simon

@Simon Payton

Surely this is why religion continues to have credibility – it is credible to some extent.

The credible part in my opinion is the assistance with certain aspects of socialization for children that cannot be gotten in other settings. It was an instrumental part in helping my son grow out of certain behavioral challenges. It really d…[Read more]

Kristina wrote:
And this is all before we jump from a logical argument that a god must exist and try to some how marry it to the idea that this god is a particular god as described in, let’s say, the Old Testament.

Yes, and if I can add my strange two cents to this (in case @Simon hasn’t incorporated something like it into his yellowgrain p…[Read more]

@Simon. This is the case in all studies. What is a shame is that some people specifically try (and to some degree succeed) in discrediting an entire field of study by showcasing the terrible few. I don’t see it happening with fields like history or psychiatry (and there are MORE than enough examples in psychiatry to easily play that game).

If…[Read more]

@Simon,

I guess Western women aren’t privileged enough to comprise half the roofers, sewage workers or get cut down by machine guns. Instead they choose to make a living just shaking their asses in a multitude of ways by the millions. The women I know demand that their husbands make way more than they do. How is that supposed to work? Where is…[Read more]

@Simon – there’s the religious argument for why slavery is bad.

Will the religious thank the secularists and humanists who had to show them that “slavery is bad”?

@Simon Comparing Christians and Nazis??

“We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity … in fact our movement is Christian”.

Adolf Hitler, 1928.

@Simon – People who follow Christianity without the moral influence of Jesus end up hating those who are                                different.

That is why I keep sayi…[Read more]

@Simon: However, you don’t need to be a Christian to get something out of Christianity. There’s plenty of valid material there without the theological parts.

What do you mean by that? What valid material?

@Simon – The title of the video is “Convincing historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus”. The first 30 minutes offers no evidence.  The arguments used are “because the Bible says so” or appeals to long debunked non-biblical historical writings.

Note: I wonder how many Christians understand what these scholars meant by “Q” during their…[Read more]

@Simon  – are you thinking of Bentham and his Greatest Happiness Principle here? If the vast majority of people in that society think the decision to be fair and justice is seen by them to be served is it still not a just decision?

The person on the receiving end of the decision may feel aggrieved and feel unhappy (rightly or wrongly so) but the…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
@simon: The ball falls also because somehow it has got to a height. What if the ball was in a zero-gravity environment? It is not turtles all the way down. But you are making a good case to start an argument about Determinism. Your honor my client is innocent because someone gave him the gun. He could not have put it…

[Read more]

@Simon: The ball falls also because somehow it has got to a height.

What if the ball was in a zero-gravity environment? It is not turtles all the way down. But you are making a good case to start an argument about Determinism.  Your honor my client is innocent because someone gave him the gun. He could not have put it in his own if that other…[Read more]

@Simon Paynton

He has purposed that we fulfill the light and  unwittingly the darkness.

@Simon

”Many civilisations have dynasties, it’s normal.  I don’t understand the remarkableness of the correspondance between a Biblical prophecy and a list of Roman dynasties.”

Can you imagine how scandalous it would be if the prophecies are not fulfilled?

I feel like a virtual babe in the philosophical woods here, so let me get a couple of naive observations/questions out of the way. (Tongue in cheek.)

Is all sophistry specious?

Is it wrong to like the initials “UC” in this conversation because it fits so well with “UC Berkeley”?

Now, I hate name-calling, but calling one elitist here doesn’t…[Read more]