I think 'rational' is a slippery word that's bandied about in these discussions too freely. You could call what you mention there an 'instrumental rationality' in which you make rational decisions based on the best outcome for yourself, but that certainly doesn't define rationality as a whole. From another perspective this behaviour would be irrational. Imagine a situation where one could sacrifice just oneself to save everyone else and it suddenly seems less 'rational' to opt to save oneself. There's also a distinction between rational means and rational ends. For example, science may be said to use rational means but not necessarily towards rational ends (nuclear war?), whereas religion may be a case of rational ends (dispelling the fear of death) which employ irrational means.Mod74 wrote:Guy on there said the only way a decision is rational is if it benefits oneself.
Ali wrote:I'll get the blue juice.
Would you have a rational or Irrational fear of God then? Not you personally - just a question.JonB wrote:I think 'rational' is a slippery word that's bandied about in these discussions too freely. You could call what you mention there an 'instrumental rationality' in which you make rational decisions based on the best outcome for yourself, but that certainly doesn't define rationality as a whole. From another perspective this behaviour would be irrational. Imagine a situation where one could sacrifice just oneself to save everyone else and it suddenly seems less 'rational' to opt to save oneself. There's also a distinction between rational means and rational ends. For example, science may be said to use rational means but not necessarily towards rational ends (nuclear war?), whereas religion may be a case of rational ends (dispelling the fear of death) which employ irrational means.Mod74 wrote:Guy on there said the only way a decision is rational is if it benefits oneself.
Facewon wrote:As I said generaly, don't overstate. I always find Evil a problematic concept, or at least used way to freely.revelthedog wrote:At a base genetic level we are preprogrammed to breed. Nothing more. Good and Evil are completely subjective, depending on the society you are in.Â
Brooks wrote:Broadly, humans are born Social. So far as we align being social with being good, humans am gud.
Gonzo wrote:negative numbers, pffts. Try the square root of -1, that blew my mind at A level.
It's cold too, 9 degrees or so. I was in a nice warm gym.Facewon wrote:SG posting something that SG might agree with. woah. I've been meaning to get back to this thread for a while, hopefully today will be the day. The way the rain is going at the moment the dog certainly won't get walked.
revel wrote:There are too many points in my life where there are mini miracles. You take that bus, go to that shop first, turn left instead of right. And something happens that changes your life.
So i found god after going through science. I believe in the facts of science. I believe in the presence of something godlike. Its my opinion. And a part of me. And it gives me peace as i get older.
JAC wrote:My paper on the relationship between acceptance of evolution, religion, and societal health is finally available for free at Evolution (you can see the early publication section here and download my pdf here; if the second link doesn’t work, just go to the first link and download my paper directly—it’s the 9th one down). There are three typos that, I hope, will be fixed, but this is essentially the final piece. If you want the article, I’d appreciate it if you downloaded it from the Evolution site rather than asking me: Evolution keeps track of such things to assess the impact of the journal and of original articles. If neither of those links works for you, email me and I’ll send you the pdf.
I’m grateful to Daphne Fairbairn, the indefatigable editor of the journal, for her suggestions and willingness to allow the article to be disseminated for free; to Tom Meagher (the Outlook on Evolution and Societyeditor) and three anonymous reviewers—yes, it was peer-reviewed—for their helpful comments; to our old friend Jason Rosenhouse for reading the whole thing and making many useful suggestions; and to Mona Albano for a wonderful (and voluntary) job of tweaking the prose.
Here’s the abstract:The reaction in some corners of the blogosphere seems predictable, but I’ll leave you make those prognostications. All I can say is that when you see religion as responsible for anything bad—even something as palpably obvious as creationism—or suggest that there may some incompatibility between science and religion, there will be nay-sayers alternately bawling and osculating the rump of faith.American resistance to accepting evolution is uniquely high among First World countries. This is due largely to the extreme religiosity of the United States, which is much higher than that of comparably advanced nations, and to the resistance of many religious people to the facts and supposed implications of evolution. The prevalence of religious belief in the United States suggests that outreach by scientists alone will not have a huge effect in increasing the acceptance of evolution, nor will the strategy of trying to convince the faithful that evolution is compatible with their religion. Because creationism is a symptom of religion, another strategy to promote evolution involves loosening the grip of faith on America. This is easier said than done, for recent sociological surveys show that religion is highly correlated with the dysfunctionality of a society, and various measures of societal health show that the United States is one of the most socially dysfunctional First World countries. Widespread acceptance of evolution in America, then, may have to await profound social change.
I’ll finish with a relevant quote from p. 325 of Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World (a wonderful book; do read it). I’ve put in bold the sentence that absolutely distinguishes science from religion.I meet many people offended by evolution, who passionately prefer to be the personal handicraft of God than to arise by blind physical and chemical forces over aeons from slime. They also tend to be less then assiduous in exposing themselves to the evidence. Evidence has little to do with it: What they wish to be true, they believe is true. Only 9 percent of Americans accept the central finding of modern biology that human beings (and all the other species) have slowly evolved by natural processes from a succession of more ancient beings with no divine intervention needed along the way. (When asked merely if they accept evolution 45 percent of Americans say yes. The figure is 70 percent in China.)
It will depend on how you feel as to whether some will consider it nonsense or not?revelthedog wrote:I suppose its nice to be mentioned.. I have a new example of my mini miracle statement. All about this forum as well. But im in the middle of making lunch for today so I'll post later. is there such a thing as fate? I might post something that sone will consider nonsense later as well. Depends how I feel.
Okay... Skerret is a wonderfully warm, intelligent human being.ÂSkerret wrote:It will depend on how you feel as to whether some will consider it nonsense or not?revelthedog wrote:I suppose its nice to be mentioned.. I have a new example of my mini miracle statement. All about this forum as well. But im in the middle of making lunch for today so I'll post later. is there such a thing as fate? I might post something that sone will consider nonsense later as well. Depends how I feel.
"Facewon wrote:Mod suggested he's probably closer to a pantheist, and he self identifies as a non-organised religion kinda guy (correct me if I'm wrong). To be honest, I'd suggest this is another class of believer that can end up getting a little defensive when religion is getting bashed.
Huh?Mod74 wrote:You might argue that simply having faith makes you delusional and the toy of those who head up a religion, but that's simply not true is it otherwise you wouldn't be able to walk down the street without a suicide bomber crying Allah akbar and pulling the pin.
Skerret wrote:yer but how do you feel tho
JonB wrote:Huh?Mod74 wrote:You might argue that simply having faith makes you delusional and the toy of those who head up a religion, but that's simply not true is it otherwise you wouldn't be able to walk down the street without a suicide bomber crying Allah akbar and pulling the pin.
For me the largest part of most religions aren't the unprovable bits, but the perfectly provable benefits to following guides to how to live your life and interact with others.
Facewon wrote:Meanwhile, some general musings from the first few pages. I promise I'm not picking on revel. One of the things I see as a bit of a running theme across the two threads and also in general is a defensive reaction from theists, particularly of the more liberal/pantheist variety, to any comment on religion in general. Certainly, they could be reacting to responses ranging from the odin pic on the first page, to a polite query, to being called stupid for believing, and sometimes the reaction is understandable, but at the same time, religion, as a general thing, seems to end up being untouchable, even when I think it's the legitimate target of whatever criticism is getting dished out. Basically, the problem seems to be that an attack on, say, the Catholic Church, gets derailed/sidetracked by a bunch of believers crying foul because they're personally nice enough people and don't believe x y and z in lockstep with the church bigwigs. Ok, fair play, but that shouldn't mean nothing came be said against the religion in question. (The question follows, to me, how many things can you disagree with the upper management about before you decide that the organisation isn't one you want to associate with?) Speaking of colateral damage, and revel, it strikes me, reading back through that he may have been cought in some crossfire, some of it his making through a lack of clarity, some of it through unfair assumption on others behalf.  Personally, I really doubt there would be a strong atheist movement if every theist in the world  was of the revel kinda stripe. I don't feel the same way about how we should react to some of life's experiences as he does, for instance, here:I think describing the above as mini miracles isn't a great way of viewing the way the world works. And I can elaborate on that at a later point, but my point is also that at the end of the day, I'm not too fussed by it. We might end up dscussing it further at a later point, but on a harm scale, it's relatively low. Which is why I don't spend my time looking to pick fights about it, I save my "passion" and vitriol for nastier issues to do with religion and belief. (I was going to post Tim Minchin's song "Thank you God," but it seems to be the one thing not up on youtube, strangely.)revel wrote:There are too many points in my life where there are mini miracles. You take that bus, go to that shop first, turn left instead of right. And something happens that changes your life. So i found god after going through science. I believe in the facts of science. I believe in the presence of something godlike. Its my opinion. And a part of me. And it gives me peace as i get older.
That's what I thought. The implication being that the upper echelons of Islam all condone suicide bombing, and only the common believers' ability to pick and choose from official doctrine stops them all from becoming suicide bombers. This is patently false and as much of an absurd blanket statement as attacking the religion or its believers as a whole.Mod74 wrote:Clear enough wasn't it? Not all followers of a religion believe and do what people in power tell them to do.JonB wrote:Huh?Mod74 wrote:You might argue that simply having faith makes you delusional and the toy of those who head up a religion, but that's simply not true is it otherwise you wouldn't be able to walk down the street without a suicide bomber crying Allah akbar and pulling the pin.
Yes.revelthedog wrote:So was that just blind luck?
No.revelthedog wrote:Fate?
Congratulations!revelthedog wrote:Is it because everything was settled down in my life and I now married again, happy with a wee one on the way. So I thought I would connect up with some people again?
Yes.revelthedog wrote:Maybe the B&B was just a complete coincidence on my part?
No.revelthedog wrote:Or were events laid out so I found it?
djchump wrote:Yes.revelthedog wrote:So was that just blind luck?No.revelthedog wrote:Fate?Congratulations!revelthedog wrote:Is it because everything was settled down in my life and I now married again, happy with a wee one on the way. So I thought I would connect up with some people again?Yes.revelthedog wrote:Maybe the B&B was just a complete coincidence on my part?No.revelthedog wrote:Or were events laid out so I found it?
But everyone, religious or not, has a view on those things.See their stance on, well, abortion, homosexuality, right to life, take your pick.
JonB wrote:That's what I thought. The implication being that the upper echelons of Islam all condone suicide bombing, and only the common believers' ability to pick and choose from official doctrine stops them all from becoming suicide bombers. This is patently false and as much of an absurd blanket statement as attacking the religion or its believers as a whole.Clear enough wasn't it? Not all followers of a religion believe and do what people in power tell them to do.Huh?You might argue that simply having faith makes you delusional and the toy of those who head up a religion, but that's simply not true is it otherwise you wouldn't be able to walk down the street without a suicide bomber crying Allah akbar and pulling the pin.
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