Summer means no religion or politics?

[SSH]

religious people who feel the need to exclude other origin ideas (including but not limited to the big bang), want to convert everyone in sight, and want to save everyone's soul. These people too consider their personal believes to be facts that should be forced upon everyone-else's lives; and those people too should be opposed to. Fortunately this group reflects only a limited percentage of religious people, and most religious people accept that their assumptions are their personal believes rather than facts.

But if someone believes that all the people they meet are going to burn in hell if they don't beleive the same as them, then surely they have a moral obligation to try and save them from that.

If I believed that a man was going to come and shoot you in the middle of the night tonight, I'd not be a very nice person if I didn't try and save you from that EVEN IF I WAS MISTAKEN.

I love how so many think that people should have the freedom to believe what they like as long as they don't try and convert people. In other words, you're not allowed to beleive that you should convert people. In other words, there's no freedom of belief at all. Funnily enough, this is one of the restrictions that freedom-loving China places on religions: its OK to be a Muslim/Christian as long as you don't try and tell anyone about it.

[Akatosh]

Lionmonkey: Notice Khris comma placement - it's really important here. He did not say "He could not have done that, as he is an Atheist." - you would be rightly shocked by this position, as it's just plain silly to claim that belonging to a certain philosophy makes you downright saintly. What he said was "This action was not caused by his Atheism.", and he is right with that. Absence of belief in an idea does not, in itself, cause people to take actions.

Oh, and I never claimed you claimed you had that education. I just wanted to point out that you made a really, really basic mistake there, and that it's probably not a good idea to debate using terms of formal logic without really knowing how it works.

SSH: The problem is not that people try to spread their religion. The problem is when they get pushy. If you follow that idea to its logical conclusion... isn't it better to push down unbelievers, to make their life a living hell, to torture, brainwash and break them until they believe? After all, as atrocious as this is, you are saving them from eternal hellfire...

/EDIT: Also, we just broke 800 posts. Go us?

[SSH]

SSH: The problem is not that people try to spread their religion. The problem is when they get pushy. If you follow that idea to its logical conclusion... isn't it better to push down unbelievers, to make their life a living hell, to torture, brainwash and break them until they believe? After all, as atrocious as this is, you are saving them from eternal hellfire...

That's only the logical conclusion if you beleive that doing such things induces belief. Which I don't.

[Akatosh]

... that means that if you were convinced you could brainwash people into believing, you would do it? Let's assume a new method of torture was devised. It inflicts excruciating pain and totally breaks a person's will, to the point that you can directly mold their personality, their morals and their beliefs. This is not just a protective reflex, and the person cannot fake it - you truly alter their 'soul', for lack of a better term. By your logic, you would have a moral obligation to use it on unbelievers.

Read Calvin's anti-tolerance writings on occasion; you'll be amazed by how much his initial thoughts mirror yours.

Ladies and gentlemen, feel the Christian love.

[SSH]

... that means that if you were convinced you could brainwash people into believing, you would do it? Let's assume a new method of torture was devised. It inflicts excruciating pain and totally breaks a person's will, to the point that you can directly mold their personality, their morals and their beliefs. This is not just a protective reflex, and the person cannot fake it - you truly alter their 'soul', for lack of a better term. By your logic, you would have a moral obligation to use it on unbelievers.

Lets assume instead that God makes a bowl of porridge so big that he can't eat it and thus ruins his omnipotence. Hey look, I can come up with impossible hypothetical situations, too!

Anyway, it not working is hardly the only reason I wouldn't torture someone.

[Akatosh]

You're still dodging the question. If you could, hypothetically speaking, force a person to believe... would you do it?
(It's not that unlikely, by the way... brainwashing can do scary stuff to you, and the methods are getting more and more refined.)

Also, thanks for pointing out a logical problem with the concept of omnipotence.

[Khris]

Lionmonkey:
Listen. This is the axiom: "IF a is true and b is true, THEN a is true."
The axiom doesn't make any claim about whether a is true.
There's nothing to believe here.
I think you're having trouble understanding this because an axiom is so obvious and self-evident, a tautology, like you said. But that's just the way it is.
Another example would be: "x = x". (Given that x is part of a formal language, I think. Look up axiom on wikipedia.)

Like NsMn said, "earth is round" is not an axiom but a scientific fact. (Which doesn't mean it's 100% true.)

About the atheist stuff, Akatosh explained it perfectly.
I didn't even realize one could read that sentence another way (although that would indeed require an additional comma).

[SSH]

You're still dodging the question. If you could, hypothetically speaking, force a person to believe... would you do it?

No. There, undodged.

Now, if you could force people to STOP believing woudl you do it? If not, lets take THAT to its logical conclusion and thus say you shouldn't bother even trying to persuade people not to. So shut ya face!  

Seriously, though. Is either of us trying to persuade the other only allowable becuase of its inefficacy?

Goin back to your earlier quote:

The problem is not that people try to spread their religion. The problem is when they get pushy.

Who gets to draw the line and where? And I think you'll find that some of the people here don't even like "unpushy" evangelism.

[Akatosh]

You're still dodging the question. If you could, hypothetically speaking, force a person to believe... would you do it?

No. There, undodged.

Alright, thank you. That's a relief to hear. However...

Who gets to draw the line and where?

Unbelief endangers souls, after all! Shoudn't you take active steps to prevent it from spreading, by, say, outlawing the expression of different viewpoints? Why tolerate Atheism? Why allow freedom of opinion to those others? And if you allow your neighbor to go to hell by not doing literally everything you can to make them believe... isn't that against "loving thy neighbor"?

With the right mindset, it's a very slippery slope from "you should push your belief" to "you should be enforcing your belief". Once again, read those anti-tolerance tracts on occasion. They're chilling.

Now, if you could force people to STOP believing woudl you do it?

No, why would I? You are the guys who assign an intrinisic value to buying into your philosphy, not we. To an Atheist, it doesn't matter if you die a believer or not - so you can belief in whatever you want, as long as you don't try to enforce your belief on others. We don't mind the believing - we only mind the intolerance. It's different with religion.

Is either of us trying to persuade the other only allowable becuase of its inefficacy?

So you complain that trying to convince people with arguments is inefficient? That... strikes me as rather worrying again. Argumenting on a rational basis should be the single and only way used to convince people, plain and simple.

[SSH]

Who gets to draw the line and where?

Unbelief endangers souls, after all! Shoudn't you take active steps to prevent it from spreading, by, say, outlawing the expression of different viewpoints? Why tolerate Atheism? Why allow freedom of opinion to those others? With the right mindset, it's a very slippery slope from "you should push your belief" to "you should be enforcing your belief". Once again, read those anti-tolerance tracts on occasion. They're chilling.

But now you're dodging the question. You said its only a problem when people trying to spread the beliefs are pushy. Who decides when they get too pushy? Can we agree that not allowing them to talk about their faith at all is too restrictive and letting them torture people is too pushy. Where in between those extremes is the allowable line in your opinion? What about door-to-door evangelism? Handing out tracts? TV advertising?

Now, if you could force people to STOP believing woudl you do it?

No, why would I? You are the guys who assign an intrinisic value to buying into your philosphy, not we. To an Atheist, it doesn't matter if you die a believer or not - so you can belief in whatever you want, as long as you don't try to enforce your belief on others. We don't mind the believing - we only mind the intolerance. It's different with religion.

So why are you bothering arguing with me?

Is either of us trying to persuade the other only allowable becuase of its inefficacy?

So you complain that trying to convince people with arguments is inefficient? That... strikes me as rather worrying again.

No, that's not what I meant at all. (also, inefficient means somethign different to ineffective ) You said that you would never try and force me to stop beleiving. So the difference with tryign to persuade me with arguments and forcing me is simply the effuicay (100% versus, say, 0.1%)

Let's take an example where your words are so persuasive that anyone you decide to convince to agree with you would do so without any pain or suffering on their part. Would you then go round convincing everyone that you are right? You're still forcing them whether there is pain involved or not.

My guess is no, you wouldn't go around getting rid of others free will and you agree that it would be morally dubious to do so. Which kind of proves that the whole torture thing is a red herring: both situations are unacceptable (and impossible).

If one believes in an omnipotent god then god coudl painlessly make everyone believe in him. But then if god wanted robots then he would have mde robots.

[Akatosh]

But now you're dodging the question. You said its only a problem when people trying to spread the beliefs are pushy. Who decides when they get too pushy? Can we agree that not allowing them to talk about their faith at all is too restrictive and letting them torture people is too pushy. Where in between those extremes is the allowable line in your opinion? What about door-to-door evangelism? Handing out tracts? TV advertising?

Ok, have a personal definition: If you ask somebody to stop trying to convert you and they don't, if you try to suppress differing viewpoints (as opposed to debating them) or if you try to force people into believing (as opposed to lying out the facts and letting them decide themselves), you're being pushy. Ads are annoying, but I'm ok with those, as you can always just walk away, for example. As are tracts, and people handing out fliers. It depends for door-to-door preachers; if they stay away when you tell them to, they're fair play.

So why are you bothering arguing with me?

Stupidity? I mean, I debate religion on the interwobs.

Anyway. There's a difference between trying to show people the flaws in their beliefs and trying to take them away. See below.

No, that's not what I meant at all. (also, inefficient means somethign different to ineffective ) You said that you would never try and force me to stop beleiving. So the difference with tryign to persuade me with arguments and forcing me is simply the effuicay (100% versus, say, 0.1%)

Let's take an example where your words are so persuasive that anyone you decide to convince to agree with you would do so without any pain or suffering on their part. Would you then go round convincing everyone that you are right. You're still forcing them whether there is pain involved or not.

As I tried to explain, I am not trying to get you to stop believing. What I'm trying to do is to show up flaws in your philosophy - you know, making the implications clear, poking at things that don't quite match, examining the inconsistencies and so on. The conclusion you draw is up to you; you can try to patch the holes as best as possible and fall back on "well, you just gotta belief", or you can pick up a different philosophy. It's up to you.

Sorry if I got "ineffective" and "inefficient" mixed up. But isn't the former just sort of an extreme version of the latter?

[MrColossal]

I love how so many think that people should have the freedom to believe what they like as long as they don't try and convert people. In other words, you're not allowed to believe that you should convert people.

You also can't shout fire in a theater but we still have freedom of speech so I think it's not too crazy!

Point being we already have limited freedoms.

[SSH]

I love how so many think that people should have the freedom to believe what they like as long as they don't try and convert people. In other words, you're not allowed to believe that you should convert people.

You also can't shout fire in a theater but we still have freedom of speech so I think it's not too crazy!

Point being we already have limited freedoms.

Ah, but what if you beleive the theatre is actually on fire....

[Akatosh]

... despite not being able to procure compelling evidence when asked?

[SSH]

But its compelling enough for some people... I'd drag the skeptics out of the burning theatre but then they'd probably claim I was being too pushy  

[Akatosh]

Keep in mind that it's a theatre that shows no obvious signs of fire, and that you apperantly can't explain to the skeptics why you think it's burning despite absence of evidence, and that there are other people like you around who claim similar things but urge people to take completly different exit routes.

It's not really the best of analogies. Also, do I smell a hint of Pascal's Wager here? 

[MrColossal]

Again, point being we already have limited freedoms.

We also have limited religious freedom it just doesn't affect the big ones as obvious ways. So sarcastically loving people who think religious freedom is ok as long as it's limited is forgetting that it's already like that.

[SSH]

Keep in mind that it's a theatre that shows no obvious signs of fire, and that you apperantly can't explain to the skeptics why you think it's burning despite absence of evidence, and that there are other people like you around who claim similar things but urge people to take completly different exit routes.

In my version of the analogy all the people in the theatre are blind...

[Akatosh]

And in my version, you're confusing the flickering of the projector for smoke, ignoring that the fire can be neither heard nor smelt in addition to being appearantly invisible. I think the analogy just breaks down at this point. 

[SSH]

In my version..... UR MOM!