Do You Acknowledge Brights?

[lixluke]

But does the professor/imposer of the first party who believes that professing/imposing his beliefs really believe that by professing/imposing his belief will convince the party of the second part that doesn't profess/impose beliefs that are contrary to the beliefs that are being professed/imposed by the professor/imposer of the first party will convince the professor/imposer of the second party?

I'm just asking. And it makes more sense if you read that in the voice of Jack Sparrow.

No it doesn't. Your paragraph is flawed from the first line.

I think the question is if the creators of this movement are indeed gay. There should be a poll if they are gay or straight. There is a considerable amount of gays that joined the brights. Gays that have an emotional disdain towards religion as a result of being persecuted by religion.

 

[Light Travelling]

you are full of shit. you're telling me there's no devout irish catholics in barfights? no alcoholic churchgoers (or priests for that matter)? no mafia bosses that believe in god? .

What a quaint little stereotypical world you live in – straight out of old movies. The bar fighting Irishman, alcoholic priest and the Marlon Brando mafia boss. You should try stepping out of your front door once in a while and living in the real world.

In defence of the Irish though, I have spent some time in Dublin and whilst there is a lot of drinking going on, there seemed to be much less alcohol related violence there, and I certainly felt safer there going out late at night than I do in many English cities

no christian soldiers? .

What have you got against soldiers?? I mean I am very anti war, in any format. But even I can see the need to have soldiers and by definition if you have soldiers sometimes they may have to fight..I dont consider them bad people.

The people you are talking about might be atheists to you because you think they don't follow the ways of god, but i guarantee you that most of them consider themselves somehow religious. .

You are so wrong here. The people that I am talking about I know very well. This is exactly the background I come from. A huge number of (lets call them anti social) people do not give religion or spirituality a second thought. I would say it is you that is pretty out of touch here.

Please remember in my statement I was careful to say “in general” by my claims, meaning that there is obviously a minority which are exceptions. So yes there are of course religious people out there who are very bad people who do bad things and are very hypocritical as there are atheists as well. You seem to be saying that an atheist by definition can do no wrong??

the issue is that if you don't have a real and tangible reason for what you think, you eventually end up having to sacrifice some genuinly good things in order to maintain your principles without becoming a total hypocrite. thats how the religious values system works.
thats how the religious values system works. example - life begins at conception, so people shouldn't have abortions. well, if life begins at conception then we also can't have embryos being used for stem cell research.

There are glaring inconsistencies on both sides when it comes to abortion;

Are you saying that life only begins after birth?

If so why do doctors work for hours to save an unborn baby of a sick or injured mother? And then the next day will quite happily deliberately terminate a baby only a few weeks younger. – you don’t see anything hypocritical there??

And then you have this 28 week figure where apparently up to 28 weeks a baby can be terminated because (are you saying?) it is a lifeless mass of cells and then at 29 weeks something happens to those cells to transform it into a living human being.

So perhaps you can provide the tangible scientific reasoning here, Or is 28 weeks a completely arbitrary and convenient figure?

wow you're pretty out of touch with the reality of modern democracy huh? the people with the most money and the biggest money making organizations on their side usually win. that's pretty much how it works. it has a lot less to do with sheer numbers than you think, and everything to do with selling an image. that's what the people attempting to advance the "bright" idea understand. you level the playing field by organizing, marketing, and funding your candidates better than the other side. its that simple, the people will eat it up if you feed it to them right.
.

You seem to think that people vote for the biggest advert regardless of policy. I credit people with a little more than that. Well at least here in England I do, maybe in America you are right you…. I could’t really comment on that, not having lived there.

 

[Light Travelling]

there is a word for those things though, people who don't believe in them are called skeptics. words develop out of necessity, obviously at some point there became a need to describe someone without belief in religion in a more concise way than saying "that person is not affiliated with any church, nor do they accept that god is real." i suppose you could always start a campaign to get the Oxford English dictionary to stop including atheist though.

The problem is not in the word itself but in the way it is used by people to define themselves. Noone defines themselves by anything else they 'dont' believe.

Words like 'yes' and 'no' are quite concise enough when it comes to questions such as "do you believe in god?"

I do not call myself an acommunist, nor do I define myself as such - yet it is a perfectly true statement that I am not a communist. I do not call myslef an achristian either, but this statement is also true. I simply reply yes and no when discussing such issues.

 

[charles cure]

The problem is not in the word itself but in the way it is used by people to define themselves. Noone defines themselves by anything else they 'dont' believe.

Words like 'yes' and 'no' are quite concise enough when it comes to questions such as "do you believe in god?"

I do not call myself an acommunist, nor do I define myself as such - yet it is a perfectly true statement that I am not a communist. I do not call myslef an achristian either, but this statement is also true. I simply reply yes and no when discussing such issues.

that's all well and good. what you appear to not understand is that the word atheist wasn't invented by atheists, it was invented by religious people. you're right - nobody defines themselves by what they don't believe, that's stupid, however the church consistently defines people by their level of involvement in and adherence to the faith (especially 8 or 9 hundred years ago). like a heretic is someone that disagrees with a point of accepted doctrine. no one defines themselves by their opposition to dogma either, but the label sometimes sticks. african slaves didn't coin the term nigger, but black people use it to refer to themselves all the time now. it's as stupid to be defined by skin color as to be defined by what you dont believe in, but there it is. they do this evidently because they view it as a signal to their past oppressor that they can take back the once derisive term and redefine it. i think atheist is pretty much the same thing. figure it out.

 

[charles cure]

What a quaint little stereotypical world you live in – straight out of old movies. The bar fighting Irishman, alcoholic priest and the Marlon Brando mafia boss. You should try stepping out of your front door once in a while and living in the real world.

In defence of the Irish though, I have spent some time in Dublin and whilst there is a lot of drinking going on, there seemed to be much less alcohol related violence there, and I certainly felt safer there going out late at night than I do in many English cities

let's put aside stereotypes for a moment. you must not be so unrealistic as to be unaware that these things exist. i just gave the easiest examples. if you want to live in denial that religious people are violent or criminal in any way, or that atheism is the cause of criminality, that's your business. the world can prove you wrong far better than i can.

What have you got against soldiers?? I mean I am very anti war, in any format. But even I can see the need to have soldiers and by definition if you have soldiers sometimes they may have to fight..I dont consider them bad people.

i don't know about you, but the last time i read the ten commandments in the KJV one of them is still "thou shalt not kill". as i recall, it didn't come with a list of extenuating circumstances that included "if the president of your country gets pissed at another country, thou shalt kill without sinning". maybe i missed it. killing is morally wrong. you can justify it all you want, but killing in self defense is just as wrong as killing for personal gain, people just feel more sympathy for a person who does the first kind.

You are so wrong here. The people that I am talking about I know very well. This is exactly the background I come from. A huge number of (lets call them anti social) people do not give religion or spirituality a second thought. I would say it is you that is pretty out of touch here.

right, so what your saying is that a person who doesn't ever consider religion enough to make a decision about it is automatically a self-declared atheist by default? get your head out of your ass.

Please remember in my statement I was careful to say “in general” by my claims, meaning that there is obviously a minority which are exceptions. So yes there are of course religious people out there who are very bad people who do bad things and are very hypocritical as there are atheists as well. You seem to be saying that an atheist by definition can do no wrong??

your claims are absurd and unproven. that's all that i saw. nice little bits of anecdotal nonsense and nothing more. find me some statistics and maybe i would even consider rethinking the issue. i'm not saying that atheists can do no wrong, clearly they can, as all people can. the problem is that you are so broadly defining the term atheist, that even little babies who have never heard of god could be included in it, which is ridiculous.

 

[Light Travelling]

that's all well and good. what you appear to not understand is that the word atheist wasn't invented by atheists, it was invented by religious people. you're right - nobody defines themselves by what they don't believe, that's stupid, however the church consistently defines people by their level of involvement in and adherence to the faith (especially 8 or 9 hundred years ago). like a heretic is someone that disagrees with a point of accepted doctrine. no one defines themselves by their opposition to dogma either, but the label sometimes sticks. african slaves didn't coin the term nigger, but black people use it to refer to themselves all the time now. it's as stupid to be defined by skin color as to be defined by what you dont believe in, but there it is. they do this evidently because they view it as a signal to their past oppressor that they can take back the once derisive term and redefine it. i think atheist is pretty much the same thing. figure it out.

The English term atheist was indeed first coined by the religious 5 or 6 hundred years ago and was indeed used in a negative context. But your world view is very narrow if you think atheism stared in Europe or America in the last 8 or 9 hundred years. For a start the etymology of atheist starts in ancient Greek and predates the formation of modern Christian church.
Worldwide the term atheist is to be found in the Vedas and the Upanishads which are at least 3000 years old – the Sanskrit word for atheist is Nastika. These words are just language, the concept of atheist and various terms for it have existed for as long as religion.

I started a thread on this subject last year.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=47915

killing is morally wrong. you can justify it all you want, but killing in self defense is just as wrong as killing for personal gain, people just feel more sympathy for a person who does the first kind. .

Much as I agree that all killing is wrong, if we had no soldiers and never killed then America would be imperial Japan and England would be part of fascist Germany.

Another thing you apparently miss is that whilst there are Christian soldiers, there are also Atheist soldiers; now when you declare that “killing is morally wrong” you have to lay that equally on both Christian and atheist alike, which is fine…… but then it makes your original point of bringing Christian soldiers into the debate an incredibly mute one..

 

[charles cure]

The English term atheist was indeed first coined by the religious 5 or 6 hundred years ago and was indeed used in a negative context. But your world view is very narrow if you think atheism stared in Europe or America in the last 8 or 9 hundred years. For a start the etymology of atheist starts in ancient Greek and predates the formation of modern Christian church.
Worldwide the term atheist is to be found in the Vedas and the Upanishads which are at least 3000 years old – the Sanskrit word for atheist is Nastika. These words are just language, the concept of atheist and various terms for it have existed for as long as religion.

right, i'm glad you know so much about it. i also have a dictionary, and can see that the term atheist is derived from ancient greek and i know that the ancient greek era was more than a few hundred years ago. thanks for the history lesson though. my point was that the european christian church at some point in history poularized the the term atheist as it exists today in order to negatively define people disagreeing with their worldview. therefore people that call themselves atheists do not define themselves by what they don't believe, they just accept someone else's characterization of their ideas. i thought that would be apparent.

Much as I agree that all killing is wrong, if we had no soldiers and never killed then America would be imperial Japan and England would be part of fascist Germany.

Another thing you apparently miss is that whilst there are Christian soldiers, there are also Atheist soldiers; now when you declare that “killing is morally wrong” you have to lay that equally on both Christian and atheist alike, which is fine…… but then it makes your original point of bringing Christian soldiers into the debate an incredibly mute one..

no you don't have to lay it on christian and atheist alike, you lay it proportionately on those who do more killing and if religion is the motivator for the killing, then you lay it on that as a cause. let's not forget that regardless of the issue of soldiers killing people in the name of any cause, your original conceptof atheists being responsible for more violence and criminality than religious people is still patently ridiculous.

 

[Light Travelling]

. thanks for the history lesson though. my point was that the european christian church at some point in history poularized the the term atheist as it exists today in order to negatively define people disagreeing with their worldview. .

You obviously didn’t pay attention to the history lesson. The term atheist has been popular in the world since before the time of Jesus even. It is just that in the English speaking corner of the world it only found popularity in recent times (a few hundred years ago). At least one of the six schools of Hinduism have no thesistic god present nor does Buddhism nor Taoism. Although these are all spiritual schools and have supernatural beliefs.

And you negatively define people disagreeing with your worldview, so do a lot of people. Also the term atheist today has a far more positive connotation in the west than it used to.

.
no you don't have to lay it on christian and atheist alike, you lay it proportionately on those who do more killing .

Your reasoning is incredibly skewed. You are saying that morality does not apply equally to Christian and atheist alike.. that by your standards it is morally less acceptable for a Christian to kill and more acceptable for an atheist.

. Concept of atheists being responsible for more violence and criminality than religious people is still patently ridiculous.

Yet for all your talk all you have not provided one piece of evidence to support your claim that the majority of low level every day crime and violent street crime is committed by Christians / or religious people. It is in fact your claim that Christians do all the street muggings in the western world that is patently ridiculous.

 

[SkinWalker]

Yet for all your talk all you have not provided one piece of evidence to support your claim that the majority of low level every day crime and violent street crime is committed by Christians / or religious people. It is in fact your claim that Christians do all the street muggings in the western world that is patently ridiculous.

Perhaps I can assist in that regard.

It was just a few hundred years ago that homicide rates in Christian Europe and the American colonies were astronomical (Beeghley 2003; Lane 1997). I'm too lazy to look up the exact figures, but I can't imagine anyone would argue the point. But among the secular west, only the United States continues to have a high homicide rate (Beeghley 2003; Doyle 2000). The United States is a religious nation -the only among the industrialized nations- with a high homicide and overall crime rate. Nations like Columbia and Portugal also have high crime rates (Pew 2002). They're also religious nations. Many very religious nations in Africa are high in human rights violations. They're also very religious. South Africa consumes more cocaine than any other country in Africa (UN 2001); it's also the fifth most religious, under Senegal, Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, and Mali -four nations were human rights violations are a norm (HRW 2006).

Of course, I'll not support the claim that christians do all the street muggings of the world. Thats absurd. I also wouldn't begin to suggest that being atheist automatically makes you a good person. That, too, is absurd. However, the notion that religion works and is effective is certainly contested quite easily with the data below.

References:

Beeghley, Leonard (2003). Homicide: A Sociological Explanation. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Doyle, Rodger (2000) The Roots of Homicide. Scientific American 283 (3), p. 22.

HRW (2006). Info by Country: Africa. Human Rights Watch [accessed 9/3/06]

Lane, Roger (1997). Murder in America: A History. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

Pew (2002). Among the Wealthy Nations... U.S. Stands Alone in its Embrace of Relgion. Pew Global Attitudes Project [accessed 9/3/06]

UN (2001). The Seventh United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (1998 - 2000) [PDF]. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

 

[Light Travelling]

Perhaps I can assist in that regard.

It was just a few hundred years ago that homicide rates in Christian Europe and the American colonies were astronomical (Beeghley 2003; Lane 1997). I'm too lazy to look up the exact figures, but I can't imagine anyone would argue the point. But among the secular west, only the United States continues to have a high homicide rate .

Of course you completey overlook the fact that among the secular west america is also the only country to have such ridiculously lax gun laws.

South Africa consumes more cocaine than any other country in Africa (UN 2001); it's also the fifth most religious, under Senegal, Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, and Mali -four nations were human rights violations are a norm (HRW 2006). .

Then to support your claim the most religious should have the most highest and fifth most religious the fifth highest - no?

References:

Beeghley, Leonard (2003). Homicide: A Sociological Explanation. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Doyle, Rodger (2000) The Roots of Homicide. Scientific American 283 (3), p. 22.

HRW (2006). Info by Country: Africa. Human Rights Watch [accessed 9/3/06]

Lane, Roger (1997). Murder in America: A History. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

Pew (2002). Among the Wealthy Nations... U.S. Stands Alone in its Embrace of Relgion. Pew Global Attitudes Project [accessed 9/3/06]

UN (2001). The Seventh United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (1998 - 2000) [PDF]. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

I cant say I have read every word of all links but I cannot see anywhere wher it gives hard statistics as to the percentage of street crime comitted by religion. or non religion. I would expect to find it in the 'Survey on Crime Trends' but it is not there...? i.e. how many muggings committed by budhist; Hindu; christian ; jew and atheist.

so yes you have provided some statsitics but none that show what charles is claiming.

 

[Theoryofrelativity]

there is a word for those things though, people who don't believe in them are called skeptics. words develop out of necessity, obviously at some point there became a need to describe someone without belief in religion in a more concise way than saying "that person is not affiliated with any church, nor do they accept that god is real." i suppose you could always start a campaign to get the Oxford English dictionary to stop including atheist though.

actually I think that 'skeptic' equally fits the position of an atheist.

 

[SkinWalker]

I cant say I have read every word of all links but I cannot see anywhere wher it gives hard statistics as to the percentage of street crime comitted by religion. or non religion. I would expect to find it in the 'Survey on Crime Trends' but it is not there...? i.e. how many muggings committed by budhist; Hindu; christian ; jew and atheist.

so yes you have provided some statsitics but none that show what charles is claiming.

Say what you like, but the correlation is strong and clear: nations of the world that are the most religious also have the highest incidences of crime. Nations with the least religious populaces have the lowest incidences of crime. One need not look too deeply to see the trend. Nor does "fifth most religious" need correspond to "fifth highest crime" since no one is suggesting that crime exists only among the religious or because of the religious.

 

[Light Travelling]

Say what you like, but the correlation is strong and clear: nations of the world that are the most religious also have the highest incidences of crime. Nations with the least religious populaces have the lowest incidences of crime. One need not look too deeply to see the trend. Nor does "fifth most religious" need correspond to "fifth highest crime" .

Well I could start talking about crime and human rights issues in atheist communist China of atheist communist Russia.. Or even before that atheistic (but I admit still religious) feudal china and the number of wars and atrocities there, but instead I will say this;

I do not believe in any way that introducing religion to a country will prevent crime, but I certainly do not see that religion will increase the crime rate in a country either.

I do not think religion should be institutionalised or politicised, it never works by imposition. True religion is a personal and an internal process. It is the quality of the persons religion that is of importance not the quantity of persons within a society subscribing to that religion. The quality of religion practised on a personal level is something hard to measure which is often where the problem lies. You can have 90% of a population practising low quality (or corrupted) religion - which does no one any good at all. It is better to have 2% practising a high quality religion. Spiritual practise rather than religious dogma.

since no one is suggesting that crime exists only among the religious or because of the religious.

I know you are not from your previous comments on this thread, but others were !