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"All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists"
#11
RE: "All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists"
(September 11, 2015 at 4:30 pm)ScepticOrganism Wrote: I fully agree as well. If anything, it should be mandatory.

You don't think a non atheist should be allowed to be a scientist? This seems a little unreasonable. The scientist who first presented the idea of the Big Bang was a Catholic priest.
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly." 

-walsh
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#12
RE: "All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists"
(September 11, 2015 at 6:22 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I'm with Crossless on this one.  There are scads of religious scientists who do exemplary work in spite of their religious delusions.  The ability to separate what you would like to be true from what is true is the hallmark of how science and scientists operate.  People who are unable to make that division would do well to stick to preaching - they'll never contribute anything meaningful to human knowledge.

Boru


As am I.  I would just caution that not every theist holds fundamentalist beliefs about a personal God or a literal heaven & hell.  I would think anyone rational enough to do top tier science must have a theology which manages the cognitive dissonance better than the lower forms of believers.
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#13
RE: "All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists"
As long as the math checks out they can be as guano as they want to be at home.
I reject your reality and substitute my own!
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#14
RE: "All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists"
(September 11, 2015 at 9:03 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:
(September 11, 2015 at 4:30 pm)ScepticOrganism Wrote: I fully agree as well. If anything, it should be mandatory.

You don't think a non atheist should be allowed to be a scientist? This seems a little unreasonable. The scientist who first presented the idea of the Big Bang was a Catholic priest.

I think that scientists, however religious they may be, tend to flirt with the idea of atheism more often than they'd like to admit, in the face of evidence and reason. 

It can create a deep inner conflict within them, and some never fully recover from it. I don't think that your first question can be answered with a simple yes or no. I am very tempted to say yes, but reality suggests otherwise. 
Don't get me wrong, I would love to live in a world where science is fully independent from religion. But we live in a different reality. So it would be, as you've said, "a little unreasonable" of me to think that.

As to your second assertion, I highly doubt that he came to that conclusion through his beliefs. I hope that you're not insinuating it. But I've been surprised plenty of times. Perhaps you're just using it to reinforce your first argument, which I've already answered in the first paragraph.
"organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority" -- Richard Dawkins
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#15
RE: "All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists"
Quote:The scientist who first presented the idea of the Big Bang was a Catholic priest.

And I bet the altar boys still talk about it!
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#16
RE: "All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists"
(September 11, 2015 at 9:03 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:
(September 11, 2015 at 4:30 pm)ScepticOrganism Wrote: I fully agree as well. If anything, it should be mandatory.

You don't think a non atheist should be allowed to be a scientist? This seems a little unreasonable. The scientist who first presented the idea of the Big Bang was a Catholic priest.

We could start by banning LDSers, and move up from there.
 The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it. 




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#17
RE: "All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists"
(September 11, 2015 at 9:35 pm)ScepticOrganism Wrote: As to your second assertion, I highly doubt that he came to that conclusion through his beliefs. I hope that you're not insinuating it. But I've been surprised plenty of times. Perhaps you're just using it to reinforce your first argument, which I've already answered in the first paragraph.

No, I'm not insinuating that he came to this conclusion because of this beliefs. Your first post in this thread said that it should be mandatory that all scientists be atheist. My response was to reinforce my first argument about how unreasonable it would be to do as you originally suggested.
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly." 

-walsh
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#18
RE: "All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists"
(September 11, 2015 at 9:37 pm)Minimalist Wrote:
Quote:The scientist who first presented the idea of the Big Bang was a Catholic priest.

And I bet the altar boys still talk about it!

What? His name was Georges Lemaître. And he was not a child molester. 
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly." 

-walsh
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#19
RE: "All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists"
(September 11, 2015 at 10:56 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:
(September 11, 2015 at 9:37 pm)Minimalist Wrote: And I bet the altar boys still talk about it!

What? His name was Georges Lemaître. And he was not a child molester. 

They're pulling your chain, Cath! Get it? "big bang?"

If you read the article, Krauss is pretty clear why he says what he says, and it's not that he thinks it should be required in the dictatorial sense of the term, like some kind of exclusive club. It's that when you do science, it's methodological naturalism, so God isn't required at any point in the work. Thus, he says, it's a pointless thing, even for those scientists who still hold beliefs in the supernatural outside of the realm of science. Despite all the "bomb-throwing", it's actually a fairly unremarkable article, and I think you would be less offended by the jokes here if you read it to get full context. Smile
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost

I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.

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#20
RE: "All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists"
Just read the wiki article on Georges Lemaître. I had never heard of him. It sounds like he was a classic example of a scientist leading a double life, so to speak. And he did exactly what any good scientist is supposed to do: check any personal feelings at the laboratory door and follow the evidence where it leads.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein
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