Should moderation be applied equally - even to theists?

Discussion in 'SF Open Government' started by phlogistician, May 18, 2011.

  1. sniffy Banned Banned

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    You'll find the claim to theism quite a common one actually. I mean ordinary, obviously.

    I don't like chocolate. I don't like gods or ghosts but I like the idea of them to a certain extent. What should I do with my overwrought imagination?
     
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  3. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    It's not that I'm not sympathetic to some of your complaints here, I just don't like the blanket generalizations.

    Consider this experience:

    I did my graduate work in philosophy, religious studies, and anthropology at the University of Toronto. In Canada, seminary schools are mixed in with the regular "secular" university.

    Against the persistent advice of my roommate (who was pursuing a Phd in early Christianity, from a secular and atheistic vantage), I took this course entitled "Philosophical presuppositions in interdisciplinary studies"--which was right up my alley. Turned out, the prof was this proselytizing fuck and I was the only non-Christian in class. And somehow, none of these people seemed capable of acknowledging a certain significant presupposition--and I'm sure you can figure out what that might be.

    From my perspective, the only acceptable grades for graduate school are A and A+, and I got a freakin' B+ in this course! Largely because I couldn't even make myself show up ninety percent of the time.

    Still, I've known plenty a bright theist, and my experiences overall tell me that are as many dumbass atheists as there are dumbass theists in this world (on a percentage basis, that is).
     
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  5. Lori_7 Go to church? I am the church! Registered Senior Member

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    my outfit?

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    it's my naughty nurse halloween costume. it was halloween, and it was cute.

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  7. Lori_7 Go to church? I am the church! Registered Senior Member

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    no phlog, a period of mental instability did not manifest itself into a belief in god. i had a belief in god reaffirmed for at least a decade prior to an experience that was a challenge for me to deal with mentally and emotionally.

    you BELIEVE that anyone who testifies to any spiritual experience or alien abduction is either insane or a liar, because you don't BELIEVE in spirits or in alien abduction. it's not right.
     
  8. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    I don't believe in them because there is no evidence for them. There are good laboratory experiments that can recreate the experiences however, both religious and alien abduction, so I'll stick with the mental aberration explanation, until there is evidence to the contrary.
     
  9. Lori_7 Go to church? I am the church! Registered Senior Member

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    there is evidence, you just don't accept it as evidence.

    let me get this straight...

    you don't accept the evidence because it didn't happen in a lab where it could be measured, tested, and observed. and yet somehow when the same experience can be recreated in a lab, that's evidence to the contrary?

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    if you know what's intentionally causing it inside the lab, then what is intentionally causing it outside the lab?

    do you BELIEVE that something has to take place in a lab before it's legitimate? in this case it seems the opposite is true. you BELIEVE that because it took place in a lab, it's not legitimate.

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    and if there was no such thing as a lab, would you go completely insane?
     
  10. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Poor You, or, the Curse of Equality

    What post are you even talking about?

    I'm looking at the red flag right now, and I just don't see how that post is about deficit spending.

    Same with all the atheists I've ever met. Does that fact inherently question their honesty?

    By what age is a person supposed to have accrued enough facts that no part of their outlook is inconsistent? That is, by what age is a human being supposed to attain perfection?

    You weren't innocently polling people, Phlog. It was a rhetorical construction. Lightgigantic took an allegedly dishonest approach, but then, have you ever met an honest theist? In other words, Lightgigantic is just being another dishonest theist. The sweeping statement is required in order for the rhetorical construction to have any point. I suppose James could have yellow-flagged you, then, for failing to contribute to the thread, as the point you made is, according to the necessity of these later claims you make, pointless.

    That's a long issue the staff has fought about. Once upon a time, blatant anti-theistic bigotry like you show was considered acceptable, but people bawled every time a theist shot back in matching style. And, for a while, we did penalize some theists for that. Apparently, the intelligent atheists needed to be especially protected.

    The problem with that appearance of double standard is that the double standard originally arose in favor of atheists, and anything we do to close the gap we opened with such decisions will look unfair to those who think their privilege is a right. Equality is a curse only to the privileged.
     
  11. John99 Banned Banned

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    Is this some kind of a joke?

    I get infractions for the funniest things. I guess i'l get banned for that.
     
  12. quinnsong Valued Senior Member

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  13. NMSquirrel OCD ADHD THC IMO UR12 Valued Senior Member

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    that doesn't mean they are dishonest.
    a person can be screwed up and be honest.

    that may be true but still doesn't qualify for dishonest.

    ---------
    um..first realize i only get on here for a couple (few) hours after work.. it is impossible for me to read your posts till i get on.

    i will accept atheist does not equal antitheist or extheist,
    but understand the term 'lack' encourages some theists to fill it.

    you attack everything theist..
    lori is not the only one you have targeted..
    you are a bigot when it comes to theist, you will not hear anything they have to say just because they are theists, you threaten and demean theist

    i wonder how many ppl have made a difference in your life who were theist. (never came up)

    and you have still not answered my question..Do you think I am dishonest?


    <"shut up or I will hurt you"..very mature..>
     
  14. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    phlogistician:

    Agnosticism is a separate position from theism and atheism.

    But besides that, you have to start by defining your "camps". Before you have defined what a theist is, you can't say whether you're one or not. And you can't define what a theist is without defining gods in some way.

    From memories of my studies of Venn diagrams in primary school, theism and atheism both live in a big box called something like "the environment". To know what's inside or outside the circle labelled "theism", you have to know where that circle fits inside the box. Or, alternatively, you have to know where the boundaries of the circle are. If you don't know that, you can't say whether something is inside or outside the set.

    You can belief but doubt your belief. You can disbelief but doubt your disbelief. Those facts alone tell you that doubt and uncertainty are separate concepts from belief and disbelief.

    What don't you believe in?
     
  15. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    quadraphonics:

    There's little point in addressing your last post in detail, since I'll only be repeating myself, as you did in your last post. Suffice it to say that I disagree with you that suspending judgment is equivalent to disbelieving.

    Tell that to phlogistician.

    Another definition of "disbelief" is "a rejection of belief".

    I'm not convinced, and you've made no formal argument concerning that.
     
  16. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    That isn't the post Artur linked to when he complained about his infraction.


    Of course not! If they have a gap, and I admit I do on the subject of God, they do not believe, BECAUSE OF THE GAPS.

    No it wasn't. It was a question aimed at gmilam. Please give up on your Clairvoyance act, 'cos you aren't succeeding at reading my mind.

    All LG does is question knowledge gathering methodologies, concludes they aren't perfect, and uses the 'god of gaps' argument. That's not really an honest approach, or at least, it doesn't appear honest to me.

    Except it was a reply to gmilam, not the thread. You do understand the protocol, yes? Quoting someone means you are replying to them, whereas a post on it's own relates to the OP?

    I asked you to desist from saying I was a bigot. Put up or shut up.

    This used to be SCIforums. Seems it's now 'patronise the anachronistic belief forums'

    Given the lack of scientific evidence for god(s), and this allegedly being a science forum, what is wrong with that?
     
  17. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    No Lori. Evidence, leads the people that follow it to similar conclusions. What you have is subjective experience.

    What's confusing about that? You had an episode that can be recreated in the Lab. You invoke God as the explanation for your experience, when a few electrodes and electromagnets can induce the effect in the lab. That rather isolates God from the cause and effect chain, unless you are saying the scientists summon God himself when they switch on their machine!

    I think you are guilty of loading that question with the word 'intentionally'. People suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy. That can be a cause of feeling God is watching you, or alien abductions. It's cause outside the lab, detailed here. The fact the exact same feelings can be recreated rules out divine intervention.

    No. I however think it's just not correct to start using supernatural explanations for events until they have been studied.

    What's confusing about that? They stick a volunteer in the machine, switch the machine on, and pretty much, they report the same experience. Like I asked earlier, ... do you think the machine is summoning God? Or just inducing a simple effect?

    Daft question really, because there are labs. I've spent lots of time in them. But of there weren't labs, I wouldn't suddenly become superstitious.
     
  18. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Yet you accused me of being an anti-theist. That I take offence to.

    There you go again. Asking people to justify extraordinary claims is not an attack! This is a science forum. Scientific standards apply.

    Lori has made some pretty outlandish claims, but no, you are correct, Lori isn't the only person I have 'targetted' (that's a rather loaded term, btw) I have argued with alien abductees, and UFOlogists, and people who believe in ghosts, and ancient civilisations, and that craters on other planets are scars from nuclear detonations ... but it seems you only have a problem when it comes to me arguing with theists. See, you'd be bullshitting me if you told me you held all claims made by all people with equal respect and consideration. We get all kinds of whacky claims made here. Please take off your blinkers are realise that 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence', and start supplying some.

    Call me a bigot again and you are getting reported.

    Not listen to what they have to say? Are you not up to speed with current events, where I started a thread to ask questions and listen to the replies? What have I got to do? Oh, and please support that I 'threaten' theists, give you a week, or you are getting reported.

    Same goes for you and atheists. It's a pointless question. There's a good chance you're wearing shoes made by an atheist in China, for example.

    I don't think you are very bright, so perhaps are unaware of the contradictions in the Christian Religion. But then we have never met, so my question 'have you ever met an honest theist' doesn't actually apply, does it?


    Oh dear. You are now putting made up shit in quotes as if I said it. That's just low, and now, yes, you ARE being dishonest. If you can't quote me, dissect what I have said, and explain your point honestly, just don't reply. When you have to pull underhanded shit like that, you do your fellow theists no good, and tarnish them by association, unless they dissociate themselves from you.
     
  19. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    That's a given. Why this interjection? Theists are people who have a positive belief in god(s). Atheists are everybody else. Agnosticism can be considered orthogonal to this point of view, given it deals with knowledge, and not belief, so I don't quite see why you slipped that in.

    Now this is getting painful. Are you being willingly obtuse? Are you implying I _may_ be a theist? That I believe in something I have no conception of? I have no conception of an infinite number of undescribed things,... do I believe in those too? You are making no sense here.

    I'm putting myself in the atheist camp though, so the above matters not.

    So what are you saying here,... that because I can't define the boundaries of the set 'theist' I may be one? Does that really sound like a cogent argument, when you read it back to yourself? Really?

    Not according to the dictionary which uses one to explain the other. You tried to assert there were three camps (pro, uncertain, negative), and disbelief is an active position. The dictionary disagrees with you, and also, your hypothesis does not map to theism/atheism as a bijection, it's an injection, we lose one term when uncertainty and positive disbelief collapse into the same point as atheism.

    What don't you believe in?[/QUOTE]

    An infinite number of undefined things.
     
  20. Lori_7 Go to church? I am the church! Registered Senior Member

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    this evidence that has been received by multitudes HAS led to similar conclusions. you are actually in the minority regarding this evidence and the conclusion. aren't you?



    what you're suggesting doesn't make sense and is contradictory to what you and other atheists argue all the time. again, if the effect is induced in a lab, then what is inducing the effect outside the lab? if there is no force outside the lab that is inducing the effect, then your experiment inside the lab is irrelevant.




    i didn't load the question, i reiterated what you're suggesting.

    do you care at all that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that i've suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy? actually, i had an mri of my brain while this intense experience was going on in 2005, and there was no evidence of any abnormality at all. does that matter to you? no, it doesn't. because no evidence or lack of evidence really comes into play here at all. it's ego driven belief...that's it.



    honey, i hate to break it to you, but EVERYTHING is supernatural until it's been studied.



    well no one stuck me in a machine. this wasn't some one off random event, but a meaningful interaction that produced meaningful and measurable results over the course of a lifetime.



    according to your own standards, everything would be superstition.
     
  21. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    That's just not true. The multitudes once believed in the Greek and Roman pantheons. The massed theists today are split amongst the three Abrahamic schisms, and please, don't try selling me they are the same one God,... Jews don't believe in Heaven, none agree on the status if Jesus. There is not accord on the part of theists at all. If you had the truth, you'd think others with a predisposition towards faith would see it, yet you don't all agree.

    Nothing is 'inducing' the effect outside the lab FFS! You have seen crash tests on cars yes? These are performed under laboratory conditions, BECAUSE THEY HAPPEN OUTSIDE THE LAB FOR OTHER REASONS! They are not caused or induced outside, rather they are induced IN the lab for purposes of study.

    Scientists disagree with you.

    That's just one of the possible causes,.... and I'd be interested to see the results of your MRI.

    No it's not. That's utter BS, honey.
     
  22. John99 Banned Banned

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    No...wow, mislearn something new every day.

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    :wallbang:
     
  23. John99 Banned Banned

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    No...wow, you talked to all "scientists"?
     

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