Saturday, December 22, 2012

How to save mothers and children from religion

I'll play Crude's request here. I guess once they realize this, they will abandon Christianity and accept Richard Dawkins as their Lord and Savior.

37 comments:

BeingItself said...

I agree that the post by Stefanelli is idiotic.

But Christians are doing a much better job of highlighting the absurdities of what Christians believe than any atheist could. Witness the recent reaction by Bryan Fischer.

Crude said...

I agree that the post by Stefanelli is idiotic.

It's beyond idiotic. It's offensive and creepy, and matches some of the worst stereotypes about religious proselytizing.

And for the Cult of Gnu? It's ignored, or viewed as good advice.

Crude said...

By the way, let's play a game here. It's called, 'consistency.'

Richard Dawkins argues that teaching a child about hell (among other religious beliefs, but hell certainly) is child abuse.

Atheist suggests approaching apparently Christian mothers and, in the most extreme, oversimplified, rawest terms, teaching the child about hell.

Is Al Stefanelli advocating child abuse?

Longstreet said...

My kids would laugh in his face.

Right before my wife punched him in the throat.

"But Christians are doing a much better job of highlighting the absurdities of what Christians believe than any atheist could."
Yawn.

Papalinton said...

Crude
" Richard Dawkins argues that teaching a child about hell (among other religious beliefs, but hell certainly) is child abuse."
" Atheist suggests approaching apparently Christian mothers and, in the most extreme, oversimplified, rawest terms, teaching the child about hell."

So, between the two, you are now running as fast as your little legs can carry you away from owning one of the basic tenets of your religion, hell, a tenet that has taken millennia to bed down in the armoury of contrived control devices borne of the Catholic tradition.
This attitude simply confirms the shallowness of your beliefs and convictions that can be sloughed off at a moment's notice if the going to rationalize and justify gets tough.

Entirely predictable, really.


Ilíon said...

This is something you don't see every day (and something I don't think I've ever seen) -- BenYachov arguing rationally

Crude said...

So, between the two, you are now running as fast as your little legs can carry you away from owning one of the basic tenets of your religion, hell,

Not at all. A) the Catholic teaching of hell is damn different from Stafenelli's version, and B) not all Christian denominations believe in hell.

But that's besides the point. The real issue is that, by Dawkins' standards... Stefanelli is a child molester. And he was advocating molesting children in the name of atheism.

That'll be my last communication to you here for 2-weeks/1-month or so, what with my strict 'don't engage liars and known plagiarists' charge. But feel free to let the blog know if you take Stefanelli's advice, would you? Document it. Show the kind of man you are, again.

Merry Christmas. ;)

Papalinton said...

Put your money where your mouth is Crude. Tell us what the Catholic version of Hell is? and how different it is from Stefanelli's?

Don't say it. Demonstrate it.

Does the catholic version of hell accord with Pope Gregory 1 ("The Great"), as he iterated these words when he made his name getting the Patriarch of Constantine burned at the stake for writing that the resurrection of the dead would be incorporeal:

"The bliss of the elect in heaven would not be perfect unless they were able to look across the abyss and enjoy the agonies of their brethren in eternal fire."

Then you turn to a BBC discussion site where christians, protestant and Catholics are at each other's throats over this saying from Pope Gregory, "The Great", so great, even a Catholic saint no less. Read the christian loving bitch-slapping HERE

Pathetic and sickening, really.

BeingItself said...

I wonder if anyone has studied the prevalence of psychopathy among Popes. It's got to be pretty high. I know that among clergy it far outpaces the general population.

Crude said...

I know that among clergy it far outpaces the general population.

You do? That's fascinating. What's the scientific study showing this again? A link will do nicely.

BeingItself said...

http://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Psychopaths-Saints-Killers-Success/dp/0374291357/

http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/11/professions-most-fewest-psychopaths/

Syllabus said...

I know that among clergy it far outpaces the general population.

Based upon the data in that article, we've no means of knowing what the numbers looked like - all we have is the profession's rating in a top ten list (and it's at the bottom of that list, at any rate). Do you have access to the actual statistical data, rather than just the rankings? Care to put up a link?

The category "clergyperson" is also extremely broad. What are they: priests? Deacons? Rabbis? Mullahs? Imams? Specificity, please.

And even then, given that, what on earth follows? If we were to approach life guided by that list, then we ought to trust our policemen/women, doctors, and news anchors far less than we do our pastors, priests, rabbis, etc., so I'm not sure what kind of point it's supposed to prove.

BeingItself said...

"Do you have access to the actual statistical data"

no

Papalinton said...

Syllabus: "Do you have access to the actual statistical data, ......... The category "clergyperson" is also extremely broad. What are they: priests? Deacons? Rabbis? Mullahs? Imams? Specificity, please."

Crude: "You do? That's fascinating. What's the scientific study showing this again? A link will do nicely."


The irony of it all. Woo-meisters demanding evidence, of all things, of the scientific study, or the statistical data, while at the very same time holding fast onto the hearsay and tattle of a virgin birth, a revivification of a 3-day old putrescent corpse and a physical ( yes, a real live physical no less, not metaphysical) bodily levitation of a fully physical body floating off into the blue beyond, with no call for specificity, or statistical data or the science behind the improbability of these 'trooths'.

The psychological compartmentalization of cognitive dissonance is truly a magnificent functional development of the human brain.


BeingItself said...

Pap,

I suppose if I had said a ghost talking in my head (a la WLC's epistemology) informed me of the clergy/psychopathy connection, these guys would have accepted it without question.

Syllabus said...

I suppose if I had said a ghost talking in my head (a la WLC's epistemology) informed me of the clergy/psychopathy connection, these guys would have accepted it without question.

Apparently you're unaware that a good number of Victor's readers, myself included, don't give two figs for Craig's epistemology of religious experience. So your point is irrelevant.

Son of Ya'Kov said...

@Paps

Fibbing for Godlessness again eh Paps?

>Does the catholic version of hell accord with Pope Gregory 1 ("The Great"), as he iterated these words when he made his name getting the Patriarch of Constantine burned at the stake for writing that the resurrection of the dead would be incorporeal:

No Patriarch of Constantinople was ever burned at the stake Paps. I called you out on that Fib in the past. Repeating it again tis silly.

You & your boy Dawkins advocate doing to children what you denounce as Child Abuse(teach about so form of the doctrine of Hell).

Nuff said.

>Tell us what the Catholic version of Hell is? and how different it is from Stefanelli's?

If BDK, Angra, Im-skeptical, Dan, heck even Matt or Tony asked that question or Cl or Walter on the non-Catholic Theist side I would answer it. But let's face it Paps. You really don't care. You've even broken Bob's great patience.

Oh well! Merry Christmas anyway down there in Kangaroo Land.

Cheers.

Papalinton said...

'Apparently you're unaware that a good number of Victor's readers, myself included, don't give two figs for Craig's epistemology of religious experience,' says one christian about another on their shared experience of personal revelation.

Anonymous said...

http://www.gazette.com/news/church-52777-obermuller-children.html

Papalinton said...

Ben
'No Patriarch of Constantinople was ever burned at the stake Paps. I called you out on that Fib in the past. Repeating it again tis silly."

I think you're right Ben. I found this:
"In Constantinople, Gregory took issue with the aged Patriarch Eutychius of Constantinople, who had recently published a treatise, now lost, on the General Resurrection. Eutychius maintained that the resurrected body "will be more subtle than air, and no longer palpable".[51] Gregory opposed with the palpability of the risen Christ in Luke 24:39. As the dispute could not be settled, the Byzantine emperor, Tiberius II Constantine, undertook to arbitrate. He decided in favor of palpability and ordered Eutychius' book to be burned. Shortly after both Gregory and Eutychius became ill; Gregory recovered, but Eutychius died on 5 April 582, at age 70. On his deathbed Eutychius recanted impalpability and Gregory dropped the matter. Tiberius also died a few months after Eutychius."

It looks as though the book was burned rather than the Patriarch. But then who can tell what really transpired; and just as we are told that Eutychius recanted on his deathbed, [probably as spurious as Darwin is supposed to have converted on his deathbed], the catholic legend has been redacted so often for so long, whatever truth there might have been is indistinguishable from the innumerable theological factoids.

The thread however was more about the prescription and description of hell and its central and fundamental role in church doctrine and dogma. This is an interesting comment:

"The stern moralists of the age held it to be a Christian duty to find pleasure in contemplating the anguish of the sinner. Gregory the Great, five centuries before, had argued that the bliss of the elect in heaven would not be perfect unless they were able to look across the abyss and enjoy the agonies of their brethren in eternal fire. This idea was a popular one and was not allowed to grow obsolete. Peter Lombard, the great "Mater of Sentences," whose "Sentences," produced about the middle of the twelfth century, was the leading authority in the schools, quotes St. Gregory with approbation, and enlarges upon the satisfaction which the just will feel in the ineffable misery of the damned. Even the mystic tenderness of Bonaventura does not prevent him from echoing the same terrible exultation. When such were the sentiments in which all thinking men were trained, and such were the views which they disseminated among the people, it is not to be supposed that any feelings of compassion for the sufferers would deter the most charitable from the rigid exercise of justice.
The ruthless extermination of heresy was a work which could only be pleasing to the righteous, whether simply as spectators or whether they were called by conscience or by station to the higher duties of active persecution. If, notwithstanding this, any scruple remained, the schoolmen easily removed it by proving that persecution was a work of charity, for the benefit of the persecuted."
HERE







Syllabus said...

'Apparently you're unaware that a good number of Victor's readers, myself included, don't give two figs for Craig's epistemology of religious experience,' says one christian about another on their shared experience of personal revelation.

Ahem, no. Really, Paps, this is dense beyond belief. Craig's take on the "self-authenticating" witness of the Holy Spirit is another thing entirely from what I or most other theists on this blogs mean when we talk about personal revelation. Learn the bloody difference before you make inane comments.

Papalinton said...

"Craig's take on the "self-authenticating" witness of the Holy Spirit is another thing entirely from what I or most other theists on this blogs mean when we talk about personal revelation."

And this is not dense? And throw in opaque as well.
Tell me, what part of what you mean 'personal revelation' is not 'self-authenticating'?
Syllabus, your self-delusions are legion. Rocks in your head.

Longstreet said...

^^^^^^^^^
Sadly enough, that post actually makes more sense and is more relevant to the topic at hand than any of Paps.

Merry Christmas!

Papalinton said...

"Sadly enough, that post actually makes more sense and is more relevant to the topic at hand than any of Paps."

Is it any wonder that societies and people are voting with their feet and leaving religions in ever increasing numbers?

1. Leaving Religion Behind: A Portrait of Nonreligious America - US ... HERE

2. Why people abandon religion | Holly Welker | Comment is free ... HERE

3. Big drop in number of Irish people who describe themselves as ... HERE

4. New Report: 'A Third of Adults Under 30 Have No Religious Affiliation' HERE

And don't go all silly in pointing to Africa or China in the misguided and misplaced effort to bolster your false hopes. Whatever happens in these regions won't be reversing the inexorable trend in the US, and most other Western nations, towards a post-Christian Western society.

Son of Ya'Kov said...

@Paps,

I told Angra he was bad at using Catholic & Jewish sources but he is an order of magnitude more competent then you Kangaroo dude.

Lea was a well know anti-Catholic Anglican propagandist. You might as well cite Jack Chick and be done with it. Or start an argument with a Jewish Person and cite the so called "Protocols of the Elders of Zion".

None of your citations are in fact accurate or authentic. They are at best mis-characterizations at worst forgeries.

Here is a thought.

Why don't you try quoting Pope St Gregory or Peter Lombard directly and link to an actual un-bias academic source containign their written material?

It's not hard.

Paps your version of Atheism is intellectually inferior.

It's fundamentalism without god-belief nothing more. Heck the fact you cite fundamentalist sources only proves me right.

Merry Christmas.

Son of Ya'Kov said...

Oh and as for your argument with Syllabus it is clear Craig is using a version of Calvin's argument that Scripture is self-authenticating via the testimony of the Spirit which is a little too much like the Mormon method for authenticating the Book of Mormon.

High Church fellows like him, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic will have none of it.

Your low Church neo-radical reformation Atheism doesn't impress us.

Syllabus said...

Tell me, what part of what you mean 'personal revelation' is not 'self-authenticating'?

Oy vey. Why do I even bother?

First, any personal revelation I may or may not experience is an entirely subjective experience, and is amenable to inquiry and reflection by myself when I am not experiencing it. Thus, I can say "I feel this to be true, but I need to seek other grounds for thinking it to be true other than my perception." The sensation may tell me that it is a true apprehension of reality, but it needs to be tested against more or less non-subjective bases in order to be more that a simple assertion about my personal psychology. That is, I don't think that religious experience is nearly enough for me to be absolutely convinced of the truth of some worldview, proposition or whatever. To take another example, I might have an experience which makes me think that Eva Green is utterly, besottedly in love with me, and I might be absolutely convinced that she is. However, under no circumstances would I take a mere fact about my psychology to be a knock-down proof of the thing felt.

Craig's opinion on such matters is as follows:

By that I mean that the experience of the Holy Spirit is veridical and unmistakable (though not necessarily irresistible or indubitable) for him who has it; that such a person does not need supplementary arguments or evidence in order to know and to know with confidence that he is in fact experiencing the Spirit of God; that such experience does not function in this case as a premiss in any argument from religious experience to God, but rather is the immediate experiencing of God himself; that in certain contexts the experience of the Holy Spirit will imply the apprehension of certain truths of the Christian religion, such as "God exists," "I am condemned by God," "I am reconciled to God," "Christ lives in me," and so forth; that such an experience provides one not only with a subjective assurance of Christianity's truth, but with objective knowledge of that truth; and that arguments and evidence incompatible with that truth are overwhelmed by the experience of the Holy Spirit for him who attends fully to it.

from Reasonable Faith

Now, this smacks far too much of fideism for me to take it very seriously (I have a bit of a problem with Plantinga's work on epistemology for similar reasons). Plus, his reasons for disregarding the similar attestations by other worldviews strike me as very unsatisfactory.

So I hope that you've got enough reading comprehension to understand precisely where the differences between what I hold WRT personal religious experience and what Craig holds WRT personal religious experience lie.

Bill said...

There are some interesting intellectually valid arguments in favor of atheism, but this isn't one of them. At best, it's an argument against a particular point of Christian doctrine, which is not uniformly held and upon which Christians have a broad range of opinions and beliefs. Ridiculing a point of doctrine does not disprove the existence of God, of course.

It seems to me that most of the time these militant atheists end up arguing with fundamentalists (their intellectual counterparts), while the vast majority of us (believers and unbelievers alike)just shake our heads and walk away.

Papalinton said...

Syllabus
"So I hope that you've got enough reading comprehension to understand precisely where the differences between what I hold WRT personal religious experience and what Craig holds WRT personal religious experience lie."

The one aspect of your comment that any reasonable and sensible person can conclude is that whatever constitutes as personal religious experience is as nebulous and as shadowy as the number of people having them; anecdotal, conflictual, inconsequential, meaningless [in the context of definition], incidental, serendipitous and uncorroborated [unless of course the experience is a mass hallucination, a state of mind not unknown to science.]

The supposed difference you construe between your's and WLC's POV has as much relevance and meaning as knowing the difference between an Alsatian and a German Shepherd.

Syllabus said...

The supposed difference you construe between your's and WLC's POV has as much relevance and meaning as knowing the difference between an Alsatian and a German Shepherd.

Whatever. Have a happy Christmas. Or Boxing Day, as the case may be.

Papalinton said...

And a lovely Christmas to you, Syllabus. As I post this it is 12.30pm Boxing Day, and I happen to be minding my two grandsons, 8 and 4, and we are heading down to the dam to do a little yabbying. See HERE

Cheers

Ilíon said...

"Oy vey. Why do I even bother?"

'Cause you aren't willing to learn that a willful mashugana is always a mashugana?

Ilíon said...

"There are some interesting intellectually valid arguments in favor of atheism, ..."

There isn't a single one. No God-denialist argument (or "argument", as the case may be) can get aound the Argument From Reason -- Mr Reppert arguest the "weak" version of it, which is daunting enough for God-denial; the "strong" version is fatal.

Ilíon said...

"It seems to me that most of the time these militant atheists end up arguing with fundamentalists (their intellectual counterparts) ..."

People who imagine they can win brownie-points from the God-haters by hating them some "fundamentalists" merely show who their real master is.

Crude said...

The fun never stops at the fun factory.

Here's more from Stefanelli. I'd just like to point out that I was calling them the Cult of Gnu before anyone else. ;)

Ilíon said...

"... Mr Reppert arguest the "weak" version of [the AfR]"

Just to be clear, Reppert's AfR is "weak" only in the sense that he doesn't actively push its only logical conclusion; there is nothing weak about the argument itself.

Anonymous said...

These threads are so depressing.