Religion is "child abuse" ??

Des Carter

I'm religious and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Mark Hamill wrote: »

How do you tell the difference between an analogy about something that is impossible to explain, but does exists, and an analogy about something which is impossible to explain but doesn't exist?

Well thats a whole different issue and goes back to the whole does God exist argument - I was just assuming he did as to explain how religion should be viewed.

Mark Hamill

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Des Carter wrote: »

So your just plain out refusing to answer my question because you dont feel comfortable with the answer?

Ickle already answered your question here, she said "no".

Des Carter wrote: »

So you dont know are care what god is like if there is one yet your posting in a Religion & Spirituality section????

In the Atheism and Agnositicism section, so actually that stance wouldn't be that unexpected here .
However that wasn't Ickles point here. She was simply pointing out that musing on any random definitions of god is pointless without any evidence to make those particular definitions more likely than the rest. There is simply an infinite number of definitions of god, arbitrarily picking one and musing on it makes no sense (if nothing else, starting at a possible answer (universe-pooping-turtle-god) and working back to the question (complexity?) will leave you much more likely to fall afoul of confirmation bias).

Another problem, and the one I think that Ickle Magoo first had with this question, is that if you ignore any evidence, even if you start with the question of "complexity" without any particular god idea in mind, you simply have no justification for an answer (either way). You need some evidence (which you want to leave out) or some line of fairly irrefutable logic (hard to produce, when you are musing on subjective terms like complexity) to make assertions.

Mark Hamill

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Des Carter wrote: »

B= True, but its the message behind the bullsh!t story that we should be focussed on.

I thought we were talking about a rational argument for god? If the story is bs (read: irrational) then the message will be bs too (read: irrational).

Des Carter wrote: »

Yes its impossible to explain fully but it gives the general idea.

How can it give the general idea about something that is impossible to understand? Not just hard to understand, not just incompletely understood, but impossible to understand?

Des Carter wrote: »

These stories are only dangerous if they are taken as fact

Seeing as history is littered with people taking these stories as fact and doing horrible things because of them, might it not have been better to just have been directly honest (lightning happens, i dont why, lets keep checking), rather than make up admittadly false analogies, which people in general seem to have predesposition to misunderstanding?

Des Carter wrote: »

if you understand that they are only stories then you will be able to gain more knowledge anyway.

What exactly does Thor tell us about lightning? Or Zeus? Or Xolotl?

Mark Hamill

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Des Carter wrote: »

Well thats a whole different issue and goes back to the whole does God exist argument - I was just assuming he did as to explain how religion should be viewed.

Why do you think its a good idea to assume god exists when looking at religion? Should we assume aliens exist while looking at crop circles?

Edit: This is an example of what I said before: starting with an arbitrary answer (god exists) and looking at the questions (religions). You leave yourself open confirmational bias and you start off close minded to the possibility that god doesn't exist.

Des Carter

I'm religious and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Ickle already answered your question here, she said "no".

True but she then said she didnt know.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

In the Atheism and Agnositicism section, so actually that stance wouldn't be that unexpected here .
However that wasn't Ickles point here. She was simply pointing out that musing on any random definitions of god is pointless without any evidence to make those particular definitions more likely than the rest. There is simply an infinite number of definitions of god, arbitrarily picking one and musing on it makes no sense (if nothing else, starting at a possible answer (universe-pooping-turtle-god) and working back to the question (complexity?) will leave you much more likely to fall afoul of confirmation bias).

Yes but thats my point - it is impossible to know anything about god (if he exists) except that he is outside our realm of understanding.

Mark Hamill

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Des Carter wrote: »

True but she then said she didnt know.

She said that "no, you cant say that god must be complex", and then said that she didn't know herself whether god was complex or not.

Des Carter wrote: »

Yes but thats my point - it is impossible to know anything about god (if he exists) except that he is outside our realm of understanding.

How can you know even that?

robindch

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Des Carter wrote: »

it is impossible to know anything about god (if he exists) except that he is outside our realm of understanding.

You're saying that the bible doesn't contain any accurate information?

Ickle Magoo

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Des Carter wrote: »

Yes but thats my point - it is impossible to know anything about god (if he exists) except that he is outside our realm of understanding.

Of course, if you aren't working under the assumption a god must exist the other way of looking at it is; rather than being outside our realm of understanding, there isn't a god to understand and the reason we know nothing about some mystical creator - rather than shoving it into all the gaps in our current understanding as civilisations have done for millennia before you - is because there isn't one. Just throwing it out there.

Des Carter

I'm religious and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

I nevert said God exists I said IF I even bolded and underlined it to emphasize the fact that we were having a hypothetical conversation. My point was referring to early mans ideas of Gods and how God was explained to them in a way they could relate to thats all - end of story.

Ickle Magoo

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Okay des, IF schoodlerajmozoderufers exist - what traits would they have? I'm afraid that's the sum of your question and hypothetical musings thus far.

Des Carter

I'm religious and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Okay des, IF schoodlerajmozoderufers exist - what traits would they have? I'm afraid that's the sum of your question and hypothetical musings thus far.

Ok so you dont understand my argument, fair enough I will not continue it.

Ickle Magoo

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

I don't think you understand your own argument, from an objective perspective at least. You appear to be trying to have a debate about the inherent make-up of something that A) we don't know exists and many of the people you are trying to evoke debate from don't think exists. Your question is no different to mine. If you can't answer or don't understand my question then have a wee think about why.

Des Carter

I'm religious and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Ok so you dont want to have discussion on a hypothetical situation. Fair enough.

Mark Hamill

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Des Carter wrote: »

Ok so you dont want to have discussion on a hypothetical situation. Fair enough.

We are willing to have a hypothetical situation, but there is only so far you can take a hypothetical before it is so far from reality that its no longer useful as a tool to understand it.
Your claim that god is too complex to understand fails as a hypothesis for two main reasons, imo:
Firstly, its just a baseless assertion. There is no reason to assume god must be complex, complexity is subjective and it simply may not apply to an entity that creates universes. God creating the universe could be as simple as 1+1=2.
Secondly, if god was too complex to understand, then we wouldn't be able to recognise this complexity (because we dont understand it) and therefore we could not make assertions on the nature of it either. If you cant define the complexity of something, then how can you declare it as complex?

Mark Hamill

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Secondly, if god was too complex to understand, then we wouldn't be able to recognise this complexity (because we dont understand it) and therefore we could not make assertions on the nature of it either. If you cant define the complexity of something, then how can you declare it as complex?

Big O notation!

Mark Hamill

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

bluewolf wrote: »

Big O notation!

I tried to look this up but ended up on wiki pages like this and this and am no closer to understanding whether you are agreeing with me or contradicting me:o:pac:.

Mark Hamill

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I tried to look this up but ended up on wiki pages like this and this and am no closer to understanding whether you are agreeing with me or contradicting me:o:pac:.

Sorry, it's something still left over from uni that I barely recall :pac:
Use big o notation to show the complexity of an algorithm.
It was just a joke that you can denote complexity of something.

http://rob-bell.net/2009/06/a-beginners-guide-to-big-o-notation/

jayzusb.christ

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

We are willing to have a hypothetical situation, but there is only so far you can take a hypothetical before it is so far from reality that its useful as a tool to understand it.

William of Ockham would agree - 'Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.'

If a hypothesis is put forward, it's unscientific to use it as a basis for more hypotheses.
Can't help thinking of Alan Partridge's assertion that 'God's a gas'; his later assertion that God has legs; and the conclusion he forces upon himself that they must be 'gas legs'.

Mark Hamill

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

bluewolf wrote: »

Sorry, it's something still left over from uni that I barely recall :pac:
Use big o notation to show the complexity of an algorithm.
It was just a joke that you can denote complexity of something.

http://rob-bell.net/2009/06/a-beginners-guide-to-big-o-notation/

Thanks,


(and just in case this is picked up as a counter to what I was saying, Big O Notation refers to defined algorithims or formulas and in our hypothetical god is undefined (too complex to understand), so it doesn't apply to god.)

Abraham

jayzusb.christ wrote: »

William of Ockham would agree - 'Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.'

If a hypothesis is put forward, it's unscientific to use it as a basis for more hypotheses.
Can't help thinking of Alan Partridge's assertion that 'God's a gas'; his later assertion that God has legs; and the conclusion he forces upon himself that they must be 'gas legs'.

Legs, eh ? Now talking of legs brings to mind something very weird indeed.
Those conjoined twins who were separated recently and since they had two legs (only) in their conjoined form, they now have one leg apiece.

Now will some guy loaded with the necessary theology, please explain or set forth a rational explanation, under the provisions of the 'Divine Plan', for the creation of such human form. Is it possible that the affliction outlined actually has meaning and a purpose ? (All human existence has a purpose, hasn't it ? )

Lawrence1895

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Lutheran clerics in Germany are allowed to marry and to have children. As far as I know, there is no case whatsoever of clerical child abuse in that church...just to mention it.

5uspect

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

Abraham wrote: »

Legs, eh ? Now talking of legs brings to mind something very weird indeed.
Those conjoined twins who were separated recently and since they had two legs (only) in their conjoined form, they now have one leg apiece.

Now will some guy loaded with the necessary theology, please explain or set forth a rational explanation, under the provisions of the 'Divine Plan', for the creation of such human form. Is it possible that the affliction outlined actually has meaning and a purpose ? (All human existence has a purpose, hasn't it ? )

It's quite simple really. Through their suffering the community has come together to express love for their neighbours in their time of need. The miracle of modern medicine has shown that the Lord has bestowed us with the power to achieve great things.

To dismiss the plight of these children as an act of a cruel God is deeply ignorant. God wishes all of His flock to live in the glory of His love. The sins of Man result in the disfigurement of society and only salvation through Jesus Christ can wash this away.

I feel durty.

strobe

Lars1916 wrote: »

Lutheran clerics in Germany are allowed to marry and to have children. As far as I know, there is no case whatsoever of clerical child abuse in that church...just to mention it.

It took 0.14 seconds for google to suggest this is not true.

Abraham

5uspect wrote: »

It's quite simple really. Through their suffering the community has come together to express love for their neighbours in their time of need. The miracle of modern medicine has shown that the Lord has bestowed us with the power to achieve great things.

To dismiss the plight of these children as an act of a cruel God is deeply ignorant. God wishes all of His flock to live in the glory of His love. The sins of Man result in the disfigurement of society and only salvation through Jesus Christ can wash this away.

I feel durty.

This is a reply but not an answer. There is no attempt to address the issue I have raised as to why innocent defenceless infants must be presented in this way to society by an omnipotence holding all the answers ? You seem to suggest that it is deliberately done for some kind of greater good ?
It does not have to be this way so why is it so ? That is the most fundamental of questions to which I am seeking an answer.

Lawrence1895

I'm atheist/agnostic and DON'T believe that any religious dogmas constitute 'child abuse'

strobe wrote: »

It took 0.14 seconds for google to suggest this is not true.

Would you mind sending a link to me? Thanks

strobe

Lars1916 wrote: »

Would you mind sending a link to me? Thanks

http://www.google.ie/#hl=en&biw=1366&bih=649&q=lutheran+sex+abuse&aq=f&aqi=g-v1&aql=&oq=&fp=6b8742abeac715b6

http://www.google.ie/#hl=en&biw=1366&bih=649&q=lutheran+sex+abuse+germany&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&fp=6b8742abeac715b6