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Post by lowtacks86 on May 26, 2021 1:17:32 GMT
Probably, though it should be noted that Hitchens was a disgusting war monger whose foreign policy views weren't really any different form a typical Christian neoconservative. I mean did he really disagree with Bush Jr (a devout Christian) on anything when it came to foreign policy? Not really someone I would consider a bastian of rational thinking. Exactly. One may have defended it with Christian language and the other with atheistic, but both Bush and Hitchens supported the War on Terror, a conflict that killed 100,000s and displaced millions. It's actually rather interesting how reactionary a lot of these supposedly "progressive" New Atheists types have shown themselves to be. Sam Harris seems to at least dabble with race and IQ (and even has an alt right following). Bill Maher is a neoliberal shill and supports Palestinian genocide. And recently Dawkins seems to have rather reactionary views on transgender people. For a while I assumed New Atheism promoted progressive thought, but at this point it's just seems to be "edgy atheism" for 4chan users.
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The Lost One
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Post by The Lost One on May 26, 2021 8:47:07 GMT
I'm talking in terms of what a regime will let its own citizens do. Generally speaking, the more ideological a government, the less rights the people under that government have. I'm hard pressed to think of a state, even amongst those with a high degree of individual freedom, that doesn't employ a lot of idealised propaganda.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jun 24, 2021 12:02:33 GMT
Exactly. One may have defended it with Christian language and the other with atheistic, but both Bush and Hitchens supported the War on Terror, a conflict that killed 100,000s and displaced millions. It's actually rather interesting how reactionary a lot of these supposedly "progressive" New Atheists types have shown themselves to be. Sam Harris seems to at least dabble with race and IQ (and even has an alt right following). Bill Maher is a neoliberal shill and supports Palestinian genocide. And recently Dawkins seems to have rather reactionary views on transgender people. For a while I assumed New Atheism promoted progressive thought, but at this point it's just seems to be "edgy atheism" for 4chan users. You should be careful about both of these. Harris has a podcast in which he interviews all kinds of people on all kinds of subjects. One of those was Charles Murray who wrote The Bell Curve, a book about IQ and its relationship with socioeconomics. In that book there is a section on race and IQ, but it's pretty small and innocuous compared to the controversy it stirred up, and its findings are also (AFAICT) factual. The controversy is around what conclusions we should draw from it, and in the book Murray doesn't even draw any explicit conclusions. The fact is that there exists an IQ disparity among races, and we need to be able to talk about that on a variety of fronts, from its causes to what it means for social policies. Harris has said that he cares less about the subject itself and more about how some subjects are so controversial it's forbidden to even talk about them, which is something he (and I) reject. As for Dawkins, he basically asked a question about the difference between a claimed gender identity and a claimed race identity, and instead of people answering him the mere question was met with an outrageous backlash. I actually think Rationality Rules on YouTube had the most measured, accurate take on it. I think one generalized point to make is that no thinkers are perfect, and the best ones tend to be complex enough that you should expect to disagree with them some percentage of the time. Harris himself recently said in an interview he's at a point where almost all of his positions are met with opposition by a large portion of his fanbase in large part because he doesn't just fall in line with the left or right.
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The Lost One
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Post by The Lost One on Jul 1, 2021 22:52:41 GMT
As for Dawkins, he basically asked a question about the difference between a claimed gender identity and a claimed race identity, and instead of people answering him the mere question was met with an outrageous backlash. The "just asking an innocent question" tactic is often used by people to make a point that they can later deny they are making. Plus he specifically cited Rachel Dolezal, a case which was a lot more complex than racial identity since she used her black status to further her career and lied about why she considered herself black when first outed. Further, he describes trans people as men who choose to identify as women and vice-versa - suggesting both that it's a choice (imagine if he'd referred to gay men as "men who choose to sleep with men") and they're not really the gender they identify as. He also implied that if it's OK to disagree Dolezal is black, it should be OK to disagree that transpeople are really the gender they claim to be. One could give him the benefit of the doubt of course, but he must have been at least somewhat aware of how his tweet would be taken. If he was truly interested in comparing the two cases, he wouldn't have tweeted it and he would have chosen his words better.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jul 2, 2021 5:07:36 GMT
As for Dawkins, he basically asked a question about the difference between a claimed gender identity and a claimed race identity, and instead of people answering him the mere question was met with an outrageous backlash. The "just asking an innocent question" tactic is often used by people to make a point that they can later deny they are making. Plus he specifically cited Rachel Dolezal, a case which was a lot more complex than racial identity since she used her black status to further her career and lied about why she considered herself black when first outed. Further, he describes trans people as men who choose to identify as women and vice-versa - suggesting both that it's a choice (imagine if he'd referred to gay men as "men who choose to sleep with men") and they're not really the gender they identify as. He also implied that if it's OK to disagree Dolezal is black, it should be OK to disagree that transpeople are really the gender they claim to be. One could give him the benefit of the doubt of course, but he must have been at least somewhat aware of how his tweet would be taken. If he was truly interested in comparing the two cases, he wouldn't have tweeted it and he would have chosen his words better. I absolutely agree with your first sentence, but I also think Hanlon's razor ("never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance") is a good rule to live by. At least answer the man first and see how he responds. I still think that video from Rationality Rules is a near perfect response to the incident.
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The Lost One
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Post by The Lost One on Jul 2, 2021 8:53:39 GMT
I absolutely agree with your first sentence, but I also think Hanlon's razor ("never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance") is a good rule to live by. See, I don't think it is adequately explained - Dawkins really should have known better. I think the only thing that surprised him is the Christian Right would love his tweet when he was probably aiming more at the liberal "gender critical" types. Will give it a watch.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jul 2, 2021 9:19:11 GMT
I absolutely agree with your first sentence, but I also think Hanlon's razor ("never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance") is a good rule to live by. See, I don't think it is adequately explained - Dawkins really should have known better. I think the only thing that surprised him is the Christian Right would love his tweet when he was probably aiming more at the liberal "gender critical" types. Will give it a watch. "Should have known better," yes, but that's a moral judgment, not an epistemic one about whether he actually did or not. I also wonder how much social contexts play a role in this, because I get the sense this is a much bigger issue in the US than in the UK, though I could be wrong. Let me know what you think of the RR video.
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Post by The Lost One on Jul 2, 2021 10:36:41 GMT
"Should have known better," yes, but that's a moral judgment, not an epistemic one about whether he actually did or not. Well, it's kind of both isn't it? Dawkins has experience of saying things that turned out to be controversial, he's been on Twitter a while and it's not like this stuff isn't in media and the tweet implies he knows at least something of the debate - I highly doubt he wasn't aware that implying transgenderism is a choice would be controversial for instance. I just think the weight of evidence is against this being an innocent mistake - when I say he should know better, I mean he almost certainly did know better but tweeted anyway, using the language he did. At the very least, Dawkins should have done more research before he tweeted if he didn't want to cause offence. No, it's massive in the UK too, particularly on Twitter with JK Rowling and sitcom writer Graham Lineham leading the charge for "gender critical" celebrities. Again, it seems unlikely Dawkins wouldn't be aware of this. I watched the video - it makes some good points, but I think it doesn't make a strong enough argument as to why we should give Dawkins the benefit of the doubt here. Sure, the presenter is correct in saying we don't know for certain that Dawkins was attacking transpeople under the guise of an innocent question, but we can at least say it seems likely given what I've said above. The point "oh he changed his mind on a particular forceful point on theology before so he probably would have done so here" may well be true, but it's largely irrelevant as is saying Dawkins is of his time. If you're uncertain of your views or how they should be expressed, do your research and don't post them on Twitter of all places. It's not like there aren't articles about the Dolezal case and whether it has any bearing on the trans debate - if he is genuinely curious, he should have read them. It's not like Twitter is a good place to educate yourself or to have a civil debate, again something Dawkins would have been well aware of. What Twitter is useful for is making a big splash. The point that he can't be attacking transpeople and saying black identity is something that can be assumed at the same time is true, but I suspect he was only doing the former which is bad enough in itself. The latter part of the video is more about whether the AHA was right to take away his award which personally I don't care about. At any rate, the video agrees that Dawkins was insensitive at time when transpeople are increasingly under attack which is not something that should be lightly dismissed.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Jul 2, 2021 13:49:39 GMT
"Should have known better," yes, but that's a moral judgment, not an epistemic one about whether he actually did or not. Well, it's kind of both isn't it? Dawkins has experience of saying things that turned out to be controversial, he's been on Twitter a while and it's not like this stuff isn't in media and the tweet implies he knows at least something of the debate - I highly doubt he wasn't aware that implying transgenderism is a choice would be controversial for instance. I just think the weight of evidence is against this being an innocent mistake - when I say he should know better, I mean he almost certainly did know better but tweeted anyway, using the language he did. At the very least, Dawkins should have done more research before he tweeted if he didn't want to cause offence. No, it's massive in the UK too, particularly on Twitter with JK Rowling and sitcom writer Graham Lineham leading the charge for "gender critical" celebrities. Again, it seems unlikely Dawkins wouldn't be aware of this. I watched the video - it makes some good points, but I think it doesn't make a strong enough argument as to why we should give Dawkins the benefit of the doubt here. Sure, the presenter is correct in saying we don't know for certain that Dawkins was attacking transpeople under the guise of an innocent question, but we can at least say it seems likely given what I've said above. The point "oh he changed his mind on a particular forceful point on theology before so he probably would have done so here" may well be true, but it's largely irrelevant as is saying Dawkins is of his time. If you're uncertain of your views or how they should be expressed, do your research and don't post them on Twitter of all places. It's not like there aren't articles about the Dolezal case and whether it has any bearing on the trans debate - if he is genuinely curious, he should have read them. It's not like Twitter is a good place to educate yourself or to have a civil debate, again something Dawkins would have been well aware of. What Twitter is useful for is making a big splash. The point that he can't be attacking transpeople and saying black identity is something that can be assumed at the same time is true, but I suspect he was only doing the former which is bad enough in itself. The latter part of the video is more about whether the AHA was right to take away his award which personally I don't care about. At any rate, the video agrees that Dawkins was insensitive at time when transpeople are increasingly under attack which is not something that should be lightly dismissed. I think maybe we meant slightly different things with "should've known better." I took that to mean that Dawkins should've known more about both issues in order to not need to ask the question to begin with. I think you took it to mean something like "he knew it would be controversial, therefore shouldn't have said it." If the latter is what you mean, I fundamentally disagree. If Dawkins is relatively ignorant of both cases or the subjects in general, then even if he knows it's controversial I don't think that should be a reason not to post/ask the question and then ask for a discussion. Maybe you can argue it would be more productive to research both issues rather than asking a controversial question on Twitter, but maybe Dawkins preferred to have/spark a discussion. He's flatly denied that it was meant as an attack on transpeople, and until someone can offer some evidence beyond "people who want to attack transpeople also post questions like that" then I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. As for why, I don't think anyone can offer a much better argument than Hanlon's razor, because anything else is mere speculation and very rough, intuitive probability calculations about how likely is it that Dawkins did/didn't know about the subjects, and how probable is it that he would've posted that given that he did/didn't. I can't imagine any "calculations" on that being precise, so I just fall back to the razor. Besides, for people who DO know better and merely posting such questions as a means of subtle attacks they're rarely going to back down or change their mind on rebuttals. If someone presented a strong argument that should be enough to convince a rational person and Dawkins still doesn't see the difference, then I think we have enough evidence to say he wasn't so innocent. I just don't think we should ever start with the presumption of malice first. Fair enough about it being a big issue in the UK as well. I also agree that we shouldn't ignore the insensitivity, but ignorant insensitivity is a much less grievous crime then what people are accusing him of.
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The Lost One
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Post by The Lost One on Jul 2, 2021 15:22:22 GMT
As for why, I don't think anyone can offer a much better argument than Hanlon's razor, because anything else is mere speculation and very rough, intuitive probability calculations about how likely is it that Dawkins did/didn't know about the subjects, and how probable is it that he would've posted that given that he did/didn't. It seems though Hanlon's razor could be used to get away with making a lot of attacks on people if it asks for absolute certainty that the person in question isn't just ignorant. Do we need absolute precision here though? Did Dawkins though? He backed down because he didn't like that he had inadvertently given the Christian Right ammunition, not because he agreed with anyone who pointed out he was making a bad analogy or was using offensive language.
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Post by Prime etc. on Jul 2, 2021 16:47:12 GMT
You can never eliminate the spiritual because it's impossible to be bound by reality as we claim to know it. There also appears to be differences based on biology--why did Eastern societies come up with Buddhism and Taoism and the idea that desire and passion are the roots of unhappiness? The West did not have that idea. And Original Sin was alien to many societies outside of the Middle East. Where did that exist in ancient Greece or Scandinavia?
Communism failed terribly in European countries and yet China and North Korea still have it. I think individualism is less apparent in China or Korea than it is in your average Western nation. I assume there's some biological reasons for that endurance. Why Russia could not keep it as long as China.
And there's a biological factor in the reception of religious ideas. Why are there no images of Apollo or Thor in bondage suffering like there is of Jesus? Ok--Thor loses an eye and gets fat--but that's not official, generally speaking, you don't see that extreme vulnerability. Jesus is shown in the process of dying. The most popular or rather most circulated image. And he does not look like he came from the Middle East.
Another thing--the two most important women figures in Christianity are the mother of Jesus and the prostitute. Same name too.
Can we say the same of Freya or Athena or Isis? I think their personalities are far more developed. Religion was originally a community thing--for a society and tribe. The question of how many wars happened under pagan religions vs the campaigns of Christianity and Islam---I strongly suspect that Christianity and Islam were similar to communism in purpose at the beginning. Eliminating local distinct culture/government.
How else to explain the diversity of religious art prior to Christianity and Islam? After their adoption, restrictions came into place.
It does seem weird to me that if you live in Wales or Athens or Manila, you are supposed to worship a deity that is founded on another continent? I know it is a global village but it seems strange not to be more affectionate to your birthplace when it comes to religious matters.
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Post by OldSamVimes on Jul 3, 2021 12:21:02 GMT
You can't separate human beings from religion, or politics for that matter.
Human beings have had Gods for as long as we've had recorded history, and all cultures around the world have had Gods through oral traditions. 'Shamanism' isn't something that's isolated in one area historically. Gods preexisted all written languages.
Stamp out organized religions, and your anti-religion stance becomes as extreme and as rooted in blind faith as any religious fundamentalists beliefs.
No external Gods? Science or Materialism will become your new God.. and you will worship them.
Believing definitively 'There are no Gods', takes as much faith as believing definitively in a specific God.
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Post by rizdek on Jul 8, 2021 23:10:56 GMT
I am not sure I believe this. I know I personally do abide by normal social morals and mores but then I don't need the threat of eternal punishment or eternal reward to make me be honest and kind. I just do it because it makes sense. But I'm not sure there are enough people like me...who just want to be good, to ensure an at least marginally peaceful society. When I see what some religious people do and say, even with them believing a god is watching them...I shudder to think what they'd be like if they didn't believe there was a god looking over their shoulder judging every move them make. I really think we're better off with most them believing they will be held accountable in some way.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2021 19:18:35 GMT
I am not sure I believe this. I know I personally do abide by normal social morals and mores but then I don't need the threat of eternal punishment or eternal reward to make me be honest and kind. I just do it because it makes sense. But I'm not sure there are enough people like me...who just want to be good, to ensure an at least marginally peaceful society. When I see what some religious people do and say, even with them believing a god is watching them...I shudder to think what they'd be like if they didn't believe there was a god looking over their shoulder judging every move them make. I really think we're better off with most them believing they will be held accountable in some way. I’ve known religious people who believe that no one without God could ever have morals and why they need a God to believe in. They don’t see anything wrong with that idea they are so dependent on religion and God in order to have a set of morals instead of forming them on their own. All I see is that these people don’t have a mind on their own and need to be told what to believe in and be told what is right or wrong in order to be decent human beings. I agree that religion is benefiting for these people for the sake of controlling any wrong temptations they might end of doing without it.
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Post by looking4klingons on Sept 19, 2021 5:12:21 GMT
The destruction of the Harlot, Babylon the Great, is referring to the destruction of organized religion! Accomplished by one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, political elements on earth, the UN.
Revelation 17 & 18
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Post by Isapop on Sept 19, 2021 13:18:33 GMT
The destruction of the Harlot, Babylon the Great, is referring to the destruction of organized religion! Accomplished by one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, political elements on earth, the UN. Revelation 17 & 18 Ah yes, the Watchtower's (Jehovah's Witnesses) assertion that the United Nations is going to destroy the religious organizations of the world, except for the Watchtower. Now, you just need to convince people that the Watchtower, given their record, ought to be trusted.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 25, 2022 7:34:35 GMT
Some believe that humans have an innate need for religion, Hitchens agrees with this in some of his debates, but I strongly disagree. Deism is an implanted idea and once the seed was planted in primitive and superstitious minds, it can't be taken away any more than belief in justice or love. It's an understanding of the world based in ignorance. The desire for religion is like the desire for anything, it's created through marketing.
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Post by mystery on Feb 25, 2022 11:58:48 GMT
I make a big distinction between religion and spirituality. Religion is usually a manifestation of culture (or possibly the other way around?), being a system of beliefs and philosophies that are taught and studied. Spirituality, on the other hand, is a connection to something larger than ourselves, like Nature, Divinity, the Cosmos, Etc. I've personally never had much use for religion. I grew up Evangelical Christian, but it never made any sense to me. But, I am very much a spiritual creature. Premonitions are a big part of my life, and I've had a lot of spiritual experiences that defy explanation.
Even though I'm not religious, I am actually rather pro-religion, just because it helps some people to have a framework to deal with life. Religion can also inspire incredible works of art and music, and help people find peace and wisdom and compassion--- as long as they stay within the bounds of moderation and tolerance. I don't think it's a good idea to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Religion is part of the richness of human culture, and I think there is something to learn from every religion.
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Post by Stammerhead on Feb 25, 2022 12:52:04 GMT
But if we don’t have religion God will kill us with fire!
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Post by rachelcarson1953 on Feb 25, 2022 18:52:19 GMT
I personally liked Christopher Hitchens and read his book.
I have also read Dawkins and Sagan and a few others.
I think religion is an artifact of early humans not understanding how the world worked, and as it developed more, became a comforting delusion in times of trouble, and gave humans the hope of an afterlife, since we are the only species that can contemplate its own mortality.
Having been raised in it, at first, I bought the whole idea, as a child, but when inconsistencies in the Bible itself started to crop up, and I saw people who claimed to be Christian but did it only to manipulate, steal or worse... well, the doubt began and now I live in the real world, without comforting delusions. I follow the science when it comes to medical issues.
And yes, even if religion was done away with, 'tribes' (nations, political parties, et al) would continue to fight.
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