The thing is, I think there are a lot of religious people who would totally agree with you. We covered that in Sunday school when I was nine. Conclusion of the nine-year-olds: it only counts as doing the right thing if you do it for the right reasons, meaning a genuine desire to do good without fear of punishment or hope of reward.
So the only reason that you are good to other people is that you don't want to go to Hell?
Heaven and Hell have nothing to do with it. I want to be good to other people, just, well, because. And look! Here's a book that says how to go about it. (A very complicated, confusing book but let's leave that aside for the moment.) So I tried going by the book, and what do you know, subjectively I think I'm more effective at being good. I also found out that trying to follow that book is a whole lot harder than just quoting sentences of it out of context as some people seem to always do. It helps there is a large organization that has spent 2,000 years studying that book, and has weekly meetings to help people figure out what it means, but that doesn't mean I take everything the guy in the dress says at face value. I read it myself, think about the historical context and sometimes the (voluminous) studies and commentaries of theologians like St. Augustine who were smarter than I will ever be, and my own experience and understanding of the text, and I usually come up with some insights I can use in daily life. Which I think is more effective than the kind of ad hoc approach I had before. If humanism works for you, though, go for it, you don't have to join my club in order to be cool.
Christian doctrines differ but I belong to a major denomination of Christianity that believes Leviticus is obsolete. So yes Leviticus is in the Bible but it is not harmonious with all Christian doctine.
God is actually less petty than our Bibles would have us believe, and actually appreciates people going out on a limb to make the world a better place.
I can't speak for God, but I appreciate people going out on a limb to make the world a better place.
And what is objective moral truth in a theistic context?
The will of God(s) as communicated through the prophets. Not that a theist can convince an atheist that it's valid, but you asked what is "moral truth" in the context of the religious paradigm and I think religious opinion is pretty unified on that point.
Hmmm, are you trying to say that if you'd been educated outside of religion, you, personally, would have been unethical ? I don't see how to read your answer otherwise.
No, I'm saying that I been both an atheist and a Christian and I think the Christian me is a more generous and courageous person. Not that the atheist me was especially bad.
The number of Christians I've known who are not nice and completely judgemental by far outweigh the nice ones.
I could say the same thing about atheists. Frankly if someone is trying to be a decent person I think they deserve congratulations and encouragement regardless of whether that effort is motivated by religious or humanist beliefs.
Name one good, moral action that could not have been conceived of by a person of no faith. Tough question, right?
Yes but it is the wrong question. This question is asking if religious persons are morally superior to non-religious persons. I have often heard that claim but I don't believe it is true, nor it is relevant to me. The relevant question in my view is, "Name one good, moral action you took that was motivated by religious belief, that you would not otherwise have done." In other words, ask not whether religion makes "people" more ethical, ask whether religion makes me more ethical. And BTW that is very easy to answer.
Name me one wicked action that was committed in the name of religion.
And name one wicked action committed in opposition to religion. Also easy.
I hope there is more to Hitchens' book than that. Very likely. Frankly as a religious person myself I am interested in reading it. I believe it was Aristotle who said the unexamined life is not worth living. Answering questions like these is in my opinion good for anyone's moral development, whether they prefer a religious or humanist approach.
Actually humans are used in medical research all the time. Such experiments are called "clinical trials." I'm not a biologist but I would imagine the set of experiments where one cannot use rodents and which are too dangerous for human trials would be relatively small.
This may be a naive question (and will almost certainly be derided as such). I remember from Astronomy 101, many years ago, the prevailing idea about stellar formation. But I don't remember anyone ever explaining studies that verify the hypothesis is valid. What I'm saying is that it's pretty obvious this is a star surrounded by a cloud of material (gas or dust, I can't remember), but how do we know the star is forming rather than, say, dying? Or are we just supposed to take it on faith because we read it in a book?
A related question-- this is an awesomely cool picture, but does it or does it not tell us much about how stars form?
I think it's a reasonably good idea to allow users the option to let some ads through. A lot of people think advertising is a legitimate way to fund Web sites and maybe they want to preserve the revenue streams of sites that advertise in an inoffensive way.
Myself, I think all advertising is contemptible by definition, so I am also glad the developers preserve the option to block everything.
I don't see this as a betrayal of the user community. I see it as adding a feature. Yeah it's a feature that is enabled by default but if you are smart enough to use AdBlock in the first place you are probably smart enough to configure it.
I don't care whether this is a standard Facebook widget or not. The site is using "behavioral engineering" (which is a fancy and strangely antiseptic term for "lying."). They are asking you, indeed pressuring you, to log into Facebook from an entry point of their choosing. That entry point is almost certainly a trap.
Try this experiment. Leave their page. Close your browser completely. Restart it. Go directly to www.facebook.com. Log in. Do you see any message there from the Russian hackers who purport to run the site? If not, they were lying when they said logging in to Facebook would tell you how to get off their list.
I'll bet you $50 there is nothing there. To collect, just go to www.sirgarlon.ru and log in to your Facebook account.:-)
The details can be found after logging in to your Facebook account.
I know this is Slashdot and most people get it, but for those who don't -- this looks like a form of phishing to get your Facebook password. I'm not a security expert but I imagine they are using a man-in-the-middle attack to log your password while you log in.
This is probably exactly what parent intended to imply.
Either we're free to innovate in this country, or we leave our country in favor of a land that offers more freedom and opportunity.
We may be free to leave this country, but it doesn't follow that we are free to move to another. There are plenty of smart, motivated people who are not welcome in the EU, for instance if they are too old.
USPS loses about 3-5% of mail, per an unofficial source.
How much first class mail do they lose though? A hell of a lot less than 3% of my outgoing mail has been lost. More like, one letter so far in the 25 years I've been using postal mail.
And it doesn't help that both of the worst offenders in this department, the US and China, are firmly committed to the path of destruction.
Well, the way they probably see it, they're firmly committed to the path of "prosperity" (that is, using up as much of the commons as possible as fast as possible). It's the other side of the same coin, I realize, but it better explains their positions -- and why they are unlikely to change them.
Slashdot Mirror
So what you're saying is that's more important to be rational than to be moral?
The thing is, I think there are a lot of religious people who would totally agree with you. We covered that in Sunday school when I was nine. Conclusion of the nine-year-olds: it only counts as doing the right thing if you do it for the right reasons, meaning a genuine desire to do good without fear of punishment or hope of reward.
Heaven and Hell have nothing to do with it. I want to be good to other people, just, well, because. And look! Here's a book that says how to go about it. (A very complicated, confusing book but let's leave that aside for the moment.) So I tried going by the book, and what do you know, subjectively I think I'm more effective at being good. I also found out that trying to follow that book is a whole lot harder than just quoting sentences of it out of context as some people seem to always do. It helps there is a large organization that has spent 2,000 years studying that book, and has weekly meetings to help people figure out what it means, but that doesn't mean I take everything the guy in the dress says at face value. I read it myself, think about the historical context and sometimes the (voluminous) studies and commentaries of theologians like St. Augustine who were smarter than I will ever be, and my own experience and understanding of the text, and I usually come up with some insights I can use in daily life. Which I think is more effective than the kind of ad hoc approach I had before. If humanism works for you, though, go for it, you don't have to join my club in order to be cool.
Can't it be both?
Christian doctrines differ but I belong to a major denomination of Christianity that believes Leviticus is obsolete. So yes Leviticus is in the Bible but it is not harmonious with all Christian doctine.
I can't speak for God, but I appreciate people going out on a limb to make the world a better place.
The will of God(s) as communicated through the prophets. Not that a theist can convince an atheist that it's valid, but you asked what is "moral truth" in the context of the religious paradigm and I think religious opinion is pretty unified on that point.
No, I'm saying that I been both an atheist and a Christian and I think the Christian me is a more generous and courageous person. Not that the atheist me was especially bad.
I could say the same thing about atheists. Frankly if someone is trying to be a decent person I think they deserve congratulations and encouragement regardless of whether that effort is motivated by religious or humanist beliefs.
Yes but it is the wrong question. This question is asking if religious persons are morally superior to non-religious persons. I have often heard that claim but I don't believe it is true, nor it is relevant to me. The relevant question in my view is, "Name one good, moral action you took that was motivated by religious belief, that you would not otherwise have done." In other words, ask not whether religion makes "people" more ethical, ask whether religion makes me more ethical. And BTW that is very easy to answer.
And name one wicked action committed in opposition to religion. Also easy.
I hope there is more to Hitchens' book than that. Very likely. Frankly as a religious person myself I am interested in reading it. I believe it was Aristotle who said the unexamined life is not worth living. Answering questions like these is in my opinion good for anyone's moral development, whether they prefer a religious or humanist approach.
Drat, I posted to this thread so I can't mod you funny. But this is the funniest remark about religion/atheism I've seen in a long time. :-)
Actually what GP is saying is more like "not all religion is bad, only religions other than mine are bad."
Actually humans are used in medical research all the time. Such experiments are called "clinical trials." I'm not a biologist but I would imagine the set of experiments where one cannot use rodents and which are too dangerous for human trials would be relatively small.
You're only crazy if you see Jesus in toast and think it's not a coincidence.
This may be a naive question (and will almost certainly be derided as such). I remember from Astronomy 101, many years ago, the prevailing idea about stellar formation. But I don't remember anyone ever explaining studies that verify the hypothesis is valid. What I'm saying is that it's pretty obvious this is a star surrounded by a cloud of material (gas or dust, I can't remember), but how do we know the star is forming rather than, say, dying? Or are we just supposed to take it on faith because we read it in a book?
A related question-- this is an awesomely cool picture, but does it or does it not tell us much about how stars form?
Stop Online Piracy Act.
And on the third hand, it's Google, who according to Slashdot groupthink can do no wrong.
I think it's a reasonably good idea to allow users the option to let some ads through. A lot of people think advertising is a legitimate way to fund Web sites and maybe they want to preserve the revenue streams of sites that advertise in an inoffensive way.
Myself, I think all advertising is contemptible by definition, so I am also glad the developers preserve the option to block everything.
I don't see this as a betrayal of the user community. I see it as adding a feature. Yeah it's a feature that is enabled by default but if you are smart enough to use AdBlock in the first place you are probably smart enough to configure it.
I don't care whether this is a standard Facebook widget or not. The site is using "behavioral engineering" (which is a fancy and strangely antiseptic term for "lying."). They are asking you, indeed pressuring you, to log into Facebook from an entry point of their choosing. That entry point is almost certainly a trap.
Try this experiment. Leave their page. Close your browser completely. Restart it. Go directly to www.facebook.com. Log in. Do you see any message there from the Russian hackers who purport to run the site? If not, they were lying when they said logging in to Facebook would tell you how to get off their list.
I'll bet you $50 there is nothing there. To collect, just go to www.sirgarlon.ru and log in to your Facebook account. :-)
I know this is Slashdot and most people get it, but for those who don't -- this looks like a form of phishing to get your Facebook password. I'm not a security expert but I imagine they are using a man-in-the-middle attack to log your password while you log in.
This is probably exactly what parent intended to imply.
96 hours if you learn the mystical SuperSymmetry of the time cube.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
We may be free to leave this country, but it doesn't follow that we are free to move to another. There are plenty of smart, motivated people who are not welcome in the EU, for instance if they are too old.
How much first class mail do they lose though? A hell of a lot less than 3% of my outgoing mail has been lost. More like, one letter so far in the 25 years I've been using postal mail.
Well, the way they probably see it, they're firmly committed to the path of "prosperity" (that is, using up as much of the commons as possible as fast as possible). It's the other side of the same coin, I realize, but it better explains their positions -- and why they are unlikely to change them.