Are atheists discriminatory towards theists?

superluminal said:
You're talking apples vs oranges my friend. Ideologies vs technological gizmos. People are weak-minded, violent, and predisposed to use whatever means necessary to establish their dominance over one another. That's the root of all evil. I don't want to eliminate religion - I think that's a fools errand. But I do want to eliminate it as an excuse to rule and dominate people based on arbitrary human rules and motivations. No religious leadership, no religious agendas. Science and rationality should be the guiding principles of a government.
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Apple and orange are used at the same time in parallel, I'm not comparing them. But Ok, in principe, I agree.


As for your babies of science - they were commissioned by god-fearing christians and dominance crazed zealots.
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Sadly, it happened to be that way. I wonder if they were commissioned by non-god fearing religious but still dominance crazed zealots instead.
 
"The book traces out how the development of language and the use of tools and weapons, allowed our ancestors, the hunter-gatherers to overthrow the hierarchy we find in other primates. That is, males hate to be dominated, and if they can they will form coalitions and enforce egalitarianism. So for tens of thousands of years, virtually all human bands used weapons to kill upstarts who might try to dominate the group, and gossip maintained a keen eye on everyone's contribution to the group. Free-riders were suppressed, eliminated or expelled, and after time they were kept to a minimum genetically.

In addition, altruism within the group was selected for through group evolutionary strategies. That is, with this new arrangement of group cohesion and forced adherence to the group's particular ethos or moral code, the groups who had higher levels of ethnocentrism, patriotism, or altruism towards members of the group -- including willing to die for the group when battled broke out between groups -- predicted that group evolutionary strategies selected for these very traits. That is, altruism was a product of between-group warfare and competition for resources.

When humans began to form civilizations however, and with the accumulation of wealth in the form of food through the growing of crops and the domestication of animals, dominance once again took over. Through religion, actuarial practices, and coercive leadership, humans once again yielded to the authority of a central figure."

Hierarchy in the Forest : The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior ~~ by Christopher Boehm
 
(As part of my continuing campaign to befuddle with BS):

1. Everyone would rather not fight unless personally threatened
2. Wars are caused by those with vested interests and are usually the work of a few dominant individuals who use all tools at their disposal to recruit susceptible individuals.
3. Most "common individuals" are conditioned to be susceptible to authority
4. Others cannot see the wood for the trees and are influenced by propaganda aimed at misdirection (regardless of rationality or intelligence)
5. The only way to resolve a question of war is to ask 2 questions:

- who benefits.
- why this target at this time.

The most important point: be objective.
 
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Exactly, religion is just one tool; it can be replaced by nationalism, ethnocentrism or dominance.
 
Sadly, it happened to be that way. I wonder if they were commissioned by non-god fearing religious but still dominance crazed zealots instead.
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God can be a convenient excuse when he's there, but if he isn't, there are plenty of other ways to justify violence and oppression. Even if a political party remains secular, it can use "science" as an excuse to push its agenda. An educated populace could tell the difference between real and junk science, but if the government holds religious authority, it becomes a lot more complicated.

EDIT: You beat me to it, sam. :p
 
baumgarten said:
God can be a convenient excuse when he's there, but if he isn't, there are plenty of other ways to justify violence and oppression. Even if a political party remains secular, it can use "science" as an excuse to push its agenda. An educated populace could tell the difference between real and junk science, but if the government holds religious authority, it becomes a lot more complicated.
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Really? How many US citizens are apologetic about dropping TWO atomic bombs on Japan? Wouldn't one have been enough? And what would those people have decided at that emotion-riddled time? Would anyone have considered "moral consequences"? Or was nationalistic fervour the driving force? I doubt anyone even considered that it was merely "a scientific experiment" coupled with a desire to "show the communists".
 
Really? How many US citizens are apologetic about dropping TWO atomic bombs on Japan? Wouldn't one have been enough? And what would those people have decided at that emotion-riddled time? Would anyone have considered "moral consequences"? Or was nationalistic fervour the driving force? I doubt anyone even considered that it was merely "a scientific experiment" coupled with a desire to "show the communists".
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I don't consider the US populace "educated" when it comes to science. What come to my mind are ongoing debates like global warming, evolution, stem cell research, and abortion, in which one or both sides of the argument have used scientific data to justify their positions before a consensus in the scientific community was reached. If general scientific education was better than it is, perhaps a more intelligent (and useful) debate could be conducted. On the other hand, regardless of how educated the population is, if a government administration held religious authority and made a policy decision that was demonstrably bad engineering, it would be extremely difficult to have that policy changed.
 
I wonder how much that has to do with vote-garnering rather than actual opinion; it seems to me that funding is important not just in science but in politics as well; and the deepest pockets tend to have the loudest voices.
 
Probably, but if people were generally more educated, how powerful would those special interest groups to whom the rhetoric panders be? People are incurably (as if it's a disease) ruled by their emotions, but it would be helpful if we at least taught our kids the basics, like critical thinking and the scientific method, in the hopes that they might grow up and use them where applicable.
 
You have a very idealistic view of people; the ones who care don't ever make it to a position where they would be useful and even if they do, power is a very corrupting force.
 
(Q) said:
"The book traces out how the development of language and the use of tools and weapons, allowed our ancestors, the hunter-gatherers to overthrow the hierarchy we find in other primates. That is, males hate to be dominated, and if they can they will form coalitions and enforce egalitarianism. So for tens of thousands of years, virtually all human bands used weapons to kill upstarts who might try to dominate the group, and gossip maintained a keen eye on everyone's contribution to the group. Free-riders were suppressed, eliminated or expelled, and after time they were kept to a minimum genetically.

In addition, altruism within the group was selected for through group evolutionary strategies. That is, with this new arrangement of group cohesion and forced adherence to the group's particular ethos or moral code, the groups who had higher levels of ethnocentrism, patriotism, or altruism towards members of the group -- including willing to die for the group when battled broke out between groups -- predicted that group evolutionary strategies selected for these very traits. That is, altruism was a product of between-group warfare and competition for resources.

When humans began to form civilizations however, and with the accumulation of wealth in the form of food through the growing of crops and the domestication of animals, dominance once again took over. Through religion, actuarial practices, and coercive leadership, humans once again yielded to the authority of a central figure."

Hierarchy in the Forest : The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior ~~ by Christopher Boehm
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Sounds good to me.
 
samcdkey said:
You have a very idealistic view of people; the ones who care don't ever make it to a position where they would be useful and even if they do, power is a very corrupting force.
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I'm talking about the average citizen here. I do not hope for a politician with actual principles, just a higher demand of good decision making by the people who vote for them. I am eighteen years old, and I see a lot of apathy and ignorance in most of my peers. I'm not exactly worried, but I do think that society is capable of doing better. I am a little idealistic, though.
 
super:
Where'd the question mark go? You men always stick together in the end.
 
baumgarten said:
I'm talking about the average citizen here. I do not hope for a politician with actual principles, just a higher demand of good decision making by the people who vote for them. I am eighteen years old, and I see a lot of apathy and ignorance in most of my peers. I'm not exactly worried, but I do think that society is capable of doing better. I am a little idealistic, though.
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I wish the educational system was better; its not so much the ignorance but the obliviousness that gets to me.
 
samcdkey said:
Really? How many US citizens are apologetic about dropping TWO atomic bombs on Japan? Wouldn't one have been enough? And what would those people have decided at that emotion-riddled time? Would anyone have considered "moral consequences"? Or was nationalistic fervour the driving force?
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I'm not sure why they dropped two either, but the prediction was that a huge number of lives - soldier and civilian - were saved by avoiding a long, drawn out campaign of invasion. The logic, for at least one, is appallingly clear.
 
Of course; its ALWAYS logical to kill women and children rather than armed men; people can delude themselves into anything
 
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