The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like...

[FreshFish]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

Didn't want to troll, but I don't want to derail the thread, either. I'll indulge in just one more post to explain, and then drop it.

Assuming that Fish was referring to the East Anglia 'Climategate', what's really remarkable is the sheer level of scientific illiteracy that went into the right wing media/blogosphere's response. And that's being charitable. A less charitable take would be that they intentionally misinterpreted many of those emails. No need to go that far, though. The point is that there isn't - and never was - evidence of any of the types of malfeasance that the skeptics* claimed. But, clearly, evidence mattered a lot less than simply having faith in the certitude of one's judgment that they "proved" fraud.

*It's a sensitive subject because I used to work in Virginia (thankfully, no more), where that sort of blind faith apparently is enough to motivate legal witch hunts (see Cuccinelli, Ken). It's also annoying because the whole climate debate is sullying the reputation of skepticism. Skepticism should be a cornerstone of scientific practice - not the latest incarnation of the ancient art of hurr-derp. The controversy would be a lot more interesting if skepticism didn't have the intellectual maturity of a temper tantrum, amounting to lots of screaming and throwing things around. If you think that James Hanson is Lamarck, then prove it. Don't tell me biology is garbage; show me Darwin. If Michael Mann is Ptolemy, then don't tell me astronomy is garbage. Show me <s>Kep</s> err, that's just weird. Show me Copernicus. (much better). You know . . . do science or something.

N.B. Enviros don't get a free pass, either. I'm pretty sure I lost a job once when, at an interview, I mentioned that it was unfortunate that environmentalists responded to Lomborg's Skeptical Environmentalist by screaming "Heretic!" They took advantage of a few factual mistakes to excuse themselves from engaging with the larger claim that, before endorsing just any climate/energy policy, we should consider the opportunity cost -- what else could be done with those resources? A perfectly reasonable argument to have, and one that deserved to have a place in any policy debate.

I'm not necessarily a global warming skeptic I'm merely an anthropogenic global warming skeptic. One could just as easily argue that increased atmospheric CO[SUB]2[/SUB] would facilitate more plant life which then removes more CO[SUB]2[/SUB] from the atmosphere creating a homeostatic feedback loop. There are so many interconnected variables.

 

[amherstblackbear]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

Fair enough.

Though I think an argument of homeostasis sort of implies skepticism toward climate change writ large - not just anthropogenically induced change. But that's splitting hairs.

Warming could increase plant life. But you're right that there are a lot of variables. Other things are never equal. One variable tending to increase plant life might also be counteracted by other variables tending to reduce (say) in forest cover . . . to accomodate increasing population, increasing demand for meat (need moar ranches), and pressures for economic development in general.

It's a pain to figure all that stuff out. But that's what science is for. No need to throw one's hands in the air and say Whatevs. This is hard. Let God/Gaia deal with it.

 

[aygwm2]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

I rather live my life by three quotes.

The first is from Macbeth:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

The second from Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth:

I believe that the long silence of God,
the absolute speechlessness of Him is a long,
long and awful thing that the world is lost because of,
and I think that it is yet to be broken to any man.

The third is from Jackson Browne's "The Pretender":

I'm going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
I'm going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I'll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I'll get up and do it again
Amen
Say it again
Amen
....

I'm gonna be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy
though true love could have been a contender
Are you there?
Say a prayer for the Pretender.
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender.

And a forth that I just thought of:

I leave you with this scene from Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters:

MICKEY (gesturing)
A Bud--? That's totally alien to me. Look, you're getting on in years, right? Aren't you afraid of dying?
Mickey's father walks offscreen again, to the kitchen sink.
FATHER (offscreen)
Why should I be afraid?
MICKEY
(loudly gesturing) Oh! 'Cause you won't exist!
FATHER (offscreen)
So?
MICKEY
(gesturing) That thought doesn't terrify you?
Mickey's father walks out of the kitchen, past his son, to the living room.
FATHER (waving his arm)
Who thinks about such nonsense? Now I'm alive. When I'm dead, I'll be dead.
MICKEY (following his
father, gesturing) I don't understand. Aren't you frightened?
FATHER (offscreen)
Of what? I'll be unconscious.
MICKEY
(turning and walking down the hallway)
Yeah, I know. But never to exist again!
FATHER (offscreen)
How do you know?
MICKEY Well, it certainly doesn't look
promising.
Mickey stops at the bathroom door at the other end of the hallway. He starts to pound it.
FATHER (offscreen)
Who knows what'll be?
Mickey's father comes back on screen; he's carrying a plate of hors d'oeuvres and an empty glass towards the kitchen. He stops and looks down the hall at Mickey, who's now struggling to open the bathroom door.
FATHER
(gesturing with his hands full)
I'll either be unconscious or I won't. If not, I'll deal with it then. I'm not gonna worry now
about what's gonna be when I'm unconscious.
MICKEY
(pounding on the door) Mom, come out!
MOTHER
(in the bathroom) Of course there's a God, you idiot! You don't believe inGod?
MICKEY (sighing)
But if there's a God, then wh-why is there so much evil in the world?
(shrugging) What-- Just on a simplistic level. Why-why were there Nazis?
MOTHER (offscreen)
Tell him, Max! (Mickey, reacting, hits his forehead.)
FATHER (offscreen)
How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don't know how the
can opener works.
Mickey starts pounding the door again as the movie cuts to:

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

Though I think an argument of homeostasis sort of implies skepticism toward climate change writ large - not just anthropogenically induced change. But that's splitting hairs.

Not at all, if one notices that there have been cycles of global warming and global cooling throughout prehistory, for millenia before the first of the tree-dwelling apes began to walk upright on the ground. I think someone produced some evidence correlating it with cycles of vulcanism, someone else theorized it could be correlated with sunspot activity....remember that the "great die-off" from 75 million years ago or whenever, is widely assumed to be associated with an asteroid that produced such a huge cloud of dust that it blocked off the sunlight for several years.

To me, this goes back to what you posted earlier about opportunity cost. Suppose there is non-anthropogenic global warming, then the prescription for how to respond is to prepare for the consequences. If people are wrong about the anthropogenic part, then we would wind up doing exactly the opposite of what is called for: we would restrict economic growth in a futile and misguided effort that is bound to fail. If there is non-anthropogenic global warming, we gin up the economic growth engine so that we have enough tools to address the consequences.

 

[amherstblackbear]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

I see what you're saying - I think we're just talking past each other.

Since I take climate to be - definitionally - a long-term phenomenon, I think of it as including cyclical trends. I mean . . . nobody's denying that there have been things like ice ages. So I take "change" to mean a departure from that long-term cyclical path. I think that's where the confusion was, on my end.

Yeah . . . definitions make for lousy message board banter, but sometimes they're helpful. No sense in a 12-post back-and-forth if, at the end, we both end up realizing we're just operationalizing terms differently.

Though I guess it wouldn't be the first time that a message board exchange generated sound and fury, signifying - if not nothing - then not a whole lot

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

I see what you're saying - I think we're just talking past each other.

Though I guess it wouldn't be the first time that a message board exchange generated sound and fury, signifying - if not nothing - then not a whole lot

yeah, there are times I wish I could just plug in Emily Litella going "never mind...." in Gilda's sweet winsome voice....

 

[duper]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

I forgot to quote, but in reference to a couple of people who responded to my comment:

I really wasn't trying to be a troll, or obnoxious. I truly believe that all religion, all faith, is damaging to humanity. Not just the fanatics, not just the zealots, not just the wackos. I believe it is all hurtful. HOWEVER, I in no way believe that my personal beliefs should be enforced on ANYONE else. Just because it is obvious to me how damaging religion is, doesn't mean I hold anyone's religious beliefs against them. Timothy A is a great example. The fact that he doesn't engage trolls, shows me that he is probably very sincere and honest in his beliefs. He also seems to accept that a great way to strengthen beliefs is to listen to those who believe something counter, and really THINK about why you disagree. That is great. I would never propose an abolition of religion. It just would be my hope that all religion would die out on its own. That's a hope, but not one I'm holding my breath on. In my Utopia (and let's remember that Sir Thomas More (who is also a Saint) coined the word Utopia from two Greek words that together meant "no place," showing that even as he wrote the book he recognized the impossibility of the concept) there is no religion, but not because it has been decreed, just because no one believes in any religion.

 

[joecct]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

Duper

What do you call missionaries?
(dinner?)

 

[duper]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

Duper

What do you call missionaries?
(dinner?)

I have serious problems with missionaries.

 

[joecct]

I have serious problems with missionaries.

In what way?

 

[duper]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

In what way?

Honestly, how can you have read my posts in this thread and ask that? Think of something that you believe is harmful to humanity. Then think how you feel about people whose job it is to spread that thing.

To start, "missionaries" is a pretty vague term. There aren't too many people going around killing the people that they can't convert anymore, so that's something. But I do believe that the concept of missionary work begins from a fundamental belief that "their lives will be better if they believe in my religion." I disagree.

And for the record, if what you are getting at is that I am "missionizing" for atheism, that really isn't something I do, and it bugs me when other people do. I hope that I have not come across that way here. (And I'm not saying that is what you're getting at, I'm just perceiving it as a possibility.)

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

But I do believe that the concept of missionary work begins from a fundamental belief that "their lives will be better if they believe in my religion." I disagree.

For everyone? Should we eliminate the concept of news in society because it makes some sad...even though it can be extremely important for others?

My position is that people being educated about their choices is typically a good thing.

Which is basically just a Utilitarian argument for continuation of religion. Why not just make the Utilitarian argument directly and say that more people will be happier more of the time if we each treated other as we would like to be treated? Same result, less dishonesty.

Believing to just believe in anything is not dishonest...maybe strange.

Having said that Utilitarianism is pretty much built on Christianity. The general pov came straight from Jesus. In fact Utilitarianism did come ultimately from a Joseph Priestley, very much a Christian. Priestley wanted to return Christianity to its "primitive" or "pure" form.

So IMO it makes a ton of sense to go back to the source, Jesus. In any case, this is just another way Christianity has propogated Jesus' primary plank of 'do good towards others' into society.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

Here is a very interesting statement from a public figure (I'll omit his name for now so that we can reflect on the substance of his words, and not who spoke them) on the intersection of private faith and public life. (Hint: It is NOT Sanctorum speaking).

"A person's faith is central to how they conduct themselves in public and in private. So to me, using my Catholic faith, we call it the social magisterium, which is how do you apply the doctrine of your teaching into your everyday life as a lay person?

"To me, the principle of subsidiarity . . . meaning government closest to the people governs best . . . where we, through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities, through all of our different groups where we interact with people as a community, that's how we advance the common good. By not having big government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities.

"Those principles are very, very important, and the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of Catholic social teaching, means don't keep people poor, don't make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life. Help people get out of poverty out onto a life of independence."

Now, to me, these words are fairly unremarkable....if anything, admirable. It sounds like they could easily apply to any faith, and that the speaker was merely using his faith as an example.


What is interesting to me is that the entire left-wing blogosphere has gone ballistic in response. What is it in these words that they find so threatening that they have to nuke the speaker with personal character attacks while totally ignoring the substance of what he actually said?

 

[Carter]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

If the knucklehead doesn't know the difference between tenets and tenants I don't have much respect for him.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Offcial Thread to Debate Various Aspects of Various Religious Doctrine, Like.

If the knucklehead doesn't know the difference between tenets and tenants I don't have much respect for him.

Since he said it in a speech, I'd suggest that the person who wrote down his words made that mistake, not the speaker. I'm sure that the speaker knows the difference.