Welcome to the Free Talk Live bulletin board system!
This board is closed to new users and new posts.  Thank you to all our great mods and users over the years.  Details here.
185859 Posts in 9829 Topics by 1371 Members
Latest Member: cjt26
Home Help
+  The Free Talk Live BBS
|-+  Free Talk Live
| |-+  General
| | |-+  A Question to the Athiests
Pages: 1 ... 9 10 [11] 12   Go Down

Author Topic: A Question to the Athiests  (Read 45191 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Rillion

  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6804
    • View Profile
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #150 on: January 12, 2010, 01:29:33 PM »

The point being that the "little children" were most likely teenage boys, which means they were considered full adults in Jewish culture.  Plus, it is implied that they were accusing Elisha of murdering his master Elijah and faking his mourning (bald head).
http://www.tektonics.org/af/callahanproph.html#2kin223

Oh, that makes it perfectly all right to send bears to maul them to death!  Issue resolved.

 :roll:

Problem being its factually incorrect. True a 13 year old becomes a man in the legal sense but he wouldn't be an adult in Jewish culture for years.

Umm, I think the problem is that sending bears to maul people for mocking a bald guy is sociopathic regardless of how old they are.  

[youtube=425,350]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Qzf8q9QHfhI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Qzf8q9QHfhI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/youtube]
« Last Edit: January 12, 2010, 02:05:58 PM by Rillion »
Logged

fatcat

  • Guest
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #151 on: January 12, 2010, 02:12:43 PM »

If the lesson was not to taunt your elders, why couldn't the story be about kids who....don't taunt their elders?  Or God showing up and saying "Hey kids, knock that off.  That's not nice!"

Having them killed by bears is a sociopath's morality tale. 
Because it's a story.  Perhaps an R rated story.

Or maybe it's because Jews like eating children who talk back to their elders!

Can you explain how stoning non virgin brides and killing men who have sex with other men is just a story or a "twisted" thing you're meant to learn from?
Logged

BobRobertson

  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 929
    • View Profile
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #152 on: January 12, 2010, 02:43:41 PM »

The Non Aggression Principle is at least consistant, and although it could be used to rationalize shooting IRS agents that still first requires the existence of IRS agents.
Even that can be resolved with a minimal/proportional response restriction... but does not address Diogenes's root question (as I perceive it) of why one would choose to adopt any particular system of ethics.

Indeed, I believe this is why we have both courts and reputation. Even someone who people think gets away with murder (OJ, for example) still has to deal with reputation.

Such a "propportionate response" issue is a social issue, since what constitutes an acceptable "proportionate" response depends upon using hindsight. For instance, when I lived in Massachusetts, the "social standard" there was to retreat. If someone was to come at you with a baseball bat, and you were physically incapable of retreating, only then was it deemed acceptable to defend yourself, but only with another blunt instrument. Actually shooting the perp was not "proportionate" unless they had a gun first.

...unless one was a cop, then shooting someone was just fine.
Logged
"I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776 to acquire self-government and happiness to their country is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it."
-- Thomas Jefferson, April 26th 1820

anarchir

  • Extraordinaire
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5103
  • No victim, no crime.
    • View Profile
    • Prepared Security
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #153 on: January 12, 2010, 03:07:11 PM »

The point being that the "little children" were most likely teenage boys, which means they were considered full adults in Jewish culture.  Plus, it is implied that they were accusing Elisha of murdering his master Elijah and faking his mourning (bald head).
http://www.tektonics.org/af/callahanproph.html#2kin223

IF what they meant was to talk about people that were old enough to be considered adults, they would have. And no, I dont think it matters what they were implying.  It was still a terrible thing to do, whatever the "little children" were saying. Pretend it is 80 old men, cackling and making fun of him. Why would god grant Elisha's wish and do such a thing? Couldnt the bears have roared at them as a warning? Or some lightning struck down to scare them?

Quote
and he saw through prophecy that they would grow up to be terrible people.

Oh I see, so children are not innocent, and its OK for god to slaughter them because in the end they (that whole group of 42) would have grown up to be evil.

Quote
It seems that religions define their ethics arbitrarily and with a major focus to pragmatic issues of the moment.

BINGO!
Logged
Good people disobey bad laws.
PreparedSecurity.com - Modern security and preparedness for the 21st century.
 [img width= height= alt=Prepared Security]http://www.prepareddesign.com/uploads/4/4/3/6/4436847/1636340_orig.png[/img]

cavalier973

  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 688
  • You can't take the sky from me
    • View Profile
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #154 on: January 12, 2010, 03:18:15 PM »


Problem being its factually incorrect. True a 13 year old becomes a man in the legal sense but he wouldn't be an adult in Jewish culture for years.

Perhaps not in modern Jewish culture, but what of ancient Hebrew culture?  What does the Talmud say about this?

It's not from the Talmud, but a rather longish commentary on ancient views of "adolescence" vs. today: http://www.daveblackonline.com/want_to_reform_your_youth_minist.htm

I found this, that doesn't relate to the question of how ancient Hebrews viewed a teenager's status as adult vs. child; but it has some interesting comments on the passage:
http://www.idrah.org/?page_id=77
Logged
For God and Free Trade

Diogenes The Cynic

  • Cynic. Pessimist. Skeptic. Jerk.
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3727
    • View Profile
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #155 on: January 14, 2010, 04:07:31 AM »

People who think you need religion to be a good person scare me.  They must think that w/o their religion they wouldn't be, which makes me think they're not.

Yes, that really bugs me, too.

"We need religion!"
"You mean you would be evil without a fear of hell?"
"No, not for me, for the other people!"

Same rationalization as for the State. There must be laws to restrain other people from doing evil.

Most religious people I know don't focus on the hell angle.
Logged
I am looking for an honest man. -Diogenes The Cynic

Dude, I thought you were a spambot for like a week. You posted like a spambot. You failed the Turing test.

                                -Dennis Goddard

Diogenes The Cynic

  • Cynic. Pessimist. Skeptic. Jerk.
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3727
    • View Profile
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #156 on: January 14, 2010, 04:22:24 AM »



Perhaps not in modern Jewish culture, but what of ancient Hebrew culture?  What does the Talmud say about this?

It's not from the Talmud, but a rather longish commentary on ancient views of "adolescence" vs. today: http://www.daveblackonline.com/want_to_reform_your_youth_minist.htm

I found this, that doesn't relate to the question of how ancient Hebrews viewed a teenager's status as adult vs. child; but it has some interesting comments on the passage:
http://www.idrah.org/?page_id=77

Actually, we have regressed on this a bit. The Gemara recommends a certain age for men and women to get married, and these days, its not uncommon for Chassidim to get married before that age.

Ancient Hebrew culture didn't value youth like American culture does today.
Logged
I am looking for an honest man. -Diogenes The Cynic

Dude, I thought you were a spambot for like a week. You posted like a spambot. You failed the Turing test.

                                -Dennis Goddard

BobRobertson

  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 929
    • View Profile
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #157 on: January 14, 2010, 09:00:49 AM »

Most religious people I know don't focus on the hell angle.

Do you agree or disagree with the premise, that YOU would not harm others with or without religion?

Is your faith the only reason you don't harm others?
« Last Edit: January 17, 2010, 03:22:56 PM by BobRobertson »
Logged
"I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776 to acquire self-government and happiness to their country is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it."
-- Thomas Jefferson, April 26th 1820

shezmu

  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 85
    • View Profile
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #158 on: January 17, 2010, 12:05:42 PM »

Didn't read the whole thread so my apologies if this has been brought up before.

That said, why do you ask this question only to atheists? No religion that I know of actually has a set of moral principles. All religion's ethical principles come down to "do A and don't do B because C told you to and he will do D to you if you don't do as C commands". I'm sorry, but this is not ethnics, this is just someone telling you what to do.

Ethics by definition are universal to all rational beings, otherwise they're just suggestions and commandments. Religious "morality" cannot logically be universal because no sane individual could apply such "ethical" commandments as "thou shall not kill" to God and not see him/her as a vile, mentally unstable monster who creates people that he knows will grow up to rape and kill people.

Logged

Richard Garner

  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 303
    • View Profile
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #159 on: January 17, 2010, 12:12:44 PM »

It is tiresome that two and a half thousand years since the Euthyphro people are still asking questions like this, as though morality is somehow dependent on God's will.

Does God will us to do X because it is moral, or is it moral to do X because God wills it? If the latter, then we clearly get the answer that anything could be moral dependent on the whims of the deity. We also get the question of why God's mere willing us to do X makes X moral - what are the causal relations? If the former, then doing X would clearly still be moral whether or not God willed it, for reasons entirely independent of the fact that he willed it, and in fact he wouldn't even need to exist for doing X to still be moral.
Logged

fatcat

  • Guest
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #160 on: January 17, 2010, 12:18:00 PM »

It is tiresome that two and a half thousand years since the Euthyphro people are still asking questions like this, as though morality is somehow dependent on God's will.

Does God will us to do X because it is moral, or is it moral to do X because God wills it? If the latter, then we clearly get the answer that anything could be moral dependent on the whims of the deity. We also get the question of why God's mere willing us to do X makes X moral - what are the causal relations? If the former, then doing X would clearly still be moral whether or not God willed it, for reasons entirely independent of the fact that he willed it, and in fact he wouldn't even need to exist for doing X to still be moral.

Important point.

I'd like to see Diogenes reply to this cause I believe I brought it up a while back and never got a direct response.
Logged

The ghost of a ghost of a ghost

  • Owned by Brasky. Deal with it.
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1026
    • View Profile
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #161 on: February 07, 2011, 02:03:37 AM »

God can eat my un-shaved asshole.
Logged

Diogenes The Cynic

  • Cynic. Pessimist. Skeptic. Jerk.
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3727
    • View Profile
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #162 on: February 07, 2011, 07:00:46 PM »

God can eat my un-shaved asshole.

The G-d you don't believe in?
Logged
I am looking for an honest man. -Diogenes The Cynic

Dude, I thought you were a spambot for like a week. You posted like a spambot. You failed the Turing test.

                                -Dennis Goddard

The ghost of a ghost of a ghost

  • Owned by Brasky. Deal with it.
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1026
    • View Profile
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #163 on: February 07, 2011, 10:43:36 PM »

If "god" would toss my salad

I would beleive.
Logged

BobRobertson

  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 929
    • View Profile
Re: A Question to the Athiests
« Reply #164 on: February 08, 2011, 09:02:37 PM »

No religion that I know of actually has a set of moral principles.

You might want to search Google Tech Talks on YouTube and Google Video, for the Buddhist talks.

They may very well surprise you. Their directness and willingness to question everything, including their own precepts, is very refreshing.
Logged
"I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776 to acquire self-government and happiness to their country is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it."
-- Thomas Jefferson, April 26th 1820
Pages: 1 ... 9 10 [11] 12   Go Up
+  The Free Talk Live BBS
|-+  Free Talk Live
| |-+  General
| | |-+  A Question to the Athiests

// ]]>

Page created in 0.022 seconds with 33 queries.