MrStakhanovite wrote:You have to give credit where credit is due, Shirts is really evaluating the other side, is doing his best to understand it, and is so enthusiastic about learning it is kind of infectious.
Dan Barker is an intellectually dishonest and Shirts’ enthusiasm for him is what troubles me the most. I just hope Shirts doesn’t just stop there, but continues on to read better stuff, from all sides.
Kerry is interesting because watching him think is like watching homemade reality tv for armchair philosophers and theologians. Wondering what Kerry will do or say next is almost like wondering whether Bob and Kathy will kick Grace out of the apartment, who will sleep with whom next, or whether the Kardashians will cat-fight in the next episode.
But it is guaranteed to be a lot more wholesome in its goofiness.
I like Kerry.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
I think I take a different position than Stak on the atheist cliché' about believing in one less God. On the one hand, I find it to be a flawed claim and would never use it myself. The problem is that people's belief in God, or gods, is fluid enough that if they didn't harbor their current beliefs, they wouldn't default to atheism, but rather just might shift their ideas about deities. So I would never use that cliché' as it clouds the issue.
On the other hand, that cliché' isn't totally worthless. Many religious people treat other gods sufficiently removed from their religion as ridiculous. Zeus, for instance, is seen just as implausible to them as it is to the atheist. And what the atheist cliché' wants to get at is that all the atheist is doing is taking their attitude towards those gods a little further by applying it to their God too. It's a valid point to those who can't fathom atheist skepticism and dismissal of their faith. A better way of putting it might be, "Jesus seems as silly to me as Zeus does to both of us."
In the end, I find it a flawed cliché' that should be avoided, but not so irredeemably awful that Stak's attitude is warranted. That's no where near the bottom of the barrel of arguments regarding religion and it does a disservice to truly awful stuff out there to act like it is.
EAllusion wrote:I think I take a different position than Stak on the atheist cliché' about believing in one less God. On the one hand, I find it to be a flawed claim and would never use it myself. The problem is that people's belief in God, or gods, is fluid enough that if they didn't harbor their current beliefs, they wouldn't default to atheism, but rather just might shift their ideas about deities. So I would never use that cliché' as it clouds the issue.
On the other hand, that cliché' isn't totally worthless. Many religious people treat other gods sufficiently removed from their religion as ridiculous. Zeus, for instance, is seen just as implausible to them as it is to the atheist. And what the atheist cliché' wants to get at is that all the atheist is doing is taking their attitude towards those gods a little further by applying it to their God too. It's a valid point to those who can't fathom atheist skepticism and dismissal of their faith. A better way of putting it might be, "Jesus seems as silly to me as Zeus does to both of us."
In the end, I find it a flawed cliché' that should be avoided, but not so irredeemably awful that Stak's attitude is warranted. That's no where near the bottom of the barrel of arguments regarding religion and it does a disservice to truly awful stuff out there to act like it is.
+1
when believers want to give their claims more weight, they dress these claims up in scientific terms. When believers want to belittle atheism or secular humanism, they call it a "religion". -Beastie
yesterday's Mormon doctrine is today's Mormon folklore.-Buffalo
I don't know why people so easily dismiss Zeus as myth. The public school system doesn't even give him a chance. Right off the bat it's: "Please turn to page 72 of your world history text and read aloud the section on Greek Mythology." WTH? Myth out of the gate. So sad. This is how I wish I could have first learned about Zeus:
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)
I wish my introduction to Greek religion was like this:
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)
