Author Topic: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion  (Read 162421 times)

Offline Valis

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Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
« Reply #165 on: January 21, 2013, 12:23:58 PM »
What I strongly object in these beliefs is that they seldom are contained within the believer.

How would you know?
By observation. What I mean to say while not every believer is "leaking", there's certainly enough of them that the impact of the beliefs is easily seen outside the believers. An anecdotal example is that in all the cases where a person I know has had (even mildly) religious parents, the persons have also had some sort of religious education.

Offline Valis

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Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
« Reply #166 on: January 21, 2013, 12:41:45 PM »
This is a social problem, not science.  I am not sure what you would propose as an alternative to the practice of parents passing along culture to their children? Should we censor parents?
No, I don't think it'd be  possible to censor the parents with anything that could be claimed as reasonable measures. There's little else to do than educating the children before they become parents. Abandoning the religious part of your inherited culture doesn't mean abandoning your whole culture; cultural (but not religious) Jews aren't uncommon, for example.

[edit:] This part didn't come out correctly. I don't approve censorship. Education is the way forward.

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100% agreement with you here.  That some people want to censor criticism is a the most blatant sign of the weakness of their position.  Dawkins and anyone else can pound away day and night.  But it is not just the religious that call for this, there is a secular social science trend that supports censorship too when applied to "race."
Secularity doesn't mean the absence of oppressive views.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2013, 01:10:00 PM by Valis »

Offline Echnaton

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Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
« Reply #167 on: January 21, 2013, 01:19:17 PM »
No, I don't think it'd be  possible to censor the parents with anything that could be claimed as reasonable measures. There's little else to do than educating the children before they become parents. Abandoning the religious part of your inherited culture doesn't mean abandoning your whole culture; cultural (but not religious) Jews aren't uncommon, for example.

[edit:] This part didn't come out correctly. I don't approve censorship. Education is the way forward.
Agreed


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Secularity doesn't mean the absence of oppressive views.

Agreed too. 
« Last Edit: January 21, 2013, 01:21:58 PM by Echnaton »
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Offline ka9q

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Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
« Reply #168 on: January 21, 2013, 11:22:22 PM »
Having just caught up on several days here, I think people are largely in violent agreement.

(Most of) those of us who call ourselves atheists are actually agnostics, in that we know we cannot conclusively prove the absence of any and all deities. Even Dawkins says as much. How about if the religious/spiritual people here accept that in exchange for my/our acceptance that not every religious person asserts their beliefs are factually true and are sufficient justification for public policy or injurious acts to others?

This is distinct from rejecting the tenets of specific religions, as I often do. This is a distinction many (but not all) adherents fail to make. I've lost count of those (usually Christian, since I live in the USA) who've told me "how do you really know there isn't something greater than yourself?" Perhaps this is understandable since they already think their own religion is the only correct one, so it's either that or nothing.

If you want, think of me as anywhere between "atheist" and "deist" because I believe those positions are all consistent with what we observe around us. The Abrahamic religions, on the other hand, are in my opinion inconsistent with observation (and logic) and that's why I reject them. I think it telling that when deism was popular several centuries ago, many people with Abrahamic beliefs considered it equivalent to "hard" atheism. And ironically, many fundamentalists now see religious terms in the writings of the founding fathers (many of whom were deists) and jump to the conclusion, against all evidence, that they must have believed and advocated exactly as the fundies now do, that the US was a "Christian Nation" and all that nonsense.

Basically, there's a whole lot of equivocating going on.

 

« Last Edit: January 21, 2013, 11:59:13 PM by ka9q »

Offline gillianren

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Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
« Reply #169 on: January 21, 2013, 11:48:42 PM »
(Most of) those of us who call ourselves atheists are actually agnostics, in that we know we cannot conclusively prove the absence of any and all deities. Even Dawkins says as much. How about if the religious/spiritual people here accept that in exchange for my/our acceptance that not every religious person asserts their beliefs are factually true and are sufficient justification for public policy or injurious acts to others?

Hey, I think agnosticism is the only truly rational position!  I think there's a good presumption toward atheism, and certainly I think we have good evidence against an interventionist deity, but I've been called an idiot or what have you too many times by atheists to accept that all atheists hold that position.  Of course, I also get called Hellbound a lot.  It's pesky, not fitting into either convenient pigeonhole.
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Offline Valis

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Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
« Reply #170 on: January 22, 2013, 02:43:45 AM »
(Most of) those of us who call ourselves atheists are actually agnostics, in that we know we cannot conclusively prove the absence of any and all deities.
Well yeah, it's more a definition issue for the terms. Why I don't like to use the word "agnostic" is that it's usually defined with a component that states that the whole thing is unknowable. I don't see how, say, the Christian God is unknowable, as there's nothing in Christian dogma or teachings that'd prevent it from making itself known to all mankind. On the other side, would you say that you are agnostic about invisible unicorns?

As theism involves an active and present god, I prefer the term atheism in the sense that I see no evidence for such an active and present god, so for me, such a god doesn't exist for all intents and purposes.

Offline Echnaton

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Re: Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
« Reply #171 on: January 22, 2013, 06:45:47 AM »
As theism involves an active and present god, I prefer the term atheism in the sense that I see no evidence for such an active and present god, so for me, such a god doesn't exist for all intents and purposes.

That is pretty much how I use it too.  My friends that have identified as "agnostic." have stated it as s state of uncertainty.  For a situation where not only is there an absence of evidence, but an absence of plausibility, I chose "atheist" as the best description.  Nevertheless, I stay away from atheist groups because, in my experience, there is a notable lack of self-skepticism applied inside the revival tent.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2013, 06:48:37 AM by Echnaton »
The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. —Samuel Beckett