quote:You wouldn't be offended if someone referred to you as deluded?
Imagine for a moment that you are an atheist. Someone tells you, "I have been told by my God, whose presence I regularly feel in my heart, that I should not eat meat on Sundays." Clearly, this person has not been told anything of the kind. You are left with two options: either that person is lying about having had the experience of feeling something that he interpreted as the presence of God, or that person felt something and has interpreted it to be consistent with his expectations of God. The latter is a classic case of delusion; the former is something considerably more sinister. In this case, then, delusion is the more charitable of the possible interpretations.
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Tom, your experience with Christians is very different from mine. I cannot having that conversation.
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Nowhere did I specify "Christian." Anyone who thinks he's felt the presence of God in his life falls into the appropriate category.
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You didn't actually answer my question, Tom.
I understand why you think theists are deluded, I really do. But there are several ways to title that book without using the term "delusion," and some of them would be more accurate about the subject covered. "The God Taboo." "The God Card." And so forth.
So you might be able to imagine why theists would read that title and assume that the author was being inflammatory just because he could.
ETA: Would you refer to someone with mental disabilities as "retarded" to their face, even if you knew it was offensive to them? Even though the person in question technically is mentally retarded?
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quote:So you might be able to imagine why theists would read that title and assume that the author was being inflammatory just because he could.
Oh, sure. But my point is that, as understandable as their confusion is, they're wrong.
Dawkins called the book The God Delusion because the entire thrust of the book is that atheists should stop being shy about calling a belief in God delusional. Had he shied away from using the word "delusion" in the title, he would have actually subverted his whole point.
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quote:Clearly, this person has not been told anything of the kind.
Objection, your honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.
Yeah, but you've got to realize that, upon first impression, someone saying that God talks to them seems either extremely arrogant or extremely crazy. What if I told you that God told me to send you some extra goats, because your goat is going to become a ship captain and leave you for months at at time?
Exactly. I'm not saying it's impossible, but, because of its extreme improbability (based on previous experience) it may beg the question.
This is why religions mainly succeed by outbreeding each other. It's easier to RAISE someone to believe something than it is to convert a full-grown adult.
I happen to have been raised in such a crazy religion (Young Earth Creationist Fundamentalist) that I had no choice but to leave it, once I saw that these people really weren't going to grow out of their beliefs. I still can't talk to them, except to pass the time of day, even though I grew up knowing them. We have so little common ground. It's sad. They're nice people, just like Ron Lambert, but...the moon is not made of green cheese, and I'm not going to start saying it is, even if refusing to do so costs me some social closeness.
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Long time lurker here - see my member number. Maybe my position as a longtime outside observer will be of some interest. I'm always a little surprised at the responses to King of Men and Lisa. I'm an atheist, so of course I support some of KoM's positions, but I'm also fairly anti-State-of-Israel, and find Lisa's politics odious. This being said, I never see them actually insulting anyone. Their pronouncements are harsh and partisan, but they are open and honest about their partisanship. They tend to be the only posters I see here that have no pretense of "empty" objectivity.
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Oops. I edited my post above rather than posting again because I assumed this thread was moving too slowly.
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Richard Dawkins is not a nasty person. He is just tired, as many of us are, of seeing religion being handed a "get out of criticism free" card. One could speak in the exact tones he uses to criticize someone's politics, or their football team, or their choice of television viewing, and no one would blink. But we are forbidden--by social conventions, of course, and not by any actual law--to criticize someone's religion for no other reason than that it is their religion. It's tiresome, and it's time for those of us who reject all religions to stand up and say we won't be silenced about it anymore.
Now, I don't think that means we ought to have license to make nasty personal attacks. Except, of course, insofar as those of us in the United States have the Constitutional right to say any damn thing we like. And we do, thanks. I vehemently oppose the concept of subject bans, and I say this as someone who has often seen KoM make nasty personal attacks on the religious and bring up religion in completely irrelevant contexts for no reason but to do so, and wished he would just shut the hell up.
But wishing someone would restrain themselves out of a sense of decency, or punishing them for actually violating the terms of service, is not at all the same as handing down a ukase declaring that they, and they alone, are forbidden to so much as weigh in on a given topic. I think that's every bit as counterproductive to real discussion as are KoM's non-sequitur ad hominems.
If you're going to start a thread on religion, it would be fatuous to assume that religion is not going to be criticized, or to complain when it is. Those of us who disagree with religion are free to claim that right. But there's no reason to drag it into irrelevant conversations just to say something nasty about it, either, and there's equally no reason we shouldn't be able to have genuine debates about controversial issues without its degeneration into name-calling.
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quote:Objection, your honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.
I can't remember your religious views so I don't know if you're just playing devil's advocate or not, but if you substitute "Optimus Prime told me that a nearby airport base is filled with Decepticons and I need to blow it up to save the world" you get a statement with the same truth value. You are not a functioning adult if you accept that statement at face value.
My issue, however, is with the second half of Tom's statement. "You have two options." Well, you have two options on what to personally BELIEVE, but a wide variety of options of what action to actually pursue. You can roll your eyes. You can demand evidence. You can just ignore the person. You can tell the person they are lying and/or delusional. And if you choose to call them delusional, they are not going to be slightest bit impressed that you chose that instead of calling them a liar. They'll either get angry or mentally file you as "someone who clearly doesn't understand where I'm coming from so I'm not going to take them as seriously." Neither one is conducive to actually getting them to change their mind.
"The God Delusion" is a useful title insofar as it is provocative and got people to read or at least look at the book. I don't really blame Dawkin's for choosing it because a less controversial title wouldn't have attracted as much attention. And I do certainly agree with his thesis. I have no idea whether the book succeeded in changing the minds of some ambivalent people who hadn't made up their minds yet but it certainly didn't change the minds of (m)any actual theists.
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I think where you use the phrase "pretense of 'empty' objectivity," someone else might use the word "tact." It's worth noting that at least part of the reason Lisa and KoM get the responses they do is that they are among the few posters on the board who have actually endorsed and/or wished for occasions of mass murder. This tends to color the responses to their posts.
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I hope I'm not contributing to a discussion about whether or not God exists. I still feel like I'm speaking on the topic of decorum.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I don't want to derail any further. We could take this to another thread?
Seconded. I feel like I had just gotten to feeling like I could contribute something, and then the whole point of what I was trying to say came true in all the wrong ways.
I'd like to go back to discussing how we can all be a bit more civil and less inflammatory, and better at self-moderating. I know I'm just a lurker, but there's a lot of people who used to post regularly who I miss quite a bit. I haven't even seen ClaudiaTherese in a while, and she was someone I always depended on for a classy, courteous, and thoughtful response even when things were ugly.
I think sometimes I lurk because I know if I post I won't measure up to that standard. A few times I have posted in sarcasm or snark, and it always turns out to be something I regret.
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quote:It's worth noting that at least part of the reason Lisa and KoM get the responses they do is that they are among the few posters on the board who have actually endorsed and/or wished for occasions of mass murder. This tends to color the responses to their posts.
The antipathy towards them certainly predates these endorsements, right?
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I think I missed the hatrack golden age. But over 50% of what attracts me to this forum is the religious discussion.
And at first, I couldn't stand KoM. But I appreciate his existence, I appreciate him challenging, pushing back, his fierce logic - he represents a truth that must be contended with.
Is he obnoxious at times? Sure. But I think what's fair is that he should be treated like an obnoxious person at a dinner party. IF he, matter-of-factly states his position, speaking in terms of what IS, and what ISN'T, and waiting for you to see the clarity of his words, then tell him you'd prefer not to speak with him on the subject.
If we do not engage when he treats us like inferior minds, then he will lose interest in commenting from the sidelines.
I think KoM productively contributes to the discussion on religion. It'd be a shame to have him subject-banned.
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quote:I can't remember your religious views so I don't know if you're just playing devil's advocate or not, but if you substitute "Optimus Prime told me that a nearby airport base is filled with Decepticons and I need to blow it up to save the world" you get a statement with the same truth value.
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Hm. No, actually. KoM, in one of his very earliest posts, infamously declared that he'd be happy to help along any religious person who wanted to meet God. And Lisa, of course, leapt right into a discussion of Palestinian border disputes by saying that, in her opinion, Israel had been more than generous enough and really should just drive them into the sea. (Note: I'm paraphrasing in each case, but not actually by much.)
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I still say we let KoM and Lisa mod each other. Only posts approved by the other person get to be posted.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I have no idea whether the book succeeded in changing the minds of some ambivalent people who hadn't made up their minds yet but it certainly didn't change the minds of (m)any actual theists.
I don't know if this counts, but I always used to call myself agnostic on the grounds that I can't know for certain there's no God. While I still technically classify myself as an agnostic regarding the more general question of whether there is or has been some form of Creator, I now come right out with it and say, with regards to any one specific version of a deity (Zeus, Thor, Yahweh, etc.) that I am, in fact, an atheist. If there is some Creator out there, I don't think any of my fellow primates can claim to know the details. And I'm now less inclined to let myself be silenced about that. And yes, it is thanks to having read The God Delusion and the book Christopher Hitchens released around the same time, called (are you all ready for this one?), God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
It's not that Dawkins and Hitchens converted me away from theism or even true ambivalence. They just gave me that final push to recognize consciously what I'd always believed inside anyway. On Dawkins' scale of belief, where a 1 is absolutely convinced there is a God, a 7 is absolutely convinced there is not, and a 4 assigns an equal probability to both options, I rate myself as a 6. As does Professor Dawkins himself, in fact.
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quote:Originally posted by steven: I still say we let KoM and Lisa mod each other. Only posts approved by the other person get to be posted.
Don't you realize that you're being a little too forward when you make this suggestion for the second time?
Lisa and KoM are people. They're even friends of others on this forum. Yea, they may give us some trouble, and they may have rubbed people the wrong way, but they are genuine people. Let's keep brainstorming until we come up with something a little less demeaning.
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quote:Originally posted by Verily the Younger: If you're going to start a thread on religion, it would be fatuous to assume that religion is not going to be criticized, or to complain when it is. Those of us who disagree with religion are free to claim that right. But there's no reason to drag it into irrelevant conversations just to say something nasty about it, either, and there's equally no reason we shouldn't be able to have genuine debates about controversial issues without its degeneration into name-calling.
But what I don't understand is why some atheists have to be very nasty about it. There are religions I disagree with to the very bone, and yet can credit their adherents with sincerity and good intentions. Doesn't stop me from engaging them with challenging questions, or pointing out flaws in the theology, mythology, or historiography. Nor does it stop me from privately thinking they really haven't thought things through far enough.
I have never, however, felt it would be effective to say "Well, you are wrong, so it really doesn't matter what you think," which is what I see so often here, from both sides. It's not polite, for one, and I'm not simply talking about this "God Taboo". Dismissing anyone's opinions as worthless is rude. More importantly, it's simply not effective. You don't change minds. You create hostility, resentment, and close down dialogue. When you do this, you lose all opportunity to present your ideas in terms the other will understand. And perhaps most importantly, dismissing an opinion based on the theist/atheist divide is foolish because in the end, understanding why people act as they do is far better for achieving one's ends than simply ignoring them.
But mostly I'm just frustrated right now because there is no room to talk about any aspect of religious experience, even in the abstract, because it always seems to devolve to this.
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quote:Originally posted by steven: I still say we let KoM and Lisa mod each other. Only posts approved by the other person get to be posted.
Don't you realize that you're being a little too forward when you make this suggestion for the second time?
Lisa and KoM are people. They're even friends of others on this forum. Yea, they may give us some trouble, and they may have rubbed people the wrong way, but they are genuine people. Let's keep brainstorming until we come up with something a little less demeaning.
If I were mod, I'd have banned them both years ago. They deserve to be demeaned, IMHO. Being humbled can teach you. Kindness and tolerance have their limits of usefulness, again, IMHO. But whatever.
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For what it's worth, EL, I totally agree with you.
Steven: There's a difference between being humbled and being demeaned. No poster on this board deserves to be demeaned. Some deserve to be banned, which would be the normal consequences of their actions.
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quote:Originally posted by Eaquae Legit: But mostly I'm just frustrated right now because there is no room to talk about any aspect of religious experience, even in the abstract, because it always seems to devolve to this.
Hit the nail on the head for me. I have a lot of deep religious experience to share, as do many people on this board. Sure the religion vs. atheist dimension is a fun and productive discussion to have, but there is a lot of rich discussion that the theists can have among themselves that I think that the atheists should at least allow us to have.
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quote:Originally posted by Eaquae Legit: But what I don't understand is why some atheists have to be very nasty about it.
For the same reason anyone has to be nasty during a disagreement; because they care more about being right than they do about being civilized. Atheists don't have a monopoly on that attitude, I assure you.
For myself, I'll tell someone exactly what I think of their beliefs if they really want to know. And if they try to push their beliefs on me, I'll tell them exactly what I think of that, too. But I don't go looking for those fights. And if someone says to me, "I'll pray for you" because they care that I'm going through a hard time, I'll say, "Thank you." Inside I'm rolling my eyes, but it would be rude to no good purpose to express that externally.
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quote:Originally posted by PSI Teleport: For what it's worth, EL, I totally agree with you.
No poster on this board deserves to be demeaned.
And when you don't correct the problem behavior, it often gets worse. Doing nothing has clearly NOT solved the problem. It's been years. The mess has not gotten better on its own. Do you have some reason to think it will?
It can't always be about people's rights. Sometimes it's about getting some peace and stability. This is an internet forum, not real life. I'm a pretty tremendous defender of personal liberty as far as the actual world goes, but...this is not the world.
Didn't I mention above that I'd have banned them years ago? At least my suggestion gives them the chance to keep posting, which is what I assume they both want. There won't be much of a forum LEFT if they continue their current behavior. I'd say potentially destroying the forum is a good enough reason for some humble pie to be served, maybe.
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quote:Hit the nail on the head for me. I have a lot of deep religious experience to share, as do many people on this board. Sure the religion vs. atheist dimension is a fun and productive discussion to have, but there is a lot of rich discussion that the theists can have among themselves that I think that the atheists should at least allow us to have.
Indeed. I remember several wonderful threads in past years where several Christian members of different denominations got together and discussed their differences. Nobody's mind was changed, even though we clearly all thought each other wrong.
However, we learned from each other and that knowledge made later discussions still more civil and nuanced. There was one particular thread where people were talking about Christology, and the participants came to some sort of understanding about why the LDS church gets so much flack for "not being Christian." It was a small revelation for the LDS participants, and a revelation also for me. It has coloured my interactions with the church ever since. It's helped me be more understanding, more generous, and enabled me to more intelligently engage in theological discussions.
If the New Atheism's mantra is that religion ruins everything, and that mantra is so important that it prevents discussions like that - discussions where people learned and became more understanding and more peaceful with each other - then really I want it to stay out of such discussions. The fruits of the conversations are pretty telling to me. Sure, some or all of us were still wrong at the end of it. But we were better people, and at the end of the day I'd prefer that than a bunch of angry, rude people who are "right."
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Like most people associated with the so-called "New Atheism", I despise the term. To the extent that it's a movement at all, its sole purpose is to say we refuse to have our rights to free speech abrogated on the grounds that our refusal to believe in the unprovable is "offensive" to some. Religious people talk about their beliefs all the time, and we claim the right to do the same, openly and without shame.
Aside from that, there's no movement, and there's no "mantra". Many of us don't actually believe that religion is an unmitigated evil.
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I honestly feel that if the majority of posters can't police themselves (as well as accepting hints or warnings from other, 'lay' posters) than no amount of moderating will fix the problem. Conversely, if all or almost all posters do try maintain a certain level of decorum then the occasional stray troll will be dealt with effectively without any official moderation. I feel strongly that Hatrack was at the latter position some time ago. I don't think it's at the former position now but clearly something needs to change. That whole thing about repeating your actions and expecting different results being insanity...
I agree with what was said earlier, that posting becomes difficult and without reward. Having very aggressive posters does spoil the mood and often topic of the thread. Perhaps more debilitating though is (as was pointed out before) it makes it incredibly unlikely that a polite, reasonable post will garner a response. Instead attention is riveted on the extreme posts. Just the way few are capable of reading a book with a 52" TV blaring away in front of them.
All this is, I suppose, just a restatement of the problem rather than a solution. I'm not sure what that solution is but I feel like it's out there. I do kind of doubt that it's another caustic discussion of religion however.
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Sorry, I didn't make it more apparent that I was referencing Hitchens' book (got "poisoned" mixed up for "ruins"). I definitely credit atheists with as many motivations and differing opinions as I do, say, Catholics. I'm trying to keep my frustration from influencing my posts too heavily, and evidently failing. My apologies. I hate it when my beliefs get generalised, and I shouldn't do it to you, no matter if I'm frustrated.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: ... It's also worth noting that the book is not intended to persuade theists that God does not exist; rather, it is intended to persuade atheists that they should not be afraid to simply come out and say, "No, I don't think your God exists" for fear of being rude.
QFT
I think that answers my last. I would only add that Dawkin's support of things like the Out Campaign makes this only more clear.
Raymond Arnold (12:11): Since you haven't read the book, I would note that it has this as a second paragraph
quote:I suspect – well, I am sure – that there are lots of people out there who have been brought up in some religion or other, are unhappy in it, don’t believe it, or are worried about the evils that are done in its name; people who feel vague yearnings to leave their parents’ religion and wish they could, but just don’t realize that leaving is an option. If you are one of them, this book is for you. It is intended to raise consciousness – raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled.
quote: My dream is that this book may help people to come out. Exactly as in the case of the gay movement, the more people come out, the easier it will be for others to join them. There may be a critical mass for the initiation of a chain reaction.
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:Originally posted by Eaquae Legit: Good grief, even a thread asking us to clean things up has devolved into whether God exists or not.
Indeed.
For my part, I'm limiting myself to correcting the Dawkins issue specifically. The open-ended does God exist debate is not my concern.
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: I agree with KoM's arguments on religion. But if I had to power to subject-ban people he and Lisa would be the first clicks I made. That's how counter-productive I find his tone and presentation.
I feel like collateral damage.
Never! I named you both for good reason -- you're like talk radio political pundits. KoM can be Rush Limbaugh and you can be Sean Hannity (or whomever the opposite leftist to limbaugh is; I don't listen to that unadulterated horseradish). Your rhetoric gets in the way of your position. So much so that even people who agree with you are embarrassed to say so because you're both so obnoxious about it.
It gets great ratings, and it's fun to watch. But not to participate in.
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quote:I disagree (regarding the equivalent truth values of Optimus Prime and God)
To clarify: I'm not saying Optimus Prime is or isn't more likely to be true than God. I'm saying that if you WERE an atheist, and someone said "I believe in God," and "I believe in Optimus Prime," the statements would seem equally absurd. Which was the point of the thought experiment.
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quote:If the New Atheism's mantra is that religion ruins everything...
You could always do some reading on the subject and find out. Seriously.
I have, and it didn't seem new to me at all. Just an excuse for bad behavior regarding other people's belief systems.
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quote: I'm saying that if you WERE an atheist, and someone said "I believe in God," and "I believe in Optimus Prime," the statements would seem equally absurd.
Not only do I disagree that they are equally absurd, I disagree the idea that disbelief in both them makes them equally absurd.
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quote:Do evolutionists care more about truth than Jews and Christians care about the truth they believe in? It does not seem possible.
quote:Originally posted by KoM: Of course we do; that's how we managed to arrive at actual truth in the first place, by caring about it and not being satisfied by the first convenient mythology we came across.
This was the part that caused me to respond. I know I'm a little late to the party and was only coming back here to see if another book was in the works or on the shelves.
KoM - To me you've always been an intelligent person and I've respected much of your position and passion, but the arrogance hasn't changed a bit in over a year.
You talk about 'truth' like a person who knows all the facts. Simply put..you don't. None of us have all the scientific or 'truthful' facts and it's not reasonable in any scientific sense to know that we do or ever will. That would be entirely speculative.
You can't know if there is a god or not. You don't know if facts we know about the universe will change from now til tomorrow. Our 'knowledge' about everything is in flux, and unless you have some other understanding or belief , then you might want to just chill. You're just preaching to a different tune. And our fellow, more mild-mannered members, don't always help either.
I've seen so many of the other atheists also try to debate religion only to look like they're trying to convert. Everyone here is trying to persuade another to their way of thinking OVER AND OVER again. I don't know any of you personally, but I fail to see what many of you have to accomplish in these arguments. Especially here on hatrack..lol.
I see people on this forum on both sides of the discussion that I really respect.
It's been awhile coming back here, but still seeing the same people making the same circular, non-friggin-sensical arguments over and over?? Bah!
I guess I'm not surprised, but maybe some of you should be..?
[ January 05, 2010, 07:08 AM: Message edited by: Cyn ]
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quote:you're like talk radio political pundits. KoM can be Rush Limbaugh and you can be Sean Hannity (or whomever the opposite leftist to limbaugh is; I don't listen to that unadulterated horseradish).
Easy, Cookie-- there are good, appropriate, and socially acceptable ways to use horseradish. Don't be so quick to denigrate it.
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quote:Originally posted by Cyn: KoM - To me you've always been an intelligent person and I've respected much of your position and passion, but the arrogance hasn't changed a bit in over a year.
You talk about 'truth' like a person who knows all the facts. Simply put..you don't. None of us have all the scientific or 'truthful' facts and it's not reasonable in any scientific sense to know that we do or ever will. That would be entirely speculative.
You can't know if there is a god or not. You don't know if facts we know about the universe will change from now til tomorrow. Our 'knowledge' about everything is in flux, and unless you have some other understanding or belief , then you might want to just chill. You're just preaching to a different tune.
A few things to address here. Behavior is one thing. A lack of acceptable civility is not desirable, but if you're responding to what KoM said about "the truth," then I think you may, for your own edification and understanding of that position, want to adjust your view of his meaning, or perhaps understand about more about the way he thinks.
KoM never bothers to contextualize these kinds of statements, because he is somewhat understandably reticent about offering even the gauntlet of mutual understanding to theists. He sees it as counterproductive, I think, to cede any sense of validity to that worldview- and while I understand that, I am not so much that way.
What you have to take from the statement first and foremost is that he is a naturalist. You characterize naturalism and its consequent atheism in the same way that you do religion. Many people do this. Many people employ religious or iconographic language to characterize naturalism and faith as a mutual pair. However, the "truth" of naturalism or atheism is necessarily a fundamentally different kind of truth. To a naturalist, the more abstract conclusions he makes about his worldview are tied as solidly as possible to the kinds of truth that are unavoidable to the senses, eg: 2+2=4, etc. By categorizing and testing what appear to be the natural laws of the space we inhabit, we gain a deeper understanding of it. Naturalism, science, and atheism don't represent the same kind of orthodoxy found in any religion. I am not going to deny or pretend that human nature does not necessarily occlude that boundary when it comes to behavior, politics, or psychology, making naturalism and its adherents sometimes *look* or *act* like religious people. After all, religious people act the way they do as much because they are people, as because they are religious.
The important point here is that the orthodoxy represented by naturalist thinking is not faith based. Yes, it is faith based in the sense that if I close my hand around a pebble, I believe it is still a pebble, even if I can't see it. However, that is a faith born of a good deal of experience. Religion, conversely, supplies a system of thinking which seeks confirmation through the biased interpretation of experiences, which are not possible without prior training in the method of interpretation. Scientists believe, (and base this belief on sound and careful deductions based in careful real world observation) that a sentient alien species, were it to develop a system of scientific inquiry, would likely or inevitably arrive upon an approach identical in its fundamental attributes to that of human science. Math is math, just as a triangle on any planet has angles adding up to 180 degrees, and the circumference of a circle is about 3.14 times its diameter. These are natural laws we know to be common in all cases, and so we know that to arrive at these conclusions, the equivalent methodologies must be used.
And so too does the naturalist have an understanding of, as you say, "belief." The difference is, and its a rather big one, religious belief serves a function in society that is entirely different from that which religious people think it does. Converse to religion, naturalism is not designed or useful in promoting the preservation of political power or cultural will. Religion fills that function, and always has. While science and naturalism can and do aid in these things, naturalism as a discipline is an inert tool. It can be used by anyone, to any degree and to virtually any purpose. But there remains a "right way," the most equitable and clear conclusions of a naturalist worldview. This is why you must remember that to a naturalist, morality and ethics are not the domain of religion, but of science. In fact, to a naturalist, religion does not teach or instill morality or ethics, because these human qualities exist within us before indoctrination- they can be recognized as essential elements of our makeup. Naturalism, moreover, demands that we understand that a pure sense of the world around us is also impossible. We as social beings create large and powerful social narratives that overpower our individual wills- we grow up under the indoctrination of language, class, culture, race, and art. We cannot have it any other way. It's actually an acceptance of this fact that provides an answer to me, as to why I am not both an Atheist and an Anarchist. Naturalists do not really believe in Anarchy (though some pay lip service to the idea), because nature does not exist in an anarchic state. So while we strive to temper and purify our understanding of the world around us, we are aware that it remains beyond us to do so. We see the improper, or immoral uses of scientific knowledge as symptoms of this human condition, and not consequences of that knowledge. We don't, in short, have a myth of the garden of Eden, or a fear of our potential hidden in some forbidden fruit. We are fundamentally aware that naturalism, though it contains all truth, does not make all truth accessible to us. Religions, by and large, believe in a state of grace- that for some special people, or at some special time, in the past or future, human beings can have access to total understanding of themselves and the world. That, we believe, is a delusion- and a dangerous one, with deeply unsettling consequences.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Clearly, this person has not been told anything of the kind.
Objection, your honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.
Porter I read that as being by: "If you are an atheist, then from your point of view it is clear this person has not been told anything of the kind."
I might have been reading that wrong.
Disclaimer, I read Tom's post quoted here and all posts up to Porter's only. I haven't looked at this thread since the first couple of pages, so I might be taking this completely out of context.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: KoM can be Rush Limbaugh and you can be Sean Hannity (or whomever the opposite leftist to limbaugh is; I don't listen to that unadulterated horseradish).
Neither do I. And you're putting me in as the leftist. That's probably the funniest thing I've ever seen on Hatrack.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote: I'm saying that if you WERE an atheist, and someone said "I believe in God," and "I believe in Optimus Prime," the statements would seem equally absurd.
Not only do I disagree that they are equally absurd, I disagree the idea that disbelief in both them makes them equally absurd.
Okay, gonna continue the cherry picking. Porter, you're right, they aren't equally absurd - when you look at the big picture. However, it is entirely possible for them to seem equally absurd to someone who comes from the right point of view.
I grew up in an atheist family. I was made aware of the fact that other people believed things that my family didn't believe made sense, but I wasn't really exposed to a culture where it was the norm. The people I hung out with at school either weren't very religious or kept their religion very much to themselves. At least around me - it is possible that it was my very intolerance of religion in high school that caused them to do so. In that environment, it seemed to me that all religious beliefs were equally absurd and equally lacked supporting evidence - whether it was God, Buddha, the Goddess, Zues or UFOs.
I've since experienced places where belief is the norm - rather than unbelief. I have since come to understand that the very number of people who follow certain religions alone makes believing in a religion far less absurd than a belief in something like Optimus Prime. And that there are other factors too that make it less absurd. But before I'd experienced those things - from my point of view - all forms of religious belief seemed equally absurd.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Okay, gonna continue the cherry picking. Porter, you're right, they aren't equally absurd - when you look at the big picture. However, it is entirely possible for them to seem equally absurd to someone who comes from the right point of view.
You really hafta do a lotta contortions to arrive at that point of view, though. Optimus Prime being a fictional character created in living memory, whose creation is documented and known and hell there are probably interviews available online with the creator, versus (for most monotheistic religion believers, certainly) belief in a 'character' who has been a part of thousands of years of human history - a fundamental part, no less - with thousands of cases of individual human beings down through the ages reporting instances of miracles and conversation with God and whatnot...
No, belief in the two is clearly not equally absurd. In fact I take back what I said earlier-there is no point of view that, when viewing the question rationally - are the two equally absurd? - would conclude that yes, they're equally absurd. And before anyone takes issue with that statement, keep in mind the question is about whether it's as absurd to believe in Optimus Prime as it is to believe in God.
If millions of people through thousands of years are telling you, "Believe this!", obviously that's not as absurd as believing in Optimus Prime. Now, you can still beleive it's absurd. And I even see why many people would. But let's not get carried away with comparisons. They're not equally absurd.
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, then you might want to just chill. You're just preaching to a different tune. And our fellow, more mild-mannered members, don't always help either. ![[No No]](graemlins/nono.gif)
