Part troix
Octavious wrote: ↑Thu Jan 31, 2019 6:05 pm
flash2015 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:13 pm
I only ask that the minority don't try and impose their values on everyone else by the force of law.
The trouble is that "wanting people to not impose values on others" is in itself a value you hold which you want to impose on others
. "If only people would just behave like what I think they should, the world would be a much better place", said everyone ever
I guess this part is partially tongue in cheek...but I am impressed by your what I call "Verizon logic" (in opposing Net Neutrality, Verizon famously claimed that network neutrality was against the first amendment because it impeded their ability to censor the internet in any way they liked). It is an ambitious argument, but it doesn't really hold water.
Again, at some point you do get down to some fundamental principles on how a democratic society should function. If Christians are allowed to impose their morals on society, why not the Muslims as well? Why don't we bring back sodomy laws and start stoning adulterers?
On this last part, I fell for your over-generalization debate and responded with generalizations of my own. It was probably not the right response (we are delving into "ad hominem" land) and it detracts from the discussion. But I am not pulling these generalization out of my behind as I believe you may have been. I will go through your responses one by one.
flash2015 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:13 pm
the large difference between the religious and atheists on societal issues is that religious people are told what to think and told not to question, non-theists think for themselves.
Lol! If you truly thought for yourself it wouldn't take you long to convince yourself of the utter nonsense of that statement
If you had said my generalization was overbroad and said not all religious people are like that, that would have been a reasonable response. But to claim you have special knowledge in this area which allows you to dismiss my claim without any evidence I think makes you not credible here.
I think I may have mentioned that I was a Catholic in my younger years...or did you skip that part? I went through 12 years of Catholic schooling. I have either had these discussions personally or I know of people have tried to have discussions on many topics you are not supposed to question.
And the Catholic Church in Australia is far more liberal than the Church here which is even more strict. Many, many times Catholic politicians have been either threatened with excommunication or denied communion because they espouse a position which may be in conflict with the Church (I think this most famously hit John Kerry in 2004):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excommuni ... t_abortion
The Church recently was chastising nuns for daring to even slightly disagree with Church teachings (one of many articles on this spanning many years):
https://www.pri.org/stories/2012-12-18/ ... ts-us-nuns
And I am just scratching the surface. There is A LOT of history with the Church shutting down debate on a whole range of sensitive topics.
And let's not get started on other religions too (e.g. Islam).
Of course there are many Christian churches that are not like this, but if you are not realizing a large percentage are like this then you are denying reality. The whole point of Christianity is that morals are laid down by God, not humans. How are you supposed to disagree with God? You could say choose a different Church, but that is an acknowledgement that what at least a lot of Churches believe about morality DOES NOT come directly from God as people have been told. At least in my experience any Catholics have to go through an uncomfortable version of "Don't ask, Don't tell" to not always obey the Churches teachings but they know not to question the orthodoxy on it.
No, what you are doing here is abandoning reason and instead looking for excuses not to listen to the other side :)
Here again you are just making stuff up without **any** knowledge at all about me to brush away my assertion. If you actually knew me, you would know I actively seek out opinions I disagree with, not to as Ben Shapiro says "destroy them with my superior reasoning" but because I actually see these sort of discussions to learn something and I freely admit I often get things wrong. My views are subject to change without notice :).
I even sat through Ben Shapiro's speech at the right to life march on youtube and I probably spend way more time than I should reading/watching all this stuff. Again if you are really wanting to challenge my assertion here, you need to do better than "back at you, na na na na na".
flash2015 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:13 pm
because people are supposed to "obey without question" they can become hopelessly outdated
Yes, we're well and truly away with the fairies here. Obey without question? Gosh. Do you know many religious people? Deary me.
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You really haven't thought this through, have you? We have Christian people in 2018 saying that evolution is wrong and that the world was created in 6 days because their pastor said so. Again, this isn't all Christians, but you can't give me the "No True Scotsman" argument here either.
Again, this is all just a distraction from the real argument at hand here. And there are lots of wonderful religious people and wonderful non-religious people in the world and I don't think either side has a monopoly on the moral high ground. It was a mistake for me to respond to your over-generalization bait. I shouldn't have done it.