The hypocrisy of Theists

[magma]

yeah i didn't know the alt code grammar izan, tone it down JEEEZUS

You can use Alt Gr for accented vowels; no codes needed.

[BonerJams04]

yeah i didn't know the alt code grammar izan, tone it down SCIENCE

fixed for atheism

[neonmansion]

its funny that you think atheism is somehow the same as science. its not funny actually its sad. well its funny too. but mainly sad. your stupid lol

[collige]

it's
you're

[Genevieve]

Anything can be anything. It's not the 'thing' that matters but how people deal with that 'thing'. In the way that culture has moved forward, 'atheism' and 'science' have sadly become related cultural signifiers. You don't believe that thousands if not millions of people claiming that 'science' and 'reason' are the reasons that they're atheists impacts the cultural perception of either idea at all? Or always retorting religious arguments with scientific ones will do the same? That mindset lead to 'the christian right' proudly rejecting 'science', because culture taught them that science and religion are irreconcilable and you've gotta pick a team!

Dictionary definitions only teach you this much about an 'idea'. Experiences in society teach you about practical applications of them.

Edit: I have replies in mind for this whole anti-property shit, but I've seriously completely tired myself out on this shit for a while (and I understand how my relentlessnes on it is pretty annoying, you're not the only one annoyed with it). I'll save it for another time.

[neonmansion]

ok obviously I'm not going to nail the your/you're thing. I understand the distinction I just don't remember to make it. Leave me alone already. YOUR annoying me.

[BonerJams04]

i was making a joke.
simmer down

[Terpit]

on the other hand

Jesus!

[parson]

http://www.amazon.com/Let-There-Light-C ... t+kabbalah

Smith, an observant Jew who is a senior scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, brings us a work that is "deliberately not... scholarly." It aims to educate and enlighten readers while attempting to fuse an entry-level explanation of the vast and fascinating subject of cosmology with the elusive elements of the Kabbalah.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[Genevieve]

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." you can just as well say that there's an undetectable, unmeasurable unicorn sitting in your room right now, but you can effectively ignore the possibility since theres absolutely nothing to suggest even considering it.

The Hitchens quote is right and the position I take on it. But then I also don't want to waste my time on actively dismissing it. I'd just shrug and go on with my day.

and yeah, it's important to note that science and faith arent necessarily mutually exclusive. but again, i do think some forms of faith are incompatible with science, like a religion that claims the earth is 6000 years old

I think a scientist can be undecided. 'My faith says one thing, my religion says another', though I'm against mixing faith based reasoning in science obv.

Though faith and science meet a lot with laymen. A lot of 'online atheists' argue a lot of things they don't understand based on what scientists say too, which is a faith based argument. I'm really agnostic on scientific knowledge as well for that reason. I have no problems with authority in itself, just undeserved authority. And I cannot judge how deserved the authority of a scientist is if he practices in a field I'm completely ignorant of. I can learn bits here and there, but it would take a lot of knowledge in that field, so I don't even bother with it. I'm pretty comfortable knowing I'm ignorant, though.

I'll only debate paleontology and evolution m8s.

[magma]

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." you can just as well say that there's an undetectable, unmeasurable unicorn sitting in your room right now, but you can effectively ignore the possibility since theres absolutely nothing to suggest even considering it.

The Hitchens quote is right and the position I take on it. But then I also don't want to waste my time on actively dismissing it. I'd just shrug and go on with my day.

'xactly.

[Jizz]

Atheism needs to be a realization, not a religion in itself
Anyway you can be guaranteed something even worse will come our way when religion ceases to exist. Discrimination based on science? that could be fucked up, cos you cant argue against scientific fact

[Mason]

Atheism needs to be a realization, not a religion in itself
Anyway you can be guaranteed something even worse will come our way when religion ceases to exist. Discrimination based on science? that could be fucked up, cos you cant argue against scientific fact

at least that would work to progress the species though

[Jizz]

Atheism needs to be a realization, not a religion in itself
Anyway you can be guaranteed something even worse will come our way when religion ceases to exist. Discrimination based on science? that could be fucked up, cos you cant argue against scientific fact

at least that would work to progress the species though

Yeah thats a fair point, it is the next logical step

[magma]

Atheism needs to be a realization, not a religion in itself
Anyway you can be guaranteed something even worse will come our way when religion ceases to exist. Discrimination based on science? that could be fucked up, cos you cant argue against scientific fact

at least that would work to progress the species though

Would it though? A great deal of human traits can be seen as advantage and disadvantage depending on your perspective; how would you pick what to control? What makes our species so strong is that in a million individuals, you have a million types of human all able to specialise differently. Take two people and they may be able to do two wildly different tasks to two wildly different degrees. Would you rather we were all Stephen Hawking or Usain Bolt? Isaac Newton or Picasso? Mala or Florence Nightingale? Mixing traits across a large gene pool is a great way to spread immunity and newly developed abilities as well - it keeps us treading water in the everlasting battle against bacteria and viruses. Plenty of people even argue that the existence of certain conditions we characterise as "illnesses" (psychopathy for instance) allow individuals to push the population forward faster than it otherwise would.

tl;dr No.

[Terpit]

Mala, obviously

[Terpit]

ooh wait, was that rhetorical?

[Jizz]

Atheism needs to be a realization, not a religion in itself
Anyway you can be guaranteed something even worse will come our way when religion ceases to exist. Discrimination based on science? that could be fucked up, cos you cant argue against scientific fact

at least that would work to progress the species though

Would it though? A great deal of human traits can be seen as advantage and disadvantage depending on your perspective; how would you pick what to control? What makes our species so strong is that in a million individuals, you have a million types of human all able to specialise differently. Take two people and they may be able to do two wildly different tasks to two wildly different degrees. Would you rather we were all Stephen Hawking or Usain Bolt? Isaac Newton or Picasso? Mala or Florence Nightingale? Mixing traits across a large gene pool is a great way to spread immunity and newly developed abilities as well - it keeps us treading water in the everlasting battle against bacteria and viruses. Plenty of people even argue that the existence of certain conditions we characterise as "illnesses" (psychopathy for instance) allow individuals to push the population forward faster than it otherwise would.

tl;dr No.

you should both check out Gattaca, an interesting perspective on this whole situation, in fact thats the movie that made me ask this question in the first place

[magma]

you should both check out Gattaca, an interesting perspective on this whole situation, in fact thats the movie that made me ask this question in the first place

Really enjoyed Gattaca. It's a good demonstration of how genes are only a starting point too, without hundreds of generations of careful selection like we've done with dogs, there's too much variety in how even genetically similar humans turn out - the most genetically disadvantaged human can have an idea which changes the course of humanity and the most perfectly formed human can be hit by a bus because they didn't think to look before they crossed the road.

It really does take all sorts to make the world go round.

[Mason]

Interesting points and i will check out Gattaca. Although I do think discrimination based on science would be a lot more beneficial than that based on religion, obviously not without disadvantages though.