A challenge to Statler Waldorf

[Statler Waldorf]

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Look at that wall of text..and not a single mention about me in it

You need to read more closely. I quote:

To put it in reverendjeremiah's terms, unless you can deterministically apply these criteria and always come up with the right answer, you've got crap.

Not that I wish to be a stickler, but another problem with Waldorf's demonstration occurs to me. He is asserting that Professor Smart's criteria are a valid way of identifying a religion. However, if atheism is not a religion, it follows that Smart's criteria are not a valid way of identifying what is and is not a religion, and therefore demonstrating it using those criteria is not possible. In order to determine if Professor Smart's criteria are valid, one has to have independent proof that atheism is a religion -- you can't use Smart's criteria to demonstrate its own validity, that would be question begging. And since there is no independent evidence that atheism is a religion (at least that has been offered), it is impossible to conclude whether the criterion are invalid, or whether atheism is a religion, without further proof.

Furthermore, even if I grant the framework more legs than it has, it's entirely possible that atheism is like a religion (for some atheists). That's an entirely different thing than saying that atheism is a religion. If you were to assert that a unicycle is like a bicycle, I might incline to agree; however if you assert that a unicycle is a bicycle, I couldn't more strongly disagree. Regardless of how many criteria they share (having spokes, employing wheels, peddles, useful for transportation), their likeness does not imply their equivalence. Now I would agree that atheists and theists share a lot in common, since they are both human, there's bound to be a lot of overlap. But let's not restrict ourselves to a one way street here -- if the behavior of atheists is purely a product of godless human invention, and theism shares these behaviors, it seems only sensible to conclude that theism is also the product of godless human invention.

Anyway, since you seem to feel that Smart's criteria are scientific, that atheism is a religion and that the word of law is truth, why not go for the trifecta and convince a judge that it's a scientific fact that atheism is a religion, and that its demon spawn Darwinism/evolution is likewise religious and should be excluded from the public schools. I'm gonna take a long shot and bet that you do no such thing. But I'll be delighted to hear how you rationalize your not doing so.

I'm all ears.

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I gave you kudos not so much because I agreed with all of your post, but because I thought you did a nice job defending your position. However, I'd like to know something. If you are thorwing out legal dominions, and the seven dimensions of religion, then just how do you determine what is and is not a religion?

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Hello,

as for my manners, you people are right and I'm sorry. I have jumped to some conclusions about how people are based on this thread only and been condencending based on those conclusions. I should not have done either of these things and just focussed on participating in the discussion itself. I think I'm not used to discussions where the gloves come off like that.

Just relax. As far as I am concerned you dont have to apologize. As long as someone isnt validating rape, torture and murder then I am usually easy going about morals. Here lately Waldork has been claiming I am not moral because I pick and choose my religion. Then he turns around and says it is "perfectly moral" for his god to pick and choose what morals are and dictate to everyone else through judgements like "do as I say or suffer eternal torture". He has been riding on my last nerve. To him it is a god. To me it is a bunch of long dead religious freaks who dictated their own morals and put them in the mouth of a god...not to mention that Waldorf also picks and chooses what he thinks is moral out of the bible as well.

I guess that it was like I came in someone elses party and saw someone screaming at, or even slapping another guest. My first instrinct would be to step in too maybe, even though the screaming might have had a good reason.

I will make an introduction post later this day.

Yeah, the members really like n00bs coming in and introducing themselves first before they hop in. I cant blame them too much and it does make sense, so I have pretty much hopped on the band wagon with them. A introduction post would be a step in the good direction in this society.

And as far as screaming..No..LOL...thats just me and a few other members backing Waldork into a corner and taking turns slapping him around and poking him in the ribs. Once you get some time on this board you will realize that Waldork will come and go without a notice. When Waldorf does show up, he yanks the lamp shade off of my head, scrapes the needle on the record player to turn the music off, stands up on the coffee table, kicks down the empty beer can pyramid that me, min, summerqueen, and a few other members have worked so hard at stacking up so that he can have his soap box. He then starts pointing at individual members with one hand, bible in the other hand hugged tight to his chest, judging and condemning us. We half ass listen to him until we have had enough, then a few of us grab him by his 70's polyester long collared plaid dress suit, walk him into the corner, and proceed to taunt and torment him. The other members either go back to partying or they stand back and laugh at the taunts and laugh even harder at Waldorfs replies.

You will understand after a while


Waldork preparing to crash the party and spread the word of Christ Jesus upon the unsaved!

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I had no idea my posts got your panties in such a bunch :-)

As for the "picking and choosing" thing, if you were infallible like God then I'd have no issue with you picking and choosing your morals. However, you have demonstrated quite convincingly that you are indeed very fallible, so that just makes your "picking and choosing" arbitrary which of course is a road block to seeking truth. So I call you on it. Pretty simple really.
Where have I ever “picked and chose” the morals I like from the Bible? I don’t determine morality, God does.

[Angrboda]

I gave you kudos not so much because I agreed with all of your post, but because I thought you did a nice job defending your position. However, I'd like to know something. If you are thorwing out legal dominions, and the seven dimensions of religion, then just how do you determine what is and is not a religion?

I never claimed that I could differentiate between what is and is not a religion. You on the other hand, claimed that you could demonstrate that atheism is a religion. The burden of proof lies entirely on your shoulders. You've implicitly claimed that you can tell religion from that which it is not by claiming that you can show that atheism is one.

If you find my analysis of the insufficiency of your argument faulty, by all means demonstrate how I have erred. Telling me you disagree without telling me why you disagree leaves me with no confidence in your ability to make such a demonstration.

I will help you on the way toward that demonstration by pointing out an aspect of Smart's framework which it appears you have neglected. Again, I'm not familiar with Smart's work first-hand, so please point out any errors I make. According to Wikipedia's entry on Ninian Smart -- which if in err I presume you will correct -- the first three criteria (what you term narrative, doctrinal and ethics) are what Smart terms "para-historical", meaning those dimensions that take the investigation into the experience, or inner lives, of religious people; in other words, those aspects are private to the religious adherent. Again, from Wikipedia, Smart says, "since the study of man is in an important sense participatory – for one has to enter into men’s intentions, beliefs, myths, desires, in order to understand why they act as they do – it is fatal if cultures including our own are described merely externally, without entering into dialogue with them." As noted, I'm not an expert on Ninian Smart's thought like you, but it appears that Smart is saying we cannot assess these first three criteria without taking into account the relevant subject's own experience of their 'religion' in these areas. In short, for those three criteria, we atheists, we're the experts, not you. Subtract three criteria. You have four criteria left to argue with, and if even one fails, atheism will fail on a majority of Smart's criteria. That is, provided you can even demonstrate that applying Smart's framework in the way you are doing is even valid (which you've yet to show).

Anyway, I'll save the final piece de resistance for replying to your "disagreements" with the points I made previously.

The ball is in your court. You claimed that atheism is a religion. Defend your claim or don't.
I really don't care which course you choose.

[Girlysprite]

I'd like to add that defining religion is already a hard thing to do - even leaving atheism out of it, it is hard to tell where something stops being a religion and starts being a philosofy. Especially when we look at many of the asian believes. Some of them are mostly just about how to lead a good and healthy live, but whether some forces described are neyond naturalistic or not depends on how some people interpet it (like qim, for example). Buddhism might even fail to be a religion in the dimensions - as far as I know, it does not describe how the world and the humans were created.

Like I said before, a religion has a component of a belief in a non-natural 'force'. This force may be a god, but also 'energy', or the concept of rebirth - to make sure that certain asian religion would be included as well.
Second: Religion always seems to have rules on 'how to live well'. Like your morality from the bible (that other topic). Atheists also lack formal rules like these - which many theists use as a hook to say that are morals are abitrary.
As for the 'behavior', that which shows on the outside: religion has an organised structure, with teachers who explain the rules and how the religion works to the worshippers. Not all religions have an overarching leader (only few do, in fact), but there is a hierarchy. Religions also have set rituals, which often have to do with 'attuning' to 'the super-natural force'. That means praying to a god to ask for his blessing, or certain meditations and practices which should put the person in a state of super-balance.

I'd also like to note that a few things that I described that belong to asian believes don't HAVE to be part of the belief in a super-natural force. Meditating and other practices to reach the state of super balance are also done by many people not practicing the rest of the religion or believes (think yoga). I'll leave it to apophenia to think of which practices and believes are religion or not, since he knows more of these then I do.

I think that my description goes pretty far to describes what is religion and what is not accurately. Feel free to point out the flaws in it.

[Statler Waldorf]

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I gave you kudos not so much because I agreed with all of your post, but because I thought you did a nice job defending your position. However, I'd like to know something. If you are thorwing out legal dominions, and the seven dimensions of religion, then just how do you determine what is and is not a religion?

I never claimed that I could differentiate between what is and is not a religion. You on the other hand, claimed that you could demonstrate that atheism is a religion. The burden of proof lies entirely on your shoulders. You've implicitly claimed that you can tell religion from that which it is not by claiming that you can show that atheism is one.

If you find my analysis of the insufficiency of your argument faulty, by all means demonstrate how I have erred. Telling me you disagree without telling me why you disagree leaves me with no confidence in your ability to make such a demonstration.

I will help you on the way toward that demonstration by pointing out an aspect of Smart's framework which it appears you have neglected. Again, I'm not familiar with Smart's work first-hand, so please point out any errors I make. According to Wikipedia's entry on Ninian Smart -- which if in err I presume you will correct -- the first three criteria (what you term narrative, doctrinal and ethics) are what Smart terms "para-historical", meaning those dimensions that take the investigation into the experience, or inner lives, of religious people; in other words, those aspects are private to the religious adherent. Again, from Wikipedia, Smart says, "since the study of man is in an important sense participatory – for one has to enter into men’s intentions, beliefs, myths, desires, in order to understand why they act as they do – it is fatal if cultures including our own are described merely externally, without entering into dialogue with them." As noted, I'm not an expert on Ninian Smart's thought like you, but it appears that Smart is saying we cannot assess these first three criteria without taking into account the relevant subject's own experience of their 'religion' in these areas. In short, for those three criteria, we atheists, we're the experts, not you. Subtract three criteria. You have four criteria left to argue with, and if even one fails, atheism will fail on a majority of Smart's criteria. That is, provided you can even demonstrate that applying Smart's framework in the way you are doing is even valid (which you've yet to show).

Anyway, I'll save the final piece de resistance for replying to your "disagreements" with the points I made previously.

The ball is in your court. You claimed that atheism is a religion. Defend your claim or don't.
I really don't care which course you choose.

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I must have ruffled your feathers a bit when I said I didn't agree with your post, sorry about that.

Hmm, so you have no idea how to determine if something is or is not a religion? Well with all due respect, you really have no logical basis for stating I did not already demonstrate atheism was a religion. If you do not know how to do the math problem, you certainly can't logically tell someone they did it incorrectly. So unless you can figure out how to determine what is and is not a religion I see no point in adding to my argument because it still stands.

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I'd like to add that defining religion is already a hard thing to do - even leaving atheism out of it, it is hard to tell where something stops being a religion and starts being a philosofy. Especially when we look at many of the asian believes. Some of them are mostly just about how to lead a good and healthy live, but whether some forces described are neyond naturalistic or not depends on how some people interpet it (like qim, for example). Buddhism might even fail to be a religion in the dimensions - as far as I know, it does not describe how the world and the humans were created.

Like I said before, a religion has a component of a belief in a non-natural 'force'. This force may be a god, but also 'energy', or the concept of rebirth - to make sure that certain asian religion would be included as well.
Second: Religion always seems to have rules on 'how to live well'. Like your morality from the bible (that other topic). Atheists also lack formal rules like these - which many theists use as a hook to say that are morals are abitrary.
As for the 'behavior', that which shows on the outside: religion has an organised structure, with teachers who explain the rules and how the religion works to the worshippers. Not all religions have an overarching leader (only few do, in fact), but there is a hierarchy. Religions also have set rituals, which often have to do with 'attuning' to 'the super-natural force'. That means praying to a god to ask for his blessing, or certain meditations and practices which should put the person in a state of super-balance.

I'd also like to note that a few things that I described that belong to asian believes don't HAVE to be part of the belief in a super-natural force. Meditating and other practices to reach the state of super balance are also done by many people not practicing the rest of the religion or believes (think yoga). I'll leave it to apophenia to think of which practices and believes are religion or not, since he knows more of these then I do.

I think that my description goes pretty far to describes what is religion and what is not accurately. Feel free to point out the flaws in it.

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Hey G-sprite,

Just curious, why do you think religions have to worship something "not natural"? The Mayans worshiped the sun and Jainists worship living things which are both natural. Just wondering.

[Angrboda]

I never claimed that I could differentiate between what is and is not a religion. You on the other hand, claimed that you could demonstrate that atheism is a religion. The burden of proof lies entirely on your shoulders. You've implicitly claimed that you can tell religion from that which it is not by claiming that you can show that atheism is one.

I must have ruffled your feathers a bit when I said I didn't agree with your post, sorry about that.

Hmm, so you have no idea how to determine if something is or is not a religion? Well with all due respect, you really have no logical basis for stating I did not already demonstrate atheism was a religion. If you do not know how to do the math problem, you certainly can't logically tell someone they did it incorrectly. So unless you can figure out how to determine what is and is not a religion I see no point in adding to my argument because it still stands.

First, you need to learn how to read English. I said that I never claimed to know how to differentiate the two, not that I had no idea how. Even if I had an iron-clad method of differentiating the two, it would be irrelevant to your claim and your proof, unless your proof and mine were the same. If I were to accept your analogy, then a person who can't understand plain English has no business claiming their words make sense. But the truth is your analogy about mathematical proof was little more than a stalking horse for an ad hominem argument. As a mathematician I can tell you there are many more ways to go wrong than to go right, and it is easier to see what's wrong than what's right. Falsification is easy, if the theory is faulty; it's dreaming up valid theory that takes brains. If you feel my analysis was incompetent, show, don't tell. Your silly allusions to my incompetence are tiresome. I stand by my analysis, and you've yet to give anyone here a reason to doubt it, aside from your, "you're obviously too stupid to appreciate the brilliance of my argument" argument above, which as noted is entirely beside the point as it was based on a misreading of my text.
(Not that I'm going to be impressed by an ad hominem argument even if based on an accurate reading, but stooping to an ad hominem based on a misreading just makes you look stupid.)

Now you're welcome to engage my arguments more substantially, and I'll be more than happy to reply in kind. But your current behavior all too closely follows the comical theist habit of chanting victory as you make a hasty retreat from the field of battle.

[Anomalocaris]

....... your current behavior all too closely follows the comical theist habit of chanting victory as you make a hasty retreat from the field of battle.

You might find that is the only end game he is capable of and the one he is forced to every time, only to return and repeat nearly the same tiresome performance, apparently with expectation of receiving a different result, in a week or two.

[Girlysprite]

Statler, when it comes to Mayans, the sun represents a god. A god with a will, a history and a personality. Somehow, in their culture, the natural sun evolved into a super-natural entity. And even though the sun was natural, their concept of the sun was not. Just like the Egyptian sungod, really.
Janaists believe in a soul, karma and rebirth, which would be super-natural concepts and forces.

So I would say that my concept still stands.

[Statler Waldorf]

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First, you need to learn how to read English. I said that I never claimed to know how to differentiate the two, not that I had no idea how. Even if I had an iron-clad method of differentiating the two, it would be irrelevant to your claim and your proof, unless your proof and mine were the same. If I were to accept your analogy, then a person who can't understand plain English has no business claiming their words make sense. But the truth is your analogy about mathematical proof was little more than a stalking horse for an ad hominem argument. As a mathematician I can tell you there are many more ways to go wrong than to go right, and it is easier to see what's wrong than what's right. Falsification is easy, if the theory is faulty; it's dreaming up valid theory that takes brains. If you feel my analysis was incompetent, show, don't tell. Your silly allusions to my incompetence are tiresome. I stand by my analysis, and you've yet to give anyone here a reason to doubt it, aside from your, "you're obviously too stupid to appreciate the brilliance of my argument" argument above, which as noted is entirely beside the point as it was based on a misreading of my text.
(Not that I'm going to be impressed by an ad hominem argument even if based on an accurate reading, but stooping to an ad hominem based on a misreading just makes you look stupid.)

Now you're welcome to engage my arguments more substantially, and I'll be more than happy to reply in kind. But your current behavior all too closely follows the comical theist habit of chanting victory as you make a hasty retreat from the field of battle.

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I like how you tried to ride into this discussion acting like you were some pillar of diplomacy and intellect, but when I poked at you a bit and revealed you didn’t really know anything you blow up and start slinging mud. Very typical for these parts unfortunately. I will stand by my original point, if you can’t demonstrate the correct way to determine what is and is not a religion, then you have no logical basis to say the way I did it was somehow incorrect. I will give you another real world example since you didn’t follow my mathematics one.
Somebody challenges me to prove that Organism A is actually a fish. I began by showing that legally it was defined as a fish, morphologically it was built like a fish and behaviorally it behaved like a fish- therefore it is a fish. Then here you come riding into the discussion…
You: “I am sorry SW; you can’t use those criteria to prove that the organism is a fish”
Me: “Well I disagree, this is the criteria biologists use, but out of curiosity, what criteria should I be using?”
You: “Oh I never claimed to know what criteria should be used.”
…and you say that I am the one looking stupid here? Give me a break.

[SleepingDemon]

While I might concede that atheism is a philisophical position, I don't get the leap to religion. It is a position on a subject, not a guide for living, an explanation for the why's of existence. It has no deities, no sacred scripture, no sacred holidays, no canon of behavior, no spiritualism, and makes no claims that must be taken on faith. While there may be leaders in the political movement, there is no uniformity to atheism aside from the a and theism. We hold the position, based upon evidence, that no gods exist. We do not believe that anything has any sort of divinity or will that controls the universe. We accept reality from a scientific viewpoint, in that the universe is governed by laws and forces, none of which are sentient, much less divine. What seperates religion from atheism, is that religion makes claims that atheist do not accept. If there were no theists, we would still be atheists, but it would be a nonissue because everyone is atheist. People believe in many things, the act of denying those claims is only a position on the subject.

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To further that point. Here is a list of things I also do not believe in: angels, dragons, demons, vampires, werewolves, fairies, satyrs, minotaurs, ghosts, bigfoot, nessie, magic, genies(tho sometimes I wish I had one), flying elephants, alien abductions, crop circles, ancient alien astronaut theories, orcs, ogres, trolls, superman, spiderman, ghost rider, or the thousands upon thousands of other mythological creatures and deities that people believe in or have believed in. My position on these subjects is shared by others, are these positions religions as well?

[Girlysprite]

Statler, I don't agree with you there. There isn't a 'one and only' description of religion. Like I said, that has been an issue long before people tried to apply it to atheism.

As for your example with the fish; The description you use is based on outward appearances and behavior. Would I use such a description to determine what are fish, I might mistakenly identify a whale as a fish, because it looks like a fish and behaves like a fish. And yeah, in the past people actually made that mistake.

Plus, I think I have a pretty valid description for what makes a religion, stated in my previous posts.