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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/20/2012 6:32:29 AM   
xssve


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Status: offline 		In short, Science and religion both construct abstract models of reality - in science, those models are testable and modifiable w/respect to an expanding set of empirical data, the premises upon which a scientific theory is founded.

In religion, the data set has to be artificially constrained, testing of hypothesis discouraged, and critics silenced in order to maintain an appearance of validity.

In religion, the properties of unknown variables can be propounded, but they cannot be tested or controlled for, it relies on belief alone.

In science a variable must be able to be tested for or it must simply be discounted until such time as it can be confirmed to have empirically testable properties, regardless of what any individual scientist believes. It's not required to believe or not believe in anything but the utility of the scientific method; anything else is not a disqualification, it's just irrelevant.

< Message edited by xssve -- 3/20/2012 6:33:18 AM >

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/20/2012 6:47:09 AM   
GotSteel


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quote:

ORIGINAL: FullCircle
I would not choose to be an atheist (given the choice), it's not a choice, it's a realisation.


The process of deconversion often takes years the thing is those experiences you're talking about can consist of having conversations with atheists. My deconversion took years and looking back one of the key experiences that caused it was the first time I talked to an atheist.

Having a conversation isn't going to outright change ones position on theism but questioning someone on the subject can get them to think about it and that rethinking can cause them to modify their position.

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/20/2012 9:19:52 AM   
GotSteel


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quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM
Atheist intellectuals appear to have a fetish where they obsess over reducing arguments to a concrete form.


This reads like you're disgruntled that you've been expected to be able to articulate your actual positions. At least some of the reasons why people in a discussion with you would desire you to have a comprehension of your own position beyond a vague feeling are really obvious.

Let's take your latest position:

quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM
It seems possible that atheism is a form of face blindness.


So this seems possible to you, the problem is that it seems possible to you because you have very little understanding of what you're actually claiming. I can see that it's wrong but my goal in a discussion is to get you to see that it's wrong. In order to do that one of the things we often end up attempting is to get you to explain the actual details of positions that have been obscured through figurative language. In this case: so...what is the actual name of the diagnosis that you are claiming?

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/20/2012 9:29:58 AM   
BenevolentM


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quote:

ORIGINAL: xssve

Now if you had said: "atheists have no imagination", you might have formed a testable hypothesis with some possibility of at least partial verification.


Many thoughtful points xssve, but someone has to point out that an absence of a skill is not the same as the suppression of a skill. In science, for example, it is useful to suppress imagination for the sake of skeptical inquiry, but how many scientists have managed to create for themselves a comfortable career having no imagination?

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/20/2012 9:38:29 AM   
BenevolentM


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Status: offline 		To be explicit, you are claiming that the absence of a skill is virtuous as opposed to an ability to suppress it; it makes a man/woman whole.

< Message edited by BenevolentM -- 3/20/2012 9:42:11 AM >

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/20/2012 11:06:35 AM   
BenevolentM


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quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

The process of deconversion often takes years the thing is those experiences you're talking about can consist of having conversations with atheists. My deconversion took years and looking back one of the key experiences that caused it was the first time I talked to an atheist.

Having a conversation isn't going to outright change ones position on theism but questioning someone on the subject can get them to think about it and that rethinking can cause them to modify their position.


Devil's breath is toxic.

quote:

Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as his ally ...

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_V:_The_Empire_Strikes_Back

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/20/2012 11:41:47 AM   
GotSteel


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quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM
Devil's breath is toxic.

quote:

Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as his ally ...

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_V:_The_Empire_Strikes_Back



Can you turn that into anything remotely akin to a coherent argument?

< Message edited by GotSteel -- 3/20/2012 11:42:12 AM >

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/20/2012 12:19:48 PM   
xssve


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quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM

To be explicit, you are claiming that the absence of a skill is virtuous as opposed to an ability to suppress it; it makes a man/woman whole.

In your imagination perhaps.

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/20/2012 12:24:55 PM   
Zonie63


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quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM

What I am saying is that all the rubbish the government has been spewing out is the direct consequence of atheism having taken root. What many do not realize is that mere profession of faith is insufficient. You actually have to at least try to live it regardless of whether or not full compliance is feasible. Though full compliance may not be achieved the effect felt collectively as a people is significant.


I tend to identify as agnostic, not atheist. If there is a God, then how can He/She/It condemn me for honestly stating (after much contemplation, thought, and study) that I don't know if there's a God or not? As far as I know, "God," has never spoken to me personally, so apparently, I'm expected to base my "faith" on what other human beings say, from third- or fourth-hand accounts with no corroborating evidence whatsoever.

As for the rubbish that the government is spewing out, I think it would be difficult (if not impossible) to show that it's a direct consequence of atheism having taken root. It would really depend on which rubbish you're referring to and what it's based upon.

If it's global government that you're referring to, it was originally based on the notion that it could promote peace among nations. Since Christianity considers that peacemakers are blessed, then on its face, global government seems far more influenced by Christianity than by atheism. The son of a Presbyterian minister (Woodrow Wilson) decided that the purpose of the United States was to make the world safe for democracy and formulated the Fourteen Points as well. Franklin D. Roosevelt (a Christian and Freemason) further solidified this idea and irrevocably put the United States into a permanent global alliance which we've been stuck in ever since. It wasn't atheists who did this.

Likewise, the secular humanists and other so-called "bleeding hearts" are merely practicing Christian values by feeding the hungry, helping cripples, supporting widows and orphans - that sort of thing. Compassion is considered a virtue.

On the other side of this coin, it can be argued that the dismal state of affairs in America can be attributed to the fact that we've gotten too soft, moral, and compassionate for our own good. We're trying to have our cake and eat it, too. We're trying to pass ourselves off as moral, kinder, gentler, and compassionate - while still trying to maintain our position as a world superpower within a global alliance and economic system (and keep our high standard of living). Obviously, it doesn't work when we're trying to do all this at the same time.


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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/20/2012 4:17:50 PM   
Hippiekinkster


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quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hippiekinkster

Kirata: "Abstraction tries to reduce..." (from his citation)

Precisely. Chemical Abstracts is a distillation of, primarily, syntheses of novel organic molecules, or novel syntheses of existing molecules. Abstraction is, in this usage, essentially synonymous with simplification without loss of information.


Say, would you mind going into more detail as to what you're saying here?
Well, that was just an example, and there is more to Chemical Abstracts than syntheses. I probably should have said synopsis rather than getting all confusingly wordy.

Here's an example of a new synthetic route to ergolines from tryptophan:

http://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/pdf/ergot-tryptophan.pdf

The very first paragraph is the abstract, or the synopsis of what the entire article is about. Go to PubMed and you'll find abstracts of experiments related to Medicine.

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/20/2012 5:00:04 PM   
hardcybermaster


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Status: offline 		what a bunch of wordy cunts.
I am a reductionist.
four words.
there is no god.
job done

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/20/2012 6:06:19 PM   
GotSteel


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Zonie63
As for the rubbish that the government is spewing out, I think it would be difficult (if not impossible) to show that it's a direct consequence of atheism having taken root.


Keep in mind that he's starting from a position of miss-defining atheism:

quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM
The reality is most people are atheists or if not atheists believers with little faith.

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/20/2012 9:15:47 PM   
Zonie63


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quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

quote:

ORIGINAL: Zonie63
As for the rubbish that the government is spewing out, I think it would be difficult (if not impossible) to show that it's a direct consequence of atheism having taken root.


Keep in mind that he's starting from a position of miss-defining atheism:

quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM
The reality is most people are atheists or if not atheists believers with little faith.



I was thinking about that, but that makes it kind of convenient for his argument. Perhaps he's using the term "atheist" when "apostate" might be more accurate.

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/21/2012 3:13:51 AM   
BenevolentM


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quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns, attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters.


I am wondering how exactly is this not atheism? If religion is what is professed with the lips, then religion is an empty barrel. It seems to me that humanism is an admission that division between church and state was a failed experiment and atheism was adopted as the official state religion. People returned to state religion, but this time it was atheism.

What this results in is an attempt to exterminate certain forms of vice, but give a free pass to other forms of vice. The system is inherently digital. The idea appears to be it is possible to systematically exterminate vice. Once you have exterminated one form of vice you move onto exterminating something else. The religious know that this is absurd. What exactly is going to stop this system from moving from one so-called vice to another?

Today you have freedom to fuck, tomorrow you might not. Why? If it can be thought of as vice, it means they just have not gotten around to exterminating your ass yet. That they give you the right to do something today does not mean that your right to do it has been secured in perpetuity. This I believe is a common mistake made by humanists. Atheism is not liberal. Atheism is the right to do whatever without constraint. Since nothing is good, all is bad. With atheism they have not planted your ass yet because they just have not gotten around to it yet.

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/21/2012 5:32:18 AM   
BenevolentM


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Status: offline 		Why did the extermination event in the Holocaust cause many Jews to become atheists? They became atheists precisely because their enemy was an atheist. Confrontation with an adversary is a conversion process. This is why the faithful are discouraged to engage in confrontation. Only a person who is not susceptible to conversion is permitted to engage the enemy.

To reiterate what I wrote on page 5 post 100:

Why did this happen? It is obvious why.

quote:

When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/21/2012 6:02:42 AM   
GotSteel


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Zonie63
I was thinking about that, but that makes it kind of convenient for his argument. Perhaps he's using the term "atheist" when "apostate" might be more accurate.


I think it's one of those twue christian arguments coupled with BenevolentM not having the foggiest notion of what an atheist is and mixed with an unhealthy dose of conspiracy theory.

< Message edited by GotSteel -- 3/21/2012 6:05:11 AM >

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/21/2012 6:04:10 AM   
BenevolentM


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Status: offline 		Why do you think police departments have to concern themselves with good cops going bad? Confrontation with the enemy is a conversion process. In order to combat this effect a number of defensive strategies are employed. In an ideal society these defensive strategies would not be needed because the defensive strategies also have deleterious effects. So the problem becomes similar to launching a rocket into space. The weight of the payload implies fuel. Fuel implies additional weight that in turn implies the need for additional fuel. The result is a machine whose proportions are monstrous. This is the strategy employed by humanists. You put reality on ignore in order to decrease the weight of the payload, but this is like putting a space station into orbit without a life support system. That is fine so long as no one is going to live there. The strategy used by religion is austerity. You get the space station into orbit with a life support system. Its just that life in space is austere.

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/21/2012 6:09:44 AM   
GotSteel


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quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM
I am wondering how exactly is this not atheism?


...You really don't have the vaguest idea what atheism is do you?

To answer your question the humanists who believe in a god are theists, the humanists who don't believe in a god are atheists. Once's humanism is unrelated to their status as a theist/atheist.

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/21/2012 6:12:39 AM   
PeonForHer


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quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM
If religion is what is professed with the lips, then religion is an empty barrel.


I've read that line many times now but am still unable to extract any meaning out of it whatsoever.

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RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism - 3/21/2012 6:14:11 AM   
BenevolentM


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Status: offline 		Atheism is the road to oneness with the universe, but the universe is principally dead.

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