simply) help him ..."

Note: The above was not intended as being pointed directly at you, LKL.

I've heard that someone actually studied this, and the odds of getting the desired outcome do go up with prayer. But it would never all be grannie's friends

Of course there is subjective validation. But not all subjective validation is false. Still, without studies like the one on prayer, it is hard to know the statistical difference and, even if you do know it, which cases are the luck and which are influenced through potentially mystical factors. Caution in making the interpretation is definitely warranted. But ... There is no harm in doing something that might improve your outcomes, while there can be harm in failing to do it.

But prayer isn't about outcomes. It is about a relationship. And that ... Would be another topic

LKL, if someone is trying to justify some position as "proved" because of something in the Bible (usually I find this happening with anti-abortionists and those who hate gay people), then feel free to deride them. However, it works even better if you point out passages that either a) oppose their points (for instance, some claim to find justification for believing life beings at conception in the Bible; simply point them to Genesis 2:7, where the first man did not come to life until God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life"; thus, the Biblical position should be that life begins when the baby takes the first breath of air), or b) are in the same section, and being ignored by that same Christian (for instance, Leviticus 18:22 says gay sex is bad; Lev. 19:18 also says you can't take vengeance against anyone or hold a grudge of any sort, and Lev. 19 forbids crossbreeding cattle and wearing cotton/poly blend clothing ["a garment... of two kinds of material mixed together"]).

In short, the easiest way to get this sort of person biting his/her own tail is to actually read the Bible yourself, so you know what he/she is talking about, and where he/she might be wrong. On the other hand, I can understand if you don't really want to do it; it's a pretty thick book, after all, and some of the language is - well - a bit flowery. (And the third time Exodus describes the exact construction of the Ark of the Covenant, you might want to file the silly thing away in a warehouse somewhere too!) In that case, again, try to find something to oppose the person's arguments other than resorting to argumentum ad hominem - painting ALL Christians, or even all people of any faith, as being "delusional idiots" is unlikely to convince anyone of the soundness of your position.

You may find, after ceasing to filter your perceptions of people's arguments through your perception of their faith, that the "appeal to authority" you dislike so isn't necessarily coming from everyone you disagree with. For myself, for instance, you may well find that where matters of fact are concerned, I do not base arguments on Biblical passages (which, in many cases, I believe to be metaphorical, not literal), but rather on relevant scientific data. It's easier to argue, after all, if everyone agrees on what the terms of the discussion mean...

I'll let the following quote express my opinion on that



Please add the Book of Mormon to your reading list!

Even if that is against WP rules?


Caution: You might get more than you bargained for!


Why not just be silent until something more substantial might actually come along?

No offense intended -- just food for thought.

Who told you it's wrong? Inaccurate would be a much better term.

I needed no-one to tell me that the Biblical value for Pi - as derived from 1 Kings 7:23 - is wrong.

30 cubits around, and 10 cubits across ... Circumference equals the diameter times Pi ... 30 divided by 10 is 3 ... the value of Pi is closer to 22 divided by 7 ... even closer to 355 divided by 113 ... none are close to the value that my calculator says.

Bible: 3 (This is about 4.5% too low)

22/7 = 3.1428571428571428571428571428571 (This is about 0.04% too high)

355/113 = 3.1415929203539823008849557522124 (This is about 0.0000085% too high)

Calculator 'Pi' button: 3.1415926535897932384626433832795 (This is as close to the actual value of Pi as anyone ever needs to get)

Okay, so all of these values for Pi are "Wrong", since there is no way to represent the actual value with rational values. However, if the Bible is supposed to be the complete and inerrent word of a perfect god, then why is the Biblical value for Pi not even close to a workable value? Why did the writers of the Bible leave it up to Archimedes to compute Pi to two decimal places using inscribed and cirumscribed polygons (c. 260 BCE)? The book of 1st Kings was written sometime between 930 BCE and 430 BCE.

That's another thing ... if the Bbile is so historically accurate, then why is there no universally agreed-upon dates for the vast majority of the events in it?

Well, the issue though is that any religion, regardless of how ridiculous it sounded could use the same framework. This is a problem because a lot of religions and hypothetical religions are pretty freaking ridiculous, even so to the point where we could not accept them as true or even valid to believe. As such, *some* criticism of the idea needs to be possible. I mean, it isn't as if your belief you love your husband contradicts a set of other ideas people honestly have about the world.

I'll agree with you on this. I mean, the book is not a math text, and the authors are not aiming at mathematical truths. So... we get a value of pi that is 5% off... well? Ok? Missing the point, and if we were trying to actually establish a failure in accuracy, there are really better things to criticize anyway.

Food for thought plus it might literary shut the atheists up:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrHwbxS8-FI[/youtube]

In any case, long-story short, the internet is anti-Christian, and I would tend to think a few academic disciplines could be considered so as well, partly depending on how we define "Christian".