@Schedrevka I can provide scientific evidence for what I say. Let me know if you want to discuss it. Otherwise, you can jhust keep believing whatever you want, about me or about anyone else who doesn't share your beliefs.

I can smell the smug

I only believe about you what you said. If you say 'all atheists are x' and you were once an atheist that means you must believe you yourself were x.

Gonna be a long way before someone like you gonna be converting people to the flock

Consistent moral system? I'll give you a consistent moral system, sure. "Nobody should infringe on the rights of another to perform behaviour which does no harm to anyone else. People should attempt to help others the best they can."

Meanwhile, Roman Catholicism now accepts homosexuality, and once burned people to death for provable scientific fact but now doesn't

But I've gotta leave for a rheumatologist appointment. Have a good day everyone.

Sounds like I'm more consistent than religion

OK. You're not happy. I'll help you out. See my knife? You won't cry anymore.

@pratel "God" (with a capital G) has been understood for thousands of years not just by religions but philosophers as "The Ultimate Intelligence Running Reality." That is a normal belief in humans that you find in virtually all societies. The Christian claim, in specific--which you can believe or not--is that God chose to become a human being for 33 years in the person of Jesus Christ--that he BECAME a human who wlaked around for a while. The generic idea of "God" as that ultimate creative intelligence/force running reality is pretty universal in humans, and science even says it's a normal evolved trait that most humans are born with. We develop it right around the same age as language, between 2 and 4. There are some exceptions, like autistics, who are more likely to lack this normal intuited rational sense, although certainly it's not true of all autistics.

If the objective is to reduce suffering and "help" you just need a funny definition of help. @Vigil

LOL it doesn't sound like it to me, but whatever.

Hey Max, what are your clothes made of right now

OK. So "the invisible hand of economics" would be god?

The Bible states if you wear clothes made from more than one fibre you're going to Hell so

@pratel You need definitions of "help" and "compassion" and "empathy" and "kind" and "nice" and "good" that are consistent that people can recognize. We don't all come to the same conclusions based on the same dataset.

Sure.

Let's hope you don't wear polyester, because your sky-dictator's gonna damn you, because of objective law from the Bible

But these words like getting redefined.

@pratel What I find is that Materialists tend to treat "THe Market" like a God, yes. It's one of my problems with libertarianism generally.

You'd figure violence would be physical. But somehow here we are anyway, "words are violence"

So if violence is wrong no one should speak.

@Vigil Reading the Bible in a shallow idiotic manner like that doesn't win you any points with Christians who are as smart as you or smarter, sorry.

Dude I was Roman Catholic for 17 years, you wanna know my findings on the Bible?

Please don't tell Christians how to read the Bible, and I suggest you stop reading it yourself, it's obvious you don't understand it with remarks like that. 😉

@MaxKolbe I was going for *argumentum ad absurdism* but my point was that I wouldn't consider the free market "god" for the purposes of religion.

@Vigil No not particularly, I've tlaked to tons of ex-Catholics and heard their stories ad nauseum. They usually boil down to poor catechesis or Father Issues.

It's a good philosophical concept, but kinda distinct from how it's used in most religions.

>literal scripture
>you're just reading it wrong
Oh boy it's this again

@pratel I can see that. But my remark stands. People treat economics like a God, and that's a problem, because economics is a shifty, dodgy thing that involves quite a bit of subjectivity that doesn't always work out in the neat way Market worshippers imagine.

Agreed.

Though that's a bit of a tangent.

@Beeman "I can read the scriptures any way I want, and inform others that's how to read it, and I can ignore anything the people who actually believe and practice it have to say." Yes, I'm familiar with that old saw.

It's certainly better than most distribution systems though.

Wrong, God abandoned me and I realised I had to grow up, stop being a little boy, and take accountability. The Bible was primarily a historical document on the history of the Jewish people and then the prophets and Jesus come along as a refutation of old Jewish law and Roman rule. Revelations is a log of the fall of the Roman empire, and the Book Of Amos literally calls out the hypocritical belief that rich Jewish people were rewarded by God so therefore the poor were sinners and shouldn't be helped

@Vigil That's abuncyh of interesting claims. I've heard them from others.

a bunch

Then enlighten me, o future pope

Hey quick question, if all the prophets go to Heaven and Elisha killed 42 children for making fun of his bald head, does God endorse murderers or do you accept that even the prophets themselves were flawed sinners but God chose preferential treatment and let them into Heaven regardless?

Just wondering if you approve of either murder or corrupt dictatorships

Enlighten you on what? "God abandoned me and I realized I had to grow up" -- God didn't abandon you you abandoned God but whatever. Also, I abandoned my own atheism when I realized I had to grow up and stop pretending that my own limited faculties were not sufficient either to explain the universe OR h ow to have a decent, good, and moral life. You're only going to find those things in strong philosophies, or religion, or ideally, a religion which has both.