firedragon
Veteran Member
A strawman.
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Are theists dumb by default?
- Thread starter firedragon
- Start date
A strawman.
Not quite. Not a misrepresentation or false parallel. A perfect parallel.
firedragon
Veteran Member
A strawman.
Your church leaders created a strawman and that's your theology. Pathetic isn't it. Thats why all you guys (at least three of them here) are trained in the same dogma, but the same church, with the same evangelising tactics. So dogmatically trained that you cannot see why your strawman is a strawman, and that strawman is recognised as a strawman.
Huh? What are you talking about? Are you just inventing an atheist theology of whole cloth?A strawman.
Pathetic isn't it. Thats why all you guys (at least three of them here) are trained in the same dogma, but the same church, with the same evangelising tactics. So dogmatically trained that you cannot see why your strawman is a strawman, and that strawman is recognised as a strawman.
Church? Leaders? Training? Evangelizing? Where are you coming up with this? I know of none of this.
As for the FSM, you're blowing it up into some massive theological or doctrinal thing that it never was. It was just an article illustrating the absurdity of a particular line of reasoning. It was a political refutation.
Did you read the Wiki article?
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
Yeah, Advaita Hinduism people have similar views but each of them has his particular one. Mine may be different from that of Valjian and both of us may differ with Salixincendium. We do take note of what is written in our scriptures, feel no hesitation in differing from them if it does not resonate with our views, take into consideration the latest research in science, and also take a few things from Buddhism, which also has similar views. We are free-rangers.
firedragon
Veteran Member
Oh yes.
Mate. Church means an Ecclesiastes. A gathering. Training is what you have received in order to post the same strawman arguments against theists. So many atheists in the same thread posed the very same arguments. Evangelising is basically spreading the awesome news. Like a group of dogmatic religious missionaries you guys have been so far using the same arguments like picture perfect. Even if I never claimed anything in this thread, you guys were trying your best to impose the same strawman argument upon me to draw me into your particular platform of arguments which is the typical tactics taught in many evangelical churches.
Maybe you dont like the words I used. Thats because you are trained to not call yourselves with those terms. Thats dogma. But they mean the same thing you are doing.
firedragon
Veteran Member
Alright. Some of the new scientific thoughts on the radius of the universe is a bit of a thing to think about. How do you think the radius is elongating all the time, at an exact rate as to not allow a crunch? The universe homogeneous and isotropic on a huge scale yet with local irregularities like galaxies and stars. And why is the universe so close to the dividing line between collapsing again and expanding indefinitely. How is the isotropy at the edge and the entropy in the inside perfectly with the exact rate of r expansion along with temperature with time?
Could you explain critically?
Secret Chief
nirvana is samsara
I like the cut of your jib.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
That would not be a post, but a book to be explained critically. However, the links below might help. You are welcome to go through them. Each article has further links and references. Wikipedia does an excellent job.
Expansion of the universe - Wikipedia
Big Crunch - Wikipedia
Big Rip - Wikipedia
Cosmological principle - Wikipedia
firedragon
Veteran Member
Actually they dont explain that. Can you show exactly where it explains that and why you agree with that explanation?
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
He did not say that they explain it. He said that they are a good start with links to other sources. It would take more than a book to fully explain those concepts. Though for the expansion "A Universe From Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss is a good start. It is written for the lay person so it does not have the math needed to fully explain it. And I do not understand the math necessary to fully understand it. I would need to go past the calculus and differential equations to do that. Are you ready, willing and able to do that?
halbhh
The wonder and awe of "all things".
At that time, past tense, my own belief was that:
a) almost all believers would be exclusively simple minded (unperceptive, not smart) people, and
b) the great majority of people person that are simple minded (90%+) would also have some kind of variety of superstitious belief, the most common of which would be to believe in God.
That was what I thought, and I found pretty strong counterexample (I probably talked to about 20-30 over a few years, sussing out their beliefs), and so had to toss that theory that belief comes from being simple minded and not understanding science, etc.
Does that help clarify?
What I've noticed is an endless litany of threads started by theists to tell atheist that they don't approve of them, but rarely the other way around.
Typically, I don't allude to theists at all, just theism, Christianity, not Christians. But criticize the ideology, and people take it as a personal attack, also something you seldom see in reverse. I don't care what the theist thinks of atheism, and never have an emotional reaction to having secular humanism rejected. It's kind of a given when talking to a religious person.
Most atheists wouldn't give religion a second thought if it didn't impinge unwantedly in their lives. If Christianity in America, for example, shrinks to the size of and lack of cultural hegemony of say Islam or Buddhism, which don't make public policy or significantly modify it, you'll likely never hear from American atheists again.
Do I think of theists as dumb or stupid? What difference does it makes. I don't call them that. I don't call them anything. I tell them that I reject faith-based thought, and that I consider it a logical error, something I don't want to engage in. I also give my reasons. How can faith be a path to truth when either of two mutually exclusive ideas can be believed by faith when at least one is wrong. A method that allows you to believe a wrong idea is not a path to truth.
But what does the theist hear? In place of hearing that I don't engage in faith-based thought and the reasons why, he hears me calling him dumb and stupid for doing those things. Well, obviously, I consider it a mistake, but when I say so, I mean for me, not you, unless you ask me what I think about your beliefs. I consider it a mistake for anyone embracing it.
Perhaps the reason that there are so many more atheists among the college educated, and why many denominations forbid parents sending their children to college, is because it is understood that higher education isn't as much about collecting facts as learning to think critically. One's Sunday school teacher taught him that God made the kinds, offering no evidence or argument, just rote repetition until the idea is assimilated uncritically, which of course is why the church is apoplectic about not getting access to children in public schools before they do learn to think critically.
So Johnny the former altar boy goes off to college and takes a course in evolution. Here, the evidence that Darwin and others since had and the valid arguments connecting that evidence to sound conclusions is given. One is taught to question all received wisdom, to reason fallacy-free and recognize the fallacies of others, and to insist on having sufficient supporting evidence before believing.
If you first get to people at this stage, when they have learned how to evaluate matters critically and skeptically, you have little hope of getting them to accept beliefs on faith or authority. Formal academic education is the enemy of faith-based thought, and why so many that lack it remain in religion, and so many that have it don't.
Does that make the former stupid? Not my word. Just wrong.
We don't, nor do we need to. We just reject the insufficiently supported faith-based claims. Then somebody says, "Prove it's wrong." Why? I don't need to do that to believe that it's possibly untrue. I don't want untrue beliefs, and so nothing gets past the lens of critical analysis without sufficient support. If the claim isn't well evidenced, don't believe it. No need to disprove it. End of analysis
I'm not trying to convince the faith-based thinker of anything, so there is no burden of proof there. Proving requires that both parties decide what is true about the world in the same way - critical thinking, which is skepticism, reason, empiricism.
All of us who have tried that understand (or will) the folly of expecting a faith-based thinker to suddenly be effective critical thinkers, willing and able to consider that evidence and argument impartially, able to recognize a compelling argument, and willing to be convinced by one. That simply doesn't happen with faith-based thinkers, who often have never learned critical thinking, and don't consider it a valuable skill anyway, as alluded to already.
Personal observation and experience are research, albeit informal. They involve collecting and evaluating information about theistic thought as we can do here in religious discussion forums.
I've explained why there's no burden of proof that goes with a claim if one is dealing with a faith-based thinker. Also, there is no burden of proof when one isn't trying to convince.
Most of my unsupported claims are things that I expect educated people to already know, with not much interest in the opinions of people who don't already accept the claim. So, if I say that there isn't enough water on earth to cover the highest mountains in a global flood, or that the evidence for climate change is compelling, if you need that proven to you, then you'll have to get that elsewhere. It's not hard to prove that the sum of the water in the oceans, lakes, rivers, groundwater, ice caps, atmospheric water, etc. just isn't enough. One just calculates how much water it takes to raise the water level on a sphere of about 8000 miles diameter a mile more, which is the difference between the volume of a sphere 8000 miles in diameter and one 8001 miles in diameter, one mile being approximately the elevation of the highest mountain, and that the earth doesn't have this much water.
But what use is there in doing that for somebody that wants it done?
Did you want me to prove that the earth isn't flat, or that global warming isn't a hoax? No thanks. We have radically different world views and different ways of processing evidence, and unless you're very young, if you (generic you here) were sincere about these topics, you would have learned much about them by now. The reason such people haven't that they really don't care, and are only asking for proof to appear to care about such things, or worse, may be trolling (see sealioning).
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Secret Chief
nirvana is samsara
Training? Where do you think I received this training, some hidden atheist madrassa in the mountains? Do you think there's some atheist conspiracy to corrupt the young?
The only people who know my religious beliefs are the denizens of RF; it's the only place these questions ever come up. I never discuss philosophy with my personal friends. I don't belong to any atheist organizations. Any "training" is largely an artifact of 17 years on RF and a lot of Googling.
You claim "so many atheists pose the same arguments," well... of course. If you submit an erroneous maths calculation to a dozen different maths professors from all corners of the world, you can expect identical criticisms. You keep making the same errors. Naturally you're going to get the same responses. It's not an anti-religious conspiracy.
I think you should take a second, more dispassionate look at this "strawman argument."
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber
Was Isaac Newton dumb?
Not really. Can you explain, in a nutshell, where the atheists got it wrong, and why your belief in Christianity, makes sense?
Thanks.
So far only 3 respondents voted yes, and I would tend to imagine they are a minority of the atheists here.
So I tend to think you are probably nutpicking a minority viewpoint and blowing it out of proportion.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
That is not a new word. Wikipedia has an article on it.Today's new word.
Sealioning - Wikipedia
I normally get censured by the moderators because of 'sealioning' by some members.
"The troll feigns ignorance and politeness, so that if the target is provoked into making an angry response, the troll can then act as the aggrieved party. Sealioning can be performed by a single troll or by multiple ones acting in concert. The technique of sealioning has been compared to the Gish gallop and metaphorically described as a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings."
Gish Gallop: "The Gish gallop is a term for an eristic technique in which a debater attempts to overwhelm an opponent by excessive number of arguments, without regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott; it is named after the creationist Duane Gish, who used the technique frequently against proponents of evolution. It is similar to a method used in formal debate called spreading"
Spreading: Lincoln-Douglas debating is primarily a form of United States high school debate (though it also has a college form called NFA LD) named after the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates. It is a one-on-one event focused mainly on applying philosophical theories to real world issues. Debaters normally alternate sides from round to round as either the "affirmative", which upholds the resolution, or "negative", which attacks it.
This technique is known as spreading, and originated in policy debate tactics. There is also a growing emphasis on carded evidence, though still much less than in policy debate. These trends have created a serious rift within the activity between the debaters, judges, and coaches who advocate or accept these changes, and those who vehemently oppose them.
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firedragon
Veteran Member
Absolutely.
Haha. Mate. Just because you use an arabic word for school, dont think that means you made some great insult. Take it easy.