For some stupid reason, my brain was stuck on this all the way to my meeting:
Wow, those are some weighty conclusions you just spouted. It is very clear you don’t know me. I am a hard atheist and I reject all belief systems that include supernatural values and functions. I have posted my own conclusions how the concept of an invisible sky being was arrived at by man’s progenitor...
I am honestly baffled at what @write4u thinks I said.
I have no clue what “weighty conclusions” about HIM I reached in that paragraph. Nothing I wrote suggested I think HE is religious. Or that I am.
Every sentence was about Catholic dogma. The only place I referenced him at all is when I was surprised he didn’t seem to understand their position.
At any rate, the problem is, this isn’t really a conflict of “religion” vs science, because “religion” isn’t a monolith, and MOST religions don’t conflict with science. Yes, most scientists are atheists; it makes sense that people highly drawn to studying the material world are less interested in the spiritual world. But the real “CONFLICT” is with a certain segment of Protestants.
in the face of 3000 years of rigid enforcement of religious scripture, 56 years of a fundamental agreement between religion and science is an encouraging sign
...doesn't mean much, because "religion" didn't agree to anything. The Catholic church did. And most Protestants do.
The group that will never agree are Fundamentalist Christians, because Fundamentalist Christianity developed at the Turn of the Century IN RESPONSE to scientific discovery. That is the point of that particular branch of Christianity: Biblical literalism.
It’s like waiting for PETA to evolve to a point where they eat meat.
I was right in my guess that the % of Americans who accept evolution depends on how you ask the question.
If it is framed in such a way to allow God creating the world AND using evolution to do life, then 62% of American Evangelical Protestants are fine with Evolution.
Overall: if the question is framed so people feel they MUST choose God OR evolution, then 68% of Americans choose evolution. If they can allow God into the mix, then 81% of Americans accept Evolution.
When they truly are "dark forces", such as the Discovery Institute, yeah. No holds barred. But atheists already have this bad rap as being total, self-righteous a-holes, which, let's face it, many of us are. I understand losing your cool when you're talking to Ken Ham or something. But the MOMENT you piss someone off while questioning their beliefs you just made it 10x harder to change their minds, and it was already an uphill battle to begin with.
I agree 1,000%.
Know who is a MASTER at this? David Smalley. He is a former Fundamentalist Christian, now an atheist. He’s brilliant, and he really wants to bring the sides together on this. He is EXTREMELY respectful; I don’t know how he does it. He has nerves of steel.
There was one time he exploded at a Creationist. If you Google something like David Smalley Finally Explodes or something, you can find a video. But the reason it was news is that it was really the only time. (Though I have not listened recently.)
The thing is: A person can either be a dick or change minds, but they really have to choose.
But then again, how else would you describe what those 40% who see Trump as their Messiah – and who react to educational efforts and physical solid facts, as though they were mortal aggressive personal attacks to be counter-attacked with ruthless disregard for honesty, let alone decency and respect???
There is no poll asking if you think Trump is the Messiah, so we won't get that data, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that estimate is off.
How would I describe them, however many there are? I wouldn’t. If someone said to me, “I know how you New Atheists think”, I’d call them on it. I do the same when someone says they know how the “faith-shackled” think. I don’t understand their thought process any better than I understand our fellow participant Xian. I do know a little about how to get someone to open up and let you know what they’re thinking. I don’t have experience at it, but I can see how people like Brian Greene present complex data about cosmology in a way that non-scientists can absorb it. I thought that was what were talking about, but we seem to have gotten off track.
Hey, do I get any brownie points for having posted the actual statistics about how many Anericans are actually Creationists, and which religions those folks are?
There was some discussion and debate here about those things, so I went and found objective information from a pretty reliable source: an article in Scientific American about a poll by Pew Research. To make it easy, I didn’t just post a link, I provided two screenshots and an excerpt from the text.
I’m just curious as to whether people in this forum have any interest in actual facts or not. Because if the preference is simply to go around in circles and get frustrated with each other, I’m wasting my time and effort.
Because if the preference is simply to go around in circles and get frustrated with each other, I’m wasting my time and effort.
Isn’t that the current strategy of our political leaders, supported by social media?
Here’s my summary of the last decade, as it relates to this thread. I watched with mild amusement, then increasing horror as people claimed, louder and louder, that Obama was ruining this nation. I’ll skip the specifics as I think everyone reading this knows them. Chris Rock, on SNL after the 2016 election had the same amused reaction at the white folks suddenly experiencing being left out, marginalized, lied to, cheated and stolen from, while being accused of doing of all of those things.
But did we adjust our attitudes? Did we focus efforts on Citizen’s United or Gerrymandering? Or did we do exactly what those on the other “side” did and start lamenting the end of democracy? Obama got 69 million votes in 2008 and voting has dropped off by millions since. 2018 could be a sign of a reversal, but we’ll see.
So, yeah, I believe participation is the answer, but not just with voting. It’s learning to build communities everywhere like the ones that used to exist in Washington DC. They used to move to DC with their families and mingle at social events and have lunch together and have their kids on the same ball team. Our leaders aren’t civil anymore because it’s profitable to not be civil. Democracy won’t die because of bad leadership. It was created because we know that power corrupts. But because it’s hard to be nice to someone who doesn’t think we do, we’re going to let them have it anyway.
There was a lot in that which brought back a lot of angry memories. For example, do you remember the first time you heard Republicans talking about impeaching Obama? For me it was two months BEFORE he got elected to his first term. The birther movement was pure desperation. They had been looking the entire time, before he was even elected, for something, ANYTHING to impeach him on and that was all they could come up with. “Maybe he’s not a citizen? But not because he’s black!”
And remember the Tea Party? You know, the TOTALLY not Racist Republicans who weren’t pissed off that we elected a black man, they were just a grassroots movement which just happened to take hold and the same TIME we elected a black man…and then disappeared when his second term finished. I know, I know. The timing looks suspicious. But they totally weren’t racist because they said they were not and, at the time, racism was over and only reverse racism existed. The complaint about a black man building a basketball court at the White House, that wasn’t a black thing. They’re Republicans. They just REALLY don’t like balls…in public…where people know about it…that you can prove…
Because if the preference is simply to go around in circles and get frustrated with each other, I’m wasting my time and effort.
Isn’t that the current strategy of our political leaders, supported by social media?
Yes, @Lausten, you are right … that’s the way it is “out there.” I was talking about “in here;” the half-dozen or so people in this forum.
I guess I was kind of hoping for some acknowledgement I, as a person, actually contribute to conversation. That someone might say, “Thanks for that information, here is what I think about it.”
I actually did already respond to your comments on statistics, before you asked, so not sure what you’re concluding here. CC can put together a great essay on a view different topics, and he’s involved in local politics, which is awesome, but the couple times he’s asked for direct feedback on an idea here, I’ve found he has limits to what he’s willing consider.
So, I know the “be nice” discussion is a difficult one. Another question, less personal needs to be asked if you are going to take on something like ID; Who do you want to reach? If you want to go after the people who are spending their days producing faux papers and getting paid to speak about it, I think you are banging your head against a wall. The next layer down is those who repeat this stuff for free on their blogs and facebook pages or church basements. I’d say those are just about as pointless, but it’s worth disrupting their message now and then. They are the ones who have acquired the skills of winning arguments without worrying about the facts.
I’d aim for the ones who attend those classes and read those social sites. They can be nudged with gentler questions about how they know what they know. They might say to your face that they read a book or “heard it” somewhere, but your question will chip away at their cognitive dissonance. They are usually open to hearing something else too, like a spiritual interpretation of stardust or evolution as a story. What Is The Great Story?
Below that, I find most people go to church “for the community” and don’t worry about the beliefs too much. They will be convinced by science contributing to world health and by atheists being good people in that community.
One thing I like to say to people who espouse ID as a reality is that I can build a robot which builds more robots and when I come back in a billion years they will be building the exact same model. How much more powerful is a God who can build a tiny, simplistic machine and come back in a billion years to find that they’ve built much better versions of themselves? And not only are the versions they built much better, they are exactly as he intended them to be at that time. Evolution requires a God with infinite knowledge to have laid out the laws of the universe in such a way as to predict the outcome perfectly nearly 14 billion years later. ID only requires a genie.
There are lots of people that I consider to be quite dickish, who actually do change minds and reinforce minds to maintain dickish beliefs.
The cases I know of where that's true, are people who either were handed some power and authority, or developed it with a small group of people very fast then held on to whatever patent or corporate ownership necessary to keep it. Like a millionaire I once meant, he said he was the CEO and the Chairman of the Board and everyone on the board worked for the company, that is, for him. So, when it came time to re-elect him as Chairman, they didn't have much choice.
Any other examples I can think of, are people passing on bad ideas that appear to have some benefits. When you are trying to convince people that they are the result of unemotional processes over which they have little control and that they are not special, I don’t think the dickish approach is the way to go.
Hey man. It’s in the Bible. “There’s a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be dickish and a time to act like a pansy liberal.” or something like that.
Christians are a perfect example of people who were handed power. Romans and Greeks experimented with democracy and started to figure out the language of the universe, then it fell, leaving the countryside to the Catholics. Eventually they anointed the Kings. They shut down the Lyceum and replaced it with Bible School.
I don’t see much use in being dickish to someone other than to make yourself feel good about getting back at them. The more dickish you are, the more likely they will take whatever position you don’t want them to take despite what their brains are telling them. Ideologically, I love Bernie Sanders. But Bernie supporters are generally HUGE dicks. So, f#$@k Bernie. Seriously, had he gotten the nomination in 2016 I would have stayed home rather than vote for him. To be fair, back then I didn’t think the potential consequences were a realistic possibility. I would vote for him this time if it came down to it, but to this day I would gleefully watch his political career crash and “Bern” with a smile on my face and a jig in my step. And I like the guy. I just want to be a dick to his supporters because they were dicks to me.
