Charles Darwin is too controversial for the U.S.

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I agree -- this professor said the scope of the class on the first day; he would be examining all religions, past and present, to show common motifs which exist. He further stated an understanding of those who might have issues with their particular beliefs being so analysed and would would give a non-failing withdraw to anyone throughout the term. I think many stayed in the class to simply argue with the man, yet he never took the bait no matter how rude the student was.

 

If it is something that is still debated by serious people on each side and the issue is far from settled then you probably shouldn't look to demagogs for your information or motivation.

I would say wait until the peer review starts and see if they find some of the things in her work debatable.

Also my first guess is that the CSER doesn't have a neutral position on the various debates about religion, probably similar to how the CATO Institute doesn't have a neutral position on economic policy.

Actually my understanding of greek mythology (from reading about it a long time ago) is that the classic greek gods were not virgin births. According to the family tree on wikipedia Zeus (and various other greek gods) was had Kronos & Rhea for parents. It appears you are still using flawed information in at least this area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_tree_of_the_Greek_gods

Haven't watched the movie but from what I do know and have seen it certainly has some flaws. I'm not anything close to an expert in all (probably most or all) the fields that the film goes into but that I can pick out some flaws says something.

Calling debunking "piss-poor" after flaws have been found seems like an opinionated denial of reality. But hey, I guess why not have faith in something even if it isn't a religion.

 

Sorry, Coin, that link provides the same when I go to 'download'. Incidentally, though, that debunking site you linked to doesn't really help your side. They did include parts of the interview in one of their streamed videos, though. It sounds more than anything that the people behind the Zeitgeist movie are simply blowing smoke. Even when directly responding to the debunking claims, they don't provide any evidence. Of course, you can't do much on the radio other than list names and dates of published research. They don't. Instead they blame the inquisition and claim that the encyclopedias are censored by some mass conspiracy, and, ultimately, that the reason no one else confirms this today is that she alone discovered these hiroglyphs, pieced together 'handwritten german notes', etc. That last part does nothing less than claim a multi-national conspiracy of silence/incompetence in the entire field of egyptology. I'd suggest looking into it. In short, tell me when her work is peer-reviewed and accepted. Incidentally, I can't find anything about Osiris being burried for three days (a point claimed in the video clip of the interview), either.

Ok, now (I'm writing as I listen) the pattern is coming out that her response to challenges is 'Well, really, it's something that's all over the place and nonspecific.' What I mean by that is that she claims Horus was actually 'born' every day, since he was the morning sun, and that she came up with the Isis-Meri connection because 'meri' means 'beloved by' and actually all gods got that because someone would always claim that someone else was beloved by some god. So, in other words, the connections are BS. The best that they come to is, well, the first is nothing, and the second is that the name Mary means 'beloved', a well established fact that really tells us nothing.

 

I don't recall ever stating that Atheists can't organize around atheism. The point I made was that they were less likely to do so.

Am I a member? Is Aldeth a member? Is T2 a member? (Sorry to name names, guys, but the point needs to be driven home that most atheists do not join these types of groups.) Are any of the other atheists who have thus far posted in this bloody thread members of this group or others like it? How many atheists do you know? How many of them are members of an official atheistic organization?

Way to ignore my point, NOG. Again. I have conceded several. times. that there are some atheists who in fact do join together as a single group sharing common values and beliefs. I am not arguing that atheists are incapable coming together as a group, but I do understand that it would be a whole lot more convenient for you if that was what I was saying. It still isn't. My point is and has been that atheists are less likely to organize than theists, but even that point is largely unimportant to the discussion at hand. You haven't been comparing atheism to theism, but to major world religions...and atheism is not a major world religion. Atheism can only rightly be compared to theism which, incidentally, is also not a major world religion.

Theism didn't cause the Crusades or the Inquisition. Theism didn't cause the Salem witch trials. Theism doesn't cause honor killings in Pakistan or the gender inequality in Saudi Arabia. These things were caused by specific. religions. It can be argued, of course, that those religions were...misapplied... and I would be inclined to agree with that line of reasoning. Nevertheless, the point remains that some degree of culpability for the atrocities in question lies with the specific religion that spawned it and, further, that the simple belief in the existence of a non-specific deity (theism) does not share a causal relationship with the atrocities in question. The past atrocities of Catholicism or the atrocities happening right now in parts of the Islamic world cannot rightly be attributed to theism. To do so would be... stupid. Attributing the atrocities of communism -- a belief system of which atheism is but one tiny component -- to atheism as a whole is just as stupid.

Neither theism nor atheism drives people to violence. Neither theism nor atheism guide people to a specific moral code. Atheism and theism each make one statement, and only one statement. "I believe in a God or Gods" juxtaposed against "I don't believe in a God or Gods". This statement provides no information whatsoever about the purpose of life, or the way one should lead his life. Neither atheism nor theism are capable of guiding a person's worldview in any meaningful way. Religion or philosophy can do that, but theism doesn't tie a person to any particular religion and atheism does not tie a person to any particular philosophy. If you continue to insist that all atheists somehow share the same core values, I will continue to insist that you ritualistically sacrifice virgins in your basement. Since atheists all share the same core values, so do theists...and you theists have been known ritualistically sacrifice virgins every once in a while.

 

We, in our day and age, can pass off whatever we like as BS. Justin Martyr (Christian Apologist, 100–165 A.D.) definitely thought there was something to be accounted for. And since he, y'know, lived in a time when those ancient religions were practiced, perhaps his opinion holds some weight...

Here's some more stuff from Tertullian (ca.160 – ca.220 AD):

So their explanations are very simple, and typical: "Lies, all LIES from the devil."
Try to understand that these stories are all derived from the astrological events around the winter solstice and spring equinox. For this reason, it's not necessary to argue that Jesus was a 'carbon copy' of earlier deities, merely to point out the overwhelming connections to astrological events.

 

Drew, so, in the end, what we're arguing about is a matter of degrees. Well, I don't think either of us can possibly even put forth numbers that are anything other than guesswork, much less convince each other of them.

Coin, yes, the early Christians believed (as I still do) that other religions were inspired by the Devil to decieve men. No surprise. It still doesn't show any indication that those religions inspired Christianity.

And as for your claims to astological connections, the point has been repeatedly made that Christianity doesn't have them. Jesus wasn't born on December 25th or even close to any equinox.

And finally, Coin, when the reseacher herself admits that her arguement is that Horus was born every day, and thus that he was born on the same day as Jesus, and thus inspired the day of Jesus' birth, I think anyone who uses their brain can safely call that BS. I was born on February 15th, the 'same day as Horus'. Do you think the legend of Horus inspired my claim?

 

Those religions are older than Christianity, some by several thousand years. Christianity has some massive parallels with those religions. Are you seriously going to logically argue that they did not inspire Christianity and that they were retroactively created by the devil to deceive you?

Nice try, but no. Jesus Christ the (maybe) historical figure who may or may not have preached a new religion but was most probably used as a symbol for the Christian religion wasn't born on December 25th. Jesus Christ the religious figure who is mentioned in all Christian religious writing was born on December 25th, which happens to be one of the two most important dates in said religion. Claiming that Christianity doesn't have this astrological connection because the real person who inspired the Jesus Christ character was born in September, even though the religon stresses and glorifies his birth on December 25th, is completely and utterly absurd.

 

No argument there, heheh. Seriously though, there is evidence of a character like Jesus existing around 100BC as a 'Jehoshua Ben Pandira' in Egypt.

First of all, if you listen to her in the radio talkshow, you'll hear her returning to the subject of Horus numerous times. The 'Zeitgeist Challenge' website exploits the fact that she started by stating that Horus was the Morning Sun, as if it's a poor attempt to justify the claim. But there is evidence in hieroglyphs, showing clearly that Horus was born officially on the winter solstice. Isis the virgin, and Osiris ('ol' cranebeak-for-giblets'), hold him up at the winter solstice. Acharya S.' new book Christ in Egypt does definitely make this claim, stating references and translations from respected Egyptologists.

Spoiler

I spoiler this trailer of her newest book, so as to make it less confrontational.This book has so many references, that the author chose to list references 'old style' at the bottom of each page. She's practically screaming for her work to be peer reviewed. You belittle the fact that she used scribbled, untranslated German notes in her research, but this also illustrates how detailed her methods are. She's a talented linguist, and hasn't let any language barrier stop her from gathering relevant evidence. Part of the reason why her research may be hard to be peer-reviewed, is because there are little or no people that have her particular training and skill. Finding a reviewer who's also unbiased, may even be impossible.

What about the stars themselves? Can the devil alter the stars to confuse us? Or you could reverse cause and effect here, and claim that the stars are in fact a confirmation of the story of Christ, in the heavens themselves. You have no problem embracing evolution, NOG. I expect you'll soon embrace the astrological story as well.

 

What parallels? Zeitgeist's claims are all BS that someone just made up, as far as I can tell. There are no parallels between Christ and Horus, other than both being presented as divine beings, or between Christ and Mithra, or Christ and Dionysus.

Funny, because I always thought the Bible was Christian writing, and it blatantly doesn't say he was born on December 25th. In fact, using the information presented in the only official text of the entire religion, I came up with early to mid September. So, no, Christ the religious figure was not born on December the 25th. Instead, the Catholics, hundred of years after His death, and well after the religion was already established, decided to mandate that His birth be celebrated then in order to take over a pagan celebration.

Actually, Yeshua Ben Pandira is generally considered by the experts to be a reference to Jesus, and the claims of BC origin are, at best, shakey. The only actual references we have are from Jewish Talmuds compiled in 135 AD and 200 AD. They always paint the figure in negative terms, frequently as a sorcerer, and times of placement vary within. It is highly likely they were an early propaganda attempt against the Jewish Christians at the time.

Again, you claim a single, biassed source who hasn't been peer reviewed and who claims to have uncovered secrets that no other Egyptologist has ever found. Her work should be groundbreaking work in Egyptology if it's serious, yet no one seems to even be giving her the time of day. I wonder why that may be? And no, it isn't some vast 'Christian Conspiracy', because there are plenty of atheists, muslims, buddhists, and the like in the field.

What astrological story, Coin? That's my point! Aside from this BS about December 25, the only 'astrological story' is that some Magi (astrologers) followed a 'star' (or celestial figure, or something). That's it. And we've been trying to figure out which 'star' (or celestial figure) ever since.

 

Not really. After we cut through all the crap and distractions, we've really been arguing about whether or not atheism can be equated to a religion. As I have clearly demonstrated, the foil to atheism is theism. Since theism is not a religion, it logically follows that atheism is not a religion. Since atheism is not a religion, it cannot rightly be equated to one. This isn't a hard concept to understand.

Atheism didn't cause the atrocities of communism any more than theism caused the Spanish Inquisition. In other words, not much. Communism* caused the atrocities of communism; just as Catholicism** caused the Spanish Inquisition.

* More specifically (and correctly), Stalin and Mao caused the atrocities of communism. Not every communist is an atheist, and even the ones who are don't necessarily or even usually believe that people of faith should be violently oppressed.

** More specifically, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile caused the Spanish Inquisition. Catholics don't view using torture to coerce people into confessing to non-existent sin or to force a (re-)conversion as a good practice -- and there was never anything in Catholic doctrine that would call for or justify such abuses.

 

That's not what I've been arguing about because, well, I agree with you.
*Cringes while the world ends*
Seriously, though, while athism in conceptual form is on par with theism rather than religion, it only leads to a very few manifestations, while theism has led to hundreds if not thousands. This puts the application of atheism somewhere between the application of theism and of a particular religion.

I definitely agree, however, that it is organizations (and usually more the leaders of said organizations) that commit attrocities, not usually ideologies. Eugenics may be an ideology we could rightly blame for attrocities, along with racism, but not theism or atheism.

 

For the record I have made no mention whatsoever, in any of my posts, to Zeitgeist, Mithra, Horus, or Dionysus. I haven't even seen the movie.

 

Why?

 

Because there will be less variation in thoughts. Essentially, something on the level of a religion typically has very little variation in though. People congregate around similar thought (again, as I've said before, social pressure is typically the driving force) and religions usually have very restricted variation. You can only interpret a holy text within a certain range. Something on the order of theism, on the other hand, has a wide variety of thoughts, with just about every possible interpretation and manifestation of the idea practiced somewhere. Atheism, as I see it, comes down to two major factors with 3 major variations:
1.) Agnostic vs Anti-Theist
2.) Apathetic vs Convinced* vs Fanatic

That's a total of 6 possible groups (roughly speaking) that will congregate when social pressures are exerted. Compare that to the thousands of groups for theism, and maybe 2-3 in most churches.

*Convinced here represents a middle ground where, though they are sure they are right, they aren't willing to beat people over the head with it. They may present points in debates, and even defend them avidly if challenged, but aren't going to try passing laws based on that. Most of the athiests on this board seem to be Convinced Agnostic.

 

Why?

NOG, your compulsive obsession with labeling is leading you astray again. Theism is the belief in a God or Gods. Atheism is the lack of such a belief. Theism, as a belief, is no broader or narrower than Atheism. Divide either into as many or as few sub-categories as you want, and the fact that they are two sides of the same coin remains.

You are essentially arguing that atheism is more akin to a religion than theism because theism branches out into more belief systems. Again, why?

EDIT: You know, I can play the labeling game, too, and it will be just as meaningless when I do it as it is when you do it. Every theistic religion of the world fits easily into one of 2 categories -- religions that believe in only one God, and religions that believe in more than one God. Theists can be neatly categorized into one of 3 categories -- people who believe in one God, people who believe in more than one God, and people who are sure a God or Gods exist, but don't know how many. Just because I can do this doesn't, of course, mean that I should, but since you insist on painting all atheists with such a broad brush, I have no problem painting all of you devil worshiping, virgin sacrificing theists with the same one.

 

I think I've understood the cause behind the arguement.

Theism is just a concept, the counterpart to Atheism. They cannot be called religions because they're just concepts.

There are "categories" of these concepts, but they are too complicated to discuss.

Depending on how theism and atheism are practiced, then they can become religions, such as Christianity or Atheists' Fellowship (dunno what they call themselves), etc.

The problem would be that members of the imaginary Atheists' Fellowship sometimes refer to their beliefs as "Atheism", when atheism is just a concept and what they are actually doing with it is something else altogether.

Fear me! Oh yeah.
And people say atheists are the "tougher" bunch.

 

Not really.

STOP. It is actually that simple.

To NOG atheism and theism are opposites, like fire and water, yin or yang, or me and my ex. That's the starting point. Add to that a perceived assault on theism i.e. Christianity from Atheism i.e. secular humanism (which to a point is even correct when one thinks of the likes of Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens) - confirming that notion that the two are antipodes. Rinse, repeat. NOG's argument can only be understood under that paradigm.

 

Here I go do some reading and then come back to find that multiple comments have been posted.

NOG,

I think agnostics are farther from atheists that your comment seemed to say. Agnostics say they don't know and say so.

Atheists are much stronger in claim to know (there are some who say it and claim to be certain), guess, or "believe" no.

There is some fuzzy ground between the 2 but there are also followers of a religion that think their religion is correct but aren't "sure" of it-fuzzy ground between religious people and agnostics


Drew,

I'm probably comparing religious groups and atheists at least as much NOG is (not going to survey each of our comments just yet to prove it). What I have said before is that if there is a consistency judgments about the two I'll go alone with it.

I think an ideology can encourage violence but this is often just one (or a few) ideology(ies) out of the many built on a broad underlying concept.

An earlier comment of your's seemed to state that atheists can be organized but not around atheism-that may be what led to some of the comments between you and NOG. Now that your position is more clear I think it is safe to say atheists can be organized but many aren't.

If people are waiting for Dawkin's (or whomever's) next book or speech I would say they are as informally organized as right wing radio fans/listeners.

Note this is different from painting "all" atheists with a broad brush-I'm noting groups out of a whole rather than the whole group itself.

PS I cracked up after seeing "Keep ***king that chicken", thanks.

 

I was actually talking about the labeling and name-calling talking , but... OK. That part, I'm also beginning to understand now, I think.

 

Drew, you're missing my point (and badly, too). Theism has already had thousands of manifestations, and can easily support millions more. Atheism can't. There are only so many ways you can not believe in gods.

That's right, Drew. Well, except for how horribly wrong it is. Because, of course, that's not what I'm arguing at all.

Let me put it to you this way. If you here that Jacob is an atheist, what assumptions can you make about his beliefs about the supernatural? How many possibilities pop into your mind? Honestly, could you spell a few out for me? You seem to be insisting that there are thousands of ways to not believe in gods. I don't see them. I only see level of certainty and 'absolutely no gods' vs 'unsure'. Yes, Theism can be broken down into monotheistic, polytheistic, and unsure, but each of those can then be broken down more times, and then more, and then more. What further subcategories are there for atheism?

Again, Ragusa, you really stink at psychology. Don't try to guess my thoughts. You're bad at it.