Freedomain Radio

I hope no one minds if I keep this conversation about my family and relationships, and not one about the relative merits of religion in general.

Stefan Molyneux:

So either they believe that they are smarter, wiser and more moral than God, in so far as they can pick and choose what is "correct" in His commandments, or they believe that God is mostly evil, since they reject as evil most of his moral Commandments.

You can't really believe that these are the only two logical possibilities. The most obvious "third" option (although there are surely many more) is one where my parents believe that God is perfect, etc, but where they also believe that they don't fully understand the teachings he's left them. Whether you think that's a reasonable belief or not is largely beside the point. It's plainly the case that my parents' actual beliefs, or any other religious person's that I'm aware of, cannot be accurately described by either of the possibilities you've offered. It's either a weak argument, or an unimaginative work of fiction. As I've said before, if my parents are guilty of anything, it's of not carefully examining their religious beliefs. And if it's blameworthy just to be wrong, then the best of us is surely as immoral as the least.

Stefan Molyneux:

I truly believe that if we love people, then we must help him overcome their irrational fears, dependencies and superstitions.

Here we agree, but I think you're equivocating now. Is it that my parents are immoral because they advocate murder, incest, and sexual abuse (as you implied earlier), or is it that I am immoral for having not pulled them out of their superstitious beliefs? Or is it both? In which case I suppose you must think that my entire family is quite a mess.

Stefan Molyneux:

I believe that by ignoring the unhappiness caused by superstition, we are enabling the unhappiness of those we claim to love as surely as if we were handing drinks to a drunk.

You seem to be presupposing that (a) my parents are unhappy, (b) I'm explicitly aware of that unhappiness, and (c) that I'm willfully ignoring it. This is pretty remarkable, considering that you've never met them, I've had little opportunity to tell you about them, and the only questions you've asked have been gross caricatures of religious belief. So without a shred of evidence, you've implied that my family are complicit in murderous acts of immorality, compared them to drunks, determined their level of happiness, and accused me of showing an unethical disregard for their well-being. Am I missing anything?

Stef, I came here, in appreciation for some of your works, hoping that some of those ideas could be clarified for me. I've been honest and forthcoming about my feelings and my life. I have given an account of my family that is objective to the best of my ability. What I've gotten in response from you has been an grotesque satire of assistance. Do you really think that's helpful? And if so, what are you basing it on? As I said before, you have virtually no empirical information about my family, and you haven't really asked for any either. Instead of asking honest questions, you've instead asked rhetorical questions that have amounted to, "So your family are insane monsters, right?"

They're not.

Well I have certainly never said that your parents are  "insane monsters" or anything like that, but I can certainly see that you are very upset, so I will not pursue this topic with you, since you find my questions grotesque and unfair, and my arguments weak and unimaginative and so on.

I certainly am sorry that you found my examples and questions so offensive, and I wish you the best of luck in your pursuit of truth.

Stefan Molyneux:

Well I have certainly never said that your parents are "insane monsters" or anything like that

Of course you did. You said:

Stefan Molyneux:

[Your parents] subscribe to a belief system that wants me, my wife, my friends and most people here dead ... we're just talking about the facts.

Does that not sound pretty monstrous? Does it not sound insane? Of course it does. And that was exactly your intention. You can end your post with a smiley face and wish me luck, but you've been fundamentally disrespectful to me and to my family during this entire conversation. You even stated, as a logical (though faulty) proposition, that if my parents were Christians, then they could not be moral:

Stefan Molyneux:

If your parents do not subscribe to any of the violence and evil in the Bible, then they are not Christians of course -- if they do, then they are not moral.

Were we reading the same conversation? Yes, of course I'm upset. What would you infer about me if I wasn't upset about this sort of thing? You have never met my parents, you know barely anything about them, and yet you have implied all sorts of terrible things about them and their beliefs. If I said to you that your wife believed that I should be murdered, or asked rhetorical questions that implied she endorsed genocide or sexual abuse, I think you would be upset too. And I think that would be especially true if I had never met your wife, and knew very little about her.

And you didn't say, "I suspect your parents believe such-and-such," or "Do your parents believe such and such?" Instead you said that they want "me, my wife, my friends and most people here dead" and that this was not just a hunch, but "the facts". If someone else made such unfounded claims about your family here, on your board, I suspect you would demand an apology from them, else you would probably ban them. Should I expect any less?

Look Tyler, if the basic facts realities about the contents of the Bible trouble you so much, you should stick to Christian forums, where I can promise you that these uncomfortable truths will never ever come up.

If you truly feel that I owe you or your parents an apology for pointing out the simple reality that the Bible commands Christians to put atheists to death, you are completely and tragically mistaken.

Plesae stop posting here. It is clear that you are far from ready to face these difficult facts.

Well as a former faithful Christian and a rational Atheist now I will offer my small contribution to this topic. It is not as if all Atheists have a problem with people believing in things that are irrational. In my opinion, a person can believe in a god if they choose to do so. It wouldn't be very consistent with Anarchy if I am implying initiation of violence against someone who holds a different belief no matter how irrational. The problem comes when a person that claims to believe in a deity that can't be proven (or disproved) and claims with absolute certainty that that deity exists. Its irrational to derive universal 'truths' about reality from something that can't be proven to exist in reality.The burden of proof lays squarely with them.Not to mention its intellectually dishonest. But to me, not even that is the biggest problem. The biggest problem is when you adhere to a dual morality ( due to the inherent contradictions in religious doctrines and abandonment of logical reasoning).

When I was part of my church organization we were praying for politicians, American troops ( slaughterers) in Iraq, and forgiving men that came back from Iraq that openly admitted they killed other human beings in almost a 'hoorah' kind of way. If god says 'thou shalt not kill' but then initiates a slaughter of all of humanity save one family, then is it rational to look at this deity as an ideal source for ethics and morality?

 

Stefan Molyneux:

As I mentioned above, I am talking about the Bible, and Christianity, Judaism and Islam as doctrines, not each individual Christian of course.

It amazes me - I mean, it thoroughly amazes me - that Christians can worship a god that tells them to kill me, and when I point this out, the only person who is considered offensive is me.

Seriously - wow.

 

Stefan Molyneux - speaking out truth - as always
which never fails to thoroughly amaze me.

Well this thread kinda went to *hell*.

not sure this was the best way to get this kid to take the pill of "rationality and reason".  i think the blunt reality of Christianity's irrationality could have been brought up in a better way so he would have come to that conclusion with you, as opposed to the "face it now, or leave" technique.  the blunt hammer of logic was used here.  which stef himself has told me to avoid.

davidngo:

not sure this was the best way to get this kid to take the pill of "rationality and reason".  i think the blunt reality of Christianity's irrationality could have been brought up in a better way so he would have come to that conclusion with you, as opposed to the "face it now, or leave" technique.  the blunt hammer of logic was used here.  which stef himself has told me to avoid.

I would tend to agree with you here.  I really think this kid is a good example of someone who could have been open to a lot of ideas that go on here but once it was discovered he didn't really have anything bad to say about his parents and could live with them having their religion even if he was going in a different direction, then suddenly he was pounced upon and virtually bullied to just go away.

I don't know why that is thought of as a useful and helpful way to go about having people think there are good ideas here.  Again, if this forum is going to be full of rules as to who can participate and discuss ideas, then those rules should be set and there should be some specific method (questionnairre?) people need to go through in order to be able to post here.

And if not, then for goodness sakes, let people come on here, so they can discuss ideas, and learn and grow.

How is the request, 'Please stop posting here' an act of bullying?

bockman:

How is the request, 'Please stop posting here' an act of bullying?

It's not. That's an act of exclusion. The bullying lead up to that, where Stef and others tried especially hard to convince Tyler that his parents (people no one here have ever met, and know basically nothing about) are nasty people who want to murder all freethinkers. 

I've just re-read the entire thread, Derrick, and I can't spot where Stefan or anyone else asserted that Tyler's parents are nasty people who want to murder all freethinkers. Could I trouble you to point out where that occurred? Thanks,

Dave 

I did not perceive any bullying.

It seems what brought this thread to a close was:

Son of Mormon: My parents' actions are in opposition to A, therefore they clearly do not believe A, regardless of their claims.

Anarchist Podcaster: So they must believe either C or D.

Son of Mormon: Oh no, they believe A, despite their actions. And I do not retract my previous statement which states that this is impossible.

Is there a way to reason with someone who is determined to ignore reason, who will knowingly contradict themselves and assert their self-contradiction is correct?

How would you react if shown that your beliefs were undeniably incorrect?

Not sure what (A), (C), and (D) are supposed to be, exactly...

I don't get the impression that Tyler was 'determined to ignore reason' or 'knowingly' contradicted himself. Those are very strongly worded claims. In fact, I doubt they could honestly be applied to anyone, even the most ardently superstitious person you can find. I don't think I've ever met anyone who knew they were wrong, and yet didn't care internally. Sometimes people know they're wrong and yet argue anyway, just to save face, but there's no reason to think that Tyler was protesting out of pride.

It seems that he just honestly believed that his parents weren't advocates of murder. Isn't that what he said, anyway? But "Oh, no," Stef asserted, "They're either advocating murder or they're not really religious after all." Which is just a ridiculous sort of position to take. 

Tyler:

Stef, my impression from some of your podcasts was that what someone claims to believe is not so important to you as what they actually do in practice. My parents, and many religious believers, claim to believe in their scripture as the literal and binding word of God. That's well-understood. But obviously these billions of people don't have exactly the same religious beliefs. What's important is not what the book says, since the interpretations and adherences vary so greatly, but what people themselves believe - and more than that, what they actually do about those supposed beliefs.

You know as well as anyone that virtually no religious person, here in North American anyway, thinks that stoning a person to death is acceptable. They don't murder their neighbors for being heretics. If someone told my parents that he was going to sacrifice his child because God commanded it, they would take that child away for its own safety. Like most religious people in this country, religion plays a fairly benign, understated role in their lives. They go to church. They toss their prayers into the ether. They think about how nice it will be to meet Jesus after they die. That sort of thing. They don't advocate murder, incest, etc.

My parents' actions are in opposition to A, therefore they clearly do not believe A, regardless of their claims.

Stefan Molyneux:

So if I've got it right, you're saying that your parents reject most of the moral commandments that are in the Bible, although they accept that the Bible is the divine word of a perfectly moral and omniscient being.

So either they believe that they are smarter, wiser and more moral than God, in so far as they can pick and choose what is "correct" in His commandments, or they believe that God is mostly evil, since they reject as evil most of his moral Commandments

So they must believe either C or D.

Tyler:

The most obvious "third" option (although there are surely many more) is one where my parents believe that God is perfect, etc, but where they also believe that they don't fully understand the teachings he's left them.

Oh no, they believe A, despite their actions. And I do not retract my previous statement which states that this is impossible.

"They believe they don't fully understand the teachings" makes no sense here, a far as I can tell. They are almost certainly aware of teachings which they do not "wonder about", or "fail to understand", but understand and fully reject, as evidenced by the poster's statement about the standards they adhere to.

Certainly he could have said something that did not clearly contradict his previous assertions, (asserting the existence of mistranslations, not being fully sure of the perfection of god, etc.) but what he said clearly contradicted earlier statements which he was also holding fast.

I agree with you on this: I do not think Tyler was making these assertions due to pride .

And I think he does care about this inconsistency a great deal.