On 25-4-2011 18:09, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:03:11 +0200, andrel wrote:
>
>>> Rational - as in scientifically backed evidence, you'd reject?
>>
>> yes
>>
>>> I still find that quite unusual.
>>
>> Why? I am 99% sure you would do the same.
>
> Why do you say that?

Because that is what humans do. (I am just guessing you are a human, no 
real evidence for that)

>>> I can see that, but for my view, I see 'religious atheism' as being
>>> self- contradictory, because for me atheism has to do with rationality,
>>> and rationality is more or less the opposite of religion.
>>>
>>> So I find your position quite interesting, and am interested in hearing
>>> more. :)
>>
>> Nothing new that I have not said in the past. - I don't see how I can
>> base any ethics/morality on the existence of a God.
>
> OK, I agree with that - because when it comes to morality or ethics, the
> religions I've read about are pretty thin on both.

It is in any case a problem with the Jewish God and the two other main 
religions that worship the same God. There are lots of rules but not 
much of metarules so you can derive the rules yourself. You are not 
allowed to eat pigs, but why? Thou shalt not kill. Ok, but is that in 
general or only humans? What is a human anyway? Is a Jew a human? Is a 
Christian not more than a dog? These may seem silly questions, but in 
any war the religious men often start by excluding the enemy from the 
human race. When becomes an embryo a human? Is there a point when 
Altzheimer's disease patients loose all humanity?
Or (just to show I am Dutch) what is the problem with sex? Why is 
prostitution wrong? Why are hard drugs wrong and if they are why are 
they consuming wine as part of a ritual?
The major problem with a single Jewish type God is that you can not know 
what the rules are. Apparently he has given some rules to some people, 
but do you believe these people when they say so? These rules are 
sometime contradictory, so at least one of them was lying, but which? 
There is no way any man can know.

Buddhism is possibly a better option, but I do not know enough about it 
to be sure.

Anyway a long time ago I found my own way to figure out what to do and 
what not. Being an atheist meant that I had to do most of the work 
myself. Af first I thought that if it didn't work out I could always 
fall back on an imaginary God, then I realized that I couldn't for among 
others the reason mentioned above. That is why if there would turn out 
to be a God after all, I have a severe philosophical problem. 
Essentially an existential one.

>> Admitting to the
>> existence of one or more of these things would result in a few months of
>> work in rewiring my brain to undo all traces of 4 decades of thinking.
>> That is too much to ask. - Almost everything in my working live as a
>> scientist has been implicitly based on the notion that all life has a
>> common origin. (I wonder if most creationist realise that when they
>> visit a hospital they enter into a world that was impossible without
>> Darwin). Again I will resist any concept that invalidates everything I
>> have done. - when I look at a tree I can see how it is related to me.
>> (And also of course the obvious things that don't look like me). I don't
>> want to give up that feeling for the idea that it is just an object that
>> I can treat any way I like.
>>
>> I think that many atheists have similar reasons for not believing in
>> some God even presented with 'convincing' evidence. Luckily we don't
>> have to fear that that moment will ever come. This in contrast to
>> creationists that are confronted with being wrong everyday. (and again
>> they will think something similar).
>
> So it has to do more with ethics and morality, then?

Not only, it also has to do with the fact that the world makes sense 
without a God, whereas I have yet to see a theistic religion with a 
coherent world view that is not contradicted by simple facts.

>>> Well, I wouldn't believe it either, there have been plenty of crackpots
>>> who have claimed to be the 'second coming' (for example).  That doesn't
>>> constitute proof of any kind.
>>
>> I was more thinking about a non-human being that was able to do things
>> that no human can. e.g. generate and direct lightning towards an
>> infidel, change a stick into a snake, or pull a live rabbit out of an
>> empty hat.
>
> Well, yes - things that could be an illusion or trick are different.
> Such a being would have to show how the trick was done.

You mean, that there was no trick involved?

>>>>>>> That undermines not only teaching real science, but the ability for
>>>>>>> students to think about problems in a rational way.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Are Americans worse programmers than Japanese?
>>>>>
>>>>> I have no data to support one being better than the other.  Do you?
>>>>
>>>> When Japan became industrialized a couple of decades ago, they started
>>>> with copying things and then imported foreigners that were in thinking
>>>> not bound to the traditional ways, i.e. creative and daring. Only then
>>>> were they able to design new things. Or at least that was the
>>>> chauvinist western view a couple of years ago.
>>>>
>>>> The thing to test here is if Japanese programmers are improving and
>>>> native US ones getting worse. Perhaps comparing them to countries
>>>> whose inhabitants do not accept any authority (like the Netherlands ;)
>>>> )
>>>
>>> I'm not seeing how this comes back to my comment above about the
>>> ability for students to think about problems in a rational way....
>>
>> I had chosen deliberately a country where students for another reason
>> were supposedly not trained in critical thinking.
>
> I hadn't heard that about the Japanese before, that's why I'm not getting
> the reference.  Can you cite something that I can read to catch up on
> that idea in Japanese culture?

Actually, no. It is something I heard so often and for such a long time, 
that I don't know a particular source. Basically the concept is that 
Japanese are so drilled in obeying the more powerful that they become 
incapable of original though. Because they would contradict a known 
authority. Basically the same concept as used for the middle ages in 
Europe (with the Europeans and the Muslims as the two sources that broke 
the chain). In both cases I am not sure how much it really explains.


-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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