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On 04/08/2014 17:27, Warp wrote:
> Stephen <mca### [at] aol com> wrote:
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28616115
>
> "She said many were worried about being ostracised or were even scared
> of violence if they revealed they did not believe in God."
>
> Ah, the peaceful, tolerant, loving American Christians...
>
We must remember that the Founding Fathers did not leave Europe fleeing
religious intolerance. But to practice it.
Then the south had a lot of Scottish protestants settling it and a more
intolerant lot you would not meet in a month of Sundays.
> I think they have misunderstood what "turn the other cheek" means.
> It doesn't mean "hit the unbeliever in the cheek, then turn their
> other cheek and hit it as well".
>
That does seem to be the favoured interpretation. Run a close second by:
Do unto others what the would do unto you. But first.
--
Regards
Stephen
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On 03/08/2014 23:30, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> >I don't think that you can equate intelligence with "not believing".
>> >Believing has to do with Faith. And Faith is not something you can
>> >instil or teach. It is not logical you either have it or you don't and I
>> >for one don't.
> I don't think it's an equation of belief and intelligence - but belief
> implies a willingness (or even a desire) to not think of something
> rationally and to not examine it too closely.
>
There is a scale of belief IMO.
A difference in intensity between "I believe the weather will clear
up.", I believe that it it daylight, just now." and "I believe in God
the Father, God the..."
I would call the latter usage Faith.
> That's not a trait I associate with people who are intelligent.
From what I can gather. Faith is something that can and does fly in the
face of logic.
You can no more stop some one from throwing salt over their shoulder to
bring luck. Than you can make someone believe there is a god by telling
them. (Unless you are holding a sword.)
--
Regards
Stephen
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On 8/4/2014 10:11 AM, Stephen wrote:
>> That's not a trait I associate with people who are intelligent.
>
> From what I can gather. Faith is something that can and does fly in the
> face of logic.
>
Just had a post I replied to on a blog with the usual "Science and
religion are compatible, just look at all the religious people who
did/do good science!" I gave an example of one physicist going so far
off the rails it was flat nuts, because he "believed" in telepathy and
psychic powers, and decided to test if the incidental flashes of light,
produced by the body's own chemical reactions in cells, would provide a,
"means to explain how some people could detect other people's thoughts."
My argument on the subject is, simply, "Sure, they can be compatible,
right up until the person with that rift in their perceptions stops
doing science, and starts doing something else entirely." That, in a nut
shell, its like enjoying scifi flicks, involving aliens, while not
believing in UFOs, vs. someone that hates scifi shows, because they
"depict aliens wrong", based on their belief in UFOs. The one is
"compatible", the other.. not so much.
And, more to the point, maybe "compatible" isn't the word they need to
be using to describe the phenomena...
--
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 Mon, 04 Aug 2014 15:12:50 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> "Science and
> religion are compatible, just look at all the religious people who
> did/do good science!"
It only works if the person doing the science doesn't let their religious
beliefs colour their results, or when they get results that conflict with
their religious beliefs don't immediately say "well, that can't be right,
because $DEITY!"
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 4-8-2014 18:55, Stephen wrote:
> We must remember that the Founding Fathers did not leave Europe fleeing
> religious intolerance. But to practice it.
> Then the south had a lot of Scottish protestants settling it and a more
> intolerant lot you would not meet in a month of Sundays.
Ah, you confirm indeed to me what I have been musing about following
this thread.
Thomas
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Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> I gave an example of one physicist going so far
> off the rails it was flat nuts, because he "believed" in telepathy and
> psychic powers, and decided to test if the incidental flashes of light,
> produced by the body's own chemical reactions in cells, would provide a,
> "means to explain how some people could detect other people's thoughts."
Crazy experiments are ok... as long as you follow good scientific
procedures to test them!
It's a common problem with woo "science" that the experiments they
perform are extremely faulty. They fail to perform proper double
blind testing, they fail to have controls, they often use sample
sizes that are statistically too small, and they often engage in
confirmation and publication bias.
Publication bias is something that very easily misleads, and is
easily missed by the public.
It works like this: Perform many trials (preferably with small sample
sizes to maximize variation). Even if there is no correlation between
your hypothesis and the (alleged) phenomenon you are testing, just by
statistical probability a few of the trials will show a positive
correlation between them (while likewise a few will show a negative
correlation, and the rest will show no statistically significant
correlation). Discard all the trials except the ones that showed a
positive correlation, and publish those.
For example homeopaths do this all the time.
--
- Warp
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On 05/08/2014 15:55, Warp wrote:
> It works like this: Perform many trials (preferably with small sample
[Snip]
>
> For example homeopaths do this all the time.
If you have not read Ben Goldacre you might find his views interesting.
He is a real medical doctor who goes sub-orbital on that subject. :-D
http://www.badscience.net/
--
Regards
Stephen
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On 8/5/2014 7:55 AM, Warp wrote:
> It's a common problem with woo "science" that the experiments they
> perform are extremely faulty. They fail to perform proper double
> blind testing, they fail to have controls, they often use sample
> sizes that are statistically too small, and they often engage in
> confirmation and publication bias.
>
> Publication bias is something that very easily misleads, and is
> easily missed by the public.
>
Lets me honest here - publication bias means a) nearly everything ends
up behind a pay wall, or in a pop-sci mag, where they may not even get
the facts right, when they have real facts, and b) negative results, as
in, "We didn't find anything.", are ***never*** published where they can
be easily found, never mind where the public will see them. So, yeah,
bias... Kind of like how reading an old book on, "things to see, and
have fun at, in country X.", is a tad "biased" against the small war
that just broke out there, and the people shooting tourists who show up
to look at the attraction that was just blown up by rebels...
Its such a minor "bias".
And, its only getting worse as the publishers are pushing harder and
harder to make more money, by putting *everything* behind a pay wall,
permanently, instead of allowing it to be release via things like Pubmed.
--
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 05/08/2014 08:34, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> On 4-8-2014 18:55, Stephen wrote:
>> We must remember that the Founding Fathers did not leave Europe fleeing
>> religious intolerance. But to practice it.
>> Then the south had a lot of Scottish protestants settling it and a more
>> intolerant lot you would not meet in a month of Sundays.
>
> Ah, you confirm indeed to me what I have been musing about following
> this thread.
>
Which part was confirmed? The bit where I got my Pilgrims confounded
with my Foundling?
Even the Netherlands was not liberal enough for them.
--
Regards
Stephen
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On 6-8-2014 21:57, Stephen wrote:
> On 05/08/2014 08:34, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>> On 4-8-2014 18:55, Stephen wrote:
>>> We must remember that the Founding Fathers did not leave Europe fleeing
>>> religious intolerance. But to practice it.
>>> Then the south had a lot of Scottish protestants settling it and a more
>>> intolerant lot you would not meet in a month of Sundays.
>>
>> Ah, you confirm indeed to me what I have been musing about following
>> this thread.
>>
>
> Which part was confirmed? The bit where I got my Pilgrims confounded
> with my Foundling?
The Founding Fathers /and/ the Scottish Protestants. Besides, I guess
that the massive arrivals of Irish and Italian Catholics in the 19th
century again exacerbated the intolerance - on both sides probably. The
result is a weird societal concoction.
> Even the Netherlands was not liberal enough for them.
Indeed. And maybe they felt they were in the devil's own country, who knows.
We still have our own little bible belt though.
Thomas
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