"Are you a humanist?" topic closed (to the edge) - Progressive Rock Music Forum

mudslinging.

What?

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

Why do you assume that if I don't like something or have no interest in something it is because I have had a bad experience with it?

Because it is so incredibly radical, you are not attacking "bad philosophy", you are attacking philosophy itself. It's the same as being opposed to our basic need to know things, and actually, it's hard to advocate science if you oppose philosophy, because science depends on a theory of knowledge among other things.

You jumped to a conclusion from an assumption. Assumptions are not good. Assumptions are all too often wrong. In science you state your assumptions before stating your conclusions. What you try to avoid when doing that is drawing your conclusions directly from your assumptions.

I said: "I can tolerate god believers, philosophers however..."

There is nothing radical about dismissing the entire body of philosophers. Practically every philosopher in history has done that.

Note that I said 'philosophers' and not 'philosophy' ... my inferred negativity was towards philosophers, those idle time-wasting navel gazers whose profession is philosophy as an academic discipline, not towards philosophy itself.

My "beef" is with philosophers (and thus the academic discipline of philosophy), not with philosophy in general. At best you could assume I am okay with philosophy (with a small 'p') but not okay with Philosophy (with a big 'P').

We favour a particular philosopher or school of philosophy because we agree with what they say, seldom do we change our way of thinking to align ourselves with a philosophy of a philosopher or school of philosophy. Some think Fred Nietzsche or Manni Kant were cool dudes because they agree with some of what those dead guys wrote, as if having it stated in a formal doctrine by some academic navel gazer affirms their view of the world. Hitler thought Nietzsche ideas of the übermensch were pretty cool while purposely ignoring his opposition to anti-semitism and nationalism. Nietzsche's philosophy was not the philosophy of the Third Reich nor could it be said that theübermensch was directly responsible for the Hitler's idea of the master-race. All that was Hitler's ideas and philosophies put into practice. Nietzsche the Philosopher was ineffectual. He wrote some stuff that Hitler agreed with and he wrote other stuff that Hitler did not agree with.

Please also note that I try very hard to be very careful with my choice of words.... for example:

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

Why do you also assume that wisdom/insight is only attainable through philosophers?

I had a hunch that you should mention that. But I didn't say that wisdom is attainable only through philosophy. But it needs to be a part of it, because wisdom requires knowledge, and knowledge must be gained using reason.

All philosophers do is put into words things we already knew. They do not create wisdom from knowledge using reason.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

Why do you even assume that philosophers can offer wisdom/insight at all?

You don't have to be a philosopher to practise philosophical thinking. The only thing needed is the starting point, the desire to know. As soon as questions are formed, you are dealing with philosophy.

Correct. I said everybody has a philosophy. I also said you don't need a philosopher to tell you what or how to think. I am not stupid, I do know that we cannot escape philosophical thought, I am also blatantly aware that every word I type on the subject of philosophy is philosophy, the simple act of discussing the value of philosophy is philosophising. This is unavoidable. I don't need a philosopher to tell me that.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

We took ancient "philosophy" and tested it - all that worked we called "science" - all that did not we "pseudo-science" and/or erm... "philosophy"

Every philosophical thought has a counter philosophical thought that opposes and/or contradicts it. There are no wrong answers in philosophy, there are no right answers, there are only questions. Everybody has a philosophy, it is a convenient word to describe what and/or how we think about everything, philosophy is every think but it is not everything. Philosophy is not knowledge, it is the love of knowledge, similarly philosophy is not wisdom, it is the love of wisdom.

As soon as you learn something and can put it in a context, which creates an understanding, either right or wrong, there is a philosophy about it in your mind, whether you have expressed it to yourself and not. So the actual practise of "philospohy" is only taking our understabndings and examine them further. And also examining what we take for granted, which are philosophical presumptions.

I try to avoid assumption and presumption. To paraphrase the Bard: the laddie doth presume too much, methinks.

Dean wrote:

Science I think parted from philosophy around a time when there emerged a demand for proving and agreeing on things, and metaphysics for example wasn't compatible with that. Side by side with philosophy there were big breakthroughs in science fields such as physics. So science was progressibng more as a unit while philosophy only went more complex and split up into different theories. In a pragmatic sense, philosophy didn't "produce" things like plains and cars and machines. I think that separation was very sad though. We got into an age of materialism, and there was/is a lot of things to discover in that contect of course, beneficial to humanity, but it's not the only important context of knowledge.

The only thing philosophy produces is philosophers and the only thing philosophers produce is philosophy.

What benefit is there to humanity in philosophy? If all the philosophers in the world magically disappeared overnight how long would it take before anyone noticed?

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

The old testament was interpreted as literal for most of its history, in fact for all of that time it was history. Conversion to an allegorical text is a modern interpretation to account for all its "errors".

I doubt it, but I'm not interested in the way people understood the scriptures as much as the text itself and how it is supposed to be understood. Most religious people are misinterpreting things, many are brought up into religious traditions and customs were you don't question things too much, that's my impression. It's both a culture and a mental safety to rely on, but the truth of it have a deeper purpose.

Good for you but that is not what we are discussing. If you were born 400 years ago you would not be permitted to interpret the scripture any differently from how you were told to interpret it, and that would be literally and not allegorically. Until Gutenberg printed the first copy of the bible non-theologians were not permitted to read the bible in case they misinterpreted it. Before scripture (literally 'writing') religion was an oral tradition with stories and their meaning being passed on verbatim (literally: 'word for word'). Once they were written down the meaning was continued as an oral tradition and central to that was the verbatim passing on of meaning. Judaism has a long history of passing long and complex texts orally and is very strict about passing on those texts word for word in an unbroken chain through the generations. There is no evidence to suggest that the meaning of the scripture was anything other than literal. How the scripture were supposed to be understood is how they were understood.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

Erm. You thought that post-theism regarded those who believe in god or spirituality as 'silly', 'stupid' and 'primitive'. If you use those offensive words then you are saying that post-theism is offensive.

Well that's just the way they look after having been relegated to something part of the past. Nobody needs to be offended by it if they just ignore it , or don't take it seriously. And they don't have to , since it seems just like an opinion. I don't think it has to be made in to a complete "-ism" though.

It's not how "they" look at it. It is how "you" saw it. You used those offensive words.

Are there rules for what can and cannot be an -ism?

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

It is very rare to believe god exists without believing in god.

I doubt that there is a clear difference here. If I say "I believe in god but I'm not religious", then it's the same as saying that "I believe god exists".

There is a massive difference. If you say you believe in god then by inference you must believe that god exists. This is not commutative. You cannot say you believe in god but he does not exist but you can say god exists but you don't believe in him. The word believe has two meanings (faith and accept) and the sentence uses both meanings.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

in a theological context the two meanings have merged into one, believing in god implies that you believe that god exists, if you believe in god then you do not question whether god exists, you accept it to be true.

Accepting to be true doesn't mean "claiming to know". Many religious believers can go through periods of "doubt", and their faith is a continuing cultivation of their "belief", which is a conviction whose strength can vary a lot, from weak to strong. If they "knew" they wouldn't have to work on their faith.

I never said or implied "claiming to know" - acceptance is not knowing.

Richard Dawking does not know that god does not exist. He argues that atheism arises from a lack of evidence and evidence can always change a thinking person's mind. He classifies himself as a de facto athiest: "I don't know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there."

You could say from that he has accepted god does not exist. He knows that one piece of evidence will blow his acceptance that god does not exist clean out of the water. That is how "science" works.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

I know my daughter exists, this is not a belief..

But you don't have a complete understanding of what it is to know.

Irrelevant. I know she exists.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

Post-theism is non-spiritual nontheism and therefore is not a religion, post-theism does not state that everything can be explained, it is the observation that thus far, everything that has been explained did not require belief in god(s) to explain it so concludes that anything that can be explained will likewise not require belief in god(s) to explain them and therefore all those things that cannot be explained (such as what happens after we die) will also not require a belief in god(s).Post-theism is non-spiritual nontheism and therefore is not a religion, post-theism does not state that everything can be explained, it is the observation that thus far, everything that has been explained did not require belief in god(s) to explain it so concludes that anything that can be explained will likewise not require belief in god(s) to explain them and therefore all those things that cannot be explained (such as what happens after we die) will also not require a belief in god(s).

It just seems like an invention out of a fixation on "god". What has been explained (through science) doesn't explain why we want to explain things.It explains almost nothing about human consciousness which is the foundation of our existence. Just because everything that science established didn't require a god, doesn't mean that science will cover all the needs of our thoughts. Stuff like ideals, values, goodness, purposes. Of course, establishing facts with proof doesn't require gods - that's the premise of modern science. To prove things, we can only use what we have access to - and we don't have access to God. It seems like a circular argument.

You are over-thinking the problem.

You can either explain something or you cannot. There is nothing circular in this, nor does it beg the question.

Q:How do you prove that god exists? A: By having evidence of god's existence.

Q:How do you prove that god does not exist? A: You cannot.

Not having evidence of god's existence is not proof of god's non-existence. It only takes one piece of data for that proof to be blown clean out of the water, therefore it is not a proof. Anyone who attempts to use science to prove that god does not exist or believes that science will one day prove that god does not exist does not understand science.

However, some things that do not exist can be proved to not exist. For example I can prove that there is not an island in the middle of my fish pond because I could (if need be) produce photographic evidence to show my fish pond without an island in the middle. The island does not exist and that can be proved. I cannot prove there has never been an island in the middle of my fish pond even though I know one has never existed (because I made the fish pond). Nor can I claim that there will never be an island in the middle of my fish pond even though I can state that I do not want one, and I do not need one so it is very unlikely that I will ever make one.

I specifically said that science is not a religion and science does not cover spiritual needs, do I really have to state all the blatantly obvious things that are not the concern of science one at a time?

I did not say that science would explain all that is explainable, I said the explanations would not require belief in god.

Things that are unexplainable cannot be explained by science or a belief in god. For example if you do not believe in god then the god-belief explanation of the afterlife is meaningless, therefore it is not an explanation.

Areas that are not the concern of science will never be explained by science.

Understanding why we want to explain things isn't that difficult. We don't like uncertainty. We don't like not knowing. Those things can kill us, they are not good for survival. We survive by understanding our environment. The more we understand the better our chance of survival. You can see this behaviour in other animals - introduce an animal into a new environment and they hide, once they are confident that there is no immediate danger they will explore, as their knowledge of the new environment grows their confidence grows. This is dealing with uncertainty by acquiring knowledge. We call this curiosity. Curiosity leads to understanding, the more we understand of our environment the more we can control it, if we can control it the our chances of survival are increased. This understanding and control of our environment allowed us to change our environment. This led to the inventive nature of mankind, using our curiosity and understanding we invented tools to make the control of our environment easier, the better our understanding of how these tools worked allowed us to invent better tools. This curiosity and invention is not something you can just switch off, once you've understood how plants grow you can collect seed and use them to make the plants grow where you want them instead of where you find them, once you've understood what makes plants grow you can feed them with manure and water them and grow better crops, but then you start to wonder why plants grow, and where do plants come from and what are they for. These questions are no longer pertinent to survival, they are a consequence of the natural curiosity trait that we need for survival.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

Politics is the diametric opposite of tolerance.

But if you believe in society as a social construction, don't you have to accept politics??

Not relevant.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

If you think that science is an alternative to religion then you really really really do not understand science.

I am not the one who says that, but most atheists are, by setting up a polemic relationship between religion and science, as if you choose one thing or the other. I don't sympathize with that, and it was the first thing I said in this thread.

Actually that is not what most atheists say or do or whatever.

This whole science vs. religion bulls*it came about because some fundamentalist christians oppose evolution being taught in schools in America.

That's it. No other reason. Religion does not oppose science in any other topic.

Atheists, agnostics and most theists do not support this fundamentalist view-point. The overriding majority of christian accept the theory of evolution.

Fundamentalist christians decided that the way to defeat evolution (which to their non-scientific way of thinking, was just a theory after all) was to discredit it. Unfortunately the "science" they used to achieve that was not very good and was easily refuted. So they invented another theory called Intelligent Design which they hoped would be taught in schools as an alternative to evolution. Unfortunately ID was not science nor was it what science calls a Theory so it was rejected since it was not a viable scientific alternative.

Militant atheists took this as an attack on science by the christian fundamentalists and saw it as a rallying call to fight back. They took a metaphorical magnifying class and went over the christian fundamentalists religion in minute detail, picking holes and finding fault in all the inaccuracies, inconsistencies and perceived "wrongs" in the scriptures and the philosophy of religion. The only problem with that was the religion of the fundamentalist christians was the same religion as all the other christians. So now the militant atheists counter-attack was an attack on all christians, and then all religions. Now these militant atheists had become fundamentalists themselves. So it's a dumb argument between fundamentalists.

Not even the militant atheists (Dawking et al) regard science as an alternative to religions, they do not create a "science or religion" choice.The choices available are:

(Science AND Religion) OR (Science AND NOT Religion)

No one is proposing

(Religion) OR (Science)

or

(Religion AND Science) OR (Religion AND NOT Science)

...any option that excludes Science is simply untenable.

Science is not incompatible with religion. Religion is not incompatible with science.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

[, for example in the catholic church this is a vow they make during the marriage service: "Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?".

Yes but maybe you don't have to make it so definite, but you could answer "Yes -( to the best of my beliefs)".

I take it you are not, nor have ever been, a catholic. LOL

What?

Dean wrote:

Man A yawns.

Man B has come expect nothing less from Man A, as he still never addresses the topic at hand and is content to continue to dodge issues that would put him in a compromising position. I agree that repeating the same Modus Operandi day in and out would cause that person to yawn.

Edited by SteveG - October 06 2014 at 09:23

This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State.

Dean wrote:

mudslinging.

"Call it peace or call it reason,
Call love or call it treason'
But I Ain't Marching Anymore! " -Phil Ochs

And with that I sign off, forever wondering how someone can work in a state of narcolepsy.

Oh, I forgot, the archiving of your words is supposed to instill a feeling of immortality in you that the rejection of a god or an after life cannot. It will not, so cut your loses now and move on while you still have time. In case you didn't notice, the clock ticks loudest for someone like you.

Edited by SteveG - October 06 2014 at 10:01

I am a human....don't know about the ist. I guess I like them ok as long as they don't breathe near me or wear ties.

“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”

- Douglas Adams

TODDLER wrote:

I don't believe in supernatural beings ....

How do you define a supernatural being? Would this definition be broad and loose enough to include hypothetical beings that may turn out to be too different, or simply too remote for us to directly acknowledge/interact with/comprehend? It's only in Star Trek that the alien folks walk upright on two legs, wear clothes and speak fairly intelligible ESL.

Before Leeuwenhoek, humans would have considered bacteria supernatural beings.

Two hundred years ago a hologram would have been called an apparition

Can we fully explain what inspiration, prophetic dreams and intuition are?

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

There is nothing radical about dismissing the entire body of philosophers. Practically every philosopher in history has done that.

Note that I said 'philosophers' and not 'philosophy' ... my inferred negativity was towards philosophers, those idle time-wasting navel gazers whose profession is philosophy as an academic discipline, not towards philosophy itself. .

There can be a fine line between a philosopher and a normal person thinking. Or a person versus a musician. Why is it okay to practise something, but it's wrong doing it full time and calling it a profession.

Is this sarcasm?

There is not difference between a philosopher thinking and any higher life-form thinking.

There is a world of difference between a musician and a non-musician,

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

My "beef" is with philosophers (and thus the academic discipline of philosophy),

But the word was invented in 18th or 19th century or so, and if we compare the ancient philosophy with 19th century philosophy it's very different. Still, I think that if you have a book which you would call "bad", if you can focus on the questions that are asked you may still grant that those question are worth asking. If the philosopher fails in answering, it's still nothing wrong with tackling those questions in my opionion.

Give me one question that a philosopher has answered.

wilmon91 wrote:

Ironically a lot of 19th century philospohers (from england mostly) seems focused in having an edge towards philosophy and wanting to diminish it's ability to make certain claims. I think it was Berkeley who said that he is incapable of thinking abstractly - it isn't possible. We have to be talking about specific things, never things in general. So his pursuit of common sense led him to a wild metaphysical theory that meant that things that are not observed doesn't exist...until it is observed, or something... I mean it's interesting, that if you believe in common sense, and still when you deal with certain questions that you must propose an answer to, you have to make a claim that seems fantastic, no matter what answer you choose.

So there's all kinds of concepts but there are many foundational questions that cannot be denied.

Philosophers are full of questions,

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

Some think Fred Nietzsche or Manni Kant were cool dudes because they agree with some of what those dead guys wrote, as if having it stated in a formal doctrine by some academic navel gazer affirms their view of the world.

Then the problem is the people who choose a favourite philosopher and then sticks with that instead of challenging those ideas. Reading philosophy is not supposed to be a practise were you are subject to persuasion. You are free to reject any concepts you don't agree with.

Then what is the point? (rhetorical, please don't answer it)

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

All philosophers do is put into words things we already knew. They do not create wisdom from knowledge using reason.

If you compare a person raised in the jungle, like Tarzan, with a person raised in modern civilization, the latter person have become more intellectual by using a rich language were you use words for concrete things as well as abstract things. We don't know everything by default. Mathematics can open up your mind to see realiy in a wider perspective. Euclid's mathematics book was used for 2000 years or so, and it had a logical axiomatic model taken from Aristoteles and Plato, or maybe it goes back ancient times. All sciences are related but philosophy is the foundation. And nothing explains itself. You have to think.

We separated philosophy from the useful sciences a long time ago, you cannot keep harping back to the dead Greek guys whenever you need to prove how useful philosophers are. That ship has ~~sailed~~ sunk.

Philosophy explains nothing,

wilmon91 wrote:

Anyway, we're off topic!

No s*it Sherlock. LOL

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

What benefit is there to humanity in philosophy? If all the philosophers in the world magically disappeared overnight how long would it take before anyone noticed?

We have to assume we're talking about "good philosophy", just as anythings worth have to be judged based on the best examples. Insightful thinking creates a better world with more open minds and less ignorance.

The philosophy goes into the minds of people. If you take away all of philosophy it is like rewriting history and we would have more primitive people.

There is good philosophy? (joke, please don't answer it)

I cannot take away philosophy. Have you read anything I have posted here? I have no beef with philosophy, only philosophers (and perhaps Philosophy the academic discipline)

wilmon91 wrote:

It's like removing a seed that became a tree, it's not possible.

All things are possible. Did you know you cannot grow a modern edible banana from seed.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

Good for you but that is not what we are discussing. If you were born 400 years ago you would not be permitted to interpret the scripture any differently from how you were told to interpret it, and that would be literally and not allegorically.

We're not talkiing about politics and how people in power have abused and taken advantage of religion as a tool to control and opress people.

Correct. We are talking about how the bible was interpreted in the past.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

you can say god exists but you don't believe in him.

But the meaning of that is hard to see.

Not relevant.

The point is that belief in the existence of something does not mean you believe in that thing.

Or to rephrase that: acceptance in the existence of something does not mean you have faith in that thing,

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

Are there rules for what can and cannot be an -ism?

When it is limited to become only a definition of one sentence, it seems a little silly to me.

There you go with the offensive word again. It does not answer the question. Are there rules for what can and cannot be an -ism?

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

You can either explain something or you cannot. There is nothing circular in this, nor does it beg the question.

Things you can't explain may constitue a large part of reality. We have our five senses. Why should we limit our thinking to our physical limits?

We have more than five senses.

You can either explain something or you cannot.

wilmon91 wrote:

The claim is that the facts of science didn't require a god. But the method of science involves working with our sensory perceptions, so everything we explain are limited to isolated things in the material realm, that can be observed and measured. Of course that doesn't require a God. A cat doesn't require a god either when it explores the forest. If you ask "is there an invisible world?", an atheist would respond "We can't see it so there is no reason to believe it exists".

So what we can't perceive shouldn't be believed to exist. That is bad reasoning.

But that is your reasoning put into the words an imaginary hypothetical atheist, and thus it is a strawman argument.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

I specifically said that science is not a religion and science does not cover spiritual needs

Dean wrote:

I did not say that science would explain all that is explainable, I said the explanations would not require belief in god.

No but you described post-theism, which seems to be a mental limitation to only encompass what science have found. The special thing about humans is that we can have an idea of what we haven't found yet. Believing in what we haven't yet found is rational, not believing in what we haven't found is irrational. The next thing is to form ideas of these unknown things. The idea of God is of something all-encompassing. So no matter the multitude of realities and things, there is something that connects everything according to this thought. Believing in modern science is believing in a meagre amount of knowledge. In 500 years the situation will be different. You can believe in the progress of science but you don't need to limit your thinking to it.

I get the feeling that you're not listening any more. I don't believe in science. Science is not a belief-system. Science is a tool not a religion.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

Things that are unexplainable cannot be explained by science or a belief in god.

Easy to agree with. The primary purpose of a god-belief I don't think is to explain things though. The inexplainable/inscrutable is something you are supposed to reach by inner experience and intuiting.

Intuit-ing? That's just guessing without thinking isn't it? Stern Smile

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

Areas that are not the concern of science will never be explained by science.

Not unless it evolves and changes over time.

Then that would not be science.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

Understanding why we want to explain things isn't that difficult. We don't like uncertainty. We don't like not knowing. Those things can kill us, they are not good for survival. We survive by understanding our environment. The more we understand the better our chance of survival.

So we can understand that our own mission is to survive. I don't think that's the reason though... Animals are good at ensuring safety to the best of their ability by knowing their environments. The desire to know by humans is something that far exceeds basic survival instinct. We also have an artistic desire. That could also be explained by survival instinct. If you make attractive things you become more attractive yourself. That would also be an oversimplification. Mankind as a species have evolved in a remarkable way compared to other animals. I think the reason is related to the desire to know things. But survival instinct is not what sets us apart from other species.

I don't think we are separate from other animals. Different - yes, special - no.

Survival instinct make us the same as other species - that is our commonality - but it is also what makes us different. We are all animals.

If you stop and think about the human body it is probably the single most useless body in the animal kingdom.You're going to have to think hard to think of a body that is worse at doing all or any of the things necessary for survival. We have no fur so need to clothe ourselves to keep warm, in most of the environments we habit we cannot survive without first making shelter and fire yet our bodies are not equipped to do any of that. We cannot live off most of the plants that grow on earth and have no natural ability to tell those we can feed on and those that will kill us. We are not equipped with teeth or claws to kill and butcher an animal yet we are naturally omnivorous. We lack the speed and power to catch and kill a prey yet we are predatory and we cannot out-run or out fight those predators that could kill us but we have no natural predators. Much of the food we can eat needs to be prepared before we can chew and/or swallow and/or digest it, and that often involves cooking, which in turn involves fire, yet we our bodies are not equipped with anything that enable us to do any of that. We cannot survive on instinct and intuition. We survive by learning. Learning is not unique to humans, plenty of animals learn from their parent, but we are the only one who has to be taught everything we need to survive.

Yet we have evolved to be like this. Naturally and without help from a supernatural entity. And that's pretty impressive.

We survive because we can reason and learn. This is possible because we have evolved a brain that allows this to happen. Our survival tool is our brain, not our fur or our claws or our teeth.

Once you have a brain that is large enough to enable a feeble-bodied predator such as homo sapiens to survive then that brain will be large enough to do other things when we are not using it for survival.

I do not think there is any wondrous magic in our ability to think beyond survival. It certainly does not warrant an -ology.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

they do not create a "science or religion" choice.

Dean wrote:

(Science AND NOT Religion)

This is the same as "Science" only.

There's no fooling you is there. LOL

Of course it is the same, that's kinda the point, that's kinda everything we've been discussing since page whatever it was (3?) LOL

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

(Science AND Religion)

Yes religious people rely on science too, but that's less relevant because it's their religiousness which is opposed, so they are encouraged to abandon their religiousness into fully trusting science.Usually when someone criticises religiousness there are arguments of scientific views as a more sound way to understand the world. Not always maybe, but it's the most usual type of debate that I have seen...

Atheism is not anti-religion therefore does not oppose religiousness.

There are of course atheists like Dawkins who are also anti-religion, but they are a minority. A vocal minority, but a minority.

Anyone who imposes their belief on others is reprehensible.

wilmon91 wrote:

Dean wrote:

wilmon91 wrote:

Yes but maybe you don't have to make it so definite, but you could answer "Yes -( to the best of my beliefs)".

I take it you are not, nor have ever been, a catholic. LOL

You should only think that part within brackets though, not say it loudly, hehe..
No, never been part of a religion.

I have nothing to say here, just wanted to correct the quoting. Tongue

What?

Please define the meaning of Humanist?

Kati wrote:

Please define the meaning of Humanist?

I can try!

Following the search engine suggestion - "a humanist emphasizes the value of living beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence over established doctrine or faith". Humanists believe that "what you give to community is likely what you get back from the community, either during our lives or the lives of our children" in opposition to the religious folks, who mostly believe that "how good you were in this world equals to how good you'll be treated in your after-life world". Humanists' morals might therefore be purer, as they don't have "private gains" (in after-life paradises) element involved. Humanists are not performing good deeds because their gods expect them to do so, but they do them because they are genuinely good folks. Many humanists are blood donors, vegetarians and/or volunteers and they are here for a fairer world

Writing about truth is a little bit like getting your dick out in public and hoping no one laughs (Steve Hogarth)

SteveG wrote:

Dean wrote:

mudslinging.

"Call it peace or call it reason,
Call love or call it treason'
But I Ain't Marching Anymore! " -Phil Ochs

And with that I sign off, forever wondering how someone can work in a state of narcolepsy.

Oh, I forgot, the archiving of your words is supposed to instill a feeling of immortality in you that the rejection of a god or an after life cannot. It will not, so cut your loses now and move on while you still have time. In case you didn't notice, the clock ticks loudest for someone like you.

Words are ephemeral, as is this medium that carries them. They could disappear tomorrow and never be seen again. I type to communicate with no regard to a clock or any value (intrinsic or instrumental) that they may have. If I am forgotten when I die then so be it, it does not affect me. If you do not like my words then pass them by, they will soon be gone, just as your snipes and jibes will be. You can belittle me and my opinions all you like and I will try not to rise to the bait or reply in kind, but I am not immune.

My daughter is my only contribution to 'immortality' but that is not the reason, nor is it any guarantee. She is my daughter and that is all I can say.

peace out.

What?