rehmwa 2
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jakee 1,563
Quoteyou already said that, I had countered with my opinion. But go ahead and repeat if you like. I'd rather not get into a 'do loop'
So do you still strongly believe that my pixie does not exist, or had the thought simply not entered into your head since I mentioned it?
Yesterday I taught it how to juggle and say 'shit' in several European languages.
Not at the same time though, it doesn't multitask very well.
Do you want to have an ideagasm?
rehmwa 2
QuoteSo do you still strongly believe that my pixie does not exist, or had the thought simply not entered into your head since I mentioned it?
my honest answer?
don't know, don't care. But I'll respect that you think you have a pixie. And if you ever introduce the thing to me in a convincing fashion, I'll acknowledge that you have a very nice pixie.
I only care that your belief in your pixie results in you being a better or worse person, then I'll treat you according to your resulting ACTIONS, not the belief in the pixie. Because, I know a lot of guys that believe in pixies and some are good and some are bad, so the pixie aspect of it is just a side bar as far as I'm concerned.
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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants
jakee 1,563
Quotemy honest answer?
don't know, don't care.
You're honestly telling me you don't know if I have a pixie or not? You actually think it's entirely possible that I might have a pixie and you're going to refrain from making any assumption about the truth of my pixie claim? Ok....
(Yes, I got the subtext
)Do you want to have an ideagasm?
rehmwa 2
QuoteYou're honestly telling me you don't know if I have a pixie or not?
actually, i place more weight on the "don't care" half of that response, and the whole "I respect that you think you really do have a pixie and the belief might be positive for you"
for that matter, you might have named your parrot "pixie"
either way, meh
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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants
philh 0
"I only care that your belief in your pixie results in you being a better or worse person, then I'll treat you according to your resulting ACTIONS, not the belief in the pixie."
Well thats the whole point, you write as if belief in pixies are divorced form poeple actions. I suggest that widespread belief in irrational beings does have an impact on peoples actions. Wars are fought because one army believed they have a better imaginary friend than the other. If we abandoned belief in imaginary friends past childhood wars may still be fought but theres a good chance they will be fewer in number.
Well thats the whole point, you write as if belief in pixies are divorced form poeple actions. I suggest that widespread belief in irrational beings does have an impact on peoples actions. Wars are fought because one army believed they have a better imaginary friend than the other. If we abandoned belief in imaginary friends past childhood wars may still be fought but theres a good chance they will be fewer in number.
Unless that first cause shows up at the pub and says "drinks all around", he (fuck me if it's a woman) doesn't exist to me.
rehmwa 2
QuoteWell thats the whole point, you write as if belief in pixies are divorced form poeple actions. I suggest that widespread belief in irrational beings does have an impact on peoples actions. Wars are fought because one army believed they have a better imaginary friend than the other. If we abandoned belief in imaginary friends past childhood wars may still be fought but theres a good chance they will be fewer in number.
1st - I do NOT believe one's beliefs are divorced from their actions. That's just bad reading comprehension from a need for ludicrous oversimplification. Actions are a result of beliefs and many other factors. I just believe that any set of belief will be applied in vastly different ways by individuals and that you can't just act as if everybody of a single belief will ALL act in a certain way. That's just naive.
2nd - In that vein, bad individual acts may be encourage by a belief set, But, people also commit horrible acts of kindness and charity because they believe that's what their "imaginary" friends says to do, as well. Again, it's the individual's application of their beliefs that matter, not the belief itself, especially when religion typical encourages goodness, not evil.
3rd - Major wars, in contemporary societies, are not caused by religion, but by the desire for power. I don't think the absence of religion would change that at all, they'd find any other reason(s). Need for power and resources is much more basic than philosphy. You're not talking religion as a cause, we're talking about religion being a convenient rationalization - but any rationalization will do. Because large scale conflict, in the very end is just about need and greed on one side (sometimes justified sometimes not - in a survival sense), and defense on the other side - and then when it progresses enough it's then about greed and need on both sides.
generalization of a belief set to a demographic is a bad application when it's cause and effect only make sense at the individual level
if you want to discuss the organizational application of religion, then we also need to lump in any sort of power structure in the same argument - fighting services, governments, political parties, very large corporations, etc. But that's just more application of the same recognition of individual vs mass population dynamics. And that's pointless too.
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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants
philh 0
"Major wars, in contemporary societies, are not caused by religion, but by the desire for power."
is this a joke? Are you seriously suggesting the current conflicts in the middle east are not religiously motivated? AQ have very explicilty stated their motivation is religion, all their actions are consitent with that, what evidence do you have to doubt it? Its not just Aq either , the Isreali state, thhe Iranian revolution, hamas, hezbolllah. Can you say with a straight face they are not motivated by religion?
"I do NOT believe one's beliefs are divorced from their actions. That's just bad reading comprehension from a need for ludicrous oversimplification. Actions are a result of beliefs and many other factors. I just believe that any set of belief will be applied in vastly different ways by individuals and that you can't just act as if everybody of a single belief will ALL act in a certain way. That's just naive. "
I have never said that everybody with religious beliefs acts the same way, thats just bad comprehension from a need for ludicrous oversimplification. of course most religious people dont go off killing people because of their beliefs. However it would be ridiculous to deny thhat many people do; so my point is that belief in superstition will have negative conseuquences. Its not just wars either, if everybody believes illness is caused by possesion by evil spirits then its unlikely succesful medical treatemtns will be developed. That's why i care whether or not people believe in pixies/god or any other nonsense. If everyone believes witchhes are real and pose a threat to society then you will see women getting burnt alive. Widespread beliefs have consequences. Yes some people give to charity becuase of religion but as a whole I think the evidence points to religion doing a lot moe harm than good. But we have debated that in another post with thhe poll religion. problem/solution.
is this a joke? Are you seriously suggesting the current conflicts in the middle east are not religiously motivated? AQ have very explicilty stated their motivation is religion, all their actions are consitent with that, what evidence do you have to doubt it? Its not just Aq either , the Isreali state, thhe Iranian revolution, hamas, hezbolllah. Can you say with a straight face they are not motivated by religion?
"I do NOT believe one's beliefs are divorced from their actions. That's just bad reading comprehension from a need for ludicrous oversimplification. Actions are a result of beliefs and many other factors. I just believe that any set of belief will be applied in vastly different ways by individuals and that you can't just act as if everybody of a single belief will ALL act in a certain way. That's just naive. "
I have never said that everybody with religious beliefs acts the same way, thats just bad comprehension from a need for ludicrous oversimplification. of course most religious people dont go off killing people because of their beliefs. However it would be ridiculous to deny thhat many people do; so my point is that belief in superstition will have negative conseuquences. Its not just wars either, if everybody believes illness is caused by possesion by evil spirits then its unlikely succesful medical treatemtns will be developed. That's why i care whether or not people believe in pixies/god or any other nonsense. If everyone believes witchhes are real and pose a threat to society then you will see women getting burnt alive. Widespread beliefs have consequences. Yes some people give to charity becuase of religion but as a whole I think the evidence points to religion doing a lot moe harm than good. But we have debated that in another post with thhe poll religion. problem/solution.
rehmwa 2
Quoteis this a joke? Are you seriously suggesting the current conflicts in the middle east are not religiously motivated? AQ have very explicilty stated their motivation is religion, all their actions are consistent with that, what evidence do you have to doubt it?
IMO - AQ religion isn't the reason, it's the rationalization for the conflict by leadership of AQ that desire power. (you can make the same parallel with the DNC or RNC if you like to make it easier to understand from a non-religious perspective).
heads - active (missionary) religious people honestly think their religion is good for individuals and society and that everyone should be religious and that would make the world a better place. They look at charity, 10 step programs, community, etc.
tails - active anti-religious people honestly thing that religions is bad for individuals and society and that everyone should be atheist and that would make the world a better place. They look at the crusades, AQ, corrupt religious leaders.
both are OPINIONs based on personal perspective or bias of the good/bad balance sheet - both are advocating thought control - I don't see any difference in either group as they both want to force their beliefs down the other's throats (and every else in between)
My "opinion" is that having or not having religion isn't the issue and what we really need is for it to be personal, non-organized, and for the religious and non-religious just to ignore that aspect of the others as none of their business. I think it has great personal effect on individuals but when it get big and organized, it gets equivalent to any big organized group driven by a subjective baseline.
Take anywhere in your posts where you say religion and replace it politics and you get my personal bias of the major bad in the world. (and a similar 'good/bad balance sheet' can be done there too).
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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants
rehmwa 2
QuoteWidespread beliefs have consequences.
here's some widespread beliefs I have no issue with their consequences: we should come to the aid of hurricane victims, the force of gravity falls off with the square of the distance, we can't exceed the speed of light, everybody should be nice to each other and we'd be happier
widespread -extreme- beliefs usually have bad consequences
such as - we'd be better off if there was no religion
such as - witches are real
such as - illness is due to possession
such as - my pixies can swear in 7 languages (everyone know pixies can only speak in 1 language - the other 6 are just related dialects)
religion is used to explain the unexplainable, as we know more, then the less those areas are in need of understanding. You are only correct when religion does not evolve - and that's not the fault of faith, that's the fault of power hungry leaders
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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants
philh 0
"AQ religion isn't the reason, it's the rationalization for the conflict by leadership of AQ that desire power."
if that were true why is one of their main strategies suicide attacks? This makes sense only in the light of their belief in the after life.If what you say is true it would be just as likely to see suicide bombers from other faiths, or even without faiths, but thats not whhat we see. what we see is that these terrorists actions are correlated with a certain belief and so the belief is an issue here.
You dont just have to take my opnion on this either.
In 1999 a group of world religious leaders including Buddhist, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim and many other faiths met in Geneva Switzerland during 1999-OCT. They listed 56 current conflicts which they believed had religous motivation. You can read the detailed article here:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/curr_war.htm
if that were true why is one of their main strategies suicide attacks? This makes sense only in the light of their belief in the after life.If what you say is true it would be just as likely to see suicide bombers from other faiths, or even without faiths, but thats not whhat we see. what we see is that these terrorists actions are correlated with a certain belief and so the belief is an issue here.
You dont just have to take my opnion on this either.
In 1999 a group of world religious leaders including Buddhist, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim and many other faiths met in Geneva Switzerland during 1999-OCT. They listed 56 current conflicts which they believed had religous motivation. You can read the detailed article here:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/curr_war.htm
rehmwa 2
you don't honestly thing we're trying to convince each other about this do you? that would be downright missionary-like, wouldn't it?
I'm just enjoying sharing the opinions.
(answer - do you see the leadership doing suicide attacks? or just the leadership convincing the ignorant to do the attacks, religion being the convenient tool)
(you use the word 'correlated' instead of causative in the post - did you realize that?)
(I'm not surprise a bunch of religious leaders types stopped in the root cause analysis at religion instead of going further. Deeper digging would implicate the leadership directly and they sure wouldn't want to go there.)
I think we are in agreement in that an "organizated large scale structure that leverages religious beliefs to maintain their power structure" would be the issue. Unless you really have an issue with people having "personal" subjective beliefs different from your own.
I just think that if we didn't have religion, some other structure would emerge that would still exploit the people and cause just as much pain (maybe one based on radical environmentalism, or one based on radical response against killing babies, or one based on consensus hate against an economic superpower, etc) - but maybe it wouldn't also encourage the personal good that we see from religion.
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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants
I'm just enjoying sharing the opinions.
(answer - do you see the leadership doing suicide attacks? or just the leadership convincing the ignorant to do the attacks, religion being the convenient tool)
(you use the word 'correlated' instead of causative in the post - did you realize that?)
(I'm not surprise a bunch of religious leaders types stopped in the root cause analysis at religion instead of going further. Deeper digging would implicate the leadership directly and they sure wouldn't want to go there.)
I think we are in agreement in that an "organizated large scale structure that leverages religious beliefs to maintain their power structure" would be the issue. Unless you really have an issue with people having "personal" subjective beliefs different from your own.
I just think that if we didn't have religion, some other structure would emerge that would still exploit the people and cause just as much pain (maybe one based on radical environmentalism, or one based on radical response against killing babies, or one based on consensus hate against an economic superpower, etc) - but maybe it wouldn't also encourage the personal good that we see from religion.
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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants
philh 0
"You are only correct when religion does not evolve - and that's not the fault of faith, that's the fault of power hungry leaders "
it is the fault of faith. Faith is believing something without evidence. when people do that they are more likely to follow bullshit than if they learnt to question and think critically.
re Aq why are you focusing on the leadership? AQ comprises more than just its leaders, lets suppose the leaders arent interested in religion (an utterly baseless foundation ) , the fact that their soldiers are shows the negative effects of religion. of course the leaders are motviated by religion. Here is my evidence for this:
1) they say so
2) many of thhe leaders gave up rich and influential lifestyles to go and live in a cave
3) killing female students,blowing up statues of the buddha and enforcing strict shria law
4) those that hav known thhe higher leadership claim they spend a large amount of time preying
5) aq leadership wantted to use guerilla tactics against saddams invvasion of kuwait rather thhan letting us troops on saudi soil becuase they didnt want infidels on holy land
6) they offered an end to all attacks if the us acceptted islam
Moreover Aq has become more of a brand name rather than a strong structure, it unites miltant islamists to go and kill infidels. heir religion if their motivation and its not clear they even receive orders from the leadership.
it is the fault of faith. Faith is believing something without evidence. when people do that they are more likely to follow bullshit than if they learnt to question and think critically.
re Aq why are you focusing on the leadership? AQ comprises more than just its leaders, lets suppose the leaders arent interested in religion (an utterly baseless foundation ) , the fact that their soldiers are shows the negative effects of religion. of course the leaders are motviated by religion. Here is my evidence for this:
1) they say so
2) many of thhe leaders gave up rich and influential lifestyles to go and live in a cave
3) killing female students,blowing up statues of the buddha and enforcing strict shria law
4) those that hav known thhe higher leadership claim they spend a large amount of time preying
5) aq leadership wantted to use guerilla tactics against saddams invvasion of kuwait rather thhan letting us troops on saudi soil becuase they didnt want infidels on holy land
6) they offered an end to all attacks if the us acceptted islam
Moreover Aq has become more of a brand name rather than a strong structure, it unites miltant islamists to go and kill infidels. heir religion if their motivation and its not clear they even receive orders from the leadership.
rehmwa 2
Though I'm not religious, I consider that religion serves a useful societal role that outweighs the negatives which would find an outlet with or without that particular structure - I think it's human nature and can be observed if you drill further into root cause and also look and compare to non-religious conflict as well.
Obviously you don't.
I won't fault people that have faith or belittle their beliefs.
Obviously you do.
I don't see any point going further. I'm not going to press your 'faith' on this issue. It appears to be important to you and who am I to question it as it might be useful to you is some way.
blues
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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants
Obviously you don't.
I won't fault people that have faith or belittle their beliefs.
Obviously you do.
I don't see any point going further. I'm not going to press your 'faith' on this issue. It appears to be important to you and who am I to question it as it might be useful to you is some way.
blues
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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants
for the truth about Satan and why christianity is the only dualist(pagan) religion in the world, go to www.newsforthesoul.com
we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively
wishers never choose, choosers never wish
wishers never choose, choosers never wish
kallend 2,106
QuoteThough I'm not religious, I consider that religion serves a useful societal role
Yep, keeps the proles in their place! Very effective too.
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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.
The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.
jakee 1,563
Perfect timing from hairyjuan as always
Rehmwa, I've only really skimmed over your exchange with Phil because its pretty tangential to what I was talking to you about earlier.
I don't really care too much about the arguments about the benificiality (Woohoo, new word!) of religion - I just find the stories that religious people believe to be utterly absurd.
In that vein, I just find it odd the way you refuse to make a 'truth judgement' about anything supernatural - even something so obviously imaginary as a pixie living in my tree. Unless you go the whole hog and suncribe to the reality is an illusion created by our senses argument...
Rehmwa, I've only really skimmed over your exchange with Phil because its pretty tangential to what I was talking to you about earlier.
I don't really care too much about the arguments about the benificiality (Woohoo, new word!) of religion - I just find the stories that religious people believe to be utterly absurd.
In that vein, I just find it odd the way you refuse to make a 'truth judgement' about anything supernatural - even something so obviously imaginary as a pixie living in my tree. Unless you go the whole hog and suncribe to the reality is an illusion created by our senses argument...
Do you want to have an ideagasm?
repetition is how people learn things
repetitiion is how people learn things
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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants
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