Even if theism is a failure, it's still superior to atheism

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@R00tKiT

Looking -intently- at a woman in bikini lights up the ventral striatum in your brain (the part responsible for reward processing) and, unsurprisingly, triggers a dopamine release. In other words, your brain interprets the scene as some "time for your reward, you win" moment, even though you're telling us it's just an innocent, natural moment. And when you get used to staring at women at beaches, your brain eventually creates an association between those scenes and intense feelings of pleasure. Would you like your wife to trigger intense feelings of primal pleasure for other men ? I assume not?

You assume wrongly. My own wife (at 53) triggers that response in other men, because she's a slammin' hottie. It doesn't make me uncomfortable, I find it delightful. Ranjr is right - any man who feels otherwise is insecure.

Nor do I fear for her safety. Any man who puts his hands on her is likely to carry his trouser tackle home in a bag.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

Actually they did.  

Not at the beginning, only because they were unaware they were the carriers of the plagues decimating the natives, and they had hoped proselytizing would quickly convert live natives into useful subservient slave labors.    But by the time colonization or central and south america began in earnest and serious and irksome resistance were met, sending diseased natives back to infect more natives, trying to bring uninflected populations into contact with infected populations , were certainly a widespread and systematic policy.   Indeed spanish missionaries praised plagues as a god’s means to make natives available for deathbed conversion by making them too sick to run away. 

The reason why the europeans did not intentionally infect much of the pre-contact population was not for the want of desire or willingness to try, but because it took over half a century for the european to actually come into direct contact with most of major popoulation centers in central and south america, and by the time the contacts happened, plagues radiating out from initial point of contact have already severely depopulated the regions in advance of Spaniard’s physical arrival.


European scale of mass murder was limited not by humanity, but by the number of potential victims left alive after their initial manslaughter, and those that were left alive tended to be  selected to be alive by their stronger than average resistance.

[polymath257]

Exactly how does that make what I said not true?

Intellectuals flourished in Islam not because of it, but, in spite of it.  Early on the caliphs were too busy fighting and consolidating power to worry about the intellectuals in Islam, whom they did not understand anyways.  When political and religious consolidation began to solidify under the caliphates, it became time for these people to go, as they were clearly a threat to the religious order.

Again, not completely true. For example, spherical trigonometry was pushed forward by the problem of trying to find the qibla (direction to Mecca). Computation was enhanced by the legal aspects of inheritance. The earliest work on polynomials was done in Islamic lands.


The point is that the Islamic expansion brought together many different cultures and, for a while, those cultures mixed and generated great intellectual works, often because of questions inspired by religion.

[Jehanne]

Intellectuals flourished in Islam not because of it, but, in spite of it.  Early on the caliphs were too busy fighting and consolidating power to worry about the intellectuals in Islam, whom they did not understand anyways.  When political and religious consolidation began to solidify under the caliphates, it became time for these people to go, as they were clearly a threat to the religious order.

Again, not completely true. For example, spherical trigonometry was pushed forward by the problem of trying to find the qibla (direction to Mecca). Computation was enhanced by the legal aspects of inheritance. The earliest work on polynomials was done in Islamic lands.


The point is that the Islamic expansion brought together many different cultures and, for a while, those cultures mixed and generated great intellectual works, often because of questions inspired by religion.

I'm not an expert, but, I am not going to accept anything & everything that experts say; sometimes, the minority position turns out to be the correct one.

For instance, a number of historians have claimed that the Battle of Tours was just a "raiding party", which you can read about in Wikipedia. I find such a viewpoint, even among experts, to be absurd in the highest degree. I have found no good arguments to support it, and, as a layperson, I reject it.

Likewise, early Islam no doubt used mathematics & science, when such suited them, to further their own ends, but, when the Islamic empire reached its apex, the intellectuals in Islam became more of a threat than an asset; it was at this time that they began to be persecuted more and more, due to the intrinsic teachings of Islam, and not due to some "takeover" from "the fundamentalists", who, rather, were present from Day One.

[LadyForCamus]

@R00tKiT

Why should a man have a problem with other men finding their partner sexually desirable? That’s incredibly possessive and insecure. That’s not the kind of man any woman should date.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Men who need to control women are weak and men who can't control their sexual desires are even weaker.

[Anomalocaris]

@R00tKiT

Why should a man have a problem with other men finding their partner sexually desirable? That’s incredibly possessive and insecure. That’s not the kind of man any woman should date.

because he is both egotistical and self conscious. 

he knows he actually is totally worthless, but he can not live with the thought that others are less worthless than he is.

[R00tKiT]

@R00tKiT

You assume wrongly. My own wife (at 53) triggers that response in other men, because she's a slammin' hottie. It doesn't make me uncomfortable, I find it delightful. Ranjr is right - any man who feels otherwise is insecure.

Nor do I fear for her safety. Any man who puts his hands on her is likely to carry his trouser tackle home in a bag.

Boru

We grew up in very different cultures, you know. It's extremely shameful of a Muslim man to let his wife display her goodies in public, it's that simple in Muslim countries. The fact that you're fine with other men taking delight in your wife's body is simply a disaster, I am not going to elaborate on this anymore as I don't want to seem disrespectful to anybody's partner.

 the intellectuals in Islam became more of a threat than an asset; it was at this time that they began to be persecuted more and more, due to the intrinsic teachings of Islam, and not due to some "takeover" from "the fundamentalists", who, rather, were present from Day One.

Quote the verse that says : "don't study mathematics", or "don't do science" from the Qur'an, go.

The word fundamentalist comes with many, many connotations, you might want to unpack it and say exactly what doctrine in Islam you think is anti-scientific.

We know that the first revelation ever that came to Muhammad is literally : "Read: In the name of Allah Who created, (1) Created man from a clot. (2) Read: And Allah is the Most Generous, (3) Who taught by the pen, (4) Taught man that which he knew not".  [96:1-4]. It explicitly invites one to read and learn.

We know that scientific breakthroughs can literally make nations win wars, and since you think that Islam is an imperial religion, it's crucial -according to jihadism- that Muslims get on top of other nations and excel in science, isn't it ?

So, contrary to what you read in christian polemics, it's actually the other way around : the most extremist and violent interpretations of the jihad doctrine will actually welcome science and innovation.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@R00tKiT

You assume wrongly. My own wife (at 53) triggers that response in other men, because she's a slammin' hottie. It doesn't make me uncomfortable, I find it delightful. Ranjr is right - any man who feels otherwise is insecure.

Nor do I fear for her safety. Any man who puts his hands on her is likely to carry his trouser tackle home in a bag.

Boru

We grew up in very different cultures, you know. It's extremely shameful of a Muslim man to let his wife display her goodies in public, it's that simple in Muslim countries. The fact that you're fine with other men taking delight in your wife's body is simply a disaster, I am not going to elaborate on this anymore as I don't want to seem disrespectful to anybody's partner.

I think you’re taking the piss. You told me recently that I must be mindful of other peoples’ cultures, now you’re saying one of my cultural norms is a ‘disaster’.

For the record, my wife does not ‘display her goodies’ in public. She’s simply a tall, striking, intelligent woman. These are some of the qualities that attracted me to her in the first place. It’d be pretty hypocritical of me not to expect other men to also be attracted to her.

Boru

[Astreja]

We grew up in very different cultures, you know. It's extremely shameful of a Muslim man to let his wife display her goodies in public, it's that simple in Muslim countries. {emphasis mine}

It's absolutely fucking barbaric that you think that a man has any sort of right to "let" or forbid a woman from doing anything at all.