Christian Morality, Dualism, and Drugs
Offline I wonder if any of the Christians lurking about the site have ever considered the problem that drugs create for their religion. This occurred to me while drinking alcohol, as it turns out, but that's apropos of nothing.
Anyway, here's the problem. According to Christians, humans have a soul, which is a spiritual entity that transcends the human body. While we have a brain that controls our body, the "essence" of our being is totally removed from our body. The body is just a vessel for us to inhabit during our tenure on planet earth.
I was thinking about this concept, and a rather obvious question struck me. If, as they say, the soul is separate from the body, and our "true self" resides not in our mind, but in our soul, then what's happening when we drink or take drugs? The scientists say that alcohol is a psychoactive drug that has a depressant effect. In other words, it interacts with our brains, creating a change in the way the brain works. This change manifests in social confidence, reduced motor functions, feelings of euphoria, and reduction in reaction time, among others. But... if changing the brain changes our personality.... then... um... what part of the personality is in the soul? Other drugs produce more marked effects. In fact, there are some drugs that can change a person's perceptions and thought processes so radically that they are often described as being "different people" when they're under the influence of the drugs.
But... if chemicals change our perceptions, our personality, our cognitive ability, and our emotions, and they do it by altering our brain, what's left over to be unalterable in our souls?
So, which is it? Do changes in the brain change our minds, or do changes in the brain change our souls? If they change our souls, then... um... doesn't that mean that our souls are physical? If they're physical, what are they? If they're not physical, then... um... how did something physical interact with them?
While I'm on the subject, if drugs are bad, mmmkay, then why? A lot of Christians get their panties in a twist about marijuana. Why? If it doesn't change your immortal soul, then what's the harm in taking a drug that reduces anxiety and helps you relax? For that matter, what's so wrong with cocaine? I mean.. yeah, it can kill you if you take too much, but what's so bad about feeling jittery and talkative for six hours? If your immortal soul is still going to heaven, what's the justification for getting so upset about changing the body, which is just a temporary vessel anyway?
I remember that when I was a Christian, I had some reason for thinking that drugs were an abomination to God, but I can't for my life remember what it was.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Dear HisWillness,
I'll give you that.
I don't want to quarrel over this. I just wish to understand Science more thoroughly, and if someone has a question about what the Bible teaches, then I'd like to help obtain understanding together with that person.
With the wide-spread thought of post-modernism on relative truth, I'd say there must be some sort of middle ground.
Again, that is a maximum sentence. The Sadducees, and Pharisees were responsible for weighing out the circumstances. The implication is not only the emotional turmoil of the husband or wife that was lied to, but also a transgression of God's law. Just as death was promised for Adam, if he diobeyed the law (eating from the tree), so the same goes for other sins as well.
Why are you under the assumption that if you were created by someone, you do not owe them obedience and gratitude?
In Christian Theology (try to be hypothetical for a second), there are angels, both elect and non-elect. Those angels, such as Lucifer and his faction, were judged and sentenced to death for only one sin. Humans on the other hand, will sin millions of times during their lifetime, and yet, God will admit some into His presence.
Again, just as the judge can sentence a man who stole bubble gum 5 years maximum in prison, the Hebrews could sentence those who committed adultery, a maximum sentence of death. Just as the judge is responsible for weighing out the circumstances, the Hebrews were responsible for weighing out the circumstances.
No, but they understand the simple reasoning, that just as they should honor and obey their parents, if they have a higher Creator, they should honor and obey Him as well.
The Priest were the only men who came into direct contact of the presence of God. They went into the temple (holy of holies), and first offered a sacrifice for their own sins, then for the nations. The Bible teaches that a man should be honored by his family. His wife should submit, and his children should be well-disciplined. The laws are there to prevent confusion, and to promote order. Anyway, back to the Priest,
If a Priest daughter was a prostitute, she is dishonoring God, her own body, and her father who comes into direct contact with God.
I can't explain the holiness of God to you, and it doesn't seem like you want to understand it anyway. Just because God has a higher moral standard than any of us, doesn't make the law wrong. God demands perfection.
The morals presented in the Bible are the demands of perfection. If you find that the punishments for crimes are ridiculous, that doesn't negate the perfection of the moral standard. You might even think our society has some ridiculous punishments, but the fact remains, that the punishments are there for offenders.
And lets be fair, you've judged these punishments as ridiculous, but atleast there is cause given for punishment. There are plenty of countries, who never heard of the Bible, that have punishments for no cause. In some places, women are circumcised, and their genitalia sowed up. Religion plays no part in that, it is wholly based on the evilness of man. Religion has no bearing on a lot of societies. In the Bible, if everyone obeyed the law, there wouldn't be any problems.
The word is not obsessed with death, it is obsessed with perfection. And slavery has been apart of human cultures since forever, including the foundation of the U.S., which also had nothing to do with religion.
The living word is the whole Scripture. The Bible does not teach that everyone should kill each other. It's teaches that if laws are broken, then punishments should be administered.
In both parts everyone is deserving of hell (Romans 1:32). No one is innocent unless they put their trust in Christ, and Christ will stand in the place of those who trust in Him, on judgment day.
The Bible can be confusing at times. One of my friends who is a Christian, asks me the same question all the time (Is God trying to mess with our heads). But the reasoning given in the Bible for our mis-interpretations, is our sinful nature.
Don't believe in God? I can't fix that.
Reformed Theology Resource: www.monergism.com
No way. I think the best you can say about the Greek philosophers is they made a modest start on adding to human knowledge, but they got much wrong. Aristotle was better than most, I think, but none of them deserve reverence. Thye were probably better informed than the writers of the Bible. They generally accepted the world was not flat, and one of them even made a good attempt to measure its size.
Well of course they CLAIMED such knowledge, but were in fact grossly ignorant about the nature of the Universe, and had serious mis-understandings of human nature.
Their knowledge was inferior to many other societies of the time, including the Greeks.
Of course not. You missed my point. That is a not what I said. My point was precisely that it DOES have value as a record of historical events of the times, but that does not make it accurate about everything it describes.
IOW I am not saying ALL the events described never took place, that would be foolish, just like it would be foolish to assert that EVERYTHING it describes actually occurred. You have to assess the claims with reference to their intrinsic plausibility and check thm against whatever independent evidence we can find.
From what I have heard and read, it doesn't hold up all that well, when we can find independent evidence, as well as the internal inconsistencies and even contradictions, so there is no warrant for treating as authoritative on anything.
You have no justification for this - we do not have his word, we only have the words of human writers who felt they had had communication in some form with a higher being, a class of thoughts which can never be proven to be anything other than all therother ideas and thoughts that pop into ones awareness.
No wrong again. Obviously you personally do not understand how that could happen, even in principle, which just reflects your lack of understanding of the relevant discoveries and theories, which are, admittedly, not simple to grasp without a background in the sciences involved.
We have explicit evidence from many observations and experiments that complex things can arise from simpler things, given suitable environment and available energy from sources like the sun or thermal energy from inside the earth.
Any attempt to explain our own existence that requires a superior intelligent being is fatally flawed because you have postulate the existence of something even harder to explain, and we have seen nothing within well-established scientific principles that prohibits emergent properties such as consciousness etc from arising from natural unconscious processes.
So no faith required, just an honest and humble acceptance of what seems to be facts of the universe as we come to understand them from patient observation and experiment, even if they seem 'counter-intuitive'.
How many times are going to fail to get it? I do not deny that many of the events described in the Bible never happened. That in no way automatically validates the Supernatural testimony.
I'm sure of seen a number of tenuous arguments from you trying to argue for some less-than-obvious interpretaion of some of the more egregiously offensive passages in the bible. That's what I was referring to.
You still misread my point - I would not ridicule children believing in Santa Claus. But would you not be at least a little disturbed at adults holding to the same belief?
It is also precisely the fact that so many adults believe in these fairy tales that disturbs me, especially when they attempt to justify actions and support for actions of others which can potentially cause harm to other people and society in general.
Children have DIED because of religious belief of their parents. And many such actions are excused if they can claim religious motivation. That deeply disturbs me.
You see I have a 'belief' that there is some objective 'truth' 'out there', and value the honest pursuit of it, however unnatainable the Ultimate Truth may be. We can get usefully closer to it, and value the honest search based on evidence, with the humility to accept the occasional overturning of cherished initial assumptions, when the evidence points some other way. I believe we should start with the absolute minimum initial working assumptions, AND be prepared to revise even those basic assumptions when confronted with sufficient evidence. I also believe that we should not give uncritical acceptance to statements from authority, even of famous scientists. They must establish a track record, and even then, as with any information I am not in a position to directly check myself, I assign it a level of 'trustworthiness' based on various factors.
I see this as the very opposite of the 'faith' approach, unless you want to call my belief that we should not accept anything purely on 'faith' a 'faith' in itself.
And this is why I get so annoyed with religion, since I find so much of it represents so very opposite approach to 'reality' - the assumption that the believer has accessed some fragment of Ultmate Truth, and it is cannot be questioned, every actual observation has to be made to fit into this framework or rejected or ignored.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Dear Matt,
So if there was no punishment for any crimes, and no hell, you wouldn't have a problem with Christianity?
By discrimination, you must mean things like not being able to run for President unless you confess some sort of Christian faith? Otherwise, what other discrimination?
How does Christianity influence the laws? I understand that it affects everyone, since we think God is going to judge all humans, and we want to help you avoid the consequences.
Science is not exempted from reindeer stories.
Don't believe in God? I can't fix that.
Reformed Theology Resource: www.monergism.com
Why don't we start with prohibitionist drug policies, laws against same-sex marriage, and the ones that want control over a woman's body? Those all have roots in christianity. That's just from the top of my head.
As to the discrimination Matt mentioned, atheists lose work for coming out of the closet. Would you want to tell a christian judge you're an atheist in a custody hearing? Again, this is just a start.
"I am that I am." - Proof that the writers of the bible were beyond stoned.
Yeah, Matt, anniet
.... geezz them idol worshipers are wacko, with their magical reindeers, a talking snake and bush, a jesus walking on water, a murderer saul paul writing gospel, as all church religion dogma shit of worship is the devil of wrong thinking.
GOD IS US, star dust ....
The greatest gospel yet is thermodynamics, just as the intuition of the early gnostic scientists budda and jesus etc. Gnosis knows all is one.
Atheism Books.
Post modernism in art and philosophy is a bit of a wash, though. Not much content there. I'm asking you if you personally would not be able to judge a physical sexual violation of a woman as a malicious act. My guess is that you could, and you wouldn't need a book to tell you. If you already know that it would be malicious, what new information does the Bible give you?
See, here's where we part philosophical company. If I'm trying to build laws that apply to real things, I don't think I'd start with non-real things. Like God. Produce a god, and I'll make it part of the process. Until then, there's no practical reason to consider the law of something that never, ever shows up.
For one thing, if I were to be created by someone, they could have been doing it to amuse themselves. I would owe my parents gratitude for raising me well, but not just for making me. That's a process of biology. My gratitude reflects their love. My obedience would come from a knowledge that they were right. If they're not right, then I don't obey.
Can you hit me with a source on that one? Are we talking Milton? Medieval tradition?
I love the part about the wife submitting. You have issues, my friend.
K, so we must (and it's not "maximum penalty" here, it's "must"
burn her alive? You figure that's reasonable?
I used to, but since the answers have consistently been so vague as to be no use to me in understanding, I'm leaning towards giving up.
Let me get this straight. Step 1: Create imperfect creatures; Step 2: Give them perfect law; Step 3: demand perfection from the imperfect creatures you just created. That sounds like bad planning to me. And we're talking about a presumably omnipotent creature ... who can't plan and is also unreasonable.
... which is naïve at best, like all perfectionism.
No, it doesn't. You're right. But a perfect moral standard cannot be applied by humans. So you have a deity that created us to constantly fail at the task you believe we're meant to perform. That's ridiculous.
Perfection is completion, and completion is death. The word perfectus, whence came our word "perfect" describes completion. Perfect laws can't be applied to dynamic systems. Your word isn't living because it doesn't change. All living things change.
And that word is unchanging and yet still finds time to contradict itself on occasion. I suppose I'm just asking for a "God works in mysterious ways" there.
So if I don't put my trust in Christ, regardless of how well I live, I'll always be deserving of hell. That's so silly it defies description. Why would I bother talking to a human being who was that petty, much less a deity?
No, it's confusing all the time. It contains no new or helpful information, and the stories are frankly boring. The attempted codification of the law is weak in most places, and often cannot address social situations that have become commonplace. I probably could have written it just as well. Not that I'm a great writer or anything, but I can dig up old stories just as well as anyone can.
You can call it Scripture or Living Word, or whatever you please, but it's still the same end-of-days message: there is no perfection until death, and we'll sin and disappoint until then. Sounds fabulous, but I'll take the chance that I might be sinning and not worry about it. Now human laws, I pay attention to those. That's just being neighbourly.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Well, yeah because of the absurdity and the rules against harmless things, especially sexuality. The thing about hell is it's way out of proportion - we don't torture people for any crime in America - the Christian idea of hell would be like torturing people to death for any breach of the law - including going 1 mph over the speed limit. This would be without having any laws posted and having multiple books of law out there that conflict with each other and no way to know which is real.
Ways Christianity influences law: Anti-Abortion fucktards, censorship, anti-gay and anti-woman discrimination, "blue laws" such as those closing bars on Sundays, puting your mythology in the pledge and our money, etc.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Wow thanks my fellow godly wise atheists. Beatz and his make me wept. I cannot seem to reach many of them idol worshiper separatists either, as I try to "preach" a gnosis buddha jesus oneness of the ancient intuition of thermodynamic oneness eternity, of no master creator.
Hey, but let's remember the silent readers here and carry on. Please remember there are yin yang jesus' messages in the bible that is still so revered ... an atheist gnosis jesus of no master of all is one, and a hocus pocus xain jesus of a of idol worship separatism.
We are all the "christ", we are "god" for those that can see. The separatists do not know what they do.
Atheism Books.
But if there are messages that are universal to these various religions, does it not point to the idea that we have all that information already in ourselves? What need do we have, then, for words like "Buddha" or "Jesus" as touchstones for the things we already know? Yin and yang and all the rest of it run into our own morality as a matter of coincidence.
As you say, we're all god.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
It would be if driving were banned. That's an invalid argument.
A bullshit lie. Only repeated exposure will cause you any harm. And with smoking, you choose whether you will be harmed or not in this day and age. 20 years ago I might have given you this argument, today you don't get shit. You can walk away. Or if someone is forcing it on you, sue them. It seems to work rather well in the states.
You don't have the right to make me not smoke in public. If you think smoke harms you, take a look at car emissions. Unlike a smoker, you can't walk away from cars. You are cherry picking things that can cause you harm. It's stupid beyond belief. Making smoking illegal in a family restaurant = logical and agreeable. Making smoking illegal in public altogether = lack of freedom.
That is hardly a comparable scenario. But while you're bringing it up, sex in public probably shouldn't be illegal either. We don't throw dogs into prison when they hump each other. Why are we held to such a different standard?
You don't have consideration for me, why should I give a rats ass about you?
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Actually, that's more what I meant - banning it in any building that's open to the public - and within so many feet of the entrance. The main thing is driving has great benefits to outweigh the harm. Smoking has no benefit whatsoever except the smokers personal pleasure, which doesn't matter at all. I personally think anyone who smokes in public, or a bar/restaurant owner that allows it should be charged with attempted murder, or at least reckless endangerment.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Driving has no benefit which outweighs the numerous harms it causes. Not only is driving one of the largest, if not the largest, environmental polluter we have, but it's also the largest single killer of human life. Not to mention other life.
Which means I can smoke in your face and you can't say shit, since you don't mind your own business. Stay out of my life or face the consequences.
So should every driver then. And everyone involved in power generation. And all abortionists. And all car manufacturers. And all parents of children who committed crimes. And all industrialists. And all Libertarians. And the list grows. Hypocrites piss me off.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
That's just being stupid. If you smoke in my face I'll spray a fire extinguisher in yours. Things that have important benefits don't compare to a personal disgusting addiction. It is my business if you are making me choke and/or get cancer. Luckilly the state I live in finally banned smoking in almost any building that's a workplace or open to the public. It's even banned outdoors on college campuses.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
This is a dumb argument. There are several different theories about how much our soul affects how we act and what we do. This is just another Atheist grasping at straws to try to disprove some part of the Christian faith. You fail, hard.
Here I am to worship, Here I am to bow down, Here I am to say that you're my God.
Fails how KingMan? Define "soul". "Faith", as in religion idol worship, is an emotional irrational cop out, of understandable innate human ignorance that we must strive to overcome.
Faith as in God of Abraham religions is the "devil" of wrong thinking, which won out in the bible edits, due to the innocent wishful sheeple, and greedy, rejecting the simple gnosis gnostic message and books, of all is one with the father/mother eternal cosmos.
Bible Paul and his, as Christianity, turned the gnosis atheistic buddah jesus message of I AM GOD, into a jesus idol of separatism. Xainity is often said to be the "anti-christ" philosophy of separatism, superstitious idol worship.
Think about it. Clear your mind of hand me down assumptions, and trust your own wisdom mind.
I am an atheist for atheist jesus, with no god master on our side, because we are god as all is one, doing our god thing part. Atheist Buddha and buddha Jesus were among the first to hypothesize what we now call "thermodynamics", a law in science. Gnosis Jesus said the "laws will never change." Saul Paul and his kind sure did mess up the intuitive wisdom of gnosis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosis
Jesus as Buddha as Atheist,
"Wisdom of the Buddha" , 8 mins. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTsb-woP3jI
A Rational Response from,
Carl Sagan - "Pale Blue Dot" , 3 min http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M
_______________________________________
Here I am NOT to worship, Here I am NOT to bow down, Here I am to say that all is G-O-D ..... as I, as you, as all is ONE, all is eternal, of no beginning, no end, of NO MASTER. I AM the conscious awe of we g-awe-d .... amazing indeed.
Atheism Books.
Okay, nice claim. Now, you need to answer the question, why is this a dumb argument? Also, you need to back up your assertion with evidence.
No! Really?
Alright, give me an example of how your soul affects how you act and what you do. What evidence do you have that the soul exists?
These are not theories, by the way. Theories are well-established explanations for a category of scientific phenomena. This means that theories are always backed up with plenty of evidence. The argument for a soul does not come from science, but religion and spirituality. It has virtually zero evidence.
Oh, a theist. Surprise, surprise.
You have yet to show why this argument is invalid, but, in your infallible superiority, you're already insulting everybody.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Saint Will, as you know, most do not, and so the rejection of superstition as echoed by ancient atheistic "yin" of buddha jesus etc, is over ran by the "yang" of theistic idol worship religions.
And so, because we can't make the words buddha, jesus, gawed, etc go away soon, as we finally did with the greek gods, by replacing them with monotheism, I fight religion with religion by trying to demonstrate the yin yang of it.
I've been trying to use more science in my approach, such as saying the early statement, "I am one with the father (comos) , was the beginnings of the law of thermodynamics of today.
So yeah, "we're all god", with no choice about it, so NO to dogma separatist religion. Traditional religion has been proven wrong. Yin atheist jesus was right, Yang theistic jesus was / is wrong. The cosmos is atheist!
No no , it doesn't collectively "think" .... ahhh, dang words .... babel babel.
My writing is obviously primarily directed to the religious, as atheist story gnosis jesus was called a doctor, who's goal was to heal the sick, ugly and blind, the theistic religious hypocrite idol worshipers. .... Blah, blah ....
I get crucified (banned) on the xain chat lines where the majority are deaf, and so I post here at RRS, preparing a new "love the enemy" strategy .... as I work at getting my buddha jesus rap tighter.
SORRY I annoy some fellow atheists here, BUT thanks you all ... I've learned so much here ... the best school ever , RRS.
Atheism Books.
No, you're being stupid. You spray me with an extinguisher, I'll light you on fire. I've destroyed your argument that smoking is any worse than things you aren't whining about. And most damaging of all, any exposure to smoke today is your own choice. You have nothing left.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
That's completely idiotic. It's not my own choice. Your argument is like saying there shouldn't be any fire codes unless unhealthy foodis made illegal because people are more likely to die of a heart attack than in a fire. And again, having cars has a benefit to society that only a complete idiot or nut could deny, while smoking has no benefit whatsoever to society.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Contrary to MattShizzle's contention that smoking has no beneefit to society at large, I would argue that it does. Smoking has a calming effect on hyperexcitable folks like me. It reduces stress and keeps me from choking the living shit outta those who annoy me, ie, those who complain about my filthy smoking addiction. This is, indeed, a positive benefit of smoking.
"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II
You're a brainless psychopath and a threat to my freedom. You should be incarcerated.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Complete non-sequitor. There are things more important than personal freedom, such as protecting others from physical harm. Do you understand the concept that your freedom to swing your arm ends where my nose begins? I wasn't stupid enough to ever start smoking btw. Asshat.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Pure lies & threats make you a terrorist. Loser.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
WTF are you talking about? You are completely retarded or insane. Maybe both. You make no sense whatsoever now.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
This could be a matter of pros vs. cons.
What are the benefits of smoking? Certainly, smoking offers a feeling of calm and relieves stress, much like caffeine and alcohol. In some situations, it could even boast emotional and psychological benefits. Cigarettes and other tobacco products also comprise an important market worldwide, with a huge number of consumers. Unfortunately, smoking has been linked to many health problems such as lung cancer, heart disease, and emphysema. Many studies have also linked second-hand smoke to potential health consequences.
Try this page.
http://www.lungusa.org/site/c.dvLUK9O0E/b.35422/
In summary, what do we lose if cigarettes suddenly disappeared? Not too much. On the other hand, automobiles comprise an important element in modern society. We use cars to travel to work/school, tourism, deliver mail, collect garbage, etc. etc. etc. Obviously, an inconceivable number of people die in car accidents every year, but to remove the most crucial method of transportation from our world requires a virtually impossible overhaul of our very existence.
Aside from that, it is flawed to compare the harmful effects of these two actions since the harmful effects of smoking are inherent in its use. When I constantly smoke around a little child, that probably harms the child's respiratory system. However, I don't harm a child if I constantly drive the child in the car because no damage is done unless I end up in a serious traffic accident.
Vastet, like many of the people on this forum, is vastly more knowledgeable on religion than me. But, on this issue, he seems to be deeply biased as a result of the simple truth that he is a smoker.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Attempted murder? Exaggerate much? We cannot ban smoking. The 18th amendment should have proven this.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Don't know if you guys noticed, but nicotine (a drug) had quite the effect on the thread ... which was started to point out the effects of drugs on behaviour. If that was intentional, bravo.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Is that like using prayer to calm down after reading some of the posts on this site?
"Dear Lord, please don't let me get to the point where I hate these people. Actually, scratch that, Lord. Do you think I could hate them just a little? Sigh. You never let me do anything fun."
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Reality.
Yes, you are.
No, you don't.
Asshole psychopath.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Guys, just stop.
Of course there are. This principle must then be extended throughout one's worldview, and done reasonably. For example, my irresponsible use of my reproductive abilities must not infringe on the rights of the unborn. I must accept responsibility for my actions. In the case of smoking, I'm perfectly wiling to do so. The right to smoke comes with responsibilies, as does the right to eat, to consume alcohol, etc.
Interesting that you should use this particular example. I have an Italian friend, Andrea, who recently bacame an American citizen. This is first election that Andrea will be voting in as an American. Andrea possesses some very pronounced Italian tendencies, two of which I'll sahre here. The first tendency he possesses is that very unique Mediteranean ability to hold two or three conflicting political opinions passionately and a wish to discourse upon all of them simultaneously. The second is a pronounced tendency to accent his discourses with physical gestures. When one engages Andy in a political discussion, one quickly finds it best to remain an arm's length from him (especially after a drink or two) or risk being accidentally struck.
Polite smokers will maintain a discrete distance from public areas. Polite follks averse to smoking will avoid smokers. Most of us will not object to yielding areas of contention to non-smokers.
According to the majority opinion here, I was incapable of making a choice not to smoke, actually. It was preordained by the chaos of the cosmos, from my DNA and perceptions of reality from all time. I cannot be held accountable for my actions.
"ASSHAT" is high praise from the likes of you. I am done holding discourse with a cartoon character.
"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II
Vastet needs medication.
Haha - no, I don't think that's quite it. It's just that in practical terms, determinism and free will are indiscernible behaviourally. (I know Hamby's made that point, but I'm not sure it was on this thread.) I don't think I could make a positive assertion that you can't be responsible for what you've done. That would be a stretch towards perfect determinism, which I don't think happens outside of physics classes.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
And I do believe somebody asked me why I think drugs/alcholol are bad?
This is one of those reasons.
Haha! Good timing. I don't know how to award points, but if I did, they would be awarded.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Anyway to get back on topic there are things besides drugs. When someone develops alzheimers does that mean something happened to their soul? Does brain damage do something to the soul? The 19th century story of Phinneas Gage is well documented and I have heard at least one case where a woman was brain damaged somehow. The only effect was it changed her from being very chaste to a rampaging nymphomaniac. All evidence shows that the "soul" was simply an explanation for consciousness before humans had any understanding of the brain.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Actually, medication wouldn't help you, you're too far gone. You need a brain transplant.
Ah, someone with brains and intellect makes a comment. Good.
Worse than millions of jobs lost and a more stressed populace, making smokes illegal will simply drive them into the underground where they will join the culture of heroin and cocaine, and become far more dangerous than they actually are.
Yet none of these studies conclusively show smoking causing any of these diseases. 9/10 smokers never get lung cancer. Smoking causes absolutely no harm whatsoever, unless you do it often and for years upon years upon years. And even then, you're more likely to get hit by a bus.
Not a credible site. I know, it should be, but it isn't. It is biased and the studies health providers do are also biased. There is fact to be found there, but I've already done so. I've looked into smoking as much as I have relilgion, politics, and weed. You try and argue with me on it and you will lose. Every time.
Tonnes. Billions in income from taxes, millions of jobs, and suddenly hospitals will gain shitloads of new patients as the smoking population gets pissed off and stressed out for a year or two.
Obviously you are mistaken.
No, they don't. They just appear to if you want them to appear to. They have nothing to add to society that smoking doesn't add.
Commercial, governmental, and emergency services are the only groups that can defend their driving as a necessity in any shape or form. These groups are obviously going to need to drive in order to accomplish their jobs. Personal driving is another story. There is no justification for it. And that group comprises by far the majority of drivers.
No, it wouldn't. More busses. That's it. Infinately cheaper than making smoking illegal. Gas prices would drop by half instantly as the consumership of gas would be practically nullified, making a snowball effect.
The harmful effects of driving are inherent in its use. The harmful effects of smoking require decades of use to be inherent. Therefore driving is worse than smoking.
Well you shouldn't be doing that. Today you shouldn't be able to. If you can, it's likely a temporary scenario. But you shouldn't be putting a kid into a car either. And neither should you be exposing childrens' fragile lungs to the nastiness that comes out of millions of exhaust pipes.
If you drive long enough to equal the amount of smoking that would need to ocurr, you and the child would almost certainly have died in accidents a hundred times over. And the childs lungs would have been damaged by your exhaust and everyone elses exhaust(though admittedly the damage is lessened while actually in the car).
I do not disagree that I am biased, I obviously am. But don't pretend you know more than I do, when such is obviously not the case. Neither you nor Matt has come up with a single credible argument, and neither of you will. You can successfully argue to limit smoking and I will not fight you. But the idea of banning it altogether is unnacceptable and stupid beyond belief. I will not stand for such.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Congratulations. You have officially joined the WooWoo "Scientists are part of a conspiracy" crowd.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Yay! Another meaningless and stupid post by Matt. What a surprise! I now am on the edge of completely giving up on your intellect in this topic. You have one more chance to say something that has value to the subject before I simply ignore your stupidity in the remainder of this topic.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Would you guys please put a stop to this or get a room?
I've been letting this go on because I thought you guys might be adult enough to resolve this peacefully, but I think my faith in you both might have been misplaced.
You're hogging bandwidth and being a pain in my ass. Drop it or take it to PMs.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Alright, I understand now, I think. I assumed you hadn't looked into this topic because of the way you and Matt were trading insults.
I definitely don't support making cigarettes illegal, that would be ridiculous.
However, I still disagree with the statement above. Automobiles are our #1 means of modern transportation. It allows us to move from place to place. Cigarettes, on the other hand, is just an addictive brain stimulator, like alcohol or caffeine. The product itself doesn't have any benefits other than seducing people with its enticing poisons. Its importance in society is only the inevitable result of the fact that so many people use it.
Or, better yet, don't let kids do anything at all because they might get hurt.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
I think that both theists and atheists would agree that the existence of the soul is not a scientific fact. In fact even if you would not agree with that, the fact remains that the existence of a "soul" has never been documented.
Some (theists?) might argue that in the future we might observe, test and investigate the existence and properties of the soul. To that I would like to respond with the famous occam's razor argument.
There are observable reasons for properties of the human mind which some would assign to the soul: the human brain in all it's complexity. The idea of an immortal essence of life originates from the fear of our known mortality of our body, to suggest that a human emotion is proof of the natural world is not a valid argument, it's an appeal to majority.
Even more important, since the existence of a soul has not been observed, how can we even describe properties to it? Where do these properties orginate from?
Can we use the scientific method of logic on the subject of the soul? I would argue that we can not since properties and an onthology are pure speculation. Science has it's uses but it can't prove the non-existence of anything.
The effects of drugs and alcohol on the human brain and our knowledge of the processes involved explain the problem the concept of the soul has perfectly. We know that these substances can effect our personality, even permanent changes have been observed by almost everyone on the planet.
Don't we all know at least one alcohol or drug abuser whose personality has changed remarkedly? Science explains it all, even the hypothesis of the existence of a soul would fail miserably because we can never agree on the properties as long as we can't observe it!
Hambydammit has clearly shown that alcohol and drugs illustrate that the idea of the existence of a soul is irrational. The burden of proof is upon those who believe in the existence of the soul, and if I remember correctly a believe is irrational because it lacks method.
Excellent post though Hambydammit, I've yet to read a post that is even slightly comparable.
"I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our senses, reason, and intelligence wished us to abandon their use, giving us by some other means the information that we could gain through them."
- Galileo Galilei -
It was unfortunate, but as I stated, and then Hamby reinforced, it is done.
But, Matt does support that, which is what my semi-ridiculous response was geared to.
We will have to agree to disagree.
That's exactly where I was going.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
EDIT: There was a response in here but the formatting was screwed. I'll get back to it.
Smoking
Smoking cigarettes causes a host of medical problems including lung cancer, mouth cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, emphysema, heart disease, vascular disease, and erectile dysfunction. What we need to do is make smoking illegal where it will join the culture of heroin and cocaine and my kids will never think that anyone besides degenerate bums would smoke. Anything that we can do to discourage anyone from getting addicted to cigarettes would be a wonderful thing.
The health care for disease resulting from smoking costs the average wage earner $1000 per year in the form of increased taxes, health and life insurance. You smokers have no fucking right to cost me $1000/year. Smokers cost us far more per year than alcoholics or crack addicts or heroin addicts.
We should seriously consider mandatory electroshock treatment or cutting their fingers off so they can’t hold a fucking cigarette.
If you're addicted to nicotine then just get some gum or a patch but stop smoking. Really
Sorry the fucking cigarettes killed my mother - I wish she was still alive even if she had no fingers.
when you say "faith" I think "evil lies"
when you say "god" I think "santa clause"
........and of all those disease he, for some reason, bolded erectile disfunction.
People have had brain injuries that made them forget specific parts of their memories. So you get hit in the head and you can not remember anything from the Disco era (What a blessing). But the soulist can not explain partial memory loss if the memory is stored in the soul. It is not reasonable to think that, whatever fictional mechanism interacts between the soul and the body, that it could be injured in such a say that some memories could be transmitted and other memories could not be transmitted?
Similarly, some people have lost just their short term memory or just their long term memory. How is it possible for the mechanism for transferring memories from the soul to the body be injured so that you can still remember long term things and not remember short term things?
The soulist can not show that its even possible that humans have souls. How coulds they possibly work?
It seems like it the soul was designed by a trickster God to make us think that it does not exist.
This is like claiming that the sun does not generate light, but only reflects light magically created continuously by god. You see the trickster God is only fooling us with modern physics to think that the sun could independently generate light.
when you say "faith" I think "evil lies"
when you say "god" I think "santa clause"
Yes, I thought it was the only disease that was likely to concern Vastet.
Now, can you explain why you would have noticed?
when you say "faith" I think "evil lies"
when you say "god" I think "santa clause"
Because it was bolded.
Are you claiming that your interest in whether Vastet gets erectile dysfunction from smoking is that erectile dysfunction is bolded.
I think all of us here are adult enough to know better than that.
when you say "faith" I think "evil lies"
when you say "god" I think "santa clause"