Scrivener vs Dillahunty: Is humanism stealing from Christianity?

The Big Conversation Season 2:

The Big Conversation Season 1:

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[Step_]

Confucius was one of the first people we know of to speak about the golden rule; treat others the way you want to be treated. And the Buddha spoke about all of these same humanistic concepts, including universal human dignity, which would do away with India's caste system. Zoroastrianism, possibly the first monotheistic religion, was all about good deeds, good words, and good thoughts in regards to your fellow man. All of this was long before Jesus ever arrived. What is Scrivener talking about? These concepts aren't uniquely Christian or Judeo Christian at all.

[cole]

The problem Dillahunty didn’t get pressed on was what will ground the assumption of universal human rights and these other corresponding universal truths? He was hacking at his own tree when he said that everyone in the stream of the abrahamic religion just came up with it themselves. And then he says flat out he’s just picking the best ideas… but by what standard? He really is the Nietzhcian Superman just arbitrarily selecting his morality based on preference. Yes, using great amounts of reason but what is the primal girder of that morality? It isn’t anything objective, otherwise he’d happily reference it! And for that, we may as well change the term we use for morality to personality. It has no extension of meaning beyond the individual. We’re all left to agree on a set of assumptions about the world to build our morality.

And if he as Nietzche did confesses that all ethics for the atheist are artbitrarily preferred — this is why the moral argument is one of those convincing pieces in the cumulative case for theism being reasonable

[CryTanelorn]

Dillahunty was cornered a number of times in this discussion

[shareenear]

Hammurabi 16-19: "If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at the public proclamation of the major domus, the master of the house shall be put to death. If any one find runaway male or female slaves in the open country and bring them to their masters, the master of the slaves shall pay him two shekels of silver. If the slave will not give the name of the master, the finder shall bring him to the palace; a further investigation must follow, and the slave shall be returned to his master. If he hold the slaves in his house, and they are caught there, he shall be put to death."

Deuteronomy 23 15-16: "If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master. Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose. Do not oppress them."

I dare you to compare the Bible to the Hammurabi's code one more time.

[gebarowskibrikanovic]

Matt was left puzzled each time Glen opened his mouth and Trying to look around for words to fill in the gaps didn’t help much.

[Mark]

Hinduism also says to love your enemies

[colinmatts]

If God is real, and Jesus was his son and they both chose Paul to reveal "the truth" to, they failed miserably. If they couldn't even convince Paul that slavery was inherently wrong then their whole mission was a waste of time. Saying, in one breath, "we are all equal in Christ" and "slaves, obey your masters" in the next, is either rank hypocrisy, or, a very badly conveyed message. Paul did preach that Jesus was returning soon. So much so, that when Christians in early churches died, the survivors wrote to Paul wanting to know why their brothers and sisters had perished before the second coming. As for hell. You have to demonstrate that such a place exists first, before you go telling us that its "gates are locked from the inside". To suggest that we send ourselves there is pernicious. I have never killed anyone, raped anyone or stolen from anyone. Why should I deserve eternal punishment? Because I chose not to worship a God who was so weak and bad at communicating that he couldn't do any better than get a few bronze aged scribes to write contradictory and confusing accounts of what he wanted. If he really wants to save us all from Hell, he has a world wide communications network to utilize today. But he still prefers to use crack pot apologists and creationist freaks

[ritawing]

Really inexcusable that Scrivener does not know what "survival of the fittest" means. For shame.

[manic]

It’s okay to cherry pick the Bible as long as you call yourself a secular humanist and not a christian.

[VolvoGonzo]

Well thank you Matt for giving the game away right at the beginning. Is Christianity and human secularism are both derivative, then it points to a single unifying belief in the beginning which is much more in line with the theistic approach

[He.knows.nothing]

Cultural. Evolution. &. Memetics.

New cultures emerge out of preexisting cultures unless they are injected through things like proceletizing, migration, and conquest. Secular humanism is emergent from Christianity which was established through migration, proceletizing and conquest. Christianity was emergent from a mix of hellenization and Jewish culture and Judaism was loosely emergent (1000+ years of development I'm not going to trace here) from preexisting Canaanite culture.

To make the argument that secular humanism is stealing from Christianity is to allow for the same argument as Christianity stole from Canaanite culture. It's a false perspective that isn't supported by anthropological theories on sociocultural fluidity.

It should also be noted that most secular humanists do not denounce that our cultural values stemmed from judeo-christian influencers, but many of them will claim that judeo-christian values are fundementally limited in a way that secular humanism is not. I am with the latter.

[brudno]

Who created the talking snake, and what the hell did the creator expect would happen? Was the creator surprised that Eve ate the apple? If so, god doesn't know everything. If not, then the snake and Eve eating the apple was all god's doing.

[Magnulus]

If it's widening the circle of compassion to the voiceless and the marginalized, any number of religions have Christianity potentially bested. Christians often don't consider the non-human to be deserving of compassion or moral consideration, for instance, as compared to other religions like Buddhism or animistic religions like Shinto.

[ericb]

5:10. Scrivener goes on, " (if) You get rid of the god of Christianity and you must get rid of the ethics of Christianity." Says who? Nietzsche? So what?
Without god, "we" can do whatever we want to do. Obviously, that realization is dangerous and terrifying, but if we find value in the ethics of Christianity, as many do, including atheists, than we we can continue to look to them for guidance at our convenience.

Our father's house has been a place of comfort and security, and for that we are eternally grateful. But all children grow up and leave the house, and when they do, they take what they have learned and create their own destiny. Our father raised us well, and we can behave and make him proud even without his attention.

[cnault]

"Is humanism stealing from Christianity?"


Are humanists claiming a dead person was resurrected?

[demitrac.]

Believe in me or burn in hell for eternity. Now thats compassion at its highest

[STONE]

All journeys are different, for repetition is the same, then the whole purpose would be in vain.

[a.t.]

Dillahunty was surprisingly weak in this debate. I usually think he takes it, but not this time. Im referring to the full debate, not these clips.

[biggregg]

On the latest Glenn/Matt clip

JB, If you haven't banned me, I'll need to know why two of my comments were deleted after I saw them posted on the specifically the second since it was 100% clean and on topic?

[oldrusty]

"And Judaism." Matt won right there, and he didn't really have to go on after that.