What? It's the entirely logical thing to do, right? Religious people are sick. If they can't be cured, they should be gotten rid of. We should herd them into one place to keep them seperate from other people. And once they're seperate, what use are they? How can they possibly contribute to society? Thus, to the ovens with them.
Are you making fun of Richy?
No, I'm asking you to rebutt the logic here.
Oh. 'Cause it looks like you're making fun of Richy.
To address the initial question, Atheists do not have to believe in religion, take religion in 2 different contexts, one being a system of beliefs of a society/community/etc the second being as a categorization of belief systems that are religious beliefs.
Although I dont consider myself to be atheist I dont believe in god either so in my case this might be considered true, however, the general atheist does not believe in religion but rather recognizes its existence in the fact that other people believe in them regardless of their thoughts as to its fallacies. For example the recognition of communism as a form of goverment/economics doesn't imply belief of the system. So as far as Im concerned atheists do not believe in religion because at least from their point of view it doesn't warrant belief. Also as I believe was already mentioned, does it matter?
Another way to look at is that atheism is in fact a religion in which case the post would be correct, despite the basis in the fact that atheists do not believe in a god, their system is in fact based around religion otherwise it wouldn't exist. You could consider it a belief system around the laws of physics and nature, in which the supernatural is explained by science and in which a god is absent. However it may be argued its system of belief relies on religion to function even if it may lay at the opposite end of the spectrum from monotheistic beliefs.
What? It's the entirely logical thing to do, right? Religious people are sick. If they can't be cured, they should be gotten rid of. We should herd them into one place to keep them seperate from other people. And once they're seperate, what use are they? How can they possibly contribute to society? Thus, to the ovens with them.
Are you making fun of Richy?
No, I'm asking you to rebutt the logic here.
Oh. 'Cause it looks like you're making fun of Richy.
First, don't skim the thread, and actually read it. Read Loren's OP, to which I was replying. That'll put my comment in context. The OP itself is a long essay on why distinctions between Nazism, Communism and religion are false and meaningless.
I read the OP.
The distinctions between them are meaningless because they are lines in the sand. All are types of ideologies. Nothing about what I just said implies that religion = Nazism.
Now tell me why saying this makes me a mass murderer.
My reply, in this context, was meant to point out that Nazism and Communism have nothing to do with religion, and have far more in common with Dawkins-style "religion is a disease" atheism.
So "the belief that other beliefs are delusions" is akin to Nazism and Communism, not religion? You must be ignorant of the concept of sin in devout Christian circles, maya in devout Hindu circles, or Islam's claim that Allah blinds unbelievers who reject him so they become ignorant.
Religious people and texts claim that those who disagree with them are deluded by sin or unbelief. Dawkins claims his opponents are deluded by unreason.
Both religion and Dawkins are similar to Nazism and Communism in that they are examples of ideologies.
Now, you can take as a personal attack, even though I wasn't talking about you, thinking of you, and had no idea what your religious views even were until this moment.
I didn't take that as a personal attack.
What I did take as a personal attack was when you claimed that people like myself would put religious people in a concentration camp if we had the power to do so. That was incredibly fucking rude and nothing you've said addressed it.
Though I don't doubt Dawkins would start killing "sick" religious people if he had the power to do so with impunity (though he'd claim it's for the good of society), I don't think all his followers (or Loren and you specifically) would do so.
Where the hell do you get off implying this about Dawkins? Have you read his books? Where the fuck do you get this from anything he's written?
Let's go over this again.
"I think some of your strongly held beliefs are delusions."
=/=
"I think you should be killed for the good of society."
Now if you still feel I owe you an apology, let me know. But I definitly do not owe one to Loren. He created a thread to discuss his theory that Nazism, Communism and religion can be rolled together - or in other words, that Hitler, Stalin and me are part of the same group. If anything, he owes me an apology.
Loren never claimed religion = nazism, that is absurd.
And you owe him an apology because you claimed, in earnest, that he is a mass murderer. I stand by my statement that that is the single meanest fucking thing I've heard anyone on this forum say about another.
What? It's the entirely logical thing to do, right? Religious people are sick. If they can't be cured, they should be gotten rid of. We should herd them into one place to keep them seperate from other people. And once they're seperate, what use are they? How can they possibly contribute to society? Thus, to the ovens with them.
Are you making fun of Richy?
No, I'm asking you to rebutt the logic here.
Oh. 'Cause it looks like you're making fun of Richy.
Let me rephrase. Are you going to respond to the actual points being made, or will you be like the people you claim to despise? Because, so far, it looks like you're exactly the same as these 'religious zealots' that you hate. You ignore questions you don't have answers to, you hand-wave the ones you slightly have the answers to, and you cite and blindly spout forth the quotes of people whom you idolize, without criticism from yourself.
You're no better than them, Loren, and I think it's high time you turned that highly-critical mind of yours not only on religious people, but also on yourself.
It is just completely arbitrary to stop your logicbus at 'I KNOW WHY THESE PEOPLE ARE WRONG/DANGEROUS!' and not drive a little further to 'AND THIS IS WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE THEM', and, god forbid you go the few inches past that to 'I HAVE SOME VAGUE IDEAS ABOUT HOW TO FIX SHIT.'
What? It's the entirely logical thing to do, right? Religious people are sick. If they can't be cured, they should be gotten rid of. We should herd them into one place to keep them seperate from other people. And once they're seperate, what use are they? How can they possibly contribute to society? Thus, to the ovens with them.
Are you making fun of Richy?
No, I'm asking you to rebutt the logic here.
Oh. 'Cause it looks like you're making fun of Richy.
Feel free to stop ignoring the question.
See the bolded part of my last post.
Are you a Christian? If you are, I believe you are delusional. I think you have an irrational belief that is probably the result of brainwashing, and is certainly sustained by you either ignoring huge chunks of reality or huge chunks of the sacred text you claim to believe in.
I also believe that you are completely free to hold this belief, and that any society that would attempt to force you to give up your belief would not be worth living in. I believe that you and I can have an honest dialogue about your belief and whether or not it's true—and even if we end up disagreeing, we have more than enough common ground to continue respecting each other and letting each other live the lives we choose.
I do not fucking think you deserve to be locked up in a prison or an insane asylum and I sure as hell don't fucking think you deserve to be killed. And when people like you imply that I do think these disgusting opinions, I get pretty offended because you are basically calling me a sociopath.
First, don't skim the thread, and actually read it. Read Loren's OP, to which I was replying. That'll put my comment in context. The OP itself is a long essay on why distinctions between Nazism, Communism and religion are false and meaningless.
I read the OP.
The distinctions between them are meaningless because they are lines in the sand. All are types of ideologies.
Oh boy, it sure is meaningless when you have subcategories of categories!
Also, I think sirloin steak and snapper jack crackers are equivalent and we shouldn't draw differences between them, because they're both food! hurrr
I don't think Richy's notion of religion includes anything historical or modern but rather the notion of religion expressed on Family Sitcoms.
As for Hitler's anti-Judaism making him anti-religious, hooooboy. He killed Atheists as much as any other group. And hating on Jews is something he and the Catholics had in common.
The problem with Marxism is that many of its adherents were ZEALOTS, and treated its doctrine the same way people do when they go off starting holy wars, whether Catholic or Islamic or Greek or Aztec or whatever else.
Memetic religions by nature seek to alter or destroy other cultures and governments for their own ends in an active way, regardless of their usage of Historical or Mythological figures.
Non-memetic religions are -largely- harmless, such as your closet-using Christian or Wiccan, who keeps their faith personal. It may lead them to make personal decisions which are irrational, but not much more so than watching way too much TV, unless they also subject others to it ("Little Timmy doesn't need an operation, we'll heal him with faith!"). But that at least is small-scale.
Memetic religions, faiths, idealogies, dogmatic movements, whatever the hell you want to call them, are alike in their need to spread and control.
The presence of magical bullshit is just an extra level of it, but you can have purely non-magical bullshit harming people just as easily.
(It appears that Memetic is not a defined word in this sense. Which is annoying. But you know what I mean.)
What? It's the entirely logical thing to do, right? Religious people are sick. If they can't be cured, they should be gotten rid of. We should herd them into one place to keep them seperate from other people. And once they're seperate, what use are they? How can they possibly contribute to society? Thus, to the ovens with them.
Are you making fun of Richy?
No, I'm asking you to rebutt the logic here.
Oh. 'Cause it looks like you're making fun of Richy.
Feel free to stop ignoring the question.
See the bolded part of my last post.
Are you a Christian? If you are, I believe you are delusional. I think you have an irrational belief that is probably the result of brainwashing, and is certainly sustained by you either ignoring huge chunks of reality or huge chunks of the sacred text you claim to believe in.
I also believe that you are completely free to hold this belief, and that any society that would attempt to force you to give up your belief would not be worth living in. I believe that you and I can have an honest dialogue about your belief and whether or not it's true—and even if we end up disagreeing, we have more than enough common ground to continue respecting each other and letting each other live the lives we choose.
I do not fucking think you deserve to be locked up in a prison or an insane asylum and I sure as hell don't fucking think you deserve to be killed. And when people you imply that I do think these disgusting opinions, I get pretty offended because you are basically calling me a sociopath.
I'm atheist and don't believe in God, and I also don't take internet forums seriously, especially when deploying rhetorical devices to point out flaws in logic.
I mean, neither you nor still haven't pointed out where the flaw in that logicbus is, besides same vague and ill-defined lines of "humanity" and "worth" and "quality of society."
ARGH YOU AND I HAVEN'T DRAWN ANY NEAT LINES AROUND THESE PROBLEMS THEREFORE THEY ARE INADDRESSABLE
Furthermore, you're now telling you'd want to live in a society that lets dangerous people roam the streets. I label you as the delusional one, sir.
And you owe him an apology because you claimed, in earnest, that he is a mass murderer. I stand by my statement that that is the single meanest fucking thing I've heard anyone on this forum say about another.
I'm sorry, but how the fuck is "being mean" deserving of an apology, in D&D of all places? I mean, SE++ is Clownland, but at least all of the "fuck you's" there are in good fun.
tl;dr no one cares about the eye in the sky, but a religious devotion to anything is dangerous
i agree
let's pack up and hit the showers, ladies
--
Qingu's issue is mostly that Richy just assumed that atheists with strong opinions are automatically mass murdering dictators.
It's like if I pointed at a random person in a Church and say "Hey, you, FUCK STICK, you're just wanting to go murder a bunch of kids and burn their parents after starving them to death!"
Though at least that's statistically more likely to be true.
First, don't skim the thread, and actually read it. Read Loren's OP, to which I was replying. That'll put my comment in context. The OP itself is a long essay on why distinctions between Nazism, Communism and religion are false and meaningless.
I read the OP.
The distinctions between them are meaningless because they are lines in the sand. All are types of ideologies.
Oh boy, it sure is meaningless when you have subcategories of categories!
Also, I think sirloin steak and snapper jack crackers are equivalent and we shouldn't draw differences between them, because they're both food! hurrr
Perhaps you should read my first post in this thread. The word "religion" used to be synonymous with "Christianity." For some reason you appear determined to defend the sanctity of the current semantic usage of the word "religion."
I thought Loren had an excellent point. There is no clear-cut distinction between religion and any other ideology because—just as you mockingly admit—you can have subcategories of categories that blend together. Buddhism, by many strict definitions of the word, is not a "religion" because many Buddhists do not believe in gods or supernatural. The point here is that perhaps it's better to focus on the broader category of "ideology" rather than the narrower category of "religion" when discussing things like policy and constitutional rights.
Nowhere in this did Loren equivocate Nazism with religion. Ironically, you and Richie not only thought he did do so, but your response equivocated Loren's position with Nazism.
So when you say "the only reason Communism and Nazism are considered nonreligious is because no one bothered labelling them as such", you actually mean "there are certain points that can be used to draw comparisons between Nazism, Communism and religions"?
No, it's that "religion" is poorly defined such that the only really distinguishing feature to call attention to itself is the whole "god" bit, and even that, as pointed out earlier, isn't necessary. Look up Juche. It's pretty much Stalinism, and it's generally considered a religion.
That doesn't even make sense. How can you compare Communism/Nazism with religion and reach the conclusion that they only distinguishing feature is god, while readily admitting that religion is not even clearly defined?
I don't know much about Juche, but even if I accept your premise that it's Stalinism with god, that doesn't prove that the only distinction between Communism and religion is god. It only proves that the only distinction between Stalinism (which is not all Communism, or even good Communism, as Kakos would point out if he were here) and Juche (which is only one religion, and not representative of all religion) is god.
To reiterate my pain point, when one is concerned with dogmatism and a lack of skepticism, religion simply becomes a subset of these characteristics along with innumerable other movements, ideologies (if you will), beleif systems, and whatnot. This of course includes Nazism, Marxism, Stalinism, Maoism, astrology, supersition, Lysenkoism, and others.
My point and that of the article in the OP, as I understand it, is that it's disingenuous to be merely concerned with one breed of dogmatism and nonskepticism (religion), because the features that distinguish it from other schools of thought in the above list aren't really critical to declaring religion exceptionally problematic. It also gives me pause in identifying myself as an atheist, because that's not the defining quality of my attitude towards these beliefs, and in some ways, it's unfair to single religion out. Certainly, religion is separate in its own way, but it's not separate in such a way as to significantly uncouple itself from the other societal and personal delusions out there, to make it worthy of exclusive consideration, or to award the others immunity from consideration.
Oh geez...
These are ridiculously loose criteria to group things. You end up grouping wildly different things together. It's only one step more precise than the "English words" grouping I proposed earlier, and actually less useful - at least with my grouping, you can write a dictionary.
You want reasons to treat them differently? Nazism and Stalinism were recently responsible for the deaths of millions. Not because of dogmatism or lack of skepticism, but because people with power and no accountability hated some other people and decided to do something about it.
Astrology and supersition did not recently kill millions.
Marxism is mostly a historical/economic theory. The historical part have mostly been disproven, but the economic part is still respected. Marx's criticism of capitalism are accepted not out of dogmatism but for their economic sense.
Religion certainly has bad aspects, but also good ones. And more practically, it's accepted in some form by, what, 90% of the human race? That's way more than any other movement, ideology, beleif system and whatnot. That's ground for special consideration, at least in practice.
Let me rephrase. Are you going to respond to the actual points being made, or will you be like the people you claim to despise? Because, so far, it looks like you're exactly the same as these 'religious zealots' that you hate. You ignore questions you don't have answers to, you hand-wave the ones you slightly have the answers to, and you cite and blindly spout forth the quotes of people whom you idolize, without criticism from yourself.
If you're referring to your cute assertion, it was patently ridiculous on its face, and I don't humor that kind of crap. If you're honestly curious, Qingu gave an adequate answer.
The rest of what you say is a lot of vague accusations. The article in the OP is kind of long and relatively detailed, so I'm not certain how this suddenly turned to being a forum on me. I'm honestly surprised at the rote rejection of the OP by both religious people and atheists. It's actually critical (I think somewhat erroneously) of Dawkins and Harris, and I was initially led to it by this blog, which is run by a noted religious person who wasn't exactly fuming at the content of the article.
Let me rephrase. Are you going to respond to the actual points being made, or will you be like the people you claim to despise? Because, so far, it looks like you're exactly the same as these 'religious zealots' that you hate. You ignore questions you don't have answers to, you hand-wave the ones you slightly have the answers to, and you cite and blindly spout forth the quotes of people whom you idolize, without criticism from yourself.
If you're referring to your cute assertion, it was patently ridiculous on its face, and I don't humor that kind of crap. If you're honestly curious, Qingu gave an adequate answer.
The rest of what you say is a lot of vague accusations. The article in the OP is kind of long and relatively detailed, so I'm not certain how this suddenly turned to being a forum on me. I'm honestly surprised at the rote rejection of the OP by both religious people and atheists. It's actually critical (I think somewhat erroneously) of Dawkins and Harris, and I was initially led to it by this blog, which is run by a noted religious person who wasn't exactly fuming at the content of the article.
Have you never taken a critical reasoning course? Do you simply not know how to use logic? You make it sound like it being critical of Dawkins and Harris is some kind of redeeming factor that makes the rest of the article more right, when all it does is give the article a small island of rightness amidst the sea of being wrong.
I mean, do you really want me to go through the fucking article and quote-refute line-by-line, when anyone who has given the typicallogical fallacies a cursory overview can see the article for the shit it is?
What? It's the entirely logical thing to do, right? Religious people are sick. If they can't be cured, they should be gotten rid of. We should herd them into one place to keep them seperate from other people. And once they're seperate, what use are they? How can they possibly contribute to society? Thus, to the ovens with them.
Are you making fun of Richy?
No, I'm asking you to rebutt the logic here.
Oh. 'Cause it looks like you're making fun of Richy.
Feel free to stop ignoring the question.
See the bolded part of my last post.
Are you a Christian? If you are, I believe you are delusional. I think you have an irrational belief that is probably the result of brainwashing, and is certainly sustained by you either ignoring huge chunks of reality or huge chunks of the sacred text you claim to believe in.
I also believe that you are completely free to hold this belief, and that any society that would attempt to force you to give up your belief would not be worth living in. I believe that you and I can have an honest dialogue about your belief and whether or not it's true—and even if we end up disagreeing, we have more than enough common ground to continue respecting each other and letting each other live the lives we choose.
I do not fucking think you deserve to be locked up in a prison or an insane asylum and I sure as hell don't fucking think you deserve to be killed. And when people you imply that I do think these disgusting opinions, I get pretty offended because you are basically calling me a sociopath.
I'm atheist and don't believe in God, and I also don't take internet forums seriously, especially when deploying rhetorical devices to point out flaws in logic.
I mean, neither you nor still haven't pointed out where the flaw in that logicbus is, besides same vague and ill-defined lines of "humanity" and "worth" and "quality of society."
ARGH YOU AND I HAVEN'T DRAWN ANY NEAT LINES AROUND THESE PROBLEMS THEREFORE THEY ARE INADDRESSABLE
Oh Christ, what the fuck are you even talking about.
Yes, problems of categorization are real and they affect real shit, like law. The Supreme Court's difficulty in defining religion has had a serious impact on, for starters, the status of conscientious objectors. This isn't simply bullshit semantics, classifying "religion" is a legitimate question, and problem.
Furthermore, you're now telling you'd want to live in a society that lets dangerous people roam the streets. I label you as the delusional one, sir.
I hope this is an example of you not taking online debates seriously.
Delusional people can be relatively dangerous in that some of them actually commit antisocial acts. They can also be relatively benign. The idea that a religious text is worth more than empirical reality is, I think, a dangerous idea. So is Marxism. And guess fucking what, I believe in freedom of speech and expression, which means that I think people should be locked up for their actions, not thought crime.
And you owe him an apology because you claimed, in earnest, that he is a mass murderer. I stand by my statement that that is the single meanest fucking thing I've heard anyone on this forum say about another.
I'm sorry, but how the fuck is "being mean" deserving of an apology, in D&D of all places? I mean, SE++ is Clownland, but at least all of the "fuck you's" there are in good fun.
Here and there. It's the difference between Lecter and Lobo.
And you owe him an apology because you claimed, in earnest, that he is a mass murderer. I stand by my statement that that is the single meanest fucking thing I've heard anyone on this forum say about another.
I'm sorry, but how the fuck is "being mean" deserving of an apology, in D&D of all places? I mean, SE++ is Clownland, but at least all of the "fuck you's" there are in good fun.
I think there's a difference between "fuck you fag" and "if you had the power you would kill millions of people."
I mean, I like to think that I have thick skin. I don't get bothered when people playfully swear at me or call me slurs or even say that I'm stupid. But when someone says that I have the morality of a mass murderer? Yes, I think that is stepping over a line—a line that I hope exists on this forum, at least.
Religion certainly has bad aspects, but also good ones. And more practically, it's accepted in some form by, what, 90% of the human race? That's way more than any other movement, ideology, beleif system and whatnot. That's ground for special consideration, at least in practice.
That's only because of history and tradition. Remove the silly superstitions and fairy tales and people can start focusing on a more utiliatarian approach to philosophy and morality. Religion is absolutely obsolete. And it should be replaced accordingly.
That doesn't even make sense. How can you compare Communism/Nazism with religion and reach the conclusion that they only distinguishing feature is god, while readily admitting that religion is not even clearly defined?
Feel free to make a list of features that makes them -different-.
And religion is clearly defined the same way that love is clearly defined, in thousands of different clear ways.
That is when you turn to the scholarly use of the word, since that is the most static and universal.
Oh geez...
These are ridiculously loose criteria to group things. You end up grouping wildly different things together. It's only one step more precise than the "English words" grouping I proposed earlier, and actually less useful - at least with my grouping, you can write a dictionary.
You want reasons to treat them differently? Nazism and Stalinism were recently responsible for the deaths of millions. Not because of dogmatism or lack of skepticism, but because people with power and no accountability hated some other people and decided to do something about it.
Astrology and supersition did not recently kill millions.
RECENTLY is your criteria for religion vs. non-religion?
So how many years of not killing huge populations is required for Marxism to enter its Religious stage, like Christianity did after the Crusades?
Does this mean that Islam is not a religion after 9/11, or do you have to kill a set number of people?
Hell man, that's as bad as last night's "It's not a cult if its popular!" thing.
Marxism is mostly a historical/economic theory. The historical part have mostly been disproven, but the economic part is still respected. Marx's criticism of capitalism are accepted not out of dogmatism but for their economic sense.
Literary theory, actually. Marx was a Literature guy. Which is why he's still so popular in literary theories, and why his economics were so idiotic. He just grew it out of a much more broad, less assenine concept of "Dominance/Submission."
Which, unlike Marxism, doesn't assume there is no gray area, like, say, the Middle Class, or owner operators.
Religion certainly has bad aspects, but also good ones. And more practically, it's accepted in some form by, what, 90% of the human race? That's way more than any other movement, ideology, beleif system and whatnot. That's ground for special consideration, at least in practice.
It certainly does go to show that intelligent, rational behavior is not neccissarily naturally selected. People who drink and smoke are going to have more networking opportunities, which will lead to better chances at moving up in the world and getting laid and this reproducing.
That doesn't even make sense. How can you compare Communism/Nazism with religion and reach the conclusion that they only distinguishing feature is god, while readily admitting that religion is not even clearly defined?
I don't know much about Juche, but even if I accept your premise that it's Stalinism with god, that doesn't prove that the only distinction between Communism and religion is god. It only proves that the only distinction between Stalinism (which is not all Communism, or even good Communism, as Kakos would point out if he were here) and Juche (which is only one religion, and not representative of all religion) is god.
The point is that "religion" is really just pretty much anything people consider a religion- there isn't really a coherent definition. A lot of the time it has to do with a spirit world and a god-person, but not always. Hence, it's rather silly to be exclusively up in arms about religion when there's plenty of other things that are just as bad (in the dogmatic, anti-skeptical sense), that don't have the Latin or animal sacrifices or whatever.
You want reasons to treat them differently? Nazism and Stalinism were recently responsible for the deaths of millions. Not because of dogmatism or lack of skepticism, but because people with power and no accountability hated some other people and decided to do something about it.
I think Bertrand Russell and Robert Altemeyer might have a problem with your breaking it down into such simple terms.
Religion [is] accepted in some form by, what, 90% of the human race? That's way more than any other movement, ideology, belief system and whatnot. That's ground for special consideration, at least in practice.
I agree, which is why I don't entirely agree with the OP article's characterization of the issue.
Yes, problems of categorization are real and they affect real shit, like law. The Supreme Court's difficulty in defining religion has had a serious impact on, for starters, the status of conscientious objectors. This isn't simply bullshit semantics, classifying "religion" is a legitimate question, and problem.
This is a reasonable statement.
Saying it's meaningless to have 'Religion' as a category is stupid is, uh, stupid. Claiming that there's no meaningful difference between 'Marxism' and 'Nazism' is retarded.
But I'm glad we're agreed that being retarded is retarded.
Furthermore, you're now telling you'd want to live in a society that lets dangerous people roam the streets. I label you as the delusional one, sir.
I hope this is an example of you not taking online debates seriously.
Delusional people can be relatively dangerous in that some of them actually commit antisocial acts. They can also be relatively benign. The idea that a religious text is worth more than empirical reality is, I think, a dangerous idea. So is Marxism. And guess fucking what, I believe in freedom of speech and expression, which means that I think people should be locked up for their actions, not thought crime.
Neat.
In other news, would anyone like to speculate on why people turn to religion?
This argument essentially comes down to affection for a word, you guys realize.
If we stopped using the word "religion" and started using the word "Dogmatic Systems" it would be the exact same fricking category, but without "Stop saying bad things about religion!"
You make it sound like it being critical of Dawkins and Harris is some kind of redeeming factor that makes the rest of the article more right, when all it does is give the article a small island of rightness amidst the sea of being wrong.
I didn't expect it to be lumped in with them, as it is critical of them. It suggests to me that people did not read or understand the article.
I mean, do you really want me to go through the fucking article and quote-refute line-by-line, when anyone who has given the typical logical fallacies a cursory overview can see the article for the shit it is?
Do I want you to back up your assertions? Yes. It's one thing to say that something is shit, it's another to actually intelligibly explain why. I don't think the latter is too much to ask.
Yes, problems of categorization are real and they affect real shit, like law. The Supreme Court's difficulty in defining religion has had a serious impact on, for starters, the status of conscientious objectors. This isn't simply bullshit semantics, classifying "religion" is a legitimate question, and problem.
This is a reasonable statement.
Saying it's meaningless to have 'Religion' as a category is stupid is, uh, stupid. Claiming that there's no meaningful difference between 'Marxism' and 'Nazism' is retarded.
But I'm glad we're agreed that being retarded is retarded.
Furthermore, you're now telling you'd want to live in a society that lets dangerous people roam the streets. I label you as the delusional one, sir.
I hope this is an example of you not taking online debates seriously.
Delusional people can be relatively dangerous in that some of them actually commit antisocial acts. They can also be relatively benign. The idea that a religious text is worth more than empirical reality is, I think, a dangerous idea. So is Marxism. And guess fucking what, I believe in freedom of speech and expression, which means that I think people should be locked up for their actions, not thought crime.
Neat.
In other news, would anyone like to speculate on why people turn to religion?
Now, you can take as a personal attack, even though I wasn't talking about you, thinking of you, and had no idea what your religious views even were until this moment.
I didn't take that as a personal attack.
What I did take as a personal attack was when you claimed that people like myself would put religious people in a concentration camp if we had the power to do so. That was incredibly fucking rude and nothing you've said addressed it.
First off, in the very next sentence of my quote, I went on to say that I didn't think you or Loren specifically would kill people if you had the power to do so. So yes, I did address it.
Also, I never said that "people like you" would do it. That would be a stupid thing for me to say, since I have no idea who you are. I vaguely recall seeing you around the [chat] thread before, but I do believe this is the first actual conversation we've had. Until today, I knew nothing about you.
What I said is that people like Dawkins, who believe religion is a disease and evil and harmful to society, would put religious people in concentration camps if they had the power to do so. And I back this up with the fact that in the past, people who believed religion was a disease and evil and harmful to society, put religious people in concentration camps because they had the power to do so.
That's not to say that everyone without exception who shares that belief and who's put in those conditions will make the exact same decision.
And if you still feel that I'm pointing fingers at you and calling you a mass-murdered... well, fuck it. It's 2am now. I'm going to bed.
These are ridiculously loose criteria to group things. You end up grouping wildly different things together.
Okay. How do you propose the Supreme Court defines "religion" in terms of conscientious objectors? Let's see how you do with a more narrow definition, and have fun explaining to me why the fuck I have to go to war because my abhorrence of violence is not based on something a god supposedly wrote.
You want reasons to treat them differently? Nazism and Stalinism were recently responsible for the deaths of millions. Not because of dogmatism or lack of skepticism, but because people with power and no accountability hated some other people and decided to do something about it.
I would say they caused millions of deaths because people shunned both their empathy and reason and blindly believed the dogma of demagogues.
Astrology and supersition did not recently kill millions.
How recently are we talking about? Nazism, with its mythology of Teutonic racial supremacy, certainly has more than a few "superstitious" aspects.
Earlier in this century, the superstitious idea that a god gave a prophet named Muhammad laws in a magical book was a significant factor in the Muslims' massacre of over a million "dhimmi" Armenians (note: there were other factors).
And before that, Christians murdered thousands, if not millions, of witches, Jews, and heretics during the long history of the inquisition.
I don't see why you get offended when people like Loren look at the abstract similarities between these events. All of them seem to have been perpetrated by people who were enamored with a certain kind of dogma, inculcated in them not by reasoned argument but by propoganda or brainwashing.
Religion certainly has bad aspects, but also good ones.
So does Marxism. So, for that matter, does the pseudo-Nietzsche's philosophy that underpins Nazism. What's your point?
And more practically, it's accepted in some form by, what, 90% of the human race? That's way more than any other movement, ideology, beleif system and whatnot.
I think it's rather foolish to group all "religions" as if they were the same ideology. As you are no doubt aware, many of these religions are violently opposed to one another and have often killed each other. If you're going to make this comparison you at least need to separate each religion into its own "belief system."
You also need to consider that certain belief systems overlap. Watered-down christianity and secular enlightenment, for example
This argument essentially comes down to affection for a word, you guys realize.
If we stopped using the word "religion" and started using the word "Dogmatic Systems" it would be the exact same fricking category, but without "Stop saying bad things about religion!"
My understanding of the OP isn't that it's asking for a change in vocabulary, more that it was offering a criticism of current prominent atheists, in that they are being disingenuous in their actions and polemic towards different kinds of irrational thought.
And you owe him an apology because you claimed, in earnest, that he is a mass murderer. I stand by my statement that that is the single meanest fucking thing I've heard anyone on this forum say about another.
I'm sorry, but how the fuck is "being mean" deserving of an apology, in D&D of all places? I mean, SE++ is Clownland, but at least all of the "fuck you's" there are in good fun.
I think there's a difference between "fuck you fag" and "if you had the power you would kill millions of people."
I mean, I like to think that I have thick skin. I don't get bothered when people playfully swear at me or call me slurs or even say that I'm stupid. But when someone says that I have the morality of a mass murderer? Yes, I think that is stepping over a line—a line that I hope exists on this forum, at least.
I don't get bothered when people call me stupid in a supposedly thoughtful debate, nor when people say I'd kill millions given the opportunity, yet I still say draw the line before both of them.
What I said is that people like Dawkins, who believe religion is a disease and evil and harmful to society, would put religious people in concentration camps if they had the power to do so. And I back this up with the fact that in the past, people who believed religion was a disease and evil and harmful to society, put religious people in concentration camps because they had the power to do so.
You assume much.
I can't speak for the others, but I DO consider religion a disease and that it is ultimately harmful to society. But concentration camps? No.
My best friend is a witch. Two of my other close friends are a semi-Catholic and a Buddhist, the mystical kind.
I love them.
Some of the people I love most in the world have seen the inside of padded cells, or have SPLIT PERSONALITIES.
Recognizing these illnesses doesn't make me love them any less. It just makes things occasionally awkward.
The point is that "religion" is really just pretty much anything people consider a religion- there isn't really a coherent definition. A lot of the time it has to do with a spirit world and a god-person, but not always. Hence, it's rather silly to be exclusively up in arms about religion when there's plenty of other things that are just as bad (in the dogmatic, anti-skeptical sense), that don't have the Latin or animal sacrifices or whatever.
I look at it as an extra identifier that helps narrow the focus.
Sometimes, its not good enough to just know you're talking about a bear; sometimes, it is important to know if it was a grizzly or polar bear.
Do a drop-in replacement.
Sometimes, its not good enough to just know you're talking about a delusion; sometimes, it is important to know if it were standard delusion, or a religious one.
Gives one an indication as to what the delusion may be centered around.
You want reasons to treat them differently? Nazism and Stalinism were recently responsible for the deaths of millions. Not because of dogmatism or lack of skepticism, but because people with power and no accountability hated some other people and decided to do something about it.
While that might be true, it should be noted that without things like dogmatism or lack of skepticism, those people in power wouldn't be able to do a whole lot of "something".
Religion [is] accepted in some form by, what, 90% of the human race? That's way more than any other movement, ideology, belief system and whatnot. That's ground for special consideration, at least in practice.
Also another good reason to specify - its the difference between common and uncommon delusions.
I don't get bothered when people call me stupid in a supposedly thoughtful debate, nor when people say I'd kill millions given the opportunity, yet I still say draw the line before both of them.
I think "you're an idiot" and equivalents are more of a judgment of a person's intellectual capability. "You'd be a mass-murderer if you had the chance" is a little bit more of a serious charge and probably a mischaracterization of a position, and I would kind of expect the accuser to have some semblance of evidence to back it up. If that accusation is leveled at me, I have to suspect that the accuser isn't being honest or intelligent.
This argument essentially comes down to affection for a word, you guys realize.
If we stopped using the word "religion" and started using the word "Dogmatic Systems" it would be the exact same fricking category, but without "Stop saying bad things about religion!"
My understanding of the OP isn't that it's asking for a change in vocabulary, more that it was offering a criticism of current prominent atheists, in that they are being disingenuous in their actions and polemic towards different kinds of irrational thought.
I don't know an atheist who would deny that some atheists are stupid assholes.
Being not fucked up in one way doesn't eliminate any other way of being fucked up.
But I meant the immediate argument about "Nuh uh, Nazi is the OPPOSITE Of religion!" crap.
It's word affection. Like someone getting angry at you for calling a spider cute.
What I said is that people like Dawkins, who believe religion is a disease and evil and harmful to society, would put religious people in concentration camps if they had the power to do so. And I back this up with the fact that in the past, people who believed religion was a disease and evil and harmful to society, put religious people in concentration camps because they had the power to do so.
Did these people believe in freedom of speech and expression, as Dawkins plainly does?
Have you even read the man's books, dude?
I think religion is a disease in that is spreads like one and harms society. I think much of the Bible and Quran are "evil." I believe exactly what Dawkins does about religion. Now explain to me why you think this implies that I would kill religious people.
So far, your only defense for this incredibly antagonistic claim is that "some people in the passed locked up people who they thought were delusional."
I mean, you surely recognize that Dawkins is not using the word "delusion" in a DSM-IV sense. And I'm sure you also realize that there is a whole profession of people, called pschologists, who don't want to kill people who demonstrably have real DSM-IV delusions.
And if you still feel that I'm pointing fingers at you and calling you a mass-murdered... well, fuck it. It's 2am now. I'm going to bed.
I do. And I'm bothered by the fact that you are so nonchalant about it. It is pretty disconcerting that you think I would want to kill someone just because I thought that person was "delusional."
You know, the more I think about it, the more this SHIT PISSES ME OFF.
If a Christian came in here and said, "You are all blinded by SIN! Because you don't believe in the literal truth of the Bible, your whole existence is based on lies! You can't even see reality!"
....would anyone on this forum claim that this person would want to put us all in a concentration camp if he had the power?
And yet when Richard Dawkins says that religion is a delusion, ten people claim that makes him an advocate of genocide?
It's tempting to just blame this all on a misunderstanding. But part of me wonders if it's deeper than that—if it's not some lingering symptom of the well-worn assumption that atheists are fundamentally immoral.
I don't know about you, but when someone implies that I would kill someone based on my belief that they are deeply wrong about something, that comes accross as a pretty serious, unfair, and offensive judgment on my moral character. Maybe I'm being too defensive about this, but I seriously hope that posters like Richy and others realize that atheists can have empathy too.
Posts
Feel free to stop ignoring the question.
Although I dont consider myself to be atheist I dont believe in god either so in my case this might be considered true, however, the general atheist does not believe in religion but rather recognizes its existence in the fact that other people believe in them regardless of their thoughts as to its fallacies. For example the recognition of communism as a form of goverment/economics doesn't imply belief of the system. So as far as Im concerned atheists do not believe in religion because at least from their point of view it doesn't warrant belief. Also as I believe was already mentioned, does it matter?
Another way to look at is that atheism is in fact a religion in which case the post would be correct, despite the basis in the fact that atheists do not believe in a god, their system is in fact based around religion otherwise it wouldn't exist. You could consider it a belief system around the laws of physics and nature, in which the supernatural is explained by science and in which a god is absent. However it may be argued its system of belief relies on religion to function even if it may lay at the opposite end of the spectrum from monotheistic beliefs.
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BFBC2
A person could do worse.
The distinctions between them are meaningless because they are lines in the sand. All are types of ideologies. Nothing about what I just said implies that religion = Nazism.
Now tell me why saying this makes me a mass murderer.
So "the belief that other beliefs are delusions" is akin to Nazism and Communism, not religion? You must be ignorant of the concept of sin in devout Christian circles, maya in devout Hindu circles, or Islam's claim that Allah blinds unbelievers who reject him so they become ignorant.
Religious people and texts claim that those who disagree with them are deluded by sin or unbelief. Dawkins claims his opponents are deluded by unreason.
Both religion and Dawkins are similar to Nazism and Communism in that they are examples of ideologies.
I didn't take that as a personal attack.
What I did take as a personal attack was when you claimed that people like myself would put religious people in a concentration camp if we had the power to do so. That was incredibly fucking rude and nothing you've said addressed it.
Where the hell do you get off implying this about Dawkins? Have you read his books? Where the fuck do you get this from anything he's written?
Let's go over this again.
"I think some of your strongly held beliefs are delusions."
=/=
"I think you should be killed for the good of society."
Loren never claimed religion = nazism, that is absurd.
And you owe him an apology because you claimed, in earnest, that he is a mass murderer. I stand by my statement that that is the single meanest fucking thing I've heard anyone on this forum say about another.
Let me rephrase. Are you going to respond to the actual points being made, or will you be like the people you claim to despise? Because, so far, it looks like you're exactly the same as these 'religious zealots' that you hate. You ignore questions you don't have answers to, you hand-wave the ones you slightly have the answers to, and you cite and blindly spout forth the quotes of people whom you idolize, without criticism from yourself.
You're no better than them, Loren, and I think it's high time you turned that highly-critical mind of yours not only on religious people, but also on yourself.
It is just completely arbitrary to stop your logicbus at 'I KNOW WHY THESE PEOPLE ARE WRONG/DANGEROUS!' and not drive a little further to 'AND THIS IS WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE THEM', and, god forbid you go the few inches past that to 'I HAVE SOME VAGUE IDEAS ABOUT HOW TO FIX SHIT.'
Are you a Christian? If you are, I believe you are delusional. I think you have an irrational belief that is probably the result of brainwashing, and is certainly sustained by you either ignoring huge chunks of reality or huge chunks of the sacred text you claim to believe in.
I also believe that you are completely free to hold this belief, and that any society that would attempt to force you to give up your belief would not be worth living in. I believe that you and I can have an honest dialogue about your belief and whether or not it's true—and even if we end up disagreeing, we have more than enough common ground to continue respecting each other and letting each other live the lives we choose.
I do not fucking think you deserve to be locked up in a prison or an insane asylum and I sure as hell don't fucking think you deserve to be killed. And when people like you imply that I do think these disgusting opinions, I get pretty offended because you are basically calling me a sociopath.
Also, I think sirloin steak and snapper jack crackers are equivalent and we shouldn't draw differences between them, because they're both food! hurrr
As for Hitler's anti-Judaism making him anti-religious, hooooboy. He killed Atheists as much as any other group. And hating on Jews is something he and the Catholics had in common.
The problem with Marxism is that many of its adherents were ZEALOTS, and treated its doctrine the same way people do when they go off starting holy wars, whether Catholic or Islamic or Greek or Aztec or whatever else.
Memetic religions by nature seek to alter or destroy other cultures and governments for their own ends in an active way, regardless of their usage of Historical or Mythological figures.
Non-memetic religions are -largely- harmless, such as your closet-using Christian or Wiccan, who keeps their faith personal. It may lead them to make personal decisions which are irrational, but not much more so than watching way too much TV, unless they also subject others to it ("Little Timmy doesn't need an operation, we'll heal him with faith!"). But that at least is small-scale.
Memetic religions, faiths, idealogies, dogmatic movements, whatever the hell you want to call them, are alike in their need to spread and control.
The presence of magical bullshit is just an extra level of it, but you can have purely non-magical bullshit harming people just as easily.
(It appears that Memetic is not a defined word in this sense. Which is annoying. But you know what I mean.)
I'm atheist and don't believe in God, and I also don't take internet forums seriously, especially when deploying rhetorical devices to point out flaws in logic.
I mean, neither you nor still haven't pointed out where the flaw in that logicbus is, besides same vague and ill-defined lines of "humanity" and "worth" and "quality of society."
ARGH YOU AND I HAVEN'T DRAWN ANY NEAT LINES AROUND THESE PROBLEMS THEREFORE THEY ARE INADDRESSABLE
Furthermore, you're now telling you'd want to live in a society that lets dangerous people roam the streets. I label you as the delusional one, sir.
i agree
let's pack up and hit the showers, ladies
--
Qingu's issue is mostly that Richy just assumed that atheists with strong opinions are automatically mass murdering dictators.
It's like if I pointed at a random person in a Church and say "Hey, you, FUCK STICK, you're just wanting to go murder a bunch of kids and burn their parents after starving them to death!"
Though at least that's statistically more likely to be true.
I thought Loren had an excellent point. There is no clear-cut distinction between religion and any other ideology because—just as you mockingly admit—you can have subcategories of categories that blend together. Buddhism, by many strict definitions of the word, is not a "religion" because many Buddhists do not believe in gods or supernatural. The point here is that perhaps it's better to focus on the broader category of "ideology" rather than the narrower category of "religion" when discussing things like policy and constitutional rights.
Nowhere in this did Loren equivocate Nazism with religion. Ironically, you and Richie not only thought he did do so, but your response equivocated Loren's position with Nazism.
That doesn't even make sense. How can you compare Communism/Nazism with religion and reach the conclusion that they only distinguishing feature is god, while readily admitting that religion is not even clearly defined?
I don't know much about Juche, but even if I accept your premise that it's Stalinism with god, that doesn't prove that the only distinction between Communism and religion is god. It only proves that the only distinction between Stalinism (which is not all Communism, or even good Communism, as Kakos would point out if he were here) and Juche (which is only one religion, and not representative of all religion) is god.
Oh geez...
These are ridiculously loose criteria to group things. You end up grouping wildly different things together. It's only one step more precise than the "English words" grouping I proposed earlier, and actually less useful - at least with my grouping, you can write a dictionary.
You want reasons to treat them differently? Nazism and Stalinism were recently responsible for the deaths of millions. Not because of dogmatism or lack of skepticism, but because people with power and no accountability hated some other people and decided to do something about it.
Astrology and supersition did not recently kill millions.
Marxism is mostly a historical/economic theory. The historical part have mostly been disproven, but the economic part is still respected. Marx's criticism of capitalism are accepted not out of dogmatism but for their economic sense.
Religion certainly has bad aspects, but also good ones. And more practically, it's accepted in some form by, what, 90% of the human race? That's way more than any other movement, ideology, beleif system and whatnot. That's ground for special consideration, at least in practice.
surprise surprise
If you're referring to your cute assertion, it was patently ridiculous on its face, and I don't humor that kind of crap. If you're honestly curious, Qingu gave an adequate answer.
The rest of what you say is a lot of vague accusations. The article in the OP is kind of long and relatively detailed, so I'm not certain how this suddenly turned to being a forum on me. I'm honestly surprised at the rote rejection of the OP by both religious people and atheists. It's actually critical (I think somewhat erroneously) of Dawkins and Harris, and I was initially led to it by this blog, which is run by a noted religious person who wasn't exactly fuming at the content of the article.
Have you never taken a critical reasoning course? Do you simply not know how to use logic? You make it sound like it being critical of Dawkins and Harris is some kind of redeeming factor that makes the rest of the article more right, when all it does is give the article a small island of rightness amidst the sea of being wrong.
I mean, do you really want me to go through the fucking article and quote-refute line-by-line, when anyone who has given the typicallogical fallacies a cursory overview can see the article for the shit it is?
Yes, problems of categorization are real and they affect real shit, like law. The Supreme Court's difficulty in defining religion has had a serious impact on, for starters, the status of conscientious objectors. This isn't simply bullshit semantics, classifying "religion" is a legitimate question, and problem.
I hope this is an example of you not taking online debates seriously.
Delusional people can be relatively dangerous in that some of them actually commit antisocial acts. They can also be relatively benign. The idea that a religious text is worth more than empirical reality is, I think, a dangerous idea. So is Marxism. And guess fucking what, I believe in freedom of speech and expression, which means that I think people should be locked up for their actions, not thought crime.
Here and there. It's the difference between Lecter and Lobo.
I mean, I like to think that I have thick skin. I don't get bothered when people playfully swear at me or call me slurs or even say that I'm stupid. But when someone says that I have the morality of a mass murderer? Yes, I think that is stepping over a line—a line that I hope exists on this forum, at least.
That's only because of history and tradition. Remove the silly superstitions and fairy tales and people can start focusing on a more utiliatarian approach to philosophy and morality. Religion is absolutely obsolete. And it should be replaced accordingly.
Feel free to make a list of features that makes them -different-.
And religion is clearly defined the same way that love is clearly defined, in thousands of different clear ways.
That is when you turn to the scholarly use of the word, since that is the most static and universal.
RECENTLY is your criteria for religion vs. non-religion?
So how many years of not killing huge populations is required for Marxism to enter its Religious stage, like Christianity did after the Crusades?
Does this mean that Islam is not a religion after 9/11, or do you have to kill a set number of people?
Hell man, that's as bad as last night's "It's not a cult if its popular!" thing.
Literary theory, actually. Marx was a Literature guy. Which is why he's still so popular in literary theories, and why his economics were so idiotic. He just grew it out of a much more broad, less assenine concept of "Dominance/Submission."
Which, unlike Marxism, doesn't assume there is no gray area, like, say, the Middle Class, or owner operators.
It certainly does go to show that intelligent, rational behavior is not neccissarily naturally selected. People who drink and smoke are going to have more networking opportunities, which will lead to better chances at moving up in the world and getting laid and this reproducing.
Still fucking rots your guts.
The point is that "religion" is really just pretty much anything people consider a religion- there isn't really a coherent definition. A lot of the time it has to do with a spirit world and a god-person, but not always. Hence, it's rather silly to be exclusively up in arms about religion when there's plenty of other things that are just as bad (in the dogmatic, anti-skeptical sense), that don't have the Latin or animal sacrifices or whatever.
I think Bertrand Russell and Robert Altemeyer might have a problem with your breaking it down into such simple terms.
I agree, which is why I don't entirely agree with the OP article's characterization of the issue.
Saying it's meaningless to have 'Religion' as a category is stupid is, uh, stupid. Claiming that there's no meaningful difference between 'Marxism' and 'Nazism' is retarded.
But I'm glad we're agreed that being retarded is retarded.
Neat.
In other news, would anyone like to speculate on why people turn to religion?
If we stopped using the word "religion" and started using the word "Dogmatic Systems" it would be the exact same fricking category, but without "Stop saying bad things about religion!"
I didn't expect it to be lumped in with them, as it is critical of them. It suggests to me that people did not read or understand the article.
Do I want you to back up your assertions? Yes. It's one thing to say that something is shit, it's another to actually intelligibly explain why. I don't think the latter is too much to ask.
because it is the default social norm?
Also, I never said that "people like you" would do it. That would be a stupid thing for me to say, since I have no idea who you are. I vaguely recall seeing you around the [chat] thread before, but I do believe this is the first actual conversation we've had. Until today, I knew nothing about you.
What I said is that people like Dawkins, who believe religion is a disease and evil and harmful to society, would put religious people in concentration camps if they had the power to do so. And I back this up with the fact that in the past, people who believed religion was a disease and evil and harmful to society, put religious people in concentration camps because they had the power to do so.
That's not to say that everyone without exception who shares that belief and who's put in those conditions will make the exact same decision.
And if you still feel that I'm pointing fingers at you and calling you a mass-murdered... well, fuck it. It's 2am now. I'm going to bed.
I would say they caused millions of deaths because people shunned both their empathy and reason and blindly believed the dogma of demagogues.
How recently are we talking about? Nazism, with its mythology of Teutonic racial supremacy, certainly has more than a few "superstitious" aspects.
Earlier in this century, the superstitious idea that a god gave a prophet named Muhammad laws in a magical book was a significant factor in the Muslims' massacre of over a million "dhimmi" Armenians (note: there were other factors).
And before that, Christians murdered thousands, if not millions, of witches, Jews, and heretics during the long history of the inquisition.
I don't see why you get offended when people like Loren look at the abstract similarities between these events. All of them seem to have been perpetrated by people who were enamored with a certain kind of dogma, inculcated in them not by reasoned argument but by propoganda or brainwashing.
So does Marxism. So, for that matter, does the pseudo-Nietzsche's philosophy that underpins Nazism. What's your point?
I think it's rather foolish to group all "religions" as if they were the same ideology. As you are no doubt aware, many of these religions are violently opposed to one another and have often killed each other. If you're going to make this comparison you at least need to separate each religion into its own "belief system."
You also need to consider that certain belief systems overlap. Watered-down christianity and secular enlightenment, for example
My understanding of the OP isn't that it's asking for a change in vocabulary, more that it was offering a criticism of current prominent atheists, in that they are being disingenuous in their actions and polemic towards different kinds of irrational thought.
You assume much.
I can't speak for the others, but I DO consider religion a disease and that it is ultimately harmful to society. But concentration camps? No.
My best friend is a witch. Two of my other close friends are a semi-Catholic and a Buddhist, the mystical kind.
I love them.
Some of the people I love most in the world have seen the inside of padded cells, or have SPLIT PERSONALITIES.
Recognizing these illnesses doesn't make me love them any less. It just makes things occasionally awkward.
I look at it as an extra identifier that helps narrow the focus.
Sometimes, its not good enough to just know you're talking about a bear; sometimes, it is important to know if it was a grizzly or polar bear.
Do a drop-in replacement.
Sometimes, its not good enough to just know you're talking about a delusion; sometimes, it is important to know if it were standard delusion, or a religious one.
Gives one an indication as to what the delusion may be centered around.
While that might be true, it should be noted that without things like dogmatism or lack of skepticism, those people in power wouldn't be able to do a whole lot of "something".
Also another good reason to specify - its the difference between common and uncommon delusions.
I think "you're an idiot" and equivalents are more of a judgment of a person's intellectual capability. "You'd be a mass-murderer if you had the chance" is a little bit more of a serious charge and probably a mischaracterization of a position, and I would kind of expect the accuser to have some semblance of evidence to back it up. If that accusation is leveled at me, I have to suspect that the accuser isn't being honest or intelligent.
I don't know an atheist who would deny that some atheists are stupid assholes.
Being not fucked up in one way doesn't eliminate any other way of being fucked up.
But I meant the immediate argument about "Nuh uh, Nazi is the OPPOSITE Of religion!" crap.
It's word affection. Like someone getting angry at you for calling a spider cute.
Have you even read the man's books, dude?
I think religion is a disease in that is spreads like one and harms society. I think much of the Bible and Quran are "evil." I believe exactly what Dawkins does about religion. Now explain to me why you think this implies that I would kill religious people.
So far, your only defense for this incredibly antagonistic claim is that "some people in the passed locked up people who they thought were delusional."
I mean, you surely recognize that Dawkins is not using the word "delusion" in a DSM-IV sense. And I'm sure you also realize that there is a whole profession of people, called pschologists, who don't want to kill people who demonstrably have real DSM-IV delusions.
I do. And I'm bothered by the fact that you are so nonchalant about it. It is pretty disconcerting that you think I would want to kill someone just because I thought that person was "delusional."
It wasn't "Burn all ye faithful" it was "Die our boss wants your stuff."
If a Christian came in here and said, "You are all blinded by SIN! Because you don't believe in the literal truth of the Bible, your whole existence is based on lies! You can't even see reality!"
....would anyone on this forum claim that this person would want to put us all in a concentration camp if he had the power?
And yet when Richard Dawkins says that religion is a delusion, ten people claim that makes him an advocate of genocide?
It's tempting to just blame this all on a misunderstanding. But part of me wonders if it's deeper than that—if it's not some lingering symptom of the well-worn assumption that atheists are fundamentally immoral.
I don't know about you, but when someone implies that I would kill someone based on my belief that they are deeply wrong about something, that comes accross as a pretty serious, unfair, and offensive judgment on my moral character. Maybe I'm being too defensive about this, but I seriously hope that posters like Richy and others realize that atheists can have empathy too.