A while back, John Schindler and I wrote about the collapse of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and specifically about the dangerous degree to which the Obama administration was ceding influence to Russia in the region. We wrote as two experts with differing views on many things but with a shared specialization in the politics and foreign policy of Russia.
Apparently, all that education, travel to the USSR and Russia, years of discussion, exchange, and research, and our long combined service in various government and non-government posts was all a waste of time. John and I were inundated by tweets and emails that crisply, often in fewer than 140 characters, explained to us how we just didn’t understand Russia, how we just didn’t get it about what Vladimir Putin is really all about, and how we had no idea about how foreign policy is really worked out in Washington. We were too blinkered to see how the Obama administration had really played the Russians, and not vice versa. And on and on.
This, I should note, came not from our peers, some of whom engaged us in public, and a few who engaged us electronically and in person. No, these long-awaited clarifications about Russia, finally delivering us from our bleak and ignorant state, came from ordinary folks. The ones who, you know, read websites and stuff.
Why is this important? Because when it comes to numerous topics, there is no definitive answer. Politics, Philosophy, Ethics all require belief and faith. In the case of the origin of the Universe, there are surely differing and contrary opinions.
The most rational arguments for a creator as the origin of the Universe (has nothing to do with Theology) on this site will result in the post being modded specifically to censor the opinion. Even if the people moderating lack knowledge, the crowd here is predominantly atheist. Meaning, the most finely crafted insults will be modded insightful or interesting and everything else is down modded.
This has created an environment where it is extremely hostile for any non atheist to speak their opinion, even if they have in depth knowledge on the subject matter. It has also provided a safe haven for anyone with any level of bias a free reign to attack people with a different opinion, and more dangerously to be rewarded for doing so.
Why not? Anyone listening should be able to get a good laugh out of the material. If you have doubts or truly have concern, start your own event and teach the scientific theory and even call out the stork theory as wrong. Even better, invite the stork theorists to your event for a fair scientific debate.
Silencing an opinion does not work very well, in fact many opinions gain attention and following because people latch on to the silencing aspect (free speech) without caring too much about the original opinion.
People always want to take the easy way which is silencing dissenting opinions, without spending too much about what happens when someone wants to silence their opinion. If you want to test that theory, consider spending some time in the Middle East and trying to rally a University crowd around any non Muslim beliefs including atheism. I have no confidence you would martyr yourself for your belief, but I have been wrong before. Just make sure you post a real name before your mission so we know it was you.
I have no issue with a debate, but you have to at least try and present your case honestly. The 7 year war was not a Religious war, it was a war of conquest and economic influence. Even if you artificially inflate Religious wars to include numbers, you don't get the numbers for atheists who committed massive genocide. Which was your second point, right? Taking the high estimates for the 4 mentioned people is 200M, and yes it is the high estimates. Low estimates are still close to 100M for the same 4, and whether Pol Pot was as big of a murder as Mao is not relevant to the point.
The point was, that Religion has nothing to do with the majority of wars, and just as little to do with mass killings and genocide. In fact the numbers show the opposite trend, so its completely irrational to claim that "religion kills" because facts do not back that statement.
You are mistaking Pascal's lack of faith in Theology with the lack of faith that the universe needs a creator. Numerous Philosophers have the same issue, exactly the same issue.
There is no intrinsic link between belief that the universe needs something in order to exist with a particular theology. Theology requires a creator, but a creator does not require Theology. From a rational and logical perspective, I believe that the Universe does need a creator. That is my belief based on over 35 years of study. That does not imply that I follow any theology, nor does it imply that I believe a theology has the right answer to what the creator looks like, how they behave, etc...
Assuming you come to the logical conclusion that the universe does need a creator, you can then begin to ask more theological questions. Start with the general and work outward. Would something with the power to create the universe want people to be shitty, self absorbed, egotistical, destructive, etc...? Logically this certainly possible but not very probable. These questions, as with above, do not imply that a particular theology is right. Just that some of their general ideas are plausible, and more appear more valid than the counter.
I don't advocate an atheist position, because it is the new (not so really) wave of evangelism trying to get people to believe something without knowledge. You know, the same thing that a lot of atheists claim that particular theologies do. Atheists don't convince people to study Aristotle's causality arguments any more than the Catholic Church does. Let alone Aquinas, Descartes, or others that have worked on these Philosophical questions for sometimes their whole lives. I despise the squashing of knowledge and trying to force people to believe what you do, no matter what hat the person wears while making false claims.
First, a percentage is correct and not a flat amount. How we determine the percentage is a good question, and a great discussion.
Next, your insinuation that a rich person takes their personal income and pays people's annual wages with it is provably wrong. This is the same exact claim made by Reagan with "Trickle Down" and it did not work (yet all of the tax law is still in place). A wealthy person _could_ surely start a business venture with personal income but this is not the only thing that happens. At least as often as a new business gets started, a business gets bought out and stripped of assets which reduces jobs in society and increases someone's personal wealth by that amount.
Your last paragraph is exactly double speak (intentional or otherwise). If I go with your middle statement, I concur that the system should be fair and that no one person should get more benefit than another.
I think some of your points have merit in theory, but not in reality as written. For example, claiming that Tax payers don't fund the asset (team) is correct, but what do Tax payers fund? An easy target is that tax payers fund the building of Stadiums. Contrary to what you may believe, AT&T Park was not paid to be built by AT&T. Oracle Arena was not paid to be built by Oracle. Tax payers don't get direct return on their investments either, they get indirect benefit if they have a business in the traffic zone that can benefit. Which of course does increase tax revenue for the Government because the small business owners are not the ones receiving tax breaks.
In other words, yes the tax payers do pay for it. It may not be money paid from the Government directly to Balmer (or what ever rich guy you want to replace him with), but it does cost the tax payer money.
Lastly, the implication that the amount and not a percentage of money paid for tax is the only factor to consider is wrong. We have had over 30 years of watching "Trickle Down" fail. Lets stop trying to prop up the failure and work to make the system fair.
It's this type of moderation that harms sites like Slashdot. Every post in this thread modded up is anti religious, even when they are wrong. When the position is demonstrated to be wrong the post is censored.
Abstract logic is Abstract logic, but that concept is completely lost on you which is why you continue to lie. I gave the example of "why" versus "how" a bridge was built. You claimed incorrectly that it uses the same logic, which is false because there is no motive involved in designing a bridge. You further claimed that building a bridge requires static information, which is also false. Building a bridge requires numerous variables, but no abstract logic. Motive does not matter, only the result.
Further lies by now trying to clarify that it was only your friends who failed with Philosophy, which has nothing to do with Philosophy as a subject which your generalization claimed (Twice).
Since you can not seem to grasp a sliver of honesty, no point in further discussion. The point of this post was simply to announce the lies to others so that they can be wary of your words.
How about putting the blame where it belongs, with shitty humans doing shitty things?
Sure. Bad people do bad things. But crazy beliefs make good people do bad things.
Four atheists in the last century have killed at least 100 times more people than all of the "believers" in recorded history, and your answer is to make up a story about how bad "believers" are because they are annoying? Wow, that is really pathetic.
Wait a second, did you just open a dialogue with a straw man?
Pascal's Wager only works if there isn't a god. If there is a god, but you pick the wrong religion, you're just as boned as if you simply don't believe. If multiple religions claim to be True, and none can offer real evidence, logically you should believe in none of them.
Why yes, you did open with a straw man. Pascal's wager works fine unless you are in an extremist religion that preaches no tolerance for other religions. That extremism is not at the root of any Judea Christian Religion, Buddhism, or Hinduism. Hence my statement that education resolves these types of problems much better than false claims.
Hell, even if it is the God of the Christian bible, but the stuff that Christian ignore in the OT really are important (Suffer not a witch to live, shellfish is an abomination, if a farmer mixes two types of crop he is to be stoned to death, do not take the Lord's name in vain.. etc etc.)
Jesus gave two additional commandments and said to follow the 10 commandments. One of his 2 unique commands is redundant with the first of those same 10 commandments. For the food, see above regarding education. Taking the Lords name in vain is also one of the 10 commandments, and it was explicitly addressed in the post you responded to. You did not ask for clarity or state that I was wrong, you simply decided to ignore content. Shame on you.
As to the rest, you did not even attempt to address my point or demonstrate where my logic is wrong. Stop trying to convince me that atheism is correct and instead try to convince me that education won't fix the issues with extremism.
From the perspective of "The Noble Lie", there is nothing wrong with the majority of Religions or Religious people. The majority are not extremists, the majority don't care what you believe, the majority just want to be content with living and feel like they are doing the right things. Even if you believe their motives are wrong, it has the correct result.
As written, it seemed as though you were defending the person I responded to. It still does, you provided some rough statement without clear direction.
Back in the 18th century, everyone believed in boogeymen, and couldn't comprehend a reality in which they didn't actually exist.
You mean like "TERRORISTS"? How about "Communists"? Nazis? Chinese? Blacks? In other words, this magic progression you hint at never happened. The majority lives in the cave, and the people in power do all they can to keep them in the cave. Nothing new there either, that was written about over 2,500 years ago and people can't seem to fix it. It's amazing how many people believe in X just because someone qualifies a statement with "All the smart people believe X" (Spend a long time pondering that one.)
I'll skip the rest of your anti-religious rant since it has no value, and suggest that you try and find the word "theophobia" in Google or something. While not commonly used, it has been discussed in at last several psychological papers.
The Mormons and COS were both intended as money making operations to gain power. Hubbard wrote several papers before Dianetics stating that the easiest way to get rich was to start a religion, so he did. To them it was not a joke or satire, it was about money and domination. The story of Mormon religion is similar, but harder to track and requires reading lots of anecdotal evidence.
The masses looking at the founders of these religions for the most part laughed and snickered, but as PT Barnum is attributed with saying "a sucker is born every minute" (re-read that statement before trying to correct the quote)
[rant on] It really gets tiresome reading the same drivel over and over and seeing it marked as "insightful" when it is simply repeating statements that are provably false. It's like watching the KKK guys all pat each other on the back for using a racial slur, it's old and pathetic. [rant off]
Consider Pascal's wager. Even if there is no God, what is the harm in society practicing Christian beliefs? Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet they neighbors wife or property.
7 out of 10 commandments are exactly what we call "Natural Law". The other 3 deal with respecting the God that provided those commandments, which is interestingly a circular logic bit to make sure that people continue to respect the 10 commandments. Wow, there is absolutely nothing parasitic with the beliefs, and there is nothing toxic with the beliefs.
People in power have used religion to manipulate people, but that's not a problem of religion it's a problem of people abusing a system for power. You know, the same abuse that we have with people in political offices, loaning money and exchanging money, owning/controlling land and resources, etc.. etc.. etc.. They can do this because people are ignorant and believe what they are told, even when you can prove their belief wrong. (I really hope that rings a bell for you)
Claiming that Religion is a problem does not fix the issue, education fixes the issue. There is a 50/50 chance that the Universe needs something to create it (I really hope you are not one of those that claims science solved the question, which is another false statement often repeated). This is why a large number of scientifically minded people have at least some faith in some religion. At the same time, the educated can easily pick out the nonsense that people add, or have added to a Religion for gaining power. I have yet to see a crowd of PHDs or Nuclear Physicists run off and join Al Quada or ISIL/ISIS at any rate, go ahead and prove me wrong.
Instead of telling people that Religion is something it's not, why not teach them what their Religion really is? I fully agree that it's an uphill battle, entrenched power is extremely problematic to remove. Trying to counter lies with lies is a no win proposition.
I'm sure all your ignorant pals will slap you on the back for such a witty comment, however it's delusional and false.
Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were all atheists. If you combine their estimated death tolls and compare that to the Religious wars, there is no comparison. These four people are estimated to have killed nearly 200,000,000 people, compared to all of the Religous wars through recorded history which sits at approximately 200,000.
Now would you like to add in similar historical non religious campaigns, like the Mongols? How about campaigns that had absolutely nothing to do with Religion, but conquests for power. This would include Hitler, Napoleon, Norse and Celtic campaigns, Roman, etc...
You can't blame Religion in the real world, the numbers don't jive with that thinking. Surely there have been some people in power that did things in the name of Religion which were absolutely retched. I find the Catholic protection of pedophiles to be higher on the list of wrong doings than the crusades, because a huge part of the crusades was conquest for land and resources and not really religion (Religion was the cover).
How about putting the blame where it belongs, with shitty humans doing shitty things? Yes, that's right. People with power tend to crave more power and will use all available resources to gain more power. This is not limited to Religion, more often it's people with political power that are allowed to build up military power. I fully realize that facts may hurt your head and do not support your delusion, but facts make up reality.
The guy not knowing what an off line attack was one of many that seem very fishy, and yeah the moderation also raised serious red flags. Does a person really believe that they can offload authentication from a web server to a DB server without a network connection? Sure, it's possible that someone believes this, but it's sure not insightful stuff.
You may have attended a University but I'm skeptical. Even if you had, you surely had absolutely no training in Philosophy, and never associated with someone that took the classes in any way that provided you with knowledge (even incidental knowledge). My 1st and 2nd year PHY books are larger than my Calc 1/2 books by several hundred pages, and my Logic book is double the size of my Linear Algebra or Differential Equations text books. A portion of those books is the history, which includes the first Schools for Logic and Critical thinking which were started by Plato (The Academy). Every person in school up until very modern times had Philosophy and Logic in their education, because it was taught from about the 3rd grade in the Classical Education system (See Trivium and Quadrivium). Pick a scientist prior to 1940, and every single one that went to a school learned the subjects.
Claiming that Philosophers can't solve problems reeks, and the fact that you can not qualify that claim simply demonstrates it's falsity.
Aside from the fact that you build a bridge with statics and perhaps a bit of dynamics, not logic...
No, fundementally the logic is the same. The source of the logical expressions may be different, but the fundementals of the logic is unchanged.
Ah, the coup de grace! As suspected, you have no visible knowledge of Logic, or even bridge building (Spelling and Grammar are also lacking). I provided the example and you just ignored it.
You can read post history without any help, the context is very clear. The first response I had was to a person that took issue with the word God being in the pledge of allegiance, not the mindless repetition
Yes, many States and schools have banned the Pledge of allegiance, but it was not done due to the obvious indoctrination and brainwashing. The reason it was banned is because the word "God" is in the pledge, and there are movements trying to ban the word God from just about everything in Government (a few have been successful). The biggest push to remove the term comes from satanists who pose as atheists for their agenda, but there are ample atheists that jump on the bandwagon believing it's their own cause.
You know, I just put together now that "SJW" is intended to be an acronym for "Social Justice Warrior" (which is in turn intended to be a derogatory phrase meaning, as far as I can tell, "uppity feminist").
Correct on the first part, absolute rubbish on the 2nd. SJWs are usually not feminine, or even pro feminist. The militant Left/Liberals which usually fit the definition of SJW tend to be predominantly male. White males to be more precise. Since an incorrect premise tends to lead to an incorrect conclusion, I didn't bother with the rest of what you said.
The question in the case of the baby + crib incident, numerous police officers shooting unarmed suspects, police shooting pet dogs, etc.. is whether or not the force used was required. This question used to be asked all the time, but today gets completely ignored..
Not that long ago if a house seemed risky for officers or the public they did not dress up like Navy Seals and Rambo up the house. They waited outside, used surveillance, and caught criminals when it was the most opportunistic and safest for EVERYONE! Today, the only people who has their safety discussed is that of the Law enforcement agents. Which is completely contrary to what a Law enforcement officer's job is supposed to be, which is "Protect and Server the Public".
Yeah, the cop _probably_ didn't intend to harm an infant but you don't know that for sure. At the same time, the officers had no requirement to bust into the house in the first place. Nobody was in eminent danger if the police department did not bust down the door.
IMHO, this is largely due to the excessive amount of "rote" work required for Government mandated testing. This teaches people to take tests, not how to think. Numerous professional educators believe the same thing.
Eh well that's a problem. Logic should also be taught along with maths and engineering.
The rudimentary elements of Logic are already part of math, but this is measurable logic. Abstract logic dealing with language and politics is not the same thing, but can be learned much easier with a basic understanding of rudimentary math logic. Why on Earth would you wait until Engineering level classes to begin teaching abstract Logic, when it can be taught much sooner?
The philosophers were taught logic with words, but not with the tools, and consqeuently had trouble with some of the problems
Absolutely false, you just made this up. Socrates did not believe in writing Philosophy, but his student Plato sure as hell did. As did Aristotle, and just about every other Philosopher that came after. Your claim of "trouble with some of the problems" is way too generic as written, therefor wrong.
Fundementally, logic is the application of mathematical rules and is just maths in disguise.
I agree when dealing with the measurable, but absolutely false when dealing with the abstract. Using Logic on the abstract means that you have to measure motives. How to build a bridge versus Why to build a bridge for example. Both the "How" and "Why" certainly use logic, but not the same logic.
Plato started "The Academy", so your pedantry is not quite correct. You would also be able to put possessives on the Oracles of Delphi, and at least half a dozen Sophists mentioned by Plato. I do get your point however, and made a grammatical error which should have been "Ancient Greeks". Wholly crap, I'm human!
The word "God" is _in_ the Declaration of Independence, and so is the word "Creator" (Read the first 2 paragraphs). As with the person I responded to, you are not even attempting to look at facts. The words are not "religious rhetoric" when used as we see in both the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance, because there is absolutely no associating theology. Paraphrased, they simply state ~all people are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights~. If you substitute Creator with your own vision, such as Jewish God or Xenu, that is _your_ bias and certainly not written or even implied.
Theophobia is an unreasonable fear of Religion. Showing anxiety over the word "God" or "Creator" and claiming that the words alone are indoctrinating or theological is a good demonstration of a person with a phobia.
Slashdot Mirror
A while back, John Schindler and I wrote about the collapse of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and specifically about the dangerous degree to which the Obama administration was ceding influence to Russia in the region. We wrote as two experts with differing views on many things but with a shared specialization in the politics and foreign policy of Russia.
Apparently, all that education, travel to the USSR and Russia, years of discussion, exchange, and research, and our long combined service in various government and non-government posts was all a waste of time. John and I were inundated by tweets and emails that crisply, often in fewer than 140 characters, explained to us how we just didn’t understand Russia, how we just didn’t get it about what Vladimir Putin is really all about, and how we had no idea about how foreign policy is really worked out in Washington. We were too blinkered to see how the Obama administration had really played the Russians, and not vice versa. And on and on.
This, I should note, came not from our peers, some of whom engaged us in public, and a few who engaged us electronically and in person. No, these long-awaited clarifications about Russia, finally delivering us from our bleak and ignorant state, came from ordinary folks. The ones who, you know, read websites and stuff.
Why is this important? Because when it comes to numerous topics, there is no definitive answer. Politics, Philosophy, Ethics all require belief and faith. In the case of the origin of the Universe, there are surely differing and contrary opinions.
The most rational arguments for a creator as the origin of the Universe (has nothing to do with Theology) on this site will result in the post being modded specifically to censor the opinion. Even if the people moderating lack knowledge, the crowd here is predominantly atheist. Meaning, the most finely crafted insults will be modded insightful or interesting and everything else is down modded.
This has created an environment where it is extremely hostile for any non atheist to speak their opinion, even if they have in depth knowledge on the subject matter. It has also provided a safe haven for anyone with any level of bias a free reign to attack people with a different opinion, and more dangerously to be rewarded for doing so.
Why not? Anyone listening should be able to get a good laugh out of the material. If you have doubts or truly have concern, start your own event and teach the scientific theory and even call out the stork theory as wrong. Even better, invite the stork theorists to your event for a fair scientific debate.
Silencing an opinion does not work very well, in fact many opinions gain attention and following because people latch on to the silencing aspect (free speech) without caring too much about the original opinion.
People always want to take the easy way which is silencing dissenting opinions, without spending too much about what happens when someone wants to silence their opinion. If you want to test that theory, consider spending some time in the Middle East and trying to rally a University crowd around any non Muslim beliefs including atheism. I have no confidence you would martyr yourself for your belief, but I have been wrong before. Just make sure you post a real name before your mission so we know it was you.
I have no issue with a debate, but you have to at least try and present your case honestly. The 7 year war was not a Religious war, it was a war of conquest and economic influence. Even if you artificially inflate Religious wars to include numbers, you don't get the numbers for atheists who committed massive genocide. Which was your second point, right? Taking the high estimates for the 4 mentioned people is 200M, and yes it is the high estimates. Low estimates are still close to 100M for the same 4, and whether Pol Pot was as big of a murder as Mao is not relevant to the point.
The point was, that Religion has nothing to do with the majority of wars, and just as little to do with mass killings and genocide. In fact the numbers show the opposite trend, so its completely irrational to claim that "religion kills" because facts do not back that statement.
You are mistaking Pascal's lack of faith in Theology with the lack of faith that the universe needs a creator. Numerous Philosophers have the same issue, exactly the same issue.
There is no intrinsic link between belief that the universe needs something in order to exist with a particular theology. Theology requires a creator, but a creator does not require Theology. From a rational and logical perspective, I believe that the Universe does need a creator. That is my belief based on over 35 years of study. That does not imply that I follow any theology, nor does it imply that I believe a theology has the right answer to what the creator looks like, how they behave, etc...
Assuming you come to the logical conclusion that the universe does need a creator, you can then begin to ask more theological questions. Start with the general and work outward. Would something with the power to create the universe want people to be shitty, self absorbed, egotistical, destructive, etc...? Logically this certainly possible but not very probable. These questions, as with above, do not imply that a particular theology is right. Just that some of their general ideas are plausible, and more appear more valid than the counter.
I don't advocate an atheist position, because it is the new (not so really) wave of evangelism trying to get people to believe something without knowledge. You know, the same thing that a lot of atheists claim that particular theologies do. Atheists don't convince people to study Aristotle's causality arguments any more than the Catholic Church does. Let alone Aquinas, Descartes, or others that have worked on these Philosophical questions for sometimes their whole lives. I despise the squashing of knowledge and trying to force people to believe what you do, no matter what hat the person wears while making false claims.
First, a percentage is correct and not a flat amount. How we determine the percentage is a good question, and a great discussion.
Next, your insinuation that a rich person takes their personal income and pays people's annual wages with it is provably wrong. This is the same exact claim made by Reagan with "Trickle Down" and it did not work (yet all of the tax law is still in place). A wealthy person _could_ surely start a business venture with personal income but this is not the only thing that happens. At least as often as a new business gets started, a business gets bought out and stripped of assets which reduces jobs in society and increases someone's personal wealth by that amount.
Your last paragraph is exactly double speak (intentional or otherwise). If I go with your middle statement, I concur that the system should be fair and that no one person should get more benefit than another.
I think some of your points have merit in theory, but not in reality as written. For example, claiming that Tax payers don't fund the asset (team) is correct, but what do Tax payers fund? An easy target is that tax payers fund the building of Stadiums. Contrary to what you may believe, AT&T Park was not paid to be built by AT&T. Oracle Arena was not paid to be built by Oracle. Tax payers don't get direct return on their investments either, they get indirect benefit if they have a business in the traffic zone that can benefit. Which of course does increase tax revenue for the Government because the small business owners are not the ones receiving tax breaks.
In other words, yes the tax payers do pay for it. It may not be money paid from the Government directly to Balmer (or what ever rich guy you want to replace him with), but it does cost the tax payer money.
Lastly, the implication that the amount and not a percentage of money paid for tax is the only factor to consider is wrong. We have had over 30 years of watching "Trickle Down" fail. Lets stop trying to prop up the failure and work to make the system fair.
It's this type of moderation that harms sites like Slashdot. Every post in this thread modded up is anti religious, even when they are wrong. When the position is demonstrated to be wrong the post is censored.
Abstract logic is Abstract logic, but that concept is completely lost on you which is why you continue to lie. I gave the example of "why" versus "how" a bridge was built. You claimed incorrectly that it uses the same logic, which is false because there is no motive involved in designing a bridge. You further claimed that building a bridge requires static information, which is also false. Building a bridge requires numerous variables, but no abstract logic. Motive does not matter, only the result.
Further lies by now trying to clarify that it was only your friends who failed with Philosophy, which has nothing to do with Philosophy as a subject which your generalization claimed (Twice).
Since you can not seem to grasp a sliver of honesty, no point in further discussion. The point of this post was simply to announce the lies to others so that they can be wary of your words.
How about putting the blame where it belongs, with shitty humans doing shitty things?
Sure. Bad people do bad things. But crazy beliefs make good people do bad things.
Four atheists in the last century have killed at least 100 times more people than all of the "believers" in recorded history, and your answer is to make up a story about how bad "believers" are because they are annoying? Wow, that is really pathetic.
What if the is a god, but not a Christian God?
Wait a second, did you just open a dialogue with a straw man?
Pascal's Wager only works if there isn't a god. If there is a god, but you pick the wrong religion, you're just as boned as if you simply don't believe. If multiple religions claim to be True, and none can offer real evidence, logically you should believe in none of them.
Why yes, you did open with a straw man. Pascal's wager works fine unless you are in an extremist religion that preaches no tolerance for other religions. That extremism is not at the root of any Judea Christian Religion, Buddhism, or Hinduism. Hence my statement that education resolves these types of problems much better than false claims.
Hell, even if it is the God of the Christian bible, but the stuff that Christian ignore in the OT really are important (Suffer not a witch to live, shellfish is an abomination, if a farmer mixes two types of crop he is to be stoned to death, do not take the Lord's name in vain.. etc etc.)
Jesus gave two additional commandments and said to follow the 10 commandments. One of his 2 unique commands is redundant with the first of those same 10 commandments. For the food, see above regarding education. Taking the Lords name in vain is also one of the 10 commandments, and it was explicitly addressed in the post you responded to. You did not ask for clarity or state that I was wrong, you simply decided to ignore content. Shame on you.
As to the rest, you did not even attempt to address my point or demonstrate where my logic is wrong. Stop trying to convince me that atheism is correct and instead try to convince me that education won't fix the issues with extremism.
From the perspective of "The Noble Lie", there is nothing wrong with the majority of Religions or Religious people. The majority are not extremists, the majority don't care what you believe, the majority just want to be content with living and feel like they are doing the right things. Even if you believe their motives are wrong, it has the correct result.
As written, it seemed as though you were defending the person I responded to. It still does, you provided some rough statement without clear direction.
Back in the 18th century, everyone believed in boogeymen, and couldn't comprehend a reality in which they didn't actually exist.
You mean like "TERRORISTS"? How about "Communists"? Nazis? Chinese? Blacks? In other words, this magic progression you hint at never happened. The majority lives in the cave, and the people in power do all they can to keep them in the cave. Nothing new there either, that was written about over 2,500 years ago and people can't seem to fix it. It's amazing how many people believe in X just because someone qualifies a statement with "All the smart people believe X" (Spend a long time pondering that one.)
I'll skip the rest of your anti-religious rant since it has no value, and suggest that you try and find the word "theophobia" in Google or something. While not commonly used, it has been discussed in at last several psychological papers.
I must have hurt a militant liberal feelings to get this modded as a troll. No, I don't feel bad.
The Mormons and COS were both intended as money making operations to gain power. Hubbard wrote several papers before Dianetics stating that the easiest way to get rich was to start a religion, so he did. To them it was not a joke or satire, it was about money and domination. The story of Mormon religion is similar, but harder to track and requires reading lots of anecdotal evidence.
The masses looking at the founders of these religions for the most part laughed and snickered, but as PT Barnum is attributed with saying "a sucker is born every minute" (re-read that statement before trying to correct the quote)
[rant on] It really gets tiresome reading the same drivel over and over and seeing it marked as "insightful" when it is simply repeating statements that are provably false. It's like watching the KKK guys all pat each other on the back for using a racial slur, it's old and pathetic. [rant off]
Consider Pascal's wager. Even if there is no God, what is the harm in society practicing Christian beliefs? Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet they neighbors wife or property.
7 out of 10 commandments are exactly what we call "Natural Law". The other 3 deal with respecting the God that provided those commandments, which is interestingly a circular logic bit to make sure that people continue to respect the 10 commandments. Wow, there is absolutely nothing parasitic with the beliefs, and there is nothing toxic with the beliefs.
People in power have used religion to manipulate people, but that's not a problem of religion it's a problem of people abusing a system for power. You know, the same abuse that we have with people in political offices, loaning money and exchanging money, owning/controlling land and resources, etc.. etc.. etc.. They can do this because people are ignorant and believe what they are told, even when you can prove their belief wrong. (I really hope that rings a bell for you)
Claiming that Religion is a problem does not fix the issue, education fixes the issue. There is a 50/50 chance that the Universe needs something to create it (I really hope you are not one of those that claims science solved the question, which is another false statement often repeated). This is why a large number of scientifically minded people have at least some faith in some religion. At the same time, the educated can easily pick out the nonsense that people add, or have added to a Religion for gaining power. I have yet to see a crowd of PHDs or Nuclear Physicists run off and join Al Quada or ISIL/ISIS at any rate, go ahead and prove me wrong.
Instead of telling people that Religion is something it's not, why not teach them what their Religion really is? I fully agree that it's an uphill battle, entrenched power is extremely problematic to remove. Trying to counter lies with lies is a no win proposition.
I'm sure all your ignorant pals will slap you on the back for such a witty comment, however it's delusional and false.
Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were all atheists. If you combine their estimated death tolls and compare that to the Religious wars, there is no comparison. These four people are estimated to have killed nearly 200,000,000 people, compared to all of the Religous wars through recorded history which sits at approximately 200,000.
Now would you like to add in similar historical non religious campaigns, like the Mongols? How about campaigns that had absolutely nothing to do with Religion, but conquests for power. This would include Hitler, Napoleon, Norse and Celtic campaigns, Roman, etc...
You can't blame Religion in the real world, the numbers don't jive with that thinking. Surely there have been some people in power that did things in the name of Religion which were absolutely retched. I find the Catholic protection of pedophiles to be higher on the list of wrong doings than the crusades, because a huge part of the crusades was conquest for land and resources and not really religion (Religion was the cover).
How about putting the blame where it belongs, with shitty humans doing shitty things? Yes, that's right. People with power tend to crave more power and will use all available resources to gain more power. This is not limited to Religion, more often it's people with political power that are allowed to build up military power. I fully realize that facts may hurt your head and do not support your delusion, but facts make up reality.
The guy not knowing what an off line attack was one of many that seem very fishy, and yeah the moderation also raised serious red flags. Does a person really believe that they can offload authentication from a web server to a DB server without a network connection? Sure, it's possible that someone believes this, but it's sure not insightful stuff.
You may have attended a University but I'm skeptical. Even if you had, you surely had absolutely no training in Philosophy, and never associated with someone that took the classes in any way that provided you with knowledge (even incidental knowledge). My 1st and 2nd year PHY books are larger than my Calc 1/2 books by several hundred pages, and my Logic book is double the size of my Linear Algebra or Differential Equations text books. A portion of those books is the history, which includes the first Schools for Logic and Critical thinking which were started by Plato (The Academy). Every person in school up until very modern times had Philosophy and Logic in their education, because it was taught from about the 3rd grade in the Classical Education system (See Trivium and Quadrivium). Pick a scientist prior to 1940, and every single one that went to a school learned the subjects.
Claiming that Philosophers can't solve problems reeks, and the fact that you can not qualify that claim simply demonstrates it's falsity.
Aside from the fact that you build a bridge with statics and perhaps a bit of dynamics, not logic...
No, fundementally the logic is the same. The source of the logical expressions may be different, but the fundementals of the logic is unchanged.
Ah, the coup de grace! As suspected, you have no visible knowledge of Logic, or even bridge building (Spelling and Grammar are also lacking). I provided the example and you just ignored it.
Context please
You can read post history without any help, the context is very clear. The first response I had was to a person that took issue with the word God being in the pledge of allegiance, not the mindless repetition
Yes, many States and schools have banned the Pledge of allegiance, but it was not done due to the obvious indoctrination and brainwashing. The reason it was banned is because the word "God" is in the pledge, and there are movements trying to ban the word God from just about everything in Government (a few have been successful). The biggest push to remove the term comes from satanists who pose as atheists for their agenda, but there are ample atheists that jump on the bandwagon believing it's their own cause.
You know, I just put together now that "SJW" is intended to be an acronym for "Social Justice Warrior" (which is in turn intended to be a derogatory phrase meaning, as far as I can tell, "uppity feminist").
Correct on the first part, absolute rubbish on the 2nd. SJWs are usually not feminine, or even pro feminist. The militant Left/Liberals which usually fit the definition of SJW tend to be predominantly male. White males to be more precise. Since an incorrect premise tends to lead to an incorrect conclusion, I didn't bother with the rest of what you said.
The question in the case of the baby + crib incident, numerous police officers shooting unarmed suspects, police shooting pet dogs, etc.. is whether or not the force used was required. This question used to be asked all the time, but today gets completely ignored..
Not that long ago if a house seemed risky for officers or the public they did not dress up like Navy Seals and Rambo up the house. They waited outside, used surveillance, and caught criminals when it was the most opportunistic and safest for EVERYONE! Today, the only people who has their safety discussed is that of the Law enforcement agents. Which is completely contrary to what a Law enforcement officer's job is supposed to be, which is "Protect and Server the Public".
Yeah, the cop _probably_ didn't intend to harm an infant but you don't know that for sure. At the same time, the officers had no requirement to bust into the house in the first place. Nobody was in eminent danger if the police department did not bust down the door.
IMHO, this is largely due to the excessive amount of "rote" work required for Government mandated testing. This teaches people to take tests, not how to think. Numerous professional educators believe the same thing.
Eh well that's a problem. Logic should also be taught along with maths and engineering.
The rudimentary elements of Logic are already part of math, but this is measurable logic. Abstract logic dealing with language and politics is not the same thing, but can be learned much easier with a basic understanding of rudimentary math logic. Why on Earth would you wait until Engineering level classes to begin teaching abstract Logic, when it can be taught much sooner?
The philosophers were taught logic with words, but not with the tools, and consqeuently had trouble with some of the problems
Absolutely false, you just made this up. Socrates did not believe in writing Philosophy, but his student Plato sure as hell did. As did Aristotle, and just about every other Philosopher that came after. Your claim of "trouble with some of the problems" is way too generic as written, therefor wrong.
Fundementally, logic is the application of mathematical rules and is just maths in disguise.
I agree when dealing with the measurable, but absolutely false when dealing with the abstract. Using Logic on the abstract means that you have to measure motives. How to build a bridge versus Why to build a bridge for example. Both the "How" and "Why" certainly use logic, but not the same logic.
Plato started "The Academy", so your pedantry is not quite correct. You would also be able to put possessives on the Oracles of Delphi, and at least half a dozen Sophists mentioned by Plato. I do get your point however, and made a grammatical error which should have been "Ancient Greeks". Wholly crap, I'm human!
Fair point!
The word "God" is _in_ the Declaration of Independence, and so is the word "Creator" (Read the first 2 paragraphs). As with the person I responded to, you are not even attempting to look at facts. The words are not "religious rhetoric" when used as we see in both the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance, because there is absolutely no associating theology. Paraphrased, they simply state ~all people are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights~. If you substitute Creator with your own vision, such as Jewish God or Xenu, that is _your_ bias and certainly not written or even implied.
Theophobia is an unreasonable fear of Religion. Showing anxiety over the word "God" or "Creator" and claiming that the words alone are indoctrinating or theological is a good demonstration of a person with a phobia.