先此說明，我是公投的支持者。

"A close study of these books [the so called "holy books"], and of history, demonstrates that there is no act of cruelty so appalling that it cannot be justified, or even mandated, by recourse to their pages." - Sam Harris

存有任何用心或居心的人，都可以在聖經中找到 valid 的 justification。那代表了什麼？就是這本所謂“全能上帝的話”的內容充滿矛盾和疑點，也可以被隨意的演譯。裡面那些鐵器時代，與現代道德觀念背道而馳的倫理觀更不用說了。

"You are using your own moral intuitions to authenticate the wisdom of the Bible - and then, in the next moment, you assert that we human beings cannot possibly rely upon our own intuitions to rightly guide us in the world." — Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation

要推動社會進步，聖經和基督信仰跟本幫不了什麼忙。把這篇文章內的所有不能通過驗證的宗教原素剔除（幾乎所有宗教原素都是不能通過驗證的），也可以是一篇有說服力文章。

If there's something wrong in the article, please point it out and we can further discuss. Thanks.

You probably have misunderstood the meaning of segregation of church and state then.

In addition, as I have already said, focus on what is written here. Bringing up slogan without looking at and relates it to the content might fall into a common fallacy called Red Herring.

同論語,莊子一樣,
討論時可以略引用,
但不應蓋過自己的主見

too bad. instead of being a christian media, inmedia is a public sphere where people try to advance truth by challenging each other's ideas with reason, at times vigorously. no one should be able to gain any exemption here, no matter how explicitly one assert who his/her target audiences are.

dig this: if i said "my call for "caring our society" are solely addressing those who believe in the fact that jeremy, just like his best friend jesus, is a pathological child rapist (i by the way am the founder this religion called "jeremythechildrapistianity"). i have no burden of responding those who don't believe so." would that make any sense at all?

i didn't mean to duck from your questions. instead i would like to start our conversation by looking at the very foundation of all your claims in the name of your god. if you care to pitch in some of your insights, i can assure you my answers to your questions will come along in our conversation.

"A myth is an idea that, while widely believed, is false. In a deeper sense, in the religious sense, a myth serves as an orienting and mobilizing story for people. The focus is not on the story's relation to reality, but on it's function. A story cannot function unless it is believed to be true in the community or the nation. It is not a matter of debate that some people have the bad taste to raise the question of the truth of the sacred story." - david ray griffin

me asking the question "where is the evidence for the existence your god, which all religious claims you brought up in the post were based on?" is also an answer to your questions. god, which is the lifeblood for most of the claims you've made in your post, should be the first thing to be freed from any potential for fallacy in order to advance your cause. if the trueness of your god's very own existence is in doubt, everything evolves from it would suffer from the irrelevance to the world, hence "要推動社會進步，聖經和基督信仰跟本幫不了什麼忙", just like "要推動社會進步，宙斯神教和太陽神教跟本幫不了什麼忙"

there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of christian based religious sects, all adopting different and yet irreconcilable interpretations of the same holy book. are all those interpretations regarded as so called "counter arguments" to my comment of "這本所謂“全能上帝的話”的內容充滿矛盾和疑點，也可以被隨意的演譯。"? or do they just prove my point?

i am not here to get back at anyone. i am here just to voice out my concern on whether we, as a modern society, still need to believe in things which we have little evidence for in order to guide our way forward.

the way you put it is misleading: football, basketball or baseball are all healthy sports. but believing in something you have little evidence for, or pretending to know things you don't know, just aren't. in fact, the act of believing in god should be placed in the same category as believing in the "fact" that jeremy is a child rapist.....both are based on insufficient evidence.

there are countless people out there doing glorious things in the name of god, your list of counter examples could go on forever. but that doesn't grant any credence to the trueness for the god they believe in. here i am pitching in one more similar example: mother teresa could have been one loving caring sacrificing human being, but it carries no validity what so ever in the bullshits she believed in.....not even a tiny bit.

let's not forget the numerous atrocities throughout history that were committed in the name of the same god.

we have yet to become a society where we celebrate old ideas, no matter how much we cherish them, be falsified and replaced by more valid ones in constructing our world views.

come and think of it: do we really need some ancient doctrines to free us from non-free thinking, which might as well be originated from the same holy book? what has been advancing is us human being, not religion.

let's assume (just assume) your list of books had provided the undeniable facts on the existence of god and we actually ran into a fatal necessity that god had to exist in order for all our human operations to work. but what makes you so certain that the god in existence is actually the one from your bible? there are a number of holy books and religions on offer, all claiming to be the only infallible ones. by simple probability, the chance that your god is actually the one is pretty slim, and there are at least 66.6% of chance that you will be facing damn nation yourself (i am giving you a very good odds already), if you could figure which interpretation of your bible you should adopt in order to please your god in the first place.

in terms of interpreting the bible, i don't have the problem. the 34000 christian based religious sects, adopting different and irreconcilable interpretations of the same holy book, do.

we do have better tools to advance our society: our moral intuitions. at least we can cherry pick which verse of the bible should we adopt in our daily lives and which to reject because such verses are simply so ancient a moral code to observe. we need not to rely on those so called academic big shots to tell us what to do with books of this nature.

now the election is over. and i hope my criticisms on christianity (or religion in general) did not have any negative effect on the result. now back to the business.

"If one don't even want to look at the arguments from the other side and purely advocating his own opinion, this is no longer a discussion, but shouting your voice out."

i based my arguments about the existence of god upon the assumptions that the books had actually shown us undeniable facts and the fatal necessities for the existence of god. you can't blow that off as me not willing to look at the arguments from the your side as i have given you every thing you want for your benefit.

"Feel free to preach your rapist-religion and I'm sure some non-thinker will follow you."

my child rapist religion is just an analogy to christianity aiming at to show how ridiculous it is for you to justify your irresponsibility to answer any questions from skeptics. i surely know i shouldn't be preaching it because the faith of jeremy being a child rapist, like christianity, just isn't based on fact.

"the Society of Christian Philosophers is still the organization which contains most members under American Philosophical Association."

this is the kind of fact that shouldn't surprise anyone. according to a gallup poll done in christmas time of 2009, 78% of Americans identify with some form of Christian religion. likewise, it also wouldn't be surprising if the majority of, say, badminton players, in the american badminton association (if there is one) would be christian. anyway, having more people on your side doesn't make what you believe truer.

"it's you at the first place making that assertion claiming society-advance and Christianity are unrelated, after it's refuted totally, you changed the topic to validity."

sorry for the misunderstanding, but i have never said that christianity and social advancement are unrelated. i simply argue that the bible, which is in itself heterogeneous and self-contradictory, mandating diverse and irreconcilable aims, should never be regarded as a "good guide" for social advancement any time in our history of humanity, especially now. also, the existence of the christian god, which is central to christianity, is unjustified.

"When you ask the Christian God to show you evidence, evidence for His existence; have you ask yourself whether you have the evidence for His non-existence?"

in fact, i asked YOU, not god, to provide evidence for god's existence because your article assumed the very assertion. i wouldn't stand at the other extreme of non-thinking as to say "god doesn't exist". i am arguing assertions like "god exists", as well as all the bible's descriptions for the world that purport to be true, require evidence to be regard as valid claims.

it's alright if you wanna keep insulting me with your prestigious education background, but that wouldn't help to prove what you believe is true.

apart from my total ignorance of those christian big shots like john locke, martin luther king and alike, i have already shared my thoughts on the irrelevance between their achievements and the validity of what they believed. the bible gives us bad reasons to do good things, while good reasons are actually available out in the secular world. it's just that christianity still processes the advantage of giving credits to itself for anything good in our world.....just because it came "first".

the evolvement of the 34000 christian based religious sects are already sound testimonies for which the bible is self-contradictory and heterogenous.

if the phrase "good guide" is ambiguous to you, allow me to improve that: the bible is worse than any modern literature (either fiction and non-fiction) as a moral guide. even "lord of the rings" would be a better choice, for it doesn't contradict itself and it doesn't have to purport itself as truth in order to motivate people.

i have actually given my comments based on the assumption that i were, thanks to your list of books, convinced that there was actually a god, and he/she/it did have a mission for me. again, i don't see any counter argument except hearing a repetitive voice saying: "read the 3 books, read the 3 books....."

imagine (just imagine) that my initial response were of the same "form" as your article:

"if (A) one believes the bible is full of shit and christianity is just some crappy iron age moral philosophies, then (B) one should abandon the religion and use his/her own moral intuition to advance our society.

(A).

therefore (B).

for a valid argument, i have no obligation to prove whether my response is true here. it's YOU from the beginning till now who say the statement is false, thus the burden of proof in fact lies on your shoulder."

does that sound reasonable to you at all?

to be honest, it is not quite meaningful for you to keep using lists of books as your arguments, as i could easily play the same game as to give you lists of books or videos as my counter arguments (but if you just wanted to shut me up, that's another thing). if you care to share some of the highlights of your scholarly reasonings, i am all ears.

"I have already mentioned, "Guess you should know, to answer your questions, it's almost impossible to do so in a few lines thus I give you this book list... which I believe can give you some insight of why your questions might not be unanswerable." But you seems to totally ignore it in your 2 recent replies."

and you ignored my counter arguments based on the assumptions that your books had actually validated the existence of god.

"Do you think this is a "reasoning" at all? Then, the co-exist and the many interaction among them will be good enough to refute your proposition."

then our co-existences and the many interactions among us will be good enough to refute your refutation.....we do have contradicting ideas on the same issues.

"You still like making assertions don't you?"

yes, based on "the bible is full of shit and christianity is just crappy iron age philosophies", which are fair comments.

"Your argument is only reasonable if "the religion" in (B) = "christianity" in (A)."

yes, you cracked the code. "christianity" = "the religion" in that statement.

"It is surely a valid one. But soundless is another issue."

thanks for your validation, does that mean i have no burden to answer your questions then?

"I have already replied, "And I think it's quite clear in my passage that I am claiming "If" you are a Christian, then you should as well care about social justice. Thus, I have no burden to answer the questions in my passage feijaiming bought up. Since those are not my intention of writing."

I find it quite pointless to continue if you don't get the logic of burden on proving right."

educate me: where is my burden of proof when my "assertions" are of the same "form" (as shown in my last response) as your article?

"基督教信念的正面知識地位" by 張國棟 (PhD student, Department of Philosophy, Indiana University, Bloomington)
Link: http://occr.christiantimes.org.hk/art_0010.htm

Dear friend,

I hope you understand that quoting a non-argumentative slogan doesn't make you any reason here.

Thanks.

I never deny we should all go for democracy, the point is some believers thought it's something unrelated to them, and I'm pointing out that they're wrong. That's it.

Let me modify my example above. When an author wrote an article about "If you are a footballer, then you should practice shooting." And someone came to him and asked, "Why football? Not basketball or baseball? Why not say as long as you're playing ball game you need to score!" In this case, the author really has no burden to answer these, since it's not the intention of his message.

If you don't have something new, maybe we can stop the going nowhere discussion here.

What is answered, and what is not, I will leave it with other readers.
我一向渴望和相信理性、平等的溝通平台。也望之後再多交流。這陣子，我們應該正視「補選」選擇權被剝削的問題！