Originally Posted by sid

I am now infracting all posts that are not up to par with my debate standards.

Originally Posted by RayA75

But we can perceive more than matter and energy. There are moral truths (not stuff like the commandments, more like "What is the true moral good?")

Originally Posted by William

There is nothing truely good,it's just a subjective term.Everyone percieves it in a way.So,I guess what most people find morally good should be the standard?I disagree with that system too.Another system,what serves best for the whole society,imo that's too idealistic to ever be true.

About relegion,No one can ever be 100 percent sure about anything,you're correct.What bothers me most about relegion is it's egotistic believers that think that they're better than you because of they're belief.

They're just pathetic human beings who are trying to fix their shitty life.

The bible makes a nice story actually,although I have always founded flaws in it,and I don't really agree with most of it.

Originally Posted by RayA75

I'm going to take a step back and describe both parts to this argument.

Materialism assumes that the subjective experiences of matter and thinking is all that exists.

Originally Posted by RayA75

The brain does not create stimuli, it perceives them. It is a sense organ, and is only capable to perceive subjective experiences. Like I said, I do not think only subjective experiences exist, it is just that the brain is not able to think of them because they are not logical or material. Could you name a universal that the brain naturally perceives?

Originally Posted by RayA75

Pragmatic truth is a complicated thing. "What serves best for our society is what is going to be decided as true." That isn't the case, and should never be. Legitimacy of a theory or philosophical ideals depends on the logical soundness of the theory and evidence of such theory.

Originally Posted by RayA75

Sociological implications should never be used to argue for or against a theory or religion.

Originally Posted by RayA75

Please explain, and demonstrate your flaws, I'd like to try and refute them

Originally Posted by Redundant

No, there is a difference between experience, perception and proven facts.
Perception depends on subjective interpretation. Interpretations are subjective to a certain point. Once they are proven and can only be challenged by proving alternative intepretations they are not subjective anymore, they become what we like to call facts or scientific theories.

Right. Well, I just wanted a generalization to base off of. I meant no dishonesty or anything of the sort. I did leave out things such as scientific fact, and I appreciate that you brought it up. But I don't really have anything to say about it.


No, a brain can interpret experiences and is capable of comparing them with various information, which is why we educate ourselves. And there is a thing called logic which we use to analyse and interpret things so that they make sense.
Science is very much based on that logic and whenever we prove an alternative interpretation of something to be correct and therefore disprove a previous interpretation we learned something and benefit from it. That leads to scientific progress and new amazing things like TVs and cars etc.
The existance of technology like that proves that the brain is very much capable of perceiving the true nature of our environment.
I'd say every sane brain that has access to the respective organs required to perceive certain information from the environment can recognize the existance of many physical laws, they are not subjective but universal (as far as we know). If you mean something else, like people are borg etc. then I have to agree, we are individual beings that depend on verbal exchange of informataion.

I was talking less about physics and that laws of, (which I guess would be a universal on some level, but is one that is perceived)

Which is why no scientific theory ever goes without critic.
A good scientist will be perfectly willing to accept when his theory has been proven to be incorrect through various experiments.
For example, they have just proven that the theory of relativity might be incorrect because they have discovered electrons that travel faster than the speed of light (I am a layman so I can't say much about that, feel free to correct me on this one, but my point stands).
I agree. But, the neutrino thing isn't really how the media makes it seem. It was most likely a systematic error within the math. The way the scientists find the speed of the neutrinos is by simple math. They took the distance from point A to point B (which was about 450 miles) and measured how long to took to get from one to the other. The thing is, they used GPS, satellites, to find such measurements. The distance from Point A to the satellite and from it to Point B was miscalculated.
Here is an example that helps prove my point:
Back in 1987, light from a supernova reached Earth, and almost simultaneously, a storm of neutrinos was detected, coming from the same supernova. The galaxy from which the supernova occurred is tens of thousands of light years away.

Making mistakes is essential to find the truth because through mistakes we learn. There is no such thing as a transcendental universal truth.
There are no transcendental universal truths that can be perceived. We cannot possibly perceive transcendental universal truths, simply because they are transcendental. Does that mean there are or are not? It's open for interpretation, like what you said about irrational ideas, because this is one.





You need to define your beliefs more precisely.
I think you are willing to acknowledge that the bible has loads of flaws.

I'll c/p the Nicene and Apostolic Creeds, as the Summa Theologica is much much longer.

Nicene

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We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Apostolic

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I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN.

Circumstances in the bible are much different than they are today. You may ask, "So it's fallible?" Not necessarily. I'll give you an example:
Homosexuality. Many today think that the Bible condemns any gay relationships, and use the following passage from Paul's letter to the Corinthians (!st Cor, 6:9-11)

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a] 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Now, many say that this passage shows that Paul says that gays are to be condemned?
No. Paul speaks about Hedonism, as it was rampant in the 1st century. These people thought that pleasure was the only intrinsic good, so they drank anything with alcohol, ate anything that tasted good, and fucked anything with an orifice.
It didn't occur to Paul that a man and a woman (marriages back then were that of practicality, not necessarily romance) or a man and another man could fall in love, devote themselves to one another, have a family, and raise children.
Now, it is more and more clear that being homosexual is in many cases a genetic trait, so the question being asked now is "How should we ought to treat them?"
Does this mean the doctrine is fallible? No, hedonism is still wrong. No one in the early Church could have foreseen the cultural landscape of today. Numerous parts of the Bible may be outdated like this, but that does not make it infallible.
So, please bring flaws in the Bible to attention, and I will try my best to explain.

Originally Posted by fickarika

Well Jesus wanted us to believe that we cannot percieve him, because he wanted to find out if people will be able to accept and recieve his message equally.
Would you like to be more vague? Why do you think Jesus wanted us to believe that we cannot perceive him? And what are you referring to by that? His man/God nature? That itself is a mystery of faith and cannot be understood. And what do you mean receive his message equally?
What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion?
He came to fulfill the Old Testament's promise of a redeemer. One that will bridge the gap between God and man, made by our pride.
And just because we, believers call atheists blind, doesn't mean they don't percieve his presence.
Atheists reject the theory of God. If God does exist, and is omniscient, then I guess Atheists would still be in his presence, they just don't believe he exists. If this is what you meant, then I guess you are right in some way, but your wording makes zero sense, and this point does not add anything to the argument.
Everytime you help someone, you do it because jesus would have done it too.
Uh. Well, it looks like you are the blind one here. Atheists, Christians, Bhuddists, Hindus, and giant flying spaghetti monster-ists alike do good things and help people because of human morality. Jesus had human morality as well.
in the old testament god calls the religious people whores. Because they believe only due to their fatality.
Cite your source. Where does it say this? In what context? And what do you mean by "because they only believe so only due to their fatality"? In Jesus' time, the Jewish religious leaders were seen by Jesus as bad people because of their hipocracy and materialistic views. They had riches simply because they were priests as seen as important people. They tried the best they can to keep these riches, and had anyone who opposed them killed.
See the problem with religion, is it never gets to the core .
That is a contradiction. Religion as a belief system is supposed to reach your core. We are supposed to apprehend religion with our whole being, not just with our minds.
Here is a quote from an interview with Mortimer Adler:
Caller:"Is religion supposed to teach the nation how we are supposed to live?"
Adler:"No no no no no."
Caller:"Then who are we supposed to follow then?"
Adler:"Religion is concerned, beyond science and philosophy, with either the supernatural or aspects of nature that are beyond scientific discovery. The ultimate point of religion is the salvation of souls. What do you get out of this life? How do you prepare yourself for something better than this life? All the religions of the world are concerned with that somehow. Elevating yourself somehow above the secular, above the humdrum of every day life."
It's just behavior modification, like a long list of chores .
Evangelist cults like the one in this documentary is really mostly behavior modification. They say that if you don't believe in God above everything else, then you go to hell. If you do something bad, you go to hell. If you aren't part of this cult, you go to hell. They don't adhere to any theological ideas. Christianity isn't anything like that. Jesus rarely taught about abstaining from certain behaviors, he talks endlessly about how we ought to treat others, selflessly, with charity, and with respect. I wouldn't call that a behavior modification.
Which means I don't have to hide my failure, I don't have to hide my sin, because of religion. Now back to the point, one thing is vital to mention, well Religion puts you in bondage, while Jesus sets you free.
You never ever ever said the difference between religion and Jesus. The whole time, I had assumed you were talking about Judaism. The base of Judaistic laws are the ten commandments. How is it bondage by saying "Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not steal."? That is simply basic morality. Let me edit your quote a little bit " well morality puts you in bondage". And Jesus doesn't contradict Judaism, he came to fulfill it.
Religion is man searching for God, Christianity is God searching for man.
First of all, what is the difference between Religion and Christianity? Christianity is religion. If you are referring to some other religion, could you actually name it? Christianity is man praising one god with three persons, aspects if you will, one of which shared in our humanity.