Ban the Religion Thread

A-1

Rare, please...

Yes, I've changed my tune.
While strictly speaking, science does not belong in a forum alongside religion... It appears that outlet is necessary- otherwise religion will seep into other threads. And it already does do that as it is...

I vote it stays.

 

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I work with hundreds of degreed scientists. To my knowledge, not a solitary one would support censorship in any form or format.

 

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Which is why they are so anti-religion and anti-introspection, right?

 

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I must insist that we keep a good supply of test subjects at hand for the mind experiments. You know how fast we go through them.

 

Oh, come on, Epictetus.

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You know full well that if there was no theism or even a fictional account of it concocted in a novel or movie, there would also be no people calling themselves atheists. In such a world where humans had never conceived of gods and believed in or became enthusiasts of them, a word like theism would be as much a nonsense utterance as laubgefraubism, and attaching the prefix "a-" to it would likewise produce a meaningless word.

If Kathy Griffin walked into a crowded room there and proclaimed: "We're all atheists on this parallel version of Earth!", she would only get puzzled looks. "Yeah, lady," replies the one buzzed fellow at the back, "I'd be a non-Klingon, too, if people in this place had knowledge of Star Trek." Atheism derives its value -- its absence, denial, or counterdoxastic value -- from theism having legitimate definitions, from God/gods having been conceived and people existing who either believe in such or gather as fans of fiction (like Vulcan-eared folk at a Sci-Fi conventions).

 

So do I, but your lack of religion is also a factor that defines your worldview. Religion is very common, and it has implications for science and society, thus it should be discussed. Religious people are trying to affect science funding and how science is taught in school. Religion should also be taught in school from a scholarly and historical perspective. There is also the science of religion, scientists who study how things like prayer and meditation affect the brain. For all these reasons, religion should remain as a topic on a science forum.

 

Has "the science" been "infected"?

I agree that most of the threads in the science forums don't contain the kind of content that professional scientists encounter in their work or that university science students encounter in their classes.

The reason for that isn't the baleful influence of the damnable theists. It's due to the fact that Sciforums is a public-access board and to the fact that seemingly a large majority of the people who post here are laypeople with little or no formal training in science.

I also get the impression that a disproportionate number of people who post on Sciforums are adolescents. Some of them display the attitude that's often typical of their age-group. So we have a number of participants who are largely ignorant of the subjects that they post about, but who post aggressively and competitively. There are lots and lots of ego-battles on Sciforums.

So I'm inclined to agree that there really are problems here on Sciforums. Problems that might make this place kind of unattractive to professional scientists and for serious science students. But I don't think that the religion forum is creating those problems. At worst, it's just a symptom. (As are the politics, world affairs, arts, and who knows how many other off-topic non-scientific forums that the board hosts.)

It's due to the moderators' and the administrator's policies and to how they've positioned the board so as to attract maximum traffic. I'm not really criticizing that. I think that it's extremely valuable that laypeople with an interest in science have a place to virtually gather and to communicate without feelng threatened or inadaquate.

One of the very real problems with science is that it has developed such high barriers to entry. It typically takes years of university training to get to the point where somebody can speak with assurance about something. And that puts laypeople off and prevents them from following up on what might have turned into avocational scientific interests. They think that science is too difficult or will take too long to learn.

What's wrong with the way things are now?

"sky fairies"? "trolls for Jesus"?

How often has that actually happened, a Christian "calling us out" here on Sciforums? Can you post a link to even a single instance? I certainly haven't seen it very often. On Sciforums, it's a lot more common to see threads started by atheists that appear to be little more than 'fuck you's' aimed at religious people. This thread looks like another example of that.

Sciforums is ostensibly a science-themed discussion board. Many religious people of all sorts are interested in science. While I think that it's true that scientists are significantly less religious (in a traditional sense) than the general public, many professional scientists do have a deep personal religiosity.

So any suggestion that science = atheism is probably mistaken. Suggestions that a science discussion board should be defined as exclusively atheist turf are problematic as well.

If somebody denies the existence of something, or even is said to be without belief in whatever it is, the object in question needs to be specified. In the religious case, theism is where those theistic ideas come from.

But expressions of atheism should be perfectly fine, right? How convenient that would be, to give atheists moderator-protected freedom to be as stupid and ignorant as they want to be without any danger of being contradicted by anyone, and without any need to actually craft an intelligent argument.

I could maybe agree with it, if Sciforums' management wants to eliminate all the fluff (including all discussions of atheism) and reposition Sciforums as a strictly technical board. If they did that, then they would have to get rid of most of Sciforums' non-scientific and tangentally-scientific forums, they would have to moderate threads a lot more aggressively to keep them on their scientific topics, and they would probably have to make participation the board contingent on possession of at least a year's university undergraduate training as a science major. That would remake the board into a university students' out-of-class technical talk board. It would get a lot less traffic, but discussions here would be a lot more precise, better informed and higher toned.

I'm strongly and emphatically opposed to what you're suggesting here.

 

I see what you mean. Even being non-religious; Religion affects us all.

 

Semantics, dear CC. As far as semantics go, of course you are correct. What meaning could asexual have if there were no sex? Now think John Lennon. Imagine there's no heaven! (It isn't hard to do) Just suppose our race evolved without ever having imagined gods and other such-like fairies. Yes. If there were no theists, there would be no atheists. Neither word would have any meaning; same as laubgefraubist and alaubgefraubist.

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Have I understood you correctly? Please inform me if I have not.

Now for no reason I can understand because if anything it would seem to go against everything I've been talking about in this thread- I want to remind you all of Voltaire's most famous quip: "If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him." Again, I have no idea why I am compelled to repeat that here and now. Did the devil make me do it?

Finally as a more general reply to al that has been said: I do not think that banning the religious forum from Sci Forum would be censorship, it would just be a polite cough of mild annoyance followed by telling the theistic poster,"Excuse me friend, but these forums concern science and clear-eyed reasoning on a variety of topics. If you wish to air your hackneyed, outmoded, and, sorry, just plainly mistaken views of life, the universe and everything, will you please do it elsewhere? Thanks so much!"

 

Yes, and given that there is a no preaching rule, the religion section has never been simply about repeating religious dogma. In fact it's where atheists like me enjoy debating the religious. I wish more of them would join. I don't want them to go elsewhere, I'm not offended by them. I have always been genuinely interested in why a person has a religion.

 

Excuse me friend, but these forums concern science and clear-eyed reasoning on a variety of topics. If you wish to air your hackneyed, outmoded, and, sorry, just plainly mistaken views of life, the universe and everything, will you please do it elsewhere? Thanks so much!"

 

So I take it you have rescinded your apology that you PM'ed to me? :bawl:

You do realize that what your right back at you quote above makes absolutely no sense in this context??

 

To a believer, religion makes sense.

 

And here I thought unreasoning faith was a virtue, and, I still cannot imagine why you would want to inflict your beliefs on subscribers to a science forum. I just don't get it. I have looked at christian forums and they are very intolerant of trolls. Here, I would have thought that we would just find trolls boring.

 

Hey. Sorry Neverfly! I thought you were that squirrel fellow taking another dig. I know you are on my side.

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nope..

just giving you back what you are giving...
so you can see how silly it is..
what you say about theist applies to you.

 

see what i mean..you have yet to reason..you jump in to religious thread just to profess your hatred for theist..you have yet to reason anything..

AND you are trolling YOUR beliefs..
all i am doing is resisting your hate agenda.
as soon as you quit trolling your Anti-Theist agenda and start engaging in some intelligent conversation, then i will quit giving you a hard time..

 

I believe in God, not religion..

 

Which I find very interesting.

Because "God" is defined by the religion. The religion says that "God" defined the religion. It's a closed loop.

To believe in "God" but not the religion is very suggestive about how believers cherry pick- they pick and choose what they want to believe and reject what they do not want to believe.

By admitting that you adopt your beliefs, essentially, you create God in your mind, based on what you want, you admit too, that there is no evidence for such a being.

You validate the belief in the same manner. You cherry pick what you believe validates the belief while eschewing anything that doesn't.

This is a personal thing- a choice of your own.

Critical thinking, rational thought and reason all stand against this behavior. This is because this behavior cannot lead to anything but flights of fancy- whereas critical thinking demonstrates Real World Results.

Epictetus may not have worded it in a manner you enjoyed. Just as I had not when I called it "Primitive superstitions."

Squirrel, maybe you just need to accept that you do hold primitive superstitions dear. You will defend it. You value it. And to anyone else, that is fine.

It only becomes an issue when you inject them into scientific topics or you enter into scientific topics with your mind made up that your superstitions trump everything else.

When you do not act in that manner, you find that no one thinks twice about the beliefs you hold on a personal level.

 

I will admit to letting off a bit of steam... steam that has built up because I assumed we would all be discussing 'scientific' topics here, and every time I log in and hit the new posts button, I see so many threads about Jesus. Yes, it can be annoying especially when I understand that many of these are theists who have registered on SciForum just to 'push their own (trollish) agenda'.
The only 'agenda' I have is to democratically ask if all this doesn't annoy other members of these forums. So far, the vote indicates that it doesn't. They find the theist amusing and ripe for lampoon. Very well then. No one made me Grand Poohbah of the moderators who is to decide what can be posted here.