R.C.'s comments (member since Nov 16, 2008)

R.C.'s comments from the Debate Religion group.

A Goodreads member named Tonys sent me the following message:


RE: Debate Religion Group

1. dude!? you can express your beliefs and disprove ppl without being an asshole
2. you are being an asshole
3. if you want to join a debate on religion, express relious thoughts, not anti-religious ones
4. i am 15 years old, i shouldnt have to tell an old man like you how to conduct yourself in a public place in which others could see how you act
5. stick to the subject of the debate, the one i read that you posted on was about hell and what it is, you immediately attempted to rudely disprove religion without sticking to the topic (in your first posts, you possibly mentioned hell once)
6. in a public debate, there is no need to personally attack, and verbally abuse someone simply because they hold different beliefs than you do, i am sorry that you are unhappy with your life, being an athiest and all, but dont try to bring others down to your level
7. thats pathetic
thank you for your time...i hope that this has possibly been a somewhat rude awakening for you. so please, all i ask is that you stick to the debate topics, and stop being a complete douche bag :)


Tonys message is a common response I receive when debating religion, that the mere act of religious debate is wrong, only religious affirmation. If one must make objections, they must be made gently, so as not to defend the religious.

Tony also has started a Religion vs. Science group here on Goodreads:


A civilized debate on religion and science, free from the stresses of the classroom and annoying interupptions.

I challenge all those who have sided with science and secular views to come forward and join this group.

I call upon all those who stand for God and for Jesus to hold firm in their beliefs and join this group.


Well, I can't resist a challenge. But, alas Tonys has made the group a private, invitation only group.

Tonys is just an example,and a child put up to this kind of thinking by adults, but here is what I would like to discuss:

1. How strong can a faith be, if it cannot stand up to debate? In contrast, science welcomes debate.

2. How strong can a faith be, if misrepresentations of the truth and known lies are part of the defense? These techniques would gain no traction in science.

3. If you are religious, and agree with Tonys, then how can you characterize your belief as strong?

4. What examples of misrepresentations, lies, fallacies do you commonly hear in debating religion (on both sides). And why do these thing keep getting repeated, if the faith is strong?


Some of my favorites:

-- The Gospels are eyewitness accounts.
-- Science confirms Genesis
-- Evolution means "survival of the fittest"
-- Something cannot come from nothing
-- Atheism means life has no meaning.
-- Morality can only come from God

Any ideas about the 14th Amendment now means?


Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Marriage is a "basic civil right" guaranteed to all Californians, wrote George in the 121-page ruling; "an individual's sexual orientation -- like a person's race or gender -- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights."


Today the California Supreme Court ruled that the barest majority can legally take away basic civil rights.

It affirmed the standing of the civil right of same-sex marriage by leaving those existing marriages in place.

Exploiting a 1913 provision of the California State Constitution, religious groups amended the constitution to include religious law.

Some things to consider:

How is this different from Islamic Law found in Middle Eastern governments?

Increasingly, U.S. Christian churches are moving towards the blessing of same sex marriages. If not all religions agree on this issue, why should non-religious marriages suffer?

Should human behavior that is of no detriment to society be subject to law and popular vote?

I personally expected this decision. The legal defense of Prop 8 was well funded and prepared, the other side was clearly unprepared and lacking competence.

But I am still saddened by the decision, and hope for correction in the near future.

I do think churches own the whole potluck concession. My atheist gatherings are always lacking in "comfort" food.

Makes one want to become a Methodist!

I agree with Stephen, I enjoy science and the arts. I do not enjoy that which pretends to be science and art. There is too much good stuff of quality I still have not gotten to, I have no time to waste on pretense.

There is always a cost to finding comfort from religion. Since the same comfort is available without religion, there cannot never be an overall gain from comfort based in religion.

If my daughter wishes to see her grandmother is Heaven, I have just placed a life long burden of religious behavior upon her. She must now follow certain rules her entire life to join her Grandmother. If these rules require her to discriminate against others, even if she disagrees with the discrimination, she must follow them anyway, or lose her eternal access to her Grandmother.

Or I could tell here that when she dies, she rejoins her Grandmother as recycled matter -- perhaps one day her atoms will mix with those of her Grandmother, as some wonderful new creature.

If I were to say that that there was one religious/philosophical common bridge, it would have to be reciprocity.


Tit for tat seems to be operational philosophy of all communal species, not just humans.

She said, "Yes" to God when most humans would say "no."


I am trying to get my mind around the premise that mere mortals would say "no" to the request of an all-powerful, all-knowing being that kills people for something minor like laughing at a bald man. :)

Wow, you guys have really put a lot of thought into this discussion. I kind of blew it off at the beginning, which I regret, as it is hard to catch up now.


And I do this online because if I make a cognitive error I want to be corrected. I want to get to the truth of things.



The answer is 42.

And speaking of rape, we can probably all agree that rape is wrong, yes?


Except for Christians, who believe that when God impregnated Mary without her consent, and made her husband in holy matrimony a cuckold, then rape is OK.

I think we can all agree on the golden rule, yes? After that, do we really need to agree on anything else?


You mean "the one with the gold, makes the rules"?

But seriously, golden rule seems pretty good, no compromise necessary. And backed up by the Bible:

"And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." Luke 6:31

My gay male friends seem to be interpreting it slightly differently, however.

There is a lot of God sanctioned adultery in the Bible, and and incest (who was Cain's wife anyway?), and so on, so I don't know we can look there for any guidance.

I like Stephen's humanity as a common ground. Remove us from our cultural backgrounds, and we all function pretty much the same.

Here is my compromise on abortion: a solution that does not make a woman a slave to the life of a fetus. I am open to suggestions.

I just noticed -- Jerry treatise on Heaven and Hell generated 111 posts in the Debate Religion group, but only 3 posts from his cross-post to the Faith and Spirituality Group.

For atheists and skeptics, this is all good, clean, fun, for the the believers in the Faith and Spirituality I thought this was dead serious stuff. You would think it would generate tons of comments, since Jerry is way off the map, believer wise.

Go figure!

Go in peace Jerry. When I am in L.A. for meetings, I will suggest ordering lunch from you.

This isn't just one kook out in California making this up


If only.

To be honest, it was just getting interesting, it was sort of like religious pornography, where your imagination is allowed to roam to meet your every desire.

I was hoping for space aliens next. I really was.

lead a donkey to water....or was it a horse? Some people don't want to expand their minds and learn, even when it is coming from the same religion.


When you are chained to your beliefs, you always worry about that weakest link.

Jerry --

I would like to point out...

Arghh, never mind. This is more like a story treatment for Supernatural than any kind of rational discussion.

Oh no, besides Hell, I have to worry about a Lake of Fire too?

Which one has better restaurants?

To the bronze-age primitives who wrote the flood myth, their region was the entire world; perhaps that's they didn't possess the vocabulary to distinguish the two ideas.


Pretty obvious isn't it, that the flood myth writers were not able to address any information outside there local knowledge.


They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.


An inventory of the local fauna, nothing more, with an emphasis on cattle.

The Hebrew lexicon does show the same word, interpreted in context, has to distinguish between many situations, but this really tells us nothing about the extent of Hebrew language at the time. If a thousand years from now, archaeologists discovered an archive of the New York Times, they would be in error to conclude that the limited, 5th grade vocabulary approved by the NYT editors represented the extent of the English language.

I agree, Stephen. We have met any "Debate Religion" obligations we may have had. There are no "ideas" here, only a personal agenda.

We must have something better to talk about.

knowing that the main purpose of the flood was to destroy the offspring of the fallen angels and to perserve the last 8 people of the Adamic bloodline only required local destruction.


Jerry --

A new twist, one I have not seen before. Can you explain your theory on this, or do I have to buy the book (fair enough if I do, you put a lot of work in it, so you deserve recompense).