Uh, yeah, when government funds are loaned as a loan-of-last-resort to a failing business in order to prop it up during a tough period, yeah that's the definition of a bailout. Yes. Exactly. And if I were standing in place of a government program, and the school, auto, or housing companies were failing and I gave them an emergency loan, then yes that would be a bailout. And if I were not acting for the government, or if the corporations weren't failing, then no that wouldn't be a bailout. Phew, gosh, you seem to have a super hard time understanding bailouts! I thought this was all pretty simple stuff.
Now moving on: how was the averted global financial catastrophe worked out for everyone? Better than the alternative, if we can conclude anything from the experiment run in the 1930s. Other than that it's pretty hard to say. How has your life turned out compared to what would have been the life of the sperm that got to your mama's egg in second place? It's sort of a nonsense question.
If Obama were an unrepentant socialist then he probably would have held onto the GM stock, don't you think? I would probably call him a reluctant socialist, given the evidence, just the same as I'd call Bush.
Health care isn't a basic issue. Democracy is a basic issue. Health care is a small-ish derived issue.
The problem with having the South be a separate county is that they would be even more difficult as neighbors in that situation. Fuck, they'd be unbearable. We'd be at nuclear war with them in no time. It would be like having fucking Darfur in our back yard.
We agree. Bush gave GM the money; therefore he bailed out GM. That's what a bailout is.
Obama did some other stuff like buy stock. Buying stock isn't a bailout, that's taking ownership stake in order to exert control. That would make it something like socialism. Did you mean socialsim when you said bailout?
In my opinion paying $10 billion to prevent a worldwide depression is a great bargain, especially considering we came out ahead on the whole TARP thing. It's remarkably good governance. Saving the economy was probably worth a trillion dollars and we got it for within rounding distance of zero? Wow, what a stunningly great deal for taxpayers. Three cheers for government involvement in markets!
"GWB's administration gave GM and other companies emergency loans."
Yes, exactly. Bush was the one who bailed out GM, like I said. Bush is the one who gave taxpayer dollars to GM, like you said. And you know, Obama received that less-bad-than-the-alternative policy and finished the work, which was right and proper of him to do, but it wasn't his policy.
"everyone (except you) understands that talking about what goverment does is really a shorthand reference to the government officials who make decisions and carry out those actions."
This is false. People who say that do not understand that, and neither did you until I pointed out how stupid it is. Henceforth, if you don't think that "the government" is taking actions and making decisions, then you shouldn't say that it is. Or else forgive your interlocutors for responding to what you said instead of whatever you want to revise your earlier statements to mean.
As it so happens yes I voted for the current President -- the one who DIDN'T bail out GM.
But I didn't vote for the previous President -- the one who DID bail out GM.
Still, this is a democracy, so the voters are left holding the bag. Voters elected a person and trusted him with policy and that trust resulted in the GM bailout. Voters can blame themselves. I know for sure the Bush years taught me important lessons about voting.
And government isn't a thing. If it is, point to it. Tell me what color it is and how much it weighs. That's not possible because 'government' doesn't exist in the material universe; its existence is a shared notion. And okay, so it's a shared notion, fine, and notions "exist" sort of, but notions don't have agency, notions don't take action, governments can't be "at fault" for a policy. Policy comes from human beings, actions are taken by human beings. It's meaningless nonsense to "blame the government".
Hint: nobody likes socialized services because they are always of low quality.
This is exactly what I'm saying isn't true. We love our socialized water supply, our socialized military, our socialized police, our socialized parks, our socialized roads, our socialized schools, our socialized coast guard, our socialized national monuments, and so on.
But that's not universal. Nobody is clamoring for socialized razor blade manufacturing, socialized hollywood movies, socialized gas stations. Some things we think government does better, some the market. And the only reason we ever even consider letting the government take over is when the market completely fails.
At the end of your comment you seem to have slurred socialism to mean communism. Do you think those are different? I do.
Help me understand your logic by expanding your comment. Somehow a large number of competing businesses resembling the ideal free market would impoverish the country? Are you trying to argue against markets? My argument is against oligopoly as a market-wrecking mechanism.
Yeah maybe but I'm not proposing government monopoly. In my opinion, the free market sucks hard at providing medicine and I'm confident the government could do it better but if I'm wrong, then nobody would go to the government doctor, they'd just keep paying to see their private doctor. Likewise, today some people hire private security instead of relying on the police, or send their kids to private school instead of socialized schools. In this way government provides a baseline standard of care. Look around, how many private schools are shittier than the public schools? None, obviously, because nobody would go to them.
Socialized services tend to spread over time because they are inexpensive, high quality, and people like them. Imagine that. Sometimes they don't spread over time, sometimes we get rid of them because they suck, but golly gosh usually the government does a pretty good job running them.
Your anecdote about USSR medicine really points to a lack of democracy not some problem with socialism. Neither would my anecdote about well-plowed streets prove that all socialist industries are dandy. Democracy is the cure for excesses of poor-quality socialized services.
Yes. Someone would have bought up the pieces and they would have gone forward under a new name. And that person would have been a foreigner, and that name would have been foreign, so the American economy would have been weaker and exporting more value to foreigners, and that would be bad. Since that would be bad we didn't do it. Instead we chose the bailout, which is something we hate to do, but is less bad.
From my perspective the solution is to tax corporations according to their gross receipts on a progressive scale. As a corporation grows in terms of receipts, its tax burden progresses. Eventually it becomes unprofitable to continue to grow, so companies would stop growing. If we'd had that system 120 years ago, today we'd have 35 (or 350) car companies instead of 3, and if one failed we would not have to bail it out in order to avoid bad outcomes.
But alas, we have economic rules which strictly and unflinchingly demand unchecked upward growth, so sometimes we get stuck doing bailouts because it's better than the alternative.
No, the taxpayers chose to invest in GM because they run the show. There is no such thing as "The US Government" making choices. Governments aren't corporeal things; they don't have agency and can't make decisions. Humans do that. Human voters chose other human representatives to make decisions. We live in a democracy so if you're passing the buck, you have to pass it to a human being, and the human beings at the end of the line are voters.
It's your fault or credit, depending on your opinion, that we bought the shares.
Oops, you mean it's your fault, since this is a democracy.
"The government" isn't a thing. "Governments" don't make decisions or take actions. You can't point to a "government"; you can't weigh a government and you can't take a picture of a government. A government is a concept, it's not a real thing.
Humans are real things. Humans make decisions and take actions. In our society, the humans comprising "government" are selected by the whole people, so if you want to blame anyone, blame yourself.
You have the definition of Socialism right but you are wrong that "in our system of economics governments do not own the means of production." Often we do!
* State-run schools is Socialized Education. * State-run security is Socialized Police. * State-owned roads is Socialized Transportation. * Government-run snowplows is Socialized Snow Removal. * Government-owned parks are Socialized Recreation.
I love our form of socialism, I think it's quite moderate and nice. I like public schools, I like having public police, I like having public roads, and I think public parks are awesome. I would oppose privatization (un-socialization) of any of those industries. I wish we could get a little Socialized Medicine, a little Socialized Telecommunications, certainly I'd like a Socialized Energy Sector. But I don't want Socialized Automobile Companies or Socialized Toothpaste Distribution. It's sort of a case-by-case basis.
But no matter my personal preferences, it its clear that America has been a moderate Socialist state for longer than any current American has been alive.
As you have seen in this conversation, my own personality has a capacity and willingness to be a dick and yes, I also see how Dawkins comes across as a dick quite often because he doesn't shy away from condescending to people.
The thing is -- Dawkins is a dick about pointing out things that are (in his and my opinion) true and moreover obvious. The reason he is so condescending is because he is exasperated at having to argue against ideas that are (in his and my opinion) childishly out of touch with reality. Reasonable people can disagree, yeah, but there is so much unreason out there and it is so intractable that condescension can seem like a good tool, maybe the only tool, to wedge people out of their mindholes.
I drop that "supernatural == magic" thing into conversations sometimes just to pique people because I really think that it crystalizes the naturalistic way of thinking. It is a method of thinking, not a conclusion, because it doesn't technically imply atheism but it forces a person to consider the methods by which a god could interact with the universe. Once or twice I've seen the epiphany in the face of the person I'm talking to.
To convince a person to be an atheist, naturalistic thinking isn't enough, you have to mix it with skepticism -- rejecting ideas until they are supported by evidence. Otherwise a person could say that (for instance) Jesus was simply a super advanced natural entity using technology indistinguishable from magic. Once a person is thinking naturally and skeptically, there is no reasonable way to arrive anywhere except atheism (until maybe in the future if we get evidence).
stop repeating that stupid re-definition of "naturalism"...you're free to call your thing w/e you want but that name is taken!
I'm just not exactly clear on what you are saying. Are you complaining about the definition of the word "Naturalism"? What do you think it means? Let me paraphrase it: "A philosophical stance where all supernatural phenomena are false."
Anyway it sounds like you are saying that it's "not childish to believe in magic" because to you "magic" can mean, "not technically supernatural but like a super duper technology that is sort of seemingly supernatural, but not really". Okay, alright I can see what you are saying, but this was the original comment:
He insults everyone who believes in any possible supernatural entity by pigeonholing them into one group
And I said, yes, and that group is people who believe in magic. Even if for you "magic" can mean "supernaturalish", it's clear that magic does normally mean "supernatural", so it was fair of me to condescend to people who believe in the supernatural as people who believe in magic. As you recognize it is a simple way to nudge people into truly considering how they believe the universe is constructed. Do people really believe in supernatural forces? Yeah, really, many people do, but many people decide they don't when they consider the question in those terms.
so that means anyone who believes in anything 'supernatural' is childish
Well, not that they 'are' childish, but in our opinion they hold a childish belief, yes.
it's a blanket statement that covers **anyone** who doesn't believe in hard atheism
Not atheism specifically but naturalism. Technically a person could believe in natural gods and that person would be a naturalist-theist. That is a rare but not unheard of belief: consider the Raelians who believe that the gods were space aliens. Dawkins is a skeptic, too, however, so he would reject natural gods until they are supported by evidence.
its condescending bullshit
It's condescending but it's not bullshit. It's true and we consider truth more important than protecting the feelings of people who are offended by the truth. But we are in the minority; most people consider it more important to avoid condescending to people.
ITS YOUR OPINION
We're drifting in our conversation. Let's be clear:
Magical means the same as supernatural not opinion
People who believe in magic hold a childish belief opinion
anything not 'supernatural' is by definition then definitely 'magical'
Second, supernatural means magical. They are synonyms. You can call it my opinion if you want but I'm not making shit up here, it's the fucking dictionary definition: magic: the power of influencing the course of events by using supernatural forces.
Also this statement is famous and awesome:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
But I suggest you look up the word "indistinguishable". It doesn't mean "the same". I don't know what Clark would say about the dictionary definition of the word "magical" but it's sort of irrelevant because he himself never defined the word; he made an insightful comment about technology. I can't credibly "deny" that Clark would disagree, and you can't credibly claim that he would disagree, because his pithy phrase doesn't mean what you said it meant.
Anyway, supernatural=miracle=magical. They all mean the same thing. They mean that natural laws did not connect a cause and an effect, but rather supernatural forces were the connection. A miracle isn't much of a miracle if it's exactly what you would expect given natural laws, huh? Magic isn't very magical if it's just well-known natural forces, huh?
And listen, almost everyone in the world believes that we live in a supernatural/magical/miraculous universe, they just haven't sat down and thought about it in those terms. You seem to have a real aversion to those terms and you shouldn't. If that's what you believe, then fine, you have plenty of company, but Dawkins thinks you're wrong and he's pretty good at explaining why.
The conversation isn't over at that point; lots of people believe in magic -- most, even. Some of those people have thought hard about it and will defend the position.
The original comment said "He insults everyone who believes in any possible supernatural entity by pigeonholing them into one group". Yes: Dawkins is a philosophical naturalist, natural meaning not supernatural, not magical, so he put everyone who believes in magic into one group -- one big group. That is a fair way to divide worldviews. Some of his opponents don't like the label but they should embrace it if it is accurate.
What about when the "government" can "harass you" because it "doesn't like" that you "said" to a hitman that you want him to kill your wife and you promise money if he does it. TYRANNY!
No, the GP is right. Your story is good but it's missing a subtlety:
Today, we have never caught a Loch Ness Monster therefore the parsimonious conclusion is that it does not exist.
You can't prove that it is true that it does not exist; you would have to prove that it is not true that it does not exist -- perhaps by finding a carcass.
But if there were a Loch Ness Monster carcass in front of us, then the evidence would be in and the parsimonious conclusion would become that it does exist. It would become difficult to disprove but not impossible: consider the brontosaurus, which was proven to have existed by pointing to a skeleton, but then proven not to have existed on further examination.
The idea is that a scientific theory (hypothesis) makes predictions and the theory is disproved when the predictions fail. If the theory makes predictions that come true, that's great, but technically validated predictions never totally add up to "the absolute truth".
"Supernatural" means "magical". He doesn't believe in magic and he thinks its childish for others to believe in magic. He defends that position fairly.
I tell someone else with certainty they are wrong?
I might not have a monopoly on truth but I can definitely tell some people with certainty they are wrong. There's a whole scale of wrongness and a lot of people frankly aren't even trying to be right.
Slashdot Mirror
There once was a man named Rex
With an extremely small organ of sex
And he said with composure
When arrested for exposure
De minimis non curat lex
"De minimis" is not exactly the same thing as standing but I see your point.
Uh, yeah, when government funds are loaned as a loan-of-last-resort to a failing business in order to prop it up during a tough period, yeah that's the definition of a bailout. Yes. Exactly. And if I were standing in place of a government program, and the school, auto, or housing companies were failing and I gave them an emergency loan, then yes that would be a bailout. And if I were not acting for the government, or if the corporations weren't failing, then no that wouldn't be a bailout. Phew, gosh, you seem to have a super hard time understanding bailouts! I thought this was all pretty simple stuff.
Now moving on: how was the averted global financial catastrophe worked out for everyone? Better than the alternative, if we can conclude anything from the experiment run in the 1930s. Other than that it's pretty hard to say. How has your life turned out compared to what would have been the life of the sperm that got to your mama's egg in second place? It's sort of a nonsense question.
If Obama were an unrepentant socialist then he probably would have held onto the GM stock, don't you think? I would probably call him a reluctant socialist, given the evidence, just the same as I'd call Bush.
Health care isn't a basic issue. Democracy is a basic issue. Health care is a small-ish derived issue.
The problem with having the South be a separate county is that they would be even more difficult as neighbors in that situation. Fuck, they'd be unbearable. We'd be at nuclear war with them in no time. It would be like having fucking Darfur in our back yard.
Yeah but in Texas they have Jesus. So there.
Let's build that fence along the Texas border! ... the NORTHERN Texas border!
We agree. Bush gave GM the money; therefore he bailed out GM. That's what a bailout is.
Obama did some other stuff like buy stock. Buying stock isn't a bailout, that's taking ownership stake in order to exert control. That would make it something like socialism. Did you mean socialsim when you said bailout?
In my opinion paying $10 billion to prevent a worldwide depression is a great bargain, especially considering we came out ahead on the whole TARP thing. It's remarkably good governance. Saving the economy was probably worth a trillion dollars and we got it for within rounding distance of zero? Wow, what a stunningly great deal for taxpayers. Three cheers for government involvement in markets!
"GWB's administration gave GM and other companies emergency loans."
Yes, exactly. Bush was the one who bailed out GM, like I said. Bush is the one who gave taxpayer dollars to GM, like you said. And you know, Obama received that less-bad-than-the-alternative policy and finished the work, which was right and proper of him to do, but it wasn't his policy.
"everyone (except you) understands that talking about what goverment does is really a shorthand reference to the government officials who make decisions and carry out those actions."
This is false. People who say that do not understand that, and neither did you until I pointed out how stupid it is. Henceforth, if you don't think that "the government" is taking actions and making decisions, then you shouldn't say that it is. Or else forgive your interlocutors for responding to what you said instead of whatever you want to revise your earlier statements to mean.
As it so happens yes I voted for the current President -- the one who DIDN'T bail out GM.
But I didn't vote for the previous President -- the one who DID bail out GM.
Still, this is a democracy, so the voters are left holding the bag. Voters elected a person and trusted him with policy and that trust resulted in the GM bailout. Voters can blame themselves. I know for sure the Bush years taught me important lessons about voting.
And government isn't a thing. If it is, point to it. Tell me what color it is and how much it weighs. That's not possible because 'government' doesn't exist in the material universe; its existence is a shared notion. And okay, so it's a shared notion, fine, and notions "exist" sort of, but notions don't have agency, notions don't take action, governments can't be "at fault" for a policy. Policy comes from human beings, actions are taken by human beings. It's meaningless nonsense to "blame the government".
Hint: nobody likes socialized services because they are always of low quality.
This is exactly what I'm saying isn't true. We love our socialized water supply, our socialized military, our socialized police, our socialized parks, our socialized roads, our socialized schools, our socialized coast guard, our socialized national monuments, and so on.
But that's not universal. Nobody is clamoring for socialized razor blade manufacturing, socialized hollywood movies, socialized gas stations. Some things we think government does better, some the market. And the only reason we ever even consider letting the government take over is when the market completely fails.
At the end of your comment you seem to have slurred socialism to mean communism. Do you think those are different? I do.
Help me understand your logic by expanding your comment. Somehow a large number of competing businesses resembling the ideal free market would impoverish the country? Are you trying to argue against markets? My argument is against oligopoly as a market-wrecking mechanism.
Yeah maybe but I'm not proposing government monopoly. In my opinion, the free market sucks hard at providing medicine and I'm confident the government could do it better but if I'm wrong, then nobody would go to the government doctor, they'd just keep paying to see their private doctor. Likewise, today some people hire private security instead of relying on the police, or send their kids to private school instead of socialized schools. In this way government provides a baseline standard of care. Look around, how many private schools are shittier than the public schools? None, obviously, because nobody would go to them.
Socialized services tend to spread over time because they are inexpensive, high quality, and people like them. Imagine that. Sometimes they don't spread over time, sometimes we get rid of them because they suck, but golly gosh usually the government does a pretty good job running them.
Your anecdote about USSR medicine really points to a lack of democracy not some problem with socialism. Neither would my anecdote about well-plowed streets prove that all socialist industries are dandy. Democracy is the cure for excesses of poor-quality socialized services.
Yes. Someone would have bought up the pieces and they would have gone forward under a new name. And that person would have been a foreigner, and that name would have been foreign, so the American economy would have been weaker and exporting more value to foreigners, and that would be bad. Since that would be bad we didn't do it. Instead we chose the bailout, which is something we hate to do, but is less bad.
From my perspective the solution is to tax corporations according to their gross receipts on a progressive scale. As a corporation grows in terms of receipts, its tax burden progresses. Eventually it becomes unprofitable to continue to grow, so companies would stop growing. If we'd had that system 120 years ago, today we'd have 35 (or 350) car companies instead of 3, and if one failed we would not have to bail it out in order to avoid bad outcomes.
But alas, we have economic rules which strictly and unflinchingly demand unchecked upward growth, so sometimes we get stuck doing bailouts because it's better than the alternative.
No, the taxpayers chose to invest in GM because they run the show. There is no such thing as "The US Government" making choices. Governments aren't corporeal things; they don't have agency and can't make decisions. Humans do that. Human voters chose other human representatives to make decisions. We live in a democracy so if you're passing the buck, you have to pass it to a human being, and the human beings at the end of the line are voters.
It's your fault or credit, depending on your opinion, that we bought the shares.
Oops, you mean it's your fault, since this is a democracy.
"The government" isn't a thing. "Governments" don't make decisions or take actions. You can't point to a "government"; you can't weigh a government and you can't take a picture of a government. A government is a concept, it's not a real thing.
Humans are real things. Humans make decisions and take actions. In our society, the humans comprising "government" are selected by the whole people, so if you want to blame anyone, blame yourself.
You have the definition of Socialism right but you are wrong that "in our system of economics governments do not own the means of production." Often we do!
* State-run schools is Socialized Education.
* State-run security is Socialized Police.
* State-owned roads is Socialized Transportation.
* Government-run snowplows is Socialized Snow Removal.
* Government-owned parks are Socialized Recreation.
I love our form of socialism, I think it's quite moderate and nice. I like public schools, I like having public police, I like having public roads, and I think public parks are awesome. I would oppose privatization (un-socialization) of any of those industries. I wish we could get a little Socialized Medicine, a little Socialized Telecommunications, certainly I'd like a Socialized Energy Sector. But I don't want Socialized Automobile Companies or Socialized Toothpaste Distribution. It's sort of a case-by-case basis.
But no matter my personal preferences, it its clear that America has been a moderate Socialist state for longer than any current American has been alive.
As you have seen in this conversation, my own personality has a capacity and willingness to be a dick and yes, I also see how Dawkins comes across as a dick quite often because he doesn't shy away from condescending to people.
The thing is -- Dawkins is a dick about pointing out things that are (in his and my opinion) true and moreover obvious. The reason he is so condescending is because he is exasperated at having to argue against ideas that are (in his and my opinion) childishly out of touch with reality. Reasonable people can disagree, yeah, but there is so much unreason out there and it is so intractable that condescension can seem like a good tool, maybe the only tool, to wedge people out of their mindholes.
I drop that "supernatural == magic" thing into conversations sometimes just to pique people because I really think that it crystalizes the naturalistic way of thinking. It is a method of thinking, not a conclusion, because it doesn't technically imply atheism but it forces a person to consider the methods by which a god could interact with the universe. Once or twice I've seen the epiphany in the face of the person I'm talking to.
To convince a person to be an atheist, naturalistic thinking isn't enough, you have to mix it with skepticism -- rejecting ideas until they are supported by evidence. Otherwise a person could say that (for instance) Jesus was simply a super advanced natural entity using technology indistinguishable from magic. Once a person is thinking naturally and skeptically, there is no reasonable way to arrive anywhere except atheism (until maybe in the future if we get evidence).
stop repeating that stupid re-definition of "naturalism"...you're free to call your thing w/e you want but that name is taken!
I'm just not exactly clear on what you are saying. Are you complaining about the definition of the word "Naturalism"? What do you think it means? Let me paraphrase it: "A philosophical stance where all supernatural phenomena are false."
Anyway it sounds like you are saying that it's "not childish to believe in magic" because to you "magic" can mean, "not technically supernatural but like a super duper technology that is sort of seemingly supernatural, but not really". Okay, alright I can see what you are saying, but this was the original comment:
He insults everyone who believes in any possible supernatural entity by pigeonholing them into one group
And I said, yes, and that group is people who believe in magic. Even if for you "magic" can mean "supernaturalish", it's clear that magic does normally mean "supernatural", so it was fair of me to condescend to people who believe in the supernatural as people who believe in magic. As you recognize it is a simple way to nudge people into truly considering how they believe the universe is constructed. Do people really believe in supernatural forces? Yeah, really, many people do, but many people decide they don't when they consider the question in those terms.
so that means anyone who believes in anything 'supernatural' is childish
Well, not that they 'are' childish, but in our opinion they hold a childish belief, yes.
it's a blanket statement that covers **anyone** who doesn't believe in hard atheism
Not atheism specifically but naturalism. Technically a person could believe in natural gods and that person would be a naturalist-theist. That is a rare but not unheard of belief: consider the Raelians who believe that the gods were space aliens. Dawkins is a skeptic, too, however, so he would reject natural gods until they are supported by evidence.
its condescending bullshit
It's condescending but it's not bullshit. It's true and we consider truth more important than protecting the feelings of people who are offended by the truth. But we are in the minority; most people consider it more important to avoid condescending to people.
ITS YOUR OPINION
We're drifting in our conversation. Let's be clear:
Yawn. First you got this backwards:
anything not 'supernatural' is by definition then definitely 'magical'
Second, supernatural means magical. They are synonyms. You can call it my opinion if you want but I'm not making shit up here, it's the fucking dictionary definition: magic: the power of influencing the course of events by using supernatural forces.
Also this statement is famous and awesome:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
But I suggest you look up the word "indistinguishable". It doesn't mean "the same". I don't know what Clark would say about the dictionary definition of the word "magical" but it's sort of irrelevant because he himself never defined the word; he made an insightful comment about technology. I can't credibly "deny" that Clark would disagree, and you can't credibly claim that he would disagree, because his pithy phrase doesn't mean what you said it meant.
Anyway, supernatural=miracle=magical. They all mean the same thing. They mean that natural laws did not connect a cause and an effect, but rather supernatural forces were the connection. A miracle isn't much of a miracle if it's exactly what you would expect given natural laws, huh? Magic isn't very magical if it's just well-known natural forces, huh?
And listen, almost everyone in the world believes that we live in a supernatural/magical/miraculous universe, they just haven't sat down and thought about it in those terms. You seem to have a real aversion to those terms and you shouldn't. If that's what you believe, then fine, you have plenty of company, but Dawkins thinks you're wrong and he's pretty good at explaining why.
The conversation isn't over at that point; lots of people believe in magic -- most, even. Some of those people have thought hard about it and will defend the position.
The original comment said "He insults everyone who believes in any possible supernatural entity by pigeonholing them into one group". Yes: Dawkins is a philosophical naturalist, natural meaning not supernatural, not magical, so he put everyone who believes in magic into one group -- one big group. That is a fair way to divide worldviews. Some of his opponents don't like the label but they should embrace it if it is accurate.
What about when the "government" can "harass you" because it "doesn't like" that you "said" to a hitman that you want him to kill your wife and you promise money if he does it. TYRANNY!
No, the GP is right. Your story is good but it's missing a subtlety:
Today, we have never caught a Loch Ness Monster therefore the parsimonious conclusion is that it does not exist.
You can't prove that it is true that it does not exist; you would have to prove that it is not true that it does not exist -- perhaps by finding a carcass.
But if there were a Loch Ness Monster carcass in front of us, then the evidence would be in and the parsimonious conclusion would become that it does exist. It would become difficult to disprove but not impossible: consider the brontosaurus, which was proven to have existed by pointing to a skeleton, but then proven not to have existed on further examination.
The idea is that a scientific theory (hypothesis) makes predictions and the theory is disproved when the predictions fail. If the theory makes predictions that come true, that's great, but technically validated predictions never totally add up to "the absolute truth".
"Supernatural" means "magical". He doesn't believe in magic and he thinks its childish for others to believe in magic. He defends that position fairly.
I tell someone else with certainty they are wrong?
I might not have a monopoly on truth but I can definitely tell some people with certainty they are wrong. There's a whole scale of wrongness and a lot of people frankly aren't even trying to be right.
Don't evangelicals realize that by trying to insinuate Christian dogma into government they are diminishing both their faith and their civil society?
Nope.