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Fighting fire with lighter fluid...
15 years ago
General
SO. I learned today that the Pastor who is planning to burn a Koran on 9/11 to "protest" ('cause that'll be a huge help) the attack nine years ago, works for a "church" called the "Dove World Outreach Center." I kid you not.
Do ya think that perhaps insulting and denigrating every Muslim on earth (not just the extremists) is perhaps just slightly going against the ostensible endeavor of a religious PEACE organization????? Mind you--I could care less whether every Koran in the world is shredded, as long as all the Bibles go with them! But I have a real problem with this dickhead purposely trying to incite incidents of violence. Thanks SOOOOO much for doing your best to make sure that we can NEVER live in peace with people of differing faiths.
Do we get to go back to persecuting Jews? Oh, and them gay people are getting too uppity! After all, they are evil abominations by their very existence--the BIBLE says so. And WITCHES! Somebody's gotta do something about all the damn WITCHES! And scientists! HOLY FUCK!!!! They keep trying to push logic and reason and intelligence on everybody like it's a right or something!!!
I say again, the sooner we get rid of all religions, the better off we'll all be--if only because we won't have assholes like Bush TRYING to help Armageddon along.
Quote of the day:
Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.
-Jon Stewart
Do ya think that perhaps insulting and denigrating every Muslim on earth (not just the extremists) is perhaps just slightly going against the ostensible endeavor of a religious PEACE organization????? Mind you--I could care less whether every Koran in the world is shredded, as long as all the Bibles go with them! But I have a real problem with this dickhead purposely trying to incite incidents of violence. Thanks SOOOOO much for doing your best to make sure that we can NEVER live in peace with people of differing faiths.
Do we get to go back to persecuting Jews? Oh, and them gay people are getting too uppity! After all, they are evil abominations by their very existence--the BIBLE says so. And WITCHES! Somebody's gotta do something about all the damn WITCHES! And scientists! HOLY FUCK!!!! They keep trying to push logic and reason and intelligence on everybody like it's a right or something!!!
I say again, the sooner we get rid of all religions, the better off we'll all be--if only because we won't have assholes like Bush TRYING to help Armageddon along.
Quote of the day:
Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.
-Jon Stewart
I do have to argue though that both religions and sciences have people willing to use them against others. During the 1920s and early 30s the midwest United States went through what became known as the Dust Bowl. During that time, there were people that used science to deceive. There were people called "Rain Bringers" that would get the people of a town or community to pay them money, then they would set up dynamite which, upon explosion, would "excite the atmosphere, producing rain". It never worked, and people were taken advantage of. Looking back further in the middle ages and even earlier, the kings and queens used quotes from the Bible to justify their status to their subjects, thus preventing insurrections. In fact, the 'royalty' were actually descendants of old shrewd, often selfish, businessmen that were able to work their way up, pass on their money to their offspring, and so on and so on until there was enough money to buy land, then a castle, then an army, then they would take their armies, and go to war with other lords in the area, absorbing land, passing it on, and the vicious cycle would continue until you had a monarchy. I apologize for the history lesson, I'm afraid once I get to talking about history I need to be on a tighter leash XD.
I'll close with this: both religion and science have done good as well. Charities, food pantries, foundations for care of the children and elderly of developing countries often (not always) have a religious history behind them. Science has had a massive impact on how we live as well. Penicillin, cars, robotics, and biologists have contributed much to the development of humanity. Both science and religion are good things to have, whether you prefer one or the other, or even neither is up to the individual. I could care less whether someone is atheist, agnostic, or religious. I don't see why it can't stop me from respecting each individual. I may not agree with you, you may not agree with me, but there does need to be a mutual respect of the other if anything positive is ever going to happen between the two of them.
I also agree that charities and other beneficial humanitarian activities are practiced by many religious organizations, and I believe that most of them are sincerely trying to make the world a better place and help people. They don't really NEED religion to do that, but I suppose it helps with the marketing and the fact that they have fewer legal difficulties since the government lets churches do things they wouldn't allow most groups to do.
But my point is, I don't think we, as a civilization, should have to rely on this kind of a crutch anymore. Also, I still can't get past the main difficulty I have with the whole thing--I don't believe in any gods. Not Zeus, not Anubis (sorry Anpu), not Odin, not Allah...or any of the others. They evolved from early anthropomorphism of the forces that people couldn't understand and were afraid of. They were formalized, reworked and redefined over thousands of years--maybe even hundreds of thousands--to become the collections of literature and mythologies we still know of today. But I don't believe in Yahweh any more than I believe in Shiva. They are from the same root--and that root can be found in us.
Religion has caused far more terror and evil in the world than the bit of good it has done. When whole nations will still go to war over the paltry and arbitrary quibbling differences in beliefs based on what started as the same god, it's time to really examine those values. What I'm trying to say is that whatever good it DID in the past, although I honestly believe it did more harm than good through most of history, we don't really need it to fall back on anymore.
I'm not a scholar. I can't give you dates and specifics and dredge up horrors to offset every instance of decency (or at least development) you could sight. The fact is--I'm not in danger of having "my way" any time soon. There are people in the world who still think we're going to find Bigfoot any minute. Or that when you die you go to a place up in the sky somewhere and live in eternal happiness plucking harp strings and hanging out with Oral Roberts and people like him. Or is that Helll? So just ignore me. I wish I could change the world--but I can't.
Acts of religious extremism, religious persecution, religious delusions that drive people to murder their own children and thousands of innocents in the name of their deity, those things can only happen under the kind of righteous mental state that religion promotes. Certainly people will do evil without needing to invoke God, but it seems that we are required to give Evil a free pass when it is done in the name of religion, and nobody (religious) seems to notice that the Abrahamic religions have very little to do with peace as a philosophy (how many Tibetan monks are strapping on suicide vests to blow up the occupiers from China who have been oppressing them brutally for decades? Zero. How many government buildings did Ghandi blow up?). We're not permitted to even question the validity of religion's claims.
I think this preacher is ignorant of the Golden Rule (which also predates and lives outside of religion). Is he hoping to see a mass Bible and US flag burning, maybe to commemorate the date of the Baghdad "Shock and Awe" Blitz and all the civilians killed (March 21, 2003)? Mostly I think he's keenly aware that megachurches with grandiose names like "World Dove Peace Outreach Holiness Chapel of the Divine Word" or some such bullshit can only survive on the back of advertising and publicity stunts. He's managed to get his fifteen minutes of fame, which probably has the religious zombies who agree with his message of hatred forking over cash by the bucketload (too bad there's no way for those who DON'T agree with him to suck some of that cash away). I think the fact that he's still drawing breath proves that there's no god out there who gives a damn.
Anyway, well put!
I don't believe that science and religion SHOULD be at odds with each other. Science has nothing to say about religion, except about its psychological impact on human behavior. Religion, on the other hand, is full-on at war to suppress anything science comes up with that does not fit with its dogma. You only have to look at the debate over Texas schoolbooks to see that in action.
I stated that science is capable of postulating psychological theories addressing the effects of religion on human psychology (such as Professor Dawkin's work). On this you "completely disagree?" Yes, there are dozens of scientific books, but they address, as you say, the anthropology and psychology of religion as observed in human behavior. Where are the science books that directly address religion itself, that talk about the scientific effects of God on natural processes? There aren't any, and cannot be any, unless you're counting those few, sad examples by the kooks at the Discovery Institute. Those are not science in any sense of the word. They're even worse philosophy.
It's irrational to accuse Dr. Gould of being an apologist who didn't want to rock the boat. He was one of the most active champions of rational thought, testifying as an expert witness in many courtrooms where religion was attempting to force out science education and introduce religious dogma as "science" curricula. Sociology has much to say about the value of human cooperation, of concordance over conflict. I think this is one reason Dr. Gould was so successful in court. He staked out his territory, kept his focus on what he wanted to accomplish, and instead of adopting a scorched-earth policy of "agree with every detail of what I say, or can be no accord," (which is dogmatic), he found points of agreement, appealed to known and accepted rational beliefs, and led people to make their own conclusions that dismissed irrational arguments. He would have accomplished nothing (for his side--much for the other side) if he had charged in, accused everybody who didn't agree with him 100% of being idiots, and ridiculed their beliefs.
I can sympathize with Professor Dawkins in his annoyed responses to some of the more absurd of the ignorant. Matt Dillahunty has suffered the same fools, and I can tell his patience is thin from repeating the same statements over and over again and running smack into human ignorance. People do have ridiculous beliefs. To greater or lesser extent, I have never met anybody who believed only 100% rational things, including myself. I find that fascinating and vexing. I met a guy in Georgia who told me how numbers attracted each other, which is why he played certain combinations in the lottery. Insane, but fascinating. I lived behind a woman in Tulsa who believed that her velvet painting of Jesus had actually healed people. I find no value, scientific or otherwise, in telling a sixty-year-old woman that she is seriously deluded. There is much value, with scientific evidence to back it up, in getting along with people who hold beliefs that I personally do not. There have been times that I worked at companies where I knew no other person who could say the word "atheist" without spitting. Do you honestly believe it would have "surprisingly minor impact" on my life to tell my bosses that their heads are full of lies, put their by preachers and their parents? I have my beliefs, but I also have my philosophies, unscientific as they may be, and one of those is "pick your battles."
On the other paw--when I see organizations attacking equal rights for gays simply because of a few negative scriptures, or spreading hateful rhetoric about ideas or people they disagree with or trying to get the government to sanction their bigoted opinions with laws that I have to live under--THEN I have a problem.
Like anything else, aggressive atheism should be tempered with compassion for the people whose deeply held convictions and possibly their sanity are tied to beliefs that were essentially forced on them from an early age. Eventually, I believe it will all turn around...but how many generations will it take?
But when crazy people can get together in groups of common delusion, and get laws changed to ease their paranoid fantasies, then their collective delusion needs to be seen as a mental illness, not as a legitimate social organization deserving of legal protection. As you said somewhere else, though, the paranoid-delusionals are in the vast majority, so it's the rational, compassionate people who appear deviant. The relgious do have one thing right, though: If they can't infect the children with their insanity, and keep perpetuating their delusions, then they are going to disappear, and good riddance. But that won't end crazy, idiotic ideas (like Truthers). Humans seem to just be built that way.
I think i would be a much worse person without my faith.
We need to just get rid of ignorant assholes, because they can find or create anything to justify themselves with.
Also saying you want all of X to go away because some members of X are trouble makers while the rest are not, makes you just like the fundies just with different dogma, and thus a hypocrite.
You have said that you Don't, but sounded like you did from your earlier so i may have misinterpreted you. If you wish to become offended because i thought something you said was hypocritical, fine. We are all hypocrites about something. We have the same goals, remove religion as a tool of manipulation. It seems that our approaches differ.
If you still wish to be offended at my mild rebuke at what i saw to be a little hypocritical then ok, that is your right.
But consider that I tire of both sides lumping me in with their enemy and attacking my position because i am in the middle.
Let me say this: I don't believe in any kind of god like the ones mankind has created. Everything I've ever learned and heard and experienced tells me that religion is a self-perpetuating delusion. No reasonable argument has EVER been made that convinces me that religion is anything but mythology as easily dismissed and ridiculous as stories of Greek or Norse or Egyptian gods. However--if you have found something in the world or in your life to lead you to the opposite conclusion, or if you just NEED something to believe in, I would never want to take that away from you. Nor could I. I am not deluded about my eloquence.
BUT, your (that's a hypothetical you, not you personally) absolute freedom to believe in anything at all you want ends at my door. When your beliefs interfere with MY rights NOT to adhere to doctrines I simply cannot accept--then we have a problem. As tire as people may be of my support for secular over religeous concerns, that's how tired I am of having to tip-toe around other people who think their beliefs are so sacred that not only can they not question them, but I have no right to either. I get so frustrated with Muslims and their irrational anger over petty insults and Christians who think they should be allowed to mandate their beliefs into my life--whether I want them or not. It all just pisses me off.
Again--I'm not saying this about you. I am just explaining why I tend to get a bit...grouchy when these sorts of things crop up. My wish is not to delete religion form the planet so much as it is that we should grow out of it, like the need for Santa Claus, or a security blanket. That's all I believe religion is, and I honestly do think the world would be better off without it as anything but enjoyable literature.
Anyway--you aren't oppressing me, so I have absolutely no problem with you at all. Your opinion is every bit as valid as mine. And contrarywise. ;)
I understand. I am a bit touchy as well about imposing Ideologies on others which both sides of the debate are guilty of and both sides see no problem demeaning and belittling those that believe differently and since i am basically in the middle of this both sides shoot for me and it is hard to rise above it and not engage in name calling and casual dismissal of another's position. Keeping my arguments polite while still saying what i need to is a fine line that i don't always walk successfully, even with my effort people still tend to get upset, but at least i tried.
I guess my mother was right again about not getting into disussions of politics and religion in polite company.
It's hardly freedom to only allow people to do what you agree with.
Glenn Beck could probably say excatly the same thing, but of course, his meaning would be the reverse.
I guess that does depend on exactly what you mean by educate, though.
When it comes down to it, I picture religion as a bunch of people with a box. Nobody knows what's in the box. But there's groups that have some guesses from people who wrote what they saw what was put in the box, though the accounts do differ on some points. Some of them, on quite a few points. Then there's another group of people who don't believe that there's anything in the box at all, because they haven't seen what's in the box.
Much like religion, none of them know what there is, where it came from, or how it effects them. The one thing that they all have in common is that it's an act of faith to believe to know what nobody can possibly know. Taking the high-ground because of your faith is foolish. Even Einstein, one of the greatest, if not the greatest thinkers of the 20th century believed that there isn't no god, though he didn't believe in specifics.
Because he is a highly accredited and acknowledged mind in an established valid field of science that directly contradicts a large portion of what religion says is absolutely true. So, an incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable man is atheist. As most scientists are. As most intellectuals are. Not all, "most."
"Much like religion, none of them know what there is, where it came from, or how it effects them. The one thing that they all have in common is that it's an act of faith to believe to know what nobody can possibly know."
Not exactly. Religion claims to know exactly what is there, based on faith, because a book (of which there are several, most of which vehemently contradict themselves let alone each other) said so. Atheism claims to know that nothing is there because everything we currently consider valid logical reasonable intelligent means to learn and discover how and why things work tells us that nothing is there. It's not they don't know what is there, where it's from or how it affects them. It's that they DO know (as much as humans CAN know anything) >exactly< what is there, where it came from, and how it affects them because they have studied the actual existing observable workings of the world and placed that knowledge over what some dudes wrote in some books thousands of years ago.
Using your box analogy, it's more like:
Religion says "we know what is in the box. It's what these guys wrote in this book a couple thousand years ago - oh, and our book has it right, that other guy's book is all crazy-talk, obviously."
Agnosticism says "we don't, and >can't< ever truly, know what is in the box."
Atheism says "there is no visible discernible evidence that anything is in the box, and every means of seeking to discover the contents of the box suggest conclusively (as conclusively as we can determine ANY of the knowledge we currently possess) that the box is empty, so until we are shown otherwise, we will consider it to be empty."
An intelligent person can at least respect the latter two as valid viewpoints to take. But if you have someone approach an intelligent person, and make claims that are utterly unprovable, or explicitly >contradictory< to established scientific knowledge or basic logic and reason, but they don't have a several-thousand-year-old book to back them up, they get immediately dismissed as a crazy.
The question is why these books written by people thousands of years ago lends credence to claims that >all< contemporary knowledge and wisdom would otherwise outright dismiss?
For the record, I am agnostic, leaning to atheist, but born and raised Christian. I believe there is more to our world than science can explain, and I very much believe it is likely that there's more out there. But people who claim they "know" are simply wrong. They do not. Nobody does. And so anyone acting on "knowledge" that is not possible for them to have, in ways that adversely affect others, are in the wrong. Religion should not be an excuse. Ever.
As far as atheism knowing what is there, in the theoretical box, they have no idea. I can see what I have in front of me, and what others have in front of them, but nobody has any way to see what's beyond that, in the "box". Nobody. Not even if you read "The God Delusion" a dozen times. Not even if you have an absolute understanding of the cosmos and particle physics. Even Einstein admitted that it was unlikely that the universe and everything in it just came into being.
As for religion being improvable, much of it is not. Now, when it comes to things like Genesis, it's not a large stretch of the imagination to think that it may be describing everything in a metaphorical sense. I doubt people from over 2000 years ago would understand a shred of modern science. That being said, Biblical laws on cleanliness, contagious diseases, and food safety were some of the first, and most scientifically advanced on the subject.
As far as your definition on atheism, I'm going to have to disagree, as what you're saying is more along the lines of an agnostic. Atheism, at it's core, is the belief that there are no deities. When they see what's in the "box", I'm sure that, regardless of religion, that any level-headed person is going to not just believe, but know what's in the box. It won't take an act of faith any longer.
A third of scientists don't believe in god, but only a third DO believe in god either. The other third claims agnostic, that they are not religious, but believe in some sort of higher power or something beyond knowing. As I said, I'd fall in that category. It's >two< thirds of scientists that do not believe in religion, but those are split between the ones who believe in some unknowable spirituality, versus those who believe firmly that there is nothing. My issue is with organized religions that say they >DO< know what is what, even though nearly all of them greatly contradict each other AND THEMSELVES.
Here's a box. You say you know what's in it because this thousand year old piece of paper tells you what's in it. I decide to open the box and see for myself. I look, and it's empty. You say 'oh, well, my thousand year old piece of paper does say that if you open the box you won't see anything, but it is still there.' I say what kind of god builds a world where all the laws and dynamics of how things work seem to prove he doesn't exist. You (or people typically on your side of this debate) say 'it's a test of faith' or some shit.
If any person or group of people arises, and says any of the same kinds of things that most religions say, they're labeled as lunatics or delusionals. Unless they have the oh-so-credible support of thousand-year-old documents that have been translated and retranslated >edited by individuals to suit their personal agendas,< and worded in such immensely vague and open-to-interpretation ways as to be able to produce such extreme differences of ideas of what they are actually saying, that they may as well say >anything.< If someone tells you "have faith that drinking this cup of poison will take you to a better place and not just kill you dead" most intelligent people will tend to not think it makes much sense to put something like that on faith. But every so often you get people who have been trained to just believe whatever they are told by their religious leader "on faith" and you get Wacos and comet-riders and planes flying into buildings.
THAT is what is >BAD< and >WRONG< about organized religion. A person taught to operate on Faith before logic and reason is a >dangerous< thing. It is a person who can be manipulated and used.
My definition of atheism is not agnosticism. "I see no evidence to suggest there is something, and I see much evidence to suggest there is nothing, so I believe there is nothing." That's Atheism. Belief that there is >nothing< in the box. Agnosticism is belief that there is >something< but >not< believing that any current religion has it right. "I think there is >something< but >I do not believe anyone can >know< what is there" is agnosticism.
When it comes to things like Genesis, I have >no issue< with people who believe it was intended metaphorically. If someone wants to say "a 'day' to god is millenia to us" I'd have no issue with that. I do not mind people working their beliefs to be compatible with what is >observably true.< If The Books said the sky was green, when it is obviously blue, and someone wants to say "well, maybe 'green' is just what they called 'blue' back then, then okay fine whatever. When someone wants to say "no, the book says the sky is green, so that sky is green, and it only appears blue to non-believers' or 'it's a test of faith to see if you will accept the knowledge that the sky is green, even though it appears to be blue' or other shit like that, THAT is >WILLED IGNORANCE< and something I consider a dangerous way to teach people to think. People who want to view Genesis as metaphorical, >fine.< But when they say "no, the book said 7 days, so it had to be 7 days" and ignore ALL the MASSIVE evidence to the contrary or build shit like the Creationist Museum sticking dinosaurs and humans happily together at the same time, that is >incorrect< and should >not< be allowed to be taught to children.
MOST of what you are saying in your comment is simply wrong. It is reciting what you have been trained to think and say. You are wrong on the differences between agnosticism and atheism. You are wrong on who "knows" what and why they can make those claims.
If someone makes a claim to me, I want to know if it can be proven. If it cannot be proven, then it is a matter of faith whether to take their word on it or not. I determine where to act on faith based on who is making the claim, the realistic likelihood of it being true, how much the claim fits or conflicts with what I know through personal observation and experience to be true, and I >STILL< know with absolute certainty that there's always the possibility that my faith will be misplaced and the claim could be untrue.
People who are taught to act on Faith >more< than what they can observe first-hand to be true, or to put faith belief ahead of what >is< provable and observable, are dangerous. Putting your Faith on a document that is thousands of years old and >it is an established historical FACT that bits were added, changed, and removed by personal agendas over the years (King James Version, hello)< is not only unintelligent it is >not rational or sane.<
I do not oppose personal belief, whatever the fuck people want to believe. The moment it stops being personal, and results in trying to force others to obey arbitrary laws based on >your< belief, or teaching children to put Faith over Reason or to believe "truths" that are not only incapable of being proven, but directly contradict ALL currently accepted valid established knowledge based on proof or provable fact or >at least observable evidence,< then it has become an Evil and should not be allowed. Freedom to believe what you want, to >choose< to follow this or that religious belief, sure, fine, I am all good with that. But freedom to teach people to think that way before they have developed enough to be able to think for themselves and make the choice of what to believe, is not something that should be allowed.
Which is exactly why I dismissed him as a right-wing fundie nutjob. Sling Christian-biased mud with no basis in reality and you are throwing your lot in with them, like it or not.
My question is, what does that make you?
If one side is the "opinion" that was formed through direct observation, testing, and coming to a conclusion based on what is, by all present tools and forms of wisdom, reason, and logic available to us in the most recent several hundred years of human advancement, a provable >fact<...
...but the other side is the "opinion" that was formed because this is what someone wrote in a book thousands of years ago...
...it obviously gets tricky to cite sources. If I walked up to you, and said that a flying spaghetti monster created the universe, and cited flyingspaghettimonster.com/research as a source, that would likely get dismissed as bias. If the person I'm arguing with happens to be on the side of the argument supported by all currently accepted valid rational logical scientific sources, then I could easily say every source they cite is obviously biased as well.
Rather than flying spaghetti monster, let me use the flat-earth people as a better example. There is, seriously and legitimately, a group based on the belief that the earth IS flat. Now, if they argue with me, and point to all their group's websites and the "research" done by members of their group to "support" their theory, I'm going to dismiss it as biased sources. And they would do the same to every >legitimate< scientific source I could point them at in return. They'll dismiss everything I provide to support my side of the argument as biased.
That's what you did here by dismissing Dawkins.
The man is not motivated by religion or personal belief based on >faith< or what someone told him or what he read in a book written by god-knows-who >thousands< of years ago. He is motivated by what he >knows< to be true by >studying< and >observing< first hand the sciences behind what he talks about. His speaking against religion is motivated by >seeing< the >evils< that are committed and excused because of their being religiously motivated. And yes, intentional ignorance, and willfull teaching of absolute falsehoods, is an evil. Teaching people to put Faith before Reason is >EVIL.<
If someone "knows" in their heart, to the very core of their soul, that god wants them to murder their babies and then kill themself (this shit HAPPENS), what >IS< that? It's >insanity< is what it is. But people are taught not to recognize such "knowledge" as insanity, they're taught that it's the will of god speaking through them and they should have faith that it is what is right, and NOT go see a mental health professional immediately.
I haven't said it here, I don't think, but I've long said that holy texts should be taken with a few grains of salt, simply because they've been translated, transcribed, and in some cases, altered.
Now, I wasn't going to say it earlier since it's almost irrelevant, but I myself am strongly agnostic. All too often, though, I see atheists such as yourself claiming that all religion is wrong, and I have to ask myself how they're able to know that. I've never come up with a real answer. Granted, science is great, it's taught us some amazing things, but it cannot disprove that the universe was created. While you might think it's absurd that everything was created in seven days, I find it equally absurd that all matter and energy came from nowhere.
I have said multiple times I am agnostic. I am not atheist. I do not believe there is nothing. I believe there is >something.< I do not know what, and I believe that nobody else knows what either. The >reason< I believe that no other religion has it right is because I believe a god that willfully creates a world where every bit of observable knowledge that we can see with the intelligence we have contradicts most of what we are supposedly expected to think and believe to make him happy - would be a SUPREME DICK. I do not believe in a god that is a supreme dick.
You are not Agnostic. Agnostic means belief in a higher power or spirituality but NOT a support or belief in any actual existing religion. You have very much been supporting existing organized religion in this argument.
I have said multiple times that >I do not know< and that I believe in >something< and have no problem with personal spirituality or >any< religious belief >until it affects others who don't share the belief< such as teaching religion-based "truth" to children as being equal to observable provable >facts< or reality.
I call bullshit on you being Agnostic. Even if you didn't ass-pull that for the sake of argument, if you do label yourself as such, you are not using the label correctly. Just as you - more than once - have misused the label of atheist. There is a correct meaning for these words and then there are incorrect meanings.
A child believes in Santa Claus. Because they're told by the adults they trust implicitly that such a being exists. When they come to learn he isn't real, it is often less-than-easy to accept. Imagine if a child grew up, and all around them people continued to tell them Santa Claus was real. That despite all reason and logic which would dismiss the possibility of his existence, other people have convenient explanations for the hows and whys of this or that which explain little loopholes of reality so he can continue to exist because he is simply beyond conventional wisdom and science. If Santa-Believers were actually wide-spread around the world. Now imagine trying to argue with this person and explain to them that Santa isn't real.
It is entirely >POSSIBLE< that Santa IS real, and every single metaphysical supernatural loophole exempting him from all otherwise constant rules of reality are the complete truth. The person backed by logic, reason, observation, and testable provable facts, COULD be utterly wrong. I, as an Agnostic, believe there is >something< and I believe that no current religion has it right. But I >COULD< be wrong, and I do acknowledge that.
But that alone, the "well, the truth COULD be contrary to >every< >single< >bit< of logical rational knowledge and wisdom based on observable testable PROVABLE evidence," no matter how true and valid the point itself may be, does NOT mean that the people arguing that Santa is real are arguing an equally valid viewpoint.
Like dismissing everything that isn't pro-athiest, or because of the sort of web pages citing it?
And I never dismissed Dawkins, just the idea that atheism and intelligence aren't related. And I'm not arguing that there's a god, I to often seem to be pushed into that position, and explaining that there's logical possibilities that do not contradict science always seems to get people thinking I'm highly religious, when that's not the case.
"Biased source" does not just mean "any source that agrees with the other guy." If a source is credible and unbiased and it happens to agree with one side of the argument, that does not make it biased to that side.
A CHRISTIAN website is NOT an unbiased source, >EVER< in any discussion of science vs religion. Period.
If a person who likes soccer is arguing with a person who dislikes soccer, "welovesoccer.com" is not an unbiased source.
The problem here is that christians/religious people can go "oh, but all those reputable sources you cite are on the side of science, and science is biased against religion" which is just infuriatingly wrong. Science is unbiased. It is a lack of bias. It is the idea of starting with a blank space, and not putting anything there until you see and observe it. Science argues >for< observable provable reality, truth, and fact. It doesn't always get it right, and there's plenty that it doesn't explain, but the basic idea is that to claim something as true, you have to be able to show it to be such repeatedly, reliably, consistently, and predictably. There are truths that are unpredictable, yes, but there are still rules by which anything observable must abide.
Religion though, argues >FOR< things which >cannot< be proven (and often for things wholly and entirely disproved). Religion doesn't start with a blank space, it starts with all kinds of information that you are supposed to take "on faith" even if it cannot be observed to be true, and even when it is directly observed to be false, you are supposed to still "have faith" that it actually IS true even when sometimes it looks like it isn't. That is why you get science vs religion, not because science attacks religion, but because religion dismisses reality. Science is lack of bias, religion is bias. Religion saying science is biased against religion is like a racist person telling a not-racist person that they're biased against racists.
There is "anything CAN be true" which is always the best point the religious side can ever come up with. It's a valid point. For all anyone can ever know, all religious stuff could be entirely true. Monkeys COULD fly out of my butt when I click "post reply." But I'm not going to make decisions based on that kind of "possibility." THAT is what your problem is. That is why you get people thinking you're highly religious. Because you aren't arguing >logical< possibilities. The specific subjects where science and religion most come into conflict are the things where >science< is >entirely about< what is >logical< and religion is pushing for an idea which is >not logical.<
If you make any sort of statement to the effect that "religious beliefs and scientific beliefs are equally valid and/or equally possible" which is what you were presenting with your first 'box' comment, then you >will< be seen as on the religious side of things, because they are absolutely >not< equally valid except to people who consider faith-based belief in knowledge gained from ancient books as equal to knowledge obtained by practical observation and testing of the real present world we live in. There is no comparison.
Johnny goes outside, sees that it is sunny, and says it is sunny. Bobby stays inside because he has a thousand year old parchment that says it will be raining today, and he has faith that even if it is not raining right this second, it >will< be raining today at some point. Then when the day passes without a drop of rain, Bobby continues to use that same ancient parchment to guide his decisions in life. Every time it >happens< to be right, he praises it and goes "see, I told you so." Every time it is utterly wrong, he has some loophole or convoluted excuse as to why that doesn't invalidate his parchment-based belief system. >AT BEST< he may acknowledge that specific parts which prove to be wrong may have been mistranslated at some point. But he still chooses to live his life abiding by this piece of paper more than by what can be >seen< and >proven< to be reality and fact and truth.
If you do not understand how and why this is such a ludicrous and insane thing to teach children to think this way, then you >are< a religiously minded person. Whether you consider yourself to be one or not, you cannot accept that kind of decision-making and belief as equally valid unless you have been raised to have that kind of thinking yourself.
People who want to live that way, I do not object to them choosing to do so. I object to them being taught to do so >before< being taught to look at observable tangible fact and reality so they have the mental capacity to make the choice. I object to them using their parchment-based belief system to try and impose their beliefs onto other people. I object to them trying to say that their belief and knowledge they gained from reading this ancient piece of paper is equal to the belief and knowledge of a person who has devoted a lifetime of intense personal study, observation, and experimentation, building on the knowledge gained by others who had also devoted lifetimes worth of knowledge and study. When there are multiple >lifetimes< worth of intense study that concludes _____ to be true, checked, rechecked, tested, retested, by people who are among the brightest minds humanity can offer, but there are >countless< people who choose to >ignore< that because they have been taught to "have faith" that a >book< written before people even knew the earth to be round knows better; yeah, I object to that.
I do not object to personal religious or spiritual belief. I object to anyone trying to say that those are remotely as valid as tested provable knowledge based on actual observable reality. All things are >possible.< But not equally so.
Credit Crisis Is A Lie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcQKdBfA864
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100.....hatsNewsSecond
Mr. Jones, head of the 50-member Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., said in a statement that "We understand the General's concerns. We are sure that his concerns are legitimate." Nonetheless, he added, "We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam. We will no longer be controlled and dominated by their fears and threats."
Hmmm... looks like we have two Radicals cruisin' for the same bruisin' What the American idiots don't understand is Moslem extremists are like dogs foaming at the mouth - all sensibility and rationality is gone and they are running on blood/murder.
It's not xenophobia, it's not racism, it's not Christian vs Muslim, it's that no matter how many times I see "good" muslims shifting the blame to just the "tiny handful" of extremists, they're still asking from us the same thing the extremists are demanding. They just use puppyeyes and 'but pleeeease respect our beliefs by following them yourself" instead of bombs and death threats. The Western world values freedom of speech above nearly everything else, and the Muslim world is so restrictive on certain things in that regard as to make the extremist Christians look downright open-minded. And that's just crazy.
Extremist Muslims blow shit up and kill people.
Extremist Christians burn books and picket funerals.
I'm not saying the extremist Christians aren't retarded and loathsome too, this kind of crap does need to be stopped, but I just can't muster as much outrage at them. It's totally fine these days to trash Christianity, and it is generally understood that if someone is hating on the religion because of what it has encouraged or inspired its extremists to do, that's not hating the good people who just happen to be part of the same religion, but aren't hurting anyone. If someone talks about burning bibles, it might get frowned upon as tasteless, but they're not going to really get painted as some horrible evil hateful person. However, you start talking bad about Islam, and BOOM, you're so ignorant and hateful for lumping all Muslims in with the terrorists, etc, etc. Despite the fact that, between the two religions, and what their extremists have done in the past fifty years, there is NO CONTEST as to which religion has produced more bloodthirsty crazies actually out >killing< people for their beliefs.
You say "I hate Christianity, look at this shit" and point to some Christians doing piddly stupid shit like this, and people will generally understand that you are not attacking good Christians who >aren't< doing this shit.
But you say "I hate Islam, look at this shit" and point to Muslims >killing people< and everyone's on your shit for persecuting all the poor good Muslims who only >ask< you to follow their religion's rules instead of threatening to kill you.
Someone said this guy's congregation is >40< fuckin people. And our retarded-ass media has to blitz the story, giving the extremist Muslims that want to blow us all to hell (I think just a few more than 40) more "justification" for wanting to see all the infidels die.
But we're getting mad at this handful of idiots. Not the media for actually giving this shit attention, not the >people who want to kill other people because they think their religion tells them to.< Not the fact that we, as a people, are stupidly allowing ALL these morons to do this shit in the name of whatever the hell they want to blame their absolutely insane idiocy on. raaaargharble. X_X
Exactly my point. The West and the East COULD get along well enough if they weren't possessed of the insane desire to force each other to follow their own beliefs. The Bible is just as harsh about heretics as the Koran. The point I want to make is that instead of following these ancient, outdated and frankly barbaric old books we should be working on building societies that benefit people and not fictitious, or at least, disinterested entities.
And again--I'm not saying I hate anyone here. I hate people's actions--on either side. I really do think we'd all be better off without religion--at least organized religion. Religion is and always has been a political tool to manipulate people.
I do think it is entirely fair and easily demonstrable that Islam does, currently, produce far more "extremists" than other religions, or at least that their "extremists" are far more dangerous than others. With other religions, you can argue that the instances of religious zealotry which go so far as physical violence or murder can be more attributed to personal insanity or mental instability in the culprit. With Muslim extremists, there are too many instances of physical violence, murder, and suicide for it to be attributed to just personal insanity on the part of the ones doing it. Not unless someone wants to claim that people from Islamic nations are just more prone to mental insanity, which would probably be considered racist.
I'm not about persecution or blaming people who are faultless and not related to the wrong-doings, but I do firmly believe in placing fault where it is due, and I strongly disagree with the insistence that Islam is no worse than any other religion as far as producing extremists that are dangerous to the point of >murder< rather than other religions' extremists that are usually just offensively ignorant and annoying.
Other than that though, yeah, totally Agreed. Organized Religion is bad because training people to act on Faith before Reason makes them dangerously manipulable. But not all religions are equally bad. Not remotely.