I have always promoted healthy skeptic approach to everything regardless
of what your view of the world is (religious, atheist or whatever). If
nothing else, healthy skepticism helps you avoid being conned out of your
money. Also I'm 100% pro scientifical thinking and the scientific method.

  I think this video explains clearly and concisely the concept of healthy
skepticism. I found it unusually straight-to-the-point, clear and without
fanaticism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   I think this video explains clearly and concisely the concept of healthy
> skepticism. I found it unusually straight-to-the-point, clear and without
> fanaticism.

Most of QualiaSoup's videos are very good in this way, yes.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Understanding the structure of the universe
    via religion is like understanding the
     structure of computers via Tron.

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Warp wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI

This guy does some good stuff too, altho he gets a bit more emotional about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aCav-KtoXs

And "Edward Currant" does some really funny satire that actually pulls some 
people in. Poe's law and all. If you're amused by that sort of thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNf3BfvxmBE

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> This guy does some good stuff too, altho he gets a bit more emotional about it.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aCav-KtoXs

  I seriously think there was a slippery slope fallacy in there.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> This guy does some good stuff too, altho he gets a bit more emotional about it.
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aCav-KtoXs
> 
>   I seriously think there was a slippery slope fallacy in there.

True. On the other hand, folks have been down that slippery slope already, 
so it's not obvious it's really a fallacy in this case. Indeed, in the USA, 
people are galloping down that slope.  (A number of high-profile religious 
leaders are publicly praying for the death of the president right now, for 
example.)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> True. On the other hand, folks have been down that slippery slope already, 
> so it's not obvious it's really a fallacy in this case. Indeed, in the USA, 
> people are galloping down that slope.  (A number of high-profile religious 
> leaders are publicly praying for the death of the president right now, for 
> example.)

  I also think (although I have nothing to back my opinion up) that the
idea that getting rid of all religion will fix these problems is incorrect.
I don't think religion causes stupidity. I think stupid people will use
religion as an excuse to exercise their stupidity because it's one of the
most convenient (and protected) ways to do it.

  Getting rid of all religions at most removes that excuse, but stupid
people will then just find other excuses.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> True. On the other hand, folks have been down that slippery slope already, 
>> so it's not obvious it's really a fallacy in this case. Indeed, in the USA, 
>> people are galloping down that slope.  (A number of high-profile religious 
>> leaders are publicly praying for the death of the president right now, for 
>> example.)
> 
>   I also think (although I have nothing to back my opinion up) that the
> idea that getting rid of all religion will fix these problems is incorrect.

I agree entirely.  What it *will* do is to reduce the legitimacy of people 
behaving badly.

For example, the Masai religion (African herders) teaches them that God gave 
them all the cattle. When they see someone else's cows, it's not immoral for 
them to take those cows, because they belong to the Masai anyway. (Kind of 
like a Promised Land with cows, I guess.)  If you do that in Africa, the 
police will at worst come take the cows back.  If you did that in America, 
the Masai religion would not legitimize it and you'd probably be in jail.

If I drove around the city with a bumper sticker saying "Obama should die" 
I'd probably get arrested. (Maybe not charged with anything, but certainly 
inconvenienced.) But since these nut-case preachers are getting on national 
TV and saying they're asking *GOD* to kill Obama, it's apparently not a 
problem for the secret service to look into.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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On Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:09:40 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> But since these nut-case preachers are getting on national TV and saying
> they're asking *GOD* to kill Obama, it's apparently not a problem for
> the secret service to look into.

Well, yeah, there's nothing actionable there.  Free speech and all that - 
until someone actually *does* something to be a physical threat.

One could argue that such speech is incitement, which is illegal, but the 
government seems to be reluctant to charge a religious organization (or 
personality) with incitement.  To an extent, I can see why - if they were 
to go after them, that would inflame the situation.  Remember David 
Koresh?

Jim

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> If I drove around the city with a bumper sticker saying "Obama should die" 
> I'd probably get arrested. (Maybe not charged with anything, but certainly 
> inconvenienced.) But since these nut-case preachers are getting on national 
> TV and saying they're asking *GOD* to kill Obama, it's apparently not a 
> problem for the secret service to look into.

  The solution to that problem is not getting rid of religion, but removing
their special protected status.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> True. On the other hand, folks have been down that slippery slope
>>> already, so it's not obvious it's really a fallacy in this case.
>>> Indeed, in the USA, people are galloping down that slope.  (A number
>>> of high-profile religious leaders are publicly praying for the death
>>> of the president right now, for example.)
>>
>>   I also think (although I have nothing to back my opinion up) that the
>> idea that getting rid of all religion will fix these problems is
>> incorrect.
> 
> I agree entirely.  What it *will* do is to reduce the legitimacy of
> people behaving badly.
> 

It may reduce the behavior, though. There is the nice psychological echo
chamber effect, of sitting around a large crowd of people who, you
think, all believe the exact same things you do. It is one of the
reasons those mega-churches scare me so much.

When you have a crowd of people who all know that every one else
believes points A, B, and C, any person in that crowd might make some
connection to justify point X. They think that A, B, and C lead to X, so
therefore everyone else in the crowd must believe X too. It gets worse
when it hits "everyone I know believes X, therefore everyone believes
X." And it hits that point because people have to generalize. There is a
term, which I can't remember right now, for describing how many people a
person can actually know. It isn't a small number like 5, but after that
a person has to start generalizing the people around them. Large crowd,
lots of generalization, becomes lots of justification for their belief.
"They all believe in X, therefore we are right."

Won't fix the problem entirely, since religion isn't the only place this
happens. Any time a large crowd gets together and talks about the facts
they all agree on, it is bound for trouble.



Now I need to stop rambling on, take my antibiotics and go back to
sleep. I did way too much generalizing to make people fit the behavior I
wanted to explain. And now I just made the post more meta than I
intended. And now I broke meta . . .

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