Phi for All

I plan to invest in third world funeral services, since I anticipate some real growth there. I might add your lemonade stand idea, for the many attendees. Thanks for the extra income! It should work if anyplace can still grow lemons. I'm sure climate change is the most elaborate conspiracy ever perpetrated by science. I mean, 99.9% consensus that it's man-made causes?! That requires some serious conspiratorial clout. No doubt they get their money by lobbying politicians to change the laws and loosen regulations so they can continue their greedy plans to take over the economy and create a better world, completely against the wishes of so many deniers. Oooh, I just thought of something else. With all the dead people, there will be more stuff for me! Maybe the El Hierro volcanic landslide will wipe out the NE USA and I'll get your stuff too (when it dries out).

Seriously, if you're interested in rational, civil, and moral discussion about this subject, you HAVE to look up what a strawman argument is, see how you've been doing this a LOT, and PLEASE STOP IT! It's very frustrating to invest time and resources into a conversation with someone when they use logical fallacies like this as a reply to a serious question. Once again (last time), John was NOT saying you're wrong because he thinks he should be allowed to act irrationally and immorally. OK, do you understand that part? That's the part you've been arguing against, the part that's like a man of straw that you decided was easier to knock down than John's real argument, which is that atheists don't actually pick on theists more than any other group, so why are you singling them out? Do you understand that part? Why didn't you take the opportunity I gave in my last post, and move forward in this discussion? Now it seems like you're tripling down on your earlier statements about mean, immoral, irrational atheists who persecute the religious, instead of actually following your latest stance, which is:

I think mathematical relationships exist everywhere in the universe, and our mathematics is the system we invented to analyze the properties of reality here. But numbers aren't real things, they aren't physical in nature. You can't eat pi, but pi can help tell you how much pie you've eaten.

You started a thread asking if atheists are picking on theists unfairly, and you're "exhorting them to act rationally and morally". Isn't that arguing that they are failing some benchmark test now? More than other groups and so needing specific focus? And the strawman is when you ask "Do you object to being moral and rational?" Nobody, especially overtone, has suggested anything like this. But it's easier to attack a strawman you made up. No offense, I'm pointing out a very common fallacy because I think you're smarter than that, and don't need to go to the Dark Side to make your points. If you look back, the subject was pretty well evenly discussed in the beginning. It was a good title question with some thought-provoking dialogue. But when you were asked why you were singling out atheists for your exhortations, rather than state it the way you did above, you doubled-down on the argument that atheists had ridiculed you in the past, and were deserving of more attention in the matter of civil, rational, moral behavior. If you're willing to stick by what I quoted you on here, then I'd say we're probably done with aiming at atheists. Every group and individual has probably picked on some religion or lack of religion at one time or another. Is there any discussion left on that aspect? Or is it possibly the case that religion has so many contradictions, errors, and interpretation that it makes an easy target? I could also argue that ridicule can be an effective tool when someone is being ridiculous. Not that that's the case with all religion, but it can be like a slap in the face for someone in hysterics. Ridicule is not a 100% bad option when someone needs to be shown they have no leg to stand on. Being "picked on" sounds like persecution though. If ridicule isn't immediately effective (despite the bucket of cold water, the dreamer still sleeps), it should NOT be continued.

! Moderator Note I'll give you a shot at this, in Speculations. Your last thread shouldn't have been left in the mainstream sections, where students often go for our best current explanations (something about passing tests, I believe). Please read the special rules for Speculations. Try to back up your claims with as much evidence as possible, and if you have none, then don't assert the claim, ask questions about it instead. We all love to use our imaginations, and in science we try to pare away the guesswork and subjectivity to get at explanations we can trust.

! Moderator Note Please don't introduce your pet theories into topics in the mainstream sections. They aren't well-enough supported for those who are looking for our current best explanations. I hope you aren't purposefully trying to make students fail their tests. Report this modnote if you disagree with it, but don't talk about it in this thread.

Please stop using this strawman. It does NOT make a good argument. As iNow mentions, the objection is that you're singling atheists out because of a personal experience, when your exhortations should apply to all equally. You've made no case that atheists are less rational and moral than anyone else.

We've deleted them when it's obvious. Link in profile, no posts, member for a year but hasn't been back since a month after joining. TBH, in the past we've gotten too bloodthirsty at times and started banning based on criteria other than breaking the rules (for spammers). We almost always end up executing someone who didn't deserve it. I'd rather have a rule about ban-able behavior so it's not a judgement call on staff's part. How long is too long to remain dormant with a link in your profile?

Quite deliberately, there was no ad hominem. Are you your discussion style? Remember the part earlier today you highlighted in red? Faith is defined as belief without reason, strong belief without the kind of rational support one normally requires for claims of that magnitude. Faith asks us to believe in a deity that can do anything, be anywhere, know everything. If I told you my dog could speak French, you'd demand I show you before you'd believe me. If I told you I was God, but proving it to you would make your faith pointless, would you have faith in Me? The point I was trying to make, to stay on topic and stop making this about defending one side or another, was that religion's appeal is much more emotional than science's, and seems very much more liable to feelings of persecution and ridicule, of being picked on by intellectuals who can't look past all those obvious flaws and ignorant errors and see the true beauty and divine spirit of the religion.

Definitions do seem to be a huge problem for your discussion style. Since this is a science forum (we put a big sign on the door, dude), I obviously meant "reason" as in rational thought, not reason as in a cause to do something. Is this another example of religious emotional kneejerkism?

If we ate THAT many Cheese-Nips, we'd have none left to make shampoo.

We ran out of integer samples, but I can send you a sample of cheese shampoo.

To me, strictly from a "picking on" POV which requires one side to demonize the other, it seems clear that this is an issue where one side uses reason and rational thinking to approach the explanation of various phenomena, and the other side uses faith in a deity and religious doctrine as a basis for those explanations. Faith is defined as belief without reason, so theists rely on a much more emotion-laden process to explain their world. Science is trying to appeal to the head, religion to the heart. Given the nature of the two sides involved, and the way they approach their views on reality, which side is more likely to claim they're being "picked on"? That's a very loaded phrase when you think about it, "picked on". It automatically assumes a) the person(s) doing the "picking" are being bullies/cruel/unfair, b) the person being picked on doesn't deserve it, and c) if you're a good person, you will take the side of whoever is being picked on. Using a phrase like that removes any choice.

Seriously? I noticed you ignored Bells mention of what our Egyptian allies might think about Ben's hypothesis. Did Ben Carson say he would have killed everyone in Berlin and Tokyo to make sure he got all the soldiers? Otherwise, I can't see where this comment is at all relevant. Are you saying his stance is OK because war crimes were committed 70 years ago? Or because he's conservative? Or is this more of a modern media "spread the blame and make all positions equal" tactic?

! Moderator Note Is there a question involving classical physics here? The opening post seems more like a blog entry rather than a starting point for discussion. Can you please fix that for us with your next post?

Define immoral. Emergency appendectomy to save a person's life? Immoral if he's a Christian Scientist. Some people actually think abortion is immoral.

Heretic, denouncer. I always get those two mixed up. Golfer: "Let's go golfing!" Non-Golfer: "I don't golf." Golfer: "What do you mean, everybody golfs!" Non-Golfer: "Not me." Golfer: "What do you have against golf?" Non-Golfer: "Nothing, I just don't." Golfer: "You think golfers are stupid, don't you?" Non-Golfer: "No! You golf, I don't. Can't it be as simple as that?" Golfer: "What don't you like about golf? Is it the fresh air? Is it the exercise? Is it the fellowship of friends?" Non-Golfer: "Listen, I like all those things! I just get them without golfing." Golfer: "Without golfing?! You think the world would be better off WITHOUT GOLFING?!?!" Non-Golfer: "That's not what I said...." Golfer: "You non-golfers are all alike! You need to be more sensitive about who you're ridiculing! Stop picking on golf and stop persecuting golfers!"

Can't answer that. No offense, you're asking me a question but only giving me one very slanted perspective of the situation. So being a Christian might not have been the only thing this person was angry with you for? There are no arguments from a theistic POV that might show any kind of atheism to be ridiculous, without begging the question that the religion's deity is real. I'm the kind of atheist that treats religion the same way I treat golf. I'm a non-golfer, so why would anything bad a golfer had to say about my not golfing bother me? Why am I giving his perspective that much importance?

"Downing" you, is that like putting you down, belittling you? I don't think it's right to call it anti-social. You say you can socialize with other people who are considered anti-social, so you're obviously not anti to the social part. Perhaps it's the type of encounter? Walking into a group of people you don't know, making small talk, telling jokes, asking interesting questions that don't dig too deep, listening for the cues that will help you identify with the others on a meaningful level, these are skills. You either learn them growing up (if your family exposes you to those kinds of experiences), or you learn them later in life through repeated experience. Or you don't learn them at all because you avoid those experiences because you never learned. But it's different when it isn't strangers. Once you get to know someone, the fear lessens and you're more relaxed. Socializing with people you know is different, less stressful. You don't have to worry how you're being perceived. The better you know someone, the more confident you can be in their expectations and behavior. Did anyone change fundamentally? No, you just the same people who know each other better. What kind of smart stuff don't you like to do in front of people? This kind of stuck out to me, because I immediately thought about a kid I met who offered to recite pi to 300 decimal places at an outdoor party. Great memory, smart kid, he should NOT have done that in front of barbecue people. 50 digits in, I was the only person still listening to him.

At this point, the misunderstanding of the perspective we've been explaining seems forced and purposeful. So many theists NEED atheism to be a religion, the way the miserable need company.

I'm not saying this is what happened, but is there a chance that these people, being atheists and hopefully rational thinkers, offered up reasons to support why they thought your faith was ridiculous (don't answer that yet, two-part question)? And you, being religious at the time and armed mostly with emotional appeals, doctrine full of contradictions and errors, and an abiding faith that absolutely won't allow you to be wrong about your religion, is there a chance you perceived that criticism as ridicule? And because it's about your faith, it feels like it's about you. So here are these atheists, seemingly mocking you personally, but it might be that they were just using their knowledge of the natural world to explain where your doctrine failed the reality test, or to point out that strong faith means accepting a single explanation about a phenomenon without question even though you can't possibly know something like that. Some folks believe in hundreds of gods, some in just one. Atheists think everything makes more sense with one fewer than that.

I fixed that for you with big, bold brackets, so you wouldn't be strawmanning Strange, and because it's obvious you knew that's what he was really asking, since you're smart.

Personally, I've recognized this inclination to homogenize political characters as a poor response to specific situations. I'm not sure where this need to paint everyone with the same crazy paint comes from. I thought it was a tactic of the US media, and their heroic efforts to make all perspectives valid and available 24/7, but you watch Canadian news, right? Implying that any of the Democrat presidential candidates since the internet would have the same kind of trouble Carson is in right now? You're gonna get a hernia with a stretch like that.

The mind-cloud seems to be God. I had both those things happen to me (multiple times), without God, and I see evolution everywhere.

This is the kind of stupid thing he's probably been corrected on a thousand times ("Uh, Ben, you don't need to seal grain hermetically in the dry desert, certainly not on that scale"), but it's something he made up rather than learned, so he just keeps saying it/lying about it to anyone uneducated enough to listen. And there are so many of those! The kind of people who cheer him when he says/lies that having a Muslim president is incompatible with the Constitution. Aren't there any Republicans out there who are ashamed that this guy is your strongest candidate so far?