> Seriously? I think it's obvious from the context. An extraterrestrial sentient being.
Well, if I've not even considered that possibility, then the obvious answer would be to ask what an alien is.
Is your point that 'atheists' is a subset of "don't believe god exists" (which also happens to include everyone but theists)?
I'm not sure; this :
> but not all atheists believe that god does not exist
I don't agree with. It is the definition of atheist that it is someone who believes God does not exists - it is not sufficient to just not believe God exists (since that includes agnostics and ignoramuses(?) too).
...at least in my understanding of 'atheist', which I thought I had clear this morning when I read the definition in the OED.
> If you haven't yet seen one, the obvious answer to that is "I don't know."
No, the obvious answer is, 'What is an alien?'
> An absence of belief in the existence of aliens is not belief in the absence of aliens.
I don't think this point has any relevance, since "An absence of belief in the existence of aliens" cound be due to any of "ignorance", "agnosticism", or "atheism" - it does not distinguish between any of them. However, "belief in the absence of aliens" is 'atheism'.
Anyway, this double talk is hurting my brain...I've better things to do.
Well, that's just a criticism on my alteration - and my assumption that the motive for collecting them is their (tradable) value, which may well be incorrect.
I'm still hunting for a good analogy using stamps that gets my point across (irrespective of if you agree with my definitions).
"Atheist : 1) a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of God or gods."
Seems pretty clear to me. How can it be the 'default position' to disbelieve in God or gods if you don't even know the word God?
I mean, if someone comes up to me and asks me if I believe in the existence of 'God' and I've never heard of 'God'[1], I don't say that I disbelieve in the existence of 'God'; I ask, "What's is 'God'? I've never heard of 'God'." After they tell me about 'God', I might say, "That sounds very unlikely to me." and look generally very suspicious[2], eventually concluding it's a load of rubbish[3] - only *then* do I disbelieve in 'God'. During this process, I move from Ignorance[1] to Agnosticism[2] and only finally to Atheism[3].
Based on my reading of the OED, I stand by my definitions and general understanding of the terms.
> Your description of agnosticism is somewhat narrow. One can be an agnostic and have a "belief" in God.
Oxford English Dictionary :
"A person who holds the view that nothing can be known of the existence of God or of anything beyond material phenomena.
Also, a person who is uncertain or noncommittal about a particular thing."
I think I had it about right, particularly that second part. Maybe there's some subtleties that you are alluding to regarding the first part...perhaps depending on the definition of 'known'? Sounds plausible.
The "brian in a vat" seems most closely related to what I had imagined. I read the Plato (not Socrates, according to Wikipedia(!)) "Allegory of the Cave", but found it a little bit tangential, though I suppose it's raises the same questions/issues.
Well, *that* is the point. It was my opinion that atheism isn't what you say it is. Someone has said that *I* am wrong on that point, which I still need to check up on, but I can accept as quite likely (it happens more often than I would like).
It does remind me of a few other 'terms' that are 'defined' in one way by Christians and another by non-Christians, particularly the 'having sex' phrase, which, to Christians is the actual penetration, but, in my experience as a non-Christian, is anything from serious fooling around (but also includes penetration)... which further reminded me of the whole Clinton/Monica thing where he preferred to say 'sexual relations' which would seem to be explicitly my non-Christian definition.
To take that to the extreme, you don't know anything about anything...nothing is verifiable beyond dispute.
I'm sure there is some special name for the whole 'The Matrix' thing - where we can't tell if we're just a brain in a jar being prodded and stimulated....I think I knew it at one time, but I forget.
...but that's just as faulty in that it doesn't describe atheism...it describes absence of belief, which could be atheism, agnosticism, or plain ignorance.
Of course, you're free to like it better:)
I would point out that I also agree that atheism isn't a religion, but my reason is that religion is a belief in a higher power (a "God" so to speak), and atheism is a belief that there is no higher power. Atheism is not an absence of belief at all since a decision has been made based on some sort of information.
Agnosticism is someone who hasn't been convinced either way, and ignorance is not even knowing there's a decision to be made.
> > About the same as your argument for not believing in Shiva or Thor and Odin, I'd guess? > > As for the throwing away above, try replacing "stamps" with "infectious agents" in your sentence above:
I'm not sure I get your point. We're examining the stamp analogy, so what use it is in replacing 'stamps' with anything else?
Well, sure, that's not bad....but I still question your analogy for 'atheist'. Perhaps it's just not a good analogy. It seems to ignore the active disbelieve or the belief in the non-existence of deity. I mean, a rose doesn't collect stamps either.
I mean, someone who hasn't heard of God (and so could be considered as not believing in God) isn't an atheist. It's only people who know of God and have decided that they don't believe he exists that are atheist. Perhaps we disagree on the definition of atheist (or I have it wrong, perhaps). IMO, it's definitely not simply *absence of belief*.
Nope, I can't think of an analogy involving stamps that better fits what I understand of atheism.
Aren't *all* people scheduled to be on trial 'innocent'...as in 'innocent until proven guilty'?...or should that be 'assumed to be innocent until proven guilty'?
I think the point is that the phrase 'innocent until proven guilty' has little meaning to the general public. They tend to assume that "there's no smoke without fire", if they don't just plain assume the person is guilty.
> Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Is this really accurate?
I would have thought it should be more like actively throwing your stamps away; or not keeping stamps that are priceless because you don't believe they are priceless (or don't want/value them or their money)....or something like that.
Just 'not collecting stamps' is more like agnosticism.
Tibetan monks have their own temple in Beijing - Yong He Gong (aka Lama Temple) - it's been there for a *long* time (1694) and has served as a administration for all things Lama (1722). It's not a prison either. Why you would think they would be hauled away, I don't know. Unless you think the few protesters in Beijing are Tibetan monks, which I somehow doubt (though I could be wrong) - it's certainly not my impression from the news I've seen (I'm not in China at the moment). I've seen plenty of people in Beijing (though not in the last few months) who appear to be Tibetan monks - they weren't protesting about anything that I could see.
I personally also doubt that all the people we see dressed up in yellow cloaks and sandals are Tibetan monks - my Chinese friends say some are clearly not Tibetan and some are not even Chinese (not that you need to be Tibetan to be a Tibetan monk, but still). More likely, it seems, is that at least some of them are westerners....but this is another topic, I suppose. I've not see any being hauled away in Beijing, fake or not. I'm curious if you have...
> I've seen both images of peaceful and violent monks. The chinese people > has only seen one variety.
That's simply not true. So much so, that I don't even know if you think they've only seen the peaceful or the violent ones. I saw both when I was there. There are many all over the place.
They *have* seen monks who are clearly not even Tibetan - however, I have to take their word for that since I can't tell as easily. All I see is people who *look like* monks, but that's primarily because of how they're dressed - *I* would look like a monk if I dressed that way, but I'm not.
> To say the western world is uneducated in comparison is to be completely > oblivious of just how well the Chinese government scrubs its local > news broadcasts.
I've watched their news many times and my experience is counter to what you suggest.
> Here's a hint, most of the western world (i.e. not the US) doesn't have > much of a problem with communism as such. It's the authoritarianism and > human rights violations that's got us all up in arms.
That might be a generalisation, but I would agree somewhat - ie the USA is much more anti-communism than a lot of other parts of the world.
> But what do I know, clearly you are much better informed.
> but I also think that the BBC have done more than most to dispell that myth
Well, I'm not so sure. Reading their reports, things seem much more unbiased, but when you hear the general commentary on the subject, over the years, I don't think so - but perhaps that's just that their reporters (who weren't actually there at the time/etc) have had the same 'whatever' (general media coverage, I guess) that caused me to have the opinion that it was a one-sided massacre.
I guess I would also like China to allow press access to, well, anywhere really, but I also see that it is up to them - I don't see it as some kind of 'right'. I think they're stupid to not allow access, actually, since it's not in their interest - though I can understand why, since western media will undoubtedly 'jump to conclusions' and seemingly automatically discount the government's position (rightly or wrongly). Things are definitely getting better though, and, contrary to what some people say, the Olympics *is* helping in that respect. I seriously think things will get better as foreign reporters start to understand China (and gov.) better, and China changes into a place that is easier for foreigners to understand. Over the last week, I've seen several shows on Chinese culture and this can only be good, I think (I especially love ones about cooking, since I miss the food there a lot - Chinese food in Finland is, generally, pretty poor [as it is in England]).
> The video I saw of the tanks/APC's was probably from the ABC..but what you saw was supposedly live, right? Difficult to beat live video, I think. I'll have to look it up.
About 'sides'...I don't expect the news orgs to be 'a side' as such and so I expect them to report the events. As I read more and more on it, their reports *do* seem more un-biased than I imagine. However, I have still the impression of the "Tian'anmen massacre" - basically the government just killed a load of peaceful protesters. I wonder how I got that impression when it is clearly nowhere as near as one-sided as that.
In fact, the more I read, the more I wonder if the protesters hadn't indeed been infiltrated with foreigners that were trying to cause trouble. It seems entirely possible to me.
Someone recently pointed me at an opinion on the Tibet issue, which I found interesting, and more in line with my emerging opinion in general :
How people can think these issues are as black and white as they seem to, I don't know. They're clearly much more complicated than some people make out.
Well, I've not found any significant evidence of what you describe. Your account is the most explicit about the tanks killing demonstrators. Nothing much in the Wikipedia, but notably this which suggests things weren't as one-sided as is suggested by the media in general :
"Leaders of the protest inside the square, where some had attempted to erect flimsy barricades ahead of the APCs, were said to have "implored" the students not to use weapons (such as molotov cocktails) against the oncoming soldiers."
The BBC account references just has them driving over people, but doesn't say if said people were alive or not - note that this was *after* the shooting. The article I do see is this one :
which give an account where the PLA action seems almost reasonable, again with the demonstrators being far from blameless :
"At the top of the square just in front of the Forbidden City, an APC got separated from its column, and in its panic to get out of the crowd area, ran over several demonstrators. This, in turn, caused the crowd to grow violent.
They disabled the APC, tore its crew from the vehicle, killed them, and torched the vehicle. All this was done in plain view of several PLA platoons about 150 metres away at the edge of the square. Standing beside the burning APC, I looked down the avenue and in the orange glow of the lights of the square I could see the PLA lock and load their AK-47s. "
The reporter does talk as though the shooting was a more directed attack than I had imagined. I had suspected that it was the protesters that had started the shooting - or at least that it was possible in all the confusion.
In any case, I still am unable to conclude that it is a one-sided 'massacre' as is typically suggested. I started to suspect it wasn't as I had been lead to believe after watching the BBC video[1] where protesters burn soldiers alive in their vehicle.
The only video I've seen is of the tanks trying desperately to avoid a protester who insisted on standing in front of it.
Can you remember what news network it was you saw drive into the crowd. I'd be very interested in seeing it so I can come to my own conclusion.
Thanks,
Max.
[1] this was part of the '50 years of news' dvd that I picked up while in Beijing. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take that DVD out of China since it wouldn't be allowed into other coutries (due it being fake, probably). How ironic is *that*? Unfortunately, I can't watch it again to refresh my memory.
Well, thanks for the data point. Of course, I don't know you from Adam, but it's something to make me look for more info or at least consider another angle to the whole thing.
I don't really remember the time. I can't even recall where I was... 1989... I was 23, so not young by any means. I wish I could remember, though it would be in the middle of the night in the time zone I was in...
If you find any video online, be sure to share:) I'll have a look, of course, when I get a moment...
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> Seriously? I think it's obvious from the context. An extraterrestrial sentient being.
Well, if I've not even considered that possibility, then the obvious answer would be to ask what an alien is.
Is your point that 'atheists' is a subset of "don't believe god exists" (which also happens to include everyone but theists)?
I'm not sure; this :
> but not all atheists believe that god does not exist
I don't agree with. It is the definition of atheist that it is someone who believes God does not exists - it is not sufficient to just not believe God exists (since that includes agnostics and ignoramuses(?) too).
> Do you believe in aliens?
> If you haven't yet seen one, the obvious answer to that is "I don't know."
No, the obvious answer is, 'What is an alien?'
> An absence of belief in the existence of aliens is not belief in the absence of aliens.
I don't think this point has any relevance, since "An absence of belief in the existence of aliens" cound be due to any of "ignorance", "agnosticism", or "atheism" - it does not distinguish between any of them. However, "belief in the absence of aliens" is 'atheism'.
Anyway, this double talk is hurting my brain...I've better things to do.
Well, that's just a criticism on my alteration - and my assumption that the motive for collecting them is their (tradable) value, which may well be incorrect.
I'm still hunting for a good analogy using stamps that gets my point across (irrespective of if you agree with my definitions).
Oxford English Dictionary :
"Atheist : 1) a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of God or gods."
Seems pretty clear to me. How can it be the 'default position' to disbelieve in God or gods if you don't even know the word God?
I mean, if someone comes up to me and asks me if I believe in the existence of 'God' and I've never heard of 'God'[1], I don't say that I disbelieve in the existence of 'God'; I ask, "What's is 'God'? I've never heard of 'God'." After they tell me about 'God', I might say, "That sounds very unlikely to me." and look generally very suspicious[2], eventually concluding it's a load of rubbish[3] - only *then* do I disbelieve in 'God'. During this process, I move from Ignorance[1] to Agnosticism[2] and only finally to Atheism[3].
Based on my reading of the OED, I stand by my definitions and general understanding of the terms.
> Your description of agnosticism is somewhat narrow. One can be an agnostic and have a "belief" in God.
Oxford English Dictionary :
"A person who holds the view that nothing can be known of the existence of God or of anything beyond material phenomena.
Also, a person who is uncertain or noncommittal about a particular thing."
I think I had it about right, particularly that second part. Maybe there's some subtleties that you are alluding to regarding the first part...perhaps depending on the definition of 'known'? Sounds plausible.
I hessitate to quote wikipedia, but :
> The allegory of the cave is told as a fictional dialog between Plato's teacher Socrates,...
Note the word 'fictional'.
explain further.
Imo, believing in non-existence requires a decision, while not believing in existence could be just ignorance.
The "brian in a vat" seems most closely related to what I had imagined. I read the Plato (not Socrates, according to Wikipedia(!)) "Allegory of the Cave", but found it a little bit tangential, though I suppose it's raises the same questions/issues.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat
Quite interesting :)
> My point is: atheism is the default position.
Well, *that* is the point. It was my opinion that atheism isn't what you say it is. Someone has said that *I* am wrong on that point, which I still need to check up on, but I can accept as quite likely (it happens more often than I would like).
It does remind me of a few other 'terms' that are 'defined' in one way by Christians and another by non-Christians, particularly the 'having sex' phrase, which, to Christians is the actual penetration, but, in my experience as a non-Christian, is anything from serious fooling around (but also includes penetration) ... which further reminded me of the whole Clinton/Monica thing where he preferred to say 'sexual relations' which would seem to be explicitly my non-Christian definition.
Anyway....
To take that to the extreme, you don't know anything about anything...nothing is verifiable beyond dispute.
I'm sure there is some special name for the whole 'The Matrix' thing - where we can't tell if we're just a brain in a jar being prodded and stimulated....I think I knew it at one time, but I forget.
Max.
...but that's just as faulty in that it doesn't describe atheism...it describes absence of belief, which could be atheism, agnosticism, or plain ignorance.
Of course, you're free to like it better :)
I would point out that I also agree that atheism isn't a religion, but my reason is that religion is a belief in a higher power (a "God" so to speak), and atheism is a belief that there is no higher power. Atheism is not an absence of belief at all since a decision has been made based on some sort of information.
Agnosticism is someone who hasn't been convinced either way, and ignorance is not even knowing there's a decision to be made.
> > About the same as your argument for not believing in Shiva or Thor and Odin, I'd guess?
>
> As for the throwing away above, try replacing "stamps" with "infectious agents" in your sentence above:
I'm not sure I get your point. We're examining the stamp analogy, so what use it is in replacing 'stamps' with anything else?
Makes me think of this Dilbert :
http://pichaus.com/dilbert-comic-funny-liar-@4d60d26a4fe80d7db6205e23446ce15d/
Well, sure, that's not bad. ...but I still question your analogy for 'atheist'. Perhaps it's just not a good analogy. It seems to ignore the active disbelieve or the belief in the non-existence of deity. I mean, a rose doesn't collect stamps either.
I mean, someone who hasn't heard of God (and so could be considered as not believing in God) isn't an atheist. It's only people who know of God and have decided that they don't believe he exists that are atheist. Perhaps we disagree on the definition of atheist (or I have it wrong, perhaps). IMO, it's definitely not simply *absence of belief*.
Nope, I can't think of an analogy involving stamps that better fits what I understand of atheism.
Aren't *all* people scheduled to be on trial 'innocent'...as in 'innocent until proven guilty'? ...or should that be 'assumed to be innocent until proven guilty'?
I think the point is that the phrase 'innocent until proven guilty' has little meaning to the general public. They tend to assume that "there's no smoke without fire", if they don't just plain assume the person is guilty.
> Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Is this really accurate?
I would have thought it should be more like actively throwing your stamps away; or not keeping stamps that are priceless because you don't believe they are priceless (or don't want/value them or their money)....or something like that.
Just 'not collecting stamps' is more like agnosticism.
Curious what your argument is...
Tibetan monks have their own temple in Beijing - Yong He Gong (aka Lama Temple) - it's been there for a *long* time (1694) and has served as a administration for all things Lama (1722). It's not a prison either. Why you would think they would be hauled away, I don't know. Unless you think the few protesters in Beijing are Tibetan monks, which I somehow doubt (though I could be wrong) - it's certainly not my impression from the news I've seen (I'm not in China at the moment). I've seen plenty of people in Beijing (though not in the last few months) who appear to be Tibetan monks - they weren't protesting about anything that I could see.
I personally also doubt that all the people we see dressed up in yellow cloaks and sandals are Tibetan monks - my Chinese friends say some are clearly not Tibetan and some are not even Chinese (not that you need to be Tibetan to be a Tibetan monk, but still). More likely, it seems, is that at least some of them are westerners. ...but this is another topic, I suppose. I've not see any being hauled away in Beijing, fake or not. I'm curious if you have...
> I've seen both images of peaceful and violent monks. The chinese people
> has only seen one variety.
That's simply not true. So much so, that I don't even know if you think they've
only seen the peaceful or the violent ones. I saw both when I was there. There
are many all over the place.
They *have* seen monks who are clearly not even Tibetan - however, I have to take
their word for that since I can't tell as easily. All I see is people who *look like*
monks, but that's primarily because of how they're dressed - *I* would look like a
monk if I dressed that way, but I'm not.
> To say the western world is uneducated in comparison is to be completely
> oblivious of just how well the Chinese government scrubs its local
> news broadcasts.
I've watched their news many times and my experience is counter to what you
suggest.
> Here's a hint, most of the western world (i.e. not the US) doesn't have
> much of a problem with communism as such. It's the authoritarianism and
> human rights violations that's got us all up in arms.
That might be a generalisation, but I would agree somewhat - ie the USA is
much more anti-communism than a lot of other parts of the world.
> But what do I know, clearly you are much better informed.
I would have to agree, unfortunately.
Yes, I've listened to 78s and I don't recall any hiss - though it's been a while.
Yes, hiss is a higher frequency version of crackle and pop....but that means it is different, not the same.
> but I also think that the BBC have done more than most to dispell that myth
Well, I'm not so sure. Reading their reports, things seem much more unbiased, but when you hear the general commentary on the subject, over the years, I don't think so - but perhaps that's just that their reporters (who weren't actually there at the time/etc) have had the same 'whatever' (general media coverage, I guess) that caused me to have the opinion that it was a one-sided massacre.
I guess I would also like China to allow press access to, well, anywhere really, but I also see that it is up to them - I don't see it as some kind of 'right'. I think they're stupid to not allow access, actually, since it's not in their interest - though I can understand why, since western media will undoubtedly 'jump to conclusions' and seemingly automatically discount the government's position (rightly or wrongly). Things are definitely getting better though, and, contrary to what some people say, the Olympics *is* helping in that respect. I seriously think things will get better as foreign reporters start to understand China (and gov.) better, and China changes into a place that is easier for foreigners to understand. Over the last week, I've seen several shows on Chinese culture and this can only be good, I think (I especially love ones about cooking, since I miss the food there a lot - Chinese food in Finland is, generally, pretty poor [as it is in England]).
IINM, hiss was tape. Crackles and pops (ie from dust) was the 'warmth' attributable to vinyl.
> The video I saw of the tanks/APC's was probably from the ABC ..but what you saw was supposedly live, right? Difficult to beat live video, I think. I'll have to look it up.
About 'sides'...I don't expect the news orgs to be 'a side' as such and so I expect them to report the events. As I read more and more on it, their reports *do* seem more un-biased than I imagine. However, I have still the impression of the "Tian'anmen massacre" - basically the government just killed a load of peaceful protesters. I wonder how I got that impression when it is clearly nowhere as near as one-sided as that.
In fact, the more I read, the more I wonder if the protesters hadn't indeed been infiltrated with foreigners that were trying to cause trouble. It seems entirely possible to me.
Someone recently pointed me at an opinion on the Tibet issue, which I found interesting, and more in line with my emerging opinion in general :
How people can think these issues are as black and white as they seem to, I don't know. They're clearly much more complicated than some people make out.
Wow. I can't believe it. Someone actually 'has a clue'.
Amazing. Kudos to you, and Brian Dunning.
Well, I've not found any significant evidence of what you describe. Your account is the most explicit about the tanks killing demonstrators. Nothing much in the Wikipedia, but notably this which suggests things weren't as one-sided as is suggested by the media in general :
"Leaders of the protest inside the square, where some had attempted to erect flimsy barricades ahead of the APCs, were said to have "implored" the students not to use weapons (such as molotov cocktails) against the oncoming soldiers."
The BBC account references just has them driving over people, but doesn't say if said people were alive or not - note that this was *after* the shooting. The article I do see is this one :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4313282.stm
which give an account where the PLA action seems almost reasonable, again with the demonstrators being far from blameless :
"At the top of the square just in front of the Forbidden City, an APC got separated from its column, and in its panic to get out of the crowd area, ran over several demonstrators. This, in turn, caused the crowd to grow violent.
They disabled the APC, tore its crew from the vehicle, killed them, and torched the vehicle. All this was done in plain view of several PLA platoons about 150 metres away at the edge of the square. Standing beside the burning APC, I looked down the avenue and in the orange glow of the lights of the square I could see the PLA lock and load their AK-47s. "
The reporter does talk as though the shooting was a more directed attack than I had imagined. I had suspected that it was the protesters that had started the shooting - or at least that it was possible in all the confusion.
In any case, I still am unable to conclude that it is a one-sided 'massacre' as is typically suggested. I started to suspect it wasn't as I had been lead to believe after watching the BBC video[1] where protesters burn soldiers alive in their vehicle.
The only video I've seen is of the tanks trying desperately to avoid a protester who insisted on standing in front of it.
Can you remember what news network it was you saw drive into the crowd. I'd be very interested in seeing it so I can come to my own conclusion.
Thanks,
Max.
[1] this was part of the '50 years of news' dvd that I picked up while in Beijing. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take that DVD out of China since it wouldn't be allowed into other coutries (due it being fake, probably). How ironic is *that*? Unfortunately, I can't watch it again to refresh my memory.
Well, thanks for the data point. Of course, I don't know you from Adam, but it's something to make me look for more info or at least consider another angle to the whole thing.
I don't really remember the time. I can't even recall where I was ... 1989 ... I was 23, so not young by any means. I wish I could remember, though it would be in the middle of the night in the time zone I was in...
If you find any video online, be sure to share :) I'll have a look, of course, when I get a moment...