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May 16, 2011 at 6:42 pm (This post was last modified: May 16, 2011 at 6:49 pm by Angrboda.)
(May 16, 2011 at 6:27 pm)Shell B Wrote:
(May 16, 2011 at 6:21 pm)apophenia Wrote: Any changes to the text made in quoting should be noted in your use of the quote. Please discontinue the practice of changing quotes without notice of said changes.
I don't mean to be rude here, but I find your continuing chastising to be a bit overreaching. If he breaks the rules, the mods and admins will handle it. Telling him what to do is borderline preaching, which is also against the rules. Please converse with each other as respectfully as possible, stay on topic and leave the enforcement of the rules to those who are appointed to do so.
Sorry. I didn't mean to be chastising. I guess I got carried away with my own smug self-righteousness. That being said, you are correct -- not my place -- and likely derailed what otherwise could have been interesting and productive discussion.
orogenicman: I apologize for my behavior. I seem to have devolved from making germane contributions to the thread to acting like an insufferable cunt. The fault is mine alone. It happens to the best of us I suppose -- though I in no sense mean to imply that I am among "the best" . Please accept my apologies and my compliments on your contributions here. I will do my best to discontinue my behavior!
May 17, 2011 at 12:18 am (This post was last modified: May 17, 2011 at 12:32 am by Angrboda.)
I'm not sure I agree. I think he did in fact make a good case and ably defended himself. I think his argument is flawed and I will provide a Cliff notes version below, but I can't claim to have won the day in any sense. He introduced a novel defense of the claim (novel to me), and while I assign his success in presentation to debating skill more than substance, I'm not one to try to argue with success.
Short version.
A) legal cases may arguably set precedent in treating atheism as a religion (at least in terms of distributing rights fairly).
B) He introduced what apparently is a well respected theory about some of the main features that religions have, characterizing them according to seven traits or features, which he enumerated with respect to atheist's behavior. Some argued whether he was basing his analysis of how atheism fared in these seven areas on accurate and factual characterizations of atheists and atheism, but at least the approach had the virtue of being based on legitimate ideas. I argued that using the theory in the way he did was invalid in the technical sense, to varying success.
I think, given some of his later comments, his claim that atheism=religion was primarily a stalking horse for the related argument that (some) atheists act very religiously with respect to their atheism, presumably to paint atheists with the same tar and feathers that they do theists. Seeing as he has not expanded on the point, I leave it merely as a hypothesis as to his goals.
And, unless I left something out or distorted something, that's it in a nutshell.
Statler Waldorf is welcome to dispute any of this, and I won't gainsay his opinion by debating him on the matter further.
Apophenia, you did a very good job in the discussion here. I really liked your posts.
I have been looking a bit into the seven dimensions that Statler brought up. The impression that I het is that they are a tool to study religions, instead a definition of what a religion actually is. At everal websites where I read about this model, it says it is a tool to analyze religions. An analyzation tool is usually not a very good tool to define something.
When I was a Christian, I was annoyed with dogmatic condescending Christians. Now that I'm an atheist, I'm annoyed with dogmatic condescending atheists. Just goes to prove that people are the same, regardless of what they do or don't believe.
(May 16, 2011 at 6:21 pm)apophenia Wrote: Any changes to the text made in quoting should be noted in your use of the quote. Please discontinue the practice of changing quotes without notice of said changes.
I don't mean to be rude here, but I find your continuing chastising to be a bit overreaching. If he breaks the rules, the mods and admins will handle it. Telling him what to do is borderline preaching, which is also against the rules. Please converse with each other as respectfully as possible, stay on topic and leave the enforcement of the rules to those who are appointed to do so.
Sorry. I didn't mean to be chastising. I guess I got carried away with my own smug self-righteousness. That being said, you are correct -- not my place -- and likely derailed what otherwise could have been interesting and productive discussion.
orogenicman: I apologize for my behavior. I seem to have devolved from making germane contributions to the thread to acting like an insufferable cunt. The fault is mine alone. It happens to the best of us I suppose -- though I in no sense mean to imply that I am among "the best" . Please accept my apologies and my compliments on your contributions here. I will do my best to discontinue my behavior!
Don't sweat it.
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
I'm not sure I agree. I think he did in fact make a good case and ably defended himself. I think his argument is flawed and I will provide a Cliff notes version below, but I can't claim to have won the day in any sense. He introduced a novel defense of the claim (novel to me), and while I assign his success in presentation to debating skill more than substance, I'm not one to try to argue with success.
Short version.
A) legal cases may arguably set precedent in treating atheism as a religion (at least in terms of distributing rights fairly).
B) He introduced what apparently is a well respected theory about some of the main features that religions have, characterizing them according to seven traits or features, which he enumerated with respect to atheist's behavior. Some argued whether he was basing his analysis of how atheism fared in these seven areas on accurate and factual characterizations of atheists and atheism, but at least the approach had the virtue of being based on legitimate ideas. I argued that using the theory in the way he did was invalid in the technical sense, to varying success.
I think, given some of his later comments, his claim that atheism=religion was primarily a stalking horse for the related argument that (some) atheists act very religiously with respect to their atheism, presumably to paint atheists with the same tar and feathers that they do theists. Seeing as he has not expanded on the point, I leave it merely as a hypothesis as to his goals.
And, unless I left something out or distorted something, that's it in a nutshell.
Statler Waldorf is welcome to dispute any of this, and I won't gainsay his opinion by debating him on the matter further.
Thank you.. Would it be a bother to ask on which pages most of the points are made?
. Please accept my apologies and my compliments on your contributions here. I will do my best to discontinue my behavior!![[Image: extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/zf86M5L7/extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg)
Is there a condensed version of the points made here?
![[Image: mybannerglitter06eee094.gif]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i118.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fo112%2Fpussinboots_photos%2FBikes%2Fmybannerglitter06eee094.gif)
