On 1/19/2014 5:20 PM, clipka wrote:
> Am 19.01.2014 23:08, schrieb andrel:
>
>> I don't think I could base a morality on an agnostic point of view, so I
>> stick to being an atheist if you don't mind.
>
> I actually find it pretty easy:
>
>
> * I can't tell for sure whether there is a supreme something or not, or
> what its nature is, and I suspect that it is impossible to known for
> sure. Therefore, whatever my personal current belief on this matter may
> be, it may be wrong.
>

> something, nor try to prove what its nature is, neither to yourself nor
> to anyone else.
>

> believe in a supreme something or not, or what they believe its nature
> to be.
>

> fear ponder alone or discuss in groups whether there is a supreme
> something or not, or what its nature is, within the limits imposed by

>

> fear follow any rules they derive from their personal and current belief
> re the supreme something's existence or nature, within the limits

>
>
> I think these few rules, derived from what I consider the essence of the
> agnostic point of view, make for a formidable set of fundamental ethics.
>

The problem, of course, is that the ones believing in supreme beings 
then tend to use that as justification for believing other vastly 
stupider things, and then imposing those things on other people. It this 
was avoidable, that would be one thing, but.. try being a woman, in a 
**huge**, and growing number, of US hospitals, who is in need to 
emergency services, to save her life, which the Catholic church doesn't 
like (i.e., anything that might threaten the life of an unborn child, 
even, stupidly, a non-viable one). If she is lucky, they ship her off to 
some place that will help, presuming there still is one, which the 
church hasn't bought out, and assuming she doesn't bleed to death, die 
of sepsis, or otherwise fail to make it to the other hospital in time.

There are consequences to other people's ideas, and, more to the point, 
if they are wrong about them. Sometimes, those consequences are not just 
that you have to listen to some fools talk about whether or not heaven 
has good Mexican food, from a nearby table. My "ethics", at least, imply 
that other people matter, and that magical thinking both a) doesn't tend 
to help people, b) often causes direct or indirect harm, c) its victim 
may be someone I know, and d), the inability to come to rational 
conclusions is rarely, if ever, exclusive to one single category of 
absurdities. Hence, the fact that a discussion about the 
existence/non-existence of a god **will not stop** before it gets into 
whether or not said god thinks its better to, say, infect millions of 
people with AIDS, rather than prevent a few pregnancies.

That it could be something as mild as whether or not, in complete 
contradiction to history, and reality, god "wants" baby boys to wear 
blue, and girls to wear pink. But.. if believing gets you to jump to a 
nonsense conclusion about the "truth" of that idea, what much worse 
things can they talk themselves into thinking are true, based on a game 
of, "What if this real god wants...."?

This is also why atheism devoid of critical thinking is, a bit of a 
problem itself. If you don't reach a logical conclusion via logic, there 
isn't going to be much to stop you from changing your mind, and reaching 
the dead opposite conclusion for just as illogical, poorly thought out, 
and invalid, reasons.

-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

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On 1/19/2014 12:52 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Jan 2014 18:09:14 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Yeah, got one of those calling everyone else fools and claiming that
>> they just don't "see the truth", and quoting Ray Comfort, and AIG, etc.,
>> while never coming up with anything other than Bible quotes to support
>> his claims of the infallibility of the Bible, and the truth of god, over
>> here:
>>
>> http://yearwithoutgod.com/2014/01/02/am-i-doing-it-wrong
>>
>> What started out as a fairly sane discussion about someone "trying out"
>> atheism, and his comment on people telling him that doing so was a bit..
>> odd, if nor absurd, has turned into nothing but a back and forth between
>> a few ex-believers, and a full blown creationist. Unfortunately, I
>> decided to get involved as well, and.. haven't quite gotten around to
>> getting so completely fed up as to nuke the email updates for the
>> discussion, and let the rest just go at him.
>
> I think this guy is very misunderstood - I've been following him since
> about day 2 of his experiment, but my initial read (born out by his later
> posts) is that he didn't decide on January 1 to flip a switch - that the
> possibility of the universe not having a "god" is something that has been
> weighing on him for years, and he's decided to take the next step and
> stop acting like a Christian, but to start acting in a way that's
> consistent with what he's thinking.
>
Yes, the article writer certainly seems to be in that particular 
category. The guy I am talking about above is one of the clowns in the 
comment thread. But, there has definitely been a few people coming 
along, and, in connection with the original article, trying to tell some 
of the rest of us off for recommending books, as though, in fact, he 
really is someone who is just doing it as a lark, and we are trying to 
"convert him", or something.

My own recommendation was one a read recently about an ex-evangelicals 
similar journey from desperately trying to find sense, and some sort of 
real morality and purpose, in the whole "Bible Thumper" circuit, to 
finally concluding that it was all hollow, pointless, and a waste of time.

> He's been very generous, both in terms of his openness about his process
> and thinking, and also with the organizations he contracted to who
> decided that his "experiment," while interesting, was incompatible with
> teaching the courses he was teaching.  He's been generous because those
> organizations and employers are "faith-based," so he doesn't bear them
> ill will for discriminating against him - but I'm sure that experience
> has registered as perhaps a sample of the sort of discrimination that
> "out" atheists experience.
>
Yes, the author of the book I mention was fairly generous with most of 
the people he fell out with, over time, as well. They are stuck in a way 
of thinking that just can't allow for someone who doesn't fit, but for 
the most part don't intend any sort of malice.

I am not sure I could be quite so generous, but then, I am coming at it 
from the other direction, and whether or not you cause harm has very 
little to do, quite often, with whether or not it was "intended", and.. 
there is so much damage done, in the name of religion being "right", and 
other ideas being "wrong", that it really does, sometimes, matter far 
more that they *are* wrong, than whether or not they are nice about 
being so, nor is it so easy to forgive (since the later, to some extent, 
implies also leaving them to their folly, along with the consequence to 
bystanders).

> But kudos to the family and friends he has who are supporting him as
> well.  In that respect, he's had it easier than many.
>
Definitely.

> Jim
>


-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

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On 1/19/2014 11:12 AM, clipka wrote:
> Am 19.01.2014 18:09, schrieb Patrick Elliott:
>
>> I don't. See, the problem is, if you define god as some "ineffable
>> something, we can't describe.", then you are correct, and that is
>> invariably the "fallback" position of believers (since they can always,
>> later, bait and switch back to the one they really do talk about all the
>> time). However, any "defined" version, like.. the most common form of
>> the Christian version, which performs miracles, reacts to prayers, etc.,
>> and thus has a tangible impact, of some kind, has "testable" attributes.
>
> No, it doesn't - because the Bible /explicitly/ denies this testability,
> saying we can't / shall not put God to the test. (And then there's
> plenty of scripture that can be interpreted to implicitly affirm this.)
>
Well, no, in point of fact, only when it was "convenient" for.. 
presumably the latest bunch of priests, dealing with some uppity 
parishioners, who wanted evidence, did it say that. There was some bit, 
I don't remember which part, where the guy did everything short of 
asking god to personal come down and buff his shoes, and god, quite 
happily, did them all, as "proof" that he really was god. Typically, 
believers pick the silly bit later, which says you shouldn't go around 
testing him, and gloss over the other earlier bit, where he was 
perfectly fine with it.

-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

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On 1/19/2014 3:16 PM, Warp wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> However, any "defined" version, like.. the most common form of
>> the Christian version, which performs miracles, reacts to prayers, etc.,
>> and thus has a tangible impact, of some kind, has "testable" attributes.
>
> The problem with those "tests" is that they are based on no less than
> two logical fallacies. Those tests are fallacious because they are of
> the form:
>
> 1) If God exists, he answers to prayers and performs miracles.
> 2) Prayers get answered and miracles happen.
> 3) Therefore God exists.
>
> This is a textbook example of "affirming the consequent." The obvious
> objection to the logic is that even if premise 2 were true, it could
> have a source other than God. How does one know that the prayer answers
> and miracles are not coming from something else than a god? Without
> further evidence it's not possible to say.
>
> The other logical fallacy here is, of course, that the first premise
> is completely unjustified. Even if a god exists, we can't know if he
> answers prayers or performs miracles. This has not been demonstrated.
>
> Neither of the premises can be shown as being true, and even the
> conclusion is a logical fallacy. These "tests" fail miserably.
>
And not just because, when they conduct them the answer seems to be, "We 
got his answering machine, or something, so he didn't answer them."

-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

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On Sun, 19 Jan 2014 20:11:02 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> The guy I am talking about above is one of the clowns in the comment
> thread.

Oh, yeah, there's a lot of asshattery in the comments - which is why I've 
not read them.  The discussions are generally going to be pretty 
predictable, anyways.  There will be those who support him, those who 
have ideas and suggestions for changes to his approach, and those who are 
going to tell him he's going to hell for even considering the idea that 
there is no God.

I've got enough going on in my life without reading over those same 
arguments again. :)

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 01:20:06 +0100, clipka wrote:

> => §1.4: Allow yourself and anyone else to freely and without shame or
> fear follow any rules they derive from their personal and current belief
> re the supreme something's existence or nature, within the limits
> imposed by §1.1 to §1.4 (sic!).

You had me up to this point, and only not here in a nuanced way.

I'm happy to let anyone follow any rules they derive from their personal 
and current belief, so long as they don't try to impose those on others 
ability to do the same - or if by doing so they put people in harm's way.

I'm happy, for example, to let devout Jehovah's Witnesses refuse a blood 
transfusion for themselves.  I'm not happy to let them refuse one for 
their child, because that is endangering the life of their child.

One might also say, though, that if they have a child, then they are 
endangering the child by refusing one for themselves as well.  That's a 
slightly thornier issue that involves making a decision by balancing a 
personal freedom against a personal responsibility.

And also:  Texas Board of Education.  If the individuals want to cripple 
their own childrens' understanding of science and handicap them in the 
real world, that's less a decision I feel I should get involved in.  When 
they use their influence to cram religious dogma into the public schools 
in ways that affect the entire country - no, they're not permitted to do 
that.

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 2014-01-19 04:10, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> And another thing. Every time somebody stands up and defends evolution,
> they start receiving death threats. When was the last time a good honest
> Christian received death threats from the scientists for daring to teach
> Genesis?

This is something I see crop up in a few places, and it makes me wonder: 
  does this argument that the most-victimised party is inherently more 
valid thing have a proper name?  It's a very specific subset of appeal 
to pity, I think.  'X group hasn't been oppressed as much as Y group, 
/therefore/ their position is false (or at least irrelevant).'

--
T. Cook
http://empyrean.sjcook.com

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> "why the hell do 50% of the population ACTUALLY BELIEVE something which
> is obviously ridiculous?"

Religion.

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> I'm happy, for example, to let devout Jehovah's Witnesses refuse a blood 
> transfusion for themselves.

I'm not fully agreeing with that sentiment because I think it's sad
when someone puts themselves in danger because of false beliefs.

If you see someone going to make suicide, you generally try to talk
them out of it, to help them. You don't just watch by without doing
nothing and thinking "well, it's their personal choice".

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 09:01:15 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> I'm happy, for example, to let devout Jehovah's Witnesses refuse a
>> blood transfusion for themselves.
> 
> I'm not fully agreeing with that sentiment because I think it's sad when
> someone puts themselves in danger because of false beliefs.
> 
> If you see someone going to make suicide, you generally try to talk them
> out of it, to help them. You don't just watch by without doing nothing
> and thinking "well, it's their personal choice".

That's a fair point.

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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