Will the True Nonbelievers Please Shut Up?

[BridgeTheGap]

Science versus religion: The ancient battle has escalated into an all-out intellectual brawl, fueled by a seemingly interminable debate over evolution. But what if all the arguing, name calling, lobbying, op-ed writing, and book publishing is a distraction? What if that distraction is harmful to society?

The “new atheism” movement, led by biologist Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), neuroscientist Sam Harris (The End of Faith), and philosopher Daniel Dennett (Breaking the Spell), has helped whip the debate into a fever pitch. The movement attacks in-your-face theism with in-your-face atheism. Exhibit A: UK buses plastered with ads stating “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

Everyone needs to remember, however, that “not all of the religious have a problem with science,” Chris Mooney, author of Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, tells Free Inquiry (Feb.-March 2010). An atheist (and one-time atheist activist), Mooney finds fault in pitting science against religion. While he advocates for defending science education, in order to do so “it is critical that we mobilize the pro-science moderates,” he tells the secular humanist publication. “The new atheism, as a strategy, flies in the face of this, since it is often about attacking and alienating the religious moderates.”

More than any other field, science plays a starring role in many of the most important policy debates and decisions of our time. “Broadly speaking, scientific illiteracy is the cause of 20 years of gridlock on the global-warming issue,” Mooney says. His recommended course of action: Give up the grudge match and allow scientific literacy to become a shared social priority.

http://www.utne.com/Spirituality/Will-the-True-Nonbelievers-Please-Shut-Up.aspx?utm_content=05.25.10+Spirituality&utm_campaign=Emerging+Ideas-Every+Day&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email

[Hello_Kitty]

1. Powerful and extremely wealthy entities have a vested interest in keeping people ignorant.

They use religion as a tool to maintain that state.

[Dogtown]

4. It's been the same throughout our history.

Prehistory as well, I believe.

[darkstar3]

2. I call bullshit.

"The new atheism, as a strategy, flies in the face of this, since it is often about attacking and alienating the religious moderates."

That may be a side effect of Dawkins', Dennet's, and other books, but the strategy is simple: We're not going to be silent anymore about why we reject your faith.

It is the tyrannical nature of the super-majority to attempt to quash dissent. So-called "new atheism" isn't about offending and alienating people simply for the sake of offense, but rather about rejecting the idea that a minority must kowtow to the tyrannical super-majority in a world of democracy and freedom.

[RKP5637]

7. +1, n/t

[DeSwiss]

18. Here, here!

- +1

[ZombieHorde]

22. +666

[Walk away]

52. Amen! (and I mean that in an Atheistic way.)

I am so sick of god and it's strangle hold on the country that I live in. If I have to listen to, contribute taxes to and have my life meddled in by god's minions then they can listen to my complaints.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. We don't pit science against religion.

We simply stand up for reality when religion pits itself against science.

[Ozymanithrax]

5. Will the hyper religious creationists pleas shut up?

Otherwise, the field is left open for those that will pervert science to fit religion.

[dmallind]

6. Sure we will - when the believers stop trying to legislate religion

When religion is not forced into our lives we will not complain about it any more. Since most of us live in the US however where religion forces itself into education, social policy, human rights, scientific funding, and the very fabric of politics itself I doubt we'll be able to give it a rest any time soon.


Oh you want atheists to shut up while religion continues to pollute all these things? Nope. Not a chance.


Nonbelievers have shut up about religion for thousands of years - most often because we were killed for not doing so. Now we have had at most a few decades in some parts of the world where we are at least nominally allowed to speak up it's too uncomfortable for religion, which has ruled the planet since unequal societies began? Tough shit.

[Redbear]

8. I agree that the religious who believe in science should be allies

with the non-religious who believe in science and not enemies.

[stray cat]

9. True ignorance of science, scientific method and facts is owned by the secular and religious

ignorance and narrow mindedness knows no boundaries.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Notice how Mooney sabotages his own argument

"Broadly speaking, scientific illiteracy is the cause of 20 years of gridlock on the global-warming issue"; OK, I can see that reasoning. But "the New Atheists" only published their books in the past 5 years or so; and illiteracy is due to bas schooling, so the problem goes back even further than 20 years. So clearly, the scientific illiteracy has nothing to do with New Atheists driving anyone to fundamentalism, or alientating believers who will listen to science for policy matters so that they give up trying to persuade the fundamentalists.

Keeping quiet about the absurdities of religion wasn't getting society anywhere. Why go back to the failing strategy?

[trotsky]

12. Excellent observation.

I also find it laughable that a bus ad "boldly" proclaiming that there's probably no god is the "Exhibit A" of "in-your-face" atheism. LOL Millions of religious loons putting their beliefs into law is now equivalent to a bus ad? :rofl:

[Jim__]

46. Hardly. If you actually listen to Mooney's interview, he explicitly states ...

that the New Atheists didn't cause the problem and that the problem has been ongoing for 40 years and the New Atheists have only been around for 3 years. But, he says, they take us in the worng direction by increasing antagonsims.

[old mark]

11. Rec....made no difference, but I tried.... Too many religious people unrec'd, I guess....

fuck 'em all.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Why would you think it's religious people unreccing it?

Most of the people who have replied negatively are nonbelievers, pissed off at being told to shut up.

I've got to say, that since the excerpt turned out the be the entire piece, and there's no link to the Mooney interview, it seems a fairly pointless article.

[struggle4progress]

37. I posted excerpts from the interview, with a link that you can follow to it

here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x248826

[muriel_volestrangler]

39. Thanks - listening to it now (nt)

[mike_c]

14. I'm a scientist, and honestly, I cannot see any redeeming value in religion....

None at all. Morality is not a religious precept, or at least it derives from social constructs rather than religious constructs, which simply recognize it. Likewise spirituality, which seems to be simply a consequence of our nervous system and cognition, rather than being dependent upon any particular religious concept.

The dividing line, for me, is in the ways science and religion approach the nature of reality and the universe. Religion MUST invoke supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena, and is therefore automatically baseless, IMO. It ALWAYS seeks to obfuscate truth with delusion. What genuine wisdom it offers is largely secular and social-- religious "truths" are nearly always unprovable assertions with no basis in reality, usually having to do with utterly made up, invisible creatures. It's a load of hooey.

[struggle4progress]

16. Fine. You're not religious. It's your choice, and I don't really care much.

You're welcome to your broadbrush beliefs such as "Religion MUST invoke supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena ... It ALWAYS seeks to obfuscate truth with delusion" -- but if you hold such beliefs you're not a very careful observer of human society and probably not very socially or politically talented either: there are lots of us who consider ourselves religious who have no desire to "invoke supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena" or to "obfuscate truth with delusion," and enough of us have adequate scientific backgrounds

[trotsky]

17. On the contrary, you care a whole hell of a lot.

Enough to get so freaking hot & bothered that you have to post to say how little you care. :rofl:

[mike_c]

20. do you believe in supernatural deities...?

Gods? Saints? Angels? Fairies? Leprechauns? Some other brand of invisible friend? Why would anyone "consider themselves religious" without such beliefs? All of the social and intellectual trappings of religion derive from such delusions.

Look, I'm not trying to insult you. I genuinely don't understand. What do you find attractive about religion? To me, it all looks like anti-intellectual escapism-- "If I don't understand something, some supernatural being must have done it." That's the philosophical basis for every religion I know of. Under the social trappings-- the moral lessons and such-- there is this utter delusion about the existence of invisible sky people. I mean, just between you and I, is that what this is all about? This discussion? My rejection of invisible friends in the sky? Is that our major disagreement? Seriously?

[struggle4progress]

21. My religion is for me an existential choice. I begin from the assumption

that my understanding of the world is complex and multilayered and that it is impossible for me or anyone ever really to have a complete and logically consistent view of things: it's possible to construct nice local charts, but a defensible totally integrated perspective will always out of reach, for me and everyone else. Since I have no reason to be my own views are always better in ever respect than anyone else's, beyond expecting that my own nice local charts are inconsistent globally, and that other people's nice local charts are inconsistent globally, I expect that my own nice local charts are likely to be locally inconsistent with other people's nice local charts

Since I expect irrationalities to appear along some of the seams where nice local charts meet, I am not surprised by such irrationalities: they reflect my own irremediable ignorance. I am, however, somewhat free to choose my inescapable irrationalities. For example, in considering this locally-multilayered world that I experience, I am free to choose how I weight the various layers: my phenomenological perceptions, the external world I synthesize from those perceptions, my purely interior emotional reactions to that synthesized external world, the instinctual level of my personal physical interaction (warm/cold, rested/weary, hungry/satiated ...) with the external world, my fantasies, my personal reactions to obviously-other consciousnesses in the external world, the various relationships I can form with such other consciousnesses (I might regard them as objects, they me as an object, we might mutually attempt to negotiate reciprocal respect for each other's subjectivities, ...) &c&c

Just as I lack the time and energy and brains to reinvent science entire for myself but must "build on the shoulders of giants," so I cannot discover in isolation a method for piecing-myself-together-into-an-authentic-human-being. At this point I make an existential choice: since I regard irrationalities as unavoidable, I work towards an irrationality that help me live this complicated locally-multilayered existence in accord with my desire for "authenticity." It has nothing whatsoever to do with my nice local chart titled "physical reality", on which there may be found (say) the results of measurements with yardsticks and clocks or the products of a chemical experiment or evolutionary theory: that is a very good and useful chart, and for various reasons I really have some duty to know something about it. But I recognize other authentic-grounds-of-my-being that go beyond this nice local chart titled "physical reality," and the work of claiming authentic-grounds-of-my-being is work that I consider religious

I cannot prevent you from calling this "utter delusion about the existence of invisible sky people," but if you do so my reaction will be that you simply do not understand a word I say

[mike_c]

24. in my view, what you've described is not religion at all...

...but simply one approach to modeling the world, with perhaps a bit more paying attention to the details of the modeling process-- the existential details, as you put it-- than most people pay. That's an intellectual pursuit that's as honest as you care to make it.

Your comments entirely omitted the part that makes it religion, i.e. superstition-- deities and invisible supernatural beings. That's the part that all religions ultimately share, even when they can't agree on the nature of their invisible friends, and the part that utterly loses me. Peace.

[struggle4progress]

25. So you really begin with "religion = superstition" and are proud to think

you have no irrational superstitions of your own -- which I doubt, since I think that humans cannot escape irrationality and that all make choices of essentially religious character

And you have misunderstood me if you think that my post referred only to "modeling the world." Perhaps I have been unclear, but I think the important problem is not modeling-the-world (a task no one has time to complete) but rather choosing an authentic life in the world as-it-is and as-we-imperfectly-understand-it. This already requires some attention to unrealities, since there are distances between myself-as-I-actually-am and myself-as-I-would-hope-to-be or between the-world-as-it-actually-is and the-world-as-I-would-prefer-it-to-be -- there is really nothing real corresponding to myself-as-I-would-hope-to-be or to the-world-as-I-would-prefer-it-to-be -- and yet the desire to live an authentic life requires me to contemplate seriously (say) the gap between the real myself-as-I-actually-am and the entirely vaporous and impossible myself-as-I-would-hope-to-be and to attempt to walk across some bridge between the real here-and-now-world-as-it-actually-is and an entirely vaporous and impossible world-as-I-would-prefer-it-to-be. We all only live in the present, informed by pasts that we do not actually see directly but only "recall" through fragmentary and dishonest memory, motivated by futures that will never actually exist as imagined. And so at this point I lean on an ancient tradition

Peace, you say. Yes, it is an ancient human hope, which usually does not reflect any real situation. Peace: it will not come, it cannot come -- until we ourselves and our present world are shaken to the foundations, inauthentic hypocrisies collapse, and we build on the ruins

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

26. Is there a religion that DOESN'T invoke supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena?

Must be a fairly new one.

[struggle4progress]

27. What "natural phenomena" do you think (say) Christianity attempts to

explain by "invoking supernatural causes" ?

I have never been in a church where it was preached that I should replace the finding of modern biology or chemistry or physics with some Bible verse

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

28. Uh, the origin of living beings, for one? And of the Earth?

You know, GENESIS?

If you've only been to Christian churches that accept Evolution and modern cormology, well, congratulations.

[darkstar3]

29. What about "God's plan"?

How's that for supernatural causes?

[struggle4progress]

30. Uh, the Catholic Church has no problem with evolution, and polling

shows that individual Catholics are more likely to accept evolution than Americans-at-large

In fact, lots of churches have no problem with it

It's the rightwing Fundies who make a big issue of it

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

31. Spontaneous remission of diseases.

Heck, narrow avoidances of bad stuff in general. Catholics in particular love this. "Thanks for graces granted".

Appearances of angels and saints and the Virgin Mary instead of plain loopiness, too.

[struggle4progress]

34. There are plenty of Catholic hospitals, practicing standard modern medicine

They don't do abortions -- but that prohibition was standard in the old Hippocratic oath

[darkstar3]

35. Abortions,

morning after pills, birth control, condoms...

Sure, there's legitimate reason to deny women access to these services...:eyes:

BTW: Next time you're in a Catholic hospital, you might try listening closely to the staff. Many doctors who work at Christian hospitals are non-believers, and many nurses believe that only through prayer is any healing actually successful. It is for this specific reason that I now avoid a local hospital known as St. John's.

You still haven't answered the charge of special intervention/intercession.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

38. So those negate the existence of the beliefs in #31?

[struggle4progress]

40. I think their view is not as you would caricature it. The Catholics

teach natural law, which they hold we can and should understand by reason, and so the Catholic hospitals practice modern medicine, as something within human ability; but anyone practicing medicine discovers quickly enough that even physicians are not all-powerful and all-knowing, and it is universally recognized that all of us, some earlier than others, eventually fall into conditions beyond the reach of any doctor -- and this recognition of inescapable human limitation is coupled with a hope and a faith in some other sort of help

[darkstar3]

41. So Catholics believe in special intervention/intercession, by your own admission.

This is merely one example of belief in supernatural causes to natural phenomenon. (miracle cures)

Your objections here are falling very flat.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

49. Caricature? Have you seen any news report about pilgrimages to Fatima?

If anything, those (many many) folks caricature themselves.

[struggle4progress]

57. The subthread concerns your claim that religions invariably invoke

"supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena." If you wish to claim "pilgrimages to Fatima" as evidence that Catholicism involves in some essential way an effort to invoke "supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena," then it is not enough to exhibit particular Catholics with strange beliefs (for there are many people who believe various strange things): you must exhibit some indisputably natural phenomenon and show that Catholicism is irremediably committed to some supernatural explanation of this phenomenon

The official Catholic attitude towards Fatima was probably expressed by Benedict's recent comments there:

... I have come to Fatima to pray, in union with Mary and so many pilgrims, for our human family, afflicted as it is by various ills and sufferings ... http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-29244

It's fine with me if you don't like that point of view, but I'm not seeing "supernatural causes <invoked> to explain natural phenomena" in such statements

[darkstar3]

59. Are you trying to claim that Catholics don't believe in miracles?

Of course you aren't, because you must be aware of the Canonization process.

Therefore, in your avid defense of Catholicism, you have made a critical error. For what is a miracle but a supernatural cause used to explain natural phenomena?

The Catholics are not immune to this criticism, nor is any religion.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

65. I never said that's ALL they do. I said they DO do that.

Therefore, showing examples of religious institutions "doing the scientific thing" are not valid rebuttals.

Do you deny that there are many people who go to Fatima and other similar places to ask for supernatural intervention, or who attributed past good events to supernatural intervention and go there to say thanks?

And what I like is immaterial. I'm pointing that something EXISTS, period.

[struggle4progress]

68. Forgive me if I have misunderstood you: it is my impression that you claim

"invoking supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena" is an essential characteristic of religion. But I think the official Catholic positions make a serious effort to avoid "invoking supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena" -- though the effort may be invisible to you on account of your ideological position

One and the same person can wear quite different thinking caps for different purposes. If I don a politician's cap, I must treat as somehow real many widely-held conventional wisdoms which would be highly dubious to me if I were not thinking politically; but after I doff the politician's cap, I am no longer required to continue to regard common and popular misconceptions, like "race," as real. When I don my mathematician's cap, I may speak of all manner of non-material things as if they "actually exist" -- in effect, I act as if I were a Platonic realist, treating a "world" of abstractions as if it had genuine substance; this does not require me to continue to speak as a Platonic realist when I remove the mathematician's cap. Similarly, if I don the thinking cap of a natural scientist, I must immediately dispense with any supernatural thinking and seek only natural explanations of material phenomena; even when I fail to obtain good and convincing natural explanations of material phenomena, I am simply not allowed (while wearing the scientist's thinking cap) to contemplate the possibility of any supernaturalities; if I remove the cap, and cease to speak in a scientific manner, then of course I am again free to speak about possible supernaturalities. The fact that I might sound like a Platonic realist while wearing the mathematician's cap does not necessarily imply Platonic realism infects whatever I say when attempting to wear a natural scientist's thinking cap.

Now the issue under discussion is your claim, as I understand it, that "invoking supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena" is somehow intrinsic to (say) Catholicism. The Catholics, of course, do officially believe that miracles occur. But, on the view I just outlined, a person might perfectly well imagine "miracles are possible" or even "miracles have occurred," without believing that there was anything whatsoever wrong with any particular modern scientific body of knowledge -- and might have a perfectly good conscience after making every proper effort to reckon all demonstrably natural phenomena as natural. It remains true, of course, that many people have strange beliefs: you can, no doubt, find all sorts of people who prefer to describe natural phenomena by appealing to supernaturalities, and some of them will be Catholic. But that is not the issue under discussion: the question whether (say) "Catholicism essentially invokes supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena." If you wish to make this claim, you should exhibit clearly some definite natural phenomenon with an obvious natural explanation, together with the Church doctrine that invokes a supernaturality to explain that natural phenomenon. I do not see you doing this: I merely see you sneering that some Catholics have strange expectations from pilgrimages

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

69. It IS an essential characteristic of religion. Just not the only one. -nt

[struggle4progress]

72. Proof by doggedly reassertion of the claim, eh? Uninformative

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

73. Lots of examples were given. But, to be fair, I'm not trying to convince YOU of anything.

You're clearly beyond convincing.

My responses are for the benefit of onlookers who might have doubts. I am of the principle that BS said in public must be called on.

[struggle4progress]

74. Yet I did not complain you were unpersuasive but that you were uninformative

It is true that you do not persuade me of the validity of your sweeping abstract assertion -- but you even fail to meet the rather weaker standard of saying anything very informative

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

75. If somebody denies that the capital of Japan is Tokyo

the rebuttal isn't going to be very informative either.

[struggle4progress]

76. Have a lovely day

:shrug:

[darkstar3]

33. There are many mainstream denominations that reject evolution.

Characterizing all of them as "rightwing Fundies" is hardly fair. And it also seems unfair to claim that Catholics are more likely than Americans at large to accept evolution, when they do so only due to Papal decree.

[struggle4progress]

71. No, it's mostly a rightwing AMERICAN phenomenon

US fundamentalists have had some success exporting it in the last few decades

[darkstar3]

77. You really like to fight losing battles, don't you?

Above, you are attempting to convince people that Catholics don't invoke supernatural causes for natural phenomena, such as miracles, and here you try to claim that Christians who reject evolution are a crazy rightwing minority.

Let me enlighten you. The following Christian denominations or conglomerations reject evolution by official position:
LCMS
WELS
CJCLDS
SBC
JW

and that's just for starters. If you venture into the unassociated or non-denominational churches scattered around the country, you'll find a whole lot more. Furthermore, the rejection of evolution is not an exclusively American phenomenon:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/01/evolution-darwin-survey-creationism

[TreasonousBastard]

42. You're dead wrong about how religion MUST invoke supernatural causes...

although many do. And even more are accused of it simply because they believe in a deity that might oversee the cosmos, but doens't defy its physical laws.

Many sects, including my own Quakers, do not go that route at all, and complain all the time about the God of the Gaps fallacy that keeps popping up amongst those that do. I don't doubt you could find may more examples of religion that doesn't require supernatural causes should you really try.

[edhopper]

15. If the religious

agree that there is absolutely no evidence for God and that there is absolutely no need to for a Deity's actions to explain how the Universe works, they can believe whatever they want.

[DeSwiss]

19. “not all of the religious have a problem with science....:

No matter. Religion is still based upon fantasy -- upon illogic. You cannot compromise with ignorance. Compromising with illogic and ignorance is what's gotten us where we are today. It's what's gotten us Creation Museums and Texas School Boards who go around re-writing science and history books so that they will conform to their bullshit.

No more.

Likewise, I've also noted here of late, that whenever there is a discussion or more likely an argument displaying atheism in a poor light (as if its just the atheists who are assertive now), the use of the "personification of argument" technique is most often employed by accommodationists and the prickly asshats of religion. This way individual atheists are trotted out and made into a proper whipping-boy, rather than arguments against their thesis which they cannot withstand. I can only conclude that these religionist believe that if they can single-out the atheist leaders and spokespersons from the herd they can quieten them. And it is further hoped that the rest of us will disperse once the perceived leaders of the New Atheism are put in their places.

One almost never sees such personalization tactics being employed against religious personages and their so-called phony science called "theology." But rather we see attempts to merged religious ideals even from differing camps, into some kind of bulwark of truth and belief, rather than picking apart the individuals of these delusions of the Old Religions.

But it's precisely because religionists cannot argue against logic that they chose the personification route of attack. But this is not new. Religionists have become adroit manipulators who've practiced these tactics for centuries. In the past, such approaches might have been relatively effective. But they aren't anymore.

- It won't work.

"If religion contained any truth, it could be ridiculed, insulted, even be defiled without being diminished in any way. Its truth would shine through, undimmed, unblemished, shaming those who abused it into silence. But that's not how things are.

Religion is prickly and intolerant. It's ultra-defensive precisely because it's brittle and fragile. It's about as substantial as a meringue. It's all front and no substance. It's had thousands of years to make its case, and all it's produced is sophistry and violence. And a raft of morals that would shame a rattlesnake.

And no amount of wind-baggery and flimflam from clergy can any longer disguise the simple bald fact that there is: "nothing there." The only true thing about religion, is that it is false. Its claim to higher knowledge is laughable, it doesn't even have any lower knowledge. Not one of its ludicrous claims about reality would have a hope in hell of standing up in a court of law. And it is high time to stop treating them as if they do." ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjO4duhMRZk">Pat Condell - On ''Aggressive atheism''

[struggle4progress]

36. ^^^ The Thought Police have arrived to charge people with Thought Crimes ^^^

[TreasonousBastard]

43. You complain about the "personification of argument" when you take...

the most backward elements of Christianity and use them to slander the entire religious world as if Shinto priests were guilty of the Inquisition? Really now...

What is "illogical" about believing that there might be a universal intelligence or plan that we are not entirely familiar with? What is illogical about acknowledging that science is extremely good at measuring things, but fails when there is nothing to measure? What is illogical about exploring the possibilities that there are ways of gaining knowledge beyond our five senses?

While I have no argument with the Big Bang, come on now-- it's really no easier to prove than Quaker or Unitarian understandings of God. Fits right in with a lot of Buddhist thought, too, without stretching too much.

All of this, btw, is now being seriously studied by scientists in the most logical way, but religion has been inquiring about these things for quite a bit longer.

[darkstar3]

53. In case you actually wanted answers...

What is "illogical" about believing that there might be a universal intelligence or plan that we are not entirely familiar with?
The illogic lies in the word "believing", because with absolutely no evidence or solid and irrefutable logical processes to back up this idea, it is no different than imagination. To believe it, to TRULY believe it, is illogical.

What is illogical about acknowledging that science is extremely good at measuring things, but fails when there is nothing to measure?
The illogic lies in the word "failure". Until such time as you can measure something, or at least measure its effects, you cannot authoritatively claim that it exists. As such, to call lack of measurement a scientific "failure" is to stand on a false premise or an unprovable assumption, making such statements illogical.

What is illogical about exploring the possibilities that there are ways of gaining knowledge beyond our five senses?
Everything. Tell me one way in which people have been irrefutably recorded as gaining knowledge from something other than their five senses. You can't do it, and neither can the Bible. In the Bible, when God supposedly speaks to people, he does so through at least one if not more than one of their normal five senses. People always see burning bushes, hear voices, and so on. We have zero evidence that other senses exist, and dedicating time and money to the search for those very possibly imagined senses is illogical in the face of real problems that require real solutions, like heart disease or juvenile diabetes.

While I have no argument with the Big Bang, come on now-- it's really no easier to prove than Quaker or Unitarian understandings of God. Fits right in with a lot of Buddhist thought, too, without stretching too much.
That is not true. Any understanding of a supreme being is far too complex and nebulous to ever be able to prove, and the necessity for such first movers is not borne out by logic. We have no measurements, no physical evidence, no logical arguments that could even approach "proving" the existence of a supreme being.

The Big Bang Theory, on the other hand, is a scientific theory and not a hypothesis, which means that we have evidence to back up the idea. Evidence in the form of radiometric measurements and Hubble telescope data, evidence in the form of local universal consistencies in acceleration, composition, and directional movement. We have all sorts of data, and there may well come a day where we build a telescope capable of seeing to the very center of the universe and proving the Theory once and for all.

In short, the Big Bang Theory will be far easier to prove or disprove than any understanding of something we might call god.

[TreasonousBastard]

55. Ialready have some answers, thankyouverymuch, and they are superior to what...

you provide. I could use some others but I won't be getting them any time soon , or from here.

However, in case some are reading this who are as confused as you are about reason and logic, I might mention that logic is usually considered a subset of reason. Logic is merely a set of rules for a type of thinking and the simple syllogism "All cars are red. Buick is a car. Therefore all Buicks are red." is perfectly logical, but obviously untrue. Reason, in its broader sense, would take care of that problem.

So, we still have the ancient argument of just how do we find the "truth?" Better yet, just what is this "truth" we are looking for, and how would we recognize it if we found it?

I'll let you wallow around with the empiricists of you choice who say essentially that you have to know everything in order to know everything. If you actually know something about these guys, you could argue all day with that statement, but it's really what they're getting at.

I prefer Maimonides, Aquinas and a few others who dance around the idea of Gnosis and the concepts that emotion, faith, and a few other things are perfectly adequate ways to reach understanding, if done properly.

To be a bit more specific (although I didn't notice you addressing my noticing the irony of you doing what you were complaining about) it is neither illogical or irrational to believe in the possibility of a higher power. We're talking just the possibility here, and not an actual being, but it would kill your argument if you acknowledged that.

Of course one can claim unmeasurable things exist-- that's part of our emotional makeup. If you insist on heading on a god of the gaps path and say eventually we might be able to measure such things, knock yourself out but you'll never prove it unless and until it happens.

Knowledge beyond our five senses? You're being extremely limited about just what "knowledge" is and must lead a very boring and unimaginative life. From Plato through Hume and many modern thinkers this has been raked over many coals and last I heard it's extremely likely, if not agreed in many circles, that there are alternative means of gaining knowledge, or even "truth", besides the five senses. Solipsism, anyone? Non-rational knowledge-- such a thought. (Not irrational, mind you-- there's a difference.)

Is there some sort of a plan behind this whole cosmos thing? You really don't know, and neither do I, but you would close down any attempt to explore the possibility.

And, curiously, your positions here are because you don't believe in a god. You believe that a god would be illogical. (Irrational, really, but why quibble?)

[darkstar3]

56. So you have no logical, rational, empirical, or other argument with which to answer my points,

yet you felt the need mock me, to condescend to me, and to merely repeat your prior assertions as if they were somehow supporting evidence.

It's called an ad hom, and it is as worthless in argumentation as the false premise that "truth" is ineffable.

[TreasonousBastard]

60. Strictly speaking, it's not ad hominum, just insult. And you really...

have no points to make. Just your own simplistic opinions, backed up with nothing. At least I brought up Plato.

Mocking and condescenscion are appropriate.

[darkstar3]

66. Wrong,

because when you insult your opponent IN LIEU of actually responding to any of the points they made, when you use such insult to cover the fact that you have no rebuttal, it's an ad hom.

Mocking and condescension will not cover the fact that your positions are illogical, your assertions baseless, and your argumentation fatally flawed.

[TreasonousBastard]

78. I'm sorry, I must have misread those logic texts where...

Aristotle's informal fallacies were discussed right before his Square of Opposition.

While ad hominem does often include insult or abuse, that is not a requirement.

If I were to say "Don't believe darkstar3 about taxes because he beats puppies" that would, I hope, be untrue, but even if true have no bearing on the argument and not be ad hominem. If I were to say "Do not believe darkstar3 about puppy training because he beats them" it would be ad hominem because it deals specifically with the argument at hand, and accuses you of having a bias. If, as I hope, it is untrue-- in addition to being a fallacious argument that merely makes it a rotten thing to say and the truth or falshood of the accusation has no bearing on whether the argument is fallacious or not.

(I admit, though, that Copi's classic logic text does, in fact, include the story of the solicitor who hands the barrister a brief on the day of trial and it simply says, "We have no case-- insult the opposition.")

[darkstar3]

79. Ah, so it's a tangent you're looking for!

"We have no case -- insult the opposition" is exactly what I was referring to. Now that we're finished with that, let's get back on topic. You haven't answered a thing from #53. Will you do so, or not?

[TreasonousBastard]

80. Nope. I've answered enough already. If you had taken my suggestion to...

explore basic epistemology, you would have seen most of it turned to dust. Even the most cursory look at the subject will see the discussions of methods of discerning truth and knowledge.

I am not your teacher, grasshopper, learn something on your own before arguing nonsense.

[darkstar3]

83. Basic avoidance.

I have studied epistemology more than you might think, and now I'm curious which aspects of that broad field so easily answer the points I put forward to you above. Either you have an answer, or you don't. If you're going to bother reposting here, I suggest you do so with an answer rather than another avoidance tactic, lest you look even further the fool.

[Silent3]

84. I'll take a guess at the game he's playing

There are some things that absolutely can not exist, like a 4-sided triangle, because they are self-contradictory. (There's often some idiot who thinks he's being extremely clever if he brings up pyramids at this point.)

For pretty much anything else, its existence or non-existence isn't purely a matter of definitions and logic, it's a matter of evidence. For such things there is no absolute 100% certainty, because there's always at least a slim hypothetical chance of illusion, deception, hallucination, conspiracy, etc., that could keep existent things hidden from view and prop up belief in nonexistent things. Most of what exists that we don't know exists is probably a simple matter of ignorance, not having looked far enough, in the right way, or at the right moment.

Because of this, it is of course true that you can't claim 100% assurance that God either exists or does not exist.

What I think TB is doing when he's harping on epistemology is confusing the issue of absolute certainty with the issue of burden of proof. He's equating the default position, the null hypothesis that God does not exists, with the burden of proving absolutely and completely that God does not exist.

Equating those two positions, is, of course, utter bullshit. If that's not what TB is doing, he sure isn't making any other point he could be trying to get at very clear amidst all of his evasive verbiage.

[trotsky]

85. "it is of course true that you can't claim 100% assurance that God either exists or does not exist"

I'm of the opinion that gods are more like 4-sided triangles - you can have 100% assurance they don't exist - simply because I have yet to see a definition of one that isn't somehow logically contradictory or merely a new label slapped on an existing term ("love" or "the universe").

[darkstar3]

58. Upon rereading your post, I found something else with which to take issue.

I know, quelle surprise...

Is there some sort of a plan behind this whole cosmos thing? You really don't know, and neither do I, but you would close down any attempt to explore the possibility.

Now just where the fuck do you get off telling ME that I would close down any attempt to find any fact or truth in the universe. I, being the person advocating for scientific measurement, enhancement, and progress, am very interested in providing REAL and VERIFIABLE answers to some of the hardest questions in the universe, such as how we got here and what we're really made of and if the universe really is inside some tiny little jar on a shelf in some twisted parallel dimension.

Contrast, if you dare, the position of the curious but skeptical scientist and the theist, scientist or no. The curious but skeptical scientist seeks answers, wherever they might take him, in a long and winding search for truth and fact that may one day reveal the very foundations of our universe. The theist, scientist or no, assumes he already has the answers, and spends his time either searching for confirmation of those answers, or more frequently not searching at all.

An assumption cut from wholecloth and custom fitted to meet the philosophical needs of the time is the mark of an incurious and insecure mind.

[TreasonousBastard]

61. I said I accept the possibility of a higher consciousness and you argued with that...

ergo, you don't accept the possibility.

So, what's your point?

(btw, I was remiss in not reading the name on your post and thought it was DeSwiss who I was replying to. That could clear up one or two other things I said that might seem out of place.)

[darkstar3]

67. If you don't see the point in #58,

then no amount of repetition on my part can help you.

[TreasonousBastard]

81. You have no point, grasshopper. Study the subject and return to discuss it.

[darkstar3]

82. You mean you have nothing with which to answer.

If your vaunted knowledge is so incredible and deep, surely you can provide some form of answer to the points put to you.

[BurtWorm]

23. We can hold more than one thought in our heads at one time.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

32. No, we won't, not when you get insulted when challenged on your fairy tales.

"The Church says the Earth is Flat, but I have seen the Shadow on the Moon, and it is Round; and I have more faith in a Shadow on the Moon than in the Church".


---Ferdinand Magellan

[struggle4progress]

44. Robert Ingersoll presumably manufactured that Magellan "quote"

since its earliest known occurrence is in one of Ingersoll's nineteenth century works

The Late Birth of a Flat Earth
by Stephen Jay Gould
... Classical scholars, of course, had no doubt about the earth’s sphericity. Our planet’s roundness was central to
Aristotle’s cosmology and was assumed in Eratosthenes’ measurement of the earth’s circumference in the third century
BC ... There never was a period of “flat earth darkness” among scholars (regardless of how many uneducated people may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth’s roundness as an established fact of cosmology. Ferdinand and Isabella did refer Columbus’s plans to a royal commission headed by Hernando de Talavera, Isabella’s confessor and, following defeat of the Moors, Archbishop of Granada. This commission, composed of both clerical and lay advisers, did meet, at Salamanca among other places. They did pose some sharp intellectual objections to Columbus, but all assumed the earth’s roundness. As a major critique, they argued that Columbus could not reach the Indies in his own allotted time, because the earth’s circumference was too great ... Purveyors of the flat-earth myth could never deny this plain testimony of Bede, Bacon, Aquinas, and others— so they argued that these men acted as rare beacons of brave light in pervasive darkness. But consider the absurdity of such a position. Who formed the orthodoxy representing this consensus of ignorance? Two pipsqueaks named Lactantius and Cosmas Indicopleustes? Bede, Bacon, Aquinas, and their ilk were not brave iconoclasts. They formed the establishment, and their convictions about the earth’s roundness stood as canonical, while Lactantius and colleagues remained entirely marginal. To call Aquinas a courageous revolutionary because he promoted a spherical earth would be akin to labeling Fisher, Haldane, Wright, Dobzhansky, Mayr, Simpson, and all the other great twentieth-century evolutionists as radical reformers because a peripheral creationist named Duane Gish wrote a pitiful little book during the same years called Evolution, the Fossils Say No! .;.;. None of the great eighteenth-century anticlerical rationalists—not Condillac, Condorcet, Diderot, Gibbon, Hume, or our own Benjamin Franklin—accused the scholastics of believing in a flat earth, though these men were all unsparing in their contempt for medieval versions of Christianity ...
http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/SS05/efs/materials/FlatEarth.pdf

[onager]

47. Or not, if you want to nit-pick...and you ALWAYS do...

Here's what Ingersoll actually wrote in the essay "Indviduality:"

"I believe it was Magellan who said, 'The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church.' On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success."

Note the actual words. Ingersoll didn't state as a fact that Magellan said it. He said he believed that to be true. IOW, he thought he heard or read it somewhere - the sort of mental shorthand all of us engage in all the time.

Saying Ingersoll was wrong is one thing. Saying he "presumably manufactured" the quote is something else again, and implies that he made it up and knowingly lied.

[struggle4progress]

51. How exciting! Ingersoll sometimes stuck "I think" before his phony quote. But not always:

The church told him: "The earth is flat, my friend; don't go, you may fall off the edge." Magellan said: "I have seen the shadow of the earth upon the moon, and I have more confidence in the shadow than I have in the church"

http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/ing/vol02/i0143.htm
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume II, Volume 2 By Robert G. Ingersoll, p186

Of course, the Church never told Magellan any such thing, since (as Gould notices in the essay I linked above) a flat earth was never a Church teaching

[darkstar3]

54. The church did, however, reject the idea that there could be people on the other side.

It is too absurd to say, that some men might have taken ship and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from that one first man. -- St. Augustine

"{I}f it shall be clearly established that he professes belief in another world and other people existing beneath the earth, or in another sun and moon there, thou art to hold a council, and deprive him of his sacerdotal rank, and expel him from the church." -- Pope Zachary, defending the idea that no people could exist on the other side of the earth.

[struggle4progress]

70. St. Virgil and the Antipodes Case:

The Church Confronts Science in the Middle Ages
By Donald J. McKenna, Ph.D.
Faculty Emeritus, Seton Hall University

... In 748, Pope Zachary authorized Boniface, bishop of Meinz and primate of Germany, to “take counsel” and excommunicate the abbot of St. Peter’s Monastery in Salzburg – an Irishman called Virgil. Boniface had accused Virgil of teaching that there was “another world and other men beneath the earth.” Virgil, considered the most learned man of his age and called the Geometer because of his mastery of classical mathematics, was probably teaching the mathematics of the Antipodes – a point exactly on the other side of the globe. Thus, the pope and Boniface set the church on a collision course with what little science there was in the Middle Ages. But that collision never took place. Instead of being excommunicated, Virgil was made bishop ...
Virgil .. was canonized in 1233 ...

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:90GS3g0JVJkJ:www.virgilofsalzburg.com/St.%2520Virgil%2520and%2520the%2520Antipodes%2520Case-PDF.pdf+pope+zachary+antipodes&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjGL5Wj-KqQc9uRdPkTKTa0NtY6ck52UyehhlNlnhmQq8qA9ZTGB2lI-l37qP8RR9S0FZCEfRjLZ6ZnSYsM7VFU5bjNIMBBBhmZQW228w5rYfCY_HadvMioO30aE1TQtPhFABVK&sig=AHIEtbRSb_DtCHmc1aq7w7IkXNUIPfRc8g

http://www.virgilofsalzburg.com/St.%20Virgil%20and%20the%20Antipodes%20Case-PDF.pdf

[TZ]

45. Damned uppity Atheists, wanting to say what they believe!

Why is at always the minority group that needs to go to the back of the bus and be quiet? Didn't work in the civil rights era , is not working for gay rights movement, won't work here. I certainly don't agree with everything the "New Atheists" say but I think it's important their voices are heard. Atheists are not lepers but are often still treated that way. As for the scientific illiteracy- new atheism is in response to that I believe. As long as I can remember there has been "controversy" about evolution in this country.

[Corrupted Edge]

48. I don't disagree,

It's obvious that Atheists becoming what they stand against is not good in any sense.

But it's also obvious that religious beliefs have come to the point where it can no longer be afforded to ignore their role in shaping policy, in shaping cultures, in their justification of everything good and bad across the spectrum...

This is the information age, and the borders are starting to blur. It's use as a justification (for good and ill) for even more divides is self-evidently harmful for the future... This is not even noting the harm religion does on civil rights (homosexuality, abortion, etc.), on scientific knowledge ( this one really needs nothing else said, everyone should have several examples in their heads...), and child abuse (again... But this also includes indoctrination of an impressionable mind that does not yet have enough knowledge to make an educated decision on what it should believe.).

[Silent3]

50. Please show me a case of "Atheists becoming what they stand against"

Let's see if you can meet that challenge in a way that doesn't rely on a vague notion of "intolerance", where for one group "intolerance" takes the form of fighting against gay marriage, filibustering the entire defense budget because of DADT, jailing women who don't cover every inch of skin except their eyes, etc., etc., and where for the other group "intolerance" takes the form of sharply worded arguments in books and blogs and lectures, which mostly only seem sharply worded to people who've become accustomed to receiving far more rhetorical deference than nearly anyone else would get in a debate.

Here's a clue: Atheists like Dawkins et al don't "stand against" anyone arguing loudly and clearly for what they believe. Atheists don't think that trying to convince another person to change their mind about something is an inherently bad thing. Atheists argue against specific problems with religion and theism.

There are people on the sidelines, of course, who seem to think the only problem with religious believers is when the believers won't shut up and keep their views to themselves. These people also seem to think the main problem with atheists is when the atheists won't sit down and shut up.

Only from that ridiculously oversimplified and substance-free point of view are atheists in anyway becoming remotely like the people they stand against. That's a far, far cry from atheists becoming what the atheist's themselves stand against, because atheists aren't standing against people, they are standing against irrational ideas.

[Corrupted Edge]

62. Just read the first line

"becoming what they stand against is not good in any sense."

I'm glad I don't have to "show" you "a case", because we simply are not anywhere near the level of hypocrisy, irrationality, bigotry, and just plain craziness and silliness that "believers" have reached. Part of what I'm saying is that that seems to be what the believers fear rationalists will become (says a lot about them... They fear themselves.).

You seem to have taken insult at what I said, and from how it seems you misunderstood it, for good reason.

[Silent3]

63. I don't even see a trend in that direction, however...

...if that's how you intend the use of the word "becoming".

I really don't see anything more going on than atheists finally coming out of the closet and speaking their minds. They're upsetting some people because they don't give religion any special deference above and beyond what other beliefs, opinions and philosophies receive, like belief in the Lock Ness monster or Republican politics.

[TZ]

86. Apparantly being loud and firm and refusing to be ignored

or walked all over as evil influences constitutes becoming just like the fundies. We should just all sit quietly look good boys and girls and let people demonize us....

[Critters2]

87. The new atheists are trapped in a negative mimetic relationship with strongly religious people.

They are imitating the behavior they claim to abhor because of shared desire...for respect, attention, power, tolerance, whatever. Because they are modeling this behavior, they will likely end up being what they abhor--intolerant, mean-spirited, narrow-minded. This isn't an attack on atheists, per se. Human beings are mimetic, imitative. We have mirror neurons that make us so. The only way to break the pattern is to be aware of it, and turn away from the mimetic model you're focused on. This group demonstrates, day after day, that atheists are attached to the Christians they hate as their mimetic models. This can't end well, but it sure makes people feel good in the short term!

So, have at it! But there's plenty of good science out there to demonstrate what you're doing and why you, too, are being irrational. Don't let a little anthropology get in the way of a good mimetic crisis, I always say.

[darkstar3]

88. "Tai-kong suo-yo duh shing-chiou sai-jin wuh duh pee-goo"

were we EVER not interested in what Girard had to say.

Do you even talk about any other books in this forum? Did it ever occur to you that maybe Girard's ramblings are no more than armchair psychology, and that humans are much more than children who like to play the shadow game?

[Critters2]

89. It occurs to me...

and then I com back here and watch people support Girard's theory.

[Iggo]

64. No, thank you.

:hi: