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Merlyn_LeRoy

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Everything posted by Merlyn_LeRoy

  1. Merlyn_LeRoy
    I don't agree. "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." - Blaise Pascal
  2. Merlyn_LeRoy
    But gods never show up -- it's always people who insist they represent their god.
  3. Merlyn_LeRoy
    And if facts are imposed by fiat, the result is a tyrannical society.
  4. Merlyn_LeRoy
    Well, I prefer facts that don't totally resemble opinions.
  5. Merlyn_LeRoy
    But now you're talking about specific cases, not the general case of murder being a moral fact. What does it mean to say "murder is a moral fact" if it's easy to find lots of cases where there is widespread disagreement?
  6. Merlyn_LeRoy
    I didn't change the subject, which was whether moral facts exist. You claim they do, yet there is a lack of unanimity, so I say it isn't a fact.
  7. Merlyn_LeRoy
    Just avoid the question, that's the easy way to settle moral issues.
  8. Merlyn_LeRoy
    That still doesn't help when people don't agree on who has committed a crime -- picking up sticks on the Sabbath, or being gay aren't crimes in my view. You just end up begging the question on what constitutes a capital crime. Enough people apparently thought Atefeh Sahaaleh committed a capital offense when she was raped at age 16, so she was executed.
  9. Merlyn_LeRoy
    Well, if you're done being sarcastic, how do you justify murder as a moral fact when people clearly don't agree? Not much of a "fact".
  10. Merlyn_LeRoy
    No. Would you say murder is defined by whatever morals the local majority believes its god requires?
  11. Merlyn_LeRoy
    Depends how "murder" is defined. Some people consider abortion to be murder, some don't. "Murder" is generally "unlawful killing of a person", which means that governments that kill people aren't murdering them as long as it's legal, so stoning someone to death for, say, picking up sticks is OK (Numbers 15:32-36). Now, I happen to think that many capital offenses from lots of religions are immoral, but is that equivalent to saying it constitutes murder to carry them out? It would be if it was against the local laws, but that's because "murder" as I'm using it is a legal term, not a moral term. If I use it in a looser moral sense, I'd say that a lot of religions are just fine with specific kinds of murder. So I don't see how "murder" can be a moral fact, if it merely hinges on whether the current local government says that killing person X for reason Y is legal. And if you want to base it on morals, I can find lots of moral systems that are OK with killing people that I would consider murder in a moral sense, so murder isn't a moral fact in that case, either.
  12. Merlyn_LeRoy
    They're suing the officially established, government-ruled, tax-supported, 26 reserved seats in the House of Lords Church of England, where the monarch is the Supreme Governor. You're damn right they're suing.
  13. Merlyn_LeRoy
    I read this blather when it was first printed. For someone who claims that moral facts exist, Mr. McBrayer seems awfully reticent to list any.
  14. Merlyn_LeRoy
    Australian! (well, Clarke was born in NZ)
  15. Merlyn_LeRoy
  16. Merlyn_LeRoy
    Create as many magical beings as you like to "explain" it; they can explain everything (not usefully, though): http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/06/07/bryan-fischer-what-holds-an-atoms-nucleus-together-jesus/
  17. Merlyn_LeRoy
    I can certainly argue that belief in gods isn't reasonable. If you include ALL gods, and don't count e.g. the Christians god to be the same as the Muslim god, only a small fraction of people believe in the same god -- roughly 33%, if you lump all Christians together. Not too impressive when 26% of Americans answered that the sun goes around the earth. However, I wasn't even arguing that. You brought up the term "reasonable". I was only pointing out that evolution and orbital mechanics explain things without needing gods.
  18. Merlyn_LeRoy
    I'm saying there's no good evidence for magical beings. You can make up any number of things, but that's no reason to think they exist.
  19. Merlyn_LeRoy
    No, but they do depend on making a special exception for gods, which is hardly different from just assuming they exist. And the big bang isn't the only game in town: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html
  20. Merlyn_LeRoy
    Uh, no. Like I said, "I don't know" is a perfectly valid answer. Saying "I don't know, therefor some magical being did it" isn't, unless you have some evidence that a magical being did it. No, I'm not. I'm saying the fossil record, DNA, etc is evidence for evolution. I also say that the motions of the planets is evidence that gravity is at work, and not angels moving them. Neither of these say anything about the non-existence of gods, but some people try to shoehorn in their god into them by saying they don't believe those explanations -- but that doesn't allow anyone to conclude a god exists. But if I say the laws of physics explain the motions of planets, I'm not "using" that as proof that gods aren't moving the planets around. Same goes for human evolution. All scientific hypotheses that I've heard of just use laws of physics and chemistry, no magic involved; and like I said, "I don't know" is a valid answer. And atheists can believe in the supernatural and/or magic -- all they must lack is a belief in the existence of gods. I don't believe in the supernatural or magic.
  21. Merlyn_LeRoy
    Adding magical beings is the unnecessary part. The big bang theory was developed because that's where the evidence leads. Scientists prefer to say "I don't know" instead of adding magical beings.
  22. Merlyn_LeRoy
    Of course I know that, but that's quite different from magical beings that created humans in a puff of smoke, particularly when there's evidence of human evolution.
  23. Merlyn_LeRoy
    I hope you criticize Washington and Jefferson for owning slaves, and Lincoln's attitude towards blacks (he was born the same day as Darwin, after all). And I assume you're against the Oceanography merit badge? Oceanography merit badge requirements... 7. Do ONE of the following: ... b. Make a series of models (clay or plaster and wood) of a volcanic island. Show the growth of an atoll from a fringing reef through a barrier reef. Describe the Darwinian theory of coral reef formation.
  24. Merlyn_LeRoy
    No, that would be the total lack of reasons to think supernatural things exist. Evolution isn't any more proof of the non-existence of gods than orbital mechanics, though either one might look that way if you think gods must be responsible for species or planetary movement.
  25. Merlyn_LeRoy
    So Francis Collins is an atheist?
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