Dena Schlosser cut her baby’s arms off in a bout of religious fervor on November 23, 2004. Dena was suffering from two things: postpartum depression, and afterlife/god belief. If Dena was suffering from only one or the other, her baby would likely still have all four limbs (as well as it’s life). But mix the two together, and you have a recipe for inhumane behavior.
According to the experts, religion is common among mothers who kill their children. In fact, all the mommy-slaying-baby stories in recent memory involve very religious women, and of course they cite religious factors when asked why they committed their heinous crimes.
Dena said she wanted to give her child to God. How lovely and considerate. At least, in her afterlife-tainted mind, it actually was a kind act. The afterlife is an even happier place than Disneyland! Why not save your dear child from the harsh realities of this life and send them straight to the afterlife, where it’s one big eternal Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory?
Dena confessed to the crime while talking on the phone to a 911 operator. One the 911 tape, the hymn “He Touched Me” can be heard playing in the background. During the crime-scene investigation, police took Bibles from the residence. Funny that Christian groups blame games like Grand Theft Auto for inspiring violent behavior and push to get retailers to not sell the game, but nobody is calling for Bibles to be removed from store shelves after something like this happens. I imagine that if Dena’s home were filled with copies of The Satanic Bible, the Christian groups would be pointing their fingers at that book. Why the double standard? Why don’t we call a spade a spade? In the eighties, there was a Satanic scare where false claims of Satanic-child sacrifice were being thrown around. Yet the Satanic Bible only speaks against sacrifice, and the Holy Bible repeatedly speaks in favor of many kinds of sacrifice, including child sacrifice.
Please realize that I am against all religions, including Satanism. But what I’m trying to point out here, is that people are not objectively looking at the dogma. People have false pictures painted in their heads of what they think these ideologies say, and they set up straw men to validate their erroneous beliefs. Surely, no Christian in America will agree that Dena did the Biblical thing nor did the right thing. Instead, the American Christians will likely claim that Dena was influenced by Satan or was simply crazy. They count the hits and ignore the misses, in addition to setting up straw men about these worldviews. I contend that Dena took a logical course of action in accordance with the ridiculous claims and worldview depicted in the Bible.
Afterlife-belief serves as a motivation and catalyst for inhumane behavior. If Dena didn’t believe in the afterlife, she wouldn’t have killed her baby. This is because she would not have believed that her child would go to a happier place by murdering her. Instead, she would have realized that keeping her baby happy means to provide for it and raise it properly in this life. Postpartum depression or no, Dena really did want the best for her child. She wanted her baby girl to be safe and happy. And it was her religion, her afterlife belief, that twisted her good intentions into a horrible act of infanticide.
44 comments:
I would like to point out that Satanism is an atheistic religion, with no afterlife and no worship. Just to clear that up--and the fact that not one single case of Satanic ritual abuse of children has ever been proven.
That said, I think it is a very good case you bring up about Grand Theft Auto and other scapegoats. Many people love to point the finger at secular things that are supposed to have influence over behavior, yet they have blinders on when it comes to the bible and belief in an afterlife. The bible comes out and says it: "hate your father and your mother." The One whom the bible points to as being Truth says that you and I, Aaron, should have Millstones tied to us, and that we should be thrown into a river (I'm sure you will be recording that verse soon enough) !
So, the next time a Mommy (or daddy) drowns her children, we can point to that verse, right? Right? Anyone? There are many, many rationalizations in the bible that make those things "right."
Maybe the woman had post-partum: I don't know. What I do know is that religion taught her well. Blame God's Laws, Blame God, Blame post-partum, blame anyone as long as you don't blame yourself!
What does it tell you, that murderous mothers and serial killers have more fervent God-belief than most people ?
Yes I am aware that Satanism as described in The Satanic Bible is an atheistic religion. I have a copy of The Satanic Bible, as well as a few other books written by Anton Szandor LaVey and Blanche Barton.
Another interesting note is what the Holy Bible says about Satan's actions and God's actions. In the Bible, Satan never kills anyone. He never commands the death of anyone. I dont think he even lies; but instead he exposes one of God's lies.
Which character in the Bible commits more inhumane atrocities, God or Satan? If you are familiar with the Bible, you will have to concede that God is the one who kills more and manipulates more than Satan.
Franc:
It tells us that religion is more prevalent among nutjobs and criminals than decent people. And religious figures of prisons and mental institutions further backs it up.
Praise Jesus!
This is a related topic if you consider school shootings a secular problem. Are there really that many school shootings per year to warrant metal detectors and police in all of the schools? This sounds like fear blown out of proportion. I am reminded of this everytime someone complains of "evil" secular society. The irony is that there is MUCH more 'evil' done in the name of religion that goes completely ignored. It's hypocrisy and it needs to be addressed.
I dont consider school shootings a "secular" problem in the sense that they are not shooting for atheism. They are shooting due to social frustrations and/or gang violence.
Besides, I would bet that most school shootings involve religious people, not atheists. Are any statistics available on the religious beliefs of these shooters? LOL
Now, if Dena killed her baby due to social frustrations or gang tensions, I would have nothing to write about. But she cited "God" when she provided her motive, and crime-scene evidence supports the religious motive.
My question is: when was the last time an atheist parent killed their child? And more importantly, when was the last time that an atheist parent killed their child and cited godlessness as the motive?
You know, if that woman believes so strongly in an afterlife, she should have taken herself.
aaron and support group,
you do know that all these types of arguments are:
1. Ad hominem (this can be reversed), and;
2. Beg the question as you have not shown that the Christian concepts of sin/self-deception to be inadequate for explaining any of these types of actions... one big petitio principii which is not convincing at all (they maybe convincing to the illogical and self-deluded)
Anonymous:
Could you please explain how its ad hominem? And can you please provide an example of the reversal you claim is possible?
Regarding your 2nd objection, Im not quite sure I understand what question you think Im begging. And I dont recall claiming any Christian sin/self-deception concept to inadequate for anything.
On the contrary, I specifically claim that Christian concepts lead to the self-deception of this lady thinking that cutting her babies arms off was a good thing.
And anon, would you do me a favor and provide a Christian-worldview explanation for Denas crimes? I imagine it will involve the sin/self-deception hint you threw. And if you use that type of explanation, of course it will fall under the "count the hits ignore the misses" category of Christian apologetics/explanations.
The bottom line remains, anon: If Dena was not religious, her child would be alive. I backed up this assertion with the UCHC link.
So anon, would you like to explain to me why my conclusion is wrong? Would you like to explain WHY you think that Dena's child's life would not be any better off if Dena was not religious?
Anon, I deal with ad hominem alot (Havent you seen Goosing the Anithesis?) and my article is not an ad hominem. I ask you to please provide specific examples and prove me wrong.
I am not attacking Dena. I am using her case as one of the many examples of religious belief that serves as a catalyst for mother committed infanticide.
If I am committing ad hominem, then so is the University that did the study that gave me the idea for this article.
Ad hominem is this: "Denas a fucking retarded Christian bitch who killed her baby".
Ad hominem is NOT this: "Dena was suffering from two things: postpartum depression, and afterlife/god belief. If Dena was suffering from only one or the other, her baby would likely still have all four limbs (as well as it’s life). But mix the two together, and you have a recipe for inhumane behavior."
Aaron,
your argument is ad hominem by the fact that you attempt to conclude that based on one's negative actions (immorality) performed in the name of their religious faith would disprove the concepts of an afterlife or a God, which does not necessarily follow. One can just as easily argue that atheists is wrong based on the actions of some atheists (e.g., Mao and Stalin). This would also be fallacious as it does nothing to disprove the 'idea'/'concept' of atheism.
You beg the question by doing an external critique of Christianity (religion). You are arguing based on your own presuppositions (that religious belief causes this -"Afterlife-belief serves as a motivation and catalyst for inhumane behavior.") while I do not accept that presupposition. This would then lead you to your implicit conclusion that after-life belief/religious belief is dangerous and wrong...
Now would the child be alive if the parent did not have religious belief? That is possible; however, that does not help your case since a religious person's assumption would be that there is a sin problem in the world which would lead to such a result.
Anon said,
your argument is ad hominem by the fact that you attempt to conclude that based on one's negative actions (immorality) performed in the name of their religious faith would disprove the concepts of an afterlife or a God, which does not necessarily follow. One can just as easily argue that atheists is wrong based on the actions of some atheists (e.g., Mao and Stalin). This would also be fallacious as it does nothing to disprove the 'idea'/'concept' of atheism.
I think what you mean is non sequitor. You seem to misunderstand my argument in this post. This particular post was not trying to disprove an afterlife, but instead was trying to show the inferior morality and erroneous actions that are caused by afterlife belief.
You beg the question by doing an external critique of Christianity (religion). You are arguing based on your own presuppositions (that religious belief causes this -"Afterlife-belief serves as a motivation and catalyst for inhumane behavior.") while I do not accept that presupposition. This would then lead you to your implicit conclusion that after-life belief/religious belief is dangerous and wrong...
What I am doing in fact is looking at the consequences of afterlife belief, and using them to come to the conclusion that afterlife belief causes immoral behavior. I did not presuppose immorality in afterlife belief, but merely came to that conclusion after analyzing the actions of a religious person. For if afterlife belief was moral, then it should have made this psychotic woman LESS dangerous, not MORE dangerous.
Now would the child be alive if the parent did not have religious belief? That is possible; however, that does not help your case since a religious person's assumption would be that there is a sin problem in the world which would lead to such a result.
This merely exposes the problem with the afterlife belief itself. It counts the hits and ignores the misses. When you speak of sin leading to this action rather than the religious belief itself, you are setting up an unfalsifiable or untestable proposition. And I addressed this in my post already.
If what religion says is true, and that sin is the problem, not religion itself, then the University study should have concluded that a LACK of religion causes mothers to kill children, not the other way around. There is inconsistency in the application of "sin" by the pro-afterlifer.
Besides, what "sin" did Dena commit? God has commanded the killing of children on many occasions in the Bible. Christians also say that babies automatically go to heaven when they die. I see no sin committed by Dena as the Bible defines sin. If I am wrong here, could you please provide the appropriate scripture reference?
Thanx for replying to me Anonymous.
”I think what you mean is non sequitor. You seem to misunderstand my argument in this post. This particular post was not trying to disprove an afterlife, but instead was trying to show the inferior morality and erroneous actions that are caused by afterlife belief.”
No Aaron, I meant that it is ad-hominem. Ad-hominems are also non-sequitors most of the time. For instance, if I say that “mormons are bigots, therefore the Mormon God doesn’t exist”. That is ad-hominem and non-sequitor. Or if I say “Atheists are immoral and kill many people (Mao and Stalin), therefore, atheism is inhumane and not true.” It’s both ad-hominem and a non-sequitor. This is why I stated, “This would also be fallacious as it does nothing to disprove the 'idea'/'concept' of atheism.” An ad-hominem argument is not necessarily an insult as you have construed it earlier but is much broader.
“What I am doing in fact is looking at the consequences of afterlife belief, and using them to come to the conclusion that afterlife belief causes immoral behavior. I did not presuppose immorality in afterlife belief, but merely came to that conclusion after analyzing the actions of a religious person. For if afterlife belief was moral, then it should have made this psychotic woman LESS dangerous, not MORE dangerous.”
I know what you are doing. However, you infer that an afterlife belief is what ‘caused’ her to do what she did. People who believe in the after-life would say, no it was not the belief but self-deception/deception/sin. And since you have not shown that self-deception (sin) was not the case, you beg the question.
”This merely exposes the problem with the afterlife belief itself. It counts the hits and ignores the misses. When you speak of sin leading to this action rather than the religious belief itself, you are setting up an unfalsifiable or untestable proposition. And I addressed this in my post already.”
No it doesn’t… I could just as easily assert the same…
Please tell me how it is unfalsifiable or untestable? This is nothing more than an attempt at a red herring and doesn’t have relevance here as it does not get you out of the predicament of begging the question. Even if I accept your falsibility argument, then if she had not been self-deceived then she would not have committed the crime. Likewise, you could reply that if she had not had the religious belief then she would not have committed the crime. Then you would probably retort with, “But she said that’s why she did it.” And I would say, “Exactly and that is a result of her being self-deceived (unregenerate - place what you want here).”
Is the proposition that propositions have to falsifiable itself falsifiable? How so? If it’s not, then it is of no use even on your platform. But this is old and I will not deal with it here and has been addressed numerous places.
”If what religion says is true, and that sin is the problem, not religion itself, then the University study should have concluded that a LACK of religion causes mothers to kill children, not the other way around. There is inconsistency in the application of "sin" by the pro-afterlifer.”
So you take the “university” as authoritative? How does Rand fair if that is the case? J I guess now you should conclude that Rand is really a hack after-all. This also begs the question as you assume I take the university as authoritative (maybe the university is not religious). Where is the inconsistency? But hey that lack of belief in Joseph Stalin got millions killed…
”Besides, what "sin" did Dena commit?”
Hmm that’s hard aaron.
“God has commanded the killing of children on many occasions in the Bible.”
Whether He has or not is not the point. Did he command her to? No He didn’t.
Christians also say that babies automatically go to heaven when they die.”
Oh really. This is news to me. (but does the bible say this? Can you provide me a reference?)
“I see no sin committed by Dena as the Bible defines sin. If I am wrong here, could you please provide the appropriate scripture reference?”
You must be kidding or playing games here. There are several – ‘probably’ the ones that fall under murder or transgressing God’s law.
This is how this conversation is going to go Aaron:
Aaron: She did because of her religious belief.
Anon: No she was self-deceived.
Aaron: She did because of her religious belief.
Anon: No she was self-deceived.
Aaron: She did because of her religious belief.
Anon: No she was self-deceived
Aaron: Well if she didn’t have a religious belief then she wouldn’t have done it.
Anon: Well if she was not self-deceived (or just deceived), then she wouldn’t have done it.
This is why it begs the question.
Anon said:
I know what you are doing. However, you infer that an afterlife belief is what ‘caused’ her to do what she did. People who believe in the after-life would say, no it was not the belief but self-deception/deception/sin. And since you have not shown that self-deception (sin) was not the case, you beg the question.
Actually I have. I backed it up with a study and I quoted Dena as saying she wanted to give her child to God. You, the one claiming it was sin/deception, are the one with the unsupported assertion. I have provided evidence; you have not. Remember also, that for me to "not have shown that self-deception (sin) was not the case..." is asking me to prove a negative. The burden here is for you to show that sin was the case. All I have to do is provide evidence for a positive (that religion was the case) and I have done so and backed it up by professional studies.
No it doesn’t… I could just as easily assert the same…
Please tell me how it is unfalsifiable or untestable? This is nothing more than an attempt at a red herring and doesn’t have relevance here as it does not get you out of the predicament of begging the question. Even if I accept your falsibility argument, then if she had not been self-deceived then she would not have committed the crime. Likewise, you could reply that if she had not had the religious belief then she would not have committed the crime. Then you would probably retort with, “But she said that’s why she did it.” And I would say, “Exactly and that is a result of her being self-deceived (unregenerate - place what you want here).”
Well then lets try this: I now assert that religious belief promotes self-deception. In fact, because I am an atheist, I already consider self-deception to be her religious belief itself. Regarding the "untestable" claim of mine, I will explain to you how its unfalsifiable: You as a religious believer will automatically consider all instances of baby-killing-mothers to be sin/self-deception without evidence or criteria to determine if it really was so. What I mean is, you as a religious believer do not have a set of circumstances that would qualify this incident as either A) sin/self-deception, or B) genuine religious devotion/proper religious behaviour. Despite Biblical commands of child-killing, you automatically consider all instances of moden day child-killing to be against the religious commands and to be an instance of sin. Furthermore, you do not provide any evidence or other means to support your contention that it was sin/self-decpetion.
So you take the “university” as authoritative? How does Rand fair if that is the case? J I guess now you should conclude that Rand is really a hack after-all. This also begs the question as you assume I take the university as authoritative (maybe the university is not religious). Where is the inconsistency? But hey that lack of belief in Joseph Stalin got millions killed…
Are you Paul Manata? Dont be afraid to ditch the "anonymous" mask, I wont ban you. At any rate, what I am doing is using the careful university study as acceptable evidence. You however, provide no evidence at all to support your position. So if you are looking for inconsistency, you should look at your own unsupported assertion. Considering that we have no instances of atheist mothers killing their children in America in the name of godlessness lately, I would also consider that as evidence to support my assertion that religion + mental instability = baby-killing. Besides, if the university concluded that religion reduces the chance of baby-killing, Im sure you would back it. You are only disagreeing with the study because you dont like its conclusions, not because you have a problem with its methods.
Hmm that’s hard aaron.
So what sin did she commit? Thou shalt not kill? Wait a minute! Christians always say that its supposed to say "murder". So did she murder? I dont think so by Christian standards. Maybe the baby did something to deserve dashing. Maybe God commanded her to do it. Isnt personal testimony often cited as evidence in Christian miracle claims? Why do you count the hits and ignore the misses?
Whether He has or not is not the point. Did he command her to? No He didn’t.
How do you know he didnt? Did God tell you that he didnt tell Dena to kill her baby? See, you are counting hits and ignoring misses. If Dena said that God told her NOT to kill her baby, you would back her up. But if Dena says that God DID tell her to kill her baby, you will automatically discount it. Why? Because you dont like the reprehensible act? But God has done so in the past and his nature doesnt change, so for him to compel Dena to kill is totally consistent with Gods nature. You are merely claiming that God didnt with nothing to support it.
You have, throughout this entire comments discussion, provided nothign to support any of your assertions, while I, on the other hand, have.
Oh really. This is news to me. (but does the bible say this? Can you provide me a reference?)
I never said the Bible says it. I said that Christians said it. My Christian family told me this, my former Pastor at my old Lutheran Church said this, many Christians over at christianforums.com have told me this. You are in fact the first Christian (Im assuming youre Christian here so forgive me if I am mistaken) who has told me anything other than this. But in reality, it doesnt matter too much for this discussion.
You must be kidding or playing games here. There are several – ‘probably’ the ones that fall under murder or transgressing God’s law.
I am not kidding; I am merely attempting to get you to support your assertion with relevant scripture. And how was this murder if God told her to kill her child? Maybe the child did something that warranted it's being put to death. Or maybe Dena just did it all on her own after thinking about how much better the afterlife is and that her baby will go to heaven and escape this rough reality, which is my problem with afterlife belief: It causes immoral behavior. Lets agree just for this paragraph that Dena did this act without God's sanction. Of course, being an atheist, I think she was just a nutso that got motivated by the Bible and by afterlife-belief into killing her baby. But this is my problem: Afterlife-belief puts primacy of the after-existence over this existence, and therefore Dena was perfectly consistent in killing her baby to put its soul into the better afterlife. But in reality, all she did was kill her poor little girl. All she did was cause death and pain and suffering not only for her child and family, but for the whole community. This is why afterlife-belief is immoral, inhumane, and straight-up evil. It is anti-life. It is wrong. It should be fought against as a bad idea, just like communism and racism.
This is how this conversation is going to go Aaron:
Aaron: She did because of her religious belief.
Anon: No she was self-deceived.
Aaron: She did because of her religious belief.
Anon: No she was self-deceived.
Aaron: She did because of her religious belief.
Anon: No she was self-deceived
Aaron: Well if she didn’t have a religious belief then she wouldn’t have done it.
Anon: Well if she was not self-deceived (or just deceived), then she wouldn’t have done it.
This is why it begs the question.
Well it seems that you concede to me that if she was not religious, her child would still be alive. So in essence, and in protest, you actually do agree with the university study and you actually do agree with me that afterlife belief is bad for humanity.
Again, I will agree with you on one part to prove my point: I will agree with you for the moment that she was self-deceived. As an atheist, to me all religion is self-deception. Dena was given an excuse (religion) to kill her baby. If not for her afterlife-belief, her baby would still be alive. If Dena was an atheist, she would not have been self deceived. Let me get a bit more technical here:
1. If Dena was Christian and the afterlife exists, she was self-deceived and her baby is dead.
2. If Dena was Christian and the afterlife does NOT exist, she was still self-deceived and her baby is still dead.
3. If Dena was atheist and the afterlife exists, she would have been self-deceived but her baby would be alive.
4. If Dena was atheist and the afterlife does NOT exist, she would not have been self-deceived and her baby would still be alive.
No matter how you cut it, the atheism wins the morality test because, as an atheist, her baby would have a 100% chance of being alive and Dena would only have a 50% chance of being self-deceived. But if Dena is a Christian, then her baby has a 0% chance of being alive and Dena has a 100% chance of being self-deceived.
Afterlife belief increases chances of death. Aterlife belief increases the chances of self-deception. Atheism (or non-afterlife-belief) reduces these chances. Non-afterlife-belief improves morality, and is pro-life.
Anonymous, where is your evidence to support your sin/self-deception claim? Why am I the only one supporting my assertions? And just for fun (read: this sentence is not serious), I contend that if Dena was truly self-deceived, then the 911 operator wouldnt have heard the "He Touched Me" hymn in the background, but Marilyn Mansons "Smells Like Children" album playing in the background ;)
aaron says,
“Actually I have. I backed it up with a study and I quoted Dena as saying she wanted to give her child to God. You, the one claiming it was sin/deception, are the one with the unsupported assertion. I have provided evidence; you have not. Remember also, that for me to "not have shown that self-deception (sin) was not the case..." is asking me to prove a negative. The burden here is for you to show that sin was the case.
Aaron this was already dealt with in my post. I am assuming that you typed this before you read what I posted. It is not asking to prove a negative Aaron. The sin/deception is not unsupported in that the Bible claims that when one murders their child then it is sin (and I have backed that up by the word of God) – just like the university claims it was *caused* by religious belief itself. People come to the table with a certain worldview and interpret evidence based on that worldview.
“All I have to do is provide evidence for a positive (that religion was the case) and I have done so and backed it up by professional studies.”
Can you falsify that this is *all* you have to do? If you can’t then I ain’t listening (based upon your own reasoning). If you can, then it ain’t *for certain*…
”Well then lets try this: I now assert that religious belief promotes self-deception. In fact, because I am an atheist, I already consider self-deception to be her religious belief itself.”
Good try Aaron, but you can assert this as much as your little heart desires. This has no bearing on the task before you because you have not proven that the Christian presupposition of *sin* cannot account for this phenomena. You are just making another blanket statement that does nothing for you.
“Regarding the "untestable" claim of mine, I will explain to you how its unfalsifiable: You as a religious believer will automatically consider all instances of baby-killing-mothers to be sin/self-deception without evidence or criteria to determine if it really was so. What I mean is, you as a religious believer do not have a set of circumstances that would qualify this incident as either A) sin/self-deception, or B) genuine religious devotion/proper religious behaviour.”
And likewise, no matter what evidence you as an atheist will automatically consider all instances of baby-killing-mothers to be solely caused by the ‘religious belief’ itself without evidence or criteria to determine if it really was so.
Aaron this suffers from the “one-by-one” myth. Have you ever heard of the story of the psychiatrist who was treating a man who believed that he was dead. He counselled the poor man about his neurosis and seemed to get nowhere. Finally one day the psychiatrist decided to use an empirical test to convince the patient of his error. He asked the man whether dead men bleed, to which the man said no. At that point the psychiatrist pricked the man's finger with a pin and told the man to look and see: he was bleeding, so he could not be dead. To this the patient responded that he must, then, have been wrong: dead men do bleed after all! The psychiatrist in this joke mistakenly thought that the bleeding finger would be counter-evidence that would falsify one particular belief of the patient (viz., that he was dead), when in fact it was equally possible that it falsified a related belief instead (viz., that dead men do not bleed).
“Despite Biblical commands of child-killing, you automatically consider all instances of moden day child-killing to be against the religious commands and to be an instance of sin.
All these Biblical commands? Aaron have you ever heard of cessationism?
“Furthermore, you do not provide any evidence or other means to support your contention that it was sin/self-decpetion.”
Aaron you are almost too funny with your tactics. Nice attempt at the bait and switch tactic.
”Are you Paul Manata? Dont be afraid to ditch the "anonymous" mask, I wont ban you”
No aaron this is not “paul manata”. Are you elvis presley?
“At any rate, what I am doing is using the careful university study as acceptable evidence. You however, provide no evidence at all to support your position”
This is exactly the problem, Aaron. Christians would not accept this as “acceptable” evidence.
“So if you are looking for inconsistency, you should look at your own unsupported assertion. Considering that we have no instances of atheist mothers killing their children in America in the name of godlessness lately, I would also consider that as evidence to support my assertion that religion + mental instability = baby-killing.”
Blah, blah, blah….. No instances at all huh… But we do have a few instances of certain atheists killing millions of people…
“Besides, if the university concluded that religion reduces the chance of baby-killing, Im sure you would back it. You are only disagreeing with the study because you dont like its conclusions, not because you have a problem with its methods.”
You know this how aaron? But you are probably right as I would conclude as you have that this is now acceptable evidence…
“So what sin did she commit? Thou shalt not kill? Wait a minute! Christians always say that its supposed to say "murder". So did she murder? I dont think so by Christian standards. Maybe the baby did something to deserve dashing. Maybe God commanded her to do it. Isnt personal testimony often cited as evidence in Christian miracle claims? Why do you count the hits and ignore the misses?”
Aaron, again I must ask if you have ever heard of cessationism?
”How do you know he didnt? Did God tell you that he didnt tell Dena to kill her baby? See, you are counting hits and ignoring misses. If Dena said that God told her NOT to kill her baby, you would back her up. But if Dena says that God DID tell her to kill her baby, you will automatically discount it. Why? Because you dont like the reprehensible act? But God has done so in the past and his nature doesnt change, so for him to compel Dena to kill is totally consistent with Gods nature. You are merely claiming that God didnt with nothing to support it.”
Aaron, this is getting sad. Have you heard of cessationism?
“You have, throughout this entire comments discussion, provided nothign to support any of your assertions, while I, on the other hand, have.”
Maybe you’ve been asleep while we have been discussing, aaron. Keep reading before you respond to this.
”I never said the Bible says it. I said that Christians said it. My Christian family told me this, my former Pastor at my old Lutheran Church said this, many Christians over at christianforums.com have told me this. You are in fact the first Christian (Im assuming youre Christian here so forgive me if I am mistaken) who has told me anything other than this. But in reality, it doesnt matter too much for this discussion.”
You are right it doesn’t matter. Do you remember the story of Esau in the Bible and what God said about him, Aaron?
”I am not kidding; I am merely attempting to get you to support your assertion with relevant scripture. And how was this murder if God told her to kill her child? Maybe the child did something that warranted it's being put to death. Or maybe Dena just did it all on her own after thinking about how much better the afterlife is and that her baby will go to heaven and escape this rough reality, which is my problem with afterlife belief: It causes immoral behavior. Lets agree just for this paragraph that Dena did this act without God's sanction. Of course, being an atheist, I think she was just a nutso that got motivated by the Bible and by afterlife-belief into killing her baby.”
Aaron, are you an angry person? You have repeated yourself so many times. Maybe if you just say things once the post will be shorter.
Let me give you the summary:
1. God did not tell her (ever heard of cessationism);
2. Though children are born sinners, they do not commit acts to deserve death.
3. Well “if Dena did it own her own”, then it was sin. What was this about Joseph Stalin again?
4. We agree that she was nuts.
“But this is my problem:
Afterlife-belief puts primacy of the after-existence over this existence, and therefore Dena was perfectly consistent in killing her baby to put its soul into the better afterlife. But in reality, all she did was kill her poor little girl. All she did was cause death and pain and suffering not only for her child and family, but for the whole community. This is why afterlife-belief is immoral, inhumane, and straight-up evil. It is anti-life. It is wrong. It should be fought against as a bad idea, just like communism and racism.”
This again begs the question. After-life belief puts primacy on *this* life because in the after-life you have to live with the consequences of your “bad” actions.
”Well it seems that you concede to me that if she was not religious, her child would still be alive.”
Aaron, where did I *concede* that? I said it was a possibility. But there were other *possibilities* as well. Now which choice she *would have* taken simply is an arbitrary assumption.
“So in essence, and in protest, you actually do agree with the university study and you actually do agree with me that afterlife belief is bad for humanity.”
See above.
”Again, I will agree with you on one part to prove my point: I will agree with you for the moment that she was self-deceived. As an atheist, to me all religion is self-deception. Dena was given an excuse (religion) to kill her baby. If not for her afterlife-belief, her baby would still be alive. If Dena was an atheist, she would not have been self deceived. Let me get a bit more technical here:
1. If Dena was Christian and the afterlife exists, she was self-deceived and her baby is dead.
2. If Dena was Christian and the afterlife does NOT exist, she was still self-deceived and her baby is still dead.
3. If Dena was atheist and the afterlife exists, she would have been self-deceived but her baby would be alive.
4. If Dena was atheist and the afterlife does NOT exist, she would not have been self-deceived and her baby would still be alive.”
Aaron, this is circumstantial. You really don’t know what *would have* happened. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Tell me when you argue in this manner how it could ever be falsified since we are discussing things that happened in the past? Did you forget your falsifiability test?
“No matter how you cut it, the atheism wins the morality test because, as an atheist, her baby would have a 100% chance of being alive and Dena would only have a 50% chance of being self-deceived. But if Dena is a Christian, then her baby has a 0% chance of being alive and Dena has a 100% chance of being self-deceived”.
See above.
“Afterlife belief increases chances of death. Afterlife belief increases the chances of self-deception. Atheism (or non-afterlife-belief) reduces these chances. Non-afterlife-belief improves morality, and is pro-life.”
Hmm let’s see how well I can assert: “Atheism increases chances of death. Atheism increases the chances of self-deception. After-life belief (or religious belief) reduces these chances. Afterlife-belief improves morality, and is pro-life.” (how many millions died from Stalin alone?)
”Anonymous, where is your evidence to support your sin/self-deception claim?”
God’s word.
“Why am I the only one supporting my assertions?”
Why do you continually forget about what we are talking about… remember the petitio principii.
“And just for fun (read: this sentence is not serious), I contend that if Dena was truly self-deceived, then the 911 operator wouldnt have heard the "He Touched Me" hymn in the background, but Marilyn Mansons "Smells Like Children" album playing in the background ;)”
:)
Are you trying to wear me out by typing a book?
Anon says:
Aaron this was already dealt with in my post. I am assuming that you typed this before you read what I posted.
I dont recall you addressing the burden of proof/rpoving a negative problem before.
It is not asking to prove a negative Aaron. The sin/deception is not unsupported in that the Bible claims that when one murders their child then it is sin (and I have backed that up by the word of God) – just like the university claims it was *caused* by religious belief itself. People come to the table with a certain worldview and interpret evidence based on that worldview.
Actually, I dont see one Biblical scripture reference from you anywhere. All I see is claims of Biblical legitimacy for your assertions, but no actual Biblical passage citations.
Can you falsify that this is *all* you have to do? If you can’t then I ain’t listening (based upon your own reasoning). If you can, then it ain’t *for certain*…
All I have to do, for starters, is provide evidence or some means of external support. This doesnt make it certain, , but it makes it probable. Now if you actually provided support for your assertions then I would have to try to refute your support, etc... but you havent. Youve only brought claims and unsupported assertions. Where is the Bible references? Where are the links? Where are the citations?
Good try Aaron, but you can assert this as much as your little heart desires. This has no bearing on the task before you because you have not proven that the Christian presupposition of *sin* cannot account for this phenomena. You are just making another blanket statement that does nothing for you.
Ahh now who is doing ad hominem? When was it exactly that I attacked you to warrant you "little heart desires" insult? From here, it looks like youre getting upset. Now, again we have you asking me to prove a negative. Sorry anonymous, but the burden of proof is on you to support your contention that sin/self-deception is the cause of Dena's actions, yet you have provided no Biblical quotes nor any references to the crime story itself. I have. You can ad hominem me all you want but it wont shift the burden of proof on to me.
And likewise, no matter what evidence you as an atheist will automatically consider all instances of baby-killing-mothers to be solely caused by the ‘religious belief’ itself without evidence or criteria to determine if it really was so.
This is incorrect. I only consider this instance of infanticide to be religiously motivated because of the evidence found in the case. Like Dena's confession, the hymn playing during the 911 call, etc... I do so on a case-by-case basis, and even you would agree with me that there have been a few other similar religiously motivated infanticide cases very recently. Remember Andrea Yates?
All these Biblical commands? Aaron have you ever heard of cessationism? Yes, and I never subscribed to it even when I was a Christian. Dena likely did not either, nor did her preacher. Nor do most Christians in America today. But thats a little off track I think, for I dont even believe in God anyways, and I think Dena did this all on her own because of the religious poison in her mind.
Aaron you are almost too funny with your tactics. Nice attempt at the bait and switch tactic.
Supporting assertions and asking for support from my opponent is funny? It seems to me that you are trying to dodge it. But thats fine. I obviously cant force you to support your assertions. I do have alot of problems with this in debates: getting theists to support their claims.
No aaron this is not “paul manata”. Are you elvis presley?
I am not the one posting anonymously my friend. ;)
This is exactly the problem, Aaron. Christians would not accept this as “acceptable” evidence.
How come? What is the reason for rejecting it as evidence? Please elaborate.
Blah, blah, blah….. No instances at all huh… But we do have a few instances of certain atheists killing millions of people…
In the name of atheism?
Aaron, again I must ask if you have ever heard of cessationism?
Yes. Do you think Dena subscribed to it? Cessationism to me is silly, for the Christian that subscribes to cessationism has inadvertently conceded the uselessness of prayer. Do you consider prayer to be useless?
Maybe you’ve been asleep while we have been discussing, aaron. Keep reading before you respond to this.
Ad hominem police! Why have you, anonymous, resorted to personal attacks after jumping on me for it?
You are right it doesn’t matter. Do you remember the story of Esau in the Bible and what God said about him, Aaron?
I remember that Esau was like the origin of Rome or the Roman Empire I think. But I dont remember what God told him or too many specifics of the story. You will have to help me out here and explain to me the specifics of Esau's story and its relevance here.
Aaron, are you an angry person?
LOL quite the opposite. Are you projecting? ;)
You have repeated yourself so many times.
As have you.
This again begs the question. After-life belief puts primacy on *this* life because in the after-life you have to live with the consequences of your “bad” actions.
Incorrect anonymous. In fact, in your statement you accidentaly admitted the primacy of the afterlife and you dont even know it. I address this issue in my blog post, I Know What Your Motive Was Last Summer. Even though you are right in that the afterlife usually involves consequences for actions in this existence, PRIMACY is still given to the afterlife. This is because you are not committing actions for benefit in THIS life, but for benefit in the OTHER life. You consider afterlife happiness to have primacy over this life, and you will follow a strange set of rules to please an invisible ghost's ego who exists in a different realm. It's called accessory motive. George Eliot wrote about it very eloquently. The problem, the inferior morality, comes in when you perform actions for YOUR benefit in an exclusionary (and nonexistent) afterlife, rather than for your benefit directly in this existence.
Aaron, where did I *concede* that? I said it was a possibility. But there were other *possibilities* as well. Now which choice she *would have* taken simply is an arbitrary assumption.
Good enough for me ;)
Aaron, this is circumstantial. You really don’t know what *would have* happened. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Tell me when you argue in this manner how it could ever be falsified since we are discussing things that happened in the past? Did you forget your falsifiability test?
Very easy. Falsifiability comes in like this: if more atheist moms killed their kids, then I am wrong. But if religious moms kill their kids, and atheist moms dont, then I am right. Europe is full of atheists. Why isnt a whole lot of atheist mothers over there killing their kids? Oh whoops, Europe is happier than America. There is my falsifiability: in quantifiable, testable evidence. All the mommy-killing-baby episodes involve religious mothers in the Bible belt areas who cite religious reasons to the Police. They admit their religious motive from square one!
Hmm let’s see how well I can assert: “Atheism increases chances of death. Atheism increases the chances of self-deception. After-life belief (or religious belief) reduces these chances. Afterlife-belief improves morality, and is pro-life.” (how many millions died from Stalin alone?)
The difference is that I have motive confessions from the theist moms. Can you please provide a quote from Stalin or some other Russian source where atheism is shown to play a factor in Stalin's maniacal actions? Stalin, in reality, committed his crimes in the name of collectivism, not for godlessness. Of course, I welcome you to correct me on this.
God’s word.
Anonymous, you have not provided any of God's word. You have only given me your word. Im asking you for Biblical reference. Did you ever hear that story in the Bible where God sent some bears to kill forty children because they made fun of a guys bald head? ;)
Are you trying to wear me out by typing a book?
Drats! You discovered my Satanic book-writing strategy! In all seriousness though, I love to write and I love to debate religious issues. I am very involved in the atheistic evangelical community, and am getting even more-so involved every day. Its just a passionate hobby of mine, so expect wordiness and lots of typing from me. But I agree with you... for practicality purposes, if we continue this debate here, we should probably try to thin it down because our responses are getting pretty long LOL!
Aaron says:
”I dont recall you addressing the burden of proof/rpoving a negative problem before.”
When I said that I wasn’t referring to ‘proving a negative’. That was addressed in the last post.
”Actually, I dont see one Biblical scripture reference from you anywhere. All I see is claims of Biblical legitimacy for your assertions, but no actual Biblical passage citations.”
Actually, Aaron, you already provided the references yourself.
”All I have to do, for starters, is provide evidence or some means of external support. This doesnt make it certain, , but it makes it probable.”
Aaron, it does no good to repeat yourself. I want you to falsify the *statement* or *belief* that this is all you have to do, or do you hold that dogmatically and as necessary?
“Now if you actually provided support for your assertions then I would have to try to refute your support, etc... but you havent. Youve only brought claims and unsupported assertions. Where is the Bible references? Where are the links? Where are the citations?”
Aaron, you have done this for me. Remember your ‘murder’ quote.
”Ahh now who is doing ad hominem? When was it exactly that I attacked you to warrant you "little heart desires" insult? From here, it looks like youre getting upset.”
Now I have to sit back and just wonder at this… Aaron, can you tell me what effect this so called ‘ad-hominem’ had on my argument. I was not getting frustrated but thought it was funny.
“Now, again we have you asking me to prove a negative. Sorry anonymous, but the burden of proof is on you to support your contention that sin/self-deception is the cause of Dena's actions, yet you have provided no Biblical quotes nor any references to the crime story itself. I have.”
Aaron, you are the one putting this forth as an ‘argument’. For you to have a ‘strong’ argument, you would have to show that ‘sin’ is not the case, but instead you rule that out with the wave of your hand.
“You can ad hominem me all you want but it wont shift the burden of proof on to me.”
Aaron, please learn relevance. Also, if you don’t start pointing out Dawson’s and Franc’s ‘ad-hominems’ then you will be considered nothing but a hypocrite with an agenda. I will be watching and will point it out to you.
“This is incorrect. I only consider this instance of infanticide to be religiously motivated because of the evidence found in the case. Like Dena's confession, the hymn playing during the 911 call, etc... I do so on a case-by-case basis, and even you would agree with me that there have been a few other similar religiously motivated infanticide cases very recently. Remember Andrea Yates?”
This is assertion and reassertion. Aaron, Dena was deceived about the religious belief itself actually causing her to commit the crime. Have you not caught that yet?
“Yes, and I never subscribed to it even when I was a Christian. Dena likely did not either, nor did her preacher. Nor do most Christians in America today. But thats a little off track I think, for I dont even believe in God anyways, and I think Dena did this all on her own because of the religious poison in her mind.”
Whether Dena ‘likely did not’ subscribe to it is not the point Aaron. It’s not ‘off-track’ because you said earlier, ‘what if God told her to do it’ to which I asked you if you had ever heard of cessationism. That is the relevance here. We do agree that she did it ‘on her own’.
“Supporting assertions and asking for support from my opponent is funny? It seems to me that you are trying to dodge it. But thats fine. I obviously cant force you to support your assertions. I do have alot of problems with this in debates: getting theists to support their claims.”
Aaron, I already told you that you supported my assertion. Now, were we not discussing my ‘objection’ to your ‘argument’, which was begging the question. That is why I made the ‘bait and switch’ comment.
”I am not the one posting anonymously my friend. ;)”
Paul Manata is definitely legendary, so maybe one day I’ll be as smart as him and come from behind my anonymous mask! ;) j/k
I said, “This is exactly the problem, Aaron. Christians would not accept this as “acceptable” evidence.
Aaron says, ”How come? What is the reason for rejecting it as evidence? Please elaborate.”
Aaron, are you aware of the nature of ‘university studies’. They consistently contradict each other and also tend to ‘support’ whoever they are financially supported by. Cases in point is the medical studies and bodybuilding supplement studies.
Have you rejected Ayn Rand yet?
”In the name of atheism?”
In the name of ridding their country of religion, which is definitely atheistic.
”Yes. Do you think Dena subscribed to it? Cessationism to me is silly, for the Christian that subscribes to cessationism has inadvertently conceded the uselessness of prayer. Do you consider prayer to be useless?”
Aaron, you need to study up on cessationism before you go refuting. Also, whether Dena ‘subscribed’ to it is beside the point. Either cessationism is true or not whether she did or not subscribe to it.
“Ad hominem police! Why have you, anonymous, resorted to personal attacks after jumping on me for it?”
Aaron, aaron, aaron.. Can you please show me how I used this as an argument or how it has affected my argument? I said it because you have not been paying attention to what is being said – not ad-hominem and even if you think it is it has done nothing but to point out to you that you have not been paying attention.
”I remember that Esau was like the origin of Rome or the Roman Empire I think. But I dont remember what God told him or too many specifics of the story. You will have to help me out here and explain to me the specifics of Esau's story and its relevance here.”
Huh? Nope. It has relevance as we were speaking about babies.
“LOL quite the opposite. Are you projecting? ;)”
Nahhh lol
“As have you.”
I wanted to make sure I answered your each time!
”Very easy. Falsifiability comes in like this: if more atheist moms killed their kids, then I am wrong. But if religious moms kill their kids, and atheist moms dont, then I am right. Europe is full of atheists. Why isnt a whole lot of atheist mothers over there killing their kids? Oh whoops, Europe is happier than America. There is my falsifiability: in quantifiable, testable evidence. All the mommy-killing-baby episodes involve religious mothers in the Bible belt areas who cite religious reasons to the Police. They admit their religious motive from square one!”
Aaron, in your ‘example’ you referred strictly to Dena. Now you are equivocating by implying it was meant for atheists in general. Nevertheless, it does not help you since the example was for Dena and would not make “Dena’s” case falsifiable. So you have failed at falsifying what you should have.
“The difference is that I have motive confessions from the theist moms.
Aaron, again the relying on the ‘confession’ is of no use whereas, I will bring up the self-deception/deception/sin part.
“Can you please provide a quote from Stalin or some other Russian source where atheism is shown to play a factor in Stalin's maniacal actions? Stalin, in reality, committed his crimes in the name of collectivism, not for godlessness. Of course, I welcome you to correct me on this.”
Aaron, was Stalin atheistic? You are missing the point of my counter ad-hominem example.
”Anonymous, you have not provided any of God's word. You have only given me your word. Im asking you for Biblical reference.
You have provided it for me.
“Did you ever hear that story in the Bible where God sent some bears to kill forty children because they made fun of a guys bald head?”
Yes.
”Drats! You discovered my Satanic book-writing strategy! In all seriousness though, I love to write and I love to debate religious issues. I am very involved in the atheistic evangelical community, and am getting even more-so involved every day. Its just a passionate hobby of mine, so expect wordiness and lots of typing from me. But I agree with you... for practicality purposes, if we continue this debate here, we should probably try to thin it down because our responses are getting pretty long LOL!”
That’s what I figured. ;)
Hey anon, sorry for the late reply. Ive been rather busy the past few days and just now got a chance to come back to the blog. I hope youre still around.
Anonymous said:
Aaron, it does no good to repeat yourself. I want you to falsify the *statement* or *belief* that this is all you have to do, or do you hold that dogmatically and as necessary?
You want me to falsify my belief that I have to provide evidence for my position? It seems silly to me that you imply that you disagree with that belief, but sure! If I did NOT have to provide evidence to support a belief, then any old silly belief could be considered true or probable without any support, like Invisible Pink Unicorns (that happens to be a common atheist's tool in the debate game). Anon, surely you dont think that unsupported assertions are a good form of debate?
Aaron, you have done this for me. Remember your ‘murder’ quote.
But anon, I am providing evidence against religious/afterlife morality. I have been showing the religious morality to be inferior with these quotes.
Now I have to sit back and just wonder at this… Aaron, can you tell me what effect this so called ‘ad-hominem’ had on my argument. I was not getting frustrated but thought it was funny.
Sorry anon. I thought I would take a stab at playing your game. You know, the one where you make personal accusations and assumptions about my emotional state. ;)
Aaron, you are the one putting this forth as an ‘argument’. For you to have a ‘strong’ argument, you would have to show that ‘sin’ is not the case, but instead you rule that out with the wave of your hand.
For me to show that sin is not the case, is to accept the burden of proof on myself to prove a negative. I do not need to show that sin is not the case any more than I need to show that magickal demon-leprechauns from Ireland had possessed her. Anon, if you were to actually provide some evidence to support the contention that sin was the cause, only then would I have to show that it wasnt so. There has to be something there for me to refute, and so far there is nothing supporting the sin theory for me to refute. We are going in circles with this burden of proof thing, and its degenerated to the point of me using Invisible Pink Unicorns and magickal demon-leprechauns as examples to clarify the burden of proof issue.
Aaron, please learn relevance. Also, if you don’t start pointing out Dawson’s and Franc’s ‘ad-hominems’ then you will be considered nothing but a hypocrite with an agenda. I will be watching and will point it out to you.
LOL first of all, I dont speak for them. I dont defend their ad hominems either. And in fact, I have pointed out to them that I disagree with that tactic. You must not have read the comments areas where I explained directly to them that I think the proper tactic is to attack the argument and not the arguer. However, being that they are on my side, I need not punch holes in their arguments for the theists sake. For theists do not regulate their allies in these debates either. Please learn relevance Anon. ;)
This is assertion and reassertion. Aaron, Dena was deceived about the religious belief itself actually causing her to commit the crime. Have you not caught that yet?
Im an athiest. To me, ALL religious belief is deception. Yes Ive caught that. But what Im saying is, that without religious belief, Dena would not have been able to deceive herself into killing her child. The bottom line is that religion only increases the chances of deception, psychosis, and violent crime. My argument has been consistent since the inception of this blog. Its listed on my title at the top of the page. Afterlife-belief is inhumane and immoral. That is all Im saying. Dena's afterlife-belief caused her to commit inhumane and immoral acts that she would not have committed if she were an atheist.
Whether Dena ‘likely did not’ subscribe to it is not the point Aaron. It’s not ‘off-track’ because you said earlier, ‘what if God told her to do it’ to which I asked you if you had ever heard of cessationism. That is the relevance here. We do agree that she did it ‘on her own’.
Yes I agree. All religious people always do everything on their own. There is no God that exists with which to give credit or responsibility to for actions committed by humans. Anonymous, this doesnt help your argument whatsoever. You concede a point to me when you admit that religious beliefs allow for evil actions that would not otherwise have been committed. Humanity would be much better off without afterlife-belief. Afterlife-belief is literally the worship of death.
Paul Manata is definitely legendary, so maybe one day I’ll be as smart as him and come from behind my anonymous mask! ;) j/k
Legendary for ad hominem and removing his comments section and dissapearing from the scene because he's "too busy" LOL. Funny that he is pursuing a masters in Apologetics but has no time to apologize, and Im pursuing a BS in Computer Information Systems and I do have spare time to pursue my amateur atheistic evangelizing hobby. Maybe Manata should get a degree in time management instead? Seriously though, Paul Manata is a person that means well. He wants to help humanity just like I do. The problem is that he has afterlife-belief, which is as I (and you) contend, self-deception.
Aaron, are you aware of the nature of ‘university studies’. They consistently contradict each other and also tend to ‘support’ whoever they are financially supported by. Cases in point is the medical studies and bodybuilding supplement studies.
Nooooooooo! You discovered the source! The Evil Atheist Conspiracy that financed the study! Argh! Seriously though, look at the objective evidence. There have been a string of baby-killings in America recently, and all the killers have cited religious factors. Do you seriously think that atheist moms are doing the same thing in the name of godlessness and the media has simply covered it up all as part of a vast conspiracy? Are you going to pull a "Tom Cruise" cult-move next and claim that psychiatry and psychology are all bullshit?
Have you rejected Ayn Rand yet?
I will reject Ayn Rand as soon as you reject God. Is that fair? ;)
In the name of ridding their country of religion, which is definitely atheistic.
I dont recall Joseph Stalin committing mass-murders because the people were religious. I believe it was because of political paranoia. Stalin didnt restrict his killings to a particular religious group. Hitler on the other hand, did kill a specific ethnic/religious group in the name of doing the Lords work.
Aaron, in your ‘example’ you referred strictly to Dena. Now you are equivocating by implying it was meant for atheists in general. Nevertheless, it does not help you since the example was for Dena and would not make “Dena’s” case falsifiable. So you have failed at falsifying what you should have.
Aaron, again the relying on the ‘confession’ is of no use whereas, I will bring up the self-deception/deception/sin part.
Why dont you get more specific anonymous? Why dont you explain why/how the sin/self-deception theory happened to Dena? You are being too vague. Did demons possess her and fill her head with evil lies?
I contend that, because she believed in the afterlife, and believed that the afterlife is a grander place without pain and suffering, she acted perfectly consistently with her beliefs and did the proper action. It is the afterlife belief itself that is the deception anonymous. You, as a theist, are also self-deceived. You are suffering from the same problem Dena is. The only difference is that Dena had more conviction than you do. Denas baby is in heaven now, where there is no pain and suffering, right? Dena saved her baby from this wretched sinful Earthly life right?
Anon, I need you to be more specific. Can you tell me why you even have a problem with Dena's actions? On what grounds do you object to Dena? Me, being an athiest, have a perfectly legitimate reason to condemn Dena. Whats your reason?
Aaron, was Stalin atheistic? You are missing the point of my counter ad-hominem example.
Im not sure if he was. Stalin grew up going to an Orthodox Church in Russia you know. And not only that, but motivation plays a big part in this. For example, if Dena killed her baby to hurt her husband or something else, then I wouldnt have an anti-religion case to present. It was Dena's specific religious motivation that she confessed to that made this case relevant. In the criminal investigation world, motivation is very important. In religious codes, motivate is really important.
You have provided it for me.
Well then spell it out. Quote me. Refer to it in specifics. This vagueness you keep practicing is not cool. If you arent specific, then it only hurts your argument. So far I've been doing alot more for my position than you have for yours.
That’s what I figured. ;)
I tried to keep this one short too but it still looks really long. Oh well.
Aaron said, ”You want me to falsify my belief that I have to provide evidence for my position? It seems silly to me that you imply that you disagree with that belief, but sure! If I did NOT have to provide evidence to support a belief, then any old silly belief could be considered true or probable without any support, like Invisible Pink Unicorns (that happens to be a common atheist's tool in the debate game). Anon, surely you dont think that unsupported assertions are a good form of debate?”
This is not falsification. Falsification is the idea that a proposition or theory cannot be scientific if it does not admit consideration of the possibility of its being false. What you have done here is to attempt to “prove” the reason why a proposition should be “falsifiable” rather than actually falsifying the statement itself. To falsify a proposition, it must be possible “in principle” to make an observation that would show the proposition to be false, whether that observation has been made or not. So you have again failed at showing this.
But, my main concern with falsification, which has been pointed out by several philosophers, is that falsification does not actually show me which belief to give up. Remember the story of the guy who thought he was dead and the one-by-one myth?
Aaron, you have done this for me. Remember your ‘murder’ quote.
”But anon, I am providing evidence against religious/afterlife morality. I have been showing the religious morality to be inferior with these quotes.”
Not sure what you are talking about here nor am I sure how this is a response to what I specifically said above. Religious belief (Christian) entails that murder is a sin.
Now I have to sit back and just wonder at this… Aaron, can you tell me what effect this so called ‘ad-hominem’ had on my argument. I was not getting frustrated but thought it was funny.
”Sorry anon. I thought I would take a stab at playing your game. You know, the one where you make personal accusations and assumptions about my emotional state. ;)”
Huh what game is that? I showed how your argument was ad-hominem and made your argument fallacious. Then you attempt to ‘call’ me on an ad-hominem that has no relevance to the argument whatsoever. How is that my game?
Aaron, you are the one putting this forth as an ‘argument’. For you to have a ‘strong’ argument, you would have to show that ‘sin’ is not the case, but instead you rule that out with the wave of your hand.
”For me to show that sin is not the case, is to accept the burden of proof on myself to prove a negative. I do not need to show that sin is not the case any more than I need to show that magickal demon-leprechauns from Ireland had possessed her.”
Aaron, before this turned into a debate and was long and drawn out, you had an unargued philosophical bias that I pointed out would not help you since it begs the question. What you are doing is asking for everyone to assume Chrisitianity is wrong from the start by implying that Christianity cannot provide good reasons for situations such as this, and only after someone assumes Christianity is wrong will your argument work. It’s not a matter of ‘looking at the evidence objectively’ as we both interpret the ‘evidence’ using the presuppositions of our worldview while both ‘claiming’ to look at the evidence objectively.
“Anon, if you were to actually provide some evidence to support the contention that sin was the cause, only then would I have to show that it wasnt so. There has to be something there for me to refute, and so far there is nothing supporting the sin theory for me to refute.”
Aaron, did Dena murder her child? Is murder a sin according to the Bible?
”LOL first of all, I dont speak for them. I dont defend their ad hominems either. And in fact, I have pointed out to them that I disagree with that tactic. You must not have read the comments areas where I explained directly to them that I think the proper tactic is to attack the argument and not the arguer. However, being that they are on my side, I need not punch holes in their arguments for the theists sake. For theists do not regulate their allies in these debates either. Please learn relevance Anon. ;)”
I’m sorry aaron but could you remind me who is the “self” proclaimed Ad-hominem police? Pray tell.
”Im an athiest. To me, ALL religious belief is deception. Yes Ive caught that.”
No you haven’t as that is not what I’m saying.
“But what Im saying is, that without religious belief, Dena would not have been able to deceive herself into killing her child. The bottom line is that religion only increases the chances of deception, psychosis, and violent crime. My argument has been consistent since the inception of this blog. Its listed on my title at the top of the page. Afterlife-belief is inhumane and immoral. That is all Im saying. Dena's afterlife-belief caused her to commit inhumane and immoral acts that she would not have committed if she were an atheist.”
This has been dealt with and is nothing more than an argumentum ad ignorantiam. Again, you don’t know what would’ve happened.
Whether Dena ‘likely did not’ subscribe to it is not the point Aaron. It’s not ‘off-track’ because you said earlier, ‘what if God told her to do it’ to which I asked you if you had ever heard of cessationism. That is the relevance here. We do agree that she did it ‘on her own’.
”Yes I agree. All religious people always do everything on their own. There is no God that exists with which to give credit or responsibility to for actions committed by humans. Anonymous, this doesnt help your argument whatsoever.
??? Aaron I’m thinking you forgot what we were talking about and took off on my last sentence and plugged a bunch of assertions in here.
“You concede a point to me when you admit that religious beliefs allow for evil actions that would not otherwise have been committed. Humanity would be much better off without afterlife-belief. Afterlife-belief is literally the worship of death.”
Aaron, where did I ‘concede’ anything to you? If you want to continue in this manner then you will be talking to yourself. When I say ‘possible’ it does not mean that I conceded anything; rather, it means a suspension of judgment since this is circumstantial and no one knows necessarily what would’ve happened.
“Legendary for ad hominem and removing his comments section and dissapearing from the scene because he's "too busy" LOL. Funny that he is pursuing a masters in Apologetics but has no time to apologize, and Im pursuing a BS in Computer Information Systems and I do have spare time to pursue my amateur atheistic evangelizing hobby. Maybe Manata should get a degree in time management instead? Seriously though, Paul Manata is a person that means well. He wants to help humanity just like I do. The problem is that he has afterlife-belief, which is as I (and you) contend, self-deception.”
Well then maybe you should challenge Paul Manata to a debate. This rant is irrelevant, so I will not comment further.
“Nooooooooo! You discovered the source! The Evil Atheist Conspiracy that financed the study! Argh! Seriously though, look at the objective evidence.
I am looking at the objective evidence. Nice of you to take things out of context yet again.
“There have been a string of baby-killings in America recently, and all the killers have cited religious factors. Do you seriously think that atheist moms are doing the same thing in the name of godlessness and the media has simply covered it up all as part of a vast conspiracy? Are you going to pull a "Tom Cruise" cult-move next and claim that psychiatry and psychology are all bullshit?”
Aaron, again your argument is fallacious as this does nothing to ‘prove’ that religious belief is immoral and/or wrong. See down below about Stalin.
”I will reject Ayn Rand as soon as you reject God. Is that fair? ;)”
No, this is not ‘fair’ as it is another instance of you taking things out of context.
“I dont recall Joseph Stalin committing mass-murders because the people were religious. I believe it was because of political paranoia. Stalin didnt restrict his killings to a particular religious group. Hitler on the other hand, did kill a specific ethnic/religious group in the name of doing the Lords work.”
Aaron, I pointed out Stalin as an example of how to argue fallaciously. The point is that if you want to argue against the person to disprove an ideology, then anything can be disproved. Where you would contribute his mass murder to one part of his ideology, I would point it out as something else. However, in the end, I don’t think it matters as this would be fallacious anyway. We could take his entire Marxist-Leninist ideology and then attempt to disprove it based on his actions of killing people. Now this would not ‘disprove’ the ideology itself or even show that ‘the ideology’ was immoral because of it. Rather, it would show that Stalin himself was human and capable of horrible acts.
But again this is ad-hominem.
”Why dont you get more specific anonymous? Why dont you explain why/how the sin/self-deception theory happened to Dena? You are being too vague. Did demons possess her and fill her head with evil lies?”
I’m not being vague. It was sin for her to do what she did. Murder would be a sin.
“I contend that, because she believed in the afterlife, and believed that the afterlife is a grander place without pain and suffering, she acted perfectly consistently with her beliefs and did the proper action. It is the afterlife belief itself that is the deception anonymous.”
Well aaron you can ‘contend’ all you want, but this is inconsistent with Christianity and provides no argumentation. Now I’m sure you’ll comeback with ‘well she put ‘primacy’ on the afterlife’; however, this action would not put ‘primacy’ on the after-life according to Christian doctrine and is a straw man attempt to disprove the after-life and Christianity.
“Anon, I need you to be more specific. Can you tell me why you even have a problem with Dena's actions? On what grounds do you object to Dena? Me, being an atheist, have a perfectly legitimate reason to condemn Dena. What’s your reason?”
She murdered her daughter, which was contrary to the Law of God. Now maybe you could tell me why her actions were considered wrong/immoral.
Aaron, was Stalin atheistic? You are missing the point of my counter ad-hominem example.
”Im not sure if he was. Stalin grew up going to an Orthodox Church in Russia you know. And not only that, but motivation plays a big part in this. For example, if Dena killed her baby to hurt her husband or something else, then I wouldnt have an anti-religion case to present. It was Dena's specific religious motivation that she confessed to that made this case relevant. In the criminal investigation world, motivation is very important. In religious codes, motivate is really important.”
He was an atheist. He was first a priest and ‘deconverted’ from the Orthodox Church in Russia. But see what I wrote earlier in this post as I don’t want to address it again and again and again.
”Well then spell it out. Quote me. Refer to it in specifics. This vagueness you keep practicing is not cool. If you arent specific, then it only hurts your argument. So far I've been doing alot more for my position than you have for yours.”
You said, “Thou shalt not kill? Wait a minute! Christians always say that its supposed to say "murder".”
Anonymous said:
This is not falsification. Falsification is the idea that a proposition or theory cannot be scientific if it does not admit consideration of the possibility of its being false. What you have done here is to attempt to “prove” the reason why a proposition should be “falsifiable” rather than actually falsifying the statement itself. To falsify a proposition, it must be possible “in principle” to make an observation that would show the proposition to be false, whether that observation has been made or not. So you have again failed at showing this.
But, my main concern with falsification, which has been pointed out by several philosophers, is that falsification does not actually show me which belief to give up. Remember the story of the guy who thought he was dead and the one-by-one myth?
Falsification will help determine which belief to hold. In your statement here, you seem to be coming from an angle, in Dena's case, of accepting a reason for her actions before even evaluating the evidence for it, in that you look for reasons not to hold a certain belief about her actions, but reasons to not hold certain beliefs about her actions. And you seem to be arguing against falsifiability as a valid method for testing beliefs about her actions. You need to do so for the sake of your "sin" explanation, which is not falsifiable. My explanation for her actions, however, is.
In fact, you havent even provided any evidence or support for your "sin" contention. You have only made claims about the Bible and sin etc... but you have provided no scripture references. Then when I ask you to provide this, you claim that I already provided it for you! Please. When I call out your unsupported claim, you attempt to refute me with another unsupported claim. Quit making claims and start providing evidence for them instead. If you think I already provided Bible references that support your position (which I contend I did not; I only provided evidence against your position), then back up that assertion. Quote it or something.
Not sure what you are talking about here nor am I sure how this is a response to what I specifically said above. Religious belief (Christian) entails that murder is a sin.
How was Dena's actions murder according to Christianity? What does the Bible say that supports your contention that she murdered her child and committed a sin? Dont sit here and claim that I already gave this without quoting where I actually did it. If you make claims about the Bible, you should cite the specific passages, just as you would expect from any one else you debate.
Huh what game is that? I showed how your argument was ad-hominem and made your argument fallacious. Then you attempt to ‘call’ me on an ad-hominem that has no relevance to the argument whatsoever. How is that my game?
You claimed I was attacking Dena. Then I pointed out if anything it was non sequitor not ad hominem. You then said I was doing both. But you didnt provide the specific quotes nor did you respond to my refutation. Later on, you called me an angry person without directly answering the statement I made.
Aaron, before this turned into a debate and was long and drawn out, you had an unargued philosophical bias that I pointed out would not help you since it begs the question. What you are doing is asking for everyone to assume Chrisitianity is wrong from the start by implying that Christianity cannot provide good reasons for situations such as this, and only after someone assumes Christianity is wrong will your argument work. It’s not a matter of ‘looking at the evidence objectively’ as we both interpret the ‘evidence’ using the presuppositions of our worldview while both ‘claiming’ to look at the evidence objectively.
Not quite. I think you are confused about the message of this particular article. This article is not about whether or not Christianity is false. This article is about the immoral and inhumane deficiencies of Christianity. Nowhere in this article do I attempt to show Christianity as untrue, as this article is about the inferior social behavior that Christianity serves as a catalyst for. Jesus could be factually and empirically proven to be the messiah today, and it would have no bearing on the validity of the claims made in this article.
Aaron, did Dena murder her child? Is murder a sin according to the Bible?
Ive been asking you that for awhile now. But since you refuse to answer, I will answer for you, but I dont think you will like the answer. Hopefully what Im about to say will motivate you to actually back up your claims with Biblical references. I contend that, according to the Bible, Dena did not murder her child. I will cite scripture for this assertion of mine. This is gonna be long!
In Genesis 25:28 and Romans 9:13, God endorses hating some of your children (He hated Esau). Maybe God commanded Dena to do it? In Exodus 12:29, God kills all the firstborn Egyptian children. Maybe God's will was for Dena's baby to die by her hand? Was it murder when God did it? Would it be murder if God commanded Dena to do it? In Exodus 21:15,17, God says that any child who hits or curses their parents must be killed. Maybe God told Dena that this child would do such a thing and must be killed? In Exodus 34:7, God says he passes down iniquity for many generations. Maybe this was God passing it down? In Leviticus 26:16-39, God says that he will make those who displease him eat the flesh of their children. Maybe Dena pissed God off and this was God's way of punishment? In Numbers 3:4 God kills two of Aaron's sons for offering strange fire. Maybe God was nipping it in the bud this time? In Deuteronomy 28:56-57, God again says that mommy will forced to eat her child. Maybe in these modern times, God prefers to compel mothers to merely cut a few limbs off? In Joshua 10:28-32, God makes Joshua kill lots of people, including babies. He "utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord commanded." Couldnt God have commanded Dena to do this? Wouldnt it be moral for Dena to follow this command? And in Joshua 11:6-17, again he does the same damn thing! In 2 Kings 2:23-24 God gets his child-bear-mauling on, but I already mentioned that. In 2 Kings 6:28-29,33, God again makes women eat their own babies and proclaims "Behold, this evil is of the Lord." In 1 Chronicles 20:1, David gets his baby slaughter on. Was it murder then, or morally righteous in accordance with God's will? In Psalms 21:9-10, God says he will burn you and your children if you piss him off. Maybe Dena pissed God off? In Psalms 109:6-14, God is asked to make children suffer the sins of their fathers. So maybe Dena was dispensing moral justice according to God's command? And let's not forget Psalm 137:9, where God says that happiness is bashing your kids head in with a stone. Although Dena cut off her baby's arms... maybe God was feeling creative. Wasn't there a mother recently that did in fact use a rock to bash her kids' heads in? Proverbs 19:18 says to beat your child and not to stop if they cry. Sounds like Dena knows her Bible! Proverbs 23:13-14 says to beat the shit out of your kids and says they won't die, but even if they do its okay because they will go to heaven. In Isaiah 9:17, God says he won't have any mercy on the children of hypocrites. Maybe Dena was a hypocrite and this was God's way of punishing them both? Sounds like a good idea to kill two birds with one stone; having a hypocrite mom cut her baby's arms off. In Isaiah 13:15-18, God says he will kill your children before your eyes. Maybe God took it a step further and did it through Dena's own hands? Talk about Godly justice! And of course in Isaiah 14:21, God says, yet again, that he will slaugher children for their father's sins. Could he have dispenses this justice through Dena's knife wielding hands? In Jeremiah 2:30, God corrects people by killing their kids. Think Dena learned her lesson? In fact, God is anxious to bust his rage out on children, according to Jeremiah 6:11-12. In Lamentations 2:20-22, again, God says he will make women eat their children. Cannibalistic morality right? Whatever God says is good, its good right? In Matthew 10:37, Jesus says not to love our children too much. Maybe Dena did, and God compelled her to kill her baby to set her straight? In Mark 7:9-10, Jesus gets pissy because the Jews don't kill their kids like they are supposed to. Maybe Dena read this verse and realized what that she needed to show her love for Jesus? In Luke 14:26, Jesus says you have to hate your family, so it seems to me like Dena was following orders. And finally, in Revelations 2:23, Jesus himself says he will kill children. I wish I had read this verse back when I was in my Church Youth Group, playing Jesus in a skit and singing "Yes Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so." sounds like Dena DID read that verse!
aron, where did I ‘concede’ anything to you? If you want to continue in this manner then you will be talking to yourself. When I say ‘possible’ it does not mean that I conceded anything; rather, it means a suspension of judgment since this is circumstantial and no one knows necessarily what would’ve happened.
Given empirical evidence of the religious beliefs of baby-killing-mothers, it is much more likely that Dena's baby would have still been alive had she not been religious. I also backed this up with a respectable study from a respectable University, which you dismissed for reasons that don't seem quite clear. Oh wait I take that back, you implied that none of the psychologists that worked on the study were religious. Hmmm, more unsupported assertions?
I am looking at the objective evidence. Nice of you to take things out of context yet again.
No, you are making unsupported assertions and then claiming that I supported them for you. So far I'm the only one that provided any evidence to back up my claims. I provided evidence in the CNN article, the University study, and now Biblical references. Remind me again what objective evidence you have counted as supporting your position?
Aaron, I pointed out Stalin as an example of how to argue fallaciously. The point is that if you want to argue against the person to disprove an ideology, then anything can be disproved. Where you would contribute his mass murder to one part of his ideology, I would point it out as something else. However, in the end, I don’t think it matters as this would be fallacious anyway. We could take his entire Marxist-Leninist ideology and then attempt to disprove it based on his actions of killing people. Now this would not ‘disprove’ the ideology itself or even show that ‘the ideology’ was immoral because of it. Rather, it would show that Stalin himself was human and capable of horrible acts.
But again this is ad-hominem.
It seems to me that you feel it is impossible to look at a worldview and the consequences of what it does to people's minds and their actions. Couldn't I take your argument here and use it to show that Satanism is not bad or that Jihad is humane?
I’m not being vague. It was sin for her to do what she did. Murder would be a sin.
Care to support that assertion? I just gave numerous Biblical references that say its NOT a sin and that God WANTS it that way. You have not yet provided any Biblical references to support this assertion of yours.
She murdered her daughter, which was contrary to the Law of God.
Which law is that? Can you point out a Biblical reference to me please?
Now maybe you could tell me why her actions were considered wrong/immoral.
Sure! She killed one of her children. She hurt herself, her family, and humanity. She sacrificed another for her own sake. She acted contrary to the Objectivist motto of "I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself".
You said, “Thou shalt not kill? Wait a minute! Christians always say that its supposed to say "murder".”
Yup! Now what in the Bible makes Dena's act murder? I'm not sure if you understand that I'm challenging your "murder" contention. You so far have just been claiming that it is without providing Biblical proof that Dena's act was indeed murder. I however provided many Biblical references which show that God endorsed Dena's actions, or even compelled them directly.
Manata, unfortunately, has said that he doesn't want to do any debates, although I did get to engage him a bit from time to time over at Goose The Antithesis. I guess we will all have to wait awhile.
Man I wrote a book. This is getting long! :O
”Falsification will help determine which belief to hold.”
No it won’t as I have provided proof for this over and over and over.
“In your statement here, you seem to be coming from an angle, in Dena's case, of accepting a reason for her actions before even evaluating the evidence for it, in that you look for reasons not to hold a certain belief about her actions, but reasons to not hold certain beliefs about her actions.”
I’m coming from the angle that people interpret evidence based upon their prior commitments or presuppositions.
“And you seem to be arguing against falsifiability as a valid method for testing beliefs about her actions.
Yes I am arguing against falsifiability.
“You need to do so for the sake of your "sin" explanation, which is not falsifiable.”
No I don’t. I do not accept falsifiability for which I have been giving several reasons. I wanted you to falsify your statement; however, you can’t do so, so I’m wondering why I have to falsify anything.
“My explanation for her actions, however, is.”
You have not falsified that as I have shown about two posts ago. You attempted to but while doing so you equivocated and strayed from your example and did not actually falsify what you should have.
”In fact, you havent even provided any evidence or support for your "sin" contention. You have only made claims about the Bible and sin etc... but you have provided no scripture references. Then when I ask you to provide this, you claim that I already provided it for you! Please. When I call out your unsupported claim, you attempt to refute me with another unsupported claim. Quit making claims and start providing evidence for them instead. If you think I already provided Bible references that support your position (which I contend I did not; I only provided evidence against your position), then back up that assertion. Quote it or something.”
Yes I have. What you are attempting to do is to assert that I have not provided evidence unless I give exact Scripture quotes. I do not accept that. I can say the Bible says ….. without giving scripture references. Now could I back it up with Scripture references – yes. However, my not providing them does not entail that I have not provided evidence. So good try. Also, just wondering if you could falsify all of what you said just above?
“How was Dena's actions murder according to Christianity? What does the Bible say that supports your contention that she murdered her child and committed a sin? Dont sit here and claim that I already gave this without quoting where I actually did it. If you make claims about the Bible, you should cite the specific passages, just as you would expect from any one else you debate.”
Can you falsify that this is what I need to do or is it just another unsupported claim (since you hold to falsification)?
”You claimed I was attacking Dena. Then I pointed out if anything it was non sequitor not ad hominem. You then said I was doing both. But you didnt provide the specific quotes nor did you respond to my refutation. Later on, you called me an angry person without directly answering the statement I made.”
Aaron this is getting old; the misrepresentations that is. I did not claim you were attacking Dena. Rather I claimed you were attempting to disprove religious beliefs/conclude that they are immoral by using Dena’s actions. What refutation are you talking about? There was no refutation. You need to go back and reread and I responded to what you had said by showing it was both ad-hominem and non-sequitor and you gave no reply to that.
Here is the conversation:
You said, “I think what you mean is non sequitor. You seem to misunderstand my argument in this post. This particular post was not trying to disprove an afterlife, but instead was trying to show the inferior morality and erroneous actions that are caused by afterlife belief.”
I said, ”No Aaron, I meant that it is ad-hominem. Ad-hominems are also non-sequitors most of the time. For instance, if I say that “mormons are bigots, therefore the Mormon God doesn’t exist”. That is ad-hominem and non-sequitor. Or if I say “Atheists are immoral and kill many people (Mao and Stalin), therefore, atheism is inhumane and not true.” It’s both ad-hominem and a non-sequitor. This is why I stated, “This would also be fallacious as it does nothing to disprove the 'idea'/'concept' of atheism.” An ad-hominem argument is not necessarily an insult as you have construed it earlier but is much broader.”
After this you said nothing else.
”Not quite. I think you are confused about the message of this particular article. This article is not about whether or not Christianity is false. This article is about the immoral and inhumane deficiencies of Christianity. Nowhere in this article do I attempt to show Christianity as untrue, as this article is about the inferior social behavior that Christianity serves as a catalyst for.”
No I am not confused about the article. Aaron, it is implied that Christianity is false since it attempts to show “the immoral and inhumane deficiencies of Christianity.”
“Jesus could be factually and empirically proven to be the messiah today, and it would have no bearing on the validity of the claims made in this article.”
Yes it would because if Jesus was proven in the sense you are talking about (meaning you would be persuaded as well) then you would agree with me.
”Ive been asking you that for awhile now. But since you refuse to answer, I will answer for you, but I dont think you will like the answer. Hopefully what Im about to say will motivate you to actually back up your claims with Biblical references. I contend that, according to the Bible, Dena did not murder her child. I will cite scripture for this assertion of mine. This is gonna be long!”
Ok this should be interesting.
“In Genesis 25:28 and Romans 9:13, God endorses hating some of your children (He hated Esau). Maybe God commanded Dena to do it?”
Gen 25:28
28 Now Isaac loved Esau, because he had a taste for game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
NASU
Rom 9:13
Just as it is written, "JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED."
NASU
Now how could you get that God commanded *her* to do it based on these verses?
“In Exodus 12:29, God kills all the firstborn Egyptian children. Maybe God's will was for Dena's baby to die by her hand? Was it murder when God did it?
Ex 12:29-30
9 Now it came about at midnight that the LORD struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle.
NASU
No it was not murder. God told pharaoh, who had literally kidnapped His people, to let them go. Pharaoh did not so God punished he and his household. So, no it was not murder when God did it. Please read what I say about Gen 9:6 before you respond to this.
“Would it be murder if God commanded Dena to do it?”
This is irrelevant since God did not command Dena to do it.
“In Exodus 21:15,17, God says that any child who hits or curses their parents must be killed. Maybe God told Dena that this child would do such a thing and must be killed?”
Dude you are stretching. Can you give an example in Scripture that this would relate to or happened in the past? Anyway, remember I am a cessationist and believe that the canon of Scripture is closed. For God to ‘command’ anyone to do this would go against His revealed Word; revelation has ceased.
“In Exodus 34:7, God says he passes down iniquity for many generations. Maybe this was God passing it down?”
Passing what down? Passing down the command for Dena to kill her child? This assumes way too much.
“In Leviticus 26:16-39, God says that he will make those who displease him eat the flesh of their children. Maybe Dena pissed God off and this was God's way of punishment?”
Do you know the context of this? He is telling them if they break His law/covenant that He has given them, then He will punish them.
You would really have to twist this around (I don’t know how), to get out of it that what Dena did was not sin.
In Numbers 3:4 God kills two of Aaron's sons for offering strange fire. Maybe God was nipping it in the bud this time?
This again has nothing to do with proving that Dena did not commit sin. Did Aaron’s two sons sin in offering strange fire? (I’ll go ahead and answer before I get some dumb remark). Yes they sinned, broke the commandments of God and He punished them. What this has to do with Dena I don’t know.
In Deuteronomy 28:56-57, God again says that mommy will forced to eat her child. Maybe in these modern times, God prefers to compel mothers to merely cut a few limbs off?
Hey Aaron, Maybe God didn’t. This is retarded. Again the context of what is going on would be nice.
This is nothing but prejudicial conjecture and has nothing to do with what is being discussed.
In Joshua 10:28-32, God makes Joshua kill lots of people, including babies. He "utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord commanded." Couldnt God have commanded Dena to do this?
No God would not ‘command’ Dena to do this. Remember the whole thing with revelation ceasing (aka cessationism). Also the context that Joshua is in and that which Dena is in are totally different. I’ll leave it up to you to figure that one out. THAT WOULD REQUIRE YOU TO READ BEFORE ATTEMPTING A REFUTATION. I KNOW YOU DON’T LIKE TO DO THAT.
"Wouldnt it be moral for Dena to follow this command?"
This assumes a certain answer to the first question so now it is irrevelant.
"And in Joshua 11:6-17, again he does the same damn thing!"
See above.
“In 2 Kings 2:23-24 God gets his child-bear-mauling on, but I already mentioned that.”
But this has what to do with Dena. One thing you need to remember is that Christians maintain that man is not innocent in the eyes of God (no man). However, if man shed’s mans blood, then by man shall his blood be shed (Gen 9:6).
“In 2 Kings 6:28-29,33, God again makes women eat their own babies and proclaims "Behold, this evil is of the Lord."”
Again the relevance for Dena is not there.
“In 1 Chronicles 20:1, David gets his baby slaughter on. Was it murder then, or morally righteous in accordance with God's will?”
Aaron, are you familiar with the ‘laws of warfare’. Probably not and tonight I’m not giving a bible study. Now what does this have to do with Dena’s case. Is she participating in the warfare of the theocracy of Israel?
“In Psalms 21:9-10, God says he will burn you and your children if you piss him off. Maybe Dena pissed God off?”
“Ps 21:8
8 Your hand will find out all your enemies;
Your right hand will find out those who hate you.
NASU”
Now why was God mad at them? As for Dena this has what relevance?
“In Psalms 109:6-14, God is asked to make children suffer the sins of their fathers. So maybe Dena was dispensing moral justice according to God's command?”
Yes and the point is what? Go back to verse 1. David is trusting in God to avenge Him and not relying on his own hand to obtain revenge against his enemies. This has nothing to do with Dena.
“And let's not forget Psalm 137:9, where God says that happiness is bashing your kids head in with a stone. Although Dena cut off her baby's arms... maybe God was feeling creative.”
Psalm 137 was composed by a member of the captivity of Judah, who had witnessed the sadistic brutality of the Chaldean soldiers in the time of the capture of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. He had seen how those heartless monsters had wrenched away helpless babies from their mothers’ arms and then smashed out their brains against the corner of the nearest wall while uttering blasphemy against God. This challenge to the sovereignty of God could not go unanswered. The composer felt altogether justified in calling on God to enforce the sanctions of His law and mete out appropriate retribution to those who had committed these atrocities.
Now what does this has to do with Dena? A little context always helps Aaron.
“Wasn't there a mother recently that did in fact use a rock to bash her kids' heads in?”
Don’t know.
“Proverbs 19:18 says to beat your child and not to stop if they cry. Sounds like Dena knows her Bible!”
“Prov 19:18
18 Discipline your son while there is hope,
And do not desire his death.
NASU”
The KJV says: Prov 19:18 18 Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. KJV
Only an extremely perverted reading could get you to where you want to go. Again, where is the justification for Dena to do what she did? Aaron, you know a little bible study would save us both the effort.
“Proverbs 23:13-14 says to beat the shit out of your kids and says they won't die, but even if they do its okay because they will go to heaven.”
Prov 23:13-14
3 Do not hold back discipline from the child, Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die. 14 You shall strike him with the rod. And rescue his soul from Sheol. NASU
Now for the KJV: Prov 23:13-14 13 Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. 14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. KJV
Again only an extremely perverted reading would get this out of the text. Let’s see: it says if you beat him with the rod he SHALL NOT DIE and you rescue his soul from HELL. Aaron, how does this support what you are saying? The child in here did not die nor is it commanded for someone to kill the child. This is stupid aaron and you insult scholars everywhere with your arrogance, laziness, lack of preparation and disregard for interpreting the biblical text.
“In Isaiah 9:17, God says he won't have any mercy on the children of hypocrites. Maybe Dena was a hypocrite and this was God's way of punishing them both? Sounds like a good idea to kill two birds with one stone; having a hypocrite mom cut her baby's arms off.”
Isa 9:17 17 Therefore the Lord does not take pleasure in their young men, Nor does He have pity on their orphans or their widows; For every one of them is godless and an evildoer, And every mouth is speaking foolishness. In spite of all this, His anger does not turn away And His hand is still stretched out.
NASU”
Now for the KJV: Isa 9:17 17 Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is an hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
KJV
I’m sorry but where did God command Dena to kill her child?
“In Isaiah 13:15-18, God says he will kill your children before your eyes. Maybe God took it a step further and did it through Dena's own hands? Talk about Godly justice! And of course in Isaiah 14:21, God says, yet again, that he will slaugher children for their father's sins. Could he have dispenses this justice through Dena's knife wielding hands? In Jeremiah 2:30, God corrects people by killing their kids. Think Dena learned her lesson? In fact, God is anxious to bust his rage out on children, according to Jeremiah 6:11-12. In Lamentations 2:20-22, again, God says he will make women eat their children. Cannibalistic morality right? Whatever God says is good, its good right? In Matthew 10:37, Jesus says not to love our children too much. Maybe Dena did, and God compelled her to kill her baby to set her straight? In Mark 7:9-10, Jesus gets pissy because the Jews don't kill their kids like they are supposed to. Maybe Dena read this verse and realized what that she needed to show her love for Jesus? In Luke 14:26, Jesus says you have to hate your family, so it seems to me like Dena was following orders. And finally, in Revelations 2:23, Jesus himself says he will kill children. I wish I had read this verse back when I was in my Church Youth Group, playing Jesus in a skit and singing "Yes Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so." sounds like Dena DID read that verse!”
I’m not going to respond to the rest as you have shown yourself incompetent with the verses I have dealt with.
“Given empirical evidence of the religious beliefs of baby-killing-mothers, it is much more likely that Dena's baby would have still been alive had she not been religious.”
Who knows, the omnipotent aaron? Hey maybe she wouldn’t have even been pregnant if she didn’t have religious belief. Or hey, maybe she would killed it sooner through abortion if she didn’t have religious belief. Who knows aaron. This is comical and stupid.
“I also backed this up with a respectable study from a respectable University, which you dismissed for reasons that don't seem quite clear. Oh wait I take that back, you implied that none of the psychologists that worked on the study were religious. Hmmm, more unsupported assertions?”
Where did I imply this?
”No, you are making unsupported assertions and then claiming that I supported them for you. So far I'm the only one that provided any evidence to back up my claims. I provided evidence in the CNN article, the University study, and now Biblical references. Remind me again what objective evidence you have counted as supporting your position?”
Your misinterpretation of biblical references were a joke. Do you really take yourself serious?
”It seems to me that you feel it is impossible to look at a worldview and the consequences of what it does to people's minds and their actions. Couldn't I take your argument here and use it to show that Satanism is not bad or that Jihad is humane?”
No you couldn’t and you still have not grasped what I’m saying. Go back and reread.
”Care to support that assertion? I just gave numerous Biblical references that say its NOT a sin and that God WANTS it that way. You have not yet provided any Biblical references to support this assertion of yours.”
Aaron, you really don’t want to debate Paul Manata. Sorry kid.
"Which law is that? Can you point out a Biblical reference to me please?"
Ex 20:13 13 " You shall not murder. NASU
Deut 5:17 17' You shall not murder. NASU
“Sure! She killed one of her children. She hurt herself, her family, and humanity. She sacrificed another for her own sake. She acted contrary to the Objectivist motto of "I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself".”
How did you deduce that it is actually wrong to do this? And why should Dena hold to what you consider to be moral – that “"I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself".”?
”Yup! Now what in the Bible makes Dena's act murder? I'm not sure if you understand that I'm challenging your "murder" contention. You so far have just been claiming that it is without providing Biblical proof that Dena's act was indeed murder. I however provided many Biblical references which show that God endorsed Dena's actions, or even compelled them directly.”
You have only shown that you don’t read or even attempt to get background info and context.
Based on your lack of ability at reading verses and the length this is getting, I highly doubt that I'll respond to any more rhetoric of yours.
I’m coming from the angle that people interpret evidence based upon their prior commitments or presuppositions.
And this is why you as a Christian still think that Christianity is a good moral system, despite its death-worship and despite its causing of many American babies to be slaughtered by their mothers.
Yes I am arguing against falsifiability.
Because that way you can let your "sin" contention float around without any actual support!
No I don’t. I do not accept falsifiability for which I have been giving several reasons. I wanted you to falsify your statement; however, you can’t do so, so I’m wondering why I have to falsify anything. You have not falsified that as I have shown about two posts ago. You attempted to but while doing so you equivocated and strayed from your example and did not actually falsify what you should have.
You can assert all you want. Dena's sepecific actions and her mental/religious state provide for clear falsifiability which I have provided. Ill repeat it again for all the other readers to judge, since obviously you and I will not agree. If Christianity was a good moral code, Dena's baby would not have been under heightened danger upon Dena's religious fervor; Dena would not have admitted the motive that she did. And if religion was healthy for society, the psychological study performed would not have come to the conclusions that it has.
Yes I have. What you are attempting to do is to assert that I have not provided evidence unless I give exact Scripture quotes. I do not accept that. I can say the Bible says ….. without giving scripture references. Now could I back it up with Scripture references – yes. However, my not providing them does not entail that I have not provided evidence. So good try. Also, just wondering if you could falsify all of what you said just above?
LOL So Im just supposed to take you word for it about what you think the Bible says? The bottom line is that you have unsupported assertions. Thats all there is to it.
Can you falsify that this is what I need to do or is it just another unsupported claim (since you hold to falsification)?
What are you doing? Are you serious?
I said, ”No Aaron, I meant that it is ad-hominem. Ad-hominems are also non-sequitors most of the time. For instance, if I say that “mormons are bigots, therefore the Mormon God doesn’t exist”. That is ad-hominem and non-sequitor. Or if I say “Atheists are immoral and kill many people (Mao and Stalin), therefore, atheism is inhumane and not true.” It’s both ad-hominem and a non-sequitor. This is why I stated, “This would also be fallacious as it does nothing to disprove the 'idea'/'concept' of atheism.” An ad-hominem argument is not necessarily an insult as you have construed it earlier but is much broader.” After this you said nothing else.
I wasnt trying to prove the non existence of God through Denas actions. I was instead pointing out the consequences of a particular moral code when Dena specifically referred to that moral code in her confession. In a court of law, this would be pretty solid. We got motive, we got confession, we got the murder weapon, and we got a Christian song playing in the background. But you think all of this is ad hominem and non sequitor. Im sure you know more about Denas motivations than she does. Im sure you know more about the effects of religious dogma on psychotic women than the psycholigists that studied these numerous situations do.
Whats next, will you try to tell us that its ad hominem and non sequitor to say that Naziism increases the chances of racial violence?
No I am not confused about the article. Aaron, it is implied that Christianity is false since it attempts to show “the immoral and inhumane deficiencies of Christianity.”
Incorrect! For this post anyway. All I am doing in this blog entry is giving evidence for the immoral actions Christianity tends to inspire. If you look at all my blog entries, you will see that I have argued about the immorality of afterlife-belief before. In this particular blog entry about Dena, I could accept that Jesus is the messiah and my contention that Christianity is immoral would still be valid. Having the Christian God exist or not exist does not equate it with being morally superior. You are just hyper-defensive about your religion, and you think my moral judgements on it are some kind of "God deosnt exist" argument. Not all of my arguments HAVE to be about the non existence of God, and this one is not.
Yes it would because if Jesus was proven in the sense you are talking about (meaning you would be persuaded as well) then you would agree with me.
Incorrect! Let's pretend for a moment that I believe your superstition that Jesus is the messiah and is real. It doesnt mean that I have to agree that the Biblical morality is superior. I could still just as easily reject the Bible's moral code and defend my own morality (or any other morality) as superior.
Now how could you get that God commanded *her* to do it based on these verses?
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
No it was not murder. God told pharaoh, who had literally kidnapped His people, to let them go. Pharaoh did not so God punished he and his household. So, no it was not murder when God did it. Please read what I say about Gen 9:6 before you respond to this.
Of course! God can never commit murder! Dont you just love his arbitrary morality? If God says it, then its good. There is nothing objective here when it comes to God.
Dude you are stretching. Can you give an example in Scripture that this would relate to or happened in the past? Anyway, remember I am a cessationist and believe that the canon of Scripture is closed. For God to ‘command’ anyone to do this would go against His revealed Word; revelation has ceased.
Your cessationism views are irrelevant for multiple reasons. First of all, Dena isnt a cessationist. Secondly, whether or not cessationism is correct has no bearing on the moral judgement I make against Christianity in this blog entry. But it is funny to see people who all claim to be Christian having such different beliefs. Anonymous, do you pray even though you believe in cessationism? What good would asking for God's help do in a cessationist worldview?
Hey Aaron, Maybe God didn’t. This is retarded.
In all truth I agree with you completely. Religion and afterlife belief is retarded, God didnt do it; God didnt do anything for he doesnt exist, and religion is harmful to society. Why do you believe in God Anonymous?
This is nothing but prejudicial conjecture and has nothing to do with what is being discussed.
And your conjecture isnt prejudicial?
No God would not ‘command’ Dena to do this.
How do you know? Because of the particular way that you choose to interpret ambiguous and vague scripture?
Remember the whole thing with revelation ceasing (aka cessationism).
Oh I do.
But this has what to do with Dena. One thing you need to remember is that Christians maintain that man is not innocent in the eyes of God (no man). However, if man shed’s mans blood, then by man shall his blood be shed (Gen 9:6).
Sounds to me like Gen 9:6 supports my argument. Maybe Dena's grandparents or something shed man's blood, and then God punished Dena and her baby for it, just like he says he does in the Bible.
Now why was God mad at them? As for Dena this has what relevance?
God could be mad at Dena for any number of reasons. But hey, God's will shall always be done right? It was God's will for Dena to cut her baby's arms off no matter how you look at it. Unless of course, you are some wacky Christian who thinks that God's will can be defied and broken.
Don’t know.
Andrea Yates my friend. Where have you been?
Only an extremely perverted reading could get you to where you want to go.
You mean only a literal reading. It is your wishy-washy, re-interpretation type of reading that is the perverted one. God spells it out so clear here yet you refuse to call a spade a spade.
Again only an extremely perverted reading would get this out of the text. Let’s see: it says if you beat him with the rod he SHALL NOT DIE and you rescue his soul from HELL. Aaron, how does this support what you are saying? The child in here did not die nor is it commanded for someone to kill the child. This is stupid aaron and you insult scholars everywhere with your arrogance, laziness, lack of preparation and disregard for interpreting the biblical text.
Nice try. Dena didnt kill her baby, she only cut its arms off. God willed the baby to bleed to death yet it was saved from hell. There are a million ways to interpret this verse and its relation to Denas actions are plain as day. Regardless, through all this, you seem to be missing the forest for the trees. The Bible is chock-full of baby killing messages and a general obsession with violence and death. It is no suprise to any impartial observer that a Bible-reading Jesus-loving person could get violent streaks from the Bible itself and go out and commit some crazy action with striking similarity to the stories contained in the Bible.
I’m sorry but where did God command Dena to kill her child?
In Denas apartment.
I’m not going to respond to the rest as you have shown yourself incompetent with the verses I have dealt with.
Fine, You will keep putting roses on top of every inhumane violent and baby-murdering verse in the Bible and you will still insist that Dena had no reason to kill her child. You will always insist that nothing in the Bible could ever be used as inspiration for Dena to do what she did. You cannot see the forest for the trees. You remind me of the Muslims that insist that the Quran has no violent inhumane verses in it either.
Who knows, the omnipotent aaron? Hey maybe she wouldn’t have even been pregnant if she didn’t have religious belief. Or hey, maybe she would killed it sooner through abortion if she didn’t have religious belief. Who knows aaron. This is comical and stupid.
Its only comical and stupid when you ignore Denas confessed motive and the psycholgical study and the other instances of infanticide committed by religious mothers for admittedly religious reasons. Considering that you claim not to be aware of the Andrea Yates instance, this definitely is comical and stupid. I suppose World Net Daily doesnt cover Andrea-Yates-type stories.
Where did I imply this?
Right here: This also begs the question as you assume I take the university as authoritative (maybe the university is not religious).
Your misinterpretation of biblical references were a joke. Do you really take yourself serious?
I do not take the Bible seriously, no. What is a joke actually is your blind eye to the inhumane passages in the Bible and your belief that Gods morality is absolute, yet whatever God does is totally moral. When God killed the babies with the bears, it was moral. When God claimed that he would make mothers eat their young, it was moral. But somehow, you believe that I am the one distorting Biblical messages. And by the way, you still havent provided anything to support your claim that Dena's actions were a sin or against God.
No you couldn’t and you still have not grasped what I’m saying. Go back and reread.
You obviously havent grasped what the Bible says about killing babies. Nor about Jesus's chiding of the Jews for not killing their children as commanded. Go back and reread it.
Aaron, you really don’t want to debate Paul Manata. Sorry kid.
Thanks for the kid remark. But I already have debated him quite a few times over at Goose The Antithesis. He got pissed that I hadnt read everything Van Til wrote about faith, then he dissapeared without actually addressing my arguments directly. I was in attendance at his Sansone debate, where the centerpiece of his Chrisitan defense involved an ad-hominem attack on everyone who isnt Christian by claiming that they are all self-deceived because they deny that they have instrinsic knowledge of God at conception. LOL!
Ex 20:13 13 " You shall not murder. NASU
Deut 5:17 17' You shall not murder. NASU
Finally you posted a goddamn Bible verse. Im amazed we made this breakthough, kid. But where in the Bible does it say that what Dena did was murder? So far all Ive seen is that Dena did something that the lord likes: killing children.
How did you deduce that it is actually wrong to do this?
Because Im a human that can recognize objective truths of reality and what is necessary for humans, including myself, to live and prosper.
And why should Dena hold to what you consider to be moral – that “"I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself".”?
She "should" because it would be objectively beneficial to her life. But again, this is assuming that Dena actually wants life. Apparently she doesnt; she worships death, for she mistakenly thinks that death is a kind of greater life... an afterlife. But thats what happens when you dont properly perceive the objective truths of reality.
Since you hate objectivism so much, and you tell me to study the Bible, you should take your own advice and know thy enemy. Go to What Is Objectivism? and read up a bit. I promise in return that I will spend a few hours tonight reading over at CARM.
Based on your lack of ability at reading verses and the length this is getting, I highly doubt that I'll respond to any more rhetoric of yours.
Had enough eh? Im sure you will be much more comfortable pretending that God wants children to be alive and doesnt want parents to kill their children, despite the fact that you dont have any Bible verses that directly and specifically say it. Im sure you will be much more comfortable praying to Jesus every night to assist and intervene in your life, even though you are a cessationist. And Im sure you will feel much more comfortable pretending that Gods morality is absolute, yet whatever he does is automatically right and he cannot by definition ever "murder" anyone, etc...
Maybe someday you will wake up and realize that you believe in a silly yet harmful superstition. I happen to be an optimist about this kind of thing. But hey, it is happening alot. There are more atheists in the developed world than at any time ever before. I mean, just look at Europe! They got the highest quality of life in the world, yet have the most nonbelievers in the world! America is, as usual, following in their footsteps, albeit just a generation or two behind. Cmon, be progressive! ;)
Aaron,
I’m not going to respond point by point as most of this has been shown over and over. I do want to make a few comments though.
I said, Yes I am arguing against falsifiability.
You said, “Because that way you can let your "sin" contention float around without any actual support!”
Aaron, you show that you are unaware of the conversation we are having. I have continually shown you that falsification refutes itself. You have not even begun to interact with what I’ve been saying. You have continually asserted over and over that I ‘need’ to be able to ‘falsify’ it without proving me wrong.
You do know that falsification was used as a means of determining which statements were meaningful, right? If a proposition was not falsifiable then it was not meaningful. It was also used as an attempt to get around ‘religious language’.
Another refutation of it from the atheistic Brand Blanshard proceeds similar to this (this is #3 now):
The proposition that “All swans are white” is falsifiable by the potential observation of one swan that is black. However, we could just as easily say that “Some swans are white” (since we have observed this) and that proposition would not be falsifiable. So according to falsification, the proposition that “some swans are white” would be meaningless, which is absurd.
For a little more education, the logical positivists first employed something known as verificationism; however, it proved to be untenable. Then they went to falsification, which fell flat on its face. Then it was a weak verificationism, which also went downhill.
When you ask, “What are you doing? Are you serious?”, I am holding you consistent to your own standards when you employ your falsificationist standard. If you can’t falsify everything you say, then it becomes meaningless and that’s based upon your own standard.
Next you mention the usual that you weren’t trying to disprove the existence of God. However, as I have repeated over and over and over, it is implicit in your argument. If one concludes that God’s Law is immoral (the moral code in Christianity) then one would have to reject Christianity as there would be another moral standard that is higher than God (remember God is holy, holy, holy). Since God’s law is based on his nature, this would be equivalent to saying that God is immoral and that would lead us to say that God is no longer holy, holy, holy. Holiness is God’s primary attribute. Read below.
You say, “In this particular blog entry about Dena, I could accept that Jesus is the messiah and my contention that Christianity is immoral would still be valid. Having the Christian God exist or not exist does not equate it with being morally superior. You are just hyper-defensive about your religion, and you think my moral judgements on it are some kind of "God deosnt exist" argument.”
This is your misunderstanding of Christianity. If Chrisitianity is immoral, there would be no reason to accept Jesus as one could appeal to a higher moral standard. And since Jesus would be telling us to follow ‘immoral’ standards, he would not be perfect and therefore, not God. So you would not be a Christian if this was your position.
Also, if one does not ‘follow’ the Biblical moral code and thinks there is another one that is superior, then he has traded God’s authority for his own autonomy, which would be evidence of an unregenerate person. (You would not be trusting God.)
“Your cessationism views are irrelevant for multiple reasons. First of all, Dena isnt a cessationist. Secondly, whether or not cessationism is correct has no bearing on the moral judgement I make against Christianity in this blog entry. But it is funny to see people who all claim to be Christian having such different beliefs. Anonymous, do you pray even though you believe in cessationism? What good would asking for God's help do in a cessationist worldview?”
Aaron, I’m begging you not to speak of cessationism until you know what it is. Please Aaron, for your own sake.
Remember back in the day when you attempted to proclaim that Bahnsen or Van Til didn’t deal with the faith/blind faith issue? Guess what, Aaron, no one told you, but he spent an entire chapter writing about it in one of his books. That’s a mighty foolish proclamation there Aaron. This is yet another example of your lazy ‘scholarship’ and is a prime example of you being biased from the start. Now what were you saying about objectivity.
“In all truth I agree with you completely. Religion and afterlife belief is retarded, God didnt do it; God didnt do anything for he doesnt exist, and religion is harmful to society. Why do you believe in God Anonymous?”
Oh so you want to play this lying game and say that we agree? Well I’m glad you agree with me that you are responding now just so you won’t look like a fool. Wow, Aaron, it looks like we agree that you are a fool.
I said, “How did you deduce that it is actually wrong to do this?”
You said, “Because Im a human that can recognize objective truths of reality and what is necessary for humans, including myself, to live and prosper.”
How do you know you can recognize objective truths of reality and what is necessary for humans?
I said, “And why should Dena hold to what you consider to be moral – that “"I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself".”?”
You said, ”She "should" because it would be objectively beneficial to her life. But again, this is assuming that Dena actually wants life. Apparently she doesnt; she worships death, for she mistakenly thinks that death is a kind of greater life... an afterlife. But thats what happens when you dont properly perceive the objective truths of reality.”
She should because you say it’s objectively beneficial to her life? She thought it would be beneficial for her life and her baby’s life to do what she did. Now how do you know that what you said was objective is objective to Dena? How does one ‘properly perceive’ the objective truths of reality?
I am reminded by this when you attempted to say on goose that homosexuality is not wrong since it is objective to them. Remember, they couldn’t help it therefore it was objective. Well, how do you ‘know’ that Dena just couldn’t help it? What is this ‘thing’ beyond Dena’s will that would make it objective?
“Had enough eh?”
Aaron, I would love to continue. However, besides the time issue, you have constantly been dishonest with your ‘interpretations’ of scripture and with our dialogue.
Anonymous said:
I’m not going to respond point by point as most of this has been shown over and over. I do want to make a few comments though.
I understand.
We obviously arent going to be able to reconcile many of the disagreements we have between eachothers positions as well as our protests of eachothers debate techniques. I think we both are fairly clear on where we stand though.
Aaron, you show that you are unaware of the conversation we are having. I have continually shown you that falsification refutes itself. You have not even begun to interact with what I’ve been saying. You have continually asserted over and over that I ‘need’ to be able to ‘falsify’ it without proving me wrong.
Ive also asked you to provide some kind of support for your sin contention. Ive also noted that its kindof besides the point since I consider all religious belief to be self deception. The difference here is that I think Dena acted in proper accordance with her false beliefs, but you think she hasnt. I have provided evidence and support for WHY I think she acted in proper accordance with her beliefs, but you have not provided anything to support your position. Wait, I take that back. You did provide the "thou shalt not murder" commandment at least.
I am familiar with the swans example. Lets try a different approach than falsification. I took one entity (Dena) and looked as cause and effect. I provided evidence of cause (from Denas own confession) as well as a respected study and a 911 tape supporting my claim. You had problems with this and tried to poke holes in it. Fine. But what did you propose instead? An unsupported "sin" claim that only works if God is real. My position, on the other hand, does not require God to exist or not exist; it only requires evidence of cause and effect directly relating to Denas crime. From any third party obsesrver, my position is stronger than yours. It is more specific, does not rely on a God existence or nonexistence, and is supported by lots of evidence.
Next you mention the usual that you weren’t trying to disprove the existence of God. However, as I have repeated over and over and over, it is implicit in your argument. If one concludes that God’s Law is immoral (the moral code in Christianity) then one would have to reject Christianity as there would be another moral standard that is higher than God (remember God is holy, holy, holy). Since God’s law is based on his nature, this would be equivalent to saying that God is immoral and that would lead us to say that God is no longer holy, holy, holy. Holiness is God’s primary attribute. Read below.
Rejecting Christianity is true and rejecting it as a moral code are two different things. Jesus could still be the messiah but could have lied in the Bible. The entire package of existence and holiness does not need to be taken all together. Of course, you insist it does and you cannot imagine a situation where someone could accept the existence fo YOUR God but not accept his word as truthful. Sorry that your imagination cant keep up here.
This is your misunderstanding of Christianity. If Chrisitianity is immoral, there would be no reason to accept Jesus as one could appeal to a higher moral standard. And since Jesus would be telling us to follow ‘immoral’ standards, he would not be perfect and therefore, not God. So you would not be a Christian if this was your position.
Of course someone that believed in Jesus but didnt agree with his moral code would not be a Christian. That is irrelevant. After all, Im sure you agree that there are people out there that DO accept both his existence and his morality and are STILL not Christian. Thats part of the problem with Christianity; the Scotsman style and ad hoc style qualifications. I was once told by a Calvinist that I was "never a Christian" because I renounced my faith after 17 years. Ridiculous!
Also, if one does not ‘follow’ the Biblical moral code and thinks there is another one that is superior, then he has traded God’s authority for his own autonomy, which would be evidence of an unregenerate person. (You would not be trusting God.)
I agree. But one could still believe in God and Jesus as supreme beings, yet reject their moral codes and the Bible as a bunch of lies and evil. Its perfectly possible.
Aaron, I’m begging you not to speak of cessationism until you know what it is. Please Aaron, for your own sake.
Anon is saying: "You dont understand cessationism Aaron, so I dont have to defend it for you. Nor will I help you understand it by reconciling it with the concept of prayer. This way I get to dodge the problem and make it look like youre just not getting it."
If you dont wish to defend it in here, then whats to stop me from claiming that I do understand it and that your prayers are worthless if it is true? If you just refuse to defend yourself and claim I dont understand it, then I will counter by saying that I just did read up on it. I just read all about it at pastornet and I say that it contradicts the concept of prayer and the concept of God listening to you. Go ahead and keep refusing to defend it, keep claiming that I dont know shit. Im sure it will make you feel good in your mind, but here on this comments section, my claims have remained unrefuted.
Anonymous, if I were to use your tactic, I could say that you dont understand falsifiability (wink wink) and therefore I dont have to defend anything. Go read up on it for your own sake. Etc...
Remember back in the day when you attempted to proclaim that Bahnsen or Van Til didn’t deal with the faith/blind faith issue? Guess what, Aaron, no one told you, but he spent an entire chapter writing about it in one of his books. That’s a mighty foolish proclamation there Aaron. This is yet another example of your lazy ‘scholarship’ and is a prime example of you being biased from the start. Now what were you saying about objectivity.
LOL obviously you didnt see what I was trying to do. I was wilfully making those claims as bait to get someone to defend the faith issue. I was trying to get theists to engage me directly and use such writings to refute me or debate me and make me eat my words. It never happened. As far as those discussions went, I was basically unrefuted. I gave everyone an easy shot and nobody took it. I did something similar in the past regarding the Bible and Manata took the opportunity. But it was of course a trap where I was trying to prove a point about debate. Do you seriously think I believed that Van Til didnt write more about faith? I tried really hard to be blatantly obvious about my wild claims that Van Til didnt properly address the faith/blind faith issue. I actually had some other material waiting in the sidelines regarding faith that I wanted to bust out, but I was waiting for someone else to bring up more faith writings from Van Til so that I could use it. I think another atheist, not reformed, finally brought something else up from Van Til about faith, and I actually used that against the theist position anyway. The bottom line is that nobody made me eat my words, nobody proved me wrong, and my faith attack remained standing.
I remember when Manata debated Sansone, and I got mad that Manata used the "everyone deceives themselves if they dont admit they know God before sense perception" argument, which is nothing more than an ad hominem, and total bullshit. I told Manata this, and he got mad at me for counting it against him. Manata said that in that debate, if what he said is unrefuted, it cannot count against him. Sansone never brought that issue up after Manata stated it, so it was basically valid he claimed. Now I think its really funny to see the situation reversed here.
Oh so you want to play this lying game and say that we agree? Well I’m glad you agree with me that you are responding now just so you won’t look like a fool. Wow, Aaron, it looks like we agree that you are a fool.
Does calling me a fool make you feel better? I hope it does, because you must need it. I dont know if youre pissed off, but you sure are writing like you are ;) Maybe I should have been more clear about what we agreed on: We both agreed that Dena was nuts and self deceived. Thats all I meant.
You said, “Because Im a human that can recognize objective truths of reality and what is necessary for humans, including myself, to live and prosper.”
I am wondering if you are confused? I was asking you how YOU know that Dena committed murder according to the Bibles "thou shalt not murder" commandment. What in the Bible can be used to show that Dena actually committed murder?
How do you know you can recognize objective truths of reality and what is necessary for humans?
I trust my perception; my five senses, my body. What are you, a nihilist?
This same question you posed to me can be used against you? How do you know that your senses are telling you the truth about, for example, what you think you see in the pages of the Bible, or how do you know that its Jesus talking to you in your head and not Allah or Satan deceiving you?
She should because you say it’s objectively beneficial to her life? She thought it would be beneficial for her life and her baby’s life to do what she did.
OF course she did! That is because she did not properly check her premises. She did not properly perceive reality and its objective truths. A book of lies and a cult of bullshit fucked up her perception. Its plain as day.
Now how do you know that what you said was objective is objective to Dena?
Because both Dena and I are life forms. More specifically, human beings.
How does one ‘properly perceive’ the objective truths of reality?
The faculty known as REASON, and the process known as THINKING. You didnt read that What is Objectivism link I provided, did you? Thats a shame too, because I read Matt Slick's CARM website for like two hours last night, along with some of Dawson's critiques of CARM. Boy do I feel like a sucker! ;)
I am reminded by this when you attempted to say on goose that homosexuality is not wrong since it is objective to them. Remember, they couldn’t help it therefore it was objective. Well, how do you ‘know’ that Dena just couldn’t help it? What is this ‘thing’ beyond Dena’s will that would make it objective?
LOL I think I may remember this. What I actually was saying was that homosexuals didnt choose their sexual preference any more than I chose that strawberry is my favorite ice cream flavor. And its true. Anonymous, Im quite sure that you cannot "choose" which types of people sexually arouse you (fat old women, or skinny old men, or maybe hot young college girls?). I happen to prefer hot young women. I cant choose to like men or fat old ladies just as I cant choose to NOT like young women. I can, however, choose how to filter incoming information, and that is often where the misunderstanding comes in.
Now back to Dena. Sorry for going off on a tangent like that. Dena could choose to filter incoming information. She chose the Bible and Christianity. Now to her, there were objective truths that she perceived incorrectly (that chopping her babies arms off was a good thing). Contradictions cannot exist; one must check ones premises. Denas premises were all wrong. The consequence was her babies death and her persecution by her community/peers. If Dena DID properly check her premises and did proerly control her incoming information (chopping off her babys arms is BAD) then her baby would still be alive and Dena would not be persecuted.
You ask what was beyond Dena's will that would make it objective? Im not quite sure if I understand your question correctly, but I will try to answer: Dena had incorrect premises. She used reason and thinking to come to a conclusion. It got all fucked up because the information/premises she was working on were all wrong.
Aaron, I would love to continue. However, besides the time issue, you have constantly been dishonest with your ‘interpretations’ of scripture and with our dialogue.
So now Im a liar huh? Sorry if I and Dena dont interpret scripture the same way you do. Maybe you should pray harder. As far as dishonest dialogue goes, it is not I who floats around unsupported assertions. It is not I who makes claims about scripture and refuses to cite verses. Whether or not we disagree with scripture is not the issue in this case: at least I present it. It is not I who attempts to dodge questions. It is not I who refuses to explain why Dena's actions are "murder" according to Biblical scripture. It is not I who makes dismissive "you dont understand and I can refute you" claims without actually following through with the refutation. If you claim that you can perform a checkmate, but you refuse to actually perform the checkmate, you dont win. All you do is look like a sidestepper who refused to "take the bait".
Anonymous, where would you be if I actually had read every written word from Van Til and still honestly claimed that he didnt properly define both regular faith and blind faith? Wouldnt then your hand be forced to actually quote the relevant writings? What Im trying to say is, the amount of reading one has done when one makes a claim on something is irrelevant as to how you can combat or defend against their claim. There is still only one way to properly defend: and that is to use specific supporting examples or citings. You cant just say "you dont understand so I wont defend it" and expect for that to fly; it is an unsupported assertion and it is not a refutation.
You can make all kinds of wild claims about objectivism and atheism, and I personally will never use such a sidestepping method. I will always reply directly with relevant supporting evidence and quotes or at least a direct explanation. Its much better form for the debate and the readers. Besides, if you dont do it that way, you leave yourself open to all sorts of vulnerabilities: you put too much power in the hands of your opponent.
Example: I could come back the next day, saying I did read all the relevant data, and still make the same claim, forcing your hand to refute properly. So why not just cut out the bullshit and refute properly from the get-go? Does that make sense?
Aaron,
This is more than likely my last post as typing this takes up so much of my time (the wife doesn't like me sitting on the computer so much!).
I do want to make a few comments to what you said above:
1. I have supported my sin contention. You didn't like that however, it was supported. You attempted to somehow show that Dena was justified by referencing 2 million bible verses. However, that went nowhere for you and showed much disrespect in attempting a critique of the biblical position and you proved that you are incompetent in proving what you intended. That argument is dead.
2. I'm not going to quote what you said, but, if Jesus had 'lied' and Christian morality was inferior, then Jesus WOULD NOT BE THE MESSIAH (one doesn't have to look too far for a bible verse on this, so I'll defer). You have continually shown me that you don't know the Christian position very well. Your argument is dead.
3. You say, "I am familiar with the swans example. Lets try a different approach than falsification."
You may be familiar with 'a' swan example but obviously not that one (maybe one related to induction as they are more common). If you were I don't see why you would rely on falsification.
You have still not even touched the 3 refutations of falsification I have constantly provided. So no I will not start over.
Falsification is dead along with your argument.
4. Cessationism is the doctrine that charismatic gifts of the Spirit and biblical revelation have ceased (see revelations and other verses about adding to the Word of God). It has nothing to do with prayer and there is nothing to reconcile with it as prayer is still commanded by God.
Thus far all you have done is assert that you think it contradicts prayer and should be reconciled to it. You have not shown it to be contradictory. That is not an argument that needs to be refuted as saying so doesn't make it so, Aaron.
5. I called you a fool as that is what you are considered 'within my worldview'. I said you agreed with me as you had done the same to me. I did not mean it in a 'name-calling', or insulting sense.
I've not gotten 'pissed off'. A little annoyed at times but not 'pissed off'. That's one of the disadvantages of talking over the internet (not being able to know someone's emotions).
6. I don't really know the point of your second post as it is not relevant. You have not read Bahnsen or Van Til.
When I brought that up (your proclamation) I was referring to your first blog entry (since you claim that it was a 'trap' in your comment section to save face.) In your blog entry, you quoted Van Til and then poof, refuted him, Bahnsen, and everyone else without even knowing an entire chapter had been written on it.
7. Umm as far as reading Rand, I have read much of her 'stuff'. Maybe we could finish our talk at a later date, as I have many more questions. I know you and other Randroids claim that objective truths of reality are based on REASON, but there are follow up questions. I asked b/c of the slight chance that you differed.
8. One day we'll finish our discussion of your assertion of logic providing evidence that "justification" requires material evidence or proof, as there are many contemporary epistemologists who would disagree.
9. I know you could care less and this is not meant as some kind of 'persuasion tactic' (so no need to refute or respond :), but in all seriousness, my wife and I do pray for you.
I did not intend for this to be so long. :)
Damn! You guys could co-write a play titled, "Waiting for 'goddammit I'll kill you!'", or something. Way to go, both of you, maintaining tension without boiling over. Seriously, Aaron, I think you have run afoul of a religious Sophist, and so as not to be accused of Ad Hom., here's why I think so:
“Can you falsify that this is *all* you have to do? If you can’t then I ain’t listening (based upon your own reasoning). If you can, then it ain’t *for certain*…”
“No I don’t. I do not accept falsifiability for which I have been giving several reasons. I wanted you to falsify your statement; however, you can’t do so, so I’m wondering why I have to falsify anything.”
If one does not accept falsification as a criteria, then why insist upon it in an argument? The successful falsification will be neither accepted nor persuasive.
In my opinion, Aaron, for which you are certainly entitled to say, "Who asked you?", your argument's main strength is also its greatest weakness: The Bible is open to diverse interpretation.
This is both provable and falsifiable like so:
If the Bible wasn't open to diverse interpretation, we would not see so many schisms, from Luther and Calvin and Joseph Smith, to David Koresh, Jim Jones, and Charles Manson. Though the mainstream Christians would like to sweep the gonzo fanatics under the rug, the facts remain that, these crazies found followers, and it says something about the maleability of some religious minds.
Taking that into consideration we have your example of a mother killing her child because she harbored the belief that the child would be "better off" in the hereafter.
We can take this as factual because she said so.
Possible motives for lying include trying to beat a murder rap by claiming to be crazy. Not guilty by reason of insanity. Not guilty of murder. She is therefore either crazy, a religious zealot, or a calculating murderer. Any two of those states are also not mutually exclusive. Possible reasons for believing her story at face value include the fact that it has been done before, many times. This is also a possible motivation for faking such an incident. Either way, the idea of a better afterlife was fostered by religion and has no other observable "proof" than the statements made in religious tomes and circles. Where else would she get the idea? The idea facilitated the death of the child, either by true or false motivation. Anonymous' claim that this was bad interpretation is irrelevant because bad interpretation takes place constantly.
Reincarnation is a theory that would also seem to be applicable to infanticide, logic being that "maybe next time, you'll be better off." I have no statistical data on this because, living in North America, I don't hear about the death of brown babies.
Damn! You guys could co-write a play titled, "Waiting for 'goddammit I'll kill you!'", or something. Way to go, both of you, maintaining tension without boiling over. Seriously, Aaron, I think you have run afoul of a religious Sophist, and so as not to be accused of Ad Hom., here's why I think so:
“Can you falsify that this is *all* you have to do? If you can’t then I ain’t listening (based upon your own reasoning). If you can, then it ain’t *for certain*…”
“No I don’t. I do not accept falsifiability for which I have been giving several reasons. I wanted you to falsify your statement; however, you can’t do so, so I’m wondering why I have to falsify anything.”
If one does not accept falsification as a criteria, then why insist upon it in an argument? The successful falsification will be neither accepted nor persuasive.
In my opinion, Aaron, for which you are certainly entitled to say, "Who asked you?", your argument's main strength is also its greatest weakness: The Bible is open to diverse interpretation.
This is both provable and falsifiable like so:
If the Bible wasn't open to diverse interpretation, we would not see so many schisms, from Luther and Calvin and Joseph Smith, to David Koresh, Jim Jones, and Charles Manson. Though the mainstream Christians would like to sweep the gonzo fanatics under the rug, the facts remain that, these crazies found followers, and it says something about the maleability of some religious minds.
Taking that into consideration we have your example of a mother killing her child because she harbored the belief that the child would be "better off" in the hereafter.
We can take this as factual because she said so.
Possible motives for lying include trying to beat a murder rap by claiming to be crazy. Not guilty by reason of insanity. Not guilty of murder. She is therefore either crazy, a religious zealot, or a calculating murderer. Any two of those states are also not mutually exclusive. Possible reasons for believing her story at face value include the fact that it has been done before, many times. This is also a possible motivation for faking such an incident. Either way, the idea of a better afterlife was fostered by religion and has no other observable "proof" than the statements made in religious tomes and circles. Where else would she get the idea? The idea facilitated the death of the child, either by true or false motivation. Anonymous' claim that this was bad interpretation is irrelevant because bad interpretation takes place constantly.
Reincarnation is a theory that would also seem to be applicable to infanticide, logic being that "maybe next time, you'll be better off." I have no statistical data on this because, living in North America, I don't hear about the death of brown babies.
Hey Groundfighter! Sorry for the delay, again I was gone for a few days. 4th of July and all... Well at least we now know who Anon was. But in reality it doesnt change anything. Like Beakerslion said, Im glad we can argue without blowing up.
1. I have supported my sin contention. You didn't like that however, it was supported. You attempted to somehow show that Dena was justified by referencing 2 million bible verses. However, that went nowhere for you and showed much disrespect in attempting a critique of the biblical position and you proved that you are incompetent in proving what you intended. That argument is dead.
I showed that, given the content of the Bible, it is not that suprising that Dena came to the conclusions that she did. And you havent yet shown where in the Bible it equates Dena's actions with "murder".
2. I'm not going to quote what you said, but, if Jesus had 'lied' and Christian morality was inferior, then Jesus WOULD NOT BE THE MESSIAH (one doesn't have to look too far for a bible verse on this, so I'll defer). You have continually shown me that you don't know the Christian position very well. Your argument is dead.
Either that or Jesus would simply be an evil deceptive messiah. Of course, everything you thought about him would be wrong, but it wouldnt mean that Jesus wouldnt still be an all-powerful God that lived as a man around 33AD. It would merely mean that the Bible was full of lies and that Jesus deceived you. Are you a Biblical literalist and inerrantist?
4. Cessationism is the doctrine that charismatic gifts of the Spirit and biblical revelation have ceased (see revelations and other verses about adding to the Word of God). It has nothing to do with prayer and there is nothing to reconcile with it as prayer is still commanded by God.
LOL but you missed that I made about God intervening. I think youre confused about what occurs in reality with or without God's consent. Do you or do you not believe that everything that happens, even today, happens according to God's will?
5. I called you a fool as that is what you are considered 'within my worldview'. I said you agreed with me as you had done the same to me. I did not mean it in a 'name-calling', or insulting sense.
And my worldview considers you a fool. So dont take offense when I call you one, because none is meant. :P
Seriously though, your worldview itself relies on personal attacks to validate itself, as Paul Manata demonstrated in his Sansone debate. And just because your worldview calls me a fool doesnt mean that you arent insulting me. The Grand Wizard of the KKK has a worldview that blacks are inferior. Should blacks not take offense? Islam calls you an infidel and a fool, do you not consider it an insult if a Muslim were to call you a fool and then blame it on their worldview?
I've not gotten 'pissed off'. A little annoyed at times but not 'pissed off'. That's one of the disadvantages of talking over the internet (not being able to know someone's emotions).
I know what you mean!
When I brought that up (your proclamation) I was referring to your first blog entry (since you claim that it was a 'trap' in your comment section to save face.)
No, it was quite deliberate. Note that earlier in the comments section I was repeatedly asking for references or quotes or other supprot for the asssertions of the theists. I had to throw it out there in obvious frustration to get the damn debate moving along. Are you calling me a liar? Oh wait, your worldview does that already. Nevermind.
In your blog entry, you quoted Van Til and then poof, refuted him, Bahnsen, and everyone else without even knowing an entire chapter had been written on it.
And nobody bothered to prove me wrong, as I thought would happen. Instead, not reformed came in and quoted some shit that supported my assertion anyways. Why is it that when I give an opening or opportunity, nobody takes it? Possibly because, despite all the crap written by Van Til and Bahnsen, that nowhere do they properly define blind faith and normal faith? Remember that my assertions were very specific: Van Til does not define nor distinguish between blind faith and normal faith. I wasnt making some huge claim about what they wrote. Nobody refuted me. Paul Manata used this exact same tactic regarding his Sansone debate by telling me (to paraphrase) "Sansone didnt refute my ad hom on intrinsic God knowledge, so it was unrefuted". I guess Im not allowed to play by the theists rules. Why dont you actually support a thing that you say and quote some Van Til that shoots my assertion out of the water? Until then, I will stand by what I said just to piss the theists off, and say that in all of Van Til's writings of faith, he does not properly define and distingush the difference between blind faith and normal faith. Furthermore, the Biblical definition of faith does not distinguish between blind and normal faith, so whatever the fuck Van Til tried to do by talking about "blind" faith and regular faith is bullshit. I quoted Van Til, I quoted the Bible, and I quoted the dictionary. The theists never quoted a damn thing. The theists tried to paint me as ignorant and not having read Van Til but I was expecting that claim since before I wrote the first word of that entry.
7. Umm as far as reading Rand, I have read much of her 'stuff'. Maybe we could finish our talk at a later date, as I have many more questions. I know you and other Randroids claim that objective truths of reality are based on REASON, but there are follow up questions. I asked b/c of the slight chance that you differed.
Im not sure how much I agree with Rand's Objectivism stuff, but I do like alot of it. I wouldnt go so far as to call myself and objectivist; Im more of an Aaronroid ;)
8. One day we'll finish our discussion of your assertion of logic providing evidence that "justification" requires material evidence or proof, as there are many contemporary epistemologists who would disagree.
Cool.
9. I know you could care less and this is not meant as some kind of 'persuasion tactic' (so no need to refute or respond :), but in all seriousness, my wife and I do pray for you.
I appreciate your concern, and I am genuinely curious about your thoughts on prayer. One question for you regarding prayer: Do you believe that your prayer will help affect (read: change) the outcome of future events?
I did not intend for this to be so long. :)
Looks like we are both gulty of that sin ;)
Breakerslion,
You said, "Seriously, Aaron, I think you have run afoul of a religious Sophist, and so as not to be accused of Ad Hom., here's why I think so:
“Can you falsify that this is *all* you have to do? If you can’t then I ain’t listening (based upon your own reasoning). If you can, then it ain’t *for certain*…”
“No I don’t. I do not accept falsifiability for which I have been giving several reasons. I wanted you to falsify your statement; however, you can’t do so, so I’m wondering why I have to falsify anything.”
If one does not accept falsification as a criteria, then why insist upon it in an argument? The successful falsification will be neither accepted nor persuasive."
You may need to be a little more clear here. Who exactly are you referring to when you say "If one does not accept falsification as a criteria, then why insist upon it in an argument?" Are you referring to my argument that you quoted above and saying that I shouldn't insist on using it? Remember I was using Aaron's own standard against him in order to keep him consistent.
Aaron and Anon, When you point a finger at someone else, there are THREE fingers pointing back at you. Neither of you have proven anything except that no one really knows anything for sure. Just because no one (that we are aware of in our limited view of the 6 billion+ people on this overcrowded planet) has come to light as killing their child in the name of Godlessness, doesn't mean that it does not happen. What about people like (ironically) Christian Longo whose wife and three children were found floating in the ocean in Oregon a couple of years ago-and he is found partying it up in Mexico. I am not saying he cited Godlessness or anything-he just killed them to get them out of the way. Plenty of murders take place in the name of selfishness, intolerance, and without regard for the afterlife. Plenty of people who might do harm otherwise, do NOT do so because they believe they will be punished in some form of afterlife. It is part of why it DOES work for many more people than slip through the cracks. Religion is a form of control.
What exactly is the ratio of people who are religious (Christian or otherwise) versus those who are truly Atheists. Doesn't that play a part in the statistics that you refer to?
If you are so secure in your beliefs, Aaron, (because you do have a belief system-the very nature of religion) why is it that you feel the need to ridicule and berate others. To make yourself more righteous? Can you not just live with yourself and do what you can to make this place "Heaven right here on Earth"?
As I understand it (and I am with you on the we have to make it happen here, whether or not there is an afterlife part) what we do everyday affects the entire planet. If we contribute to good the whole is better for it, and vice versa. Slamming people for their beliefs is not making things better. Making things better means helping to care for each other, and finding ways to stop the madness in all of it's forms, religious or otherwise.
When is the last time you made yourself available to someone who really needed help? Try volunteering with abused teenagers, rape victims (either sex), planned parenthood, in your local school or library. Meet some of the people who have grown up in situations with mentally ill parents, or alcohol and drugs. Have you ever seen a meth addicted baby? Do you know any single mothers who have no one to turn to for help?
It is easy for you to dismiss these acts in the name of religion, but the real problem has more to do with overpopulation and lack of education and support than it does with anyone's belief systems. If you really want to help take care of the problem, have a vasectomy.
The bible doesn't say ANYWHERE to chop off your babies limbs and let them suffer and die. So the OPINION between Grand Theft Auto and the Bible is a HORRIBLE comparison. The very beginning of this article states that her child maybe still alive if she only had "one or the other" AND this DENA woman said GOD told her to do it........not the BIBLE. So don't point fingers like all the others you're speaking about.
Aaron, glad to find your post.
I had been thinking much the same thing. Had Dena killed her baby while singing a Marilyn Manson song (instead of a hymn), there would have been no end to the calls to ban that bad-influence music. One might think the cause of 9/11, holy wars, a massive child abuse scandal, and some of the bizarre behavior of our President would get a bad name, but not in our lifetimes -- lifetimes that may well be cut short because of all the religious crazies out there.
I think it's typical. Kill your children and say it was a religous act. Neglect your children and say your just depressed. I think those are just excuses used so that reality is not looked at. If you can not cope with your problems and your responsibilites as a parent, then find help.
Nobody has the right to play GOD!
I just stumbled across this post via an article. I have to say that it is ridiculous to make the comment that without religion this woman's child would have survived. I think it is convenient, especially to those who enjoy bashing religions, that she (and other murderous mothers)blame God for their crimes. The truth is this: she was mentally ill and may have also been suffering from a brain tumor.
Finally, if religion/belief in an afterlife is such a breeding ground for this behavior, then why, with so many believers out there, do we no see many more of this sickening behavior?
This is just another attempt at scape-goating.
Please could people bother to read the whole Bible before making false claims about it, eg, that God condones child sacrifice. God condemns the practice over and over again in Scripture (eg. Ezekiel 23:36-39).
At least source your claims if you want to slate the Word of God. Are you referring to God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son? If so, you'll notice that He didn't let him go through with it, it was just a test of his faith. God loves children, and says the kingdom of heaven are made of souls like theirs.
Thanks for listening/reading.
Dear anonymous,
if you can interpret the bible the way fits better your beliefs, why can't aaron , me and everybody else do the same?
"God loves children"
How would you know? If bible text is not a reliable source, what is? If it is your heart-felt inner feelings, you have just just given me justification in not believing anything you say, unless you can convince me that your heart feelings are better than mine or aaron's.
Thanks for listening/reading.
This thread is enormous, I love this blog!
RE: Anonymous from 09-13-06,
God DOES condemn infanticide in the Bible, its true. Except, of course, for when he COMMANDS it. Like for example when children dont respect their parents. Well then the parents have to stone them to death. Oh and by the way some children WERE recently stoned to death by another cazy religious mother. Check out my Offspring Murder Club archives for more details on that one.
Anyway, the point Im trying to make is that the bible says lots of contradictory things about death, life, and murder. But regardless, it obsesses over death so much in its pages that people who spend all day reading the damn thing are SURE to be obsessed with death one way or the other.
And regardless, even if the Bible were clear on the matter (which it ISNT!), still if the Bible can be misconstrued, as in Dena Schlossers case, to be used as a justification for killing one's own children, then isnt that a sign that the bible is hazardous to ones family? Isnt that a sign that ESPECIALLY if you are a crazy person (as Dena was) that you shouldnt fill your head with crazy ideas from crazy books?
Go visit a nuthouse sometime. EVERYONE in there is super duper religious. Numerous people comitted in any given insane asylum think they are messiahs themselves!
Religious fervor is a sign of one thing: mental instability/insanity. From Luther to Calvin to Jesus to every Pope to every baby killing mother, all of these people were CRAZY RELIGIOUS PSYCHOS!
Religion is hazardous to your health. Its hazardous to families, and its hazardous to one's rehabilitation when they are suffering from mental problems. Indeed its fuel on the fucking fire.
Pwned!
Actually Christ is versus religion and I would suggest you read the book called by such a name. If you had read the gospels you would see that everything that Jesus did was to expose how evil religion is and as well how dark politics are. The kernel in the bible is that God wants to be everything to man that man may live by God and express God in the human life. Religion is man's own creation based upon his fallen state.
In reality, which is actually vanity, every human being has his/her own or shared religion. Tell me, do you not love to have material items? Do you not love to have money, happiness, peace, joy, and rest each and every day? Behind all these false hopes are demons who possess man's attention. For example a ballerina does ballet and gives his/her life to that thing. That thing has now become an item through which a demon possesses that person alienating them from God's original purpose. Do not think that some wild person frothing at the mouth or even a fanatic who murders her own child is the only outward and open way evil moves. Satan is a very subtle being. He will usurp mankind in very cultured, worldly, and seemingly philosophical ways. In the garden in Genesis one he came to Eve in a very subtle way. Why did she not run away from a serpent? Isn't a serpent a very scary animal to most people? This shows that before the curse applied to Satan in Genesis 3 the serpent must have a been a very attractive creature, hence Eve was deceived. Just like then, so it is today in 2007, Satan moves in subtle ways unknown to the general population. From black to white to chinese to iranian to finnish, fallen mankind is all in the same condition, fallen and without hope in the world. You can get a group of people together and eventually an idea can become a so called agreeable ideology but the source is still the same and there is no reality involved. It is simply the corrupted, sinful, and degraded mind at work. Coming back to God's original purpose is the key. God placed man in front of the Tree of Life which is God Himself and He placed man in front of it to partake of it's fruit, that is, to take God into man that God's reason for creating man may be accomplished. This purpose is for expression and dominion. Unfortunately Satan himself was there in that situation and he himself is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, very complicated and with many implications. Man was deceived by Satan and took Satan in by eating of that tree when he was forbade not too. After 4,000 years the right to eat the Tree of Life was opened yet again through the Man Who is God, the Lord Jesus Christ. The prophecies in Micah 5:2, Isaiah 9:6, chapters 52 and 53 of Isaiah have been fulfilled. Drop the fallen concept and eat the Tree of Life by calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved. John 14:6 says no one comes to the Father except through the Son. The Bible cannot be understood with a fallen mentality. You need to use the right organ. John 4:24 says God is Spirit and if you want to contact Him you must use your spirit. Job 32:8 says "But there is a spirit in man and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding" Man a spirit to contact God. According to 1 Cor. 15:45b the last adam, Christ, became the life-giving Spirit. Romans 5:18 " So then as it was through one offense unto condemnation to all men(Adam), so also it was through one righteous act(Jesus) unto justification of life to all men." He now as the spirit is waiting to be received by man through one simple act, Romans 10:9 " That if you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;" I exhort you to take reality in and try it for yourself. To be born again is the only way to see the truth. The Lord told this to Nicodemus in John chapter 3. I believe he eventually did find the truth.
Daniel you stupid spammer,
I HAVE read the gospels. In fact Ive read the gospels of many different translations, KJV, NKJV, NSV, take your pick!
But here is the craziest part! After reading all the gospels numerous times, I STILL dont believe that there is an invisible space ghost who sees us when we are sleeping and knows when we are awake. I STILL dont believe that a 3 day old putrid and decomposed body reanimated. I STILL dont believe that the world was created in 6 subsequent acts by God, and I STILL Dont believe that the earth existed before the sun, or that plants existed before sunlight did to drive their photosynthetic process (as described in Genesis).
I STILL dont believe that two wrongs make a right (the crucifixion).
Go evangelize to someone else. You obviously dont wanna have an intelligent conversation. You just want to spout off your stupid Bible verses, being totally unable to accept the fact that someone could read the Bible and STILL consider it bullshit.
This is certainly an interesting page and it is very uncommon for me to read something against religion as a whole that has well formed arguments. However, I feel like there is a serious misplacement of blame in this case. While it is true that many killers, or other criminals, use religion as an excuse, many people who engage in pro-social behavior use the same type of reasoning (sometimes even the same exact words) to explain their actions.
The problem with your argument is this, if you accept that people are driven to do evil based on religion simply because they say religion was the reason, then you must also accept that the people who say they do good based on religion might otherwise have not. Assuming that people do evil based on religion, it is equally likely that many who would do evil will not, if for no other reason than the fear of hell or some other consequence. On the other hand if you assert that people who do evil based on religion would have found some other excuse had they not been religious, you must also agree that a benefactor of mankind would have also done the same with out the need for religion. In either case, there is no logical reason to assume that religion causes more harm that good, the evidence is lacking in both cases.
The response I could see you posting to this would be that your own reading of the bible (or other scriptures) has shown you that if someone believed it they would do harmful acts. The problem with that argument is while you read the bible and see this and consider it "bullshit", others see something different. They see a motivating force to do things for their fellow man, or at least keep from screwing him over. I read the bible very avidly for years and I found a lot there that has helped me deal with various things in my life and make many tough decisions that I am proud of to this day. Though I am no longer Christian those years gave me a deep respect for their beliefs. It makes me very sad, and sometimes very angry to see people blame their actions on their religion but I know for a fact that it is not an inevitable result of religion to do evil, nor do I think that religion has any correlation with crime of any kind. I believe that religion shows people what they want to see and if they want to shed blood then they see bloodshed, if they want to help others they see benevolence, and if they want to learn they see knowledge. The bible even has built in warnings about this, for example: "knock and it shall be opened, seek and ye shall find, ask and it shall be given unto you".
Finally I would like to say that when you insult people who have different opinions than you it makes you look close minded and simple. I say this not just to you but too many of those who post on your page. It is true that religious people can be very preachy, condescending and close minded but insulting their doctrine, their arguments and even the persons making the argument makes you no better. Calling someone "stupid" or a "crazy religious psycho" discredits your argument. The Christian I saw post here had a very well formed post and despite making the false assumption that you did not read the bible, did not attack you, or call you stupid, ignorant, psychotic or even satanic. Please, for the sake of your credibility, try to take the high ground and not lower yourself to name calling, a tactic loved by Theists and Atheists alike.
Re: Anonymous @ Oct 11,
This is certainly an interesting page and it is very uncommon for me to read something against religion as a whole that has well formed arguments.
Thank you, that is a very big compliment! :)
However, I feel like there is a serious misplacement of blame in this case. While it is true that many killers, or other criminals, use religion as an excuse, many people who engage in pro-social behavior use the same type of reasoning (sometimes even the same exact words) to explain their actions.
I agree. But isnt this also an argument against religious doctrine in that it is so vague that it can be used to justify anything? What value is a doctrine that can be used to justify productive AND destructive behaviour at the same time?
The problem with your argument is this, if you accept that people are driven to do evil based on religion simply because they say religion was the reason, then you must also accept that the people who say they do good based on religion might otherwise have not.
I would have to admit that if that were my argument, but my argument really is about religion as a catalyst. It is an incorrect worldview that, when applied to everyday actions, can (and often does) serve as a catalyst for evil behavior. Good people do good things, and bad people do bad things, but for good people to do bad things, that takes religion.
The response I could see you posting to this would be that your own reading of the bible (or other scriptures) has shown you that if someone believed it they would do harmful acts. The problem with that argument is while you read the bible and see this and consider it "bullshit", others see something different. They see a motivating force to do things for their fellow man, or at least keep from screwing him over.
But when religious people use their doctrines to help others, they do it NOT for the sake of their fellow man, but for the sake of their God. They do it FOR God, to PLEASE God, and NOT to please their fellow humans or please themselves. Religous motivation for good behavior assumes the weakness of the prime motive: friends, family, etc.
I read the bible very avidly for years and I found a lot there that has helped me deal with various things in my life and make many tough decisions that I am proud of to this day. Though I am no longer Christian those years gave me a deep respect for their beliefs.
Well even a broken clock is right twice a day.
It makes me very sad, and sometimes very angry to see people blame their actions on their religion but I know for a fact that it is not an inevitable result of religion to do evil, nor do I think that religion has any correlation with crime of any kind. I believe that religion shows people what they want to see and if they want to shed blood then they see bloodshed, if they want to help others they see benevolence, and if they want to learn they see knowledge. The bible even has built in warnings about this, for example: "knock and it shall be opened, seek and ye shall find, ask and it shall be given unto you".
So basically you are admitting that religion can be used either way with equal ease, which would make the whole religious thing superfluous.
Finally I would like to say that when you insult people who have different opinions than you it makes you look close minded and simple.
I know. But since my blog has by your own admission "well formed argument[s]," I will trust in those arguments to stand for themselves, aside from the insults that i pepper my posts with. Besides, this is a blog that I want to entertain as well as inform, and throwing in a little firecracker or two into the mix makes it more entertaining.
I'm the one who made those anonymous comment's above, just thought I'd clear that up. No I can't prove it so just take my word for it. Good points though, I really thought my argument was pretty airtight. Thanks for showing me the holes. To answer your question:
"What good is a doctrine that can be used to justify positive and destructive behavior at the same time?"
Quite simply, it helped me out. People use all kinds of reasoning to justify their actions, and most of it is just an oversimplification of the "real" reasons. If someone chooses, of their own free will, to believe in an unprovable doctrine of bloodshed, I would have to say that even if they had some serious issues to begin with. Religion helps people justify their place in the world. That's the whole reason it was invented (or discovered) in the first place. If religion has no other purpose I would consider that enough, because I honestly don't think it dose that much else when left alone. The problem is that most people are not given choice in the matter or are indoctrinated from birth. Views that are not questioned are doomed to a bad end. This applies to ALL beliefs. Religion answers questions that science never can, and some people need those answers to live happy lives. Religion isn't the evil thing here, it's the people who don't take the time to think "whoa, that's a baby I'm cutting the arms off of, what kind of God would make me do that" or the people who teach their kids not to think about what they do. Yes, religion and bogus dogma have gotten seriously twisted up in the years, but if you squint just right there is still a distinction. I know you can be religious without being demented, or silently listening to everything big brother, or mommy and daddy are telling you because I live it. Religion never caused me to do something I regretted but my own flaws have. When you say that someone hacked a child's arms off and didn't stop to think about it it wasn't religion's fault it was HERS. Religion doesn't kill people, PEOPLE kill people, and until PEOPLE decide to take responsibility for their actions, they'll keep on killing because there's something else to blame. If you remove religion, theres always flawed logic, tradition, or bigotry to fall back on, none of which require a God, afterlife or metaphysical belief whatsoever.
Oh, and in the interest of entertainment...
WHAT NOW BITCH!!!I HATH RIPPED THINE ARGUMENT A BRAND NEW ARSE HOLE!!BOW MORTAL!!KISS MY FEET!
....I feel dirty now ;)
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