Iggy

In that case my shot at your meaning couldn't have been wider of the mark. Withdrawn.

I'm kind of guessing at what you're trying to communicate. I think you're saying that moral value judgments have nothing to do with what is real in the same way that god's existence or inexistence has nothing to do with what is real... and, as you said before, people are therefore equally broken for believing either. I would just reference my last post. Value judgements about morality have everything to do with what is real. Good value judgements in the domain of morality are supported by empiricism. Considering iNow's very valid concern I wouldn't add any more than that.

If a moral code can't be objectively judged by evidence then I wouldn't think it is a moral code. A good health code prevents sickness. A good criminal code controls crime. They can be judged by their effectiveness. Does anarchy benefit society? Does nihilism advance the species? In so far as humanity has an objective ability to judge evidence we can answer questions like these.

Your point that the "usual" definition of god can't have supporting evidence... it is admittedly painful, but could you read 1 Kings 18:18-39 and see if Elijah's definition of god was verifiable?

I'm fine with not calling it a strawman. I may give that word less negative connotation than the average person. I just hope we can recognize that the premise is not right. I mean -- this is a true statement: If people are broken for holding unproven beliefs then people who believe in God and people who believe in the big bang are both broken. It is a correct assertion in the same way that "if earth has no liquid water then it has no life" is correct. In both cases the premise needs shot down. Nobody is arguing from the premise that unproven beliefs make for broken people and I know that isn't something you would think is true, so... somebody get ronnie the spambot back. I think we've got this squared away. Fair enough. I'm not entirely convinced that belief in god necessarily makes someone broken myself. I'm sure there are good reasons to believe things and bad reasons. I have only ever seen bad reasoning for god -- rationalizations, wishful thinking, bad logic... and so on. I feel much more comfortable calling humanity out -- saying that humanity itself has some defect -- that we are broken as a species for our collective tendency to anthropomorphize nature into gods. I would rather people fight their nature and use the objective tools they have for determining what's real. I mean... how many times do you have to cry "God" to an empty sky before you get the point? Not that failing to get it makes them broken... it may just make them human. I'll put it this way: if belief in god makes a person broken then I wouldn't want a human species of unbroken people. I would rather have something of an imperfect nature to struggle against.

As recently as post #1063 this was said: Knowledge is not the same as belief. I have a feeling the caps were meant to emphasize that. I believe there is alien life on other planets. I am not broken for holding this belief. If I were to say that I *know* there is life on other planets when I can't possibly know that I'd be displaying the most broken of reasoning. Belief in God and belief in the big bang may have lack of proof in common, but if you want to continue saying "if a person is broken for believing one then they must be broken for believing the other" you'll have to show where someone said that lack of proof is the reason people who believe in god are broken. I don't think you can do it. I think it is a strawman. An unsupported belief does not a broken person make. We agree. Post 19 is still entirely in error.

That is a bullshit dodge of what you said. Starting your accusation with "It's hard not to consider it" only makes it more socially acceptable. Do you think if someone said to another "I have a hard time believing you are not a total asshole" that they wouldn't have considered themselves insulted? I didn't say that you lack integrity. I didn't say that it's hard not to consider that you lack integrity. I didn't call you an asshole. I didn't say that it is hard not to consider you an asshole. Trust me, if I thought you lacked integrity or if I thought you were an asshole I would tell you those things in no uncertain terms. I haven't because I don't. I'll quote it again: That quote only makes sense if "lack of evidence" is the sole quality of belief in god which makes a person broken for believing it. Imagine I made the argument that belief in god makes a person broken because it is an unsupported and unfalsifiable belief. Your response -- that belief in the big bang must also make a person broken because it is not fully verified -- would be a strawman of my argument. I shouldn't have to explain this in such detail. Your quote above says "you are relying on incomplete evidence, and you are therefore all in the same boat, either all broken or all not broken". Either someone in this thread said that belief in god is broken because it relies on incomplete evidence or they did not. If not it is a strawman. Fine. I'm sure that's true. I'm less sure than iNow on that point, but fine. Again, you are judging things by the wrong standard. Einstein believed completely in general relativity before it had supporting evidence. Despite the lack of evidence it was a rational belief, and Einstein was in no way broken for holding it. Lack of evidence is not the only requisite for considering a belief broken or considering a person holding the belief broken. If someone said or implied differently then I would disagree with them, but I haven't seen that. You would have to show me where iNow said that people are broken for believing in god because god doesn't meet a "level of required proof". You would have to show me where someone said that people who believe in something with incomplete evidence are broken. If a person has a vision of God then they have subjective and personal evidence of god. They have, in their own mind, support for god's existence. I wouldn't disagree with you on this point.

If I thought you lacked integrity I would tell you that you lack integrity. This is either a strawman or it is not: I don't think the OP suggests that and I know I've personally refuted the premise to you a number of times, yet you continue arguing against it. I'm sorry to call that a strawman, but I honestly don't know what else to call it.

It is easy to dismiss the 'pentecostal church experience' (for lack of a better phrase) as not mentally ill. These people may think they are possessed and God is speaking through them in tongues on Sunday, but Monday rolls around and they're back to selling mortgages and teaching kindergarten. They turn it off. But, what about the devout Muslim who hears Allah's voice telling him to blow up a bus full of children and subsequently does exactly that? What about the devout Christian who kills an abortion doctor on God's say so? You can't doubt the reality or the severity of their delusion. How is their delusion less mentally ill than the guy duct taping his ears with paper cups?

No, I took you at what you said... that if belief in one makes you broken then the same with the other. I'm sure you could get a lot of people to agree with you, but it isn't true. Before Einstein had any supporting evidence for general relativity he believed in it completely. That didn't make him broken. You are judging things by the wrong standard. I'll point out exactly where you go wrong: The OP is three words long and doesn't suggest that. Like I said, not only does belief in god have no supporting evidence, there is nothing even in theory that could prove it wrong. Ideas that are unsupported and unfalsifiable have a defect above and beyond your "level of evidence" scale. Did you understand someone to say that people who believe in God are broken because they are relying on incomplete evidence? It is hard not to consider it a purposeful strawman when I keep pointing out that there are other differences between the beliefs.

Good. The belief itself does not make someone as broken as some other belief. At the same time you say: Here the belief itself seems to be on the same footing as all other unverified beliefs. All I'm trying to do is to point out the double standard. To say "if X makes you broken then Y makes you broken" is non sequitur unless you can tie the two together, and here you clearly can't because things like the big bang are not only supported by evidence, they can be proven false by it. That is to say, there are things that make some unverified beliefs more broken than others. Thinking one hears the imaginary voice of god is no less worrisome than thinking one knows the imaginary thoughts of god.

Someone who believes in a theistic god is certainly not as broken as someone who thinks their neighbor's dog is telling them to kill? Is that what you assert?

Osama Bin Laden. His religious beliefs were real enough and devout enough to make him mentally ill. But, you are the one equating them. You are the one equating every single unverified belief and saying that they are all equally broken. You are the one that said: I'll just repeat your point. Berkowitz believed something that "could turn out to be untrue" and religious people are just as broken as Berkowitz. It is your point. You equated them. Don't lay it at my feet. You're wide of the mark, and I think you know it. People who believe in God know that faith trumps evidence. Even if the world is proven round they know god isn't proven wrong and they can still believe. If evolution is found true they can still believe in god. Nothing in the world of evidence can disprove their belief in god. People who believe in the big bang know it is dependent on evidence. They know observation can prove it wrong. Everything I just said holds true even for people who have never read the bible or any material about the big bang. Their ignorance doesn't change the fact that these two beliefs have an entirely different character.

Wow You are right on Was David Berkowitz broken for believing that a demon possessed dog ordered him to kill? Berkowitz could have been mistaken, but everyone ends up being mistaken about something. If Berkowitz is broken then so is everyone else. I wouldn't characterize this thinking as "right on".

That's what I heard too, and iNow's link as well. maybe an interesting consideration is that the auditory cortex of a person deaf from childhood is underdeveloped even if the cause of hearing loss had nothing to do with the brain. In other words, brain anatomy changes as a result of which neural pathways are being used. http://www.ajnr.org/content/28/2/243.full Even if MRIs detect structural differences between normal and psychopathic brains I wouldn't know how to say that the psychopathy is a result of the anatomy or the anatomy is a result of the psychopathy. EDIT... For example, if there is a hormone without which people cannot feel empathy and due to some genetic factor psychopathic people do not have this hormone there still could be differences in brain anatomy merely as an effect of feeling no empathy.

Have you asked a psychiatrist or a therapist?

I would guess you mean to ask if it originates from an abnormal structure of the brain. I know there is some evidence that psychopathy can show up on an MRI, but I doubt that applies to every form of the disease or every cause. It doesn't prove cause either.

I'm not interested in your preaching. Please stop addressing it toward me.

We can't know in advance which mutations must be put an end to. It assumes that the person editing the code is capable of prescribing the indefinite future of the species which of course he cannot do because he clearly cannot know the indefinite future of the species. Eugenics in the terms that you have defined it is therefore ethically indefensible. If prior restraint doesn't work for books one couldn't think it would work on babies.

I couldn't say that. I couldn't help but respect the work of... for example... the philosophical and literary work and the author of Ecclesiastes. It is shadowed by Plato and Confucius from the same time in truth and morality, but wins some points back for poetry and eloquence. It got incorporated into an ugly tradition but... even judging it in theological terms, I have to respect that the author realized there was no afterlife and had the number of gods down to one. Very nearly spot on.

Of the following two claims the first is the easier to prove, People who believe in the Christian style God have faulty reasoning because the essential properties of that God are not logically consistent and therefore can't logically exist. People who believe in a god (or gods) use faulty reasoning because we can't know if, and there is no evidence that, any god exists. It has long been known that an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God is inconsistent with the existence of evil. The problem of the three omni's I've heard it called. But, this thread is about #2, not #1.

then they often don't eat it. I think U.S. versus Tom in the trial for the death and dismemberment of Jerry clearly shows the following statement to be mistaken, "Only humans attacks other living things [animals and other humans] just for sick pleasure. Humans are the only animals who are monstrous enough to harm others just for the sake of causing harm."

If someone is deceiving yourself.... Sorry, that was a slip of the tongue... If someone is deceiving themselves then you should not be a passive observer. You should express debate, disputation, disapproval, dissension, denunciation, and other appropriate words that might start with other letters none of which constitute 'judgment' in the pejorative sense. If you are deceiving yourself then you should expect people to confront you. Everything I said in my last few posts is either a reiteration or a deduction of the thing to which I was responding. Saying that my comments show self deception without showing exactly where and exactly why you make this accusation makes it meaningless. If you aren't intentionally dodging and deflecting from my critique you certainly are mimicking that motive very well. ...[i made a few edits for typos and clarity]...

Brilliant. The evidence hides from the skeptics. If you believe really hard then you'll see the evidence. But if you doubt... it will be gone forever. It's like a secret club. I'm a skeptic, but I'd still really like to see the evidence, please. Sorry, Sir, if you don't believe you simply can't see it. The evidence is objective, but you have to have the holy spirit sponsored decoder ring to see it. There's simply nothing we can do about that. I'm not buying it. It sounds like an intricately constructed self reinforcing delusion.

By not responding to it I'll take that my paraphrasing was good. You say that one must believe in god to see evidence of god. I'm sorry to keep repeating it but it is amazing to me. "One must believe it to see evidence of it" is the perfect definition of a delusion. You admit that all of the evidence is contingent on belief. Absolutely none of it has objective value. This illustrates a great deal. The answer to the riddle is that god doesn't exist if he doesn't exist. Fun word game