Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

Atheist world views aren't true (in general). I know dozens who (claim to) believe in Darwinism and evolution and yet claim that we can (and should) protect species from extinction.

Yet an argument based on Darwinism that we can't fight extinctions by compensating for maladaptation is so blindingly obvious ... Compensating for maladapted species will need an amount of resources that evolves exponentially over time, even if the numbers of the "saved" species don't increase. Therefore it will fail, it is only a question of time.

Atheists at least see that particular myths are utilitarian. To make a society work and produce, for instance. Or to make a society fight, like some other religions. But they fail to look in the mirror and see that their myths are utilitarian as well, and when they are true, that's not a great factor in their adoption. Belief systems are like computer viruses : correctness, correct use of the system, style of the code doesn't matter (in fact it is often an obstacle). What matters is whether the code spreads.

And just like atheist myths can be true, religious myths can be true. The bible contains quite a bit of true history, and I would argue at least a bit of good advice. It also contains lots of instructions for various things, from architecture to agriculture, and those instructions work, even if they can be said to not be perfectly optimal. Likewise, you can make an argument that the quran contains instructions for warfare that are certainly not stupid, even if some of those tactics make "realpolitik" look like two girls trying to feed bambi.

Of course the above is the non-cynical view of their position. The cynical view would be that conservation is not in fact done to help species, but rather to increase the luxuries surrounding rich conservationists. That conservation efforts are just a very expensive 50" tv, and the beneficiaries of conservation efforts will be chucked in the bin when something else catches our fancy just like said tv.

    > On the contrary, this fallacy is very important and applicable.

I don't claim that it's an unimportant fallacy to understand and recognize and apply. Instead I said it was my "least favorite", because of it's so rarely applied correctly. By the rest of your comment, I get the impression you didn't catch my meaning.

    > For example if US Army has a tendency to employ 
    > rapists, it's valid to criticise US Army for this fact 
    > even if they have a rule that forbids such behavior.

Here, the critical point is not that the US Army employed a rapist or even several rapists. Instead you're saying they have a tendency to employ racists. No True Scotsman would only apply if someone from the Army made a statement in complete denial of that fact, hand waving it away by pointing out the rule and saying something to the effect of "The Army has a rule against rape, so anyone who does that isn't a real soldier". It's a valid No True Scotsman because the behavior is clearly evident in a non-fringe component of the group.

If someone did make that statement in sincerity, sure, send in the No True Scotsman patrol and take 'em out. But that's not how it usually happens. Typically, there's a singular incident. That's often followed by a careless article which paints with an overly broad brush: "Does the Army have a rape problem?".

And that is the point where I start looking for the misapplied No True Scotsmans to crop up. There's no way for anyone to defend the Army by pointing out that it's against the rules, or that the number of rape incidents in the army is lower than the general population, or really any other facts.

    > It's important to call out this fallacy, because the 
    > membership in a group can't be defined on the basis of a 
    > person's conduct, since there's no way to monitor that 
    > every member of the group adheres to this conduct.

I believe this idea right here is the source of all these misapplications. And it's just false. Of course membership in a group can be defined by a person's conduct. Try comparing Hacker News to Reddit in 3 or 4 comments and see how quickly you get shadowbanned. In fact, I'd say defining group membership based on conduct is the rule, not the exception.

No True Scotsman is intended to point out the fallacy of someone inside a group avoiding criticism by constantly shrinking or changing the group rules in order to draw a distinction from some negative person or incident. If the goalposts aren't moving, then its likely the person really isn't a True Scotsman, and you should maybe try to understand why not.

> Look for: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, appreciation of truth. These things are sometimes disdained and derided, but they're never wrong.

I disagree.

> On the other hand, be suspicious of: hate, abuse, envy, boasting, arrogance, rudeness, insistence on one's own way, irritability, resentfulness, and celebration in wrongdoing.

I can live with that.

> It may seem odd to you, but a valid criticism of a Christian's ideas is pointing out where there out of line with these lists.

If there is anything odd, it's the idea that I should need a list to know what valid criticism of anyone is. I will criticize anyone who I perceive to be causing harm, whether it's on their list or anyone else's list or not. And maybe that you try to speak for all christians.

> A point delivered with irritability is a weak point for a Christian to make. And I guess you could extrapolate that to ideas and books... at least how they generally affect people. > > Edit: Regarding who has to prove God exists... I think nobody does. I don't have to prove it. Neither does He. I think it's better for you if you accept it, but that's your choice. You could ask God to prove Himself before you believe, I suppose.

Now you are being disingenuous. Just throwing out unsubstantiated claims and then refusing responsibility for substantiating them isn't how you conduct respectful conversations.

> But understand that He is the creator of the universe and He feels He has already gone above and beyond for us. But He has also done amazing things to prove to people that He cares for them.

Yet another bunch of unsubstantiated claims. I suspect you don't feel like providing evidence for these either?

> I don't see how it could hurt to ask.

That's my point. You don't see how your dogma causes harm, because you just assume that it can't cause harm. That's how much of the harm in this world is caused. Now ask yourself, how could it hurt if you spent the limited time of your life "asking" an imaginary entity for whatever? Like, how could it hurt to spend an hour every day asking superman for a relationship? Do you see at least the potential for harm there, in case your god might turn out to actually not be real?

> There are good answers to your specific objections and concerns, and I'm interested in sharing thoughts on them, but there seems to be more contest than sharing here. I'm pretty sure continuing won't benefit you any, and I'm pretty sure there isn't an audience that would benefit from me responding to your points.

Well, if you actually have good answers, I'd certainly be interested. But if you just repeat arguments that have long been refuted (and so far that's pretty much all you have done) and don't bother to first put in some effort to understand those well-documented refutations (just as I have done to understand those well-documented arguments of yours, which is how I happen to know why they don't hold up), I guess it's kindof pointless for me to just regurgitate them to you, which is why I gave you a reference to a good collection of explanations that could help you to get up to speed, so that you then maybe can avoid known-bad arguments in future discussions, and cut directly to good arguments where your "opponent" (for lack of a better word) doesn't just recite well-known refutations without having to engage their brains.

> But thanks for the discussion. If I didn't appreciate strong criticism, I would have some particular pride issues to work out.

Except you don't actually appreciate it, you just tell yourself that you do. That's an immunization strategy of your religion. If you appreciated it, you would try to actually understand the arguments.

> I do think that perhaps you aren't exposed to orthodox Christians on a regular basis, so you may not really appreciate how the Bible really works on people. If you're interested in more diversity in what information you're exposed to, I'd recommend finding some friends who think the Bible is fundamentally true. If that doesn't interest you, I understand.

I don't deny that the "bible [...] works on people", it sure does. There is just no evidence that there is anything supernatural about it, and the claims in it don't seem to be any more reliable than any other book, and often less so. What's difficult to find aren't people who think the bible is true--it's people who have any good evidence for it.

> For what it's worth, I've prayed for good things in your future, and that God tries again to convince you that there are better things out there for you.

Well, if you feel like wasting your precious time in this one life with that, I don't mind. But your chances of actually doing good would be higher if you used your time to do something with an observable effect in this world.

> Enjoy your weekend.

You too :-)

Were you responding to anything in particular in my comment or is this just something you wanted to get off your chest?