As an occasional lurker in these type of threads, and normally a non-participant, I'd like to suggest there is a danger of throwing the baby out with the bath-water.
Here's a taste of what daniel and airportkid rail against . . . The Barna Group - Atheists and Agnostics Take Aim at Christians Now I understand why they do what they do, Christians and people of faith make them look bad. :yo:
Yes, seriously. I don't subscribe to the whole "eye for an eye" thing. It leaves everyone blind. ~ I think Ghandi or someone else really cool said that.
Octavia, I did NOT ask nor hoped for a diagnosis on any member. That's consistent with my desire to be civil and avoiding getting personal. I absolutely agree it's better to meet someone in person to get a better idea of who they really are. I wish Daniel extended that courtesy to a very nice member here (who I spent time with him at his home) - Windstrings. About five times a day for six months Daniel was vitriolically calling Windstrings an idiot and the other insults he throws at outspoken Christians. While those posts were pre vBulletin, many remember that. I have not attempted to diagnose anyone, but anyone that jumps on a member like Windstrings over six months is telegraphing looks very bad from a behavioral viewpoint. With Daniel, that goes on.... If you want to appear well-adjusted, years of rants and attacks is not the way to go. Sagebrush, your last post reflects the unfortunate them-or-us attitude....it almost seems like some of you would like to restrict PC membership to athiests, agnostics, others leaning in that direction....they rest of us are "religious zealots." I was quiet the first four years here. Again, some of you scream as if some religious fanatics are trying to make PC into a Church - not such a thing, then with the same tact do the exact same thing in a secular direction.
I don't understand your point. I participated in nonviolent civil disobedience (in the spirit of martin Luther King, Jr.) against weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction, specifically nuclear weapons that cannot be used without murdering hundreds of thousands, or millions of innocent people, and whose very existence is a terrorist threat, and which were manufactured with blatant disregard for the radioactive pollution of the environment. I did these protests knowing that I would probably go to prison for it, which I did, and which I accepted. I never tried to evade imprisonment for my acts. In court I argued that my actions were justified by the horror of the weapons, but I freely admitted the facts of the cases. What does this have to do with arguing against attempts to violate the Constitution by making the U.S. into a nation with an official religion? Or with arguing for a rational, rather than a faith-based world view? I am capable of agreeing to disagree on issues where I feel that's appropriate. But as I've said before, I raise these issues for the sake of people who feel trapped in oppressive religious contexts, and have on occasion commented that hearing from likeminded people has helped them. Nobody is forced to participate. Thank you. I have never been formally diagnosed with Aspeger's. I think it might have been a year and a half ago that I met a fellow Prius Chatter, and we did some hiking together. The person in question has a degree in social work and suggested that I might have Aspergers. I read up on it and concluded that I think I probably do. I took one of those unscientific on-line quizzes, and the results were inconclusive. My self-diagnosis is based on several points: High intelligence. Strong verbal skills. Poor to no non-verbal skills. Tendency to become engrossed on a subject interest. Muscle twitches reminiscent of (but not identical to) Tourette's. I admit to poor social skills. That's just how I am. But I still think that my arguments stand or fall on their own merits. And I will probably keep arguing for things I believe in, and against philosophies (such as religion) that deny basic human rights to people (such as the right of same-sex couples to marry.) When religion ceases to be the primary motivator for denying basic rights, I'll probably stop arguing against it. I am registered to vote. I spent five years volunteering about 15 hours a week at a homeless shelter, and four years volunteering about the same amount of time at a legal aid office that provided free services to low-income migrant farm workers, as well as other stuff occasionally. I have always given significantly to charitable causes, including Catholic Worker houses (look up Dorothy Day) and the Salvation Army, though more to non-religious charities. I suspect that the Barna Group is one of those religious groups that claims dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time. They actually cite their own "research" as the source of the above quote. I.e., it's nothing but a self-serving and unfounded claim. I have seen opposing research saying that atheists give more than theists, but my own opinion is that people are people and there's no significant difference. Bottom line: None of that has anything whatsoever to do with Pascal's wager and its relevance to people's lifestyle choices. I really like Stev0's idea that if you believe in god simply because you think you'll be rewarded for it (which is after all what Pascal's wager advocates) you are being dishonest. And if there is a god, she/he gave you reason, and you should base your beliefs on use of that reason, rather than rejecting reason in favor of unreasoning faith. This does not mean you cannot believe in god, or gods. But you should not believe simply in order to get the reward, which was the original topic of this thread.
It was a long time ago, but I don't think I ever called Windstrings an idiot. I would undoubtedly have received at least a warning, if not an infraction, from the mods if I had. I probably did say that many of his pronouncements were nonsense, because they were. I think we disagreed a lot. I don't remember any animosity between us. My impression of his intelligence was not favorable. If I offended him I am sorry and I apologize. I do not apologize for disagreeing with anything he said. I found his avatar to be extremely creepy. But maybe that was just me.
You probably didn't directly but you certainly grouped him in with all the other "nut-job, uneducated, irrational, etc." Christians. But I know now, that just goes to your lack of social skills.
You forgot Octavia's other point -- have a clue before you throw out DSM labels, even if you *have* met the person. I am a practicing MD, and my son has been diagnosed with Asperger's / autistic spectrum disorder. I am probably better read on the condition than 99.99% of the populace. Yet I would never label Daniel as such, visit or not, because of the simple fact that the overlap with "normal" people is too great. But then I am not a Christian with an axe to grind, throwing out personal attack innuendo to deflect the conversation away from religion's perversions. Daniel said in effect: respond to my arguments if you wish, the messenger is irrelevant. He has a lot to teach you.
Sagebrush - who has the ax to grind? Did not say Daniel has Aspargers, but pointed out his behavior in the past raised red flags. Please set the example you profess to be and stop the flamebait.
Right now I don't have much time to comment, but the crux of the matter is a lack of respect. If both sides can spend less time on religion issues like this and agree to disagree, it's better for all concerned. Over the last year at times less has been said and it's been good. Think the positions of all are well known...I can accept no one is likely to change their mind...if others are so inclined and be respectful, that would be a good conclusion.
So you throw out innuendo, but refuse to take responsibility. Is that a behavior you learned in Church, or a life-long habit ? If you were to apply your own ... uhhh ... judgement in the mirror, I'm afraid you would have to conclude there are definite red flags of personality disorder.
Chuck, in thread after thread after thread, wades in and complains that criticism of religion bothers him. And that's fine, as far as that goes. I'm sure for any of us there are topics that make us squirm. But Chuck goes further. It bugs him, so he demands that we stop. Now, Chuck doesn't have to participate. No one is grabbing Chuck by the earlobes and making him read posts that bother him. if it bothers him that much he should stay out of it. To stay in and demand that OTHERS stop is an arrogant conceit. No one starting a thread critical of religion begins it by saying "Chuck believes so and so and therefore Chuck is an idiot". The discussions begun name NO ONE; they are abstract explorations of ideas that warrant exploration. If they bother people, the people bothered should stay away. Don't go barging in and demand that OTHERS shut up. So all the foofrah in here, most of it from Chuck, that criticism of religion should be refrained from because it's "not respectful" is just that: foofrah, not worthy of the slightest consideration, because as a demand, it is the most inconsiderate of all: that it demands that OTHERS be barred from speaking their minds.
To be fair to Chuck, I was the first person to post on Prius Chat that I think it likely that I have Asperger's, after a friend suggested it to me, after spending some time together. The suggestion makes sense to me, though I've never been diagnosed by a professional, and that on-line survey I took seemed borderline to me. But OTOH, my diagnosis is not relevant to the thread topic. Though, of course, as I've often said, this is FHOP, and pretty much anything (other than politics or personal insults) is fair game here. I actually don't mind the personal attacks so much, since it suggests that the people attacking have no substantive arguments against my points. (But I also appreciate the people who stand up for me. ) I try very hard to respect people as individuals. I do not feel any obligation to "respect" ideas or philosophies that I regard as irrational and harmful. A philosophy that tells people to deny basic rights to others is, IMO harmful. So I do not respect religion. Catholics have a saying: Hate the sin, love the sinner. I respect individuals, but I sometimes disrespect their ideas. I am aware that some people take my disparaging of religion personally, but that's their problem, not mine. As I review this thread, it appears that hardly anybody has addressed the points in my opening post. A few people jumped in immediately to express outrage at yet another anti-religion thread. Trebuchet posted a quote from a fundamentalist outfit claiming that theists are more generous than atheists, which is irrelevant even if it were true. ETC(SS) and Stev0 I think are the only ones to have addressed the post. ETC(SS) to say that he does not view his sig in the light of Pascal's wager, but merely meaning to say that he'd rather live his life as if there is a god; and Stev0 to add an item to my incomplete list of ways Pascal's wager could fail. But mostly the thread seems to be people telling me I'm rude for discussing religion. Well, I consider religion to be a problem, and a dangerous one, so I'll keep discussing it. BTW, ETC(SS) seems to be one of the more rational and humane posters here, even though I don't share his beliefs. And this thread was not aimed at him, though it was inspired by his sig, which reminded me of an argument I hear from time to time. I first encountered Pascal's wager while reading C.S. Lewis. I didn't yet know it had a name. I thought it was an extraordinarily stupid argument (that you should believe in the Christian god because if you were wrong you'd lose nothing, and if you were right you'd go to heaven.) I felt insulted that Lewis would think his readers (including me) stupid enough to buy it. (For all the reasons outlined in post #1.) I've never been able to enjoy his fantasy stories, knowing they were written by someone who would seriously put forth such an argument. Which is too bad, because they might be fun stories.
The problem with Pascal's wager is it assumes there are only two numbers on the roulette wheel. The problem is even greater than that analogy implies because the figurative roulette wheel in this case hasn't got 38 possibilities but more than 38,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possibilities, all of them equally valid. Just because sizable portions of humanity have piled their chips where others have piled their chips does not in the slightest way affect the likelihood of any those numbers catching the ball. So when ETC(SS) airly waves his hand and says "I'll take my chances" he's expressing an assurance that has ruined many a bettor busted at the Vegas table who thought putting everything on number 16 was a good idea because of the chips already there from other players. Daniel's criticisms of Pascal's Wager are all right on the money and clearly expressed, but I threw this in so at least one of my posts in this thread matched its topic.
The problem with this thread is the same as all the threads regarding religion: One side bases arguments on science and logic, the other on belief. This guarantees that Side A will be unimpressed by the arguments of Side B. State them any way you wish, yell as loudly as you can, and it won't make any difference. All that is left is character assassination, name calling, and other assorted ad hominem attacks. It comes back to my normal comment relating to this sort of discussion: Never try to teach a pig to sing; it only wastes your time and annoys the pig. Tom
So what if the Barnes Group is a Christian organization do you doubt the conclusions their study arrived at? Does anyone here actually believe that atheist are charitable givers to level of Christian's or other believer's?
