Entry 497, on 2007-03-19 at 16:06:38 (Rating 4, Comments)
In the past few days I have been involved in some quite intense debates on two fronts. First, as a result of my previous blog entry: "He Did It", and second regarding various blog entries stretching back years and all related to my views on religion.
The "He Did It" entry has been the most interesting. I found the person I was debating with had quite a valid point, and I found myself agreeing with him more as the debate progressed. But in the end I couldn't totally agree because we were looking at the subject (the tactics used to interrogate US war on terrorism prisoners) from different perspectives.
The person I was debating with was an American, and supported the right to use whatever tactics were necessary to get the information needed. He said the US government's primary responsibility was to protect Americans, and if they needed to torture a few terrorists in the process, well that was war.
I can actually see his point, but his perspective is very local. I look at the debate from the outside (although I'm naturally on the American side, I also despise the current American administration and try to be unbiased) and see a bigger picture. If the protection of Americans was the only aim then I think he was right, but if improving the stability of the world's fragile political order and maintaining a moral position is taken into account, then I think he is wrong.
The second debate gave me a bit less to think about. The Christians who have been attacking my blog entries which criticised their church have been far less persuasive. The problem for them is that making a weak argument in favour of their beliefs is worse than making no argument at all.
Not only have their arguments been weak, but it has encouraged me to research various Christian issues more deeply myself. For example I am currently looking at the origin of the Bible, especially the New Testament. I always knew that the origin of the Bible threw a lot of doubt on its veracity, but after looking at the evidence I can see even more clearly that it is a fictional work designed to strengthen the new religion which was developing in the years since the alleged appearance of Jesus.
I use the word "alleged" deliberately because the more I research it, the less likely it seems that Jesus even existed. Until a year or two ago I assumed he did exist. I didn't believe any of the miracle stories, of course, but I thought it was likely they were based on the actions of a real person. When I looked at the historical evidence I found there wasn't any good evidence at all outside the Bible. Now I find the Bible itself is obviously fictitious. How can the fundamentalists be so stupid? I'm becoming more proud to call myself an atheist every day!
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