some of a facebook conversation-

Some of a facebook conversation. not sure anything fun in here...

Me

$$$$$$
6:49pmMe

My perspective is not a loner, I went to one of the top seminaries in our nation and these things I picked up there, it's just now one cares about a Christian or maybe i should say human living a good average life they want to focus on the Christian that goes down to the pit at UNC and screams at everyone and tells them they are going to hell

how am i supposed to get any attention unless my message is louder and weirder

and the sad thing is the twisted people getting the attention is exactly what they showed up for in the first place

so they continue to be the loud voice because they are getting the attention they desire because their mom weened them early or they had explosive pooh as a child

they are in the minority the twisted ones that is

that is why they are called extremist, b/c they are on the fringes

you go to a mainline non extreme church on any given Sunday and you are going to meet a ton of people who share my point of view and live my life
6:52pmJoseph

catch up sry

the problem is the extreemists are the ones controlling the politicions that are listening!
6:54pmMe

maybe we in the middle allow these morons to exist and for this we should mobilize and speak out against these crazies, but most average people don't take the time to have these fights
6:54pmJoseph

yep

most people just want to live a life
6:54pmMe

i really believe these crazies would be more likely to be pulled back in by the Christians than an atheist
6:54pmJoseph

...

to put it in a pessimisticly pragmatic way

the average person in this world is only good for processing food into shit

<.<

you're probably right about that

but less right than you know
6:55pmMe

but the average person when mobilized with purpose can do great things, look at our military!
6:55pmJoseph

most of the crazies lable anyone that isn't as crazy as them as not a true christian

or true muslim

or true whatever
6:56pmMe

i know right
6:56pmJoseph

(no true scotsman fallacy)
6:56pmMe

crazy stuff
6:56pmJoseph

what atheists are trying to do is cut off the problem at it's base of support
6:56pmMe

dude i should post all this talk on the blog that we have not messed with :-):-)
6:56pmJoseph

we see the sane worshipers and we go "guys you're enabling this lunancy!"

heh go for it

but really

they see these polls and it's like "well america is 60% christian!"

"what do the christians say?"

"BRUN THA HOMOS OMG MARRIAGE WILL DISAPPEAR! DRUGS AM BAD!"
6:57pmMe

but once again the 60% are the nominal type
6:57pmJoseph

"well thats what I have to run on to get re-elected!"
6:57pmMe

or the extreme type
6:57pmJoseph

oh i agree

but see above
6:57pmMe

yeah i see

u know what is said is that
6:58pmJoseph

your numbers lend credence to the idiots

even by just identifying with their club
6:58pmMe

Liberal = social Justice and Conservative = Moral

why can't these two mix
6:58pmJoseph

THEY CAN
6:58pmMe

they seem like they should
6:58pmJoseph

they do
6:58pmMe

i know!
6:58pmJoseph

everywhere but in america
6:58pmMe

lol
6:58pmJoseph

and only in recent history

look at great britian
6:58pmMe

maybe not in Africa
6:59pmJoseph

ugh
6:59pmMe

or Iceland
6:59pmJoseph

lol iceland rocks
6:59pmMe

or Brazil

dude i heard u can get cheap flights to Iceland!
6:59pmJoseph

you can

it's a pretty rich country

heh
6:59pmMe

http://icelandair.com/
7:00pmJoseph

most of the areas in that region of the world are amazing statics for atheists and liberals >.>
7:00pmMe

then u could use it to get to France and thus watch Lance Armstrong!!!

are us saying u get your stats from Iceland???

Bjorg
7:00pmJoseph

you have these countries that are like 60-80% atheist/nonreligious/agnostic and rediculously liberal and they have the best education, healthcare and lowest crime rates in the world

you have these countries that are like 60-80% atheist/nonreligious/agnostic and rediculously liberal and they have the best education, healthcare and lowest crime rates in the world

(also atheist/agnostic/nonreligious make up somthing like 24% of the US population but less than 3% of the prison population)
7:01pmMe

hey will u cut and past this whole conversation and email me?

jenningsberryjr@gmail.com

i just lost some of it
7:01pmJoseph

so did I
7:01pmMe

i better go but we can pick up again on monday or Sunday night
7:01pmJoseph

mine starts at "this is all of recorded history"

kk

erm just save what you got

we'll have the same buffer size from facebook

Ethics: Continued

Hey Joe,

Sorry about getting back to you so late. Busy Busy Busy. I guess I have one question coming out of your last post. This may seem oversimplified but I think it is one I'd like to know your stand on.

Do you feel that there is nothing good we can get from the Bible?

I think that you raised good points about our ethics evolving, but you also must base your ethics on someone else who also raises good points or claims authority. We all do, especially when we are younger as we are now. We make decisions and choices daily based on others who have come before us. What do you think?

Quick comment about the long term discussions post

Jennings said:
"I would encourage you to seek a way to also empathize with Christians as to why they would believe in God. A quick look at society shows that there are many intellectual and extremely smart people who believe in God. These people have reached this world view not through blind faith but have spent years in doubt and discussion and then concluded to follow Christ."

I can empathize with them, remember my deconversion was a long slow process. I know exactly what is going on in their heads, it's simply ignoring cognitive dissonance. This isn't a logical pathway, its simply compartmentalization of belief, and we do it all the time. Let me give you an example. I can tell you "I am holding a green box." I can also tell you "I am holding a red box." Neither of these mental images are difficult for you to hold on to, but you must do so separately; one is an image with me with a red box in my hands, the second one of me with a green one. But you can't picture me only 1 box that is both solid red and solid green, so you ignore that one. This is the process that many scientists use to reconcile the understanding that we CAN'T know the things that religion says it does know and still let them function as good scientists. And I daresay that when functioning as good scientists they do it with a purely atheistic world view, or they wouldn't be good scientists.

Ethics

You sort of went back and forth during that post, let me see if I can summarize what I got:
Point 1: It takes time for ethics to develop.
Point 2: It is impossible to develop ethics in a single lifetime.
Point 3: We should base our ethics off what people did before, somewhat insinuating the bible here.

Ok, to address these, Point 1, I agree. Ethics are a human concern and something that adjusts with the changing zeitgeist (German for spirit of the times, great word for this type of discussion). We learn from the mistakes that came before and we derive our ethics and morality in the hopes of making the world better.

Point 2: Erm? I'm going to come back to the changing zeitgeist here. We do form our morality and ethics within our lives, we kind of have to. Will these be the ethics of societys forever? I certainly hope not, we punish non-violent offenders, oppress minoritys (both racial and financial) and execute our criminals. Our prison system is a nightmare. I could go on for a while, but you get my point; our system leaves much to be desired. This doesn't mean we're not ethical, it means that (hopefully) we're trying to find a better system of rules. This brings me to...

Point 3: No. Ish. We base our ethics on things that came before, but we do it by 1. going with our evolved sense of empathy and 2. by learning from example and experience. We most certainly do not take our ethics from the bible. Now I'm trying to avoid strawmaning you here, so feel free to correct me if that last sentence is not what you were trying to say.

I agree with your last statement "Our generation feeds off the previous generations and pours into the next generation" fully. That is exactly what we do, and exactly why the ethics of the bible no longer apply. The we learn and we get better. The spread of information technology has done amazing things for the acceleration of this process, and acting like some teaching from 2000 years ago where a guy repeated some wisdom that had already been long formulated (I can't remember if I've mentioned Jainism to you before, but...check it out, they scooped most of Jesus' moral teachings by a few thousand years) is still groundbreakingly relevant today is...shortsighted to say the least.
A discussion of ethics begins with considering who benefits. I believe that it must be grounded in the desire to increase the sum total of human happiness (I'm not a strict utilitarian, but they got some stuff right). I know that if it is set up to "honor god" or to "do what god wants us to" that it is a system ripe for exploitation by someone who will tell you they know the mind of something that is unknowable. If religion is not evil for anything else, it is for setting up this doorway to the exploitation of it's adherents.

It's late so I'll stop here and let you reply. I'll probably put something up to briefly address your other post as well.

Goal of our On Going Long Term Discussions

I thought it might be good here to talk about the goal of all of this Hot Air or Hot Circuit Boards we are having between each other.
I think the goal of our discussions on Atheism and Christianity/religions should push us to a greater understanding of the other's point of view as opposed to a dividing to the extremes of our own camps of thought. I think at the end we should be closer through understanding and empathy of the others points and world view, than completely dogmatic in our own belief system that we can't even talk anymore.


Timothy Keller talks about the goal of a relationship between Skeptics and Believers in his book The Reason for God. In the introduction he talks about the goal of both. Here is an excerpt...
"At the end of the process(discussing doubts to faith and such), even if you remain the skeptic or believer you have been, you will hold your own position with both greater clarity and greater humility. Then there will be an understanding, sympathy, and respect for the other side that did not exist before. Believers and nonbelievers will rise to the level of disagreement rather than denouncing one another. This happens when each side has learned to represent the other's argument in its strongest and most positive form. Only then is it safe and fair to disagree with it. That achieves civility in a pluralistic society, which is no small thing."

My hope Joe is that you and I can reason through this cloud of doubt together and really get at what the other is believing and after. I don't want this discussion to sink to the level of bickering or bashing the other persons point of view just because you have a different point of view. We will always have pluralistic societies and the only way for us to find peace is when we can get away from ignorance of other belief systems and people groups. When we really study and learn about someone's contradictory point of view our hate and rejection for them decreases greatly and at the end of the day we are friends. I would love to see this happen in our discussions.

That being said, I know that I have a lot more homework and learning to do on your world view than you do on Christianity. Thank you for the books you have loaned me and I will work on trying to get through those and give you questions I have from them. I think here and now it would be helpful if you let me ask a lot of questions so as to understand your perspective on things. I would encourage you to seek a way to also empathize with Christians as to why they would believe in God. A quick look at society shows that there are many intellectual and extremely smart people who believe in God. These people have reached this world view not through blind faith but have spent years in doubt and discussion and then concluded to follow Christ. I hope you will apply your empathy to these people and understand why and how they could believe in God. There are many who have gone before us who have struggled with these concepts and my prayer for us is that we too can struggle with these concepts in a smarter way instead of the dismissive way the extremist in each of our camps of skepticism and religion usually handle this discussion. I think we must listen completely and fully to the others perspective and not fight for own position in fear that our own position will loose. I think both Christians and Atheist should not react out of fear that their camp will some how be defeated but we should act with civility in conversation where when we disagree with each other we are still at peace.

If it is Truth we both seek I believe that and I think you also believe that we will find it. Let me quote one more thing of ancient wisdom from my own tradition by the Jewish leader and teacher of Paul, Gamaliel talking about how to handle the new Christians...
"Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."

If you believe that Truth will be discovered then let us journey together to find that Truth by taking a honest look into each others world views and let us both strive to believe that if a man truly pursues Truth is attainable. At the end of all this I would like to see us reach peace even if we reach disagreement.

From Happiness to Ethics

Why can't you find ethics from an ancient world? It seems to me the development of Ethics and morality would take more than one life time to Debate, Talk about, Get Confused, Debate some more, Write some books, get the books read by the world, then have the world accept said beliefs, and then Ethics would be transmitted to all cultures and people groups. For this to happen in one life time would be impossible. Also those having the time to debate the ethics and morality that the rest of the population should adhere to would have a lot of control over the population in their one generation. It seems you have to base as I do your ethics and morality on a people that have come before, at least as a jumping point as to what should be discussed. Our generation feeds off the previous generations and pours into the next generation. What do you think?

re: Happiness?

I don't know if you realize it, but you moved into a bit of materialist philosophy there. I actually agree that those are all very important issues to discuss with considering the question "what is love?" (baby don't hurt me....don't hurt me...no more... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpwK3vFGJp0 Sorry.) I'll address that in another post, because it deserves a bit longer of an answer than I have time for just this second. Come to think, answer isn't really the right word, philosophy isn't as interested in answers as finding the right question to ask, so I'll see what I can do as far as questioning your questions.

Now as for your last paragraph, those I can answer.
Faith cannot make calls on ethical demands because ethics are a human consideration. They don't stand on faith, they stand on human understanding and a common belief in what is good. Ethics are not a question of believing in the unbelieved, they are a study of the 'why?' of morality, so basing them in faith is like basing them on ocean currents...it has nothing to do with the ideas being discussed.
As to your second question, no I wouldn't say that personal happiness is the goal of ethical consideration, I would say human happiness is. I'm not a 100% utilitarian in these matters, but I think we should approach ethics and morality in as utilitarian a mode as possible. This means asking tough questions and looking at why the answers are right, not just accepting handed down ethos as holding some sort of divine warrant. This means looking at things you hold dear and trying to figure out why you should, or why you shouldn't. Ethics and morality are not easy questions, they are painful fields to move into, but rewarding none the less.
Know why your answers are your answers, and make sure they are YOUR answers, not simply parrotings of the ancient world. If something is ethical it shouldn't need to be cited in a bible verse or a shifting of the burden of proof heavenward to explain why. The answers are out there, and to use a phrase we were raised on, seek and ye shall find.