The Great Debate, PTB vs A. Fox Starts Here

[David Sklansky]

To get the ball rolling I propose the following question which Pair The Board should assume is coming from Andy. After he answers, its just the two of them please.

Hi PTB,

I hear you are a nice guy and that Sklansky thinks us two are the most eligible of all the forumites to go to heaven. I am also impressed by the fact that many of your posts contain the rarely used word around here "maybe".

What I can't understand though is why you seem to feel a personal God and a divine Jesus are so likely (and necessary) to exist, especially given your stance on natural occurrences and a non literal interpretation of the bible. Do you think it is impossible for an atheist to be as good a person (by your standards) as some sort of believer? And if if is possible do you think it is less likely? I personally believe that atheists are at least as likely if not more likely to be good people. Do you disagree?

Secondly why does your suspicions that God and/or Jesus use only natural, within the laws of physics means to accomplish anything, not force you into facing the fact that both these entities are very possibly not really real? At least not in any way similar to the bible desciptions. Given your apparant theories, where's the flaw in taking it one step further and saying that the bible was simply primitive man's way of making sense of the myriad of apparantly astounding things they saw. Things that in those days did not appear to all be controlled by a few scientific and logical precepts. So they not surprisingly invented a supernatural God and Jesus.

You have already conceded that the God and Jesus of the bible was filtered through ancients man's prejuudices. So why couldn't those prejudices have caused them to make them up out of whole cloth? I'm not suggesting you give up the idea of God completely. Maybe he caused the Big Bang. But you seem to believe in a lot more than that. Why?

[bambi]

Dude to long to read when you are drunk.

learn to accept others are different, they are not all as smart as you and me.

ps, i bet you are really disapointed this is the first response to your thread

[PairTheBoard]

DS --
"To get the ball rolling I propose the following question which Pair The Board should assume is coming from Andy. After he answers, its just the two of them please."

I will not assume these questions are coming from Andy. They are obviously coming from you David.

DS --
"I hear you are a nice guy and that Sklansky thinks us two are the most eligible of all the forumites to go to heaven. I am also impressed by the fact that many of your posts contain the rarely used word around here "maybe"."

You are evidently easily impressed David.

DS --
"What I can't understand though is why you seem to feel a personal God and a divine Jesus are so likely (and necessary) to exist, especially given your stance on natural occurrences and a non literal interpretation of the bible"

I never said that God or a divine Jesus were "likely to exist" or "necessary". I don't find these arguments about existence very interesting. I do find it interesting when someone reports having had some kind of spiritual experience producing a profound impact on their life. If they use the language "God" or "Christ" I respect the language that they use. I find it especially interesting when this kind of experience is broadbased, produces an historical movement, and has a similiarly profound impact on history. I can't help but wonder if such people are on to something worth learning about.

DS --
"Do you think it is impossible for an atheist to be as good a person (by your standards) as some sort of believer? "

"Impossible" is a big word and "atheist" is a broad category. I think there are a lot of things that can motivate people to living good lives. I don't see the use of "god" language being a prerequisite.


DS --
" And if if is possible do you think it is less likely? I personally believe that atheists are at least as likely if not more likely to be good people. Do you disagree?"

You and your probabilties again. I don't see people like Stalin making your case for you. I don't see anything in Atheism itself that would motivate a person to special regard for his fellows. Whereas a religion based on the golden rule has the golden rule going for it. I'm guessing your argument is that there's a correlation between intellegence, being good, and being an atheist. If so I think that's a case you have to make.

I'll have to continue this tomorrow.

PairTheBoard

[PairTheBoard]

btw David, before I go any further, did you send the Other $500 to Cedars-Sinai?

[RJT]

Pair,

I wasn't the least bit worried about putting my money on you. Now, with this great start of yours, I will even give odds.



RJT

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
Whereas a religion based on the golden rule has the golden rule going for it, I don't see anything in Atheism itself that would motivate a person to special regard for his fellows.

[/ QUOTE ]

But... in response to Sklanskyandy's question[ QUOTE ]
Do you think it is impossible for an atheist to be as good a person as some sort of believer?

[/ QUOTE ]

you just responded
[ QUOTE ]


"Atheist" is a broad category. I think there are a lot of things that can motivate people to living good lives. I don't see the use of "god" language being a prerequisite.

[/ QUOTE ]

[andyfox]

"I do find it interesting when someone reports having had some kind of spiritual experience producing a profound impact on their life. If they use the language "God" or "Christ" I respect the language that they use. I find it especially interesting when this kind of experience is broadbased, produces an historical movement, and has a similiarly profound impact on history. I can't help but wonder if such people are on to something worth learning about."

-What exactly is a "spiritual experience?" If it refers to something nonocorporeal, something somehow "otherworldy," or inexplicable, isn't that usually just something that exists only in the mind of the experiencer? Or something that they made up? If this type of experience then becomes broadbased, it is usually because other people are gullible or easily cowed or afraid. Advertising, power, money, politics--those are the things that make something a broadbased historical movement. I do agree it is probably something worth learning about.

Nothing wrong with using the word "God" or "Christ" (or "Sklanskyanity") for such an experience except when using such words are the basis for distinguishing between Good and Bad. (And also when using such words leads to claiming, for example, that St. Francis levitated while praying.) All too often, those who have used the words "Christ" or "Allah" have believed that those who deny those words are to be punished, both in this life and the next.

"Impossible" is a big word and "atheist" is a broad category."

-You are implying that it is less likely for an atheist to be a good person than for some kind of believer. That might be so in the sense that, were I in the proverbial dark alley with two unknown men following me, I would much prefer that they just came out of church than a bar. But it also might be true that some kind of believer is less likely to be a good person than an atheist: in the sense that, were I on a plane that the FBI and CIA had identified as a likely terrorist target, I would much prefer that the middle eastern men on the plane be atheists than religious. Or had I been living in what became Massachusetts in 1600, I would much have preferred that the Europeans who came have been atheists than Christians.

"I think there are a lot of things that can motivate people to living good lives. I don't see the use of 'god' language being a prerequisite."

-"God language" is an interesting choice of words. Are you saying that motivation to live a good life must, ultimately, no matter what we call it, come from God, or from having some concept of god? Why not say:

"I think there are a lot of things that can motivate people to living good lives. I don't see a belief in God as a prerequisite."


"I don't see people like Stalin making your case for you."

-Well, there aren't a lot of people like Stalin. And Communism was a type of religion, no?

"a religion based on the golden rule has the golden rule going for it."

Agreed. Which religion is that though? When religion was more important in the Christian world than it is now, Christians' relationships with non-Christians didn't exactly bespeak of a devotion to the Golden Rule. Aren't people who, for example, think homosexuality is a sin today more likely to be religious Christians than those who think what two consenting people do in the privacy of their own homes is their own business (provided that behavior does not hurt anyone else)? I'm by no means an expert on any religion, but my reading of the Bible (Old Testament only) reveals, to me, a blustering, cruel, vindictive, clannish, punative god, who speaks in the language of plagues and destruction and punishment, not love.

[andyfox]

BTW, I hope you're not expecting Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis here.

[RJT]

Now that Pair and Andy have both taken up the gauntlet, I think it would be a good idea if they were formally introduced. A little profile of the two, so those newer here (including myself) can have a quick synopsis of them and a bit of explanation of how this all got started and how it came to culminate in this OP.

I assume David S. will act as the moderator; if for no other reason, than his name appears in RED. I suppose too, he will be the final arbitrator, if for no other reason than because some would say that he is just as likely to be God as anyone else.

The very least, if David S. would add some narration to the discussion as it proceeds. You know, kinda like Mike Sexton (oh, I better watch myself).

Just a thought.

[PairTheBoard]

I'm still waiting to hear from David whether he sent My half of the $1,000 to the Cancer Research Fund yet.

I'll give further responses to David's OP questions here.

DS --
"Secondly why does your suspicions that God and/or Jesus use only natural, within the laws of physics means to accomplish anything, not force you into facing the fact that both these entities are very possibly not really real?"

When I use the term "God" I use it as a convenience because that's the term everybody else is using. I see the word more as a pointer to something real that people experience and which is probably best understood with poetic language rather than with descriptive language. If I may now use the word in that sense, what I notice is that whenever people try to nail God down with logically consistent descriptive language they either kill him or he squirts away. That's poetic language btw. You say he must be described as an "entity" so that you can argue about whether this "entity" exists. You lose me as soon as you insist on the descriptive word "entity".

It seems to me that a modern scientific view of the world around us just assumes that natural laws are not broken. People lose me when they even talk of God as an entity, much less when they insist he is some kind of Trickster Being that breaks natural laws (Magic) to impress us. That kind of description of God just seems like an artifical human construction to me. Understandable though, when coming from prescience concepts of the world.

But just because people in the past interpreted things according to their prescience views of reality doesn't mean that their inner experiences are null and void. I use the term "spiritual" experience again as a matter of convenience, to indicate an inner experience which produces a profound life affirming and life changing impact. I think they are real, evidence abounds that they happen, they have been prime movers in history, and they point to something that is worth looking into.

Do such "spriitual experiences" require use of "god" language. I don't think so. Buddism impacted the world very much like Christianity did yet it did not use "god" language. I know atheists who have had such profound life changing inner experiences. I'm not sure if they all object to the term "spiritual" or not. I think some do not.

PairTheBoard