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.
And I still say that steven shouldn't be allowed to post until he grows up.
I want to be the Arbiter of Adulthood.
I promise to reward those who bribe me, and punish those who disagree with me, no matter how civil they are. What could be fairer?
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I don't want to derail any further. We could take this to another thread?
Echoing this.
For this more clear-cut "does god exist" or "how absurd is a god" discussion, can we move that to a different thread?
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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.
Tom was speaking to a theist.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
About how to imagine how an atheist thinks.
To quibble about whether or not that imaginary atheist should actually be an atheist or not, believing whether people talk to a god, seems to me to be beside the point. Just accept that the imaginary atheist does not believe that people talk to a god and move on.
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posted
I'd thought, given the first sentence of that post, that I had pre-emptively done so in a way that would not require additional off-topic posts to explain.
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: Huh. So you did.
I'm missing parts of posts left and right today.
(Well, yesterday.)
I think it's time for my brain to get a check-up.
LOL....I resemble that remark at times. Now is one of them, for reasons not related to Hatrack though. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I want to be the Arbiter of Adulthood.
I promise to reward those who bribe me, and punish those who disagree with me, no matter how civil they are. What could be fairer?
Like we would trust someone who thinks horseradish is edible.
It's edible for the faithful. Those unconsecrated, those unworthy of its Holy Heat...they are the one who shall pay the ultimate blood price for their defiling of the sacred root!
Lo! And I shall smite them with an smiting that shall knock them on their rears!
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posted
I realize I'm treading a very narrow line in the "Am I derailing the thread?" department. I'm trying to stick the metadiscussion of the value of a discussion of god/atheism, as opposed to actually arguing about God in the first place. Also, I think the original point of the thread can be neatly summed up as "people should be nice" and I think (with a few obvious exceptions) that we should all agree on that already.
Rakeesh actually had a pretty good point. I was kind of aware of it while I was writing but was lazy and simplified my argument, hoping nobody would notice.
A more accurate version of the argument: Optimus Prime and the Judeo-Christian God (other gods are more complicated so I'm sticking with this one for now) both strike me as so unlikely that treating claims of either one seriously is equally absurd. The fact the that Optimus Prime's chance of existence is basically zero and God's chance of existence is maybe .00001% is largely irrelevant.
(I think that, if you were a random person in the process of formulating your religious views, it makes a lot more sense THEN to take God more seriously than Optimus Prime, because you wouldn't have looked at all the evidence and wouldn't know what flaws you might find it them. Having already done so, I find that the evidence amounts to something in the neighborhood of zero and I have not seen any new evidence put forth in the 10 years I've been actively thinking about this)
Also worth noting that there ARE religions created in relatively recently memory whose creation should be extremely suspicious. I'm gonna pick the example that I (hope) we can all agree on: Scientology. Created by a science fiction author. It charges money for its service and multiple witnesses have come forward to claim they were threatened when they tried to leave. Anyone with any sense of the facts should realize this is not a legitimate belief system. Yet it's still absurdly popular and tries to claim the same cultural weight as "real" religions. And in another two hundred years it may very well have succeeded.
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quote:I still say we let KoM and Lisa mod each other. Only posts approved by the other person get to be posted.
I think this would not have the effect you're hoping for, at least on Lisa's postings. I've got a fair bit of respect for Lisa; her beliefs, although completely wrong, are based in what she sees as evidence, and what's more she has the courage of her convictions and will follow her beliefs to their logical conclusions. There is no mealy-mouthed appeal to faith, nor cherry-picking what's comfortable and socially acceptable.
quote:However, we learned from each other and that knowledge made later discussions still more civil and nuanced.
No, you didn't. Or to be more accurate, you learned what other people teach about things where there is no fact of the matter; this is as useful as learning the lores of different Warcraft factions. It may enable you to converse with others on equal terms, and has perhaps some interest in its own right, but you would not term it 'learning' in any other context.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:I still say we let KoM and Lisa mod each other. Only posts approved by the other person get to be posted.
I think this would not have the effect you're hoping for, at least on Lisa's postings. I've got a fair bit of respect for Lisa; her beliefs, although completely wrong, are based in what she sees as evidence, and what's more she has the courage of her convictions and will follow her beliefs to their logical conclusions. There is no mealy-mouthed appeal to faith, nor cherry-picking what's comfortable and socially acceptable.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: No, you didn't. Or to be more accurate, you learned what other people teach about things where there is no fact of the matter; this is as useful as learning the lores of different Warcraft factions. It may enable you to converse with others on equal terms, and has perhaps some interest in its own right, but you would not term it 'learning' in any other context.
Since what most people are here for is interesting conversation, I see no problem with that. Intruding on either a discussion of religious topics or the lore of different Warcraft factions to fuss about whether the topic is worth discussing at all, when the participants clearly find it so, is rude.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:you learned what other people teach about things where there is no fact of the matter; this is as useful as learning the lores of different Warcraft factions. It may enable you to converse with others on equal terms, and has perhaps some interest in its own right, but you would not term it 'learning' in any other context.
Do I understand you correctly as saying that true learning is only attained when the subject is demonstrably factual?
How do you justify this definition of learning? It doesn't seem to fit with the word's common use.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: No, you didn't. Or to be more accurate, you learned what other people teach about things where there is no fact of the matter; this is as useful as learning the lores of different Warcraft factions. It may enable you to converse with others on equal terms, and has perhaps some interest in its own right, but you would not term it 'learning' in any other context.
Since what most people are here for is interesting conversation, I see no problem with that. Intruding on either a discussion of religious topics or the lore of different Warcraft factions to fuss about whether the topic is worth discussing at all, when the participants clearly find it so, is rude.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: No, you didn't. Or to be more accurate, you learned what other people teach about things where there is no fact of the matter; this is as useful as learning the lores of different Warcraft factions. It may enable you to converse with others on equal terms, and has perhaps some interest in its own right, but you would not term it 'learning' in any other context.
Since what most people are here for is interesting conversation, I see no problem with that. Intruding on either a discussion of religious topics or the lore of different Warcraft factions to fuss about whether the topic is worth discussing at all, when the participants clearly find it so, is rude.
I do not object, in principle, to discussions of theology; it's when the participants clearly believe that they are discussing factual matters that I get disturbed. To continue the analogy, if you met someone who genuinely believed the Warcraft lore, used it to guide his daily decisions, and seriously discussed different interpretations of this or that statement by the Blizzard devs as the theists here discuss their interpretations of the Bible (including no doubt the occasional interjection of "I learned something today"), would you feel no urge to gently remind him that this is fiction? Please notice that I am very carefully not guiding anyone's attention in the general direction of Blayne.
Scott, you have repeatedly demonstrated that you are not interested in serious discussion; you'll exchange maybe three posts and then fade out with what you think is a joke. This is a style of conversation I have no interest in responding to.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Scott, you have repeatedly demonstrated that you are not interested in serious discussion; you'll exchange maybe three posts and then fade out with what you think is a joke. This is a style of conversation I have no interest in responding to.
Okay, chicken-butt. Feel free to ignore me.
If you can.
quote: do not object, in principle, to discussions of theology; it's when the participants clearly believe that they are discussing factual matters that I get disturbed. To continue the analogy, if you met someone who genuinely believed the Warcraft lore, used it to guide his daily decisions, and seriously discussed different interpretations of this or that statement by the Blizzard devs as the theists here discuss their interpretations of the Bible (including no doubt the occasional interjection of "I learned something today"), would you feel no urge to gently remind him that this is fiction?
Maybe. The big difference is the demonstrable cultural weight that religion has on our society as opposed to the weight that WoW has had on society. In addition, there are a significant portion of people whose decisions are informed by their beliefs about God; I would imagine that the number of people whose lifestyles are guided by the mythologies expressed in WoW to be significantly less.
So it's not a very good analogy, is it?
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
I spent five years getting a degree in the study of religion. I'm pretty sure I learned many useful things in those years. Knowing what other people teach about religious matters makes me a more effective communicator. If I was into proselitysing, it would make me more effective at that, too. If you want to change someone's behaviour or opinions, which you do seem to desire, explaining things to them in a context they comprehend works better than simply asserting your rightness and their wrongness.
But, as I said, I'm not into converting people and more often I simply enjoy discussing religious beliefs because I find it fascinating. if you don't value that, power to you, but it would go a long way to reestablishing civil discourse here if you would ignore threads where those of us who enjoy the exercise attempt to learn about useless, irrelevant WoW factions.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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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.
It's good that you can laugh, but it's an analogy -- it's not supposed to represent your actual political leaning (about which I know nothing and care even less).
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posted
I am just now struck by the image of someone going into the Blizzard forums and trying to tell everyone they are wasting their time posting about WoW factions.
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quote:Originally posted by Cyn: I did read the rest, but it was BS. You're writing an essay paper. That's squat to me.
So you originally posted about someone being a dick about this subject, and when someone else responds, politely I might add, if not saying anything you agree with, you are immediately dickish.
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: Huh. So you did.
I don't know why, but I get an odd feeling that this is an exchange I have seen you go through a number of times- wanting clarification when it has been given- but only ever on this subject. Honestly, am I just imagining this, or have you done it before?
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quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: I am just now struck by the image of someone going into the Blizzard forums and trying to tell everyone they are wasting their time posting about WoW factions.
LOL.....I had the same thought. Followed by a metaphorical bonfire, with Orcs dancing around me at the stake with forks and knives in their hands.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I do not object, in principle, to discussions of theology; it's when the participants clearly believe that they are discussing factual matters that I get disturbed. To continue the analogy, if you met someone who genuinely believed the Warcraft lore, used it to guide his daily decisions, and seriously discussed different interpretations of this or that statement by the Blizzard devs as the theists here discuss their interpretations of the Bible (including no doubt the occasional interjection of "I learned something today"), would you feel no urge to gently remind him that this is fiction?
Historically, that hasn't been much of a problem. With a few notable exceptions posters have been willing to phrase things as "I believe xyz" or "the LDS church teaches abc" or "mainline Protestants have generally held that jkl." Both out of respect for the variety of religions represented here and the "no proselytizing" rule.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I think you are rather overestimating the impact of the lore on WoW players. They don't go about justifying their raids on the other faction on the grounds that the Tauren invaded the mainland 2000 years ago, or whatever the latest retcon is; at least not outside servers explicitly set up for roleplaying. It's all about the XP and items. Certainly they are not going to get into an argument about who has the better right to land-area X. My example of the Warcraft player who believes in the lore was a deliberate reductio ad absurdum. The actual effect of going to the Blizzard forums and telling them that the lore is fictional would be some blinking and some posts along the lines of "Well, duh".
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Depends which WoW players you're talking to. If you're in the raiding forums, sure, no one will care. Step in the RP forums and you'd be in for a treat (even if the number of WoW RPers as compared to the rest of them is tiny, it's still a fraction of 11 million, so there's going to be enough people get dogpiled).
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I do not object, in principle, to discussions of theology; it's when the participants clearly believe that they are discussing factual matters that I get disturbed. To continue the analogy, if you met someone who genuinely believed the Warcraft lore, used it to guide his daily decisions, and seriously discussed different interpretations of this or that statement by the Blizzard devs as the theists here discuss their interpretations of the Bible (including no doubt the occasional interjection of "I learned something today"), would you feel no urge to gently remind him that this is fiction?
Historically, that hasn't been much of a problem. With a few notable exceptions posters have been willing to phrase things as "I believe xyz" or "the LDS church teaches abc" or "mainline Protestants have generally held that jkl." Both out of respect for the variety of religions represented here and the "no proselytizing" rule.
That seems rather tangential to the point I'm making. Posters do believe this stuff - well, ok, kmb doesn't in any sense I'd recognise, but in general. It's not a question of whether they write "The Tauren invaded the mainland 2000 years ago" or "Warcraft lore has it that the Tauren invaded", but what they believe about the subject.
ETA: Even on a roleplaying server, you are not very likely to find anyone who genuinely believes that the lore is describing actual events. I don't want to be categorical about this; humans being human, no doubt there is some deluded soul out there who has taken it all to heart. The point is, he is deluded, and so are the theists here when they discuss fine theological points with all the seriousness of someone deciding what to have for dinner.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I enjoyed Hatrack when not every discussion had to turn into a debate and when understanding a different point of view was more important than "winning" some kind of delusional, self-generated game. It's mental masturbation on a huge, recursive scale. It's sad, it's petty, and (ironically, given the huge mental egos around here) it's small-minded.
I don't post anymore because Hatrack is neither fun nor interesting. There's a sense of intellectual/philosophical cliques rather than of community.
I'm afraid that for Hatrack to be saved it would take mass bannings and a more rigid registration process. It wouldn't be ideal, but it would be better than it is now.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: That seems rather tangential to the point I'm making. Posters do believe this stuff - well, ok, kmb doesn't in any sense I'd recognise, but in general. It's not a question of whether they write "The Tauren invaded the mainland 2000 years ago" or "Warcraft lore has it that the Tauren invaded", but what they believe about the subject.
I'm sorry, I thought that earlier you were saying that you were unable to leave people discussing theology alone because they were stating things as fact that aren't.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Hey, whose analogy is it, anyway? Again, I have no objection in principle to discussing obscure points of theology, or indeed obscure points of Warcraft lore. Anthropology is a legitimate form of science, although inevitably rather theory-laden. (A separate discussion, to be sure.) But when people, either WoW enthusiasts or theists (or indeed anthropologists!) begin to believe that they are discussing things on which there is an actual fact of the matter, I object.
quote:I'm sorry, I thought that earlier you were saying that you were unable to leave people discussing theology alone because they were stating things as fact that aren't.
Yes and no; the point is that they believe they are discussing facts, while actually speaking of airy nothings. Stating things as fact is not a matter of the form of the sentence. Suppose I say "The sky is greenish-purple"; you would not consider this a mere difference of opinion, to be granted equal respect to "The sky is blue"; nor would it help your opinion of my sanity if I used the I-believe formulation "I believe the sky is greenish-purple". If I believe this, I'm wrong; whether I hedge my post is not relevant. Prefacing with "My church teaches" does not alter the fact of one's belief in a false doctrine.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
So, if I have this right, you're okay with people discussing theology as long as they don't actually believe it. Except for kmb, who you regularly ridicule for not believing it. And yet you say you do not object to theological discussion. Who, exactly, is allowed to do the discussing without you feeling the need to intervene?
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Dante: I enjoyed Hatrack when not every discussion had to turn into a debate and when understanding a different point of view was more important than "winning" some kind of delusional, self-generated game. It's mental masturbation on a huge, recursive scale. It's sad, it's petty, and (ironically, given the huge mental egos around here) it's small-minded.
This is a very succinct sum of how I'm feeling right now. Thanks.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Tom Davidson and the other atheists may discuss anything they please. Lisa, rivka, and Armoth may discuss anything except Judaism. BlackBlade and the other Mormons can discuss non-Judeo-Christian religions, and can apply for permission in the case of non-mainstream Christian sects. Kmb needs to learn what 'belief' means before she can say anything intelligible on any subject; you too are a bit susceptible to that weakness. Other posters can apply to me as they feel the urge, and I'll tell them whether or not they can post in a given thread.
Or, to put it differently, the theological discussion to which I have no objection is a bit of a theoretical beast, interesting only as a contrast to what we've actually got.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:I realize I'm treading a very narrow line in the "Am I derailing the thread?" department ... A more accurate version of the argument: Optimus Prime and the Judeo-Christian God (other gods are more complicated so I'm sticking with this one for now) ...[/QB]
posted
You are boggled because I used "Optimus Prime and the Judeo Christian God" in a sentence, or because I acted like there was even the slightest chance I was NOT helping to derail the thread?
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Lisa, rivka, and Armoth may discuss anything except Judaism
So Rivka isn't allowed to post her favorite recipe for gefilte fish?
quote:Tom Davidson and the other atheists may discuss anything they please.
Including what a jerk you are? That violates the TOS.
quote:So you originally posted about someone being a **** about this subject
You know what? There was a time when the use of a word like this was unheard of here. We didn't even much use euphemisms, unless we were discussing bodily functions. I remember a discussion on bowel movements that was more civil than this thread, and this thread is supposed to be about civility.
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
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.
I disagree.
In reference to the fact that this discussion has devolved into an argument over whether God exists, I would enter Porter's response in the above exchange in evidence to show how we used to discuss these issues. Some of what is going on in this thread seems to be laying the groundwork for reestablishing this kind of etiquette, but others just don't seem to realize that there are boundaries we shouldn't be crossing.
I'm really having a hard time with the fact that KoM entered this thread, broke the rules, and practically begged to be "subject banned," got subject banned, and is continuing to spout his arrogance about religious topics.
[ January 05, 2010, 09:05 PM: Message edited by: Glenn Arnold ]
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:I still say we let KoM and Lisa mod each other. Only posts approved by the other person get to be posted.
I think this would not have the effect you're hoping for, at least on Lisa's postings. I've got a fair bit of respect for Lisa; her beliefs, although completely wrong, are based in what she sees as evidence, and what's more she has the courage of her convictions and will follow her beliefs to their logical conclusions. There is no mealy-mouthed appeal to faith, nor cherry-picking what's comfortable and socially acceptable.
Ditto on all counts.
What now? They've joined forces!
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Kmb needs to learn what 'belief' means before she can say anything intelligible on any subject; you too are a bit susceptible to that weakness.
I'm pretty sure I haven't posted anything about my own beliefs in the time you've been on Hatrack, with the exception of the time I objected to your critera for what constitutes "real" belief. And that time I only gave a number. You don't have remotely enough information to make this claim.
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quote:I'm really having a hard time with the fact that KoM entered this thread, broke the rules, and practically begged to be "subject banned," got subject banned, and is continuing to spout his arrogance about religious topics.
As I understood PJ's post, I'm not subject-banned but am on probation for that status.
Gefilte fish has nothing to do with Judaic (is that the right adjective?) theology, being rather a manifestation of Jewish culture; in any case, though, it seems to me that you may have missed the slightly dry tone of that post. I found dkw's question a bit silly and responded accordingly.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:As I understood PJ's post, I'm not subject-banned but am on probation for that status.
No, see, PJ is very reluctant to ban anyone because he is, at heart, a big softie. So he was trying to make it clear to you that if you could consider yourself "subject-banned" without actually requiring him to go to the trouble of enforcing such a ban, he'd appreciate it.
But that doesn't matter. Because surely you can tell you're already being obnoxious. Why would you want to be obnoxious.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Is it possible to put it in the TOS that the poster of the thread determines who he/she wants posting in it and the style in which they are allowed to post?
If someone finds a person's particular attitude troubling, the thread's founder can ask that person to stop, or ask them to cease participation in the thread, while other threads are fair-game.
This mechanism allows us not to stand for certain behavior, to establish community standards, while also providing a safe space for unfettered expression.
Posts: 1604 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Oh, man, Porter, I really don't want to point out the part of KoM's post that you seem to have missed. I'm worried that you're going to get a complex about it.
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He noticed and deleted it almost instantly.
KOM, my question was "a bit silly" because I was pointing out the silliness of your combined posts on the subject. You, it seems, are using silliness to duck the question of why you can't let other people have conversations that they are interested in having if you personally don't consider them worthwhile.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: KOM, my question was "a bit silly" because I was pointing out the silliness of your combined posts on the subject. You, it seems, are using silliness to duck the question of why you can't let other people have conversations that they are interested in having if you personally don't consider them worthwhile.
It's an open forum, no? If you want a private conversation that others cannot inject their opinions into, use IM, or your Facebook wall, or email. Or if you're more interested in spinning fancies than in grounding your discussion in reality, the human brain has a very fine built-in ignore function. I can't force you to cease discussing your theology, after all, much as I'd like to.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
You're still dodging the question. Why do you insist on turning every discussion remotely related to religion into an argument about whether it's rational to believe in God?
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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