What Do People Know About What They Pretend to Discuss?

Well you have to admit you were pushing your luck. :D But I don't blame you: I am sure I would have been equally annoyed in your place.

Oh....yeh--------I had set out to get that jackass' goat and I got it. It was pretty easy with 3 steps and then the kicker.
I just didn't like him nor his "religion".
 
No it doesn't change my taking exception to people who use extreme sects to ridicule an entire religion.
But in the matter at hand they aren't extreme sects. They are normal, mainstream, even dominant constituents of the main body of believers in said deities.
I would take issue with your contention that 90% of the "Abrahamic belief" (interesting formulation - I have not been talking about Islam) that "one encounters" is represented by such views. It may possibly be true in the US but I am certain it is not true of Christianity in its European home.
You mean Protestant Christianity in its northern European home, I presume.
That's a small minority of the world's Christians.
And then there's Islam.
The point being that if that stuff is not confronted, directly, by somebody, it takes over politically. It has no limits, no tolerance, no liberal values, of its own.
If I wanted to know what Catholicism or the Church of England had to say about something I would ask a priest, not an Irish farmer or a woman at a parish jumble sale.
But if I wanted to discover what the actual beliefs common to a given religion are, or if I were worried about the political consequences of offending the adherents of a given religion, I would investigate among those adherents - not their priests.

Darwinian Evolution is accepted scientific theory by the Vatican and Catholic elite, for example. Most Catholics on this planet reject it as contrary to their beliefs. If opening a school in a random Catholic community, which of these facts will prove most significant, do you think?
https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/447/article/catholics-and-protestants-brazil
Religious and Moral Beliefs
In many respects Brazilian Protestants are better Catholics than are Brazilian Catholics. Eighty-nine percent of Brazilians believe that God exists, by far the highest rate of any country studied so far by I.S.S.P. There is no significant difference between Catholics who have remained Catholic and converts to Protestantism on this measure. While 70 percent of all Brazilians believe that God is concerned about them as individual persons (also the highest in the world), 76 percent of those who have converted believe in this personal concern. Converts are also significantly more likely to believe in life after death, heaven, hell and miracles. Seventy percent of the converts believe in the literal, word-for-word inspiration of the Bible, but so do 59 percent of those who remain Catholic.
http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2013/12/evolution2013-3.png
 
Oh, come on, really? Let's take your response, your "opposing view"↑: The question, sir, is what do you know about what you criticize; your response, like other responders, is to duck that question.
And if I thought you were interested in engaging in a discussion, I'd certainly be up for it, but you set the bar to that of trolling. Heh. Maybe it's just cuz of my zany atheistic ways.

There's nothing for me here, and I have nothing to offer that you value.
 
And if I thought you were interested in engaging in a discussion, I'd certainly be up for it, but you set the bar to that of trolling. Heh. Maybe it's just cuz of my zany atheistic ways.

There's nothing for me here, and I have nothing to offer that you value.
If I could put him on ignore, I would.
 
Likewise the question of where morality comes from - a variety of fair answers (wherever it came from among atheistic societies, wherever it comes from among social animals from squirrel monkeys to vampire bats, an emergent inevitability in circumstances described by game theory, a scientifically unsettled evolutionary matter currently under serious investigation, etc) exist, but we are to ignore them unless they are explicitly produced by any given atheist?

That last, "but we are to ignore them unless they are explicitly produced by any given atheist", seems to mean something, else you wouldn't have written it, but what does it mean?

Why would we ignore them? Hey, I've got one: What are you on about?

I mean, look at what is happening, Iceaura: When the question is what people know, why are people running screaming?

Meanwhile, you have nothing but fallacy: "...but we are to ignore them unless they are explicitly produced by any given atheist?" What does that even mean?

Look, if we're firefighters, and the house is on fire, and we saw the atheist set it on fire, we're not going to stop putting it out in order to call the cops because the old lady who plays organ at the church parked her car a little crooked and might be an inch too far from the curb. If the arsonist happens to be an atheist, why go kicking down church doors?

Or try it this way: At some valence, bigotry is bigotry is bigotry; but, for instance, misogyny is not homophobia is not racism. And within that, say, misogyny is ... well, sure, at some point misogyny is misogyny is misogyny, but I can also think of the misogynist who asserts a religious rape cult is a proper human condition and obligation for women; that isn't quite the same as the misogynist who, as near as anyone can tell, is pissed off at all women, everywhere, because he blames his mother for his human frailty, and yes, I have known at least one of those people before; neither of those types are the same as misogynist troll who is actually just a misanthrope or unenumerated idealogue seeking to destabilize normalized function among people by attacking perceived vulnerability in society; nor is that one the same as the general troll seeking to cause chaos by arbitrarily inflaming existing tensions between people. It's all antisocial. It's all misogyny. At some point, misogyny is misogyny is misogyny. Calling it by its name is important, or so says me, but why? As a general human issue, by pathways both aesthetic and logical, I happen to think it very important to reduce the amount of misogyny in effect; this is part of our human obligation to one another in the societal context of our social and socializing species.

I do believe the critique I might bring in that aspect would be far different if my intention is to combat and reduce misogyny than if I decided I just wanted to call out the dumpiest, ugliest guys because, come on, even if they stop raggin' on the bitches and hos, I mean, really, they're the dumpiest-looking, ugliest, most unfuckable guys we can imagine, so, y'know, something, something, and it actually isn't about anything but calling out assholes in a setting and circumstance when one can expect support.

And, you know, maybe some people disagree. Maybe some people actually think such critiques would read the same. I don't know; I always need to account for the possibility, especially as I'm the one who can be witnessed frequently spreading his hands in exasperation and wondering why they can't seem to tell the difference. And this doesn't even begin to account for those running a pretense of enlightenment trying to parse the difference between what the one dumpy, ugly guy said or did compared to the right time, reason, or way to do it.

I really do think these critiques would read differently. Furthermore, I also believe these critiques read differently unto themselves according to the more or less informed they might be.

And quite honestly, if I intend that my address of misogyny should have any positive effect, I would expect the need for reasonably proper information to be somewhat apparent.

Indeed, I would think the underlying generalization about informed consideration applies to pretty much any endeavor purporting to address or attend circumstances perceived or described as problematic.

More directly, if there is a problem, then it is easier to do something about said problem if one has a clue.

So from a particular to a general and back to a somewhat particular notion: Let us pick a word, just for the fuck of it, like, "Religion is [_____]." No, it's not binding, just a starting point. An example. Okay, what do we want there? Evil? Delusional? Irrational?

(Okay, well, let's pause there long enough to wonder what's wrong with "irrational", because as a political argument, this is where atheism fails and part of what I have never been able to find a way to discuss with atheistic neighbors. It's just irrationality having to do with God. If it has to do with the "law of the jungle", or "just how life goes", or the "way things are"? The functional result is the label becomes useless in politics except for its emotional value. It's kind of a shocking trade, and many just haven't gotten over it. While atheism is what it is what it is, once it engages anything else, it is effective and relative unto that something. Still, though, the idea that atheism can't remain static and untouchable has historically been quite problematic insofar as these evangelical atheists just can't stop objecting that atheism has nothing to do with anything it touches.)​

But, seriously, pick a word. So, what are we going to do about it? Nothing? Okay, then why would we discuss it? Something? Okay, what? And this is where the question of what anyone knows about what they criticize becomes important.

Because as near as I can tell, your answer is nothing: "... but we are to ignore them unless they are explicitly produced by any given atheist?"

Who the hell said anything about ignoring what? Why do you require a straw man? What is up with the desperate distraction?

If we let people who are wrong set the terms, then what do we expect of the subsequent discussion?

Like our neighbor, Spidergoat:

What's this ignorance? I read their books, watch their media, listen to their arguments...

So do I pay attention to what they say. And I also study what they claim to be, and that's how I know they're wrong. The historical record tells me about this thing or idea or community they claim to be, and they are not except by the loosest of definitions whereby one is what they say simply because they say so. Consider that we might say there is, historically, a reason why conservative Christians should be distrustful of moral relativism, secular humanism, and liberal Christianity, which was a common thin-edge lament thirty-five years ago; the problem with most simplistic loving-God thesis, i.e., John 3.16 as the standard—arises when someone would test the boundaries. There are others in the faith community who hold with this simplistic, warm-fuzzy notion of sola fide, but talk about walking in Christ's footsteps as much as one can, which actually sounds approximately logical within the literary critique. The difference between those two outlooks bears powerful living implications; the problem with the footsteps of Christ argument arises when one presupposes to usurp, and thus defines according to the believer's needs. Or, rather, the problem is precisely the moral relativism of humanist intrusion into a Christianist structure not prepared to receive or facilitate such structures.

Please consider, then: If one is in it simply for the noise and fight, then the basic difference I just described within a significant portion of the American Christian experience is utterly irrelevant. If, however, one participates for the real human stakes that can be on the table, then it really, really helps to know which part of "religion" one is dealing with, and how it functions. And when we let the apparent lowest common denominator and other misinformed arguments set the terms, we are not dealing with the reality driving the behavior, but, rather, participating in religious fancy.

And why would we do that? Well, either we've a mistaken course through the storm, or, we're actually in it for the thunder and flash and rock and roll.

When these questions of God and religious faith become political, all the same issues apply as anything else. In that context, why is this an occasion—

Of course there are deeply reasoned and intellectually respectable theistic points of view. But they are scarce in the big world, and will be vanishingly rare on a science forum - most responses to theistic stuff here will be responding to troll level fundamentalist Christianity being used as a political tool.

Which is something to remember about the shallow-affect smart-Alec brand of public atheist, as well, the Mahers and Dawkins's and so forth: they are dealing with the bulk of theistic belief as it walks and talks and has its being in the big world. They aren't dealing with the .1%.

—we should let the wingnuts, tinfoils, and fakes set the terms of discussion?

I mean, y'know, since it's not just a vain, supremacist identity fight?
 
But in the matter at hand they aren't extreme sects. They are normal, mainstream, even dominant constituents of the main body of believers in said deities.

You mean Protestant Christianity in its northern European home, I presume.
That's a small minority of the world's Christians.
And then there's Islam.
The point being that if that stuff is not confronted, directly, by somebody, it takes over politically. It has no limits, no tolerance, no liberal values, of its own.

But if I wanted to discover what the actual beliefs common to a given religion are, or if I were worried about the political consequences of offending the adherents of a given religion, I would investigate among those adherents - not their priests.

Darwinian Evolution is accepted scientific theory by the Vatican and Catholic elite, for example. Most Catholics on this planet reject it as contrary to their beliefs. If opening a school in a random Catholic community, which of these facts will prove most significant, do you think?
https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/447/article/catholics-and-protestants-brazil
http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2013/12/evolution2013-3.png
I still maintain that if you and I, as what you call "through-thinkers" in science, want to argue against Christianity, we should do so on the basis of what the corresponding through-thinkers in Christianity say it is, i.e. what the priests and theologians try to teach, rather than popular misconceptions of it. After all, we don't rely on popular views of science when we try to explain it, or defend it against cranks. Systems of religious belief should be granted the same treatment, in my opinion.

Both in science and in religion, the through-thinkers are always up against the usual ignorance and stupidity, but perhaps more importantly the simple fact that most people spend their time thinking about other things and don't have the bandwidth to cogitate about all this. I happen to have thought about it quite a bit, (as an undergraduate brought up Catholic, and studying physical science at an ancient university with a religious heritage, I found I had to think it through), and no doubt you have as well, but I suspect we are not typical. I am with you 100% in the political fight against creationism in the US education system, but that is politics, not a critique of the ideas of Christianity.

I suspect we may have taken this almost as far as we can, but one thing I am appreciating more and more from the discussion with you and others in the US is that, over there, you feel you have a political fight on your hands for intellectual integrity, against a rather unpleasant religious revivalism in right-wing US politics. We do not have this phenomenon here and it is quite likely that my own perspective on these matters fails to take enough account of that political backdrop.
 
What I take exception to, and it seems Tiassa does as well (in his or her usual, rather elliptical, mode of expression), is starting puerile threads to ridicule religion on the basis of silly and ignorant caricatures of religious belief. You know the sort of thing: "It says in Genesis 1 that God divided light from darkness on the first "day" but, as he only created the sun on the 4th day, that's obviously ridiculous, therefore all Christians are idiots hahaha [custard pie]". Whereas any decent attempt at debate would at least make some effort to find out what the churches actually teach about Genesis, first. (Augustine of Hippo was pointing out that these ancient stories couldn't be taken as literally true, as early as 400AD.)

That's certainly part of it.

I wonder how many people remember "Obamaphone". It was this weird, racist trope when conservative activists misinformed minority voters in order to get them saying something stupid on video.

I don't know; it just seems like that's the point.

I can't figure out a certain range of discussion; it's not going to persuade any religious person, and if it has any psychoemotional or psychosocial effect it will be to further reinforce their fear of atheists. To the other, it also exploits human frailty for an apparent emotional rush, so, yeah, there's that.

Given a choice, sure, some manner of recreation is generally preferable to some manner of labor, and that's the thing. Since people are actually arguing about political questions, why let the wingnuts and tinfoils and fakes set the agenda?

Who thinks arguing the logic of whether or not God exists is going to persuade Kim Davis or Mike Huckabee or Ben Carson? You can argue the existence of God all you want with the Catholic-turned-Mormon-turned-Catholic-turned-Southern Baptist-turned-Catholic until you're blue in the face, but when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)↱ says his religious faith governs his use of IUDs, I'm more interested in how Marco Rubio is using a goddamn intrauterine device for what.

It's true: This is a matter of priorities. I accept that.

But you know that bit about Kim Davis being married four times? I find it striking that it took until then for the subject to come up. The Christianists didn't say anything because, well, it really made parts of their anti-gay argument problematic. But tell me, did nobody else say anything because they didn't know, or is it that didn't care? Don't get me wrong; I had to be told ... in 2003. It was my own damn fault for not thinking of it in terms of adultery, but then again, I only encountered the point because Christians asked, so to speak. And for all I mentioned it over the years, I wish I could say I was the reason people finally clued in, but nope, I will never be the key to such thresholds; the point became inevitable when a repeatedly-divorced woman became the messenger against gay marriage.

Theologically, people like Kim Davis are usurpers; they ignore what Christ has to say in order to pretend that God's authority such as found in the Old Testament is somehow theirs.

But, you know, that's really complicated compared to reciting doctrine about how God doesn't exist.

Political question: Without looking it up, can anyone tell me why I might be heard to suggest I want a reporter to ask Cari Searcy her opinion on the Roy Moore scandal?

(Does anyone remember Don Davis, no relation to Kim? Short form: Probate Judge Davis so objected to marriage equality↱ that his court imported Judge James Reid, from one county over, in order to finish the intrafamily adoption 'twixt Cari Searcy and her wife, Kim McKeand, so that their son, Khaya, could have both his mothers under law. Longer story: Cari Searcy is the adopting mother in Searcy v. Strange, which Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange—recently defeated in a U.S. Senate primary by the disgraced former state chief justice, Mr. Moore—tried to take to the Supreme Court, was rejected, thus leading to Justice Thomas conceding the inevitability of marriage equality in a seething dissent; after Obergefell, Moore issued an order defying the U.S. Supreme Court, which Davis seized on; Moore's actions eventually saw him suspended from the Court under circumstances that ended his career as a jurist and, by Yellowhammer Values, cleared the deck for his senate run.)

It's one thing to argue with people about whether or not God exists, but, well, Roy Moore provides an interesting example:

• Roy Moore's conduct was well known, to the point that while a prosecutor he was banished from a local shopping mall and, apparently, the YMCA. Nonetheless, he was first appointed and then elected to a circuit court, and then eventually elected as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, in no small part for his family values advocacy.

• Moore was kicked off the court for other misconduct. Yellowhammer voters sent him back, ten years later, because they liked his family values.

• With the proverbial floodgates open, including accused sexual abuse of minors, Alabama voters might well send him to the U.S. Senate, because they support his family values.​

We can argue the existence of God with trolls, English language learners, and people whose psychological or psychiatric faculties might actually be in question, all we want. We can argue the existence of God with Alabamians all we want. For the most part, it just isn't going to do any good.

Understanding the purity cult, general aspects of human association such as dominance, particular aspects of sexual behavior as expression of dominance, and essentially the semiotic value of the diverse components described by those dimensions according to their religious context is fundamental to actually solving the problem of what to do about Alabama.

Nor is any one person going to solve such a question. Still, though, we might remember that while misogyny is not in itself homophobia, the latter is derived from and invested in the former.

Like many critics of religion, part of the reason I have such interest at all is because religion can be extraordinarily harmful, and various religious groups, ideas, and people have presented particular threats that eventually oblige me to pay attention.

And like anyone else, what I do with that can be described as a matter of priorities.

For instance, when they're systemically grooming girls for sexual abuse↱, well, yeah, great, law enforcement, especially when they'll just help out. Even still, at some point we must deal with this very particular ownership culture, and comprehending the purity cult to some functional degree is, technically, possible. The literary record will be sickening, but at some point, the relationship between this behavior and the religious faith it is stapled to will emerge.

It's inherited behavior and belief. Understanding how it works is requisite to destroying its power.

And like I said, a matter of priorities. Roy Moore or Josh Duggar would probably rather debate the existence of God, too.

Honestly, by the time I get around to trying to explain the relationship between a token given while passing over a sacred barrier, and throwing rocks at the Devil, in order to understand pre-Islamic legend in a context including both Virgil and Sir J. G. Frazier, as a potential anchor for examining the psychoanalytic meaning of Islamic history, including jihad, Islamism, Daa'ish, and, you know, if we reach hard enough, American evangelical Christians—well, okay, I'll give it a try when I'm actually able, but the bit with the semiotic transformation of stones in legend and faith is, well, yeah, really, really hard to understand.

Still, it's not like that's actually what I'm asking about; I would be thrilled to know someone smart enough to explain that part to me.

Consider, please:

Q: What do you know about religion?

A: Only what people I don't trust tell me.​

Clearly, that's not really the answer. Well, okay, except when it is. But who is actually going to say that?

Yet it just keeps coming up in practice, so, yeah, I confess I'm kind of curious.

Let me see if I can do this one briefly: A translation of the Bible is intended to hew more toward original meanings and contexts. Naturally, conservative Christians object, because this de-Christianizes part of the Old Testament by respecting Hebrew context. The dispute gets so loud that a new translation is made, but results in even stricter attendance of original meaning and context, thus exacerbating the objections. One of arguments at stake is what it means to be a virgin. Imagine that.

And it's true, eventually all the little details like that start to add up and weigh something. Like the bit with coitus interruptus; is the word onanism really about masturbation, or is it actually about the part where God struck someone down for failing to rape a woman properly, i.e., the story of Onan, from whence the word is derived?

To the other, it is probably more relevant and useful to consider the more general idea of redefinition.

Or maybe not. It's a matter of priorities. Indeed, that's part of why I'm asking.
 
I still maintain that if you and I, as what you call "through-thinkers" in science, want to argue against Christianity, we should do so on the basis of what the corresponding through-thinkers in Christianity say it is, i.e. what the priests and theologians try to teach, rather than popular misconceptions of it.
That depends on whether we are trying to argue against Christianity as it is, or as some wish it were, or as it should be. What's actually wrong with arguing against it as it is?
After all, we don't rely on popular views of science when we try to explain it, or defend it against cranks. Systems of religious belief should be granted the same treatment, in my opinion.
But we do, if we are diligent and honest, regard it as perfectly legitimate to pay attention to the actual behavior and doings of most scientists, the real world practice and philosophical justifications of the bulk of the science being done, and critique that as well - not merely the science found among esoteric philosophers describing how they think science should be, or the most sophisticated musings of the highest level scientists we can find.
 
That depends on whether we are trying to argue against Christianity as it is, or as some wish it were, or as it should be. What's actually wrong with arguing against it as it is?
Exactly, we are dealing with real people in our communities telling us and our kids that we are going to burn in hell for thinking science may have a better explanation than Genesis does. I have no vested interest in what Christianity "should be". This is what it is in the real world.

Then again, if I wanted to discuss the esoteric fine points of Christianity, I wouldn't be reading a science forum.
 
An interesting debate perhaps as to when and how we should distinguish between or conflate the leaders of ideological groupings and those who apparently identify with them.

A person can presumably perform both roles.

To address points towards the "official" line can seem simpler as it is more "set in stone" and less of a moving target.

In the case of religion though,as I understand it the Protestant Reformation was more or less based on a decision to bypass the hierarchy and to (re) create (as they saw it) a direct relationship with "God".

Even in (left wing?) politics there is a tension between the "vangard of the people" and the "people" themselves with the "vangard" assuming the right to define who the "people" are.

As to the OP there is bad manners all round and of course some "atheists" are going to be disrespectful.It is also up to the moderators to try and keep things on an even keel and encourage open debate.
 
That depends on whether we are trying to argue against Christianity as it is, or as some wish it were, or as it should be. What's actually wrong with arguing against it as it is?

I would ask you first to replace "Christianity" with "the Republican Party", and then repeat the point; if I intend to argue against the Republican Party as it is, why would I accept a Republican framework for the historical narrative, especially if I know it is false? To wit, why should you or I accept that Saint Ronald Magnus never raised taxes?

There was a line in the Gay Fray about how many times Jesus spoke about being gay compared to how many times he spoke about heterosexuals, and it served its purpose in the moment but wasn't particularly thoughtful. To the other, it wouldn't have been necessary without the Christianists. But they pretend to be Christian; nothing says I must believe they are, and, furthermore, when they argue and operate in defiance of Christ, I would expect the point is all the more clear.

However, it seems the one time the cynic skeptic will believe the alleged Christian is the declaration of Christianity, and that's because it facilitates the skeptic's hatred preconception of religion.

Meanwhile, the skeptic feels no obligation at any time to have a clue what he's on about, and if anyone suggest he should have one, he will be offended.

Honestly, we might have made fun of pocket protectors and slide rules when I was a kid, but if someone said two plus two is three, why would I have let them call themselves a mathematician? Maybe because I wanted to point him out to the next mathematician in order to make the point about how ignorant mathematicians are? No, why would I believe the "mathematician" who says two plus two is three is actually a mathematician?

If your friend shows you his J.D. and says you don't have to pay your taxes, sure, you can ask Wesley Snipes how that went, but when he tells you what you already know isn't true, why are you going to believe him?

There's a thread going on, and big deal, there are a few. The topic poster has been kicked for being a troll, but the fact of trollbait doesn't matter. A longtime skeptic is doing another round with a longtime theistic advocate, and the thing is that neither of them has a clue what they're on about, and neither of them care. Knowledge, understanding, and information have nothing to do with their discussion; it's all about fighting with each other. What I don't understand is why the atheistic advocate is willing to grant the theistic advocate any credibility at all. Well, I should also point out that it's probably rude to suggest the point is the emotional rush of denunciation.

Or, there's another thread; why else, but the emotion that comes with denunciation and condemnation and the empowerment to behave as such, would someone start a thread asking stupid people to say stuff so he can reject it without any concern whether he is right or wrong for his own part?

Seriously: What, other than personal gratification for treating each other poorly, do "skeptics" get out of pandering to the incompetent in order to tease them?

There is nothing wrong with arguing against "Christianity as it is", but it's really, really unethical to argue against "Christianity according to an uneducated skeptic's neurotic projection and concomitant psychoemotional compensatory needs". If skeptics are a bit more educated about what they criticize, their skepticism is a bit more credible.

There is a difference between "Christianity" and the advocate who identifies as Christian. Arguing against people we already know are wrong has more to do with the so-called "Christian" than "Christianity".

And it's true, some people prefer some manner of silly short form, so we might throw this in: A Fishwich is not a Big Mac; you and I can certainly come to terms in describing the nutritional summary and health prospects of Big Mac consumption, but if the clerk hands you a Fishwich and tells you it's a Whopper, are you really going to believe you're in Carl's Jr.? Why is "religion" the one occasion, by comparison, that we should accept such a sleight?
 
I would ask you first to replace "Christianity" with "the Republican Party", and then repeat the point; if I intend to argue against the Republican Party as it is, why would I accept a Republican framework for the historical narrative, especially if I know it is false?
I'm not sure where you got the notion that arguing against Christianity as it is requires that one accept its framework for anything, much less a historical narrative.
There is a difference between "Christianity" and the advocate who identifies as Christian.
But not between "Christianity" and the large bulk of people who identify their beliefs and so forth as "Christian".
 
I'm not sure where you got the notion that arguing against Christianity as it is requires that one accept its framework for anything, much less a historical narrative.

I'm asking why anyone would. Indeed, that's the problem I encounter with these utterly ignorant critiques of religion.

Like I've been saying, why let people you don't trust, who you know are wrong, whom the record demonstrates are wrong, set the agenda or terms of discussion?

Is it that you don't understand the question, or simply that you can't answer it? I mean you can complain about the question, you can bob and weave and dodge; you can pretend stupidity until I believe you if you want; the one thing you cannot or will not do is actually address the question.

You're one whose argument relies on letting the wrong set the terms:

Of course there are deeply reasoned and intellectually respectable theistic points of view. But they are scarce in the big world, and will be vanishingly rare on a science forum - most responses to theistic stuff here will be responding to troll level fundamentalist Christianity being used as a political tool.

Which is something to remember about the shallow-affect smart-Alec brand of public atheist, as well, the Mahers and Dawkins's and so forth: they are dealing with the bulk of theistic belief as it walks and talks and has its being in the big world. They aren't dealing with the .1%.

It's not a matter of requirement; your inquiry about "the notion that arguing against Christianity as it is requires that one accept its framework for anything, much less a historical narrative" is complete balderdash. Look at your own argument in this thread: You are conceding the framework; it's not a matter of "requires", but a behavioral question regarding what people are actually doing.

That you got it precisely backwards is interesting, to say the least.
 
I presume what you mean by that is that you think - wrongly - that religious belief is intrinsically incompatible with science. That is an entirely different point, which has nothing to do with the puerile and ignorant attacks on the Old Testament that I was complaining about.

Religious belief is only one brand of belief in the world. It matters not one whit which part of a made up book the religious belief springs from, or even which book from whatever religion you choose, ANY belief, is intrinsically incompatible with science

Sure you can have any number of beliefs which turn out to be insights and with scientific examination turn out to be correct

Since it has been noted, more than enough times though, religious beliefs cannot be scientifically examined and that explicitly rules them out as being compatible

As for
puerile and ignorant attacks on the Old Testament that I was complaining about are you sure if you corrected their ignorance until they they thoroughly understood they would change?

Perhaps they would be less puerile and now able to attack from a knowledgeable position?

:)
 
In the Southern US there are many people who feel that the Catholic church is a cult. They are trying to pass laws based on their "understanding" of what the Bible tells them.

I'll let those with a vested interest in Christianity debate with them about who is a "true" Christian.

Granted many of the evangelical atheists do start trolling threads to lampoon them. Then again, this is a trolling thread - a case of pot meet kettle.
 
Granted many of the evangelical atheists do start trolling threads to lampoon them. Then again, this is a trolling thread - a case of pot meet kettle.
Getting back to my point/s in my previous one and only post, this forum gives far more leeway to unscientific content and trolls in general then any other forum I have been to. Sure, they have their subset sections for religion and politics, but just as sure are their rules that those posting in those sub sections, in that their ideas must be logically defended, particularly [and this is my main point] when their ideas/claims/illusions are unjustly critical of science and the scientific methodology. Such threads are quickly shut down if they fail to do this.
Again, if I burst into a church this morning,[its Sunday here] and started screaming out obscenities against JC, there would quickly be a portion of that congregation that would be trying violently to eject me.
And its rather revealing also that in at least two cases of scientists [or those that like to think of themselves as scientists] seemingly arguing against mainstream accepted science, with what they call a "correct alternative approach" have been found to be closeted IDers...not that there's anything wrong with that per se, but certainly wrong in my opinion when they let that unscientific baggage colour their opinion about mainstream science for the reasons I have stated before.
Like I said, I really don't give a fuck what certain people believe or don't believe, I'm just certain that when those beliefs are used to rail against mainstream science on a science forum, then they need to be reminded of what this place is.
 
Getting back to my point/ ... they need to be reminded of what this place is.
Yeh
OK
There's the rub:

Ask a dozen forum members an you may find a dozen different opinions about what this place is and what they want it to be.

And that;
may be best facilitated by this more open forum.
 
Like I said, I really don't give a fuck what certain people believe or don't believe, I'm just certain that when those beliefs are used to rail against mainstream science on a science forum, then they need to be reminded of what this place is.

(1) This isn't a science forum.

(2) That still isn't an excuse for wallowing in ignorance.

↳ What is it about a "science forum" that "religion" should be the one time blithering from ignorance isn't fallacious? I mean, like DaveC↱ put it, sometimes you just don't need to know a lot. Look through this thread; it is a rejection of educated discourse.​

Personally, I think people ought to be proud of worshiping ignorance instead of making excuses for their faith. I mean, y'know, since it's the proper way to behave in a "science" environment, then there is obviously a scientific case to be made for ignorance.

No, seriously, reading through these excuses for their ignorance has been an enlightening experience.

But, it is true, this is not a science site, and, yeah, that's a disappointment to some since we apparently could have corrected this mistaken notion years ago—except there was a bit about the defining aspect having to do with overriding respect for the scientific method, a perpetually undefined statement until it was no longer convenient and thus discarded—but as we see from the present discussion, it's probably for the best to not make too many demands of the members. They are neither capable nor desirous of a "science site". No, really, it's one thing to discuss with someone, as I have, the implications regarding the phrase "science site". It's another to witness that person advocating ignorance.
 
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