Hitchen's Challange

[sojourner]

You need to redefine your religion, like seriously.

Srrsly? An ad hominem is all you’ve got in response to this? Fortunately, you’re not an authority on Christianity, and you’re not an authority within my judicatory. You’re not even in a position to judge my spiritual condition. Yet here we are. You’re going to have to step up your debate game, Skeezix.

 

[SkepticThinker]

...one who endorses homosexuality is apparently oblivious to part that gender plays in a relationship, or one's character.

Oh? Do tell.

What does homosexuality say about "one's character?" What part does gender play in a relationship that makes only opposite sex couples compatible with each other?

This should be interesting.

When you're done answering that, can you tell me how many gay people you actually know and speak with on a daily basis?

 

[SkepticThinker]

What do you mean by giggles? Did you actually mean chuckles or levity? What about humour or laughs? Is it your goal to tell a joke or two, as a means to digress from the austerity of the topic at hand? What instrument do you use to measure humour? Can you quantify one's reaction to joke, with any sort of reliable and consistent precision? What if you were to translate the joke into another language, would is still have the same effect?

You wanna hear a joke, I know a guy who thinks that infamous, and once incarcerated, charlatans, are what they profess to be.

You should answer those questions too, while you're at it. You're the person who is claiming such things are quantifiable.
Your obfuscation really backfired on you this time, didn't it?

 

[Yazata]

Proof, please. BTW: what’s the standard universal metric for wisdom? And what instrument is used to measure it?

That really sounds like scientism to me. If it isn't quantifiable, if it isn't measurable with instruments, then it doesn't exist or can otherwise be dismissed?

That problematizes truth, good and beauty. The principles of logic might be in trouble too.

 

[sojourner]

That really sounds like scientism to me. If it isn't quantifiable, if it isn't measurable with instruments, then it doesn't exist or can otherwise be dismissed?

That problematizes truth, good and beauty. The principles of logic might be in trouble too.

I get that — and I agree. My point with the post was to point out the absurdity in the position that atheists lack wisdom. How does the poster know this? Can he quantify that position for proof, or is he merely spouting a biased opinion? (We both know the answer to that question.)

 

[Yazata]

Evil is subjective?

Yes, I'm inclined to think so.

Are you like, devoid of any wisdom whatsoever? You sit there and have incessantly called me a bigot

Yes, that's a pretty obvious difficulty. People announce that there's no objective right and wrong, then start frantically denouncing all the perceived evils around them: "racism!", "bigotry!" and no end of similar perjoratives. As if there's some objective truth to the matter.

As society becomes more atheistic, paradoxically its becoming increasingly moralistic. Which is a little bizarre in my opinion.

Meaning, since according to you, in another context or opinion, my denunciations would be considered acceptable and commendable

Yes, I think that's how it works. If we lived in ancient Judea or seventh century Arabia, our ethical principles would be radically different than they are in contemporary America.

I don't believe that right and wrong exist without human beings that define them. They are "socially constructed" as they say. So I think that they are subjective in that way. Historically, judgements of right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable have been all over the map in different societies.

But since social values are social, they aren't subjective in a personal choice way. They are what we might call quasi-objective since they are functions of how the majority of the people around us believe and behave. Perhaps a way to express it is "relativism" as opposed to "subjectivism".

then why the flippin' heck do you bother to cast aspersions in the first place, Mr. double standard, ...or just downright confused?

I think that "progressives" are trying to change society to conform to their own personal ethical and behavioral intuitions. They are all about what they call "social change". They are all about turning their personal-subjective values into socially quasi-objective values.

When they call you a "bigot", they aren't really saying that you are wrong in any objective way, that you violate natural law or God's will. They are telling you that you have no place in the ideal society that they are trying to create. They are saying that you will either have to change yourself to be just like them, or you will have to disappear.

Which leads to another obvious contradiction, since it violates their fundamental principles of "tolerance" and "celebrating diversity". To them 'diversity' means racial and "gender" diversity, but it most emphatically does not include intellectual or moral diversity.

Arguably it can't. If values are socially constructed, and if a society has inshrined "anything goes" as its basic principle, then it won't have any other values beyond that, almost by definition. The kind of social unanimity which construct social values would be absent. It's a recipe for nihilism.

So that's why the velvet glove of "liberalism" so often seems to conceal the iron fist of authoritarianism. You have the liberty to live your life as you like, provided only that it doesn't violate their intuitions of right and wrong. You are given the freedom to be just like them.

Christians and conservatives are as guilty as that as the atheists and "progressives". It might arguably be the human condition, the price we pay for living in social groups. We shouldn't delude ourselves otherwise.

 

[DNB]

Oh? Do tell.

What does homosexuality say about "one's character?" What part does gender play in a relationship that makes only opposite sex couples compatible with each other?

This should be interesting.

When you're done answering that, can you tell me how many gay people you actually know and speak with on a daily basis?

I don't care to hang around homosexuals. I don't approve of what they flaunt as natural, healthy and inconsequential. I try to avoid them as much as I can.

 

[DNB]

Instead of deflecting, you could just grace us with answers to the questions I posed. I used the term “giggles,” because your bombast is silly. The minute YOU become serious about the claims you make is the minute I’ll take your “austerity” seriously.

What did you think of my joke? Funny, or not? Relevant, or non-sequitur?
...I'm supposed to take someone serious who thinks that Jim Bakker is an authentic Christian? What would you think if I labelled all American Presidents based on my views of Donald Trump?

 

[sojourner]

What did you think of my joke? Funny, or not? Relevant, or non-sequitur?
...I'm supposed to take someone serious who thinks that Jim Bakker is an authentic Christian? What would you think if I labelled all American Presidents based on my views of Donald Trump?

Jim Bakker says he’s a Christian. I take him at face value. And Jerry Falwell, Jr. and any other nasty person. It’s not my place to judge their relationship with Jesus. Do they love Jesus? I don’t know. Does Jesus love them? Absolutely. And that’s the basis for our spiritual condition. Perhaps you’re privy to some secret information that no other human being has?

Oh! Still waiting for your answers to those questions I posed. There. Must be some empirical data to inform your assertion. Unless, of course, its basis is opinion and not fact.

 

[Sheldon]

Character and good judgment, discernment and prudence.

None of which are compatible with hate speech, and homophobic bigotry. Or with denying accepted scientific facts, like species evolution or the age of the earth. Or believing in global flood myths, even after they have been demonstrated as false.

 

[Sheldon]

...one who endorses homosexuality

Homosexuality does need anyone's endorsement, as I stated, anymore than heterosexuality does, if you learned to read posts, instead of blindly repeating your mantra of homophobic hate speech, you might understand that.

is apparently oblivious to part that gender plays in a relationship, or one's character.

Why don't you try explaining it, without resorting to sweeping unevidenced claims about archaic superstition.

 

[Sheldon]

You're obsessed with homosexuality, not that there's anything wrong with that.

You're right, but not in a healthy good way, sadly. Though it does make me wonder why anyone would care that much about other people's sex lives.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Sometimes the Christians are worse than the atheists.

The implication being that "in general" atheist are bad people?

 

[robocop (actually)]

The implication being that "in general" atheist are bad people?

In general, those who strive to be good are the better people and there's no way around it.

Think of it this way. Church goers may be worse people, but the system in place can help them be better.

 

[lukethethird]

You're right, but not in a healthy good way, sadly. Though it does make me wonder why anyone would care that much about other people's sex lives.

Maybe he protests too much.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

In general, those who strive to be good are the better people and there's no way around it.

Think of it this way. Church goers may be worse people, but the system in place can help them be better.

You specifically contrasted christians with atheists.

The implication of the way you worded it clearly is that in general "atheists are bad" and that "sometimes" christians are "even worse" but in general "christians are better".


This is a despicable insinuation. And wrong to boot also, if we go by prison demographics where proportionally virtually no atheists end up in secular democracies.

Go look at US prison stats for example. Less then 1% of prison population is atheist, while they make up more then 10% of the general population. Atheists in prison are thus extremely underrepresented.

Meaning they are far less likely to engage in criminal behavior.

Not that it's a contest and I would never use such numbers to make any kind of despicable point. But if someone comes up with such insulting and despicable comments like you just did, I am more then happy to point out such stats.

 

[robocop (actually)]

You specifically contrasted christians with atheists.

The implication of the way you worded it clearly is that in general "atheists are bad" and that "sometimes" christians are "even worse" but in general "christians are better".


This is a despicable insinuation. And wrong to boot also, if we go by prison demographics where proportionally virtually no atheists end up in secular democracies.

Go look at US prison stats for example. Less then 1% of prison population is atheist, while they make up more then 10% of the general population. Atheists in prison are thus extremely underrepresented.

Meaning they are far less likely to engage in criminal behavior.

Not that it's a contest and I would never use such numbers to make any kind of despicable point. But if someone comes up with such insulting and despicable comments like you just did, I am more then happy to point out such stats.

What I said was, churches are there to help bad people. Churches are like a gym for morality.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

What I said was, churches are there to help bad people. Churches are like a gym for morality.

Are they? Are they, really?

I disagree.
Instead, I see churches as gyms for false hope and the pretense of being about morality, but really they are about dogma.

There's plenty of immoral nastyness embedded in christian churches - some more then others.

We can go to extreme examples like the Phelps.
We can go to more common examples like general homophobia.



Having said that.... no, that's not what you said.
What you said was "Sometimes christians are worse then atheists".

This implies that you think atheists are always bad and that some christians are even worse.
And I didn't see you post anything in which you retract that implication by for example saying that you expressed yourself poorly and that it's not what you actually meant.

 

[Sheldon]

In general, those who strive to be good are the better people and there's no way around it.

Think of it this way. Church goers may be worse people, but the system in place can help them be better.

I think you mean might, not can, and that's a claim that is rather undone by all the law abiding moral atheists out there. Why do people need divine diktat in order to see that violent crimes like rape and murder are deeply pernicious, and traumatise others in the worst possible way? Is it only atheists who are capable of empathetic reasoning then?

 

[sojourner]

I don't care to hang around homosexuals. I don't approve of what they flaunt as natural, healthy and inconsequential. I try to avoid them as much as I can.

“But I’m not unkind or bigoted in any way. As a Christian, I always see the face of Christ in those around me.”