There Is a Rose Among Thorns
Spidergoat said:
Well we are not responsible for who you know, but among the atheist community, these questions are being asked, and usually answered by some form of humanism.
Says you. While the lack of evidence to support that thesis is not evidence of a lack of truth about it, your point would be better if those answers were available to the public discourse.
In other words, we should conduct ourselves to produce the greatest benefit to human beings as a society and as individuals.
And if you want to be respected for that principle, you ought to try behaving accordingly.
Of course, this problem is not an easy one, since we didn't evolve to live in such large groups. One answer may be biological or chemical.
This is a point well worth its own discussion. You are, indeed, correct. Religion itself, and its diverse manifestations, are symptomatic, not causal. Those who treat religion as causal are making a blatantly obvious mistake. That they don't correct that mistake speaks either to will or competence.
The thing is, all religions do is cobble together some historical rules and announce them fixed for all eternity, so adherents don't even have to think about them. It's another way to evade the question.
Yes, and if those rules were fixed for all eternity, religious people wouldn't always be fighting about them.
Another strawman. People like Sam Harris, Victor Stenger, and me ....
Well, here's the thing about your politics:
Does the occurrence of deviations in the sample nullify the quantification?
In politics, we measure the collectives by what they do. Can I find one or two Republicans who disagree with the hardline taken on women's healthcare? Or candidates' dumb remarks about rape? Yeah, actually I can. So guess what? There is no "war on women". Well, at least not by the logic of your point. There is no pervasive misogyny in the GOP right now because we can certainly, somewhere in America, find a deviation.
Can we find one or two decent, honest Christians in the world? Then your disdain for religion is invalid. Well, at least by the logic of your point.
I think what cracks me up the most is how this brand of atheism runs around behaving like the religionists it hates.
Another strawman. People like Sam Harris, Victor Stenger, and me appreciate the eastern philosophical approach as embodied in Buddhism and Taoism, removed of their supernatural elements.
Then show it, sometime. Show us what you've learned. Apply it in your arguments.
Surely you don't think the supernatural is the only way to understand reality?
What an odd proposition.
So what. It's weakness is it's strength.
(
chortle!)
Hypocrisy is strength? Hatred is strength?
I suppose it's easy enough to accept that as the atheistic outlook.
(also I don't know who those people are)
Well, you could always try paying attention to the discussion.
But, hey, thanks for making it easy. If you can't be bothered to have a clue what you're talking about, I'll save myself the bother of caring what you have to say.
Oh, right. Your weakness is your strength.
As soon as you start to write anything down, true morality is subverted, turned into law.
You presume "true morality" exists?
Other than that, yeah, sure.
Personal liberation is all you need, everything else is just window dressing.
Such disdain for the human endeavor might not put you in the same class as Lex Luthor, but it certainly does clear up for us the question of why you're confused.
I don't know where all your intellectual angst comes from, but the problems of life are simple, food, clothing, shelter, entertainment, enjoying the fruits of our labor... Religion makes us worried about stupid things that don't even exist.
Ah, so religion is back to causal?
Hatred of religious ideas is entirely fair, since they do real harm.
Hatred itself is irrational. And, well, your lack of concern for collateral damage—i.e., your fellow human beings—is pretty much indicative. As I said, the modern atheistic movment isn't about any question pertaining to God, but, rather, self-empowerment through bigotry. Thank you for supporting that thesis.
Religion doesn't get a free pass. Neither do atheists, some atheists are sexist or racist, and there is much talk about what to do about them.
That would be a very interesting discussion to witness. Too bad the atheists are hiding it in their closets.
Meanwhile, why are you trying to give these Pastafarians a free pass?
I'm personally fine with nihilism, but I realize it's too advanced for most people. They don't want to be empty, they want to fill of their minds with happy fuzzy thoughts. But I agree with the Tao Te Ching:
Throw away holiness and wisdom,
and people will be a hundred times happier.
Throw away morality and justice,
and people will do the right thing.
Well, sure. Thank you for pointing out that the right thing is to take us back to the hunter-gatherer phase.
I mean, sure, the passage sounds nice and all, but it's a bit more wicked when you take a moment to actually pay attention to what it means.
People are individuals, I don't know how they are applying skepticism.
A weak excuse. What we don't see is a widespread atheistic application of its skepticism to other myths in society. The state, for instance. Right and wrong. Art.
Although I do recognize your rejection of the myth of human civilization. (I would hate to be unfair and skip that.)
I personally try to remain skeptical about everything within reason.
That condition, "within reason" is the problem. "Within reason" is sentimental, not actually an appeal to reason or rational argument.
It's not unreasonable to find personal meaning in one's life.
Looking back to your question—
"Surely you don't think the supernatural is the only way to understand reality?"
—I can only say that I await your scientific treatise on the pursuit of meaning in one's life.
It's rational to seek happiness and avoid pain.
Are you certain? Is that an absolute statement?
I don't hate them, perhaps I pity them.
You don't hate religious people? Yeah, I believe you. Because you said so. And, well, it's perfectly reasonable to ignore your behavioral history about this subject in order to accept your present declaration.
Right? I mean, that's the reasonable thing. Right? To dismiss your observable behavior in order to accept an unsupported claim to the opposite?
I do want to reform them.
When someone like you, who demonstrates such a fierce disdain for human sympathy, starts speaking of "reform", there's a reason why others hear "pogrom".
I don't think any progress can be made with faith, since faith is the root cause of the problem.
So, yes, we are officially, unquestionably back to religion being causal.
I don't think liberal interpretations of religion are much better than fundamentalist ones, worse in some ways, because they make the dangerous seem benign.
Until you get past your insistence that religion is causal, you will never be able to understand how the "simple" problems—
"food, clothing, shelter, entertainment, enjoying the fruits of our labor..."—shape religious outcomes.
Toronto dad upset he's not allowed to watch daughter's swim class
Thank you. Next time, represent your point honestly. This was about "female only". I'm pretty sure I don't get to go down to Curves and ogle the women all day. As a matter of fact, I've heard some masculinist groups complaining about that.
But, hey. If you want to get rid of gender divisions, fine. We have a brouhaha going on up here about whether pre-op transsexuals should be allowed to use women's locker rooms when children are present. We can settle that one easily enough by simply having little girls and old men change clothes in the same room.
May not be wise, but, hey, if a few little girls or boys get molested, we can chalk it up to being
fair, and pat ourselves on the back.
Female-only reservations are not specifically about religion.
And it should be noted that the community center did, in fact, agree that they should be more clear about what female-only means. Reminds me of that bit about people needing a written warning that coffee is hot.
Funny thing about the McDonald's thing, though, is that it wasn't really about the fact that the coffee was hot, but that it was improperly prepared, resulting in severe burns. Still, though, people were willing to invoke
Argumentum ad Toothpick, which, as silly as it is, provides some degree of contrast for the Canadian consideration:
What part of "female-only" is confusing?
I mean, sure, you can say that such sex divisions are inappropriate; that's a long discussion society probably needs to have. But, in the meantime, I'm hardly sympathetic to a guy whose distress results from his own idiocy.
You've had more than your three strikes. Sit down, Waldo.
Gmilam said:
Wow, just wow. A guy wants to humorously protest religions getting special recognition and you want to question the morality and ethics of people who get the joke.
There are a lot of people who get the Sandbox Joke, too. It's only the ones who think it's true whose morality and ethics fall into question.
And, you know, for someone who views the very human experience as
shit, you probably shouldn't expect your morals and ethics to rate well in any functional context.
As for morality and ethics... these religions were created by human beings. Humans are the source of the morals and ethics. Not gods - humans.
I'm certain you think there is a point to reminding the obvious. Please feel free to let us know what that point is supposed to be.
We have rape squads in Egypt that are rooted in one of these religious organizations and you have the nerve to question the morals of someone who makes a point by putting a strainer on his head. Amazing.
Unless you're willing to offer a testable thesis explaining how we can solve the problems of hatred in human society by pouring more hatred onto the fires, well, yeah, actually I do have the nerve to question the morals of a hatemonger who just pulled off a con job in order to achieve state endorsement of bigotry.
And as to those who argue that religion is causal and not symptomatic, well, there really isn't much to their argument.
• • •
Quinnsong said:
If atheists became detached and unemotional regarding the religious, how will this benefit them?
It will allow opportunities for certain forward progress.
The animosity my atheist neighbors show is much akin to a grim joke about job security. Christian moralists do this; they're the ones that dragged homosexuality front and center in the '90s, and now that they are unquestionably losing the culture war they started, they're already moving onto things like bestialism and polygamy. If polygamy ever becomes legal in the United States, it will be because our moralist neighbors demanded everyone stop and think about polygamy again.
I think of alleged feminist Lindy West, who establishes this sort of job security by making a point of behaving like some right-wing myth of the feminazi. I mean, there's nothing like making a problem worse to ensure that it's still waiting for you tomorrow morning.
The idea of
an atheist is just another idea. But it is certainly contextualized by relevant issues of its times. In the context of the old prohibition against atheists serving in public office, or the U.S. Air Force's evangelical Christian cultism, well,
duh, of course I'm onboard with equal protection under the law.
The problem arises when it goes beyond this. The most common atheistic critiques of theism are no less inflexible than what they complain about. Indeed, one can reasonably argue that atheistic rigidity is even more apparent than theistic.
For instance, your
reflection on apathy (apathism?) is, as I see it, a compelling description touching diverse aspects of your life.
Let us apply our neighbor Gmilam's approach: It's
shit.
This isn't helpful. Such attitudes do nothing to reconcile the differences between people. Rather than elevating the discourse, and bettering the human endeavor, they're looking to drag the whole thing down into the gutter where the least scrupulous religionists play.
And that's fine. That's their decision. For the rest of us, we can simply wait until evangelical atheists find a reasonably competent voice. Until then, well, as Gmilam suggests, all they have is
shit. And, hey, that works well enough. They can sit at the kids table with Dawkins and Dobson and Hitchens as long as they want. Responsible academia, debate, and faith will survive.
The thing is that there is bad produce in any harvest. This does not define the harvest unless the blight is significant.
A problem I've long had with religious people is that they cling to a certain common identity—i.e.,
corpus Christi—while overlooking certain, vital differences. And, it's true that you can point to rivalries between Catholics and Baptists, as such, but a local story from the 1990s will, hopefully, illustrate my point.
• Are Christians advocates of child sexual abuse? Setting aside overworn jokes about the Catholic hierarchy, we might consider the case of a preacher from the Seattle area. The pastor of a megachurch, his congregation was horrified when a local newspaper ran a story alleging that he had been arrested in Florida for sexually accosting a young boy in the restroom at Disney World. The outrage among local Christians was overwhelming: How dare the newspaper report on this! If it was real, there would be a record! The record emerged. Local Christians were outraged: How dare the newspaper report this! If it really happened, and the evidence is real, why wasn't he prosecuted? Evidence of a cover-up emerged. How dare the newspaper report this! Can't you see this is a family issue? Dude! He got caught trying to molest a little boy! It can't possibly be that all these outraged Christians are actually supporting his attempt to molest a child. But that's what they did. This wasn't just his congregation screaming at the P-I. This was regional outrage at a newspaper's invasion of a pious, religious man's private life. Whatever divisions might exist between Catholic and Baptist, Lutheran and Missouri Synod Lutheran, or whatever, diverse Christians came together under the banner of the corpus Christi in order to defend one of their own by asserting that the public had no right to know that this man, who leads a congregation of thousands, with regular access to children, was arrested for attempted child molestation. The damnedest thing, I tells ya.
Now, sure, being a Sievehead is not morally comparable to child molestation, but I do find it interesting how the identity politic of
atheism transcends the advertised objectivity, skepticism, and rational thought.
I look at the situation as people are at different levels of development and having a personal god for their own edification and sense of morality is just fine. But, as spidergoat pointed out it does become a problem when it infringes and spills out upon society in a negative way i.e. , education, medicine, participation in politics.
I don't disagree. But that doesn't mean two wrongs make a right.
To wit, should we go get ourselves some "Niggers Should Hang" t-shirts?
Here's one:
The Gay Fray should already be over, except for Christian supremacism. My religious outlook has no objection to homosexuals getting married at all. Prohibitions against same-sex marriage violate my First Amendment right to free religion.
We might note that the argument doesn't fly. Well, at least not in the United States. I wonder if it ever worked in the Czech Republic?
In the end, what it comes down to—or so says me—is what people want. And as we see in our atheist neighbors here at Sciforums, Messrs. Nový and Alm in Europe, and the scathing vice of writers like Dawkins and Hitchens is that it's not really about equality or justice or whatever. It's about empowering and justifying hatred.
And
of course that's their right. Just like it's my right to disdain such bigotry.
But
if ... if, if,
if ... this is really about justice and equality and making the world a better place, they will find better progress toward such goals if they overcome this disabling vice.
• • •
Billvon said:
I look at the situation as people are at different levels of development and having a personal god for their own edification and sense of morality is just fine. But, as spidergoat pointed out it does become a problem when it infringes and spills out upon society in a negative way i.e. , education, medicine, participation in politics.
Nice dodge.
And to you, his disagreement is "pulling stuff out of his ass." At least you seem to have an equal level of respect for each other's opinions.
If it's too much to ask that you actually pay attention to what you're responding to, just say so.
Did a priest try to molest you when you were a child, and result in you thinking the Catholic Church is immoral? To Tiassa, you are just pulling your opinion out of your ass.
See how easy that is?
Well, it was a nice try.
A nickel's worth of free advice:
Rubber-glue arguments only work if there is a reasonable basis.
In other words, one should not complain about the application of the principle if one is unwilling to object to the principle itself.
It's interesting that you think Pastafarianism is a "movement."
Well, what would you call them? An organization? Fine. They're no more a church or religion, though, than the Seattle Police Department, and it's an open question which one has the lesser integrity.
Well, thank you for the clarification.
As for official establishment of religion, neither is that a surprise from theists.
So you are saying that breathing is just like religious freedom; you can do it if you want but it's not required?
Here's the
[trickypart]:
I would be saying that if I accepted the proposition.
Sorry if that confuses you.
[return]
Your troll-fu is getting a little weak. That's not even as good a troll as Jive-a-billion can pull off.
As I used to tell the Christians around here:
Your rules. Don't complain when people play along.
[gosub trickypart]
[end]