Christians: bad for society.

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The form wasn't distilled. It really was a set of assertions.

Six pages cut and paste IS too long. That point is recognized already, even by people other than myself, such as LKL pointing out that this is questionable behavior for a debate.

Now, I don't know why you're the only one who seems to have these problems, but it really seems to be the case.


Actually, no, I wouldn't need to argue that it is "true in an objective sense", I'd instead need to argue that it is something that people could come to agree upon, just like with food and aesthetics. Even further, I don't have to argue a moral point to make my point. For instance, I already showed this by pointing out that "bullet wounds are bad for Hitler" isn't a moral issue. Finally, I still haven't actually accepted your argument.


No, not really. In this sense it is really more similar to saying "sunlight is good for plants".


Umm... there's nothing to really refute. Craig's model and their models are making different claims, and given that many of Craig's arguments are questionable, I don't think there is much they have to really do. I'd go into it all, but frankly, at the point where I have to respond to 6 pages of a person's writings who isn't even here, I start feeling a bit abused, almost as if the strategy is to wear the opponent down with the weight of things one can copy and paste off of the internet, rather than actually engage their position.


He stated his views on the matter. Period. Nobody needs your discussion. It is mostly off-topic, for reasons that LKL points out, we could defer back to Hinduism for our points. We could defer back to ANYTHING. The issue is just language, not ontology. I don't care about ontology very much during this discussion, because no matter what you argue with the ontology, the basic understandings of what is going on with Christianity and society won't be that changed. People will just phrase things differently, but the point, Christianity is unnecessary crap, will still be the same. As such, I really still think your argument is a waste of time, even if you succeed, a point I won't grant, and one that I don't

Your raising a large point, it requires a comprehensive response in order to show how ridiculous it is.



Religion is neither food nor an aesthetic. You need to base your argument on more than just the shared development of taste. If you can make it about nothing more than subjective taste you cannot argue that this has any bearing on somethings value within society.



Dismissing this position does not disprove or refute it. It just means you cannot articulate your inherent opposition to it.



So your saying I should engage your position; but that even if I succeed that you will not agree. Ridiculous.

'The new atheists are much more likely to be suddenly ambushed in the hearty by poetry than they ever are likely to be convinced by reasoned argument' - Peter Hitchens

'

Uhh.... yeah..... Given that Craig's position is in the fringes, it is hard to say that the position is ridiculous.

The problem is that 6 pages is too long. Craig's argument has a lot of rhetoric and other things that you could have cut the fat from. And copying and pasting something just shows a lack of attention.


I don't see why I can't make the argument.


No, I really can, I just refuse to give respect to your 6 page block quote. I already started into it, and halfway through, I noticed exactly how much you were quoting, and then just said "screw it, that's not proper". As it stands, Craig's position doesn't really engage these other positions, so I don't really see what is needed other than dismissal, sometimes a position taken is just far enough gone from where it has to be to be relevant where it can be dismissed.


You do realize that you took two different quotes from different contexts.

The first quote is from this: "I'd go into it all, but frankly, at the point where I have to respond to 6 pages of a person's writings who isn't even here, I start feeling a bit abused, almost as if the strategy is to wear the opponent down with the weight of things one can copy and paste off of the internet, rather than actually engage their position.", which is basically stating that I regard mere copy-and-paste tactics as more than a bit dishonest.

The second quote is here: "The issue is just language, not ontology. I don't care about ontology very much during this discussion, because no matter what you argue with the ontology, the basic understandings of what is going on with Christianity and society won't be that changed. People will just phrase things differently, but the point, Christianity is unnecessary crap, will still be the same. As such, I really still think your argument is a waste of time, even if you succeed, a point I won't grant, and one that I don't"

So, there is really no freaking inconsistency between saying that it is improper to do a massive quote of someone, and saying that your argument is irrelevant for reason X. Frankly, it is behavior like this that makes me believe that you are entirely intellectually dishonest. You take two quotes of me out of their original contexts so that way you can hold that they are in opposition to each other, despite the fact that neither quote is even on the same topic. And of course, then you berate other people for showing the flaws that you have, even if they don't really have those flaws, as a display of uber-hypocrisy. It's a joke.

I must have missed the part where you earned a Phd in Philosophy and were therefor able to judge the quality of a work you cannot refute.




Or it shows a lack of attention span.



Because what tastes good to you gives you no grounds to tell me what tastes good to me. You are arguing about society as a whole; that Christianity is bad. I think the standard of proof that one billion people's beliefs are bad for society requires more than a subjective position akin to aesthetics or food.

What you also use as the basis of your argument; that subjectivity is enough is quite self-defeating. For instance you said:



I could argue that the fact one billion people are Christian and functioning members of society is something people have already come to agree one. On what grounds could you refute their position? They could simply hold that your evidence does not apply to them and continue going about their lives. Why should people listen when you have no objective way of making your criticism valid in a way that would exist regardless of what they think?

I would also like to point out to you that you are making the case that I and my values are bad for society. The fact that you are expressing outrage at my points is of little value to me what-so-ever, you are the one making the judgement. I do not care to hear the outrage of someone who is blatantly prejudice. I will however, listen to your points and refute them; which is more courtesy than you are showing me. I am at least open to being convinced.

This has nothing to do with ability. This has everything to do with finding that allowing a person to post something long as their "argument" is destructive to the workings of the forum. Craig's arguments often do have very thin and questionable premises, and I've listened to enough of his debates and so on to criticize many elements, even posting articles by other academics against Craig's metaethical position.


Right.... I've made my position clear. The question isn't one of my ability, but rather the properness of you posting a 6 page quote from another source as your argument. Blaming ME because I don't think that something you are doing is right doesn't seem respectful.


I hardly see why. Certainly you asserting your position won't prove it to me.


Well.... um.... the problem is that the positions aren't in conflict. Christianity can still be bad for society, AND Christians can still be functioning members. Let's just substitute Christianity with tobacco. It is a perfectly defensible position that tobacco use is bad for society, but that tobacco users are functioning.

If we're arguing ethics, where you deny that I have a solid meta-ethic, then aren't you begging the question by asking "should"? The question isn't why they "should", but rather, whether they'd find my position persuasive, or even find it to cause consistency issues in their worldview. Either of which is perfectly possible without an objective moral ontology, and either of which is relevant to my concern.



HA HA HA HA HA HA!! !!

Wow, do you do anything but posture and lie?

I express outrage at your behaviors, as they are outrageous, and not the sorts of behaviors I would ever want to see promoted. Frankly, this is not even driven by prejudice so much as the fact that you are being an utter jerk.

As for, courtesy... Umm... yeah, either you have no connection with reality, or you are a troll.

91 is trolling for Jesus in the same way all the Christians who claim Flew as one of their one of their own are acting as vultures for Jesus.

One need not be a master chef from Le Cordon Bleu to adequately judge when the soup has too much salt.


I have to agree with AG that it's just disrespectful to cut and past that much. If you really wanted to use that work, you could have linked to it and pulled out the paragraph or two that were most meaningful, or better yet summarized it in your own words. I have a stack of nonfiction books that I want to read that's literally more than three feet high; I come to the internet for some human interaction, not to be shunted to someone else's reading list.


An important clarification: AG is not saying that you are bad (at least to the extent that you are a human being as well as a christian), but that your religion is bad. He is saying that you would be better off without it.

AG

Then why not address the argument that he and I are putting forward to you. Instead you just seem to be doing everything within your power not to address the point.



I did this because Dr. Craig is more capable of putting forward the position than I am. I also did put forward my position in a more succinct way and you dismissed it as being incomplete. Then when I gave you the complete argument you attacked it for being too long. You cannot have it both ways. The fact that the article is long and well argued does not make it invalid.



Nor will putting forward your position prove it to me, unless you can do so in an objective manner. As in; as I have repeatedly stated; prove that it would be true regardless of whether I believed the opposite or not.

I have also asserted my position. Firstly as an assertion and then as a well reasoned argument. You attacked the first as being incomplete and the second as too long. There is therefor I can only conclude that you cannot argue the point and that all of this chicanery is just a diversion from that fact.



I reject this comparison, tobacco is not an internal ideology.



You are mistaking making the case for begging the question.



So the fact that your an anti-theist does not make you prejudice against theists. Even George Orwell would be flabbergasted by your double-think.

LKL



No this is true, but refusing to discuss the matter on the grounds that Dr. Craig has produced a work of low quality without being able to discuss why. If the soup is wrong, he is not saying its the salt; hes not saying anything.



I did pull out the core argument in my second post on the subject (it is on the top of page 3). I put it forward in my own words with quotations from within the text. I have done everything that you have said I should have done and did not do.

Had AG not made the case earlier that what I was presenting was incomplete, I would not have felt the need to post the entire article. I did put forward my contentions in a plain way and they were attacked on the grounds that the argument was inadequate. So no when I put forward the entire argument I am being disrespectful; It seems I am damned if I do and damned if I don't. The fact that I put forward my case in the a manner that was consistent with the terms AG was setting does not make me disrespectful.



I am my religion as much as I am my nationality.

Then summarize it in a much smaller point. I've already addressed his metaethics though, by pointing out that there is a modified Euthyphro. I pointed you to an article, after you stated that nobody has refuted it. Now, you could ask me to restate what is in the article(that is a fair request given that it is an academic article of some length), but the information is present.


No, I dismissed it as not an argument. You basically quoted two figures who didn't really make an argument in both cases. I simply asked you to lay-out what they said logically as I didn't see an argument. I didn't complain about how succinct it was. I think I asked you to make it into syllogisms, and syllogisms are more succinct than prose.

I really can dismiss your article for being too long. The length is WAY too much. Point out a few specific arguments, or summarize something.


The issue is that I am not trying to prove my position, you're trying to refute a possibility. You need to succeed first.


The first was incomplete. The second was too long. That's just pretty dang simple, and there is no reason to think that I have to be dishonest to hold to those two positions. 6 pages is really long. Assertions are incomplete. That's just that.

As for arguing the point? Umm.... generally, with the smaller bits I've done quite fine. I've also already stated that I started acting on the paper until I recognized how long it was and considered the size mistreatment.


So, the comparison doesn't require both sides be an internal ideology. I mean, frankly, you can have me come up with comparisons all day, but your point still fails, and it still fails for reasons that LKL already pointed out. (which are the same reasons I pointed out.


Nope, you are invoking "should" to judge an argument when the existence of ethics wasn't an assumption I was necessarily upholding.


Actually, a number of my best friends are theists. One of whom is going to seminary, and we talk about the ideas often. So.... you know what? No, I don't think so. Even further, my statement really means that I don't think prejudice is so much the issue as your behavior, which is basically what it explicitly means.


I've already directly commented on assumptions in Craig's post. I've also already pointed out that Craig is dismissing a rich literature that rejects the reductionism that Craig is assuming. We can go into more depth, but I am not going to address a 6 page paper just because you posted it. After that, you'll just start pulling pages from Richard Swinburne.


My contention was that they weren't arguments, and I stated explicitly that I only saw assertions made by those authors. Now, you can disagree, but my offer to you was explicitly multiple times that you simply rephrase the argument so that way I could perceive it more clearly. I even suggested a method of both making it clearer, and reducing the size, which was reducing the argument to the syllogistic reasonings comprising it.


I only said two things:
1) I didn't believe that you were presenting an argument.
2) If you disagreed, that you should rephrase those authors into their more strictly deductive forms.

That's not something that requires you to post 6 pages. You could have simply done as I asked.

You are not "damned if you do, damned if you don't", you're being a child about this. I've given you reasonable ways to fulfill my requests. You haven't done them.


Well, then you might also be better off if you were Scandinavian. You don't refute LKL's point by saying this.

'I pointed you to an article, after you stated that nobody has refuted it.'

Refutation: The article is contingent on the assumption that God is complex.

Fine, I have really had enough of your evasions. I will do as you ask, then go for your life.


You have contended that Christians are bad for society. You were defeated previously on your assertion that Christianity was bad for society because you were unable to prove that the majority of Christians shared your interpretation of certain biblical passages.

Now, having gone back and forth you without you actually engaging my criticism, despite the fact that you clearly understand it, I will put it forward again. I do so under the proviso that attacking it for being incomplete would only justify my complaint that you have no interest in debating my point.

Firstly I would content that if God exists then there is no doubt where objective moral values come from. The absolute being the most simple thing in existence can exist in a way that the attributes of that absolute are not separate from one another; in much the same way according to sting theory everything that is complex is made from simple energy in different combinations. The energy may make complex things, but those things are no separate from the energy.

Secondly I would contend that without God there can be no objective basis for moral values. Your argument is predicated upon the assertion that something is bad and that thing is Christianity. Since you are an atheist you hold that there is no God; therefor my argument applies to you. For something to be objectively true; it must exist in every possible world; as in it my be true in such a way as to be so in every possible circumstance. The only alternative to God for moral values that has been put forward is that they are rooted in our social-evolutionary and psychological development. However, for something to be wrong under those conditions, it can only be so if someone shares the same social, evolutionary and psychological positions. Since someone could hold that they do not share your interpretation of these things you would have no way of arguing that these things are wrong. This view has been put forward by the biological philosopher Pigliucci:

‘on atheism there is no such thing as objective morality, morality in human cultures has evolved and what is moral for you, might not be moral for the guy next door and certainly is not moral for the guy across the ocean and what makes you think that your personal morality is right and everybody elses is wrong? What we call homicide and rape is very common among many kinds of animals, lion for example commit infanticide on a regular basis, are any of these kinds of acts to be condoned? I don’t even know what that means; the lion does not understand what morality is.'

LKL also kindly contributed this quote

'So yes, for me morality is neither arbitrary (the relativist position) nor absolute (the typical religionist position, though Kant also famously attempted to arrive at a logically necessary ethics via an entirely secular route — and failed). Rather, I think of morality as something that makes sense only for human beings and other relevantly similar species. By relevantly similar, I mean social animals with brains complex enough to be able to reflect on what they are doing and why they are doing it (that is, being able to philosophize!). As far as I know, Homo sapiens is currently the only such species on planet Earth, though of course there may be others elsewhere in the cosmos. '

Pigliucci argues that humans can indeed philosophies but admits that this essentially does not make the suppositions objective.


So AG you may contend that Christians are bad for society but you cannot argue the concept of bad in any way that makes it valuable; unless of course we mistake bad for useless; but then this was not your argument.

The argument I am making does not contend that atheists cannot maintain moral lives only that the concept of morality is rooted in God and cannot be rooted in some evolutionary process (nor is there any evidence that it exists in some way similar to God). If you then hold that there is no God then there is no good or bad.

As an addendum, this my argument alone is not what an atheist must contend with. There are atheist nihilists such as Nietzsche that have put forward positions that attack your position. For instance: If God exists, there is a sound foundation for morality. If God does not exist, then, as Nietzsche saw, we are ultimately landed in nihilism.

ok, I failed to recognize that the two were the same thing.


I see why you are frustrated.
I do think that, between this thread and the other, I understand what you're trying to say; there was even a point earlier in this thread that I agreed with your point for myself (though I cannot speak for all or even most non-theists), that while atheism allows for morality it does not allow for a universal, objective morality. Sometimes you seem to be also saying that any morality other than the universal is some how arbitrary and subjective, though, and I don't believe that to be the case. I'm pretty much in-line with Pigliucci (see the longer excerpt and website I linked to earlier in this thread).

All of that said, it doesn't touch the point of this thread. The morality argument is an argument for a deity, not for Christianity; this thread is about the latter.


That implies a sort of ...helplessness to it. Like it's inborn, like you have no ability to change what you believe?

My ancestors were Irish Catholic; I am Irish, but I am not Catholic.

I appreciate your reach for the middle ground. I however find arguing in favor of a middle ground with AG to be an exorcise in futility. Every time I have in the past he has mistaken sincerity for weakness. For instance when I stated that I probably was not the best person to defend the Euthyphro dilemma he saw this as an invitation to attack. Now Dr Craig has put an answer to AG's assertion on his website, though I have not put that on this forum because I know it would do no good since it would be dismissed as an appeal to authority if I linked to it and as too long if I posted it.

In relation to subjective and objective morality; I would contend that in matters of less importance that the use of conventional subjective morality would suffice to prove the argument. However the assertion here is that one billion people on this planet hold beliefs that are bad for society; the burden of proof must be high.



Well if one knows that God; as a fact. Then one cannot change it. This does not make it helpless. I love my faith; but I am frustrated by the continued assertion that what I hold is either wrong or bad for society. Especially since I believe I have put forward a convincing argument in defense of my beliefs.

Invoking a deity to claim the universality of a morality does not make it universal, it is only a subjective endorsement of the morality using an assumed deity as a prop. If the deity is not accepted the morality has no claim on universality.

That contention of yours may be true; that is a discussion for another time. I would however argue that objective values can only really exist if one routes them in God; that too is probably best left for another time. I will accept that your argument is valid for the purposes of this topic.

Sand, you need to make a distinction between who is making the statement that needs to be routed in objective values in order for it to be true and in this case; it is not me. In this topic it is AG who is making the claim that Christians are bad for society. If we take as given that there is no subjective morality and any use of anything a prop does not make it objective than how can AG's claim that Christians are bad for society be objectively true; which being the case it would need to be so for his point to be made.

Last edited by 91 on 11 Nov 2010, 6:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

In general AG pointed out the many occasions when Christians have behaved in what politely might be termed an uncivilized manner. That non-Christians also provided some very nasty episodes in human history has no relevance in evaluating Christianity. As a non-Christian I am making these determinations from a personal stance which I find acceptable but is in no sense universal.

Heh, the simplicity of God as a theological assertion really doesn't make much sense.

1) God has qualities that are not identifiable as the same, but rather as different in some sense, for example, beings of the trinity. To argue that distinct persons are the same ends up creating real confusion, especially given that part of our identification of a person requires some distinctness, as they can't just be modes of being.
2) If God is simple, God is the same as his properties, but the problem with this is that abstract properties don't have the ability to be personal(a trait applied to God), or to know or to do anything else of that sort.
3) If all of God's properties are simple, then by transitivity of identity, God's justice is his mercy is his omnipotence, which ends up being very conceptually incoherent.
4) Finally, many of these properties are empirically questionable given the state of the world, or even problematic in and of themselves. (omniscience has a set theoretic paradox, for instance, in that the set of all knowledge is vulnerable to a Godellian refutation) (at least, if I remember a paper by one philosopher on the matter)


No, I never accepted your methodology, which means that a defeat in terms of that isn't relevant in my mind. I had explicitly in the past upheld another methodology for engaging this. Out of some kindness, I acquiesced to some of your requests, but I never agreed with you on this methodology. Instead, after a period of time, I labeled you intellectually dishonest, and refused to speak with you.


I don't care about your proviso. If it is incomplete, then it is incomplete. I will admit that Pigliucci was the closest to an argument, but at the same time, he really only asserted a particular opinion about naturalism; he didn't argue as to why his opinion should be taken as true or anything of that sort.


I don't accept the simplicity of God as making sense, partially for reasons mentioned above. Rather, I am more likely to accept the perspective that if God exists, God has to be a very very complex being, as after all, this notion of God is capable of complex planning, complex actions. And so this:
1) God can engage in complex actions.
2) Complex actions require systematic framing
3) Systematic framing requires complicated systems of "thought".
4) God must have systematic framing. (1 and 2)
5) God must have complicated systems of "thought" (3 and 4)
6) Complicated systems of "thought" are not simple.
7) God is not simple. (5 and 6)

I put "thought" in quotes as we can call the way that God systemizes knowledge anything, but the issue is that if there were a basic "social interaction", then it wouldn't be so difficult for aspies. Even further, saying that Justice entails following people around in the desert for a few hundred years requires an argument of the sort we haven't seen.


No, objective truth does not entail "existing in every possible world". Being objectively true means that it is true in an observor independent method in THIS world. Every possible world would entail that the only objective things are logical properties, but the problem is that a statement "there is a chair in the middle of this specified room" is not true in all world, but it is still an objective statement.


No, that isn't it. There are a lot of different positions on this issue, which is why I pointed out the essay by ex-apologist. In fact, a philosopher named Erik Wielenberg accepts that ethical propositions exist non-naturally, but does not attribute them to God. Even further, if the simplicity of God is discredited, which I hold it has been, then the Euthyphro dilemma is still an issue.


Ok, and that still does not invalidate my use of moral language. Especially given that people of a Western background on an AS forum will have a lot of similarities in this regard.


Umm..... actually, I already told you I could.

I stated "bad for X" is not a statement of ethics, but rather of maintaining something and supporting its existence. Water is good for grass is not a statement that says "it is good to water grass", but rather is just that.


Umm...... no. Nietzsche actually didn't accept nihilism, but rather struggled against it for the conception of the uber-mensch. The coming nihilism was that of the last men, who really had no values, while the Nietzschean uber-mensch wasn't a nihilist, but a creator of values. This can be seen throughout Nietzsche's work.

That being said, I doubt Nietzsche really has any concern with my position, and he would probably agree with it. Attacking moral language wasn't Nietzsche's biggest thing, and given that my moral language has been non-Christian at times, he would have probably enjoyed that. Nietzsche was a proponent of non-Christian moralities, while a skeptic to the realism of morality.