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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Death of Dawkins forum?
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Matt H
Apprentice
# 15501
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Posted
Well, that is the thing about atheism. Atheism is the opposite of theism; we lack belief in a god. That's all it is. It doesn't instantly make someone more rational.
In the case of Richard Dawkins, you have a man who is very rational about science (regardless of your opinion of him personally, scientifically he is quite brilliant) but is prone to the same personal failings as anyone else. So when Josh Timonen tells him something is true, he believes it.
Posts: 11 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2010
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt H:
Well, that is the thing about atheism. Atheism is the opposite of theism; we lack belief in a god. That's all it is. It doesn't instantly make someone more rational.
Sing this from the rooftops. You'd certainly never learn it from Richard Dawkins. I'd long suspected the "Brights" weren't necessarily so. Nice to learn that, like theists, atheists can be self-deluding and at the same time self-congratulatory too.
God forgive me: I keep stomping on the Schadenfreude but it keeps rising up through the cracks.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Matt H
Apprentice
# 15501
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Posted
I think the 'Brights' thing was hideous and a lot of other atheists (like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens) agreed. I think that is why Richard abandoned it and replaced it with the much better 'Out Campaign'.
Posts: 11 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2010
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt H:
Well, that is the thing about atheism. Atheism is the opposite of theism; we lack belief in a god.
Not true. You have a belief in the lack of a God. Your position is a faith position as much as anyone else's.
[ 26. February 2010, 18:56: Message edited by: Call me Numpty ]
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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Matt H
Apprentice
# 15501
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Posted
Call me Numpty: Just like you have faith in not believing astrology or not collecting stamps, correct?
[ 26. February 2010, 18:58: Message edited by: Matt H ]
Posts: 11 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2010
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Choirboy
Shipmate
# 9659
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Posted
This is where we'll have a long discussion about whether there is such a thing as agnosticism and how it might differ from atheism, where some atheists will assert that anyone who does not accept their definition of atheism is behind the times and an idiot; but, in fact, that argument always struck me as more of a cheap marketing stunt to claim increased numbers.
Posts: 2994 | From: Minneapolis, Minnesota USA | Registered: Jun 2005
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Jack o' the Green
Shipmate
# 11091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Call me Numpty:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt H:
Well, that is the thing about atheism. Atheism is the opposite of theism; we lack belief in a god.
Not true. You have a belief in the lack of a God. Your position is a faith position as much as anyone else's.
Bless him, he's only been here 5 minutes and he's already being told what he believes! Welcome to the ship Matt. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Posts: 3121 | From: Lancashire, England | Registered: Feb 2006
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Arrietty
Ship's borrower
# 45
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt H:
Call me Numpty: Just like you have faith in not believing astrology or not collecting stamps, correct?
How is collecting stamps a faith position? Do atheists think stamps don't exist?
![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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i-church
Online Mission and Ministry
Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Orianna02
Apprentice
# 14858
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Posted
As a religious studies student who is neither a Christian nor an Atheist, I have read this thread and the whole online crash & burn of the RD forum with interest and some sympathy. I have experienced the demise of an online community and I appreciate how that can affect even those who have a full off-line life. I have also experienced how vitriolic forums can be, whether believers or non-believers.
For what it's worth, I think that those who haven't had personal experience of a good online community probably can't appreciate the richness and depth that community can offer. It's not just gossip and chat; to perceive it as such is to seriously misunderstand and underestimate the possibilites and advantages of the technology. That Richard Dawkins seems to have done so is surprising and (possibly, for his adherents) disappointing.
Posts: 18 | From: London | Registered: Jun 2009
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
And to what I have to imagine is a not inconsiderable number of them, it's got to hurt like hell. I want to say "God bless 'em" but that's just not on. How about: I hope they find solace.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Orianna02
Apprentice
# 14858
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Posted
Or maybe: this too shall pass.
Posts: 18 | From: London | Registered: Jun 2009
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt H:
Call me Numpty: Just like you have faith in not believing astrology or not collecting stamps, correct?
Neat riposte.
I suspect a common value is that purity of beliefs is no guarantee of decent behaviour? Which, if one thinks of it, is a perfect antidote to crowing about the failings of others. Which I'm glad to see you have not done.
Anyway, I'm pretty much with Erin on this. Owners of sites and their senior administrators have the right to take arbitrary action if they so wish - but if they retain some desire to allow a cyber-community to continue, they are wise to allow sounding off. Stifling sounding off hints at carelessness, ignorance, arrogance, a certain amount of panic. From what I've read, there also seems to be a certain amount of self-protection and misrepresentation going on as well.
But there's a danger in those fairly obvious conclusions. Carelessness, ignorance, arrogance, panic, self-protection and misrepresentation are common faults, regardless of purity of beliefs. The human capacity for self-deception is very great. "Holier than thou" is best avoided.
Do you know the six stages of a project, BTW?
Wild enthusiasm
Confusion
Disillusionment
Search for the guilty
Punishment of the innocent
Promotion of the nonparticipants
Some of those rang bells here.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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ianjmatt
Shipmate
# 5683
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt H:
Call me Numpty: Just like you have faith in not believing astrology or not collecting stamps, correct?
Good response Matt (and welcome to the Ship). Stamps are empirically verifiable so perhaps not entirely relevant.
Yes - I suppose a person may have faith that Astrology doesn't work or isn't true. Although, and this is where Numpty's argument is weakest, I'm not sure you can have faith in a negative concept.
It would be better for Numpty to argue that Atheism is declaring a certainty where there is only probability, whereas a belief in God is either choosing the possibility of existence over the lack of it; or that faith is an expression of belief that moves outside of the rationalitistic discursive field, a kierkegaardian leap of faith.
Either way, I do feel sorry for those whose community was disrupted by this - even if the responses I often saw there were really quite harsh and not very rational.
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You might want to visit my blog:
http://lostintheheartofsomewhere.blogspot.com
But maybe not
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Amazing Grace
High Church Protestant
# 95
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arrietty:
Some features that might be relevant seem to be
1) The complete lack of communication between those with admin powers and the mod team
2) An assumption by the mods and site users that Dawkin and his paid staff were essentially benevolent towards them, which has been shown to be wrong
3) A disjunct between the aims of the site from the POV of those paying for it and the aims of the site as assumed by the community
I don't think any Christian site can sit back on its laurels and think this is something that would only happen to an atheist site.
Too true. I have been on the internet since 1993 (unmoderated Usenet) and have seen many groups collapse. Has nothing to do with religion or lack thereof, but human nature. As a data point, the worst behavior I've personally gotten (to the extent of run me off the board) has been mostly from loudly-proclaiming Christians (with a loud pagan assist).
I really appreciate the fact that the Ship is moderated, but with a light (and patient) hand.
quote:
Dawkin's reaction seems to show that he has no understanding of how the Interwebs work at all. I don't think the same could be said of Simon somehow.
Agreed about Simon, but Dawkins is enough of a drama queen that I tend to think more along Tubbs' lines about RD himself. How dare they, etc. etc.
Charlotte
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WTFWED? "Remember to always be yourself, unless you suck" - the Gator
Memory Eternal! Sheep 3, Phil the Wise Guy, and Jesus' Evil Twin in the SoF Nativity Play
Posts: 6593 | From: Sittin' by the dock of the [SF] bay | Registered: Jul 2003
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Bean Sidhe
Shipmate
# 11823
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Posted
To quote Dawkins in his post:
'How can anyone feel that strongly about something so small?'
There, in a nutshell, is the trademark, dismissive ignorance of the man.
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How do you know when a politician is lying?
His lips are moving.
Danny DeVito
Posts: 4363 | From: where the taxis won't go | Registered: Sep 2006
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Call me Numpty:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt H:
Well, that is the thing about atheism. Atheism is the opposite of theism; we lack belief in a god.
Not true. You have a belief in the lack of a God. Your position is a faith position as much as anyone else's.
This exchange is something of an old chestnut. And both positions seem to me confused.
Compare: invertebrates are the opposite of vertebrates: they lack an internal skeleton. Does a dragonfly really lack an internal skeleton? It's not as if it's not getting by perfectly well without it. Couldn't we equally well say that non-arthropods are the opposite of arthropods: they lack an external skeleton? Dividing the world into invertebrates and vertebrates treats the arthropods' external skeleton as something uninteresting and primitive.
I think Matt H is wrong: Belief in God isn't something that you bolt onto an already existing atheist position. I suppose it can be in some shallow forms of theism. Saying therefore that atheists 'lack' something that theists have is wrong in so many ways.
I really don't think the division between atheism and theism cuts our intellectual options at the joints. A classical theist and a rationalist atheist have more in common with each other than they do with, say, a believer in the Norse gods or a post-Nietzchean postmodernist.
Call Me Numpty's claim is a non sequitur, except in so far as it shares the same basic assumption - that atheists and theists are alike except in taking some position on the existence of something called 'God'. The other problem with Call Me Numpty is that he's using faith to mean 'belief above and beyond proof', which is not what 'faith' means in classical Christian theology. You can trust i.e. have faith in God or God's promises. You can I suppose have faith that Richard Dawkins' arguments in The God Delusion are sound without having read The God Delusion. But having faith in 'no God' is not a possibility. Trusting in nothing is not trusting at all.
The idea distorts belief. We don't share a common rational reading of the facts and then choose a belief system by making some arational jump. Most of us are confronted with a number of intellectual options, some atheist, some theist, some hard to categorise. According to our interpretation of the world, some one more or less option appears more or less convincing. And so, if we don't remain agnostic, we say this is the most convincing option - it's convincing enough for me not to withhold assent - and we go with it.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Arrietty
Ship's borrower
# 45
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Posted
Incidentally, the 'stamps' may be a neat riposte - though I don't personally see what's neat about it - but it isn't original.
One of the things that RD.net seems to have done best was propagating dismissive anti-faith memes like 'sky fairy' and one-line rebuttals to serve as anti-dialogue devices.
[ 26. February 2010, 21:39: Message edited by: Arrietty ]
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i-church
Online Mission and Ministry
Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
I think that, perhaps, Dafyd, you are taking Matt H's argument out of context. As I read it, he was only pointing out that atheism (like theism) does not per se connote rationality.
I'm sure everyone would agree that being rational is in general a Good Thing. But whatever I call myself (even "rationalist") is in no way going to bestow rationality on my arguments.
Oh, you noticed...
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Matt H
Apprentice
# 15501
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arrietty:
Incidentally, the 'stamps' may be a neat riposte - though I don't personally see what's neat about it - but it isn't original.
One of the things that RD.net seems to have done best was propagating dismissive anti-faith memes like 'sky fairy' and one-line rebuttals to serve as anti-dialogue devices.
I wasn't trying to be original. I was responding to the tired old argument that somehow, being an atheist is a faith position. There is a quote going around the internet that is usually attributed to Don Hischburg, and it goes something like this:
"Atheism is a religion like bald is a hair colour."
Pithy, but accurate. One does not need faith to dismiss the Christian god any more than one needs faith to dismiss the claims of Scientology or any other faith-based system.
But yes, this is a distraction from the point I intended to make, which is that atheists are prone to irrationality just as much as theists are. I only wish Richard Dawkins could admit his own failings over this issue.
[ 26. February 2010, 22:17: Message edited by: Matt H ]
Posts: 11 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2010
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
quote:
Incidentally, the 'stamps' may be a neat riposte - though I don't personally see what's neat about it - but it isn't original.
I laughed
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Orianna02:
Or maybe: this too shall pass.
They're not mutually exclusive.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Bean Sidhe
Shipmate
# 11823
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The other board I spend as much time on as I do here
MT, when do you sleep?
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How do you know when a politician is lying?
His lips are moving.
Danny DeVito
Posts: 4363 | From: where the taxis won't go | Registered: Sep 2006
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Matt H
Thought about this overnight. What distinction do you draw between irrational and immoral? In this case, from the POV of the site owner and administrators, there may be distinctly rational motives behind the desire to change the means of discussion on the website. But the impressive evidence of misrepresentation of what has happened - and the equally impressive evidence of cover up - suggest to me that there have been immoral actions here. One could argue, I suppose, that these actions are in pursuit of a rational end. The moral dimension comes in to play in consideration of the means used.
So I think that to assign merely irrationality to those responsible may be a bit of a gloss on what has happened.
[ 27. February 2010, 08:36: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erin:
The biggest mistake I see here? Josh Timonen did not let people bitch about the decision. That's just what you do.
Thus it is perfectly fine for the lord of the domain to burn down one of his villages and salt its fields, as long as he gives the villagers ample opportunity to wail about it?
quote:
Originally posted by Matt H:
In the case of Richard Dawkins, you have a man who is very rational about science (regardless of your opinion of him personally, scientifically he is quite brilliant) but is prone to the same personal failings as anyone else.
I don't see much objective evidence that he's a great scientist. He may be a decent popularizer of science (if I recall correctly, that's what his chair is about). But science itself? I've looked at his list of publications here, and I have used Scopus to look for more publications and their citations. He does have some Nature publications and the like, but they are - well - mostly not what I would call proper science. Articles like "Is a scientific boycott ever justified?" Nature 421 (6921), pp. 314, in 2003 are really more social editorials. And that is not just my opinion, it is shown by getting only one (scientific) citation in Scopus. Actually, all his publications since 2005 together got precisely one citation in Scopus. In the last decade, he got 77 citations for 22 publications in Scopus. However, they citations are almost entirely for two publications: 37 citations for a paper in Parasitology 1990 (journal has JCR impact factor 2.071 and is ranked 10th of 26 journals in ISI category "Parasitology"), and 27 citations for a paper in Biology and Philosophy (IF 1.063, rank 5th of 41 in "History & Philosophy of Science"). His "Hail Mary" publication appears to have been "Arms races between and within species" in 1979 in Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci (IF 4.248, rank 8th of 72 in "Biology") with 404 citations so far. But really, that's about it, there's no remotely similar success anywhere in Scopus. For comparison, in the last decade Scopus lists 88 citations for me, the most cited paper being in Phys Rev E (IF 2.508, rank 6th of 46 in "Physics, Mathematical"), and I have recently published in PLoS Comput Biol (IF 5.895, rank 1st of 29 in "Mathematical & Computational Biology").
I'm a lowly tenure track somewhere in the Netherlands, he has a chair in Oxford. His first publication in Scopus is from 1969, mine from 1996. As far as real scientific output is concerned, we are fairly comparable over the last decade (and frankly, I think I'm much better, if one forgets about the editorials...). This very much should not be the case if he was a great scientist at that stage of his career. (Furthermore, my research is rather mathematical, his biological: he should be killing me in citations on that difference alone, since biologists cite like mad, maths types reluctantly.) Practically every senior scientist I know or have worked with would blow Richard Dawkins out of the water, like, totally. Karl Friston, for example, has had 309 publications in the last decade alone, and frankly I can't be bothered doing the sums for all his citations. Just two give some examples: "Voxel-based morphometry - The methods" in 2000 has 1677 citations, published in NeuroImage (IF 5.694, rank 1st of 12 in "Neuroimaging", 3rd of 29 in "Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging"). He also has 6 proper publications in Science (IF 28.103, rank 2nd of 24 in "Multidisciplinary Science") with a total of 943 citations, of which one "Dissociable Roles of Ventral and Dorsal Striatum in Instrumental Conditioning " from 2004 has 302 citations already. He also has 5 proper publications in Nature (IF 31.434, rank 1st of 24 in "Multidisciplinary Science"), with a total of 900 citations. Karl, whom I had the pleasure to meet several times, is a great scientist.
Now, citations are not everything (as I keep reminding everyone judging my own academic performance ). But certainly every great scientist at such a late stage in his or her career leaves a trace in citations that just cannot be overlooked. Richard Dawkins' record is very overlook-able and he simply is not a great scientist by any objective standard. Frankly, for somebody so senior in such a prominent academic position, he sucks strawberry milkshakes... I would be rather unsurprised if the "hard edge" he cultivates, which keeps him very much in the public spotlight and allows him to publish one forgettable (and - among scientists - forgotten) editorial after the other, had a lot to do with evaluation committees looking at his record of achievements and asking "Well, Dick, and what have you done lately for science? Like, in the last 20 years?" Richard Dawkins is a brilliant loudmouth, proper science happens elsewhere.
[ 27. February 2010, 09:00: Message edited by: IngoB ]
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Erin:
The biggest mistake I see here? Josh Timonen did not let people bitch about the decision. That's just what you do.
Thus it is perfectly fine for the lord of the domain to burn down one of his villages and salt its fields, as long as he gives the villagers ample opportunity to wail about it?
Heck, IngoB, what part of "non sequitur" are you having difficulty in understanding? If you want to argue about the rights and restrictions which do, or should, apply to owners of websites, why ruin your case by this particular piece of hyperbole?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Arrietty
Ship's borrower
# 45
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Posted
The biggest mistake if you're talking about damage limitation was to delete user accounts in response to criticism of the proposed moves and then to post selective quotes from people reacting to this on other boards as if they were the reason for the proposed changes rather than the result.
I am assuming even a mediocre scientist would check his sources before going public with such inflammatory stuff, so my assumption is that Dawkins knows full well that he is smearing people in order to make himself look better and what he has posted is not a fair reflection of facts. It seems some people would rather think he has posted what he's been told to post without checking it out.
I'm not sure how this makes him look better but it may make him look less uncaring. But should anyone expect the author of The Selfish Gene to be caring?
[ 27. February 2010, 09:28: Message edited by: Arrietty ]
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i-church
Online Mission and Ministry
Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Heck, IngoB, what part of "non sequitur" are you having difficulty in understanding? If you want to argue about the rights and restrictions which do, or should, apply to owners of websites, why ruin your case by this particular piece of hyperbole?
It's a perfectly straight analogy. According to its members (the villagers) the RD forums (the village) have been destroyed beyond repair by RD and his helpers (the lord). Erin apparently sees no problem in this, other than that there wasn't enough opportunity to bitch (to wail).
Of course, destroying someone's physical community and livelihood is objectively much worse than destroying their digital community and intellectual playground. But I think a central mistake here is precisely the attitude that all this forum stuff really amounts to very little. Most of us are not fighting for naked survival, hence other things can and do become important in our lives. Does it sound to you as if RDF members are collectively shrugging their shoulders? I think the pain is very real indeed, even if the community was virtual.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I thought the reason atheism was a faith position, is essentially because the idea there is a God is not a scientific hypothesis and is therefore neither provable nor disprovable.
In the same way that you can not prove something is beautiful, or Paris is better than England, or there has never been a child born with a full head of green hair.
Agnosticism - we don't know - is rational. Or even; if the existence or non-existence of God allows us to predict nothing, in terms of what will or won't happen dependent on our choices or any other variable, it doesn't matter.
[ 27. February 2010, 09:36: Message edited by: Think² ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Wow, IngoB. Equating village burning and poisoning tenants' fields with arbitrary changes to (or withdrawal of) posting privileges on a website is not hyperbole?
I accept that these actions have caused some pain and loss to folks who have become attached to a cyber-community, and rather more than that to the dismissed moderators. But there really isn't much equivalence in your analogy AFAICS. OK, if you want to sustain that line. But I'm surprised you do.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Arrietty
Ship's borrower
# 45
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Wow, IngoB. Equating village burning and poisoning tenants' fields with arbitrary changes to (or withdrawal of) posting privileges on a website is not hyperbole?
When did hyperbole get banned? Did anyone tell Jesus?
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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i-church
Online Mission and Ministry
Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
"I think your hyperbole is really silly, but will fight to the death your right to post as much silliness as you want to".
[Provided it doesn't violate the 10Cs of course.]
I think that's current policy ...
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Matt H
Apprentice
# 15501
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
I thought the reason atheism was a faith position, is essentially because the idea there is a God is not a scientific hypothesis and is therefore neither provable nor disprovable.
In the same way that you can not prove something is beautiful, or Paris is better than England, or there has never been a child born with a full head of green hair.
Agnosticism - we don't know - is rational. Or even; if the existence or non-existence of God allows us to predict nothing, in terms of what will or won't happen dependent on our choices or any other variable, it doesn't matter.
But you can't disprove the existence of fairies. Is it a faith position to not believe in them?
Posts: 11 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2010
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Arrietty
Ship's borrower
# 45
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Posted
If you drop the 'straw man' arguments you will probably get more sense out of people on these forums.
No-one here has said they believe in fairies. It isn't a site to discuss believing in fairies. If you want to start a thread to discuss your non-belief in fairies you are at liberty to do so, and it will sink or swim by natural selection. ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
It may be your belief that believing in God is exactly the same as fairies, but it is not my empirical experience. So trying to further the dialogue on that basis is doomed to failure, because we aren't discussing the same thing. I'm being asked to discuss my beliefs whereas you are only prepared to discuss your beliefs about my beliefs.
Did you go through a process of 'coming out' as an atheist or becoming an atheist? From that perspective perhaps we could reach some mutual understanding since I have analogous experiences of becoming a Christian from a position of atheism.
However, your view that believing in God and believing in fairies are analogous us just that - your view.
[ 27. February 2010, 12:17: Message edited by: Arrietty ]
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i-church
Online Mission and Ministry
Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Yes!
Actually if what I read about in Social Anthropology of Religion is anything but made up stories, then I am afraid I view much of the western take on religion as viewed through a strongly accepted filter. That is we discount things/experiences that don't fit with our rational approach to the world. When that filter is lowered, e.g. to participate in folk healing rituals of other cultures, then people get experiences that are not amenable to western rational interpretation.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Matt H
Apprentice
# 15501
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arrietty:
If you drop the 'straw man' arguments you will probably get more sense out of people on these forums.
No-one here has said they believe in fairies. It isn't a site to discuss believing in fairies. If you want to start a thread to discuss your non-belief in fairies you are at liberty to do so, and it will sink or swim by natural selection.
It may be your belief that believing in God is exactly the same as fairies, but it is not my empiricial experience. So trying to further the dialogue on that basis is doomed to failure.
Did you go through a process of 'coming out' as an atheist or becoming an atheist? From that perspective perhaps we could reach some mutual understanding since I have analogous experiences of becoming a Christian from a position of atheism.
However, your view that believing in God and believing in fairies are analogous us just that - your view.
You don't understand what I am saying. I am not straw-manning anyone, in fact I haven't told anyone what they do or don't believe. It is certain members of the forum who are insisting they know what I believe better than myself.
Atheism is a faith like bald is a hair colour, not collecting stamps is a hobby, and not believing in fairies is a religion. Do you understand my point now or are you going to insist I'm talking about something else?
And it seems my original point has been lost on you, which is that all it takes to be an atheist is to not believe in god; it doesn't require rationality.
If anyone is strawmanning it is you for claiming that I think believing in god and believing in fairies are the same thing. Shame on you for not actually reading my posts.
[ 27. February 2010, 12:20: Message edited by: Matt H ]
Posts: 11 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2010
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Edward Green
Review Editor
# 46
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt H:
But you can't disprove the existence of fairies. Is it a faith position to not believe in them?
I really don't think it is fair to get into this discussion.
But I don't think 'fairies' and 'God' are in the same catagory. I do not think God can be said to exist or not to exist, God is not an item. God may be a linguistic construct, or God may be the ultimate reality. I am not sure either could be proved, so I get on with being 'in God'.
I do not think Love can be said to exist or not to exist, Love is not an item. Love may be a a linguistic construct, or Love may be the ultimate reality. I am not sure either could be proved, so I get on with being 'in Love'.
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Posts: 4893 | Registered: May 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt H:
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
I thought the reason atheism was a faith position, is essentially because the idea there is a God is not a scientific hypothesis and is therefore neither provable nor disprovable.
In the same way that you can not prove something is beautiful, or Paris is better than England, or there has never been a child born with a full head of green hair.
Agnosticism - we don't know - is rational. Or even; if the existence or non-existence of God allows us to predict nothing, in terms of what will or won't happen dependent on our choices or any other variable, it doesn't matter.
But you can't disprove the existence of fairies. Is it a faith position to not believe in them?
It depends how you define fairies I suppose - in so far as they were originally nature spirits in an animist religion/belief system I suppose it is. But that is not what most people mean by fairies. If you made a specific prediction, if you light a candle and repeat three times "appear to me" a fairy will appear visible to the natural world, then that would be a testable prediction. At that point it becomes investigable.
Popper pointed out you can never prove anything scientifically, just disprove it, without testable predictions that is not possible. And then you are talking about something that is not a scientific proposition. (He argued you build scientific theories by building up verismilitude, ie by failing to disprove many predications of said theory.)
Many areas of life are not scientfic - and many domains of human experience are not totally open to scientific investigation. This does not mean you can not have knowledge about them, simply that it is not scientific knowledge, nor does it mean that everything that is not scientific automatically falls within the domain of religion.
For example, imagine you love someone, I assume you do - there are many facets of that situation that can not be scientifically investigated. It doesn't mean it is not important, or that it is a religon.
Athieism is described as a faith position in my argument, because it is a belief about deity and the metaphysics thereof. If you strongly prefer, one could call it a philosophical position - but it is not a scientific conclusion (because there is no testable hypothesis) and it is not a conclusion of formal logic. You could make a more specific logical argument - saying for example, if God answered all prayers and someone prays for the restoration of their amputated limb - then I know there is no God because that didn't happen. This is what Dawkins tries to do, he specifies a belief about the nature of God - then disproves the consequence he thinks flows from this belief.
The problem arises because frequently he specifies beliefs about God that very few people actually hold. Then refuses to accept they can both identify themselves as theists and/or Christians, and not hold the belief he specifies. Religion falls down when it claims to be scientific - eg intelligent design or fights with Gallilao - because it isn't. Most importantly, [b]it doesn't need to be[b], there is more than one way of knowing about the world, more than one way of understanding what is meant by truth.
[ 27. February 2010, 12:38: Message edited by: Think² ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
I thought the reason atheism was a faith position, is essentially because the idea there is a God is not a scientific hypothesis and is therefore neither provable nor disprovable.
I think you're using the word 'faith' in a different way from Matt H. There are problems with the way that Matt H is using the word. But I think it's closer to what Christians mean by 'faith' when not arguing with atheists.
As I said above, faith is trust in God. You can't trust in not-God.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Arrietty
Ship's borrower
# 45
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
As I said above, faith is trust in God. You can't trust in not-God.
Dawkins has stated that eliminating religion will affect the world for the better.
I don't think he has demonstrated any proof for that position; so to me it's a belief.
Of course he uses all sorts of rhetorical tricks to prop up his assertion, like disassociating himself from anything bad done by atheists because they did not do it 'in the name of atheism', while holding everyone with a faith responsible for anything bad ever done by anyone with a faith; but that isn't proof.
As Matt's posts demonstrate, you can't say anything about atheism without getting into first principles about what it is, which in effect prevent anyone who holds that position from accepting any critique of anyone because they are an atheist at all.
It's still OK to critique people because they are, say, Christians, because that is a faith position and atheism isn't.
[ 27. February 2010, 13:20: Message edited by: Arrietty ]
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i-church
Online Mission and Ministry
Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Edward Green:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt H:
But you can't disprove the existence of fairies. Is it a faith position to not believe in them?
I really don't think it is fair to get into this discussion.
(Puts Host Hat On)
I agree, Edward - at least so far as this thread is concerned. It sprung up as an interesting tangent to the main purpose of this thread, but seems to me to have gained enough momentum to justify a separate thread.
I'll create a separate new topic, with the intention of leaving this free to focus on the Dawkins Forum changes, consequences, lessons etc.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
(Takes Host Hat Off)
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt H:
Atheism is a faith like bald is a hair colour, not collecting stamps is a hobby, and not believing in fairies is a religion. Do you understand my point now or are you going to insist I'm talking about something else?
I think that there is a definite disanalogy between not believing in God and not having hair.
I'll start with the fairies. Why don't I believe in fairies? Well, for one thing, I'm pretty much a materialist. (I believe in the real existence of things like the real existence of mathematical objects and God that don't have a material basis - but that's because they don't have any basis. Neither God nor the set {rational numbers} are made of anything.) If fairies are made of matter - I don't see how they could hide themselves in a country with the population density of the United Kingdom. Nor could they exercise many of the abilities attributed to fairies in stories. On the other hand, if fairies are not made of matter that contradicts my commitment to materialism.
In short, the difference between me and a believer in fairies isn't just that they have an extra belief that I don't have. I have beliefs that the believer in fairies doesn't have and can't have.
The comparison of atheism to baldness falls down for that reason. You cannot produce a coherent belief system either by taking an atheist belief system and adding God, nor by taking a theist belief system and taking away God.
I don't think that qualifies atheism as a faith though.
quote:
And it seems my original point has been lost on you, which is that all it takes to be an atheist is to not believe in god; it doesn't require rationality.
Noted.
But I think you made your original point in a way that attracted this tangent. I suppose that the reason I want to respond to your point is that in the way you phrased it it is:
a) a mischaracterisation of belief in God (it's not atheism with extra bits added);
b) a way of shifting scrutiny to religion while leaving humanism or postmodernism or Randian objectivism or whatever the atheist does believe unscrutinised.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
OK, the new thread is open here. I appreciate some of you are in mid-chat but I'm sure you'll see the point of the traffic direction (as I see Dafyd has done)
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Erin
Meaner than Godzilla
# 2
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Erin:
The biggest mistake I see here? Josh Timonen did not let people bitch about the decision. That's just what you do.
Thus it is perfectly fine for the lord of the domain to burn down one of his villages and salt its fields, as long as he gives the villagers ample opportunity to wail about it?
Yes, for all values where biggest = only. For those of us who understand those words have two different meanings, not so much.
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Commandment number one: shut the hell up.
Posts: 17140 | From: 330 miles north of paradise | Registered: Mar 2001
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
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Let's give all those disgruntled atheists a board here. We could call it "Pie-in-the-sky"
Very catholic of you there, QLib.
Coming for the East End of London, maybe a Pie Shop would be more the thing. With mash, of course.
Board sub-title, Richard's bitter twitters...
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erin:
Yes, for all values where biggest = only. For those of us who understand those words have two different meanings, not so much.
OK, so the following is the version you fully support then?
"The biggest problem was not that the lord of the domain burned down one of his villages and salted its fields, but rather that he did not give the villagers ample opportunity to bewail that."
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Erin
Meaner than Godzilla
# 2
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Posted
No, because shutting everything down and deleting posts and members like he did were the acts of burning the village and salting the earth, which I already said was the biggest problem. Prior to that, the more apt analogy (and just wtf is up with you and analogies, anyway? Can't you ever just discuss something straight up?) would be to say that they decided to change the neighborhood from a squatters' land to a gated community. Not one I agree with, but one well within their rights.
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Commandment number one: shut the hell up.
Posts: 17140 | From: 330 miles north of paradise | Registered: Mar 2001
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Erin: quote:
(and just wtf is up with you and analogies, anyway? Can't you ever just discuss something straight up?)
Analogies are helpfully fuzzy and come preloaded with spin.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Is there not a major falling out / re-structure/re-trenching going on at St Pixel's - it is clearly not just an atheist problem. But I do think the vent thing is hugely important.
If dissenting opinions are not permitted, or people are expected to suppress even justified negative emotions (eg anger), then it either eventually explodes in a flame war or creeping passive aggression.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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