Why did God allow New Orleans to be destroyed?

[Chris OConnor]

IzdaariQuote:I see both "carrots" as being a matter of faith, and further, the earthly carrot is far worse than mere "pie in the sky, bye and bye" in that so far all attempts to achieve terrestrial paradise have failed disastrously, resulting in the worst tyrannies and genocides in history, which I should think would make any rational person very, very wary of further attempts.Wow! I think you've got the wrong impression of what type of "earthly carrot" Humanists are holding out in front of humanity. Have you ever read the Humanist Manifesto? Here is version III, the latest...HUMANISM AND ITS ASPIRATIONSHumanist Manifesto III, a successor to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933* Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.The lifestance of Humanism

[Chris OConnor]

IzdaariWanna create a new thread for this subject? We'd probably have a pretty fun discussion.Chris

[Izdaari]

Ok, Chris, done. I put it over in Politics. If you'd prefer it here, feel free to move it. Since it's political philosophy, I guess it'd belong in either.

[Chris OConnor]

Politics seems the best place. I'll make some posts over there tomorrow.

[MadArchitect]

Don't have time to reply to all of this right now, but I'll try to get to it tomorrow when I, hopefully, will have a great deal more free time. That said, I can't promise that I'll give my full opinion on the matter -- I'm just not sure that this thread is the best context for a real discussion of what I have to say, given the thread of underlying animosity here.

[MadArchitect]

Chris OConnor: My point is that I don't want to discuss them in relation to whether or not a God exists, because they have NOTHING to do with whether or not a God exists.I wouldn't say nothing. Historically, at least, the arts are deeply rooted in the religious experience, and it may be that all of the basic artistic forms that we know are derived in one way or another from religious ritual. To give merely one example, the whole tradition of Western theater may be derived from the religious rites and festivals of the Greeks -- Eastern theater has similar roots in other cultures, like that of Tibet.You may, of course, decide that ultimately the historical origin has very little influence on the modern variant, but I would think that even a confirmed atheist would consider it important to keep the history of a thing in mind, if for no other reason than on the principle of "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."Am I really confusing the hell out of anyone other than Dissident?I don't think the confusion lies with you, Chris. I think the confusion gets its start when you guys attempt to turn your positions into the starting point for a discussion. That takes more work than I think we're sometimes willing to admit, or at least willing to put forward. If nothing else, we all have a tendency to start from the middle of our arguments, before we've established any middle ground. Personally, I think DH is particularly guilty of this -- to the extent that I don't always feel sure that we mean the same thing when using fairly common words -- but he's not alone in arguing from the middle. For more on this, I'd simply refer you to my defense of semantics in Interbane's thread on "Semantics".Somehow all the positive stuff you get from the belief means the belief must be valid. I can't buy this at all. Can you? I want to hear some theists address this point directly.No, I wouldn't support that exact argument. And I've tried to explain that elsewhere -- specfically in the "Introduction" thread in the "American Secularism" forum -- but that explanation apparantly got lost in the mix. The question that keeps nagging at me is whether or not we, and specifically the atheists and agnostics of BookTalk, would be willing to consider abandoning some of the "positive stuff" if it became clear that those things were indivisibly tied to religion. If, for example, it were impossible to divorce morality from religion -- and assume, for just long enough to address this hypothetical question, that such is the case -- would you be willing to abandon morality itself, and start over from scratch?At one point the entity of God was fabricated to pacify our thirst for knowledge, but now we should be beyond this silliness.Frankly, I find it bothersome that so many atheists are willing to accept or fabricate reasons for the existence of the concept of God. You can reject the notion of God without making up some myth about how the idea got started. There's no reason to suppose, without evidence, some picture of prehistoric man cowering from lightening and imagining that it must come from a giant man in the sky. Without an even rudimentary model of how early consciousness worked, such stories are only so much supposition, and they're more often brought up to denegrate religion than to genuinely explain it.And then there are people like Mad who attempt to use philosophy to prove a God exists. Mad, you're too damn bright for this.You're right, I am. I haven't tried to prove the existence of God by any means. I'm simply not apologetic about my theism. But you've read far too much into my responses here if you think I've been trying to convince anyone else to believe as I do. It makes me suspect that you haven't been paying very close attention to what I've said.GOD defiles: To me, the salvation carrot is a myth, and is truly imaginary. I see the Secular Humanist carrot as something tangible and obtainable.Secular humanism is the source of any number of utopic visions, and it may even function by the occasional displacement of a discredited utopian vision with a new utopian vision. The notion of Progress in the humanist sense -- that the march of science and social science leads us inevitably to a better life -- is inherently utopian, even if if fails to specify an exact form to that utopia. Here the utopia is most general -- the future will merely be "better", although, if we don't know what that better is like, how can we direct our energy towards attaining it? All utopic visions, like all heavenly visions, are imaginative constructions.Chris OConnor: My point is simply that it is derived from deception and ignorance and I don't wish to discuss it PRIOR to acknowledging this very obvious basic truth.If we agree that God's existence can neither be proven nor disproven, then wouldn't it be better to describe the basis of religion as rooted in something that is absolutely unverified rather than a deception? Ignorance I can accept, so long as we recognize that this particular ignorance deals with something about which we cannot help but remain ignorant.One individual here is a fairly skilled writer, but has rather pronounced issues with thinking critically.Meaning myself? Or possibly DH? You may as well be direct about it. You might even offend one or both of us, but so what? I'm tough-skinned enough to be more concerned about whether or not I'm actually making logical fallacies than about your opinion of me. And you can prove your point rather easily, of course, by simply pointing out the fallacies.Izdaari (re: emotions): Life would be so boring without them, but you don't know things because of them.You don't know things external to you, no, but emotions may be a valid source of information about the self. That's a point that serves in a great many fields of inquiry, including certain branches of religion. Not for nothing did the inscription on the Delphic oracle advise, "Know thyself."Humanist Manifesto III: Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis.We can't get into a full critique of this view without getting into the much larger issue of epistemology, but let me at least gesture towards all that by saying that there is no direct derivation of knowledge through observation, which is the basis for experimentation and rational analysis. Jacob Bronowski gives a very succint explanation of this, and from a humanist viewpoint, no less, in his book "Science and Human Values", and while I don't agree with a great many of his conclusions, I do think his early elucidations of the subject are extemely valuable.Humanists recognize nature as self-existing.This, of course, is a matter of faith. How would one prove the self-existence of nature, exactly?Life's fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals.I'm not even sure what to make of a statement like this. Is it meant to be descriptive, or proscriptive? Is a person who simply does not find fulfillment in their participation in the service of humane ideals naturally barred from humanism? Or would a humanist assert that it is impossible to not find fulfillment in that way -- that it is a law of human nature?Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness.Another expression of the above sentiment -- personally I find it odd that you would support this view, Chris, given what you've said about socialist forms of governance and the virtue of greed in the past.Thus engaged in the flow of life, we aspire to this vision with the informed conviction that humanity has the ability to progress toward its highest ideals.This, of course, is one of the biggest variables that threaten a humanist worldview like this one: the notion of highest ideas. It requires that we all agree on what those ideals should be. The humanist manifest prescribes certain ideals, of course, but it doesn't really offer an argument for why they should be instituted as the ideals towards which the whole of society should work. And I'm not sure that you can argue those ideals to a person who holds different ideals, with every intention and opportunity to progress towards the fulfillment of their ideals. How do you argue humanism to Hitler, for example, especially during the heyday of Nazi Germany when it seemed to the whole nation that they might actually meet the lofty ideals they had set for themselves? How do you argue humanism to a Bill Gates, whose ideal may be to amass as much wealth as possible and to wield it as a tool of political and social influence? It seems to me that those reading such a humanist manifesto must either already hold the same ideals or else find nothing particularly sympathetic in it.Back to Chris: Each action we take to make the world a little better is our contribution towards making the world an earthly paradise.There is, of course, the problem of how we know whether or not our actions are actually prone to make a contribution to making the life better for humans. This, to me, is the basis of the problem of Progress.misterpessimistic: So it should be dropped, but remember...at least as I see it, this is an atheist/agnostic/freethinker community first and foremost...so the onus to drop things are on the those that are in the philosophical minority.Except that this thread, like a great many of the threads about theism and religion, were started by the "philosophical majority". I said it above and it bears repeating: if you guys are tired of hearing about religion on this forum, start discussing something else. I know for a fact that Niall, Izdaari and myself all have other interests, and we're more than willing to discuss those. But we didn't start this thread.I came here to discuss with LIKE minded people the issues regarding god and religion...not to debate those who believe.That's gotta be an interesting conversation. How many different ways can you say that you don't believe in religion, that you think it's dangerous, and that everyone who believes differently has a screw loose? I don't come to forums like this to discuss anything with like-minded people, for the simple reason that it's boring to hear your opinions shot right back at you.We were in their house, so we accepted their censure. They have a right to accept or reject any members.You guys have the same right, and I will tell you time and again: if you raise a subject, you can expect me to give my honest opinion. If you don't want that, you're free to ban me. It won't be myself that I pity.

[Chris OConnor]

MadFor the time being I'll have to bow out of this thread. For the record, you've said so much that I disagree with that it would require several hours to compose a response. I'm working on a few behind-the-scenes issues with BookTalk and don't have enough time for a lengthy response.That one comment was indeed directed at Dissident - not you.

[Chris OConnor]

I just noticed your last comment about banning. You're no where near being banned. No worries my friend. We may disagree on this religious stuff, but on a personal level I like you very much. You're adding more positive to the community than negative, and to be honest, more positive than most members.

[tarav]

I really, really didn't want to enter the fray here, but... When Mad earlier posted a similar sentiment to his recent post that reads, "Except that this thread, like a great many of the threads about theism and religion, were started by the "philosophical majority". I said it above and it bears repeating: if you guys are tired of hearing about religion on this forum, start discussing something else. I know for a fact that Niall, Izdaari and myself all have other interests, and we're more than willing to discuss those. But we didn't start this thread.", I felt that Mad had a valid point. I still do. If we allow membership to a person, they have the right to respond to any thread here. If the majority of us, or the mods and owner wish to avoid the kinds of posts in this thread, we should think twice before creating such threads. We should invest more energy in book and science forums. We should not participate in threads that we do not feel represent what booktalk is about. The alternative is to ban membership to those whose posts we would not like to read. I just don't see how we can say that one is welcome as a member, but not welcome to make posts on a certain subject matter. Maybe no one has explicitly said that theists should not post on religion, but it seems to be the message I'm getting from this thread. Honestly, I really would like to see less posts on religion. I also feel that the theists at booktalk should expect a lot of noisy disagreement from the majority of booktalk members when there is discussion about religion. I just don't think it's fair to tell only theists to refrain from posting in religious threads, while the rest of us continue to engage in religious discussions.

[Chris OConnor]

TaraYour perspective is appreciated. We're tossing around ideas and trying to figure out the best course of action. We won't be censoring or banning anyone unless they repeatedly break community rules. All members need to feel welcome to voice their opinions and defend their beliefs. With that said we are a freethinker community and we will be proactive in marketing to freethinkers.