You can't live without religion.

You may well be correct about all of that - but my comments have nothing to do with race, nor do I seek a racial discussion. My comments are strictly about raising children in poverty, no matter what the skin color.

I don't disagree with that. My comment was that it's not a "good idea" to have children when you can't afford them. But, what you're missing is that there ARE single-parents who CAN afford them. So, the "out of wedlock" issue is moot in the face of financial security. But, that's just the tip of ONE iceberg. There are also maturity issues in play. Many, many things go into making a good parent. Today's divorce rates ensure that a good number of kids come from single-parent or blended families. The majority of those go on to be successful, contributing adults. The institution of marriage, although still valuable, is antiquated. It is not nearly as important in today's world as it once was.

Wikipedia is a user-written source and cannot be considered as evidence or proof of anything. That said, I understand where you're coming from. Where you are - I once was.

Let me clarify. Other than religious texts, there is no extraneous, contemporary evidence that Jesus ever existed. That means no one who was recording non-religious historical texts at the time Jesus lived - ever mentioned him. Now, Herod is mentioned, as are other leaders and events that the NT mentions. But, there is no mention of a man who performed miracles and no mention of any interaction between this man and the rulers. All the information you have today about Jesus - comes from the religious texts. I'm not joshing you about that. There is no mention of the man in contemporary non-religious records. None. This work has all been done - and redone. Historical scholars have hunted and hunted. To no avail.

Whomever created the Jesus story, whether that was a godman named Jesus, or an Essene sect, is the founder of Christianity. I can't say with certainty that He didn't live, but after years of research, I can honestly say I don't think He lived.

 

It is well known by those here that it is games. FYI.

 

How so? I can empathize with someone while still empathizing with others impacted by the situation and treating the situation as a whole with reason and compassion. You can too. That's a big part of the information that feeds our conscience.

Only if the line of reasoning is faulty or the premises you feed into it are faulty.

The point was that we do not need to believe that the voices in our head come from a "higher intelligence" in order to know that it is good to follow them. Since you seem to agree, the rest is shifting the subject by focusing too much on the analogy and not enough on the original argument.

 

No it isn't, because that would be an entirely capricious redefinition, whereas mine lends itself to discussion of the psychological dynamic which underlies what most think of as religious (and anti-religious) practices.

I don't need any suggestions from you, and I'm not dumb enough to answer questions obviously intended to derail the thread. So suffer.

Clearly the OP sailed miles over your head, and my subsequent responses are too laden with truth for your taste. So go find another thread to crap all over, there's a good fellow.

 

Thank you for verifying what the other poster said - that you have no intention of engaging in honest discussion. As far as the OP sailing over someone's head - that would be yours. Despite the fact that you wrote it - you obviously did not know how weak your assertion was or that you would be unable to back up your position.

I feel for you. That's a tough position to be in. I would suggest that before you try that tact again, you do a little research to see if your premise has a chance of surviving.

 

Uh, I have no religion and I'm alive.

/thread

 

As I see it, it more likely lends itself to misunderstandings and accusations of deliberate misrepresentations. It is quite possible to discuss the psychological dynamic you mention, as well as other interesting things, but with arguments like this, people are just going to debate whether the word applies (or forget to debate that and just stick with their misconceptions).

 

You've completely misunderstood and misapplied that fallacy, which is based on forming a false conclusion by connecting a before/after sequence of events. That King Hammurabi established the laws (minus the spiritual ones) long before Moses claimed God magically gave them to him, lends itself to "Probabilistic Causation."

There is no logical defense here. The OP tries to establish that a higher intelligence, through religion, is necessary for society to succeed and prosper. The Code of Hammurabi proves that premise is false. It doesn't matter if Moses "copied" the laws or if a higher intelligence rendered them later (an idea all sane people reject). The only thing that matters is the evidence that King Hammurabi developed the laws without benefit of religious interference.

The OP, hence, is nothing more than magical thinking based on mythology.

 

I don't get their general outlook when they ignore the tremendous numbers of children abused because of fatherlessness.
How they can ignore that the last 1/2 century has made 44% of the familes on Welfare at tremendous expense to us all is also confusing, uneless their penis is doing the thinking here.

Then we read the Bible and discover it PREDICTED seven empires to rise up, and 10 kings to appear afterwards, each to become sexually promiscuous and fall apart.
They say it doesn't matter, or it ain't so...
But its historically a fact.

 

...unless you want to get destroyed as Islam or China, N. Korea, or Russia invade and destroy America the same way each of the other seven heads on the beast fell during history.
Because it is oceans away from immanent dangers, America seems to have a great chance to either change the Culture, or prove poverty, fatherless bastards, Gays out openly, promiscuity, and child abuse can be changed to positive social qualities.

 

Be that what it may,...
Do you believe the sexually promiscuous culture in America can last when the cities right now are fill of criminal bastards fatherless people who are complaining that the police are too tough in controlling the crime we all see, while patriarchies like Islam, Russia, China, and N Korea sharpen their swords against us?

What has America gained so Gays and Feminists can be "out" while kids are abused, cities are ruined, poverty has grown, 70% 0f all violent crime is by bastards, Welfare is as much as the Military Budget, prisons are over loaded, etc.

 

73% of the Black Community is on Welfare.

That is what we can measure.
They represent only 10% if the population.
But they number half of the prison community, half of the Welfare recipients, and they all live inside the inner cities which are too unsafe to visit, yet are the centers of our society.

 

If it keeps some people from killing each other over the last Snickers bar, I can live with that.

 

Please, you don't believe that yourself. If you did, you'd be attacking it directly rather than trying to derail the thread.

How very amusing.

Thanks for nothing.

The closer one gets to the fundamental realities of the human condition, the more likely one is to encounter bad conduct. Nothing I can do about that.

The problem being...?

I've done no such thing, obviously.

Did I say it went miles over your head? Make that astronomical units.

 

Yes, this makes sense.
One supports and searches for Truth, which it will accept and conform too.
The other tries to avoid the Truth if that information is against its own teachings and behavioral objectives.

 

I don't think that does bring us closer to the fundamental realities of the human condition. I think it obscures whatever conversation you're trying to have. If that's not a problem, then maybe you shouldn't be on a discussion forum?

 

Because egotists don't know what's good for them; and to the degree you empathize with them, you won't either.

Conscience never hungers for information.

And why would either of those ever happen, right?

If you think conscience is one of those, you don't understand what it is.

 

What do you mean "be that what it may"? Does your post have anything to do with my post? If so, what? I can't see the link, so I'm not sure if you're referring to some context you're reading out of my post that I didn't put in. Otherwise, there are rules against derailing the discussion, and frankly, it's bad discussion form (both concerning the integrity and enjoyability of the thread). If memory serves, this is not the first time you've hijacked a discussion of mine with the exact same obsession.

If it is unrelated to my post, I recommend starting a new thread (or possibly referring me to an existing one) in which I may enter the discussion. In fact, I believe I have already done so some time ago.

 

Funny that many Christian ministers are followers of the godless Rand in that regard - "God wants you to be rich". Some things are just too hard for me to reconcile for myself but I guess Paul Ryan has somehow been able to so.

 

This would only be interesting if I had some reason to believe you had a clue about the conversation I'm trying to have.

If the idea proves to be incomprehensible to everyone here then I'm wasting my time, but I can hardly know that in advance.

 

You apparently have empathy confused for a mindless adoption of someone else’s point of view without criticism, introspection or reason. You should read up on empathic concern, also known as compassion. Compassion is concerned with other people’s well-being, not just what they think their well-being is.

If conscience doesn’t take into account information about other people’s experiences and the reasoned anticipation of the consequences of your own actions, then it isn’t conscience, it is just a whim.

Any failure to seek out the best premises or to vet your own line of reasoning is a failure on your part; it is not the fault of reason itself. Blaming reason for your false conclusions is like blaming science when you perform and experiment incorrectly.

Conscience has been figuratively referred to as a “voice” for as long as our species has used words to describe conscience. If you don't know that, and we both know you do and that you have thought of conscience the same way yourself from time to time, then you are the one who doesn't understand what it.

 

No I don't, trust me.

I never said anything like that.

How exactly are people supposed to know the good from the bad, or choose between two premises that seem to be equally valid, without access to a higher intelligence?

You think a person can't spend years vetting a line of reasoning and still get it wrong?

is irrelevant to anything I said.

Yes, and listening to the "voices in one's head" is commonly, and correctly, deemed a sign of mental illness; so you need to take care not to conflate the two.

 

Spirit is the life that cuts through life.

Meanwhile, everyone on the western left hates Christians for the Old Testament but loves Jews...

 

Seeing as your highly limited view of empathy doesn’t take into account empathic concern or compassion, no, I don’t think I will.

Then feel free to agree with what I said or challenge anything you disagree with.

”It’s hard so let’s make believe” isn’t an option. The fact that a higher intelligence would be more convenient does nothing to help us approach these problems. We engage in debate, we challenge our own preconceptions, we explore what others argue to see if there is anything to learn, we make due with what information is available. We don’t start pretending that we have information that we don’t. In college it was hard for me to pay my bills, but pretending that a higher financial power was going to take care of everything for me would have done more harm than good. I learned financial responsibility. Intellectual responsibility is the answer to the situation at hand.

Yes you can, but if you have been diligent, then you are much less likely to be wrong. You think a person can’t appeal to a higher intelligence and still get it wrong?

You blamed reason for the misapplication of reason.

If you can’t tell the difference between the voice of conscience and the auditory hallucinations of a schizophrenic, then you are the one conflating. Don’t blame me. I’m not the one who equated the two.

 

Well, I don't, and as long as you obstinately keep phrasing it in ways we don't understand or interpret correctly (whatever the reason) the opinions of me and many others will remain unheard.

Well, you could phrase it understandably in the first place. Then we can know in advance that the point comes across.