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Post by hibernicus on Oct 22, 2008 23:52:54 GMT
A few little points: (a) Atheists are not necessarily materialists; there have been Idealist philosophers who were atheists and I have even heard of atheists who believed in an afterlife. (b) There are Christians who believe that non-Christian creation myths are distorted memories of an original act of creation (and who would not treat the Genesis account as a literal description but as a "need to know" account). Such people are clearly not 99-out of 100 atheists as inedifix describes them. (c) The suicide bomber argument. This seems to derive from Richard Dawkins' claim that without a belief in heavenly rewards for the martyr there would be no suicide bombers. This view is quite easily falsified by the existence of secular or even atheist political groups (the Tamil Tigers, the South Syrian National Party in Lebanon) which have used suicide bombing as a tactic. In fact, suicide bombing is simply an extension of what soldiers do on the battlefield, and what lies behind such behaviour is not necessarily belief in individual survival but willingness to see oneself as part of a larger entity which outlives you (the tribe or extended family, the nation, the political party). William Morris, for example, was a socialist and an atheist, and he wrote a stroy in which te hero is a German tribesman who saves his people by a suicide attack on Roman invaders (THE HOUSE OF THE WOLFINGS). I must say itis very odd that Dawkins uses this particular argument, because THE SELFISH GENE is all about what drives an organism to sacrifice itself for the wider group.
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Post by Noelfitz on Oct 23, 2008 18:07:18 GMT
Inedifix,
Again I am disappointed.
I do appreciate your frustration in arguing with Saintstephen. But your posts are more cogent when they rely on reason and logic.
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Post by hazelireland on Oct 23, 2008 19:16:44 GMT
I finally had time to catch up and read this thread. Forgive me usual slowness.
There is a train of thought in this thread which I do not think has been directly addressed but which this quote sums up perfectly where we are touching on it. Sorry to the author of this quote for singling you out but your quote best served as an example.
We are here talking about whether religion is dangerous or not which clearly entails whether it can cause bad or good things.
However many here have expressed the opinion both ways and many have expressed the opinion that it is people that do bad or good things not religion.
So can it therefore be said that even though we can not come to a consensus about whether religion is needed to be good or bad.... we can certainly say for sure that it is clearly superfluous to requirements?
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Post by hazelireland on Oct 23, 2008 19:24:05 GMT
Dear Inedifix, So in other words what you are saying is that you do not believe there is no god. When you translate that particular double negative it becomes a positive which becomes, "you do believe there is a god". I think most of the errors that have been made by saintstephen on this thread, and elsewhere on the forum are all traceable back to this one error he makes. A lot of things would fall into place if this one error could be corrected. Might I suggest a new topic or thread on the subject if someone wants to start one? My slowness at getting to read all the wonderful posts on this site means I would not be a good one to start the thread. However what I think it comes down to is this. The error being made is that there is a false assumption here that seeing no reason to believe a proposition therefore implies you automatically believe the opposite of that proposition. Making that error seems to be the foundation error that leads to a lot of the mistakes SS makes in his posts here. I can take this example from simple every day life. PersonA: It is going to rain today. PersonB: I see no reason to think so. In SS's view person B here believes positively that it is not going to rain when in fact he has not indicated that belief. This is subtly but very importantly different from: PersonA: It is going to rain today. PersonB: I think in fact it will not. It would be an interesting separate thread and if SS could be shown the subtle but clear difference between the two stand points I think he would be relieved of the burden of a great % of his errors regarding Atheism as a belief system. Yes there are those who positively believe there is no god, and this is a belief. However I would wager that the majority just see no reason to think there is or, to take the secular view point, no reason to proceed or act like there is until there has been reason given to suggest there is. Anyone think it would be an interesting thread of conversation? And please I humbly beg the apology of taking THIS thread off topic.
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Post by hazelireland on Oct 23, 2008 19:52:35 GMT
And thank you for clearing up the subtle difference between an "absence of belief" and an "active belief in absence". I only wish I'd been able to put it as succinctly and as calmly as you just have. Do not underestimate yourself. You carry your own. One can be forgiven succumbing to a little frustration every so often. The other posters here in this thread have clearly indicated their appreciation at having your voice present on the board.
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Post by hazelireland on Oct 27, 2008 9:09:17 GMT
There are many. It is not my job to read the board for you. However since you... tried... to help me on the web sites thread I will give you one example. The rest you can find yourself. This is from Noel:
Inedifix
Thank you for your reply.
I find your posts keep us going. They are usually thoughtful and respectful.
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Post by hazelireland on Oct 28, 2008 8:36:00 GMT
As I said there have been others. It is not my job to read the forum for you however. Please do your own leg work.
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Post by hazelireland on Oct 29, 2008 8:10:46 GMT
Just for the record, I appreciate Inedifix's input on this forum. He has brought some much needed logic to some illogical posts on geocentrism and the evolution V creationism debate. Dear Hemingway, Ah but you are an atheist, why would you not appreciate concurrence with your own errant beliefs? I have even found many of his scientific posts educational. And again you can’t even use the quote function correctly so why would you not fail to appreciate more complex scientific nuances?
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Post by hazelireland on Oct 30, 2008 8:42:35 GMT
See? Nothing you say even remotely equates to reality. A typo is an error made during typing. An error where you would normally not make an error. I accused you of NO such thing. Your consistent art of putting words in peoples mouth on all the threads here is clearly seen.
Instead I showed that you CONSISTENTLY have an in ability to use on of the SIMPLEST function on this site. This is not an anomaly; it is a consistent inability to perform a simple task.
As for having difficulty engaging you… not yet sir, not yet. The only difficulty I have had is reading your posts in the messy format they arrive in due to your inability to perform the aforementioned simple task.
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Post by ezigboututu on Oct 30, 2008 21:56:24 GMT
And again you can’t even use the quote function correctly so why would you not fail to appreciate more complex scientific nuances? But he can't master the menial taks of using quote tags properly...and of course this is on top of the too numerous to mention jobs he had in his last incarnation as royalodelusionalodana.
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Post by Michael O'Donovan on Oct 31, 2008 20:04:32 GMT
So can it therefore be said that even though we can not come to a consensus about whether religion is needed to be good or bad.... we can certainly say for sure that it is clearly superfluous to requirements? To get back to basics, no; but nice try. The question is never whether religion is useful; the question is whether it is true.
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Post by hazelireland on Nov 1, 2008 10:24:04 GMT
So can it therefore be said that even though we can not come to a consensus about whether religion is needed to be good or bad.... we can certainly say for sure that it is clearly superfluous to requirements? To get back to basics, no; but nice try. The question is never whether religion is useful; the question is whether it is true. I think Id have to disagree but I do know what you mean. Clearly any number of combinations is possible. It could be true but still be harmful. It could be false and harmful. It could be false and useful. It could be true and useful. These are the main combinations but I could complicate it immensely to more if you wish. The subject of the thread those was not its truth value, it was solely its harm/usefullness value. So although I do see your point I think the point is off topic and not relevant to the discussion at hand. Clearly religion does not provide us with anything we would have had already. As said before, no one can name a thing done because of it that could not, would not or in a lot of cases HAS not been done by people of no faith. Therefore I see no reason to think, whether it is harmful or not, that it is not superflous to requirements.
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Post by faithful on Nov 3, 2008 1:16:27 GMT
And again you can’t even use the quote function correctly so why would you not fail to appreciate more complex scientific nuances? But he can't master the menial taks of using quote tags properly..." Dear Ezigboututu, You falsely accuse me of inability to master tasks and are blatantly discourteous to me in making any suggestion of this nature. My writing style is how I write, I deliberately do not use the quote function as it is not part of my writing style. You owe me an apology. All writers have their own unique writing style you should know that if you truly are courteous. I do and allow writers their own unique writing style out of courtesy to the writer's development of their own style. This is what makes any one of us unique and not a paper cut out of humanity. Where is your courtesy? The thread topic is [Is Religion Dangerous] I am asking you not to regress this topic to a debate on writing styles to keep it an intellectual debate. That is a common courtesy for all forum members. Yes, writing styles vary.
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Post by hazelireland on Nov 3, 2008 8:17:18 GMT
Dear Hazelireland, False accusation from you is that I have inability which is blatant discourtesy to me. I choose not to use any quote functions as it is not part of my writing style. I have my own style. You owe me an apology. Apology denied. I do not believe you can use it correctly nor do I find it courteous to make your posts unreadable as they do the more other people follow up with more QUOTE tags.
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Post by Inedifix II on Nov 3, 2008 11:12:46 GMT
Writing styles are what makes writers famous or infamous. All of the most well known writers are known first of all for their style and secondarily for the topic of their writing. Although probably not for their inability to operate a pen/pencil/computer keyboard properly.
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