Pastafarian miracles
- Thread starter TFL
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My arguments aren't pretty, but they are true.
Even assuming scifes' assumption about the verse in question meaning in fact underwater boundary layer waves, I posted a picture of exactly such waves visible from the shore. His challenge was to prove that the Quran revealed scientific facts that could not have been known at the time. If something is visible from the shore, then anyone at the time could have known it. Faced with this information, so crippling to his argument, Scifes could not come up with a rebuttal.
Even assuming scifes' assumption about the verse in question meaning in fact underwater boundary layer waves, I posted a picture of exactly such waves visible from the shore. His challenge was to prove that the Quran revealed scientific facts that could not have been known at the time. If something is visible from the shore, then anyone at the time could have known it. Faced with this information, so crippling to his argument, Scifes could not come up with a rebuttal.
It's amazing that you know everything that I've ever learned. Although you really are an arrogant idiot if you truly think you do.
I think the fact that I get credits and distinctions in all my courses shows that I have in fact learned things.
Oh, poor you
Then try applying that knowledge sometime.
Yeah, about that ... I am constantly amazed by what people don't know, and have long since stopped being remotely impressed by people's boasting of their educational credentials. I have known plenty of people who hold advanced degrees that are complete idiots.
I see no logical reason to regard half-witted arguments as a sign of someone's intelligence.
Here, think of it this way:
There is a broad spectrum between respect and persecution. Our friend, however, does not recognize that.
Here he is relying on his own set of definitions and experiences. And as long as he limits the discussion to those definitions, he can assure himself that he is exactly correct. But what he does not—and, I suspect, cannot—show is that he understands what "God" is to anyone else. He does not seem to want to know. Because this brand of atheism is an anti-identification. It needs religion in order to exist. It needs religious people who are idiots in order to exist. Its purpose is supremacist, not functional. Its method of arguing about religion is to denigrate it, not to examine it carefully and attempt to comprehend the components and how they harmonize or conflict.
Certainly, the religious often reduce their faith to the caricatures so justly opposed by so many atheists, but religion itself is a complex expression of human psyches, both individual and collective. It is, by certain perspectives, a collective performance art project. And it can be analyzed and understood. Its function can be defined, considered, and reoriented or refined. But this is not part of what this brand of atheism seeks. Rather, what these people are after is a metaphysical club to beat others over the head with, to make themselves feel better about their own lonely futility in a vast, possibly infinite, and arguably indifferent Universe.
Everybody seeks a sense of meaning in the Universe. Some find religion. Others nation. Hell, some even find it in their favorite baseball team. All of these ideas, however, are affirmative; a person is seeking to be and identify as something. This brand of atheism, however, is not affirmative. It seeks to be and identify against something.
Which leaves allegedly intelligent people strutting and flexing their intellectual muscle because their opponent conceded a futile debate that was lost decades before it occurred. They can certainly cluck about and strut like cocks if they want, but they're only going to impress other cocks, if any at all.
Answers said:
Then try applying that knowledge sometime.
Yeah, about that ... I am constantly amazed by what people don't know, and have long since stopped being remotely impressed by people's boasting of their educational credentials. I have known plenty of people who hold advanced degrees that are complete idiots.
I see no logical reason to regard half-witted arguments as a sign of someone's intelligence.
Here, think of it this way:
Spidergoat said:
There is a broad spectrum between respect and persecution. Our friend, however, does not recognize that.
Spidergoat said:
Here he is relying on his own set of definitions and experiences. And as long as he limits the discussion to those definitions, he can assure himself that he is exactly correct. But what he does not—and, I suspect, cannot—show is that he understands what "God" is to anyone else. He does not seem to want to know. Because this brand of atheism is an anti-identification. It needs religion in order to exist. It needs religious people who are idiots in order to exist. Its purpose is supremacist, not functional. Its method of arguing about religion is to denigrate it, not to examine it carefully and attempt to comprehend the components and how they harmonize or conflict.
Certainly, the religious often reduce their faith to the caricatures so justly opposed by so many atheists, but religion itself is a complex expression of human psyches, both individual and collective. It is, by certain perspectives, a collective performance art project. And it can be analyzed and understood. Its function can be defined, considered, and reoriented or refined. But this is not part of what this brand of atheism seeks. Rather, what these people are after is a metaphysical club to beat others over the head with, to make themselves feel better about their own lonely futility in a vast, possibly infinite, and arguably indifferent Universe.
Everybody seeks a sense of meaning in the Universe. Some find religion. Others nation. Hell, some even find it in their favorite baseball team. All of these ideas, however, are affirmative; a person is seeking to be and identify as something. This brand of atheism, however, is not affirmative. It seeks to be and identify against something.
Which leaves allegedly intelligent people strutting and flexing their intellectual muscle because their opponent conceded a futile debate that was lost decades before it occurred. They can certainly cluck about and strut like cocks if they want, but they're only going to impress other cocks, if any at all.
Tiassa wrote:
"Certainly, the religious often reduce their faith to the caricatures so justly opposed by so many atheists, but religion itself is a complex expression of human psyches, both individual and collective. It is, by certain perspectives, a collective performance art project. And it can be analyzed and understood. Its function can be defined, considered, and reoriented or refined. But this is not part of what this brand of atheism seeks. Rather, what these people are after is a metaphysical club to beat others over the head with, to make themselves feel better about their own lonely futility in a vast, possibly infinite, and arguably indifferent Universe."
I totally disagree with what you are saying here. 'Religion a complex expression of human psyches'! What a load. Religion is nothing more than a mechanism for fulfilling psychological needs that are present in all humans. It is created by the process of reinforcement and conditioning just like all other behaviors both logical and illogical.
Superstitious behaviour in particular is conditioned through random reinforcement schedules making any possibility of conditioning extinction near impossible. Random reinforcement schedules are extremely long lasting. This is why we see animals displaying superstitious behaviour while randomly reinforced, and it is why we see the same in humans.
It's ridiculous that you are claiming that religion is some sort of higher order thinking, when in reality it shares it's characteristics with those of the superstitious illogical beliefs of animals. And to claim that the religious believers are some how misrepresented by atheists is just as ridiculous. There are many stupid people, religious and non-religious, but it is apparent to any body that the religious extremist is by far the most stupid. "I'm gonna go blow myself up so that I can get heaps of chicks in heaven"..... right. And atheists use examples like that to show the extremes of religion. To make a point. To show how stupid it is when it is allowed to flourish.
What do you want? Do you want atheists to argue and condemn the religious everyday man that never goes to church and doesn't really know what he believes but still believes in a god. Atheists don't really care about that sort of believer, it is the believer who goes to the extremes of their stupid beliefs and causes harm to others that atheism condemns, so why would we aim our arguments at anyone but them? And it is the religious 'intellectuals' who create an environment where religious extremes are justified. And even the use of the term intellectual is a misrepresentation. Religious intellectuals have intelligent arguments, but they are all built on the foundation of faulty logic aka superstitious reinforced beliefs/behaviours.
You can claim that religion is some sort of complex expression like a performance art project, all you like, but it is simply the result of certain psychological mechanisms which lead to illogical conclusions.
"Certainly, the religious often reduce their faith to the caricatures so justly opposed by so many atheists, but religion itself is a complex expression of human psyches, both individual and collective. It is, by certain perspectives, a collective performance art project. And it can be analyzed and understood. Its function can be defined, considered, and reoriented or refined. But this is not part of what this brand of atheism seeks. Rather, what these people are after is a metaphysical club to beat others over the head with, to make themselves feel better about their own lonely futility in a vast, possibly infinite, and arguably indifferent Universe."
I totally disagree with what you are saying here. 'Religion a complex expression of human psyches'! What a load. Religion is nothing more than a mechanism for fulfilling psychological needs that are present in all humans. It is created by the process of reinforcement and conditioning just like all other behaviors both logical and illogical.
Superstitious behaviour in particular is conditioned through random reinforcement schedules making any possibility of conditioning extinction near impossible. Random reinforcement schedules are extremely long lasting. This is why we see animals displaying superstitious behaviour while randomly reinforced, and it is why we see the same in humans.
It's ridiculous that you are claiming that religion is some sort of higher order thinking, when in reality it shares it's characteristics with those of the superstitious illogical beliefs of animals. And to claim that the religious believers are some how misrepresented by atheists is just as ridiculous. There are many stupid people, religious and non-religious, but it is apparent to any body that the religious extremist is by far the most stupid. "I'm gonna go blow myself up so that I can get heaps of chicks in heaven"..... right. And atheists use examples like that to show the extremes of religion. To make a point. To show how stupid it is when it is allowed to flourish.
What do you want? Do you want atheists to argue and condemn the religious everyday man that never goes to church and doesn't really know what he believes but still believes in a god. Atheists don't really care about that sort of believer, it is the believer who goes to the extremes of their stupid beliefs and causes harm to others that atheism condemns, so why would we aim our arguments at anyone but them? And it is the religious 'intellectuals' who create an environment where religious extremes are justified. And even the use of the term intellectual is a misrepresentation. Religious intellectuals have intelligent arguments, but they are all built on the foundation of faulty logic aka superstitious reinforced beliefs/behaviours.
You can claim that religion is some sort of complex expression like a performance art project, all you like, but it is simply the result of certain psychological mechanisms which lead to illogical conclusions.
Surely it's the religious who are wielding the metaphysical, don't you think?
And come to think of it, does your whole description not apply to the religious?
After all, from an atheist perspective, God could be seen as something that people created "to make themselves feel better about their own lonely futility in a vast, possibly infinite, and arguably indifferent Universe".
This and that
Sure. But—
—that's the problem with this manner of atheistic argument. I mean, great. They've managed to put themselves on an equivalent level as the religious folks they need so badly to hate. In legal or judicial terms, that would be a plus. In sociomoral terms, however, no.
Those few of our neighbors who have been around long enough will recall that I am an advocate for the atheistic position. But I simply can't throw in with this disgusting, ill-mannered lot. If nothing else, I'll resent them for increasing my sympathy for the religious people they hate so cluelessly.
Well, which part? I think your argument in that one was lost years ago; holy texts aren't meant to be read and handled in that manner. The power of the Qur'an has always been its accessibility to the faithful. It was revealed to an allegedly illiterate merchant, and had the power, when recited, to unknit the bonds restraining what otherwise seemed the hardest of hearts. Effective revelations are offered in the vernacular of the prophet, however, and thus should not be regarded literally according to, say, twenty-first century perspectives and vocabulary. The Prophet of Islam bore more than a few notions that seem unique or mistaken to western theology, including tales of various Biblical figures in Arabia. Rather than sitting Muhammad down and correcting them one by one, the angel revealed according to the Prophet's understanding.
Trying to prove the scientific validity of a holy text is something of an exercise in futility. Note the most prominent remnants of those who tried to do that for Christianity; Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates are laughingstocks to everyone but themselves.
As to the other part, I would suggest that if one considers another so lowly, then it makes no sense to reduce oneself to that level for the sake of revenge.
Even I was amused by, and have taken part in, the FSM joke before. But it's a dead horse now, and the difference between beating it to dust and beating it off is immaterial to me. I mean, sure, it's either excess and futility to the one, or necrophilia and futility to the other, but neither speak well of our spaghetti-obsessed neighbors.
Sarkus said:
Sure. But—
—that's the problem with this manner of atheistic argument. I mean, great. They've managed to put themselves on an equivalent level as the religious folks they need so badly to hate. In legal or judicial terms, that would be a plus. In sociomoral terms, however, no.
Those few of our neighbors who have been around long enough will recall that I am an advocate for the atheistic position. But I simply can't throw in with this disgusting, ill-mannered lot. If nothing else, I'll resent them for increasing my sympathy for the religious people they hate so cluelessly.
• • •
Scifes said:
Well, which part? I think your argument in that one was lost years ago; holy texts aren't meant to be read and handled in that manner. The power of the Qur'an has always been its accessibility to the faithful. It was revealed to an allegedly illiterate merchant, and had the power, when recited, to unknit the bonds restraining what otherwise seemed the hardest of hearts. Effective revelations are offered in the vernacular of the prophet, however, and thus should not be regarded literally according to, say, twenty-first century perspectives and vocabulary. The Prophet of Islam bore more than a few notions that seem unique or mistaken to western theology, including tales of various Biblical figures in Arabia. Rather than sitting Muhammad down and correcting them one by one, the angel revealed according to the Prophet's understanding.
Trying to prove the scientific validity of a holy text is something of an exercise in futility. Note the most prominent remnants of those who tried to do that for Christianity; Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates are laughingstocks to everyone but themselves.
As to the other part, I would suggest that if one considers another so lowly, then it makes no sense to reduce oneself to that level for the sake of revenge.
Even I was amused by, and have taken part in, the FSM joke before. But it's a dead horse now, and the difference between beating it to dust and beating it off is immaterial to me. I mean, sure, it's either excess and futility to the one, or necrophilia and futility to the other, but neither speak well of our spaghetti-obsessed neighbors.
The intellectual sloth of modern atheism
(mmph!)
(chortle!)
(guffaw!)
There is a tremendous body of literature and research that suggests you're talking out your ass. Sir James G. Frazier, Mircea Eliade, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung. More recently, Karen Armstrong, Jeffrey Russell Burton, Jean Markale. That doesn't even scratch the tip of the iceberg. As one who claims to have studied psychology, surely you are aware that expressions of superstition reflect the outlook of the beholder. Religion does not simply dictate people's perceptions. Rather, it reflects and shapes perception.
Your rant reinforces the assertion of bigotry. When you push away the religious ideas you so despise, you don't learn anything about them.
Religion is, ultimately, a creative endeavor. Whether or not you or I appreciate the fruits of those labors is its own issue. But your cynicism is nothing more than intellectual sloth and cowardice. It matters enough to you to complain about, but not enough that you are willing to go out and get a clue about what you're denouncing.
Practical concerns. By addressing selected symptoms, and never confronting the cause, you are helping ensure that you always have something to complain about, and someone to hate. This is, at its core, purely selfish.
The follies of religion do affect other people. "Religion" itself is not the problem insofar as religions come and go. It's what people do with those ideas. For all atheists are identifying against theistic religion, other forms of superstitious zealotry that operate like religion but lack a theistic target are excluded from general consideration. Certes, there are individuals who criticize capitalism or patriotism as such, but the modern atheistic movement so focuses on the issue of God and its resentment thereof that it is a superficial attack. It's more about feeling better about oneself than actually solving any problems. If, as the case against religion goes, it's about superstition and irrationality, then it should be about superstition and reality. But atheism is, these days, an anti-identification, which is much more comfortable and considerably less demanding an endeavor that affirmative identification, such as rationalism.
And it's far easier to smugly condemn the idiots than it is to undertake the more complicated historical, psychological, artistic, and anthropological matrix the religious intellectuals manipulate and in which they are immersed.
There is, for instance, already a citation in this thread implicitly reminding that religious expression is not static, yet you turn around and make an argument that depends on that stasis: if religion is simply about conditioning and reinforcement, its expressions would be much more consistent through history.
Nature is not extraneous, Answers. If our creativity was unnecessary to our perpetuity as a species, it would not endure. The challenge, then, is to utilize this tool to the advantage of the species. But that would be an affirmative, complicated, difficult argument requiring genuine dedication, which seems to be the last thing Pastafarianism is interested in.
Answers said:
(mmph!)
(chortle!)
(guffaw!)
There is a tremendous body of literature and research that suggests you're talking out your ass. Sir James G. Frazier, Mircea Eliade, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung. More recently, Karen Armstrong, Jeffrey Russell Burton, Jean Markale. That doesn't even scratch the tip of the iceberg. As one who claims to have studied psychology, surely you are aware that expressions of superstition reflect the outlook of the beholder. Religion does not simply dictate people's perceptions. Rather, it reflects and shapes perception.
Your rant reinforces the assertion of bigotry. When you push away the religious ideas you so despise, you don't learn anything about them.
Religion is, ultimately, a creative endeavor. Whether or not you or I appreciate the fruits of those labors is its own issue. But your cynicism is nothing more than intellectual sloth and cowardice. It matters enough to you to complain about, but not enough that you are willing to go out and get a clue about what you're denouncing.
Practical concerns. By addressing selected symptoms, and never confronting the cause, you are helping ensure that you always have something to complain about, and someone to hate. This is, at its core, purely selfish.
The follies of religion do affect other people. "Religion" itself is not the problem insofar as religions come and go. It's what people do with those ideas. For all atheists are identifying against theistic religion, other forms of superstitious zealotry that operate like religion but lack a theistic target are excluded from general consideration. Certes, there are individuals who criticize capitalism or patriotism as such, but the modern atheistic movement so focuses on the issue of God and its resentment thereof that it is a superficial attack. It's more about feeling better about oneself than actually solving any problems. If, as the case against religion goes, it's about superstition and irrationality, then it should be about superstition and reality. But atheism is, these days, an anti-identification, which is much more comfortable and considerably less demanding an endeavor that affirmative identification, such as rationalism.
And it's far easier to smugly condemn the idiots than it is to undertake the more complicated historical, psychological, artistic, and anthropological matrix the religious intellectuals manipulate and in which they are immersed.
There is, for instance, already a citation in this thread implicitly reminding that religious expression is not static, yet you turn around and make an argument that depends on that stasis: if religion is simply about conditioning and reinforcement, its expressions would be much more consistent through history.
Nature is not extraneous, Answers. If our creativity was unnecessary to our perpetuity as a species, it would not endure. The challenge, then, is to utilize this tool to the advantage of the species. But that would be an affirmative, complicated, difficult argument requiring genuine dedication, which seems to be the last thing Pastafarianism is interested in.
sorry, i don't see where you're going with this
are you saying that we can't discuss an the existence of a modern concept in an old book, because the terminology didn't exist or something?
um..your first statement carries a bit of definity and prejudice, don't you think?
i know that it seems unreasonable considering the previous attempts and their result, but you can't seal the possibility based on that
FSM is a stupid meme, but that's the whole point, isn't it? Religion is also a meme. Humans create religions like they do pop icons. Someday, millions of people will be worshipping Elvis, claiming that he rose from the dead.
Simplicity, futility, and reality (among other notions)
Hardly. Rather, I'm suggesting that it's a difficult task, and one that, barring some new circumstance or information, is an exercise in futility. Even if one shows coincidence, that is merely the beginning. Perhaps to the faithful, there are no accidents. But convincing others is a nearly Sisyphan task. As I am wont to say, "If you throw enough darts ...." Indeed, I scored a bullseye last week, drunkenly hurling darts while we worked our way through a prize pitcher of beer after a trivia contest. (It was a good night insofar as we couldn't lose; only three teams were competing for three prizes—we got our asses kicked.) That bullseye in no way suggests I'm a good dart player. Indeed, it's been years since I've thrown real darts with steel tips, and months at least since I've thrown any darts at all.
And I admit, I am puzzled by a general trend I've noticed; when people meet resistance to their ideas, they frequently say something akin to, "Are you saying we can't discuss ...."
It's not that you can't. You're welcome to bash your head against the bricks, as far as I'm concerned. But it doesn't accomplish anything useful to do so.
That's one of the problems with closed revelations. Consider it, analogously, like the armchair Einsteins we get who think they've randomly achieved some fundamental, revolutionary principle of physics. If they were right, we should have seen evidence of it by now in anything from nuclear physics to satellite communications.
The scientific catalog is ever growing. An infamous example is the embarrassment Christian creationists suffered in the 1990s. After over a century of laughing over the Darwinian idea that bears and whales were evolutionarily related—"Where are the fossils? Where are the fossils?"—the prehistoric remains of Ambulocetus natans ("walking whale") were discovered in Pakistan. Seventeen years later, creationists are still trying to duck that one. Science is an open question. The Qur'an is a closed revelation. Science continues to learn, and the faithful continue to reinterpret their holy texts. (What would it take for a "Muslim Joseph Smith" to sell a new revelation quite literally pulled out of a hat? Or what would happen to that self-appointed prophet?)
Religious revelation is generally attuned to its time. There is a reason the Bible depicts ancient people with ancient technology. There is a reason the Qur'an depicts people without mobile phones, laptops, or electric lights. For some reason, God saw fit to leave important tools of the human endeavor outside the reach of Adam and Eve, or the Hebrews, or the Quraysh. Just like there is a reason some developing modern religious ideas involve extraterrestrials. And to that end, there is a reason why the history of ufology includes angelology and diabology: in ancient times, these phenomena were considered divine; during the early industrial revolution, they looked like balloons or zeppelins (cigar-shaped); in the twentieth century, they were described as "flying saucers" or Frisbees; as we approached the twenty-first century, they suddenly became triangular, like stealth fighters. The mythos reflects the period. I've even seen a claim of a ufo that looks something like a Tetris piece floating through the air.
This is also why closed revelations often encounter problems adapting to modern circumstance. Christians have long expressed God's love for people. But a modern perspective might wonder what act of love loosed people into the world in order that they should spend millennia acquiring the ability to manufacture a mobile phone, or spam your inbox. Given the potential of this world and the Universe in which it exists, it seems strange to consider dropping people into essential wilderness to survive without immediate access to that potential. To the other, though, such questions wouldn't matter at all, except that modern reinterpretation begs them.
No, we cannot seal the possibility, but it would behoove us to keep a somewhat realistic and logical perspective about it.
Scifes said:
Hardly. Rather, I'm suggesting that it's a difficult task, and one that, barring some new circumstance or information, is an exercise in futility. Even if one shows coincidence, that is merely the beginning. Perhaps to the faithful, there are no accidents. But convincing others is a nearly Sisyphan task. As I am wont to say, "If you throw enough darts ...." Indeed, I scored a bullseye last week, drunkenly hurling darts while we worked our way through a prize pitcher of beer after a trivia contest. (It was a good night insofar as we couldn't lose; only three teams were competing for three prizes—we got our asses kicked.) That bullseye in no way suggests I'm a good dart player. Indeed, it's been years since I've thrown real darts with steel tips, and months at least since I've thrown any darts at all.
And I admit, I am puzzled by a general trend I've noticed; when people meet resistance to their ideas, they frequently say something akin to, "Are you saying we can't discuss ...."
It's not that you can't. You're welcome to bash your head against the bricks, as far as I'm concerned. But it doesn't accomplish anything useful to do so.
That's one of the problems with closed revelations. Consider it, analogously, like the armchair Einsteins we get who think they've randomly achieved some fundamental, revolutionary principle of physics. If they were right, we should have seen evidence of it by now in anything from nuclear physics to satellite communications.
The scientific catalog is ever growing. An infamous example is the embarrassment Christian creationists suffered in the 1990s. After over a century of laughing over the Darwinian idea that bears and whales were evolutionarily related—"Where are the fossils? Where are the fossils?"—the prehistoric remains of Ambulocetus natans ("walking whale") were discovered in Pakistan. Seventeen years later, creationists are still trying to duck that one. Science is an open question. The Qur'an is a closed revelation. Science continues to learn, and the faithful continue to reinterpret their holy texts. (What would it take for a "Muslim Joseph Smith" to sell a new revelation quite literally pulled out of a hat? Or what would happen to that self-appointed prophet?)
Religious revelation is generally attuned to its time. There is a reason the Bible depicts ancient people with ancient technology. There is a reason the Qur'an depicts people without mobile phones, laptops, or electric lights. For some reason, God saw fit to leave important tools of the human endeavor outside the reach of Adam and Eve, or the Hebrews, or the Quraysh. Just like there is a reason some developing modern religious ideas involve extraterrestrials. And to that end, there is a reason why the history of ufology includes angelology and diabology: in ancient times, these phenomena were considered divine; during the early industrial revolution, they looked like balloons or zeppelins (cigar-shaped); in the twentieth century, they were described as "flying saucers" or Frisbees; as we approached the twenty-first century, they suddenly became triangular, like stealth fighters. The mythos reflects the period. I've even seen a claim of a ufo that looks something like a Tetris piece floating through the air.
This is also why closed revelations often encounter problems adapting to modern circumstance. Christians have long expressed God's love for people. But a modern perspective might wonder what act of love loosed people into the world in order that they should spend millennia acquiring the ability to manufacture a mobile phone, or spam your inbox. Given the potential of this world and the Universe in which it exists, it seems strange to consider dropping people into essential wilderness to survive without immediate access to that potential. To the other, though, such questions wouldn't matter at all, except that modern reinterpretation begs them.
No, we cannot seal the possibility, but it would behoove us to keep a somewhat realistic and logical perspective about it.
It's rather easy to do both. I reject the superstitious ideas of religion, while I learn about religion as a natural phenomenon...while I learn about religion from a scholarly perspective...while I learn about the modern atrocities of religion like terrorism and undermining scientific facts.
I don't see it that way. Maybe the founder of a religion is creative, but for everyone else, religion is the end of questioning, not the beginning. It rejects doubt and skepticism as enemies, and requires it's adherents to accept the most ridiculous things on faith.
That is an absurd accusation, in fact the more I learn about the early history of Christianity, the less I believe that there even was a Jesus. I wonder when Christians will get a clue about how their religion was invented.
(chortle!)
Amateur night in front of the brick wall?
That isn't even dipping a toe in.
Selective learning? Assimilating what only accommodates your political perspective?
How about this: Why don't you educate Christians on how their religion was invented?
You know, since you've got all those excess clues, why don't you share them with the folks who need them?
Spidergoat said:
Amateur night in front of the brick wall?
That isn't even dipping a toe in.
Selective learning? Assimilating what only accommodates your political perspective?
How about this: Why don't you educate Christians on how their religion was invented?
You know, since you've got all those excess clues, why don't you share them with the folks who need them?
I'm still waiting for an intelligent reply from Tiassa.
Writing 'chortle' and 'guffaw' was pretty impressive though...
You did a good job of ignoring my argument and then re-stating your own. Brilliant work.
And writting names of people was a pretty good counter argument too.
Colour me impressed.
Please humour me by showing me how superstitious behaviour isn't the result of random reinforcment as seen in experiments such as:
Skinner (1948) 'supersition experiment'
And similar experiments done by the following:
Gleeson, Lattal, and William, 1989
Justice & Looney, 1990
Neuringer, 1970
And V.L. Lee (1996) experiment with college students showing the development of superstitious behaviour.
And Matute (1994,1995) experiment with college students.
Also take a look at Bleak and Fredrick (1998) superstition observations.
Also take a look at Ciborowski (1997) superstition observations.
Superstition as a result of random reinforcement has been very well established within psychological research. These mechanisms for superstitious beliefs are illogical and they permeate religious belief. In fact they are the foundation for relgious belief. I do not disagree with what you claim about relgious thought which is built upon this foundation, I agree that it is creative, I agree that it is an expression of humanity, or whatever artistic qualities you want to prescribe to it. However I seriously question the value of any of this when it is firmly built upon the foundation of illogical superstitious belief. Which it most certainly is.
Please show me the experiments and research demonstrating that random reinforcement does not condition superstitious belief. And please demonstrate how relgious belief does not contain any random reinforcement that results in superstitious belief.
Prayer is randomly reinforced and leads to superstitious beliefs. Going to church is randomly reinforced and leads to superstitious beliefs. Giving offerings to god is randomly reinforced and leads to superstitious beliefs. Reading the bible is randomly reinforced and leads to superstitious beliefs. Converting others is randomly reinforced and leads to superstitious beliefs.
The list goes on and on.
Writing 'chortle' and 'guffaw' was pretty impressive though...
You did a good job of ignoring my argument and then re-stating your own. Brilliant work.
And writting names of people was a pretty good counter argument too.
Colour me impressed.
Please humour me by showing me how superstitious behaviour isn't the result of random reinforcment as seen in experiments such as:
Skinner (1948) 'supersition experiment'
And similar experiments done by the following:
Gleeson, Lattal, and William, 1989
Justice & Looney, 1990
Neuringer, 1970
And V.L. Lee (1996) experiment with college students showing the development of superstitious behaviour.
And Matute (1994,1995) experiment with college students.
Also take a look at Bleak and Fredrick (1998) superstition observations.
Also take a look at Ciborowski (1997) superstition observations.
Superstition as a result of random reinforcement has been very well established within psychological research. These mechanisms for superstitious beliefs are illogical and they permeate religious belief. In fact they are the foundation for relgious belief. I do not disagree with what you claim about relgious thought which is built upon this foundation, I agree that it is creative, I agree that it is an expression of humanity, or whatever artistic qualities you want to prescribe to it. However I seriously question the value of any of this when it is firmly built upon the foundation of illogical superstitious belief. Which it most certainly is.
Please show me the experiments and research demonstrating that random reinforcement does not condition superstitious belief. And please demonstrate how relgious belief does not contain any random reinforcement that results in superstitious belief.
Prayer is randomly reinforced and leads to superstitious beliefs. Going to church is randomly reinforced and leads to superstitious beliefs. Giving offerings to god is randomly reinforced and leads to superstitious beliefs. Reading the bible is randomly reinforced and leads to superstitious beliefs. Converting others is randomly reinforced and leads to superstitious beliefs.
The list goes on and on.
Non-sequitur?
It's the distillation of all the BS. We don't need more obfuscation, we need less. We don't need to accomodate the irrational at a time when rationality means the difference between life and death.
Because religion has closed their minds. In earlier times, before the enlightenment and the flowering of science, they would have burned me alive for talking about such things (but not before torturing me first with the most inventive methods). These days they just call it heresy and put their fingers in their ears and go "la,la,la,la".
Well.
All the positions being argued here are correct in respects. The FSM as a metaphysical tool is old; old tools may serve if no new ones are available; then again, I never thought too much of the FSM since it was founded on a deliberately false meme and from knowingly false foundations. (The only way that one could believe it was not so founded is to take at face value the farcical movement grown up around it, which no serious person could possibly do. No evidence for this, of course: but real is real and false is false.) Similarly, though, few religions (save the odd cult; and before anyone digresses into that definition: for the purposes of this definition, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Zen and Zoroastrianism and a variety of others are not to all appearances founded on knowingly false memes: they are not rebranded FSM's or cults in this definition) are founded on such knowingly false perspectives. So its connection to religion - or faith, or any honest theism - has always been tenuous.
I think I buried the frigging thing a few thousand threads back but it's returned yet again. It's a sheer construct. Maybe it could be a 'real' religion in a few thousand years, if everyone forgot what the hell it was founded for, but its very existence is tied to the idea of refuting religion in the first place. Tiassa is right in that it can't be used as a fair tool to beat over the neads of the adherents of religion.
Then again, Tiassa's arrogant, belittling manner is offensive, small-minded, and stupid. How is it bigotry to push away despised religious ideas if there are reasons for pushing them away? Such as the ideas being actually very stupid. Should I stone gays? Of course not. Answers is arguing a biological basis for behaviour, which there is nothing in the slightest wrong with. If you're going to start acting like an ass, you might as well be fisked for it. From this page alone:
No. The enforcement of learning the Quran in Arabic - as if somehow a 'sacred' language - means that much of the Muslim world even today hasn't the foggiest what it means. To this end, rote memorization has been lauded in itself. (And how is that "shaping perceptions"?)
And how can anyone do otherwise, in the dearth of physical evidence for this Allah, or God, or whatever? How can anyone possibly rate the 'experiences' of another without independent verification? This is the objective perspective, which you lack; instead, you drag denigration into the debate and mewl about everyone's hurt feelings. Instead of addressing what's being written, you're running off about how militant atheism hurts people's religious sentiments. Okay. So what? We're talking about the FSM - in case you missed the thread title - not whether rampant objectivism is killing people's souls.
Are you aware, in the most peripheral sense, of the kind of atrocity that religion has been responsible for all through history? Do you maybe suppose that Answers does indeed know what he's talking about? I appreciate that maybe you percieve his strident atheism as paranoia. Then again, maybe he has a reason to worry, with the behaviour of theists being what it is.
Your usual refrains don't cut it. I give you a "C" for that argument, since we're grading.
All the positions being argued here are correct in respects. The FSM as a metaphysical tool is old; old tools may serve if no new ones are available; then again, I never thought too much of the FSM since it was founded on a deliberately false meme and from knowingly false foundations. (The only way that one could believe it was not so founded is to take at face value the farcical movement grown up around it, which no serious person could possibly do. No evidence for this, of course: but real is real and false is false.) Similarly, though, few religions (save the odd cult; and before anyone digresses into that definition: for the purposes of this definition, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Zen and Zoroastrianism and a variety of others are not to all appearances founded on knowingly false memes: they are not rebranded FSM's or cults in this definition) are founded on such knowingly false perspectives. So its connection to religion - or faith, or any honest theism - has always been tenuous.
I think I buried the frigging thing a few thousand threads back but it's returned yet again. It's a sheer construct. Maybe it could be a 'real' religion in a few thousand years, if everyone forgot what the hell it was founded for, but its very existence is tied to the idea of refuting religion in the first place. Tiassa is right in that it can't be used as a fair tool to beat over the neads of the adherents of religion.
Then again, Tiassa's arrogant, belittling manner is offensive, small-minded, and stupid. How is it bigotry to push away despised religious ideas if there are reasons for pushing them away? Such as the ideas being actually very stupid. Should I stone gays? Of course not. Answers is arguing a biological basis for behaviour, which there is nothing in the slightest wrong with. If you're going to start acting like an ass, you might as well be fisked for it. From this page alone:
No. The enforcement of learning the Quran in Arabic - as if somehow a 'sacred' language - means that much of the Muslim world even today hasn't the foggiest what it means. To this end, rote memorization has been lauded in itself. (And how is that "shaping perceptions"?)
And how can anyone do otherwise, in the dearth of physical evidence for this Allah, or God, or whatever? How can anyone possibly rate the 'experiences' of another without independent verification? This is the objective perspective, which you lack; instead, you drag denigration into the debate and mewl about everyone's hurt feelings. Instead of addressing what's being written, you're running off about how militant atheism hurts people's religious sentiments. Okay. So what? We're talking about the FSM - in case you missed the thread title - not whether rampant objectivism is killing people's souls.
Are you aware, in the most peripheral sense, of the kind of atrocity that religion has been responsible for all through history? Do you maybe suppose that Answers does indeed know what he's talking about? I appreciate that maybe you percieve his strident atheism as paranoia. Then again, maybe he has a reason to worry, with the behaviour of theists being what it is.
Your usual refrains don't cut it. I give you a "C" for that argument, since we're grading.
One of several reasons I generally class myself as an emperical skeptic, rather than an atheist, and also one of several reasons you won't generally find me chasing theists around the forum telling them they're derranged and delusional for believing something different to what I believe.
Next time ... oh, I don't know, maybe pay attention?
A couple of ways of looking at it. Simply pushing them away, to the one, is kind of like sweeping things under the rug, or packing all your loose junk into the closet until it bursts open. To the other, though, when an otherwise fun joke like the FSM is beaten into the ground, it's no longer funny. The point of threads like this isn't to push away despised or stupid ideas, but rather to mock people for faith. That seems rather quite bigoted to me.
Well, you'll probably need a glove and some ... oh, wait, you said fisked.
I would assert that there is a difference between a holy text and a religion.
Religious faith becomes a frame of reference. Would you consider it invalid to complain that it is often difficult to have certain discussions with religious people because they keep taking things out of context and trying to make it fit their faith? For instance, I might see the removal of cells from the body, while the Christian sees the murder of a human being. We might see the murder of a bunch of people in a cafe, but the Muslim fanatic sees a legitimate strike in a holy war. Looking through history, we might see torture and mass murder, but the faithful might have seen the saving of a soul by torturing the "witch" to confession and then burning her at the stake.
Just like I might see undereducated, inadequately trained lower-tier staff, and you see people happy to auction off a dozen kids as child prostitutes. Various identity politics affect our frames of reference, and religion is one of the most affecting in human history.
Human sympathy, for starters. You don't have to verify the literal reality of another's perception of God. You can't independently verify how anyone else feels about anything in that manner, but you can certainly understand to some degree.
You cannot objectively prove to me that either of us actually exist, so maybe you should stop clinging so religiously to objectivity.
I challenge you to support that accusation.
I don't see the objective, logical, or honest purpose of your straw man. Perhaps you would like to enlighten us?
(chortle!)
Are you aware, in any sense, how utterly stupid that question is?
It's possible, but I've never been much of a fan of the whole argument about, "I know what I'm talking about, and you're supposed to trust that I do so I never have to support my assertions."
And, besides, he claims to study psychology, and then goes and proves he hasn't the slightest clue about the subject. Given the objective evidence on record, it would seem that no, he doesn't have a fuckin' clue what he's on about.
It's not the paranoia, Geoff, but the hatred.
Then again, it's kind of like job security. Whine and wail and do nothing constructive about what troubles you, and you get to keep whining and wailing. Convenient, eh?
GeoffP said:
A couple of ways of looking at it. Simply pushing them away, to the one, is kind of like sweeping things under the rug, or packing all your loose junk into the closet until it bursts open. To the other, though, when an otherwise fun joke like the FSM is beaten into the ground, it's no longer funny. The point of threads like this isn't to push away despised or stupid ideas, but rather to mock people for faith. That seems rather quite bigoted to me.
Well, you'll probably need a glove and some ... oh, wait, you said fisked.
I would assert that there is a difference between a holy text and a religion.
Religious faith becomes a frame of reference. Would you consider it invalid to complain that it is often difficult to have certain discussions with religious people because they keep taking things out of context and trying to make it fit their faith? For instance, I might see the removal of cells from the body, while the Christian sees the murder of a human being. We might see the murder of a bunch of people in a cafe, but the Muslim fanatic sees a legitimate strike in a holy war. Looking through history, we might see torture and mass murder, but the faithful might have seen the saving of a soul by torturing the "witch" to confession and then burning her at the stake.
Just like I might see undereducated, inadequately trained lower-tier staff, and you see people happy to auction off a dozen kids as child prostitutes. Various identity politics affect our frames of reference, and religion is one of the most affecting in human history.
Human sympathy, for starters. You don't have to verify the literal reality of another's perception of God. You can't independently verify how anyone else feels about anything in that manner, but you can certainly understand to some degree.
You cannot objectively prove to me that either of us actually exist, so maybe you should stop clinging so religiously to objectivity.
I challenge you to support that accusation.
I don't see the objective, logical, or honest purpose of your straw man. Perhaps you would like to enlighten us?
(chortle!)
Are you aware, in any sense, how utterly stupid that question is?
It's possible, but I've never been much of a fan of the whole argument about, "I know what I'm talking about, and you're supposed to trust that I do so I never have to support my assertions."
And, besides, he claims to study psychology, and then goes and proves he hasn't the slightest clue about the subject. Given the objective evidence on record, it would seem that no, he doesn't have a fuckin' clue what he's on about.
It's not the paranoia, Geoff, but the hatred.
Then again, it's kind of like job security. Whine and wail and do nothing constructive about what troubles you, and you get to keep whining and wailing. Convenient, eh?