God Bashing at Its Best

[jonesthecurl]

When and where do you feel that God has acted? BTW is he speaking to HitRed right now, or is he delusional in your opinion?

[2dimes]

Is halal food better in gods eyes than kosher food? Are we all going to hell for eating pig?

My understanding of halal is limited to what the guys I worked with told me. It sounds like kosher but with shellfish added to the menu.

Who said that you would go to hell for having bacon wrapped shrimp? I have never seen reference to that.

I have been worried about eating pork products off and on. Like lots of folks I can get a bit obsessive about rules. Plus I noticed I can feel pretty lousy after eating it sometimes. like Chris Rock said, modern pork chops are usually handled much better than they could be before refrigeration.

The food laws are part of something intended to keep a person's body clean/pure so they could enter the tents and temples where the ark was kept so they could make sacrifices.

You don't need to listen to Hitchens or George Carlin to check that stuff out, it's all written down. There are a bunch of translations into other languages too, you don't even need to learn Greek or old forms of Hebrew. Oh sometimes the wording is a bit different but if you read a few translations they are saying the same things.

[jimboston]

What standard does 'religion' offer, when there are dozens if not hundreds of different religions in existence each offering different standards? You first have to assume one is more right than the others. If halal food better in gods eyes than kosher food? Are we all going to hell for eating pig? There are no standards in religion unless you live in a believer vacuum bubble of only a single religion under the assumption it's the 'right' one.

Religion is not the standard, God is the standard. And there would be no way to know God were it not for His revelation to us. Thankfully God speaks and acts through history. If He didn't, he would be an idol. While there are always trouble makers and people stuck on small issues, there is a broad agreement among churches on many issues. Jesus Christ is the standard, not the religion he observed nor the religion that follows him. He is the standard.

Now we know Jesus Christ is THE STANDARD.

Now we just have to convince all the non-Christians.

What about Mormons? Their belief is kinda Jesus+, so they’re following the CORRECT STANDARD, right?

[jimboston]

Why?

A racist is an ass and wrong.

It doesn’t matter to me if that racist believes in God or not... he/she would still be an ass and wrong.

I BELIEVE a non-racist atheist is still a better person than a racist who has a stated belief in God. Continuing with that line of thinking, a world filled with non-religious humanists who are anti-racist would be a better work than a world filled with racist God-fearing Christians. No? Do you disagree?

There is no standard to judge whether it is wrong or right. The only principle we can deduce from nature is that might makes right.

Humanists would disagree with that. I certainly think a world filled with non-racist atheists would be a better world than one filled with racist people who claim to be religious. You disagree?

Many things that you believe are not demonstrable by science. For example, you might think you live in Massachusetts, but this is not demonstrable with science (there is no experiment that proves it).

In this case you are only correct if your refuse to acknowledge that definitions and language are a thing. If you acknowledge that words have meanings then I can absolutely prove I live in Massachusetts using the Science of Surveying.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveying

I will acknowledge that words have meanings. But that isn't your point. You said "most people who aren’t religious believe that external definitions of truth are found through the Scientific Method". I would like you to demonstrate that using the scientific method, which ideally involves experimentation. Either it is not an external definition of truth, or it is. You can't have it both ways, as in "I only believe truth proven through the scientific method, except for when I can't prove it that way, then I just accept it on faith". We don't even have to get into the axiomatic definitions of science. I mean when people drew a map of MA, what was the scientific research that they did in order to distinguish it from Vermont?

As stated the science involved is the Science of Surveying.

You’re agreement goes back to an unwillingness to accept that words have meanings.

Following your logic I wouldn’t be be able to prove that the color blue was in fact blue. I could get a spectrophotometer and we could analyze the light bouncing off an object, but we’d be unable to define that light as “BLUE”... just like I could get the GPS coordinates for Boston but we couldn’t ‘prove’ that was in Massachusetts.

There’s no faith involved in calling a specific frequency of light ‘blue’ anymore than there is faith involved in calling a specific set of GPS coordinates to be in a defined location. It’s all based on the standard convention of communication we call language.

Do you now defy language AND logic?

Likewise, many things that ARE demonstrable you do not believe. For example, I can demonstrate using historical data that wealth of white people in the south is reduced after the Civil War. So, it can be demonstrated by certain metrics that slavery is better. By what standard can you say that metric is wrong?

This is insane logic. You are using the term ‘better’ without the qualifier ‘better for landowning slaveholders’.

You can prove almost anything using this logic.

So you don’t believe in logic?

What exactly is illogical here? If a steady supply of free labor causes wealth then not having a steady supply of free labor will cause a decrease in wealth.

Only in a very narrowly defined way. You need to be clear who is being impacted. In one part of your argument you are referring to a narrow group; but then in your conclusion you expand that to a much more widely defined group. This is unequal equivalencies.

Additionally...

It may be true that the standard of living dropped for EVERYONE in the South immediately after war. That doesn’t automatically mean that life before the war was “better” for everyone... because what is defined as “better” or “worse” involved more then just standard of living. You are taking one measurable statistic and applying a VALUE JUDGEMENT based on a single statistic that really needs to incorporate many different variables (not a single variable) AND the judgement may be different for different people because as a value judgement (a better versus a worse life) different people will weigh inputs differently.

I have a friend who lives a very simple / inexpensive lifestyle. He and his wife spend very little compared to my family, they rarely eat out and don’t buy expensive goods. This lifestyle enables them to save for their retirement and work jobs that are low stress and also less time consuming. They are both well educated and could get hug her paying jobs (and he did that for awhile), but they have chosen a ‘simpler’ lifestyle. Using only your single metric of ‘monetary wealth’ you would conclude they are worse off than my family because we have a higher net-worth... but they VALUE their free time and reduce stress more. So which is ‘better’.

Please stop applying your value judgements to other peeps.

[jimboston]

Is halal food better in gods eyes than kosher food? Are we all going to hell for eating pig?

My understanding of halal is limited to what the guys I worked with told me. It sounds like kosher but with shellfish added to the menu.

Who said that you would go to hell for having bacon wrapped shrimp? I have never seen reference to that.

I have been worried about eating pork products off and on. Like lots of folks I can get a bit obsessive about rules. Plus I noticed I can feel pretty lousy after eating it sometimes. like Chris Rock said, modern pork chops are usually handled much better than they could be before refrigeration.

The food laws are part of something intended to keep a person's body clean/pure so they could enter the tents and temples where the ark was kept so they could make sacrifices.

You don't need to listen to Hitchens or George Carlin to check that stuff out, it's all written down. There are a bunch of translations into other languages too, you don't even need to learn Greek or old forms of Hebrew. Oh sometimes the wording is a bit different but if you read a few translations they are saying the same things.

Halal meat is killed following Muslim law... the main points are the animal must be healthy, and you kill the beast by cutting the main jugular artery and then hanging it so the blood drains. (If you are Muslim please correct me if I am mistaken or over simplifying.)

This supposedly prevent impurities from the blood getting into the meat once the beast is killed. God must be thanked during this process.

Some non-religious people believe this is the best way to kill an animal for food because if the animal is killed slowly the stress produces hormones that make the meat taste bad. That’s why a lot of deer hunters prefer ‘clean’ kills and dislike it when an animal is injured nd they have to follow it for the kill... as the whole time stress hormones are entering the bloodstream and that can change how the meat tastes.

Kosher meat is killed in a similar fashion...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosher_fo ... _slaughter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halal#Method_of_slaughter

There are some differences, and people of both religions follow these rules to varying degrees. Also availability of local sources to properly prepared meat may impact a person’s willingness and ability to adhere to rules. It’s that some Muslims will accept Kosher food as Halal, especially in parts of the world where there’s a well established Kosher supply and no established Halal supply.

Pork is a ‘dirty’ meat and unacceptable to people following either traditional Kosher or Halal diets.

Thankfully that leaves more pork ribs, and bacon for me.

[2dimes]

I have not looked at the wiki links yet. Do you know the food law reason Kosher meat is bled out besides your impurity claim?

Done right sausages, bacon and even ribs, chops and butt/shoulder can be pretty tasty. Having said that...

There are a lot of things about piggies that make the meat apostrophe dirty apostrophe. One thing being, like canines they don't sweat. That causes them to be unable to shed salt and other things as well as causing them to roll in the dirt or mud to cool off. Their manure smells much worse to me. I have worked in beef processing facilities and even the worst parts were not too bad after a while. I can't get too near pig poop. I won't delve into the parasite issues.

[Dukasaur]

Some non-religious people believe this is the best way to kill an animal for food because if the animal is killed slowly the stress produces hormones that make the meat taste bad. That’s why a lot of deer hunters prefer ‘clean’ kills and dislike it when an animal is injured nd they have to follow it for the kill... as the whole time stress hormones are entering the bloodstream and that can change how the meat tastes.

I have not looked at the wiki links yet. Do you know the food law reason Kosher meat is bled out besides your impurity claim?

Done right sausages, bacon and even ribs, chops and butt/shoulder can be pretty tasty. Having said that...

There are a lot of things about piggies that make the meat apostrophe dirty apostrophe. One thing being, like canines they don't sweat. That causes them to be unable to shed salt and other things as well as causing them to roll in the dirt or mud to cool off. Their manure smells much worse to me. I have worked in beef processing facilities and even the worst parts were not too bad after a while. I can't get too near pig poop. I won't delve into the parasite issues.

People are always trying to make excuses for religions, and trying to ascribe sensible reasons for various religious rules. It's being too generous; one of the basic underpinnings of religion is that it is arbitrary and illogical.

People try to say, for instance, that the prohibition on pork makes sense because pork contains parasites while beef does not. That may be true nowadays, but it was not true before refrigeration and modern sanitation made it so. Until recently, a piece of pork hanging in the town market with flies crawling all over it would be no more likely to contain parasites than a slab of beef stored under the same circumstances.

Others have tried to say that the dietary rules were an ecological plan: because ungulates can strip the land and turn grassland into desert, so it makes sense to kill them first, whereas pigs can eat the garbage left by civilization and therefore they are an ecological blessing. This also doesn't hold water. A pig that is eaten can leave behind plenty of offspring to continue the work of hoovering up man's stale bread. As long as food is abundant, it's easy enough to keep a healthy herd while killing a good percentage of them.

Still others have tried to say that the banned animals were those that were used as mascots by various "enemy" gods in Egypt and Assyria. That's the dumbest excuse of them all; it's true that dogs, pigs, serpents, and spiders were used as mascots for various gods hostile to Jehovah, but those were mostly lesser gods. The most common foreign gods were those based on ram's or bull's heads, both of which were fair game for Jews.

Robin Lane Fox does a brilliant job of dissecting the various rules in The Unauthorized Version. Sadly, there is no electronic edition from which I could cut and paste. I'm going to have to type this out manually from my paper copy, so it'll just be a very small extract from a significant passage. If you can find a copy, it's worth a read.

What mattered to priests was a broader concern for wholeness and perfection. The rules extended to details of clothing and cultivation. Robes must not be made of two different kinds of cloth, yokes must not be pulled by two different kinds of animal, ground must not be sown with two different kinds of seed.
(...)
The most frequent sacrifices were cattle, sheep and goats. What then, did these species share? Priests were not zoologists, but even they could look at an animal's food and feet. The hoofs of cattle, sheep, and goats were cloven, and all of them chewed the cud: cloven-hoofed, cud-chewing animals were therefore fit for the table. Horses and dogs were therefore off the menu, as were donkeys and Samson's unfortunate foxes.
What about the marginal cases -- beasts which had cloven feet but did not chew the cud, or which chewed the cud but had peculiar feet? (...) everyone would think of the cloven pig. It at seeds and grass, but it also ate dung, swill and flesh (...) Pork, therefore, was out. So were camels (their hoofs were marginal) and so were hares.
(...)
By starting from what they knew best, the priests could quickly divide the kingdom of beasts into two. (...) Some of the hoofed vegetarians were also unclean (camels or horses). Rather, they derived from the ideal type which had traditionally been used for sacrifice.
(...)
what about the birds? (...) The most popular Temple offerings were doves and pigeons, but what was special about them? (...) If there were clean and unclean animals, there could not be clean birds which had feasted on the flesh of unclean animals. Birds of prey, therefore, were out. The book of Leviticus names twenty types of birds whose identity is often uncertain [to the modern reader.] An ideal type emerged: birds that used wings, had feathers, and did not eat flesh. A few oddities transgressed the rules of the tidy priestly mind. Ostriches were out; they did not fly. Bats had wings but did not have feathers.
(...)
As for insects, they came under the general heading of things which swarm (...) and things which move on more than four legs (Leviticus 11:42), they defied all sorts of tidy boundaries, and there were sound reasons for banning the lot. Once again, there was one little problem which was probably raised by an awkward question later: what about locusts? They had both legs and wings, and moved about both on land and in the air, in each case with the proper parts. Hopping locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers were therefore declared clean. In times of locust swarms and famine, it was a very convenient ruling. The poor used to eat these insects who were in turn eating their crops.

That's about it for the Jewish rules. The Muslim rules are entirely derivative. Mohammed was above all an exploiter of others, and Mecca was a gathering place for preachers of many faiths long before he made it his. He had access to Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian and Animist sources, and plagiarized all of them with abandon.

[2dimes]

I agree religion is most often one or more persons telling another how to behave and what to think.

I'm not saying cows can't get worms. I am saying almost every pig has them and as long as you handle and cook the meat properly, pork consumers don't care.

You have to freeze or smoke Salmon before making it into sushi for the same reason. I believe the fish can be kosher.

I can hang a side of beef in a shed and as it rots some people figure it is improved. Leave a pork loin on your counter for three days and see how that goes.

[jonesthecurl]

Religious rules can sometimes make sense - and making them "God says so" rather than just a law or custom can ensure that people will obey where perhaps they wouldn't otherwise. E.G. the Hindu ban on beef means that even when people are very hungry they don't eat the animals which will be pulling the plough next season.

[DoomYoshi]

As stated the science involved is the Science of Surveying.

You’re agreement goes back to an unwillingness to accept that words have meanings.

Following your logic I wouldn’t be be able to prove that the color blue was in fact blue. I could get a spectrophotometer and we could analyze the light bouncing off an object, but we’d be unable to define that light as “BLUE”... just like I could get the GPS coordinates for Boston but we couldn’t ‘prove’ that was in Massachusetts.

There’s no faith involved in calling a specific frequency of light ‘blue’ anymore than there is faith involved in calling a specific set of GPS coordinates to be in a defined location. It’s all based on the standard convention of communication we call language.

Do you now defy language AND logic?

This is why there has never been a border dispute in the history of the world. Since everyone can just appeal to the objective science of surveying and check the dictionary there has been constant peace since day 1.

[jimboston]

As stated the science involved is the Science of Surveying.

You’re agreement goes back to an unwillingness to accept that words have meanings.

Following your logic I wouldn’t be be able to prove that the color blue was in fact blue. I could get a spectrophotometer and we could analyze the light bouncing off an object, but we’d be unable to define that light as “BLUE”... just like I could get the GPS coordinates for Boston but we couldn’t ‘prove’ that was in Massachusetts.

There’s no faith involved in calling a specific frequency of light ‘blue’ anymore than there is faith involved in calling a specific set of GPS coordinates to be in a defined location. It’s all based on the standard convention of communication we call language.

Do you now defy language AND logic?

This is why there has never been a border dispute in the history of the world. Since everyone can just appeal to the objective science of surveying and check the dictionary there has been constant peace since day 1.

This logic makes no sense.

The countries fighting over the border or peace of land ren;t fighting because they disagree about the physical location, or the latitude/longitude.

The REASON countries fight over a piece of land is because they are trying to decide which country “Owns” it.
This doesn’t make surveying unproven!

[DoomYoshi]

Ok, so keep moving the goalposts. How can you prove scientifically who owns something?

Do you believe the United States' jurisdiction extends to Massachusetts? How can you prove this using science?

You can keep kicking the can down the road, eventually you have to accept that you believe things which are not based on science.

[jimboston]

Ok, so keep moving the goalposts. How can you prove scientifically who owns something?

There’s no movement of the goalposts. You are convoluting the act of proving something scientifically with the way we communicate by convention and definition of words.

In no case have I suggested we are proving ownership scientifically. We are defining ownership by convention and agreement... and in cases were there’s a war over a piece of land the agreements have failed and we are using force. In the case of land it’s all temporary ownership anyway.

What we are scientifically proving is the actual LOCATION of something on the Globe.

Here’s an example of how you are convoluting these ideas.

I can’t technically prove that a color you see is “Blue”. We have to agree that the color is “Blue”.
What I can prove is that the color has a specific wavelength and frequency.

We then agree that the color with a wavelength of 450-485nm and frequency of 620-680

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_spectrum

Do you believe the United States' jurisdiction extends to Massachusetts?

Yes

How can you prove this using science?

I can scientifically prove there is a piece of land that exists in a specific location on the globe.
By convention/agreement we are currently calling this piece of land Massachusetts.
This has not always been so, and can change in the future.

I can scientifically prove there is another piece of land that exists in a specific location on the globe.
By convention/agreement we are currently calling this piece of land The United States.
This has not always been so, and can change in the future.

I can further prove the piece of land we call Massachusetts is contained within the piece of land we call The United States.

... and of course by convention/agreement we have decided that the jurisdiction (another word we have to agree to define) of the United States extends to/over Massachusetts... but only in ways we have agreed to in a document called The Constitution of the United States.

You can keep kicking the can down the road, eventually you have to accept that you believe things which are not based on science.

Nope.

I believe things that are based on science. I label things based on the convention we call LANGUAGE.

[DoomYoshi]

I can scientifically prove there is a piece of land that exists in a specific location on the globe.
By convention/agreement we are currently calling this piece of land Massachusetts.
This has not always been so, and can change in the future.

I believe things that are based on science. I label things based on the convention we call LANGUAGE.

But then how are border disagreements settled? Surely not by convention... does might make right?

This isn't an arbitrary question either. Ukraine's constitution claims that it's borders are indissoluble. Therefore Crimea is "by convention" part of the Ukraine's borders. Russia exerts force in Crimea.

So how do we settle this using either of your tools - convention or science.

[jimboston]

I can scientifically prove there is a piece of land that exists in a specific location on the globe.
By convention/agreement we are currently calling this piece of land Massachusetts.
This has not always been so, and can change in the future.

I believe things that are based on science. I label things based on the convention we call LANGUAGE.

But then how are border disagreements settled? Surely not by convention... does might make right?

This isn't an arbitrary question either. Ukraine's constitution claims that it's borders are indissoluble. Therefore Crimea is "by convention" part of the Ukraine's borders. Russia exerts force in Crimea.

So how do we settle this using either of your tools - convention or science.

You’re way off the original point, I’ve essentially already answered these, and you ignored my question.

[DoomYoshi]

I am way on the original point and making my exact point.

You claimed that you ONLY believe things provable by science.
Then I suggested that perhaps you believe in borders also, which are demonstrable by science, but not provable by science (since as you pointed out they can change; therefore they are subjective).

My point is that there is at least one thing that you believe that is not provable by science. Once you accept this, I move on to the next point.

Right now there are now major disputes over the border of Massachusetts, but what about in the 1700s? I'm pretty sure the only science used to settle that particular dispute was ballistics.

[jimboston]

I am way on the original point and making my exact point.

You claimed that you ONLY believe things provable by science.
Then I suggested that perhaps you believe in borders also, which are demonstrable by science, but not provable by science (since as you pointed out they can change; therefore they are subjective).

My point is that there is at least one thing that you believe that is not provable by science. Once you accept this, I move on to the next point.

Right now there are now major disputes over the border of Massachusetts, but what about in the 1700s? I'm pretty sure the only science used to settle that particular dispute was ballistics.

You are convoluting ideas and facts.

You ignore my point about color and naming.

The only reason that we can say I live in Massachusetts is because we all agree that I live in Massachusetts.

When 100% of the population of an area believe in some god or God then they consider this to be a ‘fact’ and ‘truth’.
Just because they consider it to be factual doesn’t make it so... but if no one questions it then it becomes a moot point.
Unfortunately for you that is no longer the case... people don’t automatically believe in a big daddy in the sky.

It (the ‘right’ religious belief or lack of religious belief) then becomes debatable and we as people have to...
- all agree to politely disagree
- talk till one group (believers versus non-believers / Christians versus Muslims) convinces the other group
- fight till one group makes the other group submit by force

At various points in history (and various locations) we (humans) have done all three of these things.
None of these three actions “PROVES” which belief is factually correct.

This is the same with disputes over land. When one group moves to an area occupied by another group we...
- all agree to get along but don’t interact (you can live down the stream from me, I’ll call this Massachusetts and you can call it Timbuktu... it doesn’t matter so long as we don’t interact / have conflict.
- talk till we agree on rules... maybe form a bond and eventually community
- fight till one group submits to the other

None of these actions “proves” the land is called “Massachusetts”... but eventually by convene all agree that this is so.

So again... I can prove I live in a specific GPS coordinate.
We agree by convention this is Massachusetts.
We could change the name tomorrow but that doesn’t change facts.
The name is useful... like any language... but that’s not the ‘fact’ that is proven or unproven.
Just like the name of the specific color ‘blue’ is not a fact... but the frequency is factual.

You are basically arguing about language.

[jimboston]

I’m atheist, is it ok for me to not be racist too? Or must I default be racist because I’m an atheist?

If there is no God, then it doesn't matter if you are racist.

Why?

A racist is an ass and wrong.

It doesn’t matter to me if that racist believes in God or not... he/she would still be an ass and wrong.

I BELIEVE a non-racist atheist is still a better person than a racist who has a stated belief in God. Continuing with that line of thinking, a world filled with non-religious humanists who are anti-racist would be a better world than a world filled with racist God-fearing Christians. No? Do you disagree?

It’s interesting how you are just ignoring the fact that we need language to communicate... and you are trying to play with the marginal definitions of words to trick me into agreeing with you.

You like asking questions, but you ignore my questions like the bolded one above, that don’t fit your narrative.

Comment on this if you want me to bother playing your game.

[tzor]

This is why there has never been a border dispute in the history of the world. Since everyone can just appeal to the objective science of surveying and check the dictionary there has been constant peace since day 1.

Border disputes often occur because borders are written in descriptive language and not in precise surveying measurements. A classic example is the border between New York and New Jersey. Here is an interesting article on that.

Of course the other significant reason is competing claims. Someone claims a perfect border and the other claims "hey you just made that line up." Here is the conflict over the Oregon territory between the US and Canada.

[tzor]

Following your logic I wouldn’t be be able to prove that the color blue was in fact blue. I could get a spectrophotometer and we could analyze the light bouncing off an object, but we’d be unable to define that light as “BLUE”... just like I could get the GPS coordinates for Boston but we couldn’t ‘prove’ that was in Massachusetts.

English, as they say, is a wonderful language. The definition of "color" is an odd duck, but most people will associate it with the perception of color which actually comes from differences in three sets of cones with different sensitives to frequencies and they are not very well optimized ...



This is coupled with the simple fact that few objects emit a single frequency of light, so the color is a result of the differences between the three color sensors which are triggering on multiple wavelengths.

[tzor]

Religious rules can sometimes make sense - and making them "God says so" rather than just a law or custom can ensure that people will obey where perhaps they wouldn't otherwise. E.G. the Hindu ban on beef means that even when people are very hungry they don't eat the animals which will be pulling the plough next season.

Sometimes, but most of the times it is just selective attempts to backfill customs of the time that were simply put in place for reasons that had nothing to do with the scientific handwaving. Look at the Jewish "kosher" dietary laws, for example. The prohibition against pork wasn't put in place because of the problems of eating undercooked pigs. The separation of milk and dairy probably came from a rejection of a specific sacrificial meal, which in turn was expanded into drinking a glass of milk at the same time as eating a leg of lamb (which is not a calf and the cow is in no way its mother).

Bonus joke: "Would Jesus eat a chicken Parmigiana sandwich?" Until the middle ages (when people just gave up arguing with Christians) there were three categories of animals under the kosher rules: fish, foul and meat.
Second bonus joke: Medieval Christians played fast and loose with the term "fish."

Although less prestigious than other animal meats, and often seen as merely an alternative to meat on fast days, seafood was the mainstay of many coastal populations. "Fish" to the medieval person was also a general name for anything not considered a proper land-living animal, including marine mammals such as whales and porpoises. Also included were the beaver, due to its scaly tail and considerable time spent in water, and barnacle geese, due to the belief that they developed underwater in the form of barnacles.

As a result, even when the rules start off with "God says so" people always have "but wait, there's more."

[jonesthecurl]

I believe you'll find that only the beaver's tail was considered to be "fish".
The Barnacle goose was thought to be the adult version of the goose barnacle.

[2dimes]

Holy monkey! Out of no where, it's tzor.

[mookiemcgee]

Mmmm Tzor making me crave some turtle soup

[betiko]

let's face it... you just need someone to take you by your hand because you are unable to take care of yourself on your own. religion is your comfy blanket that helps you sleep at night.
Why would humans lives not matter if there was no god? If you think such think then you are a dangerous sociopath... you know it and you rely on those BS beliefs to save yourself from yourself.

I can demonstrate that human lives don't matter in a scientific sense. Every culture in the world has several words for warrior. A toddler does not need to be taught the rules of boxing, they instinctively understand that the person knocked out lost. People are comfortable exploiting other people until the furor grows enough that they care. You wouldn't buy clothes made in Bangladesh if you thought that those garment workers' lives had the same value as yours.

You are completely missing the point. You try to make a dichotomy between science and religion. I think what people are rather debating here is weather or not you NEED to be a religious person, or you NEED religion in order to care about others. Like religion is the only thing that saves us from killing, raping, stealing etc... You pretend that if there is no religion, then nothing we do matters. I will say it again: if this is really what you think, you are by definition a sociopath. I cannot discuss humanism with someone whose only sense of others and empathy relies on a magic man living on a cloud that could punish him if he doesn't behave with empathy towards others.