Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[Sebastian Toe]

I think you need to start spot it others since we do not initially want to think bad of ourselves and then check that we aren't demonstrating the same behaviour.

...and how do you spot it in others?
Anything specific to look for?
Is there a checklist?

[Sebastian Toe]

By the way, is it true that you felt ill once and someone told you to get on the forum quick, before it wore off?

No.

I can't think what gave you that idea but maybe you are projecting?

[Outrider]

But as an agnostic atheist surely you can see that you don't know whether they are factual or not

As an agnostic, sometimes the point is not that an individual doesn't know, but that as formulated it's impossible for anyone to definitively know - hence the challenge to you to make clear what you think you know, and what you hold as an opinion.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The New Atheists
The New Atheists are authors of early twenty-first century book promoting atheism.

Anyone here promoting atheism or seeking converts to atheism?

These authors include Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens.

Who was the leader or the brains in this group?

The “New Atheist” label for these critics of religion and religious belief emerged out of journalistic commentary on the contents and impacts of their books.

So now we all know

A standard observation is that New Atheist authors exhibit an unusually high level of confidence in their views.

The only one of the four I saw demonstrate any question of confidence in his own point of view as opposed to others was Christopher Hitchens. I wonder if this was because Harris, Dawkins and Dennett were more used to affirmation. I can't think of contemporary academic theologians who put up such an air of confidence and rightness

Reviewers have noted that these authors tend to be motivated by a sense of moral concern and even outrage about the effects of religious beliefs on the global scene.

To which the answer was a simplistic humanism perhaps?

It is difficult to identify anything philosophically unprecedented in their positions and arguments,

I think he means ''identify anything really philosophical''

but the New Atheists have provoked considerable controversy with their body of work.

Agree.

[jeremyp]

On the contrary I have tried to be as comprehensive and wide ranging as possible, considering civil and criminal law, the notion of compensation, the scale of the consequences of sin, costs to victim including recourse to justice, the inadequacies in human law, the two victim nature of wrongdoing etc, etc

No, you have been utterly incoherent. You claim crime and punishment is a numerical transaction and that one such transaction where Jesus died for bit, is enough to account for everybody's sins.

It is you and your colleagues here who have omitted factors seemingly as and when it suits There are temporal consequences of course.

No there aren't, not if you are a Christian.

And the definition of the word "consequence" is dependent on time. Without time it is meaningless.

We operate in both a material and human environment but sin has a further more serious consequences on the self and there is no improvement without repentance  But that is getting death wrong. Given the universal resurrection of the new testament there is not the ''permanent death'' that you are suggesting. Also satisfaction of conditions by Jesus death is in God's judgment and not ours and thirdly I would move that Jesus is taking on an entity known as 'the sins of the world' and that your metaphor is thus inadequate.

"The sins of the World" isn't a single entity, it's a poetic way of saying "everybody's sins". You are still claiming that one man's temporary punishment is enough to account for everybody's sins, but since it is God who sets the rules, why does he need even one man's punishment?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

As an agnostic, sometimes the point is not that an individual doesn't know, but that as formulated it's impossible for anyone to definitively know - hence the challenge to you to make clear what you think you know, and what you hold as an opinion.

Sounds like as an agnostic you want your cake and eat it here.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Do you believe that the victim of a crime can only forgive the perpetrator if the somebody else "pays" for it in some way?

Not really. I feel the victim may feel they have justice if there is a penalty and or compensation from any source. Forgiveness means taking all or some of the cost(in the widest sense) on oneself in terms of material, financial or emotional and psychological ''costs''

If we've got to achieve a zero sum, there's a massive problem:

Yes and on reflection I would agree. I think I told Nearly Sane that mercy can deprive a victim of Justice. Where there is a zero sum is that there is no charge for us. God's gift of eternal life and a right relationship with him is free i.e. unearned

all of the sins of humanity have to be equated against the mere temporary death of one god-man.

So your claim that I am treating this as ''numerical'' and that you aren't is tosh.
Again though one wonders how you can possibly say all the sins of humanity are not cancelled by the death of one God man. (please show your working) That's aside from the challenge to your conception of Death that the New Testament makes.

[Outrider]

Sounds like as an agnostic you want your cake and eat it here.

To quote one of the pre-eminent cultural artefacts of our generation 'The cake is a lie.' I don't think there is a cake, but if there were I certainly wouldn't want to eat it. Rather, you want everyone to cleave hard to easily disprovable positions rather than to deal with what people actually think and say, which is why you so regularly throw strawman arguments around.

O.

[jeremyp]

Not really. I feel the victim may feel they have justice if there is a penalty and or compensation from any source. Forgiveness means taking all or some of the cost(in the widest sense) on oneself in terms of material, financial or emotional and psychological ''costs'' Yes and on reflection I would agree. I think I told Nearly Sane that mercy can deprive a victim of Justice. Where there is a zero sum is that there is no charge for us. God's gift of eternal life and a right relationship with him is free i.e. unearnedSo your claim that I am treating this as ''numerical'' and that you aren't is tosh.
Again though one wonders how you can possibly say all the sins of humanity are not cancelled by the death of one God man. (please show your working) That's aside from the challenge to your conception of Death that the New Testament makes.

You are the one talking about a cost and the victim taking it on, whatever that means. It's bunk, by the way. The emotional cost is there for a victim whether they choose to forgive or not. In fact people have been known to say that forgiving relieves them of an emotional burden.

Also, how can Jesus forgive on behalf of the victims. What right does God have to say to anybody "your sins are forgiven" if the victim is still out there bearing the consequences of the wrong?

[Nearly Sane]

You are the one talking about a cost and the victim taking it on, whatever that means. It's bunk, by the way. The emotional cost is there for a victim whether they choose to forgive or not. In fact people have been known to say that forgiving relieves them of an emotional burden.

Also, how can Jesus forgive on behalf of the victims. What right does God have to say to anybody "your sins are forgiven" if the victim is still out there bearing the consequences of the wrong?

Because when a child is murdered, you have to understand that the real victim is Vlad's god who could have stopped it but didn't because it wanted to have its son killed for 36 hours or so. It all makes perfect sense and is done in the best possible taste.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You are the one talking about a cost and the victim taking it on, whatever that means. It's bunk, by the way. The emotional cost is there for a victim whether they choose to forgive or not.

You seem to be contradicting yourself here

In fact people have been known to say that forgiving relieves them of an emotional burden.

Yes and the recipient of the forgiveness gets relieved of the cost of compensating the victim.

Also, how can Jesus forgive on behalf of the victims

God is also a victim having been transgressed in much the same sense that the law is transgressed as well as the victim, and often God is the exclusive victim. I find nowhere in the New Testament that Jesus forgives on behalf of the victim. Indeed Christians are told to forgive others their ''trespasses''

  What right does God have to say to anybody "your sins are forgiven" if the victim is still out there bearing the consequences of the wrong?

See previous comment.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Because when a child is murdered, you have to understand that the real victim is Vlad's god

An incorrect assumption In a murder case there is a victim and the law is transgressed. The law being abstract is really a placeholder for the good or the peace which in turn are placeholders for God, who being personal is also a victim. So talk of 'real' victims and by extension 'unreal' victims is nonsense. Only God can offer the victim eternal life. The human perpetrator (who according to humanism ought to have been ''Good without God'') on the other hand has sought the victim's permanent destruction.

[Nearly Sane]

An incorrect assumption In a murder case there is a victim and the law is transgressed. The law being abstract is really a placeholder for the good or the peace which in turn are placeholders for God, who being personal is also a victim. So talk of 'real' victims and by extension 'unreal' victims is nonsense. Only God can offer the victim eternal life. The human perpetrator (who according to humanism ought to have been ''Good without God'') on the other hand has sought the victim's permanent destruction.

So you are happy that youe god could have stopped the murder and stood by watching it. Not so much a victim more an accomplice.

[Outrider]

The law being abstract is really a placeholder for the good or the peace which in turn are placeholders for God, who being personal is also a victim.

Wow. It takes a special talent to compact so much wrong into so few words. The law is not a placeholder for the good, it's a pragmatic social contract to permit various ideas of good to be liveable in parallel with each other. It is in no way a 'placeholder' for any gods, as is evident in its commitment in at least some places not to favour god over non-god, or one god over another.

Even if that were not the case, God is no more a victim of a temporal crime than you are a victim of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Only God can offer the victim eternal life.

Or can threaten you with eternal torment, let's be even-handed about this.

O.

[jeremyp]

You seem to be contradicting yourself here

I'm not the one saying emotional cost is like money. That's you.

Yes and the recipient of the forgiveness gets relieved of the cost of compensating the victim.

Not necessarily. You can forgive somebody who assaults you but they may still go to prison.

You are conflating forgiving a wrong with forgiving a debt. These are related concepts but not the same. If somebody steals something off me, I could forgive the debt they owe without forgiving them. Conversely, I could forgive them for the crime because they compensated me.

God is also a victim having been transgressed in much the same sense that the law is transgressed as well as the victim

Nonsense. When a woman is raped, she is the victim, not God.

, and often God is the exclusive victim.

What crime could I commit in which God is the victim?

I find nowhere in the New Testament that Jesus forgives on behalf of the victim.

What right has Jesus got to forgive then?

[Spud]

Even if that were not the case, God is no more a victim of a temporal crime than you are a victim of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The offense is against God because he is the victim's creator.

[Spud]

Or can threaten you with eternal torment, let's be even-handed about this.

Eternal torment is a description of being forever cut off from God

[Nearly Sane]

The offense is against God because he is the victim's creator.

And the perpetrator,'s creator, and the deity who you worship stood round and watched the act. You worship a god who in your own view is responsible for every rape and murder of all time. You celebrate that god's actions therefore you celebrate raoe and murder.

[Enki]

The offense is against God because he is the victim's creator.

Then the offence is not only against Himself but ultimately by Himself as he created both victim and perpetrator.

[Enki]

Eternal torment is a description of being forever cut off from God

Strange, I, as with many others I suspect, don't feel at all in eternal torment. If there is really is this God, you speak of, then what is it that will give me this 'eternal torment' when I die? After all this God certainly holds no significance for me when I am alive!

[jeremyp]

The offense is against God because he is the victim's creator.

God also created the offender. Why do you not, therefore, lay the offence at his door too?

Edit: Ninja'd twice.

[jeremyp]

Eternal torment is a description of being forever cut off from God

I'm cut off from God. It's far from being tormenting.

[Spud]

Then the offence is not only against Himself but ultimately by Himself as he created both victim and perpetrator.

I suppose so, however that doesn't mean the perpetrator isn't responsible for his actions.

[Nearly Sane]

I suppose so, however that doesn't mean the perpetrator isn't responsible for his actions.

Why do you worship a deity that you have just admitted is an accomplice to murder?

[Spud]

Why do you worship a deity that you have just admitted is an accomplice to murder?

Because he loves me, gives me food and clothes, for a start