Another blog entry tops the 1K mark: I'm closing the God, abortionist thread and opening this one up for any spillover. Clearly, we need faster, more powerful servers to keep up with the chatter going on here.
Again, I've lost track of whatever the subject was, so I guess you can talk about anything.
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That's it! I'm never reading another imaging paper again, ever. OK, I might read one or two, and I might even post about them, but for now I'm telling myself, for my own sanity, that I'm never, ever, under any circumstances, going to read another imaging study. If you read my last post, or have…
Mark Mathis does not come off as a nice man in interviews. You may have listened to the SciAm interview, a truly painful experience in which he made claims about evolution and then backtracked when confronted with his mistakes…and admitted that he knew nothing about the subject. He's done it again…
I've been sent Yet Another Proof of God. This one goes to rather a lot of trouble
to appear to be mathematical. I thought that it would be fun to rip it apart. For a change, this one is from an Islamic moron, rather than the usual Christian moron.
Alas, it's pretty much as stupid and shallowly…
Oh, no. I spent a long day traveling, getting my daughter to the airport in Minneapolis so she could fly off to Phoenix for 10 weeks of research (she has arrived, and seems a bit shocked to be in a desert), and then I drove all the way back. I sit down to see what has happened in the world, and…
Maybe you should consider opening up, or outsourcing the opening up of, an official Pharyngula message board.
You don't need faster servers, you just need software that automatically splits up long comment threads into multiple pages.
Or official forums. That would work too.
In the bible, God aborts David and Bathsheba's baby. BTW, I have a great rant about the bible here.
We're out to prove the thousand monkeys with typewriters rule. So far, we're up to:
The SciBorg's gonna need a lot of servers and disc space at this rate…
Well, with it opened up like this, I would like to note that Chris Comer's lawsuit was dismissed:
My point is not so much whether it's right or wrong to dismiss the suit, but this apparently closes a matter that was discussed here and on many other boards.
Glen D
http://electricconsciousness.tripod.com
Ah yes anything. That wonderful 8 letter word.
I'm taking you to the loony bin.
oh wrong Elsinore.
sorry
You're my obsession!
(Warning! Huge chunk of eighties cheese. Hardly indicative of what I like and normally post. I need better impulse control. That is all.)
I seem to be having an unusually good traffic day today. Also, I could really do with about six samosas and a tub of chicken tikka. Did I get stoned while I wasn't paying attention, or something?
-God can do anything!
-Science can't prove anything about evolution!
-Without religion, what stops someone from doing anything they want?
-If there is no god, then why is there anything?
-You call that a transitional fossil?! - that doesn't prove anything!
-How can anything so complex not be designed?
On second thought, I'm not sure I like that word so much.
Perhaps commenters here can even become numerous enough to hold real-life meetings.
Just picked up my car from the bodyshop.
Roy there was quite shaken up:
A guy on a bicycle yelled at him
"I am Lucifer!" It really scared him.
Isn't it nice to be an atheist and able to
laugh at that kind of crap?
One last try to make Maggie understand:
Holy CRAP, Maggie, can you really not see how this is TOTALLY CIRCULAR? There are groups who call themselves "Christians" who DO NOT agree with the Nicene creed. You need some sort of independent reason to argue that the Nicene represents "real" Christianity, and you have presented nothing on that score.
(Pardon me for yelling, Pharyngulites.)
Are you honestly this obtuse? It matters because those changes meant it wasn't acceptable to those "heretics" who still considered themselves Christians! Just as the Roman church didn't think it needed to change its beliefs in light of the 95 Theses, these groups didn't feel the need to alter their theology just because some ecumenical council decided otherwise. They still considered themselves Christians.
That's right, it is in a direct line from the Church in Jerusalem to the Church in Alexandria, just like there is to the Church in Rome -- neither can claim some sort of geographic priority. But from the perspective of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Alexandria, it is theologically closer to the original Church in Jerusalem, since it has the right view of Jesus's nature is as one person "of" the full humanity and full divinity, and not "in" the full humanity and full divinity (which implies two persons, i.e., the Nestorian heresy). In other words, from the perspective of the Alexandrians, they are the orthodox ones, and it is the Roman church that is the heretical offshoot of the "true" Church in Jerusalem.
So yes, they have an argument for their church being the unbroken lineage from Christ's teachings. The point is that there is no objectively right answer outside of theological bickering. It is all a matter of perspective, and in exactly the same way so is determining if a religion is Christian -- it's all a matter of perspective, and there is no "right" answer, merely answers that are more or less defensible in terms of history, culture, theology, etc. etc. etc.
(I will give you this, Maggie -- you are remarkably tenacious. Wrong, but tenacious.)
...I tried to read that as a limerick.
Rev Monkey: WTF?
I don't get it.
Even Generalissimo Google™ is baffled (or at least my search-fu is baffled)…
As opposed to fake-life meetings. Oh wait, that's like church! No wait. You meant meet in meat-space, instead of cyberspace. I think.
You're my obsession!
Janine, I think I love you. (70s rebuttal!)
10ch - Meetups have happened in high density areas before.
Again, I've lost track of whatever the subject was, so I guess you can talk about anything.
Recipes?
I have a really good recipe for apple pie.
I only mention this because I'm so excited to see a PZ thread shorter than 300 comments by the time I get to it that I feel strangely compelled...to...post...something.
Carlie, I see your Partridge Family and give you ISM!
Yes, it is a diet for the worms.
post.count = post.count + 1
From the totally awesome 80's movie Strange Brew.
The name of the Brewery is Elsinore which also houses a "loony bin" where the mad scientist brew master (Max Von Sydow) uses the inmates as his subjects for experiments in world domination using a chemical distributed in his beer.
Only to have his plans foiled by Bob and Doug McKensie.
Lots of Hamlet references in the movie
It also gave us the brain melting song heard a billion times on the radio during the early 80's, "Take off (to the Great White North)" sung by Geddy Lee of Rush fame.
take off eh
Lisa, the hard science threads, like the recent one on squid venoms, don't grow as quickly. The quality of the posts and comments is of the usual calibre. And occasionally, trolls are sighted.
Ah, Rev, ya hoser.
@#23 blf
Indeed, it seems like hard science is somewhat less... social.
@22:
If I didn't have puke breath, I'd kiss you.
"Obtuse" is such a good insult. Most people don't even get it.
Can we discuss the merits of using cephalopod poisons for emergency abortions?
It's a beauty way to go!
Me and my brother used to think that drowning in beer would be like heaven. But now he's not here and I've got two soakers.
This isn't heaven, this sucks
Clearly, Seed needs to look into a paged comments thread set up. Maybe 100 comments per page, or less. If it's that hard on the servers to load up an 1000 comment behemoth, something has to change.
"Ok, but you're driving."
"Why?"
"In case she sues for whiplash, I don't know you, I'm just a hitchhiker!"
Hilarious film. Thanks for the memories!
No kings,
Robert
All Seed needs to do is stop using CGI to post. I mean, really. CGI? What's next, punchcards?
Ah. Well, other than Max Von Sydow and, in other contexts, Elsinore, none of that (thanks for the link!) rings any bellsdisturbs any bats in my belfry.
Of course the important question, given the hijacking of this thread by the recipistas is, what's the recipe for the world-conquering Elsinore beer?
I was raised in a nonreligious family, so I've always considered myself an atheist to some extent. I think a lot of people like me go through a period of time where they try out religion to some extent for whatever reason. I talked about my experiences trying to pray back when I was around 14. Has anyone had a similar experience?
If we only knew...
But why do you say "obsessed" as though it were a bad thing?
I think I first saw Strange Brew when I was probably 10 years old. I knew nothing of SCTV, nor of Shakespeare, but I knew that movie was important. It has informed much of my life.
I still don't care for hockey, though.
@#37 Dianne
I don't think that PZ Myers said "obsessed" as if it were bad. Do italics make everything "as if it were bad"?
But...but...SIWOTI!
I recommend these options: first 100 comments, last 50 comments, entire thread, and the option of viewing it every 50 pages. I recommend that each thread automatically closes itself at 1000 comments.
The good old hockey game
Is the best game you can name
And the best game you can name
Is the good old hockey game
Hanson Brothers
What I meant in #41 was: first 100 comments, last 50 comments, entire thread, and pages of 50 comments each.
Do italics make everything "as if it were bad"?
"You people" makes it seem as if it were bad.
Throwing trolls to the venomous squid could be a new spectator sport.
I suppose, however, to give the trolls a chance, some of the squids' arms would have to be tied behind their, ah, back. (The squids' backs, that is. Not the trolls.)
Is this a fun thread? Cuz I was just over at the "The creeping fungus of religion in government" thread, and came down with a whopping depression.
It's not even one in the afternoon here, and I need a drink.
Hmm, the Charlestown Chiefs versus the Elsinore mind-controlled hockey team. That's a game I could get into.
@#45 blf
Well, we definitely need more creativity in order to make hard science more social. Perhaps we can write stories about the trolls of Pharyngula and venomous squids.
In case you ever wondered, what if The Ramones were beer swilling, hockey playing Canadians; Blitzkrieg Hops!
One you do need it threaded conversations, like in the more traditional newsgroups. I no longer read the comments for most articles (unless I get in very early). Among other things, threaded conversations would make it easier to skip over "sub-threads" you're not interested in. Then again, maybe this would only make it worse as potentially you'd end up with even more comments...!
Abortions tickle.
Or them as knows ain't sayin'.
Hi, all. (Yay, my first post to Pharyngula, though I'm a long-time reader.)
I have a burning question for any atheist Twitter pros here. I've heard about how conservatives are using the "#tcot" tag thingy so that they can find each other's pearls of wisdom on Twitter - is there/could there be such a tag for us atheists too?
Ranson said "I still don't care for hockey, though.".
"you said you didn't give a fuck about hockey
and I never saw someone say that before
you held my hand and we walked home the long way
you were loosening my grip on Bobby Orr" - The Tragically Hip
Ay, but that'd be a rather short story:
“Ugh! Ugh!”
“Feck off.”
"No, you stupid twat, it's ‘uggah-uggah’.”
“And besides, according to your book of fairy tales, it's ‘uggah-arugh-uggha’. Until the third verse, when it's ‘uggah-aruggha’. Stupid, troll, doesn't even know its own fecking mythology.”
“Ugh! Ugh!”
“One more time: It's ‘uggah-arugh-uggha’.”
“Feck off.”
“Ugh! Ugh!”
“For the same reason there are PGYMIES+DWARVES.”
“Oh please go and feck off!”
“If Ugh-Ugh-the-troll shows up again, it's time for the…” dum-dum! “… Venomous Squid!”
“Has anyone fed the kwok recently?”
“There's some billygoats for sale at the farm across the road. We could use ond of those.”
“Ugh! Ugh!”
“Bacon!”
“Feeding billygoats bacon is a waste. I don't get the bacon, and the billygoats don't appreciate it.”
“Venomous squid time!”
“Feck off.”
“Ugh!…”—“Got it! Quick! To the pool! To the pool!”
“To the pool!”
“Venomous squid, here we come!”
“Feck off.”
Interlude. Now we bring you a short cuttlefish poem.
End of interlude. See, we said it was a short one!
“Ugh!…”—“Oh shut up. The interlude by cuttlefish was more interesting that you.”
“Right! Ok, here we are. On the count of 3…”
“1”
“2”
“Feck off.”
"6”
“6?!”
“I like it.”
“Oh, alright then. But bacon's better.”
“Comeon now, we're got a venomus squid there, a troll—a heavy troll—here, and one more number to go…”
“6”
“Feck off.”
“Answer 5 won.”
“For FSMs sake! Can we toss this troll? Now! Please? It's starting to smell.”
“Hasn't said anything for awhile.”
“You want it back?”
“Feck off.”
“I'll do it myself! THREE!”
SPLASH!
“Ugh! Arrgggghhhh!…”
Gurgle, gurgle…
The End.
Brought to you my a thousand typewriters, one monkey, and an open thread.
What the heck does that stand for, anyway?
I'm going to second or third or forth or fifth the idea of paged comments. Pages load way faster that way, but more to the point from your POV, it prevents your servers from falling to its knees.
Let us have the option of 10, 20, 50 (default), 100, 200, all... Something like that.
I've coded many of these. My system produces lists of government transactions, and some of the reports have this feature, while others don't. The ones that don't take forever to load. Drives me crazy.
Damn you blf, I nearly peed myself. Of course, that wouldnt be the end, there be those lamenting that the troll doent put up as much of a fight as the old ones used to, the side digression into the merits or lack there of of market fetishism, err, libertarianism, and of course, more BACON!
Top Conservatives On Twitter. Id say something snarky, but words simply fail me on this one.
OT, or maybe not.
Just to tie the Bacon, Sex and Love themes together, I present this:
see more pwn and owned pictures
Chris Comers lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency has been dismissed. Not good.
http://ncseweb.org/news/2009/04/comer-case-dismissed-004712
Oh, Janine, that hurts! I'd link to some Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, but I don't even want to deal with listening to them long enough to find one.
Whoa -- that's harsh, Carlie! C'mon, who doesn't like a novelty punk cover band?
Every considered a threading design for the comments? Flat designs get both cluttered and bandwidth-heavy with popular sites such as this one.
Question for the Bible historians to ponder:
Why is the Epistle of James called that?
The original Greek says: "ιακωβος". The Vulgate says: "Iacobus". The man's name was "יעקב" (Yaʻaqov) — which is "Jacob", just like the biblical patriarch. Why is it that in English, the author of the book is called "James"? I know that the English name "James" derives from "Jacob", via some very mangled Latin, but why is the biblical author translated as having that very late derived name?
On a tangent to that, I was recently reading something that touched on Egyptology, and it seems that the name is very old, and was widespread among the Semitic peoples of the Middle East. "Ya'qub-Har" was mentioned as being the name of one of the Hyksos rulers of Egypt, and dates to before 1500 BC. Which I thought was interesting.
Since this is an open thread...
If you have not found the site failblog.org, you really owe it to yourself to have a grin or three.The pole dancer is especially good.
http://failblog.org/page/36/
OTOH, these people represent the 67% around the median. Kinda scary.
Owl, I've wondered that too, why the NT figure was called James. What mangling of the Latin ever led to that in the first place? And was James in English derived from an earlier, Germanic antecedent, or has the name always been a bastardization of the Semitic Jacob?
We had a Pharyngala last spring here in the Boston area; it was a squidful of fun.
Gosh, where has the time gone?
Owlmirror and CJO,
Not sure what this adds to the mix, but, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iago_(disambiguation)
"Iago is a given name, a cognate of James and Jacob in the Spanish language. It is derived from the Hebrew name Ya'akov."
If Iago and James are related, I could see how, down the years, across translation after translation, edit after edit, that Ya'akov ended up as James (with the possible mid-point incarnation in some edition of The Bible as the Book of Iago).
But I'm neither etymologist, nor historian.
No kings,
Robert
I'm actually pretty happy with how the original (God, Abortionist) thread went; one of the points that set poor Maggie off was the one I raised - I mentioned just how much effort Christians will go to in order to convince themselves (and attempt to convince others) that the god they worship isn't a vile, hateful monster.
And dear, dear Maggie did a pretty good job of illustrating that point for me. Oh well, I guess she can just blame it on sin.
Open thread eh? Some ass-head forwarded this to me knowing that I enjoy "Family Guy."
My favorite part was "On March 8, Fox network aired Family Guy, a perverted and sickening program, into the homes of millions of Americans." As if Fox used some sort of Emergency Broadcast System to break into whatever else everyone was watching to force people to watch.
I'm still trying to compose an email to send to this group that isn't just a big long caps-lock, spittle flecked tirade along the lines of "FUCK YOU AND THE CROSS YOU RODE IN ON! You self-righteous slime!
Perhaps, anyone interested could shit large in AFA's inbox over the weekend.
Man, I would totally read the Epistle of Iago.
By either the Shakespearean villain or the parrot, actually.
Who's up for a little old-fashioned poll-crashin' tonight?
Hoooo-EEEEEEE!
CJO:
Wikipedia — for whatever that's worth — says:
"The development Iacobus > Iacomus is likely a result of nasalization of the o and assimilation to the following b (i.e., intermediate *Iacombus) followed by simplification of the cluster mb through loss of the b."
[citation needed], perhaps.
Hm. The OED says:
"[a. OF. James (Gemmes, *Jaimes) = Sp. Jaime, Pr., Cat. Jaume, Jacme. It. Giacomo:—popular L. *′Jacomus, for ′Jacobus, altered from L. Ia′cōbus, a. Gr. Ίάκωβος, ad. Heb. yaءăqōb Jacob, a frequent Jewish name at all times, and thus the name of two of Christ's disciples (St. James the Greater and St. James the Less); whence a frequent Christian name.]"
I wondered if "James" was chosen by the translators of the KJV to honour the King, but I see that Wycliffe, writing long before King James was born, spelled "James" that way (and wrote Jhesu Crist) as well. Hm. The "he" of "Jhesu" is no doubt meant to transliterate the "eta" of "Ἰησοῦς".
The Odd Boy lay down by the football field
Took out a slim volume of Mallarme
The centre-forward called him an imbecile
It's an Odd Boy who doesn't like sport
Sport, sport, masculine sport
Equips a young man for Society,
Yes, sport turns out a jolly good sort
It's an Odd Boy who doesn't like sport
Jury finds in favor of former Univ. of Colorado professor Ward Churchill.
Awards him $1 in damages.
A victory for academic freedom and the First Amendment or a subtle STFU to Prof. Churchill?
Link - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/us/03churchill.html?partner=rss&emc=r…
Good lord, not GoDaddy. Talk about a misogynistic piece of shite company.
If the Seed overlord server would accommodate paged threads, that would be good. Slacktivist made that switch awhile back, and although it was disconcerting at first, everyone eventually adjusted.
Captain Obvious, what is your point? Public knowledge.
Easter is coming, get ready...
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/eastereggs.html
#59
My bad, bad Fail link
try: http://failblog.wordpress.com/files/2009/04/baconlube.jpg
PZ, I think Pharyngula needs an actual forum to handle all this. That kind of software is far better suited the free-for-all we often have around here.
Convincing ScienceBlogs to host it might be tricky, though...
PZ, what you probably need is a FORUM.
Look at Bautforum, where Bad Astronomy blog and Universe Today let people comment on their posts/articles in a forum.
Since we can talk about anything, ER finale: ok, or meh?
The one-hour retrospective was more emotional than the finale!
ER. That's something on tv, isn't? I read about it someplace.
...but I can't meaningfully discuss squid venom...maybe someday he'll do a hard-science post on biotech (sigh).
Threads: It's the platform that's the problem. Seed would do better by cutting short their loses and switching to either WordPress or WordPress Multiuser. I suggest WordPress itself, because it has more capabilities than MU, and there are installations scripts available.
Speaking of installation scripts, CPanel has a number that make installing blogs, forums, and even shopping carts real easy.
Darwin's Genius: PZ's column in Seed is back. Charles Darwin and how people have carried on his work is the subject. PZ notes how Darwin succeeded in his goal, whereas other men may well have failed. He says that attention to detail had a big part in it. I now take this time to say, that aint the whole of it.
Darwin was also an effective communicator. He knew how to write in a clear manner and how to explain things. He knew the audience he wished to reach, and knew that they would not long tolerate obfuscation and befuddlement.
But even more important, he kept it simple. He knew through his own observations and the observations of others that life changes over the course of time. He could not tell you why or how, only that it did. He also noted, thanks to his own observations and those of others, that these changes tended to be towards traits giving life advantages dependening the the environment a particular lifeform dwelt in. Again, he did not know why or how, but he could devise a mechanism that would explain, in part, the why and the how.
Since that time we have learned much more about the why and the how, but without the tempering and filtering work of natural selection genetics, epigenetics, and mutation would do nothing beneficial a'tall.
Yes, Charles Darwin did produce something amazing, and amazingly simple, with his theory of evolution. Amazing in that it explains so much. But even more amazing in that it explains so much in so concise, so basic a way. That, I submit to my audience, is Darwin's genius.
It may be time to consider opening a Pharyngula forum or discussion board.
SkepticCoach, you could go to Atheist Quote of the Day and see who else follows it.
Dunno about pearls of wisdom, though. Quality varies. I'd like to add PZ's comment,
Wowie, from the depths of his own world, wrote:
This is high school stuff-- the sort of thing ignorant adolescents write and think they have said something cool. Voltaire, Nietsche, Camus, Diderot et al. must be turning over in their graves at being claimed by your sort. It set me off, alright. Laughing.
And we thought Barb was evil......
maggie's posts should be preserved and presented in schools,as example what christian brain rot does to the human mind.Im amazed,truly amazed.
Maggie, you've lost. Get over it.
Last post: nitrogen-deficient pothos.
(clarification for anyone not on the epic thread: I finally gave up trying to get any information out of Maggie, or to get her to comprehend anything anyone was saying, and am now categorizing her comments as decrepit houseplants since they contain nothing of value whatsoever.)
You know Carlie,
over the years we have seen amazing stupidity and all,but maggie is one of a kind in a way,the term zombie comes to mind.A totally braindead mindless zombie.Sad,really.
Barb was evil and stupid and brainwashed,but she was no maggie.
What, the "I laugh at your post because I can't dispute it" gambit? Sardonic laughter, of course.
Your descent into bluster continues apace.
Remember, you've already stated how your religious belief is contingent on the factuality of the Resurrection, and you've yet to establish other than that claim is made in your holy book, despite your pathetic grandiloquent boasts in your initial posts.
You see yourself as laughing at a roomful of fools... cute.
clinteas @92
"over the years we have seen amazing stupidity and all,but maggie is one of a kind in a way,the term zombie comes to mind.A totally braindead mindless zombie.Sad,really."
Yup, there will be plenty more where she comes from. For as long as the villainous Catholic Magisterium spreads its dark cloud of ignorance across the hapless wordlings, the 'maggies' will be right there. In the forefront of that advance. These vile creatures of a vile religion headed by a vile vile Pope.
True.
And important to realize this pope is not stupid,as Dawkins suggested the other day regarding the condom situation,far from it,its all calculated catholic strategy.
Vile,indeed.
Hi guys, long time lurker delurking.
I was reading alternet.org this morning and came across this little gem I thought you might appreciate:
http://www.alternet.org/audits/134812/10_terms_not_to_use_with_muslims/
I had a WTF?! moment before I saw who wrote the piece. In Scotland we just don't get this level of subtlety in our bigots. We spot them by their team colours and team bling (soccer teams that is).
I loved the god abortionist thread. Godbots always remind me of zombie gore flicks where our hapless heroes stand behind some form of strengthened glass and watch as the zombies leave slavering face prints and brain splatter while puzzled at why they can't reach their food source.
I've really got to go decaff :)
Strange-- I suppose people can be so blind to reality that they really can't recognize a fact that simply doesn't square with their cherished beliefs. (I'm looking at you Carlie, in particular-- Take your fingers out of your ears.)
As I said in a response to one of Wowie's messages, which seems to have disappeared along with my response, your intellectual rigor, which I was assured I would find here, needs a big dose of viagra.
Maggie @ 89
I assume you subscribe to a belief in Hell, and also to the view that one of God's attributes is goodness.
If so, please explain to me how these two are consistent, and feel free to do so at a level a high school student or other "ignorant adolescent" would understand. Please make sure to state what definition of good you are using.
If there are souls, and if there are souls who do not pass muster with God, why does it not simply annihilate these rejects rather than subject them to or allow them to suffer an eternity of torment?
Fixed it for your Maggie. Time for you to take your fingers out of your ears and realize 1) your god doesn't exist. 2) your bible is a total work of fiction. 3) your dogma is even worse fiction. 4) we don't give a shit about what you think.
Hell is entirely your choice and God will respect the choice that you make. By the grace of God you will be happier there than in heaven.
Maggie @ 100
Are you saying that the souls in Hell would not prefer annihilation?
Maggie, Maggie, you just don't get it. Since god doesn't exist except between your ears, heaven and hell exist only between your ears. I want no part of the irrationality that is between your ears Maggie. Nor does the rest of the regulars. As they said in the Exorcist, "Begone".
I have no idea what such souls would prefer. I do know it isn't up to them.
I see the sin of pride is still running strong with mags
Maggie @100:
Oh dear.
Another historical claim that can be weighed like any other truth claim?
(Please, do show the evidence.)
Getting a bit flustered now, it would seem... down to the straightforward extortion - the mythical solution for the mythical problem. Is Pascal's wager far behind?
Heh.
How? How do you "know" that this deity, souls, hell, any of this exists? Why do you believe in all of this?
Why do you believe in all of this?
Actually, please ignore the "why" question for the moment, and focus on the "how." With all of the varied beliefs and sets of beliefs that have existed throughout time, how - by what process - did you come to settle upon these?
Reconcile, please.
I always find it slightly amusing when Nietzsche comes up as some sorta exemplar of atheism. Honestly, with all due respect to the guy and those who are genuinely fond of him, I've never found his thinking that compelling, exactly. I find it oddly suggestive, too, that a lot of people not themselves atheists seem to figure mebbe Zarathustra and Ecce Homo are held as somehow sacred in an atheist canon.
I guess it's a bit about timing, ultimately. He happened to be goring certain sacred cows in an era when their bloodying was undergoing something of a recent renaissance. And I'm told some like his writing style--guess I could buy that, far as it goes... And on the flip side, I suspect those who figure he should be poster child for atheism are quick to do that precisely because there are some overtones of his thought that are easily labelled as antisocial. That, and I suspect, the religious mind finds him oddly palatable partly because he has that fanciful, metaphorical style...
A tip for those who make this assumption, tho': whatever else you may understand about this, do get this part right: a lot of atheists genuinely do try to make reason the arbiter of ideas (unlike those of you who just say you do, because you find yourself forced to recognize the power of that approach, but cannot cope with where it actually leads). So they don't read texts as authority for anything. Neither Nietzsche, nor Russell, nor Darwin, nor anyone else. They treat them as sources of ideas, sources of argument, to be rejected in whole or in part if we find the whole or the part unconvincing in terms of that reason. There is wide agreement on certain broad and obvious conclusions--and the obvious unreason and antireason of the traditional religions does provide a rather broad barn door to aim at (it's not hard spotting the fact that prosyletizers for obvious superstition can't string two sentences together without contradicting themselves or resorting to bland assertion, for instance--and witness this thread for examples), however, so you are likely to find little divergence there, at least--but then, this is much like watching a group of competent 20th century geographers and assuming they are somehow an ideological monoculture because they happen to agree among themselves that the Earth is not a flat, table-like surface hung beneath a celestial sphere to which the stars are pinned.
Maggie @ 103
So the souls have no choice in the matter. Does God? For if it does, then we are back to my question @ 98, which you haven't answered.
maggie @ 103
OK, so the souls have no choice in the matter. Does God?
Apologies to all for my double posting through lack of patience.
"Hell is entirely your choice and God will respect the choice that you make. By the grace of God you will be happier there than in heaven."
And out come the threats. Funny, I didn't think that sophisticated cafeteria Christians even believed in Hell.
Maggie on the other thread regarding the bible being gods work.
When pointed out this was an appeal to popularity fallacy, Maggie the Heretic provided a link which states ...
Owlmirrors response ...
Maggie the Heretic stupidly responds ...
Maggie, who's blind to reality?
Well, CosmicTeapot, she then went on to claim that no she did not make that argument, citing as proof... the sentence in which she made that argument. Not exactly a font of rational thought, that Maggie.
Maggie,
You should probably begin with Small Gods by T. Pratchett. He makes very good arguments for your type of thinking. He also refutes them but you can skip those bits if you like.
"Hell is entirely your choice and God will respect the choice that you make. By the grace of God you will be happier there than in heaven."
I maintain that if there is an afterlife and we end up someplace where unhinged loonies like Maggie/Barb/Rooke et al are not, it would be sheer bliss and perfect paradise.
I wrote:
to which Maggie responded:
Out of the mouths of babes, as they say; I guess it's only 'sophisticated' adults who have lie to themselves - and others - so they can believe it's not true. Your own holy book describes a being which, if he existed, would be a creature of such unjust, capricious malevolence that any who bowed before him would do so out of terror, not adoration.
I can't blame you for wanting to kiss his ass and have him on your side (since fear will do that to you) - but at least have the guts to admit it.
But I have to ask - why do you keep coming back? This is the third thread you've brought your bukkake of profound intellectual dishonesty and outright lies to; you've already proved my point - over and over and over again - and now it's getting old. We're all getting just a little embarrassed for you.
Are you a masochist? As much as I love building these brick walls you keep insisting on slamming your head into, I have to say it's starting to get repetitive.
Why don't you go over to the other thread, read this post summarising Alan Clarke's views on Catholicism and then have a nice chat with him (btw he's an OT literalist, at least in terms of the flood) about why you think he's an uneducated fool, and why he insists Catholics aren't Christians. We'll watch and laugh as you try to out-scripture each other.
Say, why don't you see whose religion has the more correct answer to how many angels can dance on the head of that pin they're all so keen on?
maggie the mindless maggot's post #100, in it's entirety:
maggie the mindless maggot's post #103, about the very same souls she said chose hell in #100, again in it's entirety:
So, Hell is entirely your choice, but it isn't up to you. So it's a choice that is not a choice that is.
And I'm your only friend I'm not your only friend but really I'm not actually your friend but I am. In addition, I am the eggman, they are the eggmen, I am the Walrus, goo-goo g-joob. Would you like some wine? There isn't any. I've said nothing so far, and I can keep it up as long as it takes. Flaming squirrels are eating my tongue and the hairs in my nose are plotting to kill us. There is no spoon, the cake is a lie, the door is ajar.
Seriously, Maggie, deliberate nonsense piled together haphazardly makes more sense than you do.
part of maggie's #97:
Strange, maggie, you're so blind to reality that you can't even recognize that YOUR OWN BELIEFS don't square with your beliefs. The projection is strong with this one.
I'll try explaining the issue again, and avoid using big words.
The religious claim that there exists a being called "god", who is all-powerful and all-knowing.
The religious claim that god created everything.
The religious claim that there exists a place called "hell", where anyone who displeases god is tortured without end.
Therefore, the religious claim that god created hell.
If god created hell, knowing what would happen there, god is responsible for it.
If god is all-knowing, he would have to know what would happen as a result of the creation of hell.
Torture is an evil act. If it never ends, that only makes it worse.
Therefore, if god created hell (which he must have if he created everything) and knew what would happen there (which he must if he knows everything) then god is responsible for neverending torture, which is clearly evil.
Therefore if the religious are right about their god, that god is clearly evil.
If you disagree that torture is evil, please set yourself on fire. It should be perfectly pleasant and give great glory to your imaginary friend.
If you repeat your claim that hell is a choice, you will have to explain how you know this, and how you reconcile this with your statement three posts later that hell is NOT a choice. Also you will have to explain why such an obviously monstrous situation is even on the table.
But of course we all know you won't. You'll just babble and contradict yourself again.
phantomreader42 wrote:
Birdhouse - nice. There can never be too many posts referencing TMBG.
Realize I left a bit out, ot sure if "I'm a little glowing friend" would've made it more or less nonsensical.
Glad you like it, Wowbagger. And maggie is so very determined to show off what a complete kneebiter she is, isn't she? Sad, really.
Sad? Definitely. The irony is that, considering the first of my posts to get her frothing at the mouth was where I commented on how much effort Christians will go to to defend their concept of a kind and loving god in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, particularly that presented in the bible (Numbers anyone?).
Note that what I said wasn't that it was wrong to do so, or that they couldn't (though, of course, they can't) - but how much effort they'd expend trying to do so. Every word of the dozens of posts Maggie's made has just added support to my claim.
No doubt she's going keep on coming here and proving me right.
bacon
By the way, maggie at @100 and @103, you appear to be contradicting yourself:
versus
Or perhaps you changed your mind between the postings?
SC:
As I set out at some length earlier, I believe the historical evidence is strong enough to support belief that what the New Testament reports is true. I believe this answers the next question you posed, as well.
Dave: What needs to be reconciled? We have been given the choice of eternal life with God or eternal life in hell. We do not get to decide that we would rather be annihilated. That isn’t one of the choices we have been given.
AJ Milne: I bring up the atheists that I do primarily because they are famous enough, that most here will have heard of them and, secondly, because they were, right or wrong, serious thinkers who actually got what it means to really believe in a godless world.
Martin: Nothing can limit God’s choices. However, He can only choose what is possible to do. (Please don’t trot out the stone to heavy for God to lift. That is the sort of thing undergrads think is a stumper. He can’t create a pepper too hot for him to eat, either.) Maybe, if you are lucky, he will annihilate the lost. How would I know anything beyond what has been revealed?
Ah! Carlie. Still denying reality, I see.
I wouldn’t be too quick to call anyone irrational, dearie. Those were your words that I quoted back to you. The fact that you can’t muster enough intellectual honesty to admit that we were discussing (if one can really call talking about such nonsense “discussing”) your idiotic statement that God was incompetent to get his message across (as he did to me and umpteen billion before me) is amazing to me. Simply amazing.
Finally, the ever delusional Wowie said:
Overlooking the incredible vulgarity with which it needs to express itself, I would point out that if this is not a continuation of the only thread I have ever participated in, it is number 2. Can’t you even count, Wowie?
Oh, she does that a lot. But she's got a great defence - it's sin. She's powerless against it, just like Christians were powerless to do anything about slavery for 1,800 years despite having known since 33CE that the bible said it was wrong.
Then by not offerring that choice, God is deciding to torture recalcitrant souls for all eternity. That is an evil act.
You are growing less and less rational by the minute, Wowie. Who said Christians were powerless to do anything about slavery for 1,800 years. Who? That is an idiotic statement by any standard and nothing of the sort was even hinted at by anyone.
maggie @ 125
Do you believe that it is possible for God to annihilate souls?
If it is possible, how can a good God not grant this for the souls in Hell if they so desire it?
Youth culture killed my dog.
My perfect Sunday? Crazed, monkey sex. A slab bacon, lettuce and swiss, on toasted rye, with spicy mustard. Followed by less crazed, breathe-the-fire-out-of-my-lungs-and-take-my-sweet-damn-time, sex. Then a movie.
Amusing. Do please consider it noted that I find Ms. Maggie's assumption that she is in any way competent to judge a) what is a serious thinker, and b) what it really means to belive in a godless world highly suspect, to put it rather gently.
(Mind you, this is, of course, again, fairly common among those selling hokum who mention Nietzsche as an exemplar of atheistic thought. See again, notes re 'easily labelled as antisocial'.)
Fixed another mistatement for you Mendacious Maggie. Only after you quit lying to yourself can you quit lying to us. When you allow yourself to be refuted is when you quit lying to yourself.
Oh, lawdy, lawdy - someone get the smelling salts! Poor, delicate Maggie's gonna faint because nasty Wowbagger said a word about a awful, naughty thing! Oh, won't somebody think of the children?
Have you gotten so desperate that you're quibbling numbers? As far as I'm concerned, this counts as a new thread, Maggie. New title, new thread. So, it's three. However, if PZ feels so inclined to weigh in and say that it only counts as two then I'll happily retract my statement.
How 'bout you Maggie? You going to apologise if you're proven wrong?
Since we're on numbers, here's another: 402 - 402 more words (according to my MS Word count function) Maggie has spent proving me correct about the amount of effort Christians will go to in order to protect the image of their monster-god.
How many more do you want to add to your total of FAIL?
Oh, and I forgot to credit the Rev. Big Dumb Chimp for that delightful - and appropriate - expression. Thanks, Rev. - it had the desired effect!
No, I don't think it is possible. We were created in his image, which means we share his eternality. But that is my guess-- I don't *know* it.
maggie the mindless maggot @ #128:
Who said that? You did. You pretended christians knew for centuries that slavery was wrong. Yet during that time, for much of which YOUR version of christianity ruled Europe with an iron fist, they did NOTHING about it. So unless you were LYING (which, need I remind you, your imaginary friend is supposed to have some sort of problem with) the only way your claim could ever be compatible with reality was if there was something stopping christians from doing anything about slavery for 1800 years.
If christians knew slavery was wrong, and had the power to fix it, why didn't they?
Why did christians spend all those centuries murdering supposed witches and enslaving anyone with different colored skin if they already knew it was wrong? Were eighteen centuries worth of christians that stupid? That evil? Or just totally batshit fucking insane?
If the pup-pup-pupppet head
Were only bu-bu-busted in
It'd be a better thing for everyone involved and we wouldn't have to cry.
Maggie said:
I'm reminded of Woody Allen's "Love and Death".
Boris: Oh, if only God would give me some sign. If He would just speak to me once. Anything. One sentence. Two words. If He would just cough.
Sonja: Of course there's a God! We're made in His image!
Boris: You think I was made in God's image? Take a look at me. You think He wears glasses?
Sonja: Not with those frames.
maggie @ 134
OK, so in your view it's not possible for God to annihilate souls. This seems a significant limitation on its power, since this is not a logical impossibility. Thus I conclude that of the trinity of choices:
God lacks one of these attributes:
Perfect goodness
Omniscience
Omnipotence
you choose omnipotence as the absent attribute.
"But that is my guess-- I don't *know* it."
*sighs* that's the sum and total of your entire nonsensical argument.
By the way, I believe that I have learned far more about the nature of human's search for the divine and questions about God from "Love and Death" than from the dozens of Maggie's posts. Laughed a lot more, too.
maggie, you are right about christians not being powerless to end slavery. (Though you are quite wrong about Wowbagger's statement being idiotic. {But to be truthful, you consider any statement not does not agree with your faith to be idiotic})
We can even use your repeated answer for the wrongs done by people, SIN. Though in this case, we will use "The Sins Of Ham". The christians were not powerless against slavery because they expanded it and justified it by using their faith, that the descendants of Ham were cursed by god to be servants.
Their are christians who, in the modern day, justify the past practice of slavery but condemn the use now by claiming the god brought them out of Africa in order to save them.
But in your dense little brain, you will dismiss all of this by claiming that those people did not understand true christianity.
Indeed, how could he not allow souls in Hell to change their minds and choose Heaven instead, if supposedly they're only there by their own free choice? How could he not offer the choice at the time of judgement?
Tell me, Maggie: does the phrase "your money or your life!" absolve a bandit of moral responsibility for either robbing or killing? If a man rapes and kills his ex-girlfriend, is he free of culpability because, after all, she chose death by leaving him? Was the villain in Saw innocent because his victims had a choice in their fate?
Clearly not. Just as a mugging victim isn't exercising a free choice by handing their wallet over, no one would choose to suffer eternally in hell. Banishment to hell is a threat and a consequence imposed by God for other choices people make, just as a slashed throat would be a consequence imposed by a vengeful ex-boyfriend. Therefore God cannot escape moral responsibility for torturing people in Hell, and must necessarily be an evil being.
This is, soberly speaking, hilarious. I will match my advanced degrees against yours any day. I have read Nietzche. In German. Have you? I am certainly up for a pissing match over credentials, if you really want to go there.
If you want to claim that you read German, maybe you could identify "Glasperlenspiel" for the folks here who found that an obscure reference. (I guess they have never heard of Google). I was quite disheartened that an absolutely fantastic witticism was completely lost on the intellectually rigorous crowd here.
Say you're approaching this as a non-Catholic. All of this evidence exists about the ancient world. Where do you start? But prior to this, more broadly, why do you believe writings about one tiny period of human history in one corner of the globe have such importance?
In any event, yyou haven't in fact answered my question, which was about process. Via what process did you come to find this a set of beliefs compelling and reject others?
Memory-challenged Maggie wrote:
And this, of course, is even funnier. For why do you suppose she would have even assumed this?
(I don't, for the record, doubt that she has read Nietzsche. I wouldn't even be surprised if she has read more than me. But note that this in no way addresses the criticism she received. As usual.)
Maggie, you still haven't presented any evidence for your imaginary god, which makes your bible and dogma worthless lies. And you keep repeating the same lies over and over like repetition is the truth, instead of the realm of the mindless. If you can't admit you are wrong, there is no discussion, just you preaching at us which is proselytization, a banable offence.
the ancient world
And, as implied in my comment above, by that I mean a small geographical segment of human history.
There's the rub. What do you mean by "belief that what the New Testament reports is true"?
The evidence is good that some parts of the NT are true, yes. We can be pretty sure that Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate and John the Baptist all existed. And it's not hugely implausible that Jesus of Nazareth existed, too.
But that doesn't constitute evidence that the NT is true in its entirety. By demonstrating that a given text makes one accurate claim, you don't demonstrate that it is infallibly correct.
(And, indeed, we know that the NT is not infallibly correct, because it makes several minor errors. Mark places Sidon to the south of Tyre when it is actually to the north, for instance. Not to mention the well-known disparity between Matthew's and Luke's claims about the date of Jesus' birth. But everyone here knows all this, of course.)
Homer's Iliad, too, makes some true claims. We can be fairly sure that Troy existed. But this does not demonstrate that all its stories about the intervention of gods are true. Likewise, showing that the NT contains some (mundane, material) claims which are true, does not demonstrate that its extraordinary supernatural claims are also true.
You have not demonstrated any evidence for the belief that Jesus of Nazareth was a divine being who died and was physically resurrected from the dead. All you have in support of this is a couple of uncorroborated, pseudonymous, non-eyewitness accounts. And even if it is true, the NT account of Jesus' life and teachings certainly does not, on its own, give support to all your theological beliefs. How do you know that Paul (who never met Jesus) interpreted Jesus' teachings correctly? Or that later Catholic scholars (many of whose decisions were influenced by political factors and the desire to exclude "heretics") interpreted Paul correctly, or made the right choices about which books of the NT were "canonical"? You're asking us to accept a lot on faith without any kind of evidence.
I for one would love to see what maggie's credentials consist of, if only to get a better feel for where to never send my children to.
I will postulate that none of her degrees are in science, and if for some reason they are, then they are from fundie schools.
Seems as good a time as any to chime in with a little pain...T Paine, to be exact.
"But when, according to the Christian Trinitarian scheme, one part of God is represented by a dying man, and another part, called the Holy Ghost, by a flying pigeon, it is impossible that belief can attach itself to such wild conceits. The book called the book of Matthew, says, (iii. 16,) that the Holy Ghost descended in the shape of a dove. It might as well have said a goose; the creatures are equally harmless, and the one is as much a nonsensical lie as the other. Acts, ii. 2, 3, says, that it descended in a mighty rushing wind, in the shape of cloven tongues: perhaps it was cloven feet. Such absurd stuff is fit only for tales of witches and wizards."
Bah. That should read 'So, which is it Maggie - which were you wrong about? Sin? Christian knowledge of the immorality of slavery?', not 'the immorality of sin?'.
Apologies.
Janine: You are an excellent example of someone whom sin has made stupid.
No. I consider any statment that is idiotic to be idiotic. Imagine that. What does idiotic comprise? Lack of knowledge coupled with unwillingness to learn.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this incredible display of ignorance. Excuse making or justifying slavery on any basis, including the "sins of Ham" is a perfect example of ... wait for it... SIN.
Apart from the fact that slavery has been the norm throughout all of human history (and that means long before Christianity arrived on the scene) and continues down to this day, who do you think rounded up and sold the Africans who were brought to the US? Do you have a clue?
Oh? Who?
My brain is just fine, thank you, and filled with actual knowledge. Too bad you can't say the same.
Josh (and other lovers of geological stuff) -- do you ever visit this site? Good pics of Redoubt erupting now.
http://io9.com/tag/geophysical-porn/
At #125, Maggie wrote:
Then we're back to some of the questions you left unanswered in the God, Abortionist thread:
1. Did God not know since before the beginning of time that some of us would "sin"?
2. Did God not have the power to design us so that we wouldn't "sin"?
3. If God both knew that man would sin, and had the power to design humans so they would not sin, then isn't the fact that God not only chose to design fallible humans, but chooses to punish them for his own design failure, a vile, hateful monster?
OK. Maybe God isn't sadistic. I'm open to the possibility that he's either intellectually limited or incompetent. Or all of the above.
And, if you think these are high school level questions, then feel free to give me answers that even a high school student might rationally comprehend.
Well, as much as I'm enjoying Maggie continue her downward spiral into complete batshit* incoherence - she's probably risking her keyboard with all that spittle flying around - it's bedtime. Actually, it's well past, but the thought of another tap recital by the Intellectually Dishonest Catholic Dance Troupe kept me glued to my screen for far longer than it should.
Night all!
*Ooooooh, another nasty swear! Better get the smelling salts out again!
So why did preachers stop using theology to justify slavery? Did sin just... go away?
If not, what caused the change? After all, if sin still exists now as it did then, how do you know it isn't you who are sinning in condemning slavery? Couldn't you be the one blinded by sin?
I said nothing of the sort. The fact that you keep insisting that I did is beginning to scare me. I thought you were just, well, kind of slow. This suggests something worse and sadder. Why don't you quote what I said, instead of sending me on a wild goose to find what doesn't exist?
Avoid sending them to a Big Ten university.
At #143, SC, OM wrote:
But prior to this, more broadly, why do you believe writings about one tiny period of human history in one corner of the globe have such importance?
Which leads to another, related question Maggie left answered in the original thread:
Why didn't God make these writing clearer and more widely available?
Surely he could foresee that we'd still be arguing over their authenticity and meaning some 2000 years later.
Surely he knew that many many people would live and die without having access to, and knowledge of, these writings.
Why in the name of rationality would God not want the news of his sacrifice of himself more clearly written so that we'd all know exactly who he was and what he did?
And why in the name of rationality would God not want his message more widely disseminated?
Only an intellectually limited, incompetent, and/or sadistic God would have "the truth" about himself written and disseminated when, where, and how the NT was.
Only an intellectually limited, incompetent, and/or sadistic God would play these kind of "try to figure out what I want you do to, and how I want you do to do it"--and if you can't, you'll be tortured forever--games with us.
So that is your idea of a pissing match over credentials? You offered, and I indicated I would like to know. What are your credentials, maggie?
Just read through much of this thread.
Maggie, are you aware that you're coming off as a nasty person, more eager to sling insults than to explain yourself?
Do you have anything to contribute to the world, other that pursed lips and unevidenced claims of superiority? You seem to regard everyone who is not Maggie as nothing more than stupid sinners.
For which you are receiving a resounding Fuck You.
And Maggie, of course we recognize the title of Hesse's lugubrious ode to the romantic glories of monasticism. It appears on the title page of the English translation.
maggie
Since you appear to have posted a number of times since my post at 137 without commenting on it, I take it that you agree that God is significantly less than omnipotent.
You seem to base your views on the reliability of the New Testament.
There is a number of hypothesis that the NT is fundamentally erroneous and mythical.
If this hypothesis were shown to be true, would you regard this demonstration as a greater miracle than any of those described in the NT?
Maggie, congratulations - you have truly won life's lottery - as you know.
The God in your head is the True God of Everything, and Your Interpretation of his literature and practices are entirely correct.
No wonder you lose patience with us fools! How stupid can we be - not only do we disagree with Real Christianity - other Real Christianities not existing - but allso we have disagreed with Your Opinion - even though you have made the clearest possible argurments in its favour. And yet some here still don't agree with you!
Bastards, eh?
Well, you've convinced me. I can never be anything other than a real sinner, hell-bound, so I have decided to end it all. And being an a-moral sinner, I think I'll take myself out - and on the way I might as well steal, rape and murder - why on earth not?
And I know you'll approve. Won't you?
Or are you just an arrogant reality-challenged fuckwit?
No. Clearly not. How silly of me to even think it.
Good universtities go to Eleven
Ok, I can't resist this one:
The fact that you can’t muster enough intellectual honesty to admit that we were discussing (if one can really call talking about such nonsense “discussing”) your idiotic statement that God was incompetent to get his message across (as he did to me and umpteen billion before me) is amazing to me. Simply amazing.
You just did it again!!! Right there!!! What we were arguing was whether God really did get his message across, and if so what it mattered that there are "umpteen billions" of people who supposedly got it. It was an offshoot of the argumentum ad populum discussion you were having with Wowbagger, and there you go not being able to resist throwing all those poor people into your statement AGAIN!!!! I'm past sympathetic pity into outright mocking now.
Maggie piddles on the carpet and calls it a pissing match. If her god is such a shit-hot monster, why can't he get better minions? At least unleash a mini-boss, anything.
"What are your credentials, maggie?"
Expect another cowardly dodge. She's too invested in convincing herself she's not full of shit.
I believe the historical evidence is strong enough to support belief that what the New Testament reports is true.
This crap again.
You haven't supported that belief with anything other than an appeal to the authority of scholarly consensus. When I offered dissenting scholars, you responded with pure ad hominem.
I believe there is no historical evidence supporting "what the NT reports." Furthermore, by reading the texts of the NT, specifically the synoptic gospels and the genuine epistles of Paul, it's relatively trivial to show that what we have is a developing scribal mythmaking tradition based on prophetic texts in the OT, not reports of any actual events, based on oral transmission or any other sources.
Seems like we have contradictory beliefs. I made arguments for my belief on the old thread, in my #s 373 and 392, specifically, and in others as well. You have made no valid arguments rebutting those points. (If you contest this, please cite me a comment on the old thread where you directly addressed my arguments with something other than an appeal to authority.)
Did I? I wasn't aware that these had been asked.
It doesn't work to posit that time is linear in the fashion that this question presupposes. Our free choice was the cause of God's knowledge, even though it is all eternally present to him.
Yes, indeed. He apparently thought it worth the risk to create a human race that could respond to him freely.
You now see why this question is meaningless, as posed. The last bit is also off a bit in that as I said before, the choice of where we spend eternity is ours. Many of us don't believe in torment of the sort that comes from outside but rather from regret, et al. Some would argue that eternal separation cannot be reconciled with God's goodness, as you are trying to here. Certainly John Paul the Great came very close to believing in universal salvation, although that is not Catholic doctrine and cannot be squared with scripture or justice.
Dave L:
Sin can never go away while men have free will. Not all preachers did stop using theology to justify slavery. Some never did it in the first place.
All of us are blinded to one degree or another by sin. That is a consequence of being a fallen human being. What is so good about slavery that it outweighs the evils of slavery? Unless there is a good answer for that, it is hard to see how I could be sinning by condemning it.
But the Bible is clear that we are to treat one another as we wish to be treated. I don't wish to be enslaved. Paul is also very clear that there is neither male nor female, slave nor freeman, nor Greek nor Jew in Christ. That is to say that the divisions of gender, class and race do not exist in Christ.
What caused the change? The same things that have caused every change-- circumstances-- humans learn from their experiences and pass that knowledge on; clearer-thinking people pushing for the ever more perfect fulfillment of what the scriptures demand and so on. So why did it take so long? Because too many people didn't want to get it-- it went against their prejudices, their economic interests, etc. All of that is part and parcel of sin.
They are as clear as they can be. He left it up to us to spread the word.
There is no way to avoid the argument over their meaning and authenticity. As long as he chose to act in human history at one point and not at another, there would be skeptics.
The people who never received the message will be judged according to the light they had.
There is no way to do this that respects human autonomy, so far as I can see. He did not dictate a how-to manual (which would not have helped in any case). He chose to work through a rag-tag iron age tribe, bring them along to a certain point and then revealed himself quite clearly.
Do you suppose you would be more likely to believe, had he revealed himself in Natchez, Miss. in 1877? Or Christchurch NZ in 1959? Don't kid yourself. The skeptics would still be skeptics.
I will try to deal with the rest of the questions here after work.
It's clear maggie's credentials are that she went to a big name university. And by "went to" I mean "stood outside throwing bibles at people and screaming about the coming apocalypse until the campus cops hauled her away for disrupting classes."
Meet James Ensor
Belgium's famous painter
Dig him up and shake his hand
Appreciate the man!
There is no way to avoid the argument over their meaning and authenticity.
But you're doing your best!
All of us are blinded to one degree or another by sin. That is a consequence of being a fallen human being.
If humans are truly fallen, it's because Maggie's imaginary god dropped us.
The notion of sin, that we are by our very nature (the one that we were "created" having) so evil that eternity needed to be established just so our punishment for our innate sin would last long enough, is a doctrine nearly as pernicious as its advocates, an ugly idea cherished by ugly people.
Can you supply physical evidence that your imaginary god exists? Failing that, can you provide evidence that your believe in god and the bible isn't a delusion on your part? God either exists with physical evidence, or he is a delusion. Pick your position Maggie
Do you view the increasing acceptance of homosexuals by many christians to be a more perfect fulfillment of what the scriptures demand?
How about acceptance of artificial contraception, including condom use?
I just want to see if you're willing to take your argument from "ever more perfect fulfillment" and weighing harm against benefit as you did with slavery to its logical conclusion, or if you're just engaging in special pleading.
Martin-- I take some time with my answers, particularly when, as now, I am at work (supposedly) and subject to interruptions. I also am aware that there are those who think "that the NT is fundamentally erroneous and mythical". I am not one of them and am not impressed with those who do.
That answers CJO, as well. Yes, CJO. You have named a number of well-known scholars who hold to particular points of view. No, I am not persuaded by them any more than the historians and theologians I can name are. We are at an impasse.
I had to laugh at your demand that I not "appeal to authority". What on earth do you think you are doing by invoking Spong, et al?
Endor-- since you asked so nicely I will tell you that I have a few advanced degrees. The one that is relevant here is the one in late Classical/Medieval literature and culture.
Maggie, were you born into a Catholic family?
So God the All-Merciful and God the All-Just are two different, logically irreconcilible gods, or else God transcends logic, or something.
Jesus came to "save" the whole world, and failed utterly. Oopsie!
It's a pretty damn stupid religion, all told.
Why not reveal his existence continually? I do, and my fiancee, family, friends, coworkers, and fellow motorists will all attest to being thoroughly convinced.
At #157, Maggie wrote:
Not torturing someone for all eternity cannot be reconciled with justice?
Oh, do tell!
Maggie can only parrot opinions pre-approved by His Ratzinginess.
Yes, maggie went to a Big Ten school, didn't mention which one or which degrees she has. She only said that she has an advanced degree in "Classical/Medieval literature and culture." What degree exactly? Apparently that is too much to type out. Which undergrad degree(s)? Again, too much to type. This, despite the fact that she offered it up as a testament to her intellectual superiority.
In summation - whoop-dee-fucking-doo.
Ken Cope @ #172:
WIN!
Ken Cope:
Maggie's monstrous imaginary friend fundamentally hates the entire human race, and created it solely so he would have something to hate. That's just fucked up on so many levels. There has to be something deeply wrong with a person for them to not only believe this grotesque dogma, but actually worship such a being. IF god made mankind, knowing his creations would be so irredeemably evil that they would require neverending torture and human sacrifice, then he is obviously either insane or evil.
This is where the party ends.
I can't stand here listening to you
And your racist friend.
Nerd: Do you accept Big Bang as the best explanation of what we know about the cause of universe at the moment?
Dave L: Homosexuals are sinners just like the rest of us. They cannot be faulted for their inclinations anymore than anyone else. However, the biological purpose of sex is procreation. That is suggestive, isn't it? The fact that pleasure accompanies sex simply does not detract from its purpose.
As for artificial birth control-- little has done more to harm women than that. Now men feel utterly free to use us as they will and if there is a complication? Well, we kill the little bugger. What a coup! Men have turned women against their own flesh and blood! There is a reason that the first generation of feminists considered abortion the greatest crime men commit against women. It is.
Severing procreation from sex is evil. It turns women into objects whose purpose these days appears to be serving as living blow up dolls for males--- when we aren't peeing excess estrogen into the water supply.
Condoms to prevent the spread of disease? It is better than the alternative but hardly as good as a healthy sex life.
No. I was born into an atheist family. I never set foot in a church until I went to Europe in my early 20s.
I had to laugh at your demand that I not "appeal to authority". What on earth do you think you are doing by invoking Spong, et al?
Are you fucking stupid, or are you really this dishonest? I named scholars that disagree with your literalist stance on the NT because you made an appeal to authority in the first place.
Not only am I capable of making the argument on my own, referring to nothing but the NT texts themselves, I have done so, and you have pointedly, proudly it seems, not done me the same courtesy.
Avoiding the question again Mendacious Maggie. Either show your physical evidence for your imaginary god, or just shut up. Science hasn't needed god, and won't start now. After all, we are rational, you aren't. Keep your delusions to yourself.
OK. The comments are getting vicious for no good reason other than the obvious. You don't actually have good arguments to bring to the discussion. A few quick final remarks:
I have revealed exactly as much, as I want to reveal. I am not going to identify myself further in this venue any more than you have. If you must know my undergraduate majors were in German and Classics. (My B.A. was not obtained from a Big Ten university). I also spent two years at a German university. Not a Big Ten university, either.
Happy now?
Not the idea that the husband is the head of the household. Not the idea that women should suffer in silence. No, it is idea of a women being able to control when and if she shall give birth.
Wait, I know the answer. My objections, these are not what was wrong. it is the fact that SIN fucked up those godly ideals.
What made you chose Catholic over a Protestant variation or some other religion?
No, I am not persuaded by them any more than the historians and theologians I can name are.
Do you consider that a rebuttal of my arguments, which do not depend on "them" but on the NT texts themselves: "I am not persuaded"?
We are at an impasse.
Speak for yourself. I've only scratched the surface.
Why don't you just admit that you can't or don't want to argue the point?
Speaking of religious zealots, is the following Facebook page real or satire?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1683901439&ref=profile
We've been telling you that for days Mendacious Maggie. Learn something: YOU ARE WRONG!
No, the more perfect fulfillment of the modern age has clearly shown that homosexuality is not wrong, therefore what are you complaining about?
Ah, the Natural Order argument. You do know that going against the natural order ordained by God was exactly the charge levelled against abolitionists, right?
So if that argument was unavailing against abolitionists, you should not accept it against homosexuals. You have not demonstrated any character of harm done to homosexuals that isn't wildly outweighed by the harm done in demanding they repress their sexual identity.
Just as I thought- special pleading.
Utter horseshit. Substantiate your statement. Give evidence. Why on earth do you think so many women, under pressure from men not to use contraception, elect to use it anyway?
You seem unaware of a small issue of consent. You see, in today's enlightened, more perfect fulfillment of God's will, we recognize that a woman's right to bodily autonomy trumps men's desire to impose either sex on a woman or prevent her from using contraception.
Contraception is not abortion. In fact, most methods - by preventing fertilization - prevent the loss of more fertilized eggs than would happen without artificial contraception. On this score, there can be no question that artificial contraception is a net harm reducer.
Allowing women to control their own sexual destiny manifestly does not turn them into sex slaves. Do you have one shred of evidence that artificial contraception turns women into living sex toys?
You have never demonstrated that condoms cannot be part of a healthy sex life. Therefore we're left with your own admission they reduce disease and therefore harm. Another context where they are a net harm reducer.
You have failed to substantiate in any way that either homosexuality or artificial birth control cause more harm than good, and have offered no other argument apart from the same charge levelled at abolitionists, which you clearly do not consider valid.
So again, since you obviously do not accept the modern age's more perfect fulfillment of God's will, you are engaging in special pleading.
I call bullshit.
No further chances for you CJO. Someone here is "fucking stupid" and dishonest and it is not me. You have not made a serious an argument that the documents that make up the New Testament are not historical documents. You have tapped danced around the issue by citing those who do not deal with the evidence but have gone off and done their own thing. They simply explain it away without. I am not impressed. I understand why they do it but I am not impressed.
Poor Nerd! He has been tugging at my cyber skirt like a toddler demanding mama's attention. Then he blew his chance, when I finally acknowledged him.
Answer my question about Big Bang and I will give you another chance. Otherwise, go outside and play. Mama is busy.
I am happier than you have the capacity to realize, but it has nothing to do with your answering the question.
First: I have identified myself plenty on this blog, and am not afraid to do so.
Second: You OFFERED your credentials, I was only holding you to it.
Third: As has been pointed out by others, you would be received here much better if your attitude weren't one of pontificating know it all. There are plenty of us here that have given a significant portion of our lives to one religion or another. I was raised Catholic, went through all the rights associated as such, and still managed use my intellect to deduce that it is all a sham. So I would suggest that you step down off of the gilded tower you seem to think you are perched on. Don't change the way you believe, that's fine, but by closing your mind you are doing yourself and the god that you believe in a disservice. If he were real, he would have given you the ability to reason critically for a purpose, right? So quit citing religion and THINK.
Mendacious Maggie, if you are the teacher and we are the students, you are proselytizing, and I would hope PZ bans your ass in the near future. If you want to discuss, you need to acknowledge you can be wrong, and show us by acknowledging that in writing when we refute you. But you ego won't allow that, will it?
So if I want to have sex with a woman, for nothing other than the idea of the mutual pleasure to be derived from it (yes, believe it or not, there are men out there who don't enjoy sex unless their partners are also enjoying sex), I'm objectifying that woman, believing she is nothing more than an animated blow-up doll with the (I guess this follows) unfortunate ability to speak?
You also realize that you've pretty much said that a man doesn't find a woman sexy for her mind - which is rather insulting.
As far as "the greatest crime men commit against women", I wonder why rape, domestic violence, and thousands of years of general subjugation to male dominance didn't make the cut? Priorities, I guess.
I've been whacking the little bastards for six thousand years, who's gonna stop me?
Maggie #169 wrote:
Be careful here: the more reasonable religion becomes, the less necessary it is. Special revelation justifies itself by being special, and a revelation -- not by saying things that ordinary people of good will could figure out on their own -- and could have figured out on their own.
This is a popular way of kidding oneself -- putting forth weak and unconvincing evidence, and then claiming that it doesn't matter that it's as weak and unconvincing as it is, because it is sufficient. Those who don't believe in God, or space alien abductions, or curing cancer by eating carrots, wouldn't believe no matter what the evidence was. They just don't want it to be true.
You find this dodge in every form of pseudoscience, and it practically defines religion.
Two points. First, those who have examined the evidence for Christianity and find another view more compelling are not unreasonable. Even if they're mistaken, it's not the sort of error that requires deliberate blindness or stupidity or ill will. And if there is such a thing as "reasonable non-belief," then the claim that God provided evidence that was sufficient for all reasonable people, is clearly wrong.
Second, there are many forms of religion and God that are very pleasing, easy, and self-esteem promoting -- more so than Christianity. Universal salvation, cosmic consciousness, man as God-like with God-like magic powers, and so forth and so on. Nothing but goodness and light and spiritual progress, in other words.
Atheists reject these religions and gods, also. Any theory which tries to explain why atheists 'reject' the God of Christianity would also have to explain why those who are so arrogant reject such an easy path to importance. We claim it's the result of the same rigorous and disciplined method applies to both: naturalism has more support as explanation than supernaturalism.
Did maggie just call herself mama? Maggie must have some serious control issues to be that arrogant.
Not to mention some serious self-esteem issues if she can't think of any reason a man would have sex with a woman other than to:
1) Get her pregnant; or
2) Masturbate.
You stupid and dishonest sack of shit. I do not give a flying fuck that you have such great "credentials". You have stumbled on a site filled with people who have serious SIWOTI syndrome. No one is making you comment here. No one is begging for attention. And if you were to disappear by having your ass swallow up your head, neck and body, no one would miss you.
You are arrogant yet your only defense is your relationship with your big sky daddy and that out SIN prevents us from understanding your shining brilliance. Get over yourself. No one here desires your acknowledgment. They are dumb founded by your unearned confidence and dazzling arrogance.
Oh this is rich:
No, actually, I didn't. I made an off-hand remark about how amusing it would be to match credentials with AJ. You and Endor picked up that particular ball and ran with it. (Can't get away from the Big Ten no matter how hard I try!)
See? This is what I mean by lack of intellectual honesty. You don't read with the least interest in actually getting it and having a meaninful discussion. You do so in order to turn around and spew your canned atheist responses.
I did start out as a Protestant. I became a Catholic because I was so taken with the medieval philosophers/theologians I was reading. That is, they attracted me initially and I looked into Catholicism ever more deeply over the following years. It was hard. I brought all the usual Protestant misunderstandings and prejudices to it.
maggie @ 175
In @162, I wasn't asking you to confirm the existence of the "Jesus as myth" hypothesis. Here's my question again:
Maggie,
Do you have any idea how condescending you read? You put on airs that your knowledge is so much superior and try to ridicule the denizens here, but but from the perspective of a bystander (*1), thats all it is, air.
You just wrote off CJO, but from my perspective, he as put up actual arguments using the NT and other documents, while all Ive seen from you is some name-dropping and furious hand-waving. Your comments to Nerd are insultingly condescending, a condescension that is completely unwarranted given your apparent attempt to distract him with a red herring about the Big Bang. Perhaps if you explained the relevance of your question about the Big Bang, someone would answer it, or atleast explain why your question is poorly phrased. You provide vague comments about your education, which would be fine, if you hadnt been the one to suggest a pissing match on education in the first place.
If you want a discussion, get off your high horse and actually discuss. But if youre going to simply assume your own superiority, make pronouncements and get pissy when asked for support, dont complain about the ridicule and abuse, at that point, youve invited it.
(*1) -- I am not completely a neutral bystander to this conversation, I did post a few comments on this thread and its earlier predecessor regarding the Roman Church's claim to sole succession from the early church.
Avoid sending them to a Big Ten university
I went to a Big Twelve. That beats a ten, right?
It seems high time for another episode of Survivor: Pharyngula.
Yes. You are using her. The fact that she is using you doesn't make it any better and is not nearly as likely to be true, as women still hedge some pretty old fashioned hopes about the men they sleep with. All men know that too, but, perhaps, for the very young.
Irrelevant. You are still using her. You aren't committing to her are you? You aren't making a committment to put her good above your own, are you?
The are merely different points on the same continuum.
I'll second that, Carlie.
No further chances for you CJO. Someone here is "fucking stupid" and dishonest and it is not me. You have not made a serious an argument that the documents that make up the New Testament are not historical documents. You have tapped danced around the issue by citing those who do not deal with the evidence but have gone off and done their own thing.
The old thread stands, maggie. It's there for everyone to see. I have gone straight at the assertion that the NT texts should be considered historical sources, starting in comment #267, and continuing in #s 359, 370, 389, 397 and 570. Anybody who wants to can assess what I wrote and see that your accusation of "tap dancing" is pure bluster. Also, in all of those comments, the only texts I cite are from the NT, with the exception of the use of a two-word phrase from J.D. Crossan.
Showing that I'm fucking stupid will require engaging those arguments. Showing that I'm dishonest will be impossible, because the record is right there, and I have argued in good faith.
So Atheist > Protestant > Catholic.
What made you choose Christianity from Atheism?
(emphasis mine)
If you didn't want to be called out on it, you shouldn't have brought it up. Don't go throwing around intellectual dishonesty claims so easily, it only makes you look more stupid.
Maggie, I approached you as a fellow human being and as a former Catholic. I certainly didn't "spew" any "canned atheist responses" at you. Now who's being intellectually dishonest? I'm sorry that I tried to get you to use the reason that you believe an invisible, omniscience, omnipotent but somehow completely helpless being gave to you. I should have anticipated that it would be like banging my head against a very thick wall. Thanks for opening my eyes to your ignorance so completely.
Yes. You are using her. The fact that she is using you doesn't make it any better and is not nearly as likely to be true, as women still hedge some pretty old fashioned hopes about the men they sleep with.
So if a man has sex with a woman for mutual pleasure, he's using her. But if a man has sex with a woman just to make a baby, that's not using her? Whoa. I bet Maggie's views on feminism are even more bizarre than her views on religion.
Lynna @153, the answer is yes, and my commentary is basically comment #58, here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/spectacular_geology_near_ton…
OMFG maggie, I owe you an apology. I thought that you were just intellectually dishonest. I see now that you are completely fucking insane. Sex only for procreation - how much more animalistic can you get? Sure, there are several species that have sex for fun, but by and large sex in the wild is only for procreatin' and not for fun. So the god that you so fervently believe in gave us all those nerves around our naughty parts (you know, the ones that make you go to confession after you get all biblical with them) that make us feel so good...to what end? Did he fuck up? Sex tends to go hand in hand with feeling good, with exceptions. So in your tiny, limited mind sex is ONLY for procreation, no matter the circumstances? Even in wedlock? Allow me to reiterate: you are out of your fucking skull. Please tell me that you are not reproducing. Please please please please.
We don't need Survivor Pharyngula for Maggie. She is just talking at us, which is proselytizing. If she doesn't stop talking at us, and actually start talking with us, I see PZ banning her. And Maggie, this starts with you losing the attitude.
As one of the people here who try to point out misogynistic statements when they happen to raise people's awareness that things they say have a broader context, damn. Maggie's view that men should only use women for makin' babies, along with her statement that mutually fun sex and rape are points on the same continuum and therefore all bad, make her the worst offender on Pharyngula ever. And that's even including the "Looking lovely ladies" thread and everything Pete Rooke has said.
Actually, his to me have been uniformly rude, and childishly so. He got the response he deserved (none), until I finally chose to pose a question that I *think* (I am not sure) he understood better than you have. Big Bang is not a red herring. Its acceptance met real resistance in the scientific community because its implications were not lost on many scientists for whom an eternally existing universe was an article of faith. But, of course, if the universe began to exist, it must have had a cause. What might that cause be? (And yes, I am aware that our understanding of BB has undergone some revision.)
Now Nerdy, who keeps making a pitiful demand for physical evidence of God has either had no training in logic or else his claim to be a scientist is suspect. No real scientist would make claims about the existence or non-existence of a supernatural world based on "science". There simply is no basis for making that claim. Those who do are making an a priori assumption which they bring to their "science" and not one that can be derived scientifically from it.
Maggie, why are you here ?
Did you expect to convert us ?
Did you think we had never heard of Jesus, never read the bible, never been in a church or a temple or a synagogue ?
Really, what were your expectations ?
And how have you revised them given your reception here ?
You haven't done very well persuading anyone of anything, does that make you stop and think and change your plan ?
I hope so. Really. Its not a good thing to be as stubborn as we have seen you, nor as rude, nor as unwilling to learn from your mistakes.
mqaggie #217 wrote:
This is actually a very controversial statement, and one which has been argued on this forum very extensively. Is the "supernatural" something which science can't rule on, study, explore, confirm, or deny -- by definition?
Depends on the definition, I think. How do you define "the supernatural?"
And would it include ESP, ghosts, 'healing energy,' and magical correspondences?
Does the supernatural world interact with the natural world?
Does god have the ability to interact physically with this world?
If so it would be measurable.
If not then... well...
I see PZ banning her.
What I don't get is why she hasn't banned herself. She's already stated once that unless she is just plain dazzled by a response, she ain't gonna grace us with her towering intellect no more! Yet here she is, and still just as unimpressed with Pharyngula as she ever was. We get it: "Maggie, good! Pharyngula, bad!" I think Prof. Myers keeps her around simply because he needs a new car.
Maggie accused:
Your definition of "using" in this context is interesting. People "use" each other all the time - say, when I go to the store and the woman at the checkout totals up my items and then the young man at the end bags them, I am "using" them. In return, they "use" me for my money. Very elastic definition you have there.
So, there is no moral difference between a man who rapes a woman (using her to gratify a violent impulse through forced sexual intercourse) and a man who engages in sex with a consenting (and dare I say, enthusiastic) partner for a purpose other than procreation. Got ya.
I said:
Maggie said:
We are "committing" to each other what we both decide beforehand to "commit" - if it's just sex for the sake of sharing ourselves intimately, then it's just sex. If it's sex with the promise of something more, then it's sex with the promise of something more. It's called honesty and equality - we accept each other as equal partners, and we are honest with each other over our expectations. But "using" someone, while "giving" of oneself at the same time, is called sharing - and it does happen, more often than you might think.
I said:
Maggie said:
So again, to be clear: sex for any purpose other than procreation is immoral, the same as rape, spousal abuse, and sexual discrimination are immoral, just of a different degree of severity.
Just so we know where you're coming from.
And with that statement, maggie has run head first into the brick wall of reality. Facilis might as well jump in now so he and maggie can tag team.
Sorry Maggie, you get caught in another lie. BS, MS, and PhD in Chemistry. And the only god I will accept is one that there is physical evidence for, like an eternally burning bush that is obviously of supernatural origin. Otherwise, god doesn't interact with the world, and exists only as a delusion in the minds of people like yourself. So your failure to properly address the evidence tells me you are a liar and bullshitter. If you don't like being called that, just shut up.
Severing procreation for sex is evil? So birth control is evil? Enjoying sex is evil? Masturbation is evil?
Hahahaha. Wow. Dating Maggie must be really really fun.
Maggie, out of curiosity, you don't happen to belong to a celibate religious order, do you?
OK. I'll bite. How do you derive, scientifically, evidence that there is no supernatural?
Maggie needs to go back where she came from. I'm guessing that would be - approximately - the year 1324.
No. all sex outside of marriage is immoral. It does not need to be "for procreation". It does need, however, to be open to the possibility of new life.
Maggie. How do you prove that there aren't leprechauns or demons?
That might be the wrong donut* to bite into Maggie. The better question is probably: what evidence do you have for the supernatural?
Or, to phrase it another way: what evidence can you offer to support your belief that Odin isn't real?
*mmmmmmmmm....donuts.
I'm sorry, Maggie, but with all our more perfect understanding of God's moral laws today, and given your inability to substantiate any kind of harm from not being "open to the possibility of new life", we have discovered that your claim is nonsense, the result of your being blinded by sin.
Bacon Doughnuts?
Maggie, logic. You have it backwards.
The onus is on some one claiming there is a supernatural to provide the evidence. Not the other way around.
We don't have to demonstrate there are no fairies, no elves, no ghosts, there is a long list. The person who says they exist is the one who has to provide the evidence.
There are Leprechauns tho. I was married to one of the Little people from Ireland. We had a whole clan of Leprechauns living in an oak at the bottom of our garden. If you are ever on Cape Cod, I will show you the oak as proof.
So true. All real 'scientists' know better than to ask for natural evidence of supernatural claims. Of course, all claims for which there is no natural evidence could thus be defined as supernatural and free from the burden of requiring evidence. Genius! I'm gonna go stone a homosexual and burn a witch on the basis of my belief that Maggie is a magical talking dog, a claim which I define to be supernatural (well, natural dogs don't talk, do they?), so none of you 'scientists' better ask me for supporting evidence.
Normally I'd agree with you, but she said "a priori," so I think we have to take her seriously.
Hey Maggie - if a man rapes his wife, but they're not using birth control, is that ok, then?
I could give two shits what maggie thinks about where I put my johnson. She's trying misdirection now. "Look, over here! I also have malicious, unsupported assertions to make about morality and sexuality!"
It's bullshit.
So threesomes are strictly out of the question?
Seriously, though, you ought to know by now that this isn't a group that's likely to accept a claim, moral or otherwise, just because it happens to be Catholic doctrine.
Hmmm. I wonder if 69 is a no no.
Rev--at some point, you and I simply must meet in the real world.*
*although I suspect I will need to be heart medication follwing it...
Maggie said:
Great, if that works for you. Thankfully, I live in a country where someone's outdated, religiously-derived personal notions of morality can't (theoretically) determine public policy. So enjoy your sex-only-within-marriage, pregnancy-MUST-end-in-childbirth life. I'll consider your opinions antiquated and dangerous, you'll consider mine immoral and dangerous, and we'll both be free to live our lives without any interference from the other. These are the benefits derived from living in a secular, pluralistic, progressive society.
There. One problem solved.
I'd like to see Maggie expand her anti-sex crusade to include damnation of sexually active post-menopausal women and infertile couples. No possibility of "new life" there, after all.
Or, if she's merely being open to the possibility of a miracle, I think that opens the door to all kinds of possibilities. Lesbians could reproduce parthenogenetically, you know. And those gay men? If one became pregnant, that would truly be a great miracle that testified to the power of the Lord. Would she deny Jesus the opportunity to manifest himself in such an amazing way?
Simple Mendacious Maggie. Proof positive (show something is supernatural) versus proof negative (show supernatural doesn't exist). Then apply Occam's razor. Proof positive is needed or the supernatural doesn't exist. So far, all you have shown is your god exists between your ears (which I'll give you) and no place else.
I'm all in, and I already take Blood Pressure meds.
Though I think that has more to do with my temperament.
We need some definitions first. The natural world is that which can be observed, studied, modeled, and our understanding of it tested by comparing our models and their predictions with the real thing. To people who posit the existence of the supernatural, presumably it's something that by definition can't be observed, studied, modeled, etc., which, to science, makes the supernatural something fundamentally indistinguishable from the non-existent--unless whatever the supernatural is somehow interacts with the physical world, at which point we would have, presumably, something in the natural world to study. Positing the existence of the supernatural adds nothing of value or utility to the practice of science. To the extent that the supernatural has been offered as a hypothesis with respect to anything in the natural world, it contains no explanatory power.
Silly Carlie. A man can not rape his wife. How can a man rape his property?
The god of Christian mythology, of course! Duh!
What do I get? Bacon?
Ugh. I wash my hands of you, maggie. You are unclean, at least intellectually, and I will sully myself no further. You are an embarrassment for those of your faith that can admit when they are wrong and flawed. Remember PRIDE? That's one of those seven deadlies too. Don't worry so much about diddling yourself or others, work on your pride. You have way too much of it for someone so full of shit.
maggie #227 wrote:
Depends on the definition of the 'supernatural,' and what sorts of things are supposed to be considered evidence for it.
I think the most meaningful definition involves some form of mind/body dualism, with mind or its products (such as values) existing prior to and/or apart from the physical, and acting on it. This would mean that evidence for a material basis for minds -- or for the bottom-up processes which form them -- would be evidence against supernaturalism.
And, by the same token, evidence for top-down mind powers or effects (ie the paranormal) would count against naturalism. For example, we could both imagine a series of strongly-confirmed cases which scientifically verified reincarnation (even though I'm guessing that neither one of us currently believes in 'past lives.')
Both naturalism and supernaturalism are theories, not metaphysical commitments which no empirical evidence could effect one way or the other. People do not believe in God (or angels or vitalism or other supernaturalisms) simply on whim: they believe the evidence leads that way. It can also lead against.
But you always seem so calm and collected...
*ducks back behind some cover*
I think the most meaningful definition involves some form of mind/body dualism, with mind or its products (such as values) existing prior to and/or apart from the physical, and acting on it.
Neural synapses: the last of the gaps god's got left.
Maggie claims that she was raised as an atheist and was taken in by medieval theologians. My reaction to the likes of Aquinas was horror at the inhumanity of their writings. Maggie read it and said this was cool. I think there must of been something wrong with her before she converted.
My reaction to the likes of Aquinas was horror at the inhumanity of their writings. Maggie read it and said this was cool.
As ever, religion and our response to it reveals more truth about ourselves than it ever has about the world. The world Maggie lives in is very ugly indeed. Sure glad I didn't step in it. Aquinas appeals only to some very messed up people.
maggie:
Looks like people have been too polite to point this out, but if you are going to brag about how well you know his work, you might want to spell his name right for once. It's Nietzsche.
Look, I read German, a lot of people here do, many are German, we just don't feel the need to bring it up all the time in contexts where it's completely irrelevant.
You call your own witticisms "absolutely fantastic"? Seriously, you must be floating at several thousand feet... And shouldn't a witticism be a little less literal to be fantastic? The Jesus seminar votes with beads, it's like a glass bead game! GEDDIT? ...IMO, those who think Christian apologetics as a whole is a valid intellectual exercise shouldn't throw Glasperlen.
maggie the mendacious misogynist @ #184:
HooBoy....
Well its not at all clear to me that he deserves none. Indeed, other than referring to your deity as a personal delusion, I saw several reasonable posts from him in the other thread before he began to grow frustrated with you.
Im glad you included the caveat that you are not sure, because you are wrong. I understood your question perfectly well.
Yes, curiously enough, this was generally because an eternally existing universe was considered more perfect than at ephermeral one, and thus concern that a Big Bang points away from a creator. In anycase, this is still a red herring as it has naught to do with Nerd's request for physical evidence of the existence of your deity.
But apparently you are not aware enough. First, our universe is eternal: that is for all points of time, the universe exists. This is necessarily so because time is a property OF the universe. Second, within the terminology of classical GtR, the BB, by definition has no cause: A cause must be in the past of an event, and the BB is defined as an event without a past. (And it is for this point that I think your earlier question was poorly formed.) Finally, we know that Classical GtR has flaws within the region of the BB, IOW, by modern understanding, the BB may be only a chimera, which as we get close to it, turns out to be something else entirely.
Although again, what relevance this has to Nerd's request for physical evidence of the existence of your deity is unclear. At most, you perhaps felt that the BB constituted evidence of a generic deity, which for the above reasons as well as others, I believe is false, but would in no way distinguish your deity from that of the Mormons, the Muslims, or Xenu for that matter.
Moreover, it would have been far better recieved had you started with the explanation above, rather than haughtily posing cryptic questions.
Maggie, you are the woman in most dire need of a good, thorough fuck I have ever seen. Please, go get laid. It'll make you feel better.
Ok, who the feck is poe'ing as this “maggie”?! The “maggie” persona is so obtuse I'm having a hard time convincing myself it's for real. But I grant it's obtuseness seems sufficiently consistent could be an Eliza-poe or other clever bit of robotory.
Now *that* was an absolutely fantastic witticism.
(Although I doubt that maggie, unlike myself, has sufficient advanced degrees to catch the subtle underlying reference. She says she does, but I am not impressed.)
Dave -- No doubt one of maggie's several advanced degrees is in cosmology. Which she studied in German.
Dave, #258
Utter, total bullshit. The conclusion does not follow from the premise. Did our universe exist 20 billion years ago? Most likely the answer is no. And definitely the answer is not yes, because "time is a property OF the universe."
Matin H, # (1/alpha)
Unfriggin' believable. Channeling Epicurus and presenting it as "my conclusion." This deserves about as much consideration as if I wrote "I conclude" and pasted one of Aquinas' "proofs" for the existence of God.
I read Hesse many years ago. Oops, in English. I must be too poorly educated to discuss the minutiae of Catholic theology. Darn it. Guess I...won't, then.
Heddle, once you've unwadded your panties... anything substantial to add?
Pretty sure Epicurus's estate won't be assserting their intellectual property rights.
heddle @ 258
Calm down, fellow. Are you ready to find out if you are one of the saved?
If Epicurus has written on Maggie's view of these options, I am unaware of it. If you read more carefully, you will see I am drawing a conclusion on Maggie's thoughts. And even that was no exercise in logic, just a restatement of what she said upstream.
I apologize for assuming that the argument I drew on was so familiar as to need no explicit introduction.
Sorry, that was heddle @ 263
Dave: I have not said that BB is evidence for a deity of any kind, much less the God of the Bible. We are a long way from there.
When we say that something always existed, that usually means that it had no beginning. But the universe did have a beginning, the singularity. To say that it "always" existed because there was no point in our space-time that it didn't exist is just to assume that there is nothing outside of our space-time. But that's the question at hand, so this is just begging the question, as far as I can see. Maybe I am not understanding you.
PZ: A whole lot of people bring up the infertile, post-menopausal women "argument". It doesn't work because it isn't relevant. It is mostly our fault that people think it is because we either don't explain our understanding of marriage or explain it badly. I shall try to remedy that.
Marriage is a sacrament and thus is more than a natural institution. Unlike the other six, this sacrament is administered by the couple themselves. It is not necessary for a priest to be present. Like all the others, it increases sanctifying grace which helps the couple help each other grow in holiness and faith.
Marriage is a symbol of the union between Christ and the Church. Married Christians must be open to the creation of new life and committed to each other's salvation. The goal of marriage is for the couple to cooperate with God's plan to redeem the world in the way or ways he decrees and for each spouse to grow in faith and love for each other and for God.
I don't say that this is easy. But this is the goal.
This also answers the silly question someone posed about rape in marriage. How is rape compatible with love? With seeking the other's good? I don't think it is. Does anyone?
So the 69 position is a no no?
Sure, people used to believe that, but nowadays with our more perfect fulfillment of God's will, we've realized that all that was just a lot of rationalization by those blinded by the sin of pride, and who wish to control other people's sexuality, especially that of women.
Sorry no one gave you the memo.
BTW, I really am curious- do you belong to a celibate religious order?
maggie
Since you seem to be ignoring my previous question on the NT (@ 205), perhaps you will answer me this one.
Is it moral to have children if they have a possibility of an eternity in Hell?
Actually, that is not bad at all, though my use was far more clever-- if anyone remembered the context in which I brought it up. It had nothing to do with reading Hesse (who is a gigantic bore in my opinion) nor with that particular novel. It was an amusing (to me) bit of conceptual Anschluß that I performed (plagarized really), tying the voting method of the Jesus Seminar to the glass bead game.
Oh Stu!!
Did you really mean to prove my point? Are you that clueless?
But of course there are eleven universities in the Big "Ten".
Maggie -- You are a conceited, vain woman. It's very unattractive. Nobody is impressed by you except yourself.
Martin: It is pure nonsense to say that I have denied omnipotence. But I see no way to explain it, if it is not already self-evident from what I wrote.
Then poor Phantom Reader trots out the big guns! Unfortunately, they are firing blanks.
It demands no such thing. That is pure nonsense. If an abortion is required to save the mother's life, it is licit to perform one. It may not be performed for any other reason and the intention must not be to kill the child, even though that will be the inevitable result.
I will say that the situation appears to have been handled very badly froma PR point of view.
Ridiculous. I think no such thing. But I will tell you I wasn't put on this planet to serve any man's lust. Having a healthy attitude towards sex and, above all, not being a slave to my body has saved me lots of money. I don't have to waste money buying books like: He's Just Not That Into You or Why Men Marry Bitches or All the Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right trying to understand what is going on.
I know whose rules I want to follow.
Finally, some humility.
Dave L: no, I am not a nun or any other sort of celibate. Married- 15 years; 3 children + 1 late summer surprise and pretty darned happy with my sex life. Is my hubby? So far as I know.
Martin: Of course it is moral to have children, if they have a possibility of an eternity in hell. There is no other possibility. What a strange question. I am sure you have some rejoinder to spring on me to show me how this proves that God is a vile, evil monster and so am I.
Let's hear it!
Question: Did God create human beings knowing that some of them would choose hell?
I don't get it. What was teh late summer surprise?
Maggie, what makes you think we are interested at all in what you have to say?
If we keep asking her questions, Nerd of Redhead, it seems a reasonable assumption on her part...
Heck yes! Look, I made a bulk order of brimstone, awright? The stuff doesn't grow on trees (hardy har). You think it's going to go to waste? Not on my watch, sistersinner.
-- Yahweh
Why did an omnibenevolent God create hell? Why can't we just die and that be it like every other organism on this planet? Why isn't it a choice between eternity and nothing instead of having eternity thrust upon us?
Maggie, I see that you didn't even bother reading the link I gave you. You have clearly expressed your membership in the catholic cult, and the official response of that cult to an abortion performed for the purpose of saving the life of a nine-year-old rape victim was to denounce the procedure and damn all involved. You claim otherwise, but the truth is right there in black and white and we all KNOW you are lying. This is not a matter of PR. This is a matter of an official policy that a fetus, even one with no chance of survival, is more valuable than an actual living person. This is an evil policy. It has nothing to do with a respect for life and everything to do with reducing women to breeding stock.
Maggie, isn't your imaginary god supposed to have some sort of problem with bearing false witness?
that's not the pope said.
Eternity -- any eternity -- is hell enough, but imagine if you had to spend it in the company of "christians" and their arbitrary, tyrannical, sadistic god.
What was teh late summer surprise?
She's bragging that she doesn't use birth control.
This also answers the silly question someone posed about rape in marriage.
You. Are. A. Monster. Do you honestly think that rape doesn't exist in any marriage? You think it's a "silly" question? Please go to your local domestic abuse shelter and start talking about how it's silly to think rape can happen in a marriage, and see how far you get with that statement.
*shudder* One life of that is enough thank you very much
Carlie @ #289, to maggie the mendacious misogynist:
Well, do remember she gets her moral guidance from the world's largest haven for rapists, run by an eighty-year-old Nazi in a dress who hears voices in his head and thinks he's infallible, with official positions that a nine year old rape victim should be forced to carry twins to term even if it kills her, that condoms make AIDS worse, that mistreating a piece of bread is worse than genocide, and that the full power of the church should be used to shield rapists from justice. It's no wonder that she has a fucked up sense of morality.
Right you are. *headdesk*
Maggie, if 25 people told you to go away, would you? If not 25, what number?
Maggie #278:
Hey! This quotemining thing is fun!
She calls it a "late summer surprise."
The great oxymoron -- "christian morality."
You psychologically castrate yourself, lopping off your conscience (along with your sexuality, absolutely!) and strap the prosthesis of the church's rules onto the stump of your personality. No need to feel or reason your way through the responsibility of adult ethics -- just do what Pope Bigot the Umpteenth tells you.
Almost peed myself when I mis-read that as:
But I fear I must ask maggie why she hates sex so much. Is it all icky? Poor dear. The world really is a much better place once you drop all the irrational pieces and move on. Really. That man on the downtown street corner - the one with the old tattered coat, the mis-matched shoes, and the funny smell, that talks to himself - you're starting to sound like the Internet version of that person. Relax. Get laid. Hell, read a trashy romance novel. Oh, that's right, SIN! All hail the all powerful SIN. It protects us against the evil hoohoodillies and chachas bumping into each other. Over and over. Deeper and deeper. Faster and faster. Hotter and hotter. Whoooo, better stop now; SIN is gonna getcha. Boo!
Maggie,
That really says it all right there.
When I read medieval philosophers/theologians I'm struck by the amount of fallacies one can fit on a page. I just think of what Richard Dawkins' response to Aquinas' argument from degree: "That's an argument?".
"So if she weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood, and therefore... A WITCH!!"
Good grief. Don’t you people have lives? A dozen more questions? I got a flash for ya—it is Friday night and in exactly 2 more hours I am going to be in a restaurant eating and talking to the best man on the planet—I‘ll be thinking about you. Not.
Sastra Question: Did God create human beings knowing that some of them would choose hell? Answered above (169) . See question 1.
aswineina cage I don't get it. What was teh late summer surprise?
Her name is Abby and she is nearly 9 months old.
phantomreade
Sorry. I didn’t see it, that I recall. If it is important, I will have a look.
Absolutely correct. If they do not show cause that her life was in immediate danger then an abortion is a mortal sin and the mother and the doctors and anyone else involved are in big trouble(not the child herself who cannot consent to such a thing).
This is completely untrue. If a woman’s life is in IMMINENT danger due to a pregnancy (say an ectopic one), then the unborn child may be removed to prevent the mother’s death. This is not the same as an abortion (morally), as the intent is NOT to kill the child, but to save the mother. Everything that CAN be done MUST be done to save the child also, but if nothing can be done and the child dies anyway, this is a CONSEQUENCE of saving the mother and not the INTENT.
This little girl, was NOT in imminent danger of dying. A difficult situation to be sure, but it might have been possible to allow the twins to live long enough to reach viability.
Indeed. You are going to want to watch that.
Kel
Why did an omnibenevolent God create hell? Why can't we just die and that be it like every other organism on this planet? Why isn't it a choice between eternity and nothing instead of having eternity thrust upon us?
Hell is the absence of God. It is your choice to reject God. You were created for eternity. Your soul is immortal. It makes no real sense to question it. Reality is what it is.
AdamK
See that proves my point. By the grace of God you will be happier in hell than in heaven.
Carlie
You. Are. A. Nut. Honestly, Carlie. Get a grip. How much more clearly can I say that rape in marriage is incompatible with love or working for the spouse’s good? How does that deny that men abuse their wives? Such men are bad men. They are bad husbands. No woman has to put up with that crap for a single second. Nor should she.
Maggie wrote:
I dunno - you're doing an excellent job of satisfying our lust for seeing arrogant, deluded religionists dig themselves into holes on pretty much every significant topic available to us.
Though, of course, some of the posters here are women*...
*Better get those smelling salts out again - if we don't limit our discussions of S-E-X to vanilla man-on-woman action then Maggie gets all light-headed.
Since Maggie refused to answer, I'll start this off.
Maggie, you have nothing of interest to say, and need to stop posting here.
(1) (Please keep count as this increases)
The bold says it all, you don't question anything at all. You just say "God did it" and you are done. Though I strongly disagree with the italicised assertion. Reality shows that we are an evolved being, that the mind and body are one and the same - that we are subject to the life and death cycle like every other living creature on the planet. If you have any evidence to the contrary, please go ahead and show it. It seems the height of arrogance to supplant the unknowable (what happens after we die) with what you think will happen - then have the nerve to call it reality... You really are an arrogant one, where is your humility?
maggie @276
You surmised that God cannot annihilate souls, and you have not demonstrated that it is in principle impossible to do so. It certainly isn't a logical impossibility. I have often encountered arguments that God cannot violate logic, but you are delimiting its powers much more than that. So unless "omnipotence" means "can do everything it can do" then I would say far from being "pure nonsense" the assertion that you view God as not omnipotent is a strong one.
And at 278, "there is no other possibility" does seem to be, in that favorite phrase of yours, "pure nonsense." There is the possibility of having no children. In my view that would be much more moral.
Here's what the Catholic Encyclopedia article on abortion says:
On the other thread Maggie announced in three separate posts that she was retrieving her spheroid and withdrawing to her domicile.
Maggie, taking herself back to square one (attempting to defend charges of vile monsterhood against her god) wrote:
So, we're sentenced to exist for eternity and we're not allowed to question it; the only choice we have is whether or not we want to live as fawning, grovelling, obsequious pets for the entertainment of a divine puppetmaster who can't even get what he wants across to us in any consistent manner.
Maggie, if we're not allowed to choose whether or not we exist for eternity, how is the being that creates us and forces us to exist - against our will - not a monster?
What could be more monstrous than that?
Catholicism on slavery - The Bull Romanus Pontifex (Nicholas V), January 8, 1455. (English Translation) (my emphasis):
"We [therefore] weighing all and singular the premises with due meditation, and noting that since we had formerly by other letters of ours granted among other things free and ample faculty to the aforesaid King Alfonso -- to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit"
Cleverness is in the eye of the beholder, but still, if you were not alluding to Hesse or his novel, there seems to be no reason at all for your use of the German word Glasperlenspiel, other than your need to point out what a SUPER GENIUS you are?
Your soul is immortal. It makes no real sense to question it. Reality is what it is.
BWAAAAHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Holy crap you're an arrogant, delusional idiot.
Words fail. Please go away. (2)
Can we at least wait to hear how she explains how a being that sentences you to an eternity of existence against your will isn't a vile monster? That's the answer I've wanting to hear for about 1,000 posts now.
Nerd:
Look, nobody's forcing you to read her posts, and you must know by now that "go away" never works with trolls and preachers, so what's the point?
I wonder if maggie can first demonstrate that there is such thing as the soul - let alone it being immortal. Come on maggie, show the evidence for the soul...
Maggie is operating under the delusion that we want to hear her message. If we all say go away, she might, or at least acknowledge we don't want to hear. Plus, it also gives ammunition for PZ to ban her for proselytizing if she just won't go away.
We may not be particularly interested in her message, but some people are still trying to make her see sense, and some are just having a bit of fun. Do you think people can't decide for themselves if they want to argue with the village idiot or not? If she needs to be banned, let PZ deal with it.
I think Maggie must be the woman who wrote this article:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33242
Meanwhile:
"What caused the change? The same things that have caused every change-- circumstances-- humans learn from their experiences and pass that knowledge on"
Sounds like the prevailing moral zeitgeist to me.
Windy, I've had my say (and I do understand that phrase) and won't continue the discussion. Trying to get this group to anything can be an exercise in futility (herding cats, only worse). If they want, they will pick up on my idea. If not, I will stick to just mocking Mendacious Maggie, which I could almost do in my sleep.
Maggie's bombast is fun.
My amateur diagnosis: Narcissistic personality disorder.
Nerd of the Red Head, O of M,
No doubt, since all you do is repeat variants of "your god exists between your ears." You could probably program shift-F7 to spit that out.
heddle,
I asked this of Maggie:
What's your opinion?
So Heddle, since you're here, care to comment on Maggie's contention?
SIWOTI shares many symptoms of road rage. Maggie has gone from that bozo who just pulled into your lane without blinking while you were accelerating and then had the nerve to step on the brakes to an old codger putzing around in the slow lane during rush hour with a long line of anxious drivers stuck behind him as you zoom past in glee.
Maggie would be one it would be awfully fun to see disemvoweled rather than banned. I'm sure she'd still flail around for awhile, and her comments might actually make more sense that way.
I really want to know why Maggie is afraid to be human, why she doesn't embrace her own fallibility and shows no sign of humility at all. And I would really like to know how she can claim all these things about reality - such as the existence of a soul, whether there is an afterlife, what heaven and hell is and how we can achieve it. It seems like she is claiming of knowledge of gods, yet she's not showing her working at all - won't provide any evidence.Although she mocks creationists, her position is nothing more than "God said it, I believe it, that settles it"
Maggie #298 wrote:
Thank you, yes, I had read that, but I think it answers a slightly different question. "Our free choice was the cause of God's knowledge, even though it is all eternally present to him" has to do with whether people can be said to have 'free will' if God knows beforehand what they will choose. Your second point -- "He apparently thought it worth the risk to create a human race that could respond to him freely" -- is again about whether or not humans choose their fate. But I had already conceded that in my question.
My question deals with a different problem.
Let us grant for the moment that those people who 'choose hell' are entirely responsible for their fate. However, without the possibility of their existence, then those who 'choose God' would not be free to do so. This is the most important thing: God created humans to be with Him. The focus is on the saved. It is a narrative of triumph, with a happy ending. The good are saved, the wicked get what they deserve.
The damned, therefore, could be considered a sort of "collateral damage." God knew some humans -- maybe even which specific humans -- would "freely choose" to reject heaven, and that was fine, because they advance the story. That's why they were created in the first place. Not for their own sake, but as a means to a greater ends. They, themselves, have no other value -- through their own fault.
I think there is still a serious ethical problem in this, as well as a conflict. The conflict has to do with holding humans to blame for their 'free choices' on one level -- and yet absolving God from blame for making unhappy moral degenerates on the other, higher level.
And that brings in the ethical problem: the greatest evil in our relationships come when people are not valued for their own sake, but only as the means to an ends that is considered more important than that individual. In the scenario you give, some wicked human beings are deliberately being "used" by God for the sake of other, better human beings -- so that His happiness and their happiness will be increased. They are plot devices.
Do you see this problem? People -- even people who are 'responsible' for their own destruction -- should not be created in order to be used as expendable tools in a greater plan. Consider this, and tell me what you think...
That's exactly what she's claiming: "revelation." The Wholly Babble and the Tradition of the Church tells her all she needs to "know."
She "knows" because other people said, and she's committed to the claim that she knows that what those other people said is true, because that's what she was told to think.
Not a bit circular; no, not circular at all.
Maggie:
If that is the case, why did the Church excommunicate everyone involved with arranging and performing the abortion, when it had already been determined that any attempt to carry those twins to term would be fatal to the nine year old "mother", and that an abortion was the only other option?
Well? Do you have an answer, or have you been too busy patting yourself on the back for your own erudition to actually follow the story?
At #309, Wowbagger, OM wrote:
Reminds me of a scene in the HBO show In Treatment. One of the patients is a teenager who, as the show progresses, we find blames herself for the breakup of her family.
For much of the season, all this girl can do is praise her father, and she repeatedly insists that he's wonderful and asserts how much he loves her.
In a breakthrough session, the girl finally vents her anger at her father for his treatment and abandonment of her.
Paul, the therapist, assures the girl that she's not to blame; that her father is responsible for his own behavior.
He explains that it's typical for children to blame themselves for their parents' unacceptable behavior because it's the only way children can maintain the illusion that their parents are "good."
Paul then says something like: It's typical of us to want to believe that our authority figures are good. Consider religion, he says. Men blame themselves for their "bad behavior," so they can continue to believe that god is good.
Well, Paul said it better than I have paraphrased it. But you get the gist.
Heddle, your god also exists only between your ears. Deal with it, somewhere else than here.
It's just so frustrating to deal with someone who is so sure that she doesn't doubt the fallibility of her own senses and reasoning - or at least fails to exhibit these traits when communicating with others. It's so frustrating to see someone so arrogant, especially when they are claiming absolutes about reality with nothing beyond a book of mythology to support it.
But that's part of the brainwashing that an organisation based on flawed, unreliable material - and even more flawed and unreliable people - has to do in order to survive. It teaches you that if you do have any doubts - or if something doesn't add up, or make sense when analysed - then it's not the bible, or the church, or the god that is wrong - it's you (or, to Maggie, it's us).
Maggie has been so indoctrinated with this that she'll go to any lengths (here, intellectually; in the rest of her life, I shudder to think) in order to make herself (and attempt to make us) believe it.
'Tis Himself
You didn’t read far enough. Had you continued to the next paragraph, you would have read the following:
However, I do certainly recognize how subtle the difference must seem to you. What is at work here is a principle called “double effect” which is described in much more modern language here: http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2006/0609uan.asp
Kseniya
Well, the most obvious reason is that the Bishop was not informed of the medical necessity. If the doctors and/or mother cared about excommunication, they would have immediately produced the necessary documentation.
It is not at all clear that she was in imminent danger. Could the abortion have waited until the twins were viable? No one wants a 9 year old rape victim to undergo any further trauma. But how is killing her two children a help?
Do you know how she is going to feel when she is old enough to understand what happened? Do you have even the glimmerings of a clue how many women mourn their aborted babies *years* after the abortion? Will anyone care if she grieves for her lost children? Will you?
Why is bloodshed your first answer to difficult situations?
Carlie
V--l-nc-, Carlie? Help! Help! I've been disemvoweled! I want my i-o-e-e back. LOL! I guess I got through to you, after all.
Rey Fox
YES! And the Zeitgeist is thoroughly steeped in Christianity. Through and through. That and the lived experience of all sorts of people doing, thinking, and writing all sorts of things make up the Zeitgeist. The Zeitgeist of the West is more thoroughly steeped in Christianity than 40 garlic chicken is steeped in … garlic!
Sastra I will have to spend some real time thinking about your post before I try to answer seriously. To tell you the truth, I am stuffed to the gills with good food and not up to any serious thinking. My first impression though is that there are two problems with your thesis that have to be addressed: 1. Where does your ethical sense come from if not from God? If there is a tri-omni God, you can’t appeal to a standard that both you and he should recognize, for nothing can stand over and above God. 2. Are there not some problems inherent in positing of the creator that he cannot do what he wishes with what he has created?
Kel
.
You have all the same evidence available to you that is available to me. Beyond that, I don’t *know* anything more than scripture and tradition have taught for 2000+ years now. The issue is: do I *believe* that Christ is who he says he is and will do what he promised to do. The answer is yes. If there is anyone who has absolutely certainty about these and many more matters, s/he is more blessed than I.
Kel #238
Maggie didn't discuss things with us. She tossed ad hominems and non sequiturs around. Anyone who disagreed with her was an idiot. She claimed to have a degree in the classics from some school where they play football, but her grasp of logic and rhetoric was extremely poor. She didn't recognize that she was using the argumentum ad populum even after this was pointed out to her several times. She said the No True Scotsman fallacy was an atheistic gambit unworthy of her notice, but that didn't stop her from using it.
She is extremely arrogant but hasn't shown any justification for her arrogance.
Medacious Maggie, still repeating yourself with lies, lies and more lies. See the light. Give up your imaginary god and your church. Become one with rationality.
I guess I got through to you, after all.
No, I just said you make no sense. This is because you keep repeating yourself over, and over, and over, never once noticing that people are giving you exact refutations of the things you think are facts. You don't even measure up by your own religious standards; you can't even get the basics of your own Catholicism correct (see #303, in case you missed it). You're an erudite idiot, Maggie.
You're right, Maggie, the paragraph you quoted boils down to "if they really, really, really don't mean to kill the fetus, abortion is okay by us." So the Catholic Church is just kidding when they say "Natural Law forbids any attempt at destroying fetal life." I guess I'm not sufficiently versed in the subtleties of apologetics (aka justification through bullshit).
Posted too fast, I see you did indeed notice 303, but I had to fix it for you:
""However, I do certainly recognize how subtle the difference must seem to you. What is at work here is a principle called “double effect” dissembling which is described in much more modern language here"
There you go.
Sounds like Maggies whole presentation.
Well, there is no refuting the logic of someone who doesn't get the difference between intending to kill the child and not intending to kill the child. It doesn't seem hard to me.
Carlie-- I have thoroughly refuted #303 by quoting the next sentence in the article. At some point, will you not try intellectual honesty? I am quite sure you would like it.
Why would they need to write anything, Maggie? Everything they need to know about the immorality of slavery was already written in the bible - which has been understood perfectly by Christians (sorry, educated, intelligent Christians) since 33CE - right?
I guess Maggie thinks that when trees are shaking in a strong breeze they're actually creating the wind...
Gasp! Gluttony, Maggie? For shame.
So, you eat pretty much 24/7 then?
Maggie #330 wrote:
I think that these are additional questions. If, for the sake of argument, we agree we share the same common ground on basic morality, the problem stands. One Christian could bring it up to another.
But your 2 questions are still interesting, because they imply that you see the ethical dilemma, but hope to rescue God by placing Him "above" common human morality. He does not relate to us as we relate to each other. By our standards, he may indeed be evil. But no matter: our standards don't apply to God.
There are serious problems with this, however, because it takes God out of the very morality which He is supposed to be the source of. If our ethical sense comes from a God who is a person, then we would have to share the same standard with God. God cannot both be to us like a potter to his pots -- or like a farmer is to his pigs -- and yet be part of our system, with reciprocal rights and duties. A God that has no duty to be fair and kind to us, literally has a blank check on what it can do.
If we cannot judge God, then we cannot judge that God is either Good or Evil. God becomes like a tornado, sparing only those who are not in its path, and deserving neither blame, nor praise, for its actions. I do not think this solves the problem I set out. I think it makes it worse.
Oh, by all means let Maggie keep yakking until Our Benevolent Overlord grows weary and throws her into the dungeon.
She's doing our work for us, demonstrating the failures of her ideology in no uncertain terms. Sort of like Barb, for that matter. They bring a certain Monty Python skit about vocational guidance counselors to mind:
(Cleese)"Sad, isn't it, but this is what religiousity does to people."(/Cleese)
Also, as I recall, Our Benevolent Overlord is paid by the post. This may explain his extended patience with the obtuse, long-winded, and oh so very stubborn.
The MadPanda, FCD
Told you so!
What did I say she'd say?
An utterly predictable mindless godbot.
needs more bacon
maggie
Since you won't answer my question at 205, I'll hazard a guess based on your various postings (my apologies for not wording it as wittily as you no doubt would).
Your answer would be "yes, it would be a greater miracle than any claimed in the NT if the NT were shown to be a work of myth."
This is of course irrational.
Even for an internally consistent historical document there would be an appreciable non-zero probability of forgery or serious corruption. For the NT, lacking credible external support, laced with inconsistency and contradiction, with the silence of Paul on an earthly ministry, the peculiar theology of Hebrews and the obvious scheme to fit the story to older scripture, the probability that everything is mythical is appreciable.
You are confused, imagining that arming yourself with dogma and arrogance while brandishing hyperbole will allow you to pass as a thinker. If you are honest, you are compelled to admit from these threads that for many people your God is indeed a vile monster. Nothing you have so far said has softened that impression.
[heddle, to save your blood pressure, let me acknowledge my debt to Bronowski, Doherty and Hume]
Well, there is no refuting the logic of someone who doesn't get the difference between intending to kill the child and not intending to kill the child.
News flash: an abortion kills the fetus either way, and there is absolutely no difference between "I have to destroy this to save you" and "I have to save you by destroying this". And where would you like to draw the line for that medical necessity? Someone who will die in 8 hours if the pregnancy continues? What about if she'll die in two weeks? What if she'll die in a month? What if she'll be brain-dead? What about someone who will kill herself if she can't have required meds that are entirely incompatible with pregnancy? At what point are you, literally, playing god by gambling with that woman's life?
And beer and/or bourbon.
If you want to wait until twins developing inside the tiny undeveloped uterus of a 9-year-old girl are viable, then you do indeed want the 9-year-old rape victim to undergo further trauma.
15-week fetuses are not "children".
No, but I suspect that she will be relieved that her stepfather is no longer forcing himself on her.
No. Do you?
We're human, and the universe does not give bloodshed-free options. If it's anyone's fault, it must be God's for not creating bloodshed-free options.
We certainly know they exist, with respect to reproduction at least, and could (assuming a God guiding evolution) have been granted to humans, given the vast number of different reproductive strategies out there. It certainly would not be biologically impossible for primates to have been marsupials, for example (or for marsupials to have evolved into primate-analogs and human-analogs)(again assuming a God guiding evolution).
Why is eternal damnation God's first answer to difficult situations? What's God's excuse?
From an evolved sense of self and other; and the intelligence necessary to be aware of consequences to self and to other; and the empathy to recognize that consequences to others that I would not desire to myself ought not be caused to others.
It's tricky, but ethics can be analyzed carefully as a combination of emotional and intellectual processes. Both emotions and intellect have evolved, and we can see the rudiments of ethical awareness in lower animals as well, with relative rudiments of emotion and intellect.
(Paging Euthyphro and Socrates to the Platonic table for a dialogue...)
Your contention leads to the inevitable conclusion that God has no moral standard whatsoever.
What sort of problems? I do see a problem of definitions: If God has the same ethical standards as humans, then God cannot do what he wishes if that action violates those standards, and still be defined as "good". If God has the same ethical standards as humans, and does not follow them while insisting that humans do, then God is defined as "hypocritical".
If God does not have the same ethical standards as humans, then God still cannot do what he wishes if that action violates those standards, and still be defined as "good" — because the only standard of "good" that we can understand is the human one, which this putative God does not partake of.
(At the Platonic table, Euthyphro and Socrates take a break and agree that beer, at least in moderation, is definably good.)
What a long thread...it is amazing how a reasonably consistent self-referential belief system can maintain an audience's thrall even if it has no basis in fact.
Hmmmm, guess its been done for a while now, plenty of "scholars" to dip into to support a line that's been run for many years. Be fairly literate in your replies and provide a diversion or two when things look shaky...bravo!
You gotta be a newbe. We will run 1000+ threads often, sometimes over multiple threads, like the 2000+ post with a creationist over three threads.
So is 69 immoral or what??? Masturbation? C'mon answer Maggie.
Carlie, I'm afraid you're making an ethical appeal to someone who is devoid of ethics. She isn't capable of moral reasoning, only of rule-following. If she can't look up the answer in her moldy catechism, she'll belittle the question instead.
And she'll be sure to let you know that she isn't impressed.
Yes I am a newbie to this blog, found it fascinating. i started on the original because I was disgusted with the "I told you so" article...then it became this.
Are there many people like Maggie that are so good at insulting people's intelligence (especially on a blog like this) that they can continue to get bites long after the real argument is dead or obscured?
If that's the case I can see how these posts can go on for a long time :)
Cafe, do some browsing. We have a lot of different topics going on. I think I have posted on 6-8 threads during the day. Something for everybody. Jump in if you feel comfortable. Just be ready to defend yourself.
I will have a look around. It does seem interesting and fairly liberally laced with references to cephalopods! (is PZ fond of them?)
Do you have to be a bit masochistic to argue with someone of Maggie's ilk? I see a lot of your good (and not so good points) breaking on her adamantine shell of belief. Do you hope to crack it or drive her away? Or do people like her get jumped on for demonstrative purposes, or to hone arguments for the next BBQ or family event?
Oh good, so when you say things like: Hell is the absence of God. It is your choice to reject God. You were created for eternity. Your soul is immortal. It makes no real sense to question it. Reality is what it is. you are simply talking out of your arse. Reality is what it is, but you have no evidence for any of the statements you ascribe to being part of reality. You don't know, you can't know, all you can do is appeal to a holy book in the same way that a Muslim or a Hindu or a Scientologist does. You have nothing, so please please please stop being arrogant by pushing your mythology as absolute truth and belittling the opinion of anyone who says otherwise.Just curious, have you taken the Outsider Test For Faith before?
Or the other option: Someone Is Wrong On The Internet
Are there many people like Maggie that are so good at insulting people's intelligence (especially on a blog like this) that they can continue to get bites long after the real argument is dead or obscured?
The only thing that Maggie is good at is worshipping an imaginary monster in order to feel superior, and being fractally wrong about pretty much everything. SIWOTI syndrome is what keeps it going, along with our astonishment that people like Mags can say the darnedest things. Mostly though, while our comments are ostensibly directed to Maggie, we're enjoying the company of intelligent people who are in awe of such a sociopath. Plus, heddle drops in now and again to yell at us for being atheists, and that's OK too.
Cafe,
You're easily amazed. It's not a particularly consistent system, by the way - its dichotomies have been addressed too - it's the SIWOTI syndrome. (Nor is it being well expressed, either).
Love it!
Reminds me of the "End of the Internet" page - a wonderful line on it: "Image best viewed with eyes closed"
Sort of reminds me of someone...
I suppose so. It if both frustrating and fun.
Yes, whichever.
Only if they are obnoxious. This is Maggies second (or third?) thread. So she qualifies for full scorn. We can have polite discussions if everybody remains polite and avoids attitudes, which Mags didn't. That's why I said browse. We have a full complement of regulars, with varying degrees from high school through PhDs, and people working in many fields and hobbies. Come for science, stay for the snark, recipes, and videos.
Well said, Mr. Cope!
There is also a certain therapeutic and carthritic value to be found in flogging a troll soundly, even though they love it and aren't really worth the trouble.
Maggie (among other people) reminds me of a dog that has been hit by traffic after it ran out into the street and tried to bit the tires off of a passing van. Can't help feeling sorry for 'em when they get whalloped, but at the same time if they'd used a little more common sense they wouldn't be catching heat.
The MadPanda, FCD
What a fast blog - this moves pretty quickly.
Yes I am amazed easily, good thing too...keeps things fresh - and amazing!
Oh I think Maggie is doing OK, she has been single-handedly been keeping you entertained for some 1000 posts, although I do take Ken's point of immersing oneself in an intelligent community reacting to a foreign object. Very organic and immunological...
Cafe, we are also open 24/7, with correspondents in the Americas, the Antipodes, and Europe, with night owls in all locations for lots of overlap.
Maggie's first comment on this blog: Well, the comments here (those I have read) are as dumb as always. It's nice to see she has a God-complex because heaven forbid you actually show some humility and desire to engage (as opposed to enrage) others in order to both better yourself and their understanding.
Oh, that's nothing. There's some Commie agitator over in the Iowa and Gay Marriage threade trying to discredit real American patriots by spouting agitprop and stupidity in equal measure.
He just dragged out the 'liberal hypocrisy' line over the banning issue, which only proves how little attention he's paying to, say, the rules posted under the Dungeon tab.
He's almost as nutty, but I doubt he's going to have Maggie's stamina. In the meantime, I'm going to get some popcorn and wait for the Molly Brigade to flatten him.
The MadPanda, FCD
Actually, it's not the complete absence of Me. I go there at irregular intervals and taunt the damned, which amuses Me. They in turn insult Me, which also amuses Me. I suspect they find my little visits a diversion from the tedium; Hell, contrary to popular belief, is rather tepid.
Which reminds me: Satan, I have those molecular-vibration-sensing demons that You requested for... whatever that project was.
Oh, some damned Scandinavians wanted to build a sauna/ski resort. They got this idea about creating thermodynamically distinct isolated areas from one James Clerk Maxwell. The project snowballed when other damned heard about it; now everyone wants one.
Maggie says:
Here's what the Catholic Encyclopedia article on abortion says ..
"Now it is an evil means to destroy the life of an innocent child. . . ."
Bible says:
(Genesis 6: 13) "So god said to Noah, 'I have decided to destroy all living creatures [including innocent children], for they [innocent children included?] have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!"
Jim says:
First of all, the earth is still here, so I'm confused on the last sentence.
Second, I know it doesn't have anything to do with whether there is a God or not, but I do know that I could never praise a baby-killing God.
Third, I thank the Catholic Encyclopedia for affirming that the actions of God are evil.
Here comes more apologetics . . .
Regards,
Jim (ex-Catholic)
Maggie says that God isn't evil because God is the giver of life and thus has the ability to take it away. I think this means that she will kill her children if she thinks it's the right thing to do...
"YES! And the Zeitgeist is thoroughly steeped in Christianity."
Nope, it's still mostly the other way around. Christians think and believe very different things nowadays than they did in 33 AD. And it's not because God keeps drip-feeding the truth to people little by little over hundreds of years (or perhaps it could be, but you'd have a bitch of a time proving it). It's this: "That and the lived experience of all sorts of people doing, thinking, and writing all sorts of things make up the Zeitgeist." It's been a steady process of winnowing Scripture down to the good parts that have been confirmed independently of any obligation to dogma.
God have mercy, are y'all still at it? Well, I'm just scanning at this point, but I did run across this mess, which y'all have probably already rebutted, but which is so stupid I feel I must remonstrate:
You idiot, why is it all about TEH MENZ to you Catholic fools? Birth control is OURS, not theirs. It's OUR ticket out of forced birthing, early death, wearing ourselves out and growing old too fast with pregnancy, child rearing, pregnancy, more child rearing, repeat until you die.
I don't give a good Goddamn what a bunch of power-mad male celibates in dresses think about birth control. I don't give a damn what any man thinks about it.
I do know that reliable birth control is what has made feminist advances of the last fifth years possible. And I do know that any woman with the brains God gave a goose is using it.
And I'll bet good money you are too, if you're getting laid regularly.
Are you married, Maggie? How many children do YOU have? How many do you expect to have before you finally hit menopause?
In other words, are you insane enough to walk this walk, or do you just talk the talk?
Leigh @370, see #278.
Seems like a strangely low fertility given an active sex life without using contraception.
Quite common amongst Catholics, this syndrome...
Psst! Leigh! <*points @#278 above*>
That Maggie has kids is probably the most depressing thing of all. Just think how they're going to be raised. Still, one can only hope they'll grow up to be happy, healthy people and live extraordinary fulfilling lives...and be atheists.
Kel #368
This sorta-kinda, in a half-assed way, explains Hell.
According to the propaganda God is a loving god. Hell is tough love. A parent punishes a child to teach the child not to transgress. God punishes sinners to teach them not to sin again. If they're undergoing eternal punishment, they certainly won't have the time or opportunity to sin any more.
Does #278 mean 3 children in 15 years, and one on the way now? That's a really low fertility rate. Of course, she wasn't Catholic for part of that time, so she probably was using birth control. How convenient.
But the oddest thing about that post was her comment that her husband is happy with their sex life, "so far as she knows". What? She doesn't know FOR SURE? What kind of wife is she, anyway?
Something tells me Mr. Maggie may not be as ecstatic about having his sex life proscribed by the philosophies of celibate men in dresses as lil' Maggie is. Poor Mr. Maggie!
Well, that does answer my question about walking the walk. The answer appears to be, NO.
And by the way, Maggie, I myself have four children. How are you going to demonstrate the superiority of Catholic doctrines on childbearing if you can't even outpace an old, liberal heathen like me?
Holy shite!
Catching up on this thread is going to be one hell of a job. (Thanks Janine...pffft!)
Patricia, I am just my part in trying to get people to waste more time on teh intertoobz. What do you expect? I am evil.
AH! How delightful! I am catching up after not being at the computer for a couple days and in browsing, I see that Maggie the Great has descended upon Pharyngula! I have tangled with her elsewhere, and though I haven't caught her comments on the previous threads, from what I see here, she hasn't added any new schtick to her routine. Poor Maggs. Ever tilting at windmills with a limp hose she imagines to be a lance. Back to catching up...you guys are doing a bang-up job with her!
Thanks Karen. How wonderful to know she makes a habit of this. Proof that she had to know what she was getting herself into.
'Tis Himself
Stupid beyond belief. You are not being taught anything. It is over. I am going to say it one more time, even though I have no expectation that you will hear me. Hell is entirely your choice. God does not punish sinners; they punish themselves.
Beyond that, you need to think about what evil is, before you go telling anyone that God is evil. I don’t have much doubt that you haven’t a clue that this has been a topic of interest in philosophy and theology for centuries.
Leigh Williams
You need to wait for better information. When you assume, you make an ass of u and me u.
Actually, I have used NFP my entire married life. You don’t have to be Catholic to do so. A healthy unwillingness to fill oneself up with hormones can drive that decision, as well. It is as effective as the pill, done correctly, as my experience and the experience of thousands of other couples will attest. Even poor, illiterate women have successfully employed it. Here is the abstract from a readily available article on the subject in the British Medical Journal:
(www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/307/6906/723)
What is interesting to me is that this was in 1993 when doctors were still very skeptical, if not hostile. The same high reliability was reported a little over a year ago by Science Daily (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070221065200.htm)
One who doesn’t put words in her husband’s mouth? Lawd have mercy! While I don’t speak for him, any more than he speaks for me, I was having fun with this statement. I am not worried. I was also having a lot of fun with the "late summer surprise" Abby is a kitten we found huddled on our porch during a hellacious thunderstorm. She is definitely my baby.
Hubby dearest is the one who pushed me over the edge as I stood there dithering. He takes his faith seriously and practices what he preaches.
Except that it doesn’t and you even recognize that in the next sentence! Appears does not equal is. I probably didn’t have to explain that, did I?
What doctrine would that be, dear? This one from 1968?
(Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, para. 10, www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25…)
Karen Who are you? Since I have heretofore contented myself with speaking truth to atheists on Christian blogs (there are 3 I contribute to), so far as I recall, are you one of the trolls I have smited?
Janine
You're welcome. I don't comment all too often here, but I read all the time. You're one of my favorite people here, but there are so many great folks!
Of course Maggie knew what she was getting into. And she is true to form from the experiences I've had with her.
Maggie
I'm sure that you would consider me to be a troll you have "smited", and as *effectively* as you have done to anyone here. I have encountered you at two other blogs, the last of which was Crazy Ed Gordon's (now defunct). Are you still tag teaming with John Frazier? Did you catch Crazy Ed's brief return in which he'd abandoned his jeebus, but rededicated himself to his Veridican bullshit?
I suspected that your summer surprise wasn't a human baby, but am deeply concerned for the poor kitten (as well as your three human kids). At least the cat can't be brainwashed into your death cult. You are much better suited to a surprise tarantula or scorpion.
Ed! Good grief, there is someone I haven't thought about in quite awhile. What a poor, tormented soul he was! No, I didn't see his return but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised, if your news is accurate. I remember that both John and I thought he was likely to go start his own cult, if he couldn't accept ordinary Christianity. I think John actually told him that. I miss John who is, presumably, back in Europe doing his missionary work. At least that is the last I heard.
Well, I didn't smite you there. We weren't into it. Ed cracked a mean whip and wouldn't allow any cursing, blaspheming, etc. So, since you all were forced to mind your manners, there was no need to smite.
What was the other blog?
Maggie, still proselytizing I see. If you are never wrong, you are proselytizing. You are also factually wrong, as we have repeatedly shown, so we can add stupidity, insipidity and wanking to your crimes. We beseech the FSM to punish you for your crimes against Pharyngula. Hail Ramen.
Hahaha. Hell. HAHAHA.
Demons and Angels too??? Ha.
Do you tell your kids not to masturbate or they'll go to hell?
ah yes, God's love
Let's think about this, shall we?
Is genocide by your own hands (if such an expression can be used), and ordering your followers to commit genocide and war-crimes in your name, evil?
Is destroying every single plant and animal on the planet, save for a handful crammed onto a boat, evil?
Is killing whole cities full of people (Sodom and Gomorrah) and ordering them killed for insignificant crimes (e.g. collecting sticks on the Sabbath) evil?
Is sending your own supposed son to be tortured and executed for absolutely no reason whatsoever when you could have achieved what it his death was supposed to achieve evil?
Is creating beings with sexual orientation which, when acted upon in the same manner as the majority of humans (e.g. between consenting adults and doing no harm) while considering that act to be a sin evil?
And the kicker, the one to which Maggie has no answer - and which can't be waved away by the OT genre defence: is sentencing sentient creatures to an eternity of existence against their wills evil?
Yet another one of Wowie's incoherent posts. What can you possibly mean by "Maggie has no answer"? Of course, I do.
The answer is no, it is not evil for God to allow men and women who have freely chosen to reject him to go their own way. Was that really a serious question?
Maggie, you calling somebody else's post incoherent? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, Your posts are almost as incoherent as they get. HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA. Funny Mags, funny. Try for some logic, and that starts with recognizing you have been refuted repeatedly. Until then, HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Maggie wrote this:
Forgetting - she has a poor memory - she wrote this:
According to you we're created for eternity.
Did you choose that? I certainly didn't. If I'd been given a choice to exist for eternity as the plaything for a capricious monster obsessed with obedience and attention and fawning supplication - and a disturbing penchant for mixed messages about how to achieve those things - I'd have said no.
Forcing beings to exist for eternity against their will = evil.
Maggie,
Yeah, Ed is lost all right, in some reality only he recognizes. I'm amazed that you haven't thought of him in a long while; shouldn't you be praying for his idiotic soul on a daily basis? In his last, not-long-lasting effort, he was denying the existence of god, yet trying to reinvent the Veridican model. Total whacko. It was funny to watch him bust veins over swear words which made Babyjesus cry. I swear, those of you who feel you have to protect your omnipotent being from from harsh language (or cracker-defilers) really miss the point.
As to the other blog, I can't remember what it was to save my life. Something I stumbled on about a year ago. I clearly remember your presence there though; I was surprised to meet you again at Ed's.
Maggie:
@278:
@380:
Maggie's claim:
NFP is as effective as the pill*.
The pill apparently severs procreation from sex. Evil.
NFP doesn't sever procreation from sex. Not evil.
* Hm.
Wowie, you don't get a say in the matter. It is what it is. Choose your destiny wisely.
Karen: the memories you are bringing back!
This made me laugh:
Ed stated at least once that Jesus could take it; he (Ed), however, could not. I always thought that was hilarious and very true.
I was the one who told my parish priest about PZ's cracker caper. He looked at me blankly for a moment and then burst into laughter. That always struck me as exactly the right response. PZ (or any of his copy cats) thinking he could defile the host is pretty much on a level with the chameleon I keep moving off my porch railing. He waves his puny fist in my face, too. But I ignore him.
Of course, like God, I am acting for his benefit, though he doesn't know it. My cat eats chameleons. But I am afraid his lack of faith blinds him to the nature of reality and the constant care I exercise on his behalf!
Well... yes and no. It's a bit more complicated than that.
As I said before, I do taunt the damned. That might be considered punishment — by wimps. The damned are free to ignore me.
There aren't that many masochists in Hell, but those that there are, do indeed punish themselves. The large majority do not.
Of course, there are no fences between Heaven and Hell. Every now and then some of the damned think that they should in fact be in Heaven. They go to Heaven, and see the sort of people who think that they deserve to be in Heaven. Some stay, but most leave in disgust.
Of course, many in Heaven go slumming in Hell, too. Some prefer the company and just stay there.
Speaking of masochists punishing themselves, many flagellants and wearers of hairshirts and cilices, regardless of whether they want to be in Heaven or Hell, keep on hurting themselves. It seems they just can't kick the habit...
Maggie, still spewing your proselytization. Until you allow yourself to be refuted, you have both an ego and logic problem.
And that's what Wowbagger was reacting to, Maggie. Your deity supposedly creates all of these people, GIVES them the ability to question its existence, and then punishes them for eternity for exercising that ability if they don't choose correctly. Nice deity you have there.
Cats may think that they are God, but God is not a cat. And neither am I, if that's where you're going with your analogy.
Of course, like God, I am acting for his benefit,
Wow. That tells us everything we need to know about Maggie's opinion of herself. She thinks she's like God.
Maggie capitulated:
Well, I'd say you put up a good fight, but that'd be like saying I won a boxing match while my opponent spent every round either furiously tapdancing in the other corner or running face-first into my outstretched fist. Repeatedly.
I suppose I could give you points for trying - but I won't.
karen,
How did you celebrate Maggie's complete surrender on your other blog? If there's a tradition I'd like to honour it.
John, I feel for you buddy. These are deep matters:
NFP-- One determines one fertile periods. If one is not willing to welcome new life, one abstains from sexual intercourse.
Birth control--One prevents the natural outcome of sexual intercourse with hormones or other contrivances. Of course, it is the woman who must load up on the hormones and it is her flesh and blood that has to be torn to bits, if those means fail. So that's alright, then.
I can see your where your confusion comes from.
Little does she realize god doesn't know her from a stone, and would be very upset about her trying to mine his authority. Delusion city in Maggie's mind.
I think it kind of works, actually: self-centered; arrogant; amoral; plays with prey (and are the dead not Our prey?)...
Don't forget the whole demanding worship business. Hm. When You put it that way, I suppose You have a point.
Josh, the point is it doesn't make any sense to argue with reality. Wowie can whine and moan all he likes about it but reality is what it is. He knows what his choices are. He must choose wisely as we all must.
Maggie, any relationship between what you say and reality is purely coincidental. The deluded ones like you always have a fictional mindset that doesn't include the real world. That is why you need to see a mental health professional for a proper diagnosis on why you lie so much, and can't allow yourself to be refuted.
Maggie, you've admitted that, because we aren't given a choice regarding our eternal existence, your god is evil. That we can't 'argue with reality' (oh, the irony!) makes no difference, since your god's other important quality is non-existence.
So, why are you still here? You lost. You failed. Miserably.
Oh, hang on - I think I know what it is. You're waiting for my permission to leave the field of victory. Well, victory for me that is. For you, not so much. Embarrassment would be a better term, considering that you could have just admitted I was right in the very first comment you posted on the original thread.
But I am nothing if not gracious in victory - now you may go.
#391: Good catch...
Jezuus but you're an arrogant twit.
Hell is supposed to be about punishment. Your god sets up arbitrary rules and if one deviates one iota from the rules then don't bother to pack an overcoat for the afterlife. One of these rules is that one is supposed to worship this supreme egotist and, if it's not properly or frequently enough, then one spends the rest of eternity "on your heads." It doesn't matter if one is good, pure and selfless, if one doesn't suck god's dick hard enough, then it's eternal punishment. No, I don't see how what I choose falls into the equation.
Agreed, reality is what it is. What evidence do you have that makes you so abso-fucking-lutely sure that your worldview is the correct one?
maggie #392 wrote:
PZ (and his minions) would probably agree with you and your priest here: it was exactly the right response. The infamous-cracker- desecration was meant to address those who were over-reacting to such actions, and instead of shrugging or laughing, calling for the Christian equivalent of a violent fatwah.
Caught you being reasonable, there. ;)
#403
Our point is that, if a belief makes no sense and entails a contradiction, then it's not likely to be reality.
...
You skipped over a few key steps there, dear.
But you are still using it to sever sex from procreation, you hypocritical twit! No children after your 3rd, you are still having sex, you have severed sex from procreation. Another couple has 3 children, they decide they don't want more and start using birth control, they have severed sex from procreation. It's the same result. Are you not willing to welcome new life?
From wikipedia on NFP:
Some methods encourage the use of a thermometer and/or photocopied charts, which can be obtained relatively inexpensively. Some couples choose to use software or to use other devices such as a string of beads for counting the days.
Maggie:
Apparently not, since you didn't address my central (I'd've thought obvious) point.
You wrote: Severing procreation from sex is evil.
If you choose to have sex when you justifiably believe you shan't conceive from the act (de facto birth control) but not otherwise, you're getting sex without procreation.
How are you not thus severing procreation from sex, something you contend is evil?
Or with the abstinence method. But one prevents it.
There are non-hormonal methods of birth control, one of which you practice.
You try to justify it with transparent casuistry, trying to link birth control to "hormone loading"?
The issue is the purpose of the method, not the method per se - an issue on which you're either a hypocrite or evil, by your own contentions.
Of course, it is the woman who must load up on the hormones
You keep saying this as if it's a bad thing. As usual, you are ignoring the reality of the tens of thousands of women who use hormonal birth control to reduce severe pain and other symptoms, including mental issues. But if they all aren't exactly like Maggie, they don't exist.
I'm curious about something regarding the Catholic stance on birth control.
If the Pope claimed to have a revelation from God that birth control was no longer a problem -- that God did not consider its use to be going against His Will, or against Natural Law, would a good Catholic agree that this then settles the matter sufficiently, and change their views?
Or would a good Catholic argue against the Pope, and say that God could not have given such a revelation -- neither to him, nor any member of the Church -- since it is clear to human reason alone that birth control perverts the natural use of sex?
How much is reason, and how much is revelation?
Depends on whether the pope is speakin' ex-cathedra. If he is, then what he says goes: no arguments, no nothin'. Just the word of god, pure and simple.
Makes ya kinda wonder what would happen if the pope went a little funny in the head. 'course, apparently Benedict is a bit funny - given his lies about condoms.
Rilke's Grandaughter #415
Yes, thank you. My hypothetical should have included that. I'm interested in Maggie's response.
I think she just has never heard of any other medical reasons to use a COC,for say control of bleeding,incontinence,breast pain etc.Its actually quite a good argument against the anti-contraception crowd,I find they have mostly never heard of any other indications for the pill.
It is impossible to present Maggie with any argument, logic or set of facts that she can't wave off with a sneer, and insult and a canned snippet of dogma.
There's no point in bothering. It's like arguing with a withered crabapple that's rotting away in an unmowed lawn.
AdamK, how can you say that about our Maggie? She enters the fray with a song in her heart and a sneer on her lips. Edjumactin' da iggerant ain't a task ta be taken lightly, ya know.
She's admitted she's unable to defend the demonstrated charge of evil (for sentencing unwilling beings to eternal existence) against her god.
It was followed by a threat, though. Sore loser, our Maggie.
Xians like Maggie are a wonderful bit of corroborating evidence for the default (atheist) position.
They're about as convincing as a $3 dollar bill is genuine.
The MadPanda, FCD
Sastra
PZ (and his minions) would probably agree with you and your priest here: it was exactly the right response. The infamous-cracker- desecration was meant to address those who were over-reacting to such actions, and instead of shrugging or laughing, calling for the Christian equivalent of a violent fatwah.
Except there was no violence, was there? What would a Christian fatwah consist of? Weekly prayer for someone’s conversion? I shudder in horror at the thought. Beheading is surely more humane-- you have to give the Muslims their due.
As for people shouting angrily or, even, trying to go after his job, where in the Constitution, exactly, does it say that free speech is free of angry reaction? The overwhelming majority of Catholics reacted quite naturally and appropriately.
I am afraid you also misunderstood why those of us who laughed, found the caper so funny. Let me give you an illustration: imagine taking your dachshund, Herman, to the circus with you. Once there, he spots Missy the elephant and is immediately smitten. He dashes over and tries to mount her. Over and over again he tries, growing angrier and angrier by the minute with each failure. Missy, of course, never notices. She doesn’t even notice when she takes a step back and squashes him like the bug he is.
Now that’s funny!
windy
I am afraid that you are not thinking hard enough. How does abstaining from intercourse sever intercourse from procreation? Every act of intercourse us NFP practitioners engage in is an act that is open to the gift of new life. There is no commandment that we have sex like rabbits. Only that we be open to a baby when we do.
Carlie
I am beginning to think that you have emotional problems. You aren’t as free of Christianity as you think you are. Nobody who throws out as many angry non sequiturs as you do can be in full control.
Nobody is talking about hormones prescribed for medical conditions. I have had hormones prescribed for medical reasons. Return to earth, NOW!!!
Sastra
I don’t know that any pope has ever claimed direct revelation, at least not in modern times. Even when he speaks infallibly, that only happens after years of consultation with the Magisterium, bishops, etc and, so far, it has been to settle a doctrinal matter that has never been settled. In fact, that has only happened twice—the last time was a good 50+ years ago. If a pope did anything as weird as you are proposing, the appropriate authority (the Cardinals I think, but don’t know) would likely remove him from office. The Code of Canon Law is clear that there are a number of reasons someone can be removed from office and there is no exception for the pope.
If you enjoy the occasional non-procreational orgasm, you'll be a bottom for an eternity of pain, with no safe-words acknowledged. Maggie will not be involved. Nobody will be required to fuck Maggie; not even, as per George Carlin, with a rented dick.
Somebody, please, help me see the downside.
Mendacious Maggie, still lying your ass off, still proselytizing, still having the attitude you are the only correct one posting. Yawn, we could write your script for you. Try to say something different. Like, "I was wrong, I'm sorry. I will stop boring you people. Good bye."
All you have to say maggie is "I have faith that God is part of reality" rather than assert that God is part of reality. All it takes is that little qualifier, that little word that shows you have humility, that shows your mindset. Why can't you after the ~1400 posts you have been part of a dialogue in show even an ounce of humanity and humility in your point of view? How can you be so sure that you are right?
Maggie, you're in cognitive dissonance regarding birth control; you know you do it (3 children / 15 years), but you "know" you don't, because of the method you use.
Your rationalisation is special pleading.
Maggie, admitted worshipper of an demonstrated monster-god, wrote:
How is that possible? You told us Christians have known everything there is to know about the bible since 33CE - what is there to be 'settled'?
Or were you wrong about that, too?
Speaking of settling doctrinal matters, what's up with Limbo?
Settled, yet?
Heh.
I don't believe that God is part of reality, Kel. I believe that God is reality. We derive our being from God.
One of the odd things I find about atheists-- at least the ones who gather online-- is how limited their understanding is. Do you suppose that we believe that God is some link at the beginning of a cosmic chain?
I have also, at various points stated that I *believe* this to be true. I haven't said that it is absolutely certain. No one, apart (maybe) from the occasional saint has absolute certainty.
Yes.
So let me get this straight. Maggie thinks that the cracker defiling was about hurting the RCC or Jesus???
maggie #422 wrote:
No, there really were some threats of violence towards the young man who took the communion wafer home, as well as towards PZ, later. The larger concern, though, was the call for treating blasphemy as a secular "hate crime" comparable to kidnapping. The matter against Cook should have been dealt with in the church, as making him unfit for membership. And there are problems with the whole idea of "hate crimes" (from both sides of the religious spectrum.)
PZ wasn't trying to defy God, as your analogy suggests -- but I fear starting up another cracker thread, so I'll let it go.
Ok. Perhaps it was a bad hypothetical, since I'm trying to tease out how much of your views against contraception are a matter of reason, and how much have to do with revelation.
Let me try again. If the Catholic Church -- as a whole -- were to come out with some sort of statement to the effect that, after much study and prayer, birth control is no longer to be considered a sin or against God's intentions/Nature (sorry if I don't know the official term for such a statement) -- would you accept this, and no longer argue against it?
Or is it so obvious to you, from a rational standpoint, that it's wrong -- harmful -- that you'd either ignore the Church, or leave it for another? God must be against it, because it's wrong in itself, and this requires no revelation to figure out?
Whatever way you view God, it doesn't change the fact that you have not provided anything beyond assertion of belief that it's the case. Why can't you just say it's faith? Why can't you say that your beliefs are fallible? Why can't you take some humility when looking at another's point of view instead of belittling the intelligence to anyone who doesn't see the universe the exact way you do? Why are you afraid to be human?
Maggie wrote:
Exactly.
So, how can you say that those who interpret things slightly differently - including those pesky according-to-Maggie-non-Christians like the Christian Scientists and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - are wrong to do so?
And if you cannot be absolutely sure of your interpretations, how do you know you aren't misinterpreting your god's other instructions, such as those on abortion or contraception? And how can you be sure that, if people to choose to take those options, they are not wrong to do so?
You previously wrote: I suppose people can be so blind to reality that they really can't recognize a fact that simply doesn't square with their cherished beliefs.Hell is entirely your choice and God will respect the choice that you make. By the grace of God you will be happier there than in heaven.I have no idea what such souls would prefer. I do know it isn't up to them.Yep, no absolute stamements of reality there... I seem to remember a commandment about bearing false witness, but I suppose it's not a lie if you are lying for Jesus.
This says everything we need to know about the ever loving maggie. She does not give a fuck what anyone has to say. She is here to save. It is pointless to have a discussion. She is not like Leigh Williams or Scott Hatfield, believers one could have a conversation with. She is here to DICTATE about how it is going to be.
Her children have to deal with her and here is hoping they can escape with minimal scarring. I have had enough of her shit. I have had enough of her unearned superiority. I have had enough of her claiming that we do not understand her. I have had enough of her claiming the we are trying to get her attention. The only thing I want from maggie is for her ass to swallow her head and and move on down until her body swallows it's self into nothingness.
She is just Barb with a better vocabulary.
maggie #429 wrote:
I don't think you mean to imply pantheism, or panentheism, though. God can't be all of reality, because then you run into problems with both arguing this, and arguing that we "derive our being from God." Nobody would say that we 'derive our being' from existence, or reality -- unless they were being poetic, maybe. It's rather empty.
What would persuade you, then, that you've been mistaken -- God does not exist, and never has existed?
(If you could be wrong about God, then it's a bad idea to define God as being 'reality,' -- since we argue over what reality is, but not that it is.)
Okay maggie, since you had admitted it's a belief and not a certain one at that, can you say that you are fallible? Can you say that you could very well be wrong? That your interpretations are personal, and while they may be informed, could suffer from the same flaws as those you criticise? Can you say that as a human you are putting your own experience into your interpretation? Can you say that it's the current body of society that shapes how you interpret? And can you say that others can read the exact same material and form another opinion on the matter without them being "ignorant"? Because it seems to me is that anyone who doesn't interpret the bible the exact way you do is wrong in your eyes. There's no wiggle room, there's no leeway, you insult and belittle anyone and any opinion that doesn't match your own. This is not humble, this is the height of arrogance. So you may say you don't talk in absolute certainties, but when it comes down to it, you are charging that everyone here including many who are Christian of being intellectually ignorant of matters when they say anything that doesn't happen to sit into the way you see the world. Your faith to the outsider seems tautological, it doesn't matter what criticism that they come up with - you'll dismiss it out of hand. You have the perfect way of dealing with criticism - it's just that way doesn't get anyone anywhere. If you think your arguments are that great, start a blog and rant away there. If not, can you please try to have conversations with people on here; that means actually taking on board the opinions of others instead of dismissing it without considering their point of view? Humans are fallible, please try to take that into account when talking to others. Hate to break it to you maggie, but your shit stinks too...
Eh, Maggie's displayed some capacity to learn.
Why, since she's been here she's admitted that her god is evil, that the Church hasn't known everything there is to know about the bible since 33CE, that her religion is more swayed by the prevailing moral zeitgeist than it is by the bible they don't understand, and - most recently - that she doesn't 'know' for a fact that anything about her faith is true; rather, she just 'believes' it is.
Give her a couple of weeks and she'll be a proud atheist.
I have spoken to many Christians, almost always of different denominations. Even ones in the same denominations I get conflicting stories of what God does and what role God plays in the universe. So to answer your question, I have no idea about what you believe, because what you say and what others say can at times be very different. Yet you expect everyone here to conform to what you believe about God, as if it's the only way. It's not that I or anyone else has a limited understanding on the matter, it's that we've heard to many different interpretations on the same God and events that it's impossible to say anything without the Christian saying "That's not what I believe." I've put similar arguments to yours to Christians before and received back that same condescending reply that I don't understand Christianity. Never mind that there are 45,000 denominations of Christianity, 2.5 billion followers all with their own slightly varying interpretation; if a sceptic doesn't understand the exact branch of Christianity and more specifically how the individual interprets them, they are labelled as being ignorant. It seems that you take your understanding of religion and push it as if it were the standard Christianity should be held for, and I can understand why you hold such a belief. But all you do when you take such a position is put yourself as a god; that you alone know the answers and that anyone who doesn't conform is obviously ignorant.This is why I asked why you were afraid to be human. Being human is recognising one's own fallibility. You can call it sin if you want, or you can look at the physiological way the brain works, but either way that fallibility is there. So please drop the arrogance and show some humility. Please maggie, you aren't going to get anywhere with anyone by continuously insulting them and belittling them. You are damaging your own religion by acting this way. Is it that you can't be humble? Or is it simply that you think that you have a greater knowledge and understanding than everyone here combined; which includes many current and former Christians.
Wowbagger, just because you can find logical inconsistencies in her godbotting does not mean she admits to it.
Janine, shhhh! I'm trying to make her head explode!
I don't think for a moment that Maggie's going go away from here having learned anything; it's just entertaining to watch her try and justify why what I said isn't true when I can cite post after post of hers to illustrate my point*.
She could, of course, throw a spanner in my works by simply leaving and not coming back.
*Not that that will necessarily stop her from lying about the content of her posts, but it makes her look bad when people and check and see I'm right. I love the internet!
Wowbagger, do you mean like this? I would pop popcorn for that!
maggie @429
You better be careful how you answer people here - I fear you are courting trouble. As the Catholic Encyclopedia says:
"God is reality" sounds a little heretical. Perhaps you meant to say "God is a reality"?
And on our previous discussion about annihilation of the soul, the CE has this to say in its charming essay asserting the pains and eternity of Hell:
So according to the CE, God could but chooses not to annihilate the soul. So infinite pain it is, for finite transgression - even for no transgression against our fellow humans but only thoughtcrimes against God.
MartinH quoted:
This is hilarious - as opposed to all the other 'facts' they have about how their god would or wouldn't act? Mindboggling is the word that comes to mind.
Maggie:
cf. the Vatican:
It is clear that the traditional teaching on this topic has concentrated on the theory of limbo, understood as a state which includes the souls of infants who die subject to original sin and without baptism, and who, therefore, neither merit the beatific vision, nor yet are subjected to any punishment, because they are not guilty of any personal sin. This theory, elaborated by theologians beginning in the Middle Ages, never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium, even if that same Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary teaching up until the Second Vatican Council. It remains therefore a possible theological hypothesis. [...] The conclusion of this study is that there are theological and liturgical reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness, even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in Revelation.
(my emphasis)
Was your answer an honest lie, or just your ignorance of your own theology showing?
So... If I take your analogy correctly, God is not a cat, deliberately predating — God is an elephant, killing without even noticing?
I have to admit, that one is new to Me, from an alleged believer. I usually only hear that sort of thing from theomachoi of the angriest and most splenetic humour.
*facepalm* You are not that open to the gift of new life if you limit sex to your infertile periods!
And what would be the objection to a couple using a condom or the pill, ASSUMING THAT they are "open to the gift of new life" in case the methods fail? You know, the way you are?
That's one thing many of you believe, at least when it happens to be convenient. You don't recall coming across the first cause argument in your extensive reading of medieval philosophers and theologians?
Wowbagger, theological facts are like no other facts. And, apparently, in theocratese hypothesis and theory are interchangeable terms.
Wait... First I'm a cat; then I'm an elephant; now I am reality? Are you completely insane?
Woman, thy name is inconsistency and thy soul is contradiction.
And again, how did you come to believe all of this? What was the process by which you were convinced?
Well, given as I sometimes am to offering apologetics, I might note that if You were reality, then if Hell were indeed the absence of You, Hell would, perforce, not be real.
Thus her two contentions taken together would be an argument against the existence of Hell, which makes her a denier of part of the Apostle's Creed, and thus, not a True Christian™.
#452: I imagine this exchange playing out with God as Prince George and Satan as Blackadder the butler...
Heh. I like it.
However, I have decided that I actually like being some surreal blended combination of Cat-Elephant-Reality, with a trunk and claws and floppy but pointy ears. Am I not large? Do I not contain multitudes? Meowooooaaaah!
Indeed, I am so much more. I am a Free-Falling Elevator. I am a Red Balloon drifting up into a Cloudless Sky. I am a Small Still Gray Pebble on the Beach of the Material Universe beside the Ocean of Time. I am All Things and Their Opposites! I ... AM!
Hush! They are mere shadows and imitators. I and Satan are the Originals.
Well, that settles it. He has gone into His manic phase. Don't worry, it will soon pass. But expect some weirdness to happen as He acts out. He'll bellow at the damned, some of whom are trying to enjoy their sauna in peace; then He'll go to Heaven and bluster over there for a bit. They'll pretend they don't know Him.
I heard that, You know.
Indeed You did. How do you feel about entering a dark hypermanifold and resting a bit? I 'll bring Anselm of Canterbury to tell You his expanded Ontological Argument. You like him; he always swells Your already galaxy-sized Ego to the size of a galactic supercluster.
Maggie on birth control:
Every act of intercourse that you engage in WHEN YOU KNOW YOU'RE NOT FERTILE is "open to new life"?
WTF? Then I guess every act I'VE ever engaged in WHEN I KNEW I WASN'T FERTILE (since I was on the Pill and presumably not ovulating) was also "open to new life".
Similarly, every act I ever engaged in WHEN I KNEW I COULDN'T BE FERTILIZED after Mr. Science had a vasectomy was also "open to new life" (God could have miraculously reconnected those little vas deferens, after all).
In fact, I guess I was, in total, MORE "open to new life" than you were because although we had the same number of pregnancies - 3 - I have FOUR babies. (Well, not babies any more; or maybe I can call them very long and lanky babies).
Ha! I win the "open to new life" contest! Maggie, God has blessed me with new life more than He has you!
But piss on this foolishness. Can you not see how stupid your sophistry is?
Answering myself . . . no, of course you don't. Your entire worldview consists entirely of sophistry. Reality doesn't engage your mind at any point, does it?
No Leigh, you have it wrong. You just have no understanding of what it means to be Christian because if you were you would see that maggie is right everything... that'll teach you, you ignorant atheist!
I stand corrected, Kel. All those years of study and devotion wasted as I tried to follow in the Christ's footsteps, foolishly thinking that by caring about what HE cared about I might make the grade and be called a humble follower of Christ . . .
All smashed to flinders because Maggie, the world's only True Christian, finds my way of "doing" Christianity wanting.
Oh, well. Do you think the Bahais would take one slightly used theist?
Maybe you can tell of your persecution at the hands of big bad maggie, preach a message of hope and love and the Baha'is will count you as yet another incarnation of the divine. ;)I have family who are baha'i, what a crazy belief set it is. Though I haven't found a single religion that does not fail the outsider test for faith.
Yes, but they've got some seriously beautiful temples. None close to me in Austin, though.
Leigh, I suspect Maggie would contend that her humility is humbler than yours (don't you just feel the love?).
I guess if you want beautiful temples, there's always Buddhism. The Buddhist places of worship I've visited are simply stunning. Nothing says free yourself from the cycle of samsara by surrounding yourself in elaborate decadence. especially a giant solid gold Buddha statue...
Sastra
There is no answer to a non question. It is not the lack of a term for what you are describing that is the problem. This doctrine is rooted in fundamental truths about what it means to be human and to be male and female. (Which, I suppose, is a way of saying they are rooted in natural law.) It is simply not going to change The matter was settled at creation.
I can’t really answer this meaningfully but you deserve some reward for your persistence! There are other churches that do not accept artificial birth control. It may surprise you to know that there are Protestant bodies that are also getting back on board, as well. (Every single church in creation was against artificial contraception as recently as 1930. Then it was (who else?), the Anglicans who broke ranks but, supposedly, artificial bc was licit only in really grave circumstances.) If I had to, I could find another church.
Kel Take your blinders off. I have said repeatedly that the overwhelming majority of Christian bodies agree with the Nicene creed (even if they do not use the creed in that form) which means, by definition, that those propositions are “mainstream”. I don’t give a flying fig about the many differences in practice or in non-essentials. I am simply not going to preface every statement I make with something like … well what, Kel? What would like? How about this:
The statement I am about to make derives from my beliefs, so even though I think your atheism is not nearly as well grounded intellectually, as you think it is, I will make my statement, knowing, as I do, that others, particularly other Christians, might well disagree with this, that or the other particular.
Or maybe you could just assume this?
Sastra
I don’t mean anything more exotic than: We were created in his image and, as John tells us,
Etc.
Leigh? Whatever. You have long since stopped being rational and are now ranting. What is really going on? Are you a lapsed Catholic?
Yawn, Mendacious Maggie back with her proselytizing. Acknowledge you are wrong and the p-word goes way. Boring godbotting troll. *YAWN*
Nobody is talking about hormones prescribed for medical conditions. I have had hormones prescribed for medical reasons.
Oh, as Leigh just pointed out, the sophistry is strong with this one. First Maggie said abortion is ok if it's done without really meaning to destroy the fetus, and now birth control pills are ok if you don't mean to prevent pregnancy with them. So, let's say there are two married couples. Both wives use birth control pills; one asked her doctor for the prescription because she didn't want to have kids, the other asked for the prescription to control her cramps. By Maggie's logic, one couple is fully living in God's will, and the other are unrepentant sinners, even though they're both doing the exact same thing.
For Maggie, how you break the laws of the Bible and the Catholic Church don't matter, as long as you can convince yourself you're not really doing it on purpose.
*sigh*, you've missed the point. What you believe to be true is not reality. When you say "This is reality" you are doing nothing but installing your own biases on the universe. It's not that you don't have a disclaimer, it's the tone of your comments and the arrogance you display in almost every single thing you say. It's the way you talk, it's the way you communicate. If you truly believe that you are fallible like the rest of us then you would claim that God is reality without qualifying it. "I have faith that God is reality", "I believe that God is reality" instead of speaking in absolutes every time promoting hostility by acting condescending and belittling to anyone who disagrees with you. It's not a matter of putting a fucking disclaimer at the front, it's a matter of trying to engage in conversation. But you're not here for that, are you? You're just here to preach and mock all those who dare to disagree with you. The simple fact is that even if you might feel that deep down there is some fallibility to what you say, you exhibit not a trace of humility here. Why don't you take on board that many people here were once Christians or have studied the religion? Why don't you take on board that people here may be right and you not? Why don't you take on board some uncertainty in your posts such that there becomes a platform for discussion? Why can't you get off your fucking cross and realise that you are human too? We are fallible, thus you are fallible, and even if you are preaching the word of the one true god - you're fallibility should humble you into being courteous and exploring the opinions of others in the hope to better understand yourself and where they are coming from. Embrace uncertainty maggie, embrace humanity, and understand that all you are doing by being arrogant on here is that you are lowering the opinion of Christians to people on here. Learn where others are coming from, empathise with them, try to see the world through their eyes. Insulting peoples' intelligence for the simple act of disagreeing with you is not going to endear your message to any body. Why are you so afraid to be human?
I laugh at the irony of this comment. Maggie, look in the mirror please.
Maggie #465 wrote:
No, the doctrine (that birth control is morally wrong) is rooted in an interpretation of what it means to be human, and to be male and female. It's also rooted in the Catholic Church's interpretation of the Bible. There are other interpretations, and they have rational arguments behind them. I don't think it's logically impossible that the Church could change its position on this particular issue -- which is what you seem to be saying.
Do you really think disapproval of birth control is fundamental to Catholicism? Does it define Christianity? I can see how a Catholic could say that rejecting the authority of the church hierarchy, or the resurrection of Jesus, would make Catholicism no longer Catholicism, or Christianity no longer Christianity, but there is legitimate internal dissent on birth control -- both with Catholics in particular, and Christians in general.
I do not think you can make a secular, reasonable case against it then without resorting to specially revealed "facts" which completely reframe the situation. In other words, as 'sins' go, using birth control is more like 'don't eat meat on Friday' than it's like 'do not lie and cheat.' You can't convince people outside your religion: not because such people have no morals or moral sense, but because it's too unique to a sectarian, special, insider's view of reality.
Then I would drop saying that "God is reality." We weren't created in the image of reality. I think you mean to say "God is real."
The passage from John is pretty exotic, by the way. It's poetic, and the only thing clear about it is that it's going to be open to different interpretations.
Use of condom is currently a topic of debate among theologians and high-ranking Catholic authorities. A few, such as Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, believe the Catholic Church should actively support condoms used to prevent disease, especially serious diseases such as AIDS.
If the Catholic Church says it's OK to use the pill if there's a medical purpose, such as preventing menstrual cramps, why isn't it OK to use condoms if there's a medical purpose--like disease prevention?
Silly bastion! Getting a disease during sex isn't a bug - it's a feature. That way everyone can get properly punished for acting on the sexual urges God put in them.
Carlie at #473 wrote:
Oh, now I get it.
Using the pill for medical reasons is OK because even though birth control encourages sexual promiscuity, and thus leads to more disease, it doesn't offer any protection against STDs.
OTOH, using condoms for medical reasons is not OK because it not only encourages sexual promiscuity, and thus leads to more disease, but actually offers protection against STDs.
I don't understand why I previously failed to understand that logic in that reasoning.
ID alert: That's me posting as "bastion" at #472 & 474.
Working at a different computer today, and it didn't realize how sassy I am, until now.
There's another occasional commenter (or is it commentor?) who posts as "Bastion" with a capital B. That Bastion is not, AFAIK, a bastion of sass.
Wowbagger,
I don't recall any surrender by Mags at the other blog. She stubbornly stuck to her arrogance and infallibility, never ceding any points. But then, those of us atheists visiting there were much more focused on the blog's author, who was so out of touch he made Maggie look rational.
So, no tradition to continue. Perhaps we could bring in an elephant for her to hump?
I suspect Maggie gave up humility and fallibility for lent at some point in the past and never resumed the characteristics once she'd experienced life without them. (Assuming she ever claimed either to begin with.)
A sane person might well wonder why it is that such a "fundamental truth" is expressed nowhere in the Bible. The OT has the Ten Commandments, and is chock full o' nuts other miscellaneous commandments; laws about how to treat other humans, and laws on how to keep oneself pure as God wills. In the NT, Jesus spoke long and loud about the "proper" interpretation of the law at the Sermon on the Mount. Yet nowhere in OT or NT is any commandment or sermon that asserts that birth control of any sort is universally forbidden.
(Some might bring up Onan. However, intelligent reading shows that Onan's sin was not spilling his seed in and of itself, but in not doing his levirate duty in impregnating his brother's widow so that his brother would have an heir.)
Most of the OT commandments are ignored/dropped. Church doctrine went so far as to assert that Christians who kept the Sabbath according to the fundamental Ten were cursed. Eating blood was commanded against in the Noachic covenant, and elsewhere in the OT, and in the NT, but for some reason Christians nowhere consider this to be a "fundamental truth" anymore, although blood pudding is admittedly not that common.
So how, exactly, did "birth control" gain the status of a fundamental truth?
Or should it be that the doctrine of birth control is actually fundamental pravda? Perhaps when the actual doctrine is changed, maggie will assert that it was always fundamentally true that birth control was permissible, and that she always thought it was. Because the worst crime is thoughtcrime...
senecasam @ #75:
It's a victory for academic freedom and the First Amendment.
The reason the jury awarded Churchill the sum of $1 is that David Lane, his attorney, never argued for any damages. If Churchill wanted damages, he could have certainly gotten them for lost income, libel, false termination, etc. However, Churchill and Lane have always made it clear that this is about getting his job back.
I'm glad to see some note of the outcome of this lawsuit, because when it first blew up the whole Scienceblogs community basically said, "Oh, well the investigative committee claimed to have found reasons to fire him, so it must have been justified." As if universities are bastions of fair play and never make arse-saving, politicized judgments. The trial put paid to that mythology, but nobody around here is paying attention (save you) because they would all rather pretend that academia hasn't become corporatized and politicized on behalf of the anti-intellectual right.
Not according to the Denver Post. Talk Left discussed this yesterday. It was a compromise to avoid a hung jury.
Not according to the Denver Post. Talk Left discussed this yesterday. It was a compromise to avoid a hung jury.
I know that's not what the Denver Post claims, but the Denver Post is a lying rag.
Bethany Newill has been standing up to the lies promulgated in the Denver, Boulder, and other area media, including in an interview in Westword and by phoning in to the Caplis and Silverman show (two right-wing talk radio hosts who have made Churchill their personal cause, even to the extent of handing over material to CU's lead attorney in the middle of the civil suit!).
Here's a relevant quote from the interview:
Forgot to add this final point: ostensible 'news' organizations like the Denver Post, the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News, and other area media have been smearing Churchill nonstop for the past four years, ever since the right-wing started making a stink about his essay, "On the Justice of Roosting Chickens". Thus, they're trying to spin this vindication any way they can in order to justify their standard line on Churchill. That's what the article linked to by TalkLeft was doing, and frankly it's embarrassing that they fell for it.
I didn't know that about the Denver Post or other news media in Colorado. Is it not true that CU will have to pay Churchill's legal fees, also? Will Churchill still be compensated for what he would have earned during the time he was out of a job and for potentially lost income if CU doesn't rehire him, despite not receiving a punitive award?
So we can't expect her to act a bit more humble when talking with others on here then?
I didn't know that about the Denver Post or other news media in Colorado. Is it not true that CU will have to pay Churchill's legal fees, also?
That's what I've heard.
Will Churchill still be compensated for what he would have earned during the time he was out of a job and for potentially lost income if CU doesn't rehire him, despite not receiving a punitive award?
Yes, I believe that follows too. If he's not rehired, David Lane has said that he'll be seeing around half a million in back pay with interest (Churchill's yearly salary at CU was $110,000).
Having had the opportunity to see Churchill speak in person, I believe that he's utterly sincere in wanting his job back, rather than wanting the money. When I saw him speak a few years ago at the Mid-Atlantic Radical Bookfair, he not only had a Q&A session similar to a graduate seminar, but also had a long conversation with people as he sat and smoked outside. A few months later, when he came to speak at the Solidarity Revolutionary Center and Radical Library in Lawrence, KS, he did the same thing again, speaking to people outside after the event was over.
It appears Maggie has gone elsewhere to spread the word about God, Hell, and birth control is okay if you're trying to get pregnant.
Thanks for the links, Nullifidian. The news media often contains too much bias to be taken seriously despite their desire to appear objective.
About maggie: I think she has been pwned at least twice in this thread (her birth control stance = sham & 'God is reality' = Catholic heretic) and I wouldn't believe anything else she says about her real life after her smug lie about the kitty and even more so after karen disclosed that maggie makes online proselytizing a profession.
You'd think that if maggie has done this before, then she would have developed at least a little fragment of people skills. Does she really think that abusing others and talking in an arrogant absolute manner is going to convince anybody? Especially when she is unable to even concede the slightest point.
But she can't afford to. Her belief is like a giant game of Jenga with her in the middle; if the wrong block gets pulled (i.e. she has any doubts) the whole thing's going to come tumbling down around her ears.
So, even when it's shown beyond any doubt that she's misinterpreted something, that the church made a mistake, or that the bible has many, many flaws, she can't admit it because of the whole of her faith is only as strong as its weakest part. It'd all come tumbling down if she accepts that any of us were right about anything.
Which goes back to my criticism of the genre defence - it's a way of sounding like they know they're okay with the bible not matching reality or contemporary moral/ethical standards, but in such a way that they're not actually admitting that it's actually wrong. It's an intellectually dishonest dodge used to downplay the massive holes in the bible - and in such a way they can argue that it's still 'divinely inspired', 'sacred' and 'inerrant', preserving the structure.
Plus she's the worst kind of arrogant, intellectual snob; She considers herself so profoundly intelligent and educated that it would be impossible for her to follow a religion that wasn't 100% perfect; to do so would reflect badly on her - and she can't have that.
So it's not only a Jenga game, it's a Jenga game made out of blocks of dangerously fragile crystal.
Maggie, on the Brazilian rape/excommunication case:
Please either admit that your "most obvious reason" is a wild guess, or provide some evidence that your assertion has even a grain of truth to to. Without it, I will conclude that this is this just another example of "Maggie makes shit up to defend her position, regardless of the facts."
(By the way, Maggie, what about that interesting claim you made about the population of Japan dying out by the end of the century? Care to address the criticisms leveled at that particular prediction? Or are you going to continue to pretend that you never made it?)
Let us say that you are correct, that the Bishop hadn't been informed. If that was the case, he acted like a fool, and his decision could only be characterized as ill-considered and rash. Surely the simple knowledge that the abortion was performed on a nine-year-old girl should have been enough to make his antennae twitch, and prompt him to gather more information about the case before bringing down his terrible, swift sword.
Still playing the ignorance card, eh?
Not at all clear? Really. The doctors said she would die if she gave birth, because she was physically immature. Imminent danger? As in, was she in danger of dying that week? Certainly not, but what's your point? That she should remain pregnant until mortal danger did become imminent?
Viable? Interesting word. Define "viable". She was four months pregnant. FOUR MONTHS.
You need a new dog whistle. I can hear that one.
Your condescension got old a week ago, sweetness. Yes, I have "the glimmerings of a clue." Do you? I grieve for her NOW. Do you?
I wonder.
Let's see now... The girl was sexually victimized by her stepfather over a period of years, possibly from as early and age as six. Six! And your idea of sparing her further trauma is to force her to carry to term the dual offspring of this unholy union, at great risk to her own life? Have you no compassion? Have you no conscience? Have you no soul?
Nice. What a contemptible little goblinette you are.
That's a nice way of putting it. Though of course, you realise by saying as such you are setting yourself up for another round of maggie belittling you. I'm guessing it doesn't matter the topic, I can't see maggie ever conceding any point on any thing at all; it's just that the topic at hand is religion. And by saying that, I'm putting myself in the firing line too ;)
I'm still trying to figure out how using a simple bag made out of natural plant resins to prevent pregnancy is an unnatural "contrivance", but using a thermometer, a computer and software is "natural".
Have you no soul?
Of course Maggie has no soul. She lacks a conscience, compassion, an intellect, any persuasive powers whatsoever, probably tricked her husband into wedlock by getting herself knocked up by somebody first, and has demonstrated not the slightest shred of honesty on this thread.
Soul? Its lack is the least of Maggie's problems. There are some among us who, if Maggie were on fire, would cross the street to piss on her to put her out, but I'm betting there are few among us, if we were certain it was Maggie, who wouldn't have to stop and think about it first.
In person, she may have learned how to display some redeemable social virtues that make her appear to pass for human. Maggie will probably be the first to suggest that the dial go to "eleven" on an eternal Milgram experiment, so, here's hoping her children survive their childhood and go on to thrive despite the disadvantage they've been dealt, through no fault of their own.
Even Richard Nixon has soul.
Someone had to reference that.
(Runs and ducks for cover.)
Because, idiot, if the 9 year old rape victim were to continue with her pregnancy, she will die, given as how her body is not strong enough to support a pregnancy through birth.
That's right, Kseniya, I almost forgot about maggie's assertion:
It was indeed one of her most heinous lies, almost racist in my opinion (it kind of made me sick to my stomach when I read it). But she has dodged and slid around the fact that lies are a ticket to Hell, according to Christian dogma, by asserting that no true believers will go there, only nonbelievers (which would include a majority of all humans past, present and future). Everything maggie believes is very convenient for maggie herself.
Even Richard Nixon has soul.
True, but Kent State's Tin Soldiers had more soul than Maggie. I got to stand between the bed Nixon was born on, and the hole in the ground waiting for him next to the one Pat had just been planted in, in 1993, at an ILM/SGI party at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda. At mindnight, on behalf of all the SIGGRAPH attendees, Tim Leary exorcised the place. At the time, we couldn't imagine how anybody could possibly make Nixon look as good as he does now.
windy #491 wrote:
Years ago, a good Catholic gamely tried to make a convincing secular argument against birth control to a bunch of us atheists by using several analogies.
In the first, he compared preventing a pregnancy by artificial means to disease prevention, and then claimed that this was deeply disrespectful to life, in that it placed children in the same category as germs -- terrible things that needed to be 'prevented.' Such an attitude would color one's perspective, and lead to a slippery slope of disregard for human dignity in general.
In the second analogy, he agreed that married people being responsible and refraining from having children at the wrong time was the right thing to do -- but people should not have any extra reward for doing the right thing. That would be like a judge accepting a bribe for making the just decision in a case. Therefore, the proper thing for this married couple to do was refrain from having sex when they knew they could have no children, lest they violate the honor of their correct decision.
He argued very diligently to an entire (chat)room of atheists, trying to frame the case through using our own values -- and we all liked him, from past acquaintance -- but it was very, very difficult to wrap our minds around how he was thinking in both those cases. Neither one of those analogies seemed to make any sense.
They didn't appeal to secular values at all, but rested on strange, contorted views of a uniquely Christian form of Natural Law. And, of course, we could pick numerous holes in them anyway, and even see where they contradicted each other. The poor man eventually gave up. I think he finally admitted that he was wrong about his arguments being secular, and resting on worldly reasoning.
All in all, he could make a much more reasonable case against abortion, than against birth control. I don't think anyone can argue against it without some sort of religious mandate -- particularly between married couples. And, of course, a 'Natural Law' that feeds into normal human instincts that there was nothing wrong with sex for its own sake is just as easily invoked, as a 'Natural Law' that feeds into other intuitions about the purpose of sex organs.
I don't think Catholics quite understand how flexible Natural Law can be, and how little it's really anchored in Nature, and how much it rests on doctrine.
Ouch. That was a deadly hit. It looks to me like it took out most of NFP and may have even caused some collateral damage. Maggie will be smarting from that strike when she returns whether she admits it or not.
And just in case anyone was wondering, I'm not now and never have been a Catholic . . . so obviously I'm not a lapsed Catholic.
My knowledge of Catholicism was gained from one of my best friends in junior high school. She and I agreed that the Church could be convicted of gross crimes against humankind; she rejected it and embraced her inner atheist. At the same time, I was sitting in a Southern Baptist church, reading the Bible during times of boredom during the sermons -- which was almost all the time -- and finding the doctrine of inerrancy fatally flawed. Since I knew of no other way to read the Bible or be a Christian, and since coincidentally my white church was resisting integration, a stance I found contemptible, I also became an atheist. I still think atheism is the default position for any thinking person.
By the way, I've never seen any reason to change my opinion of the Catholic Church or the Southern Baptists. In fact, over the years I've found even more reasons to dislike both.
And Maggie, honey, you've seen no rant from me. If you were intimidated by that gentle exercise in logic, you should be glad I gave up launching the nuclear warheads at fucktard Christianists for Lent.
Did Maggie leave ?
Can we party now ?