"I can very well see that Yabby cares little about the conventions of dialogue etc."

Well Fide, the Viet Cong didn't know the rules and look what happened to them :)

"here we see
yabby smearing all religious people as irrational."

Well Fide, I have had a few of these debates before and in the end its been religious people who have told me that religion is not about the rational, they claim it goes beyond the rational and boils down to having faith. If religion was rational, then any fault in their holy book, would mean that either their God was full of faults or their holy book is not so holy. So which is it?

"religion is the biggest con that ever existed" implying that religious people
are stupid for believing"

Even the intelligent are conned sometimes.

"The OT is about a violent, unreasonable, irrational god." This is slandering
the God of the Old Testament."

Read the old Testament and honestly tell me that this is a loving caring god, not one who kills babies or who kills people for wasting sperms etc. Was he violent? Yes. Was he unreasonable? Yes.
The truth is not slander Fide.

My continual point is that Christians are much like Muslims. Both want to impose their beliefs on us, neither has substantiated evidence for their claims, both rely on faith for their ultimate reason for believing. Why can't they leave the rest of us alone?

I asked a question about the topic, about the war on terror, not about the existence or not of god. Still waiting for a response from our fundie christian contingent.

Yabby, agree we have as much to fear from the neo-con fundie christian as we do from islam. All our retinue of fundie christian posters have achieved is reveal how intolerant, discourteous and narrow minded they are.

BTW - I added my-two-cents worth not so much to stick up for you, Yabby m'dear, but felt a further voice was needed. Fortunately not all Christians are as blinkered as Martin, Fide, coach et al. Some of my best friends.....

Has the world woken up to the war on terror?
Has the world woken up to the terror of dogma?

Know that you don’t know?? That’s a position with respect to knowledge you foolish man. You have to stand somewhere. You say yours is the superior place. How do you know? Do you have an elevated postion from which to see other epistemologies?

If you would read and learn rather than be a pest then you might help Australia. I enjoy discussions about ultimate questions, I respect people who seem to want to find things out. I was an atheist myself once.

For the last time:

Science is about an accumulation of facts and the theories it generates are considered tentative. When scientists go beyond the facts into an interpretation of what ultimately stands behind them they are no longer scientists but metaphysicians. When their metaphysic colours their science they are ideologues.

“the only valid knowledge is the scientific kind” cannot be proved in any scientific way. It has to be a starting dogma.

This has been made clear to you. But instead of understanding your own beliefs as tentative and dogma laden, we go round in circles with you about faith=superstition/irrationality and skepticism=reason/normalcy.

Enough.

Scout I’ve had enough of you also. Show you know anything about theology. Show us that you know anything about dogma. I think the Desiderata is as far as you’ve gone. Find anything I have said that is wrong and we’ll discuss it. Like I’ve said before. I’d much rather be proved wrong than be called names.

Stop behaving like a moonbat – thinks they know everything about a subject. Can’t give evidence for anything they say. Resorts to ad hominem rather than good arguments.

"You say yours is the superior place. How do you know?"

By my ability to reason Martin, you clearly havent thought about it too hard.
The atheist cannot prove no god exists, as you cannot prove a negative.
The religious have no substantiated evidence for their claims either.
So they don't know, they guess, they hope, they have faith, but they don't know.
So the perfectly logical philosophy, as opposed to dogma, is to be agnostic. To
know that you don't know.

"If you would read and learn" Umm Martin I most likely read and learn far more
then you do. Why don't you expand the fields about what you read, rather then
being bogged down with a fear of a muslim takeover. Learn about primatology and
neuroscience for instance, if you really want to understand people.

"When scientists go beyond the facts into an interpretation " You have no need
to believe anything, they interpret, just stick to facts. Science is a process
to provide you with substantiated evidence. Thats all we need from science.

"we go round in circles with you about
faith=superstition/irrationality and skepticism=reason/normalcy."

No Martin, the real problem is that you won't think outside the tiny square of
your mindset. I read 55 pages of one of your links. What did Keyes come down
to? He likes a god as an idea, its good for peoples dignity, its good for
creating armies, its good for power. Nothing about any of it being true.

Yabby,

Excuse me from budging in but I think the argument with Martin is going no where fast.

There is no way under the sun that you and your atheist friends will begin to understand what we are talking about because of your lack of a very important ingredient: the spirit of God.

You are coming from a humanistic pseudo-intellectual corner trying to persuade someone with the Holy Spirit residing in them. Very much like a child with plastic tools truly believing that he/she can fix dad’s car.

Unfortunately and with all due respect Martin is falling for it – like many of us do so often here and in everyday life… we forget that non-christians cannot philosophise, scientifise, rationalise, etc. their way around a truth they have no affinity with.

As for the concept of TRUTH – that is another area that has lost its significance. Nothing for you is as simple as true or false in the mighty name of relativism. “Truth is whatever is true to you as long as you don’t impose your truth on me…kind of thing.”

Why do you bother so much about religious matters when you refuse to play by the rules? You dislike religious dogmas, Scout is fearful of them – just stay out and you won’t get hurt (I pray)

You are absolutely wrong that all religions are the same – that is again an area of high contempt that you and your friends better stay out of. Let the people who can discuss these matters have the final word here.

Agnosticism is an epistemological position. You claim it is the logical philosophy yet an agnostic has to begin with the dogma “it is more reasonable when faced with conflicting information to withhold commitment”. Bloody primatology and neuroscience can't prove agnosticism.

Commitment is freeing. Life isn’t meant to be one long committee meeting, the intellect like the mouth prefers to close around something solid. Your philosophy is not self evident it rests on a dogma, every other philosophy is not self evidently wrong. You caricature arguments for Christianity as fideism, but have no understanding of the basis of your own beliefs.

Show me a ‘scientifically substantiated’ fact that supports agnosticism. Yet you attack Christians for not providing you with 'scientific' facts.

You can’t go from science; from raw facts to a philosophy about what created the facts in the first place. You have no notion of the difference between empirical science and philosophy. Read and understand.

You say you use your reason - fantastic ! Why is that though when people use it to devastate your arguments it has no effect on you?

The ‘tiny mindset’ I’ve worked hard to establish has lead me through science and arts degrees in among other things neurobiology and pharmacology as it happens. I’m employed in these fields.

To you anyone who undertakes serious analysis of Muslim disaffection is held guilty of Islamophobia, when a cheerful ignorance of Islam have long been characteristic of the West.

What is truth if not something that works in the world? Wouldn’t belief in God, if God is real, have positive effects on social relations and human dignity. Isn’t something true when it leads to the flourishing of human life? How dare you make him out to be some kind of faithless conservative.

Monkeys can read Yobby they just don’t understand what they read.

You’re behaviour is a menace. This is the last time I’m responding to you. Unless you decide to start contributing.