CreateDebate


Catninja's Waterfall RSS

This personal waterfall shows you all of Catninja's arguments, looking across every debate.
1 point

I think a better question for debate would be: "Is NowASaint afraid of atheists?"

After all, you wouldn't expend this much time and effort trying to bring atheism down at every opportunity, if you were secure in your own beliefs. The fact you seem to hate atheism implies you're afraid they might influence you and change your mind.

Either way, you're obviously a "real" Christian whereas I never was, so this is clearly the way Christ would have acted.

"You're stupid, you're going to hell, now follow me!"

Oh wait...

1 point

It benefits the pre-modern society as its teachings encourage people to accept the status quo "because it's how God intended".

In a world with low life expectancy, it provides a comfort blanket for those who expect to die young.

However, it's not so beneficial when faced with the social and technological progress of the modern world, as it is often a conservative force that doesn't want to lose its power over people.

3 points

I mean, so does the constant pathological desire to spread one's views by creating a hundred new debates every day with the same topics and buzzwords, and not replying to opposing points. It doesn't mean it's a mental disorder.

Onto the actual topic, I did respond to you when you posted this in a debate earlier -- as I have done the last few times you've taken a debate argument into a new debate -- but like the other times, I'm still awaiting a reply.

1 point

There are three main "brands" of Islam: Sunni, Shia and Sufism. Sunni Islam has a small branch called Salafi, which is responsible for a disproportionate amount of radicalisation, and has also killed a lot of mainstream Sunnis.

Sufism is generally quite peaceful.

Shia is seen as being relatively peaceful and the literature contains a lot less violence and more guidance on how to resist oppression in an ethical way. This is because the Shia school faced less political oppression. Shia Muslims have also not given up itjihad (I assume you know what this means, since you know about Islam).

Sunni Islam is a larger group (and I will impress upon you that like all religious groups, it is composed of individuals who do not all think as a collective). However, it has been influenced more by Wahabism (I assume you also know what this means?) which has resulted in schisms, meaning radical groups like Salafi exist.

The problem is that the media and many politicians, who don't know any better, lump all types of Islam together, which is a bit like lumping Catholics and Protestants together and blaming all followers of Christianity for something like the Magdalene Laundries.

1 point

Just checking, are you referring to me (as you disputed me)?

1 point

Why should we believe Paul over any 21st century preacher who claims to know things that weren't previously mentioned in the Bible?

1 point

I'm not sure how humanity can justify making other living things suffer for the sake of its own vanity.

I can see why testing pharmaceuticals on animals may be justified as animals like mice are argued to have less of a capacity for suffering. But for the sake of beauty and skincare, we should either test on artificial skin grown in the lab, or get people to volunteer to test it.

1 point

I seem to recall seeing something from Fox News where the (male) newsreader descended into huge, globbing fake tears because of some news story where someone wasn't being a proper patriot, or something. "I'm sorry... I just LOVE THIS COUNTRY SO MUCH... HOW COULD PEOPLE DO THIS?"

Not only unprofessional, but incredibly manipulative.

After the Manchester attack I was curious to see how the American news might sensationalise it so I went on Fox News. I immediately became suspicious... all the "advisors" they had on the air were unusually attractive, immaculate-looking young women who looked like they were fresh out of college. These "advisors" weren't asked any questions; the male newsreader sat on the sofa between them and monopolised the discussion, while draping himself around them. There was another advisor, an older woman via video link, who was being pressed for a "woman's" view on the tragedy like she had some magical insight because of her chromosomes.

I would have laughed, had I not realised this was the sort of everyday viewing the right-wing consumed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWuE3KSgnOw

The video link is an example of Fox News being a clown network.

I've never been so thankful for the BBC and Sky News. The level of professionalism on a lot of British TV news stations seems to be much higher.

1 point

If we were able to solve all real problems on Earth (though I would argue that money would still need to be spent in order to maintain the solutions to these problems), I'd say it'd be worth it to investigate aliens.

However, I think alien investigation would probably be more likely to yield results if we were to send out probes in our own Solar System to explore potential hotbeds for life, like the moon Ganymede which contains ice, or if we were to investigate comets like the Rosetta probe did.

If we are to discover alien life is possible, we are much more likely to be successful if we start small. If we discover bacteria on another moon or planet, that's the point where we've established life exists elsewhere, and we could go back to beaming radio messages.

catninja(249) Clarified
1 point

No, I don't think you have to know or believe you're an oppressor to be one.

Obviously it's much clearer-cut if you know you're squashing certain people down, but you can be unaware of what you're doing and still be squashing those people down.

For example, you could be a man in the 19th century who genuinely believes women do not have the logical capabilities to make a sensible choice, and is worried that to allow them the vote would be to doom the country. This may be due to Victorian ideas or the kind of "science" that being peddled about by phrenologists etc. at that time.

You could have been taught in school that Jews are a threat to the Aryan race and if you don't have any reason to question it then you'll believe it just as surely as you would if you'd been taught the earth was flat.

I acknowledge it also paints the human race in a bad light to see everyone as either an oppressor or a victim. So while we may play the role of one or the other at times, our power shifts through our lives. So a child is "oppressed" in that they have less power than the adults in charge, but they can still take the role of a playground bully. A low-end office worker may have less power than his boss, but he can still go home and beat his wife. His wife may hold another sort of power (e.g. financial or social) over him, and so it goes on...

Oppression is not always "bad" (for example, letting pets or young children do whatever they like is probably not a good idea).

For the most part it's power dynamics and I also don't agree with the notion that all white people (or men, or straight people, or able-bodied people) are oppressors and all black people (or women, or gay / queer people, or disabled people) are victims. Some groups may or may not have certain advantages or generally hold more power in society, but it's too complex to try and draw generalisations.

2 points

I'll take this side to play devil's advocate.

"Being the oppressor" is subjective. You could argue that you are the oppressor if you are directly allowing oppression to take place. For example, a man in the late 19th century using physical force to keep his wife in the kitchen and out of the polling station, or a white person in 20th century America forcing a black person to the back of the bus.

There is also the argument that if you are complicit in oppression, or if you are allowing yourself to benefit from the oppression without doing anything to stop it, then you're part of the oppressing group.

Examples include:

The daughter of a slave owner who is in full knowledge of what her father is doing, but chooses to ignore it because she has a very comfortable and wealthy life. She uses dehumanising slurs to refer to the slaves and enjoys watching them get punished, though she doesn't oversee or punish them herself.

A youngster in 1930s Germany who believes the Jews to be evil. When he goes out with his parents, he sees their behaviour towards them and doesn't stop it or even consider that it is wrong. He and his school friends talk about what they want to do to Jews "to help save Germany" but never carry out their fantasies.

A young woman in modern day Russia has three older brothers whom she knows routinely beat up gay men coming out of underground haunts in central Moscow. She doesn't particularly agree with what they're doing, but she doesn't do anything to try and stop them.

We could expand that to say that two centuries ago, a specific class of people (white slave owners and their families in the Deep South) were the oppressors. So yes, classes of people can be oppressors.

However, expanding this to an entire skin colour, gender or sexual orientation is very dangerous as it implies that huge groups of diverse people who don't hold a central shared viewpoint all think exactly the same way.

3 points

I don't think they should be completely logical but logic is far more important to a debate than emotion.

When the debate is on a more objective topic (for example, arguing about whether something is real), logic is especially important because the side with the most logical reasoning is more likely to be the one that's correct.

When it's something more subjective, such as whether something is moral, emotional reasoning has more of a role to play but should not be used as a crutch.

Emotion tends to be what people resort to when they have no logic to back their arguments up. As someone who prefers to stay calm and logical, it irks me if someone's argument is nothing but emotion, as that's when the fallacies usually start.

3 points

This isn't an answer to the question.

The question focuses on a god's influence over human life. Not the universe.

Your answer could equally well be given by a deist, who does not believe in a god who intervenes in human affairs, but who believes a conscious entity of some description brought the universe into being.

It is also possible that something can be created from your "magic nothing": http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-12/making-something-nothing-theory-says-matter-can-be-conjured-vacuum

https://phys.org/news/2010-12-theoretical-physics-breakthrough-antimatter-vacuum.html

2 points

I'm not particularly opinionated on this matter, but the No side needs some love.

SETI costs $2.5 million a year. In the grand scheme of things, and considering how much countries like the USA spend on other things, that really isn't very much.

Even if radio waves travel at the speed of light, our nearest star (excluding the Sun) is just over 4 light years away. For a contact to be successful, there are a lot of things that would need to happen:

1. The region of the universe where the radio waves are going must contain at least one star with a planetary system.

2. At least one planet in that star's planetary system must be capable of sustaining life.

3. The life-sustaining planet must have life on it.

4. That life must be reasonably evolved (not bacteria).

5. That life must be of human-level or above intelligence. For example, dinosaurs are complex life forms, and the likelihood of finding something else so complex close by is very low, but they would not be of sufficient intelligence to be able to respond.

6. That life must have the technology to detect the transmissions from Earth. Don't forget that before the 20th century, we would not have been able to detect the transmissions. So we are assuming the life is in the equivalent of our 20th century or later.

7. The transmissions must come through properly.

8. That life has to recognise the transmissions as being extra-terrestrial.

9. That life must have the technology and willingness to respond to us.

10. Back on Earth, assuming the SETI project has not been abandoned or humans have gone extinct, we have to still have the ability to respond to the signal.

11. Then what?

We would not be able to visit the aliens, learning things from them would be very difficult given the length of time transmissions take, and there is the chance the life would be hostile.

As can be seen the probability of getting a response in a nearby system is so absurdly low it begs the question of why we don't put the money to better use.

Spend it on better telescopes, better instruments, more scientists. Or stop looking out to the stars and focus on improving life for people on Earth -- the life that we know really exists.

1 point

Pal, you're an atheist.

You're an atheist for every single god that exists or has ever existed, with the exception of the Jewish one. You don't believe in Thor, Ra, Woden, Guanyin, Susanoo, Kukulcan or Vishnu. I just went one god further than you.

If you'd been raised in a different culture or at a different period of history you'd believe in a different god and think the Christians were the heretics.

If your only critique of agnosticism -- not being sure if God exists, or not being particularly fussed because it is not impacting your life -- is that it's "stupid" then I think you need to reexamine your own beliefs.

catninja(249) Clarified
1 point

You're a parrot

Funny you call me a parrot when you have two identical responses you rattle off in every debate no matter the subject:

"God did this, atheists are fools for not seeing it!"

"Repent you sinner for you will be cast into the lake of fire and burn in hell for all eternity."

1 point

Dermot... he thinks I'm Irish because my profile says "United Kingdom"... he must not have done too well in his world history exam!

When my Irish friend was complaining about not having done as well in his Leaving Certificate exams as he'd wanted, I should have reassured him that they don't actually exist...

This is priceless.

1 point

I'm so impressed that the right-wing Daily Fail reported that story. Normally they don't report stories that go against their agenda, or if they do they distort the facts until the story becomes a half-truth.

1 point

Not really. The majority of environmentalists want to live a relatively nice lifestyle, but the thing that sets them apart is that they try and avoid waste and an excessive carbon footprint.

It would be hypocritical if you were taking a lot of unnecessary hot showers or driving places you could realistically walk.

But a lot of environmentalists are happy to simply try and reduce their harm to the environment (e.g. by making sure they recycle as much as possible, not leaving lights on in rooms that aren't being used, cycling instead of driving and so on).

2 points

You completely missed the fact the original post was mocking the ancients for believing gods came from water. The idea that humans were made out of earth is really not that different.

You are going to act that stupid and then expect me to read your twisted renderings of my statements and your stupid responses?

I don't know, but you seem to expect me to, so may as well extend the courtesy.

2 points

Atheism is soooo stupid.

I'm not an atheist but I still disagree. Disbelieving in a god isn't stupid.

You just can't face reality, can you?

Most atheists would argue that the reality we can see is the one that exists. As for not being able to face reality, atheists aren't the ones with the afterlife comfort blanket. When you're dead you're dead and that's it. It might be scary, but it's better than the idea that you can go to heaven as long as you do x, y and z.

You hope to be exonerated in death and exempt from Hell, don't you?

I don't want to go to any afterlife, thank you. Being forced to continue to exist after one's natural life has ended sounds like torture no matter how pleasant it is. And it's not about being "exonerated" because if I die and there's no afterlife, there's nobody to gloat to. I wouldn't even know I was "exonerated".

You think you are better, stronger, and smarter than God, don't you?

Atheists don't believe there is a God, so there's no competition.

If there actually was an all-powerful God then God would win.

God says you are a fool and I have to agree with God.

Only your version of God. The thousands of other gods which have existed across the millennia -- which, by the way, have no more or less evidence than the one that's currently in favour -- have had little to say on the topic.

1 point

They are if they are implemented unfairly.

For instance, dress codes at work for a woman might involve high heels and make-up. High heels are extremely uncomfortable and can lead to foot deformities (not to mention some women cannot physically wear them due to disabilities etc.). Make-up has been linked to skin cancer, women may not want to wear it and the only reason why you would wear it is to look pretty. It has no other function.

The dress code I mentioned would be sexist assuming the only requirement for men is a suit and some smart shoes.

My sixth form had a dress code but it was not rigorously followed. For example, we were told that our skin couldn't touch our seat when we were sitting down, or it meant our clothes were too short. Guys often broke this rule with their shorts, but it was the girls that were called out on it much more often (even if they were wearing shorts and not a skirt).

There was one girl, of about 17 years old, who was told her skirt was "distracting" an adult male teacher.

There was another girl who was told her tights were "giving the wrong impression" when she was sitting right next to another girl whose tights were of the same denier (thickness). The only difference was that one was a model student and the other girl was not.

Then again, the dress code was still fairly lenient in most situations. It was better than having to wear a uniform, especially considering we were in sixth form (ages 16-18 and an optional two years of study, for those who aren't familiar with the UK system).

1 point

Yes, we do need to eat meat, at least in nature. Meat contains the proteins we need to sustain our energy. Being exclusively vegetarian is a modern-day choice as we have much greater access to protein supplements, mycoproteins and beans and lentils that may not grow in our part of the world.

Humans are by nature omnivorous; they derive certain nutrients from plants, while things like proteins come from other animals.

Onto the question of is it ethical.

I don't think it's ethical to eat meat that's been reared in inhumane conditions, such as chickens that have been kept in cages, birds that have been force-fed (foie gras) or calves that have been locked away in sheds and deprived of maternal contact (veal).

Free range animals and wild animals that have been hunted are more ethical as they have had a better quality of life.

However, those of us who eat a lot of meat should also consider the destructive force that cattle rearing etc. has on the environment, e.g. deforestation to make way for poor quality pasture.


2 of 11 Pages: << Prev Next >>

Results Per Page: [12] [24] [48] [96]