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dglas
Skeptic Friend
Canada
397 Posts |
 Posted - 04/17/2006 : 06:40:25 [Permalink]
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Thank you for the welcomes Cuneiformist and Filthy.
I've slowly been picking my way through the forums to see who the alphas are and to determine the variety of interests.
Some of the posts in this thread do seem to have become somewhat ....umm.... strident.  |
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- dglas (In the hell of 1000 unresolved subplots...)
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The Presupposition of Intrinsic Evil
+ A Self-Justificatory Framework
= The "Heart of Darkness"
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| Edited by - dglas on 04/17/2006 06:56:39 |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 06:49:55 [Permalink]
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The first rule here is that everybody leaves their ego at the door, and everyone abides by that rule.
Welcome, dglas. Strident? Maybe, but polite. Always polite.
Seriously, this is a good bunch. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 07:25:27 [Permalink]
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| YEAH! And guns dont kill people right Marf? You go overboard in the defense just as they do in the attack. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 07:39:53 [Permalink]
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quote:
Attacking religion as a whole in such a manner is so pointless, and potentially detrimental to the cause of freedom, tolerance, reason, and equality, especially when it adopt the rhetoric and some of the tactics of the most bigoted among its opposition.
I don't see them as attacking religion as a whole. I see them telling people that it's mean to threaten people with hell, and I see them telling people that Jesus probably never existed.
Arguing tactics is another matter.
I see nothing wrong with evangelism - that is, zealous selling of your viewpoint. What's not constructive is attacking people (asshole, moron) and not their ideas or tactics. What's not constructive is threatening children with Hell, and telling them that they have no worth (e.g. sinners life not worth anything without an afterlife, Bible, etc.) What's not constructive is invading their space and leaving things for their children without their knowledge. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 08:01:56 [Permalink]
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Cuneformist wrote: quote:
Welcome to SFN, dglas. I'd say that at present, any original points of contention have been lost.
I think that's sort of a superficial reading. The discussion itself is covering several points and issues within a narrow scope. Also, there are several people in on this discussion, and different people have focused on different points. Just because it has gotten a little complicated, doesn't mean the points have been lost.
dglas wrote: quote:
(1)The targeting of children with materials intended to influence their thinking - most especially if it contradicts the will of their parents; and
(2) The degree of literalism (for want of a better term) of the religious person is the measure of whether public (specifically skeptical) criticism is warranted against their viewpoint.
The first point is correct, but it isn't the one I've been focusing on. Half and Kil more concentrated on that.
As for the second, I don't agree at all. To use the example of Rev. William Sloan Coffin again – he literally believed in God and Jesus as the savior of mankind. But his literal beliefs in those things were different from those of fundamentalists because Coffin never allowed his literal beliefs to conflict with what is evident in the natural world. Fundamentalists do that, and they should be criticized for it because they are having, as Gorgo put it, “a war on reality” and they are trying to push their views on the whole of society.
Gorgo wrote: quote:
They are people who may be misguided or deluded, but trying to do what they can do to make the world a better place. You'd forgive MLK his faults and put him up on a pedestal, but not fellow atheists?
An old cliché, but a goodie: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Abortion clinic protestors are genuinely trying to make the world a better place. But they are still ignorant, delusional, annoying, and often cruel. And if someone called an abortion clinic protestor a “moron” and “asshole”, in that case I wouldn't dispute it. Martin Luther King did great things to build the civil rights movement. He also promoted true religious freedom (In a Playboy interview he defended the secular outcome of a court case against prayer in school). If he were alive today, he would be my political and social ally. I do not “forgive him his faults”. I do not consider mere religious belief to be a fault. If fact, I regard it as a benefit to certain-minded people. It only becomes a fault when it causes irrational beliefs about the nature of this world here and now.
BigPapaSmurf wrote: quote:
[quote]YEAH! And guns dont kill people right Marf? You go overboard in the defense just as they do in the attack.
Afraid you're going to have to be a bit more specific about how I am going overboard, as well as be more clear in how you are relating the comparison with that sort of bumber-sticker statement about the gun issue.
Religious bodies that are not abusive to their own members and that do not seek to infringe on the rights of others (so most) are deserving of respect (just as much as nonbelievers are deserving of respect), particularly on their own “turf”. This doesn't mean pe |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 04/17/2006 08:03:34 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 08:06:17 [Permalink]
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Not an attack per se. I am merely giving my opinion of their morals, ethics, and probable intelligence level. Laying philosophical crap literature on a child not your own is messing with someones family, and that is just not done, not at least with impunity. It is for the parents to decide this, whatever their bent might be.
If the evangelicals of any strip want to put forth their shit or tear someones shit down, that's fine. But they can damned well wait until they get into a church to do it.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 08:14:40 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by marfknox
Cuneformist wrote: quote:
Welcome to SFN, dglas. I'd say that at present, any original points of contention have been lost.
I think that's sort of a superficial reading. The discussion itself is covering several points and issues within a narrow scope. Also, there are several people in on this discussion, and different people have focused on different points. Just because it has gotten a little complicated, doesn't mean the points have been lost.
Well, the point of the thread was a (too) subtle jab at the AM talk circuit and Fox News whores who peddled that fake "War on Christmas" back in December to rally Christians behind Conservative causes. But one of the main pieces of evidence (if you can call it that) for this war was the substitution of "holiday" for "Christmas". This is rubbish, and I chose to mock it by suggesting that now Easter was being substituted as a way for secularists to marginalize the holiday.
Somewhere along the way, though, the thread turned into a discussion of some website that encourages people to put a DVD in churches, and the issues surrounding that.
So yeah, the original point was kind of lost.
I don't care, mind you-- I'm happy such things are being discussed. But as for the direction of the discussion, I'm lost.  |
| Edited by - Cuneiformist on 04/17/2006 10:06:27 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 08:48:48 [Permalink]
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This is quickly turning into a larger discussion, perhaps warranting a new thread. But what the hell, here we are. I would like to elaborate on what Marf has said from my point of view about how skeptics, atheists and agnostics see religiosity and how we choose to deal with it. I will do so by quoting from a section of my TAM4 Kil Report.
quote:
Dr. Hal Bidlack was next. I love this guy. He demonstrates that a person can believe in God and be a good skeptic. He is a friend of James Randi and big at the JREF. And, he believes in God. I have been arguing, for just about as long as I have been a skeptic, that a God belief does not necessarily demonstrate an inability to think critically. Bridlack is a deist. And there are other functional deists out there who have proven themselves of great value in the pursuit of science and skepticism. Personally, I wouldn't even limit being a good skeptic, as far as the God question goes, to those who are strictly deist in their belief in God, as long as they can separate their faith in whatever religion they practice from the study of the natural world. (Dr. Kenneth Miller comes to mind.)
If personal spiritual fulfillment and the quest for knowledge of how the natural world works are not in conflict in the mind of the believer, why should I care if they go to church every Sunday? If a person's religiosity and my view on the God question becomes a minor point of disagreement, and with all we have to do as skeptics to bring reason to an irrational world, does our disagreement really matter? In my view, the more critical thinkers out there, the better. It isn't as though all skeptics agree on all things. And it isn't necessary that we do. If what we actually bring to the table serves to make this a more rational world, I will be content with that as the eventual outcome of our endeavors as skeptics.
My point is, even though we may disagree on the rationality of a God belief, we should be careful about who we are attacking. Some of those Christians are ultimately our allies and are deserving of our support. Why? Who better than they to challenge the intolerance of the more fundamentalist members of the larger club? Those liberal Christians have more credibility than we do to their parishioners since we are largely viewed as anti religion. They are the bridge between us and them, if you will. And as Marf has pointed out, the battle is more political than it is religious.
Religion will always be with us. If we want to win the war against religious extremists, we should be supporting those who are fighting the same battle.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 09:15:44 [Permalink]
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| If you're in a war with religious extremists, leave me out of it. I'm not interested in a war on people. I'm interested in helping them to think better of themselves and our world than to need to create fantasies. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 09:38:29 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Gorgo
If you're in a war with religious extremists, leave me out of it. I'm not interested in a war on people. I'm interested in helping them to think better of themselves and our world than to need to create fantasies.
I don't understand this reply. It's not a war against people. It's about political agendas. If you see all religionists as equally irrational, you are missing the forest for the trees. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 09:38:53 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
Well, the point of the thread was a (too) subtle jab at the AM talk circuit and Fox News whores who peddled that fake "War on Christmas" back in December to rally Christians behind Conservative causes. But one of the main pieces of evidence (if you can call it that) for this war was the substitution of "holiday" for "Christmas". This is rubbish, and I chose to mock it by suggesting that now Easter was being substituted as a way for secularists to marginalize the holiday.
Somewhere along the way, though, the thread turned into a discussion of some website that encourages people to put a DVD in churches, and the issues surrounding that.
So yeah, the original point was kind of lost.
The "War on Easter" group, though, was actively waging a war on a Christian holiday, giving those news whores and AM radio pundits real life examples of what was, originally, a non-issue. I found the Religious Right's claims of persecution as funny as anyone else when there was no real organized attack on them.
Now, there is. So instead of being able to answer the fundamentalists by saying "what attack?" now these folks have given O'Reilly and company precisely what they wanted. As the Green Knight said on this issue, "Yay team." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 09:42:53 [Permalink]
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quote:
I don't understand this reply. It's not a war against people. It's about political agendas. If you see all religionists as equally irrational, you are missing the forest for the trees.
You said something about a war on extremists. Political agendas are created by ideas. Fundamentalists are not any more likely to have irrational ideas that affect politics than anyone else. I've said before that I do not think irrational ideas start and end with religion, but the need to create fantasies in order to make one's life seem to be worth anything, is always dangerous. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 09:46:16 [Permalink]
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| Nothing wrong with a satirical, or even serious attempt to end irational ideas. Who needs Christmas and Easter and who cares if someone wants to end the dumb ideas that started them? |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 09:55:26 [Permalink]
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quote:
Fundamentalists are not any more likely to have irrational ideas that affect politics than anyone else.
Why? |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 10:00:34 [Permalink]
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| People of all kinds, and I'm not excluding myself, are misinformed and deluded about all kinds of things. I don't see too many fundamentalists that are very involved in politics at all. Don't know the percentages. I would suspect that many of them have very different ideas about a lot of things. Not all evangelists are right-wing. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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