IntenseDebate - ConverseAtheist

7 years ago @ Conversational Atheist - God: The Abusive Boyfr... · 0 replies · +1 points

I said possibly psychotic.

7 years ago @ Conversational Atheist - Jesus: Unacceptable Sa... · 0 replies · +1 points

After you die do you expect to go to figurative heaven?

7 years ago @ Conversational Atheist - Tough Questions: "Can ... · 0 replies · +1 points

What is your position on abortion? Unreservedly in support for the same reasons you've listed above, right?

11 years ago @ Conversational Atheist - Bible: Slavery · 0 replies · +1 points

Yes.

11 years ago @ Conversational Atheist - Bible: Slavery · 0 replies · +1 points

"All this to come to his point, that Paul didn't address/come against slavery simply because he feared for his life if he did. By coming against something so culturally accepted would have put his life in danger."

I'll copy and paste part of what I said to Dave Marriott below:

This type of response is always astounding to me. I mean, simply astounding. This is the kind of response an atheist would give for why an atheist would or would not do something. Basically, it's a practicality argument -- which makes complete sense if you are humans, operating in a world of human constraints, against other humans, and without any sort of divine guidance, encouragement or support. This, however, is NOT the situation that these people are in, according to Christianity.

You can only seriously make and defend a practicality argument, if you suppose or assume that God does not exist/has no influence.

11 years ago @ Conversational Atheist - Bible: Slavery · 2 replies · +1 points

You raise a lot of interesting points. Because I'm short on time tonight, I want to focus on two of your points.

"It's easy to define to allow all your readers to think that the God of the Bible gives instruction on American slavery -- and then quote verses that pertain to Roman slavery (or OT slavery). This is unfair and misleading."

Ok, let's say I accept your charge. Then what does the Bible say about this kind of *worse* slavery? At best it's silent, and we have to find our morals in a different way than a closer reading of the Bible.

"While I'm at it, here are some reasons that Paul and other NT authors did not begin a radical slave-uprising..."

This type of response is always astounding to me. I mean, simply astounding. This is the kind of response an atheist would give for why an atheist would or would not do something. Basically, it's a practicality argument -- which makes complete sense if you are humans, operating in a world of human constraints, against other humans, and without any sort of divine guidance, encouragement or support. This, however, is NOT the situation that these people are in, according to Christianity.

You can only seriously make and defend a practicality argument, if you suppose or assume that God does not exist/has no influence.

11 years ago @ Conversational Atheist - Strategies for dealing... · 1 reply · +1 points

Thanks for continuing this conversation! How do you envisage this sort of thing to "not work"? You must be saying that there won't be a time (in the near future) where protests that end in deaths will not occur on the news that a page of the Quran was destroyed, right? But how would that work if every single day another page at least was destroyed? Imagine protests where people die happening in a country every day for months. At some point, there simply has to be a mitigating response -- either from the rest of the country saying "ok, enough!" or simply running out of protestors willing to risk their lives.

11 years ago @ Conversational Atheist - Strategies for dealing... · 3 replies · +1 points

So you're saying on day 1 of the auto-defiler experiment, the entire world would engulf itself in a spasm of violence?

I think it would drag on for at least a few months! The key thing is that however long a spasm of violence does drag on, to make it a certainty that this auto-defiling is going to continue.

11 years ago @ Conversational Atheist - Strategies for dealing... · 0 replies · +1 points

I think it would be funny to have a protest against the Quran/Islam that's as mild as can possibly be -- have signs like, "The Quran is a mediocre book!" or "Mohammad had a few good ideas, a few bad ideas!"

11 years ago @ Atheist Revolution - Public Executions for ... · 0 replies · +3 points

"I will admit that my gut reaction when I hear something like this is to suggest that we collectively increase our criticism of Islam."

I think this is completely correct. These protests have been unsurprising to those of us who keep a watch on this kind of thing, but the violent protests in Sydney, for example, have caught a number of people surprised. People seem confused that even in first world nations far removed from the middle east, that Islam can have such an influence.

I think we can use a bit of strategy as well by having a prescribed criticism/action in response to unacceptable behavior. I wrote up some ideas along these lines here: http://conversationalatheist.com/2012/09/strategi...

Keep up the good work.

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