I take misogyny as an example in a different post on this topic. You can see that is specifically defined and consequently integral if you are truly trying to 'walk the talk' of a given text. And while misogyny is not exclusive to religion, at least in the examples I cite it is a prerequisite for religion, whereas the same is not true of atheism.
Atheism isn't a system. It's a lack of belief, that is all. It won't 'improve' anything except where the negatives of religion are concerned. That is why atheists have little else to say besides 'religion sucks', because that is the only relevant thing to a lack of belief. If you you agree that a religious system of belief is net negative, then by dumping it you are 'improved', but beyond that it's just up to you to live your life. Atheism doesn't lay out any kind of 'path to happiness' because it is not a process, not a system.
The fundamental difference between the injustices of the religious and the injustices of atheists is simple. There is no 'Bible' of atheism. Stalin and Mao killed a lot of people because of who they were as individuals, not because an atheist 'Bible' told them to do it.
If we examine misogyny for instance, 1 Timothy 2:11-15 tells women to sit down and shut up, and that they should never teach men, but their inferiority should not cause them despair because having children is their redeeming function. Judaic law is worse, as in Leviticus 12:2-5 women are considered unclean after childbirth, and twice as unclean if they give birth to girls. Islam treats women as property that can even be inherited (but only if the women are lewd) per Nisa 4:19.
However since atheism is only lack of a belief, and not a specific system for doing anything, it cannot be intrinsically misogynistic like any of those religions. If an atheist decides to also be a misogynist, that's simply his decision, not a prerequisite to being a 'proper atheist' in the sense that a revealed scripture must be followed to be a 'proper' Christian, Jew, Muslim, etc.
The creation of dogma is a conscious, willful process, also known as 'design'. Yes, it's a product of evolution insofar as the designers biologically evolved, but conscious choices only effect biological evolution in very small ways (you make a mistake that gets you killed before you can reproduce, for example) that only have recognizable effects cumulatively (at which point the conscious aspect becomes irrelevant).
What I see here, and in many other places, is total condemnation of people of faith based on "not knowing". It's a "you're stupid to believe that and I'll prove you're irrational to believe that, and yes, evolution is true and God does not exist", when it's based on nothing more than "not knowing".
Either you're not reading what I'm saying, not understanding it, or deliberately ignoring it. So I'll repeat it again, with emphasis:
In the end, both people don't know, but the person of faith additionally accepts the invention of things they cannot test. That is where they are irrational. There is nothing irrational about just not knowing , or accepting reproducible, controlled tests as the best possible model for understanding reality (effectively facts, even if absolute facts are not possible).
Your argument that science is synonymous with faith and cannot be trusted by rational people due to what remains unknown is ludicrous and absurd. Science is the process by which the unknown is uncovered and becomes known. Just because there are limits to human knowledge does not invalidate or falsify that knowledge. In fact, all it does is encourage rational people to keep asking questions, keep probing, keep testing, keep adding to that knowledge at all times and in all possible ways because that will make the picture clearer, the framework more solid, and everything more useful. The only thing that invalidates or falsifies knowledge is MORE KNOWLEDGE, not untestable inventions. And when that earlier knowledge is replaced by greater understanding, it doesn't mean the previous understanding was faith, it means the previous understanding was incomplete.
Lack of understanding is not faith. I can see how a religious person would have that attitude, as they cannot understand except by faith the things they must take on faith. Newtonian physics vs. relativistic physics is not faith 1 vs. faith 2 where some follow the dogma of 1 and others the dogma of 2, because it is provable that 1 is a more complete explanation of physical observations than 2. If you try to teach a child both, and he doesn't understand relativistic physics, that doesn't mean he lacks faith, he simply doesn't understand. That doesn't mean relativistic physics is an invalid concept. (Insofar as it is the best possible explanation of observable behavior at this time.)
Knowledge is not about absolutes. Only a Sith thinks in terms of absolutes. If you wait for perfection, you'll be waiting a long time, and if you invent an abstraction of perfection to fill the gap, you've failed. Humanity cannot imagine/conceive perfection unless humanity itself is perfect (because that imagination/conception would have to exist within the structure of the human mind, which if it were not perfect would be impossible).
No, it is better to rely on a testable, verifiable 1% while admitting you don't know the rest than to just throw up your hands and say, 'screw the testable, verifiable physical world, all the unknowns mean I can't trust the knowns, so I'm just going to believe in this invention because it sounds cool.'
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
Sorry, you either believe the Bible or you don't. How could these verses be right otherwise? How could man be perfected through imperfection?
John 10:35 also says that scripture cannot be broken, and if it is to be used as a measure for judging people (as Paul says it should be), must it not be perfect in order to be just?
And if you discard these things and hold that the Bible was imperfectly written by men, what make it so much better than all the other imperfect books? Why run your life by it, judge others by it, treat it as infallible if it is fallible?
To preface, as a parent myself I of course believe it is the prerogative of each parent to decide what is best for their children. However this does not preclude asking 'why?'
I remember watching Nightmare on Elm Street when I was just a kid at my friends house who's parents didn't give a crap.
And did this experience scar you for life and turn you into a violent psychopath? I assume not. So, if not, why not? Are you special? Are you so unique that you and only you could have experienced this at that age and not have been impacted in a meaningful way? Assuming you are not special, why would you be capable of enduring this but not your own children? How were your parents justified (I do not question entitlement, they were entitled), in their restrictions if they prevented no meaningful harm? Was not the life of the unrestricted friend not improved where this lack of restriction is concerned? (And, no, other dimensions are applicable here, because I know that many parents who take that stance do so out of negligence rather than conscience, which as a mode leads to less value in other areas of a child's life, but this is not about those areas, nor is such a position predicated on that attitude.)
In the end I still say it's not the game that makes kids violent, it's the lack of parental responsibility and accountability.
I read this kind of ambiguously. I'm not sure if you're saying 'games make kids violent, but it's the parents' fault for letting them' or if you're saying 'games don't make kids violent, but rather the attitude of the parents makes them violent.'
Either one wouldn't make sense. If games don't make kids violent, but parents can, why restrict games at all? Why not focus on yourself and your interaction with your kids? If games do make kids violent, why am I not a serial killer? Why do so many who are exposed show no violent tendencies at all? What of the argument, which I think is most valid, that people with violent natures to begin with gravitate toward violent entertainment, and therefore the correlation is not in general caused by the association, but the association is caused by the pre-existing condition?
The key phrase in all of this is just what you say, "Some of them". Being a jerk does not proceed (in most cases) from a chosen faith or non-faith, and only a jerk would refuse to give somebody enough respect to at least hear what they have to say. That does not mean that anybody is obligated to accept anything they do not wish to accept.
In fact we were not won over by clever arguments.
Because you exclude contradictory evidence, which makes you unreasonable. Conversely, a non-religious person MUST accept, integrate, and adapt to contradictory evidence or they too would be denying reason.
some of us Christian believers respect and value our scientific educations (and training) a great deal. But that does not make us less of a beliver.
If you do accept science over the Bible, it does make you less of a Christian. That Bible is either divinely revealed by God or written by men. If the latter, it should have no precedence over any other books, if the former, it should be perfect and have no flaws. However, there are scientific flaws in the Bible. Sticking to the New Testament to avoid the 'Old Testament doesn't count because Christ fulfilled it' argument (which is bunk too):
1 Corinthians 15:36 says only dead seeds germinate, where in fact a seed must be alive in order to germinate.
Matthew 27:45-53 claims that supernatural darkness occurred after the death of Christ, and an earthquake killed tons of people, but the amazing events are recorded nowhere outside of the gospels.
Not to mention the many times where things like epilepsy and deaf-mutes are blamed on possession by demons/devils/evil spirits instead of the real medical causes.
Yeah, I'm sorry, I can't have a productive discussion with somebody who doesn't know how to organize their thoughts into paragraphs. Just looking at that makes me cringe.
You make assumptions as well, including the very common one that atheism is a belief or faith, whereas it is the lack of such, and secondly that atheists are absolute (which would require belief/faith or insanity). Most intelligent 'atheists' aren't going to say "I know for a fact that there is no god." Even Richard Dawkins says that is further than he is willing to go. I and many others will simply say (in different ways) "I have seen no credible evidence for the existence of god, so even if a god or gods exist there is no precedent to any thinking that they should be actively considered important in a rational model of reality." This is frequently confused with agnosticism, to which it is similar in that it doesn't decide whether god(s) exist, but it actively assumes that they either don't or are not important. This is sometimes called 'weak atheism'.
You seem to have a perverted view of science vs. faith. Science is about reproducible effects to confirm or deny hypothetical models of physical behavior. You can conduct controlled, reproducible experiments about evolutionary processes. The same cannot be said of the resurrection. That is why the latter must be taken on faith. I don't have faith about anything in the material world, because I can test physical things, and these tests will either happen one way or another over and over and over (assuming proper controls). There's no faith there. If something cannot be explained within the current hypothesis, you don't invent an explanation for that an then just accept it. That would be faith. Instead, you come up with a new model, test and test and test again until it makes sense.
In a sense, nothing can be 'proven' about the physical world, but that doesn't mean that accepting metaphysical and/or supernatural intervention is the superior way to explain the gaps in understanding about phenomena.
It's really Occam's razor. People of faith look at the gaps in knowledge and say 'God did it!' When you ask them how, they will say 'I don't know, he's just God.' Whereas a person who lacks faith will say about gaps in knowledge simply, 'I don't know.'
In the end, both people don't know, but the person of faith additionally accepts the invention of things they cannot test. That is where they are irrational. There is nothing irrational about just not knowing, or accepting reproducible, controlled tests as the best possible model for understanding reality (effectively facts, even if absolute facts are not possible).
Internecine wars are infrequently caused by different texts (though that has happened in the case of the Gnostics and Mormons etc.) but rather caused by different interpretations of one text (the Bible specifically is a schizophrenic mess that alternately approves/confirms and denounces/denies the same things all the time). Just because some people prefer to interpret text A as dogma B and others as dogma C does not negate that the text is still treated dogmatically.
And believe me I don't think of religious people monolithically in terms of education or intellect. C.S. Lewis is not on the same plane as Tammy Faye Bakker.
However, you're making a crucial mistake by trying to put reason into a box and saying 'well, it makes sense inside the box, so therefore it makes sense period'. Reality doesn't work that way. I can imagine a system with all kinds of backwards abstractions, I can say 'in this building up means down' and then say 'I'm going upstairs' while going to the basement. That may make sense in the system as I've designed it, but to the objective person looking from the outside in, that's irrational nonsense. If the assumptions you talk about cannot be rationally understood first, whatever 'reasoning' proceeds from irrational assumptions is systematically abstracted nonsense.
So, you are trying to foist responsibility for your actions onto his his shoulders? I can see that going down well in court. Your Honour, the real crime here lies with the so-called 'owner' of the vehicle. If he didn't want my client to take his car, he should have locked the doors like any responsible adult.
Ah the old 'doors unlocked' chestnut. Guess what, if he drives his unlocked car onto my property, I get to open it up and look around (property owners do have the right to search vehicles on their property), I can even hang out inside if I feel like it, because my property rights override his when he willfully brings his stuff into my sphere of control. If the car owner doesn't like it, he can remove it from my property (or I can even have it towed, and although that moves the car without his approval, he has waived that control by bringing his shit onto my property, and therefore the act is not theft, and that WILL go down well in court).
Do drivers have to be trained mechanics?
No, but they do have to pass a test to prove they can drive responsibly.
Should pilots all have degrees in aerodynamics?
You can sure as hell bet pilots know the practical side of aerodynamics. Every pilot knows what a stall is and how to avoid one. Also, just like driving, they have to pass a test that shows they can fly responsibly.
Let me add a more relevant example: ham radio operators have to pass a test and get a license. What they do can't (normally) kill anybody like vehicle operation, but because what they do can impact others far from their location, they must be registered in a way that demonstrates they know what they're doing.
Moreover, being a mechanic or engineer is more applicable to the most advanced functions of wireless devices such as NAT, QOS, etc. Basic encryption has been made so easy by manufacturers that in some cases it's done almost automatically by a one button sync. Even where it is still as manual as the old days, it is still one of the easiest parts of configuring such devices, easily covered by and understood within the scope of any manual or quick setup guide (where the same cannot be said of NAT/QOS/etc.). This basic function is still compatible with the analogy of basic responsible knowledge of operation prerequisite to operation.
They don't know anything about technology. That's hardly what I call wilful.
You're trying to absolve people of responsibility because their motivation is not in of itself harmful or malicious. That doesn't fly. If I'm operating digging equipment in my yard and I don't really know what I'm doing, does that mean when I cut through their line the utility company is going to say, oh it's ok, you were too stupid to know the right way to do things. Yeah. Right. I willfully used equipment I didn't understand, and it is completely appropriate that I get burned for it. The person with the equipment makes the choice, either by action or inaction (what if I don't follow instructions, fail to perform a necessary part of the operation of the equipment? Do you think the rental company will say, that's ok, we understand you were just too dumb to read the manual?), and that is the manifestation of their will, regardless of knowledge or understanding. The will to do something does not hinge on wisdom, intelligence, or knowledge. Sorry, neither does the liability for the effects of a voluntary action.
And when you use this lack of knowledge against him to deprive him of bandwidth, or download allowance, damn straight you are taking advantage.
We're not dealing with children here. If he doesn't want me on his network, he shouldn't be beaming it at me. If he doesn't know what he's doing, he should not be doing it in the first place. If he builds a fence 3 feet away from the propery line in my favor, I'm not 'taking advantage' of him just because he
Your analogy is not parallel. A system of measuring distance is objective. A system of measuring intelligence, though it may try to be objective, cannot wholly succeed at that effort.
Although you attempt to lambaste me, I am not afraid to say it proves what I am saying. I have an IQ of 144, but I forgot Mensa was not an acronym. IQ is a rough estimate of capacity, it doesn't prove value in any specific, discrete way.
Yeah I really like the 'all the dictionaries are wrong, I am the one true arbiter of the meaning of words for all humanity!' argument. I'm really wondering if I should even bother... I mean it's like arm wrestling a toddler.
Scrolling through how this is spiralling as large as it is, I'm probably going to pass. This guy obviously has a lot more time than I do...
The text can be seen as using a potentially ambiguous antecedent. As with most claims of 'out of context!' it really can't be settled unless you can read ancient Greek.
It all depends on to what cause you attribute the observable nature of the Flynn Effect. As an avid synthesizer of history, I think that the average guy today is more intelligent than the average guy of the ancient or medieval periods. I think the primary reason is the cultural reduction (not elimination) of superstition and more practical cause/effect views of the observable world.
The reasoning in his analogy is deliberately deficient to convey the deficiency of the system of IQ measurement. That's the point. If it were not deficient, it would be a defense of the aforesaid measurement.
If you can demonstrate how what I said was incorrect, please do, otherwise do not insult my understanding. I am not here to defend IQ measurement, nor was anything I said even useful as a defense of IQ measurement if you were to think about it longer than two seconds. I myself believe the system to be deficient, and it is the primary reason I have abstained from joining MENSA. It remains, however, a fact that one can have a high IQ without education, and that one can be educated without having a high IQ. They are not the same thing. That is all I said, it is correct, and that is all I have to say.
There is no strawman. You made no argument besides 'nuh UH!' It is not possible to create a similar but deliberately weaker argument than that for the purpose of deliberately dismantling it. You clearly don't know what a strawman is.
I'll grant that there may be some dictionaries that do not list religious doctrine as one of the definitions of dogma. So, in a absolute sense, yes, not 'every' dictionary, but that is simply deliberate obtuseness on your part about a rhetorical device. Most dictionaries of the English language have the aforementioned as part of the definition, including but not limited to: Random House Dictionary; The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition; Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, 11th Edition; Cambridge Dictionary of American English; etc. Stop being disingenuous.
And now the ethnocentrism comes out. Where previously we were talking about religion, suddenly we're talking about Christianity. Of course, why wouldn't we, after all, Christianity is the exception, it's not like all those other religions. Pardon me while I roll my eyes so hard they could put a smooth surface on fresh asphalt.
You want to play that game? Fine. The resurrection of Christ. All Christians must believe it, and the only evidence for it is in religious text, all scientific evidence to the contrary is ignored. That is the very essence of the denotation of dogma.
I think you're being deliberately dense about the difference between rational and reasonable. Do you notice how those are both adjectives? They are not the same word. You don't know much about the definitions, much less connotations, of words do you? A rational person connects causes to effects, learns from experience, etc. etc. A reasonable person is one who is objective, less closed-minded. These are connotations of context. If you just say 'reason' out of nowhere it does not have the same feeling or background of meaning (connotation) as when you talk of 'reasonable people'. In this sense, to use the language fully, it is necessary to look beyond the straight definitions of rational vs. reasonable.
You're incapable of demonstrating a single thing in the Bible that tells anyone to exclude any evidence. You're just inventing something that doesn't exist.
2 Peter 3:5. If you don't believe in creation, you're wrong.
Galatians 1:8. If anybody says something different from the Bible, they are cursed.
2 Corinthians 10:5. This one is so good, it can speak for itself:
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
If that's not clear enough I don't know what is.
That's what YOU were doing to "religious people." I was just playing along in the game you started.
Key word there is ignorant. I know a lot about history and where religion fits into it, including Christianity. I judge religion on the facts, the purges of heretics, the slaughter of infidels, the suppression of dissent, the continuance of misogyny, the tacit acceptance of racism and slavery, etc. etc. What I said is you don't know anything about these people beyond this story. Until you do, your judgement is weaker than my judgement of religion.
Also, 'judgement' is an accepted alternate spelling. But you wouldn't know that, since you have some strange aversion to dictionaries.
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I take misogyny as an example in a different post on this topic. You can see that is specifically defined and consequently integral if you are truly trying to 'walk the talk' of a given text. And while misogyny is not exclusive to religion, at least in the examples I cite it is a prerequisite for religion, whereas the same is not true of atheism.
Atheism isn't a system. It's a lack of belief, that is all. It won't 'improve' anything except where the negatives of religion are concerned. That is why atheists have little else to say besides 'religion sucks', because that is the only relevant thing to a lack of belief. If you you agree that a religious system of belief is net negative, then by dumping it you are 'improved', but beyond that it's just up to you to live your life. Atheism doesn't lay out any kind of 'path to happiness' because it is not a process, not a system.
The fundamental difference between the injustices of the religious and the injustices of atheists is simple. There is no 'Bible' of atheism. Stalin and Mao killed a lot of people because of who they were as individuals, not because an atheist 'Bible' told them to do it.
If we examine misogyny for instance, 1 Timothy 2:11-15 tells women to sit down and shut up, and that they should never teach men, but their inferiority should not cause them despair because having children is their redeeming function. Judaic law is worse, as in Leviticus 12:2-5 women are considered unclean after childbirth, and twice as unclean if they give birth to girls. Islam treats women as property that can even be inherited (but only if the women are lewd) per Nisa 4:19.
However since atheism is only lack of a belief, and not a specific system for doing anything, it cannot be intrinsically misogynistic like any of those religions. If an atheist decides to also be a misogynist, that's simply his decision, not a prerequisite to being a 'proper atheist' in the sense that a revealed scripture must be followed to be a 'proper' Christian, Jew, Muslim, etc.
The creation of dogma is a conscious, willful process, also known as 'design'. Yes, it's a product of evolution insofar as the designers biologically evolved, but conscious choices only effect biological evolution in very small ways (you make a mistake that gets you killed before you can reproduce, for example) that only have recognizable effects cumulatively (at which point the conscious aspect becomes irrelevant).
It makes me sad that an alleged university graduate cannot construct even one grammatically correct or properly spelled sentence. You're a disgrace.
What I see here, and in many other places, is total condemnation of people of faith based on "not knowing". It's a "you're stupid to believe that and I'll prove you're irrational to believe that, and yes, evolution is true and God does not exist", when it's based on nothing more than "not knowing".
Either you're not reading what I'm saying, not understanding it, or deliberately ignoring it. So I'll repeat it again, with emphasis:
In the end, both people don't know, but the person of faith additionally accepts the invention of things they cannot test. That is where they are irrational. There is nothing irrational about just not knowing , or accepting reproducible, controlled tests as the best possible model for understanding reality (effectively facts, even if absolute facts are not possible).
Your argument that science is synonymous with faith and cannot be trusted by rational people due to what remains unknown is ludicrous and absurd. Science is the process by which the unknown is uncovered and becomes known. Just because there are limits to human knowledge does not invalidate or falsify that knowledge. In fact, all it does is encourage rational people to keep asking questions, keep probing, keep testing, keep adding to that knowledge at all times and in all possible ways because that will make the picture clearer, the framework more solid, and everything more useful. The only thing that invalidates or falsifies knowledge is MORE KNOWLEDGE, not untestable inventions. And when that earlier knowledge is replaced by greater understanding, it doesn't mean the previous understanding was faith, it means the previous understanding was incomplete.
Lack of understanding is not faith. I can see how a religious person would have that attitude, as they cannot understand except by faith the things they must take on faith. Newtonian physics vs. relativistic physics is not faith 1 vs. faith 2 where some follow the dogma of 1 and others the dogma of 2, because it is provable that 1 is a more complete explanation of physical observations than 2. If you try to teach a child both, and he doesn't understand relativistic physics, that doesn't mean he lacks faith, he simply doesn't understand. That doesn't mean relativistic physics is an invalid concept. (Insofar as it is the best possible explanation of observable behavior at this time.)
Knowledge is not about absolutes. Only a Sith thinks in terms of absolutes. If you wait for perfection, you'll be waiting a long time, and if you invent an abstraction of perfection to fill the gap, you've failed. Humanity cannot imagine/conceive perfection unless humanity itself is perfect (because that imagination/conception would have to exist within the structure of the human mind, which if it were not perfect would be impossible).
No, it is better to rely on a testable, verifiable 1% while admitting you don't know the rest than to just throw up your hands and say, 'screw the testable, verifiable physical world, all the unknowns mean I can't trust the knowns, so I'm just going to believe in this invention because it sounds cool.'
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
Sorry, you either believe the Bible or you don't. How could these verses be right otherwise? How could man be perfected through imperfection?
John 10:35 also says that scripture cannot be broken, and if it is to be used as a measure for judging people (as Paul says it should be), must it not be perfect in order to be just?
And if you discard these things and hold that the Bible was imperfectly written by men, what make it so much better than all the other imperfect books? Why run your life by it, judge others by it, treat it as infallible if it is fallible?
I see we share the same favorite resource. It's the express train to apostasy, all aboard!
I remember watching Nightmare on Elm Street when I was just a kid at my friends house who's parents didn't give a crap.
And did this experience scar you for life and turn you into a violent psychopath? I assume not. So, if not, why not? Are you special? Are you so unique that you and only you could have experienced this at that age and not have been impacted in a meaningful way? Assuming you are not special, why would you be capable of enduring this but not your own children? How were your parents justified (I do not question entitlement, they were entitled), in their restrictions if they prevented no meaningful harm? Was not the life of the unrestricted friend not improved where this lack of restriction is concerned? (And, no, other dimensions are applicable here, because I know that many parents who take that stance do so out of negligence rather than conscience, which as a mode leads to less value in other areas of a child's life, but this is not about those areas, nor is such a position predicated on that attitude.)
In the end I still say it's not the game that makes kids violent, it's the lack of parental responsibility and accountability.
I read this kind of ambiguously. I'm not sure if you're saying 'games make kids violent, but it's the parents' fault for letting them' or if you're saying 'games don't make kids violent, but rather the attitude of the parents makes them violent.'
Either one wouldn't make sense. If games don't make kids violent, but parents can, why restrict games at all? Why not focus on yourself and your interaction with your kids? If games do make kids violent, why am I not a serial killer? Why do so many who are exposed show no violent tendencies at all? What of the argument, which I think is most valid, that people with violent natures to begin with gravitate toward violent entertainment, and therefore the correlation is not in general caused by the association, but the association is caused by the pre-existing condition?
In fact we were not won over by clever arguments.
Because you exclude contradictory evidence, which makes you unreasonable. Conversely, a non-religious person MUST accept, integrate, and adapt to contradictory evidence or they too would be denying reason.
some of us Christian believers respect and value our scientific educations (and training) a great deal. But that does not make us less of a beliver.
If you do accept science over the Bible, it does make you less of a Christian. That Bible is either divinely revealed by God or written by men. If the latter, it should have no precedence over any other books, if the former, it should be perfect and have no flaws. However, there are scientific flaws in the Bible. Sticking to the New Testament to avoid the 'Old Testament doesn't count because Christ fulfilled it' argument (which is bunk too):
1 Corinthians 15:36 says only dead seeds germinate, where in fact a seed must be alive in order to germinate.
Matthew 27:45-53 claims that supernatural darkness occurred after the death of Christ, and an earthquake killed tons of people, but the amazing events are recorded nowhere outside of the gospels.
Not to mention the many times where things like epilepsy and deaf-mutes are blamed on possession by demons/devils/evil spirits instead of the real medical causes.
Yeah, I'm sorry, I can't have a productive discussion with somebody who doesn't know how to organize their thoughts into paragraphs. Just looking at that makes me cringe.
You make assumptions as well, including the very common one that atheism is a belief or faith, whereas it is the lack of such, and secondly that atheists are absolute (which would require belief/faith or insanity). Most intelligent 'atheists' aren't going to say "I know for a fact that there is no god." Even Richard Dawkins says that is further than he is willing to go. I and many others will simply say (in different ways) "I have seen no credible evidence for the existence of god, so even if a god or gods exist there is no precedent to any thinking that they should be actively considered important in a rational model of reality." This is frequently confused with agnosticism, to which it is similar in that it doesn't decide whether god(s) exist, but it actively assumes that they either don't or are not important. This is sometimes called 'weak atheism'.
You seem to have a perverted view of science vs. faith. Science is about reproducible effects to confirm or deny hypothetical models of physical behavior. You can conduct controlled, reproducible experiments about evolutionary processes. The same cannot be said of the resurrection. That is why the latter must be taken on faith. I don't have faith about anything in the material world, because I can test physical things, and these tests will either happen one way or another over and over and over (assuming proper controls). There's no faith there. If something cannot be explained within the current hypothesis, you don't invent an explanation for that an then just accept it. That would be faith. Instead, you come up with a new model, test and test and test again until it makes sense.
In a sense, nothing can be 'proven' about the physical world, but that doesn't mean that accepting metaphysical and/or supernatural intervention is the superior way to explain the gaps in understanding about phenomena.
It's really Occam's razor. People of faith look at the gaps in knowledge and say 'God did it!' When you ask them how, they will say 'I don't know, he's just God.' Whereas a person who lacks faith will say about gaps in knowledge simply, 'I don't know.'
In the end, both people don't know, but the person of faith additionally accepts the invention of things they cannot test. That is where they are irrational. There is nothing irrational about just not knowing, or accepting reproducible, controlled tests as the best possible model for understanding reality (effectively facts, even if absolute facts are not possible).
Internecine wars are infrequently caused by different texts (though that has happened in the case of the Gnostics and Mormons etc.) but rather caused by different interpretations of one text (the Bible specifically is a schizophrenic mess that alternately approves/confirms and denounces/denies the same things all the time). Just because some people prefer to interpret text A as dogma B and others as dogma C does not negate that the text is still treated dogmatically.
And believe me I don't think of religious people monolithically in terms of education or intellect. C.S. Lewis is not on the same plane as Tammy Faye Bakker.
However, you're making a crucial mistake by trying to put reason into a box and saying 'well, it makes sense inside the box, so therefore it makes sense period'. Reality doesn't work that way. I can imagine a system with all kinds of backwards abstractions, I can say 'in this building up means down' and then say 'I'm going upstairs' while going to the basement. That may make sense in the system as I've designed it, but to the objective person looking from the outside in, that's irrational nonsense. If the assumptions you talk about cannot be rationally understood first, whatever 'reasoning' proceeds from irrational assumptions is systematically abstracted nonsense.
So, you are trying to foist responsibility for your actions onto his his shoulders? I can see that going down well in court. Your Honour, the real crime here lies with the so-called 'owner' of the vehicle. If he didn't want my client to take his car, he should have locked the doors like any responsible adult.
Ah the old 'doors unlocked' chestnut. Guess what, if he drives his unlocked car onto my property, I get to open it up and look around (property owners do have the right to search vehicles on their property), I can even hang out inside if I feel like it, because my property rights override his when he willfully brings his stuff into my sphere of control. If the car owner doesn't like it, he can remove it from my property (or I can even have it towed, and although that moves the car without his approval, he has waived that control by bringing his shit onto my property, and therefore the act is not theft, and that WILL go down well in court).
Do drivers have to be trained mechanics?
No, but they do have to pass a test to prove they can drive responsibly.
Should pilots all have degrees in aerodynamics?
You can sure as hell bet pilots know the practical side of aerodynamics. Every pilot knows what a stall is and how to avoid one. Also, just like driving, they have to pass a test that shows they can fly responsibly.
Let me add a more relevant example: ham radio operators have to pass a test and get a license. What they do can't (normally) kill anybody like vehicle operation, but because what they do can impact others far from their location, they must be registered in a way that demonstrates they know what they're doing.
Moreover, being a mechanic or engineer is more applicable to the most advanced functions of wireless devices such as NAT, QOS, etc. Basic encryption has been made so easy by manufacturers that in some cases it's done almost automatically by a one button sync. Even where it is still as manual as the old days, it is still one of the easiest parts of configuring such devices, easily covered by and understood within the scope of any manual or quick setup guide (where the same cannot be said of NAT/QOS/etc.). This basic function is still compatible with the analogy of basic responsible knowledge of operation prerequisite to operation.
They don't know anything about technology. That's hardly what I call wilful.
You're trying to absolve people of responsibility because their motivation is not in of itself harmful or malicious. That doesn't fly. If I'm operating digging equipment in my yard and I don't really know what I'm doing, does that mean when I cut through their line the utility company is going to say, oh it's ok, you were too stupid to know the right way to do things. Yeah. Right. I willfully used equipment I didn't understand, and it is completely appropriate that I get burned for it. The person with the equipment makes the choice, either by action or inaction (what if I don't follow instructions, fail to perform a necessary part of the operation of the equipment? Do you think the rental company will say, that's ok, we understand you were just too dumb to read the manual?), and that is the manifestation of their will, regardless of knowledge or understanding. The will to do something does not hinge on wisdom, intelligence, or knowledge. Sorry, neither does the liability for the effects of a voluntary action.
And when you use this lack of knowledge against him to deprive him of bandwidth, or download allowance, damn straight you are taking advantage.
We're not dealing with children here. If he doesn't want me on his network, he shouldn't be beaming it at me. If he doesn't know what he's doing, he should not be doing it in the first place. If he builds a fence 3 feet away from the propery line in my favor, I'm not 'taking advantage' of him just because he
Your analogy is not parallel. A system of measuring distance is objective. A system of measuring intelligence, though it may try to be objective, cannot wholly succeed at that effort.
Although you attempt to lambaste me, I am not afraid to say it proves what I am saying. I have an IQ of 144, but I forgot Mensa was not an acronym. IQ is a rough estimate of capacity, it doesn't prove value in any specific, discrete way.
Yeah I really like the 'all the dictionaries are wrong, I am the one true arbiter of the meaning of words for all humanity!' argument. I'm really wondering if I should even bother... I mean it's like arm wrestling a toddler.
Scrolling through how this is spiralling as large as it is, I'm probably going to pass. This guy obviously has a lot more time than I do...
I do not disagree in the slightest, but that was not a genetic issue (per se).
The text can be seen as using a potentially ambiguous antecedent. As with most claims of 'out of context!' it really can't be settled unless you can read ancient Greek.
I must have a poverty of imagination, as you have made the best idea ever even better.
It all depends on to what cause you attribute the observable nature of the Flynn Effect. As an avid synthesizer of history, I think that the average guy today is more intelligent than the average guy of the ancient or medieval periods. I think the primary reason is the cultural reduction (not elimination) of superstition and more practical cause/effect views of the observable world.
Actually, everybody is deciding to reproduce less, does this mean they are getting smarter?
(It probably does.)
Your optimism is far greater than mine.
The reasoning in his analogy is deliberately deficient to convey the deficiency of the system of IQ measurement. That's the point. If it were not deficient, it would be a defense of the aforesaid measurement.
If you can demonstrate how what I said was incorrect, please do, otherwise do not insult my understanding. I am not here to defend IQ measurement, nor was anything I said even useful as a defense of IQ measurement if you were to think about it longer than two seconds. I myself believe the system to be deficient, and it is the primary reason I have abstained from joining MENSA. It remains, however, a fact that one can have a high IQ without education, and that one can be educated without having a high IQ. They are not the same thing. That is all I said, it is correct, and that is all I have to say.
I'll grant that there may be some dictionaries that do not list religious doctrine as one of the definitions of dogma. So, in a absolute sense, yes, not 'every' dictionary, but that is simply deliberate obtuseness on your part about a rhetorical device. Most dictionaries of the English language have the aforementioned as part of the definition, including but not limited to: Random House Dictionary; The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition; Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, 11th Edition; Cambridge Dictionary of American English; etc. Stop being disingenuous.
And now the ethnocentrism comes out. Where previously we were talking about religion, suddenly we're talking about Christianity. Of course, why wouldn't we, after all, Christianity is the exception, it's not like all those other religions. Pardon me while I roll my eyes so hard they could put a smooth surface on fresh asphalt.
You want to play that game? Fine. The resurrection of Christ. All Christians must believe it, and the only evidence for it is in religious text, all scientific evidence to the contrary is ignored. That is the very essence of the denotation of dogma.
I think you're being deliberately dense about the difference between rational and reasonable. Do you notice how those are both adjectives? They are not the same word. You don't know much about the definitions, much less connotations, of words do you? A rational person connects causes to effects, learns from experience, etc. etc. A reasonable person is one who is objective, less closed-minded. These are connotations of context. If you just say 'reason' out of nowhere it does not have the same feeling or background of meaning (connotation) as when you talk of 'reasonable people'. In this sense, to use the language fully, it is necessary to look beyond the straight definitions of rational vs. reasonable.
You're incapable of demonstrating a single thing in the Bible that tells anyone to exclude any evidence. You're just inventing something that doesn't exist.
2 Peter 3:5. If you don't believe in creation, you're wrong.
Galatians 1:8. If anybody says something different from the Bible, they are cursed.
2 Corinthians 10:5. This one is so good, it can speak for itself:
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
If that's not clear enough I don't know what is.
That's what YOU were doing to "religious people." I was just playing along in the game you started.
Key word there is ignorant. I know a lot about history and where religion fits into it, including Christianity. I judge religion on the facts, the purges of heretics, the slaughter of infidels, the suppression of dissent, the continuance of misogyny, the tacit acceptance of racism and slavery, etc. etc. What I said is you don't know anything about these people beyond this story. Until you do, your judgement is weaker than my judgement of religion.
Also, 'judgement' is an accepted alternate spelling. But you wouldn't know that, since you have some strange aversion to dictionaries.