RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools

RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (Full Version)

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dcnovice -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 5:50:28 AM)
quote: To reference one of those recent threads, I for instance am certain that a human being is different than a single celled organism. The difference is quite pronounced and people looking to conflate the two shouldn't manifest the certainty of their position that I have of mine because they don't actually have a leg to stand on. Was that the thread about whether life begins at conception? I only tuned into that one sporadically, but didn't it emerge that the "single-celled organism" was a human blastocyst/zygote/embryo, which (a) rapidly becomes multi-celled and (b) contains the human genetic code? (Whether those characteristics make it a legal person, of course, is another question.)

GotSteel -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 2:06:57 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dcnovice (a) rapidly becomes multi-celled Sure it progressively becomes more like a person and I don't have a great answer for an exact point in it's development where it comes close enough to count. There's plenty of room there for intelligent opinions and interesting discussion. However, when instead of having that discussion I end up talking to people who think they should get to force their entirely superstitious, evidence-less opinion that these single celled organisms are people too because they're haunted on the rest of us. Yeah, I've got some contempt for those positions and here's the thing the recent flurry of atheism threads that resulted from the war on women have had a tendency to be about the bigotry and oppression in the name of religion. So when it sounds like I'm certain that sort of bullshit is bad, well it's because I am.

fucktoyprincess -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 2:43:54 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess I think atheists promote intelligent discussion because, ultimately, we have nothing to fear. [sm=2cents.gif] Atheists have the same thing to fear as anybody else, namely, that they might be wrong. K. No, I disagree. In the face of 83% of believers, the fact that I already don't believe means, I really don't fear. If I were fearful (i.e. fearful that I was wrong - fearful that there was really a god), I would be a believer. [:D]

fucktoyprincess -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 2:47:56 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dcnovice FR In the flurry of atheism threads we've had recently, it's intrigued me that some of our posters manifest a certainty, edging at times into smugness, that I honestly haven't encountered among the churchgoers I know. Whether I have been perceived as smug or not on this thread, I can only say I didn't intend it. However, at the end of the day, being atheist surely does not prevent someone from being able to defend their point. To the extent that you have not encountered smugness amongst churchgoers, or more accurately, "believers", because many faiths do not actually have "churches" as their houses of worship, it is likely because they don't fear you. I certainly, since a very young age (5?) have encountered the religious repeatedly. And most of it has not been nice. Being told I will go to hell for not believing in Christ, leaves a lasting impression.... (And let me add one important clarification - I come from a family of believers. They are just not Christian. So what the "believers" were attacking was not even my atheism - I was a child - they were attacking the fact that my family was not Christian, but another faith. Smug is not even the word.)

PeonForHer -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 4:17:59 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dcnovice FR In the flurry of atheism threads we've had recently, it's intrigued me that some of our posters manifest a certainty, edging at times into smugness, that I honestly haven't encountered among the churchgoers I know. Sorry about any smugness that I personally may have conveyed, DCN. However, if it exists in me, it doesn't come from any certainty about what is true, so much as certainty about what isn't and cannot be true.

hardcybermaster -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 4:49:06 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess I think atheists promote intelligent discussion because, ultimately, we have nothing to fear. [sm=2cents.gif] Atheists have the same thing to fear as anybody else, namely, that they might be wrong. K. why would I fear being wrong? I am more than happy to say hi to god when I die if he exists. Read that last sentance back to yourself and realise how absurd it is. You have either lived your life in a way that god would approve of or you haven't. Surely all god wants is for us to live and behave in an honest,charitable and good way? If he exists atheists will be surprised( and fucking angry at his lack of effort) but not afraid, if they have lived well. We all know that belief in religion is a piss poor way of judging how well you have lived your life

dcnovice -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 4:53:09 PM)
quote: To the extent that you have not encountered smugness amongst churchgoers, or more accurately, "believers", because many faiths do not actually have "churches" as their houses of worship, it is likely because they don't fear you. It may also be, I recognize, the particular congregations to which I've belonged. Both are fairly liberal, filled with folks more at home with doubt than certainty. quote: I certainly, since a very young age (5?) have encountered the religious repeatedly. And most of it has not been nice. Being told I will go to hell for not believing in Christ, leaves a lasting impression.... (And let me add one important clarification - I come from a family of believers. They are just not Christian. So what the "believers" were attacking was not even my atheism - I was a child - they were attacking the fact that my family was not Christian, but another faith. Smug is not even the word.) That is truly awful, and I'm honestly sorry folks treated you like that.

dcnovice -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 5:09:21 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: GotSteel quote: ORIGINAL: dcnovice (a) rapidly becomes multi-celled Sure it progressively becomes more like a person and I don't have a great answer for an exact point in it's development where it comes close enough to count. There's plenty of room there for intelligent opinions and interesting discussion. However, when instead of having that discussion I end up talking to people who think they should get to force their entirely superstitious, evidence-less opinion that these single celled organisms are people too because they're haunted on the rest of us. Yeah, I've got some contempt for those positions and here's the thing the recent flurry of atheism threads that resulted from the war on women have had a tendency to be about the bigotry and oppression in the name of religion. So when it sounds like I'm certain that sort of bullshit is bad, well it's because I am. I struggle with the question of when legal personhood should begin, so I don't have a "great answer" either. My concern with your use of "single-celled organism" stems from being a nitpicky editor. It seems unscientific to describe something as "single-celled" when it actually has multiple cells and is constantly adding more. The phrase also makes it sound like we're talking about amoebas, which we're not.

Kirata -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 5:18:37 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle Such a shame you didn't read (or didn't heed) the next sentence - it reads: "I don't believe this to be the case". Oh. I see. So you weren't disagreeing with me when I said that both sides have the same thing to fear (namely, being wrong), you were just disagreeing with the claim that it all boils down to ego, which I never made. Check. [:)] K.

Kirata -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 5:33:59 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: hardcybermaster Surely all god wants is for us to live and behave in an honest,charitable and good way? Well I don't know, is that Atheist theology? [:D] More seriously though, wouldn't you be discomforted to discover that there really is a God, that he really does care, that the world is in fact ultimately just, that everything really does happen for a reason, and that you've spent your entire life ridiculing people who believed, insulting their intelligence, hurting their feelings, and just generally behaving like a prize fucking ass? K.

GotSteel -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 6:00:12 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dcnovice My concern with your use of "single-celled organism" stems from being a nitpicky editor. It seems unscientific to describe something as "single-celled" when it actually has multiple cells and is constantly adding more. The phrase also makes it sound like we're talking about amoebas, which we're not. quote: ORIGINAL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygote A zygote (from Greek ζυγωτός zygōtos "joined" or "yoked", from ζυγοῦν zygoun "to join" or "to yoke"),[1] or zygocyte, is the initial cell formed when two gamete cells are joined by means of sexual reproduction. In multicellular organisms, it is the earliest developmental stage of the embryo. In single-celled organisms, the zygote divides to produce offspring, usually through meiosis. A zygote is always synthesized from the union of two gametes, and constitutes the first stage in a unique organism's development. Zygotes are usually produced by a fertilization event between two haploid cells—an ovum (female gamete) and a sperm cell (male gamete)—which combine to form the single diploid cell. Such zygotes contain DNA derived from both the parents, and this provides all the genetic information necessary to form a new individual. Sure things get progressively more complex and more ambiguous later on but that thing the personhood movement is trying to get legally defined as a person with full human rights really is just this single cell: The position really is just that dumb [image]local://upfiles/566126/640778213B2E482680C76C44C5939845.jpg[/image]

dcnovice -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 6:31:17 PM)
quote: but that thing the personhood movement is trying to get legally defined as a person with full human rights really is just this single cell: Fair enough. For the first four days, it is indeed single-celled. [:)]

tweakabelle -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 9:07:48 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle Such a shame you didn't read (or didn't heed) the next sentence - it reads: "I don't believe this to be the case". Oh. I see. So you weren't disagreeing with me when I said that both sides have the same thing to fear (namely, being wrong), you were just disagreeing with the claim that it all boils down to ego, which I never made. Check. [:)] K. Poor thingy you, you do sound confused. Perhaps it's because you imagine you're playing a game of chess with some imaginary opponent. I was under the impression we were engaging in a inquiry into the nature of things. And I prefer to keep my ego in check. [:D] To clarify things for you: I don't believe that the fear of being wrong/ego is either the sole or, in many cases, even a significant factor for people adopting the positions that they do. While that may explain the actions of some, I prefer to take a more positive approach. It seems to me that most people adopt the positions that they do because they believe they are right. For mine, this is what makes categorical positions on these issues potentially so dangerous.

Kirata -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/29/2012 9:17:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle To clarify things for you: I don't believe that the fear of being wrong/ego is either the sole or, in many cases, even a significant factor for people adopting the positions that they do. Just to clarify things for you, I never said it was. At issue is your claim that a fear of being wrong boils down to "mere ego". I think that's bullshit, and you haven't supported it. But now that we're back on track, feel free. K.

hardcybermaster -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/30/2012 9:15:52 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: hurting their feelings K. awww, did the nasty man say something horrid, there there diddums, run off home and let mummy give you a hug

AlexDom3 -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/30/2012 9:26:37 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: littlewonder up until the renaissance, others thought the world was flat. Urban legend.

AlexDom3 -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/30/2012 9:30:36 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: GotSteel face palm So in other words the Bible had no business being taught in science class. quote: ORIGINAL: littlewonder There is a line in the bible that states the world is a circle, whereas up until the renaissance, others thought the world was flat. Actually the earth was proven to be spherical in the 3rd century BCE and was believed to be spherical for centuries before that. The back slide into flat earth theory was Bible based. Also false. There was no backslide. Scholars knew the Earth was spherical the entire time.

fucktoyprincess -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/30/2012 9:54:03 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dcnovice quote: To the extent that you have not encountered smugness amongst churchgoers, or more accurately, "believers", because many faiths do not actually have "churches" as their houses of worship, it is likely because they don't fear you. It may also be, I recognize, the particular congregations to which I've belonged. Both are fairly liberal, filled with folks more at home with doubt than certainty. quote: I certainly, since a very young age (5?) have encountered the religious repeatedly. And most of it has not been nice. Being told I will go to hell for not believing in Christ, leaves a lasting impression.... (And let me add one important clarification - I come from a family of believers. They are just not Christian. So what the "believers" were attacking was not even my atheism - I was a child - they were attacking the fact that my family was not Christian, but another faith. Smug is not even the word.) That is truly awful, and I'm honestly sorry folks treated you like that. Trust me, many of the opinions I have formulated as an adult do not come simply from abstract reasoning, but from thinking very carefully about the set of experiences that I have had and what those experiences tell me about humans, about religions, about the need for religions, and about what it means to actually be a good person. Believers do not have a monopoly on either goodness or sincerity. At the end of the day, people are people. Smug people are smug people - whether they are believers or not. And good people are good people - whether they are believers or not. But believers often feel that because they believe, they are not capable of wrongdoing or smugness. In other words if you asked people who said the things they said to me as a child, they would say they were not being mean, or smug - they were simply fulfilling one of the obligations of their religion - to save other souls. In other words, their very religion, excused their behavior because it was in furtherance of an important goal of their religion. Again, when one talks about freedom of religion, one has to treat all the religions as being equally deserving of respect. Not just some. And this is also true for public policy. The moment you elevate how one religion views something to the law of the land, and ignore how other religions might see it - you are imposing a belief system on someone. The issue is not believers vs non-believers. The issue is that some believers feel their beliefs are more important than other believers' beliefs. To me, part of the culture wars are based on the extreme smugness of certain believers of particular beliefs. They don't care about atheists. But they also don't care about believers of other faiths. [sm=2cents.gif]

dcnovice -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/30/2012 4:29:33 PM)
quote: At the end of the day, people are people. Smug people are smug people - whether they are believers or not. And good people are good people - whether they are believers or not. Agreed. quote: But believers often feel that because they believe, they are not capable of wrongdoing or smugness. This rather broad statement gives me pause. It's hard to square with the fact that repentance for one's sins seems to be a key theme in many religions. I know from my own experience that Catholic and Anglican services (attended by a fair chunk of the world's believers) include a weekly confession of sin.

fucktoyprincess -> RE: Dawkins says Yes to Bibles in schools (5/31/2012 7:42:15 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dcnovice quote: At the end of the day, people are people. Smug people are smug people - whether they are believers or not. And good people are good people - whether they are believers or not. Agreed. quote: But believers often feel that because they believe, they are not capable of wrongdoing or smugness. This rather broad statement gives me pause. It's hard to square with the fact that repentance for one's sins seems to be a key theme in many religions. I know from my own experience that Catholic and Anglican services (attended by a fair chunk of the world's believers) include a weekly confession of sin. My point is simply that believers feel they are entitled to impose their will on others because they are responsible for other people's souls. They do not view imposing their will on others as either wrongdoing or smugness. And, while I agree that their religion often allows them this latitude, I, personally, don't agree with the philosophical approach. I think the moment you impose your will on another without their consent, it is wrong. Period. I don't care if someone thinks "god" is on their side. And this is where, as an atheist, I can never fall back on "well, god is on my side, therefore what I do is right". NO. I have to justify based on moral principles that have nothing to do with god, whether or not what I have chosen to do is actually "right", or "fair" or "appropriate", etc. And "god" is not on my side to absolve me. I have to actually be able to justify my acts based on rational thought. So hence, I don't generally go around trying to impose my will on other people in the public policy arena. I support policies that uphold the widest range of latitude possible, because, it is simply not my place, as a human being, to tell other human beings, who they should worship or not, and what they should do or not do simply because my religious background says one thing when their's does not. When one religion actually gives their followers not just the right to proselytize but the requirement, then one has a fundamental issue impeding "live and let live".

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