"Both Dawkins and I have to deal with the frustrating problem of the
game of intellectual hide-and-seek that 'moderate' believers play to
avoid being pinned down to the underlying absurdities of their
traditions. 'Don’t be so literal-minded!' they chortle, marveling at
the philistinism of anyone who would attempt to take them at their
word and ask them for their grounds for asserting that, for instance,
God actually answers prayers (here, now, in the real world, by
performing miracles). But then as soon you start playing the metaphor
game with them, they abuse the poetic license you have granted them,
and delight in dancing around the truth, getting away with all sorts
of nonsense because they are indeed playing intellectual tennis
without a net. Dawkins’ solution is to adopt a rather less patient
attitude than I have done. As a philosopher, I cannot comfortably
adopt this policy, since I was trained to hunt for treasure in the
confused and confusing gropings of brilliant explorers, and am always
encouraging my students to go out of their way to find charitable
interpretations."
"What do I wish were different in Dawkins’ book? The same thing I wish
were different in mine. Sometimes he just cannot conceal his mounting
impatience with the arguments he has obliged himself to consider, and
when his disrespect, or even contempt, shines through in spite of his
strenuous efforts–I know just what he’s going through–he must surely
lose many readers. Good riddance to them? Well, no, this is a problem.
Serious argument depends on mutual respect, and this is often hard to
engender when disagreements turn vehement. The social psychologist and
game theorist Anatol Rapoport (creator of the winning Tit-for-Tat
strategy in Robert Axelrod’s legendary prisoner’s dilemma tournament)
once promulgated a list of rules for how to write a successful
critical commentary on an opponent’s work. First, he said, you must
attempt to re-express your opponent’s position so clearly, vividly and
fairly that your opponent says 'Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting
it that way.' Then, you should list any points of agreement
(especially if they are not matters of general or widespread
agreement), and third, you should mention anything you have learned
from your opponent. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a
word of rebuttal or criticism. I have found this a salutary discipline
to follow–or, since it is challenging, to attempt to follow. When it
succeeds, the results are gratifying: your opponent is in a mood to be
enlightened and eagerly attentive. But this is well nigh impossible
when the arguments you wish to rebut are too flimsy. For one thing,
you fear that hyper-patience will appear patronizing and simply drive
other, swifter readers away."
This, of course, is referenced in the Horsemen discussion.
[RD] One of the things we've all met is the accusation that we are
strident or arrogant, or vitriolic, or shrill. What do we think about
that?
[DD] Hah! Yeah, well I'm amused by it, because I went out of my way in
my book to address reasonable religious people. And I test-flew the
draft with groups of students who were deeply religious. And indeed,
the first draft incurred some real anguish. And so I made adjustments
and made adjustments. And it didn't do any good in the end because I
still got hammered for being for being rude and aggressive. And I came
to realise that it's a no-win situation. It's a mug's game. The
religions have contrived to make it impossible to disagree with them
critically without being rude.
---
[SH] Right. I think this whole notion of … I think our criticism
actually more barbed than that, in the sense that we're not … we are
offending people, but we are also telling them that they're wrong to
be offended. I mean, physicists aren't offended when their view of
physics is disproved or challenged. I mean, this is just not the way
rational minds operate when they're really trying to get at what's
true in the world. And religions purport to be representing reality.
And yet there's this peevish, tribal, and ultimately dangerous,
reflexive response to having these ideas challenged. I think we're
pointing to the total liability of that fact.
[DD] Well, and too, there's no polite way to say to somebody …
[SH] You've wasted your life! (laughter)
[DD] do you realise you've wasted your life? Do you realise that
you've just devoted all your efforts and all your goods to the
glorification of something which is just a myth? Or have you ever
considered - even if you say have you even considered the possibility
that maybe you've wasted your life on this? There's no inoffensive way
of saying that. But we do have to say it, because they should jolly
well consider it. Same as we do about our own lives.
Worthless Allan responded to this last part on ACRD.
"And he wonders why he might get accused of being arrogant and
overconfident? At the end, he's starting to back away and is
seemingly asking that theists simply consider that their belief in God
might be incorrect. But that's precisely NOT what he's doing at the
start of the paragraph. He's saying, basically, that theists ARE
wrong, that God IS a myth? Even at the end, it's a comment about how
maybe we've 'wasted our lives'. How is that not reflecting arrogance?"
Obviously, Allan has never looked at himself critically because he's
posting on this group. You can't post on this group if you're a
corpse, and if Allan ever assessed himself critically he would take
his own life. This is why it is so offensive to him that he should
consider things about himself and his beliefs rationally. On one
level, you can sympathize: what if facing reality meant facing the
fact that you were Allan C Cybulskie? That would make honesty
offensive to anyone. However, what Allan is too selfish to realize is
that those of us who live in reality have to live with the fact that
he exists, and he owes us all an apology for that.
I think the mistake we make as atheists is that we tend to
anthropomorphize theists. Dennett's first mistake is thinking that
theists have a coherent position that they want to have articulated.
Theists hate it when you iron out the actual implications of their
positions. A lot of times they say you can't understand their position
unless you agree with it--the "if you haven't found God it is because
you haven't sought Him" garbage. Most of their case is an assault on
rationality itself.
Making assertions about morality and the nature of reality are going
to cause conflict. There are two consistent grounds by which conflicts
are resolved: reason and violence. When you are promoting unreasonable
conflict, as all theists are, you are promoting violent conflict, and
that is why the fact stands that _all_ theists are terrorists.
Allan C. Cybulskie (anagram: Suck A Ball Nicely) "addressed" this
point on another thread:
> What about emotion? Can an emotional appeal work in these cases?
> This would break the dichotomy, since most people do not consider a
> direct appeal to emotion rational, yet it certainly doesn't involve
> violence.
I responded:
"Nope. Emotion is not a consistent or reliable basis on which a
conflict is 'resolved' in the sense that reason or violence is. You
can use reason or violence to appeal to one's emotions, but you can't
'outfeel' someone in the sense that you can out-reason or out-fight
them. The more reasonable two people are about a dispute, the more
likely it is to be resolved with reason. The more emotional two people
are about a dispute, barring reason, the more likely it is to be
resolved with violence. So your argument falls flat on its face and
dies.
You _felt_ that this point was good, but reasonably it wasn't, so it
resolved nothing."
He didn't reply, but probably for the best, considering that Allan is
the perfect example of someone who posts gibberish and contradicts
himself just so he can claim you are "misrepresenting" his position
when you reply to direct quotes of his.
Theists are more like video game monsters than they are like human
beings. They have no awareness of reality, all that is real to them
exists within a simulation, and you can't reason with them. They don't
present their arguments with an attempt at clarity or revisability
because they are not interested in an actual discourse. If Allan says
that delusions are not personal experiences, he will wind up
explaining that you need a hallucination to prove a delusion because
delusions and hallucinations aren't the same thing and a unicorn can't
be a hallucination because you can't ride it and this proves that I
was misrepresenting his position. Yup, he's obviously trying to make a
sound and rational case.
Atheists make mistakes in debating with theists, anthropomorphizing
them like an old lady who thinks her cat has a favorite TV show.
Theists don't care about right and wrong. There is absolutely no
reason to believe that they do. Theists have the problem of
anthropomorphizing the Universe, and atheists have the problem of
anthropomorphizing theists.
Calling a theist a human being is like shitting on a baby: it's
disgusting and it degrades us all.
I share your sentiments, but I don't share your view that it is a
problem to athropomorphize theists, at least it is not evident to me
that it is indeed a problem. I think the larger problem is giving
stock and reverence to theists as supporters of society, like Walt and
company do.
I agree that arguing with a theist is indeed uncomfortably similar to
talking with a wall, albeit not unreasonably equivalent. They react
with the same mental capacity for intellectual growth and rationale as
do the clinically brain-dead, or 'vegetables' (which begs the question
if it is morally permissable to euthanise them, as has been
suggested). Their mental storage contains the same catch-all cookie
cutter responses of whose variety, tenacity, utility, and mutability
allows little to be learned from other than that theists seem to be
inseperably categorically equivalent to an inanimate objects. Would a
Turing Test show differently?
However, they certainly are human, and in some way or another they
have been programmed (in all the glory of what that term implies) to
think and react in a way that is inconsistent to the ideal of what
should be human behavior. Yet they remain, and we must not forget
that they are indeed human so as to be a living experiment of the
capacity of mankind to subject themselves to the most irrational
thoughts which devoid them of purpose. Unforunately, the theist meme
virus (again in all the glory of what that term implies) is widespread
and the cure, that is reason, is struggling to combat it. And as the
virus spreads, we must acknowledge that these are human beings being
infected so as to be congnizant of the fact that future human beings
may be infected as well, just as easily. Thus we have a service to
future generations to acknowledge the human characterization of
theists so as to never forget what we all need to strive against, for
ourselves and future generations.
If the only way to achieve the obliteration of dogma is to treat those
having it as inanimate objects, then it may be a mistake to
anthropomorphize them. At which point, should the theist community
become what we hope, a vast minority, we would or should reconstruct
their similarity to the human race as a stark reminder of what the
vast majority of mankind was and what it should avoid in the years to
come.
On Aug 18, 1:13 pm, Dev <thedevil...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> "Both Dawkins and I have to deal with the frustrating problem of the
> game of intellectual hide-and-seek that 'moderate' believers play to
> avoid being pinned down to the underlying absurdities of their
> traditions. 'Don’t be so literal-minded!' they chortle, marveling at
> the philistinism of anyone who would attempt to take them at their
> word and ask them for their grounds for asserting that, for instance,
> God actually answers prayers (here, now, in the real world, by
> performing miracles). But then as soon you start playing the metaphor
> game with them, they abuse the poetic license you have granted them,
> and delight in dancing around the truth, getting away with all sorts
> of nonsense because they are indeed playing intellectual tennis
> without a net. Dawkins’ solution is to adopt a rather less patient
> attitude than I have done. As a philosopher, I cannot comfortably
> adopt this policy, since I was trained to hunt for treasure in the
> confused and confusing gropings of brilliant explorers, and am always
> encouraging my students to go out of their way to find charitable
> interpretations."
> "What do I wish were different in Dawkins’ book? The same thing I wish
> were different in mine. Sometimes he just cannot conceal his mounting
> impatience with the arguments he has obliged himself to consider, and
> when his disrespect, or even contempt, shines through in spite of his
> strenuous efforts–I know just what he’s going through–he must surely
> lose many readers. Good riddance to them? Well, no, this is a problem.
> Serious argument depends on mutual respect, and this is often hard to
> engender when disagreements turn vehement. The social psychologist and
> game theorist Anatol Rapoport (creator of the winning Tit-for-Tat
> strategy in Robert Axelrod’s legendary prisoner’s dilemma tournament)
> once promulgated a list of rules for how to write a successful
> critical commentary on an opponent’s work. First, he said, you must
> attempt to re-express your opponent’s position so clearly, vividly and
> fairly that your opponent says 'Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting
> it that way.' Then, you should list any points of agreement
> (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread
> agreement), and third, you should mention anything you have learned
> from your opponent. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a
> word of rebuttal or criticism. I have found this a salutary discipline
> to follow–or, since it is challenging, to attempt to follow. When it
> succeeds, the results are gratifying: your opponent is in a mood to be
> enlightened and eagerly attentive. But this is well nigh impossible
> when the arguments you wish to rebut are too flimsy. For one thing,
> you fear that hyper-patience will appear patronizing and simply drive
> other, swifter readers away."
> This, of course, is referenced in the Horsemen discussion.
> [RD] One of the things we've all met is the accusation that we are
> strident or arrogant, or vitriolic, or shrill. What do we think about
> that?
> [DD] Hah! Yeah, well I'm amused by it, because I went out of my way in
> my book to address reasonable religious people. And I test-flew the
> draft with groups of students who were deeply religious. And indeed,
> the first draft incurred some real anguish. And so I made adjustments
> and made adjustments. And it didn't do any good in the end because I
> still got hammered for being for being rude and aggressive. And I came
> to realise that it's a no-win situation. It's a mug's game. The
> religions have contrived to make it impossible to disagree with them
> critically without being rude.
> ---
> [SH] Right. I think this whole notion of … I think our criticism
> actually more barbed than that, in the sense that we're not … we are
> offending people, but we are also telling them that they're wrong to
> be offended. I mean, physicists aren't offended when their view of
> physics is disproved or challenged. I mean, this is just not the way
> rational minds operate when they're really trying to get at what's
> true in the world. And religions purport to be representing reality.
> And yet there's this peevish, tribal, and ultimately dangerous,
> reflexive response to having these ideas challenged. I think we're
> pointing to the total liability of that fact.
> [DD] Well, and too, there's no polite way to say to somebody …
> [SH] You've wasted your life! (laughter)
> [DD] do you realise you've wasted your life? Do you realise that
> you've just devoted all your efforts and all your goods to the
> glorification of something which is just a myth? Or have you ever
> considered - even if you say have you even considered the possibility
> that maybe you've wasted your life on this? There's no inoffensive way
> of saying that. But we do have to say it, because they should jolly
> well consider it. Same as we do about our own lives.
> Worthless Allan responded to this last part on ACRD.
> "And he wonders why he might get accused of being arrogant and
> overconfident? At the end, he's starting to back away and is
> seemingly asking that theists simply consider that their belief in God
> might be incorrect. But that's precisely NOT what he's doing at the
> start of the paragraph. He's saying, basically, that theists ARE
> wrong, that God IS a myth? Even at the end, it's a comment about how
> maybe we've 'wasted our lives'. How is that not reflecting arrogance?"
> Obviously, Allan has never looked at himself critically because he's
> posting on this group. You can't post on this group if you're a
> corpse, and if Allan ever assessed himself critically he would take
> his own life. This is why it is so offensive to him that he should
> consider things about himself and his beliefs rationally. On one
> level, you can sympathize: what if facing reality meant facing the
> fact that you were Allan C Cybulskie? That would make honesty
> offensive to anyone. However, what Allan is too selfish to realize is
> that those of us who live in reality have to live with the fact that
> he exists, and he owes us all an apology for that.
> I think the mistake we make as atheists is that we tend to
> anthropomorphize theists. Dennett's first mistake is thinking that
> theists have a coherent position that they want to have articulated.
> Theists hate it when you iron out the actual implications of their
> positions. A lot of times they say you can't understand their position
> unless you agree with it--the "if you haven't found God it is because
> you haven't sought Him" garbage. Most of their case is an assault on
> rationality itself.
> Making assertions about morality and the nature of reality are going
> to cause conflict. There are two consistent grounds by which conflicts
> are resolved: reason and violence. When you are promoting unreasonable
> conflict, as all theists are, you are promoting violent conflict, and
> that is why the fact stands that _all_ theists are terrorists.
> Allan C. Cybulskie (anagram: Suck A Ball Nicely) "addressed" this
> point on another thread:
> > What about emotion? Can an emotional appeal work in these cases?
> > This would break the dichotomy,
My post was getting long so I probably didn't get around to really
saying all I wanted to. My problem is that the term "human being"
carries a lot of baggage that doesn't really apply to theists. It's
hard not to bring a lot of preconceptions to something you consider a
person that might not be necessarily relevant, and that doesn't help
anybody.
random and others tend to make an argument that if you can't reason
with theists respectably, then what can you do? The problem is that to
take a truly pragmatic approach, you can't have any delusions about
what you're dealing with. Regardless of whether or not the truth is
convenient, it is not pragmatic to ignore it. There is not a "debate"
about the value of theism in the way people have debates.
Consider two indisputable truths about theism:
(1) It causes a lot of damage to the world and everything on it--
established by all available evidence.
(2) At least 99.9% of the ideas contingent on theism must be lies
because of their mutually exclusive character. There is no rational
reason not to treat it as 100%, it is irrelevant whether or not you
can falsify 100% of it since there's no reason to accept it as truth
in the first place, but the fact remains that it is at least _almost_
all lies.
Would human beings debate about whether lies that kill people are a
good thing? Of course not. When we think of human beings we think of
someone capable of reason and empathy, not something that would rather
slit a child's throat than tell the truth--which is essentially the
choice anyone who perpetuates theism is making. The fact that they
don't acknowledge they are making this choice shows a disconnect from
the consequences of what they perpetuate that seems to go against the
hypothetical "human theist" we frame our points for.
We need to understand, at the very bottom of it, that all theists are
irrational terrorists by definition and work from there.
On Aug 17, 9:10 pm, watts <watts....@gmail.com> wrote:
> I share your sentiments, but I don't share your view that it is a
> problem to athropomorphize theists, at least it is not evident to me
> that it is indeed a problem. I think the larger problem is giving
> stock and reverence to theists as supporters of society, like Walt and
> company do.
> I agree that arguing with a theist is indeed uncomfortably similar to
> talking with a wall, albeit not unreasonably equivalent. They react
> with the same mental capacity for intellectual growth and rationale as
> do the clinically brain-dead, or 'vegetables' (which begs the question
> if it is morally permissable to euthanise them, as has been
> suggested). Their mental storage contains the same catch-all cookie
> cutter responses of whose variety, tenacity, utility, and mutability
> allows little to be learned from other than that theists seem to be
> inseperably categorically equivalent to an inanimate objects. Would a
> Turing Test show differently?
> However, they certainly are human, and in some way or another they
> have been programmed (in all the glory of what that term implies) to
> think and react in a way that is inconsistent to the ideal of what
> should be human behavior. Yet they remain, and we must not forget
> that they are indeed human so as to be a living experiment of the
> capacity of mankind to subject themselves to the most irrational
> thoughts which devoid them of purpose. Unforunately, the theist meme
> virus (again in all the glory of what that term implies) is widespread
> and the cure, that is reason, is struggling to combat it. And as the
> virus spreads, we must acknowledge that these are human beings being
> infected so as to be congnizant of the fact that future human beings
> may be infected as well, just as easily. Thus we have a service to
> future generations to acknowledge the human characterization of
> theists so as to never forget what we all need to strive against, for
> ourselves and future generations.
> If the only way to achieve the obliteration of dogma is to treat those
> having it as inanimate objects, then it may be a mistake to
> anthropomorphize them. At which point, should the theist community
> become what we hope, a vast minority, we would or should reconstruct
> their similarity to the human race as a stark reminder of what the
> vast majority of mankind was and what it should avoid in the years to
> come.
> On Aug 18, 1:13 pm, Dev <thedevil...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> > From Dennett's review of _The God Delusion_:
> > "Both Dawkins and I have to deal with the frustrating problem of the
> > game of intellectual hide-and-seek that 'moderate' believers play to
> > avoid being pinned down to the underlying absurdities of their
> > traditions. 'Don’t be so literal-minded!' they chortle, marveling at
> > the philistinism of anyone who would attempt to take them at their
> > word and ask them for their grounds for asserting that, for instance,
> > God actually answers prayers (here, now, in the real world, by
> > performing miracles). But then as soon you start playing the metaphor
> > game with them, they abuse the poetic license you have granted them,
> > and delight in dancing around the truth, getting away with all sorts
> > of nonsense because they are indeed playing intellectual tennis
> > without a net. Dawkins’ solution is to adopt a rather less patient
> > attitude than I have done. As a philosopher, I cannot comfortably
> > adopt this policy, since I was trained to hunt for treasure in the
> > confused and confusing gropings of brilliant explorers, and am always
> > encouraging my students to go out of their way to find charitable
> > interpretations."
> > "What do I wish were different in Dawkins’ book? The same thing I wish
> > were different in mine. Sometimes he just cannot conceal his mounting
> > impatience with the arguments he has obliged himself to consider, and
> > when his disrespect, or even contempt, shines through in spite of his
> > strenuous efforts–I know just what he’s going through–he must surely
> > lose many readers. Good riddance to them? Well, no, this is a problem.
> > Serious argument depends on mutual respect, and this is often hard to
> > engender when disagreements turn vehement. The social psychologist and
> > game theorist Anatol Rapoport (creator of the winning Tit-for-Tat
> > strategy in Robert Axelrod’s legendary prisoner’s dilemma tournament)
> > once promulgated a list of rules for how to write a successful
> > critical commentary on an opponent’s work. First, he said, you must
> > attempt to re-express your opponent’s position so clearly, vividly and
> > fairly that your opponent says 'Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting
> > it that way.' Then, you should list any points of agreement
> > (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread
> > agreement), and third, you should mention anything you have learned
> > from your opponent. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a
> > word of rebuttal or criticism. I have found this a salutary discipline
> > to follow–or, since it is challenging, to attempt to follow. When it
> > succeeds, the results are gratifying: your opponent is in a mood to be
> > enlightened and eagerly attentive. But this is well nigh impossible
> > when the arguments you wish to rebut are too flimsy. For one thing,
> > you fear that hyper-patience will appear patronizing and simply drive
> > other, swifter readers away."
> > This, of course, is referenced in the Horsemen discussion.
> > [RD] One of the things we've all met is the accusation that we are
> > strident or arrogant, or vitriolic, or shrill. What do we think about
> > that?
> > [DD] Hah! Yeah, well I'm amused by it, because I went out of my way in
> > my book to address reasonable religious people. And I test-flew the
> > draft with groups of students who were deeply religious. And indeed,
> > the first draft incurred some real anguish. And so I made adjustments
> > and made adjustments. And it didn't do any good in the end because I
> > still got hammered for being for being rude and aggressive. And I came
> > to realise that it's a no-win situation. It's a mug's game. The
> > religions have contrived to make it impossible to disagree with them
> > critically without being rude.
> > ---
> > [SH] Right. I think this whole notion of … I think our criticism
> > actually more barbed than that, in the sense that we're not … we are
> > offending people, but we are also telling them that they're wrong to
> > be offended. I mean, physicists aren't offended when their view of
> > physics is disproved or challenged. I mean, this is just not the way
> > rational minds operate when they're really trying to get at what's
> > true in the world. And religions purport to be representing reality.
> > And yet there's this peevish, tribal, and ultimately dangerous,
> > reflexive response to having these ideas challenged. I think we're
> > pointing to the total liability of that fact.
> > [DD] Well, and too, there's no polite way to say to somebody …
> > [SH] You've wasted your life! (laughter)
> > [DD] do you realise you've wasted your life? Do you realise that
> > you've just devoted all your efforts and all your goods to the
> > glorification of something which is just a myth? Or have you ever
> > considered - even if you say have you even considered the possibility
> > that maybe you've wasted your life on this? There's no inoffensive way
> > of saying that. But we do have to say it, because they should jolly
> > well consider it. Same as we do about our own lives.
> > Worthless Allan responded to this last part on ACRD.
Well, that I agree with. But I don't think debating is confined to
only the participants
Debating goes beyond the outcome of the debate on either debator,
especially in a public venue such as this group. It's an example and
guide to anyone who should so choose to follow the debate and use the
arguments presented therein in their own debates. I suspect that an
observer travels down the road of his/her own demise of becoming a
theist should they choose to be irrational. But we hope for those who
have not yet turned, or fallen victim, to irrational thought to
observe the absurdities blatantly evident in the theists argumentative
stance, if you can call it an argumentative stance. Treating them as
inanimate objects might propel or bring light to that view as it may
initiate the idea of absurdity.
I do think it's rather futile to argue with any side of an issue
should they be so emotionally attached, as is often the case for most
debates - especially the side of theism since it relies on deep-seeded
emotions in spite of reason. It's the collateral observers who are
less emotionally attached that debates really ever have any affect
on. An argument against debating with theists is really an argument
against debates in general.
On Aug 18, 3:24 pm, Dev <thedevil...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> My post was getting long so I probably didn't get around to really
> saying all I wanted to. My problem is that the term "human being"
> carries a lot of baggage that doesn't really apply to theists. It's
> hard not to bring a lot of preconceptions to something you consider a
> person that might not be necessarily relevant, and that doesn't help
> anybody.
> random and others tend to make an argument that if you can't reason
> with theists respectably, then what can you do? The problem is that to
> take a truly pragmatic approach, you can't have any delusions about
> what you're dealing with. Regardless of whether or not the truth is
> convenient, it is not pragmatic to ignore it. There is not a "debate"
> about the value of theism in the way people have debates.
> Consider two indisputable truths about theism:
> (1) It causes a lot of damage to the world and everything on it--
> established by all available evidence.
> (2) At least 99.9% of the ideas contingent on theism must be lies
> because of their mutually exclusive character. There is no rational
> reason not to treat it as 100%, it is irrelevant whether or not you
> can falsify 100% of it since there's no reason to accept it as truth
> in the first place, but the fact remains that it is at least _almost_
> all lies.
> Would human beings debate about whether lies that kill people are a
> good thing? Of course not. When we think of human beings we think of
> someone capable of reason and empathy, not something that would rather
> slit a child's throat than tell the truth--which is essentially the
> choice anyone who perpetuates theism is making. The fact that they
> don't acknowledge they are making this choice shows a disconnect from
> the consequences of what they perpetuate that seems to go against the
> hypothetical "human theist" we frame our points for.
> We need to understand, at the very bottom of it, that all theists are
> irrational terrorists by definition and work from there.
> On Aug 17, 9:10 pm, watts <watts....@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I share your sentiments, but I don't share your view that it is a
> > problem to athropomorphize theists, at least it is not evident to me
> > that it is indeed a problem. I think the larger problem is giving
> > stock and reverence to theists as supporters of society, like Walt and
> > company do.
> > I agree that arguing with a theist is indeed uncomfortably similar to
> > talking with a wall, albeit not unreasonably equivalent. They react
> > with the same mental capacity for intellectual growth and rationale as
> > do the clinically brain-dead, or 'vegetables' (which begs the question
> > if it is morally permissable to euthanise them, as has been
> > suggested). Their mental storage contains the same catch-all cookie
> > cutter responses of whose variety, tenacity, utility, and mutability
> > allows little to be learned from other than that theists seem to be
> > inseperably categorically equivalent to an inanimate objects. Would a
> > Turing Test show differently?
> > However, they certainly are human, and in some way or another they
> > have been programmed (in all the glory of what that term implies) to
> > think and react in a way that is inconsistent to the ideal of what
> > should be human behavior. Yet they remain, and we must not forget
> > that they are indeed human so as to be a living experiment of the
> > capacity of mankind to subject themselves to the most irrational
> > thoughts which devoid them of purpose. Unforunately, the theist meme
> > virus (again in all the glory of what that term implies) is widespread
> > and the cure, that is reason, is struggling to combat it. And as the
> > virus spreads, we must acknowledge that these are human beings being
> > infected so as to be congnizant of the fact that future human beings
> > may be infected as well, just as easily. Thus we have a service to
> > future generations to acknowledge the human characterization of
> > theists so as to never forget what we all need to strive against, for
> > ourselves and future generations.
> > If the only way to achieve the obliteration of dogma is to treat those
> > having it as inanimate objects, then it may be a mistake to
> > anthropomorphize them. At which point, should the theist community
> > become what we hope, a vast minority, we would or should reconstruct
> > their similarity to the human race as a stark reminder of what the
> > vast majority of mankind was and what it should avoid in the years to
> > come.
> > On Aug 18, 1:13 pm, Dev <thedevil...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> > > From Dennett's review of _The God Delusion_:
> > > "Both Dawkins and I have to deal with the frustrating problem of the
> > > game of intellectual hide-and-seek that 'moderate' believers play to
> > > avoid being pinned down to the underlying absurdities of their
> > > traditions. 'Don’t be so literal-minded!' they chortle, marveling at
> > > the philistinism of anyone who would attempt to take them at their
> > > word and ask them for their grounds for asserting that, for instance,
> > > God actually answers prayers (here, now, in the real world, by
> > > performing miracles). But then as soon you start playing the metaphor
> > > game with them, they abuse the poetic license you have granted them,
> > > and delight in dancing around the truth, getting away with all sorts
> > > of nonsense because they are indeed playing intellectual tennis
> > > without a net. Dawkins’ solution is to adopt a rather less patient
> > > attitude than I have done. As a philosopher, I cannot comfortably
> > > adopt this policy, since I was trained to hunt for treasure in the
> > > confused and confusing gropings of brilliant explorers, and am always
> > > encouraging my students to go out of their way to find charitable
> > > interpretations."
> > > "What do I wish were different in Dawkins’ book? The same thing I wish
> > > were different in mine. Sometimes he just cannot conceal his mounting
> > > impatience with the arguments he has obliged himself to consider, and
> > > when his disrespect, or even contempt, shines through in spite of his
> > > strenuous efforts–I know just what he’s going through–he must surely
> > > lose many readers. Good riddance to them? Well, no, this is a problem.
> > > Serious argument depends on mutual respect, and this is often hard to
> > > engender when disagreements turn vehement. The social psychologist and
> > > game theorist Anatol Rapoport (creator of the winning Tit-for-Tat
> > > strategy in Robert Axelrod’s legendary prisoner’s dilemma tournament)
> > > once promulgated a list of rules for how to write a successful
> > > critical commentary on an opponent’s work. First, he said, you must
> > > attempt to re-express your opponent’s position so clearly, vividly and
> > > fairly that your opponent says 'Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting
> > > it that way.' Then, you should list any points of agreement
> > > (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread
> > > agreement), and third, you should mention anything you have learned
> > > from your opponent. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a
> > > word of rebuttal or criticism. I have found this a salutary discipline
> > > to follow–or, since it is challenging, to attempt to follow. When it
> > > succeeds, the results are gratifying: your opponent is in a mood to be
> > > enlightened and eagerly attentive. But this is well nigh impossible
> > > when the arguments you wish to rebut are too flimsy. For one thing,
> > > you fear that hyper-patience will appear patronizing and simply drive
> > > other, swifter readers away."
> > > This, of course, is referenced in the Horsemen discussion.
> > > [RD] One of the things we've all met is the accusation that we are
> > > strident or arrogant, or vitriolic, or shrill. What do we think about
> > > that?
> > > [DD] Hah! Yeah, well I'm amused by it, because I went out of my way in
> > > my book to address reasonable religious people. And I test-flew the
> > > draft with groups of students who were deeply religious. And indeed,
> > > the first draft incurred some real anguish. And so I made adjustments
> > > and made adjustments. And it didn't do any good in the end because I
> > > still got hammered for being for being rude and aggressive. And I came
> > > to realise that it's a no-win situation. It's a mug's game. The
> > > religions
I agree with some of what you're saying here, although I would suggest
we stop so much considering what we do with the theists on this group
a "debate". There's no hope for Allan--his wires are hopelessly
crossed and he's one of the ones, like simon, the more naive atheists
thought would be possible to "reach". But it doesn't take too long to
realize he's gone. There's just nothing left of him. There's no hope,
really, for any of the theists on this group now. There is no human
part of them to appeal to--no desire for reason, no sense of guilt or
remorse for the consequences of their beliefs, nothing. I think
instead of approaching this, then, as a "debate", we should approach
it as an "expose".
The common thinking among random, who I keep using as an example
because he's the rational poster who's most at odds with me, and
others is that demonizing theists distances them and puts them on the
defensive. I like using Daniel Dennett as an example because his book
(very good, if you haven't read it) _Breaking the Spell_ was as
absolutely polite as I think a critique of religion can be without
being disingenuous. It's hard to really convey just how much he
strained to be inoffensive if you haven't read the book. I recommend
that people like random read Dennett's book and then read the negative
reviews of it. He isn't treated any differently than a more hostile
atheist, like PZ Myers or Christopher Hitchens, is. The only
difference is that instead of calling you "angry" they'll call you
"patronizing". He conceded that it was really a no-win situation,
despite his efforts.
By looking at this as an expose, it doesn't matter so much that you
demonize the theists as long as you do it well. The goal is just to
make doubters and moderates see them with clear eyes. There's really
no way to address someone like Brock Organ as if he's a person with a
position that deserves respect.
The whole theism debate is a lot like the "Intelligent Design" debate.
The theists know they'll never have a winning position, but as long as
they create the illusion that they have a position at all people who
are inclined to that position will take it because it's been validated
as a justifiable position. We can (and do) have an infinitely superior
argument but that won't make a difference to some people as long as
the illusion is maintained that the other side has any kind of an
argument when they don't. So the less respect we show them and their
beliefs, the better.
On Aug 17, 9:53 pm, watts <watts....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, that I agree with. But I don't think debating is confined to
> only the participants
> Debating goes beyond the outcome of the debate on either debator,
> especially in a public venue such as this group. It's an example and
> guide to anyone who should so choose to follow the debate and use the
> arguments presented therein in their own debates. I suspect that an
> observer travels down the road of his/her own demise of becoming a
> theist should they choose to be irrational. But we hope for those who
> have not yet turned, or fallen victim, to irrational thought to
> observe the absurdities blatantly evident in the theists argumentative
> stance, if you can call it an argumentative stance. Treating them as
> inanimate objects might propel or bring light to that view as it may
> initiate the idea of absurdity.
> I do think it's rather futile to argue with any side of an issue
> should they be so emotionally attached, as is often the case for most
> debates - especially the side of theism since it relies on deep-seeded
> emotions in spite of reason. It's the collateral observers who are
> less emotionally attached that debates really ever have any affect
> on. An argument against debating with theists is really an argument
> against debates in general.
> On Aug 18, 3:24 pm, Dev <thedevil...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> > My post was getting long so I probably didn't get around to really
> > saying all I wanted to. My problem is that the term "human being"
> > carries a lot of baggage that doesn't really apply to theists. It's
> > hard not to bring a lot of preconceptions to something you consider a
> > person that might not be necessarily relevant, and that doesn't help
> > anybody.
> > random and others tend to make an argument that if you can't reason
> > with theists respectably, then what can you do? The problem is that to
> > take a truly pragmatic approach, you can't have any delusions about
> > what you're dealing with. Regardless of whether or not the truth is
> > convenient, it is not pragmatic to ignore it. There is not a "debate"
> > about the value of theism in the way people have debates.
> > Consider two indisputable truths about theism:
> > (1) It causes a lot of damage to the world and everything on it--
> > established by all available evidence.
> > (2) At least 99.9% of the ideas contingent on theism must be lies
> > because of their mutually exclusive character. There is no rational
> > reason not to treat it as 100%, it is irrelevant whether or not you
> > can falsify 100% of it since there's no reason to accept it as truth
> > in the first place, but the fact remains that it is at least _almost_
> > all lies.
> > Would human beings debate about whether lies that kill people are a
> > good thing? Of course not. When we think of human beings we think of
> > someone capable of reason and empathy, not something that would rather
> > slit a child's throat than tell the truth--which is essentially the
> > choice anyone who perpetuates theism is making. The fact that they
> > don't acknowledge they are making this choice shows a disconnect from
> > the consequences of what they perpetuate that seems to go against the
> > hypothetical "human theist" we frame our points for.
> > We need to understand, at the very bottom of it, that all theists are
> > irrational terrorists by definition and work from there.
> > On Aug 17, 9:10 pm, watts <watts....@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I share your sentiments, but I don't share your view that it is a
> > > problem to athropomorphize theists, at least it is not evident to me
> > > that it is indeed a problem. I think the larger problem is giving
> > > stock and reverence to theists as supporters of society, like Walt and
> > > company do.
> > > I agree that arguing with a theist is indeed uncomfortably similar to
> > > talking with a wall, albeit not unreasonably equivalent. They react
> > > with the same mental capacity for intellectual growth and rationale as
> > > do the clinically brain-dead, or 'vegetables' (which begs the question
> > > if it is morally permissable to euthanise them, as has been
> > > suggested). Their mental storage contains the same catch-all cookie
> > > cutter responses of whose variety, tenacity, utility, and mutability
> > > allows little to be learned from other than that theists seem to be
> > > inseperably categorically equivalent to an inanimate objects. Would a
> > > Turing Test show differently?
> > > However, they certainly are human, and in some way or another they
> > > have been programmed (in all the glory of what that term implies) to
> > > think and react in a way that is inconsistent to the ideal of what
> > > should be human behavior. Yet they remain, and we must not forget
> > > that they are indeed human so as to be a living experiment of the
> > > capacity of mankind to subject themselves to the most irrational
> > > thoughts which devoid them of purpose. Unforunately, the theist meme
> > > virus (again in all the glory of what that term implies) is widespread
> > > and the cure, that is reason, is struggling to combat it. And as the
> > > virus spreads, we must acknowledge that these are human beings being
> > > infected so as to be congnizant of the fact that future human beings
> > > may be infected as well, just as easily. Thus we have a service to
> > > future generations to acknowledge the human characterization of
> > > theists so as to never forget what we all need to strive against, for
> > > ourselves and future generations.
> > > If the only way to achieve the obliteration of dogma is to treat those
> > > having it as inanimate objects, then it may be a mistake to
> > > anthropomorphize them. At which point, should the theist community
> > > become what we hope, a vast minority, we would or should reconstruct
> > > their similarity to the human race as a stark reminder of what the
> > > vast majority of mankind was and what it should avoid in the years to
> > > come.
> > > On Aug 18, 1:13 pm, Dev <thedevil...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> > > > From Dennett's review of _The God Delusion_:
> > > > "Both Dawkins and I have to deal with the frustrating problem of the
> > > > game of intellectual hide-and-seek that 'moderate' believers play to
> > > > avoid being pinned down to the underlying absurdities of their
> > > > traditions. 'Don’t be so literal-minded!' they chortle, marveling at
> > > > the philistinism of anyone who would attempt to take them at their
> > > > word and ask them for their grounds for asserting that, for instance,
> > > > God actually answers prayers (here, now, in the real world, by
> > > > performing miracles). But then as soon you start playing the metaphor
> > > > game with them, they abuse the poetic license you have granted them,
> > > > and delight in dancing around the truth, getting away with all sorts
> > > > of nonsense because they are indeed playing intellectual tennis
> > > > without a net. Dawkins’ solution is to adopt a rather less patient
> > > > attitude than I have done. As a philosopher, I cannot comfortably
> > > > adopt this policy, since I was trained to hunt for treasure in the
> > > > confused and confusing gropings of brilliant explorers, and am
Noted. I agree with your stance of ridicule being a useful tool, but
it should never go so far as to the ridiculer itself appearing to be
ridiculous as it would leave the ridiculer to becoming the ridiculee
and thus defeating the original purpose of the ridiculer.
All in all, I suspect that we do agree.
On Aug 18, 4:15 pm, Dev <thedevil...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
