Michael Shermer vs. RC priest Father Jonathan Morris...
Posted on: December 31, 2010 - 12:55am
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Michael Shermer vs. RC priest Father Jonathan Morris...
Michael Shermer vs. RC priest Father Jonathan Morris...
OK, this comes from a thread that was deleted due to it being a troll. Even so, I was able to retain the links which were presented. A couple of them are really good enough for further discussion. Without further adieu:
And part two:
NoMoreCrazyPeople wrote:
Never ever did I say enything about free, I said "free."
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The links exist on FoxBusiness.com
I am VERY GLAD that even FOX News starts talking about this 'goddish' idiotism.
When did this debate actually air?
First off, John should correctly call himself an agnostic theist.
Secondly the guy in the audience said that belief in hell and the devil served as a counter balance to keep one moral.
How many times have we heard this?
How sad is it for someone to feel they need daddy to scold them or threaten to spank them? Isn't it more moral to do something even when no one is watching?
It would be frightening to think such a being existed. That we are being watched, even during sex and going to the bathroom, from the time we are born to the time we die. And all for what? So that we can kiss someone's ass for eternity?
I will say this about FOX, after seeing this, I get a slightly less urge to puke knowing what network aired this.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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That woman in the audience asked my favorite question. "What if you're wrong?" What if he is? (I would say "what if we are" but technically I would classify myself as an agnostic theist and not a true atheist although I'm pretty borderline as to wether I lean more towards the side of doubt or belief) What if My Jewish grandmother and Hindu friends and all the the Muslims and Buddhists and Native Americans are wrong? Isn't what this woman is really asking is--what if she's right? Because there are an infinite number of ways an atheist could be wrong and be fine. For example if Juddism is the true religion we'll just go to our sheol along with the woman who asked this question and every other Christian and non-Jew and cease to exist. But if she is right, well then I guess we're all going to hell.
Now let's turn the question around--what if she's wrong. If there is no god at all she suffers no eternal ill effects from her decision to believe. But isn't it just as likely that there is some non Christian god who will punish all his (or her, or its) non-believers with its own form of eternal damnation as it is that there is a Christian god that will send her to heaven? We're all taking a gamble in our belief systems whether we're atheist, Jewish, Catholic, Confusionist, etc, etc. Picking a religion just because you're afraid to be wrong is so completely non-sensical it baffles my mind. Pascals Wager completely falls apart at it's very onset because there are so clearly more than just two options--either there is a god or there isn't but there are still an infinite number of gods to choose from.
Well first off,
Atheism is not a belief. Lots of people, even agnostics, seem to have that idea but really there is a categorical distinction between believing in nothing and not believing in anything.
Past that, there is a chance that we are all wrong. There are as many ways to be wrong as there are ways to be a theist (+1 if you include atheism). So how about if it turns out in the end that it was Mumbo Jumbo god of the Congo that was the deal?
Well, in that case your Jewish grandmother, the pope, the archbishop of Canterbury, The Dali Lama and I are all pretty much equally fucked. Unless, of course the great dude turns out to really be merciful as I would count the term.
Then he will look over the list and say that those who believed in weird shit based on no actual evidence are really fucked. I did not believe in weird shit because there was no evidence to merit such. I did go with science which does have evidence and that is pretty much how he made the whole damned universe. So even if I don't get let in to whatever his particular version of Valhalla is, I ought to get to stop existing.
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Signature ? How ?
That priest was kind of creepy. Like Marshall Applewhite creepy.
I think he makes a better point in his next segment about stocks then the whole debate... Aside from this not really being a debate, the whole "morality argument" that theists make is so obviously unbalanced as to be idiotic. That is the Stalin argument. Stalin was an atheist, Stalin was evil, hence being an atheists makes you evil... Every other dictator before that was most likely some sort of theist or other. I mean... name every pope out there, every roman emperor, every other emperor or king.... it's so idiotic as to make me mad.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
I just find the whole 'morality' thing a total fail for God believers.
The parodoxes of the Problem of Evil, and The Euthyphro dilemma, are just so basic.
Coupled with a perspective on the history of the world, all the 'evils' which beset us which are built in to the structure of the Earth - earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, droughts, etc - and the world of life - diseases, parasites, cancer, birth defects, frailties of old age, etc, none of which can be attributed to human agency, that idea that any supreme being, if he exists, is in any way caring or loving is just perverse.
Even if you swallow the need for a Creator being, which has no logical force, there is absolutely no logical necessity for such a being to be benevolent or 'good' in any sense, and the evidence we do have is that He manifestly is not.
Any informed intelligent person clinging to anything like a conventional God belief is certifiably insane. Satanism is more plausible...
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