Friday, August 8, 2008



This is why we can't allow theism to gain control of society ever again

9 comments:

Ryan Hemelaar said...

Yeah that Jesus Camp is cultish and unBiblical. It still is not a legitimate reason to dismiss Theism or Christianity as being wrong.

CASE - now with holiness said...

Hatred and bigotry can take many forms ryan, do not be wilfully ignorant to the power of it. I would suggest that some of your groups own tendencies are more closely aligned to the "Kids on Fire" ministry than you would probably care to admit.

And no, I do not agree with you. We should be prepared to dismiss theism where there is such a danger for people to use the absolute authority vested within them by their acolytes. That power could be used for what you consider to be good such as proclaiming the word of god, or things that you must realise as evil such as the brainwashing of young children as shown in Jesus Camp.

Ryan Hemelaar said...

Well then if you dismiss Theism on that basis, then you are irrational. I'm glad you finally admitted that! You have committed the Fallacy of Appealing to Consequence. Just because the consequence of a belief may be bad, it does not mean that the belief is false!

CASE - now with holiness said...

Of course, I was using the word "wrong" in relation to a moral "wrong" as opposed to a factual "wrong" - which is where you may have become confused. Thus, I do not consider I have committed any logical fallacy.

In any event, it is well established that the basis for theism is now shown to be inconsistent with our knowledge of the universe at large (ie it is false) accordingly I only consider theism to be the practice - it is not connected to any greater God. Thus, the practice of theism is something which I can logically say results in evil and thus can be dismissed as being wrong.

Ryan Hemelaar said...

No Alex, that is not what you wrote. You wrote:

"And no, I do not agree with you. We should be prepared to dismiss theism where there is such a danger for people to use the absolute authority vested within them by their acolytes."

You said we should dismiss theism, and the reason for it was that there is such a danger for people. That commits the fallacy of appealing to consequence.

CASE - now with holiness said...

We should dismiss any practice that promotes unethical behaviour. That is the central justification of law. I have no problem with that. You can believe what you want, thats fine, but a practice of organized theism is (from the evidence of Jesus Camp as well as the justification given in my first post above) wrong.

It has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of God. Thus, there is no logical fallacy involved. It is a moral argument.

Ryan Hemelaar said...

"We should dismiss any practice that promotes unethical behaviour."

Is Theism a behaviour? No, it is a belief. Someone may do something bad because of a belief they hold, but that does make that belief wrong!

And you wrote in your first post that "We should be prepared to dismiss theism where there is such a danger for people to use the absolute authority vested within them by their acolytes.". You said that we should dismiss the belief because of a consequence, thus you committed the fallacy!

Anonymous said...

Unbiblical? Why?

Theism is wrong because there is no evidence. The largest Theistic bloc in the United States are the Evangelicals. These camps are common.

The "Jesus Camp" expose is why us rationalists have a major problem with the Theists in the United States.

You can't hide behind a veil of, "That's not MY God. I believe this subtley different strain of the meme".

It's all crazy. And there is no evidence or reason to believe in any of it.

Ryan Hemelaar said...

"It's all crazy. And there is no evidence or reason to believe in any of it."

How do you know that there is no evidence or reason to believe in it? Do you know everything? How is it then possible to know that there is absolutely no evidence for it?