You mean "any progression is an indiscriminately good progression" - so to continue with his analogy of the nuke, we might find nuclear energy to be good progress, but not a nuclear bomb, and he is saying that these atheists believe both to be good?

(April 11, 2013 at 2:21 pm)thesummerqueen Wrote: You mean "any progression is an indiscriminately good progression" - so to continue with his analogy of the nuke, we might find nuclear energy to be good progress, but not a nuclear bomb, and he is saying that these atheists believe both to be good?

Beats me. It's either that or 'neo-atheists' deny the existence of bad developments or affirm progress is overwhelmingly good with little bad. I don't see what there would be to complain about a nuanced view that concludes that we are indeed taking 1.05 steps forward for every 1.0 steps back.

This is why I said "subjective" vs "objective". Subjective progress is when you think we've moved forward in an ethical manner towards a more beneficial goal. Objective merely quantifies that we did indeed progress past a point. So the nukes were a more effective killing weapon as far as bombs go. That doesn't mean they were ethical by all of our standards.

(I know you know this, just trying to clarify for his sake)

So he has to define what he thinks is progress so we know where his ethical goalposts are, though I don't much really care because it sounds like he thinks science and tech are bad. I hope that's not the case. I don't want to go apeshit on stupidity of that level. It's not pretty or ladylike, and I'm wearing one of my favorite dresses today and don't feel like getting mucky.

(April 11, 2013 at 2:21 pm)thesummerqueen Wrote: You mean "any progression is an indiscriminately good progression" - so to continue with his analogy of the nuke, we might find nuclear energy to be good progress, but not a nuclear bomb, and he is saying that these atheists believe both to be good?

I think that is essentially his point(as far as I can tell), however, I have never met anyone that argues that. Perhaps he is talking about people that indiscriminately believe that scientific progression will always lead to a net positive.

The OP was so muddled and devoid of any corroborating evidence that it was hard to distinguish whether this was a valid criticism or an emotive rant.

(April 11, 2013 at 2:38 pm)Faith No More Wrote: The OP was so muddled and devoid of any corroborating evidence that it was hard to distinguish whether this was a valid criticism or an emotive rant.

I'm placing my dollar on the latter. I think he liked 'hearing' himself type.

I read the rant or OP briefly this morning and all I got was that while the author is atheist, he doesn't think we atheists are all cut from the same cloth. Frankly I thought it read like what someone assigned to write a paper at least x pages in length would write, who really only has x – 3 pages of things to say (where x is a counting number less than 10).

Perhaps he means to say that certain low-brow atheists have transformed from theists who acted like they knew everything cuz of the bible to atheists who sound like they know everything cuz of science. See that whole idea just takes one sentence. Not much to it really.

I suppose that is a valid enough point. But so what? Maybe a know-it-all atheist will become humbler and more cognizant of what they don't know as they go along. No need to should all over them.

(April 11, 2013 at 2:44 pm)whateverist Wrote: ...all I got was that while the author is atheist,

I have to accept his claim without further evidence, but I have serious doubts that MM is atheist.

Regardless of the OP's inefficiency, I think the theme being touched upon is an intriguing and important one. Plus, the idea of how to ensure that science leads to positive progress makes for great science fiction.

(April 11, 2013 at 2:44 pm)whateverist Wrote: Perhaps he means to say that certain low-brow atheists have transformed from theists who acted like they knew everything cuz of the bible to atheists who sound like they know everything cuz of science. See that whole idea just takes one sentence. Not much to it really.

Which all went back to Tonus' nice statement. Assholes are assholes.

(April 11, 2013 at 2:24 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Beats me. It's either that or 'neo-atheists' deny the existence of bad developments or affirm progress is overwhelmingly good with little bad.

That sounds suspiciously like the argument that everything that god does is good/moral/right by definition, even if it's something we'd otherwise categorize as wicked.