The end of faith.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

Well, in my opinion I don't care what society you come from or what culture you come from. If you beat other human beings for irrational religions reasons, you are immoral. That's simply a matter of fact in a rational world.

And yet here, you are exercising some faith yourself. Unless you can scientifically prove, 100%, beyond the shadow of a doubt that their religious reasons are absolutely false -- good luck with that -- you do not know that their religion is untrue. Improbable, yes, but you take the rest on faith.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

Giving women equal rights doesn't necessarily improve a society's wealth, a society's military, or most importantly a society's faith, so what virtues could possibly be found in it?

On the contrary, it opens up vast possibilities for women as consumers, women as members of the work force, and women as members of the military.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

I don't need to prove they're false, because I deny their very foundation as being legitimate in a rational world. Make no mistake, a rational world is a real, tangible, observable world. A faith-based world is an imaginary, intangible, unobservable world. The imaginary has no place in the justice system of our physical world.

How very convenient for you. Throughout this thread you've thrown around the words rational and irrational as though they're going out of style, but there is no basis in rationality without truth or logic, and no basis in truth or logic without proof. If you do not or cannot disprove what you so confidantly claim to be imaginary, then your reasoning is just as much based in faith.

Originally Posted by Wiktionary.com

Noun
faith (plural faiths)

1. Mental acceptance of and confidence in a claim as truth without proof supporting the claim.

...

Synonyms
(feeling, without direct evidence but based on indirect evidence and experience (inductive reasoning), that something is true, real, or will happen): belief, confidence, trust

If you really have to change the definitions of words so much to suit your argument, I see no point in continuing this discussion.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

I was speaking from an Islamic perspective. Yes there are obviously positives, but their faith will blind them to it.

And you honestly think that these positives have not occurred to and even appealed to more than a few middle-eastern Islamic bussinessmen and generals? They are clearly evident in western culture, whether the zealots like it or not. As Brady already put it, "No moral posturing will get us anywhere that observable phenomenon can't."

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

I should not need to disprove it, because it cannot be proven in the first place. I only need to disprove that which can be proven. Beating people causes pain. People don't like pain. This is proven. Showing too much skin angers Allah, and deserves beating for repentance. This cannot be proven, and thus has no significant weight against my argument.

And in the first place you're jumping to the conclusion that doing something to someone that they don't like, even selfish violence, cannot just as easily be rationalized or justified without faith, and is "wrong" - from your own viewpoint. Not to acknowledge that amorality is and has always been vastly prevalent, regardless of faith, is simply narrow-minded.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

If you cannot deal with my definition of faith as believing in the irrational, then stop wasting my time. My definition still applies to almost all concepts of faith, and concentrates on the ones that produce irrational claims. More specifically, irrational means contradicting things that CAN be proven, such as how a beating produces pain and people don't like pain. Deal or GTFO.

Oh, I can certainly "deal" with it, even if I disagree with it. I've merely been pointing out how you've been irrational and hypocritical yourself, and you've offered little in the way of disputing that. By no means do you need to disprove religion, but doing so would mean that your matter-of-factly statements about it being undeniably false would not be based on faith. Using something that you call for the complete eradication of hurts your argument just a bit.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

You're ignorant to their culture. I'm sure they seem appealing if you look at it from a secular point of view instead of a religious one. And I'm pretty sure the Arab culture remaining behind the times the past 300-400 years is evidence enough that moral posturing can quite easily overpower observable phenomenon.

And you're racist. Every single middle-easterner is completely incapable of interpreting their religion differently without diminishing it to allow for positives? I think many of those who have immigrated to a western country might just disagree with you. Granted that it's currently nearly impossible for reform to happen in the middle east itself. But where, exactly, for the past 300-400 years, have women had equal rights, and forms of media been able to convey such positives across vast distances? Considering how recently the latter has begun leaking in, expecting reforms already is impatient.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

Any religious dogma without proof to substantiate it is irrelevant to human justice. Secondly, I'm not disproving religion, I'm disproving faith. Get with the game. I don't need faith that there is no religious truth. I can simply look around and observe that gods have no impact on the world.

Let's look at this before I even dignify anything else. Pay real close attention here. You have no proof for your belief that religion is inherently false; obviously you're not trying to disprove it, you feel that you already have.

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Faith for me, at this point, is defined as belief in the irrational.

And I can describe your confident disbelief in all religions as little but irrational. You know, since:

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rationality is based on proof

Sound familiar?

All I'm saying is, you may want to attempt to purge your own faith, according to your own definition, before you call on others to do the same.

Also, you assume that any possible god is concerned with making a visible impact to everyone. If that were the case, religious faith would never have existed in the first place.

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Go back to my planet analogy. There's a man on a planet 5 million light years away, spinning 3 miles per second backwards. A group on Earth claims this man wrote a book for them, and the book tells them that it's OK to murder your wife if she runs away from you. And if you don't murder her, your entire family will be destroyed in a plague.

Are you going to let people murder their wives because of an unprovable man on an unprovable planet? Or would you tell them not to murder their wives, because murdering people is obviously provably harmful to those being murdered?

Assuming this little scenario takes place in our own culture, where our established morals are enforced, then yes, obviously I would stop them. But since it is similarly impossible to disprove them, I would be stopping them because I have faith that they are wrong; because they contradict the morals that I believe in. I'm still being irrational, I just don't think I'm being as irrational as what they're advocating.

Now, I honestly hope you're not meaning to compare this absurd scenario to every well-established religion. But since you already "know" so well that every single one of them is a bunch of superstitious crap, I suppose I'm hoping for too much.

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Scroll back to the first page of this thread, and you'll see the statistics of how many Muslims in that area think it's acceptable in some way to suicide-bomb civilian targets in defense of Islam.

Because surveys are ALWAYS incredibly accurate, right? Pardon me for having some doubts about a poll of 38,000 people in an area consisting of roughly 461 million people.

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And no, injustices can't be just as easily rationalized or justified if you're not including faith.

If you're even concerned with injustices. In such a case, would one not come to the rational conclusion that one's own happiness is more important than the happiness of others?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by FallDragon

Yes, a rational world is based on proof. NOT unprovable things, as you so adamantly cling to. Proving something true or proving something is false is the foundation of a rational world, and faith has no place in it. Why? Because faith is unprovable. It will go into the same categories that Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny go into. It will only gain importance in a rational world when it can be proved or disproved.

Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny don't exactly have sacred texts or people who claim to have had spiritual experiences with them. Until you have conclusive proof to discredit those, your belief that religion is just fairy tales is still irrational. Now, I don't personally have a problem with that, but I'm not the one advocating that irrationality is the primary cause of wrongdoing in the world.

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Exactly. The only reason faith cropped into existence is because people couldn't legitimize their beliefs rationally, so they chose instead to convince people to follow their hearts. How sweet, and how completely inconclusive.

See above.

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And this is the exact scenario why faith fails. You aren't stopping them because of the rational, factual reality that killing people is painful and brings sorrow, you're stopping them because a Bible or a government tells you it's bad. Faith verse faith, the ultimate battle of imaginary forces, with both sides thinking God fights for them.

Yes, one owns happiness is more important. However, it is also in our self interest that the others around us are happy. And if we view the others around us as purely equals, which only rationality brings, destructive selfishness will hardly have legs to stand on. Rationality will provide justice due to our social dependence on each other.

And you're still taking it on faith that causing pain and sorrow is wrong. "Because people don't like it" is irrelevent, because one can rationally come to the conclusion that doing anything to increase one's own happiness is justified. Increasing the happiness of others is irrational, since in order to do that you have to decrease your own happiness. Men have been happier than you in your wildest dreams through oppression, and not giving a second thought to equality.

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Then you don't know much about how surveys work.

I know plenty well how they can easily be manipulated, thank you very much.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

Sacred texts with have unproven prophecies, but those are ignored because you can always "reinterpret" them. Sacred texts with grammatical errors and edits throughout. You do realize that none of our current Bible or Koran or anything, is based off original texts, right? They use copies of copies of copies, and who knows what the copiers wanted to put in there themselves. The only way we can accept anything Religion says as true is if the entire text itself was perfect, which it obviously isn't to those who've actually studied it. If the sacred texts are fallible, so are their messages, and thus prove no solid foundation for their beliefs. The texts themselves actually contradict what happened in real world history, whether it be time line wise or prophecy wise, and if that isn't enough proof to show it's false I don't know what is.

Discrepencies alone are not proof, considering they are a result of the fallacy of men, not the god of their religion. Sacred texts are still secondary to personal spiritual experience, since with that one could theoretically discern what is wrong and right with the book.

"Real" world history is subject to the same possible fallacies that any sacred text is.

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I'm taking it on faith that causing pain and sorrow is wrong? What kind of bullshit mentality is that? Because people don't like it is extremely relevant, because we should be the judges of what harms us in a rational way. The mentality of "fuck everybody except myself" is NOT rational. We are a social society and must live with each other, and it's easy to reason that we need to depend upon each other to live the most enjoyable life. It's also irrational to think we decrease our own happiness when making others happy. In almost all cases, when we do something good for somebody else, we feel proud of ourselves and happy about ourselves.

And the idea that men have been happier than me during oppression has nothing to do with being in oppression itself. Sure, maybe his family made him super happy, or his coworkers, but living in oppression did not cause him happiness, and decreased his happiness to some degree knowing he can't escape his situation. Even though both of our cases are hypothetical to begin with, thinking that oppression causes happiness is completely bunk.

But the mentality of "fuck everybody but myself" sure worked well for the perpetrators of oppression. And there is a vast difference between oppressing people for greed and power, and oppressing people because you don't believe them equal. Since the latter rationally serves no purpose, it is likely that it is a side-effect of the former. As if there's any rationality behind coming to the conclusion that feeling proud and happy for themselves would be compensation for giving up their wealth and power.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by FallDragon

Incorrect. Discrepancies are proof enough considering sacred texts claim to be holy and without error, inspired by God, and preserved for all time by God himself. Therefore it proves itself invalid because it cannot sustain all of it's self-claimed attributes.

Inspired by God, but written, translated, and copied by men. How do you know that any of the self-claimed attribute of being preserved for all time was not an error added to the book?

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The gods of today's religions are wholly based off of and inspired from texts, therefore proof is wholly dependent upon the provability of texts.

Originally Posted by StarmanDX

Sacred texts are still secondary to personal spiritual experience, since with that one could theoretically discern what is wrong and right with the book.

Personally, I tend to rip the entirety of The Song of Solomon out of every Old Testament I own, because I feel that it was not inspired by God in any way.

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And you are incorrect that world history is subject to the same possible fallacies. Example: Prophecy-A says all of Egypt will remain destitute and a wasteland for the remainder of all time. Reality: It hasn't.

Just because different interprations are convenient, that doesn't invalidate them.

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World history is not subject to claims without evidence.

Evidence? So do you happen to have a photograph of Washington crossing the Delaware? A video of Hannibal Barca crossing the Alps? Just like sacred texts, history was written, translated and copied, and those men may or may not have done so accurately.

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And I'm no longer going to argue the validity or invalidity of Religion with you. The point remains that Religion has no place in a rational world, in the real world, where action A causes effect A to happen in an observable, reproducible way.

My major qualm is not over the validity or invalidity of religion, it's over your claim to know that religion is invalid. If you merely said that you think religion is invalid based on likely evidence, I wouldn't be posting in this thread.

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The perpetrators of oppression used many more factors beyond "fuck everybody but myself." They still had to convince many others in lower levels to keep them in power, lest an overthrow occurs. This shows that even the most ruthless people have dependence on others, and need help from others, and thus try to keep others happy. Don't grossly generalize things to win your points when you haven't thought them through.

Oppression requires one thing and one thing alone to exist: greed. Other factors, such as faith, make it easier, but they do not generate oppresion.

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Oppressing people for greed and power and oppressing them because you don't believe them to be equal are indeed very deeply connected. But I'm not going to explain myself to you again when I've already explain why in previous posts. You apparently can't grasp the interconnectivity of oppression and equality, and how faith is the justification of all oppression. You make gross generalizations based on your belief all men are evil and selfish to such an extreme that the only way we can become better is by following religious creeds that make us selfless. This is preposterous. As we can see, there are plenty of atheists and agnostics who all care more about others than most religious fanatics do. Where do they get their selflessness from when there's no God telling them to be selfless? Because it is in our godless, faithless self-interest to help others as well, whether you want to admit it or not.

And you apparently can't grasp the concept that moral absolutes may not exist. Faith is not needed to justify anything if you don't care about justifying it.

Don't fucking tell me what I believe, either. I believe that men are born without concepts of morals, and whatever morals they learn, they learn by what their culture teaches them and by their experience.

I also believe that there can be godless, faithless self-interest to help others. My whole point with the oppression example was to show that godless, faithless self-interest can also hurt others and still be rational. Rationality does not always have to be right, and vice versa, because it is based on our subjective reasoning.

FELIPE NO

To enforce, yes. I meant it as only needing greed to be inspired.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?