>"It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. You are, of course, free to interpret the Bible differently—though isn't it amazing that you have succeeded in discerning the true teachings of Christianity, while the most influential thinkers in the history of your faith failed?"
You know what? Fuck Sam Harris, the Church Fathers, based on their own understanding of things at the time, were right.
To them, heresy was EXTREMELY dangerous, because as far as they knew you had to believe exactly the right things to get to Heaven. If you didn't, when you died you might go to Purgatory, but it was much more likely that you would go to Hell, and suffer eternally in a void deprived of God's presence. Hell was the worst possible fate, and believing heresy was a sure-fire way to go there.
So under that set of circumstances, with that set of beliefs, why wouldn't you deal with heretics extremely harshly? They're the equivalent of poisoners, of mass murderers. The damage they can do, the eternal suffering their teachings can visit on innocent souls, is too great for them to be allowed to persist. Sure, you have to give them a chance to recant, but if they won't better to kill one soul than condemn thousands to Hellfire through inaction.
>religion is evil because religious people justified torture of minorities with religion
>scientism isn't evil even though it managed to justify worldwide persecution of people who didn't want vaccinations for decades and still going
"It's not fascism when WE do it"
>>510432
>To them, heresy was EXTREMELY dangerous, because as far as they knew you had to believe exactly the right things to get to Heaven.
>They're the equivalent of poisoners, of mass murderers. The damage they can do, the eternal suffering their teachings can visit on innocent souls, is too great for them to be allowed to persist.
So what has changed between then and now?
The most important educational tool for Christians is a dictionary. They should look if the word “Morality” and then look up the word “Obedience”. They are not only spelled differently, they even have different definitions.
In a system based in obedience, the only possible act of morality is disobedience.
>>510451
the standard has changed, now the new heresy is NOT being inclusive enough
>>510451
An excellent question.
Related question: you're not a heretic, are you?
>>510432
Heresy wasn't about spreading bullshit more than personal beliefs. You didn't have to believe exactly the right thing to get into heaven (or else infants couldn't get in). But propagating heresy was really bad.
>>510432
>based on their own understanding of things at the time
This can be said about any ideology at any point in time in history.
If you were a fanatical die-hard National Socialist in 1940, it would've probably seemed pretty rational for you to oppress and murder Jews and other undesirables too, but that doesn't make it right.
>>510539
It also doesn't make it morally wrong from their perspective, which is all that matters in a world where God doesn't exist, because Sam Harris is a wrong faggot and you can't have objective morality without an all powerful moral arbiter.
>>510552
No you can't have objective "morality" but you can have ethics which is based on dialectical reasoning, and that would be objective.
Read a book. Morality is for people who can't think for themselves.
Sam harris is a faggot and his gay ass book 'the moral landscape' is a piece of trash. Dude is a pop science meme.
>>510568
most contemporary ethics are just riffs on the same ol' utilitarianism. How do you make THAT objective?
>>510404
Just want to point out that this guys is pretty okay with killing innocent people so long as "terrorists" also die
>>510581
Even utilitarianism is vastly superior to saying something is wrong because a fucking book says so.
>>510432
>To them, heresy was EXTREMELY dangerous, because as far as they knew you had to believe exactly the right things to get to Heaven.
Woah, that's not even the biggest reason why Heresy was extremely dangerous.
The Church fullfilled in the middle ages, and the early modern era, many of the functions that the state has assumed since then.
We are living in the era that has seen the most violence over ideological control of these functions.
The question for Sam Harris is, does he claim impartiality in these conflicts, or does he feel that the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, etc. is justified in the modern context?
>>510594
Utilitarianism, in practice, amounts to saying something is wrong because a fucking book says so.
>>510584
That's not true.
>>510609
Okay, I'll correct myself.
Utilitarianism is vastly superior to morality from a book that was written in the Bronze Age.
>>510616
>"Eating animals is wrong but fucking them isnt" is superior to "Thou shall not steal, Honor thy father, etc."
Also, Divine command theory is a relatively new approach to morality in Christianity and Judaism. Most theologians didnt see them that way
>>510609
There is a difference between "don't do X because this book says so" and "don't do X for reasons YZ" that happens to be transmitted through the fork of a book.
>>510650
But the reasons don't matter, because we have no objective measurement apparatus for utilitarainism anyway.
So yes, we're back to 'don't do X because this book says so.'
>>510670
I could've used this exact argument about the Bible m8, just so you know.
>>510404
It's funny because the so called 'rationalists' (Hitchens, Harris, Hawkins et al.) are just as regressive as the religious 'zealots' they make careers out of criticizing.
Harris is a neocon goon attempting to disguise himself as a credible thinker.
>>510616
No part of the Bible as we have it today is from before the Iron Age, senpai
>>510679
So?
>>510702
>So?
You can't argue that there is no "objective measurement apparatus" for other ethical systems when you don't have any yourself.
You can only claim that the Bible is the word of god, and that the moral laws are objective. There is no reason why anyone should accept your claim, because you have no other argument than faith that it is true.
>>510726
>for other ethical systems when you don't have any yourself.
not him, but who says there isnt one? all you have to do is get rid of the cancers of the philosophy of the moderns and you have something to work on
>>510726
>You can't argue that there is no "objective measurement apparatus" for other ethical systems when you don't have any yourself
Why the fuck not?
>>510770
>Why the fuck not?
Well, of course, you can, but if you're going to retort with "because muh bible's morality is superior to your reasoning ethics because in it muh god says so" we have nothing to discuss.
>>510775
>People can only thing Sam Harris is fucking retarded because muh bible.
How's it feel that by your own admission, at best case scenario, you are exactly the same as a christfag?
>ITT Christians justifying torture and burning
>>510800
>Harris unironically criticizing torture in the middle ages when he supports torture
>>510568
>Read a book. Morality is for people who can't think for themselves.
says the believer in dialectics, objectivity and dialectics to reach objectivity
>>510805
>support
He should use the same christian apologist arguments for it.
>>510812
>I never said that.
Then why did you bring up the bible? Why did you refer to it as 'muh bible'.
>>510829
>Then why did you bring up the bible?
Because I thought I was arguing with a Christian who believes in divine command theory.
>>510841
And why did you think that?
>>510812
>It might not be perfect, but it's certainly better than faith.
You already conceded the point that it's not.
>>510432
So murder (the worse act of hate one could commit) is preferable to spreading heresy?
This is what happens when we let tradition have equality with scripture ladies and gentlemen
>>510847
>You already conceded the point that it's not.
Really? How so?
>>510432
So they *had* to kill people based on a belief which is wholly unverifiable? That's fucking retarded.
>Timmy, stop stabbing little Johnny to death!
>Can't mum. He said my giant pink elephant friend wasn't real, and that's HERESY
>>510853
Did that man rob you of your reading comprehension?
>>510432
You realize that's pretty much the "the only difference between you and the Aztecs is that you don't believe you need to make human sacrifices to keep the gods from bringing us ruin."
>>510989
I wasn't pretending it wasn't. I would expect the Aztecs to defend human sacrifice as vehemently as the Church Fathers defended the occasional killing of heretics, if they believed it was truly necessary.
That's the crux of these things. Christians believe that heresy should be stamped out because they absolutely believe (or should believe) that they're right, and everyone else is wrong. Sure, this seems absurd to us, but only because we have a secular, religiously plural perspective.
Why can't we have sympathy for the Christian perspective on issues like this, when we're required to have sympathy for the perspective of every other religion?
>>511011
You're naive if you think that world leaders genuinely believe in the fabricated justifications for their actions
Do you think Bush genuinely wanted to bring Iraq freedom & democracy and save the world from WMD's?
>>510805
He does not.
>>511022
>You're naive if you think that world leaders genuinely believe in the fabricated justifications for their actions
>uses W. as an example
>>511011
Oh, I don't necessarily disagree with your position. Though I hold simply to the view that a world which tolerates shit like torturing heretics or human sacrifice is a world in which I could potentially wind up being tortured or sacrificed, so I'm going to view such things as wrong and encourage others to do likewise for my benefit.
>>511011
>Why can't we have sympathy for the Christian perspective on issues like this, when we're required to have sympathy for the perspective of every other religion?
What are you talking about? Islam and other religions get shat on just as much here as Christianity
>>511026
Yes, that's right. What's the problem? DO you actually believe the president of the United States was a simpleton who believed in the justification for the invasion of Iraq?
>>511022
> Do you think Bush genuinely wanted to bring Iraq freedom & democracy and save the world from WMD's?
Not the same person, but he told our former prime minister in private that he was on a mission from God. Wasn't Bush a born-again Christian?
>>511059
but it was justified
>>510990
First of all, it's not "my own philosophy".
Secondly, I didn't complain that the Bible is "awful", I complained at this insistence on having a "objective measurement apparatus".
Since an "objective measurement apparatus" for ethics does not exist, it's retarded to use it as an argument against utilitarianism.
>>511059
The invasion of Iraq was part of the "war on terror" which was a plan by the bush administration to stop the source of terror by recreating the middle east in the west's image. In other words yes to the "bring Iraq freedom & democracy" and yes "save the world from WMD's" because that's what U.S. intelligence actually believed saddam had. WMD's didn't "sell the war", pretending that Iraq had something to do with al-Qaeda sold the war.
>The year 2094
>Harris the 2nd is elected the next "Pope of Reason", head of the United Church of Enlightenment
>All religions are illegal, those find practicing religion will be saint to sanitory and efficient education centers in the name of unitiarianism
>All drugs are legal and people are hooked up to machines receiving a feed of 24/7 as pleasure is the only moral good now
>'Science' is now always capitalized and is spoken in a revered voice. In courts people now swear on the Principia de Mathemtica.
>some people interpret the word of God incorrectly
>this means the word of God is wrong
logic fail
>>511090
The point is that everyone believes that their interpretation is the correct one.
>>511097
so the word of God is only true, if everyone interprets it the same?
different interpretations demonstrates the fault of man, not of God
>>511082
>mfw people bother spending time shitposting like this
>>510404
you shifty jew
>>511097
This is why Christ started the Church, so that it could maintain a definitive interpretation of Scripture.
>>511064
>>510434
>scientism
Stopped reading after that. Even spellcheck says its a fake word.
>>510532
>You didn't have to believe exactly the right thing to get into heaven (or else infants couldn't get in).
Heresy is having "false opinions", not the lack of true ones.
>>510432
That sounds pretty barbaric if you ask me.
>>510404
I never liked Noam Chomsky all that much but everytime I remember he virtually destroyed Harris in that debate I can't help but masturbate to him
>>511022
yes. Rumseld and others used religion to get him on their side
>>510434
>scientism
Is this the new meme in Western philosophy academia?
>>515670
You don't 'choose' it, you believe it because it's absolutely true.
Religion's not like picking what to wear in the morning.
>sam harris
Sam Harris just regurgitates arguments that have already been made by more intelligent people, and peddles his moronic ideal of objective morality.
This is a better book than moral landscape if you guys are looking for secular ethics
