An interesting argument

[Purple]

I am posting this argument here and not in SLAM because admittedly it was posted on another board as a half trolling exercise but got serious later on. So I just want to know if you guys can shoot any holes in it that they could not, since they could not find any.

Starting Assumptions:
1. We know that modern science has proven things like the laws of physics, the geological creation of the earth and evolution.
2. We know that the fact presented in #1 automatically disproves things like creation myths and magical creatures that defy the laws of physics. After all god could not have created the world in 7 days if evolution and geology are right, and they have been proven to be.
3. A person that rejects the proven fundamental laws that govern our universe and substitutes a fairy tale is in most cases considered medically insane. For example if I rejected the law of gravity and jumped out of a window or if I insisted I saw a flying pink elephant I would be considered medically insane.

Going from the above assumption we must conclude the fallowing:
Since we know that the laws of physics and things like evolution have been proven (#1) and that they automatically disprove most if not all of religious writing (#2) we must conclude that any person who accepts such writings as factual is in fact either double thinking (split personality disorder, logical inconsistencies indicative of insanity etc.) or rejecting the same laws of physics and reality and substituting an imaginary (as indicated by #2) work of fiction in their place. And as #3 indicates such behavior is indicative of medical insanity.

And no mater how liberal you are I think you will be hard pressed to give a case that will disprove the above.


Even so, due to its long history and connection with society religion seems to get preferential treatment. I mean, why is it that if I say I saw a pink elephant flying I am seen as a lunatic but if I say I have seen an angle I am seen as a believer? Why are the two any different? Both reject the laws of physics and both are factually wrong. So they both must be works of my imagination brought into the open by a inability to distinguish reality from fantasy indicative of delusions.

Because of this, I simply consider that the hypocrisy must end. Religion should be ban and exterminated like all the other delusion inducing disorders.


So people, testing is open tell me what you think.

[Simon_Jester]

I think that there's such a tremendous variance in "religious beliefs" that talking about all "religious believers" in a lump category like this is utterly retarded.

For one, most people's religious experiences don't boil down to "I have seen a flying pink elephant, er, angel." It's more abstract, more spiritual, and well out into woo-woo territory that "modern science*" does not and cannot address. So you can't just say "modern science proves that what you think happened to you can't have happened to you, therefore you are insane."

If they say "Show me the peer-reviewed publication that proves reincarnation can't happen. I dare you, I double-dog dare you." you're pretty much going to have to admit you can't.

If you say "Geology proves that this land bridge wasn't built by the Monkey God," because things like that don't normally happen, they will reply "no shit, we already knew stuff like that doesn't normally happen. That's the whole point of the story." The Romans knew as well as anyone else that water doesn't turn into wine naturally; you're not going to render a miracle any more impossible than it already is by explaining why the laws of physics require that water doesn't turn into wine naturally.

*Insofar as there's anything especially 'modern' about stuff done in the 1800s...
__________

For that matter, in healthy systems for treatment of the mentally ill, we don't treat people as insane purely because they believe impossible things. We treat them this way when their beliefs lead them into behavioral consequences that are bad and dangerous- which, with a tiny fringe minority of exceptions, religious beliefs do not do.

I've met people who were obviously mentally ill, or so low-functioning they might as well be. I've met people who were intensely religious. There is a substantial difference. I've even met someone who was both, and you had better believe that her mental illness made her far harder to deal with than her religious views ever could have.

So basically, this whole argument is nothing but an anticlerical screed of the sort that helps to perpetuate the image of modernity as being so utterly opposed to religion that religious believers feel compelled to circle the wagons and try to tear down modernity, on an "it's us or them" basis.

[Purple]

Alright, let the fun begin.

I think that there's such a tremendous variance in "religious beliefs" that talking about all "religious believers" in a lump category like this is utterly retarded.

Why? We know that most religious believers accept some fundamental things that are shared:
1. The existance of god or gods that are outside of the laws of phisics
2. The creation of the world by means other than science
3. The existence of some form of afterlife and other miracles that can not be proven scientifically

Now, we know that #1 and #2 fit perfectly with what I said. As for #3 it raises a different even more terrifying prospect. Not only are these people willing to believe in fairy tales but they are also perfectly willing to reject the scientific method and believe in things that can not be proven simply "because". I find believing in the afterlife because your priest told you about it no different than believing someone who told you he saw a pink flying elephant. After all, neither claim can be conclusively proven wrong. Now, I don't think I need to point out the obvious deficiencies with such a line of reasoning.

For one, most people's religious experiences don't boil down to "I have seen a flying pink elephant, er, angel." It's more abstract, more spiritual, and well out into woo-woo territory that "modern science*" does not and cannot address. So you can't just say "modern science proves that what you think happened to you can't have happened to you, therefore you are insane."

That is exactly what we can say. And it is what we should say. Just because someone believes in something does not mean it is true. And if he can't prove his claims he should either stop believing in them or be considered insane. After all, that is how we classify delusional people. They are people who believe in things that are not real.

If they say "Show me the peer-reviewed publication that proves reincarnation can't happen. I dare you, I double-dog dare you." you're pretty much going to have to admit you can't.

Show me one that proves it does. And if you can't, tell me why you must asume it does.

If you say "Geology proves that this land bridge wasn't built by the Monkey God," because things like that don't normally happen, they will reply "no shit, we already knew stuff like that doesn't normally happen. That's the whole point of the story." The Romans knew as well as anyone else that water doesn't turn into wine naturally; you're not going to render a miracle any more impossible than it already is by explaining why the laws of physics require that water doesn't turn into wine naturally.

The problem is the way of thinking that allows people to accept that if something does not normally happen that does not (when it should) automatically mean it can not happen. If physics says something can't happen in a certain way than it can not happen.

Any story that defies the laws of physics should newer be considered plausible. Anyone who can in the right mind claim that yes water does not turn into vine and yes Jesus did turn water into vine has to be double thinking. After all, he is claiming the coexistence of two mutually excluding statements.

For that matter, in healthy systems for treatment of the mentally ill, we don't treat people as insane purely because they believe impossible things. We treat them this way when their beliefs lead them into behavioral consequences that are bad and dangerous- which, with a tiny fringe minority of exceptions, religious beliefs do not do.

But they do. Religion, even in non hard line communities produce a way of thinking that is backward and negative to the society as a whole. For example, people will not teach their children about sex and contraception because they believe in not doing that. People will reject blood transfusions, indoctrinate children with anti scientific views and generally end with such things.

And even if we only focus on the fringe group that can be called hard liners look at it from this angle. Only a small percentage of drug addicts end up as mass murdering raping psychopaths that will kill and rape you to take your money to get high. Than why do we persecute all addicts and not just that small fringe group.

I've met people who were obviously mentally ill, or so low-functioning they might as well be. I've met people who were intensely religious. There is a substantial difference. I've even met someone who was both, and you had better believe that her mental illness made her far harder to deal with than her religious views ever could have.

What illnes in particular was it? Since diffrent illneses have diffrent effects. Althou I guess we can skip that part since I can take your word for it since I am not in the mood to be exposed to horror stories.

But either way, the point I was trying to make is that one can't ever in the right mind justify both the laws of physics and religion as they are for all intents and purposes mutually exclusive.

PS. I don't consider religious those people that cheery pick their way only to accepting things like heaven and hell or reincarnation but rejecting the creation myths. The moment you cheery pick so much that the book fits in the laws of physics you have already removed 99% of it.

PPS. Due to my limited knowledge of religions I am only referring to the Judeo-Cristian religious group and not to say Buddhists or Hinduisms. My argument can therefore only be taken toward these.

So basically, this whole argument is nothing but an anticlerical screed of the sort that helps to perpetuate the image of modernity as being so utterly opposed to religion that religious believers feel compelled to circle the wagons and try to tear down modernity, on an "it's us or them" basis.

Well yes. That is why I put in in testing and not SLAM.

The way I see it we should force logic and scientific thinking on people and force them to use the scientific method when determining what they chose to accept as the reality that they live in.

[Simon_Jester]

Alright, let the fun begin.

I think that there's such a tremendous variance in "religious beliefs" that talking about all "religious believers" in a lump category like this is utterly retarded.

Why? We know that most religious believers accept some fundamental things that are shared:
1. The existance of god or gods that are outside of the laws of phisics
2. The creation of the world by means other than science
3. The existence of some form of afterlife and other miracles that can not be proven scientifically.

Now, we know that #1 and #2 fit perfectly with what I said. As for #3 it raises a different even more terrifying prospect. Not only are these people willing to believe in fairy tales but they are also perfectly willing to reject the scientific method and believe in things that can not be proven simply "because". I find believing in the afterlife because your priest told you about it no different than believing someone who told you he saw a pink flying elephant. After all, neither claim can be conclusively proven wrong. Now, I don't think I need to point out the obvious deficiencies with such a line of reasoning.

You do, however, need to establish that these deficiencies are large enough to fall under the heading of "mental illness" in order to justify attempts to treat this as a mental illness.

"Illogical" is not the same as "insane," and you should be very very grateful for that fact- as should we all.

You would have to meet an even more rigorous standard to justify the idea that illogical beliefs should be persecuted for their bad logic. Hint: if you're planning to persecute everyone who has illogical opinions, you're going to run out of jailors to guard all the people you've thrown into prison for being illogical.

For one, most people's religious experiences don't boil down to "I have seen a flying pink elephant, er, angel." It's more abstract, more spiritual, and well out into woo-woo territory that "modern science*" does not and cannot address. So you can't just say "modern science proves that what you think happened to you can't have happened to you, therefore you are insane."

That is exactly what we can say. And it is what we should say. Just because someone believes in something does not mean it is true. And if he can't prove his claims he should either stop believing in them or be considered insane. After all, that is how we classify delusional people. They are people who believe in things that are not real.

Ah-ha. I see the problem.

Insanity doesn't work that way, Purple. We live in a world full of impressions, of inferences, of structural beliefs about how the world works and ought to work, about how the people around us work and ought to work.

I may believe that my friend is a supremely honorable, reliable and trustworthy person, while my father believes they are untrustworthy and unreliable. You believe that authorities are to be trusted with lots of power and given lots of deference. I believe I've met all too few authorities who deserve to have me not spit in their eye. We're looking at the same dataset; which of us is insane?

Short answer: neither. We have incompatible perspectives; that doesn't make either of us crazy. There are a large number of valid and viable ways of being human. Trying to suppress all the ones you don't like leads to tremendous horror in exchange for little or no payoff.

People are not diagnosed with insanity that requires them to be forcibly 'cured' against their will purely on the basis that they believe things that are not true. Look up the list of symptoms for real mental illnesses in the DSM-IV sometime. You will always find that for each "harbors delusions" symptom, there are a number of other "behaves thus-and-such in a way that hurts themselves or those around them" symptoms. Insanity is defined in terms of the function, or lack thereof, of your thought process. Not in terms of its form or content.

If they say "Show me the peer-reviewed publication that proves reincarnation can't happen. I dare you, I double-dog dare you." you're pretty much going to have to admit you can't.

Show me one that proves it does. And if you can't, tell me why you must asume it does.

I am not obliged to believe only the things that I must believe. People who actually think and participate in society do not and cannot operate that way.

Saying "NO, the burden of proof is on YOU!" is a charming* way to solve Internet versus debates. It is a shitty way to solve problems in real life.

*For certain definitions of 'charm.' Bad ones.

If you say "Geology proves that this land bridge wasn't built by the Monkey God," because things like that don't normally happen, they will reply "no shit, we already knew stuff like that doesn't normally happen. That's the whole point of the story." The Romans knew as well as anyone else that water doesn't turn into wine naturally; you're not going to render a miracle any more impossible than it already is by explaining why the laws of physics require that water doesn't turn into wine naturally.

The problem is the way of thinking that allows people to accept that if something does not normally happen that does not (when it should) automatically mean it can not happen. If physics says something can't happen in a certain way than it can not happen.

Any story that defies the laws of physics should newer be considered plausible. Anyone who can in the right mind claim that yes water does not turn into vine and yes Jesus did turn water into vine has to be double thinking. After all, he is claiming the coexistence of two mutually excluding statements.

Ahem, we are speaking English. "Vine" is a type of plant which spreads out along surfaces in long ropelike formations; "wine" is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented grapes.

That aside, science doesn't work that way either. For purposes of intellectual debate, "any story that defies the laws of physics should never be considered plausible," fine, whatever. For purposes of deciding which people to oppress, that's an utterly psychotic standard to apply.

Most people, yourself included, are not qualified to comment on what does and does not defy the laws of physics. Or biology. Or sociology. Or common bloody sense, all too often. If we start imprisoning or (worse yet) hospitalizing people every time they believe something that some researcher thinks isn't true, we're going to run out of jailors very quickly.

The really big, horrendous flaw in your argument is that you do not recognize the difference between "you are wrong," "you are crazy," "you are evil," and "I should punish you for being wrong, crazy, and evil."

I'd argue that if you cannot see what's wrong with that, you are simply not qualified to make public policy, or to comment on it.

---

For that matter, in healthy systems for treatment of the mentally ill, we don't treat people as insane purely because they believe impossible things. We treat them this way when their beliefs lead them into behavioral consequences that are bad and dangerous- which, with a tiny fringe minority of exceptions, religious beliefs do not do.

But they do. Religion, even in non hard line communities produce a way of thinking that is backward and negative to the society as a whole. For example, people will not teach their children about sex and contraception because they believe in not doing that. People will reject blood transfusions, indoctrinate children with anti scientific views and generally end with such things.

People will also do these things, and worse things, for reasons that have nothing to do with religion. Remember the Khmer Rouge?

Religion is not the problem here. The failure of civil society to reach out and bring people into the modern age is. And exclusionist bullshit about how anyone who doesn't follow the Rational Orthodoxy* deserves to be killed/hospitalized/marginalized/whatever isn't helping. People have been doing that since the French Revolution and it never works, because it is always worse than the disease it pretends to cure.

*Does the historical irony of "rationalist orthodoxy" not seem funny to you?

And even if we only focus on the fringe group that can be called hard liners look at it from this angle. Only a small percentage of drug addicts end up as mass murdering raping psychopaths that will kill and rape you to take your money to get high. Than why do we persecute all addicts and not just that small fringe group.

Because our policies are stupid and designed by fascists, much as the ones you advocate are stupid and designed by fascists.

I've met people who were obviously mentally ill, or so low-functioning they might as well be. I've met people who were intensely religious. There is a substantial difference. I've even met someone who was both, and you had better believe that her mental illness made her far harder to deal with than her religious views ever could have.

What illnes in particular was it? Since diffrent illneses have diffrent effects. Althou I guess we can skip that part since I can take your word for it since I am not in the mood to be exposed to horror stories.

One wonders why you're so willing to create horror stories when you're not willing to be exposed to them.

As to that, though, I never saw her diagnosed. I just know she was socially dysfunctional: had trouble holding onto a coherent train of thought or speech, had trouble understanding basic concepts unless they were explained very carefully and repetitively, had trouble following relatively simple instructions, and so on. Heavily preoccupied by various fears, often had difficulty doing anything to avoid the problems she feared because she feared them so much. Still lived with her parents in her forties, and away from home she was very dependent on the kindness of strangers.

But I'm not going to do an amateur psychologist diagnosis of her- all I know is that something was wrong with that poor woman. And religion wasn't the half of it, nor even the 10% of it. That's mental illness; it's much worse, much uglier, than religion.

But either way, the point I was trying to make is that one can't ever in the right mind justify both the laws of physics and religion as they are for all intents and purposes mutually exclusive.

PS. I don't consider religious those people that cheery pick their way only to accepting things like heaven and hell or reincarnation but rejecting the creation myths. The moment you cheery pick so much that the book fits in the laws of physics you have already removed 99% of it.

Cherry not cheery. Also, to be perfectly blunt, you have not told any religious person anything they didn't already know when you say "the laws of nature don't allow for miracles." Indeed, from their perspective that's the point: water cannot normally turn into wine without divine intervention. They already knew that. Telling them about the laws of chemistry does not tell them anything new in that respect, just as people in the Iron Age knew it was impossible for rocks to fall up long before Isaac Newton slapped an equation on that piece of knowledge.

And ultimately, science does not and cannot meaningfully address the existence of gods- they are unfalsifiable because they are not obliged to play by the rules. Unfalsifiability can make them something to be kept out of debate. It cannot make them something to be banned from civilization. If you banned all unfalsifiable beliefs, you'd have nothing left to live for. Or to live on.

PPS. Due to my limited knowledge of religions I am only referring to the Judeo-Cristian religious group and not to say Buddhists or Hinduisms. My argument can therefore only be taken toward these.

Well then. Your knowledge is so limited I question your qualification to speak on the subject of banning religion.

So basically, this whole argument is nothing but an anticlerical screed of the sort that helps to perpetuate the image of modernity as being so utterly opposed to religion that religious believers feel compelled to circle the wagons and try to tear down modernity, on an "it's us or them" basis.

Well yes. That is why I put in in testing and not SLAM.

It didn't get less stupid because you put it somewhere it would get deleted eventually.

The way I see it we should force logic and scientific thinking on people and force them to use the scientific method when determining what they chose to accept as the reality that they live in.

Ah, yes, the Tyranny of Virtue, the Dictatorship of Reason, the Reign of Terror in the name of Liberty. That's old stuff, you know, dates back to the French Revolution and Robespierre.

Do you have any idea how many people would suffer under this kind of regime, yourself included? I mean, hell, the very belief "I should live and not die" is unfalsifiable. Humanity did not evolve to run on robot-logic. If you cannot accept that life is full of uncertainty, inference, and impressionistic thinking, you cannot function in the same world as the rest of us... in which case, by your own argument, you don't belong and you shouldn't be making rules for the rest of us as if you did.

[Akhlut]

Purple, a couple of things to consider.

1. Humans evolved from hominids that did not and could not compile datasets and do statistical analysis on them to determine that X because of Y with a 95% confidence interval. Humans evolved in an environment that required intuition and snap judgments, both of which lead to Magical Thinking. All humans are prone to this to some extent. Religion may exaggerate its effect (or it might not: perhaps people more prone to magical thinking might be more religious), but all humans engage in it. Even atheists can be superstitious and phobic.

2. Religion is too variable to say it is all bad all the time. I'm an atheist so I'm not fond of religion on the grounds that I am very confident that it is false. However, to say it is EEEEEVIL is pretty stupid. Sure, the old maxim that you need religion for good men to do evil is roughly true, but that can be applied to any philosophy or ideology humans can conceive, from thoroughly atheistic ones like Stalinism or Juche to complete religious mania like Jim Jones or the Thugee cult. Further, religion can be used to advance nearly any position, from Flat-Earth Christians and the WBC to PhDs in science who belong to liberal churches and universalists who believe all sentient beings shall be in heaven with Jesus. Why should the universalists and the PhD Christians be interred? Because they believe, broadly, in the same deity as Fred Phelps? Oh shit, I think Carl Sagan is a good guy and so do some Objectivists! Better throw the baby out with the bathwater!

3. Finally, the crux of your argument boils down to the idea that this behavior is somehow something that can be eliminated from humans. Point 1 is a lynchpin saying this behavior ins ingrainted into us primates and likely will be forever as long as we're organic organisms.

[Akhlut]

Additionally: you're exhibiting that very same magical thinking that you believe is so detrimental to humans. "If we eliminate religion, things must get better! I know this because look at how religious people act!"

The problem is that you're probably attributing general human behavior to religion, rather than to general human behavior. All humans are naturally selfish, violent in the right circumstances, and just assholes in general. Religion is a bit of a wash for modifying human behavior; my father-in-law was a violent enforcer for the Hell's Angels and was part of the Aryan Brotherhood in prison before he was Saved by Jesus in prison. Now he's a fairly good human being who is interested in doing good work (even if it is something I feel is completely useless, namely, trying to "save" other people) and has abandoned any and all potentially racist underpinnings. However, we see Fred Phelps justifying his dickery with Jesus, too. So, like I said, a wash for religion there.

The fact is, though, most of humanity's problems stem from the fact that we're short-sighted and prone to violence, both relics from our evolutionary past. Long-term planning isn't an asset for semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who can't be sure if there will be a feast or a famine next season, so best to gorge now while there is food in case there is a famine. Thus, we have obesity and resource overusage in the modern era. It is similar for most other human problems: they're mostly caused by the fact that we're stupid monkeys rather then by any one specific ideology, philosophy, or religion.

[Phantasee]

It is a fact that all the preceding posters are fucking crazy. They should be locked up for even reading the OP.

[Sela]

Starting Assumptions:
1. We know that modern science has proven things like the laws of physics, the geological creation of the earth and evolution.
2. We know that the fact presented in #1 automatically disproves things like creation myths and magical creatures that defy the laws of physics. After all god could not have created the world in 7 days if evolution and geology are right, and they have been proven to be.
3. A person that rejects the proven fundamental laws that govern our universe and substitutes a fairy tale is in most cases considered medically insane. For example if I rejected the law of gravity and jumped out of a window or if I insisted I saw a flying pink elephant I would be considered medically insane.[/b]

I defy your starting assumptions.
[1] If you assume 'proof' has uncertainty written into it, then I'd agree with you. The way you've written it, you're assuming that one must accept Occam's Razor and induction. Not everyone agrees with your metaphysics or believes they must always apply.

[2] Again, I disagree. All it does is show that there is no evidence to support such a thing. You can't always prove a negative (ie: sometimes you can, but most the time you can't). The same way that you can't ever be certain of what's written in 1 - only 'sufficiently sure', you can't prove '2' either.
Recall, science is the process of coming up with models that fit the facts at our disposal (assuming, of course, we all accept that what we see and hear are 'factual', yet another twist). We then fine tune these models as much as possible. Unless you can be sure you have ALL the facts, you can't know that there aren't outliers in the data you aren't aware of. Further, just because all indications are that reality *is* consistent, you really can't *prove* that it must be or that it always will be.

[3] Yet again you're wrong, as the key-components in determining sanity are not cut-and-dried objective criterion, but rather are heavily rooted in the consequences of the belief. The objective criterion include hallucinations, psychosis, and [most useful to your viewpoint]-delusions. However, a key component in diagnosing something as a delusion is the social-acceptability of beliefs. There is a certain degree of irrationality that is "normal" as part of being a human. Until the human race evolves out of their biologically rooted pattern of believing without proof and generalizing based on small amounts of evidence there is no reason to believe that we as a society will generally consider people insane for showing disbelief in fundamental laws; depending of course on how it manifests. You insist you can fly, we'll say you're crazy. You insist that the speed of light is *NOT* a firm barrier and limit, and you'll find yourself still in a societally acceptaed bunch.

[Akhlut]

It is a fact that all the preceding posters are fucking crazy. They should be locked up for even reading the OP.

To be fair, I avoided reading anything Purple wrote after the first few lines. I just read Simon's responses and went off of those.

[Sela]

The problem is the way of thinking that allows people to accept that if something does not normally happen that does not (when it should) automatically mean it can not happen. If physics says something can't happen in a certain way than it can not happen.

Your faith in the permanence of universal laws and the consistent nature of the universe should stand as a glowing example to believers everywhere.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, I have faith in universal natural laws in the same sense I have faith in a table.

The table is there. It would be foolish to question the existence of the table. I can use the table, can rely on it, can lean on it and put stuff on it. The table is not 50% there and 50% not there, or existentially uncertain and thus not always able to hold stuff. It is a good table, and one I know will still be there tomorrow when I need it, barring bizarre (yet in some sense predictable) accidents. I am glad to have my table.

It's a table. The question of whether I have faith in it is irrelevant; it's right there.

The same applies to the system of universal natural laws. Its sheer overwhelming real-ness is such that it does not need a corps of true-believers willing to fight for it.

Because of this, I do not feel any urge to dismiss things that defy or operate outside the system of natural laws. I don't feel that my universe is somehow made 'worse' by having those things, or 'better' by not having them around. I do not feel that being ignorant of such laws is a priori proof that you are an inferior person. I do not feel that people need to be punished for asserting that the system of natural laws isn't the be-all and end-all of the Cosmic Whole.

Purple seems to feel all those things I do not feel.

[Sela]

Precisely; but that isn't terribly surprising. Purple is, after all, a sociopath. And I mean that in denotation only; it's natural that a sociopath would have a harder time with those feelings.

[Purple]

You do, however, need to establish that these deficiencies are large enough to fall under the heading of "mental illness" in order to justify attempts to treat this as a mental illness.

Well ok, I hereby concede to you on this point and add to my argument that the level of believing should be scaled and people grouped into different groups based on said level and treated differently. So say someone who is a casual believer would only be baned from doing it while the die hard fanatic gets shot in the head.

That better?

"Illogical" is not the same as "insane," and you should be very very grateful for that fact- as should we all.

You would have to meet an even more rigorous standard to justify the idea that illogical beliefs should be persecuted for their bad logic. Hint: if you're planning to persecute everyone who has illogical opinions, you're going to run out of jailors to guard all the people you've thrown into prison for being illogical.

Well it would hardly be the first time something like I said was implemented. After all did we not clamp down on racism, sexism, and other similar things that were equally simply illogical beliefs that fueled hate and evil like religion does.

Ah-ha. I see the problem.

Insanity doesn't work that way, Purple. We live in a world full of impressions, of inferences, of structural beliefs about how the world works and ought to work, about how the people around us work and ought to work.

That hardly changes the fact that if someone believes something that is factually false and is presented with the evidence to it being false should change his beliefs or be called insane, or at least an ignorant scum.

Be honest, is that not how this board treats those that ignore evidence and logic in favor of conviction? I only seek to bring that sort of behavior to the entire world.

I may believe that my friend is a supremely honorable, reliable and trustworthy person, while my father believes they are untrustworthy and unreliable. You believe that authorities are to be trusted with lots of power and given lots of deference. I believe I've met all too few authorities who deserve to have me not spit in their eye. We're looking at the same dataset; which of us is insane?

Short answer: neither. We have incompatible perspectives; that doesn't make either of us crazy. There are a large number of valid and viable ways of being human. Trying to suppress all the ones you don't like leads to tremendous horror in exchange for little or no payoff.

I think you completely missed the point here. This is not about some perspective or arbitrary belief. It is about denying the laws of physics. There is no universal scale to calculate how much good or bad a person someone is or how much power one should give to the government or how much sugar one should put in his coffee. But there are quite real rules on how the universe works. And if someone ignores these rules or choses to interpret them creatively that is quite different than having a difference of opinion on what you said.

People are not diagnosed with insanity that requires them to be forcibly 'cured' against their will purely on the basis that they believe things that are not true. Look up the list of symptoms for real mental illnesses in the DSM-IV sometime. You will always find that for each "harbors delusions" symptom, there are a number of other "behaves thus-and-such in a way that hurts themselves or those around them" symptoms. Insanity is defined in terms of the function, or lack thereof, of your thought process. Not in terms of its form or content.

Well ok, than religion is not insanity, at least not in the sense that medicine recognizes. But I still do think that it is a sick state of mind that should be cured.

I am not obliged to believe only the things that I must believe. People who actually think and participate in society do not and cannot operate that way.

And that is exatcly my arguement you are quoting there. Not only should people not be oblidged to believe they should be forbiden to do so. People should by law only be allowed to adress issues with logic and scientific enquiry, well at least the issues that actually invaulve the laws of phisics.

Saying "NO, the burden of proof is on YOU!" is a charming* way to solve Internet versus debates. It is a shitty way to solve problems in real life.

I do believe that it is a common rule in science that if a new conjecture or theory is brought up than the burden of proof is on the person who wishes to prove it exists. For example, when Einstein formulated relativity it was his job to prove it right. You don't assume something is right until proven wrong but wrong until proven right.

Ahem, we are speaking English. "Vine" is a type of plant which spreads out along surfaces in long ropelike formations; "wine" is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented grapes.

Does it really mater? Joke aside neither of them can be magically transformed into from water last time I checked.

That aside, science doesn't work that way either. For purposes of intellectual debate, "any story that defies the laws of physics should never be considered plausible," fine, whatever. For purposes of deciding which people to oppress, that's an utterly psychotic standard to apply.

It's no worse than any other. And it at least has grounding in something that can be scientifically measured.

Most people, yourself included, are not qualified to comment on what does and does not defy the laws of physics. Or biology. Or sociology. Or common bloody sense, all too often. If we start imprisoning or (worse yet) hospitalizing people every time they believe something that some researcher thinks isn't true, we're going to run out of jailors very quickly.

Not imprison, cure.

The really big, horrendous flaw in your argument is that you do not recognize the difference between "you are wrong," "you are crazy," "you are evil," and "I should punish you for being wrong, crazy, and evil."

But ain't that the way we do things here? I mean, you single out those that are wrong, prove them wrong and if they fail to comply punish them. That looks like a fine system that will eventually weed out all the ones that are wrong. And that is in the greater interests of man kind.

I'd argue that if you cannot see what's wrong with that, you are simply not qualified to make public policy, or to comment on it.

Well ok, thank you for stating the bleeding obvious. (you can take that as my concession on the point of my political qualifications)

People will also do these things, and worse things, for reasons that have nothing to do with religion. Remember the Khmer Rouge?

So your argument is that because people who are not religious also commit crimes religion newer causes crimes? That is a huge leap of logic there. Sure, some of the people who did the things they did would have done it anyway but that does not mean there are no people that would not have.

Religion is not the problem here. The failure of civil society to reach out and bring people into the modern age is. And exclusionist bullshit about how anyone who doesn't follow the Rational Orthodoxy* deserves to be killed/hospitalized/marginalized/whatever isn't helping. People have been doing that since the French Revolution and it never works, because it is always worse than the disease it pretends to cure.

The reason it has not worked is because such a project would need to span at least like 5-10 generations to ensure that it works.

*Does the historical irony of "rationalist orthodoxy" not seem funny to you?

Yes, yes it does.

Because our policies are stupid and designed by fascists, much as the ones you advocate are stupid and designed by fascists.

So wait, people in the government are actually quite like me? I don't know if I should take that as a compliment or something to be scared off. Probably both.

One wonders why you're so willing to create horror stories when you're not willing to be exposed to them.

And that is the thanks I get for not wanting to make you re live horror stories from your past. I was trying to be human here... see how it bounces back on me.

But I'm not going to do an amateur psychologist diagnosis of her- all I know is that something was wrong with that poor woman. And religion wasn't the half of it, nor even the 10% of it. That's mental illness; it's much worse, much uglier, than religion.

Anything I say would feel insensitive and cold even if I tried to sound as human as possible. So I won't say anything, but know I am touched.

Cherry not cheery.

Blame http://www.iespell.com they do my spell checking. Well they and a bottle of vodka but that's another story.

Also, to be perfectly blunt, you have not told any religious person anything they didn't already know when you say "the laws of nature don't allow for miracles." Indeed, from their perspective that's the point: water cannot normally turn into wine without divine intervention. They already knew that. Telling them about the laws of chemistry does not tell them anything new in that respect, just as people in the Iron Age knew it was impossible for rocks to fall up long before Isaac Newton slapped an equation on that piece of knowledge.

You are missing the point again. The way I understand it there are diffrent ways of thought for normal and religious people.

Normal Person: The laws of phisics say X can not happen, the bible says X did happen, the laws of phisics reign supreme ergo the bible must be wrong

Believer: The laws of phisics say X can not happen, the bible says X did happen, GOD IS GREAT!

Now, if you can't see why the second way of thinking is dangerous at best and outright scary at worst I can't help you.

And ultimately, science does not and cannot meaningfully address the existence of gods- they are unfalsifiable because they are not obliged to play by the rules. Unfalsifiability can make them something to be kept out of debate. It cannot make them something to be banned from civilization. If you banned all unfalsifiable beliefs, you'd have nothing left to live for. Or to live on.

See above.

It didn't get less stupid because you put it somewhere it would get deleted eventually.

Maybe, but that combined with the 1st sentence of my 1st post here and my signature should be giving you a clue that it is not exactly trying to be either.

I simply get a kick out of taking up such an extremist stance and seeing how long I can maintain it against people. And so far your skill has provided me with great fun.

Ah, yes, the Tyranny of Virtue, the Dictatorship of Reason, the Reign of Terror in the name of Liberty. That's old stuff, you know, dates back to the French Revolution and Robespierre.

I know, I really liked them. Well apart from the kill everyone regardless of if they are actually guilty or not. To give my opinion, their ideals were good but their implementation of said ideals sucked. Kind of like say East Germany.

Do you have any idea how many people would suffer under this kind of regime, yourself included?

If a man is not ready to suffer for his beliefs does he have the moral right to hold them?

I mean, hell, the very belief "I should live and not die" is unfalsifiable. Humanity did not evolve to run on robot-logic. If you cannot accept that life is full of uncertainty, inference, and impressionistic thinking, you cannot function in the same world as the rest of us... in which case, by your own argument, you don't belong and you shouldn't be making rules for the rest of us as if you did.

Still, you have to admit that my rules are based on sound logic that the belief in the impossible is a bad thing.

Will answer the others later.

But yes, I am a mild sociopath. I can feel for others but I am capable of separating said feelings from what I believe should be done. Kind of Vulcan, only not.

[Duckie]

Allow me to add this, as I think the fundamental underpinnings of your argument are incorrect:

Many forms of Buddhism and other religions I am less familiar with (that we could call 'progressive' if we were to somewhat awkwardly try to compare trends in religious beliefs to the christian trends) have little problem with being unprovable and make little claim to actually being true. Further, most rational believers accept the primacy of science in all matters of daily life (telling impossible stories is different, and science fiction in particular would be a lot more boring if strict rationalism and scientific law were stuck to, as an example close to this board's heart.) Further, a 'progressive' believer observes secular and humanist customs because as a moral system they tend to make more sense than not doing so (although I have some bones with humanism, it's mostly nitpicking on how exactly one should arrive at similar conclusions rather than the ideas themselves).

Does it exactly matter why the believer behaves in a certain way? If the way to gain a good rebirth among the six worlds is to be a good person, there's little problem with believing in the transmigration of human souls, no? Or is merely the believing of an incorrect idea ideologically wrong, even if it results in a net neutral or even net positive? Such an ideology would seem to be silly, because people oversimplify things or give simpler-but-wrong answers all the time. The Bohr Atom is a nice symbol for atomic energy, it's not immoral to use it or even enjoy the aesthetics of such a symbol simply because we know it's wrong.

The mythical tales of heroes and gods and whatnot don't need to be true. They're more interesting to many people to believe in than not, but even if they aren't, they still fulfill their function of being entertaining, enlightening, or for a few showcasing moral truths (most of those aesop-esque stories are boring though, and you can explain it just as easily with secular, rational explanations rather than 'The spirit of the mountain did this, therefore (do something else metaphorically related)'). No one counters a story of paul bunyan with "There never was and never will be a blue oxen or a flapjack eating lumberjack giant as it violates the laws of physics numerous ways as follows...", as that's not the point of such a story.

As an aside, personally, I'd argue for a certain definition of 'god', one must as a reasonable person recognize that there are not only a large but uncountably infinite number of gods (though some are more relevant than others), but I suspect that others would find my definition of a god somewhat unimpressive and abstract from a christian/standard western perspective, since I say 'god' and most people think 'bearded guy who can defy the laws of physics six times before breakfast'. Nonetheless it must be admitted that worshipping such gods is mostly a matter of personal fancy and that it's good for society to get together sometimes to celebrate holidays, because things like christmas taken in moderation are fun even if you don't believe in Christ the Pantokrator. De-novo created secular holidays just in all honesty don't seem to work well as secularised religious holidays for entertaining festivals- the only particularly interesting one is May Day and that's just because of the labour riots.

I have some qualms about the Abrahamic religions, but they're ones that could be solved. There are liberal movements in Christianity Judaism, and yes even Islam*, if you know where to look, that should be encouraged. Just as rational, reasonable philosophy should be encouraged, so should a move towards rational, reasonable religion. And the atheists (though I would argue there's nothing incompatable with atheism and my beliefs, and I consider myself a rational atheist, again I think I'm in the minority and most traditions would have serious problems adjusting) would be happy as when religion gets more progressive, atheism increases for a variety of social reasons (kinda- in some societies you end up with the Japan or Icelandic effect where everyone is simultaneously atheistic, secular, and also a believer in the supernatural in a vague manner). Banning religion would just inflame these problems and tear down what progress has been made. Instead, civilisation of the religion should be encouraged- look at the neutered, progressive church in Sweden, or where the Anglicans are heading. Is the Swedish Lutheran Church truly in another 50 years going to be a threat to anyone's rights? Is it now? That's the path religion should be put down, for the fundamentalist atheist like yourself who truly wants to eliminate the harm of religion. Turn it into a pointless social choice, like wearing a certain colour of clothing, neuter its power. People will leave it on their own, and those that remain to practice it will do it for more social reasons than true belief in impossible events, and will act completely secular and rational in their morality and conduct, even if their philosophy is cosmetically different in basis. And I don't see a problem with that, nor would any of the religious people who will result. The truly valuable parts I appreciate that I explored above would remain regardless.

*Ironically the liberal movement in Islam tends to be fundamentalist about the qur'aan, rejecting islamic legal tradition and the hadith as heretical inventions of the arabs who didn't want to change their culture and embrace fundamental human rights like God clearly wants. Some go further and then solve the issue of barbaric punishments in the qur'aan by stating that the qur'aan was meant only for 6th century arabic polytheists and that the basic ideas are important but not the exact laws or punishments. Both of these ideas- discarding all potentially heterodox and uninspired literature and dispensoinalism- are ironically the same as Christian fundamentalists beliefs, so it's not even the beliefs that seem to particular matter as much as what the person does with them. You can jujutsu a belief in any particular thing into doing anything if you try hrad enough.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

I don't much care what people believe, only what they do. If religion is how you deal with things and prayer helps you get through the day, that's fine. I, for example, smoke a bunch of pot for the same reason, so I don't think I should judge. But when someone else says that I MUST use their coping mechanism, or follow their belief system, or face consequeces, that's where I draw the line. Believe whatever you want, as long as nobody is getting hurt, I don't care.

[Simon_Jester]

You do, however, need to establish that these deficiencies are large enough to fall under the heading of "mental illness" in order to justify attempts to treat this as a mental illness.

Well ok, I hereby concede to you on this point and add to my argument that the level of believing should be scaled and people grouped into different groups based on said level and treated differently. So say someone who is a casual believer would only be baned from doing it while the die hard fanatic gets shot in the head.

That better?

NO. Because it is not the right of anyone, let alone you, to decide "how strong" an opinion justifies punishing someone, let alone killing them.

Do you not get what is wrong with creating a society which criminalizes entire categories of thought?

"Illogical" is not the same as "insane," and you should be very very grateful for that fact- as should we all.

You would have to meet an even more rigorous standard to justify the idea that illogical beliefs should be persecuted for their bad logic. Hint: if you're planning to persecute everyone who has illogical opinions, you're going to run out of jailors to guard all the people you've thrown into prison for being illogical.

Well it would hardly be the first time something like I said was implemented. After all did we not clamp down on racism, sexism, and other similar things that were equally simply illogical beliefs that fueled hate and evil like religion does.

Never like that.

No society, aside from a handful of ones that degenerated into murderous revolutionary savagery, has ever tried to punish everyone who believes things other than what the state wants them to believe. There's a reason why "they can't shoot you for thinking" is a commonplace in functioning societies.

If you want to punish people for doing things that cause objective, measurable harm, that's one thing. Punishing people for thinking the wrong thoughts leads down a road of madness and destruction. The fact that you seem so blindly unaware of this in thread after thread, that you are so ready to fall for whatever authoritarian fantasy catches your eye, suggests that you need to study far more history and learn to understand far more about human behavior before you make policy suggestions with a straight face again.

Ah-ha. I see the problem.
Insanity doesn't work that way, Purple. We live in a world full of impressions, of inferences, of structural beliefs about how the world works and ought to work, about how the people around us work and ought to work.

That hardly changes the fact that if someone believes something that is factually false and is presented with the evidence to it being false should change his beliefs or be called insane, or at least an ignorant scum.

Be honest, is that not how this board treats those that ignore evidence and logic in favor of conviction? I only seek to bring that sort of behavior to the entire world.

That's a crappy and stupid idea.

Have you seen the bizarre tempests-in-teapots, the sheer fucking hatred, the endless heated disputes over minor inane things, that happen here? I can't imagine any adult on this forum who would want the entire world to function the way this forum does. There are far too many places and times where endless debate over who is More Rational Than Thou is not the proper way to get things done.

So no, people who believe things that are objectively irrational (let alone things you, with your limited understanding, think are irrational) do NOT deserve to be punished.

I think you completely missed the point here. This is not about some perspective or arbitrary belief. It is about denying the laws of physics. There is no universal scale to calculate how much good or bad a person someone is or how much power one should give to the government or how much sugar one should put in his coffee. But there are quite real rules on how the universe works. And if someone ignores these rules or choses to interpret them creatively that is quite different than having a difference of opinion on what you said.

Purple, I know far more about the laws of physics than you. And I'm telling you, quite simply, that this is a ridiculous way to try and run things.

I've seen you promote all kinds of ridiculous and impossible things; hell, you're doing it right now. Should you be punished for your decision to ignore the rules of sociology, or interpret them creatively?

The laws of nature do not need Thought Police running around harassing people who don't go along with them. They are, by nature, self-enforcing. You do not need to punish people for refusing to believe in gravity; gravity will take care of that for you.

Well ok, than religion is not insanity, at least not in the sense that medicine recognizes. But I still do think that it is a sick state of mind that should be cured.

You are one of the last people I'd trust

By your own admission you are a "mild" sociopath; doesn't that disqualify you from judging what kinds of behavior are healthy in people, much as a blind man is disqualified from judging what colors to decorate a house with?

I am not obliged to believe only the things that I must believe. People who actually think and participate in society do not and cannot operate that way.

And that is exatcly my arguement you are quoting there. Not only should people not be oblidged to believe they should be forbiden to do so. People should by law only be allowed to adress issues with logic and scientific enquiry, well at least the issues that actually invaulve the laws of phisics.

I have already addressed this. I've already explained the consequences of doing this, and why it's a bad idea; I will say no more. But it's good to see you say it so blatantly.

You got it backwards. I am not obliged to believe only those things which the state requires me to believe. I may believe whatever the hell else I want. I may believe things that are false- because if you make "thinking something that isn't true" a crime, you will have to arrest everyone and lock yourself up last.

Saying "NO, the burden of proof is on YOU!" is a charming* way to solve Internet versus debates. It is a shitty way to solve problems in real life.

I do believe that it is a common rule in science that if a new conjecture or theory is brought up than the burden of proof is on the person who wishes to prove it exists. For example, when Einstein formulated relativity it was his job to prove it right. You don't assume something is right until proven wrong but wrong until proven right.

Which is a fine rule to do science, engineering, and Internet versus debates by. It is a lousy rule to be a functioning human being by.

That aside, science doesn't work that way either. For purposes of intellectual debate, "any story that defies the laws of physics should never be considered plausible," fine, whatever. For purposes of deciding which people to oppress, that's an utterly psychotic standard to apply.

It's no worse than any other. And it at least has grounding in something that can be scientifically measured.

Has it ever occured to you that the best way to decide who to oppress is to say "don't oppress anyone?"

Because our policies are stupid and designed by fascists, much as the ones you advocate are stupid and designed by fascists.

So wait, people in the government are actually quite like me? I don't know if I should take that as a compliment or something to be scared off. Probably both.

No, you are a fascist. Other states, at other times, have been ruled by fascist people. It never ended well. At the moment, drug policies in the US are set according to stupid and fascist principles, by the lowest common denominator of legal minds. They are not something a decent person would want to emulate.

But I'm not going to do an amateur psychologist diagnosis of her- all I know is that something was wrong with that poor woman. And religion wasn't the half of it, nor even the 10% of it. That's mental illness; it's much worse, much uglier, than religion.

Anything I say would feel insensitive and cold even if I tried to sound as human as possible. So I won't say anything, but know I am touched.

Good, good. Now, generalize.

Mental illness and religion are different things. The former is a problem that requires medical treatment, and which makes people nonfunctional. the latter is not.

Also, to be perfectly blunt, you have not told any religious person anything they didn't already know when you say "the laws of nature don't allow for miracles." Indeed, from their perspective that's the point: water cannot normally turn into wine without divine intervention. They already knew that. Telling them about the laws of chemistry does not tell them anything new in that respect, just as people in the Iron Age knew it was impossible for rocks to fall up long before Isaac Newton slapped an equation on that piece of knowledge.

You are missing the point again. The way I understand it there are diffrent ways of thought for normal and religious people.

Normal Person: The laws of phisics say X can not happen, the bible says X did happen, the laws of phisics reign supreme ergo the bible must be wrong

Believer: The laws of phisics say X can not happen, the bible says X did happen, GOD IS GREAT!

Now, if you can't see why the second way of thinking is dangerous at best and outright scary at worst I can't help you.

Do you really think religious unbelievers are the normal ones?

...

Ah, yes, the Tyranny of Virtue, the Dictatorship of Reason, the Reign of Terror in the name of Liberty. That's old stuff, you know, dates back to the French Revolution and Robespierre.

I know, I really liked them. Well apart from the kill everyone regardless of if they are actually guilty or not. To give my opinion, their ideals were good but their implementation of said ideals sucked. Kind of like say East Germany.

Well, I've debated you in good faith thus far. Shows what I know. I don't appreciate you taking advantage of my willingness to explain at length why I disagree with bad arguments, and will remember that you are normally lying about your own opinions in the future.

I mean, hell, the very belief "I should live and not die" is unfalsifiable. Humanity did not evolve to run on robot-logic. If you cannot accept that life is full of uncertainty, inference, and impressionistic thinking, you cannot function in the same world as the rest of us... in which case, by your own argument, you don't belong and you shouldn't be making rules for the rest of us as if you did.

Still, you have to admit that my rules are based on sound logic that the belief in the impossible is a bad thing.

Nope.

But yes, I am a mild sociopath. I can feel for others but I am capable of separating said feelings from what I believe should be done. Kind of Vulcan, only not.

Nope. Just a sociopathic fascist fuckwit, and if anyone asks, I'll happily recommend that as a custom title for you..

[AniThyng]

Normal Person: The laws of phisics say X can not happen, the bible says X did happen, the laws of phisics reign supreme ergo the bible must be wrong

Believer: The laws of phisics say X can not happen, the bible says X did happen, GOD IS GREAT!

Now, if you can't see why the second way of thinking is dangerous at best and outright scary at worst I can't help you.

FTFY:

Normal Person, nominally religious: The laws of physics say X can not happen, the bible says X did happen, therefore the bible is mostly allegorial and God is still a valid concept.

"True" Believer: The laws of physics say X can not happen, the bible says X did happen, God is above physics (well duh. Actually I'm not even sure this counts as a seperate category at all.)

Far too many people, mostly well functioning and normal: I've never seen a ghost myself...but... <--- now this, this perhaps is worthy of contempt. As already pointed out though, this includes a lot of people who might even qualify as irreligious or even atheist (perhaps not "true" atheists since they believe in irrational superstitious bs in lieu of god, but hey.)

@Purple: You do realize that some prominent mod staff on this very board are actually in fact religious? That we have a usergroup for Christians even?

Frankly your method for determining rational truth sucks too - anyone trying to question the scientific orthodoxy would be shot before he ever got to prove anything in this mad system you've got going. ("it can't happen based on the laws of physics! your data is wrong! to the gulag with you!")

[Bakustra]

Technically, atheism and skepticism are differentiable- consider an infant, who is certainly not a skeptic but not religious either (even Qabalistic Judaism, which ascribes an angel the role of teaching the Torah to fetuses, considers those memories to be suppressed immediately prior to birth). One could easily disbelieve in a god while believing in the supernatural.

Purple, have you been diagnosed with sociopathy/antisocial personality disorder formally, or is it a self-diagnosis? Or is this related to your awful signature?

[Simon_Jester]

I don't really have contempt for "I've never seen a ghost, but..." I don't see the point- what does it profit us to say "there's no such thing as ghosts?"

Hell, I tend to joke that my reason for not drinking is "spiritual reasons:" given my family history, if I were stupid enough to start hitting the sauce all that hard, my grandpappy's ghost would come back and give me a sound thumping.

We are only made poorer when jokes like that are suppressed by the Rationalist Orthodoxy. A tremendous amount of the human experience, of culture and art, consists of things that we wish were true, hope are true, would like to be true, or know aren't true but invoke for symbolic reasons anyway.

Why fight that? The world is bad enough without stripping away our ability to put curtains in the windows we use to look out on reality with.

[Phantasee]

Simon Jester, you are sentenced to life in the mines.

[Sela]

My allegation that he's a sociopath is based on the (rather long) discussion we had HERE. To quote:

You see I am not racist/speceist/what ever -ist. I am to use terms you would just completely amoral.

AND

PS: Again, I didn't point-by-point quote your whole argument; I tried to address what I felt is the crux of what you said without leaving much out. 'pologies if I'm missing the point; don't attribute to dishonesty what can be explained by a mistake - if I'm missing your point just tell me.

You are, but I explained above. I hope.
In essence, I am an amoral sociopath but with no violent tendencies.

But please read the discussion for further context if you're confused about it. I don't believe he mentioned actually being diagnosed at any point though.

[Akhlut]

Simon Jester, you are sentenced to life in the mines.

The acid mines?

Well ok, I hereby concede to you on this point and add to my argument that the level of believing should be scaled and people grouped into different groups based on said level and treated differently. So say someone who is a casual believer would only be baned from doing it while the die hard fanatic gets shot in the head.

That better?

Why should a die-hard Jainist or Sikh get shot in the head? Frankly, I'd rather have most of the population of earth replaced with them, as they'd be better stewards of the earth and much more respectful, calm, and loving people then much more 'rational' Objectivists. You're system doesn't look at objective harm, it just looks at behavior that ALL HUMANS THAT HAVE EVER LIVED HAVE ENGAGED IN TO SOME EXTENT and punishes them based on that. You're marrying the worst aspects of Christianity and Islam with the worst aspects of 'rational' revolutions that try to weed out behaviors and people they dislike. Hell, you're even engaging in rampant magical thinking that is completely and utterly divorced from rational thought.

"Illogical" is not the same as "insane," and you should be very very grateful for that fact- as should we all.

You would have to meet an even more rigorous standard to justify the idea that illogical beliefs should be persecuted for their bad logic. Hint: if you're planning to persecute everyone who has illogical opinions, you're going to run out of jailors to guard all the people you've thrown into prison for being illogical.

Well it would hardly be the first time something like I said was implemented. After all did we not clamp down on racism, sexism, and other similar things that were equally simply illogical beliefs that fueled hate and evil like religion does.

We didn't clamp down on racism and sexism by murdering the Klan or by locking up men who say "you throw like a girl!" It's a lot more effective to change the cultural mores and to shame them into being better people, as well as challenging racist acts and behaviors. Not by locking people up.

Ah-ha. I see the problem.

Insanity doesn't work that way, Purple. We live in a world full of impressions, of inferences, of structural beliefs about how the world works and ought to work, about how the people around us work and ought to work.

That hardly changes the fact that if someone believes something that is factually false and is presented with the evidence to it being false should change his beliefs or be called insane, or at least an ignorant scum.

What evidence is contrary to the idea of a deity? Proving a negative is really fucking tough, especially for something that can bypass most conventional means of disproof.

Again, I'm an atheist for lack of evidence, but there is enough room for doubt and enough lack of harm to allow religion to exist as long as it obeys various legal and societal constraints.

Be honest, is that not how this board treats those that ignore evidence and logic in favor of conviction? I only seek to bring that sort of behavior to the entire world.

What happens when the information is ambiguous enough for many interpretations to fly?

What about when they're isn't enough information to draw an accurate conclusion?

I may believe that my friend is a supremely honorable, reliable and trustworthy person, while my father believes they are untrustworthy and unreliable. You believe that authorities are to be trusted with lots of power and given lots of deference. I believe I've met all too few authorities who deserve to have me not spit in their eye. We're looking at the same dataset; which of us is insane?

Short answer: neither. We have incompatible perspectives; that doesn't make either of us crazy. There are a large number of valid and viable ways of being human. Trying to suppress all the ones you don't like leads to tremendous horror in exchange for little or no payoff.

I think you completely missed the point here. This is not about some perspective or arbitrary belief. It is about denying the laws of physics. There is no universal scale to calculate how much good or bad a person someone is or how much power one should give to the government or how much sugar one should put in his coffee. But there are quite real rules on how the universe works. And if someone ignores these rules or choses to interpret them creatively that is quite different than having a difference of opinion on what you said.

And who gives a shit if John the janitor says quantum physics allows for the existence of a soul? It doesn't do me any harm, nor anyone else. If you have a problem with him being unable to comprehend what he's saying, exactly, then give him a fucking education, don't lock his ass up.

People are not diagnosed with insanity that requires them to be forcibly 'cured' against their will purely on the basis that they believe things that are not true. Look up the list of symptoms for real mental illnesses in the DSM-IV sometime. You will always find that for each "harbors delusions" symptom, there are a number of other "behaves thus-and-such in a way that hurts themselves or those around them" symptoms. Insanity is defined in terms of the function, or lack thereof, of your thought process. Not in terms of its form or content.

Well ok, than religion is not insanity, at least not in the sense that medicine recognizes. But I still do think that it is a sick state of mind that should be cured.

And why do you believe that? What makes a Jain a sick person? Oh shit, he thinks we all get reincarnated and thus, as everything has a soul, should be treated with respect and kindness! He's a fucking MONSTER.

I am not obliged to believe only the things that I must believe. People who actually think and participate in society do not and cannot operate that way.

And that is exatcly my arguement you are quoting there. Not only should people not be oblidged to believe they should be forbiden to do so. People should by law only be allowed to adress issues with logic and scientific enquiry, well at least the issues that actually invaulve the laws of phisics.

And how will you forbid them? You realize that no society on earth has actually succeeded in eliminating "thoughtcrime," right? Even the craziest of authoritarian, totalitarian societies still harbor dissidents. What makes you think you can eliminate a BASIC FEATURE OF HUMAN THOUGHT? Shit, you're fighting against reality harder then they are. Should you be shot in the head?

That aside, science doesn't work that way either. For purposes of intellectual debate, "any story that defies the laws of physics should never be considered plausible," fine, whatever. For purposes of deciding which people to oppress, that's an utterly psychotic standard to apply.

It's no worse than any other. And it at least has grounding in something that can be scientifically measured.

YES IT IS WORSE, DUMBSHIT. Fuck, have you no conception of ethics? Look up utilitarianism: it's a nice system of ethics that does not require a deity and one can make ethical and moral decisions with it based on human suffering. You know, the thing you're trying to eliminate?

Most people, yourself included, are not qualified to comment on what does and does not defy the laws of physics. Or biology. Or sociology. Or common bloody sense, all too often. If we start imprisoning or (worse yet) hospitalizing people every time they believe something that some researcher thinks isn't true, we're going to run out of jailors very quickly.

Not imprison, cure.

And what would curing them require? Oh, yes, forcibly restraining them. Also known as....IMPRISONING!

As I said, I'd much rather have the far more "irrational" Sikhs and Jains around me then you.

The really big, horrendous flaw in your argument is that you do not recognize the difference between "you are wrong," "you are crazy," "you are evil," and "I should punish you for being wrong, crazy, and evil."

But ain't that the way we do things here? I mean, you single out those that are wrong, prove them wrong and if they fail to comply punish them. That looks like a fine system that will eventually weed out all the ones that are wrong. And that is in the greater interests of man kind.

How is that in the greatest interest of mankind? Who does it harm if the Hindus are wrong? Religion, in and of itself, is not harmful. Ancillary behaviors can be harmful, but those are associated with simply being human, not the sole provence of religion. Humans are violent assholes regardless of religion or lack thereof!

People will also do these things, and worse things, for reasons that have nothing to do with religion. Remember the Khmer Rouge?

So your argument is that because people who are not religious also commit crimes religion newer causes crimes? That is a huge leap of logic there. Sure, some of the people who did the things they did would have done it anyway but that does not mean there are no people that would not have.

Crime is independent of religion! CRIME IS INDEPENDENT OF RELIGION! Humans are assholes! Deal with it!

The reason it has not worked is because such a project would need to span at least like 5-10 generations to ensure that it works.

To eliminate basic patterns of human thought is going to require the retooling of the human genome, which, understandably and completely rationally, people will object to. Messing with the process of brain development is a cure worse then the disease.

One wonders why you're so willing to create horror stories when you're not willing to be exposed to them.

And that is the thanks I get for not wanting to make you re live horror stories from your past. I was trying to be human here... see how it bounces back on me.

No, your inhumanity is causing Simon to force some piece of humanity down your throat so you know what the fuck you're dealing with. These are human lives you're talking about, not The Sims. You're little authoritarian experiment, if acted out, would be a crime against humanity on par with Idi Amin or Pol Pot. I'm glad your about as far away from power as one can possibly be, and, by the sounds of it, no one will ever trust you with any anyway.

Normal Person: The laws of phisics say X can not happen, the bible says X did happen, the laws of phisics reign supreme ergo the bible must be wrong

Believer: The laws of phisics say X can not happen, the bible says X did happen, GOD IS GREAT!

Now, if you can't see why the second way of thinking is dangerous at best and outright scary at worst I can't help you.

You don't really understand how humans operate, do you?

[Simon_Jester]

Simon Jester, you are sentenced to life in the mines.

The acid mines?

[swings pickaxe]
[pictures himself on a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies]

Mmmmm.

No, your inhumanity is causing Simon to force some piece of humanity down your throat so you know what the fuck you're dealing with. These are human lives you're talking about, not The Sims. You're little authoritarian experiment, if acted out, would be a crime against humanity on par with Idi Amin or Pol Pot. I'm glad your about as far away from power as one can possibly be, and, by the sounds of it, no one will ever trust you with any anyway.

We find ourselves in agreement. That's pretty much what I'm on about, and I agree with your assessment of Purple: while fascists can and do obtain power, sociopathic fascist fuckwits generally can't. No one wants them around.

[Duckie]

Considering no one was interested in my thoughts on religion, I'll go into more stuff I'm not an expert on, and a little I'm somewhere between amateur and expert on!

It would be rather difficult to eliminate religious thinking in human beings, considering how deeply such thinking is ingrained. It can only, like confirmation bias, be managed and channeled into appropriate ways.

Incidentally, the fact that the human mind will seek confirmation, suppose entities and conscious action where it isn't, and otherwise engage in behaviours that seem to be the building blocks of religion is empirically demonstrated by science.

Further, linguistically it appears according to all the evidence we have amassed that it is cognitively impossible to treat 'false' as the default state of affairs*. It is never shorter to deny than to assert. Once you wrap your head around the fact that there is not a single language on earth where the negative is the base form of the verb, you'll understand why it took a hundred and fifty years for scientific falisificationism to trump logical positivism (do you as a supreme sciencemaster layman even know the difference? most scientists themselves still operate under positivist or verificationist methods by accident simply because it's the logical natural way to think). This happened even for scientists who are trained to think logically and look for problems in their methodlogy.

*Yes. Really. Even when you say "Treat false as the default state of affairs" and do it, you formulated it positively- if you were truly homo skepticus, you'd have said "Don't treat true as the default state of affairs", yet I guarantee unprovoked most humans will produce the former unless the are refuting the latter specifically (or implicitly, by scolding a person who does for example).

[Bakustra]

Well, I was interested, but I didn't have much to say. But I doubt that most people here really know the word positivism or why it's faulty or the distinction between the philosophical position and the scientific methodology, both of which are quite faulty. But on the other hand, it's just so much more satisfying to say "No, you literally are descended from bacteria through the process of evolution, it is not a convenient model!" and I think that most philosophy of science has focused more on theoretical physics and theories in general, which creates the sense that the whole of science is models.