If anyone has a spare SR3 code it'd be much appreciated; financially scraping my way through my last year of school so I'm trying to cover my entertainment on the cheap! haha
RsistncE's forum posts
@Still_I_Cry: Insulting? Yes. Juvenile? Probably not. You gotta be pretty moronic to believe in a religiously prescribed "God".
I wasn't referring to the article. I was referring to your use of an argumentum ad populum, or an appeal to the majority, which is a logical or argumentative fallacy. The majority (or minority) have no bearing on who bears the evidence: saying "god exists" is a positive statement and all rules of logic, rationality and the scientific method very clearly require you to present the evidence. I don't understand what part of this is so hard for you to understand (something else I tend to say to religious people...a lot).
@Asrahn: I never made a positive claim about the correlation between IQ's and religious beliefs, I was simply trying to be as insulting as possible to the mouth breathing majority of Americans (whom I barely consider to be worthy of the title "American" in the first place). Yes, educational level is positively correlated with socio-economic status and level; however, it is not perfectly correlated with poverty. That is besides the point; people like Still_I_Cry have access to all the educational resources they need to set them free from religiously indoctrinated nonsense. Education and enlightenment is a treatment for stupidity and ignorance; the lack of such a treatment leaves us with only stupidity and ignorance. So again: religious people are stupid and ignorant (call it a hypothesis).
Also I really don't care if it's "rude" to question someone's beliefs. I think I'm mostly dumbfounded that anyone could call the questioning of beliefs as absolutely retarded as religious beliefs to be "ignorant". If it's ignorant to stand by reason and rationality, then so be it. Just don't expect me to respect a society that operates in such a manner.
@Still_I_Cry said:
@RsistncE:
I get the feeling that you're really insecure about something, which is why you assert bullshit about the IQ of people who don't believe what you do.
The IQ thing was purely an insult, I wasn't making a positive or factual claim. I would have figured that the way in which I said it would have made that pretty clear.
"I also love how the you failed to understand who bears the burden of evidence when making a claim. "Failure to grasp." Those three words seem to come up a lot around religious nut bags."
Nah, I didn't. More than 70% of Americans believe in a higher power. Guess what? You are in the minority, meaning your views are not accepted by the majority, meaning the burden of proof is in fact, on you. Great job showing your understanding of that phrase. I believe "failure to grasp" is the correct term to apply to your understanding of said term.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/147887/americans-continue-believe-god.aspx
Also...
"When debating any issue, there is an implicit burden of proof on the person asserting a claim"
Your claim - Everyone who believes in God are idiots and have lower than triple digit IQs. Prove that to me. Read, Set, Go!
can't tell if srs or trolling...
@Asrahn said:
@RsistncE:
To be fair, it is impossible to prove a negative - in scientific terms. Thus, claiming that something definitely does not exist is rather unscientific.
On the other hand, seeing the nature of the claims to reality laid forth by religions, with different gods' attributes actually being discribed, the likelyhood of them existing is very low. They're gods of the gaps, these days.
Yup, pretty much. I make sure never to say that god doesn't exist, only that believing in god is akin to believing in the invisible pink unicorn etc.
Played in the same squad as Robin Williams once in BF2.
@SethPhotopoulos said:
@RsistncE said:
@SethPhotopoulos said:
@RsistncE said:
@SethPhotopoulos said:
@RsistncE said:
@Still_I_Cry said:
@RsistncE said:
It'll happen once the majority of Americans move into the triple digits in terms of their IQ. People who believe in god in the first place are idiots.
People who deny the existence of something when it hasn't been proven false, then proceed to call others who believe in it idiots are idiots.
Yay maturity.
Because that's totally how science and rational thinking operate.
Le sigh.
To be fair what you said makes you look ignorant and full of yourself. Coming from someone who doesn't believe in God.
Would you say the same if I were to say that fully grown adults who believe in Santa Claus were also idiots? If so, then your judgement of me is consistent, but I have a feeling you'd agree with me. How is believing in a different make believe entity any different? I have a hard time stopping myself from laughing when I hear people talk about "God".
It's honestly because It's needlessly antagonistic giving off the impression that you believe you are better than other people that believe in some higher power. There are plenty of very smart people that believe in God(s). It's people like you who give atheists a bad name. Create conflict when there is none needed. You can get into an intelligent and philosophical discussion about the existence of God(s) without having to resort to name calling. If you did that it would allow you and your opponent to grow as people. However what you do is nothing more than inflammatory degradations against people who think differently than you (which has been most posts I've seen of yours on the site). That stuff actually makes it look like you don't have the intellectual faculties to handle such important material for a conversation.
Being a religious moderate or respecting the institution of religion is akin to being a mafia wife. If you were part of an organization tied to so much misogyny, homophobia, violence and hate, you would resign in protest. To even suggest that there is any sort of intelligent debate to be had on the topic of "God" is disgustingly fallacious in two ways: first it suggests that the topic of the existence of such a deity is up for debate (which it isn't, since a debate requires two sides arguing on the basis of evidence and there exists no such evidence for the existence of a god). Second, it suggests that there is something inherently intelligent about debating the first point. I've been through my fair share of "intelligent religious debates" and I'll tell you right now that I've never encountered even one "debate" that has contained a religious individual who was able to effectively discuss the topic in a logical and rational manner. There's only so many times that I can watch a religious individual have everything about his belief system destroyed piece by piece, only to have them respond with, "Well I have faith." This level of stupidity is absolutely astounding. You can believe what you want about me, but I'm at that point now where talking to religious people is akin to talking to the mentally deranged: I can only listen to so much before I start backing away slowly.
EDIT: Also, I agree with you: a lot of what I've posted during my time here has been antagonistic and inflammatory to some extent. It's because I only get along with certain types of people in terms of thought processes. That's why I haven't posted here in nearly half a year, because I wasn't offering anything of value to the forums. Unfortunately I have a week off and was randomly surfing from the couch when I saw this thread...
A discussion isn't a debate. A discussion is an exchange of ideas to allow one another to gain the gift of insight. As you said a debate is an intellectual argument based on trying to reach a conclusion through evidence. I may have made a mistake in using the word opponent before. To say that being respectful or tolerant of religious beliefs to that of being a mafia wife is a fallacy. You are basing it on what you perceive is the stereotypical religious nut and applying it to most people who believe in God(s). Many people believe that there is a God but that he is a loving God that is open to all peoples. There are many atheists that are homophobic, violent, and misogynistic as well. Just because someone is religious it doesn't mean that they automatically subscribe to intolerant beliefs. And to talk of intelligence is hard to do seeing as there are many ways to measure it. Isaac Newton was very religious along with James Clerk Maxwell. You should probably also read about Charles Darwin and his religious wife. To say that people are stupid because they believe in God is a laughable notion. To say that it is dumb to believe in God is an ignorant thing to say. You don't know what brought that person to believe in the things they do because you don't take the time to talk with them, instead opting to insult them. There are people who go through a period of deep questioning, thought and research to believe the things they do. Sometimes that's later in life, sometimes earlier. I'm not going to say all religious people are like that but there are many that are.
I should also be clear here: when I refer to "God" I refer to the deity as described by the various religious institutions. The one that IS homophobic, misogynistic and an all around psychopath (as described by religious holy texts). Since "God" can be a term used to describe so many different types of entities, I wouldn't be foolish enough to label those who believe in some sort of higher being outside of the religious prescriptions as being stupid (as long as it is supported by some level of logical and rational scientific thought). This includes several theories in abiogenesis which purport that life may have been seeded here by an advanced civilization (extra-terrestrials which could invariably referred to as "God").
The Mafia wife analogy was more of a reference to the fact that the costs of being a moderate or being respectful to the religious institutions is far too high: from individual murders to massive acts of religiously inspired terrorism, religious moderates and closet atheists need to realize the cost of tolerating intolerance.
In terms of individuals like Isaac Newton et al: it's very difficult to compare individuals from such a vastly different time period (in terms of society and culture) since understanding of the natural word among other things was not that widespread. Even individuals such as Newton had very little understanding of the natural world compared to what the average Science student in college does. My reference to stupidity is in a contemporary context: with our current level of understanding there it is complete lunacy to believe in a religious god, such as the Judeo-Christian God. Religious arguments now literally fall back on one question that science is getting ever closer to answering: where did it all come from?. It's like Neil Degrasse Tyson said: "If that's how you want to evoke your evidence for god, then god is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance."
Your points on homophobia etc. existing among atheists is taken. However, that level of bigotry is FAR more prevalent among the religious, so it's hard to argue that much of that bigotry wouldn't disappear of religion were to go the way of the dodo.
At the end of the day though, the point is that without evidence to support something, you have to go on pure faith alone to believe in it. Faith is making a virtue out of not thinking. It's irrational and, by extension, stupid.
@SethPhotopoulos said:
@RsistncE said:
@SethPhotopoulos said:
@RsistncE said:
@Still_I_Cry said:
@RsistncE said:
It'll happen once the majority of Americans move into the triple digits in terms of their IQ. People who believe in god in the first place are idiots.
People who deny the existence of something when it hasn't been proven false, then proceed to call others who believe in it idiots are idiots.
Yay maturity.
Because that's totally how science and rational thinking operate.
Le sigh.
To be fair what you said makes you look ignorant and full of yourself. Coming from someone who doesn't believe in God.
Would you say the same if I were to say that fully grown adults who believe in Santa Claus were also idiots? If so, then your judgement of me is consistent, but I have a feeling you'd agree with me. How is believing in a different make believe entity any different? I have a hard time stopping myself from laughing when I hear people talk about "God".
It's honestly because It's needlessly antagonistic giving off the impression that you believe you are better than other people that believe in some higher power. There are plenty of very smart people that believe in God(s). It's people like you who give atheists a bad name. Create conflict when there is none needed. You can get into an intelligent and philosophical discussion about the existence of God(s) without having to resort to name calling. If you did that it would allow you and your opponent to grow as people. However what you do is nothing more than inflammatory degradations against people who think differently than you (which has been most posts I've seen of yours on the site). That stuff actually makes it look like you don't have the intellectual faculties to handle such important material for a conversation.
Being a religious moderate or respecting the institution of religion is akin to being a mafia wife. If you were part of an organization tied to so much misogyny, homophobia, violence and hate, you would resign in protest. To even suggest that there is any sort of intelligent debate to be had on the topic of "God" is disgustingly fallacious in two ways: first it suggests that the topic of the existence of such a deity is up for debate (which it isn't, since a debate requires two sides arguing on the basis of evidence and there exists no such evidence for the existence of a god). Second, it suggests that there is something inherently intelligent about debating the first point. I've been through my fair share of "intelligent religious debates" and I'll tell you right now that I've never encountered even one "debate" that has contained a religious individual who was able to effectively discuss the topic in a logical and rational manner. There's only so many times that I can watch a religious individual have everything about his belief system destroyed piece by piece, only to have them respond with, "Well I have faith." This level of stupidity is absolutely astounding. You can believe what you want about me, but I'm at that point now where talking to religious people is akin to talking to the mentally deranged: I can only listen to so much before I start backing away slowly.
EDIT: Also, I agree with you: a lot of what I've posted during my time here has been antagonistic and inflammatory to some extent. It's because I only get along with certain types of people in terms of thought processes. That's why I haven't posted here in nearly half a year, because I wasn't offering anything of value to the forums. Unfortunately I have a week off and was randomly surfing from the couch when I saw this thread...
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