What Do People Know About What They Pretend to Discuss?

Tiassa, this is a bit off topic but...how would you describe your writing style? Wordy, unique, troubled?
Is there a particular reason (if you care to address this) that you are here, posting wordy footnoted posts for 17 years?

That takes a lot of energy to write (and to read) and you must have a reason or message that you are interested in getting out.

Maybe you have spoken on this before but there is no way for me to search for such a thing.

 

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I have been through that "crossroads of faith". It didn't affect my moral compass as far as I can tell. The question of "does god exist" was never a moral issue for me. It was strictly a question of objective reality.

 

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i continue to learn that what i dont know is an ever expanding exponential quantity(queue debate on 'infinity' lol)
This subject i just found interest in

https://www.livescience.com/39790-cambrian-explosion-had-multiple-causes.html

aside from any panspermia conflations, the potential scientific & medical leap forward from understanding this seems mind boggling.

 

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Might be your own bile.

I promise, I'm not surprised.

So ...

• "As we know the bible says '4 corners of the world'." (#3558410/1↗)

→ [And, as we all know, the Bible was originally written in English.]​

• "Oh have we got a *** here, do you think the translators made up 4 corners of the world because they didn't understand balloon?" (#3558430/7↗)

→ [What translators?]​

• "Could be anyone." (#3558437/9↗)​

... what was it you wanted me to see in your word game?

▸ Still, though, let us take a moment to consider your thread: You require a latter-day, political definition of a seventeenth-century English-language translation of ... what? A first-century Greek word rendering a Hebrew phrase in circulation at least in the late eighth century BCE? When we look back to the available record from that period, we should remember that the general notion of four corners had been inherited into the Christian experience; that seventeenth-century English Christians chose the phrase is unsurprising. Indeed, between Irenaeus on the four Gospels (Adversus Haereses, III.11.8, ca. 180 CE), the Revelation (ca. 96 CE), Isaiah (8th-6th c. BCE), which corresponds to the emergence of Rosh Hashanah, which in turn transforms "Assyria" and "Egypt", per Isa. 27.13, to what comes to us these centuries later as the four corners of the earth, nobody else had any real problem understanding the phrase until, it seems, some atheists a little over forty years ago, or some such; the apologism that climbed its way to the top of the search result isn't really updated compared to the original publication from which it was derived.

There are better approaches to the relationship between γωνία [gōnia] and כָּנָף [kanaph] than your word game requires.​

I mean, really? That is the part that has you licking lemons?

Okay, then.

• • •​

It's not so much that I disagree with you. I don't, but, rather, wonder at the application.

Teach a chimp sign language, and it will be able to tell you more about fairness and morality works than the most part of atheistic discourse around Sciforums. And it's one thing to blame religious people, as some do, but that only begs the question of why anyone would let the people they believe are wrong have such influence.

Again, it's not that I disagree with your point. I don't; it's just that the application isn't particularly clear.

If I ask which one, it's only to make a certain point. To wit, just to guess, I will predict you're referring to the Golden Rule that says, "Do unto others". To the other, a story about Rabbi Hillel tells that one day he was eating lunch on a hillside with students when one asked, "Teacher, can you recite the whole of the Torah while standing on one foot?" It is easy enough to wonder if this was some manner of juvenile joke, yet Hillel simply rose, fixed the student in his gaze, lifted his right foot off the ground, and said, "That which is abhorrent to you, do not do unto others. That is the whole of the Torah. Now go and learn."

It actually makes a huge difference when translated to action. And, as a random piece of trivia, I can't tell you what Desmond Dekker meant in particular, but he does clearly advise children to, "Go to school, and learn the Golden Rules"; to the other, in another song° he invokes the affirmative version, "Do unto others as they would to to you."

And, yes, again, it's not that I would disagree with you; it's a fascinating issue, but your application in the particular discussion is a little mysterious.

One apparent problem, as we might consider it, is that our common humanity mitigates the indictment against religious people. Someone mentioned evolutionary adaptation, yet that's the thing; the faculties leading to religious behavior haven't selected out, and we apparently haven't found such use for them, yet, as to replace religion with a more ... ¿useful? function; a curious question related to notions of empathy, fairness, Golden Rule, and primates would be the bit with washing fruit, and whether or not there is a threshold for demonstrative manifestation of abstraction insofar as it's harder to show explicitly imitable "morality", "empathy", "fairness", &c.; also, it turns out there's a Lamarckian aspect in defensive or self-preserving adaptation among mammals that isn't entirely clear, yet, but we can sure as hell torture a male mouse so badly its future offspring will be born explicitly afraid of stimulus the he was operantly conditioned to recognize. By the time we get around to laughing at evolutionary psychology for being famous for all the wrong reasons, it's one thing to badmouth religion, but a lot harder to keep banging on the religious.

Maybe that seems like a heavy anvil to drop, except it's already on the dock like a big cleat, and a whole bunch of boats are lashed to it. Part of this thread reflects on behavior roughly described as baiting people believed to be less capable for the purpose of seeking personal satisfaction.

Toward which, yeah, sure, that there are decent theists and decent atheists, and also scumbags on both fronts, such that religious belief seems to have little to do with it, is a fine point; I'm not going to disagree; it just doesn't seem to say much about the question of this range of behaviors, so the application of the point is uncertain.

Still, were they not so presupposing, they might have noticed the damn thing is an anvil and not bolted to anything. So to speak.

It's also worth mentioning, in that context, that, yes, a similar apparent conundrum arises from studying the historical record. It does, in fact, help us learn how to deal with problematic religious behavior, but it also mitigates the indictment against religious individuals.

I describe these outcomes as a problem or conundrum because that is how they appear to affect the atheistic argument and behavior I'm addressing.

On that point, simply look back to the beginning of the thread and note the determined judgment and delcared ignorance in some of the posts, which persist over a year later.

Inasmuch as we might consider scum and decency, discouraging the decency is not an achievement anyone should be proud of.
____________________

Notes:

° The collection, Israelites: Anthology 1963 - 1999, opens brilliantly, with "Honour Your Mother and Father"↱, "Parents"↱, and "Labour for Learning"↱, which are all values songs, and then the fourth track hits; "Jeserene"↱ is classic frat-rock. The effect is hilarious. Well, says me.

 

"empathy" is not a rule

 

Does not work when you tell a sadistic / masochist to follow the rule

Photos of the bruses on request

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But very easy when they are in your face with it all the time

As many have mentioned atheists don't go around banging on doors telling the religious to un-believe

Laws - general consensus stuff should not have any religious, political or financial bias

But they do (worst are the financial ones)

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I'm sure you have a point in there somewhere - other than that you like to read your own words. But I am having a hard time parsing it.

If you have a point you are trying to make (and I am sure you do) you might try being a little more concise.

 

In my opinion objective reality clearly shows that God does not exist.

Lets face it. This world is way too shitty (and cruel) in order for a God who cares about people to really be there.

This universe would have been a much better place for people if there was such a super-powered being that truly cares about us and would do everything for us but all the evidence I can see to me shows a cruel and harsh reality: there is no super-powered being that gives a damn about us. In other words, there is no God.

 

The net from this is that Dawkins - for example - is simply correct: Theistic religious people in general are decent human beings to the extent they are willing to abjure their God and their religion.
Now this leaves open the possibility that having a theistic religion on hand in the first place, that one can abjure, is beneficial and significant and so forth in establishing decency.
But that is not an argument that requires sophisticated theology, or any deep historical understanding of theological discussion and arcane debate.

 

Thanks.

I'm missing James R, thank God for him.

James, you've been bullied for over 15 years by lectures like this.

 

If you have a point you are pretending to make, you might simply try.

I really don't know what you're on about, but it might have been my mistake to take you seriously. Sorry 'bout that.

 

To borrow a line from Pink Floyd: "Just the basic facts: Can you show me where it hurts?"

I passed this detail over, earlier, for its part in trying to pretend confusion where there really ought not be any, but it also turns out, as this discussion goes on with others, to have some illustrative use. It's just not the kind of utility you appreciate.

But as you're aware, the first time I pointed to this thread in the most recent backroom discussion—there might be earlier discussion of it—I did explicitly refer to the point that some people think they don't need to know much about what they criticize; and then I explicitly pointed to two other threads, noting the self-aggrandizement of the latter, and then explicitly used a line about the behavior of hollering for someone to come pick a fight, in a discussion including consideration of anti-identification and even the application of arguments that are well enough in and of themselves but not necessarily relevant to a given subject at hand.

Thus: Of course you came here and wrote two↑ posts↑ worth of anti-identification. What about that ridiculous behavior isn't predictable? You've done these bits for years. To be clear: "It seemed like you wanted a reply to this thread from me," you say, "so I posted one." And what about you missing the point entirely is news? It's pretty much a staple method when you're trying to protect poor behavior without openly defending it.

So, just to be clear for you, it doesn't bother me at all that you mentioned a Moderators' discussion; rather, what I don't understand is why you would go out of your way to miss the point like that.

Here, I'll give you an example:

Here is what you quoted in #111↑:

▸ So, yeah, I'm curious: Atheists at Sciforums have, traditionally, believed themselves smarter than religious people.​

And your reply:

• People at sciforums traditionally believe themselves to be smarter than average, on average. The quality of religious debate we tend to get from occasional theistic visitors is often low. In part this is because, for some reason, we tend to attract American Christian fundamentalists who come here to pick a fight, or else merely to preach or proselytise.​

Notice how you turn the point to an anti-identification about theistic visitors.

What you snipped the quote from↑:

▸ So, yeah, I'm curious: Atheists at Sciforums have, traditionally, believed themselves smarter than religious people. And while the survey data might say this or that about college degrees and income, I'm curious what you actually know, because for years it's seemed like pretty much nothing. Is it ignorance, sloth, maybe some arcane sense of strategy? Because it really is striking how little knowledge is actually shown in these critiques; they're more like parlor games and wordplay.

(Boldface accent added)​

As you say in #131↑, you responded explicitly to the point you quoted. You also ducked the purpose of that point, which is a contrast in order to ask why the strange presentation.

Of course you answered with anti-identification in #111-112. And of course you continued with anti-identification in #122. And #131: "You were whining about atheists being smart-arses when it come to religion. I noted that it is not unusual to find that atheists are better acquainted with the relevant texts than the theists are."

We should be clear: I'm addressing the point of ignorant smartassery that behaves like two-bit, half-wit, supremacist dullardry. Still, as you make clear about your explicit answer, you noted an anti-identification.

The bait and wait—"More discussion and elaboration on similar themes could be had, of course, if you want to take the conversation in that direction"—is also pretty straightforward: In what direction? It doesn't seem to matter inasmuch as everything keeps rushing back to anti-identification. We Americans still use the phrase, "one-trick pony". It actually cracks me up to see an etymology pointing to 1980; I would have guessed the phrase as old as show horses.

In any case, you really do need a new trick. It's not quite that you're one-trick, but anti-identification and magically missing the point really don't work; over the course of years, it makes its own point.

It's not a question of always taking the high road; indeed, that you can't figure that part out seems dubious. More importantly, there remains a question whether some are even capable of highroading. Let us consider the possibility that the reason one meets religious discourse in trenches of attrition is an inability to establish a better field. Let us also consider the possibility that one is capable, but simply unwilling to establish a better discourse. Inability, or even noncompetency, might diminish culpability, but it does not mean any given behavior in question is any less problematic. Disruption is disruption. Antisocial is antisocial.

And highroading, as you are aware from our shared years trying to either moderate this site or not, used to be one of the reasons for permitting open bigotry and supremacy, and fallacy therein, as some manner of acceptable rational discourse. It was, after all, more your standard than mine. So, also, as you might recall, was letting them make fools of themselves. I get it, James, but, "Demanding that atheists always take the high road", is a straw man.

It's kind of like the bit about it being about you. Sure, it is easy enough to see why one would be disdainful of the assessment, and nobody says you have to like my reasons. But why is it about you? Because it's what you said. I mean, Duh. To the one, if you're offended by the assessment could you please quit validating it? To the other, think about if the assessment wasn't one you disdained. Had you answered about reading this, here, and maybe that, there, and, oh, also the other, on that shelf, I might have observed that it sounds like you have been reading up on the atheistic critique of religion. And while that can be good or bad, depending on what one does with that critique, would you really take time out to ask, "Why is this all about me, all of a sudden?" Okay, then.

What you told me repeatedly, was, essentially, because theists. And certainly, I can take that at face value: You're in these rhetorical trenches, and behave the way you do, because theists. Still, why? Is this how you want to be? Or can you not find a better method than reinforcing the faith of people you criticize for having faith? And that is the thing: What do you or anyone else who behaves this way really think you're accomplishing? Seriously, picking fights with people you think you can take in a fight only reinforces, in their outlooks, that you're out to get them for the cheap satisfaction, which in turn only reinforces their own sense of their rightness. After all this time, how can you fail to figure that out? If you really need a theist to tee up for you, go fish, instead; there are plenty of suckers for the whacking, if that's what you're into. Asking people to set you up, though, is at least a little over the top.

You did mention a more collective context, and, okay, what do fallacious word games get anyone? Again, that reinforces the faith of the faithful.

It's not actually that big a mystery. You did note the "situation here of atheists feeling very comfortable here with speaking out on religious matters". Also, as Seattle↑ put it, "most 'atheists' here aren't really that interested in the subject". That is to say, they aren't really interested in "religion"↑. I concur. Nor does your point disagree with his; I said last week↑, "It's not actually a discussion of 'religion'; it's a political↗ discussion about religion"; and as Seattle noted over the weekend, "Sometimes there might be a current political topic going on ...." Even you acknowledge the context by which the argument is "inherently a political one".

Uninformed political arguments don't help anyone.

To wit:

Well, you know me ... or, would, if you ever actually paid attention; it is no secret I prefer and advocate for something better than supremacism. Honestly, what is the point of such a ridiculous question?

 

I agree with Tiassa on this point and am amazed that you are this blind. Since I have come back I have tried to make you aware of the nonsense many atheists use to derail a thread or to personally attack a theist because they have no knowledge of the matter a theist is debating, hence my answer in this thread.

I have no idea why you don't pickup on this fact, saying that you often join in with your buddies, for personal reasons or simply because you are bored? Maybe over the years you have got sick of theists, there has been 100s all singing from the same song sheet, just like the atheists.

I'm not a theist(I don't associate myself with labels reserved for religious reasons), but I don't like to see bullying, and that is exactly what is taking place. I must say mostly everyone on all sides have chilled and it's a better place for it. You don't need to look for the latest atheist comments that add nothing to a debate rather it is said to ridicule an idea/person or both. If it goes on and on in a thread then that thread turns into a mess, just because of a few atheists. I've never seen a theist act this way for years. At the end of the day this is a religion sub-forum yet when religious threads are started, or shortly after a thread is started this happens:

Theist: I believe God had a Son.
Atheist: The bible is a myth, Jesus didn't exist.

What is the point with replies like this? There are separate threads discussing if Jesus existed, is it possible for God to have a Son etc... but no. They want to stop a debate before it started because of their disdain for the idea that a God could exist, and they have the same amount of evidence a theist has, yet you agree with them, let the thread go to trash and move on to the next pointless thread. Like I say, things have improved, but checkout a couple of new threads and you'll see the same behaviour.

It would be nice if you don't respond with a post to try and tarnish my character, because I'm sick of that.

Time to open your eyes and smell the coffee, you are wrong because you are biased so I hope this constructive criticism is taken on board and we can eliminate childish behaviour and get on with debating some interesting thoughts/opinions etc.

 

The one is debatable on a science forum.
The other is not, except as a question of personal circumstance and accuracy - any discussion here would revolve around a "personal attack".

I have. Right here, and quite frequently.
And of course dominating my local government, and my not so local government. They have the police on their side, in my corner of the world. That context is one of the differences.

AFAIK there have been few if any threads on this forum in which the overt Abrahamic theists involved had more knowledge of what they were debating, or engaged less in personal attack, or dealt less in nonsense, or posted with less arrogance and hostility. The bait and switch, the Gish Gallop, the appeal to arcane scholarship in irrelevant matters, are not invocations of knowledge. Fundies do not have "knowledge" of God - or even of their own beliefs, their own religion, much of the time.

There is also the matter of honesty, which the overt theists here - those who present themselves as theistically motivated and based, self-identified - lack. They are liars to their core - seriously and fundamentally dishonest posters.

There is no reason to give them a pass, however customary and familiar they are. They are a species of troll.

 

That's laughable, coming from you, who evades and lies as much as you do. I would note that your posts at #111-112, for instance, only answer your straw men.

You'd do better to be honest.

I don't believe you don't know, given how much I've used the term over time; it's a discussion that precedes your arrival, actually, though the earliest record of the term itself occurs about three weeks after you registeed. I would also remind that simply surveying my use of the term shows you've encountered it recently and directly. So, to remind you of what I said to you, directly, a little over a month ago: Affirmative arguments are risky, as you show in putting forward a particular post, even if it is built entirely on reactionary projection (anti-identification) and thereby not really so affirmative at all. Some months before we considered the issue in a post report, and we revisited that report again a couple weeks later in the question of a larger behavioral framework, but it is likely you missed that, and we might take the moment in our moment to note that your reply ignored large parts of what we were discussing, and that you would have done better to be honest. In 2001↗, I applied the label to a Christianist, including the explicit definition, "identifying what he is not as opposed to what he actually is." In 2002 I even opened a specific thread on the point of atheism and anti-identification; indeed, I mentioned this thread earlier, calling it a a classic tumbleweed or cricket moment↑, and you passed that post over in order to respond to another; it's worth recalling that particular passing over because guess what the 2002 inquiry had to say, as the question of anti-identification turned toward atheism:

But we're getting to a point where it's getting really quite difficult to perceive atheism as anything other than an anti-identification. That is, what we hear about atheism is what it is not.​

There are over a hundred fifty results when the term was typed correctly; those do include posts in which the term doesn't appear explicitly, and not all of that handful are relevant. There is this, for instance, from April, 2002↗°:

It really does seem that the primary impetus of atheism, when identified, is aimed at a dominating religion--e.g. the Abramic experience--and thus seals itself primarily in that regard, and applying objectivity to myth according to a mythical definition of objectivity. That is, atheism is both arbitrary and selfish as a root philosophy.​

Or January, 2005↗°°:

Perhaps that appearance of irrationality [about asserting the nonexistence of God] comes from the fact that the atheistic anti-identification exists as a response to something sheerly irrational.

The problem is these shoebox assertions of God.​

Over eleven years ago, August, 2007↗, I even considered the point about myself:

Right now my own identity is invested almost entirely in abstraction. As much as I resent anti-identification--the art of identification according to what we're not--there is an absence of affirmative aspects.​

Or from December, 2007↗, a note on Maimonides occurring in a discussion of religious dietary law, and anti-identification, explicitly defined as labeling oneself according to what one is not, and including the parenthetical example that political candidates often specialize in anti-identification.

It's worth recalling #133↗, when you noted, "People weary of repeating the same things over and over again." Here's a note from almost nine years ago↗:

Because this brand of atheism is an anti-identification. It needs religion in order to exist. It needs religious people who are idiots in order to exist. Its purpose is supremacist, not functional. Its method of arguing about religion is to denigrate it, not to examine it carefully and attempt to comprehend the components and how they harmonize or conflict.

Certainly, the religious often reduce their faith to the caricatures so justly opposed by so many atheists, but religion itself is a complex expression of human psyches, both individual and collective. It is, by certain perspectives, a collective performance art project. And it can be analyzed and understood. Its function can be defined, considered, and reoriented or refined. But this is not part of what this brand of atheism seeks. Rather, what these people are after is a metaphysical club to beat others over the head with, to make themselves feel better about their own lonely futility in a vast, possibly infinite, and arguably indifferent Universe.​

And from the next day↗, in re why atheists would aim their arguments at anyone but people they think are wrong:

Practical concerns. By addressing selected symptoms, and never confronting the cause, you are helping ensure that you always have something to complain about, and someone to hate. This is, at its core, purely selfish.

The follies of religion do affect other people. "Religion" itself is not the problem insofar as religions come and go. It's what people do with those ideas. For all atheists are identifying against theistic religion, other forms of superstitious zealotry that operate like religion but lack a theistic target are excluded from general consideration. Certes, there are individuals who criticize capitalism or patriotism as such, but the modern atheistic movement so focuses on the issue of God and its resentment thereof that it is a superficial attack. It's more about feeling better about oneself than actually solving any problems. If, as the case against religion goes, it's about superstition and irrationality, then it should be about superstition and reality. But atheism is, these days, an anti-identification, which is much more comfortable and considerably less demanding an endeavor that affirmative identification, such as rationalism.​

I'm skipping over so many posts, of course, and even years, but that also makes its own point. You've encountered this, before, but in many cases there is no indication you noticed.

Try this one:

I've referred to it before as "anti-identification"; the basic example is the politician telling us he or she isn't the opponent―in American politics, one can run entire an entire congressional campaign this way, never really saying what one's policy outlook is, but, rather, simply identifying against the opponent.​

Again, you didn't ever pick that one up and respond to it, but it's from 2016, in one of our Moderator logs.

Thus:

1) Anti-identification is a general description of a range of negative argument that primarily establishes one in disagreement with or opposition to another, and can employ diverse fallacies.

2) ¿Really? It's only after all this time you get around to asking what I mean by a term consistently defined pretty much the whole time you've been here, that can be applied in diverse contexts, that many times over the years? Have you been disputing with me, over the course of years, in subjects and context we might apply the term, and never known what it meant? That seems downright astonishing, but would, at lest, explain a few things.​

At any rate, we'll get to the rest of your argument, such as it is ... whenever. If you weren't behaving in an unbelievable manner, then we wouldn't need to take these time-outs in order to attend your distractions.

No, really: "What do you mean by 'anti-identification'?"

Okay, then.
____________________

Notes:

° It seems worth noting there was, in that thread, also this, which is a direct response to an explicitly identifying atheist asserting the duty of judging one another:

In addition to demonstrating an inability to communicate with one's human neighbors, what is the connection between (A) being atheist and (B) having enough knowledge to proactively seek people to judge?​

Here we are, nigh on seventeen years later, and the only real difference between asking the question then and now is that these days, our evangelical atheists seem even less capable, or, at least, more constricted, though that latter would in turn be their own doing. Like we find in the early parts of this thread, some don't think they need to know much about what they criticize.

°° It almost seems worth noting that post actually splits both ways; these days I might say something or other about letting people we know are wrong set the terms of discussion, but this trip through nostalgia can even catch me off guard. Here I'm looking at a fourteen year-old, three-paragraph, five-sentence post that would continue to aptly summarize the circumstance except for the fact of fourteen years passing and the only real change about that appearance of irrationality is an evident devotion to irrationality.

 

You don't even know what forum you are in, yet it's the "theists" that are dumb... science at work again.

 

Apologies for cherry picking from your response to someone else, but you seem to be the only one that gets it. I'm talking about how religion should be discussed. I don't know if it's lack of understanding or a blind quest to attack a person of faith, like you said, to make themselves feel better. I can't see the problem with a theist talking to an atheist, with both discussing a topic within a supernatural context. How else can we discuss things in a philosophy/religious forum if threads contain 90% of people continuously questioning the others belief.

 

great name for a documentary on religion and how much money & liberty it takes off the working class Vs how much money & liberty the corrupt leaders of those churches hoard for their own elitist aristocracy Vs how much money & Liberty they give back to society.

all very inconvenient points im sure