Do you people just post to read your own bullshit? Or do you actually believe all this philosophical nonsense? Occans Razor and God! My GOD! What assholish NONSENSE!!!

God, by definition, is INFINITE!!! He is therefore BEYOND the comprehension of your stupid, limited human minds and rejects by definition all your assinine, stupid, limiting arguments.

What a fucked up stupid assholish z"look at me I'm smarter than you" argument this is. It's only purpose is for you to stroke youe own ego....not define God, who by definition is Undefinable.

Morons.....

krellin - who pissed in your Wheaties tonight?

@ crazy anglican, from yesterday: I guess underlying what I was saying was that I've heard many muslims argue that the quran's being written by one man, rather than accrued over thousands of years, is somehow 'proof' that it's the inerrant word of god. Which always seemed odd to me.

As to whether all religions are equivalent, I guess it depends what you mean. Certainly they are not all the same, and there are some that I 'prefer' because their philosophy and practice are a closer fit to my world view and ethics - but to my mind, all are equivalently 'true'

@ hopsyturvy:
"I guess underlying what I was saying was that I've heard many muslims argue that the quran's being written by one man, rather than accrued over thousands of years, is somehow 'proof' that it's the inerrant word of god. Which always seemed odd to me."

Yeah, me too.

@hopsyturvy (again)
"I guess it depends what you mean. Certainly they are not all the same, and there are some that I 'prefer' because their philosophy and practice are a closer fit to my world view and ethics - but to my mind, all are equivalently 'true'"

That's an interesting statement, it sounds almost as if you're saying the some have more truth (you agree with them more because they fit your ethics and worldview better), but they are all equivalently "true" (meaning, I assume, that you reject them all). Do I understand your statement rightly?

"... define God, who by definition is Undefinable".

I just thought that was really funny. :-)

Yes - except that I don't think of ethical statements as truth statements. And even if I did, the premise of religion is essentially that ethics come from God - when evaluating the truth of that, it's irrelevant whether you agree with the ethics themselves. Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day

Occams razor is only something that you use after both options prove to be logically equivalent.

Such as the Brain in a Vat concept vs. What we normally perceive as reality. Since you can't prove either of these concepts wrong, you must rely on Occam's razor to say: "Hey, the brain in a vat concept is way more complicated that just believing that our reality is the true reality, so let's just, for the sake of simplicity, believe that we are not brains in a vat."

Saying that god is beyond our comprehension is such a cop-out.

@KoD
"Saying that god is beyond our comprehension is such a cop-out."
It might be true.

" except that I don't think of ethical statements as truth statements. And even if I did, the premise of religion is essentially that ethics come from God - when evaluating the truth of that, it's irrelevant whether you agree with the ethics themselves."

Then, for instance, if I said that I believe premeditated homocide to be wrong. Then I'm right (or at least I've made an ethical judgement with which many would agree).

-however-

If I say that I believe premeditated homocide is a sin, then I'm as wrong as someone who believes that human sacrifice is demanded?

Not all clocks are broken, and not all broken ones tell the right time twice a day.

I do really think you are just as wrong, in the sense of incorrect. The only truth revealed by my preferring you to hold one of those beliefs over another is about me, not about the universe or right/wrong itself.

Your argument hinges on the fact that you expect me to agree with you on a given ethical question. What if I liked the idea of human sacrifice, the world is overpopulated anyway. Would that negate your argument? What if you'd chosen a more nuanced pair of religious beliefs?

That's not quite where I was going with the argument. I agree that your ethical choices say more about you than the universe. I do, however, disagree that it says nothing about right/wrong itself (that's a different argument though). The point is that you consider them all equally wrong based on the assumption that there is no God as the source for their ethics/morals (therefore they are equally wrong in your view, even the ones that are more right or the ones that are pretty much perfectly right). That's where the broken clock analogy breaks down.

Merely stating that they all operate on a similar premise, which isn't the case for some (Bhuddhism comes to mind), doesn't negate the message of the religion. That's a bit like saying "the education system in this country is terrible so all schools are equally terrible even the truly outstanding ones". It's a fundamentally flawed premise. You are in effect dismissing all of them based on one point (that morals/ethics cannot flow from God) which may or may not be true. It allows you to dismiss all without having to actually evaluate them.

Unless I've misunderstood what you are saying your argument basically boils down to this

You believe all religions are equally false (incorrect) because you don't believe in God and therefore God cannot be the source of their teachings.

**... therefore you believe God cannot be the source of their teachings**