Metsfanmax wrote:
I don't care
disagree with what Kant said
universalizability (i.e. the categorical imperative)
You know what, you win the debate. I will stop arguing with you.
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Metsfanmax wrote:
I don't care
disagree with what Kant said
universalizability (i.e. the categorical imperative)
saxitoxin wrote:Your position is more complex than the federal tax code. As soon as I think I understand it, I find another index of cross-references, exceptions and amendments I have to apply.
Timminz wrote:Yo mama is so classless, she could be a Marxist utopia.
natty_dread wrote:Do ponies have sex?
(proud member of the Occasionally Wrongly Banned)Army of GOD wrote:the term heterosexual is offensive. I prefer to be called "normal"
MeDeFe wrote:Metsfanmax wrote:
I don't care
disagree with what Kant said
universalizability (i.e. the categorical imperative)
You know what, you win the debate. I will stop arguing with you.
john9blue wrote:there have been societies throughout history without restrictions on who can practice medicine or what kind of medicine can be practiced. there have also been societies with a heavily socialized approach to medicine. there have NOT been any successful societies that have come close to being completely free of religion. i believe that itself qualifies as evidence against the idea that a society without religious morals could thrive.
Chariot of Fire wrote:As for GreecePwns.....yeah, what? A massive debt. Get a job you slacker.
Viceroy wrote:[The Biblical creation story] was written in a time when there was no way to confirm this fact and is in fact a statement of the facts.
Lionz wrote:Whether or not light is constant and always has been... would it be wrong to create Adam in an adult body surrounded by fruit bearing trees that were less than a week old?
GreecePwns wrote:john9blue wrote:there have been societies throughout history without restrictions on who can practice medicine or what kind of medicine can be practiced. there have also been societies with a heavily socialized approach to medicine. there have NOT been any successful societies that have come close to being completely free of religion. i believe that itself qualifies as evidence against the idea that a society without religious morals could thrive.
And at one point or another there was a point where that argument can be applied to literally everything, so that argument is a really weak one. Why do anything innovative ever, then?
GreecePwns wrote:Instead, can you debate the actual merits of the idea? You don't seem to find anything wrong with the claim that there is a point where people will ditch otherworldly motives for altruistic behavior and solely rely on worldly ones, that point being X amount of worldly incentives toward altruistic behavior, and Y amount of awareness of said incentives. If you agree with this, then once X and Y are reached, religion has a net negative value on society. It would have nothing special to compel others toward altruism, and only the negative factors will remain.
natty_dread wrote:Do ponies have sex?
(proud member of the Occasionally Wrongly Banned)Army of GOD wrote:the term heterosexual is offensive. I prefer to be called "normal"
john9blue wrote:GreecePwns wrote:john9blue wrote:there have been societies throughout history without restrictions on who can practice medicine or what kind of medicine can be practiced. there have also been societies with a heavily socialized approach to medicine. there have NOT been any successful societies that have come close to being completely free of religion. i believe that itself qualifies as evidence against the idea that a society without religious morals could thrive.
And at one point or another there was a point where that argument can be applied to literally everything, so that argument is a really weak one. Why do anything innovative ever, then?
since when is atheism innovative?
i thought atheism was the "default"?
in fact, i thought most atheists considered newborn babies to be atheists? lol.
surely if atheism was beneficial to society then we would have seen more societies throughout history without religion. it is not a radical concept unless people explicitly make it one. there is a reason religion is present in most every successful society.GreecePwns wrote:Instead, can you debate the actual merits of the idea? You don't seem to find anything wrong with the claim that there is a point where people will ditch otherworldly motives for altruistic behavior and solely rely on worldly ones, that point being X amount of worldly incentives toward altruistic behavior, and Y amount of awareness of said incentives. If you agree with this, then once X and Y are reached, religion has a net negative value on society. It would have nothing special to compel others toward altruism, and only the negative factors will remain.
there isn't one single point where this happens. everything is situational and everything varies from person to person. and i don't see why there couldn't be both supernatural and natural motives for being virtuous, even within the same person.
chang50 wrote: For the umpteenth time John whether god exists or not is a question that is,totally,100%, seperate from the question of whether belief in his existence is beneficial to society.You appear fixated to the point of obsession with linking the two.
natty_dread wrote:Do ponies have sex?
(proud member of the Occasionally Wrongly Banned)Army of GOD wrote:the term heterosexual is offensive. I prefer to be called "normal"
john9blue wrote:chang50 wrote: For the umpteenth time John whether god exists or not is a question that is,totally,100%, seperate from the question of whether belief in his existence is beneficial to society.You appear fixated to the point of obsession with linking the two.
the current discussion is about religion's effect on society. if you don't like it then don't participate. i'm not trying to prove that god exists here.
Because people throughout history have used otherworldly causes to explain mundane natural events? Because in many societies open rejection of the religion of choice has severe negative consequences in the family and in society? Various causes, none of which mean it is a more effective way of extracting altruism from individuals.john9blue wrote:surely if atheism was beneficial to society then we would have seen more societies throughout history without religion. it is not a radical concept unless people explicitly make it one. there is a reason religion is present in most every successful society.
As I said before, in capitalism monetary transactions aren't done primarily in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're done in order to add value (monetary and otherwise) to a group or individual. In capitalism, this belief trumps any religious belief in the overwhelming majority of economic actors. Are you willing to say that 50% + 1 of people in modern society think otherwise?there isn't one single point where this happens. everything is situational and everything varies from person to person. and i don't see why there couldn't be both supernatural and natural motives for being virtuous, even within the same person.
Chariot of Fire wrote:As for GreecePwns.....yeah, what? A massive debt. Get a job you slacker.
Viceroy wrote:[The Biblical creation story] was written in a time when there was no way to confirm this fact and is in fact a statement of the facts.
john9blue wrote:religion is not the ONLY thing keeping society civilized, but it helps. as time goes on, people are getting smarter and seeing more and being able to further grasp the implications of their actions, which generally leads to a more ethical society.
i don't think it's fair to use the "decline of religion" as a reason for our increasing cultural empathy, because that's a pretty recent "thing".
john9blue wrote:no, but once again technology allows me to make better cultural choices. if i used an argument in the 16th century that was valid but based on false premises, then i can use it now when i have correct premises based on our knowledge of history.
john9blue wrote:surely if atheism was beneficial to society then we would have seen more societies throughout history without religion. it is not a radical concept unless people explicitly make it one. there is a reason religion is present in most every successful society.
john9blue wrote:i thought atheism was the "default"?
in fact, i thought most atheists considered newborn babies to be atheists?
Haggis_McMutton wrote:I'm not claiming decline of religion has caused decline of violence. I'm claiming that the fact that decline of religion has been correlated to decline of violence proves that religion is no longer a major factor determining violence rates. It may have been in the past. I don't know,
Exposing the myth of religious violence means something else: the careful demolition of the variously argued idea that in ostensible contrast to rational, modern, secular ideologies, there is something distinctively disruptive, divisive, and dangerous about religion that makes it, across historical epochs and cultures and peoples, inherently prone to irrational, intractable violence. Because of this, the argument goes, religion must be resolutely corralled and controlled by the benign secularism of the liberal state, if necessary by justifiable, pacifying violence of the stateās own.
tzor wrote:Haggis_McMutton wrote:I'm not claiming decline of religion has caused decline of violence. I'm claiming that the fact that decline of religion has been correlated to decline of violence proves that religion is no longer a major factor determining violence rates. It may have been in the past. I don't know,
But is this really a fact? There is an interesting book review about the book The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict by William T. Cavanaugh. It argues that you can't study violence in Europe as a function of religion alone but as a combination of religion, political and social forces.Exposing the myth of religious violence means something else: the careful demolition of the variously argued idea that in ostensible contrast to rational, modern, secular ideologies, there is something distinctively disruptive, divisive, and dangerous about religion that makes it, across historical epochs and cultures and peoples, inherently prone to irrational, intractable violence. Because of this, the argument goes, religion must be resolutely corralled and controlled by the benign secularism of the liberal state, if necessary by justifiable, pacifying violence of the stateās own.
Haggis_McMutton wrote:tzor wrote:Haggis_McMutton wrote:I'm not claiming decline of religion has caused decline of violence. I'm claiming that the fact that decline of religion has been correlated to decline of violence proves that religion is no longer a major factor determining violence rates. It may have been in the past. I don't know,
But is this really a fact? There is an interesting book review about the book The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict by William T. Cavanaugh. It argues that you can't study violence in Europe as a function of religion alone but as a combination of religion, political and social forces.Exposing the myth of religious violence means something else: the careful demolition of the variously argued idea that in ostensible contrast to rational, modern, secular ideologies, there is something distinctively disruptive, divisive, and dangerous about religion that makes it, across historical epochs and cultures and peoples, inherently prone to irrational, intractable violence. Because of this, the argument goes, religion must be resolutely corralled and controlled by the benign secularism of the liberal state, if necessary by justifiable, pacifying violence of the stateās own.
I'm not sure which part of my statement you're arguing against.
I'm not trying to prove any kind of causal relationship here. I'm not trying to argue that religon is "disruptive, divisive, and dangerous" (though that might be a different interesting discussion).
John is making the argument that religion causes us to be civilised. I'm just trying to refute that.
I think that in modern society religion has no significant effect on violence rates, neither positive nor negative.
Haggis_McMutton wrote:I'm not claiming decline of religion has caused decline of violence. I'm claiming that the fact that decline of religion has been correlated to decline of violence proves that religion is no longer a major factor determining violence rates. It may have been in the past. I don't know,
Haggis_McMutton wrote:John is making the argument that religion causes us to be civilised. I'm just trying to refute that.
Haggis_McMutton wrote:I think that in modern society religion has no significant effect on violence rates, neither positive nor negative.
tzor wrote:Here is the quote that I was refuting (in bold).Haggis_McMutton wrote:I'm not claiming decline of religion has caused decline of violence. I'm claiming that the fact that decline of religion has been correlated to decline of violence proves that religion is no longer a major factor determining violence rates. It may have been in the past. I don't know,
You cannot cite an period in European history where a decline in "religion" was not accompanied by declines in social and political conditions at the same time. Such a period just does not exist.Haggis_McMutton wrote:John is making the argument that religion causes us to be civilised. I'm just trying to refute that.
I would not say that religion causes us to be civilized; I would say that some religious people can put a damper on our natural tendency to be uncivilized. They are generally in the minority.Haggis_McMutton wrote:I think that in modern society religion has no significant effect on violence rates, neither positive nor negative.
I would suggest that religious protesters generally are less violent than non religious protesters. The union protests in the past few years are vastly more violent than the pro-life marches in DC for the past few decades. I don't think that would impact violence rates as such people are generally non violent in the first place.
tzor wrote:Here is the quote that I was refuting (in bold).Haggis_McMutton wrote:I'm not claiming decline of religion has caused decline of violence. I'm claiming that the fact that decline of religion has been correlated to decline of violence proves that religion is no longer a major factor determining violence rates. It may have been in the past. I don't know,
You cannot cite an period in European history where a decline in "religion" was not accompanied by declines in social and political conditions at the same time. Such a period just does not exist.Haggis_McMutton wrote:John is making the argument that religion causes us to be civilised. I'm just trying to refute that.
I would not say that religion causes us to be civilized; I would say that some religious people can put a damper on our natural tendency to be uncivilized. They are generally in the minority.Haggis_McMutton wrote:I think that in modern society religion has no significant effect on violence rates, neither positive nor negative.
I would suggest that religious protesters generally are less violent than non religious protesters. The union protests in the past few years are vastly more violent than the pro-life marches in DC for the past few decades. I don't think that would impact violence rates as such people are generally non violent in the first place.
Haggis_McMutton wrote:Are you arguing the same point as john, that we still need religion. If so, what do we need it for? Do you think it's still a big factor in keeping violence rates down or something of that nature?
This claim is unfalsifiable. How does Jefferson know what the Almighty Stuff wants for us? Does he have access to knowledge that we don't? How?tzor wrote:Jefferson in the declaration would refer to "the laws of nature and of nature's God," not per se as an appeal to the Christian Religion, but to the notion that there were inalienable rights that belonged to man not because some man gave them to other men, but because it was given to them because it was fundamental to the nature of man.
Chariot of Fire wrote:As for GreecePwns.....yeah, what? A massive debt. Get a job you slacker.
Viceroy wrote:[The Biblical creation story] was written in a time when there was no way to confirm this fact and is in fact a statement of the facts.
john9blue wrote:surely if atheism was beneficial to society then we would have seen more societies throughout history without religion. it is not a radical concept unless people explicitly make it one. there is a reason religion is present in most every successful society.
crispybits wrote:As long as you also believe that Spiderman is real yes
GreecePwns wrote:This claim is unfalsifiable. How does Jefferson know what the Almighty Stuff wants for us? Does he have access to knowledge that we don't? How?
In truth, there are no natural "rights," just privileges that a society agrees to give to its members through a social contract.
GreecePwns wrote:That these "rights" are amendable contradicts directly the idea that they something given to us by the Almighty Stuff, let alone anything other than privileges supported by an overwhelming majority.
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