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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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Big BIG! difference between the bible and the works Nietzsche/Freud.
I do not know much about you, and can only guess, but the fact that you cannot even spell Nietzsche right gives hints that you never actually read his stuff.
Regardless, the bible makes enormous claims, and passes it self off as the ultimate authority and is supposedly divinely inspired, Nietzsche/Freud make no such claims. And Freud backed a lot of his research into his ideas with a lot of study/testing/etc of which the bible has a complete lack of.
I am actually rather annoyed you would even try to compare these books. They were even written over 1000 years apart.
I am glad you realize religion does not prove a single thing. Question is why do you read it, and/or believe in it if you know it proves nothing? Why would you try to protect it by erroneously lumping it in with other authors and books that are not even remotely similiar? At the very least compare the bible to the Quran or something.
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Intelligent assumption! No, I have never read Nietzche in english.
Freud didn't really prove anything, it's largely pseudoscience, just like many philosophers don't prove their claims, including Nietzche, but people see value there and there are enormous claims certainly. That is where the similarities are undeniably found and the point I made you somehow missed.
@Elemental: "There are enormous claims certainly." Stupidest comment of the week. You have no understanding at all of psychotherapies. (I give you points for "Pseudo-science") Psychology is a "soft science" based on probability and population behavior over time. Pathology can sometimes be defined culturally and symptoms occur within a cultural context as well. But psychology, like the rest of science DOES NOT MAKE TRUTH CLAIMS. It builds models. It builds models based on observable facts. The models are used because they are USEFUL and not because they are true. Furthermore, in psychology, not all models work for all presenting problems or pathologist. Treating a phobia with psychoanalysis would be a slow and tiring process. Using Successive Approximation and SUDS Levels, has demonstrated success rates.
I happen to agree with the idea that REGRESSION, a key component of psychoanalysis is bullshit. Still if you can convince the client to talk about their problematic behavior "In The Past." It proves a safe and objective way for them to realize the same shit is happening "Here and Now." The fact that you do not understand what is going on, is not the fault of psychology. You probably need something a bit deeper than Psych 101 before you begin making stupid comments.,
Finally, Freud's theory of defensive mechanisms is absolutely outstanding as is his position on object relations. It is asserted by most people who study Freud that the whole Libido issue, as well as the Oedipal Conflict is misunderstood by Westerners. The symbolic meaning was well understood by Germans at the time of Freud's writings.
In short. You have no understanding of Freud, Psychology, or Nietzsche. Perhaps you should draw your conclusions from something you have actually read, "Mother Goose?"
Another statement that should be in 3 foot letters in every science classroom.
No it really isn't, some of it no doubt has something profound to say, but it also contains woeful archaic superstitious nonsense. Not to mention a great deal that is truly barbaric and cruel, and down right repugnant.
People believed the world was flat, and at the centre of the universe, the fact that people believe things, doesn't remotely validate those beliefs. That is axiomatic.
Elemenalenal: " but law doesn't really define ethics." Ethics are codes of behaviors. I am a psychotherapist and as such I must respond appropriately to the law and to the "Ethics" of my profession. Both ethics and laws are extensions of moral behavior. Both are "Objective moral standards that people are expected to follow." Like your Bible. these moral behaviors are dictated to me and come with consequences for their violation. In this sense, they are an external source of morality. Individuals will internalize the moral expectations or not. When they don't, they are removed from the profession. All moral behavior happens within a framework of expectations. Call it morality, law, or ethics and it all boils down to the same thing, "Human beings trying to live among one another."
" Ethics and morals relate to “right” and “wrong” conduct. While they are sometimes used interchangeably, they are different: ethics refer to rules provided by an external source, e.g., codes of conduct in workplaces or principles in religions. Morals refer to an individual's own principles regarding right and wrong."
https://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals
Ethics are morals that professionals follow as they are held to a higher standard in the workplace and in their personal lives.
How about that there is absolute zero empirical evidence to support, a) the supernatural, b) a god and/or gods c) that anything causes the suspension of the law of nature and physics.
Or that the Quran has plagiarised the bible, which plagiarised the Torah and which continues a chain of plagiarism from various cults, cultures etc.
Again, So does the quran and the torah, the latter pre-dating the bible.
And that doesn't make any of them true, or moral, or righteous.
Well firstly, I would always suggest people read more then one book!
But it is not even a phenomenal piece of literature, I mean, it's no Shakespeare, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens or To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
If your goal is simply a great piece to read, then there is a vast wealth of books you can read.
Well firstly, can you demonstrate that there is even one moral statement that is objective.
Then you have to demonstrate the mechanics to how we came to have this.
If you simply say 'God did it', you should well know that it would be a fallacious claim.
Again, you are always left in a position where you are required to meet a burden of proof, to evidence your claim that there is indeed a God.
Bible didn't plagiarize Torah, it's Torah combined with other events that people find to be about the same thing.
Your suggestion is off topic.
Bible has everything about human psychology unlike Shakespeare or Harper Lee. Carl Jung said that if you want to know and understand people, just read Bible.
Because I think that you can't find any objective moral in people themselves I have to believe something outside us.
I already just mention an example but am interested in your take on it. Quoting myself: "If one believes we can create an AI, that means someone could have created us and our universe as well, and this world is a test we must pass for us to qualify as worthy later on. We might even do it some day and give our creations some similar guide as Bible to see who can follow our rules and are worthy of living amongst us, can it really not be like that?"
If we can create an AI, that would be a logical proof a God/creator can exist, wouldn't it?
@Elemenalenal
This to me reads as just another piece of powerful evidence that the various god ideas are human created fiction. The fact that, we who have not created an entire universe, but did manage to create an AI (kind of depends on your definition of AI, we already have created AI, just probably not what you precisely are think of!) We could do FAR FAR!!! better than the bible.
The bible reads exactly like what a bunch of superstitious bronze age people would write. The bible precisely mirrors close to the best writing people could of written back then. There is absolutely zero sign of some sort of greater intelligence that could create us and the universe in the bible. Instead, repeating myself here... it reads exactly how I expect some religious nutjobs with a lot of money and will to spread their religion idea, would write, highly vague, huge inaccuracies, full of contradictions. It may have been the pinnacle of human endeavor ~2000 years ago, now it is not even fit to be a children's book.
You know more and write better with better tools then the content of the bible. You yourself could write a far better "bible." In a few afternoons of typing away on your keyboard.
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Doesn't matter if we could do better, if we could create (I'd say that we are getting closer but not yet there, as I don't think consciousness is archived yet) an AI then we could make a world for them as a test as well (simulation would be only meaningful test to value it) then someone could've created us with our universe. Let's put aside how well made Bible looks to us and just look at the probability that creator can exist, in which case some of this literature might be the task we should follow. It can't be without better reason that you just dislike Bible that this possibility of a creator is ruled as "certainly not".
@Elemenalenal
"Doesn't matter if we could do better, if we could create (I'd say that we are getting closer but not yet there, as I don't think consciousness is archived yet) an AI then we could make a world for them as a test as well (simulation would be only meaningful test to value it)"
You don't even need a simulation. Just live by the bible, literally and without any exception every rule. See how long you stay out of jail. Elemenalenal practice what you preach, put it to the test and see how stupid the bible is.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 King James Version (KJV)
18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
@Elem Re: "We might even do it some day and give our creations some similar guide as Bible to see who can follow our rules and are worthy of living amongst us,..."
Aw, FUCK no!
Attachments
Attach Image/Video?:
What's wrong with this method as a test to see if an AI, that might fake following our rules for a calculated reason, is safe for our society and will obey our laws? Did you even think before your critique, as I think this is a discussion that requires both sides to ''think before you talk shit'' /some nazi guy from Rick and Morty I think/
No, not at all. We already know humans evolved, all the objective evidence demonstrates this to be an objective fact. So if we can create AI that does not in any indicate the existence of a creator, as creationism is unevidenced superstition, that has no explanatory powers whatsoever.
Well, if we create consciousness, that is creationism we are responsible for/
I think Nick Bostrom made much sense with his trilemma:
"1. The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero; or
2. The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero; or
3. The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.
If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before reaching posthumanity.
If (2) is true, then there must be a strong convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any relatively wealthy individuals who desire to run ancestor-simulations and are free to do so.
If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a simulation. In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between (1), (2), and (3)."
Yes, this doesn't contain proof of simulation theory as it does to the possibility of it that we can't rationally rule out. I guess it's not so much a matter of how ethical or right Bible is now as it is just to justify it's possible origin, provided, again, that it is a test for our capabilities, no matter what they are, just to bring worthy results to creator/-s.
It's also interesting, that the beginning of culture seems like might be the beginning of religion - human burials (with pile of dirt on top of it as it resembles pregnancy of earth that might bring the buried to an afterlife), so it might have been sort of our way from the very beginning.
We can't rule out invisible fairies, so what's your point, all you're doing is creating an unfalsifiable deity, then acting as if this is a credible rational argument for it's existence, and it isn't, and again since you have ignored it, the christian creation myth is roundly refuted by the scientific fact of species evolution. So you can hypothesise all you want, the creation myth you're clinging to has no credible or objective evidence to support it, and is roundly refuted by known scientific facts.
@ element.
The Bible is not a single book. It is an anthology of texts. It was collated sometime between the second and fifth centuries CE in its modern form. I say such a large time span because we know of several different anthologies containg differing texts during that time.
As a collection of horror stories it succeeds in its aim of aggrandizing an obscure, nasty middle Eastern tribe struggling for ascendancy in a volatile area. The second part of the anthology contains differing (and impossible) accounts of the life and death of a magical figure and the magical events that he instigated before abandoning this earth .
Neither anthology is great literature. Neither account can be relied on for moral direction. Neither account has historical accuracy.
Atheists rely on facts and evidence, not wishful and magical thinking. We have Harry Potter for that.
@ Elemenalenal
"Modern society bases it quite clearly on the ten Commandments (well, seven actually). There was nothing really better and more humane for us to adopt, following these laws we could be a perfect and self sustaining society."
Whoaaa, apply the brakes, back the truck up, and let us unpack this assertion.
1) “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have any strange gods before Me.”
Bullshit. How does that make any society better or even sane?
2) “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
More bullshit. Fuck jesus. That is called freedom of speech.
3) “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.”
Some people must be able to work on Sundays, such as first responders. How you you feel if the TV's did not work on Sunday, no sports, no news, no Game of Thrones? What if your house caught fire? How does that make society better?
4)“Honor thy father and mother.”
Abraham heard a voice in his head and was seconds away from brutally murdering his son Isaac. Do you think any child is OK with allowing their parents to murder them? Do you think it is moral?
5)“Thou shalt not kill.”
Self-defense? Or do you just make feeble pleas as a stranger rapes and murders your children?
6)“Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
I agree on that one, no one should fuck another's wife, or husband.
7)“Thou shalt not steal.”
What if your children were literally starving to death and the sole way to keep them alive was to steal some food from a rich asshole who is known to throw out good food?
8)“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
I agree on that one.
9)“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.”
Thought police time. What you think is not bad in itself. I could be planning the brutal murder of an enemy. What is bad is acting on such crap. You can think whatever you wish, you must control your actions.
10)“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.”
Same as #9. If my neighbour just bought a shiny red Ferrari and it was sitting on his driveway, I would be nothing less than nuts not to want it. There is a difference between wanting and stealing.
Elemenalenal I grant you that there are two out of ten that I do not disagree with. And even then, they have grey areas. What if your neighbour's wife was the neighbourhood bicycle (everyone rode her), and he was the biggest horn dog of all time? What if your neighbour was completely immoral and definitely deserved to be fucked over?
A best, AT BEST, maybe two out of ten may be a way to a better functioning society.
There is a reason I wrote ''seven actually'' which you decided to ignore. First three are obviously for religious folks.
4. Don't you think it's essentially important for people to honor their parents? You used a biblical example as a counter argument for this honor, but why? For Abrahams case, it looks to me as a very simple test whether people can still be able to truly believe God. It doesn't define morals for us, God said very clearly that the commandments are what we should follow, idk why people imagine that we should follow and do as God does, we can't really do any of it. Think about us creating an AI and programming in it some basic things it should follow. It becomes more complex and finds a way to defy it. We would exile it from what serves us, but after a while decide to check up on it, because maybe it can still be capable of following what we decided for it to. To be sure, of course we would do it in an extreme way. A test, not that God wanted him to sacrifice his son, I thought that was simple enough.
5., 7. Now you are speaking against biblical law just as much as you are any other societies.
9., 10. Thoughts come from something within, I'm quite sure whether it materializes in your lifetime it acts as a potential, many times on something on a minor scale, but still does.
We both seem ignorant in others perspectives.
@Elemenalenal
"4 You used a biblical example as a counter argument for this honor, but why?"
Because the ten commandments are from the bible. I used the bible to counter an argument from the bible.
If god wanted to test Abraham this god did not have to instruct him to sacrifice his son, he could have just told Abraham to throw himself off a cliff.
5,7 You do not need a bible or god to understand that wanton killing and theft is anti-societal and harms someone. God is not required.
9,10 Of course our thoughts come from within. And we all have wild imaginations. There is absolutely nothing wrong with anything you think, what is wrong is acting on improper impulses or destructive thoughts. You can not control what others think, that is called brainwashing. We would no longer have free will.
I suggest you carefully ponder the fact that if you follow those last commandments, you do not have free will. By the time you get to heaven you will be an unthinking automaton, programmable, but incapable of thinking for yourself.
You used Abrahams case to defy the necessity for honoring your parents in general. Do you think we shouldn't, because now you have only spoken against it.
What would be the difference from your point of view if he was instructed as such? What difference does it make for you what kind of test was it?
He definitely valued his son much more than his own life, he was old and perhaps wouldn't mind as much his death, test would be inconclusive, obviously.
You know it harms someone not you. If you can live further with peace of not having certain person alive anymore, why should you care about him/her? People hurt each other everyday knowing that they do it, it doesn't stop us.
If you follow any rules at all, you do not have free will.
I don't know how you're defining free will, but it is perfectly clear that one may have complete autonomy and still follow rules. It does not have to be blind adherence, as anyone can choose to follow rules for reasons they feel are valid. So no, you are not negating free will if you follow any rules at all.
I agree, David thinks otherwise.
No. I suspect David was referring only to blind adherence to rules, in the way you are suggesting humans can't be moral without divine diktat. If we can understand what is moral we don't need it, if we cannot then we can't know it's moral at all, and blind adherence would make us amoral automatons. If we choose which parts of the bible and religious dogma are moral, then how is this any less subjective than secular morality and ethics?
@Elemenalenal
"You used Abrahams case to defy the necessity for honoring your parents in general. Do you think we shouldn't, because now you have only spoken against it."
This is an internet forum, I am not composing a dissertation for a PhD. Thus only one example should be used, instead of creating a wall of text for five pages. Brevity is important in a forum, and I thus gave just one example, and the Abraham argument was what I keep in reserve for this specific example. Unfortunately for everyone, the list of theist arguments is not long, and any atheist quickly constructs standard counter-arguments for each proposal, and also fallacy (we actually have a standardized list for that).
"He definitely valued his son much more than his own life, he was old and perhaps wouldn't mind as much his death, test would be inconclusive, obviously."
You are assuming that as one reaches old age, they lose the will to survive. As someone 68 years of age, life is more precious to me than any previous years, and I will cling and fight to remain alive to the very end. I do not fear death, but I will not go quietly into the night. And many others in my situation have the same position. Just ask around.
"You know it harms someone not you. If you can live further with peace of not having certain person alive anymore, why should you care about him/her?"
Because I actually care.
I give a fuck about the welfare of every human being. Quality of life is important to me, and I comprehend that it is so for everyone.
Do you think Fred and Rosemary West's children should honour their parents? How about Josef Fritzl's children, should they honour him? We should honour those who [p[rove they deserve it, so no it is not essential to honour parents, that is something they should deserve first. Parents make a choice to have children, but children but don't choose to be born, I think attitudes are changing for the better in realising how much parents owe children, rather than the other way around.
If your parents didn't raise you (which also means so shitty raising that you learned stuff from someone else) they are hardly your parents at all, someone else might be. We also cannot follow commandments completely if others do not do so, sadly. Apart from that, it makes a statement to not judge your parents, you comply, because they are smarter than you. When you are old enough yourself, your judgment of them should come out of honor.
No, not necessarily, some parents quite demonstrably don't deserve to be honoured. I also think since parents make a choice to have children, and children have no say in it, we need to reevaluate the dynamic of who owes what to whom. I find the commandment archaic and facile to be honest.
Oh I think I will need you to demonstrate some objective evidence for that claim beyond simply repeating what the bible claims. I find it ironic religious apologists think they can blithely make such sweeping claims in an atheists forum as if we won't notice let alone object.
@TheBlindWatchmaker: "Cultures prior to Christian Culture." It makes no difference. Morality grows with human consciousness. Written language,. the Greek Philosophers, Persia, Egypt, and more all had influences on the development of morality. It makes no difference at all if some moral value was not pre-christian. (You are still correct. Christian morals came from every contact the evolving Christian faith ever had.)
That was precisely where I was trying to get him to go.
It begs the question, how could humanity have evolved to that point where one believes morality came to be, without having wiped each other out, or have a vastly diminished population.
As obviously they would have no reason to not constantly murder and rape one another.
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