The Illogicality of Jehovah's Witnesses

[Lacius]

I didn't see anything against masturbation in the list, so No Problem.

You're a treasure.

 

[AncientBoi]

[curtsies] Thank you. thank you.

And you as well.

@Lacius

 

[plasturion]

Preaching about Jesus being crucified is a lesson where the symbol becomes a form of an idol. The latter didn't start to be observed untill two hundred years after Jesus was crucified, well into Rome's endeavor to take over the narrative. I am not saying that good people cannot exist within an institution, but that the institution is based on corruption.

The first letter to the Corinthians was written in Ephesus by Paul in his lifetime, before the year 57. I think it explains clearly and completes the teaching of the trinity in which Jesus becomes co-equal with God, st Peter was crucified as many first christians, so it become main symbol much more earlier.

 

[Drewsalem]

The first letter to the Corinthians was written in Ephesus by Paul in his lifetime, before the year 57. I think it explains clearly and completes the teaching of the trinity in which Jesus becomes co-equal with God, st Peter was crucified as many first christians, so it become main symbol much more earlier.

Does 1 Corinthians teach the Trinity?
At 1 Cor 8:4 Paul said: “there is actually one God, the Father” (not three, the father son and Holy Spirit)
At 1 Cor 11:2 Paul said “the head of the church is Christ … and the head of the Christ is God.” (Not equal)
The Bible doesn’t teach the Trinity. It didn’t appear until hundreds of years after Jesus and owes more to Plato and Constantine than to Jesus and his apostles.

 

[omgcat]

my only issue with religions is when they try to use Roko's basilisk as a spreading mechanism. for example, if you never learned of Christ, had no chance to be saved by him, in the best case you're forgiven and in the worst case, you are condemned to hell for something you could never have known or fixed. either propositions are problematic as you could never have a loving god that would willingly condemn people (for example un-contacted tribes). it is literally impossible to have a just god and a loving god at the same time. telling people about Christ now requires them to accept him to be saved. it is a problem because they would have been better off without that knowledge, since learning it now endangers their immortal soul. in a nutshell lots of current religions (mostly christian, but there are others) are psychohazards. it is 100% possible to have a moral framework without religion, and as such spirituality should be a deeply personal thing you develop yourself.

 

[CoolMe]

it is 100% possible to have a moral framework without religion, and as such spirituality should be a deeply personal thing you develop yourself.

Exactly! That's why morals/ethics/&values should be taught separate from (and without) the religious coating, of any kind (period). It's better to properly explain why it's immoral to steal/kill etc Because it hurts other people, and if you don't like something like that happening to you, then it's the same for them too, so it's a question of responsibility/thoughtfulness/ & dedication for the individual, and him alone at all times,(i could go deeper about the psychology of it). And it's hell of a lot better than saying "if you steal, you will go to hell"..
Part of the religious teachings, It always tries to separate and isolate people from other societies/ religions etc. Like why? Is it their fault being born in a different part of the world and raised believing in God "X" instead of "Y", it doesn't make any sense.

 

[tabzer]

The first letter to the Corinthians was written in Ephesus by Paul in his lifetime, before the year 57. I think it explains clearly and completes the teaching of the trinity in which Jesus becomes co-equal with God, st Peter was crucified as many first christians, so it become main symbol much more earlier.

"Preaching Christ crucified" is not equivalent to making a symbol to be donned or put on display. As far as I understand, there wasn't a point were Jesus wasn't god (or the son of god, but mankind are sons of god and the nuance gets tricky because of the gaps in transliteration). I'm not sure to what theological rationalization you are referring to exactly.

 

[plasturion]

Does 1 Corinthians teach the Trinity?
At 1 Cor 8:4 Paul said: “there is actually one God, the Father” (not three, the father son and Holy Spirit)
At 1 Cor 11:2 Paul said “the head of the church is Christ … and the head of the Christ is God.” (Not equal)
The Bible doesn’t teach the Trinity. It didn’t appear until hundreds of years after Jesus and owes more to Plato and Constantine than to Jesus and his apostles.

As everyone know trinity was a dogma created by Constantine, that's right. So It just catch up and explain God's nature in the way as it was possible, where some thesis was made done before like in the letter. Also maybe Plato was an inspiration, so what? that's even better.
There's diagram about it that Son is not A Father, Christ is not a Holy Spirit, but every of them are the same God.
It's just radical right, knowing the sentece seem to be logicaly contradicted. That's expected.
So what does it mean are the same? Simply saying It describes the level of unity, having the same mind, the same will, every person is needed to show and explain more about each other, takes different function and alone it would say nothing, or not that much. So being God in each person meaning is also kind of something undefined and secret, unreachable in simple explanation, but very significant in relationship to each other at the same time.

At the letter to Corintian we just have description of each Person:
God as Love, Infinity and Justice 1 Cor 1 (27-29):
"27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him."
Jesus as Truth and Unity at 1 Cor 1 (10):
"10 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.
Spirit as Wisdom and Gifts at 1 Cor 2 (10-12):
"10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God."

Hypothicaly what if every person would like to achieve something different in its own will. There were some gnostic sects creating at very begining at christianity trying be more logical but speaks about something different in wosrt case leading to conlcusion that the God is bad, I wonder if this dogma is kind of counter-offensive to heresy at the times.

Even if you don't like this logic at the end we have at 2 Cor 13
"13 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you."
Was adapted by Constantine as the first catholic liturgy greetings, so nothing innovative by his side.

"Preaching Christ crucified" is not equivalent to making a symbol to be donned or put on display.

But Isn't it a process of creating that symbol? "Preaching Christ resurected" don't teach the "now".

 

[tabzer]

But Isn't it a process of creating that symbol? "Preaching Christ resurected" don't teach the "now".

People love symbols and they are prone to create them. You could say that it was going to happen. You have to understand, too, that the timing of the teaching was in response to the current rule of the land and to the people's expectations. I interpret that It was in response to their desire for symbols, signs, and wisdom that they were told about the heavy-hearted event, and through it, the implications about the law.

 

[City]

I think of Jenovah's Witnesses the same thing I think of every other religion: as long as you don't hurt anyone, I don't care.


Haven't talked to one yet but I'll update you when that happens.

 

[september796]

You appear to be arguing for a god that existed infinitely long in the past, which has the same problems as infinite regress, lol. Whether or not you think infinite regress is a problem, a god doesn't solve it.

If we understand god as concept with the characteristics I've said a couple of times then it does solve it, the problems are (1) there would be no way to reach it by physical means, and (2) the assumption leads to more questions, but to be fair this will be the case to any other argument. Scientists have come up with all sorts of propositions to "solve it" as well. Some have been proven wrong, some are too bold to be refuted with today's knowledge. God may fit in the latter as well, I suppose. But infinite regress is a problem as long as we talk about matter.

There is nothing that excludes the possibility of the expansion from the universe from a small point beginning with a point in spacetime in our own universe's future. Hypothetically, perhaps a supernova that resulted in a black hole is our own universe's big bang. For clarity, imagine a picture of a tree where one of its limbs loops down and grows into the trunk of the tree in place of a root system.

Sounds like it's a complex one and leaves questions unanswered, which is okay. But I'm afraid the example of the tree didn't help much since it seems to be comparing apples and pears. But still, based only on it, it's an illogical reasoning. If the universe could have created itself, then it means that it had to have existed already in order to be able to perform all that, therefore we're not really talking about its beginning. Anyway does this proposition exclude every other argument in order to be accepted? or at the very least how does it exclude god?

A mistake you're making is applying laws of causality to the formation of causality itself.

It's all deductive though. How is that a mistake when we're dealing with assumptions and theories. No one knows, we're just figuring things here. Is something as the formation of causality, being an abstract idea, even demonstrable?

That throws any need for a cause or a "before the universe" out the window. Arguably, it's impossible for there to be a cause to causality or a time before time.

Perhaps if it were true, but we don't know. I still don't see the logic behind the formation of anything out of nothing.

The universe, cosmos, or whatever we are talking about might be eternal. It might have began to exist without a cause. No evidence has been provided that debunks these options. Even if you were to disprove these options (you can't), that wouldn't demonstrate a god's existence.

Is that now a reason to think something might be eternal? Actually, correct me if I'm wrong but it seems as if you are considering the possibility of the universe being eternal. I mean, otherwise you would have said something like "the universe being eternal has not been demonstrated, there's no sound evidence, it's irrational to think of its possibility, etc...".

The premises of the first cause argument have not been demonstrated to be "probable," and anyone who wants to be reasonable has a duty to reject those premises. The first cause arguments are also illogical because the conclusions don't follow the premises. It's an absurdly bad argument all around, and since I've explained all this to you, you should stop defending it unless you have something new and significant to add.

Fair enough, some of its premises are also abstractions, the point is that its conclusion can't be a sound one, sure, which doesn't necessarily mean it's illogical. They may be uncertain due to -for instance- a lack of evidence but at the same time can't be disproven. For example, saying 'everything we know in this world have a cause and effect': to begin with, we don't even know every single thing in this world so we couldn't have submit them all to scientific test naturally. However we admit it as evident without the need of demonstration in order to reach a conclusion. If these sorts of premises weren't allowed we'd be still in middle age. In science there are premises that are taken for granted without complete demonstration and yet have served the purpose of advancing new knowledge. If they had been rejected scientists would have been stuck from the beginning without advancing. I'm not even defending the first cause argument, it's just that I haven't seen it disproven with evidence, reason being how bold it is.

In the absence of sound reason and evidence, you're being absurdly irrational. If you care if your beliefs are true, you can't accept that a god exists or likely exists.

It wouldn't be me saying "I don't think anything about our origin / my mind is completely blank on the subject until evidence comes out", etc... Like I said, I like to philosophize and this is like the biggest mystery there is, nothing less. I have some level of skepticism, but I keep it under control; I like to consider all sorts of things just to "experiment" what's behind and then come back to reflect on it better.

I like Star Trek and Zelda lore. That doesn't mean I should believe they're true.

I know this one's a joke, but really those are fantasy while the bible is a big part of human history. It's obvious that I wasn't implying that by liking something it becomes true, that would be absurd.

The Bible definitively rejects reason and skepticism, and it pretends that doing so is virtuous. This is the #1 worst thing about religions. The Bible also condones slavery, it's been used to oppress and marginalize various minority groups (LGBT, etc.), and it doesn't condemn some of the most basic immoralities.

On some subjects maybe that first statement is true from a certain point of view, but generally it does give quite a lot of explanation and examples. Now, it's clear that it does not explain things like the 'beginning', for instance, other than by allegories and metaphors.
I don't necessarily see slavery as a bad thing within its context, but in fact -and I quote you- "it has been used to opress and marginalize" (all kind of people) as well as a kitchen knife has been used to kill innocent ones. By the way, what are those basic immoralities that it doesn't condemn?

The idea that the Bible is any sort of humanistic morality is, pardon me, the fucking stupidest thing you've said in this entire thread.

Humanistic? No, in fact that sounds like todays morals. Bible morals are God-focused.

There is no evidence that an intelligence is necessarily behind things that are organized.

What?

By definition, a god would have to be insanely organized or complex, and yet the arguments omit him from the need for an intelligent creator, lol.

Insanely organized, exactly. I don't know which argument you're talking about though, but the one that comes to mind is one by Leibniz, which I never read because it was quite heavy on mathematical concepts (which I ignore for the most part) from what I remember.

 

[september796]

Exactly! That's why morals/ethics/&values should be taught separate from (and without) the religious coating, of any kind (period). It's better to properly explain why it's immoral to steal/kill etc Because it hurts other people, and if you don't like something like that happening to you, then it's the same for them too, so it's a question of responsibility/thoughtfulness/ & dedication for the individual, and him alone at all times,(i could go deeper about the psychology of it). And it's hell of a lot better than saying "if you steal, you will go to hell"..
Part of the religious teachings, It always tries to separate and isolate people from other societies/ religions etc. Like why? Is it their fault being born in a different part of the world and raised believing in God "X" instead of "Y", it doesn't make any sense.

You mean we should based our morals on a consensus or something? Who would finally have the authority to establish them?

 

[Lacius]

If we understand god as concept with the characteristics I've said a couple of times then it does solve it, the problems are (1) there would be no way to reach it by physical means, and (2) the assumption leads to more questions, but to be fair this will be the case to any other argument. Scientists have come up with all sorts of propositions to "solve it" as well. Some have been proven wrong, some are too bold to be refuted with today's knowledge. God may fit in the latter as well, I suppose. But infinite regress is a problem as long as we talk about matter.

Any reason you have to exclude God from requiring a cause or a beginning can be applied to the universe or the natural processes that hypothetically caused the universe.

"God is infinite." Okay, what does that even mean? Does that mean he has existed for an infinite amount of time in the past? There has also been no demonstration that anything exists that has existed for an infinite amount of time in the past. That's also problematic in exactly the same way infinite regress is.

"God is timeless." What does that mean? As far as we understand it, existence is necessarily temporal. There has also been no demonstration that anything "timeless" can or does exist.

Sounds like it's a complex one and leaves questions unanswered

Fuck yeah it is, and fuck yeah it does.

But I'm afraid the example of the tree didn't help much since it seems to be comparing apples and pears.

It was a visual analogy, and it was far from perfect.

But still, based only on it, it's an illogical reasoning. If the universe could have created itself, then it means that it had to have existed already in order to be able to perform all that, therefore we're not really talking about its beginning.

It isn't "illogical reasoning." For all we know, atemporal causation is possible, and it would be a causal loop. Pay very close attention, because I think you'll learn something:

If we imagine for a second that backwards time travel is possible, let's pretend that in the middle of our conversation, I get shot by a mystery assailant. You would obviously be wracked with grief, because I'm awesome, so you grab a gun and use your time machine to go back in time and save my life. You arrive in the past to kill my assailant before they kill me, but you stumble over a rock, and you accidentally fire your gun. The bullet hits and kills me, which is why you decide to go back in time with a gun in the first place. Your future self was my assailant the whole time.

Is this situation possible? I don't know. It's possibility hasn't been demonstrated yet. The point, however, is that it might be possible, even though it's very difficult to define what the cause of those events was, and the same could be said for an atemporal cause to the universe. This is one of many options you haven't eliminated, yet you're irrationally and (forgive me) stupidly jumping to the conclusion that a god must have done it. Even if you were to eliminate the possibility that the universe in the future caused itself in the past, and even if you eliminated every other possibility we could think of, that does not demonstrate that a god exists or did anything. We could find a dead body in the forest, and even if we eliminated literally every possible cause of death, that doesn't mean we're rational in believing magical pixies did it.

The first-cause argument consists of numerous premises that should be rejected, since they haven't been demonstrated to be true. Even if we assumed its premises were true, the conclusion that a god exists doesn't necessarily follow the argument's premises. It's a bad argument.

Anyway does this proposition exclude every other argument in order to be accepted? or at the very least how does it exclude god?

My point was not that any proposition disproves God.

It's all deductive though. How is that a mistake when we're dealing with assumptions and theories. No one knows, we're just figuring things here.

Sure, but the sentiments that "no one knows" and "we're all just figuring things out here" don't make believing in a god or accepting the unsound first-cause argument at all reasonable.

Perhaps if it were true, but we don't know.

And that's the point, isn't it? If we don't know, then nobody is in any position to accept any of the premises commonly found in the first-cause arguments.

I still don't see the logic behind the formation of anything out of nothing.

As I said earlier, you're making the mistake of applying laws of time and causality to the formation of those laws.

Is that now a reason to think something might be eternal?

It might be the universe is eternal. It might be the universe isn't eternal, but it doesn't have a cause.

Actually, correct me if I'm wrong but it seems as if you are considering the possibility of the universe being eternal.

The universe might be eternal without a beginning while the local presentation of the universe seems to have a beginning. I have no idea.

I mean, otherwise you would have said something like "the universe being eternal has not been demonstrated, there's no sound evidence, it's irrational to think of its possibility, etc...".

The universe being eternal has not been demonstrated to be true. I don't even know if it's physically possible.

the point is that its conclusion can't be a sound one, sure, which doesn't necessarily mean it's illogical.

It 100% means it's illogical. The word literally means "to lack sound reasoning."

They may be uncertain due to -for instance- a lack of evidence but at the same time can't be disproven.

Something doesn't become logical or rational just because it hasn't been disproven.

I'm not even defending the first cause argument

That's most of what you've been doing up until this point. I'm glad you've changed your mind.

it's just that I haven't seen it disproven with evidence, reason being how bold it is.

We don't accept claims as true or likely true just because they haven't been disproven. If that's what we did, you would have to be believe all sorts of untrue and contradictory things.

It wouldn't be me saying "I don't think anything about our origin / my mind is completely blank on the subject until evidence comes out", etc... Like I said, I like to philosophize and this is like the biggest mystery there is, nothing less. I have some level of skepticism, but I keep it under control; I like to consider all sorts of things just to "experiment" what's behind and then come back to reflect on it better.

It's fine to think about things, considering claims, and ask questions, but skepticism means rejecting claims that haven't met their burden of proof.

On some subjects maybe that first statement is true from a certain point of view

The Bible is repeatedly clear that it should be believed blindly. It wholeheartedly rejects and even condemns skepticism.

but generally it does give quite a lot of explanation and examples.

Explanation of what? Examples of what? But, most importantly, does it include evidence for why anything in the Bible should be believed or taken seriously?

Now, it's clear that it does not explain things like the 'beginning', for instance, other than by allegories and metaphors.

Many would argue that what the Bible says is literally true.

I don't necessarily see slavery as a bad thing within its context

Then you are a terrible and deplorable person.

but in fact -and I quote you- "it has been used to opress and marginalize" (all kind of people) as well as a kitchen knife has been used to kill innocent ones.

The kitchen knife doesn't prescribe or command immoral actions. In fact, it doesn't say or prescribe anything. The knife is amoral, but the Bible is immoral. There's a big difference, and your analogy here is incredibly inapplicable.

By the way, what are those basic immoralities that it doesn't condemn?

Slavery, for starters.

Humanistic? No, in fact that sounds like todays morals. Bible morals are God-focused.

I completely 100% agree with you, but there's no evidence that a god exists, and even if there were, it wouldn't justify anti-humanistic behaviors.

What?

You were apparently arguing that seemingly organized things must be caused by intelligent minds, but that hasn't been demonstrated to be true, and there's apparently plenty of evidence disproving it.

 

[Lacius]

You mean we should based our morals on a consensus or something? Who would finally have the authority to establish them?

Once we define what it means for something to be moral, then we can discern objectively right or wrong answers about whether or not something is moral. Consensus and authority have nothing to do with it. Morality based on a consensus and/or authority is purely subjective.

If we consider morality to be that which is conducive to well being, for example, then we can say objectively whether or not a particular action is conducive to well being.

 

[Randall_Adams]

... I believe there's a God / Superior Being who created the world ...

To be fair, your belief in any god/superior being/soul/whatever else have you, is just as illogical. Something either is, or isn't logical, not both. If you think something is both, you just aren't breaking down the thought into it's smaller parts and recognizing those parts as logical or not.

And to go further, the fact that you illogically believe in a god-like-figure-thing, but can't understand how others could believe in illogical things, I think, shows a lack of applied critical thinking to your thoughts/beliefs. People who don't believe in any mumbojumbo feel the same way about your beliefs as you do your families'.

P.S.
You should probably watch a lot of The Athiest Experience videos on youtube, and then probably give them a call. Or if you are turned off by those videos, if you don't vibe with them, they have other programs with different hosts that tackle the same things but in quote unquote less harsh ways.

 

[smf]

That sucks then. It doesn't mean making a weather prediction, without any evidence, is rational.

Kirk : Mr. Spock, have you accounted for the variable mass of whales and water in your time re-entry program?

Spock : Mr. Scott cannot give me exact figures, Admiral, so... I will make a guess.

Kirk : A guess? You, Spock? That's extraordinary.


Do you have evidence

Yes. Use evidence.
No. Guess

See that is logic right there.

 

[Lacius]

Kirk : Mr. Spock, have you accounted for the variable mass of whales and water in your time re-entry program?

Spock : Mr. Scott cannot give me exact figures, Admiral, so... I will make a guess.

Kirk : A guess? You, Spock? That's extraordinary.


Do you have evidence

Yes. Use evidence.
No. Guess

See that is logic right there.

That's a very poor analogy for a couple of reasons, and I sincerely expected better from you. I do appreciate the Star Trek reference though.

1. Scotty wasn't without evidence. He was without exact figures. His guess was still evidence-based, and he did the best he could with what he had. It isn't like he didn't have at least a general knowledge of the mass of water and whales. (One thing that always bugged me is he probably should have just been able to look at the transporter logs and found the approximate mass of the water/whales, but we can just blame that on shitty Klingon technology).
2. Scotty making a guess in a time of desperation is not necessarily the same thing as accepting a claim as true or even likely true. In this specific scenario from the One with the Whales, I think Scotty did accept his guess as at least "likely true," but that takes us back to the guess being evidence-based.

Accepting a claim as true or likely true when you have no evidence for it is irrational and illogical. If I were to throw a dart at a dartboard with a calendar on it, and say whatever day it landed on that I sincerely believed it was going to rain, that's irrational.

 

[smf]

Accepting a claim as true or likely true when you have no evidence for it is irrational and illogical. If I were to throw a dart at a dartboard with a calendar on it, and say whatever day it landed on that I sincerely believed it was going to rain, that's irrational.

You have zero evidence ever what the weather will be tomorrow, you only have predictions. Those predictions can only ever be based on past events, but that is not evidence of what will happen. Without those predictions, we would not be able to make plans. Therefore it's rational to do the best with what you have.

People use their experience all the time to make decisions of what they think is true. That is human nature, if we didn't do that then we wouldn't do anything. The experience might be flawed for various reasons and it causes problems of course.

I never made a crazy claim about throwing a dart at a board, if you are going to try to win arguments with that kind of tactic then it is no longer rational for me to continue.

 

[Lacius]

You have zero evidence ever what the weather will be tomorrow, you only have predictions. Those predictions can only ever be based on past events, that is not evidence of what will happen. Without those predictions, we would not be able to make plans. Therefore it's rational to do the best with what you have.

Weather forecasts are, in fact, based on science and evidence.

I never made a crazy claim about throwing a dart at a board, if you are going to try to win arguments with that kind of tactic then it is no longer rational for me to continue.

My point was that accepting claims without evidence is irrational. Making evidence-based predictions about the weather is rational as long as they're not misunderstood to be anything else. My point was also that you seem to be mistaking actual science like meteorology with something like the dartboard analogy, because you appear to be arguing that the former is like the latter.

If you're going to misrepresent my arguments or tactics when it gets hard for you to respond, then you are probably correct that it's no longer rational for you to continue.

 

[Randall_Adams]

Once we define what it means for something to be moral,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if we're defining what moral means, wouldn't that make it subjective? What we'd then define as moral would be subjective to our opinions when defining such a thing.

Also, evidence =/= proof.